Evening Snapshot

At this very moment, when young children all across America are peacefully sawing logs, only one of mine has yielded to slumberland. The middle one. Her daddy has sent her on her way with a Sugar Plum story, and she's gone.

Caroline, on the other hand, is lolling around in a darkened room, happily crinkling a brown paper bag that she has been carrying around, literally, all day. It's Ian's goodie bag from the party I wrote about yesterday, and would you believe this? She has not extracted a single item from the bag. She promised she would not, and by gum, two years old or no, she's kept that promise (which didn't surprise Eliza at all -- "She PWOMISED, Mom!") The bag is ragged and wrinkled and has been set down only for toileting and bathing times, but true to her word to Ian, "I'm jus' holding it for you." I think she even managed to take it into the library tonight, although she realized at the door that she had forgotten to put back on her underwear after the last potty trip, and at various points during our library sojourn, I'd hear her worried voice carry all-too-clearly through the stacks, "I'm not wearing any underwear!" as Tim tried to shush her.

Ian is poring over his favorite library book, one of many on knights -- such a favorite that we had to drive back over to the library for it after he forgot to bring it to the counter on the first trip.

Eliza and I played a neat reading game today, one which I've used successfully with her brother as well. We drew lilypads with three-letter words on them with sidewalk chalk all over the driveway and she had to be a frog, reading each word before she landed on the lilypad. Then we sort of did our own version of Cranium Hullabaloo, where I'd tell her, "Run to 'box,'" or "Hop to 'van,'" or the like. What I really felt like doing was taking a nice long nap, but since Mary Poppins seemed to be otherwise occupied, it seemed best to bestir myself and my daughter and get the blood moving. But hey, "nap" is a three-letter word, so surely next time, I can work that in somehow ...?

Assorted Traumas

Ian is sick. This is blogworthy because it so rarely happens, despite his limited diet. On the way home from a birthday party this afternoon (which had its own trauma*), he told me that the headache he'd started to have earlier was now "really, really bad" and sure enough, he has a fever to go with it and he's super pale and asleep in his bed at 5 PM, and because I'm this psychotic combination of laid-back and paranoid when it comes to my kids' health, the very first thing I could think of was, "HE HAS A BRAIN TUMOR!" After all, he did complain the other day about having a big bump behind his ear that was sore. Yikes, what if it was a tick embedding itself in his skull, and now he's experiencing the early throes of Lyme disease?? What if it's bacterial meningitis??????

Then again, it could just be a headache with a fever.

But then again, maybe not.

(*OK, if you must know, because I know you're dying to (or more like, I must write about it so I can calm down about it): Everything was fine at the party in these friends' dream of a backyard, complete with two-story Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, brand new (and safe) trampoline, tire swing, blah-dee-blah. Then I took Eliza to the bathroom inside and when I came out Ian was up in the treehouse with his two friends, the two boys of the house, including the birthday boy, and apparently they were (what a shock!) tossing things down from the treehouse. Next thing I know my friend the hostess, who really has just been the nicest friend ever to me, comes charging into the yard yelling at them to stop throwing things and ordering them to come down right now or she'll spank all three of them. (She proceeded to threaten her child, the birthday boy, more along these lines later in semi-private.) I'm not sure what was more bewildering to me or to my son -- the fact that he was being so severely called to task and inappropriately threatened for breaking a rule of which we had no idea (after all, the tree fort was neatly stocked with "grenades", or the realization that my friend was just ... different from who I thought she was. OK, I don't care what your philosophy on spanking is, we don't need to go there, but surely you'll agree that it's, oh, just the tiniest bit jarring to have another parent threaten, at top volume and with no previous "boys, we have a no-throwing rule in our backyard" to give your kid a wallop. She later apologized to me for "freaking out," and I really, really don't want to hold this against her or be one of those moms who can't POSSIBLY associate with people who parent differently, and I know that I"ll get over it and have grace for her but I tend to be a pathological brooder so just bear with me. With apologies to Pumbah, I'm a sensitive soul, and I don't even seem thick-skinned. Writing helps. Honest prayer helps. I'm doing both right now.

Educating the Educator

I just returned home a little while ago from a one-day conference here in Austin presented by Mary Hood, founder of ARCHERS and author of several books on relaxed homeschooling. Oh, and mother of five grown and fully-functional adults. Plus, she used to be in La Leche League! :-)

I almost didn't go to this; I debated spending the money and I didn't know anyone going into it. And I hadn't pre-registered. But I felt an inner compulsion to go, and I realized that this was part of my professional development as a homeschooling mom. My dear husband spent two and a half days traveling this week to a professional conference in Detroit, where he presented his first paper and got tons of networking done, all expenses paid by the unversity and some wining-and-dining industry sponsors. We survived, thanks be to God and some friends, including my brother-in-law, Allen, who is unrivaled in his ability to put my 2 year old to bed, and even my dear father-in-law, who called on his way into town one morning to see if we needed anything. And a friend whose husband is also out of town and was willing to meet at the park for a picnic dinner. And my plugger of a sister. You get the picture.

