Dec. 21, 2005 - Driving over 30 miles to a Mall when there are 7 closer malls...

is just what you do for family sometimes.  I am usually on the receiving end of these kind of favors.  If my vehicle was a little nicer and gasoline a little cheaper, I wouldn't even be concerned when it was my turn to go out of my way.  Even with a cranky baby in the car, I am seeing this as an investment.  We all need to contribute to relationships in different ways.  When you make a special effort to meet someone when it is not very convenient, it shows how much they mean to you.  I really love my family even with all their oddities, especially since I am the oddest of them all :)

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Dec. 14, 2005 - The Warmth of Someone Else's Kitchen

Today I made a HUGE mess in someone else's kitchen.  It was way more fun than baking alone in my apartment would have been.  I spent three hours mixing and rolling and cutting out cookies and filling and shaping them and baking them....whew! We were exhausted afterward but because it was social at the same time we were having fun, too.  It had been several months since we had our schedules in synch and we had a lot to catch up on.  I likely would have given up on rolling out the last 100 cookies or so if I didn't have that pretty island kitchen and a smiling friend nearby.  Of course the kids participated as they could and as we would let them, but it was for us.  They were happy creating their own little games.  Her 10 year old daughter taught my 11month old son about angle measurement, and I could swear he said his first word (yeah!).  No the word was yeah.  But I was very proud.

It now officially feels like a holiday.  My kitchen does not smell like fresh baked cookies, but I have tins to share and warm memories, and I dragged my two week old drying out tree from the porch into my dining area.  I will vacuum pine needles every day just to smell the christmas tree and enjoy the single strand of green lights which make me smile.  the kids put 30 candy canes on it in a two foot square area.  it is a work of art.

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Dec. 12, 2005 - resting....

is really difficult for me.  I can sleep as many hours as my four kids will let me, but relaxing, resting, silent and still contemplating are big challenges.  I fidget and look around when I am talking to a friend.  My mind wanders when I am in church or praying.  I can't even sit still while nursing my baby. (Have you ever seen a mama chimp or baboon picking the ears and noses and hair of their babes? That's me.)  I have dial-up internet service and I bring projects with me to the computer desk.  While a page loads up, I make a list or clear off the top of the monitor.  I wake up and load the dishwasher before I sit for a cup of coffee.  I scratch and pick and poke and adjust and make little sounds and sing to myself and shake my leg.

     My grandmother worries about me.  She doesn't like the little marks all over my arms from picking.  I realized recently that if she's watching Oprah, she probably thinks I am a tweaker.  Only someone on crystal meth would pick at themselves like that.  Poor grandma.  I don't do drugs.  I am just restless and weird.  I'll break the news to grandma this Christmas that there isn't that big a drama in my life.  Just a need to SLOW down.

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Nov. 27, 2005 - Please Pray that I can Rejoice with them...

It is difficult to be happy for the people you love when they make life changes that affect you greatly.  We have been attending our church for three years now.  It took us two full years to find a life group that could accept the challenge of wanting our children to be part of the worship and prayer.  Honestly it hasn't been the kind of life group where adults feel spiritually fed and where deep deep relationships are built.  It can't really be.  The children outnumber the adults at least three to one and if any group of people is more unpredictable than children, it is parents with three or more kids.  Someone is often sick or performing in something or staying late at work and the rest of the family must stay home too.  The leaders of our life group were absolutely incredible.  They were reliable, invested completely, and so full of love for us and our children.  Now they are moving back to the northeast, far from the desert we live in, to a place where their children can get to know their grandmothers and their aunts.  This is a great move for them, but I mourn my own loss.  Please pray that I can just be happy for them, and that we will find a new way to meet our own small group needs.

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Nov. 27, 2005 - One more minute....

If I had another minute this hour I could:

brush the knot out of the back of my hair

close my eyes for what would seem like an eternity

clean a toilet

mend the neck of my neighbor's broken giraffe

leave a voice mail message for a very pregnant friend

water our new yucca plant

marvel at my fourth little guy learning to clap

google a recipe for my oldest son's new favorite dessert goolab jamun

but alas, I must always choose between some of the things I most want to do.

today I marvel at the clapping

tomorrow, who knows?

