Christmas and The New Year and Learning Notes

Oh my word there are only, what, three days until Christmas?  Ack!  It hits me every single year like this, no matter how well I've planned and how many decisions I've made.  This year we've simplified about as much as you can and still have three young children in the house and not feel like you're 'ruining the holiday' for them.  We have a tiny tree and a few other decorations out, but not the stained glass or the lovely beeswax nativity.  We didn't put the gifts under the tree, nor did we go overboard with purchasing a lot of stuff, but what we did get was well thought out and is already wrapped.  All I need to do is stuff the stockings and that element of the day will be finished.  We're doing Christmas Day lunch over at the church again this year - I'm cooking a huge turkey and stuffing and peas and mashed potatoes and the congregation is bringing side dishes and desserts.  The food is ready is go, and my part in it is pretty simple, so there's not much to think about there.  This year the church decided on a Christmas concert, which was last Saturday, and I sang and did fairly well, both in the choir and acapella with my son.  And now all that's left in terms of services is Christmas Eve, where I sing again in the choir but I'm confident with the songs.

So you can see that it's all pretty streamlined, but I'm still overwhelmed.

I have been feeling pretty unhappy with how our homeschooling is going, so that's something.  Although when I look back I can see real progress.  The boy started out really not able to reliably name the letters of the alphabet, and now he can remember them all, and probably about 50% of the sounds as well.  He can do basic addition and can tell time and his writing is legible.  His art has gotten really cute and lovely as well.  I know he's not even six years old and I'm trying to be patient, but I'm looking forward to next year when he's in grade one and I can start a curriculum.

And David is finished his last course for the year!  That's an exciting one.  He has three courses left to go, one in January and then two more in March, before he can get ordained, and it's all working out and I am relieved so much about that.

week alone

So the week before last my husband had to head off to New York state to do course work towards ordination, and it was a hard slog for us at home.  A five year old, a three year old, a one year old, and little ole' me.  Needless to say, home schooling took a bit of a back burner for the week.  We did read some of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a fantastic little book called Maybe Later and we did some art study, which we're all LOVING.  Here's how we do it:  I have a big coffee table book of full colour works of art and a little bit of info about the artist.  We pick one and then the children work with watercolours to reproduce it while we talk about it.  We might discuss what different colours there are, or aspects of the picture or what it depicts.  I bought good quality brushes at the beginning of the school year, and lovely art books and I don't regret it, but I stuck with just your basic set of children's watercolours and that has also worked well.  When we're done this set I might upgrade us to the set with more colour options but I don't think I'm going to worry about getting a better brand.  Sometimes while we work we listen to music - this is when I like to play a piece of classical music that they otherwise wouldn't sit and listen to.  Again, I'm thinking next year I might combine seatwork with an audiobook such as Story of the World.  Lots of options here.

I don't remember if I mentioned that we have backed off of intentional reading practice with the boy.  He's clearly ready for something, but I just would feel so much better if he had a completely firm grasp of the alphabet first.  And surprisingly enough as soon as we stopped working on it suddenly he's progressed wonderfully.  Ah, the relaxed approach.

We also hung up our wall map that we just got and spent a lot of time looking at it.

Anyway, the week was long and the weather was not very good so we were stuck inside a lot.  I had borrowed or bought a whole bunch of movies for the children because I was anticipating needing some help but we discovered that the boy is really sensitive right now.  Practically every movie was too scary or too sad so we ended up just watching the Andy Griffith show.

And when daddy came home there was great excitement.

Gourds

I live in the country, as I'm sure I've mentioned before.  In the middle of nowhere.  And when you move to a place such as the one where I live you sort of show up, look around, and then a part of your brain says "Is that it?"

I have learned through doing this for years now, moving and strange new places, that it is never it.

If you ask people, they will never tell you all the weird, hidden, fantastic places you can go and the incredibly interesting people you will meet and the fairs no one has heard of and such - and I'm assuming this is because to them these things are not cool, they are just the same old things that have always existed and the same old people who have always been there.  There's nothing interesting in them.

And because of this I've learned that you need to have patience when you arrive.  People are going to tell you about the touristy stuff first.  After a while though you're going to start to hear about the interesting things - and that's how I heard about the gourds.  The librarian mentioned them in an offhand way, just off to pick up some gourds.  Oh, where do you get gourds?  I wanted to know.  And she told me about a place down one back road where a farmer grew all sorts of amazing gourds and left them for people to take for a donation.  She came back with all sorts of gourds, all different kinds.

Now, what an interesting thing, eh?  And who would have known that that existed - it's not the sort of thing anyone would tell you when you arrived in a new place.  They don't tell you that there is a wonderful spot to get crabapples or a place you can watch them shear sheep or a lovely beach no one goes to.  I've learned to love moving to a new place because of this; I'm never bored and I always know that when I arrive there will be exciting things.

Fall Nonsense

It's been very cold in the mornings here the past week or so.  I like to keep the thermostat set very low all the time, but first thing in the morning I get up and turn the heat up to luxurious, extravagant heights - soccer team and organic food heights, and then I sit around in my pajamas and feel the air temperature rise up to what I imagine other people's houses feel like.  This only really works if I get up before everyone else does which fortunately hasn't been much of a problem lately because I've been up before five most days.  Was it Simcha Fisher who wrote the 'early morning worries' post?  The one about lying in bed thinking "Oh Lord, there's so much rhubarb".  Hahaha.  Yes.  Oh, Lord, there is indeed flowing from your merciful hands a wealth of rhubarb.  Please reign in the rhubarb slightly.  Sincerely, your humble servant.

Anyway, I apparently also wrote a post about this, looking back, although I can't find it.

We're in the thick of fall insanity over here - especially in regards to David going to school.  He's off to New York State soon to do some courses towards ordination and then back and then two more via a distance program and then a bit of a break and then two more through the same program, another through a different program, and then rounding of the school year with the final two in Michigan State.  New York State is first, though - I have to get through that without dying.  I deeply, deeply dislike the times I solo parent.

We're about halfway through running the Alpha program at the church, and I have stepped away from Bible study because the children are attending Awana on the same night, so we're pretty busy.  Once Alpha is done, the first rush of courses should also be done, and it will be Christmas.  Mustn't let the stress overtake the season of Advent, I tell myself, heaping yet more pressure on my head.  Mustn't flail about.

Homeschooling Update

So homeschool, I have figured out, is like everything else in life; it never looks like what you think it will before you start.  I don't know what exactly I imagined it would be like to homeschool but knowing myself I think I probably had perfection as my goal.  Wonderfully behaved children and the perfect curriculum and so forth.  Obviously that isn't reality and our school looks nothing like that (although I'm still searching for the perfect curriculum).  And I think I'm okay with this.  Sometimes I get all worked up about it and what we aren't doing and the things we aren't learning and the field trips we aren't taking, but you can't do it all and you can't join it all and eventually choices are made.

We're learning phonics, albeit at the slowest pace known to man.  We aren't intentionally doing math because we're living math all the time.  We're reading a lot and playing a lot and going to playgroup and also Awana.  We're doing puzzles and games and art.  It's pretty relaxed but I think it's just enough for us right now and I'm trying to keep track of what we accomplish every day and when I look back I'm actually pleased.

Mini-break

We took a little impromptu rest break this week - just getting away overnight to a relative's quiet place, where the children caught fish out of the pond and helped pick the last of the beans from the garden and ran around without shoes on and slept in bunk beds.  When we got into ministry I thought that we'd probably need frequent breaks but in the back of my head I was more likely humming and thinking 'yeah yeah, we likely will not because we are fantastic'.  Except we did, and it came as a huge shock to me that every few  months David was overwhelmed with exhaustion and we had to go away somewhere and rest.  And then it came as an equally big shock to me that I also got exhausted and needed to get away.  And finally the lead up to this trip has shown me that the time lapsing between breaks has gone on too long, in fact a friend in ministry told me she and her husband go away every month, and perhaps we need to start looking at more frequent breaks as well.

Of course, these are our people, and it is surprisingly hard to leave them.  When God gives you a congregational family he really...well, he puts them on your heart.  Your mind is filled with 'how is so and so's dog doing I wonder, did she get him to that vet appointment?  Did that guy ever fix his truck?  Is she okay?'

Our last 'vacation' consisted of driving for a whole day, attending denominational meetings, driving a lot more, doing course work, driving, driving, and then running around after the children at camp and coming home.  That was almost three months ago.  So, obviously, not enough for us at this point.  Anyway, the overnight break was a pick me up, and hopefully it will last us a little bit until we can do it again.  We live so far away from everything really that the only way to truly 'get away' is to drive for hours and hours and hours with three little kids in the car.  Not really a possibility on a frequent basis.  We're going to have to look at renting a cabin or something.