But I digress. My point was, today was sort of my turn. An investment in myself which was actually an investment in my family (and hey, $30 is much cheaper than the $445 it would cost me to go the scrapbooking "weekend university" I was drooling over a couple weeks ago!). Even though Tim has a big test Monday, he was cheerful about my going, which earned him major points. Thank you dearest!

Mary was GREAT. I wish I could type out all my notes right here, but I'd lose all but maybe one of my readers by the end and get major knots in my shoulders! Her main premise is that your home is a family, not a school, and you're a mom, not a teacher. Dad is a dad, not a principal. And every child is an individual with individual needs. Most everything you worry about, especially academics, takes care of itself as they mature. Before age 12 or 13, she advocates focusing on values, attitudes (including a love of learning) and habits, and saving an emphasis on skills and hard-core academics for when they're older. She even ran through a typical day with us, emphasizing goal-setting, and it sounded totally doable! AND, she shared the little bio of each of her five kids, including a couple who sounded familiarly quirky. :-) Lots of other juicy stuff as well, I know I'm skipping lots, but I also bought a couple of her workshop CDs and ...ta da ... a bumper sticker that says, "It's an HONOR to teach my STUDENT at home." (get it?)

Blech

I think environmental allergies in Austin are like the Borg in Star Trek.

You will be assimilated.

Resistance is futile.

I dodged the bullet for a few years, but it's official, folks. Vanessa, who knows a thing or two about allergies, has diagnosed me with oak allergy. Which is kind of a problem since our entire back yard is dominated by a monster oak tree. But would explain the sniffly nose, the watery eyes, the daily headache, the constant yawning, despite earlier cup of coffee to address the aforementioned headache (it didn't work).

Argh! And it's such a beautiful day, too! My friend Randolph, who brings his kids to our Spanish class, gave me this highly informative tour of my own garden, highlighting all the weeds I couldn't identify. And I stood out under the oak tree chatting with Vanessa while she pushed Benjamin on our swing. And we went back to Bull Creek this morning to find another letterbox (no, I'm not obsessed with this letterboxing thing, why do you ask?). And it was all so lovely and nature-ific, except that I now feel as energetic as a bowl of cold oatmeal.

Why thank you Jeeves, yes, I would like some cheese with that whine.

A spring in our step

Today was one of those days that are so essentially "SPRING" that it seems a shame, an absolute travesty, to stay inside. The kiddos and I hit Bull Creek in search of another letterbox this morning -- hurray that Caroline still fits in the Ergo! Hurray that Eliza lasted the whole hike without moaning that her legs hurt! Hurray that the cup of strong coffee I drank during breakfast beat my migraine into submission!
(Oh, and we found the box!)
Apparently, I'm still caffeinated. Can! You! Tell!?

I'd write more ... but it's been a long day and I just want to do the last couple of dishes (or more accurately, I want to have the last couple of dishes DONE) and curl up with James Herriot for a bit. The author, I mean. Puh-leeeeze.

P.S. Here's the downside of having a history nut for a son. I mean, it's groovy that the boy reads the Usborne Illustrated Encylopedia of World History for fun and all, but then you're making dinner and you hear, "MO-OM??? What's a guillotine???"


Publish Post

Sunshine and Shadows

I'm feeling really reflective tonight, so apologies if this is heavy. I was planning, earlier, to blog about little things like the incident I had in the Target parking lot today, when a guy asked me if he could ask me a question and my better sense conquered the people-pleaser in me and I looked at him like he was crazy and said, flatly, no apologies, "NO." (Ladies, remember, you owe these people NOTHING, not even a minute of your time or a hesitation or a modicum of "nice"ness -- better to be borderline rude than dead!)

But there I go, that's not what's really on my mind. This whole day has felt kind of like a walk along a wooded path, where sunlight alternates with shadows so that the whole path is dappled, light and dark, warm and cold. On the one hand, our morning meeting was such a source of spiritual supply to me. And this afternoon, Tim went to play soccer with some labmates so the kids and I tagged along, giving us the perfect opportunity on a perfectly sunny and breezy day to kick a soccer ball around, climb up and down the bleachers, watch birds building their nests around the spotlights at the Intramural Fields, lie on our backs and discuss cloud shapes, and chase each other around. Idyllic. The kind of moments you try to flash back to when they're refusing to brush their teeth or no one can find their shoes and you're already ten minutes late, you know?

