"Further Up and Further In!"

Excuses, Excuses

2012-01-11T18:32:00.002-04:00

One day this past week, I gave one of my children (who shall remain nameless, but whose identity will inevitably become apparent in the course of this story, I'm sure) a math fact sheet to do. We had a busy afternoon ahead, and I knew we wouldn't get an entire math lesson done, but I figured we would sneak something in, so that we could say we had done math that day. Not surprisingly, the child balked (a mild term for the scene of moaning and groaning that ensued, but anyway...). I encouraged the child simply to do his best at it, and to start with the easy ones. I emphasized that I wasn't after perfection - I just wanted him to give it a go.

That was in his room. About fifteen minutes later, he meandered downstairs. I asked him if the fact sheet was done. "Um...fact sheet?"

Of course. So I asked him to bring it down to me...which he did. He slapped it on the table, and then left. I called to him and asked him to come see me. When eventually he found his way over, and I reminded him that I had asked him to bring me the fact sheet, he replied that he had done just that. I hadn't specified that I wanted him to stay. So I most lovingly and patiently asked him to sit down, and I placed the fact sheet in front of him, gently repeating my instructions on how I wished him to work on it. Ahem. Actually, I may have been getting a little testy by then...which didn't put me in the best of moods to handle the additional moaning, groaning, wailing, complaining, etc, etc, etc. that followed. He insisted it was too loud downstairs, that he didn't know all the facts on the sheet, that there were too many facts, that I was being unfair to expect him to do all that, that math was unfair, that life was unfair! Succeed, fail, or come somewhere in between, but I dislike excuses, and encourage my children to avoid making them. Ever so...um, sweetly...I reminded him of that again, but by that point, he had ceased to hear anything I was saying, so I set the timer and threatened...er, told him that he needed to make some kind of acceptable progress on that sheet in the allotted time, or he would miss the activities at church that night.

The time was up, and he had still done nary a fact, so we...discussed...the situation a little further. He repeated his objections that there was too much noise in the room, that there were too many facts, that I was unfair. And then he came up with the best excuse I think I've ever heard - and I've already mentioned how much I love excuses.

"But I was doing them in my head. You don't believe me? You don't trust me?"

Oh, well, in that case... I wish you had said something sooner! We could have avoided this whole thing if I had known I just needed get out my magic mind-reader machine so I could see the progress going on in your head!

You can imagine the tension in the room was pretty high by that point. It had been at least a half an hour, and nothing had been accomplished except that we were both exasperated, he was in tears and was grounded, and there was no feeling of victory on my part in having meted out the punishment. I believe in being firm...but I also believe in fairness, and when tempers had cooled a few minutes later, I repented of my haste. He's a child, after all. What was my excuse for losing my temper over a piece of paper? I explained to him that we had both been wrong, and that I would withdraw the punishment, if he would work on the facts while we were out and about. And then I forgot to bring the fact sheet along, so we did the thing we should have done in the first place. We spent a few minutes in the car having him recite the multiplication table out loud, which he did with ease and with no tears.

So what's the moral here? Initially I was writing this simply to share a funny and exasperating story. I felt I had to give him some credit for the "I was doing it in my head" excuse. But what I also thought was ironic was that the excuse actually hit close to a truth., because in the end, doing it in his head is pretty much what we ended up doing. If I'm being totally honest, I had thrust the piece of paper on him because I had one of those moments in which I reasoned that eventually he's going to have to be able to do an assignment with pencil and paper, without me prodding him every step of the way. And I suppose that's my excuse for having asked him to do something out his comfort zone on a day we were in a hurry, which would make it doubly hard for him.

Way to go, me! But no one is perfect...and that's ok. It was just a good reminder for him and me that we need to do our best with our best, and not try to force things OR to make excuses when we fail. Live and learn.

Reflections on 2011

2012-01-03T15:40:00.003-04:00

I've been meaning to write this for several days now, but I suppose since the new year is still quite young, it's all still good! At any rate, I don't typically make New Year's resolutions, but I do like to reflect on the previous year, and ponder hopes for the coming year, so I enjoyed this article from Vision Forum. I admit, though, that while I appreciate the folks at Vision Forum , I did snicker a little at the idea of writing a week-by-week summary of 2011. Right. I'll get right on that!

But I think I have time to write about our year using the bullet points he suggests, so here goes:

Where did I/we travel?

We took the kids on their first plane trip early in the year, back to SC to visit family, including my globe-trotting sister, Erica. Then in September, we drove down to Edisto Island, one of our favorite places on earth, for vacation. Both were great visits.

What were the most important sermons I heard this year?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to write down influential sermons/talks. But I didn't this year.

What books/articles did I write?

Ahem.

What significant household projects did we accomplish in 2011?

Well, we...that is, I...that is...um.....

What were the most important meetings of the year?

We obviously are not important enough to have "meetings," unless you count those great meetings Dave has had at work, in which his work ethic and effectiveness at his new job has been noted.

What special friendships were made this year?

Oh, I love this one, because we have in fact made some special friendships. We met some great people at the first church we attended here, and although we don't go there anymore, we still keep in touch with some of those people. In particular, I've made a great friend in Christen, who shares my affinity for gentle parenting and natural (ish) living (which I think she probably does better than I do). We even made our own deodorant together once, and I think that's a pretty bonding experience! And in fact, when she had to go back to work, I began keeping her darling baby, who is welcomed into the happy (hopefully) chaos of our home two days a week. Hers is a friendship I certainly cherish. Also, La Leche League never fails to deliver kindred spirits, and the kids and I have made some connections with friends there. And in our newer church, we are slowly but surely making connections there.

Which children lost teeth, and how many?

Aimee lost her last baby tooth this year, which does make me a bit sentimental. Drew didn't loose any baby teeth, but he did run into a wall - really - and break off half a front permanent tooth the day after Christmas. This was distressing to me, but both Drew and his father shrugged it off. Drew even told me it wasn't "the end of the world." Still, we're thankful for modern dentistry! Just a few days before that, Ryan lost his second baby tooth, his first in the usual way (the very first, to the dismay of my mother heart, he knocked out when he was a baby). And of course, Scarlett gained quite a few teeth this year - eight total (and pretty much all at once, which made for some pretty fun times).

Who grew in physical stature, and how much did they grow?

Well, they grew, I know that. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I didn't keep track. But I know that Aimee achieved 5 feet, Drew's ankles began to peep out of his pant legs toward the end of the year, and Chase closed the gap between himself and Ryan, further fueling those "Are they twins?" questions. And Scarlett reached 30 inches, putting herself into the 10th percentile, which was quite an achievement for her. She's still a little miss, but her short stature no longer poses any questions about her health, as all tests revealed complete health and wholeness.

Who learned to read this year?

Ryan did, in fact!

What diet and physical exercise regimen did I maintain to honor “my temple”?

I did the Couch to 5k training program earlier this year, and found it invigorating and rewarding! Then I drifted back to the "couch," as it were, so at the end of the year, I resolved to do it again, which process began this week. Also, as I've explained, I went almost completely dairy free at the beginning of the year, and continue that voluntarily. I've really never been healthier.

What books did I read? Did we read as a family? Did my children read?

Somewhere, I've kept a record of this. Probably in more than one place, actually. I'm not about to dig all that out and try to consolidate it for the purpose of this post. Suffice it to say that we did a lot of reading. The one thing that all four advanced readers in the house read was the Underland Chronicles, and it was interesting to have discussions about it around the dinner table.

What Scriptures did my family memorize?

As a family, we dove into select chapters of Hebrews and 1 Peter, since that's what the older kids are doing in Bible quizzing this year. The kids also picked up numerous verses from church.

What loved ones died this year?
What a sad thing to remember! I wish I could say no one, but in fact Dave's cousin took his own life in February. It was shocking and heartbreaking, and I certainly hope 2012 holds nothing anything like it.

Moving along (and skipping a few points, or I'll never get done with this!)...

What are the top ten themes of 2010 for my family?
Ten! How about one? I've posted about how Scarlett's birth (albeit in 2010) was one that helped us choose faith over fear, and the whole of 2011 really was about that for - faith over fear. The year began with questions about Scarlett's health and future, and we found great comfort in choosing faith in that situation...and then great joy in discovering that she was perfectly healthy after all. Then the situation with our house in SC didn't go as planned, and spiralled downward until it went into foreclosure. That obviously wasn't supposed to happen! We still don't understand the plan there, and we certainly wish things we going down a much different path...but we still choose faith in God's providence over fear. In that, as well as in other situations this year, we don't claim to have achieved a perfect attitude of faith, but it's something that has grown our family by leaps and bounds this past year. May it continue to do so in this new year...but may God also have mercy in his teaching methods!

Happy New Year, everyone!

In Which the Grinch Speaks

2011-12-11T11:10:00.003-04:00

Several weeks ago I posted about how we abstain from Halloween celebrations of any kind. So it should come as no surprise that we also don't do the Santa thing during the Christmas season. *Gasp!*

I know - we're the Grinch-y adults in all the Christmas movies who "don't believe" and who contribute to the horrible vortex into into which all the Christmas spirit is apparently disappearing. Don't we believe in magic? Don't we believe in joy? How could we deprive our children of this essential part of childhood? Now I have to say, once again, that it's both interesting and frustrating to me that it seems acceptable to pose these kinds of questions to those who abstain, but it is practically unthinkable to challenge in reverse. Even those of us on this side of the practice feel we need to handle the issue very, very carefully. We don't want to offend. We don't want to burst the bubble for anyone else's children. And yet, few people have qualms about saying, "What? You don't believe in Santa?", often in the presence of our children.

We strive to deal with all matters "with gentleness and respect," so we would never encourage or condone our children in mocking other family's practices and beliefs, or in making it their determined goal to set the Santa record straight among their friends. But I will say that I would also never ask them not to say out loud that Santa isn't real. It is not our responsibility to help anyone perpetuate deceit, and however it's wrapped in all things magical and sacred to the wonder of childhood, this is a deceit. I'm not attacking anyone personally here, so I don't wish anyone to take it that way, but also, I won't apologize for speaking the truth, and for defending our choices.

So I suppose that's one primary reason we don't go the Santa route. It's a deception, rather elaborately packaged, and there's no way for us to make a conscious choice to begin such a lie in our family. Another is that it doesn't actually appear to have any redeemable quality that could possibly contribute to our celebration of Christmas. We realize that some Christmas traditions do have their roots in pagan culture, and some of those , we still incorporate in our family traditions. We only adopt those forms that we feel can have new and valuable meanings under our belief system, and that works for us. For some people, even that's not acceptable, and we completely respect their choices. For us, there's just nothing redeemable about Santa.

Now, we try not to make a huge deal about this, and we don't have a problem watching some movies about Santa (hey, we LOVE Elf here!), and we don't forbid songs which include Santa.
That's probably inconsistent of us, I know, but that's the way it is. I guess we feel that if we tried to eliminate any mention of Santa altogether, we would create a forbidden fruit type of situation. At any rate, this means that the other day, Ryan was stuck on the song "Santa Clause is Coming to Town." "He sees you when you're sleeping/ He knows when you're awake!" he sang as he walked by me at one point in the day. I smiled and said, "That's kind of a creepy thought." Ryan stopped and said seriously, "Well you know, that's really about God. God always does see you." And I, remembering something I had read in my Bible that morning, replied, "That's true. And you know what is really neat? Santa only gives us gifts when we're good. God gives us gifts because He's good."

And that for us is where we're always trying to direct our Christmas traditions and practices - toward celebrating the absolute goodness of God. How thankful we are that he has never rewarded us for our own worthiness! How grateful we are for his Son, of course, but also for the countless gifts He gives us daily simply because He is good. How completely, and thankfully, unlike the manipulative Santa figure.

You do your thing - but by faith! Do it because you believe it to be the right thing, not just the thing every one else does! - and we'll do ours.

Merry Christmas!

"...We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy." Daniel 9:18

Some Feel-Good Tidbits...

2011-11-19T15:41:00.002-04:00

My boys are definitely ALL boy - the rough-and-tumble, energtic, roll-in-the-dirt, and loud variety. but sometimes they can still melt my heart.

Ryan told me a couple days ago, out of the blue, that the way to treat a horse is to use a "soft hand, a firm voice, a sunny attitude, praise and reward." He heard it from one of his Magic Treehouse CD's - the series he listens to for hours on end - but the way he said it, so assuredly and sweetly, he made me sigh happily. Every once in awhile, I ask him to repeat it for me, cherishing the sound of his little-boy voice say things like, "sunny attitude." Maybe it's just me. Probably you had to be there to fully appreciate it.

But it should be easier for everyone to understand the impact of Drew's comment over dinner. We were talking about the code of chivalry, specifically about the "women and children first" policy embraced by most of the men on the doomed Titanic. Aimee was saying that she didn't like how that seemed to make women "weaker" - she's going through a bit of a feminist stage, it seems - and so eventually I asked her what she thought the standard should be instead. This was a little tough for her, as she is just discovering at this point in this point in her life that it is quite easy to make sweeping philosophical statements, but another thing altogether to back them up. At any rate, after thinking it over, she said that maybe it should be "families first." Drew, who had been silent up to then, chimed in seriously, "Families should stick together. Because you wouldn't want someone to survive, just to live the rest of their lives in sorrow."

He really said that. And I really choked a bit on the bite of food I had just taken, and my eyes really did start to tear up right then and there.

Today they acted, sounded, smelled just like boys. And I love every inch of their dear little selves.

In Which We Broach a Touchy Subject

2011-11-01T08:03:00.002-03:00

"We don't celebrate Halloween."

The way many people react to that statement alone, you'd think we had said something like,

"We never let our children get within ten feet of candy," "We don't believe in letting them have fun," or "You're evil."

It's tiresome. We have family and close friends who celebrate the holiday in various fashions, and I think most of them respect our decision not to, the same way we respect their decisions, but this is still such a tricky (no pun intended) subject that those who abstain feel the need to walk on eggshells around it. It's hardly safe to make the above statement alone, much less to explain why, without people getting defensive.

For several reasons, this year seemed to be a harder one than others for my kids. They really wanted to know - again and again - why we don't do it, and can't we PLEASE?? So while we don't usually do anything at all on Halloween, I looked around for some kind of alternative event. After all, I have no objection to dressing up in costumes, having fun, or...ok, it's true. I do think candy is probably of the devil! But my kids still get to have some now and then. At any rate, I looked, and I found plenty of trunk-or-treat events, but no fall festivals or anything else completely removed from the trick-or-treating category. Still, I suggested that we might go to one. I didn't want to be legalistic and have the kids eventually become resentful.

But it never quite sat right. We believe that "...whatever does not come from faith is sin," so we feel like we need positive reasons to do a thing that might be considered a "gray" area. We have abstained from Halloween in the past because we believe that the festivities currently associated with it are too attached to the holiday's origins, and have no redeemable qualities. As I considered whether we could do something this year that we had previously not done, for those reasons, I went through all the reasoning for why we might do it, and it amounted to the following:

...The kids wouldn't feel left out.

...It would be fun.

...It's not necessarily "bad."

None of those are "from faith" reasons, particularly the last one. Just because something has an apparent absence of evil certainly does not make it a good thing. In fact, for us, it would be an unfortunate compromise of what we believe to be true, and therefore a decidedly bad thing. Actually I think the Bible uses a stronger term. It would be sin for us.

A few days ago, I also read this from Vision Forum, and it re-affirmed what we already knew to be true for us, and my mind was all the more made up. Dave and I talked it over again, and he felt the same way, and so just a couple days ago, I broke the news to the kids, bracing myself for the worst. In fact, I told them that I knew they would probably be angry, and that was ok. It was my fault for beginning to lead them down one road, and then abruptly changing directions. But they surprised me by shrugging it off and saying they didn't mind. When I told them that we had decided to do a Reformation party (of sorts) instead, and that we would have cake, balloons, and games to celebrate Martin Luther's birthday, they were excited. After dinner last night, we played Jenga and Twister (the latter of which caused hysterical laughter and fun), then cake while I read a little about the Reformers from The Church History ABC's, and the central theme was summed up well by the last statement about the last one we read about, "The Bible tells us everything we need to know, from A to Z." And with that, the night was over. It was easier than each of us thought, and the kids went to bed without any regret about missing anything. Dave and I went to bed with clear consciences.

I realize that just by posting this, I am risking bristly reactions. I am certainly not saying anything about anyone else's reasons for celebrating Halloween. As I said, we have family and friends who do. We assume that they do so "from faith." We don't get defensive when they talk about their Halloween plans. We wouldn't get defensive if they even explained their reasoning for their freedom to celebrate. But I confess, we do become weary from feeling like we can't even say that we don't, much less explain why, so that's all this post is.

Although....I still think candy is evil!

In Which Sometimes It's Not as Hard as You'd Think...and Sometimes It's Exactly LIke That

2011-10-28T22:50:00.003-03:00

"I just don't know how you do it!"

I hear this kind of comment not frequently, sometimes as a way of communicating "You're nuts!", and sometimes as a way of posing the question for informational purposes - "How do you do it? "It's enough work to handle the three [or whatever] kids I have, and you have five! And you homeschool them?" And my typical answer is, "We just do it. We've got them, so we just do what we have to do. It works out." When people ask how we homeschool such a crew, my line is that it's not as hard as people think.

And that's mostly true. Someone once asked me where I did school with the kids, and when I appeared a bit confused, she went on, "You know...are they all sitting around a table?" I realized that many people have this idea of a "typical" eight hour-school day, with mom as a typical teacher, instructing several grades all at once, which in truth does sound ghastly, not to mention impossible. No, I could never do that. Homeschooling - or at least our version of it, is quite a bit different, and I've posted about that often enough here. Anyway, that's pretty much true of having this number of children as well. When a pregnant mom of several young children asks me, with something akin to terror in her eyes, how I manage, and seem to do it so well, I know she's thinking that having five of the children she's got sounds impossible. I encourage her with the fact that there's good news. Nay, great news! They get older. They don't always need every single thing done for them. (Sometimes I have to remind them of this, but never mind that at the moment...) They go spend hours in their rooms because they want to. They go to sleep at night in their own beds and stay there. All night. And when it comes to homeschooling them, they can do many things on their own. For that matter, even when they are little and need more attention, that's some of the best - and easiest kind of homeschooling. It just involves lots of reading, looking at caterpillars, and playing. Lots and lots and LOTS of reading and playing.

So it's probably not as hard a prospect as they envision. Also, when they look at me and think, "Wow - she's doing it so well," their vision is perhaps not quite clear. It's a nice compliment, truly, and I do appreciate it when out in public it appears that we're doing some things right. Yay! (And I know that even in actuality, we are doing some things right.) But sometimes the appearance of success and "she-has-it-togetherness" can be misleading, and unfortunately so. What I don't talk about enough are days like today. Tonight I talked to a mom interested in having a number of kids and in homeschooling, and it would probably not have been the most encouraging thing to say to her, "You know, it's all not so hard as you might think... except on days like today, when, frankly, I wanted to lock the kids of my bedroom, crawl under the covers and, stay there until their father got home. We're all wearing smiles now, but an hour ago, tempers were flaring, no one liked each other, and my house looked like a bomb hit it. Hardly any "school" got done because no one would pay attention to me, and I was failing at getting them to obey me...hey, I was pretty much failing at being a good mom, period. My crowning achievement this afternoon was that I presided over everyone surviving it."

It might have scared her off, but if she does have a large family and does decide to homeschool them, it might have actually been good to have been able to retrieve the memory of someone essentially saying, "Sister, we're all just doing the best we can. Sometimes it looks nice, and sometimes it looks pretty ugly. That's normal. You're normal. You're not failing."

I keep a friend's baby a couple days a week, and when she comes to pick him up, she gets to see us at the time of day that is often the most messy and chaotic. Periodically I thank her for seeing us at our most "real," and still choosing to be our friend anyway! I think it would be beneficial if we all got a peek at each other's "real-ness" now and then. Certainly those who saw mine would know that often I am hanging on by a slender thread of sanity some days! And in seeing that, either they would realize that I'm not quite so amazing and feel encouraged...or they would be confirmed in their belief that having and homeschooling five children is in fact an impossibly nutty thing to do.

Perspective...and the Lack Thereof

2011-10-22T09:14:00.002-03:00

I recently posted on Facebook about how homeschool kids may lack some perspective. Mine do, anyway. The other day I called up to them that it was time to come downstairs, and one of the older kids called back down inquisitively, "For what?"

Oh, I don't know. To start our day! To do some school - you know, that stuff we (try) to do five days a week. I know we're relaxed about it, but good grief, it does figure into our schedule enough so that I would think they would understand this is a recurring thing. But no, they still tend to act a little surprised when they discover (day after day after day) that once again, we have learning to do. My reaction to this ranges from baffled amusement to annoyance, the latter because I would love for them to understand that most of their peers get up at the same time each morning, get dressed, go the same building, then go the same classes at the same time, every day, pretty much all day. Maybe I'm having a "grass is greener on the other side" moment, because those kids probably complain a fair amount about it, but I wouldn't think they wake up regularly and say, "What? School again? Didn't I just do that yesterday?"

Of course, on the flip side, I am trying to make a statement that what we do here is NOT just "school at home." I'm not after the kids mimicking a typical school experience, so I don't really want to be throwing in their faces all the time the "if you were in school..." line. It might be nice if they had some perspective on their situation, and, if I'm honest, it might be nice if out of that perspective bloomed a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what they do have. And it might be nicer still if that caused them to get dressed, do their chores, and present themselves to me each morning ready to seize the day and learn.

Shhh. Stop laughing. Let me have this moment to dream.

Ok, back to reality...here's what I tend to hear instead,

"Why do we have to start school so early? [at 9:30] Aren't we going to have any time to [read, ride bikes, build with LEGOs, etc, etc] first?"

Upon finding one of my children still in their pajamas at a time in the morning when I would have expected something different..."Why are you not dressed?" Child - "You didn't tell me I had to get dressed." Oh, right - silly me! I thought maybe after nine years of living you might have assumed that's just what we do in the morning.

With dramatic sighs - "What do you treat us like slaves?" This from my six year-old, who does collectively a whole 30 minutes worth of "formal" school each day. I just laughed.

If I start talking about the next subject as we're wrapping up the first subject of the day, "What? Aren't we going to get a break first?" Apparently since we must do school, the ideal schedule is 15 minutes of school, followed by an hour or so of breaks, and so on.

And since we're talking about breaks, this one really cracked me up, "We've had a two-hour break, and you want us just to start right back up instantly?"

A response to being posed arelatively simple math question, "Do you expect me just to say the answer immediately? Well, that's the goal eventually, yes dear.

It never ceases to amaze me that they haven't developed a set a more realistic set of expectations by now. Oh, but what's that you say? Maybe it's the mother who ought to have developed a more realistic perspective and set of expectations after 11 years of having children? I do have to remind myself that perhaps that's true. Perhaps I should expect the kids to act like kids - not to stay there, obviously, and not to get away with doing nothing at all - but it might at least help my attitude to remember that they're supposed to act like children. They can't possibly have a broad perspective on educational styles or any other aspect of life, for one thing, and for another, it's the job of all children to question, to push boundaries, to learn the ropes of life sometimes the hard way. And it's not my job to make sure they know how good they have it, but to gently, lovingly, and firmly guide them through each day. Eventually they'll get themselves dressed each morning without having to be reminded. I don't hold out too much hope that they'll come to accept daily learning and instruction, but it could happen!

In the meantime...[insert the sound of my cracking whip here]!

Play of the Game

2011-10-08T21:22:00.003-03:00

I should comment first on my ever so long absence from blogging. Dave was working in Savannah for the past three weeks (three weeks!), so I wasn't doing much else but...well, everything. Perhaps I'll post about our time in his absence, but I may just leave it with this summation - everyone ate relatively good food, we made it to places we were supposed to be (and usually on time), we did a fair amount of schoolwork, and the house wasn't a complete disaster by the time Dave finally came home. So I call that a success. But of course, we're also terribly glad to have him home again!

At any rate, today all three boys had their first flag football games, the two younger ones at our YMCA, and Drew at another nearby branch (for reasons that would take too long to explain and wouldn't particularly enhance this story). We decided that Dave and Aimee would take the younger ones to their games, and Scarlett and I would go with Drew, who actually had a double header. I'll take this moment to mention that I was dreading, just a bit, the idea of having a toddler (have I mentioned that she's walking now? Woo-hoo!), out on a field by myself for two hours, but I discovered that she was content to sit in my lap most of the time. At the end of it, I was just looking at her in grateful awe. For two hours this little miss just sat and looked at books and played with empty water bottles, never once attempting to run off anywhere. As I thought about it, I realized that my last two toddlers, and especially Chase, never once stopped for anything, and I had to spend their entire toddlerhoods chasing...er, following...them and pulling them down off dangerous heights. What fun that was! (I'm not being sarcastic. I really did appreciate their energy and daring, even though, admittedly, it was exhausting.) And what a blessed, beautiful relief that I'm not having to do that with the current toddler!

So I actually enjoyed my two hours watching Drew's games. Part of my enjoyment was supplied by his coach, who is an 18 year-old Y employee and who is one of the most SUPER PSYCHED people I've ever met. I hadn't met him before, because other Y employees had run Drew's previous practices, and this was the coach's first time meeting the team. I was a little taken aback by his hyper intensity at first, but as I sat watching the team with the other parents, we all began to laugh along with his antics, and eventually to appreciate his enthusiasm. Sure, it's probably a little over the top, but he taught the boys, encouraged everyone, made sure they all played the different positions and substituted fairly, and he was a lot of fun all the way around. Drew seemed to enjoy his coaching and the game in general, but occasionally he became frustrated with himself because he wasn't completing some of the flashier and exciting plays that I guessed he had been hoping for. He was also pretty hard on himself for mistakes he made and couldn't really get the perspective I tried to offer him when I assured him that everyone was making mistakes and it wasn't a big deal.

Toward the end of his second game, it was his turn to sit out for a few minutes, and he came to me rather upset. After listening for a minute, I told him (again) that I thought he was doing a good job and playing hard, but that I understood his frustration and that of course he could vent it - when he got home. I encouraged him quietly to take a deep breath and display good sportsmanship and a good attitude on the field, and to continue cheering on his teammates. To his credit, he nodded and took that deep breath. Just about then, one of his teammates got hurt and was escorted off the field in tears. It looked like Drew was going to have to go right back in, and I was glad to see him get up and walk toward the sidelines without hesitation.

But before he walked out on to the field, he stopped and turned to his injured teammate nearby.

He patted him on the shoulder and asked if he was ok. My mother's heart just melted a little and my
knees went a little wobbly. If I had been like his coach I would have bounded (yes, bounded) up and down, shouting, "YES! WAY TO GO! WHAT AN AWESOME PLAY!" But I didn't, of course. First of all, I'm not like that in general. Second, it would have embarrassed the living daylights out of Drew, who had informed me earlier that it was ok to cheer for his team but not for him personally (I think I messed up on that once or twice - oh well.) And third, I think it's best for all involved if good deeds happen with little fanfare. I did tell him afterwards that I was proud of him for it.Even if I had laid the praise on thick, though, I don't think he would have believed that it was worth so much more than the plays he had hoped to make. I think he was probably still a little disappointed with himself. But in my opinion - admittedly biased though it is - it was the best thing I saw happen all afternoon.

Way to go, Drew, for making the play of the game.

"You Don't Want Any of Those"

2011-09-19T17:05:00.003-03:00

Earlier this week the kids and I gathered around the dining room table to play the board game Life, which Aimee had borrowed from a friend and had been begging us to play. (Playing games of this sort are something of an adventure with the little boys...but that's another subject altogether!) We got started, and early on in the game, I got married, and soon after, had a baby boy. Yay! :-) But upon seeing this, Drew said matter-of-factly, "Oh, you don't want any of those." I asked him why, and he said, "Every once in awhile you land on squares that tell you to pay a bunch of money for each kid you have - they cost a lot of money!" And I was momentarily stunned, as I listened to my son unconsciously spouting one of the worst lies of which Satan has thoroughly convinced our culture -that "you don't want any of those, because they cost so much money."

We hear this sentiment all the time, usually expressed after the fact, as in, "Well, I guess it's ok that you have that many children...as long as you can afford them." (Thanks for the permission.!) Often complete strangers will say this kind of thing, and sometimes in not too veiled a fashion. But it's even sadder to me this notion is even espoused in Christian circles. We were in a small group once that studied and discussed a Christian parenting series, and I remember the sinking feeling I had when I glanced over one of the chapters and read that good stewardship should determine when a couple begins to have children, and how many they should have. I have trouble with this idea, because I don't see this anywhere in the Bible. "Be fruitful and multiply...but first do the math and make sure you can afford it!" Or, "Children are a heritage from the the Lord...just be sure you only have only the size heritage you can fit in your car."

Of course it's true that kids almost literally eat money. I'm not so sure that the boys wouldn't actually eat it if given the opportunity. With a houseful of children, it's true that the idea of ever having any "extra" money is pretty laughable. It's true that we have no idea how we're going to send five kids to college in the future, and even in the present, each year it's a struggle to let them do extras like sports and...well, anything! Guess how often we go to the movies! In fact, I'll admit here and now that we're not always sure how we're going to clothe them. We don't have a sufficient clothing budget for seven people, and as fall approaches and I look at wrists and ankles poking out of last year's clothes, and the shoes of very active boys literally falling to pieces, I'm not sure how everyone is going to get what they need. And after we do take care of their wardrobes, will Dave and I be hitting the mall for ourselves? Nope. So does this mean that we have more than we should have had? That we were bad stewards of what God gave us? Should we have done better calculations a decade ago and planned for only the number of kids we could keep fed, decently clothed, in sports leagues and music lessons, and eventually into good colleges?

First of all, I think it's a trifle arrogant and short-sighted to assume that you can know enough about your future to know exactly what you'll be able to afford. People with only two children lose jobs. World events and disasters of all kinds have taken families in one circumstance and thrust them into a completely different one. That which was true about life, suddenly wasn't anymore. So here we are in a society that has certain expectations for childhood and the path to successful adulthood, but who knows. College may be a reality in the next decade, and it may be the last thing in the world our children to which our kids can even give a thought. Maybe playing sports, taking lessons of all kinds, and getting a thorough education will have been incredibly important for success...and maybe none of it will have mattered. At the end of the day, the year, the decade...and the end of our lives and theirs, even if everything in the world remains unaltered, will all that have mattered? Will I look at my children and think, "If only I hadn't had 'so and so.' And 'so.' And probably another 'so.' Then the first ones could have had a real life." Or will any of them regret their existence, or begrudge each other existence, because they had to wear hand-me-downs and received too few sports opportunities? I really doubt it.

Second, the bottom line is that we can plan all we like, for things from being able to afford luxuries, all the way down to the essentials of a grocery budget, and the truth is that God provides these things. We are completely reliant on him, and if we think otherwise, we've been deceived. In Matthew 6 He says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." I certainly think this applies to providing for children, and I see no other indication that God asks us to limit our children in consideration of whether we can afford them for the entirety of their lives. We're not even to be worrying about tomorrow. "Life is more important than food." Children are more important than the sum of what they cost.

