How Do You...

I was at a La Leche League meeting one evening last week, and we doing a meeting called "How Do You...", in which the mothers discuss how to do common chores and errands that are made more challenging with the arrival of a new baby. One of the "How Do You..." topics is "...take a shower," and as the other mothers were discussing how to find time to do that, someone asked me how I've managed it with my crew, and I mentioned happily that it really is much easier now that all my kids are older.

Yesterday's shower was a great example of just how easy it is, in fact.

I was in the bathroom for maybe a minute, when the first knock sounded on the door.

"I'm in the bathroom," I said automatically. Whatever it is can wait, right? One would think. But it was one of the boys announcing that a package we had been waiting for had arrived. I assured him I would take care of it when I got out.

Thirty seconds later, another knock - "But Chase is trying to open it!"

"Well, I'm taking a shower and I can't deal with it right now, but I'll take care of it as soon as I get out."

Thirty seconds later - "I tried to stop him, and now he's trying to throw something at me!"

"I'm in the BATHROOM! Leave him alone, and I'll take care of everything as soon as I get out!"

Sixty seconds before the next knock, just when I was starting to think they had resolved it without injury. Well, they had, but it was another child, who had come to say that the younger boys had moved on to checking on the toad they had found the day before. They had, it seemed, decided that it was too cold in the habitat they had made for it in the garage, and they were trying to move it inside.

"NO!" I started to say, but then considered the scene that would probably ensue - one child trying to be helpful in preventing the other two from bringing in a big container full of water and an energetic toad eager to escape. So I stated again that I was IN THE SHOWER, and that I would take care of everything and everyone really soon. 

Ten seconds later, a smaller knock, then the door opened. It was Scarlett. "Mommy, you're taking a shower?"

"Yes, but I just need to wash my hair and I'll be right out."

"Okay. I'll count to twenty."

Twenty seconds - how generous! Or more like 15, since some numbers get lost in the counting. Or actually like ten, because then she said urgently, "But I have to go potty!"

So, shower over. See how easy that was?

In Which We Grapple with Controversial Issues

Several years ago, we stumbled across a movie - Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief. I watched it with the older kids, and it was a so-so movie, but an intriguing concept, and so when we discovered that it was based on a book - nay, a whole series! - we were excited.  Now of course, modern children's literature, and Young Adult to an even greater extent, is tricky territory. There are gems here and there, but there is much more drivel, and mixed into both the good and the bad, a myriad of ideas and events that contradict our value system. Or introduce confusion. Or maybe just push boundaries and inspire thought. Often it's hard to tell. In any case, we don't really ban books in our house; in general, I just try to steer the kids toward good writing and storytelling, with values closer to ours than not, and I hope that they will see for themselves the truth of the other kind. I can't possibly read first everything that the older kids in particular find, anyway, and that's really okay. The foundation they have will withstand occasional encounters with concepts that don't line up with our values. In fact, since the world is overflowing with concepts, events, ideas, and choices that don't line up with our values, I would rather the kids encounter some instances of these things while they're with me, than be overwhelmed with it all when they venture out on their own.

At any rate, in this instance, we all embarked on the Percy Jackson books together. And you know what? I'm not ashamed to admit it - I found them intriguing and exciting, and I was just as eager to get to them as the kids. So. We read all the books in the Percy Jackson series, then read the Kane Chronicles (which contain a bit more magic than I would normally like in children's books), and then eagerly awaited and devoured upon release the Heroes of Olympus installments. None of the characters in the books are Christian kids. We get that. Any instance of any kind of faith is of the mythological kind - and a bit of a caricature of mythological Greek, Roman, and Egyptian gods at that. But none of the series has pushed any kind of political or social agenda, nor has it appeared to put down or work against any kind of other worldview. The teenagers are in some ways "typical," but in most others, they seek higher goals and embody more noble character traits than the "typical" teens of our day. In general, if there are character traits and ideals exalted in any of the series, those are of bravery, courage, sacrifice, honor, and friendship. We can certainly deal with that!

