i am so dumb compared to my kids

We all have spring fever and have been pushing aside the mountain of texts to spend time walking around town. As a result, we've gone from three weeks ahead to a few days behind. I was hoping to cover Rome this year. I may need to do that next autumn. On the other hand, a lot is getting done that involves going to buildings downtown. I passed the test for my learner's permit. I failed all of the intersection questions; thankfully there were only four. On the way back from the park, the Gamer and I decided to ditch the science book and become naturalists instead. We will be exploring nature three times a week, researching our subjects and compiling a naturalists journal. As soon as I sat down to plan, I realized I agreed too soon. The Gamer is color blind. How do you approach nature studies with a child who can't see the difference between green and brown? Should I help him find ways to differentiate between colors (is it even possible)? Or should I let him choose the colors he sees, allowing that part of capturing nature is accurately representing what the color blind see? Would it seem like a silly little thing to the folks at NATTHAN (NATional cHallenged Homeschoolers Association Network) if I contacted them over this? The Storyteller, meanwhile, is going through a Piaget thing. Basically he's freaking out about amounts being the same no matter how much the objects get rearranged. Also, he's gone from zero interest in printed words, to pretending to write whole letters and essays, notes and voting ballots. He adds "words" to almost all of his drawings now. He's obsessed with one particular Tomie dePaola book, "The Knight and the Dragon." He just sits and studies the drawings. Makes me want to get out my Prismacolors and copy the pictures. They're so simple and lovely. Not unlike Scientist's words. Watching Storyteller piece written language together in his mind is ultra trippy, 'cause we're all studying the Rosetta Stone, Hebrew, cuneiform and hieroglyphics at the very same time. Yesterday, the Gamer came to me upset. "I made out a voting ballot so we could fairly decide whether to play hide'n'seek, hangman, I spy, and stuff, and you're only supposed to put numbers in the boxes - just one 1 for the one you like the best, 5 for the one you hate, y'know," here he got very huffy thinking about what a hardship this all is for him, "and Storyteller keeps on drawing in the boxes instead!" "The Storyteller can't read." "But can't he at least write?" "No." "Oh." This is the same child who frequently asks me where I put the icepops. The Scientist spent the evening writing music. When I say writing music, I mean he had a pencil, a piece of paper, and a chart showing where to put the note to mean C or E or such, and which images represent half notes, whole notes, rests, etc. He did not use a piano or even sing before he wrote the music in on the staff (which he also, so carefully, drew). When he was done, he brought it to me and asked me to sing it. He reminded me what two bars and dots at the end mean so I wouldn't mess that up. I played it for him on the keyboard instead of singing it. It took me longer to piece it out, counting every note back and forth from middle c, than it did for him to write it. This is the same way he taught himself to read English. He started with writing random letters, and asking what they spell. The Hero can reliably place his thumb in his mouth now. He usually sticks his thumb out, stares at it cross-eyed, then aims his mouth and chomps down hungrily upon the digit. So when he kept missing, and sticking himself in the forehead with his thumb, I wondered if he was regressing. It took me the longest time to figure out what he was doing -- making the sign for daddy. When it finally occurred to me, I called the Daddio over, and the Hero lit up like a lamp, realizing his communication had worked. Now I need to wash some dishes.