The Heart is for Loving Mommy.

At Puppy's art station today I had her make a few pieces of art work.
















As I looked over the first one I asked her to describe it for me.

















"This is me." she said as she pointed to the purple person in the middle of a page. She then pointed to the figure inside the heart. "That's a bunny." she said. She told me a little more about other parts of the picture and ended with a flourish by saying "The heart is for loving Mom."

It was such a cute interaction that I snapped some pictures and abandoned my planned post for today just to share this little puppyism with you guys.

Sometimes, (on my "low self-image days") {I'll mail a dollar to the first commenter, besides my wife, who can tell me what movie the quote in parentheses comes from} when my children tell me how much they love their Mom, I wonder why they don't say they love me. On this occasion, however, I felt glad that my children re discovering what I've known for years. My heart is for loving you babe, and you Puppy, and you Spider Droid, and you also Bunny.

Next Time: United + Guitars times three.

In Praise of The Carnival of Homeschooling

If you have been following this blog you know that since I hit post 300 earlier this year I have been writing some tribute posts to my top 25 labels over that time period. Now with 12 posts left until # to 400 I am inching to the # 1 label.

Tonight's Episode: # 7 The Carnival of Homeschooling.

I have been a contributor to the Carnival of Homeschooling since January 2009, my first month in the blogging business. It was a little ditty called No Child left Ahead. I have also hosted the carnival 3 times since then. My last time was with reflections on the panorama of homeschooling. I need to move on because this is teetering towards self promotion, and I am really here to talk about the carnival. Here are a few reasons why I like the Carnival of Homeschooling:

1. It's better than a meme.

I say this because, while I love a good meme they can have 100's of linked articles. Good luck reading 1/2 of them and having any semblance of a life. The carnival has a finite amount of submissions each week and can usually be read cover to cover without abandoning your loved ones for weeks at a time.

2. It covers a lot of bases.

While all the articles are home school related, the carnival is generally an eclectic mix of ideas, opinions and insights. Homeschooling flakes are a lot like the snow variety as no two are exactly the same. It is good to have a 1 stop shop each week that will cover such a vast spectrum of home schooling issues.

3. It is an excellent networking tool for home educators.

Since there is this vast spectrum of home school banter, the reader is exposed to many great ideas to implement in their own classrooms. From field trips, to curriculum, to coping skills the carnival has been an invaluable asset.

4. It helps unlock the Internet.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that each issue has Easter Eggs with cheat codes on how to unlock the Internet. I'm not saying that each issue doesn't either. So knock yourself out if you want to search for them. What I am saying is that in many ways the Carnival of Homeschooling has helped me better navigate the web. If you look at my blog roll you will see many frequent contributors to the carnival who I am only familiar with because of said carnival. I also have picked up followers to my blog because of some of my submissions here.

I became aware of the HSBA that I wrote about in my last post through the carnival.

I have nominated many blogs this year that I learned about from this carnival. You could nominate your favorite home school blogs by clicking here. My great humility and desire to not promote myself prevents me from mentioning that you could also nominate my blog if you wanted to. Good thing for my legendary humility.

5. It's a blast and a half (kaboom, kab.) to host the carnival.

Honestly, hosting the carnival is a lot of labor. But anyone who's ever done it knows it's a labor of love. It gives you the opportunity to get the first look at all the articles before hand. It also gives you a back stage view of the carnival. If you have never hosted, you would be surprised by how many non home school related carnivals come in each week and how about 1/3 of the submissions come in the last day (including this one). Hosting is also good for me because a theme topic is usually one that I would not have written about otherwise.

So there we have it, I like the Carnival of Homeschooling. If you are reading this from the carnival, I imagine it that you like it too. You can also click here to check out the most recent edition.

Next Time: The United Guitar Trilogy

HSBA Nominations have begun

Show my face dot com has Six Word Saturdays each and every Saturday. I am a regular contributor. Sometimes my six words are funny, sometimes they are windows to my soul. Today they are purely self promotional:

Nominate me. I homeschool. I'm funny.

The Homeschool Blog Awards nomination process began today. Last year I was nominated in the best Homeschool Dad blog category and with a blog called Homeschool Dad that is a good fit for me. If any of my readers see fit to nominate me again this year in that category I would be very grateful. However there is a category of the 20 or so that I covet more than that. It is the Funniest home school blog category.

Funny is definitely my love language. I worked at a company for almost 10 years and always received very good annual reviews. The part I always highlighted to show my wife was the Dave has an excellent sense of humor comment that seemed to get written every year. I know that in the world of business a nice sense of humor comment may seem to some as akin to saying that a homely person has a great personality. I never took it that way. I often tell people that my job aptitude tests in high school said my ideal profession would be court jester. I love making people laugh and this blog among other things is an opportunity to do just that. Also one thing that I have found in my 2+ years of being the lead home educator in the family is that a good sense of humor is as important as a good curriculum.

So if you are up for it feel free to nominate me for funniest home school blog and be sure to nominate other worthy home school blogs in other categories. Click here to participate in the nominations.

For more six word Saturday head back to http://www.showmyface.com/. Also As a show of good faith I will teach you one of my favorite jokes that I have created over the years. Here's how it goes.

On a rainy day when you are around some people that you know. Get their attention than run outside in the pouring rain. Lift your right hand over your head and close your fist in a way that looks like you are holding something in your hand. While holding the pose turn to your audience and say "Why mimes get wet."

Next Time: In praise of the carnival of homeschooling.

A Lucyism by any other name

Before I decided to give the kids nicknames here on this blog I called them by their real names and even the labels reflected that. Amidst all the real stuff I do off line, I have been trying to clean up past posts and labels. I have changed all the posts about the ways and sayings of my youngest to Puppyisms rather than her nameisms. But let's face facts they are Lucyisms!

She says so many of them I can't always recall them. One of my recent favorites was when my wife commented on the fact that Puppy is always hungry and asking for food said that we were going to give her a meal every 10 minutes. The next morning and for the next few days Puppy would come up to me and say has it been 10 minutes yet I'm hungry again. I had to finally explain to her that we were not, in fact, going to feed her every 10 minutes. She was less than thrilled.

A few weeks ago I was having a little trouble with my oldest daughter talking back to me. So I called her into my room and was having a private conversation with her about her attitude. Now Puppy doesn't know what a private conversation is so she just wandered in. Here is a transcript from that convo

Me: Bunny you need show me respect.

Puppy: Daddy do you know what spect means?

Me: No, I don't. Bunny and I are talking right now.

Puppy: Daddy you shouldn't use words if you don't know what they mean!

After a few more interchanges I realized that she was asking what spect meant because I said respect and she heard the word spect.

Call them Puppyisms, call them Lucyisms, I just call them precious snapshots of a very special person.

Next Time: Nominations