Mommy Brain

(You can make your own here. Hat tip: A Circle of Quiet.)

The Other Dog by Christine Davenier
Claude the Dog by Dick Gackenbach
The New Baby Calf by Edith Newlin Chase
Dear Mrs. LaRue by Mark Teague
Sweet Dream Pie by Audrey Wood
Officer Buckle & Gloria by Peggy Rathmann
Smoky Night by Eve Bunting
A Kiss For a Warthog by Wende Devlin
No Moon, No Milk! by Chris Babcock
God Thought of Everything Strange and Slimy by Bonnie Bruno
Bugs by Pat Matuszak
Mud by Mary Lyn Ray
Rattlesnake Dance by Jim Arnosky

Garfield Beefs Up by Jim Davis
Garfield Bigger Than Life by Jim Davis
Garfield Eats His Heart Out by Jim Davis

The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis
Garfield Beefs Up by Jim Davis

…that Cinderella Man was not nominated for an Oscar. And neither was Walk the Line. They were the best movies I saw this year. Great stories, fantastic acting, terrific writing. I just don’t get it.

If you have read any blog posts about the controversy surrounding this movie and the homosexual actor Chad Allen who portrays Nate Saint in the movie - and if you read many Christian blogs, I’d be surprised if you hadn’t - you should check out these links:

This is an interview with Mart Green and Steve Saint, the producers of the movie. One of the major falsehoods circulating around the blogosphere is that Mr. Green and Mr. Saint read an article about Chad Allen in the homosexual magazine, The Advocate, and decided to hire him based on what they read there about his activities as a spokesman for the homosexual lifestyle. This is not true. Hopefully the bloggers who posted this false story as the truth will also post a retraction and apology for the pain they have caused Mr. Green and Mr. Saint and their families.

This is an article written by Randy Alcorn of Eternal Perspectives Ministries, addressing the controversy and the various points of view. He very candidly discusses the Christian community’s willingness to believe things they have read or are forwarded in e-mails without checking the facts themselves. The worst part of this is that they then feel free to post about it on their blogs or hit that “forward” button on their e-mail and spread the falsehoods on to other Christians, many of whom will also believe it as truth. Mr. Alcorn says:

“In the End of the Spear controversy, many people will not get the word that the most damning things the article said about Steve Saint and Mart Green—things which many have forwarded and stated to others as gospel truth—are simply false. Some people will go to their graves believing this and telling others about it, and warning them not to watch the End of the Spear on DVD, not to watch the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor, not to buy Steve Saint’s book or go hear him speak, etc. Or if they do, it will be under a cloud of suspicion.”

Sadly, he’s probably right. Please read these articles - and especially the interview that tells the story straight from the people involved - and then point others to them. Let’s pass the truth along, and maybe we can change the world’s image of Christians as knee-jerk reactors rather than people who can search out the truth and think for themselves.

(This was originally posted at the Atypical Homeschool forum.)

After breakfast, the kids watched a movie about Marco Polo while I finished The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio. 4 stars, by the way - great, uplifting memoir. And the author’s brothers and sisters (9 of them) all helped with the memories and fact-checking, so I think I can safely say it’s not made up, unlike other memoirs we’ve recently heard about! After that, I read aloud to Nan and Noah and Jon about Ben Franklin being a printer’s apprentice when he was a boy and then we did a printing experiment - cutting up mirror-image letters and pasting them in a message that we could read when we held up to the mirror. Noah was convinced his mom had lost her mind when I told him to past the letters on right to left instead of left to right. He was so sure that he was right and I was wrong that he was practically in tears! I told him he could do it or not, it was up to him, so he did it and of course thought I was brilliant when we could read his message, “The frog hopped.”, in the mirror.

Then I listened to Noah read some more out of his Danger Joe book, explained suffixes and adding two digit numbers to him. He helped Josiah do some pages in his preschool book and I worked with Jonathan on numbers to 40 and the hard sound of “g”.

Then we had lunch and headed to the barber shop for haircuts for all three boys. We stopped at my mom and dad’s to visit and pick up the tape of Extreme Home Makeover that they recorded for me Sunday night. We visited for a while and then headed home. I worked with Nan on some multiplication activities using manipulatives and she did some of her grammar.