Third, children are people, not just "kids." And people in general are not just a number. I absolutely hate those commercials in which people carry around their "number," indicating the amount of money it would take them to retire comfortably. See points 1 and 2. Anyway, in that case, boiling life down to how much it takes to live it until you die is a rather depressing notion. Now, I obviously don't mean that we should never plan, never look ahead. We're supposed to be wise with our money, and being smart about saving is hardly a bad thing. But life is not just about numbers, and certainly the Bible talks about the dangers of money far more than about its benefits. Having a great deal of money is a much greater problem, biblically speaking, than having a great deal of children. And yet no one ever says, "Are you sure you should accept that raise?"

This isn't a pregnancy announcement! I don't know if we'll have any more children (and I certainly understand about times that are better than others to have another child - again, that's another issue, and one for which God has provided). If we don't, it won't be because we're worried about whether or not we can afford them. In answer to Drew's observation (which, of course, was perfectly innocent and only about the game), I would say, "Yes, we DO want some of those!" We're thankful we have a houseful of them. They're what we really can't live without.

In Control...or in Charge?

2011-09-18T13:36:00.004-03:00

So it seems that just in case I should start feeling too good about myself as a parent, one (or more) of my kids make sure I am taken down a notch or two. Humility is a good thing.

Today it was Chase. Dave wasn't able to be with me at church this morning, so I was flying solo in navigating everyone through the morning. We got there on time, and the Sunday School hour went well, but then I had to pick Chase up while Drew and Ryan went to Children's Church. Ryan's Sunday School teacher graciously allows Chase to come in with him, even though the Sunday School class officially starts with 1st grade, but he is not allowed in Children's Church, and I can understand that. It's a larger class, with a wider age range, and while Chase would probably do just fine, the leaders have no way of knowing that. Anyway, this is the point in the morning where we usually run into some trouble. Chase becomes angry, and when that happens, he tends to become uncooperative. Somehow I managed to get him downstairs, though, and we hung around in the atrium and had a snack while waiting for the service to start. I asked him if he thought he would like to go in his class - "They're going to be talking about David and Goliath today!", to which he replied, "Well. I've already heard that one." It didn't seem like he was going to be convinced, so I reminded him of our rule, which is that we don't require kids to go into their classes, but if they choose not to, they must sit quietly in the service with us.

I knew this was going to be dicey, though, since I already had Scarlett and knew she wasn't likely to make it past the singing anyway. But in we went, and only seconds later he began talking in a voice he knew was just a hair too loud. Then as the singing went on, he left my side and went to talk to Aimee (who, poor thing, was just along for this crazy ride), and then he went around her, just outside my reach, and perched himself on the back of the pew in front of us. I told him to get down, he initially did, but climbed back up, this time a little farther away from me, and I, recognizing the signs of a quickly accelerating downward spiral, indicated to him that we were going to step out. And he refused to come. So I laid hold of him rather firmly (with one hand, since I still had Scarlett on my hip) and insisted that he follow me. I began moving toward the exit, he began pulling against me, so the end result was that I made my exit from the auditorium literally dragging him behind me.

Well, no, to say that was the end result would not be quite accurate. I swung him up onto a chair in the hallway, and had to dodge a few attempted punches. Nice. I confess I looked up and down the hall hastily to see if anyone was watching this, and thankfully, they weren't. So I managed to get him off the chair and through another set of double doors to a hallway that would be more conducive to...ahem...discussing this issue. I sat him down in the hall. He ran away. I caught him before he got away again. To make a long story slightly less long and tedious, we'll just say that we repeated this a few times, and he even hit his sister in frustration. I kept returning him to the same spot in the hallway, against the wall, and repeated to him, over and over, that I loved him but this wasn't acceptable behavior. We weren't going anywhere, and we weren't playing any games. Eventually I had to hold him in my lap, until the beast within was finally, and inexplicably, soothed, and he became repentant. Without prompting, he hugged and kissed Scarlett and told her he was sorry. He stopped fighting and he became obedient.

But I would be lying if I said this wasn't embarrassing, if I didn't have to fight the temptation to discipline him in a public way so that any observers would know that I wasn't going to take this kind of thing, that it was an aberration, that I was in control. It reminded me, though, of conversations my friends in our playgroup in SC used to have, about the difference between being "in control" as a parent and being "in charge." We used to talk about how the desire to control kids, or at least to appear in control, often causes parents to make parenting choices that are ineffective and sometimes even quite bad. But of course we also talked about how it is important for parents to be in charge. Leadership and limits are important in the family dynamic.

I didn't do everything right in the scene I just described. I'm certainly not touting myself as a parenting expert here. I will say, though, that overcoming the temptation to try to be in control was helpful today. Being "in control" means I get to do whatever I want, and everyone else does what I want no matter what. Being in control in this situation would have meant Chase and Scarlett would have gone to their respective child care rooms, regardless of their feelings. It would have meant that even if they hadn't, everyone would have known that I was the parent and Chase was going to do what I said (right now, mister!). Being in control would mean breaking Chase's will, and probably reducing him to tears. Being in control would mean that I would not be inconvenienced or embarrassed - I would never lose face as a parent.

That, however, would have just been an illusion, because the fact was that I wasn't much in control of things. Chase had me cornered, and he knew it. I was severely limited in how I could handle things, and it was only the fact that I'm still bigger and faster (and stronger, but only by little!) that I managed to get him where I needed him. But I did need to take charge, and I was firm about setting and enforcing the limits when it came to his behavior. Taking charge also meant acknowledging that it was silly to have worn the tallest heels I own to church this morning, when I had to deal with everyone and everything on my own, and that letting Chase have a chocolate doughnut in between services was not a good idea. It meant that I had to let go of worrying about appearances, get down on the floor with him, and hold him until there was both repentance and reconciliation - even if it meant people watching might not have understood. Maybe they thought he I was letting him get away with what had happened. Maybe they would think I wasn't being a very good mother.

Being in control - or having that illusion as a parent - is about appearances. Being in charge is about being accountable as a parent. It's about understanding love (and that love includes limits and consequences), and about cultivating relationships. And today, it also meant knowing when to cry uncle. Sitting there on the floor of the hallway, I realized that I had two tired and hungry kids. I was still wearing those dumb heels which were at that point really beginning to pinch. We had been at church for a couple hours already, and it was time to go, so we got the other kids out a little early and came home for some lunch and quiet time.

Humble pie for dessert.

"No Fair!"

2011-08-20T12:39:00.004-03:00

In my humble and biased opinion, I have more than one good-looking child, and here's another of them. He has his own little quirks, some of which we understand and some, like in the picture to the left, are beyond our comprehension. He's not as wild as his younger brother, but there's certainly no mistaking the fact that he's about a million percent "boy." (My math-minded friends will hopefully excuse my shameless disregard for real math concepts.) He's also loving and helpful, when he wants to be, and can be extremely thoughtful and diligent in what he sets his mind to do.

But poor kid, if there was such a thing as luck, his would be of the decidedly bad variety. If there's something to trip over, he'll do it. If all the kids get a new toy, sure enough, his will be the one to break. If it can be lost, he'll loose it - forever. Point in case - for his birthday he got a nifty Lego set, and the very next day, he came to me saying (in something closer to a wail, actually) that he couldn't find the figures that went with it. "I'm sure we'll find it, Ryan," I insisted, but after looking in every possible location we could think of - under the couch and under the beds, in every nook and cranny that came to mind, even in the trash cans - I finally had to agree with him that it seemed he was the first person ever to really and truly have something disappear into thin air.

So perhaps it's this tendency that's led to his adoption of a new motto, or perhaps, as Dave insists from time to time, it's being "neglected" as a middle child - which I also insist is not remotely true. In any case, a new motto he has, and it's "No fair!" I can't count how many times a day we hear this, and frankly, I don't really have a solution for it, even though it distresses me to see him so distressed over the perceived injustices of life. Some may be real, and I do my best to help him through those, others... He's always had a bit of a tendency to ask the questions that will get a "no" answer. I've wondered if he does this on purpose, if it's some kind of twisted game mean to drive me out of my mind. When he was younger, he would wake up asking if he could have cookies for breakfast. What about popsicles? Ice cream? ANYTHING AT ALL THAT'S NOT A BREAKFAST FOOD???!!! PLEASE??? One way I got around this was to make him juice popsicles in ice cube trays, just so I could finally say, "Yes, you CAN have popsicles for breakfast!" and that seemed to help a bit. He also seemed to grow out of his intense need for whatever he didn't have, but he seems to have regressed a bit. It doesn't matter what he has or does, it's always the thing he doesn't have or isn't doing that he absolutely must have, and somehow I come across as the kill-joy. This morning he woke up with bounce-off-the-wall energy, asking for breakfast, and I rolled out of bed bleary-eyed and make pancakes with him first thing. His mouth still crammed with pancake, he asked if he could ride his bike on our cul-de-sac, to which request I said yes. Then he wanted his new shoes which were still in the car, and said yes, he could get them. But could he go see if his friends around the corner could play? No, it's too early. Could he watch TV? No, the remote downstairs wasn't working, and people upstairs were still sleeping. Could he, could he, could he....???? and he started to dissolve into unhappiness. "It's no fair!" I sighed and wondered if a little perspective about the good things he did get to do so far was too much to ask. Judging from his reaction, I gathered it was.

Add his siblings and "no fair" is almost like a reflex.

"He gets a bigger piece than me? No fair!"

"He gets the blue plate? No fair!"

"You gave him his drink first [a whole millisecond before mine]? No fair!"

"Why does he get to go over to a friend's house and I don't? No fair!"

"He'll get to do two fun things and I'll only get to do one? [Ryan keeps a record of these kinds of things.] No fair!"

Last night he walked into my room, where Drew and I were, and he said, "So what is HE getting to do NOW that's NOT FAIR?"

Talks about things gratitude and enjoying the things you have without worrying about everyone else are completely lost on him. He also seems to not hear me when I remind him of the time a couple weeks ago when he went with me to run some errands, and we had lunch out together, something no one else got to do. ("So see? Sometimes you get to do things they don't, and sometimes they do things you don't, but it's ok!" Nope. "But it's" - you guessed it - "no fair!") When last night Aimee went over to a friend's house to spend the night, he launched into yet another "no fair" session. "What?! She gets to go over to Hope's house and watch a movie and have fun? And all we get to do is be BORED and go to bed? No fair!" (Incidentally, I had never said this was the plan...) I tried a couple of different tactics here, including asking him if he really wanted to do exactly the same things as Aimee was going to do. Did he really want to have a night of giggling and playing Barbies? (Shh - don't tell Aimee I let it slip that she still does these things!) But he was determined that he was getting cheated somehow. Finally I just asked him what he thought would make the night "fair." He sniffed and said, "If we got to watch a movie, too." Easy enough. Let's do it. FAIR! So maybe there's a solution to some of these times - maybe getting him to express himself and form reasonable requests will help a bit. But there's also probably just the reality that learning to deal with life means learning to deal with things that aren't "fair." Then again, maybe it's also true that the ability to see injustice - everywhere and in everything - means that one day he'll be able to see injustice in the lives of others, and he'll have a heart for seeking to correct those things.

Whatever the case, it may drive me crazy right now, but I think he'll grow out of it...and he's still awfully cute! Shh - don't tell him that! He likes to think he's too old for that kind of thing.

The "Devil Angel" :-)

2011-08-20T09:46:00.002-03:00

"He's such a beautiful kid," a friend at the park observed recently, and it's not the first time someone has noted the striking good looks of our fourth child. And if I do say so myself, he is, in fact, just a gorgeous child, in all his blond-haired, blue eyed, golden-skinned, long-lashed glory. Positively angelic. In the metaphoric sense understood by popular thinking, of course, not in the actual sense of drop-to-ones-knee in-fear-and awe before a majestic heavenly being.

The latter sense may actually be more accurate in his case, however. My mother, in a very nice way, once remarked in amazement that he's like a "devil angel." So sweet to look at, and sometimes so absolutely charming...and other times just as devilish as you can imagine (and more!). The day I originally came up with this post, he had, among other things, emptied his drawers of all his clothes, thrown paper all over his room (and then cut much of it up into pieces), bit Scarlett for no apparent reason, put chocolate chips in our coin jar (after stealing the chocolate chips in the first place, and eating a fair number first), raided his older sister's room, and taken off on his bike around the corner to the neighbor's house without my knowledge (thankfully I generally know where to look for him when he can't be found, and this is one of the likely places). That was all in the morning. Other favorite activities are painting the walls (every once in awhile I come across a work of art previously undiscovered), locking all the bathroom doors (he thinks it's very funny when one of his siblings really has to go), and playing with the hose in the backyard - and just try to go get it from him! He also likes to wake Scarlett up from her naps, and when I go in to discover this, he looks at me with those huge blue eyes and insists it wasn't his fault. "Maybe she scratched herself," he'll offer, and plant an enormous and enthusiastic kiss on her cheek, which she accepts delightedly, because despite his wont for mayhem, he can also be most charming. To Scarlett he is (usually) exceptionally attentive and sweet. Even with his other siblings, he can be a terror, then suddenly turn around and do something thoughtful and kind. (Still, they've learned it's best to step lightly around Chase and not make him angry!) He likes to help, and in fact making sure he has meaningful jobs to do is one way of keeping him out of trouble, and when he wants to be, he can be incredibly loving. He likes to do things for other people, and in fact, recently, he put concerted effort and thought into drawing pictures for some relatives. For my grandmother, for example, he drew a very nice tiger - finished off with violent red scrawls to indicate that "he's being attacked. Make sure you write that, Mom."

He's wild and unpredictable. He's loud - so very, very loud. He's a daredevil. He pushes every last limit and boundary we set for him. Nothing about parenting Chase is easy. But yes, he's also just so awfully handsome, and one of his beaming smiles, especially with the way his eyes crinkle into those adorable half-moons, is worth it all.

Finishing What You Start

2011-08-15T17:23:00.004-03:00

Once when my sisters and I were young and being homeschooled, my mom started to read us a fairy tale called The Red Shoes. This, I think, was our first taste of the truth that the orginal versions of fairy tales are certainly not for the faint of heart. We read about the girl whose vanity led her to be forced (by an angel, no less) to dance continually in a pair of red shoes, and we paled in horror when she had an excutioner cut off her feet, in an attempt to escape her punishment. Alas, her feet just kept dancing away, and did so in front of her. My mom said, "This is awful...but we started it, and we should finish." And so we did, all the way to the end, where the girl is at last granted mercy, and her heart bursts with joy and gratitude. No, literally. Her heart bursts, and she dies. So there, vain children everywhere...beware!

Every once in awhile, we like to tease my Mom about this, asking her if she remembers The Red Shoes, because she always says, "I'm so sorry! I don't know why I thought we just needed to finish that!" Don't worry, Mom, none of us suffered any lasting damage, and finishing what you start is a good principle. But I think there can be exceptions, and The Red Shoes probably was one. More recently, the kids and I started Incident on Hawk's Hill, which sounded like it would be a pretty interesting story, based on true events, about a boy who is lost on the Canadian prarie for two or three months and is cared for by a badger. We made it about halfway through, when one night I skimmed ahead a bit to see if it would get...let's put this politely... slightly more exciting. Thus far it had been alternating between the badger's backstory and the boy's, and at the end of each chapter, I had been saying, "I think they'll meet in the next chapter! Won't that be interesting?" trying to pump up the non-existent enthusiasm of my listeners. So upon reading further after the kids had gone to bed that particular night, I discovered that the boy and the badger finally did meet, and that it really was fascinating how the badger provided for the boy. However, I should have thought about how that would happen, because the boy's fare under the badgers provision consisted of raw meat and eggs..in fairly graphic detail.

So I decided then that while usually it's best to start what you finish, but sometimes it's not a bad idea just to summarize. The next day I told the kids that hooray! - not only did the book have a happy ending, which I briefly outlined for them, but that we didn't have to read it anymore. They were finally excited!

Social Butterflies...and The Eggs from Which They Didn't Hatch

2011-08-15T13:52:00.002-03:00

My friend Lisa recently posted on the oft-discussed topic of socialization. It seems so odd to me that this is still an issue for people, but I can attest that it's a question still asked of homeschoolers. And it's been answered by more than one generation of homeschoolers by now. It's not a problem! Yes, there are some socially awkward homeschoolers, just as there are plenty of socially awkward people from all kinds of educational backgrounds, but for the most part, homeschoolers don't have any trouble interacting with society. I was in a group once in which someone gave their opinion that homeschooling was great for some children, but absolutely wrong for others. The example she gave to back this up was of a bright and friendly student whose parents decided to homeschool her, but when the woman saw her again a year later (on one occasion) she was withdrawn. Ipso facto, homeschooling causes social butterflies to wither away, right?

So as my friend noted, children in homeschool families can in fact still be very social, and I can back her up on that. Unless they're holed up in the house 24/7 (which would be virtually no mother's choice, I can assure you), those social butterflies find people to engage in conversation. That has never worried me, nor does it surprise me now. What does sometimes amaze me - in a reassuring sort of way- is the way kids' personalities are such strong forces all the way around that they shine through even when they're mothered and taught by someone with a very different sort of personality. I used to worry a little that my more reserved (and some might say, almost reclusive) personality would affect my children's social life. I've worried at times that my fears and inhibitions would transfer to my kids. I definitely didn't know what would come of suffering from a severe anxiety episode and (diagnosed after the fact) postpartum depression for the entire first year, and more, of my fourth child's life. While I know that stress can affect the whole family, it's been a relief to realize that my children are their own souls entirely. Their personalities are amazingly resilient, and I've loved watching them blossom as unique individuals.

I am decidedly introverted, confrontation-shy, and non thrill-seeking. I've come to embrace those things as just who I am, instead of apologizing for them. By the way, world of extroverts, it's so unfair to keep telling those introverts to be something they're not. They can't "lighten up" or just "have more fun." They don't want to! They thrive in different ways, and that's ok. At the same time, it delights me that my oldest daughter, who is like me in many ways, is just the opposite as far as the traits I described. She likes being around people, even if she doesn't know them all. When she had an issue with a couple of her friends not too long ago, and just talked to them frankly but kindly (I think) about it, she was positively inspiring. She went to King's Island yesterday and rode every just about single jaw-dropping, turn-upside down in every-which-way kind of ride they had. Drew is quieter (and shares my feelings about roller coasters), but has the neatest ability to strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere. And tell them everything about just about everything. There isn't a shy or inhibited bone in his body, I think. At the fourth of July parade, he began talking easily with the couple next to us, who had two dogs with them. He talked with them almost the whole time we were there, about all kinds of things. One of the dogs was a therapy dog, so he started telling them everything he knew about how petting dogs can relieve stress. The man was some kind of scientist, which led Drew to mention that hydrogen was lighter than helium, and he and the man talked about the Zeppelin for a while. I have no idea how he knew either one of those facts...or how talking with complete strangers comes so naturally to him. Ryan and Chase, for that matter, are no less at ease talking with anyone they come across, grown-ups and children alike. And Chase, for the record, emerged from that first year of his life unscathed. When I was pregnant with Scarlett, my midwife would often shake her head and laugh when she saw him, saying that she didn't think he would ever have any psychological hang-ups. From his emotions to feats of daring, he holds nothing back, and he shows no signs of having absorbed any of that anxiety I experienced when he was a baby.

I guess it's possible to alter a child's personality, to warp or stunt it, but I think that's very hard. I think it would involve much, much more than just being a different kind of person as their parent, or even being that person and keeping them home. In fact, with no offense to anyone who uses brick-and-mortar type of schools, it seems to me it would be harder to give children opportunities to let those personalities develop in such a one-size-fits-all environment, with interactions limited to a select few adults, and only a group of peers. So perhaps the socialization question is more of an issue for those families than for us (and I know there are families who do it well, so that's not a criticism). We get to watch our kids interact with us, each other, and all aspects of the great big world day to day, and we get to see them do it in ways we couldn't have planned or imagined. We celebrate each different facet of each personality, sometimes relating to a particular facet, and sometimes marvelling at uniqueness. Sometimes we know what to expect, but most of the time we're just hanging on for the ride!

A Day of Rest. Sort of.

2011-08-08T10:19:00.004-03:00

First, three things:

1. Saturday is still the Sabbath, not Sunday.

2. We do traditionally observe a day of rest on Sunday, not because of the Law (as per point #1, the true Sabbath would still be Saturday, anyway) but to observe the Lord's Day (although obviously, all days are his), and "anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his." (Hebrews 4 10). We don't follow any strict or particular rules about this day - we just set it aside in a general way.

3. Whatever the case, it's just really nice to have a day to rest and relax, to recharge for the week ahead.

Now just to get the kids on board. Have you ever noticed that kids don't "relax" well? It's taken us some time and many a frustrating Sunday to understand this fully and to relinquish the idea of a completely "do-nothing" sort of day. In the first place, they still need to be fed and cared for, and obviously the younger they are, the more of this needs to be done. Second, they still generate the same amount of mess on a Sunday as they do on any other day of the week, and the mess generated by a houseful of children (especially boys) is like a living thing - if you don't keep up with it, it will rise up and devour you. Try sitting around all Sunday and leaving it to its own devices. It gets very, very ugly. Third, kids seem to interpret "doing nothing" as boredom, and bored kids don't do much towards a peaceful day. In fact, a Sunday in which church only fills the morning (i.e. no evening services of any kind) can get rather long, leaving the parents of five young children more tired than when they started the weekend and maybe even eager for Monday. So over time we've finally figured out that a "day of rest" has to mean something a little different than...well, than an actual day of rest. This past Sunday we had some success in navigating through the day and turning it into a peacful day, if not one of complete relaxation. (Ahhh...maybe one day!) Here's what we did:

We went to church, including Sunday School, in the morning. I probably embarrased Dave by nursing Scarlett during our first time at the class for our age (which we fit into technically, but the jury is still out on whether we still count as "young marrieds" when we can't even remember what life was like when it was just the two of us!). At least I kept her from doing the nursing gymanstics that are her wont these days! At any rate, we went to the service after that, but I left with Scarlett even before the singing was over when she starting getting fussy, and while I was with her in the nursery, I saw Dave walk by with Chase, who was in a funk that started when Ryan wasn't allowed to go into his class with him that morning (he usually is). We didn't blame Chase for being upset, and even if we had, there's little one can do with him when he's angry and feeling uncooperative. Scarlett and I joined them in the hall, where Dave offered to watch both kids so that I could sit in the service. A few minutes later, I thought I heard Scarlett crying, and then Chase came through the double doors, whispering loudly, "Mom, Scarlett needs you! She has a dirty diaper!" After I went out and took care of that, the four of us were sitting in the hallway, and I suggested we just call it a morning at that point, so we gathered the rest of the kids and went home a little early.

We had lunch, and Scarlett settled down for a short nap, then Dave took the boys to the Y to swim. This sounds easy enough, but it was preceded by about an hour of, "Get your bathing suits," "I can't FIND my bathing suit!" "Where are the towels? Do we have any clean towels in the house at all?"...until they finally made it, and enjoyed about an hour there. Scarlett woke up just before they left, but we still had a girls' quiet time at home. We played a little, and made some homemade granola bars for an afternoon snack (subsituting peanut butter for the honey, and adding chocolate chips). When the boys got home, we all went out to the backyard, where Scarlett enjoyed a dip in her kiddie pool, I sat down with a book (which I hastily put away in a safe place after Chase dumped a bucket of water in my lap!), and Dave and the other kids played corn hole on the set Dave made. (This also sounds easy enough, but with a fiercely competitive oldest child, a second child who does his best to hold his own, and two younger boys who like to play by their own rules, this can get interesting. And sometimes loud.) Afterwards, we moved back inside, where Dave and the kids watched some baseball, and Scarlett and I entertained ourselves in various ways until it was time for dinner. After dinner clean-up we decided to go for a bike ride. Upon arriving home and realizing it wasn't too far from bedtime, Dave and I congratulated ourselves for having survived another Sunday, and all in a relatively pleasant way.

So what do you do to make your Sunday a good one?

Going Against the Flow...As Usual!

2011-08-07T13:48:00.002-03:00

So let's get controversial today! Just for fun.

We have almost always struggled with the idea of age-segregated worship in church (or, for that matter, strict age segregation anywhere), and it's been on my mind even more recently. A few weeks ago, I watched Divided, a documentary on the subject that is decidedly anti- age segregation. Now, I will say that I think I'm not convinced that age-segregation is the cause of kids abandoning the church and the faith, but I think it runs parallel to the problem and is a reflection of what's going on. I'm also not (yet) convinced enough to make a decision on churches based solely on how they view this issue. Even the fact that I lean heavily toward the family integration side doesn't mean that I believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak, and getting rid of all children's and youth programs. I think kids do enjoy spending some time with their peers, doing activities as an age group, and that's probably true the older they are.

But occasionally the issue resurfaces to the forefront of my thinking, and these are the problems with which I grapple:

1. It seems that the first thing age segregation does is to began to tug at family relationships and roles, causing uncertainty and, ultimately, division. Once a program is in place for children and youth, it's decidedly more convenient if everyone goes where they're supposed to go. If there's a relationship, for instance, in which a baby or young child is not ready to be separated from the mother, this is a problem for the system. The mother feels uncomfortable taking the baby along with her, or in going along with the baby, and people in either situation are not quite sure what to do with the pair. Purely hypothetical scenario, of course... As children get older, the system tends to subtly usurp some parental roles and responsibility, rather than to focus on assisting the whole family spiritually.

2. Age segregation doesn't take into account anything but age. It doesn't take into account maturity levels, siblings and other family dynamics, or anything but...age! Since homeschooling generally relies more heavily on those other factors, rather than age, this puts us slightly against the flow. (So what's new?!)

3. Age segregation, along with segregating by life stages or any similar grouping, can perpetuate the generation gap(s). How can we learn from each other, if we're never together?

But, even as I say this, I don't have the solution. And just because I have these concerns doesn't mean I'm for or against any side (although, again, I have strong leanings in particular areas). So, simply for the sake of good discussion, of gleaning good ideas and encouragement from both sides of the topic, I'm curious to hear respectful and carefully phrased thoughts on this subject. Any takers?

It's All Good. Still.

2011-08-06T14:34:00.005-03:00

When I've been pregnant with each of my children, we've speculated about what they were going to look like. After four blond-haired, blue-eyed children, each with a stamp of dominant family genes that marks them unmistakeably as siblings, we laughed when this question came up the fifth time. We thought it was pretty obvious what she was going to look like - but then she was born, and some of her physical characteristics took us a bit by surprise, and, in fact, even concerned her doctors to some degree. Then it became apparent that she wasn't even going to be a blond-haired, blue-eyed Meester baby, but a brown-haired, brown-eyed one. She was different than the baby I expected...and in the course of her first year, I realized that I loved her not only despite of those differences, but actually for everything she is and for the way God made her. In March I posted about my journey towards that realization.

In that post, I explained that when she was seven months old, she was tested for a particular condition that might explain some of her differences. We had come to terms with the idea that she probably had it, and that it was really ok, that it didn't matter as far as our love and acceptance of her. And then it turned out that she didn't have it after all, which was cause for celebration for us. Still, in the back of my mind, there lingered questions about why she might have some characteristics that were so different that what I had seen in my other children. And as she grew, and in fact grew in a completely different pattern than the others had, those questions persisted. Still faced with a collection of these things, along with her very petite size, we agreed with her pediatrician that perhaps we should do a more thorough test that might be able to find even the smallest abnormalities. We had the blood drawn last month, and I waited for the results with little anxiety, but still with a feeling that there would be something, even if it was just a slight deviation.

When the results came in, they showed that at least as far as her chromosomes go, she is completely normal!

I admit that even in my happiness, I was a little surprised, because that means I am left with still not knowing why she has some traits that are so different from her siblings. But more importantly, I am left with a smart, happy, and loving brown-eyed beauty, and as I process these latest results, I just have to smile and accept, hopefully towards the betterment of my mothering, that I won't always be able to understand everything about my children, and that they may deviate from - and exceed - my expectations.

Aimee, for instance, is taller and longer-limbed than I was at her age. She is also fearless and spirited. She loves rollercoasters...and I don't know where that came from!

Drew has a math mind, which certainly didn't come from me! He likes facts and trivia, and aways surprises me with what's going on in his mind. The possibilities for his future intrigue me.

Ryan likes details, and he likes to collect (i.e. hoard!) all kinds of things that I often think aren't worth much...but he has sensitivities and insights that amaze me.

Chase - who, by the way, has two webbed toes on each foot, and who knows which distant ancestor he inherited that from! - is a fascinating, infuriating, exciting, and exhausting mix of a mischeivous daredevil with a charming soft heart. I never know what's around the corner for him, even from day to day!

And Scarlett. Scarlett, who is so much smaller than my other four kids, and who is built a little differently in some ways. Scarlett who gives us such joy each day that it makes my heart ache sometimes. Scarlett who loves life, and only knows that she's happy to live it, not that there might be things about herself and her life that perhaps can't be explained. Perhaps they'll create challenges for her...but perhaps they won't. Maybe as she grows they'll become less of an issue. And even if they don't, it's quite likely she'll surprise me with how she'll deal with them.

She's not me, after all. She's not simply the product of my expectations, and none of my kids are. It's always fun to see things in them that I know came from me, that I can understand. But it's also amazing, stretching, deepening, to see those things that I can only say come from Him, and for reasons only He knows at present. It's humbling to give my kids to Him - over and over - and to trust Him for their future, and to thank Him for who they are, and everything they are, in the here and now.

Science, Spelling, and the Odds and Ends!

2011-08-04T17:00:00.002-03:00

Science
For Science, we just began using the God's Design series from Answers in Genesis last year, and I really like it. It follows the same four year-cycle as recommended by The Well-Trained Mind, so last year (our ancient history year), we did God's Design for Life, and we're still finishing that up, since I refuse to leave things unfinished just because we're moving up a grade. We have plenty of time to "catch up," if we need to. The series includes fun worksheets and activities, and less fun tests (but Aimee, again, likes this kind of thing, so I have her do them, even if just in open-book style). Most recently, we studied the blood, and we did the recommended activity in which we made "sample" blood. It served its purpose remarkably well, since the kids still talk about it, and remember all the parts of the blood. Still, though, science isn't a consistent thing here. I try to do it about twice a week, but if things get busy, it's one of the first things to go. But at this point in the kids' education, I'm not too worried about formal science study. I think that at this point, they get plenty of what they need to know from observation of the world around them and from the extensive reading they do.

Spelling

We use the Spelling Workout series, and Aimee, being the workbook kind of girl she is, just goes through the books at her leisure (and since it's less demanding than any other subject, it's one of the first things she'll pick if she gets a chance!). She does formal "spelling" about four days a week, for around 15 minutes a day. I have no complaints about her spelling in any of her writing, so I never give her tests. Because of Drew's aversion to workbooks, I can't just hand him the book . Usually I just call out the words from a list and have them spell them aloud, and if we get to a list in which the spelling rule proves a little tricky for him, I have him do one or two activities from that chapter. I've been blessed with good spellers so far, so spelling is not much of an issue here. I've noticed, too, that they've often been able to spell just a hair before they acquired fluent reading skills, and that's been true of Ryan as well. So during spelling bees, I also have him spell words that I know are in his range.

