Theme Thursdays - Pigs



In our homeschooling adventures this year, I am seeking to break free of traditional school methods and curriculum.  As a classically-trained teacher, just the thought of shying away from the familiar and the "normal" frightens me.

 

But we are doing it.

 

And the more we venture out of MY comfort zone, the more relaxed and more excited I become.  THIS, I realize, is exactly why - the intangible reason why - I wanted my kids home with me in the first place.

 

As part of our new adventures, we are doing a theme day once a week in which we abandon our regular activities, take up a theme, and focus all of our activities on the theme.  I plan the day in advance to be sure we will get in mathematics and reading and all the important subjects (all in theme of course).  I also plan a kitchen activity and an art project as well. 

 

Here on Temporary Insanity, I will be posting Theme Thursdays each week to share what activities we did and what resources we used on our special day.  All of the instructions and links will be right here so please feel free to use them.  I am including lots of extra ideas as well - no need to do them all, of course!  Keep in mind that my activities are tailored to two kindergarteners and one second-grader;  you can adjust them to fit your family.

 

This week, the theme is pigs. 

 BOOKS: 
      One of my favorite things about theme days is the amount of books we delve into together.  Here's what we read:
1.  Pink Pigs APlenty by Sandy Nightingale (a counting book - great for practicing math skills)
2.  Piggies in the Kitchen by Michelle Meadows 
3.  Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud by Lynne Plourde (lots of onamatopoeia and silly words - fun for new readers!)
4.  If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff
And here are some other book ideas:
5.  Any of the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems.  My daughter LOVES reading these books aloud to her brothers, and her brothers think Piggie is hilarious.
6.  Perfect Piggies by Sandra Boynton
7.  Any of the Mercy Watson books by Kate DiCamillo (great for early readers!)
8.  ABC - I Like Me by Nancy Carlson (super cute alphabet book)
9.  Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (just read a few excerpts from this longer book - can't miss with this classic)
10.  Do Not Open This Book by Michaela Muntean
 READING:
     Of course, we read books #1-4 together.  After reading Pink Pigs APlenty, we talked about the letter P and the sound it makes.  The kids helped come up with a list of twenty words that started with P, and the Drama Queen practiced her writing (and spelling!) by putting them up on the white board.  The Drama Queen got to read If You Give a Pig a Pancake  aloud to all of us.  We talked about actions and consequences, and then made up our own "If you...then" story. 
MATHEMATICS:
     The boys are still working on counting and identifying numbers.  So, I told them the story of the three pigs.  Then we made houses out of "sticks" (toothpicks) and counted them, practicing writing the numbers on the paper next to the houses.  The Drama Queen worked on her "skip-counting" with the same project.  I had her focus on counting by twos, fives, and tens. 
KITCHEN ACTIVITY:
   

     We decided to make Perfect Piggie Eggs to learn kitchen skills and make a snack.  Making perfect hard-boiled eggs is a great kitchen skill to learn.  I taught the kids to put the eggs into the pot first before covering them with cold water and a dash of vinegar.  When the water came to a full boil, we removed the pot from the hot burner and covered it for fifteen minutes.  (Science lesson here:  If the eggs cook too long, the iron in the egg yolk and the sulfur in the egg white react to form a grayish-green color.)  After fifteen minutes, the kids helped me move the eggs immediately into ice water to stop the eggs from cooking any further.  Peeling the eggs proved to be too stressful a task for the boys; so I did that myself before we got to the fun part.  We deviled the yolks with a simple mix of mayo, yellow mustard, and salt.  I cut the carrots into ears and nostrils while the Drama Queen cut string cheese into pig snouts.  We put the peas, carrots, cheese snouts, and deviled yolk mixture on the table, and everyone got to creating their pigs.  And eating them. 
Some other kitchen activities to go with a pig theme:
1.  Pigs in a Blanket
2.  Piggie Cupcakes
3.  Pig Cookies

ART PROJECT
     I like to keep art projects simple, especially for the Beast.  He gets easily frustrated with complicated projects.  These paper bag pig puppets were super easy to make.  The kids practiced cutting and gluing skills to make these, and then they had the opportunity to demonstrate their drama skills to their baby sister.
Some other pig art projects you might consider:
1.  Piggy Bottle Bank
2.  Egg Carton Pigs
3.  Balloon Piggy
SCIENCE
     We borrowed National Geographic's Really Wild Farm Animals dvd from the library and watched it during lunch.  The kids learned that farm pigs have relatives in the wild (warthogs) and a host of other pig facts that even I didn't know.
Other science activities in a pig theme:
1.  Fun Pig Fact Website
2.  Experiments based on The Three Little Pigs

The kids loved it.  They can't wait for Theme Day every week!  I usually tell them on Monday what the theme is so they can look forward to it all week. :)

Next week is Apples! 

