Mommy Brain

I love this from Bluegrass Mama’s blog:

There are also some special worship events that we’d both like to attend, but we’ve decided to do some “tag team parenting” with Emily for those. Last night I went to a service with some friends. They’re a married couple with two kids of their own. The wife asked me where Steve was. “Home,” I replied (not even mentioning that he just may have made his decision based partly on the fact that Louisville was playing Memphis on TV).

“Oh, he’s babysitting?” she asked.

I sure hope she was kidding. After a moment of stunned silence, I said, “Well, I prefer to think of it as parenting.”

I’ve always hated it when I want to go out with a friend, and she tells me she has to ask her husband to “babysit”. Aren’t they his kids, too? I’m so glad my hubby doesn’t see it that way. He was wonderful last night and let me go to my parents’ house to watch the Oscars — uninterrupted by kiddos. Love you, honey!

Natalie, my 8-year-old was very concerned about the beliefs of her Children’s Church teacher yesterday. The teacher had mentioned to me after service that Natalie had asked some good questions. When I asked Nan about this on our drive home, she said, “Mom, I knew the answer to one of the questions already, but I wanted to make sure Miss Tina believed the right thing.” I asked what the question was. She said, “I asked her if I am a Christian and I do one bad thing, will I go to hell.” So I said, “Well, would you?” She replied, “No, Mommy, Jesus is my Savior and died for all my sins and I just need to ask forgiveness and try not to do it again. I just wanted to make sure Miss Tina believed that, too.”

To assurance,
Carrie

Our weekend is almost over and I don’t feel like I accomplished much. Sure, I kept up with the dishes, folded five loads of laundry, led worship at church, and took care of my kids — but my rug which I vacuumed on Friday is filthy again, the kitchen floor is disgusting, and the bathroom is showing the affects of a household with four members of the masculine gender. And tomorrow the routine starts again — school in the morning, housework in the afternoon, and find time to plan music for our Women’s Bible Study on Wednesday. I’m feeling in need of a break. I love my kids, and I love being with them, but every once in a while I need some time without them to recharge.

Every fall our denomination has a weekend-long women’s retreat. It’s always been a huge time of refreshing and rejuvenation for me. I leave the kids home with Kevin, leave on a Friday, stop in Spokane for shopping with the gals, and spend the weekend at the retreat center being fed from the Word, engaging in worship, and laughing and talking until my jaw aches and my cheeks hurt. This past fall, I was not able to attend Women’s Retreat. The price went up, and it was not financially feasible for me to go. I missed it.

Each January, my husband and I use a little of our tax refund and go away for the weekend. It’s our one time a year when it’s just the two of us — like it was before the rugrats came along. We catch up on sleep, and — ahem — you know , and conversation. We talk about our dreams for the future, the joys and fears of parenting — things that seem to get missed in the daily conversations about how the kitchen sink is plugged again, and Jonathan and Josiah have been fighting all day long , and this bill is due, and on and on and on… This year we decided to postpone our weekend getaway until the end of March. Two reasons — we wanted to go for three nights and needed to save up since our tax refund went toward the loan on my van; and our 10th anniversary is March 31st. I wanted to make it special — not just dinner at a restaurant chosen from our little town’s extremely limited repertoire.

Now it’s the end of February, and I am feeling wrung out and tired and in need of time with my husband. It’s been over a year since we went away together and over a year since I’ve had more than a few hours away from the kids. I am counting down the days until March 31st. Of course, the kids are, too, since Noah will be spending the weekend with his best bud Daniel, and Jonathan will be spending the weekend with his best bud Dylan, and Natalie and Josiah get three whole nights and days of undivided Grandmama and Papa attention. They think it’s for them!