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Nov. 23, 2005 - i saw a beautiful, majestic beast today

I think most people call it a turkey.

It had feathers going in every direction and it was very regal and proper looking, even as it wobbled and shook.

It walked in a straight line, turning as it saw fit, but not toward us.  It had a purpose.  The barely there feather-lite turkeys followed it around.  It was clear, though, who was king.

Perhaps he was thankful he was no feast this year.  Was he aware that his brothers were?

The pig was named Rosie and she was stealing cabbages and snow peas while we picked eggs and smelled cinnamon basil and pet a few cows.  That pig was trouble, but boy did my 10 month old keep both eyes on that animal.  He never saw the goats or the peacocks or the peahens, but he could tell you Rosie's eye color if he could talk.

They used to call my dad's mom Rosie (well, only my maternal grandfather did because he was funny and silly).  her name was really sophie, and she inspired the only dish I make every year for thanksgiving.  Sweet potatoes so simple anyone could make them, but no one gets them just right.  Eight years later, we will see if mine turn out.  They usually are missing something, but as I cut potatoes tonight and thought about that spirited pig named Rosie we visited at the local farm, I was differently inspired.  My grandma rosie can't share thanksgiving with us, but I sure chuckled when I thought of her today.

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Nov. 23, 2005 - Gratitude

I am thankful for so many things.

Especially a fresh start each morning.

The grace of my children and my Lord.

The chance to do something different and special with each moment.

I am thankful for healing.

For giving

For receiving.

I am thankful for mystery.

For forgiveness.

For love.

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Nov. 13, 2005 - FREE day at the Southwest Museum!!

What a BLAST! 

We all woke up early and went to the first church service, so we would be able to have a nice, relaxing day to together (it is so rare that dh has the entire day off of work).  Every second Sunday of the month is free at the local children's art museum and the natural history Museum.  They are only one block apart and we slowly went through each.  There was something fun for each of the four kids to do.  we will definitely come back to see the dinosaurs and the jazz-inspired quilting, and the space shuttle paintings, the oil on canvas scenes from the attack on Pearl Harbor, the replica of a prison....so much GREAT stuff.

DS3 slept so soundly upon our return (over four hour nap) that we now have a totally wired three year old running circles around our apartment.  The beauty of homeschooling: no alram clocks tomorrow!

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Nov. 9, 2005 - Friendly Smiles Always Welcome

I don’t appreciate parenting advice from strangers.  Well, actually it steams me up.  I can take advice on being a good consumer, a good activist, a good neighbor, but there is no one who knows my kids like I do.  I do ask for suggestions from friends and family from time to time.  I might search related message boards or ask a question online to get ideas on how to handle a troublesome situation, but I really don’t like being approached with well-meaning advice.

Perhaps you might tell me that it is the cost of being a parent in this society, but I think differently.  I talk to strangers all the time, so if anyone knows how people tend to respond, it’s me.  I rarely find that people are chatty about even the most unimportant things.  Certainly they are unwilling to divulge personal information the way I might on an especially chatty day.  Yet they feel the topic of my children is really open for discussion, as if they are involved members of the village. 

I have a very tribal orientation.  I recognize that parenting alone (even if it is only until my spouse comes home from work) is a modern and unnatural concept.  We need each other.  We make mistakes.  We often need the wisdom of others.  We always need some support.  I just can’t receive any of this from someone who doesn’t know me.

People seem to witness the worst.  They can’t see the hours of snuggling, reading, and praising.  They don’t hear the songs we sing in the car or the jokes we make up.  They don’t know the way my second child struggles with being overshadowed by my first, or the way my third child gets really emotional when he is sleepy or hungry when he is bored.  They hear me at my wit’s end when each child has taken off in a different direction.  They sense the impatience and misinterpret my tired eyes.  They hear each outburst from a child and assume I am doing something wrong.  They have such a brief glimpse into my reality.  I wish they would just pass me in silence or with a friendly smile and not judgments and glares.

