A Decade

Yesterday Dave and I quietly celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. 10 years! It's cliche, but the time really has gone so fast. We met less than 11 years ago, at the new Wal-Mart as it was just being built - Dave at the Tire and Lube Express, a job he secured right after moving down from New York to be with his recently transplanted family, and myself at the Vision Center, a job I took while taking a semester off from college (it's been a long semester!), and one that proved to be very interesting, actually. The rumor mill at the store had me convinced he was engaged - the blonde I saw him with in the store was his sister, but I didn't know that then! - so I met his first attempt at asking me out with cold rebuff. With fact sifted out of the fiction later, I agreed to go to lunch with him, and the next week to a UNC basketball game (they lost embarrasingly, but that was the beginning of his indoctrination in the Tar Heel way). After that, he began simply spending time with my family; in fact, he spent every evening at my house. I'm sure we were different in countless ways than just about any other family he had known before, but he must have liked us, and somewhere along the way, fell in love with me. I, in turn, was taken with his down-to-earth sincerity, and when he asked me to marry him just a little over a month of getting to know each other, I wasn't surprised - or opposed. I said yes, and amazingly, my parents said yes. (While it worked out for us, I hope my daughter doesn't expect the same kind of understanding.) Six months later, we were married. One of the perks of being the oldest (oldest child, oldest grandchild) is that everything you do is novel, and everyone shows up for it. Everyone (except for my grandfather, who I had once hoped who give me away, but who had died four years earlier) came to my wedding, and that was fun - my extended family is pictured above. All the girls I loved, representing friendship from various stages of my life, stood with me, and even though I had my own - ahem - bride moment, for the most part, everything was perfect.

Since then we've certainly had our share of mistakes and hardships, but we've also accomplished quite a bit in this decade. Fortunately we both believe that children are worth far more than money, and so we have invested a good deal more in the former than in the latter. Four children in a decade is not too shabby, certainly. It's funny, though, that in some circles, people are astounded by that figure - it might as well be fourteen, for their reactions - while in others I am quite behind the game. In any case, we are proud of our lively crew, and of the home God has provided for us. So, to my husband - I love you, and thank you for these ten years!

A Daughter

At almost exactly this time nine years ago, I was in a hospital room in Greenville, SC eating pizza (yes at 11:00pm - I had been famished for hours) with my parents, my sisters (minus the one who was working in Romania at the time), my husband, and a brand new little person, just a few hours old. She was small (at a dainty but healthy 6lbs. 10 oz.) and perfect - she even came out perfectly clean, and had the sweetest, most perfectly shaped head. She was Aimee Perrine from the first - small, precise, in charge, and entirely sure of herself. She has sprouted into long limbs (where did those come from!?) and a sparkling (at times, fiery!) personality, and she is no less adored than when she first arrived, and even more so, in fact, as the brothers who followed her wouldn't know what to do without her. I love it when we ask the boys a question about something like what they're going to do when they grow up, and they immediately look to her for the answer. And it's sweet when she goes somewhere and they spend the entire time asking when she's coming home. She, of course, basks in this kind of adoration with self-assurance - and also with kindness (most of the time).

Happy Birthday, Aimee.

A Few Good Reads...

These are too good to be lost to the side of the page, where they will probably not be seen...

Every once in awhile I look through the recommended reading lists from some of my favorite catalogs (Veritas Press, Sonlight) and make sure the kids have covered the books from their respective age ranges, and recently I brought home a stack of such books that Aimee and Drew hadn't yet read.



Aimee offered a beautiful recommendation for one of the books I gave her - she said of In Grandma's Attic, a collection of true stories from somewhere around the turn of the century, that it gave her good dreams. I haven't read the whole thing myself, but from what I have read, the stories seem to be wholesome and pretty, without being saccharine.