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend’s daughter at church a few weeks ago. My friend and her husband are almost empty-nesters — they were for a while and one of the baby birds has come back to roost for a while. Their oldest son is in Kuwait — on his way back from a year long tour in Iraq. They celebrated their 25th anniversary last summer, and have been saving for years to take a trip — a real trip, not just a weekend away. They left two weeks ago for Cabo in Mexico for 12 days. I was so excited for her to have this time with her husband, especially after a year of worrying over their son in the Army. I saw their daughter at church one of the weekends they were gone — she was up visiting from college — and asked her if she’d heard from her mom yet. She said, “Yeah, they got there ok, it’s 80 degrees there! I don’t know why they didn’t do this two years ago when I could’ve gone!” I laughed and said, “I think that’s kind of the point.” She looked puzzled and then knowledge dawned and she said, “You’re probably right!” The idea of her parents wanting and having time of their own without the kids around was astonishing to her. It probably won’t be very many years from now that she’ll have little ones at home and understand how important that is.

Only 32 days to go!
Carrie

I’m very close to finishing Sandpebbles by Patricia Hickman. I have to admit, this book took a while to draw me in. I even considered giving up around page 60, and I am SO glad I didn’t. I’ve been quite distracted lately by stuff going on around me — a sister having financial and marital difficulties, a dear friend dying of cancer, etc. — and I’m sure that’s why I had trouble entering the world Ms. Hickman draws with her words. Here is a sample of her wonderful prose:

“No one wants to hear it. I know it for a fact. Not the ones you like to run around with, anyway. It is the odd person, the woman you scarcely know who gets right in your face and says things like, “How are you doing? No, I mean, how are you really, doing? Come, dear, now you can really tell me. I’m worried that you’re holding it all in,” although I was never certain what the “it” of the matter might actually be that I was nutting away. She wants to make you believe you’ve grown up knowing her your whole life, Great-aunt Henny Penny suddenly back in your life and brilliant. She treats you as if you’ve suddenly been put out for adoption and here she stands, this merciful angel with her twenty-two liter urn of woman balm ready to scoop you up in a basket with pink blankets and rescue you off the curb. “Tell me; I want to know,” is code for, “I see a person in pain and want to experiment with her hot buttons,” as though she were the latest video game.

Truth be told, I don’t hold in anything. I just organize pain, visiting with her in increments. “Oh, hello pain, so it’s you! Well, come in and have a seat and we’ll have a cup of tea.” It is true I don’t invite the neighbors in to watch. It is a private conversation, not one most civil people want to observe. I liken the moment to inviting your friends over to watch while you have your spleen removed. Now really! Who would want to come?

But as I meandered down past the least populated lanes of East Coast highway, I could not get the painful matter of the cross off my chest. Not the jewelry, the crucifixes that people wear for luck or tradition. But the splintered wood nailed together by men who did not consider the human suffering that would be laid upon its cross-dinner-table conversation. Pain as heavy as the world sinking into a man’s chest until he became it — the cries of hungry, sick, angry, and hurting people needing an emergency bridge to God. Christ became the cries. The pain. The death. While He hung in vertical humiliation, He lifted His face to say my name as He swallowed my bitter pill, and said He was done so that I could cross over His lifeless body, clean.

Pain. I finally got it. The necessity for suffering, so that from the pyre of misery, eyes would be lifted up to see God’s Son and emulate in a smaller worm-sized way His price.”

More tomorrow, if I have time.

Read this book,
Carrie

Guilt-Free Homeschooling has a great article on myths about homeschooling. Check it out!

Carrie

Whew! My friend Heidi just picked up her two kids who spent the day while she had a thing at church. So it was one adult vs. six rugrats — definitely not fair odds! One 32-year-old, PMS-y, tired woman against one 8-year-old, two 6-year olds, a 5-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 3-year-old. I’m pooped and in need of chocolate. BUT, I still need to clean up the kitchen from breakfast and lunch, cook dinner, and vacuum the pretzel, popcorn, and cookie crumbs in the living room. If only I could go to bed early, but, alas, American Idol is on tonight and I have to make sure none of my faves get booted off. Then I’ll go to bed and try not to think of tomorrow, when I’ll go grocery shopping, homeschool for at least 4 hours so we can make up for taking today off, and go to worship practice in the evening since it’s my week to lead. I need a vacation!

This sounds whiny, I know. I won’t let it happen very often — only once every 26 days or so.

