Our usual unusual days

This day the girls happened to watch a "Magic School bus" in the morning that mentioned dinosaurs and I took the opportunity to pull out our book about Dinosaurs and the Institute for Creation Research.  I read to them while they painted anything they wanted.  My oldest painted pictures of Dinosaurs.

 I always struggle with our "schedule" or how to plan things because our school (right now) has a lot of open activities.  They (or I) will pull out something that sparks their interest and that something can be short lived with a lot of clean up or it can go on and off all day.  This particular day my oldest (8) pulled out the Marble run set that I got them last year.  I had one as a kid and remember how good it was for me to figure out how to set up the pieces logically so that the marble would roll well.  They hadn't played with it in a while and since I've been trying to be more "there" for the girls instead of setting them up with something and letting them do whatever with it, I decided when my daughter asked for help building something that I'd sit and help her.  I didn't have a time frame and wasn't trying to hurry my own part.  I just sat and enjoyed building with them.  Enter the "peace" I talked about earlier.  The only hard thing when doing this is to be careful to not overtake the project.  Some times it's okay to have a plan and build it a certain way, but it's much more important to follow their lead if they want to change the plan or use a certain piece that I was going to use.  Also, if you are working with your kids and they are learning (this is important when doing puzzles together too) don't say, "No, not that piece." for instance.  Give them the opportunity to try and fail on their own and gently point them in the right direction, "Maybe if you turn it around it would fit?"  Basically if you talk to them respectfully like you would another adult or friend but add to that the guidance of a parent (for instance, give them the right piece to try and let them try on their own and turn it and move it and try to make it fit while you gently encourage) then you will really be doing well.

And, let me tell you.. I'm not naturally a patient person, but I'm encouraged to know that patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit - "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."  It's not something we make happen in ourselves, we have to get stuff out of the way so that God can grow that fruit in us.  But more on that later.

This was about the tidiest the house was all day.  Marbles and colored plastic was built and ruined about 4 times through out the day.

And this was the scene to the right of the last picture.  I sweep 2 to 3 times every day and the floor still always looks messy, but it's something that I just need to accept.  If you homeschool you will probably have to accept a certain amount of mess and clutter as "normal life" because there is always someone doing something, and that is totally what we are wanting!  Yes, celebrate the mess!  And when you can't.. leave the house.  ;)

The girls had fun laughing at how interested the cat was as the marbles went down the runs.

 I've been trying to practice being okay with dropping whatever I was trying to get done to sit with them in their project and really give them a bit of time.  The dishes can actually always wait, and I'll eventually get to folding the clothes (one of these days) but the moment when they ask me to help them build something or play with something or look at something they've just worked on is fleeting.  That moment cannot be "put off" like my own plans.  Even an hour or a day to a child is forever.  Do you remember that?  I remember that feeling of time being so totally different than it feels now.  Time moves so quickly (it feels) to me than how it must feel for them and I need to be sensitive to that.  Too often I'm not, and I tell them to wait.... and then sadly forget that I'd told them I'd be there in "just a minute." 

The tallest one yet with multiple starting points and only one ending point!  I was impressed to see today how the almost 6 year old (on the right) was starting to "get" how to put the pieces together on her own and create her own marble run for real this time.  Much improved from even 4 months ago.

A little bit of our "toddler school"

 You can see in the background of the above picture some shelves that are a bit empty, and I was working on loading them up with stacks of things for the little one to do with me.  I know they develop skills and that's all great and whatever, but I mainly just wanted some fun activities for her and I to do together so she has some good Mommy time since the older ones get to do school time with me at different points in the day.  My older girls thought this activity was pretty neat and tried it out later.

The almost 3 year old is using chopsticks (with a little helper rubber thing to hold them together, so they are like giant tweezers) and picking up pieces of necklaces that I'd cut up from the dollar store (so they are all different lengths) and she's sorting them into those little cups.

As we both worked on this (I had a regular pair of chopsticks) we talked about them and pretended they would zap us if they touched anything but the chopsticks and some were "nice ones" and some were "mean" and she talked to the little bead strings.  I think this activity lasted about 20 minutes or so?  Pretty long compared to a lot of things we try.

My advice with 4 and under "school" type activities or play time is to just go with the flow.  Don't have an agenda.  If they want to do something themselves then let them.  If they do it "wrong" then that's the way it is and you can adjust how the "game" works.  There were a LOT of the green bead strings so we kept adding more cups for them to go in.  Be aware of frustrations that your child my have.  Remember that it's okay for them to work through frustrations.  Everyone gets frustrated and encouraging them and helping them when they want it smooths those frustrations over.  Two of mine throw some pretty big fits when they are upset and the third child puts her fingers in her ears each time this happens.  We are definitely used to hearing some screaming in our house (I know it seems like my life is so simple and quiet and we just play all the time with twinkle lights glittering in our wake, but that's not the case.)  I needed to make those little adjustments and changes so that I could have the energy and patience to deal with the screaming and frustrations in a calm manner.  They learn by watching me the most, so I need to make sure I'm all here.

If your 4 or 5 year old is really interested in doing real "book work" type school a great place to go is with these early learner books  they aren't the typical reading readiness/learn your alphabet sort of books.  They actually help to develop the child's memory in a fun way and fine motor skills in other ways than copying letters and numbers and so forth (which is great because you can only work on that for so many years and it's better to do it when they are older and actually ready to learn to read for real!)  Anyway, that book was in her first work box

 I've talked about our workboxes before, but right now we haven't been doing them every day.  Some days we spend a lot of time building or making things like we did with the marble works, and some days I sit with the girls individually as they go through their workboxes.

