I know, it's been ages since I posted anything on here.  Maybe if I get in a better routine in 2010, I will start blogging again on a regular basis. 

Earlier this week, Michelle (a new homeschooling mom I have known for a few months) let me know that a now-defunct school was giving away school desks.  Although we already have three desks, DD10 is outgrowing hers, DS8's is a flip-top (none of my kids like that style, and I can't blame them) and DS6's wobbles because one leg is shorter than the rest, so I was hoping the freebies would be an improvement.  Plus, it's about time to once again give DD3.5 her own place in the schoolroom.  She used to have a Little Tykes table in here, but DH moved it out of here (I suppose he thought it took up too much room).

DH (a very DH) picked them up just before noon today, but then he went back to work, so I still haven't seen them.  I had DD10, DS8, and DS6 clean out their desks *and* erase some of their scribbles from the desktops (is a Magic Eraser a better idea?), then we moved them. 

I'm not exactly sure how the desks are going to be placed in here, because DD10 and DS8's are going to be much larger desks than their old ones, and our "schoolroom" is very long and wide, resembling an extra-wide hallway.  This should be interesting.  Not exactly what I had planned on doing on Dec. 23rd, but I am thankful that the free desks came along, regardless of when.

-Lori.

Yoo hoo, anybody home?  LOL  I know, it has been 18 months since I last posted here.  I didn't realize it had been quite that long until today, when someone asked me for help with her blog on HSB, and I logged into mine.  Wow.  Time flies when you're busy homeschooling four kids -- and in the last 5-6 months, I would also have to admit that I joined Facebook and sometimes am addicted.

Well, let's see.  Guess I should bring you up to speed on how old the kids are now:  oldest DD is 10, my DSs are 8 and 5 1/2, and the youngest DD is 3 1/2.

That's all for now.  Please leave a comment if you read this.

God bless,

Lori.

I was at a stop light, facing a local Tire Discounters store, and they had those words on their sign.  Did you figure it out?  I did, although it took me a a few seconds longer than it did DD9!

If you haven't figured it out yet, try saying with with a Svee-dish accent.

Okay, maybe I will blog again soon, and actually post a picture.  Have I mentioned yet that we did buy a new camera?

Have a great weekend --

-Lori.

As Lepidoptera pointed out, I have not been blogging lately.  Actually, she "tagged" me about two weeks ago (give or take two weeks), and I haven't even looked at her blog to see what I'm supposed to do.  So sorry, dear friend.  It is certainly not that I don't love you dearly; I just can't seem to make time for blogging.

Much is happening for my dear friends in the blogosphere.  Lepidoptera and her family just moved -- much closer to us, but still not as close as I would like.  Next door would be preferable .  But we'll make it work.  Jim and Kelly are rapidly closing in on the arrival of their baby boy.  The other blogger Lori isn't moving or expecting (at least if she is, she hasn't told me), but you should still check out her blog anyway, because she has some really adorable pictures of her twins asleep in various venues. 

OH -- I guess I should get around to my subject, as you are thinking, "What does your title mean, anyway?"  That is a common quotation from DD2 around here these days.  You see, she can't just ask me a question one time; she has to ask it two or three or even more times in rapid succession, without waiting for an answer, or even asking it again when I have answered it because she is not listening...so I say to her, "Ask once..." or hold one finger up and she says, "Ax One Sand Weight."   Translation:  Ask once and wait.  She still doesn't really "get it" yet, but maybe someday soon, she will.

There is one more funny floating around in my brain, courtesy of DS4.  Yesterday morning, I was running through the day's agenda with the kids, so I included "and then we'll go to the polls".  Well, a little while later, DS4 asked me, "So when are we going to Kohl's?"  LOL

Alas, I must again depart the blogosphere in search of some clean real estate in the kitchen.  I would not take a picture of my kitchen right now even if my camera were working -- I'd be too embarrassed.  I have determined that I will not go to bed until it is spic and span.  We'll see how long my resolve and the caffeine holds out.

-Lori.

