sweetness

Audrey was the first kid up this morning, an unusual occurrence in our home of early risers. I was already making pancakes, but Audrey, being the party planner, fancy, loving caregiver that she is, wanted to set the table, make place settings for everyone, and make heart pancakes. I happily obliged and we had a lovely little morning waiting for the boys of the house to join us.

be prepared

If you are an 8 year old with aspirations of being a detective and you decide to interrogate your little brother on the whereabouts of his walkie talkie, be prepared for silliness. Because, you might ask, "Where is the last place you saw your walkie talkie?," and he might just reply, "In my hand." And when you retort, with as much patience as you can muster, "Yes, but in what room?," you'll probably only get a shoulder shrug. Interrogating a 4-year-old is not for the feint of heart!

Thanksgiving

Isaac was sleeping in and Jim wasn't home, but I asked Audrey and Elliot what they were thankful for. Audrey silently pointed to me, to Elliot, to Isaac's bedroom, waved her hand in the air and said, "dada wherever he is," and pointed up at the ceiling for God. When I asked Elliot, he started wiping tears from his eyes and he couldn't stop. I asked him if they were happy tears or sad tears and he grabbed my arm in a tight hug and said, "I just love you so much, mama." Then, once Isaac woke up, I got to run a 5k with my oldest son and I couldn't help but muss his hair and tell him that running with him was one of my favorite things to do. Because it certainly is.

Boy, oh boy, am I thankful for those three kids that add so much to my days and so much to my life.

run

We are taking the week off for a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving break. We woke up and all three kids came into our bed for some silliness. Silliness in the form of leg wars and flexibility contests. See. Silly. We learned that once Elliot locks his knees, it is very hard to beat him at leg war. We learned that Audrey is our most flexible child. We learned that Isaac most definitely is not.

Breakfast, legos, cars, books and then it was run time. Isaac wanted to practice his 5k for Thursdays Gobble Wobble because he wants to run sub-29. He ran it in 28:39 today, so he's more than ready. Audrey wanted to practice for her 2k and ran the entire way. She was so proud. Elliot wanted to try a 1k, his longest run ever. It was a fun combination of walking/jogging/synchronized switching sides/wandering to look at pretty things/giggling/dimple flashing. Pretty much what you'd expect from a 4-year-old.

It is just so fun to share something I love with these three people I love.

Ramona

Audrey and I are making our way through the Ramona series. Oh, how we love Ramona. Isaac read the series himself sometime last year and loved it, too. Really, who doesn't love Ramona and her silly antics and her great outlook on the difficulties of growing up.

Audrey and I read a chapter before bed and I can always tell that Isaac is listening from his room because when we get to a funny part, he is laughing just as hard as we are.

she

She enthralls me and exhausts me and amazes me. She gasps with delight and lowers her eyes in anger. She twirls with excitement and crosses her arms in rage. She feels with every fiber of her thin, strong, wiry being. And I love her for that. For her facial expressions that leave no emotion to the imagination. For her overzealous arm movements. For her loud, raw laughter that punctuates almost every sentence. I love her for all of that and more.

She beams when I dress up and loves to snuggle and hold my hand. She loves to bake and wrap gifts. She loves to embellish stories and pretend she knows. . . well, pretty much everything. She doesn't like to make mistakes, which is easy to know from the pouty, quivering lower lip. She loves reading, and that is an enormous understatement.

She loves.

Unless she doesn't. And that is pretty obvious, too.

And I get stuck between wanting to temper these emotions and wanting her, every fiery little bit of her, to stay strong and true to herself and brave. I remember the first time someone described me as feisty and I could tell by the way they spat the word in my general direction that it was anything but a compliment. And I think a piece of my confidence fell away that day. And I don't want that for her. And I'm scared I can't keep it from happening.

But she, she is full of life and beaming at the new day and ready for anything. She is beauty and spunk and feisty, in the most wonderful sense of the word. She is my daughter. How blessed I am to be her mama. She is my daughter.

the good and the bad

The positive side of homeschooling: Your inquisitive, do everything the big siblings do 4-year-old says things like, "Can any warm-blooded animals survive in the Arctic?" Yes, that's a quote. He correctly used the words warm-blooded, survive, adn Arctic in one sentence. I find this impressive.

The bummer: He loves learning, but compares himself to a 6 and 8 year old instead of other 4 year olds. For Elliot, this means he gets frustrated when coloring or writing because he wants to do it like they do it, even though that is not an appropriate expectation.

one perk of turning back the clocks

Big, living room forts using all blankets and sleeping bags in the house. Lights off for pitch dark effect. Flashlights on. Kid version of ghost stories.Fantastic.