Life Margins

Quite a few years ago I heard about the idea of incorporating 'margins' into your life and the idea stuck with me so well that I think I do that automatically now, build in a space around the edges of my days that is.  In fact, when I don't do it, such as the past two weeks, I can feel it, feel the edges pushing in.  I get uncomfortable.

Wait, maybe you haven't heard about margins.  Okay, let me back up and explain for a minute then; everyone should know about this.  Margins on a piece of paper are those spaces around the edges that you aren't supposed to write on, and the author of the 'life with margins' concept argued that your days, your life in general, should have built in spaces of time; you shouldn't have things planned for every last moment you have available.  I don't remember exactly what the reasons were that the inventor gave but personally I can say that having a margin of time around and throughout my day allows me to have 'emergency room' in case I'm needed somewhere.  It lets me breathe deeply as an introvert, knowing I don't have to be 'on' all the time.  It gives me a break.  It lets me enjoy life rather than hurriedly moving from one task or location to another.  It saves me.

What margins in my life look like are blank spaces that don't contain anything.  No plans, no meals, nothing required of me.  And I achieve this by simply not filling up on activities and things to do.  I don't like to rush and feel hurried and scattered.  I often feel rushed and hurried and scattered, but the plan is not to.

Anyway, the past few weeks have been so incredibly full of stuff that I can't remember all of the things I need to do.  I need margins.

Life is overwhelming.

There is a spider outside of my window and I'm envying its relatively stress-free lifestyle at the moment.  This past week we've been without hot water (our water tank died) and it won't be fixed until tonight.  Add to that my husband trying to figure out his next steps for coursework on the road to ordination, and re-painting the church hall, which is not going to get done in time for Back To Church Sunday, I'll tell you that right now, and Alpha starts up at our church this week and there are nine meals and only three are covered and I'm making the first one so preparing food for twenty people can go on the list.  And, you know, trying to homeschool and all.  Blarg.  I woke up at five this morning, tense as a mouse in a cat fight, and have been trying to relax ever since.  I even did yoga.  Which wasn't a pretty sight.

It just cannot almost be fall.  Nothing is DONE.  I have so much to DO.  And I can't do a thing.  Well, yesterday I especially couldn't do a thing because I had managed to book my first day reading stories at the library with the baby's shots, and neither of those things could be cancelled so David took the doctor's appt. and I took the library.  And then of course the rest of the day we expected Fussy Baby to explode at any moment.  She was decent though, and David remembered to buy food while he was out, so I didn't have to rush home and cook and comfort an infant at the same time.  He's a hero.

Ugh.  I think I just need to write everything down on a list.  And I'm not cooking today because there are lots of random leftovers in the fridge so people can just manage with those.  I'm going to paint the coffee area in the church hall and that is ALL I'm setting up for myself before Sunday.  And I'm going to spend the rest of the day catching up with housework - laundry, floors, LAUNDRY, my heavens...

Calm.  Calm.

Pickles

I adore making preserves - pickles and such.  This past summer I must have made dozens of jars.  But I will admit they aren't necessarily the easiest foods to incorporate into a meal when you're just starting out with them.  Here are my suggestions, or at least what we do.

I often serve a pickle tray at supper, and almost always when we have guests.  A plate with a selection of pickled fruits and vegetables on it to pass around seems weird at first but everyone gets used to it and they can pick and choose what they like to eat with their meats or on their own.  And it also makes guests feel honoured, I find, to be presented with something so clearly homemade.  Generally here's how I organize the plate - I include something everyone will like, bread and butter pickles are a good bet, and then I include a newer food if I've tried a new recipe, and I make sure there are a whole bunch of colours so it looks pretty.  It also helps to add cheese.  You can serve this plate if you're having a meal where they seem to fit naturally (salad, sandwiches, etc.) and also just as an accompaniment to a regular meat and vegetable meal.

There you go, pickles.

Learning Notes - Looking Back On August

We've finished our first month of school, more or less, and we've done some wonderful and fun work that we're all happy with and also identified some gaps that need to be considered in the future.  Here's a little re-cap.

We've mostly focused our academic thoughts on phonics and introducing reading into our lives even more than it already is.  To that end David and I bought a lot of interesting books at the store for the children to flip through in an attempt to start 'strewing'.  I reorganized the playroom to facilitate ease of play and also did a massive purging of the children's books - getting rid of anything that didn't look like it was going to physically last much longer or that really wasn't in keeping with what we wanted the children to reach for.  Pretty much all the tv show type tie-in books went, and the Disney-fied versions of classic fairy tales - that sort of thing.

For phonics I've been introducing letter sounds and blending with Abeka's Handbook for Reading and set one of the Bob Books.  Because of the latter, the boy could say he'd read his first book this past month! That boost in confidence was amazing.  We're taking it slowly and as always our goal is mastery of a skill.

Since the last few weeks have had such wonderful weather, and because fall is closing in on us, we've spent the majority of our time out-of-doors.  We've gone to beaches and parks and friends' houses as often as we can, and I organized an 'I'm Not Going Back To School' party at a local beach/playground on an island nearby and invited local homeschooling families to join us for a picnic and swimming.

We also set up a homeschooling cupboard in the house as a central place to put all of our educational games and activities, our resource books, etc.  It's been a huge success because now the children can go to one central place and choose an activity from a large selection.  It's cut down on 'I'm bored' and 'Can I watch a cartoon' requests quite a bit and a lot of our bits and pieces are getting used more often, especially puzzles and board games.

As usual, this is all interspersed with a liberal amount of free play.  The children love to dress up and imagine, to make pretend food in their pretend kitchen, to play in the sandbox and with water outside, etc.  They help around the house with gathering laundry and putting dishes in the sink and spraying water and vinegar on windows and wiping it off...this is all play to them and a good way to introduce skills.

What were reading right now:

The Mouse And The Motorcycle.

Mildred And Sam

The Complete Frog and Toad Stories

Twaddle and Classics

If you've spent even a passing amount of time reading literature based homeschool booklists (not a sentence that applies to many of my friends, I imagine) you'll have seen a fairly obvious trend towards the same titles.  Everyone, but everyone, wants to read, say, Paddle To The Sea.  Including us actually; it's on our homeschool list this year.  People love Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and Ferdinand the Bull, and Curious George (I do NOT love Curious George, in case you're curious).  These, and a few dozen others, seem to be the 'good literature' that is practically required for an elementary education.  Far be it from me to disagree on philosophical grounds, or to debate educational merit or what have you - I've been doing this for practically no time compared to the greats.  What do I know?  But I am having trouble abiding by the 'no twaddle' rules when I can't fully see whether what I'm reading is twaddle or not.

And let me assure you - there are lots of opinions about that.  Some people seem to think that unless it was written at least fifty years ago there's no value in reading it to a child.  Some people think that mass produced cartoon comics based on television characters are totally fine.  And there's everyone in between.

This is my first real experience with an aspect of homeschooling I am certain I will come across a lot over the years - people with widely differing opinions on what makes a 'good education'.  Right now we're approaching it cautiously.  The majority of our book list for the next few months is taken right from the pages of the classics-minded.  And then every once in a while, like this week, for instance, I'm throwing in a book I like just because I like it and I want to.

I don't know what it will look like by  the end of the school year.  Maybe I'll have ignored the advice of my betters and started reading Captain Underpants.  I doubt this will happen, but we likely also won't stick to reading off a booklist either.

Learning Notes - Homeschool Week One

We did it; we survived the first week.

So I chose to start our year with a weekly book study and the first story we read was Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCluskey.  We started our day getting into a morning routine - dressing, eating breakfast, etc. which is a bit of a change for us, and were ready at 8am to start.  First we prayed for a successful school day and then we had a short circle time with songs.  I asked the children to bring me whatever stories they'd like to listen to and we sat and read for a while.  At the end I brought out the book we were looking at that day and we read the story.  I asked the boy to try a narration, telling the story back to me, and he did fairly well with that.

After our story time we played a scavenger hunt game, looking for 'blueberries' ourselves - in this case blue circles with the alphabet on them, and we put them in order.  All of that took quite some time.  Finally, after our game, we made blueberry muffins for a snack and school was done.  I wrote a detailed post on how our first day went here.

On Tuesday we got a lot distracted by grocery shopping followed by library club for the boy.  By the time we got home we really hadn't *done* school very much at all.  At bedtime we read a whole bunch of storybooks and the first two chapters of our new read aloud - The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

On Wednesday the children kept talking about the blueberry alphabet scavenger hunt - so they played it again by themselves.  Then we read Blueberries for Sal again.  After our story I brought out a quart of blueberries and we sorted them into piles according to size and made alphabet shapes with them...and then ate them for snack.  We looked up blueberry bushes in our beginners field guide and learned that wild bushes can grow one to three feet high - and we measured that with a measuring tape.  For lunch the children made blueberry snack by spreading blueberry jam on crackers and topping with a slice of salami.