Our camera is on the frizz (it "eats" two batteries after just a few pictures), and, really, I don't have time to log into my Flickr account and upload photos right now because I'm trying to finish the year's lesson planning before we start school a week today, so a few funny stories will have to do.

Last night, I went to lie down for a few minutes with DS4 at bedtime (because he was Crew Chief yesterday).  I thought I caught a whiff of something, so I asked him, "Did you fluffy?"  He said no, but I asked again, "Are you sure?"  He responded:

"I know when I fluffy because I can feel my bummy cheeks wiggle." 

I still chuckle when I think about that!

Then, there was DD2 when I was putting her down for her nap.  I asked her to do something, and her response sounded like, "Donkey odor...not nice".  It took me a few seconds to figure out what she was saying.  She was saying, "Don't give orders; it's not nice."  See, when she tells me to do something without using the word "please", I usually say, "Don't give Mommy orders; it's not nice."  But donkey odor isn't nice, either -- LOL!   

[I did explain to her, of course, that it's okay for Mommy to give her orders, but not the other way around.]

Our local school district goes BTS (BTS is what my sisters and sister-in-law, all public school teachers, call Back To School -- they won't say it, LOL!)  in two weeks, "Create Notice of Intent" was at the top of my to-do list last night.  I scanned the kids' Iowa test results and printed copies, quickly changed the dates in last year's letter to the local school district, and zipped through the intended curriculum/resource lists for both DD9 and DS7.  We are not making any curriculum changes this year, really, and I didn't go over it with a fine-toothed comb like I am normally inclined to do, so I was finished in record time.

Seeing the bulging envelope sitting on my planner stand, addressed and ready to go, was exciting.  Am I the only one that feels this way?

I just checked Lepidoptera's blog to catch up on her family (and read about the tadpoles, but I didn't quite get to that entry yet), when I noticed that her link to my blog shows the timeframe of my last entry:  1 month.  OH MY.  Has it really been that long?

Well, it is already late, so I am just going to cut-paste-and-quickly-edit an e-mail I sent to my extended family members three weeks ago, when one of my sisters asked for an update on what the nieces and nephews are doing these days (mine are the only ones that haven't graduated high school!).

Saturday night, DD9, DS7, DS4 and DD2 went to Midsummer at the Meadows (accompanied by their parents, of course) and enjoyed riding the rides, eating smoothies, hot dogs, popcorn, and Italian ices (not simultaneously), and playing on the playground.  DD9 particularly liked the “Fear Factory”, although she wondered why they called it that because it didn’t make her fearful.  DS4, on the other hand, looked very serious on the kiddie roller coaster.  DH thought DD2 was too short for the kiddie rides, but Mommy wasn’t so sure, so I stood her up at the measuring spot and sure enough, she just made it!  She got to ride the cars and jump around in the little blow-up house with her big brother DS4.

DS7, when I was making fruit dip earlier that afternoon for lunch at church Sunday, asked, “Next time we have lunch at church, can you make Chocolate Mountain Dew again?”  My reaction was a combination of confusion (knowing I have never made that before and wondering what he was really talking about) and disgust (thinking about what chocolate + MD would taste like together – blecchhhhh).  We quickly realized that he really meant to say “Chocolate Fondue”. 

Yesterday afternoon, DD2 grabbed a bowl of cereal that had been sitting for a while, and started to eat it.  I grabbed it away from her and said, “Don’t eat that; it’s gross.”  She replied, “I want gwoss, Mama.  I want gwoss.”

This morning, I took the kids for pictures.  DD2 woke up first, and before she even found me, she found a red marker and decorated both palms and one forearm with it.  What is it about a pending portrait appointment that makes my daughters want to give themselves a makeover?  [For those of you who haven't heard this story, it goes like this:  when DD9 was 5, our next-door neighbor A (then 6) gave her a haircut a day or two before our family portrait…her bangs were cut down to the roots and her shoulder-length hair was roughly chin-length by the time the little beautician was finished.]  The good news is, all the marker came off.  If it hadn’t, I would have taken them anyway.  J

Just a little while ago, DD4 came up to me to whisper in my ear, like I do to him about every day (“Who’s my favorite four-year-old, loving, handsome…[etc. etc.]…man?).  He got a little confused about my age, though. He remembered there was a 9 in there somewhere, so he said, “Who’s my favorite 90-year-old, loving, beautiful Mom?”

