Life With Six Seven Kids

Blake Litton

2012-02-19T02:35:00.002-06:00

The morning after I wrote this happy, fun post about dealing with Sebastian when he was being a rude crazy kid I woke up to the news of a three year old boy who was beaten to death. The mother's boyfriend beat him to death for pooping his pants. Here's one detailed news story.

Last night at about 6pm I accidentally read the full police report online. I hadn't intended to, but as I was skimming it online and looking for answers I just could not stop reading. When I was done I burst into tears and sobbed until my husband got home from work. He found me in bed sobbing deep uncontrollable sobs. I felt like the world was crashing down around me as I tried to wrap my head around such horror. I felt like air was being squeezed out of me, like how you feel when some one you love has died.

Children being abused hurts me greatly, but there are a couple reasons this one hit me so hard. It happened just a few hours after I wrote about keeping our cool with Sebastian. An attitude problem with him occurred that could entice the type of anger that some parents hit, spank or beat kids over. In my blog I actually said, "I love NOT HITTING my three year old..."
Sebastian is the exact same age as Blake; whenever you have a point of reference with your child and a victim it hits you extra, extra hard. Blake was brutally beaten and killed by a monster and it wasn't the first time he was beaten. His sister had a broken wrist and multiple injuries/bruises from God knows when, which was discovered when the boy was finally taken to the hospital. She was missing a patch of hair, too.

It just makes me so, so sad. People DO NOT understand children. This is especially true when the child does not belong to you. Something has to be done about the anger adults carry while they care for children. I think it should be common practice and well accepted for parents and caregivers to take anger management classes. The classes should be specially designated for getting through the hard times of children under age eight. Babies, toddlers and children are not "bad." They are little people who want what any adult wants: to be loved, to be respected, to be listened to, to not be pushed around, to not be hit, to be free. I have been interested in teaching newborn and toddler care classes for a very long time and still think about it often.

It can be extremely frustrating dealing with children, but the the anger people carry is pure selfishness.

Reading the recent news report again makes me so sick and sad. I just want to take little Blake Litton and his sister home with me. I just wish I could have known and somehow convinced those horrible people to let us take them into our home. Why do people hate children to the point that they kill them? How can this happen in a civilized society? All because children cry and have accidents in their pants? It's beyond comprehendable.

Maybe I'm weak, maybe I'm overly sensitive, maybe these stories are so horrible they pass through the news quickly with only a glance because we don't want to acknowledge humans are killing little kids. It hurts to think about it, but I can't stop, 5+ kids DIE everyday from child abuse. This chart makes me desperately sorrowful.

source:

http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics/

Blake Evan Litton

Last night I went to bed thinking about Blake and woke up this morning thinking about Blake. I just can't stop being sad for this little boy. I love this toddler more than his mother. In general I find myself wondering about parents who kill their children. What they said, did, or felt when they held their baby for the first time. I wonder if they kissed their feet and played peek a boo and laughed with joy like I do. Did it ever happen once? Did they ever feel that pure love feeling once? No they just couldn't have. There's no way for one second Blake's mother ever looked at her child and felt the way I feel about mine, and then let her boyfriend beat them. I don't see how it's humanly possible to be such a monster if you ever really loved your child. (I read online, unconfirmed, that she's had three other children taken from her care)

I'm going to hold a vigil this Wednesday evening for him and talk to our kids about child abuse before hand. I thought we'd place candles and stuffed animals by the road. I just don't know what else I can do for this child or my heart - it hurts.

I sat with our four littlest kids on the couch today for hours. We *played building brains, *love sandwich, *I am, we hummed together in harmony, we sang, we tickled, we laughed. Every kid deserves that kind of childhood. They just do.

*made up games I should write about some time

Working through the fits... without hitting our treasure of a little boy

2012-02-15T23:08:00.003-06:00

Sebastian is a fierce, tough, man-boy. He's very, very dependent, very confident, and he has an ego to take care of. All of this makes dealing with him and his fiery personality very, very trying! He's the poster child for "boy." He is the stereotype toy companies are selling to when they make building toys, tools, trucks, cars, swords, plastic guns, plastic knives, and mini John Deere ride-on's. My kid was born the stereotype, and he's adorable. This kid has his own set of real tools and could use a screw gun and a hand saw by himself at exactly three years old. He's my little dude. He was just born this way. Apparently he was born with my childhood temper as well. I know because in time-out the other day he dumped the contents of my desk onto the floor as well as lots of folded clothes waiting to be put away. He also hit a picture off the wall and the glass in the picture popped out.

I took a picture to show him later so we could talk about it when he was calm.

Little turd even knocked the chair over

Tonight Penelope was taking pictures with my camera when Sebastian decided he wanted a turn. He tried to take the camera, he threw a fit, he yelled. We tried to reason with him to wait for a turn but he just didn't want to take a turn. He had been happily playing "pirate" and was in a great mood but suddenly he was just caught in one of his real defiant moods. He wanted the camera and he didn't care who he hurt along the way to get it. I put him on the bed in our room and told him to sit; he wouldn't sit and started yelling so I held him against his will. He screamed, yelled, and freaked out. I gave him space but he continued to yell. I left the room and Ricky took over for a minute. He told Ricky to leave and Ricky said what we always say to that, "It's our room we aren't leaving, you can go to your room if you want though." He kept freaking out. (We've tried leaving; it never helps he just throws stuff.)