To sleep,
Carrie

I have to send a thank-you out to Mental Multivitamin for listing The Doll People by Ann M. Martin on one of her recent “On the Nighstand” entries. I started reading this to my eight-year-old daughter over the weekend (between moving beds, changing bedding, sorting and tossing out old toys, numerous trips to the bathroom in the endless quest to potty-train Josiah) and we don’t want to put it down! It is delightful and makes me eternally grateful that there are children’s authors who write good stories that appeal to all ages. And genders — I noticed my six-year-old son, Noah, listening in more often than not!

Happy reading,
Carrie

We’ve had one of those weeks. The kind where your kids seem to leap ahead in age all at once. Our youngest has left diapers behind. We’ve had a few accidents, but many more successes. Fortunately, I think this is going to be a much easier process for him than it was for his two older brothers! We’ve also moved his bed into the downstairs bedroom with his brothers — officially making him “one of the boys”. We then moved our 8-year-old daughter Natalie into the upstairs bedroom. Her bed has been in the downstairs family room due to lack of space and her baby brother needing his own room until he was out of a crib and accustomed to his “big boy bed”. She now has her own room with a closing door, and in no time at all her door was adorned with “Boys, Knock First” and “Girls Rock” signs.

My kids are growing up. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I will be shedding a few tears as I mourn the stages we’re leaving.

To maturity,
Carrie

I thought I would participate in this week’s Friday’s Feast.

Appetizer - Name 2 things you do that you consider beneficial to your health. I swim at the local pool with my family on a semi-irregular basis. I also try to remember to take my vitamins!

Soup - If you made a New Year’s resolution, how’s it going so far? Not well. My husband and I resolved to go a month without sugar — I lasted three days and he didn’t even try!

Salad - Name something that has happened lately that bothers you. A close friend is being released from the hospital to go home under hospice care with end-stage cancer.

Main Course - What is your favorite quote, and who said it? “When I get a little money, I buy books. If there’s any left, I buy food and clothes.” by Erasmus — this may not be exactly word for word, I couldn’t find the exact text on my computer — but I know it’s there somewhere!

Dessert - What do you collect? This goes with the previous question. I collect books.

Happy Friday!
Carrie

I had just finished checking the jacket bio and photo on the back flyleaf of Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal for the fifth or sixth time when I came upon this:

Jacket Bio

There is a direct corrolation between how much a book moves me and how often I flip to the author’s photo. Midsentence I will feel a pull to return to that photo/bio on the back flap. Take me at once to the man who wrote such a splendid thought! The photo serves as a sort of home base. And at progressive intervals, the photo will seem more and more revealing, more and more interesting. Invariably, I will find myself idealizing and envying this person and his three-sentence life as captured in the bio. He is the author of several novels, a memoir, and most recently, a collection of short stories. He is a professor of English at Berkeley. He lives on the beach with his wife and dog Hemingway. Oh, how complete. Impressive. Idyllic. And complication-free. Only his close friends know that his recent novel ended up in the five-bucks-and-under bin; that he is in the midst of a major lawsuit with the beach house contractor; that his wife, two years before, was his kid’s nanny. But for the rest of us, the casual admirers, the main thing, the important thing, is that the author’s jacket photo credits Nick Hornby as the photographer, and one can only imagine the exclusive literary soiree that produced this sweet little digital memento.

I’m not kidding! This is the most unique book I’ve read in quite a while. It’s non-fiction, a kind of biography/memoir that is arranged like an encyclopedia. I’m almost through it and feel like I know the author as well as a close friend. Definitely recommended reading.

For sake of a small warning, there are a couple of instances of brief profanity. It’s not pervasive and I have to admit that the situations she spoke of would probably make me want to swear, too!

On a more personal note, Josiah, our youngest, has been without diapers all day long and peed in his potty chair several times and pooped once! Our last one. I can hardly wait — no more diapers, packing a diaper bag whenever we go out, wipes, etc. There’s nothing cuter than a three-year-old running through the house, his little skinny buns shaking, yelling “I peed! I peed!”

To urinary continence,
Carrie

I’ve been wanting to post a poem I read on Writing, Homeschooling, Living — one of the blogs I read on a fairly regular basis. Since I don’t have time to write something incredibly creative and innovative today, here it is.