In the afternoon the children did a maze I had drawn to bring Little Sal to the blueberry patch and home again.  They loved watching me draw it and we ended up drawing a lot of mazes together.

On Thursday we read our book and then we played for an hour or so with a fantastic homemade blueberry scented playdough.  Then we made jam just like Sal and her mother, and then the boy went to the library for day camp.

While he was doing that the girls and I took out some more books from the library for read-alouds.

On Friday I had big plans all week to do a game with blue water balloons but I couldn't get to the store.  Soooo...we read the book again and played with our blueberry playdough again and read some more.

I feel pretty good about the week.  After the first day we stopped with circle time and didn't quite manage to pick it back up again, and we also only did that one narration.  I thought that re-reading the book multiple times throughout the week would end up being boring for the children but they actually really seemed to like it - go figure.  The baby was furious with me every time I picked up the book to read because I wasn't paying attention to her, but I think that will just fade away eventually.  And cutting out the other read-alouds before our focus book was a good idea; everyone seemed much more fresh.

I'm glad we are only spending one week on each book because by Thursday, I will admit, I was tired of Blueberries for Sal.  Haha.

Next week we're reading Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash by Sarah Weeks.

First Day Of School

We did it - the first day of school - and we survived.

I really need to tweak the system I tried today - the routine is definitely in need of adjustment.  But, in hindsight, I mean, every routine needs some adjustment.  Anyway, here's what we did today:

Woke up and started the day by getting ready immediately.  We were dressed and fed and beds stripped and little girl hair brushed and everything by 8am.  This seems early, but we didn't wake up any earlier than we usually do, we just got our act together a bit better.  I liked this part and how it set the tone for the day, but looking back I think we need to have clothes laid out the night before to avoid issues, and also I need to plan a bigger breakfast to see everyone through the morning.

We started school with a circle time which is an idea I really like but needed to plan out better.  We prayed for our school day, and then did some exercises and songs.  Again, really like the idea but need to implement it better.

Then we moved on to read-aloud time.  I had a specific book I was going to read to them but I thought they could choose some stories to have me read aloud first.  Not the best idea, maybe, since they were pretty tired of sitting by the end of it.  So tomorrow we'll just read the book I choose and maybe try a second story time later in the day if I can handle it.

We read our book, and then I asked the boy to tell me aloud what the story had been about - he did really well with this!  I need to read more about doing narration with small children but I was impressed.

Then we moved on to our activity - since the book we read was Blueberries for Sal I made letter circles and hid them around the house to find.  Then we laid all the letters of the alphabet out in order and again I was really impressed by how well this was done.

Finally we made blueberry muffins for our snack.  Sigh.  Cooking with small children.  Anyway.

So that was our first day of school.  It was about 2 hours long, which is more than I planned for but the game and muffins went on much longer than I thought.

Learning Notes for the end of July

As the first two weeks of July consisted of many days of driving and then camp and visiting and quite a bit more driving, the only thing that David and I managed to get sorted about school for our son was that it was going to happen at home again.  Take two, if you will.  And then of course there was a solid week of getting 'back into the swing of things'.  And so it fell on the final week of July for me to get curriculum organized and such - and I thought I was really ahead of the game, a whole month ahead, and then I saw people starting to 'do school' in August.  So in fact I am not way ahead of the game but sadly behind as usual.

So anyway, this past week I kept a very gentle, brief outline of some learning notes while I puttered on the curriculum for this school year.  Some of the things we did this past week include some math and logic games, discussing how everyone has a job, making paper airplanes, practical life skills (washing coins and filling up the q-tip container) and attending library club.  We read a lot of books aloud as well, some old favourites and a few new titles, some better than others.

And now here it is, Sunday, and I ordered the first batch of 'school stuff' from the library early last week but it hasn't arrived yet.  However, we are going to start school tomorrow regardless.  There you go.  I'm pretty certain that this first week (or month) will consist of just trying to get our feet under us again and figure out the whys and wherefores of what it is we're doing, so I won't share too much about our curriculum quite yet - I don't want to get all depressed if it doesn't go exactly according to plan.  I will say this though:

We're doing a literature-based kindergarten year and our main focal points will be phonics and math skills.  Our day is going to be loosely structured and I'm hoping that will help my desire for order.

Reading to the children and on my own

We've been focusing on trying to finish Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes as our bedtime chapter book, and the other night we finally got through it.  Personally, I loved it, and so did the boy.  I'm not as sure that Clara was a big fan, but they both did very well listening.  We're definitely going to have to read The Moffats, by the same author.  In the meantime I think we're going to take a different turn and read some Beverly Cleary.

Now what have I been reading?  A bit of this and a bit of that, really.  We were traveling quite a bit this month so I read Pride and Prejudice again, and then picked up and finished a book by a Canadian author - The Door Is Open - about Christian hospitality.  Now I'm reading some Barbara Pym and Kristin Lavransdattar is waiting for me.  A little intimidated.

My children eat fish

Of course, it's not their favourite meal, but here's three ways (all very easy) that the children won't moan when I put fish in front of them.  Which I do.  At least once a week.  Because I'm mean.

Creamed Salmon (or tuna) On Toast

Essentially you make a bechamel sauce - heat a fat, whisk in a flour until smooth, slowly add warm milk until a thick cream sauce happens - and season with salt, pepper, etc.  Add your flaked canned fish, serve over toast.  You can add peas if you like.

Breaded Fish

Shake those pieces of fish in a shake-n-bake coating and bake them in the oven.

Maple Salmon

I marinate the fish in a marinade of garlic, ginger, soy sauce, maple syrup and then bake.

Back

We got back a few days ago from two weeks away (I can't say it was a vacation, really) and we were incredibly happy for the break.  The first week we drove about 10 hours in one day to get to the city and saw my sister and her 6 month old twins, who I'd never met, and spent some time with David's parents and family and our friends.  Then David drove an hour to the conference he had to go to, spent the night, drove back on day two to get the girls and I, drove back, then drove all of us back the next day after the conference was over.  Whew.  Lots of highway driving.  Then we had another few days in the city with more trips to see people, and then we all packed up for a week at family camp.  Camp was wonderful for the children but wasn't much of a break for us, but we did eat a lot of food and go swimming every day.  Then back again up north with an overnight stop to see even more family until finally we showed up at our door - with a summer cold and a lot of laundry and dirty children in the back seat.

So for the past couple of days we've been busy - visiting a parishioner in the nursing home who is leaving us, grocery shopping, picking up the cats from the kennel, taking the car in to be serviced, airing out the house and pushing through the laundry situation.

Today, hopefully, we'll have the car all fixed up, or at least as fixed up as a 13 year old car is going to get.  I've made cherry jam and I'm trying to figure out if my sanity is up for taking all three children out to pick strawberries so I don't miss the harvest.  David is almost over the summer cold he picked up at camp, and I just have a bit of a cough, but at least one child is sick and that's resulting in a lot of tv and rest.

Anyway, here we are halfway into the week already and I'm pacing myself for the rest of the incredibly busy summer.

Homeschooling Update

It's been a little while since I did a homeschooling update, and since there have been some pretty substantial changes (well, one major one, anyway) it seems high time.

Since the beginning of the month my son has, more or less, been attending the local public school.  It's come as no less of a shock to me than to anyone else, really.  The reasons are many and varied, but the biggest one was that we've always said that we would give him the best education for HIM, and that in fact his education was not for us in any way, but for his benefit, and stemming from that we would re-evaluate our decision to home school him each year and decide whether that was the best decision for him and his own personal educational journey each time.  We had a great year at home and I do truly believe that it was the best education for him this year, but for several reasons David and I had begun wondering if next year should be in the public school system.  We decided to enroll him in school for the last month in order to get a better feeling for what was involved and how the system worked and if the boy thrived or not and just get more information all 'round to make our decision for next year.

There are some incredible benefits to homeschooling, and I'm learning that there are some very real benefits to public school as well.  Probably the biggest one is simply that that's where all the kids are, which should have been more obvious to me before but there you are.  My son is so, so, social and just wants to be with others so much of the time that it's been a challenge for me to figure out how to accommodate this need.  I've tried integrating into the homeschooling community, but with the exception of a few playdates and one field trip I've found it hard - we live quite far away from the central hub of homeschooling families.  The boy is my oldest child, so I'm in uncharted waters when it comes to kindergarten-aged friendships and how they work and how to foster them.  Our church is too small for a children's ministry so we send our son on Tuesday nights to another church in a different town to attend a children's Bible club, but friendships haven't seemed to stem from that.  He also attends a vacation Bible school in the summer at the same church.  It's just all been a bit of a shock to me, how hard it is to find another child for my child to play with.  So for that reason I will say that public school has been a relief.

