Small Scribbles

Notes From the Road

2011-11-03T23:23:00.001-04:00

Stuart* just returned home from a month long business trip. These are clips of Facebook entries and emails home, pieced together to recreate his big adventure.

Calling home while on safari in South Africa.

Mongolia

It is 3AM here in Mongolia and we just checked in at the hotel in Erdenet. So, if my calculations are correct, it took me 45 hours of travel to get here from the time I left the house. The last six hours were a fairly torturous car ride up into the mountains. I wouldn't hesitate to say that the very best stretch of road that we were on was equivalent to the very worst road that you can think of in PA. There ain't no sleeping in the car while riding here! Most of the ride was fairly teeth rattling. I was correct that, as soon as we left the capital city, I lost cell phone coverage and we never passed through another town. We did stop at a little outpost to pick up drinks and a snack. I will call it an outpost, rather than a rest area for several reasons. First, it was completely out of place in the middle of nowhere. Picture the “last chance for gas for 200 miles” station at the edge of a desert. Except they did not sell gas. There was a rest room, consisting of an outhouse with nothing but a hole in the floor: no light, no sink, no seat. The hotel is significantly better and yet giving it a half a star would probably ruin my credibility as a hotel critic.

There are a lot of these yurts outside of the capital city with people living the same way they have for thousands of years.

En Route to South Africa

I've been wandering around the Kuala Lampur airport for about two hours trying to find a place where I could connect to the internet. Now I've got about 30 minutes before my plane boards. I found out that I'm not in India, I am in Malaysia. Not sure where that is exactly but they have a really nice airport.

Since I flew on Korean Airlines, I had a Korean dinner and breakfast on the plane. Both were pretty interesting with vegetables I haven't seen before. Breakfast was creamed rice with onions, beef, roasted seawead, and something like water chestnuts. I think I like apples and cinnamon oatmeal better.

I'm going to give Korean Airlines a 10 for customer service. Their staff are the most polite, courteous, pleasant people I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I have no more flights with them.

Mongolian Airlines, on the other hand, could be renamed "anarchy of the sky". Though they do serve a good sandwich. I don't think it is so much the fault of the airline, but it seems that the Mongolian people were born to ignore authority.

South Africa
My watch battery died this morning which is really odd, considering it is solar recharged. I keep having to ask what day it is. Technology has not been my friend on this trip, that's for sure.

I did some quality napping today. Bed is FANTASTIC. Ooooohh I have missed pillows.

(Facebook entry) Be careful with strange critters:

I wasn't quite minding my own business. I was sneaking around this bird to get a good picture. My kids really like birds and there are loads of 'em in Africa that I've never seen before. Anyway, the light was all wrong so I was keeping my distance, circling around to get a better angle. I took a couple of shots along the way in case I spooked the poor thing and lost my opportunity. Well the darn thing spooked all right, took off and flew straight at my head. He came at me screaming and then veered off when he got to about six feet away. I thought that was interesting until Tweety here turned around and came back for another pass. Freaked me out just a bit.

This Buffalo is the first of the “big five” that we saw on safari. They are called that because they are the five most dangerous animals to hunt.

The buffalos are huge and when they are alone, the males can be territorial and will charge a human. There were two of them in a dry riverbed just a short way from our “camp”

We had just stopped for a "sundowner" or cocktail hour after seeing the cheetah family. The guides brought drinks and snacks and everybody got to stretch their legs for a bit and take pictures of the sunset of course. Just after the sun had set, a leopard came walking down the road behind the jeep, (another driver let us know he was stalking us) which made for a bit of excitement. The idea is that the animals are used to seeing the jeeps but basically they see the jeep and the people as one big animal that doesn't threaten them. The animals are not supposed to see people outside of the jeep as they might feel threatened and/or hungry.

My room at “camp"

Each of us had our own hut which boarders the camp. The whole wall opposite the bed was glass. Overlooking a stream bed and water hole. There were small deer and monkeys wandering around the camp all the time and at breakfast, the monkeys were stealing food off the tables. They were very small, smaller than a poodle but bigger than a squirrel.They were fast and one of them managed to get a piece of bread right off a woman's plate while she was eating.The staff had a slingshot that they were using to chase the monkeys off. I don't think they were shooting rocks or anything harmful, just discouraging.

On the first game drive, we came across a cheetah and followed it to where a couple of cubs were playing.

After dark we could hear this lion roaring in the distance. The drivers are allowed to leave the paths when they are following a “big 5” animal, so we took off through the bush, following the sound. On the second day game drive, we saw giraffes, elephants, rhinos, and hyenas. Our drivers said they hadn't seen hyenas in many months so that was pretty exciting. This is really a spectacular country where we can drive from the desert to tropical rain forest in 30 minutes. The cities are really modern with shopping centers and businesses and nice cars. When you get outside of the city, things can be a little different. An awful lot of people here live in poverty in shack villages where the “houses” are smaller than our bedroom. I just passed one with a hand painted sign that said “hair salon”, which is kind of fancy as I've also seen barber shops on the sidewalk that consist of a chair and a pair of scissors. People will move to these camps, near cities or factories, and the men will go into the city to work. Some of them will return on the weekends and holidays to build a real house so often I see very nice looking houses in the middle of a hundred tin shacks. It doesn't seem to be the norm that they will invest their earnings in housing.

Amsterdam

Can't trip on the curb here without falling into a canal.

Whew, walked an hour to get [to the Van Gogh Museum] and two more hours around the museum. My legs have had it. Lots of smoochie couples in there. I wouldn't have considered Van Gogh really romantic but apparently many do.

Well, I went to bed early last night. The Anne Frank Museum opens at nine and my plan was to get there before then and beat the crowds. I woke up on time (not too hard since daylight savings set the clocks back) and looked out the window. Broad daylight hadn't really hit yet and there was a bit of a haze. There were no people or vehicles in the streets. The scene in the "early" morning is quite romantic looking actually.

The walk to the house is only about ten minutes and the only people that I saw were out walking their dogs and three people at a little cafe. I decided that I would stop at that cafe on my way back... didn't want to waste any time. I got there at about 9:10 and found out that everyone in Europe had the same idea that I did. Every direction I looked there was not another soul in the streets, no bicycles, no cars, no boats; just a mass of people extending a healthy two blocks from the museum. I might have braved it if it was only a line two blocks long, but it was more like a mass, a quarter of a block wide and two blocks long. I figure if stretched out it could have extended eight blocks at least.

England

I am in Kirkham, England, and have given a few presentations now on a new valve. Folks here are very excited about the new product, which makes these meetings kind of fun.It's also nice that I can almost understand the local language.Has the snow all melted? People here have been asking about the storm on the east coast and I seem to know less about it than they do.

Last night at the Villa was very comfortable. Well over a hundred years old and well preserved it felt very English to me. They served an incredible dinner last night of cream of Broccoli soup, Cod fish and potatoes, and toffee pudding for dessert. Sounds plain, but the spices and presentation were amazing. Maybe it was just me as I hadn't eaten since Sunday but there was a lot of enjoyment in that meal. After that, two pints of Copper Dragon put me in bed early. Unfortunately, I only have a few more hours here in the UK before I have to fly off to Italy... but looking forward to being there as well.

Do you know how I used to really like a southern accent, especially on a girl? I've traded in that fancy for country English. I can barely understand the severe accent here, but I love it.

Italy

Not much to report on Italy. We landed, had dinner, bed, and meetings until 8PM last night. Flying to Barcelona now and it's only 8am. Wonderful lunch yesterday at a very old looking restaurant waay out in the country. Homemade ravioli with fresh parmesan and a wonderful glass of Merlot. I will remember that. I would definitely gain weight here. Friendly people as well, but not as much English spoken here as some places. Business people have all been quite fluent so meetings have been easy. Also, every place has had English television until now. Many American shows, all dubbed in Italian.

Spain
(No e-mails from Barcelona as Stuart was just there for a day and working for most of the time. He did walk along the Mediterranean collecting shells and he did find a minute to take a picture of himself with a statue looming over his head. Upon looking at the picture he realized that he was standing directly under the statue of a naked woman, so he moved over a bit and captured both himself and the naked statue in a better composition. I'll spare your eyes and share this picture of the Olympic fountain instead.)

France

This plane goes to US!!!! I am excited to get home.

*We have reason to be cautious so my family have each chosen a fictitious name instead of me calling them things like " Spaghetti Man" and "Hobbit" here on the blog. Except for me, I'm still Kate.

Until Death...

2011-07-09T19:10:00.007-04:00

Kindred spirits, Anne would call them. Two who complete each other, two who are better...best together, soul mates one cannot imagine apart. I can count the kindred marriages I know on a couple of fingers and after last week, that count is down by one.

"You look so happy," Dave says as Stuart and I stand awkward and wordless before him. I bend down to wrap my arms around him and wonder, Where is the good in this? Where? A week before we bumped into Dave and his wife, Deb, down at the Famous Brands. Deb glowed with good health and good news and for the remainder of the day we basked in the unexpected good fortune of meeting these old friends. And now there is Dave minus Deb. How can this be?

"It is one of the mysteries of our nature that a man, all unprepared, can receive a thunder-stroke like that and live." Mark Twain's Own Autobiography

"You look so happy." We do not look happy but somehow this remark makes sense because Dave has loved with his wife, his friend, over two decades and perhaps he finds a glimpse of their companionship in our reflection. Dave sits at a table in their bistro. Their dream made good. He wears the marks of a violent parting. A bruised face. A blue-black eye. My fingers brush what feels like stitches on his left arm. Broken ribs. These tell the tale of how the one who was bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh was taken and he was left. Someone else comes and we slip out to the deck blazing in the setting sun. We are crushed among hundreds and hundreds of people, some friends. We talk of making time for what is important, of making changes to make time, of what made that marriage stand out. And we all, all, are touched that one so vibrant, is no longer whole and here.

At eight o'clock a fork tings against a glass, a hush falls, pictures of Deb flash on a screen. Dave climbs on something and stands above the crowd. He, who has been transformed by her, pulls an index card out of his pocket, twenty plus years compressed into scrawl on a scrap of paper. How can mere letters, sounds...contain, reflect this great love? A thousand people hurt for Dave. He gathers courage, says a few brief words, "motivated... good mother...good wife. To Deb" A thousand glasses are raised to a life well lived and to the one who loved her well.

This scene scars our hearts, Stuart's and mine, and motivates us to love and live better, today. And maybe, for us, this is the ray of good.

Autotape Tours

2011-03-16T21:26:00.003-04:00

When I was a kid and my siblings were in the thick of learning safe driving skills, one of them rolled the van. The van with the automatic transmission and the windows. Our only vehicle. We all payed for that error in the form of the replacement vehicle. A navy blue stick-shift cargo van that had windows only in the places where it is customary for a cargo van to have windows. My dad had it customized; he added in a few rows of seats in the cargo space and pronounced it fit for our annual family vacation. The eleven of us loaded up and headed to Gettysburg. Mom and Dad enjoyed the view; the little ones wrestled in the middle seats and we teenagers in the back griped for a good share of the trip. The griping appropriately reached its climax on the Gettysburg Battlefield. Mom and Dad, long on enthusiasm for history and short on wisdom for vacationing with a carload of teenagers took us...in our nearly windowless van...on an autotape tour of the battlefield. With time (twenty years), that tour has become a favorite family joke.

My kids have been sick for weeks and I joined in about six days back. The coughing and exhaustion are clinging to this family like barnacles. Today, I got sick of the sight of us and decided we could be wretched in the car just as easily. We headed to Gettysburg in Racinante, our fully windowed Suburban. ( She is doing her best to live up to her name. The driver's side door handle broke off in my hand from the inside on the outgoing trip and now the children have to let me out. )

I popped into the battlefield giftshop, picked up the autotape tour cds and we were off. The kids got out at various monuments because they couldn't help themselves. Monuments beckon exploration. Towers and rocks need to be climbed. They coughed when they got out of the car and stopped when they got back in. Luckily it was a light tourist day and I kept the "cacoughany" away from the other visitors. We made it through about ten stops on the tour and ended with Little Round Top. I would have stopped earlier because I was starting to get lightheaded but Charlie had been asking to climb Little Round Top since we got there. And he packed a jackknife so he could whittle up a handy weapon when he got there. (The knife never left his pocket.) We accidentally drove by the monument for the 14th Maine but it was one way and I was in no shape to go around again. Next time.

There were ten stops to go on the autotape CD and these we listened to on the way home. The kids got a chuckle out of the incongruent landmarks which made the return trip bearable. I wonder if in twenty years they'll look back on this day and say, "Remember when we were miserably sick and Mom made us go on the autotape tour of Gettysburg." Guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

The observation deck on Oak Ridge.

Our dog, Henrie, pays her respects to Sallie, the 11th Pennsylvania mascot who died in battle just three months before the war ended.

Charlie on the long awaited Little Round Top. Gouveneur Warren is in the background.

The view from Little Round Top. I've been to Gettysburg a few times since the "Cargo Van Incident" and I am always struck by the panoramic views of the battlefield. The lay of the land is dramatic...almost stagelike. It does indeed feel as though it is hallowed ground.

Cold Spring

2011-03-12T19:44:00.003-05:00

There is illness in the house, a hacking cough deep in the chest, a general lethargy. Six of us are inflicted. One is healthy. One has a weird rash. It's nerve wracking but there is some humor mixed in as well. These chuckling scenes played out in quick succession and begged to be recorded in pixels. I broke out the camera to dwell on the joy, minimize the pain.

One coughs and the healthy one cowers. Let's hope he stays healthy, he's on a plane in the morning.

Synchronized coughing on the sofa designated for the plague.

This needs a skull and crossbones.

Sign on a bedroom door. It should really hang on the front door.

And this. Whatever this is. We're going through rolls and rolls of the stuff.

Ah, well. March in the Northeast is made for colds and misery. Who are we to escape unscathed?

Mail

2011-02-19T12:32:00.005-05:00

John put pencil to PSAT this fall. He blacked in bubbles concerning interests and majors. He scrawled address and now the owls come. They drop beakfuls of college literature into our mailbox. John outgrew watching for the owls a long while back. He was happy to leave that to Claire and Faith and Charlie. Most of our mail is his these days so again he watches. Charlie and Faith and Claire are not happy with his meddling.

John has a routine. Count the envelopes. Slit them open. Separate response cards from letters. Read the letters. Return letters to envelopes. Drop by websites of interest for a visit. Share gleanings from the daily dozen with me. "Mom, Bill Watterson went to Kenyon... Mom, I kind of like the University of Rochester. I can design my own major. There are no specified requirements." For a boy who thinks, lives outside the box, this has appeal. "Maybe I'll major in English or Mathematics. Maybe both."

We're in the midst of a shift in this life we dance. I pause on a toe, wait to see where he leads. Offer counsel, bite my tongue. I have a front row seat to new confidence, diligence, expanding horizons. From here the view is heart stopping. And it is fine.

A recent school day. Do all boys tackle every lesson in a clump??

The Doll Baby

2011-02-08T23:46:00.009-05:00

In September I went to a local fair with a fellow mama, I with my five mediums and she with her four littles. She coughed a bit through the art exhibits and the animal displays, and in November a surgeon slipped scalpel between ribs into lung. The cough is cancer. Body and life sliced open; sewn back together, different than they were. Grace pours down and friends, family pour in to pick up the pieces...laundry pieces, meal pieces, soul pieces. My family gets a piece too.

A red-headed toddler comes to us early on Monday mornings while his daddy works and his mama mends. We get to keep him until dinner time and we savor the moments. His father hands him to me when I am in my pajamas and some days I hand him back still in my pajamas and I remember, This is how it is with little ones.

The Doll Baby comes, takes charge, teaches my children lessons they've forgotten. Twelve years we had babies in the house and they who just were babies, who have spent a lifetime surrounded by babies, don't know a thing about taking care of one. Mondays are our best school days! We learn life. Babies put everything in their mouths. Most of the time this is okay. It's baby school. That's how they learn. Move the dog food out of reach, though. One animal cracker at a time. Pull the diaper tabs tight. Runny noses usher in new molars. Grab another tissue.

The Doll Baby can EAT! Everybody helps with the feeding.

Even Charlie, who was meant to be a big brother. Charlie, who still has a bit to learn about feeding babies.

See? I don't think the Doll Baby has ever been this messy in his life. He kept squeezing his sweet potato hands together, looking at them, then looking questions at me. What is up with these hands?

Peek-a-Boo is more fun when played with a herd.

There he is!

Cardboard Tube Cannon, a most fun game. The Doll Baby stuffs a ball into a cardboard tube. Claire squeezes the tube and the ball shoots over his head. Children neglect school books to watch this game. Again! Again! Finally the Doll Baby flops down on the carpet, ball in hand, two fingers in his mouth. Whew! What a workout! I scoop him up, kiss soft cheeks and tuck him in for the afternoon. He closes his eyes, breathes sweet baby breaths. I stand by the crib. Time slows. Babies do that, you know. Slow time. It's a wonder.

A mama gets cancer, God pours grace and in the fire there is joy.

- If you are a pray-er, please pray with us for the Doll Baby and his family. His mama still has some months to go in getting through to the healing side of this story.

In The Year of Our Lord, 2010: A Review

2011-01-02T21:16:00.009-05:00

In October of 2009, we move for the fifth time in fifteen years. And in January 2011 we are still settling in. 2009-2010. That dash is a crazy blur. Daily, I tell the kids, "Don't get used to this. It's about to change." (Usually referring to what cupboard we keep the peanut butter in or where we hang the coats but the truth is, we have lived in CHAOS for many, many months.)

We move to what might be the homeschooling capitol of the world. These wunderkids speak three languages, and memorize Shakespeare and fit dancedramasoccer between co-ops. Is it okay if my kids only speak English? Their mothers pick a hundred quarts of blueberries and make strawberry jam and ask me if I garden. Does pulling up roots count?

(One of about fifteen trees that we ripped out of our new quarter acre yard)

I dig through our boxes for math books, dig through our boxes for pencils, dig for notebooks. Start school at noon, finish at two, drive five kids to dance, sit in the car for two hours until they finish. People ask me my philosophy of education. First I think, Is survival a philosophy? And then I think, I've forgotten your name. What is your name? Unpack a box, shuffle furniture, paint something. Find a doctor, find a dentist, find a grocery store, find a church. Again.

We buy a house. A fixer upper.

Undersized and featureless in the front, Oversized and European in the back or it would be if it had window boxes instead of pink brick and blue shutters.We put the fridge in the living room because it won't fit in the kitchen and we leave it there for a year.