Homeschooling and Autism

I knew that homeschooling our autistic child would be a challenge this year.  He is strong-willed and very opinionated, and I would be lying if I said I didn't consider putting him in school just so "someone else could deal with trying to teach him."  I feel very inexperienced and unqualified to teach anyone on the autism spectrum.

But I'm his mom.  I know him better than anyone else.  I can sense his mood swings, communicate with him patiently, and use his favorite things to my advantage.  Most of all, I love him like crazy and want him to learn; so you'd better believe that I'll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

I have a college degree in education.  I am trained to teach in a classroom setting.  All of that training has been thrown out the window as the Beast forces me to think outside the box. 

This morning, during math class, I gave him a worksheet in which he had to read the number and then color the same number of boxes above it.  Then, he simply had to trace the number to practice writing it. 

And the drama began.  "This isn't right, Momma!  The number says eight and there are ten boxes!"

"I know, honey.  So just color in eight of them, okay?"

"But there are too many!  I can't do it!  It's too hard!  There are ten, not eight!"

This conversation went on in a similar and very repetitive manner until I finally convinced him to color in eight boxes.  He hates coloring.  I never understood why until I started teaching him at home.  The poor kid is a perfectionist and freezes up when he can't color the object perfectly.  He drew one tiny dot in the first square and stared at it, obviously frustrated.

"Momma, I can't!  This crayon isn't working!  It's not right, it's not right!  Here, you do it for me.  I can't make it right."

"No, you have to do it.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  Just color eight boxes."

"I caaaaaaaan't.  This is not working, Momma!"

And he was right.  It wasn't working.  He was frustrated;  I was frustrated.  Then I thought, "What am I trying to teach him here?  To color boxes?  Or to work on his numbers?"  Did it matter how we got there, as long as we got there?  I suddenly had an idea and fished a few packs of stickers out of a drawer. 

"Here, use these to fill in the squares.  Show me eight."

"But that's not what you said to do. . ."

"I know - it's okay.  Let's just make it easier so you can focus on the numbers."

"Okay."  And he cheerfully and (dare I say it?!) eagerly put the stickers in the correct places on his worksheet.  He did indeed know how many eight was.  For that matter, he was able to easily demonstrate that he knew how many six was, and five was, and ten was.  It just took a different (and perhaps a little unconventional) path to get there.

Now don't go asking me how he did when it came time to trace the numbers.  There just isn't any fun, catchy way to go about doing that.  It's a lot of "I can't do this" and "Yes you can.  I will help you." 

We are in our third week of the school year so far.  I am learning that he learns better when he lies on the floor or hangs upside down off his chair.  I am finding that he digests information in little bites so as soon as I see the frustration becoming too much, I cut the class short and return to it later.  I am seeing that he is an extremely tactile learner and am digging deep to find ways to use this information. 

This is why we chose homeschooling for him - for all of my children.  I have the time and the freedom to teach each child how he best learns. 

Just remind me of that when the Beast and I butt heads again tomorrow morning. 

PS.  Yes, I know the kitchen floor in the picture is disgusting.  Can you guess why he had thrown himself so dramatically there? 

Me Management

The Nerd and I attended our first-ever homeschoolers' conference run by OCEANetwork (Oregon Christian Home Education Association) a few weeks ago.  I went armed with pen, paper, and an open mind, ready to learn; and I left completely loaded down with so much information, ideas, and new thoughts that it was undeniably overwhelming. 

One session led by Heidi St. John (you can find her at The Busy Homeschool Mom - she's hilarious and so real!) was on the topic of time management.  The Scripture she shared at the beginning of her talk has really stuck with me these past few weeks.