So at this point; Choice 1: We can either spank which does nothing but frighten, and it also makes kids feel weak and us look like big bad asses (in every sense of the word). Choice 2: We can look for an opportunity or a way to get him out of the completely insane, uncontrollable, anger-fit he is having so at some point we can have a rational discussion about what happened with the camera (which has long been forgotten about in the fits of anger).

Quickly it became a face to face battle of Sebastian screaming and Ricky telling him we weren't leaving the room because he hurts our room. Sebastian was SO mad he started verbally threatening our bedroom, he said, "I'll knock down your pictures!" Ricky sternly said, "NO! You WILL NOT." Sebastian and his dad then had a stare down. Sebastian's blue eyes gleamed with defiance. When Ricky didn't blink or say a word Sebastian closed his eyes and thought a moment; when he mustered up the nerve he opened his eyes slowly and then blinked three times before opening his mouth, then Sebastian said, as if saying the most important thing ever in his short life, "Yes. I . Will."

He was confident, he was cool, he was serious.
So at this point we beat 'em till they know who's the boss, right?

Wrong! :)

I actualy started to crack up cupping my hand to my face; Ricky hears me and his straight face starts to quiver until his teeth show and a tiny laugh sound comes out. We run to the next room to compose ourselves and just laugh with each other.

I had no idea Penelope was still snapping photos but Ricky told me she brilliantly snapped a photo the second after Ricky and I took off into the other room to laugh and regroup.

Ricky sat on the couch and I returned to Sebastian without a plan. He was slightly calmer (no yelling) -his dad and I broke the ice with our laughter I'm sure. Sebastian not knowing what to think or do looked at me sadly. He looked tired. I felt an impulse and went with it. I exclaimed, "Wow Sebastian, you are the bravest kid ever. You acted brave and tough and strong for what you believed in just now." He looked at me with a mixture of surprise, pride, and relief. He cracked a very small smile. We hugged sweetly and then went in the living room to finish watching America's Funniest Home Videos with the family. Sebastian crawled right up on his dad's lap and we all snuggled down.

After the show was over Sebastian asked about a turn with the camera. We told him no because of the fit he had. He paused and then said, "Ok."

Three year olds can be hard work...but they are worth it.

I love NOT HITTING my three year old...

even if he is an ol' scurvy dog.

Picture journal...Around the House

2012-02-08T23:20:00.006-06:00

I made chocolate covered pretzel heart necklaces with Penelope and Sebastian earlier this week. They loved them. To my dismay they love candy necklaces in the summer time (yuck) so I knew they'd love these!

"Stained Glass"

Everett trying to help with "stained glass"

What you do is put saran wrap on your freshly cleaned window. If it's freshly cleaned it'll stick like a charm. Then you take squares of tissue paper and use a glue stick to glue them all over the window. It's really cute and fun. I want to do a 3in x 3in patchwork one in my pantry window. When you are sick of it pull the plastic wrap down...easy.

Lots of people ask how I homeschool so many ages. In this situation the little kids make a craft; the big kids help if they want or if I need them to help out. The big kids then learn about stained glass, hows it's made, it's rich thousand year history, Etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stained_glass Now you have: social studies, history, religion, and science all rolled into one craft project.

Did you notice in the picture above one of my kids ate a few bites of apple and then placed it back in the fruit basket?! lol.

I love when my kids love when I make mini grilled cheese on fresh baguettes from Panera/ St Louis Bread Company. They are golden buttery nuggets of deliciousness!

