52 Hike Challenge ~ Hike 22: Not as Planned

Our really ambitious plan was to park at Neptune Beach south of Yachats and walk to the Cook’s Ridge and Gwynn Creek Loop Trail. After hiking, I hoped to enjoy a sunny afternoon of playing at Neptune Beach.

First problem: Leif forgot his clothes and stuff in Russ’s car in Waldport.

Second problem: We lost Lola.

Third problem: The sun did not shine.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

It was supposed to be beautiful on the coast this past Wednesday, and our best friends invited us over to Waldport to go crabbing. I’m not big on crabbing but I really wanted to get in a coast hike, so we made plans to meet up. Russ was going to go over early in the morning with two boys to go crabbing with our friends. Then I was going to arrive later in the morning. The women and children were going to head down to Yachats to go hiking while the men stayed to crab. Russ had to head back home around 1:30 so he could coach that afternoon. I wanted to stay in Yachats and play on the beach after hiking and Char was going to head back to Waldport to crab with her husband after Russ left. Then I would bring the kids back after we played on the beach. Isn’t that a great plan? I thought so.

My morning started out smoothly. I arrived in Waldport with the oldest and youngest at about 10 am. The crabbing crew boated in and Char and I headed out with all the kids. It was cloudy and cold, but I was sure it would get warmer.

Halfway to Yachats, Leif realized he hadn’t grabbed his bag of clothes in Russ’s car (though he somehow remembered to grab the ipads, ahem). That meant he had only the jeans he was wearing for the rest of the day.

We arrived at Neptune Beach south of Yachats, and I had no cell service. I had forgotten to take screen shots of the hiking info, but we managed to find the trailhead and get started. In previous years, Lola used to drag behind the rest of the pack and whine. A lot. But lately she has been full of energy and excitement and running in the lead. That’s usually better than dragging behind and whining. She was ahead of Char and me as we labored up a hill. The other kids passed us as the trail started downhill because running down is the best part (if you aren’t old). Then we came to two forks in the road (in quick succession) and Lola was nowhere to be found. The kids hadn’t seen her.

She knows to stop and make sure we’re behind her. She knows to stop at forks in the trail.

But that day she didn’t.

And we spent the next however long trying to find her. She’s been lost many times before (the joy of fearless, independent, curious children), but this time we had too many directions to look. We needed to stay in communication with each other without cell phones. And we needed people to stay at the forks in case she turned up. A lot of time passed and we couldn’t find her. It had never taken that long. We were so close to calling in search and rescue because we didn’t know how to procede.

And then Char found her.

Lola was running and didn’t notice the fork. Then she heard Leif calling. That meant we were right behind her and she didn’t want to lose her place in the lead, so she kept running. Sigh. (The joy of competitive kids.) But she sat herself down and waited at the next fork in the road until Char found her.

We had been running up and down trails trying to find her. Everyone was tired. No one was in the mood to hike anymore. So we hiked back to the cars. [I’m still counting this as a hike, even though we didn’t finish the trail and I have not a single picture to commemorate it!]

The weather was still cold and cloudy, so we just drove back to Waldport instaed of staying at the beach. Leif was able to get his bag of stuff from Russ before he left. We ate lunch and relaxed at the dock.

Then I drove all the kids up to Newport in search of a beach while Char and John stayed to finish the crabbing.

It was not warm. It was not sunny. But the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Leif, Luke, and Monet got completely soaked in the waves (insane). Lola had her suit on but only got her legs wet. McKinnon and Levi mostly stayed out of the water and enjoyed the rocks and sand.

Later we cleaned up and met John and Char at Mo’s on the waterfront for clam chowder.

It was a special time with great friends, and now we have more stories to tell.

[I did have a long chat with Lola about hiking rules, and she will stay completely in sight at all times for the rest of the year.]

A Way in the Wilderness and Rivers in the Desert

[I discovered and/or shared all of the following verses, quotes, and links on Facebook. FB can be a wildnerness itself, but curated rightly, it is full of manna and water.]

I’m following Rebecca Reynolds as she explores The Bible Project this year. She is one of my favorite writers, and I’ve already loved her early thoughts on Genesis (here—a must-read—and here).

But her post today (link below) was meant for me. My friend Tinsa had shared the above verse just yesterday, and both the verse and the post very clearly weave in and out of another quote by Marilynne Robinson (from Gilead) that has been on my mind and in my heart (and which I shared three days ago).

"That is how life goes—we send our children into the wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it seems, for all the help we can give them. Some of them seem to be a kind of wilderness unto themselves. But there must be angels there, too, and springs of water. Even that wilderness, the very habitation of jackals, is the Lord's. I need to bear this in mind."

Maybe there is one person reading this post who needs to read Rebecca’s words. Go.

When Your New Year Begins with Old Chaos by Rebecca Reynolds

The wilderness. The desert. Here is the backdrop of Genesis 1:2, the context upon which God is brooding, growing soft and relaxed as a competent artist who knows he has the ability to bring a heavy, aching chaos to order. He has a plan. He is not frantic like I am. He is not weary.

…Immanuel. God is with us. And this time, instead of hovering over the waters, he has walked inside of them, absorbing the crashing waves of confusion, misery, destruction, death, ignorance, sorrow, and my own wickedness even into his own flesh—and rising like emanating daylight.

Right after I read the above post, my friend Briana shared this (on FB—click the link to read the whole post):

For those whose 2017 had no clear stop and 2018, no clear beginning.
•
Instead, midnight came and went, and the sorrow of last year clung tightly, even sunk its grip in deeper.
•
May you have the manna of grace sufficient for each day, and may it be as good as a feast.

For those of you who have struggled through Christmas, may the following beautiful words and posts be manna in the desert, a feast for your soul.

A Source of Hope, Even for the Grieving @ The Washington Post

The British author J.R.R. Tolkien — something of an expert on such things — argued that every great fairy story has a “turn” in which despair is suddenly and miraculously reversed and the heart’s desire is fulfilled. “It denies (in the face of much evidence if you will) universal final defeat . . . giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.” For Tolkien, this moment “rends . . . the very web of story” and allows us to see something real about the universe itself.

The Awesome Power of the Christmas Story by Robert Barron @ Lost Angeles Times

“I believe that there is a logic that stands behind all things, and as a poet, I see the wonderful appropriateness that this awesome power would express itself as a baby born in straw poverty.” [Bono]

When Christmas Doesn’t Sparkle @ Oceans Never Fill

Christmas arrived in darkness and murder and failure and fear and sorrow, and that is precisely why it is filled with so much hope. Because Christmas arrived. Jesus came. In a town that was held in the grip of a tyrannical, cruel king, to a mother who was completely unknown and too young, announced to a group of outcast shepherds, in a world that was too dark in 400 years of God’s silence, he came.