In an attempt to keep our identity anonymous from strangers, I have not been using my children's real names, nor pictures of them.  In the process, I have created The World's Most Boring Blog because I only have images of things like burned-out cars and fixer-upper ones -- and very few pictures, period.  So here goes:

Above this text, there should be a picture of "the bunch" (sans DD2, who was inside visiting with Grandma) from DD9's birthday party.  The first time I inserted it, I couldn't remember how to resize it, but now I think I've got it.

I will probably add more party pics later.

At least I finally "bit the bullet". 

-L.

DH and I thought he was going to be finished with our broken-down car on Sunday, but he had an accident and hurt his right middle finger (perhaps a relevant point here is that he is left-handed).  His mother, sister and niece [I wasn't there and he hadn't even called me yet] were trying to talk him into going to get it x-rayed, but to no avail.  He said it really wasn't that painful; mostly it felt "stretched" from the swelling.  When I asked him if he could move it, he said he could bend it in the middle but the tip was pretty swollen, so he couldn't bend the first joint.

Once he was home later that day, I asked him some set of questions that led him to say he was not experiencing much pain, but the nail bed was still throbbing.  I chuckled and said, "For the record, most people consider 'throbbing' to be pain -- just so you know for future reference."  LOL

Well, today, the swelling spread toward his palm, the pain picked up just a little bit, and one of his co-workers, Dave, thought he really should have it checked.  Since Dave has been in both farming and the Navy, DH assumes he is familiar with injury and just "grinning and bearing it" most of the time, so Dave's reaction is what finally motivated him to call his doctor.  He went for xrays about 10:00 this morning, but then had to wait all day to hear the results.  He and his friend looked at the xrays and didn't see anything.

He finally received a call tonight:  it's broken in AT LEAST two places! 

I have always teased my husband about being insensitive (that is, not empathetic toward the pain and discomfort of other people), but now we have "empirical" proof!  LOL

Please don't misunderstand me:  I do sympathize with him, although I do find it curious that he feels so little pain relative to the magnitude of his injury.  I think both of us are just blessed right now to be focusing on the fact that things could be so much worse, and kind of taking this in stride -- even finding whatever humor that can be found in it.

-L.

Well, I was thinking I might not post this because it might just be a boring "laundry list" of household chores, but it looks like Lori2 double-dog dared me, so here goes:

First, I overslept, because I accidentally set the alarm for PM (DH says I'm good at that).  If memory serves me correctly, (although I did wake up at about 7:30 and look at the clock, I rolled back over, fell asleep, and) I finally got out of bed at 9:45 a.m.  My DH and I have a derogatory term for ourselves when we sleep in that late, but it's not PC so I'm not going to blog it. 

I made myself two fried eggs for breakfast, along with a piece of toast -- more like half a piece of toast, because I had sent most of the whole wheat bread with the rest of the family.

I ground three batches of wheat.  I have a Grain Mill attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer (mine is an older version than the one in this picture; I like the looks of mine better because it has actually has a "picture" of a mill cast in the iron on the front, although this one may beat mine for efficiency, I don't know), so I can only grind 6 c. of wheat berries at a time.  Then I have to wait 45 min. before I can run another batch.  I pre-measured two or three loaves' worth into quart-size Ziploc freezer bags, dumped the rest into two gallon-sized bags, and placed all of them in the freezer. 

I started a loaf of bread in the breadmaker.

I ran a towel and a hand towel through our faux front-loader washing machine with a cup of Clorox.  I know, something is wrong with this picture, having to clean a washing machine.  But that is what I do, usually about every six days, to keep our clean laundry smelling like clean laundry should smell.

Somewhere in this timeframe, I seem to recall unloading the dishwasher and emptying the dish drainer as well, maybe handwashing some things, and straightening the kitchen somewhat.  Maybe I should go back and read my first post to see where I was...