So we were excited when the latest installment of the Heroes of Olympus series was just released last week. We had pre-ordered it, and had to enter serious negotiations to determine who was going to read it first. Aimee ended up finishing it first, and it was my turn next. About midway through the book, I read a scene that was unsettling. As I've explained, there have never really been any deep issues, approached from any angle, within the books. But here was a doozy, complete with the popular mantras of our day. I wasn't worried about Aimee having encountered it first - she's grounded and pretty well informed. But I was a little disgruntled at the notion that I was going to have to explain something to the boys that is controversial and yet rather a social darling. Now, I know that some of our friends would celebrate the issue that is touched on here, and they probably envision us having a book-burning while making signs to ward off evil. I have others that would see that issue as a deal breaker and probably question my decision to let the kids continue reading. We can't win.

Fortunately, while we love all our friends, we don't answer to any of you. I know that there's no way to convince those of you on the one side that while we have firm beliefs on this topic, we're not brainwashing the kids into spouting programmed responses. And I know that those on the other side think we're being too lax in monitoring what our kids read, so just by continuing to let them read, we lose a bit of your respect. But as I pondered how to broach this with kids who were eager to read the book, I acknowledged a couple of things - in the first place, banning the book would simply cause confusion, frustration, and a heightened desire to read it; and in the second place, this is something they are going to encounter repeatedly, and in just this form, with the emotionally manipulative wording. And after I finished the book myself, I found that the story itself unwittingly offered a counterargument. It was worth finishing.

So I talked with Drew about what he was going encounter in the book. Naturally, it went like, "Evil, evil, evil, people bashing, brainwashing material, here's what you are to believe, evil, evil, evil." OR...we just talked about the situation the book presented. We talked about how our society views and presents it, and we talked about what the Bible says about it. We talked about how we are all born with natural tendencies , instincts, and desires, but that God calls us to be more than the sum of our biological urges. And ironically, the book ended with that theme as well, as more than one character makes choices contrary to the way he was made and the way he had lived (in the context of this fictional world) for eons. There is more than one great moment like that, reminding me of all the things we really do like about Percy Jackson.

 I said in the beginning that I'm glad for the kids to encounter these kind of opposing values while they're with me, so I guess in one way, I'm glad for this little plot twist. It would have been more fun to read the book without it, but there it was. It remains to be seen how the issue will be handled in the next book, but for now, I think we navigated it as best we could. It would be great if Rick Riordan would just stick to adventure and daring, but I suspect that's too much to ask for. now that we've crossed this bridge.

I wonder if it's also too much to ask for that friends who read this won't try to convince us one way or the other on these kinds of matters. I wonder if I can just post it as an example of how we who believe the Bible to be true dealt with something that contradicts what the Bible teaches us, and of how we can read a really good book and be disappointed in some things, but also find some redeeming qualities in the same. I hope so!

In Which We Wish Ballet Class Was Every Day

As I warned a relative already this morning...I will hurt anyone who says anything remotely negative or sarcastic to this particular child about this particular blog post. Well, maybe "hurt" is too strong a word. Or maybe not. Let's just not risk it, okay? :-)

Anyway, Chase took his first full ballet class yesterday. He had participated in a portion of a class last week, when Scarlett was, for some reason, reluctant to join in, and the teacher eagerly suggested he join on a regular basis as they prepare for a Nutcracker performance in December. So he participated in the whole class yesterday, and he was amazing. I don't necessarily mean that he was some kind of dance prodigy, although he did pick everything up quickly, and he did all the steps with great strength and coordination, which was fun to watch - but what I do mean was that he spent an hour happily listening, cooperating, following instructions, and helping other kids. The teacher immediately had kids following his lead, and he stayed focused on his role the whole time. It was fantastic.

I say this because he has never been the easiest kid to parent, and lately he's been especially challenging. It's been like having a six year-old Jekyll and Hyde in the house - one minute he's perfectly calm and happy, the next minute he's running down the aisle in church (during the service), tormenting his sister, yelling at the top of his lungs, demanding, refusing, insisting, whining, pushing all the buttons he can think of to push...You get the idea. He's been exhausting, quite frankly.

So it was a joy to see him so...grounded for a time. As wild as he appears at times, he really does appreciate order and precision, and I think he really enjoyed that aspect of the class. And, as he pointed out philosophically beforehand, 'If there are no boy dancers, the ballerinas don't have anyone to dance with." A perfectly valid point.

And to any doubters who need any other assurance, I have heard of football players taking ballet classes to help with their balance and coordination. If that doesn't convince you, fine. But if you say anything but something truly encouraging to my lad about this...back to the hurting. Just kidding. Well....