David and I have agreed not to make any final decisions about school until the end of the month, but I think we can safely say we've enjoyed the experiment, but we're getting a little tired of it.  Public school is a lot of work!  There are constant reams of paper coming home and you have to plan your entire day around the time you drop the child off and pick them up.  The spontaneity is absolutely at an all time low in the house.  To go grocery shopping (which is an hour away) I either have to excuse the boy from school, or make this mad dash in between the time I drop him off and pick him up and hope the school doesn't call or the car doesn't break down and so forth.  Clara and Lillian both miss their brother and now THEY have no one to play with either.  He's so tired when he comes home, and crabby, and we all seem to get sick a lot more as well and he's eating less at his lunchtime.  I have to be on the ball with lunches now as never before because he can't just have some reheated leftover shepherd's pie like he would if he was home; he needs an actual packed (peanut free) lunch.

There are pluses and minuses, as I knew there would be and I was prepared for it.  Actually, I was prepared for a lot worse so I've been pleasantly surprised.  And the downsides are almost all about us, as a family, not about the school.  The school does its job well and orderly, but we may not fit into their mold as nicely as others do, I don't know.  Maybe we've been marching to our own drum for too long.

I have continued to look at homeschooling options for the fall on the chance that we decide to opt out of school for another year.  This past month has been such an eye-opener for me in terms of curriculum choices; I think I finally understand where a lot of my frustration with schooling was coming from - I didn't need to do less, I needed to do MORE!  I was so influenced by the gentle Charlotte Mason style approach to early learning that I ignored my own desire for structure and checklists - I realize now that I need to figure out a way to teach that also honours my teaching style, not just my children's learning style.  I've made some tentative curriculum choices for next year in case we need them, and they are all quite a bit more structured than anything we used this past year.  I've also been listening to what my son talks about all the time regarding school - mostly this seems to be playing outside and using the computers.  If that's what he likes, then that's what we'll do, too.  If we keep homeschooling we'll have a dedicated educational game time on the computer and we're going to have to get everyone outside more somehow, even with the whining toddler and the baby who puts everything in her mouth and can't go on the ground.  We'll figure it out.

Ultimately, that's the thing, isn't it?  You figure it out as you go along.  You have your children's best interests at heart, you use your adult mind to work around the problems and come up with solutions, you take suggestions from the troops, and you keep on.

Coming home

Gah!  Time flew away from me again and I lost the momentum on my couple-times-a-week posting schedule.  Back on the horse.

My mother has been staying with us for the past several days because David went out of town for school.  You'll remember from the endless ministry updates that I used to do (and don't anymore because there's almost nothing to update once you actually ARE a minister) that David is working on finishing all the courses he needs for ordination.  This past week he went to complete two of them that were being offered about 12 hours away and he arrives home today, which is terribly exciting news for me because even with mom here parenting solo is hard work.

Stress

It's been a challenge here in the last week - the children are shrieking and fighting when they're not making huge messes (I'm looking at the mop water all over my kitchen floor right now) and refusing to sleep or eat.  "It's a stage, it's a stage, it's a stage" is my constant mental refrain.  When I feel angry and overwhelmed, as I do a lot right now, I have a tendency to micro-manage, which I am doing my utmost to control.  I like to channel this desire into massive cleaning and purging sprees, as though by organizing my outside environment I will somehow also organize my interior environment and wake to a blissful, peaceful, FUNCTIONAL reality.

This likely explains why I just rearranged the livingroom furniture.

But this is also the time when I download, or brain dump, onto a piece of unlucky paper and begin another Big List.  You'll remember the last one, which was only a few months ago I think.  Let me check...ah, here it is.  Actually, it was two months ago; that sounds about right.  When I mentioned the last Big List, it was because I had fallen behind on Things That Needed Doing.  Lots of little chores, and some big ones, and lots of multi-step (have to call this person before that person and simultaneously do this thing and THEN I can do that thing...) tasks.  This is one way in which I utilize the Big List.  The other way is what I tend to refer to as a Family Re-Evaluation, which is what I'm doing right now.

A Family Re-Evaluation isn't always accompanied by a list, although pretty much everything in my life has a list attached to it in some way so likely if I'm in charge, there's going to be categorizing going on somewhere.  No, the Re-Evaluation is generally when everything is Not Working.  In this case bedrooms are not working, bedtimes are not working, meals are not working, the car seat situation (again with the little car chairs, Lord) is still, STILL not working, the car in general is not working, life isn't working.  It isn't working.

Sigh.  ANYway, it's a stage, it's a stage, it's a stage.  And I don't live in a bubble.  Although like the main character in Mom's Night Out I think I would also find a white bare room to be relaxing.  But that is not going to happen so onward and upward.

Thinking About Previously Important Things

I became a mother 5 years ago, and about 6 months after that I started this blog where I have journaled (more or less) what life has been like for us.  Since I started I've had two more children, moved twice, once across provinces, and my husband has realized his dream of becoming a minister.  It's not surprising, then, that my interests have changed.  I used to blog a lot about the topics that most interested or affected me in early parenthood - there's a post on my indignation at the public health nurse who was upset that my one year old didn't like solids, there are a whole series of posts on my opinion on the trend of treating cloth diapers as precious, delicate items.  I have posts on how to be frugal and books to read on keeping house that I found helpful and so on.

My life has changed a lot in four and a half years.  I was thinking about this the other day when I was doing diaper laundry.  It used to be that when I saw a friend discuss their diaper wash routine I felt compelled to jump in, and that feeling isn't there anymore.  I don't really care about someone's laundry detergent choices!  Or if you use plastic or glass storage in the kitchen, or even, to some extent, if you breast or bottle feed your baby.  In some cases, like with breastfeeding, I'm confident with my choice and don't really have any desire to talk to you about your choice, and in some cases, like cloth diapers, I just don't feel the passion anymore.  I use them, but I don't have any attachment to my choice.

I'm not sure, actually, that I have any mothering or domestic passions now in the same way that I had then.  A part of me is sad about this - when I felt really strongly about something I think it gave me an anchor, and now I'm just living.  Sure, there are topics that come up from time to time that spark my interest; I'm thinking meal planning, homeschool curriculum choices, crochet, making preserves in the kitchen, decluttering and organizing....but it's rare that I feel passion and deep deep interest in any of these topics.  They're just a part of life and spice in the routine.

Is this normal, I ask myself?  And I think it is.  I'm a big fan of the concept of 'seasons' in life (right along with the Bible) and this is a season.  It's a less exciting season in some ways, but it's also just as wonderful in other ways.  I'm not obsessed with eco-friendly cleaners at the moment, but I'm also present with my children and my life and I'm living through these days in the best way I can and that's also worthy and important.  I think, actually, that this is life, and what it should look like - a gentle interest in those around us and the topics that affect our lives.

Reading to the children and on my own.

So I recently mentioned that we had started Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant after the success of The Adventures of Bob White and the (relative) consecutive failure of both Ramona the Pest and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.  Well, Gooseberry park was another winner for sure, and we followed it up with My Father's Dragon, which we finished in two nights and NOW we're a little stuck because ohmygoodness I have nothing else lined up.  So we're going to finish The House At Pooh Corner as our read-aloud and I am going to return Gooseberry Park to the library on Tuesday and pick a new read-aloud at the same time.  We haven't had a lot of luck with the recent library picks, especially after I got a collection of Beatrix Potter stories and it turns out they were all abridged and also combined together by the looks of it.  Very strange and not to my liking at all.  If I really don't find anything at the library though I have several more Thornton Burgess on the shelf at home, so we'll simply make our way through those.

I have been reading The Dead Sea Cipher by Elizabeth Peters and Cat People by Michael and Margaret Korda, both light and fluffy and escapist.

This week...

It's been a housekeeping sort of week.  Yesterday I caught up on the laundry, and today I tackled cleaning out Lillian's dresser drawer.  I realize that doesn't sound like a big job, but it really is for me, and I was talking to a friend today and trying to figure out why that is.  Here's what I've decided:

I can't throw things away.

Revolutionary, I know.  :-)

Why is this?  I think it's a combination of the old 'it still has use in it and I can't *waste* something that is still in the category of perfectly good' and 'I have an emotional attachment to this item because my child wore it'.  Whatever it is, I have trouble getting rid of clothes.  So today I worked on L's clothes and passing along the ones that were too small, disposing of the clothes that were too stained, and packing up the rest.  Now, on to the rest of the clothes....

This afternoon I made ginger rhubarb jam, which is just one of my absolute favourite preserves.  And again, I think I make jam because I can't bear to waste all the rhubarb!  Clearly this frugality thing is deep in my bones.

Soap, foggy days, book rethinking

So I made soap yesterday and I didn't die or horrifically burn myself or anything.  It all went smoothly and I am the proud possessor of about a dozen bars of oatmeal bath soap that I can start using in about 4 weeks.  It was fun!  Alright, it was a little stressful but overall it was fun, and informative, and my arm is sore from whisking and whisking to get the mixture to 'trace'.  See, I'm already using the lingo - sure sign of a professional there.