As for the "odds and ends," they range from the occasional the field trip to the co-op we'll be joining this fall. I'm excited about the latter, because it will give us regular interaction with local homeschoolers, and allow the kids to have some learning time away from me, which for certain of them seems important (and I don't take it personally!). Most of all, though, I don't think I could emphasize enough the fact that what we do here isn't just school done at home. For various reasons, public and private school classes are conducted in particular ways that don't have to translate into the homeschool setting. So if we have our impromptu spelling bees in the car on the way to a LLL meeting, spelling is done for the day (especially if we're so engrossed in what we're doing that I miss the exit and get to our destination 20 minutes late!). For that matter, if the kids are working on some side project concerning Star Wars or Percy Jackson, and I find papers ALL OVER THEIR ROOMS, with writing all over it in perfectly good spelling, I can skip certain spelling lessons altogether. I can do tests with those kids who like that kind of measuring stick, but I don't have to do "assessments" in math, because I'm assessing them as we go. And I don't have to worry if my eight year-old can't sit still. I know that eventually, he'll be able to sit. As we go through our day and learn the basic skills of respect, timeliness, and thoroughness in all kinds of areas, eventually, he'll be able to put that all together and apply it to whatever task is at hand, including tests in college. Or not. Maybe college isn't for him. But it doesn't matter - what I'm raising my kids for is not to do brilliantly in the best college, or to enter the workforce as a compliant worker. For the record, I think that if college is an option when they reach that age, they probably will go, and they'll do just fine, but I'm more concerned with living and learning in the moment with what God gave us, in the unique gifts he's given each personality.

Math, Music, Reading...

2011-08-04T16:06:00.004-03:00

Math
For Math we continue our love-hate relationship with Saxon Math, and I simply adjust it for the needs of the child. Aimee is capable of doing things closest to the way they're "supposed" to be done, although I do allow her to do only half of the "mixed practice" (odd number problems one day, even the next). Otherwise math could take up a ridiculous amount of time. That's the case with the earlier Saxon courses, too. Math 1 makes me laugh sometimes, as if I'm actually going to have even one child call out the time on the hour, every hour, and then do a "meeting," then a fact sheet, then an entire lesson. So I do an extremely customized version of Saxon - which basically amounts to going though the workbooks. I hardly ever consult the teacher's manual anymore, except on occasion to make sure there isn't a skill we might have missed (there usually isn't). Ryan is finishing up Math 1, and Chase, by his own request, is beginning Math 1, and is doing it well. We don't make a big deal of it - he just asks to do a page when everyone else is doing math, and by jiminy, he does it! He likes to make a big to-do over it, though, sighing and exclaiming, "I'm just terrible at Math. Argh!", but ignoring me when I remind him that he doesn't actually have to do it. Very funny. But anyway, back to the higher grades - Aimee is finishing up Saxon 65, which she began last year, and Drew is about halfway through 54. 54, however, requires the student to copy the problems down on his own piece of paper before working through them, and that's just too much for the highly distractible person Drew is. He doesn't have any trouble with the math itself, but would never get it done if I handed him the book and told him to do a lesson. So I do most of it by reading it to him, and having him tell me the answers aloud (since I am far from a math person, it always impresses me that he can do it this way!), and when I do want him to work through problems, I give them to him on a separate piece of paper.

Music

Aimee, thanks to some 11th-hour negotiating, is continuing her piano study, still under my instructions, since we're still too poor to afford outside lessons. But given the chance and the resources, I'll take her somewhere in a heartbeat. She's reasonably talented, and I think she could flourish under someone else's tutelage. Drew is still doing violin, although his attention issues are sometimes a barrier to pleasant lessons and practice. And he needs a new violin, but, alas, this is also outside the budget at the moment. Ryan has asked to begin lessons, so when we can remember to do it, I give him a lesson. We also listen to music and talk about composers and instruments, all usually in an informal way.

Reading
Let's see...we do a lot of it! The kids go through their own "fun" reading choices, which are usually just fine in themselves, but sometimes I'll ask them to read a specific book I want to make sure they cover. If I want them to read something for history or science, all I usually have to do is put it in the library basket, and it gets read! Something I would like to work on this year is having them do more writing from our reading selections. We definitely don't always do the pages for the "reading notebook" they're supposed to be keeping, according to The Well-Trained Mind - in fact, we rarely do them,although I feel like they can write (or narrate) reasonably well when I do have a chance to ask them do it, so I think we're ok there. Also we seem to have one continuous book club going on in our house, where books are always being discussed, I have no doubts that they comprehend what they're reading and can articulate about it quiet well. Very well. Over and over. And over. And over. You get the point. For those who are just learning to read, we are working through The Phonics Museum from Veritas Press. It was a worthwhile investment, as Ryan is now the third person to have achieved reading skills through it, and Chase has just begun to work through it. I know Susan Wise-Bauer doesn't particularly like reading programs like this, and frankly, I don't think all the activities are necessary, but, rebel that I am, I still like it! I think it's quite clear by this point that I like following general guidelines, but follow almost nothing by the book!

The Lost Art of Communing

2011-08-02T17:09:00.003-03:00

Once or twice a week, the kids go for the entire morning to a recreation program at a local park. It's fun. It's free. It's for all four older kids, who go and stay quite happily, playing games like Capture the Flag, and doing crafts. It's a no-brainer. Usually Scarlett and I enjoy the quiet at home, where she often takes a nap, and I spend a couple hours cleaning. At this point in my life, a couple hours of uninterrupted cleaning is like a gift, and I feel almost giddy with the peaceful freedom of it.

But it's still just cleaning.

I've thought about how I would like to just sit and enjoy a quiet cup of coffee instead, but every morning, there are dirty dishes staring at me, and umpteen loads of laundry calling my name, so I've never quite gotten around to spending one of these park mornings relaxing. Until today, that is, when a friend brought over her new baby, and no one had to twist my arm to leave the breakfast dishes in the dining room and just sit. We chatted. We laughed. I sighed over her sweet newborn boy as he nuzzled against her chest, or nursed contentedly, and she laughed as she watched my one year-old baby demonstrate her upside-down nursing skills, or babble and giggle. We shared funny stories and serious ones, commiserated with each other about motherhood, and communed as women.

I don't know about everyone else, but I hardly ever drop everything and spend two hours just visiting, just being. I suspect this is a lost art in the whole of our society, which is sad, because on a personal level, I wish it were more a part of my life. Today I found it restful for the body and refreshing for the soul, and I hope my friend heeds an open invitation to bring herself and her darling baby over anytime she likes!

Grammar, History, and Latin

2011-08-02T14:16:00.002-03:00

Grammar

Since I've already posted recently about how we typically do grammar, I won't dwell too much on it now. Drew and Ryan are both officially working their way through their respective levels of First Language Lessons, which I use mostly as a guide for what they should be studying at a given time. Aimee, who worked through the series in a more by-the-book way (which style she prefers), is now doing Rod and Staff's Following the Plan. She began level 5 late in our previous school year, so she's still finishing the book as we began this school year. I really love this grammar program, finding it very thorough and rather exacting. Aimee, of course, dislikes it for all the reasons I love it. But since I don't think it's at all too difficult for someone who reads on a 12th grade reading level (at least), and since it seems to jive with her learning style, I choose to overlook her objections - lovingly, of course. I think the only way she would enjoy grammar (or admit to enjoying it - frankly sometimes I wonder if some of our difficulties over this subject are all part of a grand charade, but that's another post entirely) is if it didn't exist as a subject at all. I, for one, like grammar, and have always liked things like diagramming. I do - so there!

History

We tend to build much of the rest of our learning around our history study, as it's one of our collective favorite subjects, and can encompass reading and writing (and therefore all the other language arts), art, and even things like science. For our history study, we use The Story of the World as our "spine," as well as The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia, and then, of course, we do all kinds of reading from whole books on whatever part of history we're studying. Now, I admit that when we first began going through The Story of the World, I was surprised that it was not based more strongly on a Christian perspective. Based on what I had thought I knew about its author, I would have expected some parts of it to be a little different. But that being said, I also know that if I try to find curriculum that lines up exactly with my convictions, I will have to look for a very long time. I could probably something that I might like better, but at this point, since I have all the books and activity books as well, I am (again - since I think this has come up before) too cheap to do a curriculum overhaul. So as I do with the rest of our books, I take what I can from what I have, and make whatever adjustments I see fit. That's also why I do a select few of the activities in the activity books, but snicker - nay, guffaw - when I see things like "Making a Sand-Cube Pyramid." Sand, glue...three boys...nope, not happening. So I use the activity book, as well as the Veritas Press and Sonlight catalogs, for reading suggestions and for other ideas that can help us in our history study. In the past few weeks, we've been doing a review of last year's study of ancient times, even doing some of the activities we didn't have a chance to do during our crazy year (except for the sand-cube pyramid!). This week we'll move on to the Middle Ages, which is what we'll be doing for the rest of the school year.

Latin (and other Languages)
"It is the parent or teacher who occasionally struggles with this course. But if you discipline your mind to master this material, then your child will master it also. If you do not have the discipline to really learn Latin, then your child will not have the example he needs" from Latina Christiana Book 1 Teacher's Manual (p. 71)

G U I L T

Here's the truth of the matter. Aimee knows more Latin then I do. I know I need to have some idea of what she's doing, but -perhaps unfairly - I do expect her to learn some vocabulary lists, when I know I don't have to memorize them all myself. And then sometimes when I realize that we haven't had covered something as thoroughly as we should have so that she can do a particular section of her workbook, I let her use the teacher's manual. My goal for the kids in their Latin studies is not for them to have a complete mastery of Latin (although they can pursue that if they wish), but just to have a basic understanding of it, as well as a boost for understanding vocabulary and language in general. Aimee is just wrapping up Latina Christiana 1 (we've been doing for some time, but have had to start and stop several times because of everything going on), and Drew is just beginning it this year. For Drew, though, I allow him do most of the workbook orally. At this point in his life I don't see a need to make his education long and tedious simply because he has a hard time focusing in front of pencil and paper. If he can tell me the answers out loud in 10 minutes, whereas it might take him an hour or more to get something done on paper, I almost always prefer it that way.

In the "other languages" category, we're all using Rosetta Stone Homeschool this year, and loving it. Aimee has wanted to learn Spanish for a long time, but I have some background in French, so this year I decided just to get both. Aimee is plowing away diligently at Spanish - she loves getting on the computer and going through the lessons at her own pace, and she's doing very well at it. Drew is learning French (and I'm going through it as well, to refresh my memory), and even the little boys occasionally get on and do a little of either language. We love, love, love this!

Art, Bible, and Cursive

2011-08-01T08:46:00.001-03:00

You didn't ask for it, but I thought I would break down by subject what we're doing for school so far this year.

Art

I've listed Drawing with Children on our curriculum lists for the past few years, but that's usually a technicality. We often start on it, and love the results, but never make it past the first few chapters. With all due respect for Ms. Mona Brooks, I don't quite believe that just anyone can draw if they just have the right attitude, and therefore I don't believe just anyone can teach drawing. I don't know what she means sometimes when she refers to "One hour of instruction." What kind of instruction? Be more specific please!" When she is more specific, we do just fine, but as my kids have pointed out, we've drawn that darn lion about a million times now. We've been able to use some of her general techniques for drawing from graphics, but we tend to get frustrated and give up when we get to other chapters. I haven't given up on it completely, and I still officially include it in our curriculum, but this summer we started out with something else. I've also had How to Teach Art to Children for a few years, and we've done a few things from it, but have never worked through it as systematically as I hope to this year. So far it's been a fun and relatively easy way to say we've done art for the day, and the kids have had some neat results from some of their projects. One of the last ones they did dealt with shape, in which they used paper shapes to make a design on a piece of paper, and then they had to draw the design they made on another piece of paper. When we looked at some of the finished products, I told the boys their pictures looked - in a good way! - like something Picasso might have painted, so then we looked up that artist and his works in one of my favorite finds for the school year (and probably beyond): Art: 2, 500 Works from Cave to Contemporary. I bought it because it was recommended by Veritas Press, and while I'm a little surprised they didn't include a disclaimer about some of the artwork, I love this book, and I love that I found it for a really great price on Amazon.com. We've used it quite a bit already, often in conjunction with history, since it presents artists and their art in chronological fashion. All told, we do some form of "art" about 3 times a week. We probably won't be able to maintain that kind of frequency, but we're going to run with what works for as long as it does!

Ryan, by the way, did not take being compared with Picasso as a compliment. Oops.

Bible

This is the year I finally bought the Bible cards from Veritas Press, after having meant to for a long time, and I really love them. We've always done Bible stories and other Bible readings, but I've wanted to make sure we were getting a solid base of Biblical history and events, so I'm glad we're finally doing these. The set comes with a CD-ROM, which includes worksheets for each card, and some of the kids have enjoyed doing those, although I don't require them for everyone. The important thing is that two or three times a week, usually over dinner, we read a card, ask the review questions, and put it up on our dining room wall, which, along with alphabet cards and various artwork, is gradually starting to look like the dining room of the Cheaper by the Dozen family (the father of which taught his children Morse code by scribbling messages all over the dining room walls - a homeschooler at heart, if not in exact practice!). At any rate, we also try to read a Proverb a day, Bible stories at night, and I've also printed out various verses about loving one another in various locations around the house. Not very subtle, I know! I'm probably most excited, though, about the venture my older kids will likely get to experience this fall in Bible quizzing. There's not a good link for this, and it's hard to summarize, but suffice it to say that this year they will be learning large portions of Hebrews and 1 and 2 Peter (for my quizzing friends - it's not the whole thing, because they'll be doing junior quizzing), then meeting with other quizzers once a month for fun competition. I did it for three years as a high schooler (and I did Hebrews one year!), and it was truly one of the best things I ever did.

And one more...

Cursive

We use Classically Cursive, and Drew just began learning it at the end of last year. It's not his favorite subject by any means, so I keep his practice at it very short. Aimee does about 10-15 minutes a day, and I've begun to ask her to do at least some of her writing for other subjects in cursive. I've seen and heard from various sources about how cursive is considered obsolete in some areas and is no longer taught. Personally, although I'm not a stickler for perfect handwriting, I think it's still a good discipline and will continue to insist on it. (I do, of course, also see the need for developing good typing and computer skills, so try to maintain a balance.) I'm curious to hear the thoughts of my fellow homeschoolers on this one, so what's your stance on the subject?

Plan in Action

2011-07-31T08:29:00.003-03:00

So here's how it's all going, four weeks into our new school year.

In the first place, it's much harder to do school in the summer months here than it was in SC. Back there we tended to spend the months of July and August (oh, and June and probably even May...and September, too) just wilting from the heat, and since we were inside most of the time anyway, I felt we might as well do schoolwork. Here, I felt like we still needed to get back into the swing of things somewhat and not take all summer off, but there's so much more to do, and we can even do some of it outside, here where they call 90 degrees a heat wave. I joke with Dave that when it gets down to 90 in the summer in Lexington, the meteorologists talk about a cool front. I'm only partly joking - I think that really happened once. To be fair, there have been some genuine scorchers - hot is hot, no matter where you are. But until the past couple weeks, it really hadn't been that bad, and the kids have been going to a very cool program one of the local park districts has, where they go for the morning (all of them except Scarlett, of course), and enjoy outdoor games and crafts. I'm not turning that down so we can stay inside and do math! They also have quite a few more neighborhood friends here than they ever have, so it's too much to ask them to slave away, chained to desks, when friends come to call. At least, that's what they tell me.

So we've had an adjusted schedule in which we've tried to fit some things in the afternoon, when it genuinely is pretty hot and everyone wants to be inside. They don't particularly want to be doing schoolwork, however, and it's made me think that we might have taken too big a chunk off in June and early July. It was only about six weeks, but trying to get them back into things has been something of a struggle. It seems they forgot that this is just what they have to do at this point in their lives. I know this is where my dear father might insert a comment about how kids should enjoy the "lazy, hazy days of summer." Well, as far as I know, he's never mentioned any tips for 1.) how mothers are supposed to enjoy these days, with bored kids bouncing off the walls, or 2. how to keep everyone from forgetting everything they learned the previous year. So, unless he has suggestions on those two points, he need not comment. :-) But anyway, I'm working on reminding everyone that this is just life, and we can make it as fun as they would like to make it, without, as one child began to put it, without doing away with things like grammar altogether.

Another thing we're struggling with, however, is the first point of my last post - chores. We have a very large white board in the hallway upstairs, on which I listed all the things that have to be done on a given day to keep the household running - grouped by morning, afternoon, and evening. Then I put their initials beside the chores I want them to do, asking them to write their initials on the other side when they complete them. On the right-hand side of the board, I listed a summary of what each child is responsible for. I thought this was pretty straight-forward, but it hasn't been working very well. For the first couple weeks, I felt like I was doing twice as much work, because I was now dragging them along each and every step of the way, directing them, hounding them, all but taking their hands and walking them through each step. Then for the next week, I tried giving them one warning each day, then just doing the chores myself, then having them do as many of MY chores as they could that Saturday, in order to illustrate the point. It didn't seem to work, and just made for a horrible Saturday, which brings me to one of my main problems - I don't quite know what to do when they don't do the work. When I try getting really tough about this, I feel like I'm just punishing them all the time, or if I try to put a positive spin on it, I feel like I'm dangling a carrot a carrot on a stick. In either case, the chores might get done, but not very well, and I've never been very sure what to do about that, because I'm never quite sure if my expectations are reasonable. So...the bottom line is we're still working through this one. They are doing basic chores for themselves, but I haven't yet struck on how to give them responsibilities for the entire household.

As to the second point, which was prioritizing Bible study, I feel like that's been going fairly well. We've been going through the Veritas Press Bible cards, starting with Creation, and I really like them. I think the kids do, as well. Pretty soon I plan to start doing catechism questions with them again, which is something we do periodically, but not always consistently. Still, they all know the basic ones, and those will stick with them a long time. (My sisters probably experience the same thing I do when they hear questions like, "What does it mean to repent?," and a voice in their head automatically says, "It means to change your mind.") If I can get through the whole set of questions I have, they should have a decent understanding of the faith. The older ones are also doing Bible quizzing this year, and I'm super excited about that. I plan to explain it more later, but the upshot is that it will provide us with a way to saturate them with Scripture, and there are no downsides to that.

The third point was better planning, and I think I've been as successful with that as I could hope to be. Aimee thinks I could be better organized, bless her - she didn't know me when I lived by lists and organization, and she doesn't realize that now, extreme organization would mean a loss of flexibility and spontaneity in her life. That's if it were even possible, which, with just a baby alone, it isn't (see post on "Mothering Through Breastfeeding!"), and adding three boys and their different learning styles to the mix makes it even less likely. So if she can find a way to schedule her every minute when she has a family, good for her. But I for one find it both too difficult on the one hand, and not all that desirable on the other. Flexibility means that we can take an idea and run with it, rather than being stuck to only doing a certain thing on a certain day, and it means we can forgive ourselves when we get somewhat "off-track." I did, however, write out a rough sketch of what I wanted to accomplish for the first six weeks, week by week, and that's been going pretty well. The tricky thing for me is keeping track of what three kids are doing throughout the day, and whether they're getting to the important subjects, as well as the "fun" ones. So this past week, instead of letting them choose which subject at any given time (yeah, I know - mean Mom), I decreed that we were going to go through them in alphabetical order. Sometimes this means everyone is one the same subject, and sometimes I make minor adjustments when I need them to be on the same subject, but it doesn't matter if they aren't - it just seems to help that I know each one is going down the list of things they need to do. If they don't get through all the subjects in one day, we start where each one left off and go from there. I think that went rather well, and I intend to keep it up, although one of my children complained that it seemed as though we were doing art all the time this week. Even though I know better than to respond emotionally, I looked at said child incredulously, and said, "Aren't you the one who usually complains that we never do art? Are you serious?" Methinks said child just doesn't like not being completely in charge.

As to point number four, I'm going to break that up into segments, or this post would be even more incredibly too long!

Correction

2011-07-30T12:06:00.002-03:00

Gues what? I can't find the first "Taking Stock" post I mentioned in my last post. Somewhere there's something like it, in which I talk sum up our previous school year, but maybe I'm just imagining it! Oh well.

Taking Stock - Looking Ahead

2011-07-30T10:44:00.002-03:00

This post is so named because I've had it in mind for a couple months, ever since I wrote the first "Taking Stock" post - I just haven't had time to write it, and now that we've actually started school, it's not quite accurate. But, having evaluated and come to terms with the previous school year, I wanted to set down my hopes and goals for the coming year. My next post will be on how it's actually turning out!

Back in May, after Dave and I had watched the season finales of some of our favorite shows, I remarked, in reference to the way these shows always seem to end each season,"Wouldn't it be awful if once a year your life came to a dramatic climax, with some kind of huge change or major event?" He said, "Um...you mean like the way our life has gone pretty much since we've been married?", to which I replied, "Oh. Right." Because indeed, it has seemed that each year we've been together, our life has been marked by exactly that - some kind of huge change or major event. Babies, moves, job changes, family drama...and, in one fantastically memorable year, a baby, a move, a job change, and family drama all at once. Smashing! But each year I persist in planning for something decidedly less exciting, in the hopes that someday, we'll have just a "normal," predictable sort of year. And each year, I typically watch as the plan train derails in spectacular fashion, exploding in a ball of flames and burning everything in the vicinity to ashes.

Ahem.

Last year we had to get things done around a baby born at the beginning of our school year, and a move smack in the middle of it, so things were rather helter-skelter most of the time. That's ok, and as I've mentioned, I've come to terms with it. But this year it would be nice if things were calmer and a little more predictable (have I said that already?). If that actually happens, here are some of my goals:

1. I would like to develop in the kids a better sense of family responsibility. It frustrates me that if I have a down day, whether because I'm extra-busy or because I'm under the weather, the household seems to go to pieces. Of course, it's good to feel needed, but I would like to maybe be a little less so. I would like the kids to have a better sense of what gets done throughout the day, and to develop a better sense of their responsibility in getting it done - and maybe even to have the older ones able to take the helm to some degree if I can't for some reason.

Stop laughing!

Now, if this seems to have nothing to do with school, I will insert here the idea that while it's possible to make homeschooling simply "school at home," I don't think that's what it really is at all. I think homeschooling is a different animal altogether, that it involves developing every part of the child - discipline not only of the intellect, but also of the body, soul, sense of responsibility, worldview, etc, etc. So I think learning to be a part of running the household is an important part of their day, and I don't just mean giving them chores to do for the sake of doing them. I'm more interested in them developing a sense of responsibility, which is also something I think children enjoy...even though they might not know it.

2. I would like to make sure they have a good foundation of Biblical knowledge and church history. Sometimes we skimp on this when we're in a hurry, and I want to make it more of a priority. (So maybe this should be point #1. Cut me some slack!)

3. I know I've said I'm not a "lesson plan" kind of person anymore, but it might be nice to have a better feel for what each child needs to do so that I'm not scrambling around to figure it out AND trying to get their attention at the same time. This seems like a good idea given that I'll have three this year who will be getting more formal instruction, and that Aimee's workload (now that she's in 6th grade - yikes!) is really increasing. It's also easier to get some of my kids (not naming any names!) on task if the task at least appears to be inflexible.

4. If I can plan better, I also hope to be able to include more of the subjects that tend to get dropped by the wayside when things get the least bit hectic - namely, art, science, and a few other things I'd rather NOT name, so you won't lose whatever good opinion you have of me. And I'd like to be able to do more fun activities in all subjects, rather than just always be cramming the necessities in.

That said, here's the planned curriculum for the year (I'm not going to include links to all of them here. I'll try to update my favorites list in my Amazon widget later):

Art
Art: 2,500 Works from Cave to Contemporary
Little Hands Art Book
How to Teach Art to Children
Drawing with Children Mona Brooks
Crafts for Young Children

Bible
Homeschool Enhanced Kit Veritas Press

Cursive
Classically Cursive

Geography
Story of the World (map activities)
Geography songs
States and Capitals Songs

Grammar
First Language Lessons
Following the Plan Rod and Staff

History
Story of the World

Latin
Latina Christiana

Math
Saxon Math

Music
Piano Lessons
Violin Lessons (both given by yours truly)

Reading
Phonics Museum Veritas Press
Whole book selections to accompany art, history, and science studies

Science
God’s Design for Life
God’s Design for the Physical World

Spelling
Spelling Workout

French
Rosetta Stone

Spanish
Rosetta Stone

As promised, I'll let you know in a future post how it's all going!

The Normal of Mothering Through Breastfeeding

2011-07-30T08:43:00.005-03:00

Earlier this week I had a doctor's appointment (for nothing important - just to recheck my Vitamin D levels), and when the doctor walked in I was nursing Scarlett. The doctor mentioned how much she loved had loved breastfeeding her own children, and when she asked how old Scarlett was and learned she was a year, she was slightly surprised at how it looked like she was still "really into it." She wanted to know if she still got most of her nutrition that way, or through solid foods, which stumped me a bit, because I really don't know! Once again I was struck - and amused - by how interesting it is that most people, and especially those in the medical profession, have a hard time understanding a lifestyle of "mothering through breastfeeding-" i.e., having breastfeeding be interwoven throughout our days in such a way that it's impossible to measure, and impossible to determine the questions of "how much" and "how often." They see it as a process with a defined and gradual tapering off, and, even as a whole, simply a supplement to the mothering process. Newborns should nurse every three hours, three month-olds less often (and sleeping "through the night" to boot), six month-olds should begin adding solid foods at regular intervals that should gradually replace even the nursing sessions that should be even farther spaced apart - all leading up to the one year-old mark, at which time they should be eating three well-defined meals a day and ready to wean. If they are nursing at all, it should only be occasionally, because, after all, they no longer "need" it at this point. Now, I should add that I don't know if this is exactly my doctor's thinking, so I don't want to be unfair to her. But I do know that this is the overwhelmingly popular philosophy among doctors, which filters down through the rest of society, so that I often talk to mothers who are confused when their babies deviate from this neat schedule and want to know if their reality is "normal."

I know for a fact that our reality is decidedly different from society's expectations, and I also know that it is normal, and that it isn't harmful (but, I hope, rather the opposite). So I thought I would count how many times Scarlett nursed yesterday, including every ten-second "snack." In a sixteen-hour period, I counted eighteen times. Yes, that's slightly more than once an hour, and, because she took a nap of a couple hours, it means that sometimes she nursed a few times in a given hour. What's more, she nursed during the night, some of which I was aware of, and some of which I wasn't. She probably has close to the same frequency at night as she does during the day. In any case, I wasn't surprised by this, except that I thought it might have been a little more often. "Mothering through breastfeeding" (which, by the way, is a common phrase used in La Leche League) means that nursing is usually a seamless part of our day. She eats other food when she's hungry, and drinks water or juice when she's thirsty, so I don't know how often hunger or thirst figure into her reasons for nursing anymore, but it doesn't matter. When she asks, it's there. When she's tired, it can serve as a pick-me-up, or a way to settle down and get to sleep. When she's frustrated, or overwhelmed with emotions that are just too big for such a little person, it can serve as a way to re-center herself - like the equivalent of taking a deep breath. When she's hurt, it's what Dave jokes is "instant morphine." When she feels she's ventured too far from me as she learns new skills of independence, it's a way to reconnect - "you're still here, and you'll be here every time". When she wants contemplate the difference in taste between breastmilk and juice, she's free to spend 15 minutes alternating between sips of each. And in the meantime, I'm usually going about my business - overseeing schoolwork, reading books, pulling energetic four year-olds off my head, making pancakes (!), checking email, or any number of things that need to be done. And sometimes we still settle down for quiet snuggling time when she's nursing, during which I can look into her beautiful brown eyes, and she can poke lovingly at my face...even though even that kind of time these days usually ends in "nursing gymnastics" in which she tries to see if she can turn upside down and still hang on. The point is, it may be that it sounds like even more than nursing a newborn, and, indeed, she probably does nurse more often as a one year-old than she did as a one week-old, but it's not at all the same.

But the fact remains that it's normal. A different kind of normal than what our culture expects, certainly, but normal just the same. It isn't measured, predictable, dictated by any book on baby care or parenting, or really very explainable to anyone who doesn't already understand it. I don't know how much breastmilk she gets, how it figures into her nutritional intake, or all the reasons she asks for it. And I certainly don't know how long she'll keep it up. All my children have weaned at different ages - but I do know that all my older four children are weaned, so I know it happens eventually! I also know that they are all confident, independent (not sure why everyone is so desperately interested in that, but, anyway....), smart, social, and healthy kids. None of them are even remotely overweight or have major eating problems -nothing at all, in fact, beyond the very normal pickiness common to all kids.

So what I tell mothers who wonder if their reality is normal, who are hounded by concerned pediatricians and mothers-in-law, and aren't sure how to reconcile this style of mothering with the much more neatly packaged variety sold by parenting books and popular thinking is that it's ok. Mothering can't be neatly packaged. Children don't come with dosing instructions, and each and every one is different. There's nothing abnormal, emotionally or physically, with a one year-old who nurses at a rate of more than once an hour...and now that I've exposed myself, so to speak, and our strange variety of "normal" that would leave almost any pediatrician speechless, my hope is that my sisters-in-arms will be encouraged by whatever variety of normal is theirs.

The Rick Riordan grammar series

2011-07-27T08:07:00.002-03:00

What, you haven't heard about that one?

Actually, we "officially" use First Language Lessons for grammar, and like it well enough, although I agree with some of my homeschooling friends that it can be rather...um...boring at times. Let's face it - that's just the truth. And that being the case, I never make my kids repeat the definition of a noun with me three times...and three times again...and yes, three times again...in one lesson. But since I own the books for levels 1-4 and am far too cheap to invest in an entire new grammar curriculum for those of my kids who are still working their way through those levels, this is what we're doing, love it or not.

However, as I might have mentioned once or twice before, I tend to take what we've got and work through it the way that suits us best. I also encourage new homeschoolers to use this approach, because I really think it's not about finding the perfect curriculum, which, by the way, doesn't exist; rather, you should let your curriculum serve you. With this in mind, I can follow the general track of First Language Lessons, but adjust how I use it based on each child's learning style. Aimee is a by-the-book sort of person, so she went through the workbooks as directed. Drew, however, who last year started level 3, which includes a workbook, practically experiences some kind of strange spasms when I open the book to a page of something like diagramming. Since starting up our school year a few weeks ago and having this happen more than once, I realized that this was going to be a no-go, at least at this point in the year, while we are trying to rein everyone's attention back in toward academic pursuits (and for Drew, this means that trying to hold his focus for longer than ten seconds is something like trying to herd cats in one direction).

Enter The Throne of Fire, Rick Riordan's new book in the Kane Chronicles. Fyi, this series, and this latest book in particular, contains a bit more magic (spells, etc, not "magic" as in general wonderment!) than I would ordinarily like in books for the kids. But they had already devoured it a few times over before I got to it, so it seemed a little late to say we were probably not going to explore this particular corner of Rick Riordan's universe. So we had a brief discussion on magic and what the Bible has to say about it in real life, and how we could just appreciate the fiction without emulating any of the practices. And then - moving on - I began finding fun sentences in the book which Drew could use to find various parts of speech and then even to diagram. Honestly, which sentence do you think a nine year-old boy with attention issues (which is rather redundant, I suppose) would like to explore:

"Helpful John stirs hot soup,"

"The magic flame tickled my fingers."