To help me stay available for my child without getting impatient, I've started knitting again and can do this while reading to them or just to keep me busy and sane, but not too distracted.  Reading a book or being on a phone or texting or anything like that would be too distracting.  I might do some drawing later, but right now the knitting fits the bill

We can talk while she works.  She said, "oh a hen.  Or is it a rooster?"  Perfect opportunity to chat about hens and chickens and "Hens lay eggs and look, there's an egg under the chicken."  (Note:  I'm just talking about chatting with them, not lecturing.  How would you talk to someone you respect?)  A good tip here might be to remind people that our job as parents and teachers isn't to constantly quiz our kids.  She knew that hens laid eggs and roosters didn't, but probably forgot.  How dumb would she feel though if I turned our nice chat about the picture into a quiz about chickens?  -- yep.  That would make me feel dumb too.  No, part of teaching is to model conversation.  I feel like I'm pretty terrible at this skill in general with most people, but I work so hard at communicating well with my girls that hopefully when they are older we'll still be able to talk and laugh about everything.

Her third drawer (we only do three a day when we do it because I fill the rest of our time with projects or baking or lots of read aloud books) was doing a spiral doodle.  I held it down for her to do, but it was good practice for her to work through frustration and persevere and see how pretty the designs were at the end!

The cat wanted to join in with the knitting since I had so much fun yarn. ;)

Then it was my oldest daughter's turn.  Just a few pages of handwriting here.

Which led to talking about cursive and she expressed her interest in learning to write her name in cursive which led to this practice.  I love having less boxes to get through because of things like this.  I want them to truly soak things in and be interested in what they are learning rather than trying to just get it over with.

 The day of the marble works and after we'd done the workboxes we were outside for a while making a chalk design on the other side of our house.  We haven't gotten outside much lately with the colder weather and the sickness that we were fighting off, but this day we spent a long time outside and when I went back in to get the mail key or something I saw a good INCH of water all over our dinning room floor.  WHERE was it coming from?

The water heater was leaking!

Enter a frantic grab for towels and my running to the office to tell them what was going on.  The manager came and turned it off so it would stop leaking, but there was still tons of water all over the floor.  So, yeah, imagine that much water and every towel in our house soaked and dripping and still an inch of standing water and me trying to pick everything up off the floor (fortunately only one book needed to be blow-dried) and all the marble-work pieces all over the carpet and then I had to pull out all the christmas tubs from under the stairs where the water heater was.  I managed to save most of the carpet and the carpet guy was impressed with how proactive I was, but the already normally messy house turned into craziness from 5 till 7 that night.

The guy that came to replace our water heater and turned off the fuse for my dryer and stove too (I don't think he knew for sure which was for the water heater so he turned more than that off) but I just went with it and made sandwiches for the girls and put a sheet out in the living room for a picnic and a cartoon. 

My oldest was super helpful and mopped up a lot of the water, the middle one cracked me up by putting on her swim suit and "helping" to clean up in the dinning room, and the little one just acted like this was totally a normal thing to have happened for our typical atypical days.

Finding a Rythm and Discovering Peace

Making some masterpieces with my little artist.  I love how imaginative she is as we play with the paints.  I don't often try to paint anything "real" unless she asks me to.  For the most part we just play with the colors and the brushes and sometimes I sing while we paint.  She will be 3 in two months and often will say she's painting a "sdorm" at the end that is a lot of fierce scribbly smeary paints - and that's totally fine too!

 I've been thinking recently about how I've been trying to create a rhythm in our home and making tiny changes to feed peace rather than stress.  What I've noticed most is how much more at peace I am just in my own head.  Moving away from Facebook (as I mentioned in a previous post) is helpful to keep my mind on where I am and not being distracted from my lovely girls.  Teachable moments can present themselves at many an unexpected moment, but my motive isn't to try at milk those moments for all they're worth.  I'm simply wanting to soak up their sweetness and enjoy life with them.  The thing I remember the most about my childhood is just how much I got to play and imagine and play some more!  I see my girls get so inspired when they see me working on my own project or start something that they hadn't thought of.

Like when I started having fun with their chalk instead of just sitting while they did whatever.  They joined in and had a fun time adding to the loveliness of our walkway, but it wasn't something they had to do.  One or two of them would wander a bit and climb a tree or scribble somewhere else while I worked on this.  The oldest had the most fun helping me finish this.

We played a game at the end where I'd call out a color and they'd all jump onto that color. 

 It was just fun, but yes, the littlest got some "school" in as she's still learning her color names.  Really, though.. should that be my goal?  I know I homeschool them and yes they need to be learning and I need to be teaching them, but how should I teach them?  I don't think homeschooling has to (or even should) look like a classroom.  So much more is "caught" by them when I model behavior instead of trying to teach them something.  Working on something till it's complete and enjoying the fruits of your labors?  How much better in a lovely outdoor chalk design turned into a game at the end than working through a math work sheet (for instance) to earn some award or "prize" of some kind (like a grade) just to see the page completed.
I'm being a little cynical about traditional school, but I actually don't have a problem with it in general.  I think that homeschooling is such a great way to give a child the most play time and time to just "be a kid" that even if someone prefers the more traditional text book style (which we don't totally leave behind either!) is really great.  I really don't want any of my homeschooling friends to feel like how they've chosen to teach their kids is somehow a bad idea.  I DO want to encourage more play and natural learning and just enjoying life together!  My own homeschooling experience at my girls age was more of a classroom style and I don't look down on that experience at all.

The more I homeschool though, the more I feel like (personally) I just am not that kind of teacher.  I love to take them outside and read books out loud and come up with random games and projects like this.  In one way I wish I were better at just doing the text book thing and "getting school over with" each day because it can be a little tiring to be "on" all the time.  Sort of always trying to be prepared to encourage or use that teachable moment well.