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.  Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, I will hearken unto you.  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 27:11-13) 

Having that peace that God promises is certainly enticing.  It's necessary to have a smooth and productive day.  And lately, it hasn't really made an appearance around here.  Four active kiddos and an (ahem) lack of organization have not helped that at all. 

The thing is - Heidi St. John wasn't really talking about time management but rather "me-management."  Time doesn't need to be managed.  It doesn't go faster or slower - it does exactly the same thing every day.  The only thing I can manage is me.

She talked about modern-day "time bandits" - pasttimes that are good in and of themselves but can wile away valuable time if not used carefully.  Heidi encouraged us to think of our own "time bandits", write them down, and then seek God's help in managing them.

God brought these three culprits to mind:  Facebook, blogging, and my Iphone.  When I indulge in these activities excessively, it sucks time away from my priorities.  What are my priorities?  Well, I made another list: 1)relationship with God, 2) marriage, 3) family, 4) home, 5)homeschool, and 6)outside pursuits.  I certainly don't want to be an absentee wife or mom - one who's "there" but not really available or present for her husband or kids.  Even more importantly, it makes me cringe and feel shame that something like Facebook would take precedence over the most vital relationship in my life - the one with my Lord and Savior. 

So I wrote this all down and made a decision to really seek out God's wisdom on these issues.  I have been re-exploring the Psalms in an effort to see the ways that David connected with God.  I am learning that Facebook, blogging, and my Iphone have their places in my life, but they are WAY down on the priority list.  I just have to put the proper parameters in place so they don't crowd their way back to #1 on the list. 

And that's what I've been doing.  I'll definitely continue to blog about our always-crazy life, but it will have to fit in after hubby and the kiddos get their share of me first. 

See you around.

linking up with:

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We Made It!

If you are thinking that the girl in the photo is looking entirely too grown-up these days, I am in complete agreement!  The Drama Queen is 6-going-on-16 some days, I'll tell you!

We started off our first year of homeschooling as a kindergartener.  I took photos of her on her first day of kindergarten, because that's what grade she was supposed to be in.

However, I had purchased first grade curriculum since it seemed a more appropriate subject level for her.  The girl flew through the curriculum with ease.  Therefore, we are considering this past year her first grade year after all.

Her favorite subject was arithmetic for sure.  She learned about money and measurements;  she memorized addition and subtraction families up to 13.  She learned how to carry when adding large numbers, but most importantly, she learned how to apply all her new math skills to real-life situations.

Her least favorite subject was handwriting.  (I love handwriting, but I am pretty sure I am in a very small minority there!)  I had decided to teach her cursive mainly and work on her manuscript on the side.  In retrospect, I think I might have skipped the whole cursive thing.  It was taxing, trying, and agonizing to say the least.  But hey!  The girl can write in cursive now.  Her manuscript letters do need some work; so I know what we will be focusing on this summer. 

The best part of the year for me was watching my little reader blossom!  She started off the year faltering through her favorites like Amelia Bedelia and the Berenstain Bears;  now she eagerly devours anything readable in her sight.  Yesterday she read several pages to me from her new book about the human body, pronouncing words like immune, system, and disease with no trouble.  I know that learning her special sounds in phonics helped a great deal; but I would be remiss if I didn't mention video games as an important tool also.  If the Drama Queen had a productive (and non-whiny) day of school, oftentimes the Nerd would reward her by playing some Legend of Zelda with her in the evenings.  For any of you that may have played this game "back in the day," you will know that it involves a lot of reading the screen to find out what you have to do next.  At first, the Nerd mostly read the directives out loud as they played; now she reads them and excitedly tries to solve whatever problem Link is facing.  She adores the Legend of Zelda (hence the shirt in the picture!) and has branched out to other games as well.  Our local library allows us to borrow select titles for the Wii - I think she has benefited most educationally from the Build a Bear game and the Jump Start game. 

For our first year, I mostly stuck to the curriculum (A Beka Book) that we had purchased.  Now that I have had a little experience with this, I plan on branching out, putting together a curriculum that works best for my three oldest and trying to be a little more creative with my resources.

I plan on having the kids do some review in math, reading, and writing over the summer, but for now we are on "vacation."  Of course, the Drama Queen is busy right now rounding numbers to the nearest ten on her Jump Start game...