The Wild Hope by Frederick Buechner

To look at the last great self-portraits of Rembrandt or to read Pascal or hear Bach's B-minor Mass is to know beyond the need for further evidence that if God is anywhere, he is with them, as he is also with the man behind the meat counter, the woman who scrubs floors at Roosevelt Memorial, the high-school math teacher who explains fractions to the bewildered child. And the step from "God with them" to Emmanuel, "God with us," may not be as great as it seems. What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year in a world notorious for dashing all hopes is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born again even in us and our own snowbound, snowblind longing for him.

I pray that your new year is filled with rivers and manna—unspeakable, unfathomable, unmitigated hope and joy—even in the midst of any desert you may be walking through.

Emmanuel. God with us.

ISFJ + R x 4 = Burnout

Have you taken the Homeschool Personality Quiz at Simply Convivial?

I’ve been fond of the Myers-Briggs personality types since my oldest was very young and it was obvious that he was processing the world in completely different ways from how I processed the world. With the discovery of MB, I also discovered that my husband is my polar opposite. Okay, that wasn’t exactly a new discovery, but it helped me to understand that he wasn’t picking the opposite answer or approach every single time just to make my life difficult. [wry grin] That’s just how he sees and processes ideas, tasks, and experiences (and I’m sure he constantly questions my processing as well).

I am an ISFJ. I don’t think I have ever scored differently on a MB quiz. How does this personality inform my homeschool style? According to the quiz at Simply Convivial, ISFJs are very supportive and love being useful, but because they also dislike conflict, homeschooling becomes difficult when there is any push-back or frustration by the children.

I could have told you that.

Now, as fond as I am of the MB personality typing, and as little as I like other personality typing (DiSC, Enneagram, whatever), I recently re-took Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies quiz. I didn’t really need to take the quiz to know my type, but I’m a rule- and process-follower.

Obliger. I meet outer expectations and resist (or fail) inner expectations.

I got to wondering what my kids would score. I had a pretty good guess for three of my children and a hunch for the fourth.

The three boys took the online test. All three scored the same.

Rebel. They resist both outer and inner expectations.

If my daughter could take the test? Also Rebel.

This Obliger is attempting to parent and homeschool FOUR Rebels (three of whom are boys in puberty or adolescence), and feeling like a failure. [Three of my children are Rebels from birth—though each is different in his/her own way. One of my children is likely an Obliger who is going through a Rebel phase. Interestingly, my Rebel children’s rooms/spaces are complete chaos and my Obliger/Rebel craves neat and attractive spaces.]

If you haven’t parented (or homeschooled) a Rebel, this is what it feels like: every time you take a step, someone puts something in your way and you trip over it.

Me: Fish can’t walk.
Rebel: Some can.

Me: Don’t touch this.
Rebel: [touches this]

Me: Do not get out of bed for any reason again tonight.
Rebel: Unless the house is on fire or someone is bleeding or _________ or___________.

Me: This is the expectation and this is the consequence.
Rebel: [long list of exceptions and loopholes and/or volatile response to the unfairness of it all (or, alternately) “doesn’t hear a thing”]

Me: You will now have to lose ______ because you did/didn’t do __________.
Rebel: Didn’t want it anyway. (or, alternately) Now I have no reason to do anything, so I will not meet any more expectations or follow any more rules. (or, alternately) Here are all the reasons I think you are wrong, including that I didn’t hear you state the expectation and consequence and you can’t prove that I did, your expectations weren’t clear, your expectations were unreasonable, this is the loophole you didn’t account for, I did *enough* to meet the expectations and your evaluation of my work is arbitrary, someone else stated different expectations, you are a terrible mom for taking this away from me.

Me: You can earn _______ privilege by meeting ________ responsibility.
Rebel: Don’t want it bad enough. (or, alternately) I’ve never before been able to earn that privilege, so I don’t know how great it could be, so no great loss.

Me: I refuse to argue and I’m walking away.
Rebel: Awesome. Now I can keep doing whatever it is I wanted to be doing. (or, alternately) You don’t love me and you don’t value my thoughts and ideas. You just want to control me.

Me: It’s time to ______.
Rebel: Don’t micromanage me.

Me: Why didn’t you do this?
Rebel: You didn’t tell me to. (or, alternately) You didn’t help me with it/do it for me.

Tutor: Class, stand up and recite with me.
Rebel: [flops all over on the floor] My legs are tired.

Tutor: Sit in a circle, class.
Rebel: [stands up and wiggles]

Me: Please don’t talk to every stranger you meet.
Rebel: [talks to every stranger he/she meets]

Tutor: Why don’t we go around in a circle and introduce ourselves.
Rebel: [refuses to speak because she’s “shy”]

How you deal with this depends on your personality type and also whose parenting advice you listen to—which feels mostly like a pendulum swing. Either you state expectations and consequences without any discussion, walk away, and let the consequences speak for themselves without the emotional rollercoaster and without engaging in a power struggle OR you treat your children like human beings and value their thoughts and ideas, giving them input into their own lives so they can learn to process ideas and self-regulate.

Neither of these work for me. Great on paper. Messier in real life.

A few months ago, a lovely homeschool guru posted on her Facebook page: “It’s a GOOD thing to have kids who push back and question everything.”

Well, no. It’s exhausting. Simple things that should take 5 minutes become a 60 minute “discussion” and it ends in either the child being allowed to have their way or a battle because the child doesn’t get their way at the end of it. Natural consequences are often, even usually, felt by someone other than the child. And when you’re doing this x4 all day, every day, there just isn’t time left for anything else—like making dinner or sleeping.

The natural consequences are that the house is trashed, lessons are not being completed, everyone is irritable, no one enjoys each other’s company, and nothing fun is on the calendar.

The natural consequences are that mom is hiding in the bedroom.

The Best and Most Precious Things

 

“We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren't capable of remembering how we got here. When you are born, you wake slowly to everything... What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it. We are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given--it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral."
~Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

"Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them for nothing." ~G. K. Chesterton, "The Shop of Ghosts"

"If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say both as a novelist and as a preacher, it would be something like this: Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace." ~Frederick Buechner

State of the Academy Address ~ 2016 [Looking Back]

Ahem.

I haven’t talked much about the details of our homeschool this past year (2015-2016), have I? I didn’t even keep a book list for the boys!

It has been a lazy, relaxing year. Probably our laziest yet. I purposefully stepped back and took a rather significant break.

Lola [4/5, K4]

Lola started Classical Conversations Foundations in the fall (she turned five in October). Her tutor, my good friend Jessye, was wonderful, but Lola was not exactly invested in the experience. She basically attended just to learn the routine, get used to following directions, and all that. She memorized nothing. In fact, she hardly even said the words. She’s not much of a science project, map-tracing, fine arts kid, either. She was in her own little world. A very talkative, wiggly, opinionated world.