The Reading Mother

I had a Mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth,
“Blackbirds” stowed in the hold beneath

I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness blent with his final breath.

I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings-
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be-
I had a Mother who read to me.

~Strickland Gillian

I also added something new to the sidebar — I thought I’d feature some of the books we have enjoyed during our Read-Aloud time.

Have a lovely Valentine’s Day!
Carrie

Tiger Lillie by Lisa Samson. I don’t know how to describe this book except to say that it is beautiful and haunting and painful. Any words I have are inadequate, so I will give you some of Lisa’s from Tiger Lillie.

“I appreciate the physical body of human beings. Hence my fascination with skeletons and the like, I suppose. But it’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? The way the muscles flow like mountain ranges, each bump and sway making utter sense, each mound anchored to a certain point on a bone creating a system of levers and pulleys. What magnificence of planning. And due to this love, this appreciation, I’ve come to respect Jesus in a way that may be unusual to some. See, He inhabited a body. A body just like mine, minus the female parts and the extra fifty pounds, and He chose to sacrifice it.

If the Incarnation doesn’t wow you, nothing will.

Imagine, that cat-’o-nine tails ripped into those gorgeous mounds of muscle, those perfectly formed, scarlet wads of tissue. Imagine the pain, the very real agony born of very real nerve endings tucked into a neurological network, synapses firing away, firing, firing, blasting sensation of such horrific proportion not many of us can begin to understand.

Imagine the blood spattering like popping oil, wads of flesh flying through the air. I try to picture it, at times, just to appreciate His sacrifice, just to try and not forget and throw around His love and pain like it doesn’t really matter in the day-to-day. And I imagine the feeling of a deep scab being ripped away, only that scab covers my entire body and the ripping takes hours.

And even then, am I going far enough? Probably not. Nails into wrists and feet? Dear God. How did You not come down from that cross? How did You stay? What kind of wonderful love is this?”

“Uncle Istvan is dead now. I remember his funeral two years ago on the eastern shore of Maryland. He followed in his father’s footsteps as a professor of agriculture at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. I remember thinking of all he had survived only to die of an aneurysm.

He died a free man. That is what he would say if you could ask him about it. Not that we can really comment on our deaths. Can you imagine what one might say?…

…How about my father? He’d say, “Well, naturally, beyond the obvious rewards of a life of faith, I gambled on the value of a good marriage and it paid off. Yes, I’m dead now, but Kathy was right there, holding my hand as I left, kissing my lips as I drew my final breath. And maybe I didn’t save the world, maybe I only really helped a handful of people see things more clearly, but in the end, I died in love.”

Me? What will I say? Well, let’s face it. It’s always easier to project for someone else. All I know is this: I’m not ready to talk about my death, because I don’t know what this life is really about yet. Oh yeah, glorify God and enjoy Him forever and all. Sure. But how to do that? That’s the biggie, isn’t it? And sometimes, it’s the “enjoy” part that really trips me up. Who am I to enjoy the almighty Creator of heaven and earth? Huh? Tell me that.”

“It’s lunchtime now and we’re onto eschatology — end-times stuff. Rapture or not. Figurative or literal. Good grief. Now this is the stuff I stopped caring about a long time ago. What’s going to happen at the end of the world as we know it? Well, it’s going to happen the way God has planned it, and either I’ll be right or I’ll be wrong, but what I thought will not have changed a thing. Not one single thing.

And I feel fine.

So there.

This whole theological debate is why I gave up on Christian radio, although they’re probably onto something else these days. Should I care more about this stuff? Probably. But mostly now I need to go back to Jesus. These people here, they just love Jesus and seem to know Him better than I do. Even Peach, who’s now sitting with us, smiling and scratching his belly. I can imagine what he’s thinking: “It’s just good to hear people talk about God.”

And I have to say amen.”

These quotes are just part of an incredible novel. Thank God for Christian authors who are brave enough to write about authentic, alive, flawed people who are passionately in love with their Lord — and yet still flawed. It makes me ashamed of the times that I am still unwilling to truly be me. I need to work on that.

To authenticity,
Carrie

Every Saturday for the last four weeks, our intention has been to drive up to Grand Forks, B.C. and check out the indoor Aquatic Center. The flu, in all its forms and variations, has derailed those plans. Until today.