Okay, true confessions here.  I hadn't cleaned up the eat-in area of the kitchen from the day before when the kids had played with Play-Doh in there.   So I still had to sweep the kitchen floor.  I moved the table and chairs out of the way, and even swept adjacent areas in the family room, dining room, hallway and foyer closet just for sport.  You should have seen the piles of Play-doh, crumbs, etc., that I collected -- er, no, you shouldn't have seen them.  I probably would have been embarrassed.

I also spent more time in the playroom, but not nearly as much as the day before.  Maybe 45 minutes on the playroom and the schoolroom.

I think I started cleaning myself up for the wedding at 1:45, so the above is supposedly 4 hours' worth of work.  I know, once it's there in black and white (or white and purple, in the case of this blog), it doesn't seem like much.  My 85-year-old mother probably could have shaved 1:15 off my time.  Just call me Slacker Mom -- oh, wait, that's Lori2's old blog.  Guess you have to call me Coaster Mom.  LOL

God bless,

Lori.

Okay, I think I need to rewind to last Saturday morning at 9:20, so you know why I am joking that I am on summer vacation tonight.  Bear with me, as I am probably going to "chase a few rabbits" before I actually get to tonight.

Last Saturday morning, DH left early to run some errands and I was home with the kids.  He called at 9:20 a.m. to say "the Big Burg" (our nickname for the car he was driving) had broken down.  Well, the car is only 12 years old with about 150,000 miles on it, so I was not surprised -- I expect it to happen periodically, and just pray that it won't happen at 65 mph on the highway.  When he told me where to come pick him up, I immediately said, "Thank you, Lord," because he was in a parking lot about seven minutes from home!

He was cutting through two rows of parking spaces in between a Panera Bread and mobile phone store, lining himself up for the drive-thru ATM at the bank next door, when the ball joint on the front driver's side of the car suddenly gave out.  The car just went SLAM!, right down on the left front tire.  The slightly funny part of the story is that there was a guy washing the windows of the mobile phone place, and the loud THUD directly behind him, just about made the poor guy jump out of his skin!

So, the kids and I hopped in our other car and headed over to pick him up.  I almost cried when I saw the car sitting diagonally in the middle of a bank of empty parking spaces, again thanking God that he was safe.  Several hours later, the car was towed to my MIL's house about 45 min. away.  She has a barn and DH keeps a lot of tools out there, so it's easier to work on cars there than it is here.   Soooo....DH has been at his mom's much of his free time since then, working on the car.

Tomorrow night, DH and I have a wedding and reception to attend, so we had already asked his mom and sister to keep the kids overnight.  Since the car is still not finished, he decided to spend the night out there, so he worked on the car tonight and will continue to work on it tomorrow.  While he was going to be there, he figured he might as well take the kids out tonight, too.  Soooo...that leaves me with the house to myself tonight and most of the day tomorrow, which -- as you might imagine -- doesn't happen very often.

So what did I do?  First, I took a nap.  An hour-and-a-half nap with about 30 minutes of hitting the snooze.    I stayed up late last night, so that I take full responsibility for, but then as I was going to bed, DD2 woke up.  She kept scratching her wrist (she has eczema), she wanted "muk" [milk], she was a bit poofy so I changed her diaper...she finally yawned...then eventually she turned over on her left side, which is usually a sign she will fall asleep shortly...but every time I would think she was back asleep and I would make one small move to get up, she would roll onto her back again and say, "Mommy..."  About two hours after she awakened, she did go back to sleep.  So I had roughly half a normal night's sleep, and I was very tired by the afternoon.  I decided I would be more productive later if I took a nap. 

Second, I drank a lot of water because I felt dehydrated after my nap.  I probably ate something then, too.  I don't remember for sure, but I eat practically all the time, so it's a good guess -- LOL.  The pickin's are rather slim in our kitchen right now since I have been without a car all week (DH had to take the other car to work, of course) and we have not made a full grocery run, so I probably ate twice as much as I actually needed because things that I wanted were not here.  Then, with having drunk so much water, you can guess where else I was a few times .  I also unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher.