We take down emergency lights in the dining room (and every other room. R2D2s, we call them.) We unhook the panic button over the bed but not before our realtor summons emergency personnel. We scrape away faux wallpaper windows from under all the emergency lights.

We remove wallpaper and walls...

...and take a jackhammer to the living room.

Stuart travels to Brazil, to Sweden, to Mississippi, to Texas... I mumble goodbyes and hellos under the covers in the dark. We care for parents. We eat in the basement, wash dishes in the driveway, cook on the grill in July and in December.

I pull into McDonalds for the twentieth time and think back to the days of schedules, menus and order. Menus, schedules, bah! Frivolous things for people whose calendars and crockery are not in a jumble on the basement floor thirteen months after a move.

The children grow...and grow. I look at the babies in my blog header and realize a photo update is long overdue. John is six inches taller than me and three sizes larger than he was this time last year. He's old enough to drive. Faith looks me in the eye. Charlie reads and plays the piano. Time marches on and is not recorded here. Maybe in the year of our Lord, 2011, I'll come up for air.

Waiting for Breakfast

2010-12-04T18:52:00.001-05:00

4 months without an oven. This is a very big day here!

Grandpa Tom and Fred Astaire

2010-10-23T13:14:00.009-04:00

She loves Fred Astaire, Mary does. She knows his footwork, his stats, his signature. At a recent costume party we expected Fred to show and (s)he did not disappoint. Our family loves Mary for this quirky enthusiasm. We know a lot about a subject we didn't care about until Mary cared.

Stuart and I caravan through the mountains with two carloads of kids. We drive through the dark, the headlights on in the early morning hours. One by one we pray for comfort and grace for the difficult days ahead. A phone call the night before. "Surgery sometime tomorrow." Would we get there in time? We pile out of the car, meet Grandma in the hospital parking lot. The kids jostle to push the elevator buttons. "Faith, you can push the button to the third floor to see Grandpa. Charlie you can push the button on the way back down."

We find Grandpa Tom in his hospital pjs, his eyes light up when we squeeze into the room. "Oh! You didn't have to come! You're missing work. You shouldn't have come." But he is smiling. We wouldn't have missed this. Surgery is in a few hours and he is calm and cheerful. Grandma Carole is practical and smiling beside him and I take it all in. They don't know I watch them to learn how to walk the aged path the way they do.

A day later, after the old chest has been laid open, the heart repaired and the tubes snake in and out, we tiptoe in again. Grandpa welcomes us, we see the pain but he does not speak of it. "I'm a tough old Englishman" he breathes. The children smile when they see their giant card hanging by his bed, the one signed by nine grandchildren and one Fred Astaire. "We love you, Grandpa" they say; they pat his feet gently on the way out and leave him to do battle.

We speak of this on the ride home. Mary's Fred points the way with these words: Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young. How to teach this to these fresh-faced youngsters, their whole life a mystery before them? "Hey, guys, what have you seen this week that has impressed you?"

"Grandma and Grandpa are so cheerful, Mom."

"Grandma isn't worried. She is just doing what needs to be done and living her life."

"I know! I couldn't believe she went to her dance class last night!"

"They are interested in us even in the middle of this."

"Grandpa doesn't complain."

"Remember this, guys. This is an example that we need. In order for all of us to age well we need to learn to live this way now. It is easy to do these things in the difficult times if you have had a whole lifetime of practice."

I see their eyes, large and thoughtful, in the rearview mirror, as they think about this. When we get back to Grandma's, they hustle to empty the car, to set the table, to serve and I smile at these children who are already walking in their grandfather's footsteps.

We're looking forward to seeing you back on your feet, Grandpa Tom. We love you!

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent - that is to triumph over old age. Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Daisies

2010-07-12T20:57:00.005-04:00

"Daisy Duke," Stuart smiles the words and I eat them up. I wear a white shirt and a pair of blue jean shorts, shorts that cover over middle-aged hips and thighs; Stuart pats my behind as I scoot by with an armload of laundry. "Daisy Duke." Beauty fades but he finds it still.

I grin at him over folded clothes, "I'm so thankful for you." A girl wants to be beautiful to the man she loves. The words sound sweeter with age.

All day he calls me Daisy except when he channels Morgan Freeman, "You're lookin' fine, Miss Daisy." Then I forget the day's honey and I just want to whack him with my handbag.

Rain

2010-07-11T16:51:00.017-04:00

My sister-in-law lugs a heavy bucket of water around her herb garden, gives each plant a long sip. "It's been three weeks since we've had rain," she sighs looking out over the dusty vegetable garden and the shriveled brown grass in the pasture beyond. We help my brother pick beans and pull the weeds around them. The dry ground pulls back and some of the weeds snap off above the roots. We give up in the strawberry plants, sit on the porch, listen to the dogs pant.

We travel home in an air conditioned bubble. The whole length of the Shenandoah valley is crispy brown, the corn stunted. We pull into our Amish county driveway, greener here but the grass is short and the air hot. We breathe shallow breaths, unpack, crank the air conditioning. No rain in the forecast, three weeks and counting.

Saturday there will be a wedding, an outdoor wedding, and finally rain threatens. Stuart is on the phone with the bride. "Pray that the rain holds off," she says. Saturday we wake to dark skies, the parched earth slurps the drops. All day the rain falls, a slow, steady farmer's rain. It's beautiful, refreshing. The ground takes all she is given; no puddles remain.

No prayers for weather issue forth here, instead I rejoice, "God, you are good! What perfect timing!" for this is a marriage that needs rain, a second-chance marriage. Two who found each other across cultures and borders. Dry and thirsty lives. So many lives. She has children, six of them, and he is willing to bear the burden.

They stand at the altar and worship, her hands raised; both marvel at God's goodness.

And it rains. Inside and out, mercy rains.

If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. Leviticus 26: 3&4

The Fourth

2010-07-08T19:23:00.004-04:00

It's been halfway to forever since I've clicked open this space. A move and a school year and a cobwebby middle-age brain to contend with. The little things race by without my seeing or recording and I don't know how to start here again. Words are work and need mind space to percolate. I'm already long on work and short on space. Where to start?

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. A new birthday lens and a few memories of the Fourth. I grabbed the camera to savor the things that made me smile.

A yellow bird in the yellow sunlight in a cheerful yellow house. Buttercup, she's called.

Girls in straw hats in a thorny tangle of blackberries. Fresh blackberry cobbler for breakfast.

Daisies on the hills and insects fluttering up with each step in the grass.

Fresh blueberries and cream cheese frosting on sugar cookies. Assembled by at least a dozen hands. Devoured by more than a dozen mouths.

We laugh because a few years ago we carried these boys in backpacks and made hardtack and pretended to sail on the Mayflower and now there is a driver's ed manual on the kitchen counter and fireworks and fire in the kitchen.

And out in the yard in the dark, a humming street light, Mike's Hard Lemonade, IBC root beer (Charlie held his in his mouth to make the fizz dissipate) and the fireworks crackle and sizzle and pop. And the children do not cry at the noise. They cheer; they clink bottles and they laugh.

I want to wrap my arms around this moment and hold them all in it because soon they will read that driver's ed manual and they will drive away and come back to us carrying baby boys in backpacks.

Stumbling Toward Marriage

2010-05-23T19:31:00.000-04:00

I like Barbie movies becaus thay are relistik, Claire writes for a language arts lesson.

I correct spelling and ask, "Realistic? Why?"

"They do real things."

"Yeah, like fly," says John.

"Hush. I really want to know what Claire thinks. What about the love parts, Claire? Are the love parts realistic?"

"Yeah. One saves the other and after he does the saving he gets to keep her."

Hmm.

And this, "Mary was about our John's age when she had Jesus? You can have babies when you are a teenager? Wow! I can't wait!" This from Faith who has her whole heart set on a house filled top to bottom with children...a mom waiting to happen. "Well," she plans, "when I'm about seventeen, I'm going to Wal-Mart to find a boy who is nice to people and if I like him, he'll be my husband and I can hurry up and be a mom."

These are the children we are entrusted with. These we must shape into suitable life partners. Whew!

We ponder... How does one go from child to spouse? We keep eyes wide open, look for opportunities to impart wisdom.

One night I cut peppers for dinner and John visits while I chop. You have to be on your toes with a fourteen year old. Carpe diem and all that.

"I don't think I'll get married, Mom."

A recurring theme these days with eldest son, so I probe, "Why do you say that?"

"Well, I just don't think that a girl will want to marry me. Once she gets to know me she'll find out things she doesn't like about me and that will be the end."

These words strike a chord. "You remind me of me, you know. My favorite line in college was, "My face will end up in the Old Maid card deck."

"You really thought that, Mom?"

"I thought everything you just said, John. I didn't want anybody to know that I wasn't perfect either. When I first started dating your Papa I was sick to my stomach for weeks because I wanted to walk away before he found out that I was a hot tempered, finicky girl."

"Really?"

"Really. But this thinking on my part then and on your part now is wrong. Wrong because when we think this way we leave God out of the equation. He has a plan for you. If that plan includes marriage then even right now he is raising up a girl who will be an excellent wife for you. Are you ready to be a husband and father today?"

"No! Mom, I'm just fourteen!"

"Then rest. Do not worry about this now. Pray. Pray that God will work all things for your good in time. Pray for your wife. Honey, one day if she knows that you have been praying for her since you were a kid, you will knock her socks off! Serve. You are right. You are not ready to be a husband now but you have opportunities all around you to get ready for the job. Love your family. Look for opportunities to serve, set aside your time wasting and meet the needs around you. And when the time comes, you'll be ready."

And this is where we part ways with the status quo. We are training our children to delay dating until they are ready to embrace marriage and family. Career ready, emotionally ready, maturity ready. This sets the dating time line later than the giggling, texting, driver-permit crowd. We are not naive enough to expect to navigate these waters with five children without a hiccup. We are prepared to offer counsel and grace. But for now, we keep eyes wide open and we talk freely. We are foolish enough to hope that this is the way to mold our romantic child and our cynical, reserved, and bold children into worthy men and women who marry worthy men and women .

Heaven help us.

A Marriage Story

2010-05-20T01:24:00.000-04:00

They’re frayed with a gash above the hem and pockets that bulge out, those cargo shorts that Stuart was wearing on a day when we were going out.

“Are you going to wear those?”

“Yes.”

“But they're so ratty.”

“OK. I’ll change 'em.”

And he did. He changed into blue shorts with pockets that bulge out.

“Are you going to wear those?”

“Yes. I need to.”

“But there are bleach spots on the front. They’re not very good shape. You have nicer shorts.”

“I know.”

He changed, back into the first pair of shorts, and we went out the door.

Why couldn't he wear one of his better pairs? We’re going to spend all day together. I just love to look at him but, OH, those shorts.

We walked and held hands and the children shed, shed their hats and water bottles and sunglasses. The pockets in the cargo shorts made room for these things as the children dropped them or handed them to their Papa.

We walked. Single file. Mama in back, four goslings in the middle, Papa in front with a little one in his arms and his pockets bulging full of kid stuff.

He did need those shorts. His decent shorts don’t have enough pockets.

Those shorts, frayed with a gash above the hem and pockets that bulge out, he wasn’t thinking about himself when he put them on. The heart that beats under the tattered white shirt (to match the tattered shorts) is one that loves. He dressed to serve us.

And I am ashamed.

*******

Power Failures at Peter's House

2010-05-15T22:09:00.000-04:00

We were reading John 6 this morning and we came to the part where Jesus asked his disciples, "You do not want to leave me too, do you?"

Peter responded, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

The kids were impressed with Peter's answer. "How come Peter's like that, Mama? How can he be so awesome sometimes and so stupid at other times?

The power has been blinking on and off at our house for the past week and this is what I drew on for an explanation. "Well, it's kind of like the power around here. You know how everything is running fine and then the power blinks off and a few minutes later it comes back on? Peter is kind of like that. He has great faith but sometimes, under pressure, his faith shuts down for a little while. But the thing about Peter is that his faith, just like our power, always returns."

A few hours later the power went off giving the children a chance to reflect on the lesson of the morning. They've taken to calling our house, Peter's house.

I had a power failure of my own recently. The air conditioning in the car was not working and Stuart took it to the shop to be repaired. "It shouldn't be a big deal," he said. "It's probably just a leaky valve." It was not just a leaky valve. It was the compressor. Easily fixed for $854.00.

This was when I came unplugged. We have enough money for needs but not a lot left over for wants. I had planned to buy a rug for the girls room. But it got preempted by car parts. So I worried. What if we keep having repairs and medical bills like we have had for the past year? What if we run out of money before we run out of bills? This is a ridiculous thought. There are retirement accounts and a savings account and home equity. We are far more than an air compressor away from being on the street. It is too easy for me to make the leap from not being able to afford wants to doubting that our needs will be met. In my thirty-nine years of living there has not been a day where God has failed to meet my needs. Yet I battle this fear time and again.

This is silly. The parentheses of my life...my creation and my eternal life... are already taken care of. Shouldn't I trust God with the details that make up the middle? He is working with me on this. He is pushing me harder to trust Him. He's opening my eyes to recognize the times when my faith goes on the blink. This time I fought back. This time I said no to panic. A few days later an unexpected check arrived in the mail. Not for $854.00 but the amount was unimportant. I think it was God's way of saying, You look to Stuart's job for your provision. Don't you realize that everything comes through my hands? See? I can take care of you. And He does.

Fruit

2010-05-10T18:54:00.001-04:00

Her children rise up and call her blessed. Yeah, right. Maybe someone else's children do that. Not mine, and I wish they would stop rising so darn early. That would be a blessing. The thoughts that churned in this mother's heart when it beat stronger and surer a half decade ago when I was up to my eyeballs in diapers and sippy cups.

Today is Mother's Day. To celebrate, Claire drew me a card on a piece of notebook paper in church where she was informed by today's sermon that it is a significant day. Happy mothers Day, Mama! A bouquet of flowers drawn underneath. For lunch, we hit the McDonald's drive through (where the cashier wished me a Happy Mother's Day) and then went to Lowe's for home improvement materials (where an employee operating a fork truck said the same). It has been a great day.

I do mean this. Around here, every day is Mother's day. Not the saccharine, stress-inducing, sainted, card-bestowing, mother-worshipping kind of day. Thank goodness! No, I mean the kind where the children rise up and bless me in a thousand considerate, unexpected ways.

Kindness springs forth from my offspring as naturally as breathing. I am typing this post on my knees, not because I'm praying, but because I'm too lazy to go get a chair. John sees this and brings me one. The girls notice where there is work to be done and they do it to ease my workload. Charlie wraps his arms around me a hundred times a day and kisses me...on one cheek and then the other and then on the forehead. I kiss him back in the same manner. "I love you SO much, Mama" he says while squeezing his arms tight around my neck. Sometimes I'm wrapped in ten-arm hugs and pummeled with ten-hand backrubs.

"You look pretty, Mama." This surprises me too...that my children notice what I wear and are free with extravangant words of praise. "I like that shirt, Mom. It is the same color as your eyes." They bring me armloads of wildflowers and arrange them in vases until the whole house flowers with the affection of these young ones.

They love me enough to call me on my shortcomings, too. Not in an aggravated or disrespectful way but gently, in a way that makes me want to be better than I am now.

And this, this gets to the heart of my astonishment. I have offered my children a little...a little love and care and nurture, mixed with some grumbling and entire days of hot temper and occasional despair. Yet, they flourish. They are good because of me and in spite of me. I'm learning the loaves and fishes principle applies to motherhood. These young saplings, the same ones I thought would never see beyond their own needs are beginning to look out, to bud and flower and bear fruit in abundance.

To John...and Lauren...and Faith...and Claire...and Charlie. I am blessed to be your Mama. Happy Mother's Day!

Big Yellow Rain Boots

2009-09-18T10:51:00.000-04:00

Charlie snuck out to the forbidden boxes in the garage, the ones holding the off-season clothes, the shoes, and his favorite, the boot box. "Charlie, put those back! You don't need them!"

He lifted his serious chocolate eyes to my stern face, "But I do need them, Mom." And I gave in until he peeled them off his feet and slam dunked them down in the back hall. Then I pounced and returned them righteously to their allotted storage box. We played this sneaking/pouncing game for weeks. Charlie won. The garage is a long way from the shoe shelf in the back hall. Plus, Charlie was right; he did need those boots. Turns out they are an integral part of his vivid imagination.

Charlie as Boromir.

Charlie as Paddington Bear.

Charlie as The Knight Whose Boots Always Squeak

Yellow boots are for bunnies too. This is Charlie's newest stuffed animal, Peter. No, not Peter Rabbit. Peter Jackson.

So how 'bout you? Do you have a kid with a vivid imagination and a great prop or two?

Moth to Flame

2009-08-24T22:46:00.003-04:00

Stuart is in and out these days. New job. Lots of travel. I am intentional about enjoying the time while it passes instead of counting the minutes. We look for shooting stars, go to the movies, camp in the backyard. Six of us in a four man tent. I read aloud by flashlight and a moth flutters to the light. Faith flutters to the moth, tripping over heads and legs, a hypnotic look in her eye. She falls down laughing. We laugh too.

And the next morning, we sit in a row, new Bibles in our laps, highlighters in hand outlining the Roman road. Good for the kids to know the verses that define their faith. But the reason for this? Next week we are to take these shiny Bibles and hit the streets during the church hour... ring doorbells and flash highlighted words at unsuspecting residents. A sneaky plan. Who would suspect a Baptist at their door on a Sunday during the church hour? We shift in our chairs and squirm through the altar call and bolt for the door at the last amen.

The weather declares a picnic so the kids and I zip through the store and collect up the goods. We sit at a high table with low seats in the park like Gulliver in Brobdingnag. "So are we going next week, Mom?"

"What do you think about it?" I ask the asker.

"I don't think we should. I think we will be barging in uninvited. It's rude."

I might be a heretic because I agreed. "No, we'll have church at home next week." Door-to-door evangalism and arm twisting altar calls step on the toes of graciousness and good manners. Once I did this. Once I sat in the dark on the lawn and told a friend that she would go to hell if she didn't have Jesus. She didn't start the conversation. She didn't ask for this information. I offered it free of charge, all righteous-like. I still blush when I replay the scene. How did I dare?

I know how. I used to think that I could strong arm people to believe the way I believe. A clever argument and a few words from the Word and voila`...another name added to God's big book. Silly girl.

Silly girl. You cannot drag people to me. They have to want to come. Do you not know that it is I who raise the dead? I take a dead heart and breathe life into it. Pray for life! Pray that I supply the want.