 I'm seeing myself grow more peaceful though as we go farther in this journey of parenting and schooling.  Sort of like a farmer that plants seeds and waters them and waits and waters again.  You can't make plants grow faster by feeling anxious or impatient or by worrying about how their roots are doing.  What I'd tell my younger self about having kids 7 years old and under -- play with them and paint and make up games and read out loud.  Don't try to "teach" anything per-say, just live.  Also, I'd tell myself to focus more on developing my own hobbies and skills and read my own books.

I was sick Valentine's week so we did our gluten free heart cookies the week after Valentine's day.  It was a huge mess, but everything is these days.... and that's okay.   Messes just mean we are enjoying ourselves. 

 I suppose I should basically be giving that same advice to myself right now.  Even with the one child just turning 8 -- they are all going to pick up on my attitude more than what I teach and what I want them to see is a peaceful home.  I'm sure they'll probably remember the one or two times I yelled at them this week than all the hours that I patiently talked to them and waited and listened.  Sad but true, but "not yelling" isn't something you can really just stop.  You've got to get at the root of the stress and figure out how to turn that stress around.  We can't get rid of all stress because life is just hard, but little changes make such big differences.  I used to only think of the big changes that I could make to make bigger differences, but the little ones are just as important, if not more important, than the big ones.

Tonight when I was sitting with the girls to help calm them down for sleep we talked about what we will do tomorrow.  The list so far is to paint, make brownies, read a few (specific) books they were looking forward to, play a game, put a puzzle together.  Oh, and I said before we did anything fun we'd need to clean their room (which is really bad right now and no fun to be in.)  But even that doesn't seem like a very big deal anymore.  Yes, it will be cleaning it up AGAIN with everything dumped out, but what should I be teaching them?  That messes are annoying and bothersome and WORK, or is it just life and what we do?  Can we develop good habits and handle every day things like this or do they build up in our minds and turn into these "huge" struggles.

 I felt that way with emptying the dishwasher.  It shouldn't be such a big deal, but it was.  I'd think to myself every time that I had to do it, "I hate emptying the dishwasher *grr*" and grump in my head about it the whole time.  A few years ago though I decided to make it a habit and decided to put it out of the "I hate this" into accepting it.  I wonder how many stay at home Mom's could be encouraged to know that it all CAN get easier.  That is, it can feel easier even if what we do stays the same.  We don't need perfect homes (and shouldn't strive for that) but we do need to keep up with dishes and laundry and the basics and make little changes to help make our lives run smoothly.  One way to make this happen is to pick a habit you want to develop and learn to accept it and not make it such a big deal in your head.  It's amazing how little time it takes to do a little task (that seems so large in my head.)

My middle daughter was making a HUGE deal out of getting dressed.  Procrastinating about it like crazy and one day I got the idea that I'd help her get dressed while slowly counting.  I only counted to 20 and she was dressed.  We've been working on that some since and she's learning that it really doesn't take long to do.  It's just helping her take something that seems so big in her head and putting it in reality and making it quick and easy.

I make things so much bigger than they really should be too often.

Which brings me to another thought that maybe should be in another post, but I'll add it here.

I read an analogy recently about teaching a child to read before they are ready and how it could be likened to trying to teach a child to climb a tree before they are tall enough.  Being too short (unready) they fall and hurt their knee, but six months later when they are tall enough (ready) to climb the tree they only remember skinning their knee.  They only remember the pain and don't know that now it would be easy for them to do.  It's a big deal in their head because they weren't ready when they first tried and they only remember failing.


I used to hate hearing someone say "You could sell that" to something that I'd make.  Or make some other comment about how I could earn money by being all entrepreneurial with one of my talents.  After reading the analogy about the tree and not being ready I began to look back at my life and growing up and realized where that came from.  Very often my Dad would try to encourage me to make money (somehow) or think up a business plan for a skill that I *could* develop.   This was mostly around when I was 14 and up.  It was a LOT of pressure and if I decided that I really didn't want to do whatever we'd talked about (as a future career) I'd feel like a failure.  He got upset when I took off the business name that he'd had professionally embroider onto a music bag that he'd given me.. even though I'd decided that I didn't want to start that certain business.  Every time I saw the name embroidered on that bag I felt like a disappointment.  I felt that pain from the "skinned knee" so to speak.  Even when we are just trying to encourage our kids towards something it can have the opposite effect.  I know that people who say that I could make money off of something that I've made are trying to encourage me.  They are praising the work that I've done!  But all I can remember is how I felt when I was young and how unready I felt (back then) and unsure and how I had no knowledge of how to go about selling the things and how, when I'd try to, it would all fall flat.

The thing is though.  Now I'm "tall" enough.  I'm old enough to take a talent and use it for more than my own hobby.  It's hard though because I feel like I never got to enjoy it and get comfortable with my interests when I was young.  I'm just starting to get back into the things I used to love doing and I want to accept the fact that I CAN just enjoy it for myself and that will inspire my girls to want to try new things and that is perfectly enough for right now.  But I'm also seeing that I need to recognize that I'm 'tall enough' now and need to let go of the fears that I've held onto for too long.

Back to the farmer - you can't force growth in plants (or children) you can only provide them with the right environment to give them what they need to grow and flourish.

For me, this season of life is about developing patience and fostering peace and just learning to do what I love and be where I am.

Thoughts on social media

This picture is from the plane trip to Washington at Christmas.  The littlest was watching a cartoon here, and this post isn't about children and media - it's about my own issues actually.  I just thought this picture was cute and sort of fit.

I've been sick this past week and haven't been able to do as much as usual, but I've had a lot of time to think.  For two days straight I couldn't do more than sit on the couch and whisper to my girls (lost my voice) if they needed something from me.  The great thing about homeschooling is that even though we didn't get as much done as usual my girls got to learn some independence and my oldest helped get food and other things for her littlest sister.  I want to talk about homeschooling and parenting in another post though.  Right now my thoughts are about Facebook.