Yes, exactly. So there you have it - it's how grammar gets down around here. We've covered adjectives, adverbs, direct objects, and the diagramming of the same using Rick Riordan's scintillating fiction. And for that matter, we've used the same for cursive practice, dictation, copywork, and as many other forms of language arts as I can squeeze out of a book both older kids enjoyed. So for the time being, the grammar workbook will be lonely, empty, and used only as a guideline for which parts of speech to review next. I don't think Jessie Wise would mind, but if she did, well, who cares - in the nicest way possible. Homeschooling, after all, is not about being enslaved to the curriculum - it's about letting your kids be free to learn!

Confessions of a Really Bad Homeschooler

2011-06-26T08:24:00.002-03:00

Recently I joined a homeschool support group, and I'm excited about getting involved in a homeschool community again. I enjoyed the last mom's meeting I went to, and if any of those ladies ever happen to find this post, I hope they know that I really like them and am not saying anything at all remotely negative about them. In fact, they inspired me to get my act together a bit. As I sat there and looked around the table, I saw neatly organized binders filled with things like "Lesson Plans 2011-2012," and I wanted to shrink under said table, because here's

Confession #1 -I don't even have a binder (or anything at all!) labeled "Lesson Plans 2010-2011," much less anything like it for the coming year. The lesson plan for this past year was to do whatever we could do, whenever we could do it, and truth be told, that's been the plan for...ahem...awhile. Once upon a time, when my oldest was all of three years old, I had neatly organized binders. I had a plan for the entire year, and we made our way through a different topic each month, with books and crafts to go along with each topic. We really, truly did. But no longer! My homeschool organization has been becoming progressively less...organized, and between a baby and a move this past year (hey, I'm milking those events for as long as I possibly can!), it was almost non-existent.

Confession #2 - I haven't been to a homeschool convention in the entire course of our homeschooling venture. I went to one when Aimee was a baby, and I looked around at all the curriculum I would surely buy when she was older, and listened with rapt attention to the speakers, but I haven't been to one since. Sometimes I think about going to one, but truth be told, just thinking about going makes me feel anxious. Lots of people, lots of choices, lots of differing opinions...Thanks, I think I'll stay here in my little cocoon and keep things just the way they are, which leads me to

Confession #3 - I don't curriculum shop. Ever. A few years ago, I landed on the general course I wanted to take, and since then, I look to The Well-Trained Mind, Veritas Press, and a little bit of Sonlight for my curriculum guidance, and from that course I do not sway. Most of my friends feel a little guilty about being "curriculum junkies", but I think the truth is that greater sin in the current homeschool community is not to be one, and to this I confess. I try to adjust things here and there for my children's different personalities, but I would rather adjust my strategy with the curriculum I have, than actually change the curriculum itself. So I will smile as I discuss with other moms the pros and cons of this or that math curriculum, for instance, but if it's all the same to you, I'll keep my passionate love-hate relationship with Saxon going. Forever.

That's all I care to confess at the moment, because it's making me feel not so good about myself. I know that the classical philosophy of education and unschooling are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum, but I think I'm about as close to being an unschooler as an adherent of the classical philosophy could possibly get. Perhaps I'm a "classically-inspired unschooler," or an "unschooling-inspired classical educator." Pretty much anything sounds better than a "she's-just-not-doing-this- very-well homeschooler."

The Cost of Homeschooling

2011-06-22T15:07:00.002-03:00

Last weekend I ordered most of our books for the upcoming school year, and I have to tell you, even with my minimalist approach, it wasn't cheap. Homeschooling costs money! It's likely that by most standards, we "shouldn't" be living on one income, and by those same standards, we probably can't afford the cost of books and supplies for each child every year. For sure, each year I look at what needs to be done and I wonder exactly how we're going to pay for it. We don't get tax money for this, and, as far as I know, there are no supply drives for homeschoolers. Door-to-door fundraisers might not come across quite the right way. So we're on our own, digging deep into pockets that don't seem to have the necessary depth! But each year, God provides for those needs - sometimes helping us to understand what are true needs and what aren't, and sometimes providing in ways we couldn't have guessed. In any case, we're still here doing this.

But of course homeschooling doesn't just involve money. There are other costs involved, too. Time is one. This is another area where I apply a fairly minimalist approach, but all the buying, planning, and actual learning takes up a good deal of my time. Now, it doesn't necessarily take the amount of time people are thinking of when they say, "I don't know how you have the time to teach all those kids!", in tones that imply there's no way they would be crazy enough to sacrifice their entire day, every day, on the altar of their children's education. It doesn't involve eight solid hours a day keeping the kids glued to their chairs and in front of their books (which, admittedly, doesn't sound pleasant at all). But it is something that's woven throughout my days (and often nights!). Sometimes I wonder what I would do with all that time if we weren't homeschooling. Would my house actually be clean? But it's usually not good to dwell too long on the "what ifs" of life!

Homeschooling also demands pay in the form of my energy - emotional, mental, and physical. It asks that I sacrifice said clean house, not only because of limited time, but because, as I've posted about before, good learning is messy. It takes up space in my house, and along with that, it costs a certain of amount of style and beauty. What's supposed to be a formal living room in our house is actually full of bookcases, which are full of Rubbermaid totes, books, papers, and who knows what else. (No one needs to comment that my sense of home decorating is sorely lacking anyway, homeschooling notwithstanding. That's another subject altogether!)

And homeschooling costs a certain amount of esteem. As much as I'd like to think that homeschooling has become somewhat normalized in our society, as much as I'd like to think that those who love us also support us in our parenting choices, every once in a while I am painfully reminded that I am in a very small minority, and many among the majority simply think we're doing the wrong thing in regard to our education decisions. Even some among our family and friends think that we're being overprotective, or that we might be subjecting our kids to any number of missed opportunities, both socially and academically. Even comments like, "Oh, I could never do that. You're so brave," are kind ways of marginalizing us, of saying that what we're doing is really above and beyond - a choice that's all very well for us, as long as we can afford the time and money, but not really what normal humans do. And that means that the support for our choice is very, very fragile. Most people, even the nicest of them, would not be there for us if push came to shove. They would assume that, at last, we would do the "normal" thing and put the kids in school. Even other homeschoolers are, understandably, so tied up in providing for their own families, that they could only do so much in helping other families (although they would do all they could for each other). So we are out on a rather long and somewhat lonely limb.

So what's the reward? Will it be brilliant kids? Golden, well-behaved, all-around good kids? Will it even be grateful kids? Maybe so - and maybe not. I hope that they'll be glad of the education they received, and one day learn to appreciate what we invested into it. But looking for reward in this endeavor can lead to disappointment. I have to pay the costs here, not in view of what I might gain later, but only in complete obedience to what we feel God is asking of us. We believe this is the way he's asked us to give our children the best possible understanding of His view of the world, and yes, we believe that in many ways - some we can anticipate, and some we probably can't - it will be worth it. And it already is worth it. Each day there are seven people in this house who, yes, sometimes squabble, sometimes make terrific messes, sometimes drive each other crazy, and who just do cost a lot of money, time, and energy...but who also learn together, grow together, and love each other. And each day, irregardless of the future, that's reward enough.

Sometimes Two is More Than Five

2011-06-18T08:10:00.003-03:00

My three older children went to a Vacation Bible School each morning this past week, and first I should say that perhaps I should write a post on the child who wouldn't leave my side for the first three years of his life, but who, now at six, happily trotted off to his class and stayed for three and a half hours every morning AND who sat dejectedly on his bed last night lamenting the fact that the week was over. But that pretty much sums it up, and I would like to say to any detractors of the attachment parenting philosophy, "'Independence' my...ahem...big toe. He's turning out just fine."

Anyway, when I dropped the kids off in the morning, I returned home with the two youngest (naturally), and I admit a feeling of alarm at first. It's been a long time since I've had just two preschoolers for that long of a time, and believe it or not, that can seem more daunting than having a all five kids in the house. One of the dynamics of a large(ish) family is that they all entertain each other - even when "entertain" seems like too nice a word, and "fighting each other to the death" might seem more appropriate. I certainly try to work in some one-on-one time with each of them, but most of the time they play together, learn from each other, keep each other company, and yes, torment each other. But the bottom line is that even when it seems like that don't even like each other, the fact is that when one or more of them is gone, the others don't seem to know what to do without the absent parties, and that was true this week. While Scarlett was less affected (even though her older siblings are often employed in the task of entertaining her), Chase really didn't know how to be without them. I thought we could do some fun things together that we can't do with everyone, and we did some of those, but most of the time he was just restless, and a restless Chase is no small amount of work. If I wasn't very active in keeping him busy, he was looking for someone - anyone - to play with, even waking Scarlett up from her nap once when the idea of being the only awake child in the house was just too much for him, I guess. And so when he was climbing all over me while were Skyping my mom one morning, I sighed, "Sometimes two is more than five."

Then again, sometimes two is just two. Because one of them can't really talk yet, there was significantly less squabbling each morning. We went to the park a couple of times and I was able to play with just the two of them, rather than having to constantly scan the area to do a head count. We went to the store a few times, and if Chase wanted, for instance, a $1.50 play ball in a display case, I could say, "Sure, why not?" (Anything times four or five really adds up, so I usually say no.), not to mention the fact that it's ridiculously easier to get two children through a shopping trip than it is to have all five in tow. Anytime we went somewhere, in fact, it took all of five minutes to get in the car instead of thirty. And lunch at Chick-fil-A costs ever so much less!

Ryan, the once-attached-but-now-independent one, asked last night if there was anywhere else he could go to VBS. Hmmm...interesting idea. Because sometimes two is more than five, but sometimes it isn't...and all in all it was a happy week for everyone.

I Love That the Library Is Free...Except When It Isn't

2011-06-16T12:31:00.002-03:00

I'm posting this in the hopes that it might make someone else out there feel less awful about themselves, the way someone encouraged me by sharing their library fine horror story once.

We love the library, and help our local branches meet their circulation goals, as one librarian told us wryly one time while helping us with our mountain of holds. The wonder of the library never ceases for us. All these books, magazines, CD's, movies...for FREE!

Except when it's not. Such as when a cooler turns over in the back of the car, and melted ice leaks out onto a pile of books waiting to be returned, and the library later sends us a nice letter telling us that they appreciate our patronage and we're now the proud owners of one, two, three, four, FIVE books with irreparable damage. This is quite a hefty charge in the "unpaid fines" section of my library card account, even as used to hefty charges as we are. The dowside to having 100 books spread over six cards is that a day or two late can really add up, as can one missing book that no one can remember ever seeing, or the effects of a page-ripping-happy toddler...the list goes on. Dave used to get upset over these kinds of thing, but over the years he's grown more mellow about it, remarking once that he considers fines to be "our monthly donation to the library," and joking on ocassion that they should name a wing after us.

Our fine problem has been better these past few months, since one of the libraries we use doesn't charge fines on children's books...as long as you bring them back....without water damage. This recent fiasco rather makes up for all that time, however, all in one big chunk, and Dave didn't look so resigned when he read that nice letter from the library. Still, all he said was, "That's a lot of books." I know, I know! And obviously there's no way to talk myself out of this one (as I did once in SC when we had a slew of overdue books, and I begged for mercy due to weeks of morning sickness and pregnancy brain). So now we're on our way to helping this local library build a new wing, too, for which I hope they're grateful. And you better believe those "irreparably damaged" books are going on our shelves - as soon as we pay for them - as ever-present reminders of the "free" library.

Fun Times

2011-06-11T08:31:00.004-03:00

Dave was out of town for the first half of this week (he was in Joplin, MO, helping with tornado relief), and, as I usually try to do when he's gone, we tried to keep as busy as possible so that the days wouldn't seem to s-t-r-e-t-c-h too long. It's a bit of a tricky balance - it's important, as the temporary single parent, to save enough energy for bedtime, but letting the natives get restless can leave one rather frazzled, with no reinforcements arriving at 5:15pm. So this is why it can seem more appealing to take five kids to the pool a couple times, to the library, to the park, and even out to eat rather than to stay at home all day every day. And overall, it works, but occasionally in the middle of one of these outings, I wonder, "Exactly WHY was this a good idea?"

Take a pool trip, for instance. We go to the local Y, which has two indoor pools. Outdoor pools are more refreshing in the summer, but for our purposes the indoor arrangement works nicely, since keeping the kids in a confined area helps me keep tabs on everyone. When I take them by myself, they usually require a few hours of notice and repeated reminders leading up to leaving for the pool, the final hour punctuated with simple directions like, "Suits! Shoes! Towels!" and then finally, "Car!" And it doesn't matter how prepared I am, it always seems like it takes at least thirty minutes to get everyone in the car and buckled in, but once we finally do it, the Y is about five minutes away. We arrive, I open the car doors in strategic order and with specific instructions so that I don't have kids dashing out into the parking lot. We file in ("DON'T touch the automatic door button!") and head to the family locker room, which is basically the size of a large bathroom. It has a shower and several lockers, and is covered in tile, which makes amplifies sound in way that is apparently very appealing to the boys, because as soon as we get in, they ratchet up the volume and start slamming lockers. Fortunately all we have to do upon arrival is drop off our things, so this stage doesn't last very long, and into the pool we go.

We usually spend about an hour in the pool - that appears to be about Scarlett's limit. The older kids usually do their own thing, but the younger ones and I stick together, of course. Ryan can swim, and he likes to show off his skills and tricks. "Mom, watch! Mom, look! Mom! Mom! Mom!" For an hour. I do my best to watch and cheer him on, but of course I'm holding and entertaining Scarlett while Chase, for the most part, is gleefully hanging on to some part of me and even climbing on my head. For an hour. At some point I consider that it seems a little ironic that this outing is supposed to be a fun and relaxing way to help me keep my sanity...and I realize that while "relaxing" might not apply, it really is fun, in a way that probably only a mother could understand, and I love that we're all having a good time together. But as I said before, Scarlett starts to get tired after about an hour, so, in a process that must be perfectly timed and carefully orchestrated, I round everyone up and we head back to the locker room.

Now, I know the return trip, as we dry off and change back into our clothes. will be crazier than the first time. This will be especially true on this particular outing, since I've brought soap and intend to get everyone showered while we're there. So I know I'll have to pick my battles in an effort just to get things done and get everyone out the door. In fact, pretty much the only thing I really attempt to control is keeping the noise level a decibel or two below a deafening roar; otherwise I accept the fact that things are just going to be pretty chaotic. Sure enough, as soon as we enter the locker room, the boys start jumping in and out of the lockers - i.e., the "brain swapping machines," with a satisfying SLAM each time they do. At the same time, they keep hitting the button on the air dryer, providing continuous background noise. How they manage to do all this for the entire time we're there, I'm not sure. There's only the three of them - Aimee prefers to change in the women's locker room - but it seems like there are ten kids providing the mayhem. Of course, Scarlett contributes to the noise when she starts crying, her voice rising to a pretty determined and angry wail. But since I anticipated this as well, I try to remain calm and just get things done. I get out the soap and convince Chase to take the removeable shower head and clean himself off - "It will be fun!" By this time I really have to do something for Scarlett, though, so I sit on the chair next to the shower (it's one of those chairs for those who need assistance in the shower, if you can picture it) and start to nurse her. It turns out she's not interested in a quick pick-me-up, but is in for the long haul, making things a little difficult when Chase doesn't want to give up the shower for anyone else to have a turn. I manage to wrangle the shower head from him, get him rinsed off, and and convince Ryan to come over for a turn (he and Drew are still keeping the air dryer running and opening and closing the locker doors). While he's coming over, I figure it's as good a time as any to get Scarlett cleaned off, so I soap her up - while she's still nursing - and rinse her off. Then Ryan gets cleaned off, and Drew wanders over - Chase takes over the air dryer button, so the noise level hasn't diminished at all. There's a tussle over the shower head, but Drew surrenders it and starts pumping the foamy soap from the dispenser next to the shower and gives himself, "SOAP POX! LOOK, I'VE GOT SOAP POX!" by dotting it all over his arms. Eventually Ryan's turn is over, and Drew takes the shower head. Ryan and Chase alternate between lockers, the air dryer, and trying to get back into the shower, all as loudly as it seems they can possibly manage. (Every once in a while, I offer a feeble, "Guys, we really don't need to yell at each other!", but I realize this is futile.) I wonder, with a grimace, what this all must sound like from outside the door, but I have to let go of caring what people think, something I'm getting better at, thanks to my darling boys. At this point, Aimee comes in and comments, "Wow - you should really hear what you all sound like from out there!" I hand her the baby, instruct the boys to get their clothes on (because now, except for Drew, they're doing all of the above while naked), and take the shower head so I can at least rinse off and wash my hair. Scarlett resumes crying, Aimee asks how long she has to hold her, the boys somehow get louder. I turn off the shower, find a corner to dry off and hurriedly get dressed, then try to wrap this all up. Some of the kids start arguing with each other, and I know our time is up and we had better get out quickly. Things reach a fever pitch first, then suddenly someone smacks someone else on the back - bare hand on skin, which is very loud and is followed by "OWWWWWWWWWWW!" I wheel around and tell them all in a whisper, but also in no uncertain terms, that the party is OVER, and we're leaving. The noise dies instantly - even Scarlett stops crying - and we gather our things and walk out, all smiles. We walk past the desk, hand back the keys to the locker room with a "Thank you!", and head out the door. I wonder if I'm just imagining the funny looks, but decide I'm probably not, and that's ok. Only a couple hours later do I realize that anyone who heard all this probably heard the smack and subsequent silence and thought that I had delivered a spanking! For an instant, I want to run back and make sure they know that it wasn't me, but I remind myself that I'm working on not caring so much what people think. Anyway, they were probably just glad things got quiet.

Thus passed a few hours of the four days Dave was gone, and believe or not, they go down collectively in my book as a successful period of diversion and entertainment. If you have a family of several and have some experience with temporary solo parenting, you probably can believe it. If you don't, well, you can take my sister's approach. She's pregnant with her second child, and one of the last times I was talking to her on the phone, I caught myself monopolizing the conversation with stories about my kids. I apologized, but she said, "Oh, I like hearing about your kids. It reminds me to cherish each quiet moment while I can."

Good idea!

"Why Do You Behave as You Do?"

2011-06-07T08:36:00.003-03:00

Yesterday I read in Ist Kings, and I read where David's son Adonijah decided he was ready to be king, despite the fact that he hadn't been appointed the successor, and that his father wasn't even dead yet. The passage explains this bad filial behavior in saying that David "had never interfered with him by saying, "Why do you behave as you do?" I've read this before, but yesterday it struck me particularly because...well, because I have a son who prompts this question on a regular basis - and he's only four. I admit I'm not the best disciplinarian in the world, but at least I "interfere" and ask the question.

Often.

"Why did you go down the street and around the corner to play with the neighbors' kids? By yourself? Without asking?"

"Why are you in the middle of the library screaming at your brother to help you find superhero books?"

"Why are you riding your bicycle in the house? Why are you riding your bicycle upstairs?"

"Why would you jump in the deep end of the pool by yourself and with no floaties - when you don't know how to swim, and I can't jump in after you because I'm holding the baby? Why are you grinning at me as you hang onto the edge and I insist - in a firm but carefully controlled voice because we're in a public place - that you get out immediately?"

"Why in the world would you throw a handful of your dinner in the air?"

"WHY DID YOU PUT YOUR GUINEA PIG IN YOUR BEDROOM VENT?"

These examples took place in a 36-hour period. So yesterday, the day before, today, tomorrow and all day every day I pray hard for this dear boy - who, by the way, can also be extremely loving and helpful, when he wants to be. I pray that he won't turn out anything like the unchecked Adonijah - rash, stupid, and, in the end, cowardly - but rather more like wise Solomon.

Minus 999 wives, of course.

Book Review (And Some of My Own Rambling on the Topic)

2011-05-29T16:13:00.005-03:00

A couple days ago I finished Pushed, a book about maternity care in the United States. Since The Business of Being Born came out, I've recommended that every woman, at least, see it in order to be aware of what's really going on with maternity care in this country (and also to be aware of why it matters!). It gives a good overview of things, packed into a reasonable amount of time. Pushed is a more detailed account of that information, requiring more mental energy and more time - but worth it for anyone remotely interested in the way babies are brought into the world in our country. I didn't love the writing style - something about it felt crowded, with names and facts almost in a jumble on the pages - but I did find it to be a sobering read, one that touched deep personal emotions of my own. I nearly cried reading about some of the births, in some instances because they paralleled some negative experiences I had myself.

I heard about the book from one of my sisters, and when I was finished, we texted back and forth a bit about it. In one text, referring to the impact medically managed birth can have on the bonding process on so many levels, she said, "It makes sense that so many moms are detached, and that detached parenting is so prevalent." I thought this was a good point, one that can help to highlight just why the birth experience matters. I truly believe what happens at birth can filter throughout the entire mothering process, and not only that, but that how birth is handled on a social level can impact parenting throughout the society. (Major disclaimer: I am NOT in any way saying that mothers who had hospital births, epidurals, cesareans, etc. don't love their children. PLEASE don't read that anywhere between the lines.)

A medically managed birth usually tells a mother that she's probably not good enough to bring a baby into the world on her own, and that her instincts aren't reliable. Furthermore, it tells her that danger is always around the corner, and that if she doesn't heed the "experts," she's putting her baby's life on the line. And finally, it robs her of the natural rush of "love hormones" that help her bond with her baby and give her that first boost of confidence as a mother. Of course there are many factors about the mother/baby relationship that can overcome this experience, and people are resilient. But in mothers individually and in our parenting style collectively we often see this lack of confidence, lack of trust in the natural process and in our instincts, and truth be told, the kind of detachment my sister mentioned.

On the other hand, the kind of birth the author calls a physiological birth, birth without unnecessary intervention, is the kind of birth that empowers a mother. She responds to her body and her baby, she reaches to the very depths of her being both physically and emotionally, and she emerges victorious, rewarded at delivery with that rush of oxytocin that helps bond her to her baby in a way that can't be duplicated. A birth experience like this tells a mother that she can do it. Obviously it doesn't mean she won't ever experience self-doubt, but it is such an important first step in her mothering journey, one I wish so many more mothers could have. I wish they could hear, from their attendants as well as from their own bodies, "You're amazing, you're capable, you're enough for this. You can do this." I wish they never had to hear things like,

"You're too small."

"You're not progressing fast enough."

"You're not pushing right."

"Screaming like that doesn't do any good [even though it's the Pitocin we gave you that's giving you those horrific and nearly unmanageable contractions]."

"[Because I don't think you're sufficient to deliver your six and a half pound baby on your own, and because I'd like to move things along by a few minutes] I'm just going to make a little cut [that I won't think about ever again but which will result in an horrible tear that will affect you for the rest of your life.]

Birth matters. The way it happens matters to women and babies, not only at delivery, but for years to come. I wish more people realized its impact and knew the truth about the negative impact medically managed birth can have. So style notwithstanding, I give a thumbs-up to this book for seeking to illuminate that truth.

Here's to Climbers!

2011-05-28T10:20:00.004-03:00

One day last week we went to a park on a particularly nice day, and pretty soon after we got there, I was alerted to the fact that Chase had scaled the playground equipment and was perched on the very top of the tallest slide. There's nothing very noteable about this in itself, because Chase has always been a climber, with, I should add, extremely good balance. He could probably have walked on the top of the playground structure all day without incident, but it was pretty high, he's only four, and, let's be honest, other parents generally don't look upon this kind of activity very highly. So I walked over to tell him to get down, and as I did so, a couple other parents went over to him, looking anxious. I sighed inwardly, told him pointedly that he was awesome, but that we didn't want other kids climbing on top of the slide, so he needed to get down - which he did. But even as he was making his way down, one mother couldn't resist saying, without any humor in her voice, "It won't be any fun spending the summer in a cast." Then she leaned over to her daughter and hissed, "Don't you even think about it!"

Besides being completely unneccesary (I mean really, he was obeying me by getting down!), these comments struck me in an interesting way. I certainly know that life would be easier if kids never had any dangerous ideas. I also know that as a parent, it's my job to look out for the safety of my children, and hopefully to impart some sense of good judgment into their thought process as they consider these ideas. But when you have a child who is a climber, a risk-taker, an adventurer, you don't just have a kid who makes trips to the park nerve-wracking. You have a person with an adventurous spirit, the kind of person who could do and discover exciting things as he grows up.

So to Chase, who likes to see the world from on high, I say - Do think about it! Obey your parents when you're young as they seek to guard your life and limb, and listen to good counsel when you get older...but keep adventuring, keep daring, keep climbing!

Feel free to remind me of this when I post about our first broken bone.

Electronics-Free Week

2011-05-28T09:10:00.006-03:00

This past week we went electronics-free, in part to prove to the kids (and to ourselves) that such a thing can be done, and also to try to reorganize and restart our regulation of electronics use. To be honest, it wasn't a complete blackout. I checked my mail every couple days just to make there wasn't something going on that we needed to know about (there wasn't), and when the weather took a nasty turn here mid-week, we watched the news for updates. We also used our phones. So I guess it would be more accurate to say that we had a computer game-playing, Facebook-checking, Wii-playing, and recreational TV-watching -free week, but that's awkward to say, and it seems to cause punctuation problems as well, so "Electronics-free" week just works better.

When Drew told one of his friends in the neighborhood what we were doing, his friend replied incredulously, "No lights?!" We did actually keep the electricity on, of course, but I have to admit that for the first couple of days the kids acted like we were doing something just as dramatic. I'd like to say that they didn't miss it at all, but the reality is that they had some withdrawal symptoms, and, at first, asked me about every fifteen minutes if I was positively sure they couldn't watch or play. But they got over it, and eventually found their own answers to to the pressing question of "What are we going to do?"

For instance, one might

read to siblings (This isn't staged. It's an honest-to-goodness warm fuzzy moment.),

take a nap,

play a game (or at least, pull out the game and play with the pieces),

explore a park,

or just enjoy a sunny day! Ok, ok. Scarlett's week wasn't really affected by the change. I just included this because she's cute!

And actually, they all probably would have done most of these things anyway. Their days were already varied, with plenty of reading and outdoor play. But removing the possibility of glowing screens did encourage more periods of quiet and family time, and, so that I'm not just knocking the kids here, gave me chance to reevaluate what the necessity of being "connected" all the time. Our world kept turning just fine without knowing what was going with everyone and everything in every corner of the outside world, and, even more humbling, no one suffered even a little by not knowing what was going with us on a daily basis.

This weekend we lifted the ban, but are doing so gradually, hoping not to lose a healthy sense of perspective on those glowing screens.

Excuse Me?

2011-05-21T16:13:00.003-03:00

Speaking of the very distant future, I find it disconcerting when it becomes the present, such as when a certain child in the house says, "I'm done with 5th grade, so that means I'll be in 6th grade when school starts again!"

Wait - what? 6th grade?

It gets worse. "And then I'll get to be in youth group!"

In what? Are you kidding?

It seems that most churches with youth groups start at 6th grade these days rather than 7th (not that one year would change my feelings about this much), so it's not as though this is unusual. And I really enjoyed being in youth group in my day - for the most part. I appreciated youth pastors and leaders and still do (so if any of the ones I know happen to be reading this, don't take it personally!). But now as a mom of a rising...6th grader, I find I have no great love for the idea of youth group at church, and I find myself in an uncomfortable position. On the one hand, I remember being ready to enter this exciting yet bizzare subculture of the church, and I know I would have been livid to have been refused entry, so I completely understand my own child's feelings about it. On the other hand, philosophically, I don't think it has a place in our family philosophy. Of course, it makes sense to have grounded kids from relatively good families available to be good influences on those who might need them. But it also makes sense that that which is innocent can only be made less so, not really the other way around. And let's say that all the kids in a particular youth group are already grounded kids from relatively good families...they're still just a mob of preteens and teens (of all ages!). Maybe a good mob as teenagers go, but still!

I'm struggling. I have a feeling it gets steadily worse from here!

Sometime in the Very Distant Future...

2011-05-21T13:59:00.002-03:00

Earlier this week Scarlett had an ear infection and wasn't inclined to nap for a couple of days. Pretty much at all. This was rather stressful, so you can imagine my...um...slight annoyance when she fell asleep one afternoon and seemed put-down-able, but just when I eased her chubby sweet -sleeping - self onto the bed, one of my other children began calling me from downstairs.

Oh, please recognize that I'm not answering you immediately for a reason. And please stop calling my name. No, PLEASE PLEASE do not go into every single room of the house shouting, "MOM?!" until you find me! And oh, for the sake of all that's good and merciful, please don't come up the stairs..."

"Oops, sorry! Did I wake her up?"

This was one of those moments when I thought, "Oh, for the day they stop doing this kind of thing," and, of course, I immediately reminded myself that when that day comes and I do have an empty nest, it's just the kind of thing I'll probably miss. There are a host of other moments like these that I'm sure I'll miss as well when I reach those empty nest days. (Although technically, I think you have to stop having children for this ever to be a possibility...)

One day I'll be taking a shower and realize I have nothing at all to think about, because no one will be pounding on the door, asking for my immediate assistance in sorting out the philosophical issue of who the greatest Batman villian is. That will be sad.

One morning I'll wake up and realize that I feel strange. Almost...rested. No one will have awakened me at midnight needing the solution for what's to be done when one's feet are too cold out of the covers, but too hot underneath them. Not sure how I'll cope with a full night's sleep.

One day I'll be looking over my bank statement and marvel at how much money is NOT going to Wal-Mart and Kroger each week. That will truly be unfathomable.

Speaking of groceries, the silence will be deafening when there aren't five voices (ok, well four, but the other one asks in her own way) clamoring, "I'm hungry! Have we had breakfast already? What's for lunch? Do we get dessert? What can I have for a snack? Well, when CAN I have a snack?" every fifteen minutes.

When I do have to go to the store, I might feel lost, and just stare at the short list not really comprehending that I won't have to navigate my way through the aisles with an oversized cart, saying things like, "No, we're not buying that. Please get back in the cart. Please get back in the cart. Please get back in the cart. (On a repeating loop until the parking lot, at which time it changes to, "Get out of the cart and into the car. PLEASE.") Why yes, they ARE all mine, and yes, I DO have my hands full. And then under my breath, "Why how clever you are to observe that the last thing I need is another one? What if I LIKE them?"

Because I do, of course, and one day I will miss loud voices, bottomless stomachs, burning questions about superheroes and their villains, finding spaghetti noodles on the floor (a day or two later), fetching certain little boys off a top library shelf under the fierce gaze of a librarian, sorting out impossible situations in the middle of the night, and never getting to the bottom of the laundry pile.

One day!

Catching Up, Part 2

2011-05-07T09:15:00.002-03:00

I felt like my last post was rather disjointed - getting rusty is what comes of going over a month without writing - so I want to tie up a few loose ends and make a couple additions.