Third and foremost, I put away and threw away things in the basement where the playroom, schoolroom, and storage room are.  I am ashamed to say that things had gotten so out of hand down there, I'm not finished yet.  Unfortunately, DH and I have never managed to make the "one thing out at a time" rule, stick.  Hopefully that will be our resolution for this summer, to better train the kids in this regard.

I was throwing away spilled peanuts (one of the older kids took a practically brand-new jar down there, but let DD2 get ahold of it and she spilled it ) and chunks of Play-Doh (now, I don't let the kids play with Play-Doh in the carpeted playroom, so why someone took red Play-Doh down there and left it on the navy blue carpet, I haven't the foggiest idea, and two pieces are firmly stuck ) and broken crayons and scraps of paper and string cheese wrappers, sorting Legos and Lincoln Logs and Lauri puzzles and Little People and Pop-Onz and Gears into their proper containers (why was there a large pile of little Legos waaaay across the room from the Lego table??), tossing plastic plates and fake food in the general direction of the toy kitchen, rewinding VHS tapes, deciding we can finally get rid of the wooden and plastic blocks...

The fun part was, I had my iPod on, so I was free to belt out my favorite tunes at the top of my lungs.    With other people in the house, of course, I don't do that; every once in a while, I will hum or sing verrrry softly.  I love to sing, so it was nice to be able to cut loose!  LOL

I also spent a little time reading e-mail and a little bit of news, and blogging (obviously).

Maybe tomorrow there will be a Part II to my essay.  Hopefully I will get a good night's rest and hit it hard again tomorrow.

G'night,

Lori.

Typically, I plan our menu for a week or two at a time, then grocery shop for about a weeks' worth in one fell swoop.  Since Memorial Day weekend, though, when we went out of town for a funeral, I can't seem to get my act together.  So last night, the plan was for DH to call me on his way home from another viewing, to find out what to pick up at the grocery store.

He called and asked, "What do you want me to pick up?"

I asked, "Do you have paper?"

He answered, "No."

So I rattled off a few obvious day-to-day items that he would probably remember, then said, "Hmmm..." when it came to the ingredients for tonight's dinner.  Could I find a way to make them logical so he would be less likely to forget anything?  There were only five ingredients, so that made it easier, but still.  If there didn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to them, he might miss something.  Thankfully, I had a brainstorm.

"Okay.  I'm going to walk you through making the recipe and see if that helps.  It's only five ingredients."  Now, DH is usually not the one at the stove, so this was a little far-fetched LOL!, but he loves to build things (or fix things up, like houses and cars), so I figured the best way to help him remember was to have him mentally "make" the dish.   "It's Potato Sloppy Bake, which we have eaten many times.  First, you take a pound of ground beef and brown it."

"Ground beef.  Got it."

"Then add in a can of Sloppy Joe sauce -- picture a 14- or 15-oz. can of Manwich -- and a can of cream of potato soup."

"Manwich and potato soup.  Okay..."

"Now, dump that on top of a 32-oz. package of hash brown potatoes -- picture one of those red Ore-Ida bags."

"Ore-Ida!  All-righta!"

Then I realized we already had the shredded cheddar cheese, so he didn't need to remember that.

So off he went to the grocery store...

When he returned home......

He had remembered everything! 

Later, he seemed very proud of me when he said that I had used a "trainer trick" to help him remember.  Perhaps I did, as developing and running training was about two-thirds of my job before I became a stay-at-home mom nine years ago.  To a certain extent, I simply found a way to help him "link" the items to each other, a memory-management technique.

BUT I also [maybe mostly] credit homeschooling DS7, who is a kinesthetic guy just like his dad.  DS7 is the child most apt to be found helping his dad with a construction project or helping me make dinner.  I think helping him learn on a daily basis made it easy for me to think of how to help DH, since they both love to create with their hands.