I should start this out by saying that these are my own thoughts on how Facebook effects me and how I want to try to improve my use of it.  If none of this is an issue for you than don't worry about it.  I'm never out to try to force change on other people just because I need change in my own life.  We've all got something and I tend to share what my own issues are.  I know people like to appear to do that just so they can point out another persons flaws, but I don't do that intentionally.

My habit on Facebook has been to scroll through the news feed and open up stories in multiple tabs that could be news reports or blog posts or really anything that seems interesting from a friend or from a page that I've "liked" and read them whenever I get around to it.  When I was only able to sit on the couch for a couple days though I did a LOT of reading and some thoughts that I'd started to contemplate in the past began to percolate again.

Facebook used to be (at least when I joined in '08) a closer knit group of friends.  It seemed to be more about sharing about our lives rather than sharing everything else.  This is partly due to how Facebook has changed and what it is now designed to show in the newsfeed.  There are so many causes out there and so much information.  Not all of it is bad, but I've been feeling so "full" for so long with just too much information.  I don't watch the news and we don't have regular TV (just netflix) so I miss out on commercials and many "current" things, but I tend to know what is going around Facebook (at least with my own friends group which isn't super large compared to most.)

Recently I heard a radio program that was talking about relationships and this lady was saying how she was extroverted, but she was spending so much time keeping up with old friends (through Facebook and other places) and current friends that she had no space whatsoever to make new friends.  I've had a few people tell me that I should make more of an effort to make friends here.  We've lived in Dallas for 3.5 years so far and when I look back at what I've done and not done I can't say that I could have done more to try and build friendships (Note: someone with a different personality and energy level might have been able to do more.)  Some people that I started to be friends with decided they didn't want me for a friend and some people just never seemed to have time to get together.  It's admittedly really hard with kids and their sleep schedules and if you add any extra curricular activities that everyone in the big city seems to be swamped with and then add to that a bout of sickness or travel times the actual time available is so little it's difficult to get anything going enough to even know if you'd want to be friends.  And yes, partly my personality doesn't lend itself well to "getting out there" to make friends.  I physically can't handle more than what I'm doing and my goal in our family is so often to make our lives simpler and freer.  We could more easily adjust to get together with someone else if we were ever invited to do so, but doesn't that go back to the trend now?  The majority of people don't have time to make new friends because even if they are extroverted naturally, they are apparently getting everything they need.  Or at least they think so.

So, we all tend to turn to social media.  The wonderful land where no one can hear your voice and know your true meaning or humor.  The place where everyone can dump their interests and sound (whether they mean to or not) like they are bi-polar or unbending and dogmatic about everything they believe or are even vaguely interested in.  That place where your acquaintances think they've gotten to know you and decide they don't want to know you further because they've already grown tired of everything you might have to say.  The place where everyone learns to not agree about disagreeing (that one is perhaps the internet in general, but this is amongst our own "friends" so it's probably worse.)

But isn't it all just an illusion?  Unless you actually start a dialog with someone on some level, there is really no "relationship" or friendship at all, is there?  It's one thing to write back and forth in a private message, but far too often the only time I hear from certain people is only when they comment about something they disagree with about some random thing that I re-posted.  I've tried so many different tactics to make Facebook work better..  I've put my friends in different groups so that the majority of the people that see everything that I post are people that will be able to "agree to disagree" or who will actually be interested in what I might say instead of judging.  I've unfriended people that didn't know me (the ones that I met only once or twice in person for instance) or who I'd found out didn't like me (why would they want to be my friend on Facebook if they didn't care about having a real life friendship?) But so far, nothing that I've tried has helped much with my ultimate goal.  = I want to keep in touch with old friends and keep from getting distracted by all the "noise" that is on there.  It feels like Facebook is now set up to have "spam" almost.  Email was great until everyone started forwarding things and spammers took over, snail mail is fine too, but there's the junk mail to deal with.  There's just so so so much noise and commercials and information and voices pummeling us at every turn.  How can I focus on what's important?

Friendships on Facebook can easily become one sided or superficial and giving us all the illusion that we know each other when we really aren't making an effort to.  Can't interactions on-line turn into a "friendship" like you could have by listening to someone on the radio or watching someone on TV and you think you "know them" but in reality you don't, because you haven't talked to them.  Even if you read or hear everything they put out there you can't know someone unless there's a two way street. Someone reading this blog might think they know me really well since I share so freely, but you only know what you think I mean.  You can't know what I truly think and mean unless you share what you think I mean about something and then I can ask what you think and what you mean and we can then find common ground.  Of course, tone and expressions are lost through this medium as well.

I feel like I've lost the ability to communicate (if I ever had it) because communicating on Facebook is so often sharing information or ideas rather than actually getting to know a person.  And I do see that I might have more energy to put into new friendships if I didn't spend so much energy on Facebook friends... or I should say, on the "news feed" of it all, but more on that later.

BUT what I noticed for a few days this week (when I couldn't get off the couch for being sick) was that I felt so much more tired spending time on Facebook and reading articles and so on than if I'd spent the whole day watching "What not to Wear" (for instance) because I think there were only 2 articles that I'd read all day that were actually encouraging.  I feel like my attention span is growing as short as a child's the more I'm distracted by the "but there could be something great just a little ways down the news feed" feeling.  Everyone talks about "savoring the moment" or being "intentional" yet we have SO many distractions in our lives that I wonder just how that is possible?  There's so much "hurry hurry" out there that it's hard to breathe sometimes. 

With my own children, whenever they want to tell me something I try to help them say everything they want to say.  As in, even if I know what they might be trying to tell me, I wait for them to get it out (hopefully showing them more patience than I feel sometimes), but I don't see that in the world around me.  I don't see people encouraging children to be children.  When we go to the zoo I've even had a few kids latch onto my kids and me as their parent trails behind them talking on the phone.  What a great opportunity for me and my kids to make friends right?  Wrong.  It's really sad, I feel sorry for those kids who are obviously really craving interaction.