On the other side of the spectrum, Aimee also offered high praise for a book my dad suggested for her, The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key. It's a science fiction story about a boy from another world, who accidentally falls through a door and lands in a rather unforgiving stretch of our planet. He meets up with a family, who helps him, and who he, in turn, helps in ways of his own. This wasn't a school read, but after she finished, we had a good impromptu talk about things like origins, government, and the state of humanity (Is it possible to achieve a "perfect" world where laws and leaders are unnecessary? Are we more civilized than our earliest ancestors, or less? Or is that really a moot point, since sin causes almost instant degeneration?). At any rate, Aimee said it was one of the "best books ever."



For Drew's grade level, Barry the Bravest St. Bernard is a great true story. All the boys, including Chase, were riveted as we read it on the swing yesterday morning.



The little boys listen to everything, although this is something of how it goes when books, such as the Barry book referenced above, are being read aloud:



Me, reading, "The robbers ran forward..."



Ryan - "Let me see the robbers!"



Me, resuming,"They pulled at the heavy doors. The doors opened, and fourteen huge animals leaped out..."

Chase, grabbing at the book, "Lemme see they leaped out!"



Me, "Their mouths were open. Their teeth shone in the moonlight..."



Ryan and Chase, together, "Let me see their teeth!"



Ryan, "Why do their teeth shine in the moonlight? Where is the moonlight? What is the moonlight?"



I try to turn the page, and move on, but Chase shrieks, "Lemme see the doggie picture!"



You can imagine that reading heftier literature aloud, such as Peter Pan, is an even tougher challenge on the nerves. I've made a deal with Ryan, that allows him to ask as many questions as he wants as long as I can get to the end of a page first. Chase often requires a little bribery with something like chewing gum.



But some shorter picture books they've enjoyed (with no fewer questions, however) have been The Bats at the Library and The Bats at the Beach. Well written, beautifully illustrated, and...well, with bats, which the boys find darkly irresistible.



I have a harder time discovering great new books to read. I am a stubbornly loyal reader, clingingly faithful to the authors I love (which really just masks a fear of trying new things!). When I was a girl, Louisa May Alcott and L.M. Montgomery were the Ones. I read all of their works, down the to most obscure, over and over. I did read some other books by other authors at times, but with reluctance and only in desperation, because I really did love to read. But I was not one for perusing the library shelves and trying out just anything by just anyone. When I was older, I fell in love with Jane Austen and Daphne DuMaurier, very different, but always dependable. I also liked to dabble in reliable fantasy or science fiction, usually provided my dad, so works like The Hobbit figured in at times as well. I did also enjoy Shakespeare, classics by authors such as Victor Hugo, and all the writings of C.S. Lewis (have you ever read 'Til We Have Faces? Amazing!) but I hardly ever tried out a modern author. And let's face it, many, if not most, books directed at modern teens are fluff, at best, and even trash, at the worse. Bleh. There were always Christian novels, but often those are poorly written and sickly sweet, I'm afraid. My mom and I did enjoy the series written by Bodie Thoene, and I would still recommend those, because they were actually well researched and well written, and the characters were real people. At any rate, as I moved through teen years into young adulthood, I also discovered, and truly loved, books by Madeline L'Engle, who wove such compelling stories that I couldn't read two in a row because they were so deep and affecting. And one of the greatest things I have always admired about her books was that I would get to the end, and realized that she had never once mentioned what the heroine looked like, and yet, I always had a perfect picture of the characters. Too many authors go into far too much detail in describing everyone and everything, which is tiresome, and when the writing is good, unnecessary. All this to say that I have a very critical eye when it comes to approaching new books. When I have run through a trusted author and want something to read, I am apprehensive as I stroll through the library aisles. I view the "new books" section with distrust, and generally avoid the bestseller lists like the plague. One of the last times I tried to overcome this, I selected a slim volume (I love that phrase) with a story set in the WWI era, which I thought was promising. But it was so drenched and dripping with metaphor and simile that it was like...no, I won't get caught in that trap. It was laborious and heavy, like... no, I catch myself again. But seriously, the poor heroine couldn't even walk into a room without observing that the "beams of sunlight pierced the room like needles." Every sight and sound symbolised something about her gloomy tale. In reality, sometimes - most of the time - things just happen that have nothing to do with anything; you know, like the way sunlight enters the room. So reading that book was a forgettable experience, and I felt a little like I'd been betrayed. More recently, I did venture into the world of Twilight - I was curious, and while it wasn't great literature, it wasn't bad writing, either. All in all, I confess it as my guilty pleasure. But that done with, what next? I like historical biographies, and I had put Georgiana, The Duchess on hold so that I could read it on the place to New York a couple weeks ago, but it was late coming in. Disappointed, but really wanting something to read since I would have all that time to myself, I picked up a copy of Big Stone Gap, by Adriana Trigiani, that my mom had at her apartment. Set in the Appalachian mountains in the '70s, I wasn't sure it would be my thing, but it was such a good story that I found it captivating. I read both the sequels later, then ventured into her other books, which I've just now wrapped up. They were fairly good, but all just variations of the same pattern, I thought, and I'm not sad to be done. So this really long ramble about my reading preferences gives you this recommendation: she is a good author with some good reads, the Big Stone Gap series at the best of her writing, I think.