So we do. Mornings around the Bible we pray for those we know and love. We pray for life, eternal life to be whispered into hearts. We live our lives in the Light and I write bits of our story and this everyday living is our invitation. For me, this is enough. Notes slipped, now and then, to my inbox confirm that this quiet way works and I am always amazed. This matters, this living consistantly with gentleness and humility, because you never know who, like the moth, might be attracted to the light.

Life After Death

2009-07-17T23:41:00.006-04:00

A hot breeze blows in the shade under the maple tree where I sand away the stain and varnish from Stuart's boyhood bed. Bits blow and stick and soon I'm covered with reddish dust. It's a good day for dust. I work and listen for the sound of Stuart's tires in the driveway. Dread hearing tires. Dread where they will take me in an hour.

Charlie chatters while I sand. His words come dimly. "How old is this bed, Mama?"

I push away black cloud. "It's old, Charlie. It was your papa's bed when he was a boy."

"How old is your car?"

"Old as far as cars go. About as old as Lauren." I sand until tires crunch gravel and then I put the bed back in the garage and rinse off dust and switch shorts for dress. The tires carry us away.

And too soon I stand in front of the husk of a girl. Young, not old. Younger than our car. A smidge younger than Lauren. A beautiful, beautiful girl... in spirit and in body. I hold her Mama hard and the tears come, hers and mine. "I'm so sorry. We're praying courage... grace..." Watery, weak words. A poor substitute for a daughter lying cold in a box.

Hair brushed back, full lips, fingers wrapped still around a blue blanket. Still. I look for her chest to rise, her heart to beat. It seems that time should stop, people become statues. Instead we live. In our few minutes with broken-hearted parents we make introductions, shake hands, cry, laugh, breath. Live.

Later we lie restless in the dark. "Are you asleep?" Stuart asks. "It doesn't seem fair, does it for parents to lose a child."

I'm quiet for a bit, thinking how to compress emotion into words. "That's not a safe question because it leads us away from the sovereignty of God. She's whole and safe and well. How can that not be good? I'm so, so sad for the empty place in her family. I'm sad for her parents, her brothers, but I cannot be sad for Abby." We toss a long time before we sleep and tears soak the pillow for a mother with empty arms and empty hours.

I grieve but to look death in the face is instructive. To see death teaches that there is a time to die. To see death teaches one to number the finite minutes and to learn to live those appointed days with wisdom. Like Abby.

Artwork and words from the back of Abby's funeral program. A recent creation from Abby's own hand.

Impossibilities

2009-07-15T01:20:00.002-04:00

Come. I've moved aside some selfishness to make a bit of room for You, here in my heart.

Come. Join us at the breakfast table. When I remember You, we'll crack open your Word and search for treasure. When I remember.

I remember until a fork clatters to a stop in front of me and then I forget. YOU DO NOT THROW SILVERWARE! SET THIS TABLE LIKE A LADY! I toss the fork back and it hits a water glass, and water and ice cubes spill out.

The silverware tosser bursts into tears and loud cries, and I hear the words of my heart voice, Your voice, "That's not My way." And it's not. I dry tears and mop water and fill the glass again.

Come, heart dweller. Sit with me on the sofa. Feel the press of a warm, wiggly little boy body. Listen to the story sounds and the giggles and the "Read Move Over Rover again, Mama."

Hear the interruption, "I can't find my spelling book."

And my irritation, "I am tired of looking for your school books! When you are done you need to put them away! I am not your maid!" Hear my voice soften. "I'm sorry, we'll look for the book together."

Come. Come into the bedroom in the late afternoon. Feel the thrashing little boy body . Feel the little heels kicking. Hear the screaming. "I'M NOT TIRED! I...DON'T... NEED...UH...NAP!" See me raise my hand to spank and then set it down gently on chubby legs and stroke and hum instead. Until a book hits me in the face, and then see my hand rise and flash down on a chubby bottom. See big fingers hold little ones until the crying subsides and eyelids close.

How can this be, this waffling that makes up my days?

You live in the recesses of my heart and speak softly, in whispers. Impossible whispers. Forgive seventy times seven. Covet not. Be joyful always. Love your neighbor as yourself. Come. You don't really expect me to obey these impossibilities. Do you?

Impossible, you say. This temper keeping, this love giving, this joyful living. That's why I'm here, for I am the author and overcomer of impossibilities.

And this is why "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing yet had been done."~ C.S. Lewis ~

Visit here to see what other's have to say about this quote.

The Transformation of John: Part One

2009-06-12T21:41:00.000-04:00

One cannot come face to face with Jesus without either yielding to him or rejecting him. When one chooses to yield, transformation takes place. Paul offers the flashiest example of transformation in the New Testament but all who believe in Jesus are changed. I was looking for this as I read through John’s Gospel. I kept wondering, How did a fisherman learn to write like this? Why did God choose him? Who was this man? How did his encounter with Jesus change John? And because I wondered I searched for answers.

THE BAD NEWS: JOHN’S ORIGINAL NATURE

AMBITIOUS: This story found in Matthew 20 reveals that John was ambitious to be a prominent figure in Jesus’ kingdom. It also reveals that his idea of God’s kingdom and reality were entirely different.

Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.

"What is it you want?" he asked.
She said, "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom."
"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said to them. "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?"
"We can," they answered.

Jesus said to them, "You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared by my Father."
When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers.

I think James and John put their mother up to this request. They seemed awfully eager to accept whatever came Jesus’ way. I am sure they were only thinking of glory and not suffering. The disciples were indignant with these two men. Could they have been thinking, There they go again, trying to wrangle the best position for themselves!

EXCLUSIVE: John saw himself as part of the inner circle. Jesus was going places. John was going with him and he was impatient with anyone who might be trying to get in on the act. We see this in Luke 9:

Master said John, we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.

When I read these words I hear them delivered in the urgent tattletale voice that my children use. The disciples had been arguing over which of them would be the greatest. With all this jockeying for position going on, John sure didn’t want any newcomers coming in and stealing his thunder.

HOT TEMPERED: The Samaritans failed to roll out the red carpet when Jesus passed through their town and John had a solution for this that makes me laugh out loud.

Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them? Luke 9:51

John had just been up the mountain with Jesus. He had seen Him in all of His heavenly glory. I think his head was still full of heavenly visions. How dare these people be so disrespectful! Let’s do something about this! I love that he says do you want us to call fire down. It’s almost as if he forgets that all power comes from God. It also appears that he forgets mercy, gentleness and patience.

John’s temper is highlighted in Mark’s Gospel as well. Jesus called his twelve disciples. Among them, James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means Sons of Thunder.) Jesus must have had a fabulous sense of humor. This line just makes me roll. I can picture James and John about to explode over some slight and hear Jesus remark offhandedly, “Relax Boanerges! It’s no big deal.”

QUICK TO UNDERSTAND: This trait must have been one of the primary reasons that Jesus called John to be one of His closest followers.

At the end of John’s gospel there is a contrast between Peter and John. Peter charged into the empty tomb first and appeared to be clueless in spite of all the clues. John initially remained outside the tomb (I think this presents John as a devout Jew. He would become unclean if he came in contact with death.) Finally John was overcome with the need to get closer. He stood inside the tomb and put the pieces together. He realized without bodily evidence that Jesus had risen from the dead.

The last story in John’s Gospel reinforces Peter’s tendency to act first and think later and demonstrates John’s ability to understand. Jesus stood on the shore and reenacted the miraculous catch of fish. John remembered that early in His ministry Jesus had performed the same miracle. Again he put the pieces together and he told Peter, “It is the Lord!” Evidently Peter could not recognize this for himself but as soon as John pointed it out, he sprang into action. He leapt from the boat and waded toward Jesus and then dashed back to the boat again to help with the nets. Peter reminds me of a Labrador retriever in this scene!

This, of course, is not the end of the story but I have shared enough for today. I will post part two on Thursday.

Coming Up Part 2:

The Good News

John: A New Creature in Christ

Day One: Charlie's Comfort

2009-05-24T22:06:00.000-04:00

Part One: Calico Boy

At the last minute, I thought to dash back into the house to grab a pillow and blanket and this turned out to be providential.

Charlie rode to the pediatricians propped on John's shoulder, blanket in his lap. In the waiting room, he lay over two chairs, pillow under head, warm and cozy. The blanket covered all of him on the examining table except for one arm. This he had to expose to the vampires. "Don't hurt me. Don't pinch me! Don't!" Two pinches later, they had a small teaspoon of my son.

He rested, head on pillow, and looked over my shoulder at the pages of Frog and Toad while we waited for the results. White count quite elevated. Strep...negative. Mono...negative. Leukemia...possible but unlikely. He needs anibiotics via i.v. Take these admission papers; the hospital is waiting for him.

Blanket protected Charlie from drenching sky as I carried him to the car. One of the girls carried his pillow. Quick phone call to Stuart. "Meet us." Quick zip though the drive through to feed four hungry kids and one hungry mama a four-o'clock lunch.

Blanket wrapped and I carried him into admissions. "I wish I could ride in a wheelchair. Your brother is heavy!"

Charlie stretched across waiting room chairs. "Can you hop up in this wheelchair?"

"Nuh uh."

So I rode, Charlie in my lap, pillow tucked behind, blanket draped over. Into hospital gown, weigh and measure, i.v. port in on the second try. "Don't pinch! I want to lay down! I want to lay doowwn! Pillow on the bed, pale boy under green blanket.

Another wheelchair ride down the elevator for x-rays. Pillow over the arm of the chair; head down. Blanket on the x-ray table. "It's just a picture. Pictures don't pinch. Promise."

And finally, Charlie sleeps a fitful sleep, cozy in his blanket. I hold his hand in the midnight dark. A soft light shines out from under the bed. The i.v. clicks and drips. Child coughs a deep-lung, body-wracking cough in the next room. Somewhere in the maze of thin walls a baby wails and will not be comforted. Charlie stirs. "Do you hear that sad baby? Let's pray for him."

"No, Mama! Pray for me!"

I pray for both and Charlie moans and drifts back to sleep and in the late watches of the night, I lie awake and marvel again and again that the last minute dash for pillow and blanket brought great comfort to this unexpected day.

Day Two: Waiting

More, Please?...Here You Go

2009-05-22T18:57:00.000-04:00

So you want to know about the fairy house? I noted your curiosity and dashed into the rain, camera in hand, to shoot another photo minus the cat. See the sweet little walkway of tiny stones that the girls laid out? The tiny lantern has a solar powered battery so it gives a wee glow when the sun goes down.

Faith had her birthday all planned out, "Binoculars and an alarm clock, please." We purchased and wrapped and were good to go when one morning I was flipping through the Plow and Hearth Catalog and spied these fairy accessories. A bit of internal tug of war... We already have her presents. She doesn't really need this. It's not like she can play with it... but fifteen minutes later the goods were on their way to our front door. Faith LOVES fairies. She still plays the fairy game. Now she has a door to deposit her minature delicacies at. (No matter that we see the cat walking away licking her whiskers.)

We are on the hunt for tiny shade loving plants to line the walkway. I'm thinking ground cover that can be stepped on. Any suggestions? Wal-Mart has not offered up the perfect plant for this project; though today I found an ornamental grass on the way back to the car that had me running me into the store. Isn't she a beauty?

Karley Rose Pennisetum

Accesorizing continues in the back yard. I've got my eye on the Wizard door for a few of my fantasy lovers.

The Backyard

2009-05-21T17:50:00.001-04:00

The gorgeous weather draws us out of our cave. We wile away the hours in our backyard...

...sunning...

(Allegra stretches out in front of Faith's birthday present.)

... playing...

(This photo shows only a fraction of the graffiti explosion on our back patio.)

...working...

(Lauren and John dump six hundred pounds of salt into the pool.)

...working and playing?!

(Kaya is all the rage with the younger set.)

Bad Theology

2009-05-19T21:44:00.004-04:00

We had to backpedal and find an easier children's Bible for Charlie because the Children's Story Bible is beyond his depth and breadth of knowledge. Still, he listens in when I read to Claire and Faith, "I know about those, Mama," he tells me as I read the story of the pillar of cloud and fire. "A firepillar is like a firefly."

Right...like this firepillar?

And for his own Bible time with his easy Bible story book, I point to Adam and Eve and ask, "Who are these people?" to which I receive this confident reply:

"That's Adam and Jamie "

10:30 Tuesday Night

2009-05-06T00:09:00.001-04:00

It's almost summer. Or maybe it already is summer because the kids have been swimming every day this week. Time for school to wind down? Not for us. We're picking up the pace and buckling down. For some reason we always get more school done in the summer than we do any other time of the year.

The kids have been busy with a new language arts program and a new approach to handwriting. (More on these soon.) Lauren is obsessed with biology. We work in the gardens and she holds out specimens to the girls, "Look! It's a gastropod." Or, "Come see this wood louse!"

I introduced Claire and Faith to long division this afternoon. This evening the children worked on art projects and played with a pile of hand-me-down stuffed animals while I read Great Expectations aloud to them.

At ten I closed the book and after a quick candlelight question, sent the children off to bed. At 10:15 Lauren came to get me so I could correct her science test. She was too excited to wait until tomorrow to see how she did. When I finished working with Lauren, I walked by Claire's bedroom where she was laying on her stomach, math notebook open in front of her. I looked over her shoulder to see that she had created some long division problems for herself and was working on solving them. For my children, it seems that learning is as essential as breathing.

(Lauren reading Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World Vol. 3 on a recent sunny morning. Claire and Faith share binoculars to complete a project listed in Jeannie Fulbright's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day.)

The Milk Safari

2009-04-29T23:04:00.003-04:00

At our house, at any given time, we are either almost out of milk or all out of milk. Lauren phoned during the appetizer portion of Stuart's birthday date to let us know that the current milk status was nil. After we finished up dinner, Stuart and I went, hand in hand, on the milk safari.

We made it safely past the patio furniture and the tiki bar and the summer dishware to the farthest corner of the store. Two gallons of milk in hand, we made the trek back through the financial death traps, cursing store planners and their wily skills. We almost made it out of Kroger's with just the milk when I spotted the Butterfinger eight pack.

The self-checkout aisle beckoned and because Stuart was with me and doesn't have the same issues with self-checkout bagging that I seem to have, we sallied forth to make our purchase.

I scanned the first gallon.

"Please place your item in the bagging area." Cinderella's stepmother spoke to us in her pleasant yet condescending tone.

Yes! Success! One item down, two to go.

"Please place your item in the bagging area." The second gallon of milk, done.

Now for the Butterfingers. Scan. Bag. But wait these look so tasty! I took them up, opened the package, tore open a tasty morsel, popped it halfway into my mouth, and like Eve, offered one to my Adam.

"Please put the item BACK in the bagging area." I set the remainder of the package down and looked into the scanner for Cinderella's stepmother. Stuart knows my self-checkout issues. He looked at me with the half a Butterfinger poking from my lips and we laughed until the tears came. People with advanced degrees in self-checkout glared at us with haughty advanced-degree glares. We hardly noticed. The best part of the birthday date was in Krogers buying milk.

History Repeats Itself

2009-04-28T10:22:00.000-04:00

Once there was a little boy. A mischievous little boy with a wind-up car. He took that car, wound it up and drove it into his sister's hair.

The little boy grew up and had a girl and he told her the story about the car and the hair. "That car turned your Aunt Ellen's hair into a rat's nest. A regular rat's nest your granny would say. I made a hell of a mess! They had to cut that car out of her hair."

The girl grew up and had a little boy. A mischievous little boy with a wind-up car. He took that car, wound it up and drove it into his sister's hair...

Mr. Morse and Mr. Gilbreth

2009-04-27T21:50:00.005-04:00

Stuart rang this morning, "Have you seen the Google homepage yet?"

We had. John did a little Gollum dance in front of the computer to let us know. "Come quick! Hurry!"

Morse code. The kids all joined John in his little Gollum dance to celebrate their new favorite form of communication.

We read Cheaper by the Dozen a few years ago when the little ones were too little so, my chore time pep talks, "Frank Gilbreth would roll over in his grave if he saw you clearing that table one plate at a time," only generated blank stares. Finally, after Mr. Gilbreth came up for the twentieth time Faith got curious. "WHO is Frank Gilbreth and WHY do you keep talking about him?"

Out came Cheaper by the Dozen . We rolled our way through the chapters, holding our sides. A story of a motion study pioneer who practiced his techniques on himself and his supersized family with hilarious results. A born teacher, a man who made the most of his time. We were spellbound. When we got to the part where Mr. Gilbreth covered his entire summer cottage in morse code, the chidren were hooked.

One morning at breakfast we spent an hour coming up with words to match the dots and dashes of the alphabet.

Here's our list:

A .- a DORE

B -.. BEST i ar y

C -.-. CREEP y CRAWL ers

D -.. DAN ger ous

E . egg

F ..-. fil i BUST er

G --. GAR GOY le

H .... half a min ute

I .. ig loo

J .--- ju LY JAM JAR

K -.- KAN ga ROO

L .-.. lim BER ger cheese (much to John's dismay. He prefers li NO le um)

M -- MORSE CODE!

N -. NOS tril (Charlie's favorite word! Just in general.)

O --- O RE O

P .--. pen I CIL lin

Q --.- QUILT ING a QUAIL

R .-. re MOR a

S ... sal ly forth

T - TOAST! ( from YeahToast!)

U ..- un der WHERE?

W .-- what IS THAT?

X -..- EX tract of MALT ( Tigger's favorite food)

Y -.-- YO da's KNICK ERS

Z --.. ZO OL o gy

Once we got the code under our belts, the kids started burning through all the scrap paper in the house creating messages for one another. We are not working on them every meal like we were a few weeks ago but every once in a while somebody will write one and we will linger at the table solving the puzzle. Of course John created one this morning after he finished his dance.

This message is the first one that John made for us and I think it is the best one that we have done to date. If you would like to try this with your children, pretend that you are standing in the middle of the circle, turn so that you face the arrow at the top and then turn clockwise to work your way around.

Peppers and Pigeons

2009-04-22T12:24:00.005-04:00

They stand, the one born in 2000 and the one born in 2001, side by side at the kitchen counter chopping up peppers for the freezer. This is new for these young hands and the work goes slowly. To pass the time they discuss their favorite subject, science. Tonight extinct birds are on the menu.

"Mom, did you know that there used to be such a thing as dodo bird?"

"Yes, but now they are extinct."

"Yeah and there is a kind of pigeon that is extinct too."

"You're thinking of passenger pigeons."

"Yeah, passenger pigeons. The last one was shot by a fourteen year old boy and now it is in a museum." Claire slices methodically.