I feel stuck in a position where I need and want to make better friends, but I'm in a world that is too busy distracting themselves to be a friend.  So I have this illusion that I'm getting what I need through Facebook, and all it does is alienate some people and cause stress for me which then makes me be less present with the little people that are right around me. I don't think the answer is to delete my Facebook page (I have too many pictures saved on there to want to do that anyway), but the lure of the news feed with everyone's thoughts or causes or interests randomly flashing past me is overwhelming.  I can't give any one of my friends my full attention because there are too many.  Cutting back on who I see in my News feed hasn't helped either (already tried that).

I've been asking myself how I can make Facebook simpler and more personal like I'd like it to be.  I can't catch up with all my friends all at once every day of the week.  I just can't mentally stay in this place any longer, but I want to know what my friends are up to.  So, here's my idea  (Yes, I'm NOT just "nay saying" without any idea of how to improve this!)  I don't know how I want to "schedule" this since I really don't schedule things well, but *what if* instead of having everything on the news feed I simply went to someones profile page every so often to "catch up" with what they are doing and possibly private message them or write on their wall asking how they are or if we could get together or whatever?  What if THAT was the normal way (for me or any of us who are overwhelmed by Facebook) to make it work?  Maybe I shouldn't scroll through the News feed for the pages that I've liked for articles that they might have posted... maybe I should just go to their page when I feel like reading somethings on that subject. 

Some of you might already do this and it might seem like a "duh" moment for you, but hey, we all have our strengths and weaknesses and when I was nursing a baby I got into the habit of getting on a lot more often.  These days I need to change up how I do this so that I have the time I need with a very active 2 year old. 

And, besides those little changes I mentioned in a previous post about journaling and sitting at my desk instead of my computer and writing in a "one line a day" book I'll probably be blogging more often (though hopefully not as late into the night as tonight!) than posting on Facebook as well, but I do want to still keep up with my friends so I just need to adjust how I use it a bit.  I think this "uncluttered" way of going about it will work much better.

If anyone has other ideas of how they've made Facebook work better for them please let me know!  I'm always full of ideas but not in a way that excludes the input of others. :]

A lot to catch up

I usually post some Christmas thoughts and here I am all the way into February and I haven't even done a year end review like I usually do.  I felt more like just enjoying our Christmas this year and not trying to document too much.  It had been so long since I'd gotten to spend a Christmas with my family that I just wanted to soak it all in.  The snow was so much fun that I played in it until I hurt my knee and had to stop crawling around in the snow for a while.  We built a snow fort and made snow balls and "hung" them on the bare maple in my parents yard.  I loved walking up my old hill, and found myself smiling almost constantly (until it got close to when we had to leave again.)  It felt sort of weird to smile so much.  My littlest was a bit afraid of the trees and snow (because it was all different from what she's used to) but she warmed up when I showed her little details. How the snow melts and how it looks up close and how the layers are fun to break up and look through.  We explored and talked and enjoyed the sparkling stars in the chilly air.  I was probably the happiest cold person around those parts.

My little brother (who is now taller than me!) had a snowball maker that made the perfect snowballs.  They looked like Christmas ornaments, so we made a bunch of them and carefully set them on the branches of my Mom's maple.

 I could have reflected more when we got back in January, but it took us a full month to get used to just being home again.  We are living with one car for a while now too so that's a bit different.  My oldest was having such a hard time sleeping and missing family that I actually let her get her own cat.  It's been really fun having a cat that wants to run and play with the girls.  Our old cat (almost 14) hasn't handled the change so well (he's pretty blind now), but we have him in the master bedroom with all his stuff and he seems to be happy and healthy in there and it's working out okay.

Lily with "Fluffy" her new cat the night that we got her.

Simplicity parenting is all about making small changes that make big differences.  We are still making tiny changes and I'm still seeing things getting better, but I feel like there's so much left to change.  I'm not in a place with a back yard and lots of room for my kids to play.  Where we live makes a lot of what I'd like to do difficult, but little changes are possible.

At the moment we are still dealing with how often the kids want to snack and snack and snack. They aren't overeating or eating very unhealthfully, I'm just SO tired of preparing food and cleaning up.  I feel like that's all I ever really do.  As much as I really don't like or work well with schedules I've been trying to come up with a meal plan that works for everyone that will hopefully save us some money (because all the food will be planned well and all eaten and not wasted) and eventually the complaining about what we have to eat (hopefully) will lessen.

Of course it always helps to have the kids join in the meal prep.  Here the 2 year old is making lemonade while wearing her backpack and tutu.. because it's always smart to squeeze lemons when you are prepared for anything.

What people don't know about the harder parts of homeschooling is just how much more housework there is.  How much more cooking and laundry too when you are home so much (I could blame the cooking more on the gluten free issue though than homeschooling.) But I'm enjoying this reflecting time because the pictures that I take - while they might look like the majority of my day - are probably only about 20% of it.  The other 80% is spent cooking and cleaning up and cleaning up and cleaning up.  I'm not sure how I end up cleaning up so much without actually really "cleaning" things, but there you go.  Another small change that I've been trying to make a habit out of is just taking those few minutes to windex the mirror that I haven't cleaned in at least half a year (you think I'm joking, but I'm not!) because it really doesn't take that long!  I've just got to realize that I can't do a big "cleaning day"... it's got to come in tiny amounts... like those tiny bits of dark chocolate that I've been known to snag while I'm cooking dinner.  ;]   Often the small changes will make the biggest difference in the long run.

We've been working on the girls clothes and putting things away in their rooms and taking their dishes to the sink when they are done eating.  All the little things that kids really should learn, but are often not put on a very high priority list.
In January we were mainly just trying to get used to being here again (and adding all those tiny changes in here and there.)  For the first 3 week at least my oldest was waking us up every night with her sleep walking and crying because she was so sad about missing family in Washington.  I didn't do a regular school plan with the girls, but I'm always impressed with how much they are interested in doing when they just see me start something.  They want to join in too!