We have a cold going around the house. Ricky slept in a little one morning because of it so he got to see Layla get on the bus for the first time since she started school. I had to snap a photo...memories! (plus I love my husband in his work clothes)
~~~*The coat Miss Layla chose to wear on this day is my little sisters old coat.
This coat is over 22 years old!*~~~

This baby. I'm gah-gah about him.

Sometimes he does this though. ^ He's mad about me getting him dressed, but he's teething too poor little guy. He's been doing fairly well. It's no fun being cooped inside for winter, teething, having mom tell you no climbing on the bathroom sink 14 times a day, and no climbing on the stools/chairs/computer desk/kitchen table 45 times a day. This kid is wild.

Crafty Home Decor Projects

I am in love with this shower curtain , so to tide my cravings (I totally intend to buy that someday by the way) I printed a bunch of photos/ads from the 1800's and framed them in frames I've been collecting.

Light glare in this, but the wall color in this shot is a little closer to what it actually is

This frame was ugly, modern, and white so I dressed it up with a glue stick and a paper doily that came from a box of pastries. Am I completely resourceful or what??

Teaching the little kids to sew

Penelope says, "Sewing is easy and FUN!"

Her finished project. We bought these kits . Most of the the embellishments is ours, you really have to get creative with these (which I like) and they are really fun. I'm helping Sebastian finish a pirate one tomorrow.

I was touched that Layla drew and colored this fantastic picture for me. It's a picture of me sleeping with Everett. Love.

Ahh here's that climber now. Up the ladder, alone at 1 year old

Ready, Mom!?

Hilarious. lol. (He loves this!)

He heard the chickens when he made this cute face. It seemed as if he was saying to me 'ohh my.'

Took this as I walked back from getting the mail.

Our puppies have stayed the perfect size so far!!! They are fun.
Chip is smaller and is on the left. Ranger is the bigger and is on the Right.

Last week when it was so beautiful and warm I cleaned the porch off of a bunch of junk. I've been decluttering and spring cleaning lately. I love a tidy space.

Aslan one of our Great Pyrenees dogs

I love http://www.pinterest.com/ Not that I needed more projects to start...but it fills me
with happiness all the same. I made this in honor of being crafty and pinteresting everyday.

Eye love you Penelope Juliet...

Many Layers of Sky and Sand

2012-02-02T12:51:00.002-06:00

I have a really good habit of sending my children out to play on nice days. Limited school work (or none) on nice days. Just go and play...

Yesterday we played all day. Charlotte and I also worked on sanding an old neat desk we are going to paint this weekend and make new again.

Charlotte sanding

It was Ricky's desk and I've kept the beat up, scratched up ol' thing all these years waiting to make it new again. I started sanding it when Everett was about five months old. That didn't last long. I quickly gave up when the loud sander wasn't compatible with baby. I have lots of projects, like hundreds, I don't finish because a baby won't let me. I also get too tired of doing 10 minute jobs here, 20 minute jobs there during naps. It's tiring trying to sand a desk in 10 minute intervals every other day! But I always keep dreaming up projects and gardening and painting and doing...slowly. I love it. Every year I also daydream of times when I won't have interruptions from young children needing something -and pulling at me to nurse while I'm busy. But when I daydream I don't do so because that's what I really want. I don't really want it to happen at all. As much as I want the freedom to get done what I want to get done when I want to, it doesn't compare to these moments right here ...

When I'm with my children I breath softer, enjoy more, laugh louder,
play harder, and live more fully through innocent eyes

The sky over my world

nursing in the sky

I enjoyed a day to do what I wanted outside; I enjoy watching the kids and working on a project for me. When Everett wanted me we just laid down right there on the blacktop for a nurse break. When I finish this desk I'll always remember it as one of the last things I did while he was a little baby. On beautiful days under beautiful skies slowly I sand, and nurse, and sand, and nurse... and I'm so content.

The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy - it's all that matters. -Audrey Hepburn

I promise there isn't a day that goes by that I don't appreciate this life.... these kids, my husband, the freedom I'm given, the family I am blessed with, the joy I feel, the magic and love *I* get to hold from my babies and children. I'm so thankful for the time I get to reflect on it now, to photograph it, to write about it...because time is whirling by, but not without me knowing it.

Honey Badger Don't Care!

2012-02-01T11:41:00.001-06:00

This morning Sebastian was whining, mad and sniffling because he has a little cold. He didn't want to do anything even with me. I took his little cranky self and we laid on my bed together. He resisted me and kicked his feet. I told him he can stay in here all alone and be cranky or be cranky with a friend. He resisted.

He whined and yelled a little about not wanting anything. I knew all he really wanted to do is watch TV or play video games. Problem is the more screen time he has the worse his ability to entertain himself becomes, so I like to wait until the afternoon for tv time. I told him I knew he didn't feel good so maybe we should make a little den/cave and be honey badgers because honey badgers don't care. He smiled. I told him honey badgers are mean and cranky, too. He listened on. I told him honey badgers eat honey and mean snakes and they don't even care if the snakes bite them! He totally smiled and laughed when I told him about it. I told him the honey badgers steal honey and they don't even care that bees sting them! He was in, "I wanna be mean honey badger!" Penelope chimed in, "I wanna be a nice one, are there nice ones too Mommy? I told them there were all kinds of honey badgers. Just then Everett came in with three oranges and he started throwing them at us, as we laughed at his orneriness Penelope and Sebastian said, "Everett is the baby honey badger!" Then we peeled juicy drippy delicious oranges in bed and ate them and said we didn't care. After a bit we cleaned up our mess (because mommy honey badgers really DO care) and watched the real honey badger educational video that this honey badger parody was made from. (parody not kid safe, lots of foul language)