Today was supposed to be sunny and unseasonably warm, but instead it was foggy and cool from yesterday evening all the way until noon today, which kind of ruined our plans - I had big thoughts of putting on the sprinkler and breaking out the popsicles - instead we have been stuck inside all day, tired, crabby, chilly.  Now that the sun is out maybe we can go outside and play.

I gave Ramona the Pest a good shot, but the children aren't feeling it.  I'm not sure if it's just a bit too far out of their realm of experience for them to enjoy it, or if it's simply not their cup of tea right now, but we've had no luck getting any interest in the book.  So I closed it up and tried Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (which I know is so much older) but the language wasn't doing it for them.  It's a challenge.  I've taken Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant out of the library and I think it might have just the right mix of gentle adventure, short, simple story and nothing too old or too young.  We read two chapters aloud today while sitting under the lilac bushes outside.

While David is working, we're puttering around.  I managed to get two good sized mason jars of homemade chicken broth in the fridge, and the small stock pot is on a back burner and full of beef bones and a little lemon juice.  I have no idea if this works, but I always add a little acid to my broth as it cooks to help leach out the calcium.

I'm grateful that yesterday I had the foresight to make a double batch of spaghetti sauce, which we will eat with garlic bread and a lot of cheese before we all hit the hay early.  This spring cold has worn out its welcome.

Crochet and soap

There is something so fantastically retro about the look of all those little crochet stitches appearing on my afghan.  I love the word afghan.  I love this whole blanket, really, but I'm angsty over the introduction of a stripe of bright yellow in an otherwise muted palette - I wonder if we're progressing from 'scrap blanket' to 'garish striped blanket' rather faster than I had anticipated.  Also, if you have enough of a scrap of yarn to do multiple stripes, then as everyone knows you can't 'pool' all of that colour at one end, so you STILL have little balls of scrap yarn hanging about your life as you wait to progress to a decent distance away from the first stripe, and this means the acquisition of more yarn which initially makes you seem to be moving backwards in your progress.  The only way out is through, and whatever you do, don't stop!

I'm off in a few minutes to a friend's house; she's going to teach me how to overcome my fear of lye and make soap.  I will not be blinded and burned, I'm assuring myself, since she has done this many times and makes all of her own soaps.  Deep breath.

Birthday and gardens

Two days ago it was Clara's birthday - she's three now, which seems so impossible to me.  In celebration we all got into the car and drove to a waterfall and climbed up it and watched all the little people fly fishing at the bottom and took pictures.  It was exhilarating!  Then we drove to the city and ate a lot of chicken and came home and had more food - sausages and sweet potato fries and salad and a large strawberry shortcake.  Gifts were given and loved, a balloon made an appearance, and finally everyone was off to bed.

I thought things would slow down a bit after that, but since we still had guests up until this morning they didn't, really.  There was stitching group and Bible club and Bible study and so on, but on top of that I'm working on a new comforter for our bed, crocheted out of the ends of yarn that multiply around here like weeds, and done in triple crochet so it is moving quickly, and then yesterday I planted out two of the raised garden beds.  One of them is garlic (already up from last fall) and dill, spinach, kale, lettuce and zucchini, and the other is all flowers.  I debated for a while whether to give myself the luxury of an entire bed devoted to flowers when I could be practical and grow more vegetables, but then I thought beauty isn't luxury, and planted what I wanted.  In this case lupins, black eyed susans, sweet peas and more dill.  The third bed, once I get topsoil and manure on it, will be mostly tomatoes I think.  Although I dearly want to try and grow some luffa this year and since I have the seeds I might try them.

Now I have the diapers out on the line and the blankets are about to join them.  The house is fairly quiet and I'm going to go do some running around and then possibly take everyone to the library.  Have a wonderful day.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day has come and gone for another year, thank goodness; I can't stand being made a fuss over.  It wasn't too bad this year, though - the children each bought me a peony plant (light and dark pink, so so pretty) and David bought me a movie to add to my Wes Anderson collection and a handmade corn broom that I wanted badly. At church the ladies were all given large amounts of decadent desserts and pansies for their gardens, both of which I got the leftovers from, and so the day passed.  David's parent's are visiting us right now and we bought his mother a little white rosebush that I think will look sweet in her garden.

In school news, we've finished reading aloud Thornton Burgess's The Adventures of Bob White, which the children seemed to enjoy, and are starting in on Ramona The Pest by Beverly Cleary.  I liked the Ramona books as a child, and she seems to get into the minds of little children so well, but then this book centres around the little girl attending kindergarten, which isn't a familiar concept for my children so we'll have to see if they like it.

I'm still determined to do nature journaling with the children this summer but somehow have been totally unable to get to the craft store to buy the notebooks I know I want.  As I said, we have guests, and they are likely here until Thursday, and we've been busy celebrating a certain little girl's third birthday and yesterday going to see a waterfall and take a lot of nerve-wracking photos from the top of it.  But come the end of the week our guests will continue on their way and we'll be able to shake down into normal life again - and I will, I'm certain I will, get a chance to buy these books and some little watercolour paints and other interesting supplies, and tear the children from their playdough, and show them the wonders of nature.

Home Schooling and Socialization

I have gotten asked a lot if I'm worried about my children's socialization since they're being home schooled, and my answer is...no.  I don't want to downplay another parent's fears or concerns for their children, but I have trouble even understanding the question.  To begin with, I'm not sure I agree with the whole idea of 'socialization' anyway; from what I can gather when people refer to it what they mean is 'aren't you worried that your children won't be able to relate to other people and function in society?' and no, I'm not, because my children are IN society.  Unless you aren't letting your children outside of the house and refusing to let them speak to others, they will become 'socialized'.  No one looks at a herd of zebra and asks if it's healthy for the baby zebra of one herd to not meet the baby zebra of another herd - the zebra learn to be zebra in their own herd.

What I think people really want to ask is if I'm afraid my children will be 'weird'.  If they won't dress and act like other children their age, or 'fit in'.  And I'm not sure that's necessarily dependent on where you go to school.  Nor do I think learning the latest fashions should be the driving force behind sending my children to public school.

I believe that my children are actually getting more of a 'real world' education in a lot of ways.  They see adults living at home and doing the things they need to do everyday and from that knowledge they will be able to function on their own one day.  My children will see me plan a meal, go shopping for ingredients, prepare the food and clean up.  They will see me care for infants-change diapers and so forth.  They watch me garden.  When they are grown, they will know how a house runs.  This sort of knowledge is really important to overall life happiness.

Still sick

It's been a long slog through this cold or flu or whatever it is.  And the 'rough nights'....ugh.  First the baby had hers and I sat in the chair all night until the wee hours holding her.  Then a day went by, a day when I began to think life might be worth living again, and then the girl had her rough night and again we sat all night up, rocking and rocking.  A few days passed (the children have literally gone through almost every symptom a cold can present at this point) and I thought 'surely the boy will want his turn up all night with mama' and lo!  It came to pass!  So, last night was pretty awful with complaints of an incredibly sore throat.

David's parents arrive tomorrow and I have nothing done.  Nothing.  Well, no, I have shampooed the sofa that desperately needed it, but other than that I need to pretty much do all of the things.  Mostly this involves dealing with the laundry and the floors, the only two areas of the house that are totally out of control at this point.  If you need me, I'll be folding.

Breathe

We're back home from a four day trip during which we drove 20 hours with three unhappy, sick children.  I'm not sure you could call it a vacation, per se, but it was an adventure, and no one can say the ministry doesn't take you places, since the point of this trip was a work-related meeting.  We arrived home yesterday evening and ate ramen noodles for supper and tried to decompress and simultaneously unpack and get back into the groove of home life.  It wasn't until both girls were down for their naps today and the boy was parked in front of a cartoon and I was finally eating my lunch in peace that I unwound enough to look around me.  The blankets are swinging on the line, the odds and ends from the fridge have been combined into a salad, the floors have been swept; I feel, if not at ease necessarily, at least as though I can put on the kettle and get a blanket and go curl up in the living room to watch kid's shows with my eldest.  I'll roast vegetables and serve them with rice and some fish baked in pastry with a dill mustard sauce for supper, I think.  Breathe.

Spring cleaning...

My garlic is up, and a squirrel has already attacked one of them, and the air is lousy with robins, so between those two facts the cool temperatures don't bother me as much as they would usually.  'It's okay', I tell myself 'It's clearly still spring'.  And then I wander inside and wonder if I hang my clothes out if they will freeze.

I still get that itch in spring, the itch that says Clean All The Things And Organize Them.  Now that I'm back on my housekeeping schedule everything is moving smoothly (or smoother) and I can actually see all the extra above-and-beyond-the-daily that needs doing.  That schedule has just saved my house, I tell you.  Every day I do a full load of laundry, even if there isn't a full load of laundry to do, and put it away.  Every day I do all of the dishes.  Every day I wipe the tables and straighten cushions and open curtains.  But when the everyday is taken care of you start to think about the other stuff to do...