"Oh, I didn't know that." I say while corraling chopped bits of pepper in plastic wrap.

"Yup. A kid the same age as John killed it. I wonder if he went to jail?"

Faith wields her knife like a sword. I try not to look. "The last pigeon died a long time ago. A long, long time ago. Like in the Nineteen Hundreds or something."

At that moment I felt old. And so did John.

A Chompo Bar for Lauren

2009-04-09T22:40:00.007-04:00

Charlie and I went to the book store to get Lauren a study Bible for her twelfth birthday. I laid the Bible on the checkout counter when Charlie came to a realization, "That present is from you and Papa. I want to get Lauren a present from me!" Perhaps the array of candy right at his eye level helped his line of thinking but at any rate I could tell by the enthusiasm in Charlie's voice that we could not leave without a present just from him.

"OK. What do you think Lauren would like?"

"How 'bout these chocolates?"

"Lauren doesn't really like chocolate."

"How 'bout these chocolates?"

"I repeat, Lauren doesn't like chocolate."

"Oh. Then these. What are these?"

"Cinnamon candies. I think they might be too spicy. How about this?" I held up a roll of Orange Creme Life Savers."

He studied the wrapper with great deliberation. "That's not shareable. I want to get something to share."

"OOOH, so what you are looking for then is a Chompo Bar?"

It's been a while since we've read A Birthday for Francis so Charlie looked quizzically at my raised eyebrows. "What?"

"Never mind. The Life Savers are shareable."

"OK. Let's get them!" So we did. And then I explained for a long time how Lauren's presents were a secret and how he could not tell her and that if he wanted to talk about them he could only whisper about them to me when we were alone. And he wanted to know how alone, like when Lauren was in the same room but not sitting on the same sofa. And I said no, only when we couldn't see Lauren. And I repeated this several times.

When we got home Charlie got distracted with his sword and his radio control car with the dead battery and he forgot all about the presents so this morning we were able to surprise Lauren with her Chompo Bar...err...Life Savers. We didn't give her the other presents until dinner when Stuart came home but Charlie couldn't wait until dinner for Lauren to open his so early this morning before breakfast, he handed his little wrapped package to her.

"Here, Lauren. It's for you. It's for sharing! Open it! Open it!" Charlie said, jumping up and down, waving the goods in front of her.

Lauren opened her Life Savers and she was excited because she does like orange cream anything. "Thank you, Charlie."

And Charlie who had been waiting for two days to share, commenced to lay out his plan. "You get one. And give one to Mama and one to John and Faith and Claire and save one for Papa. Then give one to me and you get all the rest. "All the rest" turned out to be only four but Charlie is way better at sharing than Francis.

Spelling Wisdom

2009-04-07T00:46:00.007-04:00

One day while skipping around the internet, I came across these:

And when I clicked on the sample, I knew we had to change spelling curriculums. Again. Goodbye Spelling Power and MacMillan and Sequential Spelling! We've found our true love.

The problem with the afore mentioned curricula is sheer boredom. Memorizing lists of words is mind numbing and as my children don't like their school work to lull them to sleep, they often push spelling to the side in favor of more exciting lessons.

When I found Spelling Wisdom, I realized what has been missing: an idea, something to engage the mind so that learning the difference between than and then occurs almost incidentally.

Sandra Shaffer uses the writings of famous men and women (Helen Keller, Beethoven, Winston Churchill...), Bible passages and quotes from quality literature...poems and novels (Robinson Crusoe, The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, All the World's a Stage...) to teach more than six thousand frequently used words.

Today, Faith and Claire copied these words by Abraham Lincoln found in Book 1 (used for grades 3-5):

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Tomorrow I'll let them look over their work and then they will turn to a blank page and I will dictate the passage (and punctuation) to them. They will be required to write the passage correctly. I will check their spelling and they will have to write any words they misspelled three times each. Then they will go on to copy the next passage. The next day, I will review the words that gave them trouble the previous day and after giving them a few minutes to study, I will dictate the new passage. We talk about the meaning of each passage as they work.

Lauren's exercises are longer. As the dictation exercises increase in length, the kids will only do one or two exercises a week. Here is an example from the end of Book Two (used for grades 5-7)

Exercise 88

The Smileys

From Amusements in Mathematics

by Henry Ernest Dudeney

When the Smileys recently received a visit from the favorite uncle, the fond parents had all the five children brought into his presence. First came Billie and little Gertrude, and the uncle was informed that the boy was exactly twice as old as the girl. Then Henrietta arrived, and it was pointed out that the combined ages of herself and Gertrude equaled twice the age of Billie. Then Charlie came running in, and somebody remarked that now the combined ages of the two boys were exactly twice the combined ages of the two girls. The uncle was expressing his astonishment at these coincidences when Janet came in. "Ah! Uncle," she exclaimed, "you have actually arrived on my twenty-first birthday!" To this Mr. Smiley added the final staggerer: "Yes, and now the combined ages of the three girls are exactly equal to twice the combined ages of the two boys." Can you give the age of each child?"

See? Lauren will learn to spell coincidences, presence, and astonishment and get a little math in as well. This is fun spelling.

I bought all five books in the series. John can spell anything and has an excellent grasp on grammar so I bought the remaining books just for him to read and grow from the BIG thoughts on these pages. Inaugural Address by Theodore Roosevelt, Give Me Liberty by Patrick Henry, The Wants of Man by John Quincy Adams... Together we will discuss the ideas found here and I might throw out a word or two to check his spelling...solace, insidious, omniscient. (Hardly necessary for the child with an obsession with thirteen letter words but I like to have the bases covered.)

So far, Spelling Wisdom appears to have been a wise purchase. The children went wild when the books came in the mail. Claire and Faith grabbed up their spelling book and their dictation notebook that evening on our way to the movies so they could work in the car. Claire even brought her work with her into the theater, "...because this is so INTERESTING, Mom! I might want to work on it in case the movie gets boring. Monsters vs. Aliens held her attention but on the way home the two girls pulled their books out again and got back to work.

Tomorrow after the breakfast dishes are cleared and we've read another chapter from Belles on Their Toes, they pull out their books and get started in on:

Work With Serenity

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The day is always his who works in it with serenity and great aims.

They can't wait. They've got their books and pencils piled up on the counter ready to go. It's going to be a great day.

UPDATE

Eight months later: This post brings more traffic to my blog than any other. I was a fairly new Spelling Wisdom user when I wrote my review. We've covered seventy odd lessons in each of three levels and still are in love with this spelling program. We've done research on artists, scientists and delved into books that we might not have otherwise chosen to read if our curiosity had not been piqued by the passages that the children interact with in their spelling books. I've copied and framed some of the passages to capture the profound thoughts in these pages. (A Swarm of Bees Worth Hiving by Richard Newton is not to be missed.) Spelling Wisdom has been a fantastic choice for our family!

Our current approach to spelling is as follows: My two oldest children read their lesson and then I dictate it to them. They write misspelled words three times each. Since they rarely miss a word they move right on to the next lesson. My third child copies her passage one day and I dictate the lesson (including punctuation) to her the next. She writes misspelled words three times each and if she misses more than three words, she repeats the lesson the next day. Again, she is a good speller so this is a rare occurance for her. My fourth child is in second grade. (Spelling Wisdom is not recommended until third grade but she really wanted to be included so we made some accomodations so that she can be successful. If she didn't have so many older siblings, I wouldn't consider this program for her for at least another year.) Anyway, I have her copy a portion of a lesson on the first day. She writes the tricky words for a couple of days and then I dictate that portion when she is confident that she is ready. Again, she copies misspelled words three times each and if she misses a significant amount of words (more than four) I have her repeat the lesson. She works through one complete exercise a week as opposed to the other childrens' two or three.

Joe

2009-03-25T21:48:00.003-04:00

We drive home; groceries spill out of bags; wipers slap raindrops and Kirk Douglas is on stage remembering his father in Before I Forget. He talks slowly, fighting stroke-impaired muscles to transfer thought to voice. (Here I paraphrase.) "My father wasn't around much when I was a boy," he says. "When we moved, he chose not to come along. But once, when I was five, I was in a play and my dad came to see me. He didn't say anything about my performance but after the show was over, he bought me an ice cream cone and that, that was my Oscar."

The wipers slap, a spearmint plant slides off the front seat and I calculate the years. Ninety-two minus five. Eighty-seven years. Eighty-seven years later Kirk Douglas remembers the one time he knew he mattered to his dad. I drive by the Gas and Go where the men loiter with bottles wrapped in paper bags. I drive through the section of town where men sit on porches. All day they sit, play cards. I drive past the school where a long line of women wait to pick up children after work and take those children home to a fatherless house. Dads are a rare breed in my little town.

I remembered these things this weekend when we went to see Joe.

Joe is a friend and a father to three. His wife left but Joe stayed and now he raises these three children on his own. He has a good job, he just earned his MBA but these things are not the things that impress. Joe and I left the kids with Stuart and took Joe's truck to make a pizza run after he gave his stick-to-the-plan child (Plan A was barbeque) a heads up about Plan B. I stood in the driveway waiting while he shuffled art projects, Barbies and sports equipment out of my seat. His car looks like mine. He cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast. When his daughter's hair slid out of her ponytail, he fixed it. He brushed yellow tufts from the shedding dog and called to the speedy pianist in the next room, "Slow down. You're not supposed to rush through that piece." He refereed turn taking with the Wii. His house is filled with children's art taped to the walls and photos on the fridge. It feels homey at Joe's house.

We drove away Sunday afternoon while Joe herded his kids into the house for a quick rest before a game of golf. It is good to know that there are still men in this world who are do not rage against becoming an adult, who choose to be selfless. I smiled the whole way home comforted with the knowledge that Joe's kids will not have to make do with the memory of a single ice cream cone.

That I Might Not Sin

2009-03-17T18:31:00.002-04:00

"Here, John, take these words, go sit down at the keyboard and see what you can do with them."

We fall short when it comes to scripture memory. The older kids spent a few years competing in Bible Drill...a big event in these parts...but eventually they decided that their accomplishments and trophies were only building up their pride, not their hearts, so we dropped it. And after that we didn't bother to commit anything to heart.

And there is this: I have a battle with my tongue. Sharp, ugly words bubble over at the slightest provocation. Faith has decided to take me on during our prayer times. "Please help Mama not to swear. Please help Mama to use good words." (Nothing like seeing that in black and white!) Something has to be done and since the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart, we tackle the heart of the problem.

John takes the verse and sits down at the keyboard and whips up a tune to go with the words. His work is beautiful! We gather in his bedroom and he leads us, voice cracking, piano humming, planting good words. Lauren asks for a verse and she steals minutes when she can, matching notes and words, writing notes on blank sheet music. And then Faith tries her hand at this. And Claire (with a little help. It is her song on the chalkboard.)

Now we sing as we work, new words, instructive, joyful words. Even Charlie. And I hope. I hope this is the way, the way to crowd out the weeds of sin by filling our hearts to overflowing with God's Word.

For additional encouragment and other approaches to hiding God's Word in your heart see here (There's a lot!) and here.

Setting the Table

2009-03-12T22:14:00.001-04:00

Growing up with seven brothers, a pretty table was only for special occasions so it was a novelty to pull out the placemats and candles for every meal when Stuart and I were first married. Then we had children. Getting dinner on the table became an accomplishment unto itself and the placemats went by the wayside. Spilled milk and sippy cups took their place. Pans went straight from stove to table between the milk jug and ketchup bottle. I didn't mind. We were eating.

But we're well past the sippy cup stage and meal time has remained akin to feeding animals at the zoo and I've felt the need to encourage manners. It's hard to do that when the table looks like a cafeteria so we've made a few changes.

Milk goes from plastic to pitcher. Condiments are served in little glass bowls and the meal is ladled into serving dishes. It feels less like a commercial when the table is word free. Cream looks like art in glass. Much better than in its blue cardboard container with a nutritional label on its hind end. I still don't have time to set the table but the children do and now they know how to do it well and they like looking at the work of their hands when they are finished.

Sometimes they even break out the camera to record their handiwork.

After some coaxing, the children are remembering to put their napkins in their laps. Our beautiful table is making them think about manners. We are enjoying a little more conversation and a little less foolish noise. Only a little, but enough to make this extra effort worthwhile.

Good Books

2009-03-11T23:12:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I read this statement from a fellow homeschooling blogger, "We have a big stack of Mike Venezia books from the library at the moment and I don’t have to “make” the kids read them; they just do (quite often when they are supposed to be doing something else." This intrigued me. Mike Venezia is the author of several series of books, among them, Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists and Getting to Know the World's Greatest Composers. We've been busy painting and composing here so I have been feeling like a little art and music history might be in order. And here was an endorsement about books that are so good they magnetically attract children away from other tasks. I had to check them out.

So, I went to the library, the big library, and found the skinny art section. Two books on photography, one on origami, and...and that was all. I did the next best thing, grabbed up my free Amazon coupons and Lauren helped me decide which ten books to order. "No Picasso. No Warhol. No Jackson Pollock. I only like realistic paintings!" We fired off that order via the internet and yesterday, the Bleeping Mail Lady, (named by Stuart because of her preference of horn over doorbell) honked the arrival of our package.

The children dashed in with the box and pouted because they couldn't open it until they finished up their last bits of science and writing. Fifteen minutes later, they pounced on the box.

Unfortunately, I forgot to make cleaning up the living room part of the precursor to opening the box, so they laid down in the midst of their school books and their doll house toys and began to read. A hush settled over the room. I was the only one making any noise and that was because I was reading Rembrant aloud to Charlie. The whole thing. He wanted to know if the people in The Night Watch were real; he wanted to count all the dogs in the paintings. He wanted to match the cartoon people to their counterparts in the real paintings. Then he wanted to get down because we had read for a long time.

Claire picked up the book on Grandma Moses. After a minute or two, she said, "Mama! Her paintings look like the pictures in the Will Moses book that we have!" She studied the paintings for another minute and then ran down the hall and came back with the Will Moses book and laid the two books side by side and matched similar parts of several paintings. She laid on her belly for a long time looking.

Lauren read them all. She read through chore time and wandered away from the table after dinner to read some more. She wants me to order the rest of the series. And there are even more series on the presidents and inventors and scientists!

Our candlelight question last night...Which artist did you enjoy studying the most and why? The conversation included realism, pointillism, impressionism, Cassatt, Homer ("The way he paints the sea, Mama, it's so real!") and Saurat...until Stuart said it was late and we needed to get to bed. When I went to wake up children this morning, I found two or three already awake and immersed in another art book.

The books are a mix of the artist's works, silly cartoons, and a brief history of the artist's life. Everything on the pages is appropriate for children. Run to your library and search for these. Hopefully, you live closer to a well-stocked library that we do but, if not, these are well worth adding to your personal collection.

The Big Snow

2009-03-01T15:58:00.002-05:00

John comes into our bedroom after midnight. "It's snowing!"

We have a hard time working up much enthusiasm on account of the late hour and the fact that southern snow is just a tease. We're New Yorkers and haven't seen a good snow in all the years we've lived south of Mr. Mason Dixson. "Go back to bed," Stuart grumbles at John and we scooch together and sleep.

This morning, I feel around the nightstand for glasses and stumble groggy from bedroom past white windows. White. Snow stayed and piled up. Piled up.

"Stuart! Stuart!" I shake him frantically out of sleep. Get the camera! It snowed! I'm going to wake up kids." He looks at me with squinty eyes like I've lost my mind but moves quick for one woken rudely out of sound sleep.

The kids pile out of their beds and put on woefully inadequate snowgear; they wade into snow and troll puddles for it has rained nearly half a foot in the last few days. They forgo breakfast for time is short. The Sunday morning stillness is trampled by noisy pelters flinging balls and sculpting white. A snowman! Charlie has never seen this much snow and Claire doesn't remember Rhode Island winters.

All too soon, it is time to come in, sop out of wet clothes and bemoan the fact that no one has any dry shoes. We go to church where kids shuck wet footwear and when we come out again the snow is gone but there is no sorrow because this morning there was snow. Packing, perfect snow.

Pray

2009-02-27T23:24:00.006-05:00

There must be more than two hundred of them standing side by side at long padded tables. Children flailing handbells, banging out forte through the mezzo piano section. This side of the room a measure ahead of the other. Eager beavers jumping in a beat too soon, tortoises clanging a beat behind. They forge ahead and eventually music is rung out of chaos. A little music.

Then it is prayer time. Time for prayer because we didn't before and the concert is minutes away.
"Lord, creator of all that is beautiful, it is the desire of our hearts to do our best (Heavy emphasis on the do our best part.) that we may be pleasing to your ears. Help us to be pleasing to your ears."

A rough paraphrase but you get the idea.

And another performance. Play practice, hours on the stage. We push through rehearsals with the tech guys, with missing cast members, dance steps uncertain and lines unsure. We muscle through this gauntlet of misteps and misfortune by sheer willpower and we do not pray. Until Friday, because the performance is Sunday and suddenly we realize, This thing is a disaster. We can't do this on our own. God, help!

And today. A screaming fit, a little from the children, a lot from me. And suddenly I realize, (at 1:00 pm) I can't muscle these kids to obedience and the praying that I did yesterday isn't going to cut it for today. I can't do this on my own. God help! And right then, midbellow, I change direction and we bow our heads (Well, I don't because I'm driving) and do the thing that should have been done first when our feet hit the floor this morning.

Three hundred sixty-five. The number of times pray shows up when I type it into the keyword search on BibleGateway. Three hundred sixty-five. Pray continually. Pray fervently. Get up and pray.

Fractions Make Friends

2009-02-25T21:15:00.004-05:00

We sit side by side at the table, uncommon fare on our plates, hotdogs and Sun Chips. Stuart's chips are gone. No problem, mine are close at hand. His hand reaches over and he snitches! He snitches just one but just one is not enough so, by and by his hand is back again. And again! I say nothing the first time or the second. What are two chips between husband and wife? But as he reaches for the third chip, I lean my body over to shield my plate. I laugh and he laughs and then he makes off with that third chip. "Get your own!" I gripe and he does, but honestly...How hard would it have been to share?

Today I do math with little girls. Division with fraction remainders.

"How many times does three go into twenty. Use your rods. How many ten rods do you need?"

"Two."

"How many three rods line up under the ten rods."

""Six."

"So does three go into twenty evenly?"

"No, there is a little space left."

"What rod fits in that space?"

"The two fits."

"That's right. So is the answer six-two?"

"No, Mama! It's six and two parts of three. Six and two over three. Six and two thirds!" This stuff is easy for Faith.

Claire looks a little confused.

"Do you understand the two thirds part? It's a fraction. Do you remember what a fraction is?"

