My Man

I have the best husband EVER!

Today my Man was so cute and funny with the kids. I can't remember the last time I giggled so much as I watched him play superhero with Goose today. Goose got a new little Batman figure, his very first superhero all for himself. And to hear my husband role play with Batman, Superman and Buzz Lightyear all to a 2 1/2 year old level - well there aren't words to say how stinking cute and funny he was.

He was the one who made it to the store to pick up a few trinkets for Valentine's Day for the kids, and he even made me dinner tonight! He made delicious shredded BBQ pork sandwiches and a wonderful spinach salad with a homemade vinaigrette dressing. We made chocolate dipped strawberries for dessert, and will enjoy those in a few minutes here. I had no idea he could make his way around a kitchen as well as he did tonight!

I just can't believe how loved and romanced I felt through all this, to have him plan the meal, do the shopping and prepare the dinner. I'm just so thankful I get to call him MINE! He's just an amazing guy. So Happy Valentine's Day to me. ;o) Thanks, Honey!

War. Hngh. What is it good for?

Well, up until today I would have agreed with the chorus line and said, “Absolutely nothin’!”

But apparently Edwin Starr and I were wrong.

Apparently war is actually good for something. It’s good for sparking an interest in learning in young boys.

Go figure.

My home has definitely been suffering from the mid-winter fidgets. School has seemed fairly unappealing to all of us. History was fun enough when we were studying Egypt before the holidays, but I just couldn’t muster up a whole lot of enthusiasm as we closed that out and tried to sneak into Greece. Egypt just petered out very anti-climactically and then there was this pause as I tried to pull together a few fun Greek ideas.

But honestly, I can’t say that ancient Greece was one of my most beloved subjects in school, so I just haven’t been too terribly enthused to pull together anything to share with my boys. They like history, for the most part. And I really enjoy going from creation and working our way forward through time as Sonlight has us doing. I’m pretty sure history would have meant a whole lot more to me had I been taught that way, and I enjoy seeing my boys' budding awareness of history as God’s plan. The history books and the Bible going side by side through history. Really, it’s a neat thing.

But Greece. I dunno. It just didn’t feel much like a fun subject for four kids under seven.
Or so I thought, anyway.

We’ve been reading some Greek myths and picking Greece out on our map, and Punky has been following along well enough with Finny floating in and out of our reading time.

But today, I watched my children light up with an excitement that is generally saved only for Lego creations and toy weaponry. Today, I watched as history took on a life of its own in the eyes of my sons. Today, the Trojan War brought ancient Greece to life for two young boys.

And it was the coolest thing ever!

It started in the usual way as I brought together a few quiet activities for the big boys to work on while I read from our history books. Punky mostly played, but being the auditory whizz that he is, I could tell he was still absorbing enough to call it school. Finny sat coloring some pages from an Ancient Greece coloring book and Girly Pie crawled round chewing on the fallen crayons.

Punky was less than amazed as we talked about Homer and his poetry. He was not terribly impressed with the Greek accomplishment of standards for coins to increase their trading power and wealth. Really, I was about to call history done for the day and pull out Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle for our read-aloud time.

But then I grabbed the Children’s History of the World book and noticed that today’s chapter was on The Fairy Tale War, otherwise known as the Trojan War. So I went ahead and read it.

I forget that raising little boys is a far cry from raising small versions of myself, only with different genitalia. Wars, fighting, trickery, battles over beautiful women – none of that really hits home for me. I read it. I absorb what I need to. I move on.

But my little men… WOW. That is the stuff dreams and passions are made of! Punky immediately lights up and recalls how his aunt once gave him a brief synopsis of the Trojan horse story. Suddenly he’s pacing in circles around the room as he starts spouting off quite a few details of a story she told him months or even a year or two ago. He continued the excited pacing (a sure sign for him that he's excited and trying to funnel all his excess energy and excitement into a somewhat productive activity) as I read the fairly dry version from the history book, and then when I pulled out the picture book with the same story written with a few more interesting details and full of pictures and color he was still and fully attentive. His eyes were glued to the pages of the book. Finny was scanning the pages picking up the colors, plotting out his Trojan horse coloring pages. Punky was scheming away at the multitude of play opportunities this story offered. We eagerly discussed the details of both versions of the tale and pondered over which parts could be true, which were certainly false, and whether or not any of it was really likely to have happened. Everyone participated. Everyone had something to add. Finny had his colors chosen and ready to fly on the paper. Punky was designing his own Lincoln Log version of the Trojan horse in his head.

Suddenly, Greece is a pretty darn impressive little spot on the map. Suddenly, this whole Greek history thing is really COOL!

As I worked on photocopying the coloring pages for Finny, Punky disappeared, only to reappear shortly to proudly announce that he had already begun his Lincoln Log horse. He was ready for their afternoon rest in their room to begin. After all, he had a horse to build, a walled city to erect and an exciting battle to recreate.