I took DD8, DS7, and DS4 to the library today for the kickoff of ReadQuest, the summer reading program.  They get to do a craft -- this year it was decorating "back sacks" -- and have refreshments (last year's refreshments were much better; this year was just bowls of M & Ms and pretzel Goldfish).  While they were working, I noticed the saying on a little boy's t-shirt:

My parents are exhausted

My first thought was, "We need one of those for DD2!"  She is our resident Houdini; I think she has escaped from the premises more times in the past two months than the other three have in their combined lifetimes.  I also think she has spilled and broken more things in her not-quite 2 1/2 years than any of her siblings have in their lifetimes.  She definitely keeps me on my toes.

Don't get me wrong:  I love her every bit as much as her three older siblings.  She is absolutely adorable, and I love her baby-ish sayings and mispronunciations.  Take, for instance, this past Thursday, when we were eating spaghetti (okay, technically lasagna noodles cut in pieces with a pizza cutter after the noodles were cooked, because I was low on spaghetti noodles ) and meatballs.  She asked for more "eatballs".  I thought that was soooo cute!  Sometimes, when I do something for her, she says, "Oh, dank you!" very enthusiastically, as if it's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for her, which always warms my heart.  She is precious!  She just happens to be a precious-but-curious busy-body that probably has more opportunities to get into trouble by virtue of being the fourth child, and she takes full advantage of them!

Just writing about her makes me tired  -- LOL!

For dinner tonight, I made Peanut-Crusted Chicken (for a similar recipe, click here; in particular, mine didn't call for lemongrass nor a hot/sweet sauce) .  I planned to make it a few days ago, but for one or more reasons I don't remember at the moment, it was postponed until tonight.  Strangely enough, I noticed the date the recipe was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer:  5/24/98, exactly 10 years ago today.

Saturday is the day I typically grind wheat, so it was easy enough to grind some dry corn kernels into cornmeal.  Too, I decided to grind some pastry berries (wheat) into flour to use that instead of all-purpose flour.  Little did I know how the clock was ticking.

First, DD2 woke up from her nap, and she and DS4 took turns interrupting me from dinner prep.  Then, when I went to grind the peanuts in my mini food processor, I read the instruction manual and realized the peanuts were supposed to be chilled first.  OOPS.  I forgot about that.    So I asked DH how long he thought I needed to refrigerate them in order for them to be sufficiently chilled.  He said he really wasn't sure, but then guessed half an hour.

Sooooo...I put the bowl of peanuts in the frig and found something else to do for half an hour.  Then I chopped the peanuts.  Easy enough. 

Then, when I finally had the oven pre-heated, all the ingredients prepped, and the three bowls staged with the flour, buttermilk, and peanut/cornmeal mixture respectively, DH came rushing into the kitchen saying, "I hear crying."  Eventually, we traced it to the basement half bath, where DD8 lay sitting on the floor in tears and bleeding.

[Before I go on, I must explain that our basement potty is one of those that was not pre-planned, so you walk up two steps before you can sit on "the throne" .] 

At first, it wasn't clear where the blood was coming from, but then she explained what happened:  let's just say she miscalculated on her dismount and leave it at that , and hit the back of her head either on the edge of one of the steps (that's what she thinks happened) or the edge of the sink.  In the end, the cut was very small and not gaping open at all; we just had to figure out how to get the blood out of her hair.

So after we finished tending to her, I went back to dinner.  It really doesn't take too long to "triple-dip" chicken like that, although I probably take a few more minutes than most people trying to get every square millimeter completely coated.  But soon, the chicken -- initially, covered with aluminum foil -- was in the oven and the timer was set. 

I took the foil off at the specified time, and put it back in the oven for the coating to bake.  I checked it when it should have been finished, but the coating didn't look golden brown yet  and still looked rather dry to boot.  So I put it back in for another five minutes.  I had to repeat this several times, as it just did not look done.  I don't know if my chicken was not completely thawed like I thought, or if it was because I used the whole-wheat flour instead of all-purpose (which probably made the crust a bit thicker).  I did notice in the online recipe, that it does say to cook it about 10 min. longer than mine does once the foil is off.  At any rate, it finally looked done enough, so I took it out.  Then it had to cool for a while in order for the crust to dry out somewhat. 