(Just realized that it might look like this post was sponsored by the game companies I linked to.  No such luck - I just put the links up in case anyone reading this post wanted to find the games we use.)

Art Project #5 - Thankful Turkeys

This week's project is in preparation for Thanksgiving coming up next week. You should already have all the materials on hand, and the steps are super easy!

Project Title: Thankful Turkeys

Materials Needed: white paper, crayons, scissors, glue stick, pencil or pen

Purpose: To practice coloring and cutting skills as well as express the things one is thankful for.

Aren't these just the cutest turkeys?

First, you will need to trace your child's hands and one foot on the white paper. (The photos show a turkey made from an adult's hand and footprints; of course a child's prints will be smaller.) Have your child color the foot shape brown for the turkey body and the hand shapes in multiple colors for the turkey feathers. Assist them in cutting out the three shapes.

Make the other shapes needed to complete the turkey. Three triangles colored yellow will serve as a beak and feet. Two skinny yellow rectangles will be the legs, and don't forget to cut out two little eyes and a wattle. (Googly eyes would be cute too if you have them on hand).

Using the glue stick, have your child glue the two hand shapes together as shown. Cut off the thumbs - they won't be necessary for the project.

Then, help your child glue the rest of the turkey together. The foot shape comes next as the turkey body, glued on top of the hand shapes. Next, glue the facial features to the turkey's head. Finally, glue the legs to the back of the turkey body and glue the feet on the ends of the legs.

If your child is old enough to write, have them write down eight things they are thankful for. Cut out the words and glue to the turkey feathers. Write "(Name) is thankful for" on a small circle of white paper and glue to the turkey's tummy.

Then of course, don't forget to display the resulting cute turkeys for your Thanksgiving celebration! Save them afterwards, as they will be permanent reminders of the size of your little one's hands and feet at this age. :)

Art Project #4 - String Pumpkins and Gourds

One of my earliest school memories is doing a project in which we wrapped string dipped in glue around a balloon in various patterns. When the glue dried, we popped the balloon and had a hollow string sculpture to display. While exploring Pinterest the other day, I was reminded of this simple project and thought it would be the perfect platform to make some pumpkin and gourd decorations for our home.

Project Title: Pumpkin and Gourd String Art

Materials Needed: orange and yellow cotton yarn or string, school glue, a shallow pan such as a cake pan or pie pan, several balloons, and glitter (optional). For finishing, you may want some green ribbon and decorative silk leaves.

Purpose: To work with the basic premises of sculpture and 3D art; to understand importance of structure to a 3D work of art.

First, gather your supplies. Blow up your balloons until they are a nice round or slightly oval shape, being careful not to make them too big. (If you want ornament-sized pumpkins and gourds, use water balloons.) Blow up a few extra balloons to entertain the 3-year-old.

Next, cut your string. Measure around your balloon with the string, leaving a little extra for overlap and cut. Use that string to cut many more pieces of the same size in both yellow and orange. Then make your glue mixture. The recipe I used called for one part glue to two parts water. I think it certainly could have used more glue - I would do one part glue to one part water next time. If you are a glitter lover like myself, whisk in some sparkly glitter into the mixture. This is a good opportunity for everyone to get a chance to "help."

After covering your work surface abundantly with newspaper or an old tablecloth, begin covering your balloon with string. Dip one string into the glue mixture until the entire string is completely soaked. Wrap the wet string around your balloon, making sure that the ends overlap a little. Continue wrapping soaked strings around the balloon, making sure to cover large spaces so there will be no big holes in the sculpture. I found that my young ones, including my kindergartener, struggled with this. They all wanted to bunch up the yarn or toss it haphazardly across the balloon. This is a good time to explain why it needs to be tightly wrapped and spaced out in order for the structure to survive. It is also a good time to help so that frustration doesn't last. Art is supposed to be fun!

Keep wrapping your balloon until you are satisfied with the coverage. If you are not sure, "overdo" it!

Here is a good example of what your balloon should look like, although I would have covered some of those holes even more. Leave the balloons on the newspaper to dry. When the strings on the top of the balloon feel dry, turn the balloon over so that the underside strings have a chance to dry also. We did ours on a Friday afternoon, and they were completely dry by Saturday morning. Next, carefully pop the balloons and remove the broken balloon from inside your string sculpture. Three of our sculptures didn't make it - they collapsed into a stiff pile of string due to inadequate coverage or too much bunching. Also, I think the glue mixture was a little weak, as I mentioned before.