This day they saw me get excited about what I was knitting and said that they wanted to learn how.  I'd tried teaching them last year and they weren't interested, but this day?  BAM!  They now know how to knit.  :)

 It started because I wanted to get back into the habit of making stuff.  I just need to be creative to feel fulfilled and it's been hard down here to be inspired to do anything when I've so often been sad and lonely.  I decided to just do a garter stitch blanket with all the green yarn I could find in my stash (I did buy a couple balls of green though too) and it was basic enough that I could easily read to the girls while knitting it.  I'm missing it now that it's done and want to start another one with all the other yarn just hanging around our house. 

The new green blanket

 Part of the "little changes" is where I sit when I'm done making breakfast for the girls and cleaning up and I'm usually eating my breakfast at that point.  My habit has been to sit at the bar and read something on my computer which would usually lead me to check something on Facebook.  I like Facebook, but, for me it's just been such a huge distraction.  I think only 20% of what I read (links that people or pages have shared) are helpful or encouraging and the other 80% is just noise.  There's just so much noise in this world and my introverted self needs to find rest.  I have this illusion that I'm less lonely when I get on Facebook, but it's just an illusion and distracts me from the little people right in front of me.  I can imagine that the biggest thing my kids would complain about when they are older is how I was too distracted on my computer too often and how their Daddy was on his phone too much when they just wanted to talk or play with us or have our full attention even for a short time.  So, the "little change" in this area has been that I am trying to make the habit of sitting at my desk instead of at my computer.  Now I can drink my breakfast smoothie while looking at a "to do" list for the day or plans for school or reading an encouraging book.

The littlest one's new favorite past-time = painting with Mommy.  We don't really try to paint anything in particular.. we just fill the pages with color and splotches and shapes.  It's very restful.

 To help me get into the right frame of mind for the days I decided to make a wall hanging above my desk of these "Twelve things every Homeschool Mom needs to remember"  I have never read a list more exactly perfectly appropriate and helpful to right where I am right now than this.  I think I shared a few posts back how insecure I feel about teaching my girls and parenting in general (probably the feelings of a lot a parents), but this was wonderful.  I need to breathe these in every morning.

I haven't tested the limits on how long she will actually sit and paint with me, but we are up to probably 40 minutes of this focus together.  I wonder if she could ever get tired of it.  I will be really happy when she gets to a point were she asks me to read to her or paint with her instead of asking for a tic-tac or a candy of some kind.

End product = really random, but that's totally okay.

Desk area where I am now going to be sitting each morning to avoid the distractions of the internet/facebook news that derails my thought process and usually puts me in a bad mood.

 Another thing I started up again since getting back from Washington for Christmas (besides the knitting) was writing in my old journal again.  Yeah, actually writing by hand instead of typing.  I don't spell as well when I write by hand, but hey.. isn't it better to try and not do something perfectly then to never do something at all?  It feels quieter and reminds me of simpler (less technological times) of when I was younger and thought something "fun" to do was reading in bed with snacks on a tray.  (I was such a wild child.)  ;]

Another little tiny change is partly taking an idea from the "One Thousand Gifts" book, but I'm not counting blessings I'm just writing the best part of each day.  Sometimes the best thing I can say starts with "this day was horrible, but..." the one redeeming thing about it was how sweet my 2 year old was when she gave me lots of kisses, or how the sun shone in the clouds at sunset, or how sweet my husband was to me.  It's hard to remember to write in sometimes, but this will become a habit too.  Just tiny habits to help.  A new place to sit for breakfast and writing in this book and in my journal more often than on Facebook.

As hard as it's been this past year to step back a bit and do more "unschooling" and projects and some free style school, it's been a good thing.  Almost a full year ago my oldest was hating to read and struggling with it.  Each word was laborious for her to sound out.  This last month I started having her practice reading again the book that she read through last year and it was like something clicked in her brain (she's 8 now) and you know what?  Something probably DID click!  That whole right/left brain stuff that I was learning about last year just needed some time.  She was strongly right brain dominant and just needed extra time till she was old enough for the two sides of her brain to start working together.  I'm glad I didn't keep pushing last year and this year while I'm wanting to have her practice regularly reading out loud more, I'm going to play down the spelling and handwriting.  I know she CAN do those things, but I also learned that she needs to learn reading and spelling at separate times.  She needs a lot of the whole picture before we need to (or should) get to the little details of spelling and grammar and so on.

Playing with play dough is always fun

I'm not sure if I hit on everything to "catch up" the blog on, but to sum up this last year and my thoughts for the new one -- I feel like I'm focusing more on trying to make habits for myself instead of trying to change my girls or where we are.  I'm accepting my loneliness and instead of running away from it, I'm sitting here in it.  I'm looking at my girls and where we are and focusing on how I can be myself through all of this.

My "New year's motto" is Life is hard: Do what you truly want to do anyway.

Because it is hard... there's always going to be something that doesn't make everything work easily.  We could compare with each other as to who's life is harder, but that would totally NOT work because we all have different capacities and personalities that make each bit harder or easier for all of us, but the point is that everyone has something.  This isn't heaven, but what can we do?  What do you WANT to do... truly?  I want to draw for fun and play music just for fun and create whatever I feel like "just because I want to"... I want to play games with my girls and hug my littlest and pet my old cat.  I want to sing again and not worry about who can hear me.  I want to do our eclectic literary projecty school with my girls even when the house is a mess or the littlest is have behavioral issues.  I don't want the hard stuff to stop me anymore, it too often has. 

What do you truly want to do?  Your life is probably hard and it's probably not easy to make those things happen, but some how... some way, we've got to learn how to make those deep desires happen.

