Secrets...

A little something to watch for any who might care to know a little something of a secret I've been keeping...

Life's a Beach

Well here I am sitting in a hotel room in Ocean Shores WA for our annual family vacation to the beach. My five little ones are asleep in the adjoining room behind me and my dad and hubby are off doing guy stuff for the evening so I'm here in the hotel room with nothing but my 6 year old's box of soccer fundraising candy and my hubby's laptop. I have no dishes to clean and no laundry to fold so I thought I'd use my time to do something I find little time to do at home (where there are ALWAYS dishes to wash and underwear to fold!) and post a little something here on my mostly neglected blog. ;o)

So first I'll talk about our first week back at school. We had a really great week - which is saying a lot since more days than not we had one or two sickies floating around the house. On Monday poor Girly Pie had that awful fever, and I think it was Wednesday when Goose was down. Friday was our mellow day with school when we did our first nature walk but Finny ended up getting hit that day. Punky didn't get it until the weekend, but at least they all got it and got over it BEFORE our trip to the beach. Phew. God sure came through on THAT prayer! But even with the breaks for fever checks and vomit and potty runs (oh yes - it was that kind of bug!) we still managed to get everything on our list done for the week. And more than just getting stuff done - the kids and I really enjoyed all that we did! History was fun with some timeline work and a couple of maps. We did a quick overview of Vikings and their discovery of North America and what sick kid doesn't want to watch an hour or two of Nova Viking videos on the couch? ;o) Art was great, science was interesting. It was all good stuff.

I didn't really realize Finny was as sick as he was until after we had already begun our nature walk on Friday - poor kid got home and measured 102 or something awful like that. But he was so cute: On the way to the walk he told me he didn't really want to go and that he didn't think nature walks would be fun. But as he sat there drawing his very detailed sketch of the slug he chose to observe for his object in nature he said to me, "Nature walks are fun. I didn't think I'd like them but I actually do." Cute boy. I realized afterwords that his reluctance to go was mostly due to the fact that he was so sick. But still.

So Week One is finished and I'm looking forward to the weeks to come. I can't say what a blessing it has been to me to see God's hand in choosing our curriculum this year. I had no idea when praying over the coming year what it would really look like for us, but I can already see how much I really needed an open-and-go kind of curriculum. I LOVE the idea of planning each little thing out and customizing each topic to each child's needs and learning styles. But the reality is that I have five children, a house, a husband, a few friends, a church, meals to cook, rooms to clean, the list goes on. And the amount of energy and time it takes me personally to research the educational options, then plot out what to learn and when to learn it, then to study up on the topics enough to know how to even put together a unit on anything we decide to study pretty much takes up all that I have for the piece of my pie I have available to devote to homeschooling. And that doesn't even include the actual time spent TEACHING the stuff to my kids! And I also have to remind myself that all those hours I pour into schooling right now are really only benefitting one of my children, possibly two if you count that I mostly have Finny sit in on Punky's stuff. Of my five kids, only one is really at the age where that kind of education hits home. So my other four (or three if you just lump 6 year old Finny up in the school age category) are left with that much less of me - and they are at ages where they really do still need a lot of me!

So it's no wonder I was feeling burned out by the end of last year. I had put so much pressure on myself to do it all, but I think I had somehow gotten the idea that the only way to homeschool was to do it all like that. But now I can just have my library books ready, do school and enjoy it during the time I've scheduled for school with the two bigger boys, and the rest of my time can be spent reading stories to little guys and watching Little Bug take his first crawling steps and cleaning and cooking - and, you know, sleeping and breathing and actually making eye contact with my husband. Little things like that.

I know the open-and-go style isn't for everyone, and it might not even work for me beyond this year. I'm sure when more of my kids are school-age than not it will be much easier for me to justify all those hours in the day being devoted to that one part of our life. But for now I still feel so blessed that God knew just what would work for us this year and that He so faithfully led me to it when I sought him out in prayer.