And now the dog has broken a glass, eaten food off the table, and gotten into the cat litter while I've been writing this. I don't want to see what the kids have done elsewhere in the house, but it probably needs to be cleaned up as well.

Book Police

Aimee loves to read. Actually, that may be one of the hugest understatements of the decade, as Aimee lives, breathes, eats, and drinks reading. I often have to remind her not read while walking, or to read during a family meal. If we're not paying attention, she will read instead of doing her morning list (i.e. getting dressed!), and will read until she is propping her eyes open late into the night hours. I love reading, too, and I completely understand how she feels (even though she vigorously insists that I can't possibly know how much she NEEDS to read). I remember when I was a girl, my dad woke us up at a certain time, and we had half an hour to get ready and be in the kitchen for breakfast. I would read for 25 minutes, then hurriedly throw some clothes on and make my bed, sometimes requiring a stern knock or two on my door as a reminder.

So I am sympathetic when I find a reading Aimee in her room having done nothing at all that I've asked her to do, or when I've asked her to put a book down and come help me with something - and within a minute or two, the book magically reappears in her hands. I know the pull, and I'm still not immune to it, and we are working (still, and probably forever) on a happy compromise between the necessity of belonging to the hum-drum of ordinary life, and being lost in all the joys and delights of reading.

But it seems that we are faced with a challenge now that I have only thought of in passing once or twice before. In the earliest days of Aimee's private reading, I knew all the books she was reading, or if I hadn't read them myself, it was fairly easy to look through them if there was a question of their suitableness. Even these days, she's been sticking to a couple of series that hav seemed completely innocuous, and I've been providing her with regular supplements of meatier literature with which I am familiar. But she's had such a large volume of books lately, and she's read them so quickly, that I haven't been able to read through everything she's brought home. She's still reading through the Dear America series (how many books do they have, anyway?), and while I think they are rather "fluffy" sometimes, their historical settings seem to lend them some merit, and I haven't seen anything objectionable in them yet. But she picked up one at our last trip that caught my eye. Its time period was more recent, marked by a good many controversial and politically- and socially-charged events. It's not that I want to entirely shield her from all historical events that were dificult or controversial, but there are some things that I would like to be careful in the way the kids are introduced to them. And that's not to say I want to present those things in the light of one opinion; rather, in most instances, I want to look at events and people in an impartial light. In other words, just the facts, ma'am - and then the kids can process that information through the worldview that we've been striving to give them, ultimately developing their own ideas and decisions. What I don't want is for my extremely passionate and impressionable daughter to read a book - yet, anyway - that layers historical facts with strong opinion and even propoganda - oh, yes, and not mention one that broaches certain general life subjects that said daughter and myself haven't yet. When I read this particular book, I was very much wishing I had caught it when she first brought it home, but by the time I read through it, it looked like she had already read it. It's just going to happen that she will read and see things that I'd rather she didn't, I know, but it did bring to my attention that I feel we need some way to filter the books she's going to bring home. As far as she knows, the juvenile fiction section of the library is all fair game, but that simply isn't going to be true. I don't want to be the book police, and stand at the door scrutinizing every item before she takes it into her room, and I do want to trust her to be able to use some critical reading skills - but she is only 9 (almost), and I think I still have a responsibility to protect her still-developing mind. The trick is to use a gentle filter that isn't threatening and doesn't make her feel bad about her choices. Is that possible? Any thoughts from out there, anyone?