I think I'm going to try and tackle the playroom again.  Oh, the playroom.  It's getting a makeover this summer and I can't wait to write all about it.  But first it needs a good cleaning with a garbage bag.  And then a dustrag and a mop.  Off I go.

Gardens

Yesterday we started raking the lawns around the parsonage, working first on the front, which looks amazing, and while we worked we, or at least I, thought about the improvements we'd like to do to the outside 'landscaping' (put in quotations there for very good reasons).  I would like to dig up the rocks and moss in the little north-facing nook and put in some ferns and maybe lily-of-the-valley, if it will grow there, and then I would like to clean out all the rubble from under the front porch, a holdover from some previous resident, and I would like a new garbage box that the raccoons can't get into.  I know, I have big and glorious plans.  I even thought about re-seeding the lawn, which would be a Project, but probably also something the older children could help with and maybe even more likely than my sudden acquisition of a power saw and the ability to turn wood into a garbage box.

Today I'm going to start raking the side, and thinking about what I'd like to do there.  I have a friend with teenage sons (imagine the luxury, for a moment, of teenage sons) who are sweet and pleasant to be around and also very smart with hand tools and one of them built me two raised beds for my vegetable gardens last year, and is building me a third this year, and also a raised bed with stone around the side of the house, which I will fill with flowers.  What sorts of flowers remains to be seen; I think I will buy a whole bunch of wildflower type seeds and scatter them to their respective destinies and then try and keep the cats away.

Wild Animals

Around the time we moved into the parsonage we were told about all of the wild animals that one could see in the area, or in the town, or even, in one memorable case, in our neighbour's yard.  Apparently deer were all over the place, and various birds, and bears and raccoon and coyote; the apple tree next door had a bear come visit it in the fall, and we were warned about letting our cats outside.  I was pretty excited, I have to admit, to hear stories like that - not that I have any desire to see a bear on my porch, but when a lady who lives one street over from me told me about an encounter with a coyote that she had on hers, I was pretty interested.  I mean, how neat!  How cool!  A COYOTE on your PORCH!  Or the woman who told me about a lynx in her backyard, or the family of baby skunks...

Therefore, I dutifully wake up every morning, and this has become a habit now, I look outside my bedroom window for animals.  Well, we've lived here almost two years now and I have never seen a thing.  Birds, sure, even cool birds, and squirrels and chipmunks.  I've seen the wreckage of *something* getting into my garbage and my compost, so I'm assuming that's the raccoon, and in the winter I've seen rabbit tracks and something larger with paws, maybe also that elusive raccoon, who knows, but as for big, elusive, cool animals...never in the yard or around town.

Now, I have seen deer and wild turkey and eagles and such driving along the highway.  And last fall we saw a black bear and this spring something that I think was a coyote, but it was moving very fast.  The cats bring me mice and birds and once, a mole with it's strange little nose, but I keep peering out at the apple tree in the fall, waiting for the bear.

Sick

All of the children were sick this past week, even to the point of going to work with David and lying on the church sofa wrapped in blankets while he worked.  Of course, whenever the boy gets really ill it goes to his chest - and the dry cough he'd been nursing and couldn't shake for weeks turned into a very unpleasant sounding chest cold so off we went to the emergency room.  The good news is he is finally going to get tested for asthma, and they gave us inhalers to use while he gets better, the bad news is that he's still sick, poor thing, and of course being *only* five means that he can't take any cold medication.

It's weird, how you *not supposed* to take medicine when you're pregnant, or nursing (one or the other of which I have been for five years) or for the first six years of life - all some of the times when you really most need it.  Because you certainly can't explain to, say, a three year old how you can't make them feel better except with some Tylenol and a hot water bottle, and you can't help but glare at your husband when you have a cold and are nine gazillion months pregnant and he has the same cold and is swigging back the cough syrup.  You, on the other hand, get to live like a pioneer and lean over a bowl of steaming water.

Ah, well, at least the weather's nice.  Oh, no it isn't - it's snowing.  It has been snowing and melting and re-snowing for the past two days and every time I look out the window and see flakes falling a little part of me dies inside.  I still force everyone to go on brisk, reviving walks, however, because I'm a mean mother and believe in the power of fresh air.  I'm not saying they end well, or last any length of time, or work to get the crabbiness out of the little people around here, but I don't care; my mother walked me around when I was sick and well and my children will get the same treatment and hate it and then do it to their children.

And the laundry...no, but that will wait, I'm sure you'd like to breathe deeply and go find someone happier.

Seasons

We're in that 'Not Quite Winter But Not Quite Spring' weather pattern here, and it's frustrating me, although it shouldn't because it's essentially indicative of the rest of my life - a feeling of a door not firmly shut but a window not opened, or a season that hasn't passed and yet has started to.  I suppose another word to describe that would be 'life'.  Sadly no one consulted me when that was all being made so I just have to live with it, but I'm generally unhappy about the reality of it all.

You'll be pleased to know, because surely you were all on the edge of your seats, that the great big list of things to do has been whittled down to almost nothing, and after today will consist of such excitement as 'plant the rooted green onions in pots' and, um, oh what else...write my mother, I think, and mail a picture to grandparents.  It's down to the last few items, in other words, and in celebration of that I started another list because, again, never ending.

In a few weeks our incredibly hectic summer of travel will begin, and I'll have many opportunities to practice packing and repacking for five people in a tiny car trunk, and also patience - those two things will go heavily hand in hand.  So pass along your very best suggestions for how to fit it all in, and also travel tips for driving with young children - I'll happily take both.

Spring

Last week I went for a long, long walk and saw an entire yard covered in robins, and I've heard the geese and the sandhill cranes, and seen the gulls returning from wherever it is that they winter.  There are bulbs sprouting up all over the place and the ground is muddy and just yesterday I went out and stuck my hand as far into the garden bed as it would go and it went several inches before hitting frozen soil.  The ice on the lake is getting old looking and the ground is muddy and all of the snow that's left is covered in gravel.  During the day I turn the heat off entirely and open the doors to let in the air - and the cats have Spring fever.  I can reach my compost bin again and so I've restarted it, as well as hanging the laundry.  The days are longer and longer - at 8pm the children have trouble sleeping because it's still so light out.  Last night I optimistically cracked open the bedroom windows for some fresh air while we slept, and no one froze.

I think...it's Spring.

More throwing away

When we had our third child, things changed.

I wasn't as prepared for it this time; I knew when I was preparing for the birth of our first that our lives would change drastically and as we got ready to welcome baby #2 I figured it was going to be a big adjustment, and both times I was correct, but I really thought baby #3 wouldn't be that big a deal.  In a lot of ways I was right; she doesn't make me panic when she cries and all the parenting stuff has been a snap really because I feel like I know what I'm doing in regards to solid food and nursing and such.  But on the other hand, we have entered into a stage of life where it is so easy to feel overwhelmed all the time.  Some days all it takes is a potty accident or a kleenex through the wash and my whole day is ruined.  I've had to minimize our lives and streamline everything I can in order to keep a handle on life.

I don't keep trying to take stains out of clothing; it gets one good shot, and if the stain is still there, decisions are made.  I am ruthless about hand-me-downs or anything that comes into the house; I will throw things away constantly, even if someone really, really likes it.  I don't fix broken toys (unless they are a real favourite) and I don't do any sort of major repair of clothing like taking down hems - really anything beyond sewing on a button.  I don't glue things together.  I don't keep art, or practically never.  I don't have duplicates.  My house is too small.  If everyone here has a pair of sneakers, a pair of sandals, and a pair of boots, that's 15 pairs of shoes to find a home for.

I like having these rules on what to throw away already there in my mind so when I see the item I can just toss it.  When my son had his birthday last week he came home with gift bags, which I threw away.  It felt good.  I didn't keep anything besides the gifts and cards.  And as soon as a gift was out of its packaging, I threw that away as well.

Lists

I have a very detailed planner into which I put all of my daily goals and things to do, and it usually works very well for this.  But every once in a while, for some unfathomable reason, I fall deeply behind on all the things and need to write myself A List.  A big list.  Sometimes, as it is currently, the list is several pages long - but lest you think I'm important let me assure you it's mainly a giant brain dump where I just get everything out on paper that has been rattling around in there for weeks.  The last Big List was before the baby was born, which is very typical for me - nothing makes me turn into a crazy list making woman more than imminent birth.  This list, I have no idea, I guess I've simply been lazy for too long.  Here we are, with three pages facing me down.

It helps to have a time limit set on The List - and I am challenging myself to finish it off before this coming Sunday - 5 days until the Sabbath and those 5 days will work me to the bone, I can assure you.  Some of the tasks I might be able to pass off to others, but some - go through all of the boy's clothing to find gender neutral pants the girl can wear, plan out the gardens, make soup for an ill lady in our church, etc. - are only going to get done by me.