In Which We DO Have Some Warm-Fuzzies, and Alice in Wonderland Becomes Logical

So there are the rather difficult days like the one I described in my previous post...and then there are the "good" homeschool days, like the one we had yesterday. It was a long and busy day, but we did have those "warm-fuzzy" moments, and overall, it was a very productive day at that.

After dropping the older kids off at their Science classes early in the morning, the younger ones and I had our best attempt yet at whiling our time away at the the muffin shop. It was busier, and therefore louder, than usual, so we didn't stand out as drastically. After they ate - and lobbied successfully for juice, and traded muffins and ate some more, and lobbied unsuccessfully for different food, and stood (wrestled and karate-chopped) in line to get some take-home bags for their leftovers, and either ate some more or decided that they didn't want their muffins anymore because a certain little girl had licked the frosting off of one - we pulled out some games I had brought for the occasion.

We played "I Spy ABC Bingo," which is a semi-sneaky way of reviewing letter sounds for certain reluctant six year-old learners. Then we played UNO, which is always a fun way of reviewing numbers, colors, taking turns, and cut-throat competition (the glee with which my kids put down those "draw 4" cards" is disturbing).To an observer, I'm sure this looked like a classic warm-fuzzy homeschooling moment, and we had those kind of compliments. From an insider's view, however, it went a little like this:

"Chase, your turn. No, you can't cheat and take the draw-4 card out of the pile. Ryan, stop complaining. just draw. Scarlett, SIT down. Ryan, go. Ryan, just go, Ryan, darling, it's your turn, Chase, don't get up. Scarlett, SIT down. Please don't stand up in your chair - I'll bring the card pile to you. Chase, lower your voice. Yes, it's your turn. No, it's mine? Okay, I went, now go. No wait - we reversed it? Who did? Scarlett, SIT down. Oh, I don't know - let's just go around this way. Chase, please lower your voice, Scarlett, SIT down!" Etc. But it actually counted as a successful hour or so, and we spent longer there than usual, so we didn't have more time to fill until we picked up the older two. We stopped by the pet store, per our usual, to say hello to the cats up for adoption, and then we went back to the church building where the science classes are held, and we did math in the car while we waited. The older ones emerged after a short while, pleased with the grades they had received on their previously turned-in study guides, and we made our way home.

We had lunch and some time to rest, and the while the younger ones played rather happily together throughout the afternoon, building with Legos and setting up a city with the Little People sets, I sat on my red couch (which always makes me happy to look at, but upon which I rarely get a chance to actually sit) and alternated some planning and paperwork of my own, with doing some school with the older two. The first thing we tackled together was Logic. They groan when I convene them for this purpose, but we almost always have an interesting, if not downright fun, time with it. Yesterday's topic was statements. We discussed self-supporting statements, and their examples were as follows:

Aimee: "I believe in Sherlock Holmes." "I believe that Matt Smith is awesomer [disclaimer: we discussed the fact that "more awesome" is more appropriate, and I know they both know that, so never mind that] than David Tennant. [disclaimer: We didn't need to discuss the fact that while this was a completely valid self-supporting statement, in that we can accept the truth of what she believes on this point, other supporting evidence tells us that her belief is misplaced, as David Tennant is clearly the more awesome of the two.] "It is my opinion that Matt Smith was the best doctor."

Drew: "It is my opinion that this [Logic] is horrible." "I believe that David Tennant is awesomer than Matt Smith." 

We then discussed true statements, and their offerings were of the like: "Tom Baker has curly hair." And yes, another true statement would be, "We have a fixation with British television in our house." We spent a good long while on tautologies and self-contradicting statements. Tautologies offered were, "Thor is the best Avenger, or he isn't," and "Matt Smith was the best doctor, or one of the other actors was." They seemed to understand that point, although one of my children fails to see the truth about which actor best served Doctor Who. Self-contradicting statements proved a bit more of a challenge. One of the kids had a harder time grasping how such statements must completely contradict themselves, and not leave other options open, so we grappled with that for a time, explaining how statements such as "David Tennant's hair is awesome, and David Tennant's hair is not awesome," is not self-contradictory, as it could just be stating that his hair has qualities that would apply to both. Finally we landed on, "Extremis [Iron Man 3] has effect, and Extremis has no effect." We then discussed statements which are true or false by definition, and then we touched on nonsense statements. 