So that's school stuff. I might go to bed soon but first I'll just add that we're having a GREAT time here at the ocean! The weather is cool and windy - but it's the Washington coast. I think it's pretty much always cool and windy so we're pretty well used to that. The kids have spent the past day and a half swimming like crazy in the hotel pool and running and digging and exploring the beach and the dunes. No major sand castles have yet been constructed, but they did dig a well and try to fill it with sea water. But you can imagine how well that worked out. At low tide. With two small buckets and one deep hole in the sand. And a little brother filling the well with sand when no one was looking. ;o)

We also found a dead sea otter. My dad laughed out loud after he told me he'd found it. My first question was, "Is it gross-and-nasty-kind-of-dead or go-get-the-kids-and-show-them-kind-of-dead?" Apparently he was thinking like a protective adult, not like a home educating mother of boys. I mean what young boy wouldn't want the chance to see a big sea creature up close, dead or not? And yes, we did go see it. And yes, it was fascinating. And no, it wasn't all old and rotten which is how I could stomach taking them to look. ;o)

So still to come in the week is a trip to the local mini-golf place and a night out at the "fancy" restaurant in town (like an up-class Denny's I'd say, or a low-class Keg) and a whole lot more beach combing and pool swimming. We'll make ourselves sick on fish n chips and continental breakfast waffles and by the time Friday rolls around we'll be cranky, sandy, exhausted and ready to head home - and completely content and refreshed after a wonderfully long week of family fun!

So that's life around here in a nutshell. Hopefully I can post some pictures of the ocean once I get home and clean all the vacation laundry. ;o)

Perspective

You know how you can take something for granted when you have it all the time? I think that is how I used to be with alone time with any of my kiddos. But now that I have a handful of them, those moments of time alone with any one of them are just precious to me.

I've never been the mom to want to drop my kids to run off and do my own thing. Quite the contrary, actually. But I did still take for granted the many wonderful moments I had with them when I only had one or two (or three or four...). I've always wanted a whole passel of children, and more often than not I'm quite happy to just be with all of them enjoying the hustle and bustle of a lively and loving family. And even now there are times when I know I COULD pull just one of them aside - but to be completely honest I choose to just take that moment for just my own quiet alone time. And sometimes I need that alone time. Don't we all?

But today I decided to take the last 30 minutes of my kids' rest/nap time and pull my Goose from his rest early to just have some Mommy-Goose time with him. He is solidly the middle child - one sweet boy in the middle of 5 kids - and he is more often than not happy to do his own thing and fade quietly into the background, just checking in now and then for a happy smile or a goofy comment. His presence is always a joy, but he is often the one to just join the group. When it works for us or the situation he's one of the Big Boys. When it suits us better he's just one of the Littles.

So time alone with Goose is one of those precious things. And today I did make the time to just spend a half hour baking cookies with just my Little Big Man. And it was by far the happiest, most enjoyable chunk of my day. And I had an AWESOME day so that's saying a lot!

We chatted and I got to watch him slowly work his way through measuring and scooping flour. I was able to take the time to teach him a few tricks and we both had a wonderful time.

Now a few children ago that would have just been a nice moment, one of many I'd had and a happy addition to the day. But now - with five of them and those quiet moments much fewer and further between - it was one of those precious memories that may just last me a lifetime (of course my memory is not what it used to be so don't quote me on that...). And it inspires me to make more efforts to take a half hour here or an afternoon moment there to just take aside one of those precious gifts God has given to me and pour into just them alone, and allow them to just have all of me for that time, and to give all of themselves right back to me in return. Yes - I need my alone time. But today I realized that sometimes I actually enjoy the company of my children in those quiet moments more than I do just my own alone self.

First Day of School

Well - we did it! We started school today with one 3rd grader, one 1st grader, one early preschooler (Goose is 4 but his late birthday makes him more of a three year old pre-k'r as he won't start K stuff until he's 6), one toddler and a six month old.

This is our first year trying a whole boxed curriculum and we're doing the 2/3rd grade year of My Father's World - a one year introduction to American History and a brief overview of the states. The program this year is called Adventures in My Father's World. I'd love to stick with MFW for the long run - but I'm experienced enough to know that I don't even know what this year will look like let alone several years down the road! So one day, week, month and year at a time! But so far it looks good.

