I was waiting out front for my older daughter at the library tonight when a chorus of little voices from the back of the van said, "I have to go pee!"  So I had an internal debate about whether or not I had to get out the stroller for a quick trip to the bathroom, interspersed with wishing that my six year old was old enough to stay in the van with the sleeping baby since he did not need the facilities.  I finally decided that I could probably manage to carry Brogan in the sling and hold the twins' hands as well.

After answering nature's call, we went to find Gabrielle since it was now fifteen minutes later than I said she should come outside.  On the way into the library, I saw a dear friend from my early homeschooling days.  We stopped to catch up with each other and the three boys who weren't strapped to me began running in circles around me like hungry natives doing a pre-dinner dance.  I caught one and told him not to run, but of course the other two felt that he was the only one that applied to, and they continued to run in circles until I personally told each of them to stop.

My friend's three children range from a few years older than my oldest to a few years younger than him.  She looked down at my four boys and said, "I just couldn't start over again now." Later on the way home, I thought, "Is that what I am doing? I guess it is." Friends that I met back when we started homeschooling in 1997 are now trying to figure out their post-homeschooling plans, while I am gearing up to get the two girls through high school while also teaching all the boys.

I remember another mom saying to me when I was pregnant with Ryan, "Do you REALLY want to start all over again?"  Robert was a teen, Gabrielle and Mary were nearly 7 and 5, weaned and potty-trained and sleeping through the night.  Of course, the mom asking was just an acquaintance and didn't know that I had suffered two miscarriages since Mary was born, one of which had nearly killed me, and that I had been desperately wanting another baby for quite some time.  So, that time, the answer was yes, I really wanted to start all over again.

I assume that there is a light at the end of the homeschooling tunnel, but it's so far away, I've never even had a glimpse of it.  I've been too busy trying to keep my head above the water rising in the tunnel.  However, it's true - I haven't even STARTED homeschooling three of my children (I don't go by that "oh, they have been learning since birth" idea of when homeschooling begins).  I think I figured out once that I will have been homeschooling for thirty years when I'm done.

Maybe I should stop thinking about this. It's making me more tired than I already was. 

Inspired by an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, a few months ago I tried making a list of things I wanted to do before I die.  While Raymond's list consisted mainly of things he did and did not want to try eating, mine only had two things.  The first is to raise my children to be good Christians.  When I read a biography of St. Francis years ago, it said that this is what his mother always prayed for him.  It made sense to me that praying for your children to be good Christians kind of takes care of everything else.  "Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33 Douay-Rheims) and all that.

The second item on my list is actually three things.  I want to speak German and Spanish at a near-native level, and Swedish at a conversational level.  Basically I'd like to speak Swedish about as well as I speak German and Spanish now.

And that's all I came up with.  So while Raymond's life revolves around food (after all, food is what makes his mother Marie "worth it" as he tells Debra in another episode), mine obviously revolves around languages.  But I had hit an impasse with learning Swedish.  I've been unable to find a decent program, and I don't have the time to meet with a tutor or the money to pay the tutor with.

One night in early November at three in the morning, after having sat outside in the cold with a croupy baby while sick myself until I couldn't do it anymore and woke up my husband to take over, I was sitting in the recliner waiting for him to see to the other sick children before he took the baby.  I had just gotten a package from Amazon which included the program Spanish in Ten Minutes a Day, which I ordered as a supplement for my older daughter.  I really liked the program from what I could see, and, as usual, I looked to see what other languages they offered.  I saw that they have it in Norwegian.  And in my sick, sleepy state, I thought, "Norwegian and Swedish are very similar and mutually intelligible (OK, so maybe I didn't actually think big words like that).  Maybe I could get this program and use it as a roundabout way to learn Swedish!"

Well, the next day I did some research to see exactly what the differences were.  They really aren't that much, but I did discover that Swedes usually make fun of Norwegians' pronunciation.  Hmm, maybe not such a good idea.  I then emailed my friend in Sweden to ask her opinion, but she hasn't gotten back to me yet.  Then I started thinking, I have so little time as it is, it's ridiculous to try to learn Swedish in such an indirect way!