Then I read them a list of statements which they had to identify as true statements, false statements, questions, commands, or nonsense. They were advised by the book to be careful in their judgments, as they indeed were. They were, in fact, getting bored with the ease of the assignment until I read, "The slithy toves did gyre and gimble," at which they both sat up and animatedly declared, "True statement!" I was pleased that they both knew it was a line from the Jabberwocky, and I complimented them on that. I said, "But of course that's a nonsense poem, so..."  "But 'slithy toves' are real in Alice in Wonderland," persisted Aimee. "So it's a true statement in the book." "Well," I faltered. "That's interesting. But I'm not sure..." She got up, and said, "I'll show you! I know exactly where that part is," and ran upstairs to grab the book. A couple minutes later, she came down, with the book open to that exact part, and we read together about Humpty Dumpty explaining to Alice what "toves" were and how they do, in fact, "gyre" and "gimble." So...later we'll talk about source material and how that affects the truth of a statement, but I did concede that within this literary context, "The slithy toves did gyre and gimble" was a true statement. We gave ourselves points for touching on classic literature.

And we shelved for another day a couple of the questions addressed in our Logic lesson, such as who actually best portrayed the doctor on Doctor Who....

....and who is the best Avenger. 

I can be mature enough not to argue with them about how wrong they are on these topics.

One Really Rough Day...

...OR, the post you should read if you want to feel  better about your day...OR...the post you should definitely not read if you are considering homeschooling.

Yesterday was just one of those days. It started out with good intentions, hopes of learning and accomplishing and succeeding, and ended in a big bang of...well, of not many of those things. I made pancakes and tried to get everyone up and moving relatively early (at at time which is probably considered really early for some relaxed homeschoolers, and shamefully late for more structured homeschoolers). I announced to everyone, as I prodded them to get dressed, that we we were going to start the day with math and music, and that we were going to try to get in a good day's worth of school by lunchtime so I could take the younger ones swimming at the Y. One of the kids said, "A whole day's work of school in half a day?" as if he thought this was really going to happen. Another - or maybe it was the same one - observed, "Why does it seem like math and music is all we ever do?" I could have shared my perspective that it seems rather like we don't get in enough of those subjects, but I just said, "Because I'm the boss."

One child started - eventually - on practicing the assigned musical instrument. Another sat down at the table with me to do math. The younger kids played outside for about five minutes, then proceeded to wreak havoc elsewhere in the house.The math lesson quickly went south. At one point the child doing the math exclaimed, "Stop yelling at me!" And I asked how the voice I was using could possibly be thought of as yelling. "Well," returned the child, "it's the voice you use when you're trying not to yell at me." Which is exactly the same thing, of course. At some point during this happy time, Scarlett and Chase pulled leftover Chinese food out of the refrigerator, warmed it up and had a morning snack (most of which ended up all over the table and floor), which I let pass so I wouldn't have to interrupt the math lesson -that, however, only got worse. I dismissed the student to do something else so that we could come back to it later with less frustration and no almost-yelling.

I called in the next child up for math. Usually this child doesn't have many issues at all with this subject, so it should have gone fine, but early on, I began sniffling and my eyes began watering and itching. And then they began to swell. The neighbor had been mowing his grass and cutting weeds, so I'm guessing he stirred something up that caused an allergic reaction (note: I had never had seasonal allergies until I moved to Ohio). "What's wrong with your eyes?" queried the student. "Nothing - keep going."  I mean, I can barely see you because my eyes are almost swollen shut, and I'm sure I must look a fright, but don't let that distract you! But it was a little difficult to focus when the child did have a problem, and all the more so when we heard the sound of something breaking on the tile floor in the other room. "It's okay!" shouted one of the boys. "Scarlett just dropped a light bulb." I went to asses the situation, and sure enough, ,they had ransacked the hall closet and were playing with light bulbs- because why wouldn't that be a good idea? I cleaned it up, then tried to get the math thing going again. But then Scarlett came into the dining room and had an accident. (Now, I know this is the second post in a row in which I've described her having an accident, but I promise she's been potty trained for over a year. An accident is rare.) So I cleaned that up, and she stripped down, but we forgot to get her dressed again. So while I was sniffling and sneezing, trying to help one child divide decimals, and trying to get another one to do what he could of his math lesson, I looked out the window to see that Scarlett and Chase were bouncing on the trampoline...and she was stark naked. I went out to get her, and came back in to check on the progress inside, but it appeared that like the first student, no one remembered a single thing we've ever learned about in math. The second math student was stuck on something really basic, the third didn't know how to do anything on his page, and then the first student came back into the room to say that, oh, by the way - the other non-math assignment was also impossible.