I started a load of laundry and now I’m having “my time” on the computer while they watch a movie. I need to head up and clean the bathroom soon, since we’re having company tomorrow. Thank God for leftovers in the freezer - tater tot casserole for dinner tonight.

I almost forgot Jonathan’s reaction at the barber shop! The lady barber had some fake “ears” tacked to the wall with a sign that said, “Please hold still!” The ears looked real. When Jonathan climbed up into the chair and caught sight of those ears, his eyes got huge. He asked, “Whose ears are those?” The lady laughed and explained that they weren’t real - it was a joke. I’m not sure he believed her until she was done cutting his hair and could touch them for himself. He did hold extremely still, though!

Last week I received my first check from Club Mom and bought myself two pairs of pants and a shirt — two sizes smaller than I was wearing a few months ago!

Our tax refund arrived today, and the loan on my van (the van I drive, the van Kevin drives is “Dad’s van”) will be paid off within the week! No more car payments for this family!

All of the kids have wonderful, fun places to stay when we go away for the weekend in February. Which translates: we have amazing friends.

Everyone is healthy.

It’s Friday!

Have a great weekend.

…Watching (Kevin and I):

…Watching (everyone):

We love Netflix!

…Listening to:

…Reading (Mom):

(Dad):

(Natalie):

(Noah):

Thank you so much to anyone who has purchased items from Amazon using our links. It took six months, but I just got our first gift certificate! This is how I used it:

Here’s my latest article at Club Mom. They also put up my bio page, where you can find links to past articles and where all future articles will be posted.

The folks over at the Atypical Homeschool forum have a thread going about the areas in which we homeschool parents are educating ourselves. (Great blog and great forum, by the way.)

There are several areas in which I know my own education is lacking. The area I’m planning to work on this year is art. Not the doing part of art, but the knowing part of art. Art appreciation.

I’m not artistically gifted in what I consider the “main” arts - drawing, painting, sculpting. I am musical and I love to crochet, but in school I always saw myself as artistically impaired. Because I felt pressure to be able to create a certain way, I hated it. I hated arts and crafts time, I hated trying to draw and I never advanced farther than stick figures.

I haven’t completely given up, though. During the last two years, the kids and I have been enjoying the Draw Write Now, 1-2-3 Draw and You Can Draw series and I’ve definitely improved. I even enjoy it - now that no one’s making me do it.

But back to art appreciation. Because I learn best by reading, that’s how I’m pursuing knowledge in this area. I’m starting with children’s books. This may seem strange, but I don’t know anything about the terminology of art, and I doubt I’d understand any books geared toward adults.

I’ve found a terrific series of books at our public library by Richard Muhlberger. The series includes the one pictured at the top of this post, as well as books on Cassat, Monet, da Vinci, Picasso, Van Gogh, Bruegel, and a few others I’m forgetting right now. The book has large full-page prints of the artist’s work, as well as smaller pictures that highlight details and specific sections. The author gives a brief biography of the artist and explains how his background influenced his art. He shows what makes the artist’s work stand out from other artists and tells you how to identify the artist’s style.

I want to pass on some of this new-found knowledge to the kids. So far they haven’t expressed an interest, in spite of my strategic “strewing” of the books around the house. I’ll be ready when they ask, though. And in the meantime, I’m actually enjoying art.

What about you? Are there any areas you’re delving into this year?

For the first time in history, the Seattle Seahawks are headed to the Super Bowl! If I knew how, I’d put up a smiley doing a victory dance. I screamed myself hoarse, and I can’t stop bouncing. Here’s to victory in Detroit two weeks from today!

