November 23, 2015

I am going to tell you a tale of two mornings.

In the first morning, you will see split nanosecond snapshots of my children behaving as upright, eager, bright children always shall.  

I didn't get a picture of it, but they began the day reading together on the couch, snuggled under a  blanket.  Levi loves to 'read' to Luke, and usually Luke is happy to oblige. Seeing the two of them, I was pleased to be a mom.  I popped Ego waffles in the toaster and whipped up a tasty smoothie complete with power greens, coconut water, and organic berries for my darling children.  And yes, they actually consume it without complaint.

We did our morning breakfast school routine.

Here is my sneaky not-much-space-to-spare trick: that board with the numbers on it? It's a picture that hangs over the table. I taped those numbers on the back of it.  When it's 'school time', I turn the picture over. When it's not, I hang the picture back up.  To quote Matt - who actually said this of himself yesterday: "I am a living Pinterest page."

So we did our calendar time and practiced counting up to the date with our magic wand.  Levi worked on his handwriting lesson (loving our Write the Bible, Junior handwriting curriculum).  They are cracking up here because I was using a very exaggerated falsetto British accent to demonstrate the proper strokes for writing the letter B.  (Laughter motivates Levi.)

We did "Mama Bible time."  Mama Bible time has two purposes: to read and teach straight out of Scripture as well as work on a memory verse - AND - to teach them to sit still.  If they sit still and keep their hands in their laps, and recite their memory verse, they get a piece of candy (thank you, Erin Southwell, for THAT key component!).  So they will sit with their hands in their laps, quietly, with their eyes RIVETED on the fruity tootsie roll bag next to me, like a dog with its eyes trained on a spoon filled with peanut butter.

Luke is still working on sitting still - and oddly, he's the one who is actually pretty good at it.   He interrupted a lot today and acted like he couldn't speak when he needed to work on his verse (he has a bad habit of acting helpless), so he only got half a piece of candy.

Tempting as it is to read the fun stories, like Jonah and the whale or Noah's Ark, I went straight to Romans.  Because....Romans.  I mean, that's there's some strong theology.  I started getting uncomfortable with references to fornication and whatnot, so.....we started in Phillipians today. LOL You can see that Luke is still not very pleased.  I will add, however, that THEY are the ones who ask repeatedly for Mama Bible Time, and if I delay it till after lunch or forget, they are very quick to remind me, set up their chairs and (of course) get out the candy. Levi told me, though, that his favorite part is to practice his verse.  Luke freely admits his favorite part is the candy.

Part two of my morning started with Levi lobbing a metal monster truck off his bed while he was 'making' the bed. It hit Luke in the head.  Levi knows well that he is not allowed to just huck stuff off his bed, and for cryin' out loud, look to see if anyone might be standing there.  I can't even remember what happened following that, but Levi was sent to time out.  Invariably, this tips off a holy fit, and he starts waving his arms and hands in the air and hyperventilating and yelling at me to give him some grace.  I'm like, Um, NO, grace is a gift that you cannot demand, and furthermore what you are asking for is actually mercy and no I will not give you mercy because all YOU want is for me to overlook your poor behavior and give you zero consequences.  Well after that he stopped his hyperventilating and hand-waving and agreed that I was absolutely spot-on.  Heh. And I have oceanfront property in Arizona.

The morning spiraled down.  I yelled.  The boys got sillier and out of control. We left to grab a couple of boxes to fill for the Holland Rescue Mission Thanksgiving banquet and to go to Meijer.  They were atrocious at the Dollar Tree while we shopped for things to fill the boxes. It was an embarrassing spectacle of loudness, a shopping cart repeatedly being flung down the aisle, fighting over who would push the cart, and me plunking their bottoms on the floor in the paper towel aisle and using my best Claire Huxtable voice to give them a quiet but very firm what-for...while they snickered in that "Yeah, Mom - WHATEVER" way.  We forfeited Meijer and went home without groceries because the thought of taking two out-of-control pygmie goats to Meijer on the Monday before Thanksgiving sounded as awesome as rubbing my face with broken glass.  I made them unload the van and then both were sent to their room when we got home - check that, I rethought THAT and sent Levi to OUR room.  Then I sent them outside to play, fed them lunch, and said a resounding YES to their request to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.  