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Nov. 8, 2005 - I Know How Babies are Made, Thank You!

We don’t live in a very child-friendly world, do we?  I am not sure I noticed it before having my fourth child, but it is apparent everywhere I go.  Homeschooling only pronounces the anti-child biases because all looks are directed at you and your older children.  When your child is “good” it is because they are “sheltered” and if they misbehave in the eyes of others it is because they don’t have appropriate social interaction.  Preposterous.  It makes them uncomfortable when they become aware and it makes me hypersensitive.  Back to our child-friendly bubble, I say! How can we maintain that safe space when we can’t shake the stares of others?

Maybe activism IS the only answer.

Do we need to teach our children to confront the biases that others have?  Is this unfairly burdening them more?  Is this simply one of the many lessons they need to learn?

Sometimes I feel like I need to justify something as simple as my fertility to every passerby.  It is one thing to covet my beautiful family, another to wish for a small family yourself, but please do not look at me with distaste, as if I haven’t figured out from where babies come.

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Nov. 6, 2005 - My 30th Birthday is 12 days away

Some people blog for years.  They are consistent and thoughtful.  They can look back and see how far they have come and remember in a second where they are headed.  In this respect I am a little behind.  I can't remember a time in my life where I wasn't sent spinning.  My 20s were filled with excitement but the kind of excitement people don't expect but satisfies them when they reflect on it.  I married my college sweetheart, gave birth to four amazing children who continue to entertain me and touch my soul and teach me new ways to love, and spent ten years learning at the university level from people I admired.  What a decade!  I certainly am thankful.  What can I expect as I turn 30?

I think the best approach might be to imagine ach day as a fresh start.  Don't we all say this sometimes.  I mean really live that way.  What can I do to impact the world, one person, myself today???  Where am I and where do I want to be?  Forget the lists and the stressing out over not finishing something.  I just want to SAVOR the moments while keeping goals in mind. 

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Nov. 3, 2005 - Adventure IS the homeschooling

It has taken me a few months to realize that the adventure IS the homeschooling.  You un-schoolers already knew this, of course, but I imagined I was a classical educator at heart.  I have to reconsider some now.  We like Story of the World and some of the concepts within Well-Trained Mind, but I think we need a little more time to adjust.  Anyone who has followed this blog probably saw this coming. 

In a few months when baby is toddling around more, we might get more to the intense lesson-stuff, but the kids are learning every day.  Yesterday I think it was learning the maximum number of lollipops from the halloween stash that would fit in a 5yo's mouth.  The day before was the percentage of savings on our target trip. 

A wise person reminded me how young a 7yo and 5yo really are. Learning life lessons, discipleship, love for each other, manners, and the subjects which draw their natural interest is probably just where we need to be right now.

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Oct. 2, 2005 - Fair Trade Truckstop

so someday i'd like to own a fair trade truckstop, serving travelers and locals alike organic coffee and fairtrade textiles and organic vegetarian soups and sandwiches.  We took a month-long road trip to cleveland and chicago and the closest thing from phoenix there was a cracker barrel and that is QUITE a stretch.  How wonderful it would be to nourish people who don't have the comforts of home. Big soft, comfy chairs for nursing babies would be a must, as would indoor, all-weather playground equipment.

We probably won't ever do it.  We all have so many dreams and necessity means that our children and their education and our family's everyday needs come first.  I just thought I would record it somewhere, in case it comes into being through someone else: it was my idea today.

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Sep. 16, 2005 - i started a personal blog...

for "poetry" so I did not have to write in complete sentences all the time as I learned to blog, but browsing that site is a little scary.  sometimes people have material of an offensive or totally incomprehensible nature.  I am therefore going to choose a "poem" once in a while here for feedback.  I like the anonymity there and that I am not a homeschooling mom of four boys to everyone who sees it, but I like the community here too.  Thanks to whomever chooses to read this :)

Monday, September 12, 2005

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Sep. 16, 2005 - accuracy is overrated...