And the area around my eyes had now broken out into hives.

I thought we should probably come back to academics later, so I sent the boys out to clean the deck out back. The day before they had been playing with deer corn - again, why wouldn't that be a good idea? - and it was all over the deck. But they came back in a few minutes later to say that the broom was broken. And indeed, it had been irreparably damaged when they were swatting at a bee. Too bad for me! So - there was still deer corn all over, and I also couldn't clean up the mess in the kitchen...and the dining room...and the living room....and who knows where else. So I calmly put the broom down and  sweetly observed that this was a stupid day. Chase gasped, in a mixture of shock and delight, "You said 'stupid'!" (Ironic, coming from him, as he's the worst offender when it comes to forbidden words.) "Yes, I did," I replied, "and I quit!" Another of the boys remarked that he was glad to quit school, too, and I reminded him that I'm the only one who's allowed to quit. The boss, remember?

At any rate, I told them to get their suits on, and I hastily made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which I had them eat in the car. It actually took us forever to get everything ready for the Y, but we made it, and we had a good hour or so of swimming, which was in fact calming. The only stress during the Y experience was after swimming, when we were getting dressed in respective locker rooms. The boys were being so incredibly loud their locker room that Scarlett and I could hear every word and gleeful shout all the way over in the women's locker room. I contemplated how best to handle the situation, but decided that hollering, "Be quiet or I'm coming in there!" would not be appreciated on any level, so I just got dressed in a hurry and hoped they would do the same. No one kicked us out of the Y, so I guess we got out of there fast enough.

Then we had to stop at the store to get some things for dinner. Taking Chase (in particular) to the store is like taking the Tasmanian devil grocery shopping, and is all kinds of stressful, but we actually got through it without buying anything we didn't want or running shopping carts into strangers. We got home, spent about twenty minutes getting ready for quiz practice and church, then we headed over to church...only to realize about halfway there that we had forgotten the quiz questions for practice. So Dave, who was with us at this point, helped us get things in the church building, and went back for the questions while I set up and began practice on my own. Then he arrived and we had a good time with the kids...but then we realized we had forgotten something else, so Aimee and I had to run back to the house after practice, eating dinner on the run. We got back a few minutes late for church, and everyone went to their classes, except for Chase, who couldn't be persuaded by anything to go to his. Scarlett was really tired and wouldn't go to hers - she wouldn't leave my side at all. So Dave sat out with them while I went to my Bible study - a full thirty minutes late by that point.

And when we got home, we just wanted bedtime to happen. It did, but only after we all dealt with a full-scale preschool meltdown, because when Scarlett had commented in the car that she wanted a "princess ipod," she hadn't, apparently, just mean sometime in the future - she had meant right then and there.

 I wish I could leave you with something wise and wonderful we learned from our struggles...but sometimes the best thing you can say about a day is that you survived it!

PS We did get those math lessons done today. It seems they do remember some things, after all!

In Which We Prove We Aren't "Warm and Fuzzy" Material

Our school year (philosophically, of course, we eschew the notion that there is a stop and start date to our learning, and even that there is need for us to take a long summer break; practically, we acknowledge that there is a school calendar that dictates when most of our activities stop and start - but enough of that) is a busy one this year. Busy for us, that is. I am in introvert, for one thing, and for another, we've never really had an excess of money, so we've never really had to decide if we've been doing too much. We've never done sports for every season, or have been doing too many lessons, or any such things. Sometimes I've felt badly about that, but over the years I've realized that we've been "forced" to have a kind of schedule that, for the most part, some overly busy families wish they could make themselves choose.

But I digress. This year is a relatively busy one for us. One of the ways our schedule has changed is that both Aimee and Drew have science classes early on Monday mornings. Last year, Aimee took one of the classes with a friend, and she just rode along with her friend's family, which was nice of them and rather easy for me. This year Aimee's friend isn't taking the next class, but I still wanted Aimee to do it, and Drew wanted (that's right - his request) to take the one she took last year, so now I have to take them. And of course that means the rest of the crew has to come along. Aimee's friend's family used to go have breakfast and do a little school at a nearby muffin shop during the science classes, and that sounded endearing to my younger kids. "Ooh, we get to go to the muffin place every week?"