Tagging myself again:

Four jobs you have had in your life:
Administrative Assistant
Sales Clerk
Waitress
Real Estate Agent

Four movies you could watch over and over:
Sleepless in Seattle
While You Were Sleeping
When Harry Met Sally
Meet Me in St. Louis

Four places you have lived:
Sedro Woolley, Washington
Vancouver, Washington
Pullman, Washington
Colville, Washington

Four TV shows you love to watch:
NCIS
Lost
House
American Idol

Four places you have been on vacation:
Victoria, B.C. - three times, this was our family’s favorite vacation spot when I was growing up
Tepic, Mexico - on a missions trip, so not really a vacation
Waldport, Oregon - our honeymoon
Palm Springs - as a nanny with my Aunt and Uncle

Four websites you visit daily:
My Yahoo page for news
Arlo and Janis - my favorite comic (only weekdays, no new content on weekends)
The Quiddler daily puzzle
Atypical Homeschool forum

Four of your favourite foods:
Pizza
Ice Cream
Chinese food
Chocolate

Four places you’d rather be right now:
Can’t think of anything. I’m getting ready to head to my parents house to watch the Seahawks game in a few minutes.

Tagging?
Anyone who wants it.

Isabella remembers the birth of her son:

“First with child at the age of twenty-four, Isabella had wished herself a son but bore a daughter. She was anxious, having no experience of sisters, and only her own uneasy girlself to measure things by: she had been small and round and plain as a day-old loaf of brown bread. But Luise, like Margit to come after her, took after Alois: long and bony, with spindly fingers and toes; this set Isabella’s mind at ease. She gave everything affectionate she could find in herself to her girls, and in time came to the belief that a woman must have a daughter to rest easy in her grave.

Then Peter was born, and Isabella fell into a new kind of devotion, awash in an unexpected energy that made her arms quiver and her fingers jerk. She realized, with some guilt but no regret, that she had been holding back the quick of herself, the bloody beat of her heart, for a son. For Peter. It took her a long time, too long, to find some balance, to show an interest in the girls again. Even then, when no one was looking, she would pick Peter up and draw in his scent. She chided herself for taking such pleasure in his smell, even as she ran her nose over the crown of his scalp, pink and firm and fuzzy as a peach but much sweeter. She would fit her lower face to his small one, her nose buried in the soft folds between ear and shoulder, and inhale until she was dizzy. She did this until he was too old to tolerate it, and then she mourned the loss.”

Now Peter is a grown man, gone off to war, and his mother and family await his return:

“There are three men still gone, one fighting in the South Tirol. Two others, including Isabella’s Peter, are in Galicia. They have had no news of Peter in four months. Now the whole household - Isabella, Alois, and their widowed daughter, Barbara, as well as Peter’s wife and four children - lives with an ear turned toward the road. They wait for the sound of his step, or for word that he has fallen. The weight of this, all of them leaning toward the road, seems to have tipped the family out of balance and set them spinning haphazardly. They are moons of a missing planet.”

Peter returns from the war missing a leg, some fingers, and an eye.

“Now Isabella spends as much time as she can spare at the window watching Peter, who spends his days whittling in the Schopf with the shutters propped up to let in the light. She tells herself that he doesn’t know about this habit of hers.

Peter sits with the damaged side of his face bared to the mild winter sun. Like a blessing, the sunlight strokes what his mother cannot bring herself to look at: it moves tenderly over the mass of scar tissue that ripples from his hairline down the left side of his face to puddle on what was once a smooth cheek, a well-formed ear, a clean jaw. It soaks deep into the patch that hides the empty eye socket.

Isabella watches Peter as he turns his one eye and his mind, still whole and sharp, to the piece of wood wedged against his right thigh. Beneath his blade a world has come to life. A meadow of flowers twists and twirls around the long, tapered shaft of wood. Half hidden in a mass of blossoms, a stag raises his head. There are birds, squirrels, ibexes, and he is working now on a small group of marmots.

Quietly, the youngest of his boys slips into the Schopf to sit with his father. Peter makes no move to discourage him, but he pulls his cap down low over the left side of his face. Shavings still fall in fragile tendrils from the point of his knife. Isabella listens as Peter and Leo talk. Leo is seven, and so in love with his father that his ruined face is no penance at all. They talk about the marmots, who live in the highest ranges and cut grass and spread it to dry on rocks in the sun, using the sweet hay to build nests in their burrows. Leo imitates the high warning whistle the marmots make to their young, and Peter laughs out loud; Isabella feels her insides clutching. She chides herself for her weakness, for her jealousy of a seven-year-old child.