10 a.m. found us driving north on a beautiful, sunny day. Over 40 degrees, warm for us folks in Northeastern Washington. And clear and bright. The kids quiet in the van — will miracles never cease?! Bee Gees Greatest Hits playing with my husband and I singing along and laughing at ourselves as we repeatedly said, “I never knew the Bee Gees sang this song!” I had one of those moments — the ones where you think, “This is about as perfect as life can get until heaven.”

The rest of the day was so much fun. We got through customs — both ways — with only a couple questions and a “drive safely”. We ate lunch at a local restaurant that had a good Chinese buffet for Kevin and I, and mini-pizzas and chicken nuggets for the munchkins. As we left, the hostess asked, “Are all these children yours?” When Kevin laughed and said, “yes”, she replied, “They are all so beautiful. And so well-behaved.” Talk about button-busting Mommy pride. Of course, this is not always the truth. They know how to transform themselves into screaming terrors just quickly enough to keep me humble.

We then headed over to the Aquatic Center. There was a huge pool — one end only 2 feet deep with fountains, and things to climb on and a slide. The deep end only got to about 5 feet or so — hard to tell, since they measure in meters and I’ve never gotten that metric conversion thing down. I know this doesn’t bode well for the kids’ math instruction, but I can always learn, right? The three oldest all went on the rope swing, sometimes with a perfectly executed drop into the water, sometimes holding on as the rope swayed back and forth three or four times and then plunking in, leaving the rope swing dangling over the middle of the pool and someone jumping in to fetch it back. We ended with five minutes in the hot tub — much too hot to stay in any longer when we were already limp with exhaustion. The tiredness that comes from playing too hard is so much better than any other kind.

After showers and a quick stop for an almond latte so Mommy could stay awake to keep Daddy awake as he drove home, we headed back for the States. The kids ate their peanut butter crackers and then one by one nodded off, heads bobbing against the backs of their booster seats. Kevin put in a sermon CD by Pastor James MacDonald and we cruised home.

Of course, my idyllic day ended with cranky, overtired kids — but it’s not heaven yet, right?

Carrie

I watched the latest American Idol last night, and then heard it again as my oldest two watched it. (I recorded it since it’s on past their bedtime.) Now I can’t get “Baby, Where Did Our Love Go?”, “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch”, and “Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman” out of my head! Aaaargh! I understand that they kept the song selection limited to make it easier on the band musicians, but couldn’t they have picked some less well-known songs! I am looking forward to when they have the contestants whittled down to the last 24.

We seem to be getting back into our normal routine, now that everyone’s relatively healthy. I’ll be glad when they are done with their antibiotics - I think they cause uncontrollable crankiness and bickering. Or that could just be spring fever. I’m hopeful it’s the antibiotics — they’ll be done with those a lot sooner than spring will hit here in Northeast Washington!

I thought I’d post on our typical day. I enjoy reading about other homeschool families, so maybe others out there do, too!

The day starts when I get out of bed — either to the alarm at 6:30, or my youngest, Josiah, informing me he doesn’t want to sleep anymore, whichever comes first.

Josiah watches cartoons on video or DVD while I have some quiet time — coffee to wake my brain up, although I’m trying — again!! — to break this addiction, and reading. I try to make this my Bible, but in the interest of complete honesty, if I’m in the middle of a really good novel, sometimes I sneak that in instead. Another thing I’m working on.

The other three young-uns wander in as they wake up, and we have breakfast at 7:30 after my husband heads off to work. After breakfast, it’s get dressed, brush teeth and hair, and get ready for school. I sometimes throw laundry in and grab a quick peek at my e-mail before we get started.

We’ve changed our schedule some in the last few weeks. My daughter Natalie likes to get right to her lessons, so I’ve switched the order so that we have our one-on-one time first. I give her four dictation sentences, and she does a day of EZ Grammar for grades 2 and 3. (She’s in 2nd grade). I then go over her phonics lesson, using Abeka’s Letters and Sounds 2, and Language 2. Next, math — Bob Jones University Math 2. She loves this — it’s her favorite subject! She’s also working her way through a 2nd grade map skills book, so I answer any questions about that. She then knows what her assignments are: a page of Italic Handwriting book C, pages from the Abeka books, her math workbook, the map skill books, a spelling study sheet — we use Spelling Power, and reading comprehension sheets that I downloaded off the internet.