The kids were hungry so we made some eggs, which Penelope called our honey eggs. Penelope dropped her fork while she was eating and said, "I dropped my fork but honey badgers don't care." Charlotte heard this and cracked up. (She's the only kid that has seen the parody.)

After that we headed outside for some playground time. The kids ran around having fun still pretending to be honey badgers. Penelope went down the slide yelling, "Honey badgers don't care!" I was in total stitches laughing. I hope people at the grocery store don't think I let my 3 and 5 year old watch the honey badger video! Because you know it's going to come up one of these days, LOL.

Sebastian my little sweet cranky happy honey badger

Making time to do a few things, photos and a moment to reflect on being a good role model

2012-01-27T10:39:00.033-06:00

Yesterday was a fantastic day, even if I had to get up an hour earlier than usual (little kids were up) and I had a headache for half the day. Everett was a handful and I didn't think I could keep my eyes open several times. I tried to nap with him but he just nursed and then took off. What a milk thief. We are on a great schedule again though and it feels amazing! The older kids are working hard on their work everyday and are enjoying it!

The last time I wrote I mentioned a few things that I hadn't been able to do. I'm glad to say yesterday I made two pies with the kids and tonight I got the sewing machine running and made a couple small things.

After a good day of school work yesterday (but an insane crazy, busy, crying, wild Everett!) the kids helped me in the kitchen for hours in the afternoon. We made a big roasted chicken and mashed taters and gravy dinner. We also made a cherry raspberry and lemon meringue pie.

I made a playland for Everett by shoving an ironing board between two beds.

He runs, climbs and crawls for an hour on this thing.

Sage rolling out pie crust

Getting pies ready, that pie zipper bag, to roll perfectly round pie crusts out, is my favorite thing EVER!!!

Everett painting

Our decoupaged kitchen table and pies

Thursday was Layla's 7th day of school. She came home with a 100% on her spelling test. We didn't feel like she was given enough time to study but we worked with her and she pulled through. I texted Ricky a picture of her test and he replied back: holy shit! I told him that with his analytical brain and my stubbornness and attitude (and sassy charm ;) that kid has places to go. He said he always knew she was super smart, we just need to get her to use her power for good and not evil. He's been saying that since she was two! LOL! We are proud of her. She's doing so well. The sting of missing her wore off quickly last Wednesday and turned into me just wanting her home again, selfishly. But she's doing it and I'm truly glad for her. I'm still crazy shocked as to why anyone would want to sit at school all day, LOL. Because that's not me, I have to be moving around. But, if it's her thing then I'm glad and I am still nurturing and supporting her.

One day when Charlotte was four years old someone handed her a stick of celery. She ate every vegetable known to man except celery. It never occurred to me to buy it because I hated it. I bought lots of veggies that were just so-so to me, but I never bought celery because I'm repulsed by it. Even the smell is strong like black licorice to me! She ate it up. That was when I realized in order for children to experience life you have to be open to life. It's something we take to heart... "allowing" our children to explore life and form their own opinions without being told what they should think. Ricky and I don't express our deeply held beliefs aloud without following up with an explanation that they should learn all they can when they get older and then form their views with a open heart and mind. I want my children to be who they are because that is who they are, not because somebody told them who to be. In our home we model strong morals and deep family values founded on commitment, love, and honesty. We model "Godly character" without shoving it down their throats, and you know what? They model it back. I don't think I have to scare my children into being good moral people with faith and values. I think that comes from within, and it develops over time with life experience and with good role models.

I do scare them into cleaning their rooms, doing their chores and keeping the cat box clean though. LOL. ;) Haha. They'd tell you, that's all true...

Layla after school day 5, homeschool art & online time...

2012-01-24T19:21:00.009-06:00

We had a really nice time at our homeschool playgroup today. We had to leave early to get home for Layla to get off the bus. We all thought it was strange not having Layla with us, she really would have enjoyed today. I was thankful that when she arrived home she didn't look as tired as yesterday evening.

She has a lot of homework. She has spelling and sight words to memorize by Thursday on top of some class work she didn't get done because in her words, "My teacher was too busy to help me so she said for you to help me at home." I kept my growling on the inside. So we had to do two phonics pages and had a small paper school book to read. With Charlotte this was a huge sore spot. In my opinion public schools don't have a good enough teacher to student ratio. If you ask me kids should do school at school and not at home. In addition, I don't believe children should have hardly any homework (besides reading) and I'm pretty much against spelling tests until 3rd grade or later (or when they want to sit for them). Wait! I'm pretty anti test in general (for many kids until older grades, every kid is different though). For these reasons and more we homeschool. But seriously, duh, if we liked the system, the homework, the hours, the tests, the sitting, our kids would all be in it. We don't, so they aren't. I asked her if she likes school, she still does. She has P.E. all week, she doesn't know why. I'm sure glad. Kids need to move around.

The first four days I was so glad she said she liked school. I'm already starting to get antsy for her to come home. She needs to be in extra reading help because she's missed to much of their version of a first grade school year. She's not in it yet. I'm sure that's coming. It's lame they will just let her struggle before they move her into a lower reading program. I can tell she's not ready for what they are throwing at her, but she is taking it all very well. I'd be much more relaxed if public schools didn't grade everything by tests and a standard. My kids are not standard. My kids are individuals. Boo standard. :(