"Missional" Parenting

Multi-tasking 2 year old

 So all parents know how their children imitate them, and it can be super cute sometimes.  The times when it's not is when they are imitating the bad behavior that they see in us.

A few months ago we were going to a new church and seeing if it would fit our family well or not.  It was a new church plant and we wanted to give them enough time to settle a bit along with us to really see if it would work.  They kept talking about being "missional" in the community and so forth though and wanting more and more involvement from people.  Note:  I'm definitely NOT going to be saying that is wrong by any means.  Personally though, every time I heard that stressed I felt like the Holy Spirit was impressing upon me the need to be "missional" with my own kids and that instead of going out I needed to stop and focus in my family.  I needed to be present to them.

Now I get all the info out there about parents who should take care of themselves. The Mom needs to be renewed so she can have something to give to her children, oh, and the marriage needs to be strong.  I really think people can take that too far though and just be selfish.  Or maybe I should just speak for myself.  *I* can get to a point where I feel like I need more "me time" and never seem to get enough. Inevitably,  I don't really feel renewed by getting away from them.  I think the trouble though is in how I view my "away" time and my time with them.

2, 5, and 7 = the triple scoop  :}

When someone tries to tell me that our family can't be all about our kids, on one hand I agree (it should be all about Jesus,) but on another hand, I compare it to what someone would tell a missionary.  Say you go to China to live life with the people there and serve them to show them the love of Jesus.  Sure, you might need a break some times, but is anyone really going to say, "Your job there isn't about ministering to the Chinese people.  It's not all about them."  And if you do take a break, what does that break look like?  Is it going out with other moms, or to a mall, or whatever the other mothers here usually do to "get away" or do they get away to pray and seek God?

I've been thinking about these things for quite a while, and even when I just had one child and she was about a year old, I could see how I felt when I wanted to get a break.  Whenever I kept trying to "get my own time," I just never had enough "me time." However, when I accepted focusing my attention on her and really embracing this calling of ministering to my child, I felt like I didn't need that "away" time in the same way.  God gave me sweet moments of quiet and everything I needed in bits here and there throughout the day.  Perhaps I can be so worried about what *I* need that I can't see or appreciate what God has already given.

One of our lessons this month was "V" for vegetable and remembering that "God gives me all that I need"

I decided to write this blog post because I really, really don't need to read another post about "how mothers need to have time to recharge" and "20 ways to find time away from the kids."  Not saying those aren't helpful or valid to a certain extent.  I'm just saying that, personally, I am far too concerned about *me* already and need to be reminded again of where God has placed me and how important this mission field is.


What's more, we've chosen to homeschool, which puts our children even more in our lives -- and they see me ALL the time.  They see my good days and bad days.  The playing and happiness and the depression and occasional yelling (sad to say).  But hopefully they see me repent and grow as well and seek God when I'm overwhelmed. 

Rather than being told how to feed my own selfish desires to get away, what I need to hear is that my kids are important.  They are my mission on this earth (for this season in their young lives. Obviously as they grow things will change) and serving and teaching them is an act of worship to God.  When I do feel overwhelmed I need to be reminded to seek God and to repent and to pray and grow in Him.  I need to make those moments throughout the day mean something.  I can choose to listen to a sermon while I do dishes or sing praise songs while I'm vacuuming, for instance.  As the girls talk before bed and ask questions about spiritual matters, it can spur me on to keep reading my Bible and learn more myself so I'm always prepared with an answer.  My whole perspective changes when I look at my family in this "missional" way, and it should.  Our society is too prone to wanting something different and coveting in every way that it can. 

The Daddy got his hand traced for our "thankful tree," too.

I see our marriage a little differently as well.  When I view my children as a mission field and the most important job (right now) in my life, how do I view our marriage?  I feel like we are partners working together for a good cause, or warriors on the same side, fighting a battle.  When I think about "me time" and needing to get away, I can get annoyed with my husband and not see us as on the same side.  Just my perspective can cause imaginary "problems" between us that really don't need to be there. When we are on the same side, I see us praying together and praying for each other and overall just caring for each other more.  For marriages, I think it's important to talk about what God has for you and what that ministry is.  When our children grow older, our ministry will change too from what it is right now, but right now with young kids, it really does need to be about ministering to them.

So these general thoughts about purpose and ministry that I've had as a Mom of young kids brought me to thinking of more specifics. You know how you can let tiny things slide and don't notice how things get worse and build up until it's really terrible?  I was already seeing some issues building but didn't realize how serious they were until I listened to a sermon on the ten commandments about coveting.

quote -- ..in short, coveting is when you don’t want what God wants for you. The simplest definition I can give you of coveting is, God says, “This is what I want for you,” and you say, “That’s not what I want for me,” and then there’s conflict between what God desires for you and what you desire. That’s where coveting finds its inception. That’s where coveting starts to give birth to death.

He describes later what it looks like even in small children, and we can see it sometimes even more in little ones than we can in adults.  We've learned how to function in society and not snatch something away from another person or cry if we can't have it.  As parents, do we feed our child's covetousness?  Do we aid them in that sin or do we help guide them towards thankfulness?  What example do they see in us?  Coveting is the start to all the other sins.  If we start coveting a thing, we might be tempted to steal it; if someone covets another person's spouse, they can be tempted to commit adultery, and so on.

Another quote from the sermon to illustrate the main thing I got last week -- How many of you have seen kids playing together, let’s say in a playroom at somebody’s house, two little kids. One kid has got a red truck, and the room is filled with a thousand other toys. What does the other kid want? The red truck, OK? The red truck.