Confusion still clouds her face. "It is a part of a whole. Remember last night when we had two cookies, two wholes and you broke them into five pieces? You were making fractions."

The clouds lift. She gets it. "And we were making friends, Mama. Fractions and friends."

She does this math lesson better than I. The cookie scene replays in my mind while we work our way through the numbers. Two lonely cookies on a big plate, stale, leftover from Valentine's Day. "Whoever frosted these cookies come and eat them, they are taking up too much real estate on the counter." The children gather, all five, to look. Rightful owners claim the goods. Without a word, they begin breaking apart their creations into equal pieces. Five children share two stale cookies. This part of my children astonishes me. They hold lightly to possessions and share freely, frequently. All are better at fractions than their hoarding mama with her chips. And all are friends.

For All You Librarian Types

2009-02-20T01:00:00.000-05:00

Our books are aranged on set of shelves alphabetically by the author's last name. This is a blessing and a curse, a blessing because I can locate Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel in five seconds and a curse because the books must be returned to their proper place in order for this system to work. It is hard for the little ones to figure out how to reshelve so up 'til now they have taken out books and then returned them to the top of the shelf when they are finished for me to take care of when I have a few minutes.

I grabbed the camera and ran down the hall to record our pile of books to be shelved. Unfortunately, it was not very impressive. Some days I have a towering, leaning stack that threatens to topple and takes forever to put away.

In my forays around the web, I came across an idea from the blog Se7en.org that offered the perfect solution to my dilemma. This is why we painted yesterday. We were making book markers or more accurately book shelf markers.

The idea is this: Every time a child wants to remove a book from the shelf, he must first grab a marker. He pulls out the book and inserts his marker in the book's place. He may only read one book at a time and must return his book to the marked place before he can pull out another book.

Now, instead of the Leaning Tower of Literary, I have a neat basket of color coordinating cards.

I love ideas that contribute to easy organization and independence and this one is surely a winner!

Creative Minds

2009-02-18T22:27:00.002-05:00

The kids and I took a creativity quiz the other day and the results were completely predictable. My artists were crowned Hands On and my "Box? What Box?" thinkers were deemed Bright Sparks.

This comes to mind because today we painted.

"You can only paint on these rectangles of paper and you can only use blue and green. (I'm going through a color coordinating phase.) Other than that, you may paint any way you choose."

Charlie immediately got to work and slopped some paint on his paper. He was fascinated with the way the paint swirled through the water when he rinsed his brush.

John and Faith painted with exuberance and speed. They were more into the process than results and happily swirled and spattered.

Then they ran off to play chess leaving Lauren and Claire at the table. These two continued with their pencils and brushes for another hour.

And the purpose of all this? That has to do with my results from the creativity test. As an Eyes Wide Open thinker I don't spontaneously generate fresh ideas like my Bright Sparks do and art doesn't flow from my finger tips like my Hands On kids but I know an good idea when I see one. These photos are the beginning of a new system that we are incorporating. Details to follow.

He Loves, He Loves, He Loves

2009-02-14T14:55:00.003-05:00

How does God love? Set aside a few minutes this busy love day and count ways...

ABUNDANTLY: You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you." Psalm 86:5

EXTRAVAGANTLY: Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies." Psalm 36:5

SECURELY: How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 36:7

PATIENTLY: The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. Psalm 103:8

FAITHFULLY I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself. Psalm 89:2

ETERNALLY: For great is your love toward me, you have delivered me from the depths of the grave. Psalm 86:13

COMPLETELY: Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

PERFECTLY: A new command I give to you, love one another, even as I have loved you that you love one another. John 13:34

To you who are family...or friend...or faithful reader...we wish you were here to celebrate this day with us. We love you. Happy Valentine's Day!

Pretty

2009-02-10T19:25:00.068-05:00

The daffodils are so restful to look at that they got me thinking about a post my sister wrote a while back about bits of pretty in the midst of swirling activity. Today I pick up my camera and zoom in to obscure art projects, groceries and dirty dishes to bring you little oases of pretty in my living space.

Nothing I like better than the clean, uncluttered look of a few flowers (albeit artificial) above the kitchen sink. I also love the Willow Tree figurines on the shelf...their peaceful, natural colors and the way emotion is communicated through gesture.

The kitchen table at five thirty. We always light the oil lamps at dusk and the house settles into the slower evening pace. All day my eyes are drawn to the bright colors in the glass bowl.

The coffee table has been scattered all winter with a thousand pieces of different puzzles. Our current project....American Maritime History. The kids work as I read aloud. Sometimes I join them. Cozy, all together.

Another restful spot in the kitchen. Flour and whole grains echo countertop colors.

So what about you? What is pretty where you live?

For the Winter Weary

2009-02-10T09:22:00.052-05:00

I feel a bit left out in the winter when bloggers post gorgeous winter pictures. Smallville gets some cold days but the mound of leaves on the pool cover, the puddle at the end of the driveway... and brown, everywhere brown do not make interesting subjects for the camera.

But spring comes and it is my turn to share beauty as snow slushes in the north. Seventeen last week, seventy this weekend. Peepers roar from the ponds and the puddles and a warm wind blows. The forsythia buds ...

...and the daffodils burst forth through the brown leaves and light a spark in the brown woods.

Hang on, you who are winter weary...spring is just around the corner.

Instructions for Water Morons

2009-02-03T10:48:00.003-05:00

When we replaced our fridge this summer we deliberately opted out of the water on the door option. The children slop and drop and we end up with our own personal swamp oozing down the door and into a puddle on the floor. We thought we'd forgo that this time around.

Stuart has an affinity for cold water so he set up a two container system in the fridge. For some reason this works. The children can use these without spilling but they still haven't quite got the system down. This bothers John to no end. I'll let the sign he duct taped to the containers explain how it works:

ATTENTION Lackwits and Laggards! THIS and only THIS water container shall be used until empty. Whoever empties it or notices that it is empty shall move this sign to the other container and then refill the empty container and return it to the refrigerator.
~The Water Nazi

Candlelight Questions

2009-01-31T18:22:00.098-05:00

The Brontes had a mask, one that they could hide behind when telling the truth. The brainchild of a wise father. Sometimes it is hard to tell the truth in the harsh light of day. I've found in my own life some of the best conversations take place under cover of darkness. We're currently testing this theory out on the children.

"Hurry. Brush your teeth. Get in your PJs and then it's time for Candlelight Questions." The children scurry out of day clothes and into night. They rush around the house flipping off lights but leave the oil lamps burning on the kitchen table. Someone brings a candle and sets it on the hearth in the living room. The lighter flares in the darkness and ignites the candle's wick. Everyone finds a space on the sofas or the floor.

"Are you ready for tonight's question? Who is someone you admire and why?"

"I admire JRR Tolkien. He basically spent his whole life with one set of characters."

"I admire you and Papa because you work hard to provide for us."
"I admire Aunt Dulce and Uncle Jim because they are so good at making people feel comfortable."

"I admire God because he gives us power to get candy." Much laughter and mini theology lesson ensues.

The candle flickers as children share their thoughts. It's cozy in our big living room with kids sleepy and stretched out. Everyone takes a quick turn then someone prays and all line up for hugs and kisses. One kiss for the big kids and four for Charlie and then off to bed. The kids take their cue from the hush and calm around the flame and settle quickly into their beds.

Just a few minutes at the end of the day to tie heart strings and share ideas, here in the dark by candlelight.

Other Questions:

How did you serve someone today?

What is something you learned today?

Who is your favorite character in.... and why?

What do you want to accomplish tomorrow?

Did you do anything today that you regret? What action can you take tomorrow to prevent it from happening again?

What is your favorite memory?

What has God been teaching you?

T Minus Ten and Superman

2009-01-28T19:53:00.051-05:00

"John! Quick! Get out of your sweats and put on jeans! We're going to be late for bell practice."

whine. mumble. moan.

"I know you don't like jeans. Too bad. You are old enough to start thinking about proper public attire and sweats don't cut it!

whine. mumble. moan.

Lauren comes in fresh from the shower with dripping wet hair. "Come here. Your hair is stringy. It will just take a minute to trim off the ends... Charlie! Get your shoes on!... John! Jeans! Jeans!... No, Charlie, take the yellow boots off. Get your sneakers!"

"I can't find my sneakers."

"What do you mean you can't find them? They should be on the shoe shelf."

"I looked. They aren't there."

"Look again! Be quick! Don't step in the pile of hair. "

"I know where they are, Mom."

"Faith, you haven't brushed your hair yet! Come on!"

"I will, Mom, but I know where Charlie's shoes are. Superman is wearing them.

"Superman?!"

Note to self: Next time Charlie's shoes go missing, be sure to check Superman's feet first.

For those of you with young children clinging to the hope that you'll be able to shave off some of the time it takes to get out the door when the kids get older, let me warn you...Don't even think about it!

Chim Chiminee

2009-01-27T20:27:00.056-05:00

"Have you taken a picture yet?" Stuart asked me this when he walked in the door around dinner time. I had the counter covered with baking sheets and fajitas. Chicken Fajita Pizzas were on the dinner menu. I'm a one-thing-at-a-time girl and putting pizzas together was my one thing.

"Take a picture of what?"

"Of the kids. Have you seen the kids?"

"Oh. That." I had seen them but it hadn't occured to me that it was a moment. The pizzas, you know.

Stuart put down his computer case and, still in his jacket, he grabbed the camera to record the children (re) blackening their faces.

Then he pulled brooms from the pantry and equipped each of his chimney sweeps with one.

And he didn't even mind that dinner wasn't quite ready or that some of the black came off on the wall around the mirror.

Minus Four on a Sunday Morning

2009-01-25T17:19:00.005-05:00

It has been some weeks since I have been able to go to church...travel and hospital and illness detain. Today was no exception. Home with Faith and Charlie. They turned the doll house upside down and got to work arranging a cozy place for their little family. I plowed through the piles in the living room and bedrooms; made beds and washed dishes. Lit some candles to chase away the gloom and sat down with Isaiah. Quiet.

A little while later Faith and Charlie joined me in front of the fireplace under a big blanket for their Bible time. Noah and the flood and a year and ten days in the ark with all those animals. I imagined the mess and the closeness. Bible time over, we picked up some stories and set about missing the rest of us and listening for car sounds.

Two more stories and the car crunched gravel in the driveway. Books and blanket went flying. "They're home! They're home!"

Kids and Papa and groceries tumbled into the house. Bibles scattered over clean countertops. Shoes piled near the shoe shelf. Door opened and slammed shut. Noisy. Kids mixed in among the grocery bags and stayed to visit.

Our house is rambling but mostly we live in one room. A puzzle sprawled across the coffee table. Toys piled behind the stained sofas. Books. Everywhere, books. Sometimes I shut my eyes against how lived in our living space is but Stuart loves it. "It just shows how much we like to be together."

He's right. My favorite housekeeping verse is Proverbs 14: 4 Without oxen a stable stays clean but you need a strong ox for a large harvest. We are raising a harvest! These books, Bibles, coats, games and shoes, all necessary tools. It's not a mess I want to wish away. Choose quiet over noise? Peace over chaos? I like an upside down house. Which is why this morning when I read to two, I was listening for four more.

Nerf Darts on Modern Art

To Arms!

2009-01-19T21:18:00.009-05:00

It was a day. Malaise hung thick in the air affecting children and school work and chores. I hauled the stragglers back to their tasks and felt the weight of responsibility heavy on my shoulders. At eleven I asked John to start getting ready for a doctors appointment. At twelve he was good to go. At twelve-thirty I asked the children to begin getting in the car. By one, all were assembled. Steam gathered between my ears and Charlie cried because he couldn't get his shoes on.

I started to wind up for a good tantrum on the highway but refrained. "Guys! We are at the crossroads and and we need to choose the good way. Let's take turns praying that we would choose peace." We did while Charlie cried louder. "John! Help him with his shoes!" Peace eluded.

Smack! A stone flew out from under the tread of a tractor trailer and hit the windshield. A round hole remains to tell the tale. Charlie cried, "I need a pillow! My stomach hurts! I want to lie down!" It will be a while before he can face a doctor without anxiety.

John hacked and coughed and Claire tripped over the curb and fell flat on her stomach on the doctor's lawn. Charlie passed his doctor's exam and John flunked. Onto Wal-Mart for John's prescription where the children closed ranks round the cart. I thought hard on patience and was mostly successful until the entertainment department. "I cannot take a step in any direction! Will one of you please move!," I cried in a voice loud enough that several gentlemen backed away from the row of televisions. None of the children stirred. A prescription and a bathroom break later, I was back in the freezing wind, tripping over children, lifting two-ton Charlie out of the cart and into his car seat.

And now we ride home in relative calm and I take stock. This is not a Woe-is-Me day. This is a day to celebrate, to delight in. A day where dross rises to the top. A day common to man. A day to persevere. Not much crossed off on my list of things to do but God is probably checking off a thing or two on His. Bring it on!

Do Unto Others

2009-01-18T16:39:00.004-05:00

I am never finished. I never arrive or achieve or accomplish. As fast as I begin to get the hang of a thing, another is set out before me to work through. I do not mind this for I love growing beyond myself. The task at hand? Do unto others...

A thousand commercials tell me that I am the center of the universe. Billboards, magazines, and my own selfish nature spur me on to grab what I can, spend as much time as I can on serving myself. The end result of self-centeredness is loneliness and dissatisfaction in everything. Join in. This been the relentless message of the past few months. Fortunately the response of friends and neighbors to Charlie's struggle has given me a better direction.

We've not lived here long and I often worry. Who can we turn to if we need help? A needless thought. Neighbors rallied and picked up and dropped off childen. People dropped by the hospital. Pastor, neighbors, and our favorite visitor...a young father who just started working for Stuart a few months ago. He prayed over Charlie on his way into surgery and then returned the next evening to check on him. He is fifteen years younger and many years wiser in the ways of joining in with the lives of those around him. An example we will not forget.

The phone rang and cards came in the mail all wishing comfort and a speedy recovery. Our favorite package...one packed by the hands of a young boy and girl in Texas. Children we have never met! Their mother and I are friends via our blogs. Xandra offers mountains of encouragement in my comment section and because she is one who knows how to join in, words were not enough for her when she read Charlie's story.

So Nathan and Gracie illustrated colorful cards for Charlie on construction paper and signed them with big, exuberant letters.

They picked out Mix-Em markers to include in their package. These were a big hit! The children have covered an acre of paper with marker artwork.

Nathan sent a little red car from his personal collection. Now that's sharing!

And here is Charlie with the card from Xandra. It is our favorite card because it sings. Mary Poppins belts out A Spoonful of Sugar everytime someone peeks inside. Charlie likes to open it. Sometimes he listens to the whole song and sometimes he opens it many times in a row to listen to A Spoonful of Sugar in rap. We like it both ways.

I do not expect that it will be a quick process to get to the place where I easily join in the lives of those beyond my immediate family. But I will not tarry in the place where I am. I want more joy than I have to offer myself. Joy overflows in Doing Unto Others.

Thanks to all who joined in our lives this month with your prayers, phone calls, visits, and gifts. You have been excellent teachers.

Day Eight: High Five!

2009-01-12T18:32:00.005-05:00

Day Six: Regrouping

Five bags in the trunk.

5 medical supplies in a Wal-Mart cart.

5 kids in the car.

5 repetitions of "Are we almost there yet?"

High five! Charlie is home!

If you are praying: Last night the pediatric ward filled up with children suffering from a nasty stomach virus. Hopefully we did not cart those germs home with us! John has come down with a cold so we are keeping him under quarantine. Charlie's immune system has got to be pretty compromised after seven days on three types of antibiotics. We also have another week of bandage changing ahead of us. The drain has been completely removed but Charlie still has a small open hole in his neck.

Day Six: Regrouping

2009-01-11T00:13:00.006-05:00

Day Five: Speaker Phone Prayers

"Mmm. You look nice," Stuart said into my neck this evening.

" A little sleep, some makeup, and a change of clothes will do that for a girl."

Stuart stayed at the hospital with Charlie last night and I came home to get some rest and spend some time with the other kids today. I should have gone right to bed but instead, I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning updating the blog. Then I climbed in my big comfy bed with my big comfy comforter (ahhh!) and watched the end of Return to Me.

Woke up at quarter of eleven, visited with our next-door neighbor, made lemon-raspberry muffins, did a little laundry, trimmed my hair and gave my son, Absalom, a full fledged haircut. Comforted Claire. This separation has been the hardest on her. The kids snacked this morning and we finally sat down to eat breakfast at three this afternoon! This confused the kids. They didn't know whether to do their after-breakfast chores or after-lunch chores. I put an end to the rollicking argument and then showered and after that we went grocery shopping. We were down to a half a roll of toilet paper!

Dropped doughnuts off at church for tomorrow (Hope they don't mind that they won't be Krispy Kreme fresh) and arrived at the hospital in the early evening hours. Brought Charlie some applesauce and cheese sticks and new socks and stumpy Star Wars figures. He said, "Tomorrow I want crackers with Cheez-Whiz." He's been really been into the idea of Cheez-Whiz ever since he saw an picture of it on the back of a cracker box. He thinks Cheez-Whiz on a banana might be a good idea. Tomorrow I'll bring him some but I'm not letting him eat it on anything but crackers!

Stuart was red-eyed and unshaven. The fold-out sleeper chair is not so comfy as our bed and Charlie's needs preempted a shower and a shave. I bathed Charlie while Stuart attended to his own needs and the kids crammed together in the tiny room and watched Mulan.

Then it was time to go. Charlie wanted me to stay. "You take more better care of me!" Ha! Stuart came equipped with the Game Cube and his laptop. He and Charlie played Lego Star Wars. He hooked his computer up to the television and managed to play lullabies through the speakers of Charlie's bed. All he got when I was there was Mama singing Aiken Drum in a very sleepy voice.

Tomorrow, the changing of the guard takes place in the afternoon and it will be my turn to go back to bed head and a big flannel shirt and wool socks. Hope Stuart remembers that I looked nice today when he shows up after work on Monday.

Day Eight: High Five

Day Five: Speaker Phone Prayers

2009-01-10T23:37:00.006-05:00

Day Four: Psalm 91

The big guys have been holding down the fort off and on this week. Neighbors pop in to check on them during the mornings and in the midafternoon they ride with Stuart to the hospital.

They've been impressive. I got home last night after being gone for five days to a CLEAN house. Laundry washed, folded and put away; dishes done; rugs vacuumed; beds made... They've helped each other with their school work and have put in about three full days this week on their own. The chore chart and family schedule have helped to give their days structure.

