Lilo: Dabrowski's Gifted Child in Reel Life

I've mentioned Gifted Overexcitabilites before, and linked before to the SENG page outlining them and the wonderfully-easy-to-understand-even-if-you're-new-to-this Jade Ann Rivera's posts about them. I was talking to my good friend Care from Homeschooling Hatters about our topic for this blog hop, and she pointed out that most media/books/movies/etc. paint either a positive, academically strong gifted ideal with none of the downsides, or make the smart kid the butt of jokes. As a result, very few people who aren't parenting a gifted child with overexcitabilites have never heard of them, and have a very incomplete picture of what being gifted really means.

Around the time I was researching about gifted overexcitabilites I watched the Disney movie Lilo and Stitch to see if it was something that would be a good movie for the kids. As I watched it I was struck by how much this little girl was acting like the things I had been reading about. And while Disney may not have intended it that way, they were clearly portraying a gifted child with several of Dabrowski's overexcitabilites, as well as other characteristics of a gifted child. (Spoilers ahead.)

DIY Baby Princess Hat

For Lady Bug's birthday I made her a princess hat. Yes, her birthday was almost half a year ago. I thought I'd already blogged about this, but I checked and, no, I hadn't. So now I am.

Picture instructions ahead!

Winter Skirts

Here we are at the end of the series about wearing skirts all year round. I've heard other women talk about how they'd wear skirts all the time if it weren't for winter and how it's too cold to wear skirts then. So this post is about how I manage to wear skirts all through the rain, wind, cold, and snow.

Questions Challenge

Imp over at Not A Stepford Life blog challenged me awhile back to answer some questions. (Bet you thought I forgot, Imp! Okay, I kind of did...) I'm not usually one to accept challenge trends, but since it's Imp I'm going to do it.

Here are the questions she asked, and my answers in blue.

1) What is the most surprising thing you’ve discovered since you’ve been blogging? I was at a church small group and one mother was telling another about my blog and "all the stuff [Mrs. Warde] does." I was shocked because I feel like we hardly ever get enough done! But then I looked at my blog and if you look at everything together and don't notice the dates, it does look like a lot. I try to be honest about what we get done and how often I feel like I'm letting them learn by themselves instead of actually sitting down and doing school, so it was shocking to here myself being described as a Pinterest mom.

2) What is the best advice you’ve ever been given, and who by? In life, "This above all: to thine own self be true,/ And it must follow, as the night the day,/ Thou canst not then be false to any man." -William Shakespeare in Hamlet. In blogging, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it was to just write it down; it doesn't have to be perfect the first or even the second draft. Just get something down. -Pamela Price

3) If you could change ONE thing about your life, what would it be, and why? Energy levels! I feel like I am tired and slow moving all the time, and I feel like I would be such a more fun mom and more "successful" homeschooler if I could just get more done.

4) What’s your proudest accomplishment? In life, my kids. In blogging, I almost had a post go viral once; I was just a few views short of the 1,000 views in a 24 hour period. But more than that, when someone tells me they actually did an activity based on something I wrote about.
 
5) What are your future goals, and what are you doing to reach them? Blogging goal: to get better at actually blogging regularly. And to do enough things that are worth blogging about.

Now I'm challenging Care over at Homeschooling Hatters to answer the same questions. (Not sure if I'm supposed to be thinking of new questions or not. So, Care, if you want to challenge someone with different questions, go ahead. You're getting the ones I got asked.)

Using Home Decorating to Teach Good Bathroom Habits

This is not the first time I've used wall stickers to teach my kids something (see this post and this post.) But this is the first time they ever helped them develop better habits! The boys are independent bathroom users, and have been for a while. I've been kind of leaving them to their own devices in their bathrooms for the most part; mostly because I'm lazy about that. But when we moved we moved to a one story and all of a sudden the boys' bathroom was also the one visitors would use; and it's right off the main living area. Suddenly bathroom etiquette seemed seemed a very important thing to teach Builder Boy and Early Bird. But how was I going to overcome the years of doing it their way and the I-just-want-to-hurry-up-and-get-back-to-playing? Turns out, the answer for us was easy, and not even expensive!