So now, the parent’s got a really important decision to make. Am I going to nurture their coveting? And parents will nurture the coveting by saying things like, “Well, wait your turn, and then you’ll get the red truck,” which is, “Coveting is fine, but you just need to add patience to coveting,” which isn’t really a virtue, right? Sometimes it is, “I’ll go get you a red truck. I’ll feed your coveting.”
“I’ll get you a blue truck. The blue truck’s even better,” which is, “You should covet bigger.” It’s nurturing a greater coveting. “Oh, you think the red truck—I’ve got a bigger truck. “The red truck’s little; the blue truck’s big. You know, here, take the blue truck. It’s better.” You haven’t even dealt with the coveting problem. You’ve fed it, you’ve nurtured it, you’ve increased it. 

What if you say, “Well, I’ll look around here. I’ll bet you there’s a red truck.” These are ways that we just train children to covet, which is a hard cycle to break when they grow up and get their own debit card. They’ve been nurtured, right? “Train a child in the way they should go and when they grow old, they will not depart from it.” The same is true for bad parenting. You’re setting them on a trajectory, on a life course, on a direction, of what they think is normative.

How many of you have tried this? How many of you have actually gone over and taken the red truck and given it to your kid? What do they do with the red truck? They don’t want to play with it anymore. Why? Because the issue wasn’t the truck. The issue was the desires in their heart.

Good parenting looks at the child and says, “Why can’t you be glad that they are enjoying it? Why is it not enough for you to be satisfied with what you have?” See, that’s biblical parenting. 
[emphasis mine]

Our thankful tree this year.  It's amazing how much happier and content the girls (and I) are when we focus on what we are thankful for.

So after hearing that sermon, I realized that the issues I saw in my two year old weren't just a "Please and Thankful" issue or a property rights issue (fighting over toys) and that I'd been feeding her covetousness.  I'd asked myself where my sweet happy girl went?  It was getting so bad that giving her anything fun wasn't fun anymore. Chocolate? No, because the piece was never big enough. God is generous and loves his  kids and wants to give generously to us, but if we act spoiled and keep wanting more or something different, He's got to back off, and that's what I needed to realize. I needed to be consistent with the little one and not reward her covetousness. I also need to fully make that mental shift into realizing that she's not a baby anymore.  When they are babies, I (rightly) give them what they need when they need it, but she's two and a half now, and I hadn't fully made the jump into looking at her like a child and not a baby.  I was trying to take the easy way out by not following through or not being consistent when my two year old would throw a fit over something she wanted and would even throw the thing down that she was given. 

Now I KNOW I have to take that thing away.  If I give her a piece of chocolate and she complains that it's too small, she doesn't get to keep it. End of story.  I needed to know what a big deal this was. In little kids, it just looks annoying or frustrating or like they are "fighting" too much, but call it what it is (covetousness) and now the parent has a choice to feed their sin or not -- and that's is a big deal in this mission field.

Sunlight shining in.

The start of last week felt awful.  I felt like it was a ongoing battle of wills as I tried to be consistent and kind to my littlest child.  The thing is though, that they don't even want what you give them if you give them what they say they want.  Just like the quote from the sermon.  They don't want the toy until someone else has it and if you give the toy to them (giving into their covetousness) they don't want it anyway. 

I want to give good things to my children.  I love giving gifts and making cookies and treats for them.  Most parents do, right?  But what happens if they act spoiled?  Is the answer to take everything away?  Paul said that he'd learned to be content in all circumstances. Whether wealthy or with nothing, he said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  Yes, that verse, quoted for practically every sort of ability we might need help with, is actually talking about being content, no matter what you have or what you don't have.

The girls enjoyed Grampa's visit a couple weeks ago and made good use of the pictures that Gramma sent along

 So what is the answer to coveting?  It's learning to be content. I know that I have not been content in many ways in the past three years and seeing that reflected in my youngest is a big deal.  I'm modeling life to my children, and I want to model thankfulness above all because it seems that everything else falls into place when this becomes a habit.

I'm thankful for my family.  Even though they are far away, I'm thankful that I miss them.

---
And just a little bit ago, I was interrupted by another issue with the little one.  She knocked over a lamp and I asked her big sister to pick it up and the little one says, "No I do it!" 

Normally I might have told the older one to just let her do it, but after all this changed perspective I couldn't let her.  "Oh thank you for offering." I said, "but I already asked Lily to do it." At which point, she got mad and threw a bowl of dry cereal on the floor.

What I would have done before might have been to ignore her bad behavior and clean it up myself (no wonder I was so exhausted, right?) But this time I stayed there. She fought me and cried and freaked out and wouldn't pick up the cereal.  Then an amazing thing happened.  I confessed to her.  I said something like, "When you were littler, you saw me throw things when I was angry didn't you?"  She seemed to put on the breaks and nodded. I explained that it was a sin for me to throw things when I was angry. The Bible says, "Be angry but do not sin." I also talked to her about sins and how yucky they make us feel inside. We talked a bit more too, but it was really neat to see how she responded when I owned up to my own sin.  She was just copying me after all, and I was being a hypocrite by telling her to not do something that I'd allowed myself to do in the past.

I felt like we'd be sitting on the floor for hours, but it didn't take hours. 

I was ready to wait with her that long but she responded so much quicker, especially when I told her of my own sin and made sure she knew I was not mad at her.  She needed to obey me and pick up the cereal, but it wasn't about who was in control.  It's a matter of the heart, and I needed to show my love for her in a difficult way. 

I see the sweet girl again under there more and more as we deal with these things.  It's not easy.  It's been terrible, but it's also been encouraging to see some positive changes this week.  I don't want my children to be good to make me look good or to become something I think they should be. 

When I work at training them and seeing them as my ministry and as people, discipling them as individuals, my whole perspective changes.

The two year old LOVES to scribble little pictures, then fold the picture up, put it behind her back and say, "Mommy, I've got something for you." Then she'll pull it out from behind her back, unfold it, and excitedly hand it to me. Notice the stack she created by doing this over and over again? Yep, that's how she rolls.