And yet ... there's the other hand. My mom passed along the news to me, as I drove into the aforementioned Target parking lot, that a good friend of hers, Becky Danek, a very dear mother of four who was just in our home for an evening last fall, who's known me since I was ten or so, who adores my mom and reminds me of her in every positive way, who never touched a cigarette in her life, was recently diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Only an hour later, I learned that the father of one of my best friends from high school, Jerry Grossman, died last week of cancer. Sadly ironic, since he was president of a major Boston teaching hospital and a great mind in healthcare policy. This, of course, on top of the health issues in my own family and the certainty of my dad's terminal diagnosis. And I'd been thinking about it all anyway because I got one of those Member Emails from Borders announcing a new book called The Last Lecture and containing a link to this: (watch it, really, it's worth it, even if like me you see God's sovereignty at work rather than luck paradigm Dr. Pausch alludes to).

But Dr. Pausch makes an important point, which is that although we all tend to think, when we hear of premature deaths, that "it's not fair," the reality is that none of us are actually entitled to a full eighty years. Some of us get that time, others of us don't. When I look into the future and wonder whether that might be me someday, being sentenced to death by cancer or the like before I've had the chance to see my children grow up, graduate, get married, produce grandchildren, etc., I realize that I'm not afraid of dying and being with the Lord, but more of missing out on my family's lives and not being there for them -- of having them be "pushed off a cliff" into grief and loss, as Dr. Pausch puts it. That seems, well, unfair, and scary. Panic-inducing, even. But honestly, isn't it a miracle that we wake up each morning? That we draw each breath? That we even happened in the first place, and then weren't miscarried, or killed by all the horrible things that every parent knows can happen before a child reaches age two? Not to mention all the near misses we've all had, often without even knowing it, until this day? That we've been given amazing people in our lives, that we have parents or spouses or children or friends or mentors or blog readers or, I don't know, even grocery store cashiers who smile at us and send us away feeling a bit more connected? And then, that the God who did all this, and made the entire universe, loves us so tenderly? And gives us new mercies every morning? There's a peace in knowing that my days are measured out exactly right. Just like Becky's are, and Jerry Grossman's were, and Dr. Pausch's, and everyone who learns in a shorter time the life lessons some may take eighty or ninety years to get -- and maybe not even then.

So this very same afternoon, on the way home from Target with these two pieces of news weighing heavily on my heart, I saw a billboard that said something like "Life isn't about counting your years; it's about making your years count." And I remembered that while running at two-year-old pace across an open soccer field behind my giggling, scurrying toddler, so full of pride in her abilities ("Daddy, I kicked the ball, and I runned!") And I thought that the road ahead, so unknown, so marked by shadows, might turn out to be shorter than I expect ... and I could fight that fact, fear that fact, or just rest, while running with my daughter in our patch of sunlight.

Letterboxing

Today has had its trying moments, to be sure, since among other reasons, my two eldest were suffering from an obvious case of stayed-up-too-late-itis. (On days like this one thanks one's Maker for the third child who, being too young to handle Ratatouille for a family movie night, went to bed at a decent hour and was sunny-tempered all day except for the inevitable dressing angst, made worse by the fact that Big Sister had a (gasp!) New Outfit -- and she did not!)

BUT, there's good news. We embarked on a new family hobby today, sort of a low-tech version of geocaching, if you know what that is. Since the budget does not allow for the acquisition of GPS units, that particular pastime is off limits to us -- but no matter, because we have discovered the joys of letterboxing! Way fun! Basically, all you need is a stamp (make your own or buy one) and a notebook, and some clues from the letterboxing site, which tells you everything you need to know (if the kids are lukewarm at first, have them explore the "Kids" section of the site). We went in search of two boxes today for our maiden voyage, and in the process discovered a charming little lake we hadn't known about, complete with geese, koi, sunning turtles, and a Hispanic wedding party. It took some doing, but we actually found both boxes, using our printed-out clues, and -- get this -- since we happened to be the first ones to find these, we garnered an Amy's Ice Cream gift certificate from each! Woohoo! The kids took turns imprinting our stamp in the logbook and then stamping the image from the box in our own notebook. I have visions of poison ivy rearing its flaming head tomorrow, but at least for now, I would call the trip an unqualified success. And there are boxes all over the U.S. -- so check it out!