She has been learning to read slowly and casually, but has little interest in any other learning. This is a completely different experience compared to her brothers, especially Leif, who entered CC at barely four and could read all the memory work and add double digits (though he, too, could not sit still or be quiet or participate cheerfully). Because there is such a large age difference between the boys and her as well as a lack of interest and ability to listen or cooperate, she rarely joined our group learning time at home. She either did her own thing or interrupted us (mostly interrupted us if she wasn’t on a screen, because she does not play independently). She is an expert at Minecraft, however. I’m being really honest here. This is reality, folks.

Leif [9, 4th Grade]

As a 4th grader, Leif enjoyed his sixth year of Foundations, tutored by my “little sister” Lindsay. She had her hands full, but she also was a fantastic tutor. Leif has always struggled with maintaining control of his body and mouth, and he knows all the things and how they should be done and he must say everything out loud the moment it pops into his head. He also takes up the space of two kids because he has no concept of personal space. He was diagnosed with Tourette’s, impulsivity, and ADHD at the beginning of the school year—all things I already knew, but it was nice to be affirmed in my mother’s intuition and know that he wasn’t trying to be a difficult kid. In fact, he is one of the biggest, most affectionate teddy bears you will ever meet. He is also a very smart kid who looks much older than he is because he’s huge. He has most of the memory work down cold, but I dropped the ball in geography so we’ll have to work a bit over the summer to complete Memory Master at home.

This was his first year in Essentials. Class was a struggle for Leif because he had already expended all his energy on being “well-behaved” for the whole morning and had nothing left in the afternoon. He is a whiz at grammar, but writing is a struggle. We did only a few of the writing assignments together. He has plenty of time (at least 2 more years of Essentials), and he was the youngest kid in class. There were days when I just let him read a book in the back of class.

Leif did very little formal work at home this year, but he reads voraciously and is working above “grade level” with Khan Academy math. He also swims four afternoons a week with the swim team.

Luke [11, 6th Grade]

Luke also completed his sixth year of Foundations, but as a 6th grader. He was tutored by Char, my best friend of 28 years, and it was a joy for me to sit in their class often. She did an excellent job, and I’m glad she and Luke had that time to bond. Luke has matured so much over the past couple years, so morning class was much easier for him. He completed Memory Master for the 3rd time (his 2nd time for cycle 1; he missed cycle 3 last year) without much effort, but he did little else at home for CC.

This was Luke’s third year in Essentials. He was often in his own little world during class, as he’s not all that fond of grammar and certainly not at all fond of writing. We worked on many of the papers together at home. [I don’t know if I could have tutored without him, though, because he was my right-hand man when it came to loading up in the morning, setting up class, tearing down class, cleaning up, and unloading at home.]

Luke did very little formal work at home this year, but he reads voraciously and is working above “grade level” with Khan Academy math. He also swims four afternoons a week with the swim team.

Luke did spend quite a bit of time this year baking. He is my most focused kid when it comes to something he is interested in! And he’s a tremendous help to me when I need assistance in any way.

Levi [13/14, 8th Grade]

After a rough year of CC Challenge A last year and for various other reasons, I decided not to enroll Levi in Challenge B for his 8th grade year this past year. He spent most of our community days home with Russ, working on independent tasks and reading. He spent another day each week working with his friend McKinnon and McKinnon’s mom (my best friend, Char) on Challenge B Latin and Logic. One other day each week, McKinnon, Levi, and I worked together on Challenge B literature discussions and The Lost Tools of Writing. Levi didn’t do much formal independent work in these subjects other than reading the literature selections. [Levi did nothing for Ch. B debate and did no science research other than reading through a few books.]

Levi read several pieces of more challenging literature [To Kill a Mockingbird, The Chosen, The Book Thief, The Silmarillion, The Boys in the Boat, The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged), and others]. [I intended to work through Roman Roads Western Culture Greeks with him this year and I totally fell through on that, but he read quite a bit of The Iliad.] He worked through some of Life of Fred Pre-Algebra and is almost finished with Pre-Algebra on Khan Academy. He spent a bunch of time doing his own story writing and drawing. He loves Skyping with friends and planning projects (mainly fiction writing, Minecraft videos, and such). He also swims five afternoons a week with the swim team. Levi has joined three other boys from CC (they were all in the same class six years ago) and one of the moms (my good friend Heather) for a monthly Bible study.

He grew a bunch and is now a few inches taller than me, and he spent the year in orthodontics. He’s hairy (and he is partial to the mop of hair on his head). He now loves to stay up late and sleep late in the mornings.

 

_______________________________________________________________

 

Despite all the challenges, Classical Conversations was one of the main threads holding us all together. This was our 6th year in community. I tutored an Essentials class (English grammar, writing, and math games) in the afternoon with Leif and Luke and 13 other students (plus parents). The experience was overwhelmingly positive, and I look forward to tutoring again next year. As always, the friendships within our community are priceless to me. Our community days give structure to our week, and I know that we have learned something and challenged ourselves even if we do little else all week long.

Khan Academy was another huge success this year. I posted about it at length here. In short, it is a brilliant FREE online math program. It is interactive and gives students excellent video instruction, step-by-step help, and instant feedback. It requires students to master concepts. It is rigorous and comprehensive, but attractive and motivating. Math has never been my favorite subject to teach, but it is extremely important to me that my boys have a consistent program to work through. After using Teaching Textbooks for several years and Saxon for one, I’m thrilled that the boys can complete their math education with Khan.

The boys and I also finished reading A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens this year (probably my favorite read-aloud accomplishment) and we also read Heidi together (the boys’ favorite read-aloud novel).

I led a Book Detectives parent-child literary analysis group monthly during the school year, and the boys participated in those discussions.

For my own scholarship, I joined a group of CC moms who met at my house each month to discuss the works of Flannery O’Connor, led by my brilliant friend Mindy. This was an incredible experience for all of us, and we have one or two more meetings ahead. (This was in addition to meeting with a slightly different group of women several times to discuss The Question, a book about Aristotle’s 5 Common Topics for the logic-stage student by Leigh Bortins, as well as meeting monthly with my long-time book club, ChocLit Guild.)

 

Coming up: Looking Forward

Summer Plans [May-July] and 2016-2017 Plans.

A Day in the Life ~ Monday

A Homeschooling Monday in the Life of Levi (14), Luke (11), Leif (9), and Lola (5) [And Heidi, Too]

Mondays are our Classical Conversations community day.

[I spend a good portion of Sundays prepping for Mondays. I go to the grocery store. Make sure the kids have their papers and whatnot for school. Do laundry. Set out (and iron if need be) clothes for Lola and myself. Try to have the house relatively clean and neat (though this is a losing battle). Have Leif and Lola bathe. Try to get the kids to bed at a decent hour (also a losing battle). After the kids are in bed, I prep for my Essentials class, write out a task list for Levi, and set out lunch bags and snacks and such for Monday morning. I usually fall in bed around midnight or after.]

