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.