So there you go. War. It’s actually good for igniting the fiery passion of learning in boys. I can’t say I really get it myself. And I’m not personally looking forward to all the future historic wars yet to come in our homeschooling career. But luckily for me, there are plenty of those wars to learn about. So I’ve got a good chance at having at least three interested little souls in this house that will happily gobble up history over the next decade or two.

So take that, Mr. Edwin Starr.

Progress

Well, today we are starting our OT therapy schedule for Finny, and even though it is just one small part of our day, and only really aimed towards one small person in the house, I think it is already making a world of difference.

I feel more productive, I feel ready to direct Finny, and I feel good knowing that when the kitchen timer beeps every two hours(thank you Mary Grace for yet another useful idea) I have something written down and ready to follow.

And the funny thing is I have been dreading the idea of sitting down and writing out any sort of schedule forhis OT activities for weeks! It just felt like such a daunting and overwhelming task. But when I finally sat down and put the rough draft together last night, it wasn't a big deal at all. Of course it's not complete - I did just list seven activities for each day (one for every two waking hours) but did not put them in any particular order. That way I have the freedom to pick a more intense activity if he needs it, or a simple, short one if I do not have the time or attention to spare for him at that particular moment. I find I work better with a structure, but I still need flexibility or I tend to just quit when I fall behind or get overwhelmed.

So really, for Day 1, it's hard to say how good of a schedule it is. I can only hope that it will continue as well as it has started. Plenty of time to fall off the path of good intentions, after all. But I feel good today and I really enjoy having some direction in this area of my life.

Also, I started my first day of sneaking in one extra chore per weekday. Monday mornings will be the day that, in addition to the normal daily chores, I do a pick up and tidy in the little guys' rooms. Finny and Punky share a room and are responsible for keeping it clean. They pick up daily, but do a full clean every Friday morning. But Girly Pie and Goose are too little to pick up their own rooms, and I tend to fall behind when I set something on their dressers or someone takes a toy out and no one gets around to putting it away. Though their rooms are not terrilbe, they are often untidy and cluttered looking. And really, they will have years of havign messy big kid rooms. I'd like to enjoy them while they are still cute, little guy rooms. So Monday morning seems a good time to plan on a slightly more formal attempt at making their rooms look neat and sweet.

So there is a quick update on my progress as I make efforts to improving my own follow through and organization. I'm still looking forward to other helpful hints. The one I got so far was a great reminder to just take baby steps and try one thing at a time so I don't overload and give up. Thanks for the tip, Tree Climbing Mom! ;o)

Working out the kinks

Any suggestions from folks out there on how they keep on top of all that they need to do to keep a large family with small children running smoothly? Oh, and get them educated, too?

I can tell that some of my recent feelings of floundering are coming from a decided lack of organization. I have made efforts to do a few little schedules up this evening, though I admit I am terrible at following a moment by moment daily schedule. I am terrible at follow-through on many things in my life, and that is a personal weakness that I am working on and will continue to work on as long as I live here on earth, no doubt. But I would like to get a better handle on things around here.

I have mastered the laundry schedule, finally (which is no small task... so I'm really quite pleased with that one!). But I am really woefully inept at meal planning and chore scheduling. I am pretty good at getting my kids interested and learning each day, but I can't say it's because of my great school planning skills. I think much of my daily energy goes into figuring out things to do on the fly, especially with the younger set. I just put most of my thought into the first grade stuff for Punky, and the little guys just kind of float, or I pull out a quiet activity like play dough or diggers and rice. I do follow Sonlight for much of what we learn, but I still just pull stuff as we go through the day.

I dream of setting aside an evening each week and really planning out what we do for the week, so I have activities for all four of my children at any given point in the school week. Is that a reasonable goal?

But, for tonight, I feel pretty accomplished after having made a weekly schedule for Finny's occupational therapy activities. I'm supposed to have him doing some sort of sensory activity every two hours or so every day. And I have failed at that daily since we started it all before the holidays. So I hope that I can at least stick to this and maybe our days will feel a bit more smooth. I also got a little chart of an extra daily chore for myself. I do the daily stuff - kitchen cleaning, picking up, laundry, meals, all that stuff. But the bigger things like bathrooms and keeping our master bedroom clean tend to fall by the wayside. So we'll see if one bigger chore each day is doable.

It must be something about my baby getting closer to a year. I seem to recall getting back on schedule when Goose was closing in on one, too. Girly Pie is still not even nine months old, so she's not coming right up on her birthday, but as this second half of her first year of life winds down, I realize how much grace I have given myself over the past year (because of course I was less diligent as my pregnancy came to an end, too). Now, I can honestly say that I do not regret a moment of the "slack" time I've had. All that slacking in schedules and chores went mostly to welcoming our newest family member and spending as much time as possible with each of my children as we grew accustomed to that one new little soul in the house. I made a conscious effort to spend time daily just staring at her new little face, memorizing her features and soaking up all those fleeting but precious little newborn moments. I really tried to make time for Goose even though it was easier many days to just let him do his own thing. I put in the time to read the really memorable books with Punky and Finny, even if they were happy to play off together without me - I didn't want to lose touch with them.