Why yes, that sounds delightful and quaint. Very homeschool-ish. Ah, but one of the important facts of life that real homeschool families ought to know is that things never work for your own family in the charming ways they work for other families.

Well ,I know this, but sometimes I ignore it.

So. This past Monday was the first opportunity we had to spend the morning out and about while Aimee and Drew were at science. My plan was that we would have "Math and Muffin" Monday, first at the muffin shop and then perhaps at the library. For starters, I couldn't find the math books, so I was just going to bring along some science for the younger set, but Ryan had been reading it over the weekend (the nerve of him, not waiting until I had scheduled it) and couldn't remember where he had left it, so I just had to throw in some history books. "History and Muffin" Monday, doesn't have the same ring, of course, but darn it, I was going to make this a warm fuzzy homeschooling moment! We dropped off the older kids at science, then headed down the road to the muffin shop. It took us ten minutes to get out of the car for some reason, so I'm sure the other patrons, who might have seen our shenanigans just getting to the door, were already a little worried by the time we walked in. They were mostly older couples enjoying what they had assumed was going to be a quiet breakfast. There were definitely no other energetic kids who have no volume control. When we got in, I tried to direct them straight to the counter, but of course that didn't go according to plan , either.

"Scarlett, LOOK. LOOK, IT'S A TABLE JUST YOUR SIZE! Mom, hey Mom, Mom, HEY MOM, LOOK! It's a table for Scarlett!"

I finally got them to look at the muffin selections. Scarlett just wanted a "baby" muffin, and pointed to a miniature variety. That was easy. The boys couldn't decide. For a very long time, they couldn't decide. I kept having to wave other patrons around us. Even the girl at the counter, worried, I guess, that we might hold up the line, would announce occasionally, "Can I help the next person in line who's ready?" 

One of the boys wanted to know if he could have a bagel. I told him that Mondays are when the muffins, and not the bagels, are half price. Please choose a muffin. After all, there about twenty different varieties! He asked if he could have a muffin and a bagel. I finally just told him I was going to decide for him. After pondering thoughtfully for a (long) while, another one observed that there was a "blueberry coffee cake" muffin, and a "cinnamon coffee cake" kind, but he wanted to know if there was just a regular coffee cake kind. Really? I'm pretty sure he hadn't even known such a thing as coffee cake existed before then, not to mention that there were all kinds of choices I was pretty sure he did know of and would like better,  and he had to have a "regular" coffee cake muffin? I asked the girl at the counter if there was such a muffin, and she said no. He looked at the case dejectedly, declaring that there wasn't a kind of muffin he did want, in that case. I moved forward to the register. I ordered Scarlett's and the one I had picked out for the first boy, and at that the other one piped up, "Fine. I'll have an apple pie muffin." Okay, done.

Finally, after we had secured the long-awaited muffins, we straggled over to a table. They each took about a bite and announced that they were thirsty. Deathly thirsty. No, it couldn't wait at all. The looks from the other patrons indicated that maybe insisting that the boys wait might not be appreciated. We went to the drink cooler. I told them they could share. Share? But one didn't like orange, and the other didn't like cranberry, and fine! I got two different kinds. Juice secured, we went back to finishing our breakfast. I thought maybe that would be a good time to have our homeschool moment. I pulled out the history book. They started talking a little louder, and at this point, I remembered that this is what they do at home, so how in the world did I expect to read aloud quietly in public, when I'm almost shouting by the end of a read-aloud session at home?

So I put it away. New plan. We needed to get out of there relatively quickly, but a glance at the clock indicated the library wasn't going to be open for another thirty minutes. I remembered seeing a pet shop nearby, so I told them we were going to stop there, and that got them to the car with relative speed and quietness. The pet store experience actually went well. We were the only people there, and the girl working there let them pet the cats. Now on the the library.