6:00  I hit the snooze button. Repeatedly. I am not a morning person. My preferred wake-up time is 9 am. Even 10 am would be nice...

6:20  I grudgingly roll out of bed and head to the shower. After getting myself half ready, I read my Bible and devotion book for a few minutes and pray for strength for the day. Russ leaves at some point. (He’s usually gone before I get out of bed, but his schedule is off this week.)

7:00  I wake the boys and go to check my email. Internet isn’t working on my computer. Luke pops out of bed, gets dressed, empties the dishwasher, and cooks some bacon. I pack Lola’s snack bag and begin packing lunch. I repeatedly go in the boys’ room to wake Levi and Leif.

7:30  Levi finally drags himself to the shower.

7:45  I drag Leif out of bed. I make eggs for Leif and myself and egg on toast for Levi. Luke toasts a bagel and eats it with cream cheese.

7:50  Lola wakes up and I give her Greek yogurt.

8:00  The push to the finish line begins. I stagger down the stretch, carrying Levi, Leif, and Lola. “Brush your teeth. Get dressed. Pack your snacks/lunch. Brush your teeth. Comb your hair. Get dressed. Gather your things. BRUSH YOUR TEETH. Where is your snack bag? Lola, stop playing with your toys and get dressed.” Leif sits like a stone in the living room. He refuses to get dressed because his jeans aren’t comfortable. I finish getting myself ready. I put a ponytail in Lola’s hair while Luke loads all our stuff in the truck and starts the engine so it will warm up. “Get your shoes on!” Lola won’t let me help her so I leave her to do it herself. She throws her shoes across the room. Levi is still getting ready and I’m starting to twitch. He asks, “Mom, do you think it would be unethical to augment a human with cybernetics?” (Clearly his mind is not on teeth brushing.) I’m supposed to take a frozen pie to a friend (for a swim team fundraiser), so I get a cooler with ice ready. And then I can’t find the pie. We leave the house a disaster.

8:50  We’re all in the truck by the skin of our teeth. The truck makes a weird beeping noise when I put it in reverse, and I wonder what’s going on. Luke says in exasperation, “We’re going to be late if you contemplate the baffling enigma indefinitely!” (I’m pretty sure he means “Forget it and get moving!” but I’m glad the vocabulary from Essentials is sticking.)

8:51  Lola realizes that she left her presentation (her toy for show-and-tell) at home and starts wailing. I tell her that’s the consequence of not getting ready with a good attitude. Levi hooks up his music to the truck speakers so we listen to “Fear Not This Night” from Guild Wars at top volume.

8:53  We’re at my mom’s house to drop off Levi with his bin of school work. [He’s doing some of the Classical Conversations Challenge B work at home and with his friend. Russ usually works from home on Mondays so Levi can stay with him, but this week he has to be in his office all week for training.] I chat with my mom and dad for a few minutes. Luke counts each minute and calls for me to stop talking.

9:01  We leave for our day at Classical Conversations. Lola is still screaming and she proceeds to scream the whole way there.

9:13  Lola has now been screaming for more than 20 minutes. Luke unloads the truck and the boys go to class. Lola refuses to pull herself together. We finally walk in (late) while she’s still throwing a fit, but she refuses to go to her class (for the first time ever). She sits in the back of Luke’s class and looks at her book. Luke’s class is learning about Ghiberti and working on an art project. The moment I’m distracted watching Luke, she disappears. I find her, she still won’t go to class, so I take her back to Luke’s. We go back and forth between classes for most of the morning, and she never finds her groove. She does manage to "massage" her face with sandpaper from their art project, and then has a painful red rash around her mouth for the rest of the day. I peek in on Leif’s class a couple times. The classes learn their new memory work in timeline, history, Latin, English grammar, math, science, and geography. They learn about core samples with a science activity. Each of the students give presentations and eat snacks. Then they review past memory work.

12:00  It’s finally lunch time. I spend most of the time talking. (And dealing with Lola. And losing Lola.) I’m late setting up my class. I’m late taking Lola to afternoon play camp in the gym.

1:00  My Essentials class begins barely on time. Game on. Luke and Leif are in my class. We cover complex, imperative, S-Vt-IO-DO sentences and then active and passive voice verb structures. We take a quick break and then come back to read IEW papers and cover the multiple-source, fused-outline research assignment with a new style tool (luckily it’s the www.asia.wub subordinating conjunctions that we covered during grammar). Leif is completely checked out half way through the afternoon and reads a book in the back of class while humming. (I’m trying to figure out appropriate expectations for him as we’re adjusting to a Tourette Syndrome diagnosis along with other comorbid diagnoses such as ADHD.) We end the afternoon with a rousing math game of Battleship Board Slam.

3:15  Class is over and I’m exhausted. I try to keep a fairly high-energy class, and my voice is shot. Clean up begins, but I have great helpers. Luke gathers up most of our class stuff and loads the truck. I pick up Lola from play camp. It seems she had a rough afternoon, as well. I see an early bedtime in our near future.

3:40  We finally leave CC.

3:55  We pick up Levi and I chat with my parents for a moment. Levi shows me the new Doctor Who shirt he got on a shopping trip with Bambi.

4:05  I stop next door at my sister’s and drop off a bin of girl clothes and pick up mini muffin tins.

4:15  We’re home. Hallelujah. We unload the truck. I discover I left the kitchen window open (from the bacon fumes). Oops. The house is still a disaster. I change into my pjs and grab a cold beverage. The kids have lost screen time, so they head outside for an epic Nerf battle. I pre-heat the oven for frozen pizza and discover I bought thin crispy crust instead of the thick crust that we like. I lie down in bed until the pizza is done.

5:00  Internet still not working on my computer, but I figure I can type up a log of our day. I hear a strange noise and can’t figure out what is making it.

5:05  I discover what the curious noise is: Luke is on the roof.

5:15  The kids come in for pizza.

5:45  Luke finds the pie I couldn’t find this morning—buried in the chest freezer. He begs to bake something. I relent and give him a recipe for glazed lemon muffins.

6:25  Russ arrives home. He brings me chocolate and fixes my internet. I heat up some food for him. I finish blogging.

7:00  Luke is finishing "cleaning" up the kitchen from his baking mess. It's read-aloud time and then an early bedtime for everyone. Maybe I'll get some reading in tonight. Or maybe I'll just go to sleep. Yeah, that sounds good.

Food for Thought ~ When You're Drowning

We’ve received around 10 inches of rain so far this month (our average precipitation for the whole month is 7.5). So, yes, it feels as if we’re drowning some days.

We’re headed into our busiest holiday stretch. And that’s why Lola puked all over me yesterday. Yes, it felt as if I were drowning.

But.

Immanuel, here with us.

In sun or rain. Health or sickness. Joy or heartache. Accomplishments or failed attempts.

Immanuel.

:: Failing at Advent @ by Tresta at Sharp Paynes [Love this. LOVE it. I am the mother of good intentions. So many of them.]