An "Off" Day

I think we all have them (at least, for my own comfort, I hope we all do!) - days in which you reach 4:oo in the afternoon and suddenly wonder what's been going on all day, because you haven't done anything you had intended to do. It happened to me yesterday, as I had planned on a certain amount of schoolwork getting done, even allowing for the large chunk of time I knew we had to carve out for some errands, and yet when I glanced at the clock at the fateful hour, I experienced that familiar surge of panic. Yikes! We hadn't done the all-important math lessons, or polished away any grammar (just trying to get the books done at this point), or gotten anywhere on cleaning the house (although it seemed like I had been doing ALOT of that all day - but that's another matter altogether).

So I tried to rectify the situation by pulling out the grammar books, and I tried to dive into a quick lesson, but I couldn't get anyone's attention. And no wonder. Aimee was in her room reading (no surprise), and Drew was sitting on the couch quietly reading to himself from a book of fairy tales. Drew was sitting. Sitting still. Quietly. Reading. To himself. I have lost a number of brain cells over the past few years to motherhood, so I'm sorry to say it took me a little longer than perhaps it should to realize the significance of this, and to BACK OFF. But eventually I did put the grammar book down (without have had done any damage, as he hadn't even looked up at me once), and I walked away to do some more sweeping and to think over our day in a different light.

There are indeed days here and there that are lost to Wii play or (or perhaps "and" - depending on how badly the day is going!) TV time. There are days in which our time is frittered away, and nothing is left of it that we can honestly call "school" for the sake of that yellow attendance chart on my refrigerator, or even, more importantly, for the simple sake of the nurturing of my children's young minds. In short, sometimes we just do waste time, and have to write those days off. But most of the time, those days we call "off" days, with the 4:00 realization, aren't really failures at all. Which kind of day was yesterday? We woke up a little on the later side, granted, and the kids watched some TV after breakfast while I took a shower. But then the boys went outside while I got dressed and tried to straighten up a little, and when I went out to check on them, all three were in the tree fort (I've long given up on keeping Chase out of it, and he can nimbly climb in and out of it like the little monkey that he nearly is), which had become a ship, named "The Beauty", as its proud captain informed me. Some repairs were being done on the ship by all hands, so I decided to leave this magical moment alone. Aimee at this time was in her room playing with her new kitten and reading, so there was no lack of mental stimulation and imagination in that quarter, either. It did take me a frightfully long time to "get ready" (readiness being this elusive state of being that often takes me all day and is sometimes is never acheived), but at last, at about 11:00, we piled into the car to run our errands. We stopped at the grocery store, then the pet store for some supplies, and then ended up at the library just before it rained "buckets" ("It's going to rain buckets?" Ryan had echoed with concern and confusion when I had earlier made this prediction . I explained, and later in the library, after the rain began, he came up to me and exclaimed with great amusment, "Look! The bucket rain started!") We had brought along a picnic, because at first our plans had included meeting some friends at the park, but owing the impending rain, we all shoved down some peanut butter-and-jelly sandwhiches somewhere along the way, and Chase was still working on his right up until the entrance of the library. Because the park idea had to be abandoned, our friends decided to meet us at the library instead, and when they arrived, the older kids darted away into the back of the juvenile fiction shelves (only needing occasional reminders not to wrestle or run in the library) and the younger ones played with puzzles while the two of us moms sat and talked. When we arrived home later, we were armed with loads of books, which the kids immediately bean to devour. We had some about the Alamo in the mix, and even Ryan insisted that Drew show him a picture of Davy Crockett, who has become a favorite hero here (and whose sad but brave end is always mentioned with reverence. "I'll be Davy Crockett!" A pause, then in somber tones, "He died in the Alamo, you know.") Both Aimee and Drew also read with interest "Multiplying Menace," a math book that I haven't read myself, but it seemed to be engrossing. I made chocolate chip cookies while they perused the books and took turns, admittedly, playing on the Wii (but not for very long), and after the first couple batches were out, the boys had milk and cookies while I read aloud a chapter of the unabridged Peter Pan. Aimee excused herself, because she had already read the book, and she informed me recently that "she's too old to be read aloud to," anyway. I'll address that later, I guess.

