Mom Remembers

We are all painting at the dining room table (big mistake, I know).  Carl picks up Sven's (mostly) dried artwork and exclaims: CARL:  Oh, wow!  Did Sven do this? ME: Mm-hm. CARL:  It looks real!  Was it fingerpaint? ME: Mm-hm. CARL:  It looks like a real tornado, sideways, on the grass.  I never knew that he could paint that good!  It looks awesome!

Having a quirky, genius kid is often delightful. I have been teaching Soren a little bit of music theory.  Actually, he has been teaching himself by reading the text in all the piano lesson books.  But I'll pretend that I've been scaffolding it some. This week he has been working on identifying triads, a task I never dreamed I would teach my 2nd grader.  And then he figured out something additional that astonished and delighted me. He is learning a song called "Cockles and Mussels" and I assigned him to say each chord name of the accompaniment while he practiced.  We went over it in his lesson; at that time he found all the obvious triads as well as the ones that were inverted or split between hands.  That was cool but didn't surprise me. What did  surprise me happened today, during his practice time. He called to me from where I was stirring monkey mac in the kitchen.  "Mom!  I found a chord you didn't see!"  I put down my spoon an...

Lest I forget, Leif learned to crawl this September.  He was 8 months old.  At the beginning of the month, he was making a cute but feeble effort.  At the end of the month, he could get everywhere and into everything.  His favorite destination: the cat's water dish.

Michaelmas came like a breath of fresh air this year.  It brought certain pessimistic ruminations to a screeching halt, reminding me once again that God is at the helm and His victory is assured.  Michael and his angels have fought and conquered the dragon once before; with the help of our Savior, we will do it again.  My faith is refreshed and my courage is bolstered. Here is what we did to celebrate: 1. Yesterday, we went apple picking at a my husband's sister's friend's grandma's house.  She has more apples than she can pick and so we took a bucket and brought home plenty for our needs.  The trees were so full, it only took about 10 minutes for the kids to gather enough good apples to fill two buckets.  Soren got the idea that he might like to sell some apples so he filled up his shirt, too. 2. Then, yesterday evening, Scott helped me make boffer swords.  They were surprisingly easy but used a lot more duct tape than I expected.  We...

Everything a mom has to do is urgent.  It all needs to be done NOW. The broken glass needs to be swept up NOW, before someone cuts their feet. The toddler needs to be caught NOW, lest he think that shouting "no" and running away is an acceptable response. The soup needs to be stirred NOW, before it burns to the bottom of the pan. The baby needs to be fed NOW, or the squawking will drive us all crazy. The reading lesson needs to be taught NOW, before my homeschool looses its credibility because my six year old doesn't read. The scraped knee needs to be bandaged NOW, because there will be no psychological peace until that is done. The bedtime routine needs to start NOW, or else the young ones will be bears tomorrow. The shoes need to go on NOW or we will be late for church/story hour/the pediatrician. But what about all the things that are not urgent?  Like self-care?  Like cuddles?  Like cleaning the floors and cutting the peanut-butter sandwiches in...

Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 1:15 pm smooth, cool baby cheek warm knit top baby feet shifting weight on my legs wicker-backing taste of tuna industrial carpet littered with cheerios two yellow pencils pink-handled scissors books on the dining room table:     Getting Started with Latin    Primary Mathematics 2B Workbook    Story of the World, Vol. 1    Dragonflight    The Gift of Failure    The Book of Mormon    A Short History of Nearly Everything orange carrot smoothie brilliant teal skirt burnt down tealight humming refrigerator cooing baby

Today, Soren had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  I am so glad that he is in bed now.  Even though he's not sleeping, bedtime is so peaceful.  He doesn't complain at me constantly about how bored he is.  Isn't that ironic?  At the time when he has no options at all, he seems to be the most at peace. I'm not sure what it is that he is so upset about lately.  Although last year was awesome, this year homeschool is a battle.  He is constantly "bored" and wishes that he could be doing something else.  Although, when I assign those other things that he professes to want, they are boring, too. Every day this summer was boring as well so it's not that more free time would solve that problem. And he was epic-ly angry today, even though there was no school.  After finishing his morning work, he wanted to earn some money to buy himself a Lego Airjitzu like Carl got for his birthday.  So I gave him a list of chores he could do fo...