"Necessity might be the mother of invention, but I am the mother of good intentions. So many of them." 

"I want my own burning bushes but these are the terms: tell me what I want to hear, show me You’re with me, and let’s do this now because I’m tired of waiting." 

"Immanuel, here with me because of my failures."

:: The Brutally Honest Christmas Card @ D.L. Mayfield [Vulnerablility. Let’s be kind this Christmas season to everyone who crosses our path.]

:: When They Saw the Star @ CiRCE

Aquinas tells us that, “Wonder is…desirderium sciendi, the desire for knowledge, active longing to know.”

:: You Barely Make a Difference and It’s a Good Thing @ Glory to God for All Things [This was a difficult blog post to read and I’m still struggling with it, but I love how Andrew Kern summed it up on FB: "Love your neighbor and let God decide if it will make a difference. When you try to make a difference, you are turning Christ like love into power over others."]

We have no commandment from God to make the world a better place. We have no commandment from God to “make a difference.” Only God makes a difference, and only God knows what “better” would actually mean. As Christians, the proper life is one lived in accordance with the commandments. We should love. We should forgive. We should be generous and kind. We should give thanks to God always and for everything.

:: The Difference Between Art and Entertainment @ Goins, Writer [Excellent article.]

Entertainment makes us feel good. Art, on the other hand, transforms us.

:: Promises That Can't Be Kept: Why education rightly done is a path and not a method by Matt Bianco @ CiRCE

We pursue education because it is right and worthy, not because it guarantees anything.

:: 10 Things Your Homeschool Friend Won’t Tell You (but wishes you knew) @ Lea Ann Garfias

She’s just like you.

:: How Each Myers-Briggs Personality Type Prepares For The Holidays @ Thought Catalog (A funny post to end on…)

[Me] ISFJ - Settles down to watch their favorite holiday specials that they’ve been enjoying every year since childhood.
[Luke] ESFJ - Starts viciously baking and freezing treats two months ahead of time. Nearly explodes with excitement planning their holiday party.

This and That ~ A Christmas Season

I could list all the things we haven’t done (family pictures, Christmas cards, Christmas shopping and wrapping, Christmas tree and decorations… ahem), but instead I’ll list the things we have been enjoying this Christmas season.

• Russ took the kids to our local Story Book Land. Lola sat on Santa’s lap.
  
• We celebrated a belated St. Nicholas Day with our best friends: making and eating marzipan, drinking hot spiced cider, exchanging gifts, putting cloves in oranges, and finding gold coins in our shoes. We spent an hour or two in the afternoon browsing a gigantic display of nativity sets from all over the world.
  
• We watched White Christmas together as a family. The kids watched Miracle on 34th Street and The Nutcracker (on DVD).
  
• Luke made fudge and caramels. I made raspberry almond thumbprint cookies. We made marzipan a few times.
  
• Russ and I attended a Christmas party given by one of his clients.
  
• We celebrated Rilla’s 3rd birthday at Yogurt Extreme.
  
• We attended a production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever at a local church (after the boys had all read the book).
  
• We’re listening to A Christmas Carol (unabridged) narrated by Adam Andrews while following along in our illustrated version.
  
• Levi and Luke and I will be attending (with family and friends) a live radio theater style production of A Christmas Carol this weekend.
  
• I have my book club Christmas goodie exchange tomorrow.
  
• We’re riding a trolley through town with friends on Friday evening, looking at Christmas lights and singing carols.
  
• We stopped by IKEA and purchased a large dresser for the boys’ room, Russ put it together, and I cleaned and organized their room, which desperately (and I do mean desperately) needed it. The room was so charming when we moved in 9 years ago, but it has suffered continual abuse and the boys have grown so much bigger. It is close to impossible to keep it relatively clean and neat, charming is beyond my ability.
  
• I’m trying to clean the house enough to be inspired to decorate it. Now that the boys’ room is finished, maybe I’ll work on the house this weekend (though Lola’s room is also on the to-do list).

And that’s about it. We’ll see what this next week brings…

Imperfect

My sister messaged me Tuesday morning:

“The difference between [one’s] ideal (imagination) and reality is sometimes shocking.”

Truth.

I asked her what prompted that observation at this particular moment in time.

She sent me a picture of her Advent time with her young daughter. The baby was screaming, and her 2 year old covered a whole page (and part of the room) with glue, cut the other paper into tiny scraps, and sang “I’ve been workin’ on the railroad” while my sister tried to read Isaiah. The sink was full of dirty dishes and her daughter was wearing the only jammies she will consent to wear: random pink velour leggings and a blue oversized FOX racing t-shirt with the previous night’s candy cane in her matted hair.

I told her she needed to blog. The event would become a hilarious, endearing moment to which others can relate and upon which she can look back with rose-colored glasses and forget exactly how she felt at the time.

But some things aren’t funny, no matter how you tell the story. Some things are someone else’s story to tell (or not). And some things are too private to share.

And even if you can write a funny story, sleep-deprivation (and utter exhaustion), an extremely needy infant, sicknesses, defiant toddler, and all the other worries heaped on one’s plate are no joke when you are present, in that very moment.

I was in that season just a few short years ago, and well I remember. It was so little like I had imagined. So little like my ideal.

And this season that I’m in now? Still so little like I had imagined, so little like my ideal.

Our children are human. We are human. And life is just plain difficult so much of the time.

Friends, this time of the year, it’s a time when our expectations and imagination can be so wildly different from the reality. We have our own expectations according to our personal desires (a clean house, a beautifully decorated clean house, charming crafts, heart-warming Christmas events, handmade gifts, peaceful and obedient children) that may not match the desires or expectations of those around us. We also have our perceived cultural expectations as we see the glimpses and details that others seem to pull off effortlessly.

I can tell you that we had a delightful morning symposium yesterday morning. We sang Adeste, Fideles with the Lingua Angelica CD and Songbook, we read our Handel’s Messiah Family Advent Reader, we listened to Adam Andrew’s first installment of A Christmas Carol while following along in our lovely illustrated edition, and we began to memorize a Christmas poem by George MacDonald. And then we listened to classical Christmas music for the rest of the day.

What you don’t know is that we did no other school work the whole day. That was it.

What you can’t hear is the blow up I had with one of my sons. It was ugly. I was ugly.

What you can’t see is how disgusting my whole house is. Every room. I cannot manage to keep a single small area clean and beautiful for more than 5 minutes at a time (and certainly not more than one small area at a time, and only the 5 minutes after I clean it).

Yesterday, I told my children that I wanted to spend some time cleaning up so that we could enjoy the atmosphere. I cleaned off our little kitchen table (the only decent-sized flat surface in the house other than my bed) and moved on to another spot. The next time I glanced at my kitchen table it was covered, edge to edge, with construction paper, scissors, glue, tape, ribbon, and assorted other items. My son wanted to make Christmas ornaments and paper chains with Lola.