I think it was 8:45 by the time we ate dinner!

That is not unusual for some people, I'm sure, but for our family -- who often eats at 4:30, 5:00, 5:30 -- it was...

I thought about taking a picture of the chicken when it was finally on the table, but (1) there were some chunks of coating off, so it wasn't picture-perfect and (2) we were ready to EAT.

A friend from church in another state, Kelly, is newly pregnant and recently blogged about the strange baby dream she had.   I was about to post a very lengthy comment at her blog, so I decided to post an entry on my blog instead and leave the link at hers.

I conclude as Strem did, that you don't have to be pregnant to have strange baby dreams.  Here's my experience: 

While I was in college, I dreamed that I gave birth to quadruplet boys; named them Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and gave one each to my mother, my two sisters, and my sister-in-law to raise!  LOL  When I related the dream to someone else later, she remarked, "You didn't keep one for yourself!"  I said, 'No -- I gave them to four women who know how to raise boys!"    [Of course, I had no earthly idea at that point, that I would end up raising two boys -- and two girls -- of my own.]

Another night (still in college), I dreamed that I was babysitting a two-year-old boy who was getting too rambunctious, so I opened the top of his head (you didn't actually see gory gray matter when his head opened; it was more like a flip-top on something plastic) and took his batteries out , and then he was very calm...

What on earth did I eat before I went to bed those two nights?!?!

Strangely enough, I can't think of any strange baby dreams I had while I was actually pregnant.  I guess those two took care of it!

From what I recall of the study of dreams in Psychology classes (of which -- as many of you know -- I took waaaaaay too many), there are two basic theories of dreams.  One is Freudian, so I won't get into it here; the other is Activation-Synthesis Theory.  Activation-Synthesis makes a lot more sense to me.  It states that neurons in your brain continue to fire, somewhat randomly, while you sleep at night, and your brain takes the various persons/places/events that are brought to mind and tries to make sense of it.  So that's why you may suddenly have a dream that includes someone you went to high school with, someone you may have only known by name and never even met...the neuron in your brain that contains that person's face, fired, and there you have it.

I think because a first-time mommy's mind is preoccupied with thinking about the baby during the day, it makes it more likely that her brain will fire a neuron that triggers a baby thought, and then your brain tries to make sense of it that night.

[I know, I know, I have disappeared from the blogosphere for a few weeks now.  The last week of March and the entire month of April were very busy.  But hopefully I will start posting at least once a week again.  Maybe even PICTURES -- I know, what a concept for me and my blog LOL.]

A few weeks ago, I decided to take a moment to check my friend and fellow homeschooling mom Kim's blog ("Nuttier than a Fruitcake," in case you viewed it at some point)...lo and behold, her blog was GONE!  So I e-mailed her and asked what had happened.

She said that keeping it updated was stressing her out, so she deleted it.  Anything in her life that was stressing her out and could be removed from her life, was.   

To her decision, I say, "YOU GO, GIRL!!!"  I admire her for having the courage to do that.  If she's anything like me, she has that little "tape" playing in her head, telling her to "finish what you started" -- "you can't quit".  But guess what -- if something is only a hobby (although she is in business, too, so she probably did have customers looking at her blog), by all means, opt out if it is causing you stress rather than relieving it.

I occasionally evaluate my blogging for the same thing.  So far, I am okay with the fact that I may not post an entry for three weeks at a time and may not produce anything noteworthy even when I do.  I am okay with the fact I may have the world's most boring blog.    If I ever feel myself succumbing to "peer pressure" (whether real or contrived), I hope I will be brave like Kim and pull the plug.

Ditto scrapbooking.  I love scrapbooking because it is a creative outlet that gives me some free time, and yet it keeps me connected to my family (because I am scrapbooking pictures of them).  I have often said, though, that as soon as it becomes just one more thing on my "to-do" list, I will stop.

Well, this post wasn't exciting, no pictures, no links, no nothin' LOL, but I'm back.  Now, onto lesson planning...

Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.            ~Matt. 6:33

-Lori.