Other things:

Art

When I signed Layla up for school last week the office ladies were super nice and even really nice about homeschooling. They inquired about what we did for music, art and P.E. I went into a several things we've done for music and P.E. over the years (homeschool band, recorder, piano, soccer, homeschool P.E., gymnastics, dance) but the conversation trailed into a different direction from there. I later realized I didn't touch on art. Art is very important in our house, VERY important! The kids do art everyday. We are also a super crafty family as well. Yesterday Charlotte, Sage and Ethan drew for three or more hours. I know at least the boys were working on the same picture the entire three hours! Ethan has been drawing for a very long time and using tons of tutorials online for years. He has read and done so many of them that he can recite some like an art teacher; I hadn't realized to what extent until yesterday. They boys sat next to each other and Ethan helped Sage step by step to draw a magnificent dragon. They first started with lines and circles, then connected them, then added detail, definition and then finally color. Sage used water color pencils to colorband paint his piece. I was stunned! Listening to Ethan explain everything was amazing! He really knew what he was talking about. Sage made a few alterations here and there to his picture (wanted his wings different) and Ethan supported him with kind remarks and encouragement. When Sage thought he had messed up on part of his picture I helped show him how to hide his mistake; he was so grateful and impressed. :) I cut out about half the stuff they were going to do for the day because they were just enjoying what they were doing so much. They were quiet, learning, engrossed, and happy.

Sebastian

Sebastian (3) just climbed over to Everett (1) rubbed his head and said, "Hi little cutey guy."

I just love that.

Online

I've gone 8 days without logging into facebook! I'm still feeling like facebook would be a distraction to me so I don't really have a lot of desire to log back on yet. I feel less *distracted. It's unfortunate because I do miss some things about it. :( I love the sense of community, keeping up with family, news updates, reading about things that both matter to me and don't matter to me, reading about friends, getting updates about sales, I miss wasting time, Etc. I just don't have the time. I don't know what I would have done having never watched the honey badger video on youtube, Antoine Dodson (I heart him), the only good Mighty Putty parody out there, Chuck Testa's commercial, or read the latest update from lamebook.com. (I just listed the most hilarious stupid guilty pleasures of my life.) And I can still see funny things, read emails, visit all the same websites...I'm just not ready to let the FB stream in my head again.

All I know is that each day ends with me not having time to sew, iron, paint, wash my hair or make pie. (All things I've wanted to do lately.) Everyday since Sunday I've told the kids, "We'll do science tomorrow." Everyday something has come up. I can't fit something into my life that I don't have time for. Not right now. In eight days time I've been on the computer an average 1 hour per day. That's it. (Mostly blog related!)

Blogging is easy. Hardly anyone reads it and it feels good because I do it for me. Most importantly it's a keepsake I can save.

*What do I mean with my by "less distracted?" I mean more present with my family and my life. I feel like I'm not being pulled away to do or see other things anymore. I feel more focused. Facebook was like leaving the TV on all day and letting it filter in whatever it wanted to, accept worse. It served so many functions: humor, procrastination, socialization, news, education, shopping/sales updates. If I wanted to learn about my friends and family that was fun, but I'd get chatty and comment to everything. If I saw something funny I'd watch it. If I saw a good sale or product I liked I'd then spend time window shopping. I like the fast change. I change activities at home quickly, I'm an avid multitasker and I bore easily. If you watch me sometime, I don't sit still for long. I come from a long line of family members that are busy and piddle around the house constantly. It's what we do. The internet in general provides my brain with a constant stream of newness, facebook just put it all in one place.

Also, I wanted to be sympathetic to every persons stomach flu, ruined dinner plans, stressful day and sick dog. I commented or "liked" on every cute baby, good day, and fun outing. I liked the SOCIAL part. That's kinda the point of SOCIAL networking. It slowly just became too time consuming and distracting for me. So until I'm sure I can get on and off once a day without getting distracted I'm going to keep up with my break, it's so good for me!

Goodnight blogger land...

Public School Day 4, let's go

2012-01-23T08:58:00.006-06:00

When I last wrote Layla had one of her classic meltdowns leaving her in a heap of anger and despair for seemingly no reason at all. She refused to attend her third day of school. I spent the morning trying to get her to go, she was really angry and wouldn't talk. Later she said it was triggered by her lunch. She gets like that about four times a week. You never know what will set her off, for how long, or what other anger helps it build up. The talk we had that morning I think helped her that day... eventually. This weekend when I thought about it I realized it's not as horrible as it could be. At least she rarely has back to back days when she's like that. The real challenge will be keeping her attendance up if she keeps going to public school for a substantial amount of time. I'm trying to explain to her she can't just stay home whenever she wants. It's not flexible like homeschool :(

We had a wonderful day Friday (after her bad mood went away) and I couldn't imagine her not being there for the school fun we at at home. It's really hard being open minded about her transition! I think she'll stay in public school for somewhere between 2 more days and 2 years. LOL. Like I've said previously, the ONLY way to approach Layla is one day at a time.