Today, I was just trying to survive lunch time in the disaster (see above picture), and my son wanted to make caramels. Caramels. Candy thermometer and all. [They were incredible, by the way.]

.

I have friends who are hurting—emotionally, physically, financially, relationally, or all of the above.

I could share my own litany of faults, weaknesses, fears, shortcomings, sins.

.

I don’t have a lovely quote for you that will make it all better.

I’m not going to give you a brilliant piece of advice, a piece of rose-colored glasses advice.

But I will offer solidarity. Empathy. Grace for those of us (all of us) who don’t have it all under control.

Even if we have our house decorated (I don’t), or have our shopping completed (I don’t), or revel in wrapping and crafting (I don’t), or never leave the house in yoga pants (I do), or always speak kindly and gently to our children (ahem), or vacuum ourselves out the front door (hahahaha!), we still don’t have it all together. We are such imperfect people with imperfect lives.

.

So I just want to tell you that I see you. And it’s okay if you don’t have it all together. You are loved.

Let’s be gentle with each other, full of grace, full of kindness this Christmas season and always.

“Life Itself Is Grace”

In all honesty, July was a rough month for me. I’m feeling burned out just when I should feel most rejuvenated, and summer is slipping through my fingers. September looms, overcast in my imagination.

But life itself is grace.

We spent a couple days with my Dad’s side of the family (including all six of his siblings, pictured below with their baby shoes that my grandmother had bronzed). I was encouraged in conversation with several cousins (thank you, Brent and Debbie) and spent much of my time hanging out and being real with my favorite cousin-in-law, Amy (thank you, Amy). [My cousin Lisa’s daughter Kendra posted many more reunion pictures on her blog.]

On the following weekend, our three Illinois/Missouri cousins plus one spouse (from my Mom’s side of the family) traveled to spend a few days with our family and celebrate the life of my grandpa (Mom’s Dad) who passed away in May. My uncle traveled up from California as well, and many more people joined us for an afternoon memorial service. (I’ll share a little more about that memorial service in an upcoming post. The above right picture is a display set up for the fellowship time in the garden.)

Just a few days later we were able to spend two days soaking up grace and sunshine at my favorite place on earth with my favorite people (top left, more pictures to come).

And yesterday we had a relaxing afternoon and evening with Tsh Oxenreider and her family, the kids playing in the sprinkler and having a pillow fight on the lawn while the adults chatted. We enjoyed hearing a little more about their recent trip around the world. (Earlier in July I finally met in person a long-time online friend and her son when they came to visit for the afternoon. Crissy, thanks for spending time with my crazy family!)

Yes, life itself is grace.

Miss Me?

Boy howdy, I’ve turned into a blog slacker!

We’ve been a little busy with general summer life since my family softball post.

Last week the kids had two, yes TWO, VBSs to attend. Lola, Leif, and Luke attended our favorite VBS in the mornings (Levi is too old and Lola was finally old enough this year!) and Leif attended our own church’s “Kids’ Kamp” in the evenings. Luke and Levi “helped” with games, and Lola is still too young to attend. It was a rather crazy week driving back and forth (neither VBS is close, and one is smack-dab in the middle of crazy road construction).

Levi attended a rousing birthday party with 3 good friends at a nearby trampoline park.

I attended a book club meeting where we hilariously donned Jane Austen tattoos (my sister’s tattoos were my favorites) and had an impromptu movie night with Pride and Prejudice and popcorn.

Russ headed over to Bend with Luke early Saturday morning to coach one of his swimmers at a swim meet there. After the meet, they spent a short while at the outdoor splash pool, several hours at a climbing gym, and some time at a bowling alley before crashing haphazardly in a tent.

Levi attended a late evening “glow” event with the church youth group where they played capture the flag and I don’t know what else.

Russ and Luke drove home Sunday afternoon and met up with the rest of us so we could attend our friend Bob’s annual summer party at his house on Lake Oswego (view above). The company is diverse and it’s enjoyable to catch up with everyone over big plates of ribs. (If the boys are trying to describe which Bob they are talking about, this Bob is always “ribs Bob.”) The kids all swam (while I talked).

All four of the kids spent a few hours at another friends’ house playing on Monday afternoon.

We have a pool date at yet another friend’s house later this week, and concerts in the park start up next Monday!

So, all this fun?

I now have whiny children who cannot do simple tasks (much less with a respectful attitude) and they think they are abused and have no friends and do nothing fun and their lives are tragic and boring and it’s always someone else’s fault.

And my house, well, it looks as if there has been a struggle at best. A crime scene, maybe.

I guess we’ll start summer boot camp tomorrow.

Should be fun in this 100+ degree heat wave we’re having. [Seriously, this can’t be Oregon, people.]

How is your summer going?

A Little Sunshine

[For honesty’s sake, this was a little sunshine on an otherwise difficult and frustrating day.]

I thought the above picture a little funny with the bus driving by, and all.

The motor bike is Leif’s usual choice of recess activity. His and Luke’s. Down the driveway, back up, into the yard, up the hill, around the trees, and back down again. Sometimes around the house. Today was beautiful, so he spent quite a bit of time out there. Yes, he’s wearing gloves. No, it wasn’t that cold.

I posted a super short video of him riding over on Facebook.

In the afternoon, Luke grabbed a cookbook off the shelf, read through it, picked a recipe, and asked if he could make oatmeal craisin cookies. I decided he could do it completely on his own, and he did—with a little help from Leif and Lola. I’m trying to eat healthy and I don’t even like oatmeal cookies, but the aroma was so delicious I had to try one. He gets an A+ for this independent project, and I think I’ll let him do more baking from now on!

Home Stretch

April. It’s our “home stretch” month.

This month we finish Classical Conversations, choir, and AWANA for the year with the attending end-of-year concert and celebrations. We also have our last requirements to fulfill for our charter school, though that school year technically does not end until early June.

I’d like to say we’re finishing strong, but, to be honest, we’re coming closer to finishing blah.

Luke and Leif are already finished with Foundations and Essentials as of this week. No Memory Master in the house this year. I had already tested for all 3 cycles in the past, and Luke just wasn’t into it this year (after doing MM the past two years).

Levi has two classes left for Challenge A. He’s fading fast. Really fading.

Levi did attend a morning of dissections for the local Challenge A classes. A mom in our community is a veterinarian and loves to do science projects with the kids. They dissected cows’ eyeballs (one per teams of two students) and sharks (one per table), and looked at a sheep’s brain and a cow’s heart. It was a great addition to their body systems drawings and memorization.

It feels as if we’ve been at the dentist every other day for the past few months, but in reality we’ve only been there about once a week. Three of us had appointments this week.

Luke and Leif started their rounds of end-of-the-year testing with the charter school. We’ve really appreciated the option and opportunity to be a part of this charter school for the past four years and we love all the teachers and families, but I’m ready to be done for good. I’m so glad I’m able to make that choice for our family.