We reached the library, only to discover that while the library we usually go to opens at 9:30 (I thought, anyway), this branch didn't open until 10:00. It was 9:35. After I wrangled them away from chasing a squirrel around the building, I convinced them to get back into the car to wait, and dang it, we got that history lesson done! At 10:00, we spilled back out of the car and into the just-opened library. I really needed to use the restroom, so I took Scarlett with me. I asked her if she needed to go, and she said no. When I got out, I corralled the boys and we went to the children's section, which at this library is all the way at the other side of the building. As soon as I put our bags down, Scarlett said "I have to go potty!" and Chase added, "Oh,, so do I." Of course. I picked our things up, and Scarlett said, "Never mind! I don't want to go," and was going to make a scene, so I determined I would let them get one thing each and that we would leave in a couple minutes. But about thirty seconds later, Scarlett said, "Oops, I went potty!" Rather loudly. Super duper. We mopped it up, and I tried to ask her to lower her voice every time she mentioned that her clothes were wet. I told the boys to get the books they had in hand, and we walked back toward the entrance to check out. I held Scarlett so things would be a little less obvious - getting rather soaked myself in the process, and wishing more than a little that we had settled for a hum-drum morning at home rather than attempt to create a warm-fuzzy moment.

But hey - guess where we plan to be tomorrow morning? Only we'll bring our own juice. And ditch the books. And maybe spend a lot longer keeping the girl and the cats at the pet store company.

Relighting the Spark

Has it been almost two months since my last post? It hasn't been for lack of material that I haven't posted, or even for lack of time. And I haven't been in the depths of despair, or hanging on by just a thread of sanity. I have, however, been thoroughly burned out. Functioning, living, even enjoying some things...but all without that spark of motivation and satisfaction that makes life truly good. So at the beginning of the day, my mental and physical energies were directed to getting through the day, and at the end, there wasn't anything left for creative expression. Even if there was, I just really wanted to put on the metaphorical blinders and retreat to bed. I didn't want to see the mess and the unfinished projects or spend any time pondering the feeling of flatness that pervaded everything. Sometimes it was more than the "blahs," of course. When you are burned out you also don't have much tolerance for stress. The slightest things tend to fray you even more at the edges, and the bigger things do tend to push you closer to the edge than they would if you had that spark alive.

And there were times of stress, with Dave's frequent travels over the summer and Scarlett's stay in the hospital...and expected expenses and unexpected expenses, and needs and wants, and learning to be done, and things to plan, and things to consider, and things to do - always things to do. So while I wasn't always teetering on the edge of sanity, sometimes I felt like I was drifting pretty close. My overall sense of joy was the first thing to go, of course, followed my ability to make good decisions and to see situations with clarity and perspective, and one of the casualties of this period of burning out was, for a time, our vacation. With everything going on, and all the decisions to be made and all the many, many little and big things needed and wanted (like pencils - for heaven's sake, why can't I even keep pencils stocked?), was it at all wise to try to tuck away large sums of money for a vacation? Because pencils and paper and school books and food and clothes and more and more and more and more.... So I finally told Dave I couldn't handle the stress of trying to work in our annual trip to the beach when I was pondering how to feed and clothe and educate these growing kids, and we cancelled our plans for the beach.

And I cried and cried - it didn't make me feel any better. The kids were lovely - disappointed, but so sweet about letting me know that they weren't disappointed in me. After just a few days, Dave and I quietly begin to reconsider, and to pray about whether it would be acceptable and possible to take our yearly trek to Edisto Island with family after all.

So...here we are. As usual, now that we're here, it hardly seems like a luxury, but pretty close to necessity. A week of rest, of peace, and of family isn't frivolous. It wasn't too much to ask for, and it hasn't been a waste of anything. God provided, and we can enjoy the gift freely, as a good thing. If we have to wait a month or two or longer to get all the school books we need or want so that the kids could spend hours upon hours outside, in sand and water and exercise, identifying all kinds of flora and fauna, watching the grace and beauty of dolphins daily, soaking in the recharging energy of vitamin D, and creating memories with family they rarely see...well, it's hardly a choice, is it? Anyway, I have a feeling that God can provide the mundane things like Latin books and pencils, too.

If that perspective were all that I gained from this trip, all the time and resources would be worth it! As it was, there has been that and so much more. Has the burned out spark been re-lit? Time will tell, of course. We start making our way home tomorrow, and we'll hit the ground running when we finally get back to Ohio. Everything starts back up next week - we've already started school-ish endeavors (pencils or no pencils!), but all the church activities for the school year, co-op, and all other classes and activities start for us. Dave even starts a new job on Monday. There will be no easing back into things for sure! I don't know if I'll bounce back with renewed energy - bear with me, friends and family, if I don't right away! - but I hope so.