Tie another piece of string to the top of your gourd or pumpkin sculpture for hanging. We then used a short piece of green ribbon and a decorative silk leaf tied to the top to make them truly look like pumpkins and gourds. I think they would be just as cute with just the green ribbon or perhaps some green felt leaves glued on.

And then be sure to hang up your creations! We are definitely going to revisit this project again at Easter time and make pastel eggs to decorate our home. By the way, if you insert a small wrapped candy or prize inside the balloon before you blow it up, your sculpture will have a fun surprise center!

Art Project #3 - Pointillism Apples in a Bushel

Project Title: Pointillism Apples

Materials Needed: white paper, school glue, glue stick, craft paint, q-tips, sticks/twigs, leaves, brown crayon, scissors

Purpose: To teach students about the art form of pointillism. Also is helpful in cutting and gluing practice.

First, gather all of your materials. For the bushel basket, I printed off this image here and cut it out as shown (minus the apples). For the apples, I printed off this image here and traced it six times on a sheet of white paper. The kids helped me gather small leaves and twigs for the project.

Next, set up the painting station. I used a divided plate for our three colors - red, green, and yellow, and gave each child three q-tips. I should mention that although it is not pictured, I did end up setting everything out on newspaper to protect the table! :) (If you have older kids, you can teach them how to mix red with various amounts of white to make different shades of red for their apples, and so on.)

Demonstrate how to dip the Q-tip into the paint and then make a dot in the apple shape without dragging it around like a paint brush. Have your child fill up the apple shape with as many dots as they can without blending them together. Your child may wish to do two or even three colors on their apple to make it more realistic looking. Explain that pointillism is painting with tiny dots so that they become blended in the viewer's eye. You can even demonstrate that putting a bunch of blue and yellow dots close to each other will make it appear green from a distance.

Once your child finishes painting her apples (or gets tired of it!), set them aside to dry. Have your child glue the bushel basket to the bottom of a blank sheet of white paper and then color it brown.

Next, use the school glue to make thin lines on the bushel basket and attach the twigs. Break the twigs to a smaller size if necessary. Remind your child that this glue does not dry instantly; thus they must be careful not to bump the previously placed twigs on their basket.

When all glue and paint has dried, give your child a safe pair of scissors and instruct them to cut out their apples. This is good practice for following a curved line with scissors. Help them if they get frustrated.

Use the glue stick to glue the apples wherever the child chooses in the bushel basket.

Finally, squeeze large dots of school glue to the top of each apple and gently set the stem of each leaf in the glue dot. Set the whole project in a place where it will not be disturbed until the glue has dried.

My daughter chose to write "A is for Apple" on her project, and we hung all three projects up as pretty fall decor when they finished.

I say "A is for Adorable"! :)

Iphone Photo Phun - short and sweet

As I am a little late in jumping on the Iphone Photo Phun bandwagon this week (don't look at me like that - I am thirty weeks preggo and a bit busy!), I'll try to keep the captions for this week's photos short and sweet.

Little Miss 5 1/2 finished her first reading book yesterday - all 126 pages of it! She must have a pretty awesome teacher.

While these two did break a lamp and my favorite Coca Cola drinking glass today, there are moments of sweetness and love. They may be few, but they do exist.

I discovered this week that I have two chicken lovers in my house. As in, "Please Mom can I have another drumstick? I promise to eat all my vegetables too" while stuffing face with broccoli and corn.

Cutest dinner dates ever!

The kids got to spend some time at their great-grandparents this weekend. :)

Time to get some dinner on! Sorry kiddos, we've had chicken enough this week - looks like it's going to be savory sausage soup.

Art Project #2 - Dyed Rice Flag

Project Title: Dyed Rice Flag

Materials Needed: white poster board, crayons (red and blue), ruler, pencil, 4-5 cups rice, food coloring (red and blue), rubbing alcohol, school glue, mini marshmallows

Purpose: To teach students to explore different textures in art.