The thing that has impressed me most is that they have come together for Bible study all on their own each day. We're beginning to see fruit. Hallelujah!

Every morning around 9:30 or so, I called to help them get organized and to supervise as best I could via speaker phone. "John, no media this morning. Faith, use a small bowl for your cereal, that way you'll waste less. Claire? Is your bed princess worthy? Go fix it and come back and tell me when you're done." The rate of obedience increases when they hear directions straight from the horse's mouth rather than second-hand from a sibling.

The best part of these phone calls has been joining the kids for prayer time and being able to hear all of their little voices call upon their Father. (They sound so much younger over the phone than they do in person.)

" Please, God, hold the surgeon's hand as he fixes Charlie's neck."
"Thank you, God, that you knew what was wrong and that you did all of the work to save Charlie. "
"I can't pray right now, Mama. I'm so thankful, I can't say thank you enough times."
"Please help Mama to get enough rest and help Charlie not to be afraid."

And then my turn. "Jesus, thank you for children who love you. Thank you for these faith-filled children who are such a good example to me. Guard and protect them. Fill them with a spirit of peace and a spirit of obedience and cooperation."

Prayers that have been abundantly answered.

Day Six: Regrouping

Day Four: Psalm 91

2009-01-10T00:21:00.010-05:00

Day Three

"You have to print a retraction and take that Calico post off your blog, Mom."

"No, John. It stays."

"Why? It just shows how wrong you were."

"Yes, sweetie, it does but to delete that post would rob God of the credit that is due to him."

Charlie stood just a step away from Heaven's gates while we called him the Calico Boy.

For weeks, the abcess grew, deep withing the recesses of Charlie's neck tissue; swelling invisible to human sight or probing fingers. Not once a fever, no sign of illness revealed until he began to sleep for long hours only two days before we brought him to the doctors.

"The abcess was huge. It extended from just under his ear, down to his voice box and went behind his esophogus." The surgeon measured of span of one and three and four inches with his forefinger and thumb as he described the area to me. "He's lucky still to be here."

The surgeon left the room Wednesday night and I sobbed into the phone to Stuart. He almost DIED! The gravity of Charlie's illness finally dawning on me. The battle for taking my every thought captive begun.

I shouldn't have been so impatient with his whining. We should have taken him in sooner. What if the pediatrician hadn't...? What if the abcess burst? What if...?

The funny thing is from the time we left the house on Monday, through the surgery on Tuesday and recovery on Wednesday, we had been blanketed with an impenetrable peace and now here I was trying to peel off the feather comforter by reliving the events, adding in imaginary senarios, magnifying the ways I had failed Charlie.

My iron sister-in-law came to the rescue with Psalm 91 and corraled my wayward thinking.

"I didn't know. How could I not know?"

"You didn't need to know, because God commanded his angels concerning Charlie. They were guarding Charlie in ALL ways. They were lifting him up before God's throne the WHOLE time! Your family acknowledges God, you called up Him and He is DELIGHTED to fulfill his promises to you because he is FAITHFUL."

Charlie's fight has strengthened the faith muscles of our entire family. We are rejoicing in the difficulties of this long week because they prove we worship a a mighty God.

Calico Boy stays to bear witness. It is a powerful contrast of our frail limits as parents and our Father's all knowing, glorious, saving power.

Quick Update: Charlie went into the hospital on Monday, January 6th with a bronchial cyst caused by a staff infection. The good news is that the infection is not resistant to antibiotics. The bad news is that the damage caused by the infection was so extensive that he will have to remain in the hospital until sometime next week on i.v. antibiotics. I am guessing he will get to come home sometime between Monday and Wednesday. He has a five inch drain in his neck that needs to be removed gradually.

If you are inclined to pray, please pray specifically for Charlie's peace of mind. He is very anxious about blood work and bandage changing. Also pray that the four older children continue to hold up. We have been asking them to carry a lot of responsibility and they have risen admirably to the occasion but they are beginning to miss their normal routine.

Day Five: Speaker Phone Prayers

Day Three

2009-01-09T23:46:00.007-05:00

Day Two: Waiting

Stuart, Charlie and Underbear

Orange Popsicle#27

Charlie and the Magnadoodle. He drew a birthday cake and told his nurse, "Go get all the other nurses so they can see my picture." A minute later our tiny room was filled with six oohing and aahing nurses. The hospital staff has gone above and beyond for us. Last night, Charlie's nurse brought in a flashlight and helped him make his glow-in-the-dark underwear glow.

Happy Birthday. Charlie's favorite stuffed animal.

Here Charlie is coloring but mostly he told Lauren what colors to use where. His right hand is a little tied up. He was very disappointed when he discovered this made it impossible for him to play with his Gameboy.

Waiting. A long afternoon at the hospital.

Goodnight, Charlie.

Day Four: Psalm 91

Day Two: Waiting

2009-01-06T22:49:00.009-05:00

Day One: Charlie's Comfort

It rained today, great heaping buckets of the stuff cover roadways and lawns. Lakes and river and little ponds stretch their borders and gobble up ground to store the abundant cache of rainwater. I saw this when I drove home today from the hospital to relocate the kids but mostly I saw grey skies dripping on a flat, black roof a few stories below Charlie's hospital window.

It was a waiting day, and a pinching day. The vampires came to visit at six this morning and the phone rang at seven and these things brought the short night to a close. Stuart panicked at being away and came early. We waited for the doctor, waited for a diagnosis, for action, for anything. Our pastor came instead and he prayed and the phone rang during our visit. "Mom, we just finished Bible and we prayed for Charlie."

I repeated his words out loud. "Pastor Rob is here, buddy, and you are making us look good." That got a chuckle.

More waiting. Charlie sucked on popsicles. First orange and then red and then purple. Then the surgeon came. He poked and prodded; Charlie screamed. "It feels like a bronchial cleft cyst. We'll know more after the CT scan."

Back down to x-ray. A long wait. Too long to sit in a wheel chair so he laid on a stretcher with his pillow and blanket and Happy Birthday, his stuffed dog. "Lie still; don't move your head. Don't move your lips. Perfect." Then back up to the room to wait and eat more popsicles. Orange ones he decided were his favorites. The phone rang and rang with people checking in. We only told one here but news travels fast. Many reached God's hands out to us today.

I left to change clothes and check on kids and by the time I got home, Stuart had called. 'Yes, it is a cyst. It's pushing his throat closed. The surgeon doesn't want to wait. They're prepping him to operate." Cheers for a decisive doctor.

By the time kids were picked up and dropped off and the return trip made in the dark and pouring rain, Charlie was being prepped for surgery. I pulled in just as they wheeled him in to the operating room. We grabbed a quick bite and as we finished the last our our salads the phone rang. "He's good to go. We'll be bringing him up in a little bit."

The vampires met him at the door and stole another vial from our boy and this time was the final straw. Charlie stirred and whimpered, "No...no. Don't pinch." All the fight drained from his little body. Stuart's face crumpled. It's been a hard few days.

Charlie sleeps, a still easy sleep. Little body on a big hospital bed. Peaceful for the first time in days. I sit under a blanket and a load of mother guilt and wait 'til tomorrow to hear details about surgery and type of infection. "A few more days," they tell us.

I am tired.

Day Three

Calico Boy

2009-01-02T15:40:00.003-05:00

First Charlie had a cold. The cold is gone but a stiff and sore neck hangs on. Charlie hasn't had much experience with pain so he copes by crying. And whining. And blubbering. He crawls into our bed in the middle of the night so we can better enjoy the cacophony. We long for a good night's sleep.

We are sympathetic. The girls read him armloads of books and heat a rice-filled sock for his neck. John rubs Charlie's back and shares his Gameboy. Stuart and I medicate and massage. We rub Vicks into the sore spot and gently stretch neck and shoulder while he shouts, "Don't work on me!" We bribe him with candy cane bits and get him to tentatively shake his head no. Still he lists to starboard and cries. We pray over him and are thankful that he's not really sick.

Once we took our cat to the vet because she was limping and crying. Crying and crying. The vet prodded gently and the cat lept straight up off the examining table. "I'll have to put her to sleep to examine her. Calicoes are notorious babies." So we left her and after the tiny abcess on her paw had been discovered and attended to, we brought her home.

Last night, I tucked Charlie in, very gently so as not to jar his neck. I brushed fingertips through his hair and whispered a kiss on his forehead. "Stop! Stop! Don't touch me! You're hurting my head!" he screamed.

I think Charlie has a bit of Calico in him.

This is only the beginning of the story. It continues with Day One: Charlie's Comfort

An Unlikely Excuse

2009-01-01T20:37:00.000-05:00

"Please, John. Grab me a package of ground beef from the freezer." He's mailing laundry and the freezer is only a few steps away from the clothes room. He comes back empty handed. "Did you forget?"

"Did I forget what?"

"The meat. You forgot the meat."

"Oh." A few minutes later the meat appears on the kitchen counter.

And then, "Where was I going?" John is holding an armload of dolls and looking bewildered.

"Might you have been going to put those in the girls room?"

"Oh. Right."

He's back in a bit with an explanation. "The problem is, Mom, that I keep passing through the Fogs of Forgetfulness. They seem to be thickest in the hallway."

I chuckle with him. He will have to do battle with the Fogs of Forgetfulness for his entire life but humor is a powerful coping mechanism. One that I hope holds my absent-minded boy in good stead as he sets out to make his mark on the world.

The Fancy Dinner

2008-12-28T18:42:00.010-05:00

Come on. You are invited to the fancy dinner.

Place: The Living Room

Time: After the children are fed
Dress: Thrift store fare. Formal (women and girls) Flannel (men and boys)

It's become tradition, this fancy dinner. Tonight is the third edition. Women put dinner in the oven, feed the children, exchange jeans for gowns. Doors are shut all over the house as everyone dresses.

Little girl eyes sparkle delight. Lithe bodies swish, swirl. "Look, Papa, Grandpa!"

"Oooh! You're gorgeous! So pretty!"

Mamas appear from behind the closed doors. Mother bodies swish, swirl. Am I still? eyes ask. Am I still your beautiful girl?

Yes. Oh, yes echoes round the room.

And the men, the men that we love, lumberjack men in soft flannel, bubble over with good humor and cheer.

We sit around the table. Velvet. Flannel. Sequins. Flannel. Taffetta. Flannel. And the children serve. "Would anyone like a glass of wine." Six adults coach five young ones through the art of presenting, pouring.

"No, Lil. You can't have a sip out of my glass. Wait."

"Care for a salad?"
"Enchiladas?"
"Coffee and dessert?"

Dishes come and go with a newly aquired ease and grace. We look at these beauties and see adults on the horizon. Conversation and candlelight. The last dish cleared. Table pushed to the wall. On with the dance.

Cousins clasp hands, circle, step in, step out. Feathers and flannel, a comfortable place in a husband's arms, bodies close and graceful, grace that is polished by time. I dance with my boys. Joy and abandon with the preschooler. We jump, swing, gallop. He joins the cousin circle. It's my teenager's turn. He leads. A new skill, tender, sweet. He guides, circles, stiff and unsure but gains confidence as he goes. The song changes and he steps away to test his accomplishment on another partner, "Grandma, will you dance with me?" The sun is setting on his childhood.

After a time, the dancers wander away. Only Claire and her favorite uncle remain and then even she tires. Dresses return to closets. All climb into flannels and knits. Sleepy heads rest on pillows...relive the evening...make plans for the next soiree. Come October at the beach. A tradition to keep.

Door to Door

2008-12-24T20:41:00.004-05:00

"Goodbye!"
"One hug more."
"See you in a few days!"

We pulled out of the driveway, weighted down with two car top carriers, honking, waving to cousins.

"Goodbye!"

Over Virginia mountains. Weaving through truck traffic, recording license plates, reading, sleeping.

And when darkness falls, we leave the highway to the trucks and wind over a ribbon of country roads. John navigates, scatters direction-covered Post-Its, shuffles and reoganizes. We grope tentatively through inky night, stop to read road signs.

"We're almost there!"
" This is the road. Look for house numbers." Eyes squint and strain.

"10057. Almost." Headlights seek treasure, family, at 11164 Frog Hollar Lane.

"Come back!"
"Back up! You missed us!" A flock of children crows from porch and yard.

We do back up, thread though exuberant greeters, burst from the car, trailing empty water bottles and stuffed animals.

"You're here!"
"Goodness, you've grown!"
"We've been waiting for you all day!" Words puff in frosty air, squeeze between warm hugs.
"Come in! Come in!"

A tangle of cousins, aunts, uncles, we step out of the dark into the puddle of light spilling from doorway to porch.

"We're so glad you're here!"

And we are too, glad to be in the warm welcoming embrace of those we love.

The Snowflakes

2008-12-17T22:56:00.006-05:00

Because you asked. Tell us. Did you make the snowflakes? How?

Yes. We did make these curly bits of paper.

Charlie wrapped some strips of paper round the quiller and handed them over to be shaped and joined. But the other four pairs of hands measured and cut and curled and glued with no help at all. The best kinds of projects don't need a mother hovering directions. I joined in and worked too while City on A Hill provided Christmas ambiance in mid-November.

These are our tools. And waxpaper to save the table. And toothpicks for the glue. If you don't have a quiller buy the kind with the little slit in the top. Much easier to use than the pointed awl kind. Prevent squabbling. Get enough. The quiller design board is a necessity as it forms identical curls. You may want two or three if there are lots of eager hands at your house. Precut quilling paper is inexpensive and is of even, narrow width. Better than I can do on my Fiskars paper cutter. We used two snowflake kits that came with white paper strips.

It is time taking, this snowflake creating. The children worked afternoons by cozy fireside, hands on their work, minds wandering the globe with James Cook as I read from the pages of Stowaway.

It's an inexpensive hobby. Three boards, six quillers, two kits. Seventy-five dollars. Most of the money going into the one time expense of tools. Quilling kits generally run between three and eight dollars. A manageable cost.

Of Crops and Christmas

2008-12-17T12:45:00.002-05:00

My father is a farmer, no longer one who tills the soil and plants the seed, but a farmer nonetheless, drawn to crops and weather forecasts. I grew up in the corn fields and in the planting and harvest seasons, my five o'clock father came home dusty and tired long after dusk. Memories stirred because a post came across my reading list this week. It my caught my eye as it is of a harvest. The children and I have been following with interest.

"Look at this field of corn. This family's paycheck stands in that field. These are their children. They are all your ages." Internet journals make this big world small and intimate. Tie together the hearts of strangers.

We have been so caught up in this tale I wanted to share it with you. Part One, Part Two and Part Three. Begin at the beginning. Prepare your heart for Christmas.

Searching for the Mark

2008-12-15T17:06:00.011-05:00

You miss the mark. A wisp of an idea, a whisper, a breath during these happy, creative days. Cookie baking and Christmas carols. You miss the mark. Stories and puzzles in front of the fireplace. Hot chocolate. Presents...storebought and homemade. You miss the mark.

This unrest grows and swells until, finally "How? How am I missing?" I look into the lives of others and am not found wanting in giving or worship.

Child, look to Me.

I look. I fall short. I miss the mark.

In worship. You attend to many things but only one thing is needed. I have this complaint against your family. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! In giving. You bring buckets of water to full wells and spare only a few drops for me.

My heart breaks and into the wreckage He pours out His plan to finish well this season.

For worship: We put aside Isaiah for a time and begin the Jesse tree devotional. A soothing balm. A right turning for our wayward souls.

For giving: Silver words challenge. Confront. Words about the very catalog that I glanced through yesterday with callused heart. The catalog in the trash. I sob at my desk and call to the children. John reads aloud. I cannot.

What do You want for your birthday?

I am thirsty. I am hungry. I am cold. Look after my least.

So we gather again around this screen and make plans to forgo the stocking stuffers and look after Him. And in lightening our checkbook to fill other homes with livestock, books, blankets...in the wrestling with the Word... we fill our own hearts with joy. Abundant, delightful, life-giving joy.

Goon Shoes

2008-12-14T00:23:00.010-05:00

One dollar! Who will buy us for just one dollar? Down here! One shelf below Timmy the Tooth on VHS. Down. Behind the green press-on nails. Yes! Us! The Goon Shoes!

We'll fit all of your children with these handy straps! We're bouncy! We're fun!

No! No, lady! Don't make your boy put us back. We're not junk! You don't know! You, you middle-aged woman with big feet! Please! Pleeease take us home! Don't leave us here under these big bikini bottoms!

Put down that sweater! Put it down and look at your son sproinging down the aisle of Second Hand Sams in our green and purple majesty. We're made for each other!

Yes? You said yes?! Oh, you won't regret this! I promise!

Watch that first step out of the store, son. We've got bounce but no traction.

Don't fight! You can't all wear us at once. Two shoes. Two feet. That's how it goes. Set the timer. Wait your turn! Wait!

Yes, big brother, we do turn vacuuming into a circus performance. Yes, youngest sister, it is fun to make the springing trip down the hallway. You're tipping! Grab the wall! Yes, little boy, you are taller than your big sister but your turn is up. Pass us on.

One dollar! A day full of giggles and springs and bounces all for one dollar!

Silent Night

2008-12-13T00:13:00.007-05:00

Sit with me, here in the dark, in the peaceful dark of my living room. Sink down into the sofa beside the fireplace.

Here. A blanket to throw over your lap and tuck under your feet.

Let the chaos and the busy-ness of the early evening hours fade.

Feel the the warmth of the cocoa mug in your hands. Sip slowly. Savor this moment.

Relax.

Peace.

Breathe.

Be still.

A Windy Day

2008-12-11T15:23:00.006-05:00

What does a family do when they wake up on the living room floor to a stormy morning? (We were having a sleepover in front of the fireplace because Stuart is out of town.)

7:30 Lay under the covers and watch the wind bend the trees vigorously in every direction. Enjoy being cozy together.

7:52 The wind blows the power lines down somewhere and the clock stops.

8:00 Send a kid to the front windows to see if the broken branch in the tulip maple has finally blown down.

8:01 Pray that the wind will be strong enough to blow the branch down when the report comes back that it is still trapped out of reach in the tree.

9:00 Have milk and cereal for breakfast because the power is not yet back on.

9:00 Instruct the children on the importance of keeping the fridge door shut.

9:30 Read the last two chapters of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Wish that it were a little longer. It's such a good book!

9:45 Have a longer Bible time than normal because there are no distractions. Thank God during prayer time that the giant limb that blew down from the top of the tulip maple (not the one that we prayed to blow down) did not hit the car. It missed by one inch.

10:30 Work on Christmas project. (Can't tell you about it yet.)