The weekend was lovely. Layla was happy, kind, helpful and fun. Yesterday (Sunday) I took her to Target to buy some new school clothes and shoes. She has always had clothing problems so finding comfortable clothes and shoes is important to her well being. She's growing like a weed, when she started public school last week it was quickly evident she could use a few new things. We picked up lots of cute things and the first pair of tennis shoes she's had or liked in ages. That was such a relief because she hates nearly all shoes. We were alone --no baby even-- so we spent some nice time together and enjoyed an Icee and pretzel before we headed home.

At home she tried on 15 combinations of outfit pieces in front of the mirror. It was darling. It feels so good to have clothes you like and that make you feel good!

She was all smiles and some seriousness this morning getting ready. I packed her bag up, didn't whisper a word about what was in her lunch and off she went. Watching her get on the bus is surreal.

Her dad said, "Well now all we have to do is buy her new clothes every week and she'll go to school." haha.

School at our house has been going really well. We have great momentum going.

Everett is happily playing with a bird sound/identification handheld machine. He gets the biggest kick out of it. It's so cute.

When I got home from the store with Layla he was chattering and squealing, MMMmmMAMAMAammmmamamamamaMAMA" It's SO freaking cute when they do that! I love being missed!

Time to make the bed and grab some coffee and do school at our house.

I miss her... I love watching her get on and off the bus so confident and strong, but I miss her. I love to see her perfectly dressed and learning to tie her new shoes, but I miss her. I love to imagine she's enjoying school in a building with new people and new things to see, but I miss her. The other day I called her to the kitchen but she wasn't home... I miss her.

UPDATE 10:20pm same day:

Layla's venture back at school went well. I felt bad she came home looking exhausted. I didn't expect her to want to go back when I saw the look on her face. It's a long day for her I'm sure. She's so used to drawing and playing for many hours of her day. She also wasn't very happy looking when she got home. I was worried at first. Once we gave her 10 minutes of space she started talking and settling in just fine. She brought home spelling words and sight words which she will be tested on this Thursday (no school this Friday). She played, had dinner and then got right to work.

Her dad and I quizzed her and helped her memorize some of her spelling and sight words. She is trying very hard. I'm stunned at what she's doing on her own --meaning how she is the one making the choice to go to public school. It's not like she's extremely social and loves being around people and school is a fantasy of hers. She's never mentioned going, she is quiet, she is an observer and she has never wanted to go anywhere without me (or another close family member). It's such a change! I'm amazed! But, she is an amazing girl.

I'm so tired...

Update: Layla's 5th day at school Jan 24, 2012

First homeschool outing without Layla today. Nothing big, but I still feel it.

She was happy this morning. It's STILL amazing seeing her get on the bus all by herself. Every morning I ask myself why she is doing this! lol. She's swimming with a big school of fish...and she doesn't say much but something has got to keep her going. I wonder if I'll ever know what it is.... :)

She is finally eating breakfast in the morning. She seems to be adapting to her new schedule. I enjoy getting up with her and just seeing her in the morning. Other kids are usually up too, but the focus is on her and we talk, get her stuff together, Etc. She is totally ready to go to bed each night at 8pm or so. Sometimes she says that it's time for bed all on her own.

Side note: Everett is making me crazy! And so is the barking dog. Everett was up late last night making me crazy. His sleep patterns have been off and crazy since we got back into town from Christmas. That trip ruined his schedule!

The first 3 days of Layla at public school...what a emotional ride. I can't believe I'm still standing.

2012-01-20T22:37:00.007-06:00

Follow up to this post
We are now a homeschool and public school family...

DAY 1
Layla's first day of school I drove her, walked her in and we had breakfast together. She was calm, happy and very interested in everything. I noticed a TV in the lunch room and told myself to not pay attention to it being there, and on. I was really trying to be open minded. We enjoyed breakfast we brought, met the lunch ladies and went back to her class. At class they have a worksheet to do before actual school starts..this is the time when students arrive first thing or if they are coming from breakfast at school. I helped read Layla her directions (ABC order paper). A few students didn't seem to understand the ABC paper. When they asked the teacher she said you know ABC, look at the wall. I really like her, but I think a couple kids needed help, like right then. :/

Her teacher had Layla's desk all ready with crayons, folders, pencils and erasers. It was was very inviting. The students were chatting us up and were very friendly! Little kids were telling us what to do, giving us advice. (Big coats for outside and bring 50 cent pretzel money if you want one on Friday!) I was impressed by the sweet kids.

I left her and told her I'd return for lunch. When I showed up at lunch the class was already in the lunch room. (I thought about how not one teacher I had growing up ever sat in the cafeteria with the classroom and ate lunch. I think that would had been nice.)
I found Layla sitting with a couple girls. They had brought their lunches and as I sat down the girl sitting next to me said, "I told her you'd probably be here any minute." I thought that was incredibly sweet. I thanked her. Layla and I unpacked ham roll ups (cream cheese, lettuce, ham in rolled into a tortilla), juice and carrots. As we ate more children joined us. The table was about half boys and half girls. All of the first graders were nice, at least half of them chatted me up like little adults and had me in stitches! These kids were so well adjusted, polite, kind, friendly. I wish I could tell their parents. They told us stories about the year: fun things, pizza parties, pajama day, contests, they discussed who won various things, I learned of book fairs, and snacks at recess. Layla was reminded again about pretzel Friday. They had me laughing and smiling. Layla was quiet but engaged.