So no, I did not get as much done this past year as I might have planned. But I got a ton of things done that really, in the long run, were much more important and worthwhile.

But still, this first year of life as a family of six is winding down, and I realize that it is indeed time to get in gear and step up my expectations of myself. I have memorized Girly Pie's features by now, and she's crawling and into everything, so I do not need to set aside so much time in the day to just sit and stare at her. She's going to bed at a very reasonable hour so I have free hands every evening now, so there is no excuse to just waste away all my evenings puttering and relaxing. I really can get practical things accomplished in the few hours between the kids' bedtime and my own. I can still get the fun stuff done, as well as push myself just a bit more in the down moments to get something useful done.

So, off I go to wrap up an evening of planning and plotting. Any suggestions for nice daily home managing techniques would be greatly appreciated. I love seeing how others do things and finding ways to tweak them to fit my own needs.

Date Night

It's amazing how healing it can be to just go out with one of your children for an evening.

Finny was having a particularly hard day today, and though I do not have it in my to go into details here, I will say that I gathered from him that he has not been feeling very well loved lately. By me, that is. He has not felt loved by me.

So, aside from breaking my mother's heart, I felt compelled to go out of my way to make special time for just Finny. My husband was kind enough to come home a little early from work this afternoon and happily kept the other three kiddos home so that I could take my dear, sweet, sad Finny out for a Mommy Date.

We went to the local craft store and he spent his birthday money on a fun craft. He also spent his own money to get small gifts for each of his brothers. He is such a sweet boy.

Then we went to the restaurant of his choice, which was of course Red Robin. I must admit that I am really quite sick of good ol' American food... but it was his choice, so Red Robin it was. He delighted in choosing his seat and getting me all to himself. He did lament the lack of Punky in particular a few times - but that just makes for a better day tomorrow after having missed one another tonight, I figure.

So, I got to carry my five year old boy through parking lots and have completely uninterrupted conversations with my little guy.

Did you ever notice before that that the crescent shape of the waxing or waning moon looks remarkably similar to a flying banana? No. I hadn't noticed that before tonight, either. But that Finny is one observant and imaginative fellow.

So the night was good. The day was salvaged.

Thank you Lord for good friends who are there to talk me back from hysterical fits of depression over what must surely be my complete lack of competency in parenting. Thank you for a husband who, despite his faults, knows when his wife really needs him. Thank you for an almost seven year old big brother who didn't even bat an eye when told his little brother was going out on a Mommy Date, even though he himself had just been pining for one just last week. Thank you for a two year old little brother who lavished a very sad Finny with kisses at his lowest point today. Thank you for a baby girl who managed to need me just little enough today that I was able to pour just that much more into a five year old boy who just needed me. In short, Thank you Lord for blessing me with all that I need to accomplish the tasks you have set before me.

And thank you for flying bananas. I needed that tonight - that little reminder that my sweet, funny, happy boy is still in there, somewhere.

An Award

Well... how fun was it to sneak a peek at one of the blogs I really enjoy following - only to find that my blogger "friend" Meghann had listed me as a recipient of a really sweet blog award! So the fun gets to be passed along to a few other blogs that I enjoy reading, too.


So thank you Meghann for the smile and the encouraging words. And I pass this along to a few blogs that bless me and encourage me, too.

Congratulations. I hereby give the "One Lovely Blog Award" to...

Mary Grace at Books and Bairns
Anne at Grumps or Giggles?
Ellajac at Aspiring to Simplicity

Too cute for words...

Have you ever heard a two year old sing Peter, Paul and Mary's Leaving on a Jet Plane?

Well. If you haven't, I highly reccomend it as a very entertaining past time. There isn't much that I can think of at the moment that rivals that one for cuteness.

Just imagine the first few parts of the song sung in the cutest little husky mini-man voice. Try to read all the random typos as the cute toddlerisms that they are meant to be.

"uh bags uh pack. Uh weddy to go. I standin' he-uh, owside uh door. I hate uh wake you up uh say GOODBYE! But a don is bwakin, is ully mone. A taxi's waitin', he's bwowin' his hown. Weddy I so woooo I uh cwyyyy. So kiss me, smile fow me. Tell me at you wait uh me. hold like uh.. uh.. wet me GOOOOOO! I uh weevin' on a jet pwane. I dunno when i'w be back again. Oh babe I hate uh goooooo...."

Man. That Goose just cracks me up!