Mom Remembers

I have been taking a mom-cation.  This means that I have been doing the bare minimum to keep my children fed and clothed while working on other projects. I haven't been doing homeschool.  I've skipped helping them with chores most days.  I haven't really been cooking all that much and I haven't scrubbed or bleached anything .  I haven't been doing boundary training with Sven or teaching Carl to read.  I have even tried to sneak out of story reading and song singing at bedtime. It's been all right.  My children are still alive.  And, surprisingly, they are still (mostly) happy. But I'm back.  I'm ready to be a parent again and not just a babysitter.  I'm ready to go on walks and supervise art projects.  I'm ready to kiss boo-boos and custom cut peanut butter sandwiches.  Wait, scratch that last one.  I never did that in the first place. Let's just say I'm back in the game.

I have thinking a lot about what I should post this month.  I thought about posting and pretending  that everything had gone according to plan.  I thought about posting and leaving out the slacker bits.  I also thought about not posting at all. I decided that honesty was the best policy. So here's the honest truth: I just didn't want to do it this month.  So I didn't. We had an awesome one-week long unit to start the month.  Then we had a very, very  long spring break. Part of the problem was that my neighbor went on vacation.  And I went on vacation.  And there was some time in between when neither of us had a lot of gumption.  And since I didn't have any kids but my own to teach for most of the month, it was very easy for me to opt out. This is worrisome.  I cannot let this kind of thing happen next year when Soren is doing first grade. Don't you want to know what I was doing while the kids were running free range? ...

Sven practices walking every day.  He can walk all the way across the room.  We don't bribe him to do it, he just does it for fun.  Or to get into trouble. If he drops down at any point, he will usually switch to crawling.  And he does often teeter. Still, he is definitely a walker now.  And at only 13 months!  That is a record for our family.  Yeah for my averagely developing baby!

We did not get to enjoy a slow, meditative build-up to Easter this year, as has been our tradition in the past.  Because we were traveling during the beginning of Holy Week, it was more of a scramble.  But I'm glad that there were patterns laid down years previously that were easy to reinstate and gave us some measure of continuity and contemplation. * We usually set up an Easter table decorated with things that remind us of the Holy week as well as symbols of rebirth.  It was very plain this year because I didn't spend a lot of time collecting meaningful items.  In the past, I have gathered budding tree branches, cut thorns from the rosebush, counted ten silver coins into a jar, and decorated eggs for the Easter table.  But the most important part of the Easter table is the candle, which we had.  It is a white, tapered candle that burns all day, symbolizing the light of the world, the light of Christ that shines on us.  On Friday, we replace the whi...

SOREN:  I'm not only powerful, I am also hillarious. MICHELLE:  Ha ha.  That's true! SOREN:  Knock, knock. MICHELLE:  Who's there? SOREN:  You. MICHELLE:  You who? SOREN:  Ha ha ha!

Here's the scene:  I am sweeping the dining room floor and one of the boys has to pass through the area.  There is a conspicuous pile of dirt, dust bunnies, and grody leftovers that I am sweeping into. Soren's response:  He will walk right through the dust pile, all the while talking in an unending stream about his latest obsession.  His path ends at the couch, which he will climb up on and slightly bounce on, without taking a pause to breath. Carl's response:  He will drive Sven's walker right through the dust pile at maximum speed. Sven's response:  He will crawl up to the dust pile and pick up the dried up food items one by one, sticking them in his mouth to suck up any residual flavor.  If something is gross, he will take it out of his mouth and put it--not back on the floor!--but in my dustpan.

Sven has been experimenting a lot with walking this month.  Yesterday, he took 2 consecutive steps and I realized that it was time I recorded this milestone. He has been taking one step to get to things for a while now.  Recently, he has learned to walk while I hold onto one hand (although he doesn't like to do it for long distances).  And he loves  to use the walker his Grandma bought for his first birthday. My friend told me a funny story about him recently.  She said that he was playing alone in her kids' room and she went to check on him.  He was standing in the middle of the room, shuffling his feet.  She said it looked like he was experimenting with walking.  But when she said, "Hi, Sven!", he looked up at her and then sat down.  Like he didn't want her to see him.  Sure enough, when she came back later, he was standing up again and shifting his weight between his feet as before.  He was practicing but he wanted some priva...