• DS4, reading from the jar, informs DS6 that he knows how to spell 'applesauce,' but it sounds like something straight out of a commercial:  "M-O-T-T-S, applesauce..."
• I recently had a birthday, toward the end of March.  When we changed the calendar to March on the 1st of the month, my kids immediately noticed my name written in crayon on the appropriate date, so they sang "Happy Birthday" to me.  They sang it practically every day this month, sometimes two or three times, sometimes when they had just sung it and I only left the room to get a pen or something...
• DS6 and DD8 take a once-a-week science class at a local church building.  One day, DS6 arrived home with a small pot in which he had planted a sunflower seed.  DS4 asked him, "Did [DD8] build a flower, too?"
• DS6 asked me how to say 'juice' in Spanish.  I said, "It depends upon whether you're in Spain or Mexico.  In Spain, you say, "zumo"; in  Mexico, you say, "jugo".  DS4 chimed in and asked, "How do you say  'juice' on [our street]?"

No, I don't mean that my nieces and nephews are finally going to think I'm great -- LOL, I mean that one of my nieces is due to have a baby, making me a great aunt for the first time.

Her blood pressure was elevated at her appointment yesterday, and apparently she's been having trouble with it recently, so they decided to admit her last night and induce her.  She is now 6 cm dilated, decided she'd had enough of natural labor and wanted an epidural.  Her husband is very interested in seeing everything that happens, to see what his wife does for a living (she's in her third or fourth year of residency in OB/GYN), but he admitted that the epidural freaked him out a little bit.  I e-mailed back that feeling a little freaked out while watching someone stick a needle in your wife's back is understandable, that I'm just proud of him for not passing out like I might have done.  [Yes, I have given birth to four children, but I have never had an epidural.]

I gave the children an update this morning and asked to pray.  We held hands and I asked DS4 (since he's crew chief today) to pray, but he declined.  So I decided to ask DD8 if she wanted to, and she said yes.  It was a most precious prayer.    She first thanked God for this beautiful day, then prayed for her cousin and the doctors (that they wouldn't make a mistake).  She also prayed for all the sick and afflicted in the world, then prayed for her cousin again. 

The soon-to-be new dad said that the estimated time of arrival is 3:30 - 5:00.  Please pray for my niece, her husband, and the baby -- and my sister (the soon-to-be grandma) who is probably biting her fingernails.  

-soon-to-be Great Aunt "Lo". 

I will probably expand upon this entry later...

DS6 lost his first "official" tooth!    For those of you who have seen him IRL, you know he already has a missing tooth.  You may not know, however, that he lost it through trauma, not rite of passage.

Well, DD2 is yanking on my arm, so I will have to finish this and post a picture later...

-L.

Although this will be brief because it is already past my bedtime and my brain is fried, I have been feeling that maternal guilt associated with not giving my children equal blog-time.     DS4 is the one that keeps saying such funny things lately, I could write an entry just about him every day.  And I wrote recently about DD8, so now I need to write about DS6 and DD2.  For tonight, a brief entry about DS6's reading progress will have to suffice.  I'm not sure this will even count as the Cliff's Notes version, but here goes:   

DS6 has improved tremendously in his reading over the past few months.  He has learned 68 out of 71 of the Orton-Gillingham phonograms, so he has most of the "code" that he needs in order to "crack" English words.  For a while, the poor guy was about driven crazy by the fact that the same letter can make multiple sounds, and the same sound can be produced by more than one letter (or sets of letters), but finally he came to terms with the facts and began progressing nicely.

Formally, we are working through a set of A Beka readers, but he also enjoys deciphering other things.  He read a few verses of the Bible to his dad, and he likes to try to read other things for school that I typically read.  For example, he started wanting to read his daily poem.  To a certain extent, I let him because I certainly don't want to quench his enthusiasm, but I usually have to limit him to a few sentences in order to avoid taking time we need for  other subjects.  He is picking up speed, though, and his comprehension actually seems to be better when he reads than when I read to him.

It is so exciting to see a child, especially your own child that you are teaching, learn how to read.