I recently felt really discouraged when I proudly showed my sister's husband the math on which ds1 was working, and he asked me if I ever check his answers.  I thought for awhile and realized that we spend a lot of time talking about how to solve the problems and the steps to take, but then he works for some time independently and I don't always review the answers.  I was embrassed and afraid I was certainly doing a disservice to ds1.  I don't know, though.  Perhaps in this context, when we are learning how to divide, it is not that important if he writes 3 when he means 4 some of the time.  I know he knows the right answers.

     I asked ds2 (age 5) about my ebay profits the other day.  I said, "If each of these items cost me one dollar and I sell two of them for six dollars what is my profit"?  He said, "Five thousand, billion, million," or something like that.  I smiled and said, "good job! accuracy is really overrated sometimes." and this time I really did mean it.

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Sep. 8, 2005 - Picking Up the Emotional Pieces

      Like many other Americans, I have been considering of late what really makes a life.  I did not lose anything in the recent tragic events of the south but my faith in the ability of our government to handle emergencies of this magnitude.  Of course there always have been stranded, hopeless and hungry fellow citizens here but those with money and their wits about them never had to literally fight someone for water or lay dying from starvation.  Money didn't work, the government didn't pull through, and media cameras reached places that food couldn't (explain that!!).  I didn't vote for this kind of government and I know none of the Bush supporters did either.

      What does this mean for my children as I try to help them build their lives based on faith, love, hope, and as much classical education as I can?  They have definitely heard the words "hurricane" and "head of FEMA" more than "adjective" and "fraction" in the past ten days.  We didn't have a television during that particular September 11th, so certainly these images are the worst I have seen on the news in a long long time.  I am limiting their exposure but it is affecting me.  As we gathered toys to donate to the Katrina guests of Arizona, we talked about how blessed we are.  As we prayed with the other children in our life group, we talked about the construction of the levies.  As we drove far less this week we talked about the reasons for the rising gas prices.  Perhaps we will discuss the appointment of another Supreme Court Justice. I am sure we will have more conversations about the town in which we live making national news over public breastfeeding legal issues.  Call me a news-related un-schooler for the time being and we will transition back to our classical education in our own time. 

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Aug. 21, 2005 - Modeling

A friend was trying to get some cleaning done with her two oldest children when she noticed her middle child wandered off.  When she found her, the little girl had an armload of newspaper and a paintbrush, some watercolors and a cup of water.  She was preparing an activity for the youngest child so she would be out of their hair.  At the same time, though, she was nurturing her little sister....making sure she had all the things she needed to play happily while they finished their chores.  She often behaves in a very maternal way as she absorbs her mothers very caring demeanor.

I am not so sure that the "nurturing" way I have has been so successfully passed down to my boys who randomly run across the room to knock each other down.  I see that they care for each other, but sometimes I think they are just trying to make it through the day tolerating each other.  I am trying hard to do more than tolerate my beautiful kids.  They can be sneaky and mean and loud (especially so yesterday when I was suffering from a very rare, very debilitating migraine headache that had me almost bedridden all day and night).  They are, however, amazing creatures.

We have started to set up a pretty strict weekly routine.  We can't do the daily precise thing.  DS1 does math almost every day for 45 minutes and spends almost that many minutes complaining that his kindergarten brother is not required to do the same amount of work.  We all read every day and everything else is under construction.  We have to factor in ebay-related shopping, church groups and activities, time for friends, homeschool groups, and daddy's rare evenings off.  We are, as always, a work in progress.

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Aug. 17, 2005 - sometimes when you're lost you're exactly where you should be

today was ds1 and ds2's first day at a community enrichment program for homeschoolers.  It is run like a school but with all homeschool kids.  they arrive and leave an hour later than the public school kids and they stay together in mixed age classrooms doing art, computer time, and physical ed.  My 7yo somehow ended up with the 3rd and 4th graders and sort of went with the flow.  He had been with them a couple hours before realizing he was in the wrong class. He returned to his 1st-2nd grade class armed witha  bit of information and led a revolution of sorts showing all the younger kids the more exciting computer game he had learned with them.  With the teacher's permission he taught them how to play.  He ended up where he wanted to be both through the experience of being lost and ultimately being able to act out his first child instincts in the new crowd.