Before she starts in, though, I call Noah to the table. I say that he’s in kindergarten, but we actually started kindergarten last year. He’s in the last 1/4 of the Abeka kindergarten phonics program, and doing 1st grade Bob Jones math. He’s much more numbers-oriented, and a more reluctant reader than Natalie. When he joins us, we pray, do a Bible lesson — we’re currently using a character program from Focus on the Family, and work on our memory verses. I’m really proud of the kids in this area — so far this year they’ve memorized Ephesians 4:25-27 and 29; Philippians 2:14-16; Proverbs 17:17; Matthew 6:14,15; and 2 Timothy 1:9. We do art — sometimes a craft, and we’re working our way through Draw Write Now, book 4. We just finished Bob Jones Heritage Studies 1 — which is history. Next week we will start Bob Jones Science 1. Both kids do this together. Then I go over Noah’s phonics and math lessons, listen to him read, and start him on his seatwork — pages from phonics, math, and Italic Handwriting book B. Natalie typically takes a break on the computer and then starts in on her seatwork — usually taking about an hour to an hour and a half to complete it. Noah’s takes about an hour.

We also get science and history videos from the library. The kids love the Amazing Animals series and National Geographic’s Really Wild Animals series. We’ve been learning a lot about ants lately — we gave Noah an ant farm for Christmas. Natalie does most of her reading on her own. When she finishes a book, she comes and tells me. We record it in her reading log and she gives me an oral book report on it. I plan for her to start written book reports next year.

Jonathan turned 5 in September and we work on learning his letters once or twice a week. He’s definitely a more hands-on learner and very busy. If he was in public school, he might be labeled ADHD, but I think he’s just busy and different from the other kids. He will be my challenge to teach, since I’m a very visual and auditory learner. It will stretch me, I’m sure. He’ll officially start kindergarten this fall.

Josiah is 3, and learning his letters by playing Blues Clues Preschool on the computer and watching Richard Scarry’s ABC and 123 Video Ever.

Here’s a list of links to the resources we use, if anyone’s interested:

EZ Grammar for 2nd and 3rd grades

Spelling Power

Abeka Curriculum

Bob Jones University

Italic Handwriting book C

Draw Write Now book 4

Amazing Animals

Really Wild Animals

Reading Comprehension worksheets

Character Crew This is the webs site for Focus On the Family’s character development program. We also just finished their Faith Launch program on theology basics — it’s great, too!

If any of you are still reading this loooooong post — have a great day!
Carrie

Today was one of those days where things are so busy and happen so fast I feel like I’m on a merry-go-round! Wednesday is grocery day, and I can tell you that navigating Walmart Supercenter with four kids in tow is no picnic. Not to mention the strange looks I get cause my three oldest children all look old enough to be in school and they’re not. I always feel like I need to say really loud whenever I catch someone gawking at us, “When we get home, we’re putting groceries away and doing school!” Like I need to justify or something. I know I don’t, but I don’t like being scrutinized that way.

We got home, put groceries away, ate lunch, crammed three hours worth of school into an hour and a half, went to sign the kids up for T-ball and then to a WIC appt. Then to my parents house to pick our latest video up, then home. Since we don’t have cable, my parents are nice enough to record our must see shows for us: Navy CIS, Lost, Joan of Arcadia, and JAG. We do have an antenna, but it only brings in Fox, of all things. The only things I watch on Fox are old Little House on the Prairie re-runs at 4 in the afternoon, and American Idol. I have to admit, I’m quite addicted to that show — and since my parents record other things at that time, I record it for them. It’s on again tonight, so I’ll get my fix.

I need to get upstairs and clean the kitchen and figure out something quick and easy for dinner.
Then I’ll crash for the rest of the evening. Can’t wait till the kids’ bedtime — isn’t that awful!?

Rest to you,
Carrie