So it was pretty much in that state that I took the children to the Scandinavian Christmas Fair that I have posted about here before.  I was happy to finally find the Swedish-English children's dictionary that I had tried to order from Amazon two years ago (they kept delaying the shipping date, and after about six months of that, I cancelled the order).  It has both nouns and verbs, and the pronunciation for the Swedish right underneath the word.  I wouldn't have bought it if it didn't have that!  My biggest problem is that I try to pronounce it like German, which isn't always right.  However, knowing German certainly gives me a leg up on vocabulary.  For example, "bat" (the animal) is "Fledermaus" in German and "fladdermus" in Swedish. (Fans of the cartoon The Tick will know that since there is a character called "Die Fledermaus" who is a poor man's version of Batman.  And, yes, I do other things besides watch TV!)

The illustrations are charmingly old-fashioned, and even better, Mary has picked it up and been trying out words.  Her biggest frustration with looking at things in Swedish is not knowing how to pronounce them.  Now I just need to get a good Swedish grammar and maybe a verb book, and I think I can make some progress, and hopefully be able to help Mary learn some too!

Finding that dictionary helped me decide NOT to learn Swedish via Norwegian.  Maybe those 3 AM thoughts really should be ignored!

I've been so slow with blogging lately!  The holiday season has us busy!  (My photo host has also been giving me fits in uploading pictures.  It is usually fabulous, so I'm spoiled.)

I finally managed to upload pictures, so we'll continue the play-by-play of our Arizona trip!



Over there:


And a then from "over there":

What a beautiful and awe inspiring sight.  Pictures (at least my pictures) can't do the Grand Canyon justice. 

As amazing as the natural wonder is, anywhere we go I enjoy watching people:  the people were fascinating, and in return, I realized that people were watching us. 

So many people wanted to take our pictures!  Oh, yes, a  few kind souls offered to take a picture of our whole family (one of them is posted a few posts down).  That didn't surprise me.  What was odd was those who wanted to take our picture with their own cameras!  There were visitors from all over the world--many from Asian countries.  The Asian women were fascinated with our children.  They'd see Kieran coming around a corner and "ooh!" and "aah" over him.  (We think he's pretty cute ourselves.) Then they'd see Keegan and say, "Brother?  Oh!  he has brother!"  A moment later they'd clap their hands in delight seeing the three girls!  "All brothers and sisters?  All?  One, two, three, four, five?"   It was astounding to me because while five is more than our national average, it isn't something that usually stops traffic.  Several of the ladies asked if they could take the children's picture.  Their exuberance and genuine excitement was irresistible, so we were happy to oblige, but  I do wish I'd taken a picture of them taking their pictures.

The other picture I wish I'd taken was of the Condor Man.  As we were heading back toward the train, we saw a man waving an antenna back and forth.  He was off by himself, but as we got closer he looked over at us, and seemed amiable.  The children asked what he was doing,.  (Ken and I were curious ourselves).  We walked over to ask, and ended up being given a wonderful science lesson.  He explained that he was picking up signals from California Condors, and provided a wealth of information on the enormous, endangered birds.

Next up, in my super-slow play-by-play, the return train ride.   Stay tuned, it might be a day or three unless I can mend my ways.

I started to post about our trip to Arizona and the Grand Canyon, but got derailed just before posting about the train!  We took a train to the north rim, and the ride was an experience to remember! 

Before the trip: Kieran got in with a rough crowd, and made the acquaintance of some train robbers!:

The train!

Kieran much prefered this mode of travel to his car seat:


Outside our window--Looks alot like Wyoming!

And in addition to fascinating information told as we traveled, we had great entertainment!

Stay tuned.  I really will get to the actual canyon soon!  (If I don't get derailed again.  It seemed that once we got home and unpacked the Christmas season just hit full force!  Life is busy, but good!)

Next stop: The North Rim.

I have sadly neglected this blog as of late.  The combination of NaNoWriMo (final word count: 20,484 - just a bit shy of the 50K mark!), everyone except my husband being ill for the first two weeks of November, and a trip out of town for Thanksgiving and my high school reunion left me with little time to sit and write the last month or so.  Such is life. I do think of many topics that I could blog about, and I begin writing them in my head, and then I forget them completely. 

I did learn through NaNoWriMo that it is possible for me to average writing 1000 words per day.  Writing more than that, at this point in my life, is not possible.  I started a new romance even though I have not yet finished last year's because that is the rule for the contest.  This time the story seems to flow better, and I can visualize the characters. (Ask my husband how good I am at visualizing - basically, I stink at it.  We chose the place for our wedding reception because I when I walked in, I could visualize exactly how I wanted everything placed.)

I do enjoy writing.  It's fun to work in all these little things.  I love to learn, to read articles and find out little tidbits, and when writing fiction, I can work those things into my stories.  Now I just need to hunker down and finish both of my stories!