My point is - and we all know this - but the ridiculous and darling pictures we ALL post on FB and see on Pinterest and blogs are all one tiny, brief, probably staged-more-than-we-care-to-admit millisecond of the day.  You can't smell the breakfast burning on the stove, hear the whining and complaining and sniping remarks, or even get a glimpse of the spectacularly hair-pulling moments that comprise the vast majority of the day. Never have I said while my boys are having an epic meltdown, "Hold on - lemme get a picture of that" - though now that I think of it, it wouldn't be a bad idea!  We are sinners raising...sinners.  It's as simple as that.

November 20th, 2015

Thirteen months.

That is exactly how long it has been since I last posted here.  

And I hate all 390-some days that have gone by, all of which are filled with fun and frustration and stories and moments and pictures, and it's all locked in my memory or my phone - no album or narrative or anything to bring the images significance.  And that makes me so sad. 

In thirteen months babies have turned into toddlers into preschoolers into regular KIDS.  Diapers exchanged for undies, tricycles for bikes, cribs for bunk beds, sippies for glasses, lap-snuggles for sitting side-by-side.  I'm not even wiping sticky hands anymore; they wash their own. I treasure each day, I cry each day, I love each day, I yell too much each day, and I need each day - or every few days - to be chronicled, because even the mundane moments are a JOY to look back on even months later, and the worst days are worth a good laugh if written down with just the right spin.

So.

I'm picking up where I left off, over a year later, as though I never stopped.  There's a significant gap and at some point I'll figure out how to fill it in.  There is nothing exciting about this blog.  A lot of my moments are homeschooling related and even those little things are a treasure to look back on, so I snap a picture.

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Today.

One more time before the snow flies, the boys got out with bare feet - and it's not even close to warm anymore, but so what....it may be six months before they can walk in bare feet outside.  Something about our home invites children to rip off their shoes and socks, even kids who would not normally be inclined to do so.  I like that.

So Levi has been in preschool two days a week. He's one of the oldest kids in his class, with his late October birthday.  We would not have wanted him in Kindergarten all day every day anyway this year, as we believe there is an immense advantage for a boy to be on the older end of the spectrum at school.  I planned to start full-time home school kindergarten next year, and  have been gathering the pieces of curriculum that I want to use.  Well - he is showing readiness for many of those things RIGHTNOW.  Soooooo.....I have started kindergarten-ing him in the pieces of time that we have at home, which feels fun and haphazard and I'm not really sure, then, what next year/kindergarten will look like?  But - that's the advantage of homeschooling.  You're ready for ____?  Alrighty, let's do it.

Meanwhile, Luke and I have three hours together twice a week. 

What I WANT to do with that time is clean the house.  It's an epic disaster on Tues and Thurs mornings and smells like bacon grease (because I love making bacon for breakfast).

What I NEED to do is spend time with Luke and enjoy the cool little person that he is.

So we do Coffee Shop Preschool. :)

How to do Coffee Shop Preschool: Fill a backpack with things a three year old likes to do.  Find a coffee shop.  Buy him a donut.  Play with him.

He LOVES Coffee Shop Preschool, and quite honestly, I foresee us twelve years from now still sitting at a coffee shop with our schoolwork spread out.  We'll spend a good hour to hour and a half doing puzzles, playing with blocks, playing color and counting games, and chowing on his donut.

Levi has been gobbling up chapter books (I read them aloud) - he loves any books that involve adventure and living out in the woods...so we have finished a few of the Boxcar Children, a fantastic one called the Trolley Car Family, he wasn't all that into Charlotte's Web, the Ralph S. Mouse series, and now we are reading the Little House in the Big Woods series.  We do things like pretend to identify tracks and hunt, and today we made tin can lanterns just like Laura's in the book - and we are going to have a pioneer dinner tonight (lights off, using our tin can lanterns).

Sometimes we get out for the heck of it. Because toy stores and Christmas decorations downtown are just plain fun.

Should you be tempted to believe that these days are amazing and filled with glee, let me dispel that thought straight away.  I still feel like I'm raising sociopaths, and actually that has been confirmed by a medical professional with whom I work who has boys the same age: evidently the ability to demonstrate empathy really doesn't develop in the brain until around the age of five. So it really does NOT faze them when I am reduced to a crumpled heap on the floor begging the Lord to give me patience and wisdom.  Luke really does find joy in punching me, kicking me, tell me I am bad and 'tinky (stinky) or that I need to go poop in jayo (jail).  

But I will keep marching, leading my small army of mighty and tender warriors, and goodness gracious I hope I keep up with this blog so I can remember it all.