First of all, I hope that what came across was simply that health and wellness is not a luxury. It's not just ok, but it's actually good and worthwhile pursuit for women and mothers (and men, too, of course). That pursuit doesn't have to involve eliminating dairy (which food food group isn't evil in and of itself) or starting a course of medication (which certainly may not be for everyone). Those steps have been part of what has been working for me. Happier, healthier me = happier, healthier family. My encouragement for other mothers is to shed the guilt and do what works for them to acheive this same equation. (And on a related note, Hannah has some great encouragement and tips on the subject of clothing, another area I've been inspired to work on, but which I'll let her do the writing! I also can't get close to her sense of style, so her pictures will be ever so much more inspiring than any I could take.)

Second, April was good in many ways, but there were some low points as well. Our trampoline finally bit the dust, and while this may sound trivial, it truly is sad news. That trampoline was one of the best things we ever purchased, because I'm not exaggerating when I say that the kids never grew tired of it, and would spend hours each day on it. When we took it down a couple weeks ago, it was only a short time before the boys started bouncing off the walls and the furniture, and I could almost literally feel the pent-up energy building within them, energy that would ordinarily be burned off on said trampoline. So I'm mourning its demise as much as the kids are, and I don't think it's too frivolous a request to be praying for a new one. Soon. Please?

Other bad news - and this really is a problem - is that the tenants in our house in SC moved out, suddenly and without intending to tell us. One of our neighbors alerted us to the situation, and we eventually got to the bottom of things. But the fact remains that we didn't collect April's rent, there obviously won't be any for May, and the house is now empty. And we are 500+ miles away and not exactly sure of how to proceed. It's one of those times that's so bad that we're beyond panic mode, and can only view it as an interesting turn of events, an opportunity for God do something we obviously haven't thought of yet. So. We'll see what happens in that area!

Catching Up

2011-05-06T08:49:00.005-03:00

It's been far too long since I've posted anything. It hasn't been for lack of ideas - I've had plenty. It could have something to do with a little sweetums who is getting busier every day and who just said "mama" (or was is "Mama" with a capital "M"? Let's say it was!) for the first time yesterday. She was up until 11:30 last night practicing the new addition to her vocabulary, and it was so charming I didn't at all mind doing nothing at all but listen to her. And of course there are four other kiddos around - who would each one object to being called my "sweetums" but who still are! - who have kept me occupied, particularly as we feverishly try to wrap up our school year. We operate on a year-round calendar, but there is still something about the springtime that makes us long for a sense of closure.

At any rate, I missed chronicling any of our April, and it would be hard to recap everything, even if that's what you were all dying to read (which I rather doubt!). Some of the highlights: Ryan and Chase acquired two guinea pigs, which was exciting for everyone, and my parents and nephew came to visit over Easter weekend, also quite exciting. April was also a good month for my health and overall well-being, and I think it's on this topic that I'll round things out for now.

Several months ago I began toying with the idea of going dairy-free for Scarlett's sake. She was colicky as a newborn, and always more congested than I thought she should be. She grew out of her fussiness after a couple months, but the congestion continued to be a problem for her, and after eliminating several possible allergens as suspects, I thought it might be a good idea to cut back on my dairy consumption. I finally began doing so after the turn of the new year, and I noticed an improvement for her fairly quickly. After several fits and starts, I really buckled down and eliminated all dairy, including things like whey and casein, a couple months ago. The results were good for Scarlett, but even more terrific for me. I felt healthier and more energetic than I had in a long time, and as a bonus, I quickly dropped 20 pounds, finally dipping below my prepregnancy weight and edging pretty close to my pre-children weight. Whether this successful experiment triggered a quest for better health, or just coincided with the other steps I took towards that end, I don't really know, but at any rate, I also began running, using the Couch to 5k program, and I also went to the doctor to get some things taken care of. While there I discovered that my Vitamin D levels were horribly deficient, so I began to remedy that, with noticeable results.

And I also began taking Zoloft. I'm reluctant to mention it in one sense, because I don't want to come across as trying to be sensational or to have everyone join in a great pity party for me. But in another sense, I don't want to hide it, because there's a stigma against treating mental and emotional health, and while I know there's a balance here, I think women and mothers (in particular) tend to accept dysfunction for themselves in this area, all the while feeling guilty about it - and I don't think this is healthy. Of course I prefer taking natural routes toward health where possible, and I'm not advocating pill-popping. I know there are nutrition and lifestyle choices that are often better than pharmaceuticals for anxiety and other emotional issues. I've spent a long time coping with anxiety that has been almost crippling at times, I've learned how to cope in many ways, and I'm grateful for those skills. In fact, a few years ago I was diagnosed with severe OCD, and I realized then how much victory I had actually had over it throughout my life, which was a blessing. But I really felt it was time to explore options that might help me go past just coping, and my doctor here agreed. That was in March, and the medication really began to start working in April. So far it's exceeded my expectations, and I've enjoyed a sense of better emotional and mental health along with improved physical health. So April was a really great month for me personally!

But the best result here is that all this doesn't just mean I get to sit around in smaller clothes and feel good about myself just for kicks. There seem to be two opposing poles where it concerns women's well-being - One, in which you should do whatever makes you happy and completes you as a person, at whatever cost to anyone else; and the other, in which your family is paramount and thinking of yourself at all is selfish. I think there's a middle ground, which encompasses taking care of oneself as part of looking out for one's family. I'm not talking about doing whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want - I'm just talking about achieving a sense of well-being. Everyone benefits from a healthy, happy mother who carves out a little time to feel and look well - especially the girl in the house who is nearly as tall as her mother and who is rapidly approaching young womanhood! I want her to feel that health and peace are things she can always seek for herself as well, so that she can do whatever God calls her to do, even and especially if it's raising and nurturing more young minds, souls, and bodies, to the best of her ability.

A Few More Words of Encouragement...

2011-03-23T10:48:00.004-03:00

Adding to my last post, here a few more things you could do if you wanted (obviously addressing only women and mothers here!):

Have a natural birth.

Breastfeed.

Breastfeed your baby past age one. Past age two. Past age three. Past age four.

Have your kids home with your kids home with you all day, every day. (You wouldn't go crazy. They wouldn't become clingy, socially-stunted introverts. Trust me.)

Have large-ish family (because we're not actually a large family, in my opinion).

You could, if it's what you wanted. Of course, there may be other reasons you don't, and that's perfectly fine. But I'm always alarmed when people marginalize me - and us - as if I'm a supermom (or just a crazy person, depending on your viewpoint!). The above list is not true of me and my family because I have strength beyond normal womanhood or motherhood. I have a low pain threshold (I'm pretty wimpy about it, actually). I like personal space (and have very little these days.) I like neat, orderly spaces (which are also few and far between). It also seems like people assume that homeschoolers and/or stay-at-home moms are either wealthier than most, or too poor and homely to care about what "everybody else" cares about. I know the former isn't true of us, and I don't think the latter is, either. We just do it.

And that's how it is - you just do it. And in the doing, you find out what you're made of, not the other way around!

If I Can Do This, So Can You!

2011-03-22T08:51:00.003-03:00

This post may have the tendency to come across as a bit obnoxious in places, if anyone should happen to misinterpret my intentions. I hope it doesn't. I hope you don't! I really truly mean it as encouragement, and not as a way to toot my own horn (or that of my offspring) surreptitiously.

Often people who meet my kids will remark on how smart they are, and then they'll ask if we homeschool. It's great to receive affirmation that I'm not completely ruining my children, but on the other hand, sometimes I worry about what this does for those people, because then they'll often follow it up with a statement that begins, "Oh, I could never..." And I wonder if they feel genuinely disheartened, the way one might feel if they walked into my house right after I had cleaned it (and I mean RIGHT after - it doesn't last long), instead of walking in on a random moment of a normal day. They might think it always looked that way, and they might wonder at my amazing homemaking skills. In the same way, when they hear that we homeschool, I worry that sometimes they think, "I could never be so...creative, together, organized, teach all those things, etc, etc, etc."

The reality is that some homeschool moms are exceptionally creative. Some moms are organized. Some moms may actually spend a good deal of time teaching subjects directly to their kids. But some are completely on the other end of the spectrum. Many are somewhere in the middle, and that's where we fall - and to be honest, less toward the creative and organized side! Now, I'll just say that our relaxed style of learning may blow up in our faces when high school years roll around (but I don't think it will), so take this all with a grain of salt, but our philosophy is that kids have a natural desire to learn, that it takes more work to stifle that desire than to encourage it. For us, encouraging it simply means making information and experiences available, giving the kids the opportunity to explore both, and trusting that learning will happen. (Yes, in some things I believe they need a nudge and more direction, and sometimes there are special circumstances that mean children will need more intervention than usual. I'm just generalizing here!).

So for anyone who has a mental picture of our detailed daily lesson plans, of hourly schedules, of happy craft time around the kitchen table, or of me knowing what I'm doing as I teach a Latin lesson, dispel those thoughts! It doesn't look anything like school or what a teacher does there (the gift of teaching is for schools, and is a great gift, but it's not necessary at home, thank goodness!). Learning happens, lots of it, but it has almost nothing to do with me! There may be other reasons why you choose not homeschool, but I implore anyone and everyone to cross, "I could never be that...[fill in the blank]" off the list. If I can do this, so can you!

Just an Update

2011-03-21T12:11:00.000-03:00

I know you were all just dying to know how things were going for us in general here in Ohio, so here goes...

When I first wrote about our first impression of Ohio, I said that people weren't very hospitable here. I feel I should clarify that a bit, because, as it turns out, we have met some very nice people, and the church we've been going to is especially welcoming and friendly. And while our neighborhood seemed a tightly closed shell in the dead of winter, warmer weather has opened it up to reveal some friendly souls as well. Each afternoon Drew is hailed from across the street by the troop of boys who play basketball and football together until dinnertime, and Aimee's company is requested by the little girl who lives across the street, or the older one who lives around the corner. We still encounter some abrupt people while out and about (people seem less tolerant of the kids here, and behave as if we had twenty wild hooligans in the store with us), but since our social life is otherwise rounding out fairly nicely, who cares? Maybe they just have the winter doldrums and will thaw out with the Spring.

Spring does seem to work an even more noticeable magic and feeling of excitement here, probably because there is one, for starters. Instead of going from winter-ish weather straight to 80 degrees, the warming-up process is gentle, and the tilt of our corner of the Earth towards the sun seems more perceptible here than down South. And since winter was so cold, gray, and dreary, that the combination of the sun, singing birds, and temperatures over 50 degrees is enough to make one practically giddy. Each warm and sunny day finds us trying out a new park (the metroparks are pretty nifty here), or at the very least, finds the kids out riding bikes and scooters in the cul-de-sac (on which we really enjoy living) and playing with the aforesaid friends.

Having just mentioned the metroparks, I'll say again that I love them, as well
as the myriad of other things to do here. The library is still fantastic, and we even found another library system in the city next to us (still only about 3 miles away) which is a better place to take the kids. So now I have a slightly bizarre system worked out in which I enjoy the best of both libraries (no fines at one, so I put all our "school-ish" books on hold there, and just run in to check them out, and nice facilities at the other, where we like to hang out). Dave took a look at our library basket recently and said, "Do we really need all these books?" What kind of question is THAT? That's like saying, "Do we really need all these channels?" Oh wait - that's nothing like it, is it?

Okie, dokie, moving on! So we love the parks, the libraries, the museums. We also just recently joined our local Y, and that's pretty wonderful, too. It looks like the summer will open up some more fun opportunities. We like our church, as well as the local LLL Group, where we've found other homeschoolers with several children each (so we don't feel so completely crazy all by ourselves in these categories!). But that brings me to some of the downsides. We haven't filled the gap in the homeschooling support category. I just haven't found a support group like we had back home, and that troubles me a bit. In fact, I'm having trouble finding many stay-at-home moms at all, or moms of many (or of several, depending on your perspective!). I miss having this kind of camaraderie on a regular basis.

And sometimes I just miss home. I miss the South. I feel a little panicked sometimes about the possibility that the kids won't grow up as true Southerners, the way I had imagined they would. Sometimes I still feel like an outsider, and I wonder if I'll ever feel otherwise...and then I wonder if I really want to feel like I belong here! It's tricky. But I have a feeling that that's all normal for a big move like this. Overall, it's been positive so far for us, though. My kids have scattered into the Spring-like winds while I've been writing this, so off I go to round them up again!

That Crazy Fine Line

2011-03-16T09:07:00.004-03:00

One of the advantages of homeschooling often touted by homeschool advocates is more one-on-one time with each child.

Sometimes I think that's an absurd thing to claim, because that's the last thing it seems I have to offer. I feel like I'm constantly short on time in general, and time with each individual child to nurture their academic pursuits at each individual pace and learning style...hear the sound of me laughing! Instead I constantly struggle with knowing how to balance everyone's needs. If I concentrate on getting the older kids through a full day of "school," the younger ones (and the house) seem a bit neglected. If I focus on the younger ones, not much "school" happens. So I walk this very fine line between order and chaos as I try to balance both worlds and keep them in harmony. It's a little messy, it's a little loud...but somehow it all comes together, and they're always learning, no matter what kind of day we have.

But when the scales start to tip toward chaos, and when I feel I'm flying off in five different directions at once, I realize I have to be purposeful in correcting the balance. It means just doing with math with one child who might need a little extra direction that day, and surrendering to the fact that everyone else is probably playing upstairs instead of "doing school" during that time. It means slowing down to look each child in the eyes when they're talking to me, instead of including listening in a list of things I'm multitasking. It means remembering to get down to a little one's eye level when I'm talking to them, so that they know I really see them. It means stopping in the middle of getting the breakfast dishes done when someone comes to me with a box of Duplo Legos and implores "Play?," even though I really "need" to get on to our schoolwork.

I still picture this idyllic world in which I have time to do each subject properly (at least in the way I think it should be done!) with each child, and play with the younger ones, AND keep the house in order... and I still know that's fantasy. Reality is much more hectic. But each morning offers fresh opportunities for me to learn and love with five great people - sometimes one-on-one, usually all together in helter-skelter fashion, always just the way I like it.

PS Let's be real...sometimes I want to run screaming out the front door and down the street in pursuit of some personal sanity. That's life. It's still a good one!

This Program is Brought to You By...

2011-03-15T14:01:00.002-03:00

I love Veritas Press, a classical Christian education supplier. I can't afford all of their curriculum, but I love dreaming over their catalogs, I use their literature suggestions, and every once in awhile, I do buy something that I think I just must have. I did so several years ago when I purchased their Phonics Museum, which I have used with all the kids, and which has now produced our third reader. So here's some free advertising for you, Veritas Press!

I realize it's expensive, and probably not all of it is necessary, but it's been great for us. I will say that we don't do all the activities or worksheets - by now we just follow the general guideline, and do whichever sheets strike our fancy. That's pretty much what I do with all our curriculum by now, actually, and it seems to work out fine. Ryan, on minimal instruction and direction, is right about the same place as Aimee, who was on the opposite end of the spectrum (because I didn't know any better). Hooray for Ryan, and thank you, Phonics Musuem!

Going to the Underland

2011-03-13T09:14:00.008-03:00

After some rather deep and serious posts, on to lighter fare!

Well, actually... not really.

Today's post is about books in general, and about The Underland Chronicles specifically, and that particular series isn't exactly the lightest of reading, juvenile fiction though it is. The series is by the author of The Hunger Games, definitely not cheerful reading, but enthralling and thought-provoking all the same, so I was initially excited about the idea of introducing the kids to Suzanne Collins through her children's books. When I read, however, that they were about an underground world inhabited by giant rats and cockroaches, among other things, I was considerably less enthused, and I forgot about it for some months.

But recently Drew was looking for something new to read, and remembering these books, I thought they might actually tickle his fancy, so I checked the first one out from the library, handed it to him one day - and lost him for the rest of the day. I checked out the rest of the books in the series, and for the rest of that week, he was, much like Gregor (the main character), more in the Underland than in the Overland among the rest of us.

When Aimee saw that there was something completely engrossing about the books (rather than just gross, the way she and I imagined!), she dove in after him, and I read along as well -when I could get to them, at any rate. The first thing that struck me was how cleverly Suzanne Collins crafted this world in a way that made otherwise repulsive creatures almost enchanting - and definitely interesting to read about. I was also impressed with the way the story allows children to experience some intense themes and emotions in a relatively safe way - i.e., there is war and battle, life-and-death struggle, actual injury and death, but because much of it happens to fantastical animals, it's somewhat easier to process. Somewhat. The violence escalates towards the end of the series, and by the fifth book, it was pushing our limits just a bit. At one point I thought that the kids might just as well read The Hunger Games after all at the rate things were going. And in fact, as an aside, I thought the fifth and last book of this series was remarkably similar to the last book of The Hunger Games series. The main character in each spends a great deal of time wandering around in the depths of despair, witnessing and ruminating on just how terrible the situation is, believing he or she is going to die, and watching a close loved one die a terrible death instead. And to tell the truth, it gets just a teensy bit tiresome. Drew's interest wavered midway through the fifth book, as did mine (I think Aimee read through uninterrupted.) But then towards the end, the author pulled out all the stops in a spectacularly heart wrenching manner, which was absolutely brilliant or absolutely terrible (or maybe both), depending on who you talk to, and at what time. One of my children came to me at that point in the book, almost ashen, and said tremulously, "Sometimes authors make really...bad...choices." And then later, "Would it be silly to cry over a book character?" No, it's not at all silly. The other child came to me literally weeping, explaining the tragedy, then holding up a warning hand and advising through sobs, "I don't suggest you finish reading it." Both said at first that it was the worst book EVER for having done that, but both continue to talk about the series as a whole with warmth and excitement. So we talked a little about whether having one's emotions wrenched in a story makes the story a horrible one after all...or maybe just a really good one.

Which brings me to the subject, briefly, of books as a whole. What does make a good one? Recently -right about the time we began this series, actually - a post on a homeschool list I'm on prompted me to think about what criteria we use for deciding which books our children should read, and whether this particular series could fit the bill. We don't restrict ourselves to Christian material only, and one reason is because the world doesn't come packaged in a neat and tidy Christian box (the Bible, for that matter, doesn't come packaged in a very pretty box. Ever read Judges?). Eventually our kids will encounter topics and behaviors outside their worldview and value system, and I'd rather be with them when they do. But obviously we place some filters on what they read. Here's what we try to avoid:

Senseless violence, darkness, cruelty, or even just unkindness. (This is vague. But I guess I mean that there can be a place for some violence, as long as it's tempered by a noble purpose. Still vague? Sorry.)

Bathroom humor. The boys don't need any encouragement here, so I try to steer clear of cheap humor of this sort.

Excessive emphasis on mysticism or wizardry. Oh, this is very vague, I realize, and highly subjective!

Mouthy or bratty behavior in a hero or heroine. Here's another area in which I think kids don't need any help.

At this stage of the game with my kids, I also like to keep the boyfriend/girlfriend thing at a minimum.

Here's what we do like to see emphasized in books:

Honor, loyalty, friendship, family, determination, creativity, selflessness, and more like it!

These are elements woven throughout The Underland Chronicles. So while there are some intense elements (and a few references to evolution), it's a series that highlights some of the best things we like to see in literature. Tears and all.

A Few More Thoughts...

2011-03-12T08:07:00.005-04:00

A friend left a comment on post about Scarlett, mentioning truth as a lens, and I loved that phrase. It also provided a perfect springboard for another element of that story that I just couldn't find a place for in the post, but that I wanted to write about in some way. In probably more than one post, I've mentioned how fantastic my midwife, Jami, was throughout my pregnancy and Scarlett's birth, and she continued to be so long after (which, by the way, is one of the many ways I find the midwife experience to be about a trillion times better than the doctor experience). As I said in the post about the unexpected twists in our journey with Scarlett, Jami noted that there were a couple of things that somewhat out of the "normal" range. The beautiful thing is that while these things might have, unnecessarily, been given more immediate attention in a hospital setting, Jami mentioned them in time, but let the focus of the birth be entirely about the miracle that was Scarlett. I love this picture of her examining Scarlett, because much later, I realized that she was just then seeing some things that might be problematic. Dave was teasing her a bit by taking her picture, but she was just smiling, not betraying the least sense of worry. When she handed Scarlett back to me, she didn't bombard me with all the possibilities, but only said how beautiful she was. She did let me know in the most gentle way later than she noticed things that were somewhat different than might be expected, and when I told her what the doctor was concerned about, she acknowledged that he had had to tell me that. But she herself didn't dwell on speculations, nor, on the other hand, did she blow off my fear by offering quick assurances. She always, in the many times we talked about it over the next few months, managed to strike a balance between acknowledging possibilities and speaking peace over my fears, and she did it by being a "lens of truth." She filtered everything through what was just the truth, and she spoke it every time we talked - "She's beautiful, God placed her in this family who loves her, and He has a plan for her." She was, as another friend called her, "a peaceful presence," and that presence certainly was an important part of how I survived (and perhaps grew just a little!) in those first few months of Scarlett's life.

So thanks, Jami. And go midwives!

Anyway, the aforesaid comment on the previous Scarlett post also mentioned my transparency, which I'm not usually known for. But I have tried, on occasion, to be a little more so, after a close friend of mine was talking about rough time in her life, and how it had hit her particularly hard because she had felt naive about anything like that happening to her. I realized that one of the reasons we go through that period of shock in rough times ("how could this be happening to me?') is that we tend to hide those feelings and experiences from even our closest friends. The result is that we spend so much time feeling like failures because it seems that no "good" mother, wife, friend, Christian, etc, would feel that way or have that experience...when the truth is that ALL good mothers, wives, friends, Christians, etc. go through these kinds of things, however the details express themselves. So I'm not advocating answering, "How are you today?" with a list of one's innermost feelings on every occasion, but I do think some transparency is called for now and then, and I'm happy for my story about Scarlett to promote that to some extent.

And on a final note of transparency, I wrapped up that post in a tidy fashion, as if I had achieved loving Scarlett, or all of my children, perfectly. Obviously I hope you all take that librerally, and not as a literal expression of my perfection! If anything, the experience has highlighted how I can't love them perfectly, and how I'm glad that their Heavenly Father can do so. But being aware of that can help me as a mother realize my tendency to cling to expectations of their futures, rather than just loving who they are...and perhaps I can move a little closer each day to the latter.

Some Thoughts on Homeschooling -Proceed at Your Own Risk!

2011-03-03T16:15:00.005-04:00

Recently a friend shared this article about homeschoolers, and it inspired several channels of thought on my part...about which you now get to read! This line in particular struck me - "And, proponents say, the home-schoolers of yesteryear, stereotyped as socially awkward, religiously dogmatic and ill-prepared for the real world, aren’t representative of current home-schoolers who more closely mirror the mainstream."

My first thought...well, no, actually my first thought was something like, "Hey, 'homeschoolers of yesteryear' means ME! I'm not so much less cooler than today's homeschooling kids!" And in fact, we had a great network of people in our homeschool support group when I was growing up. I'm not sure that the dynamic of camaraderie that we had can even be duplicated by homeschool groups today . That was pretty cool. We were pretty interesting, well adjusted people. (I think we're still interesting, well-adjusted people!) So I felt rather miffed at that insinuation.

But anyway, I didn't linger on that too long. My next thought was that articles like this keep appearing; this isn't really news, is it? And yet, it must be necessary that they do, because we're still asked questions such as, "How do you know they're at the level they're supposed be?" and, the all-time favorite, "What about socialization?" Still. It seems ridiculous to me, because it seems like we've proven ourselves through this method of education by now, but apparently there is indeed still a stigma to overcome. So a part of me applauded this nod to the normalization of homeschooling and homeschoolers.

But then I thought about how unfair that is that we have to keep explaining and justifying ourselves, about how unfair it's always been. Aren't there "socially awkward" people from every kind of educational system, not to mention people who are "ill-prepared for the real world?" It seems to me that there a fair number of these kinds of people who are products of the public school system - and yet parents of public school students aren't regularly challenged about whether their children will turn out socially or academically stunted if they remain in the public school system. So why is this a stigma attached only to homeschoolers? And why, for that matter, is the public school standard the one we're aiming to achieve anyway? What does define "normal" within this topic? The article offers as an example of socially "normal" a teenage girl who "hangs out with her friends at the mall and spends time on Facebook." Wow. Wherever you have your children educated, I hope your expectations for them are higher than that. I have nothing against either of those activities in themselves, but is that really all that defines "normal" here? "Whew, at least I haven't ruined my child by homeschooling her! I'm so glad she's good at wasting time just like everybody else!"

Just like everybody else. Maybe that's part of the real issue here. I wonder if some of the anxiety about homeschooling is that we grow people outside the mold. I'm not saying homeschooling is perfect, or that those who homeschool are, either. In general, though, kids who are homeschooled are allowed to think, learn, and develop outside the box, and that might mean they approach life differently at each stage of life. That might mean that hanging out at the mall all the time might not seem all that worthwhile. Please understand that I'm not saying this is only true of homeschoolers. There are public school kids who think outside the box, who express individuality, who seek and pursue a more purposeful existence. What I'm saying is that the system doesn't encourage that, and that I wonder if some of the skepticism about homeschooling comes from fear that homeschoolers might be different from "everybody else." It's easier to understand (and control?) normal if the system keeps it at a pretty boring baseline; does homeschooling (or any kind of thinking outside the confines of the mainstream educational system) continually threaten this understanding?

Finally, here's the thing: Homeschoolers tend to spend time explaining and defending ourselves against this stigma that we're not "normal" (even though, as I've already mentioned, studies and articles keep coming out saying that - surprise! - we do pretty well entering society). Sometimes, though, I think we should just admit that we're not actually aiming for the "normal" of "everybody else." Don't get me wrong - I know what is meant by "socially awkward, religiously dogmatic, and ill-prepared for the real world." I know what kind of people it refers to, and yes, there are some homeschoolers like that (just like there are social misfits, and worse, in the public school population, let's not forget). However, in some ways, we may always have those things said about us, and that may not be a bad thing.

-Since we want our children to rise above petty sub-cultures created by unrealistic age divisions, and we encourage them to challenge the social mores of a corrupt culture, that may be understood as "socially awkward."

-Since we teach our children a worldview based on the absolute truth of God's Word, even if we present it with gentleness and respect rather than arrogance, and encourage them to have the same, they will probably be accused of being "religiously dogmatic".

-Since we, in all of the above, encourage them not to "conform...to the the pattern of this world" we rather hope that they will be "ill-prepared" to be comfortable in it, and that they will instead be mindful of the world to come. And in their time here, we hope they won't just accept what "everybody else" says and does, but that they will challenge it, always seeking and pursuing real truth, real purpose, real worth. In doing so, they might achieve great things, rather than just ordinary.

(Am I saying public school parents can't have these goals? NO! But this is my blog, and I can only speak about our goals as homeschooling parents. So take it as that, and not as an accusation of parents who make other schooling choices. Please!)

And what about socialization? I've often wondered why this question, which seems to have been answered rather definitively time and again and thus is outdated, keeps being asked. Then I realized that maybe they're not just talking about the opportunity and ability to interact with people in our society (because check and check - we've got all that covered). Maybe they're referring to the training of a docile worker class. In that case, they're absolutely right - there is a lack of socialization in homeschooling, and furthermore, I don't want it!

With this potentially inflammatory statement, I'm signing off!

An Unexpected Journey with Miss Scarlett

2011-03-01T16:24:00.004-04:00

I mentioned several posts ago that we received "fantastic news" during our visit down South. For those of you that have been holding your breath waiting for me to spill...here goes!

I've actually been mentally composing this post for about eight months, since the earliest days after Scarlett's birth. Now that it's come to writing it, I find it's not so dramatic as it all seemed then, so I may not have as much to write as I though I would. (Note: everything seems ten times more dramatic in a postpartum haze then it does after all those hormones wear off! I've had five children, and yet I always seem to forget this until well after the fact.) There have been two versions in the works, and I'll go ahead and say that this is the version I had hoped to post.

It actually started as a post about one issue, then another issue took over my thoughts and emotions, and eventually they dovetailed into one. At any rate, it all started when Scarlett was born, when - confession time! - I was alarmed to find I was not completely intoxicated by that "cocktail of love hormones" delivered at birth. In my previous natural births, I experienced the bliss that comes after labor, that is heightened by having experienced all the sensations of birth, and I was instantly and rapturously in love with my babies. Even in my two medicated births, when I was in a haze, there was no gap between birth and bonding. But this time, I was disconcerted by having looked at her and thinking, "That's not the person I was expecting." And why in the world this would be, I'm not completely sure. She looked like she fit with her siblings. The birth was amazing. She was adorable and miraculous. I held her tightly when she was placed in my arms, kissed her, spoke her name to prompt her to respond to us and begin crying, loved her and never for a second rejected her with any part of me (heaven forbid she should ever find this one day, read it, and think I was disappointed with her!)...but I didn't have the rush of warm-fuzzies I was waiting for. Part of this, I think, was because after I delivered her head, I had though the worst was over, but then she got a little stuck. The delivery of her shoulders and chest was far more painful than I had experienced before. So when my midwife, Jami, pulled her out of the water and placed her into my arms, I was still feeling shocked and I had a hard time of delivery had been something different that what I expected.

Before I could recover from this, my emotions followed a downward spiral of events that started first when that night and then again the next morning, Jami mentioned (gently and tactfully) that Scarlett's ears were just the slightest bit low-set. She emphasized that she didn't see anything else that could indicate an immediate problem associated with this, and that she felt it was just the way Scarlett was made, but nonetheless, it brought a stab of fear that further held off the happy emotions. Personally, I didn't have a problem with her ears, but the fact that something other than the "normal" box was checked on the section about her ears on the newborn exam sheet made me a little crazy. I felt panicked, thinking, "I can't believe I messed up a baby!", as if somehow I were responsible for this thing (that wasn't really a "thing" at all, but keep in mind what I said about those postpartum hormones!). That feeling was compounded when Scarlett opened her eyes the next morning, and revealed that she couldn't open her left eye all the way. If I felt panicked about her ears, I was all the more so about her eye. It reminded me, irrationally, when Aimee received her first American Girl doll, and one of the eyes stopped opening and closing properly. We sent it to American Girl, they fixed it, and sent it back. I remember wishing desperately that there was something as easy we could do to fix Scarlett's eye...and feeling a rush of anxiety, because she was a baby, not a doll, and couldn't just be "fixed." And on top of all that, feeling so very guilty, because I was her mother and and "shouldn't" even be having these thoughts.

I struggled with this through my the period of physical recovery, and it was somewhat difficult for me to leave my room after the first week to take care of everyone else. Scarlett had been born in my bedroom, so in all kinds of ways, many of which were positive, my room felt like a peaceful cocoon. I suppose I felt that if Scarlett and I could stay there together long enough, everything would resolve itself - her eye would get better, we would have a proper bonding experience, I would feel only the joy and relief of having had a baby, and none of the anxiety and slight confusion that I was feeling instead. But I had to rejoin the real world when Dave had to go back to work, regardless of how I was feeling, and, as usually happen in cases in which we think we can't do something but must do it anyway, the very doing eventually became part of the strengthening and the healing. Still, in the very first week, I remember holding her in the sling on morning as I was getting ready to start our day, and I remember wondering glumly if my memories of our first weeks together would be tainted by my failure to respond emotionally to her, at least in the way that I wanted. But I was reminded in that moment that I was holding her, nursing her, caring for her just the same as I always have with all my babies...and that those are the things I would remember, and certainly those were the things that would count with her. The doing was what mattered...and because there were four other energetic children to care for - four children, incidentally, who were thrilled with Scarlett and never failed to offer affirmation about how beautiful and wonderful she was - there wasn't much time to sit around and marinate in guilt or self-pity.