Easter

Like every Christian parent out there, I have spent the last while thinking about Easter and how to make it *special* for my children...in other words, how to talk to them about Christ, what kind of traditions I want to make sure we have, what sort of amazing foods I'm going to prepare, even what their Easter baskets will hold and how they'll look on Sunday.  Now, here it is, Easter, and my hopes for the picture perfect time are not going to come to fruition, and I'm totally okay with that.  I'll tell you why; I've learned that you need to have realistic expectations.

My 'must have' Easter list included new clothing for everyone, washed, ironed, and beautiful and all of our family posed for a picture.  I accomplished new clothing for the children, but not for my husband and I, and I skipped pretty shoes for the girls.  The clothes are washed, and it's possible they'll be ironed, and someone will take a picture of us.

I intended to produce Martha Stewart-esque baskets, which did not happen.

I had several cool Easter crafts lined up - what we managed to do was dye some eggs and decorate Easter cookies with store bought icing.

And so on.  It isn't important!  I have been working all Lent at learning to be more mindful and contemplative and now, faced with Easter that doesn't look like my plans, I'm okay.  We discussed the Easter story, which was the most important part anyway, and I spent a reasonable amount of time doing 'Easter stuff' with the children, without totally upending my daily life, and I touched on the traditions.

Throwing away

After the birthday party this past week I had a whole bunch of gift bags sitting around.  Guess what I did with them; I threw them away.  It's true!  I don't keep gift bags, or wrapping paper, or lots of elastics and plastic bags.  I don't keep stained tupperware or clothing.  In fact, there's a lot of stuff I don't keep that other people might think is wasteful.  It's just that I don't need those things piling up in my house and making me make choices about where to keep them and so forth - I like throwing them away, and I get to be more intentional about what stays.

My goal is a peaceful house, not a cluttered one.  I want only a few things, so that I can find them and maintain them and enjoy them.  I don't want six sets of dishes because I don't need them, and I don't want to store them.  But life is what it is, as well, and I do have clutter and stuff all over the place sometimes, and that's okay, too.  I just keeping going along.

Peace

This past week was a real downer of a week for me - introvert wise.  I like space and quiet and a bit of peace occasionally, and instead we had a double ear infection with the baby, and very little sleep, and some cranky toddler behavior and not one but THREE days of birthday stuff for the newly five year old.  "I've had too much birthday" he told me yesterday.  So overwhelmed.  We both were, my little mini-me and I.

So it's going to come as no surprise that I'm thrilled that a NEW week has started.  New, without any mistakes in it, and oh, I need a fresh start from the short temper and the stress.  So we're getting back on the horse today with a clean house, because if you're ever in need of a change that will quickly give you a different attitude - I have personally never found a more effective method than cleaning your house.  You wipe up the stickiness and the dust and the popcorn and you are, in fact, wiping your very heart clean.  And there you have it, at the end, a peaceful place.

Peace.  Silence.  Snow falling everywhere.

Oh, and bikes.  Because there was a birthday bike.

Teething

The nine month old is teething HARD and we're all incredibly sleep deprived and staggering around.  Oh, gosh, baby, stop crying and go to sleep.  Last night at some point in between doses of Tylenol and nursing and rocking she cut the tooth through the gums, hallelujah.  Still a temperature and great unhappiness, so we're off to the doctor today.  I'm anticipating the next few meals to be made entirely out of raw vegetables and sliced meat.

Tuesday

Every single Tuesday this happens; we hit the ground running and don't stop until we finally fall, exhausted, into bed.  Except today is even worse, if that's possible, because we're trying desperately to get out of the house and go to the Big City in order to get groceries, buy socks and underwear for the children, and renew our auto club membership.  All of this takes Time, and Time is of the essence here because we've got to be back here by one.  Which is why, if you were to peek in my kitchen right now you'd see me hustling around with a towel on my head, getting the children to eat their Red River cereal with maple syrup and Put On Clothes and pack the diaper bag and and and.

Whew.  Yesterday was a bit of a write-off.  I wanted there to be something I could accomplish but really it was just a day of moving one step forward and two back.  I even got the diapers hung on the line...and then it rained.  So, really, nothing worked out.

Oh, not that's not true.  I did get some work done on my son's new sweater.

Guilt Free Learning Notes

Here's what homeschooling is looking like these days!

With nicer weather coming on we're focusing a lot on getting outside - this winter's cramped indoor lifestyle has weighed heavily on our family, I'm afraid.  We visited a Mennonite farm last week, and this Saturday we have a horse drawn sleigh ride booked and next week, hopefully, a trip to the sugar bush.  We try and incorporate a little lesson, or at least some chatter, into each of these outings.  Nothing crazy intensive.

Closer to home I'm still trying to get the children out every day for some fresh air and exercise, which isn't really *school* per se, but is pretty beneficial.

We're reading aloud quite a bit; the current chapter book is The House At Pooh Corner, and we try and do a chapter a day.  The boy is totally sitting still for it, which is great!  We're also reading a chapter from a first grade A Beka reader, and this is the boy's favourite reading part and my least favourite.  The chapters are small, and are non-fiction and followed by a few questions.  I love the idea of encouraging active listening skills, and non-fiction is really appealing to both of us, but the writing style is just so...boring.  And the topics are boring, too.  I wish there was something cool and neat along the same lines, but we haven't found it yet.

I'm seeing big improvements over how he's forming his letters (so clear!) and the letters he remembers.  His pre-reading is coming along so well I wouldn't be surprised if we were looking at phonics work this September.

Finally, I'm doing my best to maintain the outings we have had over the winter - a Sat. craft day at the library, a library day with storytime on Tuesday, a Bible Club Tuesday night and a Wed. play group.  Lots of interaction with other children.  We're also doing the occasional craft; this week we made sun catchers and boy, was it fun.

Fun stuff

Fun thing coming up - a sleigh ride!  We've invited our friends and congregation to join us on a horse drawn sleigh ride at a nearby farm.  I am really looking forward to it, and then hopefully we'll also get out to the sugar bush this month or the next.  I try not to plan too many activities like this, not just because of the expense but also because they require a lot of planning to achieve, and I have a lot going on (for me, at least).  The thrift store is also putting on a spring fashion show next month that I am in charge of, and we're doing a joint Good Friday service as well.  Lots on the plate.  Despite this, we have had to start looking at our summer plans because they involve a lot of travelling.

The first big trip is a two day drive for David's pastoral meeting and we're all going to go as a family, which should be, um, interesting.  I think we'll break it up with an overnight stay with family who live en route.  I'm actually starting to plan that one because I only have a month and a half before it comes.  I'm getting 'quiet bags' together for the children to keep them occupied in the car, and planning a route and looking at restaurants where the children can eat for free.  It won't be a long trip, 4 or 5 days, but long enough in a small car.

Rough Days, new books, etc.

The dreary weather has just gone on Too Long at this point, and everyone in this house is moping and flopping about trying to stay awake and not snap at each other in utter, utter frustration.

With that pretty picture painted, we had an alright day.  Usually I write in the early morning so this is unusual but we've been so tired in the mornings it just didn't work out.  And I'm actually glad about that because this morning the clouds were heavily dropping sleet and rain and the porch was icy and David had pulled a muscle and the children were fractious.  NOW, on the other hand, the children are eating frozen strawberries like they're going out of style and watching cartoons and the baby is asleep and the sleet has stopped and ALSO, I have frozen pizzas for supper.  All is right with the world.

We painted sun catchers this morning, and went to the library and I put a bare minimum of effort into the house and now I am going to sit and watch cooking shows with a big afghan.

A service day

Although I'd like to think that my husband and I share in all aspects of ministry, really it is him who does the majority of 'church work' and I've slowly developed my own ministries of community outreach.  It's not easy to do this - there are a lot of days when I don't *want* to wash my hair, put on a clean sweater and go outside.  When it's cold and early, or when it's late in the afternoon and I'm tired, or during pregnancy.  I sometimes feel bad that I leave David at home with three grouchy children, or sometimes sick ones.  But we've purposed to make this a priority; I write it in on our schedule and in my own planner so there isn't the option to skip.

So here's what I do - I attend a United church women's coffee hour, and I go to a stitching group.  I think of these as 'non-negotiable ministry opportunities', and my goal is to talk to people, to be seen as a member of the community and to fellowship.  I want the women I meet to recognize me and to know that I am not unapproachable.

David is so supportive of these opportunities and recognizes that they are my way of serving in this season of life.  I can't do evening activities with three small children and I can't travel far or hold a job or volunteer, but I can meet these women where they are and be there for them.

Mild weather

The weather over the past two days has been so blessedly mild that David and the children have cleared off the decks and stairs and made pathways to everything and the roof is pouring melted snow and everything seems fresh.  It's only the middle of March, and what's more I read in the paper the other day  that winter was going to hang on and spring would start late again this year, but I cannot believe it when I look outside.  I even had the window open yesterday.  I might hang up a wash on the clothesline today if I can get to it.