After this broke up, the boys went and played in the light rain, and it was shortly after this that Drew came back in and settled down to read the fairy tale book, etc, etc. So it was at this point that I felt badly about not having down much of anything, then realized that perhaps we had done quite a bit after all. Sometimes it's one step forward, then two steps backwards, though, and I was a little...hmm...frustrated during the dinner process. I was trying to clean up dinner, rather miserably, while the kids were playing outside without me, when I realized I could seize the moment and do the dishes later. I went outside with the kids and we played a rousing game of "Texas Rangers, "during which I realized that all my children are faster than I am, at least over the uncertain terrain of the backyard. Of course the dishes were still there when I came back inside, and so was all the other mess, and I did have another "moment", when it was 9:00, and no one was dressed for bed, the bedrooms weren't clean enough to sleep in, the kitchen still needed a little work, and - the last straw - Chase was hitting his brothers with a vacuum cleaner attachement. It was at this point that we piled in the car again, most people shoeless, and one in only boxers, for A DRIVE. Along our outing, we passed a Sonic, and Aimee pointed out that they now have Snickers Blasts. What's better for stress relief than ice cream at 9:30? We pulled and got deliciously sticky with eating ice cream in the car (I splurged on the Blast, but the kids were content with vanilla cones), finally pulling back into our driveway at about 10:00. The mess was still there, but we were in better frames of mind, and I got everyone into bed at last.

So - a wasted day to be forgotten, and perhaps to be made up so that I can check a box on the yellow chart? Or a completely worthwhile day, both for the chart and for our general well-being? I believe, ice cream aside, it was the latter - and maybe even the ice cream adventure was worth something, after all.

Test Results

This is my third post of the day, I know, but I received Aimee's Iowa Basic Skills test reults today. Don't worry, I won't offer a breakdown of how she did, but I did want to say that she did GREAT! It didn't really matter either way, since I just wanted to give her the opportunity to do it, and actually, it told me what I already know about her - that she's a phenomenal reader, and that she needs a little work with math. But she scored fairly well even in the latter. I think overall it will be a good boost for her confidence.

Food for Thought

The only downside to helping Aimee achieve her goal for the week (see previous post) was that I didn't have much time for Drew's schoolwork this week. I'm not usually concerned with that, because I do believe in the theory that boys should only begin to be concerned with formal schoolwork at around 7, and Drew is not even there yet. But I do at least like to throw him something now and then, so yesterday evening at dinner, after he had done nothing at all that could be considered "school" (which doesn't, of course, mean he wasn't learning), I wanted to see if he could tackle some division.

"Ok, Drew, let's say I have 12 pieces of candy, and I want to give it to the four of you. How many pieces will each of you get?"

He tapped his chin in concentration as he thought about it. "Well," he replied, "the first person would get four..."

I waited to see if he would correct himself.

"And then the second person would get four... and then the third person would get four..." He furrowed his brow. "Oh man - someone's not going to get any!"

The combination of his perfect logic that gave him the wrong answer to the original problem, but yet an entirely correct answer to the "switch-around" problem (after all, he did divide the candy evenly), and his genuine concern that someone was going to miss out, was all so funny, at least in the moment, that I laughed until I cried, while his father helped him figure out how to get that fourth person some candy, dang it.

(And I'm not entirely a bad mother for laughing - I did assure him, through my tears, that it was one of the best answers to a word problem, and 100% right, in its own way.)