I chatted with Layla a bit and asked how recess was, she said they watched a movie.

A lunch lady we had not seen before started clearing tables, hushing kids and yelling at kids from afar. I leaned into Layla and told her I saw a mean lunch lady. Watch out for her, I joked. (No, seriously!)
I wondered why or how anyone who looked so cranky and talked so cranky would work with children. :( She was really looking nasty-mean at the children!

I'd be such a silly lunch lady...
"Quiet children or I'll release the crocodiles out into the lunch room, and you'll have no crocodile burgers for lunch tomorrow!"
"Hey stop throwing away food and eat what you take, or I'll put it in a doggie bag and tell your mother you're bringing home dinner tonight."
"Frog stew tomorrow!"
"Who is making all that noise? I'll have you rubbing my stinky feet after school."
"FOOD FIGHT!"

Ok kidding about the last one. But really, kids enjoy fun and silliness. It's not lost on them.

When our table was cleared we didn't get snarled at by the mean lady and we headed for line to wait to get taken back to class. While in line some lady stood waiting for the rest of the class to join us. The kids talked to me more. We were taken back to class and the kids told me and Layla that art was on Friday. They told us Layla needed shoes for P.E. A funny boy said he was not excited about dancing in P.E. This kid cracked me up, he was so cute and funny. He was really grown up for 1st grade lol. I could tell the lady taking us to class wished the kids would shut up. I was enjoying every minute of it. I suddenly remembered that I would have made a good elementary teacher ... or mom of seven. I was relieved to realize I was a mom of seven.

Once back at the classroom the lady who lead us there ordered the kids to sit NOW and draw, or finish up work. I told myself it was ok, just ignore her. Then she snapped for kids to get a book if they didn't have work. A dozen kids went to the book shelf including Layla. Instantly the lady said, "hurry!" and started counting, "1...2......3. Sit down."
She left the room. I was glad she left but then wondered why a classroom full of kids would be left alone after lunch. A student asked for my help to read him his homework. I helped him sound out words. Another student asked me to help him too. I helped him fill in the blanks with the right words. These two kids were really struggling with their papers. I enjoyed helping them and they seemed to really like me. I should be a teachers aide I thought. You know because I totally have time for that. ;)

I hate seeing kids struggle in school. I want to give them a lollipop and tell them to go outside and play. So far that's worked out okay at our house.

One boy said to me, "No more recesses, we are all done for the day." This was depressing to me. I was really proud of myself for being so open minded in this situation. I was really open to the idea that if Layla likes this then it's okay. I wasn't going to say one negative thing, I was going to put negative things in a file in my brain so I could record them on paper only.

I left Layla at school once her teacher was back in the room. I made sure Layla wanted to ride the bus home still an she did. The bus would drop her right off in front of our house.

Back at home we did our school and played catch up from the past two days being a whirlwind of crazy.

Once her bus arrival time was drawing near I bundled up and headed outside. Charlotte was excited and came out too. The other kids watched Everett and looked out the window. I saw the bus coming up our hill. Charlotte clutched her camera. We jumped up and down. We were so excited to watch Layla step off that bus!

The bus came closer and closer and closer... it didn't stop. It went right by and it I felt like I was in a dream or a movie. I looked at the bus number. It was hers. I wanted to run after the bus, I told myself not to be crazy --she hadn't been kidnapped. Charlotte was in shock and said she thinks she saw Layla. My cell phone was in my pocket and I started dialing the school. Being after school time their phone was jammed. I called six times and couldn't get through. I told Charlotte to go in and watch the baby and that I'd drive to the school. I jumped in the Excursion and there were no keys. Charlotte wasn't in the house yet, I kept a sense of humor, laughed and said, "I'm trying to drive the car with no keys!" I dialed the school again and this time I got somebody. They told me they would call transportation right then. So I paced in my driveway in the cold and assured myself I wasn't THAT worried, she'd get home. The worst thing that would happen would be she'd be taken back to school. I was just so worried she was scared, that would be the worst thing, if she was really scared. Then I remembered this was Layla I was talking about, she's super tough. The school got back with me and the bus driver said he didn't get a bus pass from her, wasn't told by transportation that he had a new stop, and that he'd be at our house in 15 minutes. When they arrived the driver was super nice and explained again he didn't know and she should have a bus pass and he guesses they didn't give her one. She was fine but quiet. Everyone was excited to see her, she said hello to everyone and everything was fine. She smiled about the bus thing and said she wasn't too worried just confused. I asked her if she'd ride it again or if she wants me to take her/pick her up. She said shed ride again. I was impressed.

She did her homework readily as I explained in the first installment of the going to public school tale (link above). She was excited for another day.

DAY 2
Layla woke up easily and got ready quickly. This would be the first time she rode the bus to school. Everything went off without a hitch and she bugged me for a half hour after she was ready, "Is it time yet? How about now? Now? When?" She was looking forward to her day. I walked her out and the bus stopped and off she went. I was so proud. Then I cried a little.

I didn't like this. Not one bit. I wanted her back. I told myself I'd rather have her happy at school than home and miserable. I folded clothes and thought about the weekend. I had a moment of realizing 'Oh yeah! I get weekends with her.' It was a weird moment. Charlotte complained that she was gone too long during the day, I agreed.

Aunt Sharon and Grandma Wanda were coming over to visit and play. They helped us fold our huge sock bag of mismatched socks. They helped fold hot laundry that I churned it out. We talked, had root beer floats and waited for Layla. Aunt Sharon brought us dinner to bake! A pan of lasagna, a pan of eggplant Parmesan and french bread. -Yes, I'm totalllly spoiled, tell me something I don't know :)