So a few highlights from our first big day of the 2010/2011 school year:

Just to test my resolve to start the year today my sweet little Girly Pie decided to get horribly sick. She was up a few times in the night and even threw up once. I had hoped that was a fluke (she's working on 2 year molars and the throw up was after a medicine dose), but today the poor thing has had a temperature of around 102+/- even with ibuprofen and threw up again at one point. I would have sacked school normally, but for reasons I'll go into later I really do need to start in a timely manner this year. And for the most part GP wanted nothing more than to be cuddled up on the couch watching Dora the Explorer. She also took a long morning nap so I used that time to get school stuff done, too.

So while Girly Pie was parked on the couch (and for much of the morning Goose too - because when Dora's on how can you tell the four year old he can't watch it!?) we did school stuff. One of the things I like about MFW is that they start the year off at a slow and easy pace - which is great for us and even more great considering how my baby girl felt today! So we didn't do any math or spelling or language kind of stuff today. We just did history, Bible and art, plus some fun intro activities.

For Bible this year we'll be studying the names of Jesus, so this week is just a fun intro to names and their meanings. So we talked about names and looked up the meanings of names of people we know. Tomorrow we'll go into more detail on the meanings of Punky and Finny's names in particular. Sorry - no pics of that activity, but it was fun flipping through our baby name book looking up friends' names!

For history today we set up our timelines, put up the first couple of timeline figures and started our U.S. History Notebooks. The timelines were fun (the focus of the year is U.S history so that's why the timelines are not terribly long and why they cover such a short span of time) and I can tell the boys will enjoy filling in both their notebooks and their timelines with some great work this year.

Another really fun part of MFW is their "Book Basket" time. I just keep a basket stocked with library books from their list in the back of my instructor's guide (the list is even broken down week by week so I can easily make my holds ahead of time and just pop the right week's worth of books into their basket) and the boys have a set time of the day when they are to just sit and look through those books. Punky can read, Finny is still working on it, but even just flipping through fun picture books of the historical topics is fun. They enjoyed that part of the day today, and I've planned for their book basket time to be a very focused time for me to spend with the littler guys. Today that meant mostly Goose since Girly Pie napped so early. So we just read and did a fun alphabet activity during that time.

My Hubby has Mondays as office days at home, so he was around for our first day. He is working on the keyboard here learning a new tune while the boys work on their book time and Goose shows off his clipping activity. Goose struggles with holding pencils, crayons, eating utensils (everything really) properly and with any strength, so we're doing a lot of activities this year to strengthen his hands and improve his "three finger grip," including this chip clip activity. He is so cute and so proud every time he covers the bowl with the clips. And even with one a few scattered tries at it he is already much better and coordinated with the clips. He may actually be able to hold a crayon by the end of the year! (which by the way is my big goal for my little third born man - my goals for Punky at age four were unfairly higher and way less exciting for my little first born man, but you live and you learn, right?)

The unanimous favorite activity of the day was the Patriotic Snack. We layered yogurt, strawberries and blueberries in glass cups for a red, white and blue treat. Everyone loved dishing up their own cups and even Daddy enjoyed the school treat.

We also did art which both big boys loved! It's the "I Can Do All Things" book by Barry Stebbing. We'll see if the excitement lasts but so far I think it's a good fit.

Little Bug was asleep for most of our school time, but when he was awake he was as delightful as ever, scootching around the house and getting into everything we left on the floor - smiling and squealing with delight.

So that is our first day of school in a nutshell. I know the days will be filled to the brim soon enough as we add in math, spelling and the rest, but I still hope to be done with school stuff by 1:00 every day - I think it's doable and so far it looks like much of the work we'll be doing is enjoyable for all. I have been so excited to see what God has in store for us this year, and so far - even with a sick one in the house - I'm as encouraged as ever. Hopefully the updates continue to be happy! ;o)

Six Months

My Baby is six months old. How can that be? And yet, he is. As a matter of fact he'll be seven months here in about a week and a half, I'm just a little late in getting to post six month old thoughts and pics of my littlest man.