(I chose to do an American flag with this project since we studied it in history class and also since this art class closely followed the tenth anniversary of September 11th. The technique in this project however would be perfectly suited to any design or shape.)

First, gather your materials. You will also need two bowls and spatulas for the dying of each color of rice.

Then, dye your rice. For the red rice, we put two cups of rice into a large bowl. We added two teaspoons of rubbing alcohol and stirred it until all the rice looked wet. Then we added several drops of red food coloring and stirred until we were happy with the red color we achieved. For the blue rice, we used one cup of rice, one teaspoon of rubbing alcohol, and considerably less food coloring.

Spread each color of rice on a cookie sheet or pan with edges to dry. I put our trays on top of the stove and turned the oven to low to speed the drying process. The color on the rice dried very quickly.

While the rice was drying, I had the Drama Queen color the red stripes and blue field on the poster board flag I had drawn up the night before. The flag I made measured 13 inches by 22 inches. Each stripe was one inch wide, and the blue field measured 7 inches by 9 inches.

Now, it was time to add the rice. I squirted some school glue onto the blue field first and spread it into an even layer with a paint brush. Then we took handfuls of the blue rice and pressed them into the glue, covering as much of the area as possible.

We did the same thing with each red stripe. We found it was important to press the rice in firmly and put more rice on than you would think was necessary.

As the blue and red areas dried, I used another clean paint brush to carefully sweep away any rice that had fallen into the white stripes.

Finally, we added the white rice in between the red stripes. Don't stress if some white or blue rice makes it into the red stripes - you can remove those later with tweezers or just let it be. :)

When the project was completely dry, I tilted it up on one end and let all the loose rice fall off. ( I saved it all in a container for my autistic son to use in his sensory activities.) The Drama Queen helped me arrange the marshmallows on the blue field before I hot glued them in place. Before I could get the camera to take this last picture, however, the Spud managed to swipe a few marshmallows from the flag.

I haven't decided yet how we will display our flag - I probably will spray it with some sort of adhesive to make it more durable and then hang it in an area where a few grains of fallen rice here and there don't really matter.

The Drama Queen's favorite part was dying the rice*; so we plan on dying more colors of rice and making a big sensory box for the kids to dig and play in.

*You can also use this dying technique with any kind of pasta. Just be aware that the pasta takes much longer to dry than the rice does.

Iphone Photo Phun - In Which I Show Favoritism

So I missed out on participating in Iphone Photo Phun last week. You would think that was due to the insanely busy schedule we are now keeping, with homeschooling and an ever-exhausting pregnancy. Nope. I couldn't find the cord that hooks my Iphone up to my laptop to get the photos off. I didn't find said cord until this morning. I take it as a good thing though. I mean, I could have lost one of the kids. Although I probably would have tried harder to find them if I did. Lose them, I mean.

Anyway, here's the past two weeks in all Iphoto glory (and no I don't love the youngest more than the others - he's just a lot more willing to pose for photos without shutting his eyes or making ridiculously cheesy grins. Also, he is pretty cute, I must say.)

We showed our patriotism on the tenth anniversary of the tragic events of September 11th.

Screams of delight always greet my announcement of "breakfast for dinner." Apparently pancakes, french toast, sausage, and eggs are in high demand around here. This particular evening, even the eggs seemed excited about it.

I took a quick photo here of the little scholar busy doing her Letters and Sounds page.

The Spud had his three-year-old well-child visit to the doctor. He was pleased to find out he was old enough to wear the little hospital gown and up-to-date on his shots.

The little man is getting more independent every day. Putting his own shoes on is his newest accomplishment, a feat that couldn't have come soon enough for his poor preggo mommy.

I bravely took the kids to a library story time last week. The theme of the day was "Getting Dressed." The Beast paid no attention to any of it until underwear was mentioned. Then he felt the need to announce to the whole class that he had special underwear, underwear with a "door" in it. The Spud chose a book about underwear to take home and has been giggling hysterically at it every night at bedtime.

We managed to get a bike ride in while the weather was cooler. By bike ride, I mean only the Beast rode his bike the whole time. I spent most of my time steadying the Drama Queen's bike and assuring her that she would not fall. the Spud mostly pushed his bike around and pedaled it only occasionally.

And with that, this preggo lady is going to bed. :)