An Instant Obedient day

I created an “Instant obedience chart” because I can not keep going on like this. I ask and JD may or may not do it. So I said, “I'm tracking every time I tell you to do something.” I showed it to JD and explained that if there's more disobeys than obeys he will not play games on ANY system. It's amazing the number of times he's done it the FIRST time AND with a good attitude.

The devotion today was about weeds. They are after all the root of the problem with flower gardens, food gardens, and yards. Even after you pull them one single strand of root will cause another weed to pop up. (I hate weeds!) Today’s verse is from Hebrews 12:15 “Look after one another so that none of you will miss out on the special favor of God. Watch out that no bitter root of unbelief rises among you, for whenever it springs up, many are corrupted by its poison.” So since I have “extra time” these days I have paid special attention to all my flower beds. I’m disappointed and ashamed to say I am not an Iris grower. I want to rip them from the ground and never look back. They never seem to sprout flowers. Jeff says I have them buried too deep. Ugh! Out of 42 Iris’ in my flower garden…one will soon produced a flower. It hasn’t started to unfolded yet so I’m excited to see what color it will be and then…rip…rip…rip!

Today in the bible we read Chapters 21-23. Chapter 21 was about the birth of Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael being sent away, and Abraham‘s covenant with Abimelech. Chapter 22 was where Abraham’s faith was being tested. This was a particularly deep lesson. JD and I figured out that this story is a type of Jesus and God thing in the New Testament. The similarities leapt off the pages, like Isaac carrying his own sacrifice wood and God sacrificing His own son. I add humor to some stories for JD even though I know these are serious and real stories. Humor helps ADHD kids learn. So in this story Isaac was…um…looking around…um…for the sacrifice and then realized it was himself. After God told Abraham to stop I had Isaac folding his arms looking very mad at his dad. JD fully understood the seriousness of the story and completely grasped all the details. Then, we moved onto chapter 23 where it talked about the burial of Sarah.

The math lesson today continued with graphs. Today was about circle graphs. It was very confusing for me because it called for fraction usage. Ugh! JD did well on it and scored a 80% on the lesson and 90% on the quiz.

Right after math I received an email from Lifeway. It basically said, “Thanks, we looked at your writings, BUT…we are not able to use you as a writer at this time. If you have selected additional areas of interest you may still have open applications in our system.” I sent that message out to my family and friends and received emails back telling me not to get discouraged. I’m bummed a little but I know God has a plan for me. When I told JD I did not get the writing job and he got really defensive and said, “Well, they just don’t know what they’re missing!” (That cured any bruised ego I had.)

The social studies lesson continued with the Midwest region and the Great Plains region. We printed two outline maps and colored them for each region we studied. They also told us about the corn belt, the wheat belt, and the dairy belt in the 12 states of the Midwest region. We graphed that too. Then he took the chapter quiz and only missed one out of ten. We stumbled on the Great Lakes so we Googled some information and pictures. (It’s all confusing to me.) They did teach him how to memorize them though, Super Man Helps Every One.
I had JD do a language arts next. He read a passage dealing with comparing and contrasting. The story was about a boy who wanted every year for his birthday a dog. But this year he got a hamster. This was not a scored activity. It was merely a guided lesson.

The lesson in science today was about control groups. And it had a new experiment to run. It like the other resides on my counter top. It will only live there for a total of six days this time. **Side note - Speaking of science projects. I went to make a sandwich yesterday and the dern bread was moldy. GET OUT! REALLY? Because for two weeks I tried to make you mold and NOTHING!** Back to the new science project. We have six nails subjected to different kinds of oils and water. One nail is our control group. Nothing will happen to it. It will be used to compare to the poor drowning nails. Each day we will check for rust. JD also took a chapter quiz and scored a 90%. Yeah!

The last topic of the day was email/snail mail. I had JD write his daddy emails. It was a tough beginning. Trying to get JD to focus on only getting it out of his mind and onto the paper or computer screen is like trying to suck a golf ball through a garden hose. He is so concerned about spelling. I keep telling him, just get your thoughts down and we’ll tackle the spelling and grammar later. The two of them started writing back and forth in a font call “wing dings.” Jeff started it by saying he had a secret message for JD if he could figure it out. This made JD curious and he typed a lot faster. In between waiting for daddy’s emails to come back he started playing the organ. He wanted me to download the last song they played on the sinking Titanic. It was called Nearer my God to Thee. He hasn’t started playing it yet but tomorrow is music lesson time.

The “Instant Obedience Chart” really worked! Out of the 24 tasks I charted only four required two or three reminders. A definite step towards a happy and responsible child. He took full responsibility for all his actions today, and of course the majority of them were good choices and this attitude about the tasks and lessons were OUTSTANDING! Turns out my name for the most part of the day was “yes ma’am.” Not as endearing as I would want it but loving it nonetheless.