12:00-12:30. Go outside in the pouring rain and fill the garden wagon seven or eight times with fallen sticks and monster branches. Explain to the neighbors that being outside in the rain with the children is better than being trapped inside without power.

12:30 Drip out of wet clothes in the garage. Yell loudly at Charlie and John for dripping into the living room. Change into dry clothing and corral the renegade wet stuff.

1:00 Eat cheese and crackers for lunch.

1:01 Repeat the importance of keeping the fridge door shut.

1:15 Move puzzle table close to the window so we can see to put a Christmas puzzle together.

1:30 Give a gift wrapping lesson to the three little ones. Shout instructions loudly over the squabbling about what paper to use and who gets to cut the paper.

1:45 Send the beaming children to the walk-in-closet with their wrapped gifts.

2:00 (exactly) Cheer loudly because the power comes back on.

2:01 Groan because it goes back out again.

2:20 Cheer again.

2:21 Groan.

2:21 1/2 Yell at Charlie for unplugging the Christmas tree which fooled us all into thinking that the power was out again.

2:30 Turn on Adventures in Odyssey and sit down at the computer to post this. Type quickly because the power is still spotty.

bERGRAMU

2008-12-09T16:35:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Charlie got a letter in the mail. The Christmas activity we were working on came to a screeching halt. Letters for four year olds are not a common occurance here. "For me? A letter for me? Look! A letter for me! I got a letter!" When Charlie was done waving his letter around, he opened it.

He pulled out a sheet of stickers. "Ooh stickers! What is this animal?!"

"Move it back a little, Charlie so I can uncross my eyes."

He did and we identified animals from the African plain. "Mama, do you want a sticker?"

"Sure."

"Which one?"

"I don't care. Which one do you want to give me?"

Charlie smacked a elephant onto my chest and decorated himself with a monkey. But wait! There was more in the envelope. A note and a dollar. A whole dollar.

"Do you want me to read this note to you?"

"I got a dollar! I got this dollar! Is it store day? Can we go to the store right now?! (insert much dancing and waving)

"No. Store day is not for two more days."

"Drat!"

"Do you want me to read the letter? It's from Grandma Pugga."

So we read the letter and Charlie was so overwhelmed by his grandma's generosity that he found a narrow scrap of paper and wrote a letter of his own in response. His first letter. He worked through a good part of dinner and smeared a little steak sauce on his work and when he was finished it looked like this.

bERG

RAM

UiLU

VYO

CUZ

YOGA

VThe

mUNe

TOMe

fRUM

CHARLIE

The

Enb

Anybody want to whip out their secret decoder ring and make sense of what he wrote? (It is readable. I promise.)

Southern Holidays

2008-12-06T21:01:00.010-05:00

1. Stringing up the Christmas lights and raking the yard can occur simultaneously. Today, we divided into two teams and took care of both jobs. These festivities were punctuated every fifteen minutes or so by the reveberation of a shotgun as our next door neighbor scared a flock of Canadian geese out of his back yard.

2. It was cold today as we worked out in the yard so, we bundled up in our sweaters (three or four apiece), our mittens and our toboggans. For those of you who are doing a double take...toboggans are hats down here. I guess the southerners felt left out. What's this, ya'll? A word we have absolutely no use for? I know. Let's change hat to toboggan. We'll show those Yankees.

3. Sometimes it snows. Well, it's only snowed once since we've moved here. The children dashed outside in their pajamas. I didn't call them back in to get dressed. It was a good thing. The snow melted before breakfast.

4. Southerners find innovative ways to create snow. Last night the children played handbells in an antique store at Smallville's annual Christmas festival. Snow drifted down in front of the windows as we played. Snow made by blowing soap from a giant fan attached to the roof overhead. Snoap, the children call it. One malfunctioning machine shot out snoapballs. The snoap fell straight down and covered a few vehicles. We watched the unfortunate drivers of these cars pick their way through the snoap drifts. "Look, Mama. They are snoaped in."

5. Santa Claus is married to Mizzrizz Claus. This one is new to me. I've lived in the South for six years now and it has only been in the past month that I've heard Mrs. pronounced Mizzrizz three or four different times by as many different people.

6. At least once in the next few weeks, someone will sing Christmas Shoes during a service in a small country church. That someone will get too choked up to sing but will stand there tears pouring down her cheeks as the backup music plays. Most of the parishioners will also get choked up, even without the words. For my part, I think this song should be illegal. What do you think?

If you are uninitiated, here's the song in it's four minutes-something seconds entirety. I don't recommend you that watch it or anything but I didn't want you to feel left out. So if you must...

7. Once a girl moves south, she can't move north again. The warm climate thins the blood. I am typing this post wearing three sweaters, a pair of wool socks and a toboggan.

From Thanksgiving to Now

2008-12-04T20:51:00.002-05:00

Stuart came down with a cold the day before Thanksgiving that knocked him out for two or three days. This is how he he spent all of Thanksgiving Day. He's a handsome devil.

The rest of us were undaunted. With Stuart's blessing, we pressed forward with our Thanksgiving preparations. The girls made sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole and fruit cup (with the bitters). And all that I needed to do was assemble the stuffing and cook the birds.

We were alone for Thanksgiving. I really hate that we are so far from family and friends because I would love for my house to be full of company. I suppose it was for the best on this particular holiday. Our guests would have gone home incubating plague germs! Anyway, it was just the seven of us so I decided to serve Cornish game hens instead of the traditional (enormous) turkey. The kids were delighted with the size of these tiny birds and christened them ptarmigan. Perhaps we were the only family in America that celebrated this Thanksgiving with ptarmigan.

It wasn't enough to celebrate just one holiday on Thanksgiving. We hauled out the Christmas tree and had it set up before our feast came out of the oven. (More to come on that later.)

A few days after Thanksgiving, Stuart was on the road to recovery but the children were dropping like flies. They've been drinking plaudamentum by the pint. (John stole the name from The Lamplighter and applied it to the gallons of lemon water they've been making for themselves.) They seem to be on the mend so, today we started our next Christmas project. Cookies. This one was much easier than last weeks candy canes. (The candy canes, by the way, went wrong. Something happened and after we got them on the tree, they began dripping and warping. They look like a Salvadore Dali creation! They're still tasty so it was not a complete disaster.)

We made rich butter cookies from The Joy of Cooking. Here the kids are spreading them with the first layer of confectioner's frosting.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how frosty are your branches. Charlie put about a pound of frosting on this cookie. He can't wait to eat it! This was definitely a good project for him. He had a great time helping to mix up the cookies and the frosting. He frosted about five or six cookies before he got distracted and began to taste the frosting and nibble on the broken cookies.

Lauren used a little more finesse and a lot less frosting and created some beautiful cookies. The girls really got into this project. I was impressed with their creativity and focus.

Here are a few of the finished results ready for a Christmas party in the near future.

Candy Canes

2008-11-24T21:16:00.003-05:00

We’ve moved into high gear with our Christmas preparations. The kids are at the age where projects are fun instead of stressful. Usually. We learned quite a bit from today’s project but I doubt we’ll repeat it. It’s never a good thing to be wishing you were done instead of only at the halfway point. We made candy canes to decorate our Christmas tree. Not the pipe cleaner-done in three minutes kind. We made the boil the sugar- stretch the candy- twist into ropes kind. Oooooh.

We used this recipe. Here’s our photographic evidence that I was foolish enough to attempt this with a small herd of kids.

Lauren, Faith and Claire are reading the candy thermometer. This was a good lesson for Claire as she had never used a thermometer that wasn’t digital before.

Once the sugar was ready I added concentrated food paste to one of the batches. This paste is neat stuff. It makes vivid colors. I like to use it when I make playdough. You can find it in the craft section at Wal-Mart in the cake-decorating aisle. I added about 1/8-1/4 teaspoon of red and a smidge of black to make a rich red color.

I poured the sugar mixture onto a couple of cookie sheets and let it cool briefly before beginning to stretch it like taffy. If you are more inspired than overwhelmed by this post be sure to oil the pans and your gloves! This stuff is sticky!

Once the mixture was cool enough to handle, the children helped me stretch it.

It hardens quickly so I ended up putting it in the oven on the lowest setting.

I left the door open and the children used teaspoons to scoop off a portion and then twisted it into a candy cane length rope. They went back to the oven scooped out the other color and twisted a second rope and then twisted the two ropes together and bent it into a candy cane shape.

Our oven took a beating as the children helped themselves. Oh well. The red gook will harden and turn black just like the rest of the ingredients on the oven floor.

Often the candy hardened before the kids were done with the candy cane they were working on. “I feel like swearing…” Faith grumbled in frustration. “…if only I knew any swear words.”

Here is John, the founder and manager of the candy cane hospital. He discovered that he could melt a bit of candy in the microwave and dip the two broken ends into the melted goo and repair the damage.

There were tears a couple of times, never a good thing for a fun family project so we won’t be repeating this one again. On the plus side, the kids put so much effort into constructing these decorations I doubt any of them will be tempted to snitch one off the tree.

Warm Ups

2008-11-21T14:25:00.024-05:00

The weather is cool. We've pulled out the candles and the slippers and long johns. My sweats-clad children do their school work wrapped in reading blankets in front of the fireplace. Afternoons are spent raking heaps of leaves and mulching them into bits for a vegetable garden in the spring. Our cheeks are rosy red from the cold but we shed out of our jackets. Raking is hot work.

The children work with enthusiasm. In the long term, they are earning money for Christmas gifts. A sizable amount for each child. We have a forest of leaves to contend with. In the short term, they look forward to a mug of hot apple cider with whipped cream or hot chocolate topped with a large homemade marshmallow. The kids put away the rakes, the tarp, and the push mower while I head inside to prepare our afternoon warmth.

Hot Cocoa
I adapt the cocoa recipe off the side of the Hershey's cocoa canister:

In a saucepan, mix:

1/4 cup sugar (this is half the amount of the original recipe. I like my cocoa on the less sweet side)

1/4 cup cocoa

1/3 cup water

Bring to a boil and boil for two minutes.

Add:

4 cups milk

Heat through but do not boil.

Stir in:

1 teaspoon vanilla

Serve with whipped cream or marshmallows (recipe follows)

I first started making homemade marshmallows a few years ago. They make the best S'mores! They melt into a smooth, tasty, gooey mess. Mmm. I like to stir my hot chocolate a few times and let the heat melt the marshmallow so I get a little taste of the marshmallow in every sip. If you give away homemade hot chocolate mix for the holidays, you might consider adding a plate of these marshmallows as an accompaniment.

Homemade Marshmallows

Pour in mixing bowl (a Kitchen Aid works really well for this recipe. I have not tried it with a hand mixer but I'll bet it's possible) :

1/2 cup of cold water

Sprinkle over water:

3 envelopes of Knox gelatin

Soak for ten minutes.

Combine in saucepan:

2 cups granulated sugar

2/3 cup corn syrup

1/4 cup water

Bring to boil.

Pour boiling syrup into gelatin and mix at high speed.

Add:

1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat for 12 minutes.

Blend in 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Butter a 9x13 inch pan. Lightly oil hands and spatula as well. This is sticky business! Pour the marshmallow mixture into the pan and spread it evenly with a spatula. Cover the pan with saran wrap and let the mixture dry over night. The next day, cut the marshmallows into squares. Store in a covered container.

Playtime

2008-11-19T20:21:00.009-05:00

We have boxes full of Stuart's childhood toys. Matchbox cars and antique trains with hardly a scratch on them. He was such a gentle child.

Not me. All my stuff ended up in the trash. When I was a child, I played with my toys like Toy Story Sid. I gave my dolls haircuts (crew cuts, really) and pierced their ears with straight pins. Poor little darlings. I drew on their vinyl faces with pen. Once I put a plastic handpuppet on a lightbulb, just because. It gave off a lovely smoldering smokey smell as he met his doom.

My children have inherited my destructive gene. They build Barbie catapults out of K'nex and fling Island Barbie off the island. There are dents up near the ceiling of the little girls room that attest to this creativity. We have had Barbie crewcuts and amputations at the knee.

You might think there is only one way to play with a puzzle. Put it together. Take it apart. Put it in the box. Nope. Not if it is a puzzle of the map of the earth. There's the problem of tectonic plates, you know.

I think they've created the apocolypse!

Screeming Mice

2008-11-11T11:35:00.003-05:00

Stuart brought home an electronic mouse repeller that emits a high pitched noise. Apparently mice do not find this sound pleasant and will not take up residence anywhere near the device. Our cat is a mouse-hunting sissy and so we resort to mouse deterrents of the manmade kind.

Naturally, the children were curious and we explained how it worked. They let this bit of information sink into their brains and take root. At this very moment, four of them are rolling around with their hands over their ears in front of the little electronic speaker squealing in agony over this deadly painful sound that their human ears cannot hear.

However, their squealing is deadly painful to my ears. And it makes me wonder. Is this the kind of creativity that Mary Grace refers to when she worries about the future employability of our children?

(In case any of you are wondering if my spell checker is AWOL...The child who took these photos loaded them onto the computer under the heading Screeming Mice. This shows I have to add scholastic ability as well as work ethic to my worry list.)

October 31, 2008

2008-10-31T21:46:00.004-04:00

The kids carved pumpkins last night.

Stuart cut open the tops and the kids took it from there using a pumpkin carving knife that we found at the thrift store. Charlie insisted that he wanted his pumpkin to look just like the one on the package that the little knife came in. Lauren spent an hour fulfilling his little heart's desire.

Claire carved her pumpkin with two front teeth as her own mouth is void of any at the moment.

We've run the gamut when it comes to Halloween... from homemade costumes and trick or treating in the neighborhood...to fall festivals at church. But these both added up to the same thing. Waaaay too much candy and children who turned into fussy, begging urchins until the sugar finally ran out. It turns out when it comes to creating family traditions that the less is more philosophy works best for us.

We finally hit on the perfect way to make the evening special a few years ago. I pack the kids in the car and meet Stuart for dinner at a local restaurant and then we head to Wal-Mart. We grab a cart and start our first round of Christmas shopping. We start the season off by shopping for Operation Christmas Child. It is so much fun to spend the evening finding things we can put in a shoe box to make one little boy and one older girl happy on Christmas day. Wind-up flashlights, sunglasses, chapstick, marbles, dominoes and Tonka trucks all pass through my children's hands into the hands of another child in another country.

Tonight, a Wal-Mart employee was passing out candy as we were shopping and each child took one piece and said thank you and that was it for our crew this year. Tomorrow I don't have to referee how many Snickers each kid can have before breakfast. Bucking tradition has its advantages.

The Applesauce Classroom

2008-10-30T20:09:00.002-04:00

We took a few days off from school last week to make applesauce. I'm not much for gardening or canning but I just can't tolerate that watery jarred stuff that passes for applesauce at the store. I was starting to panic because our freezer was almost starving. A couple of bags of frozen kidney beans, a few loaves of bread and the last two quarts of applesauce from our last extravaganza. It looked like we were going to have to drive for hours to find an orchard but I finally found an apple orchard just one short hour's drive on the back country roads. We came home with five bushels and got busy.

Here's a clean pile of Arkansas Black apples. They make a good thick sauce and a pretty decent apple pie as well.

John and Charlie on apple washing duty.

Charlie helped a bit but mostly he assigned himself the job of taste testing.

Lauren was my girl Friday during the four days in the kitchen. Without her help, I'd still have four bushels of apples in my closet waiting for attention.

It looks calm here but the children passed the time by singing a drinking song from Lord of the Rings in many different voices. "Let's try it this time in French Pea..."

You can search far and wide,

You can drink the whole town dry,

But you'll never find a beer so brown,

You'll never find a beer so brown,

As the one we drink in our home town,

As the one we drink in our home town...

"Again! Let's sing it as a funeral dirge."

Adventures in Odyssey finally calmed them down. We chopped and steamed and baked while listening to the story of Horatio Spafford, the author of the hymn "It is Well With My Soul."

The little girls soon abandoned their post at the applesauce grinder and went out into the backyard where they discovered an enormous caterpillar. All work stopped while we researched their find (a tomato hornworm) and made a cozy place for the little critter to reside. Faith went over to our neighbors in search of tomato leaves because apparently that is the catepillar's food of choice. We had to let him go after a few days because he was getting awfully skinny even with a whole bug box full of tomato leaves.

John takes a turn. He's pretending he's a galley slave.

And here he rises above his position as galley slave to take issue with the cook.

In the midst of all this the doorbell rang. The mailman delivered John's new writing curriculum, The One Year Adventure Novel. John promptly put in the first DVD and we all got two or three lessons in creative writing. Then he rushed off to the computer to do the accompanying assignments and called me away from the kitchen to check his progress. (This curriculum will eventually get it's own post but not until we've bonded.)

While the apples steamed and baked we read chapters and chapters of Escape Across the Wide Sea. It's a story of a Huguenot family who escaped from France on a ship and ended up in New Rochelle, New York after a stop in Africa to pick up slaves and another stop in Guadeloupe to sell them to the sugar plantations. Claire loves a good "woe is me" story so this one was right up her alley.

I'd post a picture of our final sixty bags of applesauce but they are frozen in lopsided piles and they don't look at all like a work of art. If you need to see beautiful pictures of other people's winter provisions you can look here, here and here. If you want to join me in the guilt trip while you stare open mouthed at their industry, feel free. And then you can also join me in a little praise to the Jolly Green Giant. Got to love that guy. Even if you only get like six peas in a bag.

So, we're back to our regular school schedule. I wonder if we'll cover as much ground as we did during the applesauce "vacation" ?

Staying Dry

2008-10-14T21:20:00.003-04:00

"Tim, stay out of the water. You are down to your last dry outfit."

"I'll just roll up my shorts. That'll keep 'em dry."

"Tim. Stop. I would like you to come up here on the sand."

"I'm fine, Mom. See? The water is only up to my ankles."

"Tim! Your backside is soaked!"

" Only a little. I'm mostly dry. I'm just in up to my knees."

"Wow! Look at this shell! I think I can get it."

"Tim?"

Charlie's Surf and Turf

2008-10-13T20:59:00.008-04:00

Beach Essentials

7 swimsuits

7 toothbrushes

1 bottle of sunscreen

7 hats

2 swords

Charlie loves his swords.

Charlie met the ocean for the first time, sword in hand. "Hey, sharks! I'm not afraid of you! Prepare for battle!" The boy meets his fears head on.

After Charlie finished his duel with the ocean, he turned his attention to the sand.

He tried to bury himself but it is hard work to bury oneself with little hands.

The big boys were not happy with Charlie's measly progress so they finished the job.