A great start to the week

Some days parenting is just tough stuff. Did I overreact to this? Did I underreact to this? Am I doing the best I can for these fantastic little people who are quickly growing into big people?
Then there are days like Monday. To be true, there were a few huffs of I don't want to do that for school right now and a couple messing with sibling moments, but all in all, it was one of those days where things just flow.

We sing the Johnny Appleseed prayer at breakfast and the kids usually improvise some silliness into the song. Today, Elliot, then Isaac, then Audrey decided to start beatboxing. It made us all smile and give a shout out to TobyMac. Then came school and lunch and dance class, reading and alphabet games and nerf basketball. After snack we walked/scootered/biked to the park for some football throwing, climbing, chasing, swinging, teeter tottering fun. It was chilly, but we returned rosy-cheeked, skinned-kneed (Audrey had a few scootering wipe-outs), and happy.

the snuggly book portion of one of our schooldays

After some books and baths it was dinner time, which included a lot of attempts at crossing eyes. Weird, but true.. Then we got really crazy and the kids pretended I was an evil witch and we were battling each other because I needed Audrey's loose tooth and a little boy for the recipe brewing in my cauldron. People (myself included) were laughing and screaming bloody murder and crying from all of the laughing and screaming. Isaac was trying to finish his dinner, but couldn't because he was laughing so hard. Audrey and Elliot would try to "bury" me with a blanket and then I would grab them or surprise them when they came close to me and the whole screaming/laughing/crying thing would start all over again.

the silly side of life

Bedtime books, an overly tired kid, and some election conversation with the 8 year old rounded out my evening. Yessirree, that was a darn good Monday.

At least we know they come by their silliness honestly.

How it all went down on Sunday morning

I heard Isaac banging around in his room and I knew he was looking for just the right book to help him pass the time until he could come downstairs at 7.

Audrey slept until about 6:40 and then looked at a magazine in her room.

Elliot, the one I was most concerned about, slept until 6:55. When I went into his room I praised him saying, "Elliot, you slept so well. I'm so excited that you got a great night's sleep." He answered, "Yes. That's because Coconut didn't say a peep all night long." Alrighty then. I suppose I owe Coconut, the trouble making imaginary parrot friend a big Thank you.

falling back

The calendar says we fall back tonight, so fall back we must. We started keeping the kids up a little late a few nights ago in hopes that they'd ease into the time change and tonight I executed the "don't wake me up at 5 am" plan. Jim is working overnight, but our plan started much earlier in the day. Isaac went to a friend's house to play and spent the day running in their huge yard, raking leaves and, of course, jumping into them, and playing lots of card, board, and video games. Audrey had a neighbor over, too, and they played school and kitchen and drew lots of pictures. Then tonight Jim went to work and the kids and I read a few books, then started a movie when we would normally start getting ready for bed. Elliot, the one I'm most concerned with given his very strong internal alarm clock, said the movie was too scary and asked to go to bed. Drat. The other two had a great time at movie night and hit the hay thoroughly exhausted.

Now we'll see what tomorrow brings.

perk of homeschooling, November 1 edition

 Because sometimes you just want to do cursive wearing only baseball pants and glow stick necklaces.

 Because sometimes you want to read science books and do your doubles + 1 math lesson in a box, surrounded by glow sticks, of course.

Because some days require a pair of angel wings to compliment the tie dye t-shirt.

I have calmed down a lot in these past 8 1/2 years of parenting. Like a lot! And I've relaxed quite a bit since starting homeschooling, too. Our day looks a lot less like "school" and a lot more like a collection of learners. I plan out our weeks and we have things to get done and subjects to cover each day, but we don't have a rigid schedule by which to accomplish those tasks. If Elliot is getting bored and needs some mama or sibling entertainment, we take a break. If Audrey is tired from Halloween and can't stomach the thought of finishing all of the j page in her cursive book, she'll do 1 1/2 pages tomorrow to catch up. If it's been a really rough week, we'll take a morning off and finish everything in the afternoon. I've realized it will all get done.
My goal is not to finish all of these books and rush through this subject matter. Rather, my goal is to surround these kids with the tools to become life long learners. I want them curious and eager and inquisitive. Sure, there are things that have to get done. Math facts are a requirement. I teach them in different, hopefully more enjoyable ways, but they just have to be learned. On the other hand, Isaac has always loved history. Then, this year, he had more writing to do for history and his interest level dropped way back. I had to decide what was more important: having him hungry for more knowledge and truly engaged or having him work on his writing, which he also uses in cursive, writing, and grammar. I made the decision to cut some of the writing. He is an auditory learner and it is evident that he grasps the subject matter without this extra writing.
That is a perk of homeschooling. I know these kids. I know what they know and what I hope to accomplish in this long road of teaching them and growing them into adults. And, thankfully, I've learned that it's okay if they want to do all of their learning and wondering sans shirt, with glow stick necklaces.