If I can get to it!  Ha!  The list of things to do today is mighty and strong but it will be conquered!  Or possibly not, but then I am determined if THAT happens that I will be peaceful about it all.  Less whining, more doing.

Oh, and I finished knitting my lovely cowl that is mostly wool and thick and beautiful just in time for this nice weather when I can't possibly wear it.  So now it's definitely time to start something light and airy so that winter can return.

Tiny Houses

We've lived in the parsonage for a year and a half.  When we moved here it was a challenge for me; I didn't have any pictures of what the interior looked like, and of course we were moving half a country away and didn't know anyone in this area so it's not like we could call up a friend and ask them to swing by and take a look at the place for us.  I knew it was small, that's about it, although I was told it had a 'good sized' kitchen.

Since we were living in a much larger house at the time, I thought a lot about this - wondering whether we should pay to ship certain items or not, about the cost of replacing an old, beat up sofa with another old, equally beat up sofa, that sort of thing.  I wondered about these things, and we ended up renting a seventeen foot moving truck and somehow fitting a medium sized house into it and travelling two days to here, unloading it, and somehow fitting it inside this very tiny house.

I'm not very good at estimating size, but I would imagine our old house was probably close to 2000 square feet, if you include the basement, and this house is probably 1000 square feet.  Over the time we've been here, we've fit into it pretty comfortably, in fact my husband and I are confident that if we had a small basement, or even a nice, big shed for storage, we could happily say that this house was big enough for a family of five.  

One of my hobbies is wandering around the minimalist blogs and looking at people who fit large families, or any family, really, into tiny little houses.  They have all these fantastic techniques to do it, too and it's really inspirational, but of course we can't use half of them because this house doesn't belong to us and we can't structurally change it, and even if we could it would be too expensive.  But we've reduced a lot of our belongings and that's something you can do with any budget.  Really, though, we've mostly just found ways of storing stuff - under the beds, under the sofa, in every crack available, the stuff that we need to live our lives.

It's unlikely that this will be our last church, and therefore our last parsonage.  There will be other houses to fit five people into, bigger people, and maybe even smaller houses.  I have friends who live with their families in big, beautiful homes with many bedrooms and of course on occasion I wonder what that would be like.  But when I probe that feeling to it's root what I'm really asking for is a place to just tuck all of my stuff out of sight - I have these things, and I don't want to have to look at them, and a big house allows me to own them but also ignore them, while a small house makes me choose.

And on a less philosophical note there are other benefits to a small house.  It's easier to clean, it's harder to lose things in, when my young children go to another room to play I don't need to trail after them because I can hear them just fine from where I am, there are no stairs to gate (a real benefit now that the baby is scooting about).  And there are negatives; if I burn something you can't escape it, there is no privacy, when the cats run about crazily after dark you think it will wake the children.

And I suppose, if push came to shove, and David and I suddenly built a house, we would build a bigger house.  I suppose.  But it would never be as big as the average house size that everyone talks about, the giant (to me) four bedroom monstrosities sitting on suburban lots everywhere.  That's too big for anyone.

Saturday

Saturday in a minister's family is sort of like a combination of the calm before the storm and the running, jumping and falling part of jumping off a diving board.  Everything but hitting the water.  It was really unusual for us, this Saturday, because not only were we not home, which we almost always are on Saturday, but we were at a MOVIE, with only TWO children!  Some friends offered to watch our two year old, and we took the four year old and the baby to the movie The Drop Box, which was, by the way, amazing.  I love documentaries anyway - they're my favourite film genre, and I love something inspirational without being sappy, so it was right up my alley.  And the boy sat so nicely and David and I just switched off who held the baby and bounced in the wings.

Afterwards we picked up some groceries and drove home in a little snowstorm and felt all was right with the world.  Supper is braised pork loin with lots of broth and chili garlic paste and ginger and sesame oil and then these children are going to bed.  Tomorrow is a pancake breakfast at the church, hallelujah, I don't have to make a meal.

Busy

A snowy, wintery day after a few mild ones is such a depressing thought, isn't it?  Here you get all gung-ho, so certain that spring is coming and soon you won't be wrapped from toes to nose every time you go outside, and then along comes winter again.  Sigh.

We're having a busy day - we go to the library on Tuesdays (a dedicated library day has been a lifesaver for me and for our homeschooling) and I have to return books.  Then lunch and stitching group for me, and then home to get ready for a supper at the church, followed by meetings, and then bed.  I won't have a chance to breathe.  My general rule is ONE big thing a day, and I know that doing all of this is going to leave me a bit of a wreck by the end.

February

The end of February, I keep reminding myself of this every time I feel overwhelmingly depressed by the fact that it did not magically turn into summer while I was sleeping; it's the end of February and the days are at least noticeably lighter even if they are so cold your skin falls off.  I need spring, and I'm imagining that come the calendar day of spring it will also be beautiful and mild outside.  Ha!

So, we hung some seed bells for the birds yesterday, and shoveled our way around the house to make a path and bundled ourselves and went sledding down the hills.  I fell head first off the sled into the snow and it was So. Cold.  Oh my.

But soon it will be Spring.

Lenten practices

I have tried all sorts of Lenten practices in the past, and I tend to fall into the camp of believing that it should hurt a bit - be actually a penance and not just a nod to sacrifice.  This year I am trying something a little different - I'm attempting to change a behaviour that has been bothering me for a long time; I have a bad habit of not being present and living in the moment, and so I'm doing my best to change that.  It's probably one of the harder things I could do.

On another note, if you have a sick baby, as I do, and you don't have a Nose Frida - well, you're missing out.  They'll hate it, of course, but it works.

Also, something interesting to do with carrots - add a spoon of apricot jam to the cooking water and let it reduce to a syrup while it cooks.  I like to keep a jar around to be a little creative sometimes.

Cleaning the house, mostly

So, I've been trying a new technique for keeping the house clean this past week.  I clean for two hours, and then I stop.  Every day, two hours.  I'm astonished at how much this works, really, because if you'd asked me before how long it would take me to keep my house clean I would have said a much higher number, and it's true that the house isn't sparkling, but two hours does a fine job.

I think the reason it's working is simply because you don't need to repeat the jobs to the same level once you've done them.  So, I scrub the floor, and then the next say I don't need to scrub the floor, maybe just sweep, or sweep and mop, and because of that I now have time to do another thing.

I'm trying not to kid myself and think this is the ultimate solution, but two hours of cleaning seems to work for us right now.

Outing with the cats

Today I get to take the cats to their annual vet check-up - fun times.  It's so much easier not to bring three children four and under with you when you do a job like this.  Most jobs, actually, are significantly easier without multiple small children flopping around in your wake.  So, I'm going with a friend and her big van will seem luxurious with only two women and two cat carriers in it.  And the cats are sure to provide a musical accompaniment.

Ash Wednesday

We had a great start to Lent, and I'm not being sarcastic.  Probably the highlight being meeting an incredibly cool priest with an artist wife who it turns out knew all sorts of people who we also knew.  We chatted long after the service ended and went on our way refreshed, which was good because we had to go grocery shopping with three little people and that's pretty penitential.

I am really bad these days at menu planning, and my two year old is going through some kind of 'not hungry' stage, which contrasts nicely with the four year old's 'always hungry' and the 8 month old's 'hold me' stages.

Shrove Tuesday

We've had a very busy day filled with story time at the library, stitching group, a grocery trip, and now plans to go to a local church for pancakes.  Tomorrow I get to go to Ash Wednesday services and I'm looking forward to it - my favorite service of the Christian year.

I can't wait for my children to be old enough to really explain Lent to them, but right now I'm not great at coming up with stuff to do with them that is child friendly.  I'm really more of an adult teacher.

So, Lent is almost here.

Winter and a cold

It's bitterly cold here today, so cold that no matter how high the heat is in the house, your toes still hurt from the drafts.  Also, the boy is sick and coughing - last night he had a hot water bottle and the humidifier going, and despite some chamomile tea he still had trouble sleeping.  I always pray that the cold won't spread through the children and it always does - so now I just hope it is mild and leaves us quickly.

The snow outside has covered the deck and the boulders in the yard - over my knees.

Cleaning out the freezers

One of the things I've been trying to do this past week or so is empty out the freezers, clean them, and eat all the food.  I'm doing this because, well, there's a lot of stuff in them and I don't like to waste food (although I totally do, because I'm human) and also because I went to all the trouble of freezing this often fresh produce back in the summer and now here I am, not using it.

And furthermore, I feel as though it would be nice to not be using the chest freezer, but just manage with the above fridge freezer.  Probably not logical, but I'd like to all the same.  So far it's going well, although I need a use for all the tomatoes.  Salsa, I think.