So that was some relief, and it certainly helped when we were thrown the next curveball at her two week well-check. Her pediatrician, as it turned out, didn't think her ears were low-set after all, but he was concerned about the size of her chest, which was larger than usual. He said that he thought she would probably just grow into it, but that it could indicate a chromosomal condition, so we would just watch her over the next several months and make sure she hit her milestones. So your baby might have a life-altering condition. But it's nothing to worry about yet. Have a nice day!"

I walked out of the office feeling a bit stunned, and wondering how I would survive watching her every move in anticipation of her hitting her milestones...for the next few months. As it turned out, of course, the next few months weren't quite that agonzing, partly because, as I've just mentioned, real life was still happening. I couldn't sit around and wait for Scarlett to be ok, or for all this to the "normal" experience I had expected. I'd like to say that I didn't have time to worry at all, but then I'm pretty sure you would know I was lying! I did spend a fair amount of time in those few months grappling with a depth of mother emotions - and just human emotions - that I hadn't previously touched in my life. And this is what came of it all:

At first, I struggled with rebellious feelings toward God. "How could you do this to her? How could you do this me?" It took some time, but I had to be reminded that life happens to ordinary people. There's no particular reason that I should be exempt from bad things happening. This wasn't about ME, anyway, but about her. I was confronted with my own lingering self-centeredness in regard to my children, and I wondered how often it was my expectations of them, and the way they met them, that I loved best. Ouch.

In realizing and wrestling with these things, however, I also became aware that if I found out that anyone viewed Scarlett as anything other than an absolutely adorable baby, if anyone thought less of her because of her eye, or any other flaw in her appearance - if they even suggested there was a flaw in her at all! - I was capable of doing physical harm to them. That intense protectiveness was the reason I didn't tell anyone, including family members, about what the doctor was concerned about, but it was also what confirmed to myself that there was nothing wrong with the bond Scarlett and I had. Some of the warm-fuzzies might have been masked by anxiety, but I did truly love her. And when she began to smile and coo, it was impossible not to respond to her with adoration. In fact, I cherished each smile and sound all the more because I was watching her so closely to make sure she did all the right things and the right times (which, incidentally, she did and still does). I savored every moment with her, slowing down a time that usually flies by in a blur.

Eventually the things I feared became overwhelmed by what I loved - and in some instances became the things I loved (like the way she winks her droopy eye when she smiles!). By the time we moved her to Ohio, I thought she probably did have the condition the doctor had told us about, and I was no longer afraid of it. So when her new pediatrician wanted to get her tested, I was ready, and we went ahead and had the blood test done (and then waited and waited...apparently those tests take a long time!). When we were back in SC for a visit last month, the nurse from the pediatrician's office called with the results - and they were negative! It took a few minutes to register the news, and even when it did, I wasn't as euphoric as I had thought I would be to hear it. I think it's because it's not her chromosome count that makes her perfect to me - and perfectly loved!

Why I Like the Dreary Month of February

2011-02-27T14:01:00.010-04:00

It's the last day of February, a typically dreary month, some of the reasons for which my dad explains here. I agree with him for the most part, except that our Februarys get a lift midway through, when we get to celebrate two birthdays - and on the same day! So we have two reaons not only for celebrating this month, but even for looking forward to it.

I have to say that when I was pregnant with my third baby and looking ahead to my first February due date, it wasn't, at least at first, with joyous anticipation. We weren't in a great financial situation, and our house was hardly big enough to accomodate our family as it was. I wondered how we would be able to care for another baby. Certainly no financial advisor (or hardly anyone, for that matter) would have suggested we have a baby at that time in our lives. But from the moment I held him in my arms (after my first natural birth, which was a story in itself), I knew that the truth was there was no way we could afford to live without him. And not only was there room for him, but there would an emptiness without him! I know money is a reality we all deal with, but from the start Ryan was such a good reminder for me that people are what matter.

From the beginning, he was an alert, sensitive little soul, with such "knowing" eyes ( which you could see if I could make the image larger, but since I can't and you can't, you'll just have to take my word for it!). I had assumed (never do this when it comes to children) that since he was my third, he would be the easiest. That wasn't the case. If you've ever read anything about high-need, spirited children, then you'll know what life with Ryan has been like. But you'll also know that "high need" also yields high reward, and that's true of Ryan, too.

Then when he was still just a baby, at least as far as I was concerned, we had a surprise. A deja vu kind of surprise, since the dates were almost exact. And in the wee hours of Ryan's second birthday, he was gifted with a brother, who came into this world after a rather long labor at a birth center (my first birth with a licensed midwife, yet another story in itself!). It was a tumultuous time in our extended family when Jeffrey Chase was born, but we gave him a name that means "peaceful." It's such an ironic choice for him, since it's a word that doesn't generally come to mind when we think of him now (but maybe one day...we hope!)I had an incredible bonding experience with him after his birth - all ecstatic feelings that typically accompany a natural birth, and in large doses. It had been a long but rewarding birth, and he was quite a gorgeous baby, after all.

And I think that experience served to store up all the warm and fuzzy feelings so that I would be prepared for the wild ride that is Chase. So that in the years to come, when he was being so very, very...challenging, I could draw on those feelings and remember.

The thing about Chase is, though, that he can be so...ahem...challenging one minute, and be a perfect darling the next, reminding us himself how wonderful he is.

And with his newest sibling, he's always sweet and loving. There's a tender heart under that rough-and-tumble exterior. Truth be told, I love even the rough-and-tumble part of him, too.

So Happy (late) Birthday, my dear boys!

Rules to Live By

2011-02-16T10:01:00.002-04:00

There's so much I plan to write, but for now, I'll offer another "Chase-ism."

We went out to lunch Saturday to celebrate the fact that we were able to rent out our house in SC (because what better way to celebrate an increase in income than dropping some cash?). At any rate, almost every time we go somewhere we review the basic rules of civilized society before we get out of the car. Apparently we do it often enough that some are actually sticking, and on this particular occasion, when Dave began, "Ok, boys, now remember...", Chase interrupted.

"I know, I know," he said impatiently. "No shouting, no kicking, and no calling people stupid."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

What's Your Superpower?

2011-02-13T15:49:00.002-04:00

The other night at dinner Dave said that if he could pick a superpower, he would want to be able to teleport. One of the older kids said, "So you could get to work in, like, seconds?"

He said, "Um, no, I don't think I would use it for that..."

"I thought you liked your job!"

Thankfully we didn't delve into the complexities of a grown-up's world, but rather all began sharing what we each might choose for a superpower, as well as the pros and cons of each power. Dave drew a laugh round the table by suggesting that Scarlett's could be acid drool. And somewhere in the discussion, Chase, in his typical volume, offered,

"MY POWER WOULD BE THAT I COULD SPIT SPEARS!"

Sometimes there are just no words.

Southern Visit - Days 4 and 5

2011-02-09T20:41:00.003-04:00

On Tuesday the kids and I went to visit some friends, while Dave stayed at my parents' house and helped put in a refrigerator (our almost-new one from the house in Lexington, since our tenants wanted their own). I'm guessing he probably also played some pool with my dad. (My mom is very cool, making her front living room a game room instead of a formal living room, which she figured would just be a waste.)

We spent a few ours with our dear, dear friends, the kids jumping back into ongoing pretend stories (they can do this without skipping a beat, no matter how many months it's been since they've seen each other), and we moms chatted. Lisa and I have been friends since we were 11 and 9, respectively, having met in our homeschool group. We met another close friend a few years later, and we've all been good friends since then. Lisa and I enjoy an interesting twist to our friendship, too, in that our families eerily follow similar patterns. She had a girl first, then three boys, then a girl. Same here. Corresponding kids even have similar personalities, which we always find a little bizarre. She's left-handed and so am I, and we just discovered that both our fourth children are left-handed as well. (Her fifth is also, so we may be able to make a pretty safe prediction for Miss Scarlett!).

But while that is all very amusing to us, I imagine it is only mildly so to the passing observer (or reader), so we'll move on.

Tuesday night my uncle (my mom's brother), who was on a business trip and staying nearby, came for dinner. More food! Only this time we went Italian, with spaghetti AND lasagna. The guys (and some of the girls!) played pool, we all ate plenty, then we sampled some Korean chocolate that my sister had brought for us. It's filling was fermented cabbage, so I passed, but everyone who did try it said that it just tasted like chocolate. I think this was also the day we finally managed to get all the cousins together in one room for a picture. Some were shoeless and others needed a good hair-brushing, but we figured we didn't have time to fuss over minor details like that if we were going to make this work. So we hastily arranged them in front of the fireplace, then two of my sisters and I stepped back and made crazy faces and noises trying to get the babies' attention (and possibly a smile or two). We got their attention, anyway, and everyone ended up looking in the general direction of the camera (although our biazzre behavior eventually made Scarlett cry, thus ending the photo shoot.

But isn't this a nice-looking group?

Wednesday morning was our last morning, so we all went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel, where we had a grand time stuffing ourselves with even more food, then we headed back to the house to get all our things together. After lunch (which we didn't need but happily ate anyway!), we said our good-byes (sniff, sniff!), and made our way to the Charlotte airport and eventually boarded our plane for home. When we landed, it was cloudy and a whopping 8 degrees. I'm so glad the kids were able to play outside every day during our visit, because it looks like it's going to be a good while before they have the opportunity for that again!

So - a great visit. Seeing my sister after her year-long absence was worth every minute in itself, but seeing everyone, and all at the same time, was a terrific bonus.

Southern Visit - Day 3

2011-02-08T17:37:00.002-04:00

Let's see...we ended the last post with my happiness over some of the best nachos ever. Yum. Monday morning I watched the clock, waiting for the appropriate time to bring out the leftovers. When that time finally arrived, we pulled out all the food and gorged ourselves again! Yum.

I already said that.

Anyway, it was lovely to linger over lunch with my mom and sisters, including my globe-trotting sister, Erica Jane (insert lovely picture here...maybe I'll put up some pictures when I get home). After lunch, we took the kids to a play place, and enjoyed more of each other's company while the kids ran and climbed out some enegy for a couple of hours. Meanwhile, Dave drove down to Lexington with his dad to meet with our first tenants! Papers were signed, money changed hands, and a burden the size of a three-bedroom, two-bath house was lifted off our shoulders. We still own it, of course, so perhaps the burden is not entirely gone, but it's certainly a relief to have this done for the time being.

We also received other fantastic news yesterday...more on that in another post.

PS It's not another baby! Someone will ineveitably ask about that, so I thought I'd better nip that in the bud before it even starts.

Southern Visit: Day 2

2011-02-07T20:59:00.003-04:00

We turned in very early after our first day here, so it seemed like a long night, but we were pretty well rested upon waking up the next morning, so we had a good start to day 2 (which was yesterday...I'm falling behind). We visited with my sisters at my parents' house in the morning, then went to Dave's parent's house for lunch. We returned to my parents' house for the rest of the afternoon, enjoying watching a UNC basketball victory before getting ready for our...

...Super Bowl party! Parties hosted by my mother mean food. Lots and lots of food. We had all kinds of tacos (including shrimp tacos -yum), several kinds of chips and dip, and these fabu-licious nachos. We had enough for leftovers today. Sigh of happiness.

Southern Visit: Day 1

2011-02-05T18:10:00.002-04:00

We are at my parent's house today, after successfully navigating our way down South via USAir. If you remember from a previous post, this was the first plane ride for our children, some of whom had been nervous about the prospect and others very excited. We had a 5:30am flight, so I'm much too tired to say much about the trip and our first day here, but one of Drew's mid-flight comments deserves mention. He panicked a bit while we were waiting to take off, but his mood vastly improved once we were in the air, and once when the plane tipped a wing toward the dark clouds below, he exclaimed excitedly, "IT LOOKS LIKE WE'RE DESCENDING INTO A SWIRLING VORTEX!"

Who knows if the other passengers appreciated this as much as we did, but who cares! Great stuff.

Look Out, Friendly Skies...

2011-01-24T08:47:00.004-04:00

We are going back to South Carolina in two weeks to see my sister, who has been in South Korea for a year and is coming back for a visit. (We'll be visiting our other family there, too, of course!) We'll be flying down, which is a big first for the kids. We were going to keep the flying bit a secret until we got to the airport, but last night at dinner the kids were asking pointed questions about the trip, and it was just impossible to keep things under wraps, so we told them. Their responses were so funny, and so true to their personalities:

Aimee, coolly: "I knew that's what you were going to say. I knew it all along." After a few minutes, "Can I please go email Emily and tell her? Please, please, please?"

Drew: "I'm so excited I'm speechless! I"m so speechless I can't even tell you how speechless I am..." and on and on, in a state of anything but speechless. And later, "I'm just worried about airport security. Will I get in trouble because of these?" (opening his mouth and pointing to his dental crowns). He seemed disappointed when I told him that he'll pass through security just fine.

Ryan: "Will it be bumpy? [referring to turbulence] I'm worried about it being bumpy. You said sometimes the ride in an airplane is bumpy."

Chase, over all the din: "I'LL JUMP OUT OF THE PLANE, AND THERE WILL BE AN EAGLE FLYING NEXT TO US, AND I'LL JUMP ON IT AND FLY NEXT TO THE PLANE! AND THEN I'LL GET BACK IN THE PLANE AND I'LL DRIVE IT."

Tidbits from the Minions

2011-01-20T09:58:00.002-04:00

Aimee was reading Black Ships Before Troy (which tells the story of the Iliad) yesterday, and when she came to the part in which Ajax throws himself on his own sword, she remarked aloud that it sounded like a particularly horrible way to kill oneself. I agreed, and then we began a somewhat morbid discussion about what a person in ancient times might have done instead. The little boys (the "minions" from my previous post!) came in and offered their suggestions:

Ryan said, "You could hit yourself with a frying pan!" (followed by dramatic demonstrations)

Chase, his eyes huge and serious, offered, "A snake could eat your heart." (more demonstrations indicating how gross and painful this would be)

They also remarked that if a giant stepped on you, that would do the job, too.

Thanks, boys. You have warmed your mother's heart.

What Was That?

2011-01-18T22:29:00.003-04:00

Having answered some of my own questions from my last post, I decided to back off of Drew a little, and I read him math questions yesterday, just letting him answer them orally, no pencil and paper - and no sitting! - involved. He walked in circles around the school room answering the questions, and it worked out just fine.

Then I asked him this question:

"What's $48 plus $16?"

He thought for a second, then said, "Let's see, fifty plus fifteen, then minus two and add one..$64."

It's no wonder he can't concentrate on the traditional methods for figuring out problems - his brain appears to be on a different wavelength altogether!

Reading Aloud

2011-01-18T12:32:00.005-04:00

A more appropriate name for this activity in our house would probably be "Reading Very Loudly," because that's often what it sounds like!

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when I had just one child, I read to her ALL the time. We read stacks of books in one sitting, and even when she was just a preschooler, I began to read chapter books aloud to her, always gently pushing the boundaries of her attention span and comprehension. She responded by developing a greater attention span by degrees and better comprehension by leaps and bounds. Then I had child number two, and we had beautiful moments in which I would be nursing him and reading to child number one, feeling that I was at the heights of motherhood as I nurtured both their little minds and bodies at the same time. Child number three entered the scene, and reading aloud became slightly hectic, but this was still one of my favorite things to do.

Then child number three learned to talk.

He would began chattering, loudly, as soon as I began to read anything, whether it was for school, or just for an attempt at those pleasant read-aloud sessions while I was nursing the baby (child number four, who arrived rather quickly on the heels of number three) and hoping to be surrounded by happy, attentive children on either side. If that didn't work, he would suddenly need something - anything- that was impossible to have, and he would need it desperately. In all other respects, he looked like an innocent preschooler, but it sure seemed like he was doing this on purpose, the diabolical little darling.

The when child number four grew older and began walking and talking, things became exponentially more challenging, and it brings us to where we are today. For certain, the days of reading to happily settled children on the couch while nursing the current baby are gone. If I can even get them all on the couch with me, they begin climbing on my head, or, with their fierce brand of loving, trying to kiss or tickle the baby. So not snuggling together would be fine with me, and, as noted in the previous two posts, I've become flexible about having them sit down and listen. Child number two listens best when he's tossing a football around, anyway. But number three and number four like to talk...and talk, and talk, and talk...and wrestle, and argue, and laugh, and behave raucously in general...and do it all very loudly. They are in league against me! Or so I've told my husband via text or hysterical phone call from time to time.

I think, though, that they just can't help it. They are, and this is a big aside, but it's too true and too cute, just like the minions in Despicable Me. Have you seen it? If you have, then you know what I'm dealing with. And you know that while the minions are funny and adorable, it's hard to imagine snuggling with their incorrigibly mischievous selves and reading them the works of Tolkien while they listen in rapt silence (or even near silence).

See the resemblance?!

But the fact remains that even minion-like children must be educated, and must have their little minds properly nourished, whether they like it or not. And unlike some of my previous posts, I actually have some measure of success to share. In the first place, I just read more loudly. Sometimes Dave comes home to one of these reading sessions and shakes his head in disbelief, wondering aloud how anyone can be getting anything out of it. Secondly, it helps to keep their hands busy. I've found that play dough works better than cars, Legos, or action figures, all of which can become catalysts for loud fight scenes, both in play and in earnest. Better yet, involve food, because they can talk less when eating. Thirdly, concede that what worked for number one and number two probably won't work with number three and number four. Most recently for us, I tried to read The Hobbit to everyone, since I read it to the older kids when they were the boys' age, but I soon realized that we were never going to finish it if I tried to make the younger ones listen. So I let them off the hook, and finished reading it to Drew, but I did start reading Prince Caspian with the younger set. (C.S. Lewis is just a must.) They are slightly more receptive to this, although sometimes even minions get the last word. Almost halfway through the book, I read, "And then Caspian..." Child number three looked up, his handsome eyes full of innocence. "Who's Caspian?"

Diabolical. Just diabolical.

PS Humor aside, and just for the record...we do read plenty of picture books to the younger ones. I'm not such a hard taskmaster that I don't recognize their need for reading in very short doses! We've also read shorter chapter books that stretch them just a little, but not too much. Dolphin Adventure and Dolphin Treasure were very good for this!

The Distractible Child

2011-01-17T09:05:00.006-04:00

There is a chapter in The Well-Trained Mind (our revered guide to education) entitled "The Argumentative Child," referring to the child who is entering the logic stage of classical education. At this stage, which begins around 5th grade, the child's natural tendency to question everything and everyone coincides with their graduation, in a manner of speaking, to a more inquisitive and structured style of learning. Or something like that. At any rate, it is a good-natured joke around here that this chapter was named for Aimee - it describes her rather perfectly. It's true that she has certain character traits and skills that are well-suited to a style of learning that asks her to debate ideas, as well as to ask "Why?" on a regular basis.

That introduction really served little purpose except to say that while that chapter suits one of my children nicely, there is no corresponding chapter for Drew, who could be dubbed, "The Distractable Child." Actually, now that I've just said that, I should probably look through the book again and see what Susan Wise-Bauer or her esteemed mother might have to say about a child who can't sit still for five seconds and who has an attention span a couple seconds shorter. (I say this all in love, of course, and it's another open topic in our house. Drew doesn't seem to be offended by our pointing out his distractability.) My strategy so far, in this the grammar stage of his education, in which exposure to ideas and the grasp of basic foundational concepts is the goal, has been to let him tell me what he knows in whatever way I can and in whatever snatches of time I can hold his attention. Translated, that means that I've read him his math lesson while he's played in the backyard (back in the days when playing outside was something he could do - I hear it does warm up here and he may be able to do that again), or read him a chapter from our science book while he - don't laugh - jumped on the trampoline. In fact, the time I read him the science chapter, he was filling in information that wasn't included in the chapter, from library books we had on the subject, so about halfway through the chapter I just stopped. And because he has a mind for numbers, he's almost always been able to answer math questions without hardly thinking about it, and definitely without sitting down to look at the page. He's also a good reader, so if I can provide books on any given subject, he will probably soak in some information that way.

This is all great, but what we have great difficulty with is anything that requires sitting down with paper and pencil. His math is among the subjects that are requiring more of this as he progresses, and this is how it usually goes, after I manage to get him downstairs from his room or up from the basement, and that usually takes 10-15 minutes:

Me: Ok, Drew, we're going to look at a number line. First, hand over the gun. No weapons at the table.

Drew: Why can't have my gun? I can do my math with it, and besides, I already know what a number line is. [As he's talking, he moves over the window, where he begins to mangle the blinds, for no apparent reason.]

Me: No gun, we're looking the number line, and please stop playing with the blinds. PLEASE SIT DOWN.

(Which he does, for about two seconds, so I continue.) Now, what number is the arrow pointing to on this line?

Drew: 55.

Me: Did you even look? Because I don't think that's the...Ok, never mind, you're right. PLEASE put the candle down, and PLEASE sit back down. Let's skip to negative numbers on a number line...

Drew: You know you really can't have negative of anything. Do you want to know something interesting?

Me: Is it about math?

Drew: Well, sort of. In the last episiode of The Clone Wars...

Me: PAUSE. Tell me later. [which I must repeat several times before he actually complies.] Just tell me the negative numbers on the number line. And put down the candle, for the last time. No, don't touch the blinds!

He tells me one or two, then asks if he can play the Wii, which I - rather incredulously - answer by reminding him that we're right in the middle of school. He then asks if he can go get some water, and in order to have a moment to gather my now-scattered thoughts before we actually have to do some math work on paper, I agree. I hear him go to the kitchen and putter around, but about five minutes later, I have to get up and go look for him...and find him in the basement riding his scooter. He insists he just got distracted, and I really do believe him, because he's not sneaky or deceptive by nature, just distractible!

Now the incident above seems to describe not only an easily-distracted child, but a bored one. He needs more challenging work than the review we're currently doing, but if given a page of more difficult math problems, he becomes easily overwhelmed. He understands the principles and concepts, and can explain them to me if prompted step-by-step, but if given an entire page of math problems, he can't even seem to start on the first one. The same is true of things like spelling. He can spell just fine, but bless him, he can barely get started on an excercise in his spelling book on his own, much less finish it without a great deal of help. As a result, we're behind in spelling in one sense, although in another, it seems unfair to label him "behind, " when if I ask him to spell words in a given lesson, he can do so with few mistakes, if any.

So part of me wants to continue to go at his own pace and in his own style. Another part of me stresses a little over the fact that eventually he will need to be able to do an assignment without practically (but not actually!) being duct-taped to a chair. At some point he'll have to take tests (I shudder to think!). As it is now, I have to have papers to put in his school binder, because if someone wanted to look over our required portfolios, they would want more than my word for it that he knows how to spell and is actually quite talented a math mind. (And, rest assured, he does have examples of his own work in his portfolio - it's just challenging to get them there.)

All parts of me know that this will work out somehow. (And it would have been more useful to my readers if I had used this post to offer wonderfully creative ideas toward that end...) I'm sure I'm losing months off my life-span in the process, but it will all work out!

Not-So- Perfect Learning

2011-01-15T13:35:00.003-04:00

(Note: I wrote this yesterday, so when I refer to "yesterday" in the post, I mean Thursday!)

Learning is often messy, at least for us. I don't like this necessarily - I would rather have order and quiet, and every once in awhile I conjure up the image I saw once on TV of a homeschool family sitting around their kitchen table (on which all the food, even the crumbs, had been cleared away, probably by one or more of their cheerful and industrious children and probably right after breakfast - which they probably ate fully dressed and not in their pajamas...) saying the Pledge of Allegiance together. When I think of it, once in a blue moon, I make sure the kids know the Pledge of Allegiance. And oh, by the way, you guys know who the president is, and the capital of our state, right? Check. Breathe a sigh of relief.

Maybe I'm exaggerating just a hair, but one thing is for sure - we hardly ever find ourselves neatly dressed (all at the same time), just after breakfast, saying the Pledge of Allegiance around our spotless kitchen table before we began an orderly day of school. Rather, I find that for us, if we're going to get around to learning, we just have dive headlong into it. We do have a loose morning routine - breakfast, morning chores, Bible memory verses - and we do our best to tidy up as we go along, but the beginning, middle, and definitely the end, is just messy in all kinds of ways. And the truth of it is that often those messy days (I don't mean the completely chaotic ones, obviously) result in some of the best learning, even if the house, and my sanity, takes a hit.

Yesterday was no exception. We couldn't wait for everything to be set up just right - I had to catch them before they escaped in all different directions for all sorts of recreational pursuits. So I put the baby on my back, corralled the little boys into the kitchen to help me make some salt clay for an art project they had asked to do, and I directed Aimee to start on her math and Drew to do his violin practice. It went something like this:

Me: Boys do NOT put any more flour into the dough. Aimee, find a pencil - ANY pencil. Drew, open your violin case and start playing.

Aimee (continuing a thread she's been on awhile) I can't find a pencil. We don't have any pencils in the house. The boys take all my pencils. Why do they always go in my room? Why do I have brothers?!
Ryan: Chase is pouring water on the dough...!
Drew: [doing something other than getting his violin out]

Me: Drew, GET YOUR VIOLIN OUT. Aimee, just use whatever you can find. Yes, ok a pen - just this once. Boys, let's knead the dough. DON'T push each other off the chair. Share!

Drew finally gets his violin out and begins playing, Aimee finally settles in to her math. We have flour all over the kitchen, and I have it all over my hands as I go back and forth from the kitchen to the the school room, directing the various pursuits.

Me, sounding a little manic: Drew, that's great! Left hand straight, right fingers curved! Keep going, keep going - don't get distracted! Boys, keep kneading, we're almost done. No, do NOT get the paint out yet. That's for [much, much] later. Yes, Aimee, all the questions from the lesson practice. If it's "so easy" than it shouldn't take you very long...

We finish the dough and put in on the dining room table (on which there are still some cereal crumbs). Ryan and Chase start making the birds and nests they had wanted to do, which means I start making their birds and nests. Aimee and Drew join us as soon as they finish their respective assignments. Aimee spends almost the whole time lamenting that she can't do a perfect bowl shape. Drew has little sense of perfectionism, and just makes all kinds of things, while the little boys clamor for me to make birds that are exactly like each other's. The baby sleeps, somehow. Eventually I walk away to clean up, and they all end up making some pretty nifty little creations, which we put in the oven to bake.

When all this is done, I clean up what I can, but we move on to other things, and throughout the day, I tuck things like spelling and history into whatever nooks of time I can find, and in the quiet(er) moments, I read aloud. At the end of the day, the house is a mess, which I still can't bring myself to love, but what I do love are the things like Drew's big smile over mastering "Ten Little Indians" on the violin, the boys' joy over lumpy, uneven pieces of clay, which they painted (in yet another mess) with bold colors and then carried around in their pockets when they were (mostly) dry, and the way Aimee got a little huffy over the noise but as a result took her books upstairs and did two hours of work on her own. I love thatt our day was filled with God's Word, literature, music, some math, and a little more about the ancient world. I love that it feels as though we didn't just cram information in just to get it done, but that, somewhere in the craziness and somewhere far away from a perfectly ordered homeschool world, we made our way a little further up, and further in.

(Another note: I was in the middle of writing this when I took a break and saw Hannah's post about a typical homeschool day. Nice timing!)

Sometimes One Should Keep One's Mouth Shut...

2011-01-12T18:03:00.003-04:00

Or at least be careful of what one says aloud (ok, that's becoming awkward, but I just gave Aimee important-sounding instruction today about the use of "you" in...um..one's writing). At any rate, this is because children rarely ever, IF ever, forget what they hear. In our house, this is especially true of Aimee, about whom I seldom write anymore, since she is old enough to care (very deeply) about what is said about her; but on this occasion, I think I will get a pass, since none of this is something I wouldn't discuss with her in hearing. I've discussed it with her in fact, it's an open subject in the house, and, finally, she's quite proud of any and all of the traits I will describe about her herein. I will, in fact, take this opportunity to say that Aimee is one lovely and intelligent girl, full of spark, spirit, and wit.

At any rate, according to my own sensibilities as well as the advice given in The Well-Trained Mind, I started the older children on musical instruments some time ago. I started with Aimee, and I started with the violin, since that's the instrument I play (correction: that I know how to play, but which in reality I don't have occasion to play very often). One short lesson clearly revealed to us that it wasn't such a good idea - we were definitely going to butt heads over it,and I had no desire to turn music into a time of misery. But I did insist that she choose something, and something that I could teach her, which left the piano. Not much of a choice, I guess, but it was one to which she wasn't vehemently opposed (which was an improvement). We bought a keyboard and some books, and away we went. Of course, since this is Aimee we're talking about (and I'm pretty sure she doesn't mind me saying this), we still weren't in smooth waters, and often she bucked pretty vigorously over music practice. In fact, it seemed to be a ritual that she had to go through in order to learn a new song or skill - become incensed that she had to take lessons at all, pretend not to remember anything she had previously learned, declare that it was impossible to learn whatever was before her, probably have some sort of privilege removed for some amount of time, then proceed to hammer away at it until she got it.

Repeat...let's see...lots of times. One day somewhere in the first stage of this process, she begged and pleaded to be told just HOW LONG she had to be subjected to this particular form of torture, and in a moment of weakness, I confessed that I only wanted her to take piano for two years, and then if she still hated it, she could quit. And Aimee stored this piece of information somewhere not just in her long-term memory, but in the "forever and eternal, oath-sealed-in-blood" memory section of her brain. Since then she has asked repeatedly when her two-year sentence will be up, and in recent months, has been reminding me of it's imminence. But she's also displayed a fair amount of talent at the piano and has frequently been found playing it in her free time. (So I hope she forgives me for being skeptical of her claims that she hates it.) Technically the two-year period ended at the end of last month, but I've bought a couple more months on the basis November and December couldn't have counted because of the move, and also because we just inherited my parents' piano and I want her to be able to get some good practice on it. Anyway, it's more or less here, and I'm very much regretting having said anything about a time limit, because I think it would be a shame for her to quit something she probably enjoys and in which she has developed some proficiency, with potential for much more - now I AM going to say something I might not say in so many words to her face - simply because she doesn't like being told what to do. Now I think if I provide her with books, she will continue to dabble at it at least, but I think without that charming ritual mentioned above, the one that includes insistent prodding and encouragement, there are some things she will skip over because they are "too hard." The kids ask me why I've insisted on music lessons, and the development of perseverance to accomplish a skill is one of the primary reasons. We don't have any musical prodigies here, I realize that - but music encourages a certain metal discipline that I value and I think they should also value.