The boys (and Russ) had a couple spring break weeks off from swim team practice. It was glorious. I could have used another week or 10 or more.

I have a gazillion blog posts started and cannot seem to muster the enthusiasm (along with the time and focus) to finish and share them. I made some progress on several and then the program failed to save what I had written. It is even more difficult to write a blog post the second time…

[I was listening to Lola watching Frozen as I was typing this blog post, and I realized just how sad and depressing that movie is (until the very, very last moment). Or maybe that demonstrates my (lack of) emotional stability at the moment. Ha!]

This month will end with a BANG (three events and a baby!!) with my husband working crazy hours. I’m so looking forward to a weekend with my sister and friends at the CiRCE Pacific Northwest Regional Conference May 8th and 9th.

And then… SUMMER. Hallelujah. Do I sound like a woman in need of a blank schedule and some sunshine? I think yes.

We just need to get outside and soak up some sunshine. Go for hikes. Play games. Read. Do a few house projects.

How about you?

Friday Five ~ Snippets

1. In the creek without a paddle

I went to pick Lola up from my mom’s house where she spends the day while the rest of us are at CC, often playing with cousin Rilla, and we ended up basking in the sunshine in the back yard while the kids played. All of a sudden we heard a splash and immediately looked around, breathing a sigh of relief when we could see the two girls. We counted heads, and I relaxed when I knew it was Luke. He and Leif were on the tire swing together and a vigorous push-off had sent Luke sliding off into the ditch. He was a great sport, and didn’t even give us a bad time about taking pictures before he finally said, “Uh, could someone help me out, here?”

Later he said to me, "Mom, I'm kinda glad I fell in the water. Because it was funny, I got to ride in the back of the truck, and I got to take a hot shower."

2. Shakespeare, wandering in storms, eyes poked out, and dead bodies everywhere

We were talking about attending a Shakespeare play this weekend and I asked Leif if he would be interested in going. He asked, "Which one?" And I answered, "King Lear." "Oh," Leif replied, "he's the one who wandered in a storm." Luke, who had just read the retelling by Leon Garfield, piped up. "That's not all he does!" [Luke's one-sentence retelling was that a guy gets his eyes poked out.] I handed the book over to Leif and told him that the story was on page 29. He responded, "Oh, yeah!" And then he cuddled up on his bed reading King Lear. Sometimes I really love my life.

And thank you, Life of Fred math, for the references to Shakespeare (in Jelly Beans). Something else came up the other day (I don't even remember what it was) and Leif said, "That's just like the end of Hamlet...Dead bodies everywhere."

3. Speaking of Life of Fred

In each Life of Fred math book, the author encourages students to find editing errors. He says that if a student emails him an error, he'll send a list of other errors students have found in return. Leif, who loves Life of Fred, also loves to find errors. [grin] So I emailed the author for Leif and Stan Schmidt sent a nice little personal email in return saying "Your son has good eyes! Give him a hug for me." And now Leif is on a mission to find more...

 

4. Speaking of businesses doing things right

A few weeks ago I recommended the movie The Boxcar Children. It is so darling and true to the book, and the kids love it. Well, the producer emailed me afterward, said thank you, and offered to send the kids a signed DVD. They just received it in the mail with Boxcar Children cards personalized and signed by both producers. They were thrilled. Seriously? That was super kind.

5. Speaking of kind people

When we gave our family presentation for CC, Luke mentioned that he loves to collect coins. A grandmother asked me later if she thought he would like a few coins from another country. I said he would. The very next week, she gave him several French franc coins. She had no idea that we had been studying the French Revolution, and Luke’s favorite song right now is “La la liberte. Eh e-galite. Fra fra-ternite!!” [CC peeps, take a look at the date on the left coin. Guess what our history sentence was this week!]

Have you experienced something funny or kind this week?

Restart

 

I messed up.

Levi and I started out his school year together. We did most of his Classical Conversations Challenge A lessons together for the first few weeks. I made sure his schedule and to-do list was written out and checked daily.

And then we both got distracted.

Other children do live at this house. And they need attention and education occasionally. I have things I need to do. And teaching an adolescent can be frustrating. So procrastination happens.

Oh, he can do this independently. He should be able to do that independently. Just let him get started on math, and he’ll figure out how to complete the rest of assignments as well. If he’s going to fight me on that, he can do it on his own.

And so on. [Right about this time last semester.]

Math, well, that’s important. And don’t get behind in Latin! Draw your maps. We’ll skip the outlining in rhetoric, but read the chapters and lessons. We missed two weeks of science research for various reasons, but just jump ahead to the current topic and write your paper.

Writing, hmmm. There are worksheets. Just fill them out. Oh, we’re way behind! Let’s just rush this paper today. [Much, much more about this in the next post.]

Turns out, my adolescent procrastinates as much as I do—and the most overwhelming or hated tasks are the ones he puts off.

We “got by” for the first semester until he had three classes within 8 days in December (due to a make-up class)—the end of the semester classes, no less—the same week as his choir performance week and then a few Christmas activities the following week when he was supposed to complete his final 1st semester work.

Then Christmas. And a New Year’s birthday. And a big family vacation—a missed week of class.

We were going to start our new year well. I didn’t know how tired I would be after vacation, that two days would not be enough time to prep for Monday and I would be so sick for the next week. So tired and sick. Not a great start to our new year. [Hello, Christmas tree still on my front porch.]

If momma isn’t on top of things, the kids in this house aren’t either. It’s a free-for-all. Sigh.

We ended a rough week with two days of swim meet in which all three boys were competing and Russ, who was also sick, was coaching.

During a long late Saturday afternoon and evening of sitting with Levi trying to get some of his work caught up for class on Monday, Lola managed to cut her tongue (hello, blood on her shirt and bathroom towels), chop off her hair (hello, bangs), and dump several cups of water in her room (because she was “painting” with water). [This is the moment I expressed my frustration on Facebook: “It seems I have to make a choice between educating my 13 year old and keeping my 4 year old alive. Forget the two in between; they’ll have to fend for themselves.”]

By Sunday afternoon, we were a mess. It was time to regroup.

Levi and I had a long conversation about why he was in Challenge A, why he was required to do the work. How Latin is valuable for many reasons, but the most important reason we are doing this hard work is to learn to do hard things. That if he learns nothing else in Challenge A, this skill (and character trait) will serve him for the rest of his life. [More about doing hard things in an upcoming post.] I asked him to be willing to try. To do his best. And I told him that right answers or being smart was not the most important thing.

I asked Levi what I could do to help him succeed.

He asked me to be diligent about filling out his schedule with exactly what needed to be completed each day. I made a commitment to him to do just that. In return, I asked him to look at the schedule, and do his best to focus on the work on the day’s list.