When Peter puts aside his knife, Isabella turns away quickly. She will not watch her son take up his wooden prosthesis, now covered to the hinged knee with flowers and vines and animals, and strap it to the stump where his left leg used to be.”

A mother’s love:

“Isabella goes down on her knees next to her son, her bones snapping and protesting, but she goes down anyway. There is a rustle as Anna moves away, but Isabella takes no note of this; she puts her hand on her son, her right palm on the ruined left side of his face, to turn him full toward her, to meet his eyes. He has been waiting for her all these days, all these weeks: he has been patient. But there is something of wariness, come caution in his eyes as well; Isabella sees this now and it makes her cringe. She runs her fingers - gently, gently - over the waves of flesh, red and purple; she traces the thick seams the doctors left behind; she cups his sunken cheek in her own seamed palm. There is murmuring around her: Alois, Anna, Barbara’s voice rising shrill. Only Peter is quiet. Peter doesn’t protest or turn away, and this gives her the strength to stay.

He smells of linseed ointment, of pipe tobacco and wood sap, of his wife and his union with her - this gives Isabella pause, but only for a moment. She draws in his smell and now she finds him again, the boy he was, a boy running bare-legged down the road while his mother watches at the window. When his arm comes up and around her shoulder, Isabella slides her fingers into her son’s hair, puts her face to the hollow between ear and shoulder, and draws in a breath.”

(All quoted passages are from Homestead by Rosina Lippi.)

Once a year, Kevin and I take a weekend away - just the two of us, no kids allowed. It has been one of the best investments in our marriage we have made. We’ve done this since the kids were small. It was easy because we either lived with my parents, or at least in the same town, and our kids are completely comfortable with being at Grandmama and Papa’s house. (In fact, sometimes I think they prefer it over being home!)

As the kids have gotten older, they’ve started to stay with friends for our weekend get-aways. We don’t usually have any trouble finding places for them to stay. Last year, my parents kept Natalie, our oldest, and Josiah, our youngest, while Noah and Jonathan stayed with their respective best friend’s families.

We’re planning to go the third weekend in February. This year, finding places for them to stay - places where they will have fun and with people we trust - has been extremely difficult. My parents are unable to take any of them because my dad will be working out of town and my mom’s schedule as a pastor keeps her weekends full. My friend, Debbie, whose son Dylan is Jonathan’s best friend, had knee surgery today and will be in recuperation mode for the next four to six weeks.

The oldest two will be staying with their best friends’ families, and I’m waiting to hear tonight from a good friend at church about taking the youngest two. What would we do without our church family?

It seems each year when we talk about going away, we have at least one person who says, “I could never leave my kids for three nights!” I don’t know if I’m defensive, but this always seems like an attempt to say, “We’re better parents than you are.”

We love our kids, and at the end of each yearly getaway we are more than ready to get back home to them. But each year when our tax refund is on its way, we get excited about our time alone together. We have found that this one weekend a year allows us to spend time making goals for the coming year, talking about things that have nothing to do with running our household, and just being together in a way that’s not always possible at home.

A few years ago, when we only had two children, I was talking to some ladies at women’s Bible study about our yearly tradition. An older lady, whose children are grown and older than me, approached me. She said, “I’m glad to see that you and Kevin are making your marriage a priority. Dick and I didn’t do that. We poured 110 percent of ourselves into our children, and there was nothing left over for each other. When our last daughter graduated and left home, we were left with nothing. We didn’t know each other anymore; we were like strangers. It took a few years to get to know each other again, to remember why we had gotten married in the first place. Remember that your children will one day be grown up with families of their own. Keep your marriage a priority, and even though your kids leaving home will be hard, you’ll be looking forward to more years with your best friend.” I always remember her words when that “mother-guilt” clicks in when we’re getting ready to go away.

So in a few weeks, Kevin and I will be headed here for three nights and three days. We’ll be staying here. We’ll spend a few hours here, browsing and getting caffeinated. Kevin will probably want to go here. We’ll watch movies, eat here, here, and here, and spend lots of time doing this and this. (Made you wonder, didn’t I? ~wink~)

IF, my friend says they can take the boys. (Please, please, please…)