Still not satisfied, they turned him into a teddy graham.

The outdoor shower did a great job rinsing off those sandy boys but it didn't take care of the sand in their pockets. We discovered this when the boys hung their trunks up to dry. It was ok, though. Stuart is handy with a vacuum.

Carolina Sunrise

2008-10-12T21:33:00.006-04:00

We just got back from vacation. We spent the last week with Stuart's family on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. October is off season so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. There is a lot to do but we didn't. The children preferred the beach and the pool to museums and the local attractions. We played in the ocean and collected buckets of seashells and dug craters in the sand.

Some of the cousins

All of the cousins

The Outer Banks is a long way from Smallville. We've been sandwiched in the car for the last two days. My flock of nightowls left their half-eaten dinners on the table and crawled into bed and were out by 7:30. Stuart and I took over six hundred pictures so there will be more posts to come this week but for now I need to catch up on my sleep.

A Sure Foundation

2008-09-30T22:28:00.009-04:00

The kids and I have been nibbling our way through the book of Isaiah for months. It's our first venture as a family into the prophets. We wrestle with the message. It's a book for our times.

Isaiah wrote to his people, the people of Judah, at the dawn of a long season of international turmoil. Assyria ran rough shod over the Middle East, followed in quick succession by Babylon, Persia and Greece. According to Isaiah, each empire was brought down because of they were quick to gloat over their achievements but failed to give God the time of day. The sin of haughty eyes he calls it.

I brown the meat and simmer the stew and slice a crusty loaf of Italian bread but do not bow my head before I eat. It's the little red hen complex. I ground the wheat and kneaded the dough and sliced the carrots. I don't take into account that I didn't make the carrots or the wheat grow. I forget to be thankful that there are groceries in the pantry and healthy children around the table. These things are not a right but a blessing. Surely the One who blesses deserves my recognition.

I'm not the only one. We toss groceries into our carts and pump gas into our cars and expect this system to continue without a hitch. When we show up at the gas station and the lines are long and the fuel is limited we duke it out. After all, it's our right to have a full tank. It's our right to drive to work, millions of us, each in our own vehicle.

It's been a long time since things have been difficult for this nation. And when we have it easy, we lean hard on the work of our hands. Our banks, our jobs, our government. They are coated with a thin veneer of stability. We fool ourselves into thinking these things are a sure foundation. We build our towers of Babel and tell ourselves that the bricks of morality are expendable. A little debt, a little gambling, a little greed, a little selfishness. What does it matter? And we push the boundaries, further and further, until the whole house of cards comes crumbling down.

Crumbling is a good thing. It makes us realize that we aren't gods. God is. He will be the sure foundation for our times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure. Isaiah 33:6

In church, our worship leader laid down his guitar right in the middle of a song he was singing and knelt on the floor and wept. "Change me! God, change me! I'm sick of playing church. I'm sick of walking into this building on Sunday mornings and leaving again exactly the way I walked in." This is how I feel about the message in Isaiah. I do not want to get to the end of the sixty-sixth chapter and be the same complacent person that I was when we started chapter one. I do not want to have large sections of my life where I don't see the need for God to tread because I've got it covered. I'm learning that my frantic efforts are temporary and ineffective. When I acknowledge that all that I have and all that I am comes from Him, that is the fear of the Lord and it is the key to unlock the door to the sure foundation. I've had plenty of opportunity to test this foundation and have found Him to be rock solid. Trusting God is a whole lot better than depending on the government, the bank, or myself.

Before I say goodbye to Bella

2008-09-23T19:50:00.002-04:00

Stuart, my darling,

The hours crawl. All thirty-six of them. I count the days and the hours until your return. I know that this is necessary for work and all and I will bear it. I must. I will be strong for you; and I will tend to your children and your home with strength and cheer.

But the hours do crawl and the days run together and I know not the date and this afternoon, while I carried the memory of your sweet smile in my heart, I sauntered to the beauty parlor that I might be made beautiful for your return. But in my befuddlement, I arrived seven days too soon for my appointed hour with beauty. However, my kind worker of magic took pity on me in my forlorn state and she waved her sharp and pointed wand in order to render me worthy of your attentions and affection. (The paint that you showered me with in loving kindness is now nearly gone.)

And in the dark watches of the night, I dream of your deep and even breathing. In my restless sleep I reach for your still and peaceful body. Alas, I am rebuffed by a blow to the head delivered smartly by one of the karate sisters and I rub my aching noggin and cannot find rest.

At this moment, music plays but it is not your pleasant and cheerful whistle. (Darling, I miss your cheerful tunes.) Memories in the corners of my mind...If you had the chance to do it all again...Would you? John practices his lines. Again. And again. He sings Babs like Pavarotti and it is lovely but not as lovely as the six o'clock chirping that signals the arrival of my glorious relief pitcher.

We languish without you. We subsist on grilled cheese and peanut butter. Pond scum grows upon the waters of the pool. And Henrie. She rolls her mournful eyes toward the door, and waits for her beloved master. She needs you. Her water dish is dry and dusty. The children mark the days upon the calendar. How much longer, Mama? We do miss our dear Papa so.

Oh my dearest, we count the hours until we can touch you once again, until the children can fling themselves at you and wrap their little beings around each of your legs and your waist whilst I hang back and delight in their joy and wait for the tribe to get their fill and then you will once again be mine. All mine.

Hurry home, Sweet Stuart that the sun may shine in Smallville once again.

Through the Scrambled Looking Glass

2008-09-22T15:12:00.005-04:00

The apple on the cover of Twilight tempted. John saw that it was pleasant to the eye and good for reading so he took it from the shelf and waited until a dark hour (because vampire books are best when opened after midnight) and he read through the nights until he was pale and dark purple circles grew under his eyes. Because the first bite was addicting, he passed the forbidden fruit to me and returned to the shelf of knowledge and plucked the sequential drivel, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

When everyone else has turned in for the night, we flick on our flashlights and dive into the next chapter. And we wonder why. These books are pathetic. Trashy romance at its finest. Bella swoons. She bleeds. She breathes. She forgets to breathe. Edward breathes. His icy breath brushes her lips. He is stone. She a helpless disaster. This is a short story bloated into thousands of pages and we must read them all.

We read on our respective sofas and every once in a while I burst out into an impromptu reading with over-the-top-dramatics and excessive sighing.

“Edward, I know who I can’t live without.”

“But…”

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. You may be brave enough or strong enough to live without me, if that’s what’s best. But I could never be that self-sacrificing. I have to be with you. It’s the only way I can live.

The juicy parts can make you tear up if they are read aloud. Tear up because you’re laughing ‘til you can’t breathe.

John comes in the kitchen and lays a rock on the counter, “Look, Mom. It’s Edward.” We double over, gasping and holding our sides while the rest of the family looks around for our marbles. We’re pathetic.

John is almost through the final book. (Thank goodness. The end is in sight.) He’s named it Breaking Down because, well, that’s what happens. The characters fret and sigh and carry on for long enough to put the reader into a coma. John devised a plan to avoid that pitfall. When the melodrama threatens to overwhelm, he reads through a kaleidoscope.

If you use this trick, "Edward, don't you know that I love you." turns into "I don't know that I love you, Edward" Surprise! Maybe Bella does possess an ounce of common sense. I wonder if there is a market for this. (Do you know any books that might be improved using John's secret decoder method?)

In short, I don’t know how we got hooked but we’re having a one heck of a time with the clueless Miss B. Maybe Edward’s deadly hazardous venom can cross over into the real world. If so, count us among the hapless victims.

Out,Out Damned Spots!

2008-09-20T16:20:00.004-04:00

"Honey, you've got something boiling on the stove."

"Yeah, I know. I'll be right there." Smashed potatoes were on the lunch menu. Mostly for Lauren because she has a thing for carbohydrates.

I put down the laundry and waited patiently in front of Stuart. There's a narrow entry way to the kitchen workspace and he was standing in it. He had just finished painting the backsplash and was taking apart the roller for cleaning. I wasn't worried. Stuart is a genius with tools.

It took some tugging to get the roller loose and then the thing slipped and went flying. Paint sprayed across the table and the floor and some cupboards and the oven. And me.

Look at me, people! This is oil based paint! Here I am in my Saturday work clothes and my Saturday hair but tomorrow is Sunday and I can't go out looking like this.

My face is taken care of. But what to do about the hair. A buzz cut is out of the question. Any suggestions or do I need to do my best rendition of Jackie O. until this stuff wears off?

Oh, and Stuart? He escaped unscathed. Not a drop. He said he's sorry though. Fat lot of good that does.

Blog, Blogger, Blogging

2008-09-18T22:00:00.006-04:00

The Question

How has blogging made an impact on you?

The Answer

We had just moved when I began Small Scribbles. It started as an effort to fight the invisibility that came with being a stranger in a strange land but over a year later, it serves different purposes.

Blogging has created a sense of connection. Dinner conversation includes mention of my air friends. " Mary just bought a new house. I like her floors...We need to pray for Isaac and his family he’s going back to Iraq in a couple of weeks... Even though Ike didn’t do anything here, you should see Xandra’s yard.” I talk about people that I have never met like they are old friends. And in a way, they are.

The most surprising blogging development has been a closer relationship with family. We are ten hours from our nearest relatives and a half a globe away from the farthest. The blog has given me a way to throw open the front door and welcome family and friends into our days. No cleaning required. One by one my sisters have caught onto the ease of this type of entertainment and now they are joining the blog world in droves. I love when my children and I crowd around the computer to share the details of their lives and I love knowing that they do the same.

It turns out I have a cast full of characters under my roof who love to see their name in lights.

I like watching the little swagger they develop when it’s their turn to star on the screen. I like the way they gather the others around to share their moment, "Mama wrote about me." Even Stuart is not immune.

My kids' baby pictures are thrown into boxes. They’ll never make it into a photo album. I don’t have the time, inclination or patience. Painting word pictures gives me a way to record family history without the clutter. So long, scrapbook guilt.

I love these days when I am but an arms length away from my children. I gather them up and hold them close while I can and I stop time and bottle memories with this blog. I want the children to remember. I write to give future sons and daughters-in-law a chronicle that will help them unlock the mysteries of their spouse. When my children are grown, I want them to be able to browse through this memoir and know me as I know myself and to see themselves through my eyes.

History lives and breathes for me. I can see and hear the people from the ages when I read their stories. I think that one day, this gigantic collection of public diaries will be like Pompeii to a future people. They’ll brush away the memes and give aways and stat counters and find that in spite of our outdated Crocs, and Blackberries and an unexplainable affinity for Diet Coke that we were just like them.

Because I am a blogger, I spend my days turning over the rocks of ordinary in search of the extraordinary. It’s magical when a couple of unrelated events suddenly tie themselves together into a post. Right now I’m trying to figure out how a count down calendar, a wide open freezer door, and a pair of sandals might gel into a story.

Blogs have made this big world so much smaller. I take in the writings of those who are unfortunate, grieving, angry, preening, petty and I am grateful for my life. Conversely, blogging highlights the best of mankind. I enjoy the talents of those who are smarter, funnier, more creative, more spiritual, more compassionate and I stretch to grow beyond myself. It would wonderful if this blog does the same for a reader or two.

To the Lake with Ye!

2008-09-16T19:50:00.004-04:00

As I was clicking through blogs yesterday, I came across this picture and it made me laugh. Those of you who are Sonlighters know that Christmas in September feeling when a carton of school supplies shows up on your doorstep. Wild delight. We've opened many of these in the past seven years and showered a great deal of affection on the contents. Children have huddled around for the unveiling of new curriculum and and then sank in a collective heap, each lost in a different book. Until this week. Delight did not accompany the arrival of this box. John and Lauren intercepted the package from Mr. Fedex and took off toward the lake across the street.

"Where are you going? Come back here with that box. Guys? Come back!"

"No! We're taking this thing to the lake. Frogs and crabs and fish belong in the lake, not in the house."

"Guys, I'm warning you! Come back here. There's more than just the dissection stuff in there." (Really, how much authority can a mom exude when she's hidden behind a camera and chuckling all the while?)

Common sense eventually prevailed.

The microscope was a huge hit. We've looked at everything from rotting leaves to dental floss. Claire and Faith are reading Greg's Microscope and are excited to use their new piece of equipment to see Greg's discoveries for themselves. We are all amazed by the beauty and order of even the tiniest details in creation.

The older children may be biology snobs but Claire and Charlie were very curious about the dreaded creatures.

Frog, fish, crawfish and worm are now tucked on a high shelf in the hall closet. John and Lauren are hoping they fall behind the vacuum bags and cleaning supplies and are not discovered until they are safely enrolled in college studying Anglo-Saxon mythology or Baroque painting or anything else that doesn't involve actual blood and guts.

Chore Boards and Charts

2008-09-13T16:49:00.012-04:00

It's been a wild couple of years here. We get a lot accomplished but our methods are not pretty. The children and I have opposing worldviews. I say to them, "For six days you must labor and do all your work. That means this is not playtime! Get out your math books!"

They duel with me like Lethargarians, "From 9:30 to 10:30 we dawdle and delay. From 1:00 to 2:00 we linger and loiter..." Oh, the banter. It's been an exhausting battle trying to stay on top of school and chores.

I've come across several posts in the past week that made me remember that chaos did not always have the upper hand. Sarah posted pictures of her chore wheels and Jennifer put up her family schedule. Hmm. We used to operate by charts and schedules. Maybe we should try that again.

Duly inspired by the organization of others, I spent all last weekend making up a schedule and chore charts (I went with rectangles. Circles baffle me.) Stuart leaned over me and offered helpful suggestions. "Why don't you switch Faith and Lauren's piano lesson with science."

"Honey, if I move that this whole thing will collapse in on itself. Now leave me alone and let me think!" After two days of mental anguish and finagling, I finished putting my brain on paper. It now takes up an entire wall in our back hall.

(The kids pretend their chore charts are hotels and every morning Charlie rushes to move the window washers on everyone's boards to the next window.)

The Master Schedule

It's been a great week. The children have plowed through a mountain of school work. The house is in order. Everyone is happier and I feel more like a mom than a traffic cop.

Kate's Guidelines for Creating and Living on a Schedule

1. Create your personal schedule first.

2. Fit your children's activities around your schedule.

3. Don't fill up every minute of the day. (I left myself several empty blocks of time to fill however seems best each day.)

4. Schedule a quiet time for your children. They need quiet even if they have moved out of the nap stage.

5. Schedule activities where your children can work in pairs or small groups. (You can enlarge our master schedule to see how this works at our house.)

6. Alternate calm and active activities.

7. If you have young children, expect everything to be thrown entirely off kilter when little Xerxes strips out of his diaper or dumps over the potted plants. You'll get back on track in an hour or two. Or you can always call it a day and pile all the kids in the car and go to the park.

8. If you have infants and toddlers, expect to have to create a new schedule every few months.

9. You might not want or need a schedule for the entire day. You may find that a couple of scheduled hours is just the thing to eliminate the dinnertime/bathtime/bedtime crazies.

10. A schedule is a tool not a guilt trip. You will have rough days. See number seven. But the good days will outnumber the bad with this tool in place.

Handwriting: There's More to it than Putting Pencil to Paper

2008-09-11T18:23:00.004-04:00

My blog was recently added to a homeschooling blogroll. You'll see the new blogroll listed in my side bar as soon as I learn the magic spell. I thought I'd celebrate with a schoolish post.

I was reminded today of how frustrating it was to teach handwriting in my early homeschooling days. At the time I didn't know I was teaching an Asperger's child.

Aspie kids tend to have sensory processing issues and once we nailed down what we were dealing with, Thursday afternoons were spent at the occupational therapist's office working on John's fine motor skills. I learned a great deal about teaching handwriting. John eventually learned how to type.

The first thing I learned was that we were using a writing program that was entirely inappropriate for a child with handwriting difficulties. Originally, I chose Italic Handwriting because it features a beautiful style of writing and the letters don't change much in the transition from printing to cursive. What the occupational therapist pointed out though was there are too many stops and starts in the cursive. The child has to pick up his pencil and think about where to put it back down again rather than flowing smoothly from letter to letter. Goodbye beautiful Italic. (To be fair though, I will say that Lauren used this program successfully.)

Before we began a hand writing lesson, I held John's feet and let him walk around the living room on his hands. This weighted action addressed his proprioceptive dysfunction. (Do take the time to click on these two links. This site has a wealth of information on improving fine motor skills.) He took apart and put together pop beads. He pulled marbles out of heavy plasticine. All of these things helped him to develop strength in his fingers and arms. If you have preschoolers at your house these are fun, developmental things to do with them.

Sometimes I let him lay on his stomach on the floor and prop himself up on his elbows to write. This gave him better control because the pressure from the floor helped him be more aware of where his body was in space. We got him a slant board to help him to see his work better. It's amazing how much better you can focus on something when it's tipped up at an angle rather than lying down flat on the table. I had him write on a chalkboard so he would be forced to move his whole arm. We had him write with weighted pencils so they would provide extra sensory feedback. We did these activities with him when he was seven and eight.

I took what I learned home to the other children and changed my approach to handwriting. The first change I made was to not stress about teaching writing at an early age. My kids learn to read fluently before I ever get around to working on writing with them. And when we do get to handwriting, the only thing I expect them to write neatly is their handwriting lesson. It's not worth the battle to turn a dictation lesson into a nit-picking session on which line the letter y should touch.

To help the kids learn how to form letters, we start by walking on them. Notice the silver duct tape on the letter a. It's there to identify the starting place. Here, Don Ho will demonstrate for you.

We drive cars on the letter.

We progress to writing letters in the air. When we start this step, I hold the child's hand and help him until I feel that he is starting to get the hang of it. We move to the chalkboard. At this stage, I am not worried about fitting a letter onto lines.

When we get to positioning letters on lines I make my own lined paper for the kids to start on. I use two colors of puffy paint to make lines. This way they can feel the lines.

"a...Start at the starting dot. Curve up and bump the red line. Curve down and bump the blue line. Curve along the blue line. Move straight up and bump the red line. Go back down the line you just made and bump the blue line."

"t...Start at the starting dot. Slide down. Bump over the red line. Keep going down and bump the blue line. Jump. Cross above the red line from the smile side to the star side.

Finally, we move into handwriting workbooks. At the recommendation of our occupational therapist, I settled on Handwriting Without Tears, a developmentally appropriate, easy to use program. The writing style is simple and easy for little hands to master. Claire (6 3/4) and Faith (8) are learning cursive handwriting together. Charlie (who is four) only modeled for these pictures. He's not learning any handwriting yet but he was quite happy to be featured on the blog.