Then I asked him what subject he was struggling most in. “The Lost Tools of Writing” (he said with anguish). “I hate it. I hate writing. I can’t do it.” Then we’ll do that subject together, every day, first thing in the morning, I promised him…

[To be continued…]

 

Psyching Myself Up for the Week Ahead

Honestly

In the interest of being real and transparent here on the blog:

I’m weary.

At this point it feels as if my choices are 1. doing the work of 6 people while playing an endless and exhausting game of tug-of-war or 2. not caring.

Not caring is the winning option at the moment.

I can’t care for them. They’ll have to do the caring.

If you want to go somewhere in the truck, you’ll have to clean it first.

If you want to eat, you’ll have to clean the kitchen first.

If you want to play somewhere other than outside or in your room, you’ll have to clean the front room.

You will not ever step foot in my room, so I have one little tiny haven of loveliness.

All events and activities which require us to invite people to our house are cancelled.

Bedtime is at 8pm because I’m done parenting. I don’t care if it takes you 5 hours to fall asleep.

If you want electronics or activities (such as trick-or-treating…) other than church, CC, swimming, or AWANA, you have to be caught up on the week’s school work and have finished today’s work.

If you don’t want to do the Challenge assignments, you will sit in class each week without participating and you will re-take the class until you are capable of doing and willing to do the work at home without a fight, as many years as it takes. You will participate in lessons with your younger siblings until then.

If you don’t respect me enough to listen when I’m speaking, then don’t expect me to listen to you endlessly.

The end.

For Mom

[I grew up listening to my mom’s Claudine Longet album.]

We may be unorganized, but…

We can always find a writing utensil when we need one.

Lately Life

I’ve been spending a huge amount of time with Levi, working on lessons. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride and I’m looking forward to a straighter, more horizontal stretch ahead. Please, assure me that’s what’s ahead. Okay, maybe I’m delusional.

So the other kids have been doing a lot of their own thing. For Luke, that means reading, riding his motorbike, organizing my drawers, playing with his snap circuits…

Then a little over a week ago, my sister dropped by some no-bake cookies for Russ. He had helped them with their computer and requested no-bakes for payment because he loves them and I never bake them (what does that say about me?!). Luke thought they were the best thing evah. He begged me to let him call Aunt Shan and get the recipe. I finally gave him permission, but I was distracted when he called her. A little while later he presented me with his rough draft, a final draft, the recipe printed by Levi on an index card, and an index card file with the label (from the label machine) “recipe box.”

This led to an interest in the corner of my kitchen counter where I shove all the recipes I print off from the internet as I need them. My organizational system must have left something to be desired, because he took the wad of papers, three-hole punched them, and put them in a binder he had labeled “recipes.” While working on this project, he found a recipe card for marzipan, which he promptly inserted into his own card file for future use.

The next morning he woke me up asking if he could make no-bake cookies. Seriously. So, like any really good mom would, I said yes. Mostly I said yes just so he would leave me alone and I could go back to sleep. And he had no-bake cookies for breakfast, which are no less nutritious than cold cereal or oatmeal with brown sugar, right?

I thought this would satisfy Luke, but the next day or two he was scrounging around in the kitchen cabinets for the ingredients for marzipan. Many of you have never tasted marzipan (or even heard of it), I’m sure. Essentially, it’s like almond-flavored play-dough. You mix almond paste (not butter, paste is totally different) with powdered sugar and corn syrup (super healthy) until you can work it into shapes without it sticking to your fingers. Then you add food coloring and other accessories (cloves, cinnamon, frosting leaves, sprinkles) to turn it into miniature fruits and vegetables. Some talented people, like my best friend’s parents, can make these specimens look very realistic. We’re not so talented. But it has been a Christmas tradition (one of our very favorites) since before Leif was born (we make it during our St. Nicholas Day party with my best friend and kids). Marzipan is an acquired taste—and we’ve all acquired it.

Luke found the ingredients. I had TWO cans of almond paste. Which means he’s made marzipan twice now. I refuse to buy more almond paste, because I have no self control around the stuff. And I want to keep its status as a special holiday treat.

Luke also got out a difficult puzzle of the United States (which they are studying this year for geography). This was a more intricate puzzle than he had ever attempted, but he was determined. His brothers helped a bit in the beginning, but he completed the bulk of the puzzle on his own.

Unfortunately that is our only table in the whole house (other than the one we’ve recently put in the office/library/schoolroom for Levi’s workspace), so it’s difficult to have large puzzles in progress very often.

Then there’s Leif. If Levi doesn’t give me gray hair this year, Leif will. The kid is so smart and so stubborn. I try to have everyone do math together in the living room with individual white boards. Leif and Luke are perfectly capable of doing Levi’s math (whether or not they want to), and I only have them do the warm-up, lesson instruction, and practice questions together. They don’t have to do all the problems for the rest of the lesson. But Leif is always sneaking off. Always with something new written on his white board. Have you watched a cartoon where a character takes off with a poof, a cloud of dust and some “dash” lines the only thing that remains? That’s what it’s like for Leif, but he leaves behind his white board instead of dust. Can you hear the sound effects that go with this next picture? Zip. Dash. Poof.

The silly thing is that he’s a whiz at math. After he threw a stubborn fit, I had him work through a common factors problem with me and he totally rocked it. Then he wanted me to take a picture of his math whiz face (above left).

Just today I wrote 90 - 33 on the white board (vertically, with 90 over 33) and asked him to do it in his head. He gave me the answer (no sweat) and I asked him how he did it. He said “Zero minus three is negative three. Nine minus three is six. Sixty plus negative three is fifty-seven.” He was adamant that it should be “sixty plus negative three” because he already had a negative number. He just turned eight less than two months ago. Maybe it’s the thousands of hours he’s spent reading the 25 Life of Fred books we own.

But if he doesn’t want to do something anyone asked him to do? Or wants to do something anyone told him not to do?

Heaven help me.

In more cheerful news, he is enthusiastically learning how to diagram sentences. Because sentence diagramming is da bomb.

Leif and Luke (and Lola) have also been enjoying a wide range of books and videos that correspond with our topics this year.

I always have stacks of books about math, science, geography, art, and more from which the kids can feast so that their world isn’t devoid of learning while I’m otherwise employed.

We finished up Columbus and the Pilgrims, and now we’re working our way through the Revolutionary War. It’s pretty easy to find a thousand pictures books on each topic.

October is the knee-deep mark for our 5th year of Classical Conversations. We’re wet up to our ankles with weekly choir practice (and music theory homework each week), weekly AWANAS for all four kids (date night!!), and swim team practice 3-4 afternoons during the week (which takes 3+ hours each afternoon). (Please don’t tell me that my children are unsocialized.) We’ve skipped several field trips because I just don’t want to add to our schedule.

Russ is now the head swim coach (sigh) in addition to his ten other jobs, and he’s prepping the house exterior to be painted. Not much down-time to be found.

That’s life.