Little Bug is the cutest, happiest, smiliest, drooliest, spittiest, most content, most endearing baby on the planet.

He has been mobile for weeks now, scooting, inching, caterpillar- and army-crawling his way around quite efficiently. He still can't sit very well but he's close.

He loves his Momma and Daddy and brothers and sister - and whenever he sees anyone he loves his whole face lights up and his fat little cheeks stretch to the point of bursting - then he starts swinging his arms and bicycle kicking his legs like a wild man. There is no way to even try to resist smiling back - it's absolutely impossible to keep a straight face when he does that.

Little Bug has the bluest eyes and they are so full of light and life and love. When he smiles they light up and make him even more irresistible than usual.

He is a character - he has a temper like no baby I've ever met (and I've met a lot of them!) so it's best not to cross him if you can help it. As delightful of a baby as he is, I have to say I'm a little nervous at the thought of him as a two year old. But we've got a ways to go before we meet two year old Little Bug so I'll enjoy the sweetness now while it's here for the taking. ;o)

His expressions are hilarious. His will is strong. His curiosity is intense and his love for others amazing. His curls are still there (Bestill my heart, a curly headed child - I didn't know it was possible with our genetics!) and his hair is still a disheveled mop most of the time. His cheeks are edible and his neck is scrumptious. His thighs are massive and his ankles non-existent (we call those cankles around here). Chubby fingers and fat little wrists - oh the sweetness of a chunky little monkey.

Oh the darling beauty of our sweet Little Bug. His joy is contagious, his smile infectious. Thank you Lord for the gift of our Little Bug. We love him so.

Goose Turns Four

It's too late and I'm too tired to write about all the fun times we had last Thursday when my sweet little Goose turned four. I hope to sit down another time and put a little more effort into sharing the fun we had as we celebrated the big day together.

But I did just have to post a couple of pictures of my boy on his big day. Can you guess what theme he chose? He'd been talking for MONTHS about the big Soccer Birthday he wanted. The child has never even played soccer himself, but his Daddy played a ton and he's watched his two big bros play on teams for a few years now.

Sweet, funny Goose. That boy steals our hearts on a daily basis. He's the funniest, cleverest, most amazing four year old I know - Oh how blessed I am that he calls me Mommy.

An Oldie but a Goodie

Sometimes there is a reason that classic toys are just that...

Classic.

Last night I did some rearranging and pulled some old baby toys back into rotation for Little Bug. The other kids haven't seen them in quite a while, so whenever I rotate toys it's like we just got home from the toy store. ;o)

Girly Pie found the old Fisher Price donut ring stacker this morning and was smitten with it at first glance.

Something about that little toy has drawn in each and every one of my children at all different ages. The babies love to eat the rings. The toddlers love to wear the rings. The preschoolers tend to use the post as a sword and redistribute the rings all around the house so I spend the next several months trying to collect all five of them so I can put the toy away again (actually so do the school age kids, but I digress...). When they first hit the point of trying to stack them, the babies and toddlers always get them out of order and though some may patiently work at getting it right at times, most just proudly display the three rings they managed to fit on there and move on to something else. Then they grow a bit, and the stacker comes back into rotation (because inevitably another baby has come around...) and suddenly like magic they are able to stack all five rings in order without even breaking a sweat. It's amazing. It's inspiring. It's just plain fun.

And then of course once they've mastered it they lose all interest - and so it becomes a sword once again - and back it goes into the closet until - you guessed it - the next baby is ready to chew on the rings again.

So today when Girly Pie sat down on the kitchen floor I was not surprised to see then new knowledge of size comparison dawn on her as she started to put the rings onto the post. It only took her a few minutes to master, and she, just like her brothers in years past, was thrilled with herself.

I give it less than a week before she moves on - but none the less it was a great moment - and the pictures turned out beautifully, to boot. ;o)