May (and possibly a few previous months) 2013

Well, we finally finished school (insert Hallelujah chorus here).  The boys, who thought that they would be on summer break, discovered that Jim had time off and instead they’ve spent the past two weeks moving furniture back in once the wood floors were in, walking the fence line and trying to find and fix where the donkeys get out, building a skeet-shoot platform, mowing the lawn, cleaning the cars, cleaning the chicken coop, and cleaning their room.  I helped with the wood floors until I had an allergic reaction to the sawdust.  So while I was taking the girls in to get their vaccinations up to date, I convinced the doc, who is a friend of Jim's, to write me a medical excuse which exempts me from any further home-improvement projects, now and forever, real or imagined.  I think I will have it framed and hung in the bathroom, next to our diplomas and awards.

Prepping the Girls' room

Almost done!

In the hall

The garden this year is HUGE, probably because once Jim got behind the wheel of the tractor, he just kept plowing and plowing, and once that was done, then he figured he might as well plant it all.  He and the kids have planted corn, sunflowers, pumpkins, green beans, tomatoes, and onions.  They planted, but I don't know if we'll actually harvest anything.  Betsy and Lucy, whom the chickens adore because they go randomly during the day and pour out scoop after indiscriminate scoop of chicken feed, insisted on helping drop the seeds with Jim.  Naturally the chickens hiked up their skirts and came galloping out to the garden plot when the girls appeared, and happily followed them, pecking up any seeds the girls dropped on the way.  Jim did plant me a patch of lettuce, which looked delicious until Betsy decided it was time to pick it.  ALL.  Now I have the equivalent of six heads of lettuce in the refrigerator and the lettuce patch looks like it was hit by a tornado. 

We did take a long weekend to go to Silver Dollar City, in Branson, Mo., where I grit my teeth and went on Thunderation Rollercoaster (at Woody’s request) twice.  I haven’t been on a real roller coaster (Fire In the Hole doesn’t count: it’s fun) intentionally since about 12 years ago when it suddenly hit me that only crazy people, or people without young children, go on roller coasters.

Our kids don't get annual school photos.  They get the coffin photo every year.

In spite of the fact we have every animal under the sun, anybody else's are more interesting than ours.

Lucy in the Fun House.

By lunch time, we're all exhausted.

Oh, my!

Onward and Upward

Dipping candles is almost as thrilling as Thunderation.

Panning for gold.

I got a rock!

The kids are doing great.  Before we finished up school, Betsy and I were reviewing shapes, and after correctly identifying several triangles, I pointed to a rectangle.  “Um, NOT a triangle?” Betsy offered hopefully.  Then while working on some logic exercises, Betsy was supposed to select the correct object among a bicycle, glass of milk, a rabbit, and a book.  “You ride on me.” I read dutifully out of the instructor’s guide.  Without a second’s hesitation, Betsy pointed to the rabbit.  Heaven help our animals. 

Lucy is talking non-stop now, which is not to say she has an expanding vocabulary.  One 30-minute ride back from town was filled almost exclusively with this age-old, thought-provoking question: “Mom?  Mom?  Mom?  Mom?  Mom? Mom?  Mom?”  She staggers out in the morning, tripping over her fleece blanket she wraps around herself, even when it's hot, and says, "I lake up!" (I wake up!)  Her prayer list at night changes, depending  on the day (unlike Betsy, who consistently prays for "people we love" -- but not those we don't?), but usually she remembers to thank God for "Daddy and Tylenol."  Lucy still loves eating everything, and Amanda nailed it when she compared her to a baby robin, following you around with head upturned, mouth wide open.

Now that school is out, Jack is devouring books that have no literary value whatsoever.  You know: fun books.  So far he's finished more than a dozen Hardy Boy mysteries, some Madeleine L'Engle (the non-Newbery winning ones), Rick Riordan (thank you for the suggestion, Dallas), and Mr. Popper's Penguins.  Again.  Jim had to get onto him a few times while they were working on the floors because Jack would absent-mindedly hand Jim whatever tool was right next to him, instead of tool Jim asked for, and sometimes didn't even hear Jim talking to him, because he was so absorbed in his latest book.  Heh heh, I thought.  That one's definitely my child.

Woody is as attentive to Lucy as ever, and I had one of those "Awwww!" moments when I looked out the kitchen window to see him placing her in the swing and giving her a gentle push.  But then he raced off to the porch, grabbed his Nerf bow and arrow set, and proceeded to use Lucy as his moving target, aiming just a couple inches above her head, and maybe a little to the right.  So much for the moment.

For our 17^th anniversary, Jim and I left the kids with Jim’s parents and we went to Kansas City, ALONE.  We weren’t quite waiting at the end of the driveway with the car packed and running, and the kids back at the house with instructions safety-pinned to Lucy’s shirt, but it was close. 

We rediscovered the joy of NOT stopping every 15 minutes for a potty break, NOT choosing restaurants based on whether or not they had chicken strips and barbecue sauce, dinner conversation NOT made up of quoting line-for-line the latest Futurama episode, or the last Garfield comic book read in the bathroom, and I got to wear a dress all day without the fear of a certain 2 year old sticking her head up underneath the skirt and then whipping it open like a cheap shower curtain.  Yep.  It's the little things that count.