This is devolving into a complaint, which is useless. It's also not a dilemma, for which I can solicit advice, because I have no choice but to stick to my word. Otherwise I will have lied, emphasis Aimee's, and obviously that's not acceptable. So perhaps it's just a cautionary tale, the lesson of which I have carefully remembered in regard to the other children. I passed the violin down to Drew, and gave him no promises about when he's allowed to quit, and fortunately, due to his relatively easy-going nature, he hasn't thought to ask. And of course, it could be that Aimee will apply her best traits to the situation and surprise me with an inner determination and discipline after all. It's been known to happen.

Getting Back Into the Swing of Things!

2011-01-11T09:12:00.002-04:00

I know you're just dying to know how my first week of resolve went....

As could easily have been predicted, we didn't do everything I had hoped to do last week, but we did successfully re-enter a purposeful routine. I banned TV and the Wii for most of the week, while we redisciplined ourselves, and there were some definite withdrawal symptoms, but everyone survived. As for school, some children had better feelings about it than others. One child spent most of the first morning in misery, moaning (and that's a nice way of putting it) about how they they felt like a SLAVE and how I was utterly lacking in sympathy. In an odd twist of sibling rivary - that yielded some pleasant results - this prompted another child to attack their schoolwork with fervor and declare periodically and pointedly through the day that they LOVED getting back to school and that I was the best mom ever. Things evened out, of course, and by the end of the week we were back into the usual swing of things, with no more than the usual sort of complaints. Unfortunately (I guess - I'm always at odds with myself about how I feel about this), the "usual swing of things" means that we're forging ahead with me feeling at least a step behind everything. Once upon a time I ordered my life with lists and schedules, and so I feel I ought to be have our schooling better planned and organized. I can almost see it in my mind's eye, but in reality if I were to wait for everything to be lined up just right we would never get anything done. So we read - and read and read and read - every day and hope that gets us to most of the places expected of us. We do some math and music every day, throw in some "formal" language study in the areas of spelling and cursive and grammar, make our way through history studies, stumble through some science (this is, besides art, positively my weakest area!)...Oh, and Aimee is still technically doing some Latin, although we're not, as the book admonishes, disciplining ourselves very strictly and memorizing everything as diligently as advised.

Confession: I'm really not very good at homeschooling. I was homeschooled myself, and whether this contradicts my current shortcomings or is a contributing factor, I can't decide.

But there's nothing for it but to keep on keeping on, as they say. We're in week two of this the second half of our school year, and so far things are progressing at a good pace. It would really be an enormous help if we don't have any major changes and transistions this year!

And a quick update...

2011-01-01T14:26:00.002-04:00

These thoughts didn't fit with the last post, so I thought I would just make another one!

Dave asked me the other day if I was unhappy here - I'm sure he's worried that the crazy version of myself might gradually appear. New baby, sudden move...the same set of circumstances triggered her arrival a few years ago, and nobody wants to see her again! But I assured him that she's not even on the horizon. It's true that I'm not yet in love with Ohio (and they can't EVER make me do things like call Coke "pop"). The snow was lovely for the first few days, but the second week of it did start to make me feel a bit claustrophobic, and the cold seeped into my bones - all of which made me feel irrationally giddy when ordinary rain and warmer temperatures melted the snow and gave us an outdoor kind of day yesterday. We went to a park and did some hiking together, and that brings to one thing I do love about being here - lots of time together as a family. Dave works regular hours (and not nearly as much as some weeks back in SC) and has much more time and energy for all of us. He'll need his own blog to tell you if he thinks that's a good thing! He does seem to be enjoying his job, however.

The kids are doing a great job overall, despite the strain I know this has been for them. The older kids have been missing their SC friends and activities rather fiercely. I wish I could make it easier for them. but there's nothing for that - it just hurts. And I'm not sure they think this "family-togetherness" deal is quite worth it! The younger ones don't have the same kind of attachments to miss, but they are feeling the lack of outside play. The little boys have practically lived outside up until now, and obviously that has changed abruptly, although of course warmer weather will come eventually. I think.

Scarlett obviously doesn't care one way or the other, as long as I'm available. I confess that's one thing I love about having babies - it's a lovely thing to be the center of someone's universe for at least a short period of time. Of course I'm not the only thing in her universe, and she does love her daddy and her siblings, who are a constant source of entertainment for her. She had a fever last night, and was miserably unhappy when she woke up this morning, and when Chase came bounding in, we started to tell him to be quiet and stay away from her because she wasn't feeling well. But as soon as she saw him, she stopped crying. It was beautiful. He talked to her, and she talked back to him, reaching for his face, and just loving him. I don't usually think of Chase as a peacful presence, but there it was.

More updates later. No really - see previous post! It's part of my "tweaking."

Now That We've Moved...Let's Get Moving

2011-01-01T14:00:00.004-04:00

So.

Have you ever caught yourself telling yourself repeatedly, and over way too long a time period, that once things settle down, you'll get back on track (with whatever - keeping the house clean, keeping a good routine going, eating healthy, homeschooling, maybe all of the above!). And then you start to realize that you just need to buckle down, lady, and DO IT.

The entire last year was one of major events and transitions, and while sometimes, try as I might, I just couldn't help but let things slide, I felt like I was always in survival mode. From the last throes of morning sickness to the burdens of a burgeoning pregnancy, to a birth and subsequent baby-moon, to a colicky infant for a couple months, to a huge move in a short amount of time.... At what point does survival mode become an excuse for avoiding real life? Or, perhaps just not realizing that this just IS real life, and not life "on hold"?

I didn't get enough sleep last night, which is why I'm indulging in cheap philosophy. Do forgive. Survival mode is in fact real, but so is that truth that sometimes you just have to put your feet on the ground and start moving, even if not everything is out of boxes and the baby has just started teething. (I didn't actually plan for that moment to coincide with a new year, but I suppose it's rather convenient!) For one thing, our formal schooling really must start again. It's been...awhile. And that's ok for a time, but I think everyone could stand a return to structure (or some semblance thereof). For another, my own daily routine and habits need a tweaking of discipline.

These are starting to sound like New Year's resolutions, which they absolutely aren't. I know better than to make starry-eyed determinations and expect them to start happening out of nowhere. And actually, I think we've already made some strides in the right direction -it's just getting my head out of the "once we get settled" mode that needs to happen. "Settled" is a relative term, anyway, especially for us!

"What a Change a Few Weeks Makes in the Lives of the Meesters!"

2010-12-03T17:15:00.004-04:00

When I posted last, I had not the slightest notion of what was just over my horizon. Not even the tiniest glimmer. In fact, Dave and I had been talking about keeping things stable for the remaining first year of Scarlett's life, since it seemed we had always made some kind of big change within the first year of each previous child's life. I thought Scarlett might be the first one to have a relatively uneventful first year.

Ha!

As it turned out, she's had the biggest and most drastic event by far. Late in October, Dave received a call from the vice president of his company, who wanted to talk to him about a corporate position. When Dave first talked about it with me, we thought it wasn't a very serious prospect, and that even if it was, it might be something he could just do in South Carolina.

But then the company flew him up to the corporate office in Ohio to talk about it, and what they offered him was much better than anything we had imagined. When Dave was talking to me about it over the phone after his interview, my first reaction wasn't, as I would have anticipated, one of rejection or dread, even though the position he was offered would require relocating to Ohio. I couldn't even begin trying to explain why such an enormous move and change seemed like the right thing to do, other than that I feel we received internal confirmation from the very beginning. The responses we got from friends and family seemed to add to that confirmation, and then each of the logistical questions we had were also answered almost immediatly. In short, it seemed like God had the doors wide open and the paths fairly clear, so we decided to walk through them. And five weeks later, here we are in Miamisburg, Ohio! For the most part, I've had only positive feelings about all this, although once or twice I've had a panic moment in which I've second-guessed this decision (such as when we were stuck in rush-hour traffic on the way here Wednesday night, in the dark, freezing cold, and snow). Here are some of the positives and negatives we've encountered so far:

Positive: This is a huge adventure! It's exciting being in a completely new region of the country.

Negative: That region of the country is the dreaded "North."

Positive: Service up here is amazingly fast and efficient. So far it seems that the aim is to please the customer - what a novel idea!

Negative: We haven't encountered much hospitality. There have been some pretty rude and abrupt people.

Positive: Snow!

Negative: It's alway so COLD! No slow acclimation for us. No, we jumped right into a Northern winter!

Positive: The library here is jaw-droppingly amazing. It's library heaven. There are no fines on children's books, the check-out period is three weeks, and you can renew up to five times. The online catalog is incredible, and they have an express checkout.

Negative: There is no corresponding negative to that. I think the library itself might have been worth the move.

Positive: They seem to have EVERYTHING here. You name a store or restaurant, and they've got it. In fact, some grocery stores and convenience stores have...drum roll, please...drive-thru's. I've seen it, but haven't tried it yet, and until I do, I'm not sure I'll be able to wrap my mind the idea.

Negative: There's also a billion people here, so the traffic can be terrible.

Positive: This great house Dave found for us! Four spacious bedrooms (my master suite truly is a suite!), large closets, a school and music room, a great den, a huge basement, and a laundry chute (we can make dirty clothes just disappear! It's fantastic.)...we're enjoying being able to spread out here.

Negative: Leaving the house we own (and still own - we need some renters soon!). It's small, but still, we liked it. And Scarlett was born in that house, in one of the cozy corners of our bedroom, which made it all the more special.

Negative: (one to which there is no positive right now!) Leaving friends, family, and an area we loved. That was just hard in all sorts of ways, not the least of which was leaving the South.

I hate to end on a negative, but I'll post more on the adventure later!

PS The quote that is the title of the post is from my midwife/friend, when I emailed her about the move. It hadn't been long before when I had just updated her about what was going on with our family, and Ohio definitely hadn't been in the picture at that point!

The Hunger Games

2010-10-04T15:36:00.003-03:00

I read many good books, but every once in awhile I come across a book that is mesmerizing and addictive. Most recently, The Hunger Games fit the bill. There are three books in the series, and I devoured them at an alarming rate. I won't even admit how fast I read them (especially the second one, Catching Fire), nor what was neglected around here as a result. I will say that Dave read them, too, and we both eagerly awaited our turn at the library for the third installment. It has never, ever happened before that we were enthralled by the same book. (We would never have been paired by any online dating service, because our tastes are as different as you could imagine!) I was excited when I saw that he was as interested in them as I was, because I thought we could discuss them, until I realized that he wasn't the book club type.

But I was dying to discuss it, and so I thought I would just write down my thoughts about it. Then when Hannah passed on someone else's thoughts about the about the book (I wanted to post the link, but couldn't find it!), I was more determined than ever. So here's what I would have brought to a book club discussion. No, I really didn't have time to do it (it took me a couple weeks, and there was still so much I wanted to say, and I would have loved to polish it up), and it was probably a complete waste of the time I did spend on it. But it was fun to pretend I have some brain cells left.

***********************************Spoiler Alert!!!!***************************************
Those of you who are in the midst of reading it, or haven't started yet, don't continue! :-)

What I found intriguing about The Hunger Games is that it elicits introspection about what we might value the most when it comes to survival. What’s really deep within? And what would it look like when forced to the surface? Katniss is distinguished by her drive for survival, and even more so by her need to protect and preserve her sister Prim. She loves Prim, but even her love for her sister seems to be tied to her own survival. (I’ve now used that word way too many times!) Practically abandoned by the death of her father and breakdown of her mother, Katniss was stripped of the love, care, and protection a child needs, and she was exposed to such hazards and wants as children should never know. So it seems likely that her self-imposed mandate to shelter her sister from harm may be a desire to preserve vicariously the innocence Katniss herself ought never to have lost. Later her motives become more complicated, even to herself, when Peeta and other figures enter her life. Still, near the end of Mockingjay, Gale tells Peeta that Katniss will choose whomever she can‘t survive without., so obviously this remains a central theme of her life. (Note: But why are they even having this discussion? Why does Peeta, who has only recently been recovering from the "hijacking" that programmed him to hate Katniss, and is at this point acutely aware that he is unstable, even considering the possibility that he might be in the running for her affections again? I thought this was a misstep in the story.)

I think Katniss is such a compelling character because most of us , in the natural, would identify most with her primal drive for survival. We would like to think we would embrace Peeta’s idealism and pure form of love, or even Gale’s sacrificial passion for justice - and some probably would - but if we were completely honest, the need for our own survival would probably be all-consuming. And in a metaphysical sense, isn’t it already? Isn’t it the essence of our struggle against “self?” Doesn’t it already creep into our relationships with others? Our love, in it’s bare humanity, is riddled with ulterior motives. Of course in reality, this vulgar drive for self can be redeemed, and usually is, to various degrees. I found it interesting, incidentally, that The Hunger Games never addresses the spiritual element. - the characters never allude to any form of religion (are we to assume that it’s been eliminated in the upheaval of the social and government structures? And would that really happen in reality?), and the question of morality seems to shift with each party’s motives. There seems to be no fixed reference point for right and wrong. At first oppression and brutality seem to be clearly evil; however, as the series progresses, various individuals and groups use both to further their means, bringing to the fore the question of what lengths are acceptable in any given cause. Neither is the sanctity of life the clear good, as all the characters are willing to sacrifice it for whatever they value more. Gale acknowledges that for the sake of the rebel cause he may have been responsible (and willingly so) for a gut-wrenching act of mass murder, and Katniss reaches the place‘where she is able to kill “without hesitation” when circumstances seem to require it. She also votes for another round of Hunger Games, which I think is one of the more brilliant and fascinating turns in the series, because it leaves us with deep questions about who Katniss is and has become, as well as what might emerge in any individual after undergoing these kinds of circumstances. Although let’s face it, I would have been the girl who made the fire in the first book, who thus foolishly expedited her departure from the games. And that’s if I had known how to make a fire in the first place. So this is probably all a moot point for me personally, since the likelihood of my own survival from the start would be pretty much nil.!

A couple random notes on which I don’t have time to expand further: I loved the imagery in the series. It was fitting that Katniss was the Mockingjay, as in being the face and voice of the rebel cause she was picking up a song that wasn’t really her own. The bomb and her resulting injuries are a perfect metaphor for the whole story itself. Mentally, emotionally, and, at the end, physically, Katniss passes through agonizing fire, and when it’s all over, her soul is as patchwork as her skin. Some of her former self is left - some of it untouched, but other parts “damaged but salvageable.” Some parts, of course, have been entirely ruined, and have been replaced with something new. (Another note: I didn’t understand the use of the phrase “fire mutt.” Weren’t “muttations” - which word, I thought, wasn't a very clever deviation from "mutation,"but I may have missed the point - genetically altered creatures? Why would being burned make her Katniss and Peeta "fire mutts"? I thought it was a little strange and unncessary.)

While I loved the story as a whole, I did think there were some elements the author could have developed further, and every once in awhile I came across phrasing that was so awkward I wondered how it made it through all her drafts and then an editor’s desk. Of course, this is all coming from someone who hasn’t written a wildly successful novel!

Now that The Hunger Games has been simmering in my brain for weeks, I really need to move on to something else!

From Leisure to the Humdrum

2010-09-11T09:58:00.004-03:00

Today is the last day of our week long vacation at Edisto Beach. This is the fourth year we've come here, and each year we've enjoyed the peaceful, slow pace of an island that is heavy on wildlife and light on nightlife. There's really not much to do here as far as man-made entertainment - and we absolutely love it. (I should note here that my dad wishes the waves were bigger, but even that bodes well for families with young children!). The most exciting thing that happens to us is when we spot dolphins swimming in the ocean, which we do quite often here.

I had hoped to use this week to just BE with the children, as opposed to managing them throughout the day, and also to do some blogging that I hadn't had time for at home. The former I accomplished (thanks to my dad, who often kept Scarlett at the beach house, I was able to spend time with the rest of the munchkins at the beach), but the latter fell to the wayside. And that's fine, of course. It's the way I would have prioritized things had I been pressed.

Another goal was to come away from our vacation feeling recharged for going back into the fray. Sometimes I feel even more depleted after a break, but this time I truly do feel ready to hit the ground running when we return home. That's good, because that's precisely what we have to do when we get there. Almost every single one of our fall clubs and activities start next week. As I was pondering what our schedule was going to look like, I realized I was going to have redouble efforts to get a good routine going again, fussy baby or no. Being able to step out of things and enjoy a long respite from it all this week has, hopefully, enabled me to take a figurative breath and clear the cobwebs from my mother-of-a-newborn brain so that I think I'm ready to tackle the job ahead of me. Fortunately experience has taught me that a strict minute-by-minute schedule will be unrealistic even to attempt, so what we'll go for is just laying out and sticking to a general routine - but still, it will need to be a firm one.

Check back in later to see how well that goes!

And the Lost Return...

2010-09-08T10:37:00.003-03:00

There's a picture that goes with this post, except that we've expended the life of yet another computer, and I can't work with pictures on Dave's work computer, so I can't do anything with said picture. Oh well.

The good news is that four days after Duchess' disappearance, and the day after we had a heart wrenching talk with Aimee about how it was unlikely that the cat was going to return, our next door neighbors knocked on our door and excitedly informed us that she was in their workshop. It seemed she had been stuck in the rafters all that time. So Dave went up to get her, and despite being bedraggled and hungry, she was otherwise ok.

Aimee's lesson in faith - check.

Anne's lesson in not jumping to conclusions about what God might or might not be doing - check!

Thanks, But Can We Have This Life Lesson Some Other TIme?

2010-08-28T09:01:00.003-03:00

Please?

Aimee's cat Duchess was last seen Wednesday night, and, given her habit of bounding in the back door by dark at the latest, hopes for her return are now seriously waning. I know this is just a cat we're talking about, and these things happen, and this is just life. It's hard sometimes, and we learn and grow from these kinds of experiences, but oh, how I wish with all my being that we didn't have to do this right now, and didn't have to do it at all with Duchess. Aimee has loved her, cared for her, and has been as responsible and attentive a pet owner as anyone could hope for - it just seems cruel that she is losing something she has cherished so deeply. And I know better, but as I've prayed for Duchess' return and/or for Aimee's comfort, I've asked God why he would allow such a thing at an already stressful time (I spent all of Thursday morning listening to Aimee's tears and lamentations, while also consoling Scarlett during her long crying jags - it wasn't a happy time!). If one of our animals had to disappear, why did it have to be the most beloved one? And I even asked what would happen to Aimee's faith if it seems her passionate prayers go answered - and worse yet, if she has to pass through this particularly agonizing tug-of-war between hope and despair that will probably go on for days and maybe weeks until she finally gives up? Of course I know better - we don't need to go into theology or discuss the importance of a cat versus other issues in life - and even as the thought entered my head, I was reminded that God will take care of Aimee's faith in him. It's not even my business to try to defend Him to her in this matter, only to comfort her as she endures a difficult time.

I've always liked the part of The Horse and His Boy in which Aslan explains to a character that she doesn't need to know what's going to happen to another, because "No one is told any story but their own." I thought of that this week as I grappled with why God would allow this to happen to Aimee right now, and how it might affect her, etc. It's just alarming to realize (more than just intellectually) that my children have their own stories, and many parts of those stories have absolutely nothing to do with me. Some of my children, of course, are still in the stage of life in which I am the answer to all of their needs and questions. as far as they know anyway. It's a good thing that other aspects of that stage are difficult; otherwise I think we as mothers would want our kids to stay there forever. Who doesn't like being adored and being looked to as the one who can make the path of life fair (as it seems to us, anyway) and fairly easy? But my older children, Aimee in particular right now, are moving into an entirely different stage, one in which they are beginning to step out into their own story, full of griefs and joys - one in which they are beginning to deal with their Creator on their own. It's strange not to have as big a part of the conversation anymore.

But while it is strange, and while watching my oldest grow up often tugs at my heartstrings, it can also be wonderful. The same day we realized Duchess was truly missing, Aimee received a letter from the zoo, saying that she was invited to come for an interview for the "Kids' Comission". In the spring, she noticed that they were accepting application for this, which is a panel of 7-14 year-olds who give their opinions about some aspects of the zoo. (I'm still a little sketchy on the details!) The application involved writing a short essay, and so Aimee promptly wrote one and put it in an envelope. I remember when she brought it to me and asked me for a stamp, my first reaction was, "Wait - you need me to proofread that first!" I checked that first reaction, but I did ask her if she wanted me to read it. She said no, she was perfectly happy with it, and I swallowed feelings of wanting to make sure her handwriting was neat, her spelling accurate, and her writing polished enough to make a good impression. We mailed it, and I forgot about it until we reveived the letter this week. Aimee was beaming, her confidence lifted by having done something that was completely hers alone.

So I suppose there are some life lessons I'm welcoming this week. Still heartsick about others.

Are You Going to Read All These?

2010-08-25T12:13:00.002-03:00

Librarians who don't know us as well as most of them do sometimes pose this question to the kids when we're checking out. Of course the answer is yes, and it almost turns out to be true. So the kids did actually devour - more than once - "supplemental" Ancient Egypt books you see on the long list to the right. Some were more popular than others, but all in all, we've covered quite a bit of Ancient Egyptian history in the past few week, and all without much effort on my part. (Like, like, like.) I'm probably supposed to make them do more writing on it, and they would like to do some activities from the Story of the World activity book (a chicken mummy? I'm on the fence about this)...but we'll see.

Life's Big Questions

2010-07-27T11:36:00.003-03:00

When the baby is screaming - all morning long - is it better to let the kids cut up newspaper into little teeny tiny pieces all over the kitchen table, and eat cereal in, around, and all over the living room, and pull out all their pillows and blankets to make some kind of indoor campground in the hallway (oh, and pull out all their stuffed animals to join them, too!), and then get out some markers and paper (lots and lots of paper...) for "art time" ("Can I make a copy of this coloring page? What about this one? And can I have some tape? Can you help me with the tape? Why not?")...or to let them watch too much TV? (While I pondered this question, we managed to avoid the TV, but what price my sanity? Still pondering this big philosophical question.)

Does all the bouncing and pacing (and bouncing and pacing...and bouncing...and pacing...) that I've been doing to console the baby count as a workout? Or, even if it does, does periodically downing handfuls of chocolate cancel out any benefits? And exactly how much do I care?

When the baby finally falls asleep, what to do? Should I take a shower and get dressed? Should I clean up the bits of newspaper (or the breakfast things all over the kitchen and living room?). Should I do something about lunch, since the morning is now over? Should I ask the kids to do something that resembles schoolwork? Should I throw in a load of laundry? Dry and fold one? Put one away? Should I do none of the above and just sit in silence with my eyes closed for a minute and hope I don't fall asleep? (Should I now, in this particular quiet moment, be sitting in my pajamas and blogging? Probably not...)

Fortunately, these were yesterday's questions. Today has been a little smoother. Still, this is the extent of my deep thinking these days!

Being a Mom of More than Most...

2010-07-15T19:28:00.004-03:00

I want to say first of all that I realize it's not a competition. and I'm not for an instant suggesting that. For one thing, I have a number of friends who have larger families than I do, so I wouldn't even come close to winning. But there's something about having five children that seems to nudge one over the "you must be crazy" edge. If people took note of how many children we had in tow before, now I can almost see their lips moving as they count us all up. "One, two, three, four...five?!" So it seems that five children is more than most people have, want to have, or can even imagine having. Hence the catchy title.

But this isn't meant to be a comprehensive look at all the ins and outs of being such a mom; it's just a snapshot of my first real week as one. The first week after Scarlett's birth doesn't really count, as I stayed in bed dutifully and let Dave, and then my mom, take care of the other kids and the house. For that week, I allowed myself to be a mom of just one, and I didn't assume my full responsibilities again until last Friday. After eight days of doing nothing but snuggling with a newborn, I was pretty well rested, we had no appointments or anything much to do, and Dave was off again the next day... so that day doesn't really count, either. Monday was my real inauguration into life with all five of my charges. I'd like to say that beginning that day we had a week full of peaceful snuggle time, with lots of reading to older children during nursing sessions. I'd like to say that, once more at the helm, I directed a cheerful flow to our day, that the older children were always happy and productive, and that the baby was blissed out in the sling while we all went about our orderly business.

But alas.

The reality, of course, is that Scarlett wasn't always as easy to please as is instructed in the fifth-baby handbook, and that often while I was attempting to console her, some of the older kids were fighting loudly (or pulling out every toy in the house, or raiding the pantry - again, or picking handfuls of green tomatoes out of the garden...) and other children, completely oblivious to the chaos, were asking me to help them locate Scotch tape or inquiring about random Star Wars trivia. The reality is that all the kids watched a little too much TV and played a little too much Wii this week. The reality is that sometimes when Dave came home I retreated to my bedroom to rock the baby...and rocked her for quite a long time after she was sound asleep enough to put her down.

Then again, there were plenty of positives - more often than not at least the beds were made (at some point in the day), everyone was fed, and they all enjoyed plenty of bonding time with Daddy in the evenings. We had two appointments this past week, one to the pediatrician for Scarlett and one to the dentist for Drew, and we made it to both on time. A friend watched the older four kids for the former, but the latter was my first solo outing with the kids, and we survived it!

And sometimes Scarlett was blissed out in a sling...

The Name

2010-07-05T11:59:00.003-03:00

It is a fact that Gone With the Wind is one my favorite movies. I've loved it ever since I was just a little older than Aimee is now, and it used to be the movie of choice at my birthday sleepovers. So I probably will call my new daughter "Miss Scarlett" every now and then, and I don't think the Scarlett O'Hara quotes thrown our way (yes, I mean YOU, Sarah Elliot!) will ever bother me.

But while I admit this was all in the back of my mind when I began contemplating the name Scarlett, it isn't the reason we eventually chose it. It's funny how I had a list of favorite girl names I had been hanging onto for years, and yet I still searched through lists of baby names (and only ever girl names, even before an ultrasound confirmed what I think I knew from the start), not quite satisfied with any of those favorites. The little soul I was carrying was someone different than the potential daughters of the past - the daughters, incidentally, whose absence I didn't mourn. I had always wanted boys, and with some of the finest specimens have I been gifted. But this time, from the moment I suspected her presence, it was a girl, and it seemed just the right time for another one of that variety.

That said, from the time we announced that we were expecting her, there was an undeniable vibe that "another one" would only make sense for us if it were going to be a girl. Because for heaven's sake, five? We had better be having a girl, anyway, because we certainly didn't "need" another boy, even if we did insist on having another baby we didn't "need." I don't mean we got this from people who love us, but we certainly heard it from society in general. So as I began thinking about names, I knew we needed to give this baby a name that would forever speak against that vibe. Even when it was confirmed that she was a girl - and I almost hated giving nosy strangers the satisfaction of that knowledge when they rudely inquired, "You're having a girl, I hope?" - I wanted to let her know that she wasn't just "another one," a superfluous baby who was only good for being displayed in pink. I wanted her always to know that she will always be wanted and needed, a vital part of our family, whose very existence will give us more than the insignificant numbers it will cost us to raise her. (Ugh - I really loathe when the "cost" of raising children is expressed in monetary terms.)

So something struck me when I came across the name "Scarlett" one day. Of course it only refers to a shade of red, but I find red to be a vibrant, cheerful color, and I like to have at least some threads of it in each room. It makes me happy, and that's the thought that remained with me when I pondered that name, which I also found to be a pretty and unique one. Not everyone in the family was sold on it when I first suggested it, but it remained on the list, and they began to warm up to it. But when we first saw her on the ultrasound screen , suddenly there she was - Scarlett. It was just WHO she was. Dave apparently felt the same way, too, because while we hadn't said anything about it in the doctor's office, he sent me a text later that day and asked how Scarlett was doing. And that was that.

As for Jane, I can't even remember when that was first suggested, but it just seemed to fit, and when I put the names together, I could picture the spirited girl I imagined she would probably grow up to be. Oh yes, and then there's this relative we have who has the name Jane...who herself is a rather spirited and vibrant individual, so that was probably some of it, too. (But don't let it go to your head, Erica Jane, baby sister o' mine.) Jane, too, means, "God is gracious," and that fit with our theme as well. Very simply put, grace is getting things we don't deserve. We don't find our children to be trophies that fit into the neat decor of our own lives - because, among, other things, that would lend itself to suggest that too many of them, or too many of the wrong kind, would be...too many. And even worse, that the ones we have are ones we "deserve." We believe instead that God creates people for his own purpose, and so that our children don't ultimately belong to us anyway. But as usual with God's plans and purposes, He weaves the big picture and the small pictures together in a perfect tapestry. With our children, this means that they are gifts to us - gifts we don't deserve and therefore can't rightfully hoard, but ones we welcome, treasure, and protect.

So, in giving our new gift this name we are saying that you, Scarlett Jane, are more than a fifth child and a ninth grandchild. You are not one too many, more than we need, a slip-up, an extra, or a problem that we should have "fixed" before you were conceived. You are God's gift to us, an outpouring of his graciousness in our lives, and you are bringing to our family vibrance, color, and happiness - and we're so glad you're here!

Scarlett Jane Meester

2010-07-02T12:26:00.004-03:00

I haven't been diligent at all in my blogging of late - well, for the last nine months, I suppose - or else I would have posted at least once about how blessed I was during my pregnancy. Obviously I had my share of the typical and less than pleasant pregnancy symptoms, but by now those are a distant memory. And I suppose those are part of the blessing anyway. But what I'm referring to, at any rate, is having had a support system of caregivers who made the time of preparation a beautiful and peaceful one. Having connected with my midwife, Jami, from the very first time I spoke to her on the phone, my visits with her (here at our house) were some of the most pleasant hours of my pregnancy and were almost therapeutic in nature. She was a vital part in helping me to prepare in all ways for the birth, which I wanted to be one of faith and not of fear. I needed to work through some issues from past births, but I also wanted to be purposeful in letting this birth have its own story, rather than just be full of reactions against the past - and she certainly helped me sort through those feelings and take postive steps. The fact that she shares my faith and would pray with me at times also contributed toward the feeling of being kindred spirits. And of course she was careful and professional in guiding me through the ins and outs of the pregnancy and in watching over the growth of the baby. When questions arose that required some outside help, she directed me to an OB who proved to be both genuinely concerned over my welfare and the baby's, and completely unthreatened by serving as a back-up, which was refreshing. Even his nurse, who had had a midwife for her last birth, was kind and supportive, and even sent me a personal note a couple weeks ago. And then throughout the last trimester, I went to a chiropractor Jami recommended, in the hopes that we could have things lined up correctly in order to have the easiest birth possible (i.e. not the posterior variety I had experienced the last two times!). Said chiropractor is a down-to-earth, understanding woman with a small, no-frills office, and she, too, seemed truly to care about my overall well-being and about helping me achieve a good birth. It didn't even bother her in the least when the kids had to come with me.

So...the bottom line is that I felt beautifully supported throughout my pregnancy, and as the time for delivery drew near, I felt prepared , and, at the same time, largely stress-free. As in my other pregnancies, I did feel the need to organize and scour, cook and freeze, and generally nest liike crazy, but I didn't feel like I was going crazy as I did it, and for the most part I felt content to let things happen whenever and in whatever way they were going to happen. Because the other kids were born either a few days before or right on their respective due dates, I did feel fairly confident that we could probably expect a baby somewhere in the 40th week, but I tried to not put everything on hold or get too keyed up about it as that time arrived. I didn't want any anxious hours of waiting or being watched every time I thought labor might be starting, and as we entered this week, we planned for all our usual activities.