     My 5yo got lost too, although we all knew that would happen.  He finally decided to plant himself on stage and wait for them to come to him...resourceful, I thought and so like him.  Well, perhaps on certain days he would have hidden in a cupboard (like yesterday and the day before) but today he wanted to make his mark as near to the top of the class as possible.  When I came to pick him up he was beaming...running into my arms with a look of delight.  He has never attended any school but sunday school and he was so enthusiastic.  We were reminiscing this morning about how he used run around as an older toddler saying "hurray hurray have a decent day." He doesn't always express that joy anymore in that way, so it was nice to see such a lovely smile.

     My 3yo avoided getting lost today with painstaking effort.  He remained UNDER me for the entire day...right behind my legs, under my feet, clinging to me.  He was having anxiety separating from his brothers but was loving the attention. 

Most of the time I don't end up exactly where I expected to be, but it often takes me too long to realize it's a great place too.

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Aug. 16, 2005 - What Can a Six Month-Old Teach Anyway?

Today DS3 (age 3) insisted that DS1 (age 7) do his reading in the same room with him while he watch Monsters, Inc again.  I should have insisted that DS3 watch it alone or find something else to do, but I was already doing a reading lesson with DS2 (age 5) and DS4 (age 6 months) wriggling on my lap.  For DS3 no one else would do; he needed his biggest brother with him in that room right then.  How different is that from DS4 needing to be in my lap?  Is it okay that he read a little less than he would have or read with the tv on?  I guess what my dear friend told me a couple months ago: the baby IS the lesson.

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Aug. 15, 2005 - Our Homeschooling Adventures Begin....

I never expected that homeshooling would be simple.  I spent less time making the decision than most people probably would, but I am always one for adventure (especially if I get to be in charge).  DH was willing to go along for the ride; he doesn't have much time to invest as he is working most days and late into the evenings at his two jobs.  He is however a very enthusiastic learner himself and as he and I both attended less than ideal schools for our kind of learning, it has been fun for us to learn new things as a family even when DS1 was in a charter school.  We made a plan and we plan on many alterations and adjustments in this first year.

     We have been practicing for the past couple months with some history lessons from Story of the World and some science themes encouraged by The Well-Trained Mind.  We found a library we liked and we checked out dozens of books, devoured them, and kept getting more every week.  We tried to stay positive about homeschooling as we searched for the right approach and support.  We tried to wean our children from the idea that school is a building and that learning involves certain rules.

      We then took a lengthy vacations (3 weeks including travel) to Chicago and Cleveland areas to visit family.  I thought we would learn so much (we did ride the "el" train again and go to our old hangout, the free city zoo on the north side; we took some notes of states we were passing through and rivers) but alas when we returned and DH asked DS3 (who is almost 3) what he saw on the trip he said with a sigh "the window." Oh well.  Seeing family made the 5000 mile trip worth every leg cramp and every piece of gum I had to cut out of DS2's lovely long-no-more locks.

     Today we spent an hour or so on math and a little time helping DS1 write a letter to grandma.  We practiced counting with DS2 as he learns simple addition, and cursive words with DS1 (who had previously only written the alphabet in cursive).  We read two books on butterflies after a library trip that was barely better than the post office trip where I sobbed uncontrollably for no good reason.  We took a nice walk to pick up the neighbor's kids from school and spent an hour at the city park's sprinkler trying to forget that we live in the desert.  We could have studied harder and we all could have had better attitudes but I am worried less about a track record as I am about keeping our family close-knit and enthusiastic about learning.

    I'll end my first ever blog-entry with the tale of a conversation I found amusing.  I was strolling to the park near my grandma's house while on vacation with my seven year-old son and I was telling him that I went away to college at age 17....he said "You were 17 when you went to college?  That means I have only ten years.  I have A LOT of work to do!" 

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