September/October 2012

As always, September and October were gone before we saw them coming. 

September actually began in August, when we started potty training Lucy before her second birthday because 1) I was NOT going to take on potty training the same week I attempted Betsy’s first week of kindergarten, and 2) I was NOT schlepping diapers around Disney World even one more time, and Lucy was going to need a good head start if she was going to be good enough to go by the second week of September.  Thankfully, as with childbirth, I’ve managed to blank out most of that time period.  

This may be due in part to the fact that around about then Jim said, “Hey, you wanna renovate the downstairs bathroom?” And over the next few weeks I swept up dust, peeled plastic off the back of tile strips, picked up trash, and furtively pounded my head on the wall when Jim wasn’t looking (these are my tasks, and I excel in them); meanwhile, Jim demolished walls, ripped through concrete to move the toilet plumbing over maybe two feet, built a new shower stall, installed new lighting, laid tile floors, tile walls, tile ceiling, grouted (in the process grating off all his fingertips), trimmed out the walls with bead board and chair rail, installed all new fixtures, and a massive custom glass door.   I’ve included pictures.  I think "we" did a good job.

And then there’s school.  Whenever I think I’m getting the hang of it, something happens, like I get a new student.  Betsy’s kindergarten has been a challenge because … well, because she’s Betsy, who (as she has informed me) already knows everything.  So I don’t know why she begs to “do school” every morning, as I’m trying to get the boys started.  Then, when I sit down with her, and pull out her alphabet strip and crayons, she slumps down and sighs, and says, “Awww, how long is this going to take?” Sometimes, to keep the ball rolling, she also inserts useful asides like, “I can’t take this anymore!” or “I’m never, EVER going to get done!”  I think she’s getting something out of it, though.  She now knows all her letters (“only not their sounds”) and also told me the other day that she had seen one of our AWOL rabbits, “two twicet times.”  I'm about ready to go back to Plan A, which was to let a little 4-year-old boy at church, who CAN read, teach her.

Bets

Like all the other kids, Lucy has been a late talker.  Even now, I’m not sure she has any real words.   Being on the receiving end of her conversations is a lot like listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher, only Lucy’s not quite as intelligible.  As I recall, Betsy’s first word (and only word for a long time) was, “Mommy,” but Jim said she used it so frequently like a swear word when she was mad, it may not really have counted.  Woody's first word was "Bah" (which stood for ball, bottle, balloon, and also sippee cup), and Jack's first word was, "May I help you with that difficult task you are attempting to handle on your own?"

Lulu

Jim, concerned that the boys’ doodling contained so much violence (heads getting chopped off, knives in the back, bombs exploding under cartoon stick men) introduced them to Dungeons and Dragons.  It has expanded their horizons.  Now they kill off meticulously crafted characters (who possess a full backstory and in-depth personality analysis) but much more slowly since they have to do it in steps, at the roll of a dice, and only after much deliberation, to ensure the grisliest end.

In other news, Jim brought home a stray Holland Lop Eared bunny on Wednesday.  It was hopping around lost on the dirt road, on our way home from town.  It sounds all innocent, but this is the same way we ended up with Brown Dog.  I am beginning to suspect Jim has a system here.

I guess that’s it for now.  Hope you all are having a wonderful fall.

Jack's Name

Here is an excerpt from another of Jack's essays.  Try to guess my favorite part.

The Story of My Name

Do you know the story of your name?  I know my name’s story.  My first name is Larry after my grandpa.  My second name is John after my uncle.  And my nickname is Jack.   I am going to tell you the story of my names.

My first name is Larry, which is my Dad’s Dad’s name, but I call him Papa and he is a banker. The other reason I was named Larry is that my parents wanted to name me after someone special, which is my Papa.  The next reason is that my Dad thought I was going to be a girl, or that’s what he told me when I asked him why he named me Larry.   And that is the story of my first name.

Larry John "Jack", Woody, and Papa

Ah, the unsung rewards of home schooling ...

One of the wonderful things about home schooling is witnessing your children bloom, developing critical thinking and communication skills, and a love for learning under your own gentle guidance, as demonstrated by 11-year old Jack’s latest foray into writing:

I Hate Writing Paragraphs

                                                           

I hate writing paragraphs because I have to do it every day, but not Saturday and Sunday.  I am not saying I want to do it on those days, just that it is not always everyday.  Another reason I hate writing paragraphs is I am told to think about why I like something, like swimming or a book, and I normally don’t think of why I like them. The third reason why I don’t like writing paragraphs is I have to write it down and then type it.  Another reason is that Mom gets agervated when I can’t come up with an idea. Finally, writing paragraphs takes a long time so all in all, paragraphs are not fun to write.

Aaannnnd …. my work as a teacher is done.

I’m reminded of a story my sister told me of a young woman who gave her daughter $2 to buy an ice cream cone at McDonalds.  When informed of the cost ($1.15), the little girl said, “I haven’t got that,” and returned to her mother, money in hand.  “You get back up there!” Her mother said, mortified, “And for heaven’s sake, don’t tell them you’re home schooled!”

Jack and a good book