Even when at my prenatal on Tuesday Jami reported that I was at 4 cm and 85% effaced, I still tried not to read into that too much (it doesn't always mean much, after all), and I felt comfortable letting Dave go fishing that night. Jami had brought over a birth ball that morning, and I sat on it while I read to the boys at bedtime and then later when I enjoyed some time to myself and watched an season 1 episode of Lost on Netflix. I had been having good Braxton Hicks contractions for a few days, but sitting on the ball that night soon changed the nature of those contractions, so that they were actually a little painful. I got off the ball and onto the couch, watched (ahem!) another episode, and contemplated once or twice calling Dave and suggesting that he might want to come home. But I checked the urge and reminded myself that I didn't want to panic, so eventually I just decided to go to bed and see what happened. It took me until after midnight to go to sleep, and I was beginning to hope a little...when I finally settled into a nice sleep, and only woke up a couple times for my customary bathroom visits. I had contractions each of those times, but was always able to go back to sleep, so, slightly disappointed, I concluded that it just been a trial run. I consoled myself by reasoning that it would probably be best if things held off until the weekend, anyway - I still had some things I wanted to finish around the house and in my school planning. I woke up that morning planning to take the kids to the movies (the Free Family Film festival that theaters put on during the summer), even though as we were doing chores and getting ready, my contractions resumed a steady pace and were still somewhat painful. Since I could still get around without too much pause at each one, though, I was determined to make it through the day as planned, and we headed off to the theater. We settled into our seats, and a lady behind us took a look at my belly and quipped, "Gracious, you're not going to have that baby in the theater, are you?" I smiled, pretending I found that amusing, and then struggled the entire time to hide the truth that in fact the contractions I was having were awfully distracting. I even tried to convince myself that they weren't bothering me all that much, but for most of the movie I just wished it would be over, and the thought escaped that if they got the slightest bit stronger or closer together, I wasn't going to want to be by myself.

When we finally got home, the kids were hungry, and I asked Aimee to make lunch while I supervised, but with every contraction, I ducked around a corner and dealt with it quietly, because I didn't want the kids to get excited or be worried...even though I was still not admitting any thoughts of real labor myself. I did straighten some rooms up and vacuum, because if it were labor...well, I hadn't been cleaning vigorously for a week so people could come in to a mess, contractions or not! It turned out, though, that I couldn't get everything. The kids moved from lunch to art projects at the school room table, and by that point, I was definitely getting too distracted to care about clearning up after them. I did call Jami then to let her know that I was having contractions that I thought were about ten minutes apart, and that I didn't know what they signified, if anything, but since she had wanted an early heads-up, I thought it couldn't hurt to call. She suggested I try to get into the chiropractor for an adjustment to see if that changed anything, but as she was telling me this, I had a contraction, and after she listened to me deal with it, she laughed ans said she thought I was probably in labor. I told her I wasn't sure, but that I would schedule and appointment and call her in an hour with an update. I made an appointment with the chiropractor for 3:30, texted Dave to let him know I might need him, but NOT to come home just then, and then timed some contractions out of curiosity. As it turned out, they were actually 6-7 minutes apart, and a few were only 4 minutes apart. When I called Jami after the elapsed hour, she laughed some more and told me she really thought it was labor and didn't think I was going to make my chiropractor's appointment. She said she could come whenever I liked, and I told her I still wasn't convinced, so I would just call her with an update later. This was at about 2:00, and I texted Dave again to tell him what she had said, but that I also wasn't yet sure and I still didn't want him to come home. But then at 2:30 I had a contraction that prompted me to send him another text and tell him that I had changed my mind and wanted him sooner rather than later. He was home about ten minutes later, and when I expressed doubts about being able to make it through an adjustment, he told me that he didn't think I should go, and he called the office for me to cancel it. I was back in our room at that point, sitting on the birth ball and simmering in a state of uncertainty. Dave came back and suggested that he should probably have someone to come get the kids, and I told him no, because I still wasn't sure if it was the real thing, and I didn't know what to do or when. He watched me for a few more minutes and commented that I was being stubborn and it really looked like labor to him, at which point I began to cry, protesting that I hadn't imagined going into labor in the middle of the day, and my room was too light, etc....at which point he smiled, covered the windows, and announced that he was going to call Jami to come, and he was going to ask my mom to come get the kids. I cried irrationally for a few more minutes while he took care of everything, but at least at that point, I had moved to a state of semi-acceptance that I probably was in labor.

Jami's daughter Jessica, a labor and delivery nurse who assists her when she's available, arrived first, at around 3:30, and began matter-of-factly setting the room up with the birth supplies, and also massaging my back with each contraction. I wanted to protest that she might want to wait until we really knew. but she seemed so calm and decisive that I didn't say anything, and then Jami and Brooke, the doula who assists her, both arrived at about 4:00 and settled right in to the labor motions as well. I remembered that Jami had said they didn't mind about false alarms, anyway, and I reasoned that if my labor stalled out, it wouldn't be the first time they had dealt with it. Jami and Jessica cheerfully took my vitals, while Brooke, without a moment's hesitation, starting in massaging my back with each contraction (I immediately realized she was going to be amazing), and pretty soon I resigned myself further to the idea that this was the real deal, although I did mention once or twice that it seemed surreal. They asked me if I wanted them to fill the birth tub (I had wanted another go at a waterbirth, and had borrowed a friend's birth pool, which was ready and waiting in a corner of our bedroom), and I was taken aback, thinking that it was too early. But Jami said my contractions were coming regularly and were lasting about 90 seconds at that point, so she thought I was well into active labor and could get in anytime I wanted. Still, I waited until sometime after 6:00 before asking them to fill it. Dave ran a hose from the hot water hook-up to the washing machine, and filled the tub. Everyone but Dave left the room so that I could get in and get comfortable (and I was relieved that we actually had some food in house so that they could have dinner!), and I tentatively climbed in and hoped my labor wouldn't stop. It didn't, and I tried out different positions through the next several contractions, figuring out what worked best. At some point Jami, Jessica, and Brooke came back in to check on me and listen to the baby, and Brooke began massaging my back again - leaning over the tub! She was incredible and, it seemed, tireless. It was somewhere around this point that I reflected how it seemed like I should have felt like a "watched pot," or at least should have felt awkward with them just being there, sitting quietly around the tub, but they were so calm and unhurried that they exuded a sense of being perfectly content to sit and wait on my every need. There wasn't a single vibe that I was inconveniencing anyone...even as they were frequently bailing out cooled water to make room for more hot water. As the contractions became more intense, I grew more tired, and I commented once that I hoped the baby was getting the point and things were actually moving along. Jami asked if I wanted her to check me, and I said yes, thinking I might like to know. She tried to check me while I was in the water, but ended up needing me to get out, which I reluctantly did. A couple of contractions out of the water reminded me how much the water was actually doing for me, and I looked forward to getting back in! But Jami did the exam, and reported that I was at 6 cm. and 90% effaced. My bag of waters was also bulging, which accounted for the pressure and overall discomfort I had been feeling in front. She offered to have give me some more privacy at that point, and I could only nod as I climbed back in the tub. Dave sat silently on the bed in front of me, probably waiting for the inevitable meltdown, which came only a few minutes later. In previous births I had always been "stuck" at about 6 cm. In Chase's, this had been particularly agonizing, and I had been at a place of feeling exhausted and overwhelmed for what had seemed an almost unbearable number of hours. So I had been working during this pregnacny toward an easier, faster labor, but it seemed, at that moment, that my efforts had been in vain. I was despondent over the idea of having to labor in pain for countless hours more., and I began sobbing. I verged on hysterics through the next several contractions, which of course didn't help, until I finally resolved - just a little bit, but enough to pull myself together - to stop thinking about the past and focus on what I needed to do this time. I asked Dave to call someone in to continue massage and counterpressure on my back, and they all came back. I didn't seem like much longer (and later Jami told me it was about an hour, that I was in transition, and this time I was in an almost trance-like state. I could only mutter things in one word, like "Hot," "Cold," or "Juice", and whatever I needed appeared almost instantly. The only full sentence I could utter was, "I don't want to do this anymore," and that I repeated often, although I told Dave later that I didn't have any thought of actually wanting to go to the hospital or anything like that; I just needed to say the words. I was having fierce contractions one after the other. Some were double-peaked, and during a particularly rough one after I been in the bathroom and was out of the water for a few minutes, I could hear the seams in Dave's shirt ripping as I held on to him. Somewhere around this time, that pesky bag of water broke, and for just a minute I enjoyed a completely blissful feeling of relief as it slid out. It was only momentary, of course, and very soon I had to focus hard again to stay on top of the contractions. I felt like I was barely hanging on, and it was only the last rational thought I had left, tiny as it was, that held everything together - the thought that I couldn't let go and give up, mostly because there wasn't even a precipice to go over. I wouldn't go anywhere, and nothing would happen, except that the contractions would be in control, instead of me. One contraction did actually get ahead of me, and the resulting feeling also helped prompt me to work to stay on top of the rest of them. During this stage, Jami would say, "We're with you," as each contraction began, and while in the moment being reminded of that didn't seem to help, it was a bouying force.

Finally I felt a familiar urge I had been waiting for, and I told Jami I had to push. Calmly, she said, "Sure - you can push a little with the next one," and even pushing just a little with the next couple helped. She checked for the baby's head, said it was close, and soon I was really bearing down with each contraction. I generally like pushing, and felt relief this time as well - I suppose I like being able to do something with the contractions instead of feeling like I'm hanging on for dear life. Also this time I felt as though I could control them a little. They began to space out, as they do during the pushing phase, and I felt like I could hold them off until I was ready. Whether it was true or not I'm not sure, but when I felt twinges of one coming but felt like I needed a few more seconds to rest, I would chant, "Break, break, break." Pushing was hard work, though, and I wondered after awhile if we were getting anywhere. It turned out to be about an hour before I felt the head come through. I was in a semi-squatting position then, and I wasn't actually sure I had felt her head come, because while usually the rest of the body follows pretty quickly, this time Jami asked me to recline so that she could see "what was going on." She asked me to bear down hard with the next contraction, and I when I did, I felt a tremendous pulling. (Later everyone told me that the shoulders were stuck, and Jami had had to do a little pulling to get the baby out). I was so surprised by the intensity of this feeling that I was shocked when the next thing I knew there was a baby in my arms. I looked up at Dave and actually said, "It's a baby! We have a baby!" Then I was asking if she was okay, because she wasn't crying, but everyone assured me she was fine. I also asked if it was before midnight, because I had been hoping she would have a June birthday - it was 11:36pm, with which news I was thrilled. After I talked to her a little, she cried some, and then after looking her over Jami told me we needed to get out and over to the bed to deliver the placenta. With everyone's help, I got out of the tub, holding a still-attached baby - which was a funny feeling! - and went over to the bed. Scarlett began rooting around, and I wanted to nurse her, partly because I felt it would ground me a little - and I was still feeling a bit in shock - but I wanted to wait until the cord was cut. We were waiting for it to stop pulsing for that, but the cord pulsed for over 20 minutes. Jami said she had never seen one go so long! She told me today that she asked another midwife about it, and was told that sometimes the baby's heartbeat is so strong that blood is actually being pumped through in the opposite direction. But it finally did stop, was clamped and then cut, and I finally put an eager Scarlett to the breast, where she nursed for a few minutes. Delivering the placenta was a little harder than I remember it being in past births, and then there were some clots that had to be worked out. I had to give the baby to Dave while Jessica massaged my uterus, because it was rather painful and I couldn't focus on the baby. When I did get her back, though, I nursed her on the other side, which appeared to be her favorite. We all remarked that it's funny how babies often have a favorite from the beginning. After she was done nursing, Jami checked her over - she was beautifully healthy - and weighed and measured her. She weighed in at 8 lbs, 10 oz, and was 19 3/4 inches long.

And then it was over. It was only a little while longer that Jami, Jessica, and Brooke took to finish cleaning up and setting things back in order. Dave drained the pool out the window, and we all laughed about how funny it would look to the neighbors if they happened to see him. We also recounted some of the funny moments during the labor, some of which I had appreciated at the time, and others I had been unaware of. My Mom had the kids at a nearby hotel, and Dave went to get Aimee, who was still awake and waiting for the news. He brought her back and she held her long-awaited sister for a few precious minutes before we sent her to bed. (Mom brought the boys the next morning.) Around 2:00am everyone else gave me hugs and said good-bye, and then Dave and I curled up in bed with our new daughter. We had been so tired all night long, but we were suddenly unable to go to sleep as we stared at her sleeping soundly. It still seemed so unreal that she was there - that the previous morning we hadn't known she was coming, and now she was with us. Dave finally went to sleep a little after 3:00, and it took me longer, but I knew I could sleep later. It was just so amazing to look at my little girl.

That little girl is now waking, and this story has to have an end eventually, so I'll conclude it here! I want to explain her name, but we'll save that for a later post. Off to feed her now.

2010-06-06T08:41:00.005-03:00

Hannah commented that I was permitted a lapse in posting, as long as I don't fail to give proper notice when our little girl arrives in a few weeks. I'm sure that won't be a problem - in the ecstatic glow after birth, I generally write up several pages of a birth story, and this time probably won't be any different. But in the meantime, I also thought I shouldn't fail to give homage to another birth, in which my sister Mary K. produced a snugglekins of a little girl just last week.

Welcome to the world, Lucca!

(That's her dad's chest, by the way!)

She was born at home, arriving well after her due date and weighing in at 9 pounds, both factors which would have had doctors itching to induce, and thus likely robbing my sister of the peaceful birth I believe she experienced. So it's primarily for that reason I am so glad she was able to be at home. But really more than that, I am thrilled that Mary K. had the opportunity to become educated about birth before having her first baby, so that when the time came, she was able to know what she wanted and to make her own choices, and I'm proud of her for having the confidence to trust in those choices, wherever she might have chosen to have her baby. Not many of us are able to do that at the very beginning of our mothering experiences; most of us have had to learn things the hard way. My own journey has been a long winding one over ten years, covering a variety of birth experiences as it has led me to where I am now on the birth spectrum. Despite the fact that there were things I would have done differently for those births early in the journey, I do value being able to relate to moms and their different birth experiences, as well as being able to look at my sister and her delicious pink bundle and feeling so relieved for her that both of them were spared those effects of medically managed birth that I really do regret. (Episiotomy - need I say more???)

But I do not mean to wax too philosophical here. We are just so happy to have this new niece and cousin, and the kids, who prayed faithfully for her safe arrival, were very excited to meet her the very same day she was born.

Here's the oldest and the youngest of my parent's grandchildren, girls nearly ten years apart.

And the boys waiting their turn....

And Amita enjoying a snuggle (I am NEVER called Aunt Anne). Did I mention this baby is snuggly?

Excuses, Excuses

2010-06-03T11:35:00.004-03:00

I see that once again, I have let a ridiculously long period of time lapse in between posts. This used to happen because of the whirlwind of activity that kept us on the go most of the spring semester, and then it happened because I was just trying to be done with school for our mini summer break. During this period of time, my goals changed almost hourly - "Let's get this book done... or at least to lesson such-and-such... Ok, let's bake a chocolate cake and celebrate being done with school today! I rationalize this by adding to/elaborating on my educational philosophy, and explaining (to myself) that since I am not passing my students off to anyone next year, what does it matter if we just pick up where we left off in certain subjects? Even if we didn't make it to an even-numbered lesson in the book. And now that I've said that I feel obligated to explain that the kids did make it through some of their books, and if we didn't see the end of a book, it was usually because I didn't find those particular books a priority and felt we could easily "catch-up" later. The kids aren't "behind" on any subjects, and in fact, Aimee's standardized test scores arrived a couple weeks ago, and...well, it seems she's doing more than fine. So.

But now that we're finished with school proper for several weeks (and get this, I don't have a plan AT ALL for when we're going to start back up again! Our usual schedule would have us starting July 5th, and we might be a little preoccupied with other things around that time this year.), my excuses for not having posted are...are... I'm not exactly sure. It could be because of my intense nesting projects that have been going on in the house the past several weeks, and are scheduled to wrap up in the next couple weeks. It could be just the general tunnel vision into which my perspective has been narrowing, as the time for a certain little girl's arrival steadily approaches and I find myself hunkering down and getting mind, body, and spirit ready for the task - and the glories - ahead.

Or it could be the time-consuming business of attending to my current mothering projects, such as the one who walked up the hallway a few days ago, brandishing safety scissors and a particularly impish grin. "I gave Duchess [the cat] a haircut!" he announced proudly. Thankfully, he's not at all sneaky. For him, there's not much fun in doing something if you aren't going to let people know you did it. I didn't think the cat would really have sat still long enough for him to have snipped any fur, but I still went investigating, and sure enough, I found a not-insignificant pile of white fur on my bedroom floor. Then yesterday, just as I went into the bathroom (of course it never fails), both little boys came in from outside, calling my name. They found me, and Chase came right in (of course) and said, "Mommy, I have a worm present for you!", thrusting said "present" into my face and then laughing hysterically at my involuntary reaction. That same little boy is sporting a bloody nose this morning after the morning's wrestling session with his brother didn't go so well. But despite of, or because of, all this sort of thing, he's just so cute, which makes the necessity of keeping my eye on him at all times not such a hardship after all.

So all that doesn't explain much, but at least it comprises something to post this morning!

The Things We Wish We Had Said...

2010-04-14T22:42:00.007-03:00

Does it ever happen to you that someone asks you a question, and only later can you think of the witty, thoughtful, or just basically intelligent reply you ought to have given? Yes, I thought so. Well, here's my most recent example of just such a situation.

Over Easter weekend, one of Dave's relatives asked me how long we thought we would homeschool. After having fumbled through the answers to some other pointed questions about family size and homeschooling, I was relieved to be able to answer this one directly, and I said we would probably go all the way to graduation. But then this relative leveled her gaze at me (she really did - it was somewhat unnerving) and said,

"So you feel you have a sufficient grasp of every single high school subject?"

And the smile froze on my face as I considered how to answer that. Later I remembered a few witty things with which I could have responded, such as,

"Why yes, actually, I do! I was homeschooled myself, you know!"

or, with an expression of panic, "I hadn't thought about that!"

But I don't think that sort of humor would have been appreciated, so it was probably best I didn't have a chance to think of it as I gave a barely intelligent (and probably not very convincing) response about outsourcing. I could have, however, at least mentioned that my homeschool friends and I all made it through the high school years, none of us having parents who were experts at "every single subject," and we seem to have done well for ourselves on the whole. Most of us had above average SAT scores (some had incredible ones!), made it into college, and proceeded to do very well there. I have friends who went on to become talented nurses, engineers, photographers...It's true that not everyone went all the way through college (for various reasons), or even went, or had impressive high school records, but I'm fairly certain that the same is true of public and private school student bodies.

And I could have gone on to talk about why I think we all managed to survive, and why I believe my children won't be shortchanged or ruined, either. Growing up, we fit somewhere in between the first and second generation of the modern homeschooling movement, so while my parents didn't exactly have to create the path, it was certainly a new one when they began walking it. In short, there were many things I think they figured out along the way, and many things we all learned together. That process gave us, the students (and probably our parents, too!), the ability to learn how to learn, which sounds simple enough but is really an amazing gift. When you cannot simply take a teacher's word for it, you have to look it up for yourself, and to do that, you have to learn how to find the resources, and to determine whether they're reliable, and you must explore and question constantly. I think this usually results in an immersion in what I like to call "an atmosphere of learning," in which the lines between "formal education" (i.e. being told what to know and what you're supposed to do with it) and the rest of your life become rather blurred. Learning doesn't start and stop at predetermined intervals, and the fear of learning diminishes.

I am absolutely not saying that this can't happen to students in public schools, please understand me, but I am saying that I have never been in a situation in which a group of public students overwhelmed or intimidated me with learning skills acquired from a lifetime of teachers with a "sufficient grasp" of their subjects; in fact, rather the opposite was true. As a senior in high school, I took a couple classes at the local technical college to fulfill my high school requirements, and I remember being confused at how unnecessarily difficult many of the students seemed to make the classes. Chemistry, for instance, was neither my forte nor even a remote interest of mine, but it didn't take long to determine what it was we were supposed to get out of the class and the best way to get it. We weren't supposed to learn everything there is to know about chemistry, but many students remained stuck in their fear of just the word and couldn't seem to see the forest for the trees, as the saying goes. The English class I took was even worse, as most of the students barely had a grasp of the most basic writing skills and therefore certainly couldn't put together coherent essays comprised of their own thoughts. Later, when I graduated and went to a university, I didn't find things much better among the general population of students. Many students had a very difficult time NOT being told what to do, think, write, and say at every turn, and found the task of doing, learning, and thinking for themselves a challenging one. The point of this is to say that while there are plenty of people, from all different educational backgrounds, who are smarter than I am - and, for the record, a good number of friends who were educated in the public schools and whom I quite respect - I have not found myself behind the masses. I have found, instead, that the ability to learn for myself has been a most valuable gift.

I've been able to bring that gift, and the lack of fear that accompanies it, along with me in the journey of educating my own children. (Ok, ok, not a complete lack of fear and doubt - no one's perfect!) I do remember that in the beginning, I wondered if I would actually be able to teach my children how to read. But it happened - and most of it without my direct instruction. And that's usually how most learning happens around here. I give them a springboard (and there's a vast array of resources these days), we learn together, and if they're really interested, they wallow around in more facts, information, and knowledge than any teacher could every give them. I think about Aimee's "sufficient grasp" of The Lord of the Rings, a book she's read voluntarily now three or four times, all without the knowledge that she's not "supposed" to tackle or understand that until junior high or high school. Then there's Drew's recent love of World War II study. After three weeks of poring over books I had brought home on the subject (and becoming, in the process, a walking encyclopedia of WWII facts, including battles, leaders, and all kinds of other statistics) he begged me for more, and I brought him home an armload of more fact-filled non-fiction, with more World War II information than I've ever known or could teach him. What's funny is that recently both of them moaned something about not liking school. I asked them what they were talking about, and referenced the above. Aimee replied, "We don't mean reading or history- we mean 'school'," which beyond a subject or two each, they never could really explain further. The point is that the learning that goes on here all the time, the learning that is above and beyond what would be asked of them elsewhere, is approached without dread or worry, usually because they hardly know they're doing it. And what of those subjects that they don't love, or those with which I really have no familiarity at all? Knowing that they are hard-wired for learning, at the very least we don't worry that we need someone competent to feed the information to us. We tackle those subjects together, and when we don't understand, we look for more resources to help us...and when we still can't grasp it, we go find people who might know. And that's what we'll keep doing, learning and growing together all the way through.

Are you still there? If you are, you're right, this particular relative wouldn't be at this point if I had attempted to give such an answer. As it was, I had the distinct impression that I had been dismissed and was no longer of much interest after my feeble answers. But I feel better now, anyway!

Belated Update

2010-04-14T08:45:00.004-03:00

Oh my...I haven't been very faithful here at all! You probably aren't interested in my schedule, but I still feel I should explain that life has been more than busy these past few months (especially since emerging from that state of the walking dead of the first trimester). And then I should explain that I realize that many people carry around this kind of load on a regular basis (and probably do it ever so much better), but it seems ridiculously busy for me, who at times in my life have found the idea of leaving the house on consecutive days to be an appalling one, and even then, have struggled to go farther than a five-mile radius from home. I am not exaggerating - you could ask my husband and my erstwhile therapist. But I have had a most happy respite from virtually all my OCD symptoms and other anxieties for a little over a year now, which has opened the door for us all to have a more flourishing social and school calendar this year...which in turn has at times produced some whirlwind weeks. And months. This spring has been such that it's the first year I've really understood the sentiment of moms who can hardly wait for the end of the official school calendar. May sits tantalizingly close on the calendar, beckoning me with promises of rest.

But all this simply to say that after all the homeschool clubs, riding lessons, Girl Scouts, soccer practices and games, music lessons, church functions and responsibilities (oh yes, and school somewhere in there), I have little time (again, it seems for me) left to post here, which I am beginning to miss, whether anyone misses me or not! Requiring the most immediate attention is my promise to update on the baby's health, which was somewhat in question as of my last posting. I did put something on Facebook, but it didn't answer everything, because some of you have asked about it. Forgive me! At any rate, the ultrasound showed a very healthy, active little girl (and it would have been perfectly wonderful either way, but there were some happy tears upon that discovery, I do confess), in a healthy uterus, with a healthy amount of fluid. The cause for my rapid and somewhat excessive growth? She's a big baby! Measuring at about 2 pounds already (at 24 weeks), she already had delightful little fat rolls along her back at that point. Now, things have evened out a little, so we're not quite so over the top in measurements, but it seems pretty clear that we're not going to be looking at a six and half pounder, a la her big sister (who is tall now, but for whom the word "big" is in every other way rather inappropriate).

Children are beginning to wake up here, so I'll wrap this up, with promises to return soon, I hope!

Baby News

2010-03-13T10:39:00.002-04:00

For the past couple weeks, I've been mentally composing the post which would announce our expected twins.

Wait, wait.

That was increasingly becoming a more likely possibility, and when I went on Thursday to the doctor my midwife recommended, he, too, really thought he was going to see two babies on the ultrasound screen (and was, endearingly, rather excited about the prospect). But after looking around thoroughly, it turned out there was just one baby tucked away in there, growing well and looking just right to be due in early July. This was all great news, but still failed to explain why I had been growing rapidly and was measuring several centimeters over the expected measurement for my dates. Further probing revealed more fluid than should be there, so now I'm scheduled for level 3 ultrasound next week, to do a full biophysical profile of our little one. Apparently the high fluid volume could indicate a problem with the baby's kidneys (what's that? No, I can't be more gender specific, because I asked not to know. I'm feeling enormously proud of my self-control, and pleased with the frustrated expressions of my family members!). So while we're relieved to be expecting just one (oh, the sleepless nights! I didn't announce publicly that I was facing this possibility, but I'm telling you all now that my nerves were wound very tightly for a number of days), we're praying now for the complete health of our baby. Do join with us, and look for a great report on Tuesday!

Winter Birthdays

2010-02-21T22:02:00.002-04:00

I mentioned in my last post (which wasn't, it seems, too cheesy after all - thanks!) that I am enjoying the anticipation of a baby's arrival along with the coming of summer - that as things come to life and bloom, we'll be closer to the day our new little one will arrive.

So it HAS been a pleasant experience, one I haven't had in ten years. But the births in between have had their own perks, the last two giving a happy boost to the stereotypically grey and tedious month of February. And thus my (late) homage to my little boys, Ryan and Chase, who share the birthday of February 15th. To be more specific, of course, they are two years apart, and we have to make it clear that we celebrate TWO birthdays on that day, but still, those two birthdays always give a bright lift to the winter, as they did this year. For one thing, Ryan, who celebrated turning five, had spent the previous months creating a contagious spirit of anticipation for his birthday. "How many more days until my birthday?" - every day for countless weeks and months! And indeed, how could we not be excited for our clever, entertaining Ryan? But how can he be five already? I still remember the very first time I looked into his deep blue eyes that looked so amazingly knowing for a baby - an old soul, some call it.

Chase did not count down the days to his birthday this year, but then, that might not ever be his thing - where Ryan is intensely focused and always thinking, Chase is, while no less intelligent, a more carefree sort. Actually, he's a loose cannon, a wild thing, a happy daredevil...who scares (and sometimes just infuriates) months off my life but then adds them back by being so loving. His first words to me in the morning are usually, "I love you - you're so cute!", and then he crinkles those ridiculously gorgeous eyes in his most endearing smile...and I'm ready for another hair-raising day. And I frequently think back to his first moments, ones that reflected his personality even then - how he made a funny little squeak even before he was completely out, and then once he was born, he latched on vigorously, nursed for an hour at least, then belched heartily like a much older baby. Always ahead of the game, believing himself to be older than he actually is, he hasn't slowed down...or indeed, even stopped moving, since.

Happy Birthday, Ryan and Chase!

(And how I would love to post pictures with this! But alas, both our computers are down for different reasons, and I'm Dave's work computer this weekend.)

Seasons

2010-02-20T21:54:00.004-04:00

Ok, I know this has the potential to be pretty cheesy - and goodness, knows, I really dislike cheesy, so I may not even be able to forgive myself after this. I tried to read a blog a couple of times, the subject matter of which I was somewhat interested in, but it was so syrupy-sweet that my brain felt sticky after reading it, and I just couldn't go on (no, it wasn't any of yours, my few but faithful readers!). At any rate, I hope I don't give you a similar feeling with this post! But if I do, chalk it up to pregnancy hormones.

A few days ago I walked past a window and was struck with that fleeting, intangible, but quite distinct feeling that signals the promise of a turning season. Do you know what I mean? It happens before the change of every season - and it's usually prompted just by the way the light comes in and seems suddenly and subtly different, like the way light looks in whatever season is ahead. So something about the late afternoon sun streaming in the window the other day looked like spring, and, as usual, I felt heartened by the promise. Then today when the sun and blue sky pushed the temperature into the 60s, we were all energized by that same promise. It will likely be cold and gray again before springtime truly blooms, but this weekend we began to feel even in our bones that spring is coming - and our steps were just a little bouncier. Dave spent the afternoon building a raised garden for me, and as the rest of us spread truckoads of dirt, we talked excitedly about all the things we hoped to grow in it. And the vigorous movements in my belly all day made me think about what else is growing, and the even bigger promise that warm seasons will bring. It's been ten years since I've had a baby in the summer, and it's such fun thinking that that as life blooms all over the earth, we'll be getting closer and closer to the debut of this new life.

Not, however, as if want to rush it, because sometimes the changing of seasons can bring bittersweet feelings. Drew played Upward basketball this winter (and had a great time at it, by the way), and his end-of-the-year season celebration was this past Tuesday night. He sat up front with his team, and towards the end, there was a slideshow of pictures from the season. Cue the pregnancy hormones, I began to tear up a little as teammates cheered for each other when pictures came up, and in general, there was a feeling of happy comraderie throughout, which of course was great...but I was just struck with how much Drew has grown, enough to belong to a team and to be sharing these kinds of moments with other people. That IS cheesy and cliche, I know - "how did you get so big?" - but there it was. And I suppose what really got me is that this was only the very beginning, that in fact the season is coming in which he will begin to identify with his own groups, teams, friends, etc., and he won't belong to me quite the same way anymore. He'll still be my boy, of course, and we'll always be his family, but he'll make his own way, full of people and experiences that will really have nothing to do with me. That's the way it's supposed to be, I know, and it's my bittersweet lot as a mother to treasure these moments that will become his past, while he forgets many of them in his push toward his future. Indeed, some moments he's never even known, such as the ones from his earliest days tucked in my womb, and those are mine - and only mine - to keep forever. I've been able to appreciate this more with each child, so that by now, when this little one begins stretching and moving, I can truly savor each moment, knowing that there is a new season coming, but not in the least wanting it to come too soon. It will all happen soon enough, and will pass even more quickly.

Was it too terrible? You really must forgive me - the state of my emotions is so fragile these days that I even cried during Locke's funeral on the last episode of Lost! :-)