When her bus arrival time was close we went outside. Sharon was now jumping up and down at the side of the road in excitement. I loved it. I loved that she was as excited as Charlotte and I were yesterday. Then I told her that's exactly how I was until the bus drove by!!! (I called her while I was waiting for the bus, and we laughed nervously about it, so she was on the phone during it all!)

The bus pulled up and out popped our little Layla. The bus driver shouted out, "I won't forget this stop!" It was funny. (She still had no bus pass...?)

We bombarded Layla with hugs and questions and she was interested by some questions and ignored others. She got out her folder and showed me work. She got right to work on her homework.

Learning more about her day I found out she couldn't go outside because she didn't finish some work. I grumbled a little disapproving growl but then caught myself and quieted down. Charlotte reacted too and I had to shoosh her. I covered it and asked Layla how she felt about it. She replied, "I didn't care, I figured it was too cold out anyway." I later told Charlotte that we can't let our opinions shape hers. We can't tell her staying in is bad and wrong, that needs to come from her. This is an extremely SORE spot for me and Charlotte because being made to stay in from recess was one of 3 huge reasons Charlotte came home from public school and never went back. It crushed her spirit.

Everything was fine that evening. Ricky helped her with her homework and then I read everyone stories. She looked happy and slept peacefully.

DAY 3
Layla woke up, got dressed and sat waiting. She didn't want breakfast (she's like me, hard to eat so early). I gave her her lunch and told her what was in it. She didn't like something. I asked her what. She ran out of the room.

I knew right there, the day was over. OVER. This kind of thing happens at our house 4x a week. Layla flips out.

I asked her what I could make different. She wouldn't talk. She was so angry she couldn't see straight. Was this about lunch? Probably not. Was it triggered by lunch, it looked like it. She has sensory issues and emotional issues and has since she was 2-3 months old. She said she didn't want to go to school, I couldn't get out of her why. I told her she needed to tell me why. She wouldn't. I gave her 15 minutes to cool off, nothing changed. I cried and told her it breaks my heart to see her like this, I told her I just want to help her. I told her I was angry when I was little too, and I didn't know why. I told her I could try and help her. Nothing. She was nothing but MAD. Usually if I can cry (and I rarely cry even when I'm sad) she is pulled out of this mood a little by sympathy for me. I texted Ricky about what was going on and he called me, which made me cry to him.

I pulled her outside and put her coat on her. I told her the bus was coming and she needed to tell me why she didn't want to go. I NEED a reason. I need to know WHY. She cried, hugged me and said, "I don't want to go Mommy!" If she calls me mommy she's scared, really sad, or in a super sweet mood. She sounded really sad. (Plus she was hugging me, she never does that when she's mad.) The bus came by and she ran inside. I waved the bus to pass us up.

Once inside it didn't take long for anger to come back. I noticed she had thrown her folder, her shoes and her lunch all over the living room. She had to unzip her backpack to get to the folder and lunch. She came out of the bathroom wearing her pajamas. She sulked on the couch in anger.

I made coffee. I did laundry. I tended to the other kids and we started our morning. Before it was time for school I asked her if she wanted me to drive her to school, it was a no. I periodically asked her if she wanted me to drive her to school.

I called the school and talked to the counselor explaining about her mood issues and sensory issues as a baby. I wanted to keep an open line of communication going and let the school know Layla may be fine one day and not the next and that I was going to do everything I could to get her back to class. The last thing I need is a school barking truancy down my neck, which I truly don't see as an issue. The lady was very attentive and kind. She seemed very perceptive and laughed and agreed at all the right times and when I was using flippant laughter. (Like about nature vs nurture and how did this happen when we did everything right.) The lady asked if I wanted to force Layla into school with help, and leave her there. I told her I wasn't against that idea when it seems right for the right type of child but Layla has never done well with that. I explained that I had left her at homeschool classes, and gym before with bad results. She said something like, 'then that will not work.' I was glad she trusted me about it. In the end she suggested we talk to our family Dr. in case they had recommendations for counselling. I thought it was cool she threw the ball back in my court after our discussion.

After a while Layla was mean to one of the little kids, I don't remember who, so I told her she can't be around us. I took her upstairs three times before she stayed there. After about a half hour I was on my bed with Everett watching Sebastian and Penelope do online school together. Layla came into my room and I convinced her to lay in bed with me and Everett. She was angry for a few minutes but then giggled at Everett's baby charm. (He often brings her out of a bad mood with baby cuteness). I told her it was snack time at school and almost recess. I asked her if I could take her now. Nope. I tried to talk to her about what was so upsetting and how she felt and why. She wasn't interested. She told me she wasn't going back to school.

She started getting back to her normal self and didn't have anger anymore. I let a half hour go by and I tried having a heart to heart with her about her anger. I explained that when she was little (from 3 months to 4 years old) I could soothe her. She was sad and mad a lot, but she always had me. She nursed when she was a sad, hungry or lonely baby and she held my hair and rubbed it on her face. I told her how she loved my hair (I knew that she vividly remembers that). I told her we could never figure out why she would be so upset even back then. I said, "Sometimes bad things happen to kids and it hurts them and makes them sad and angry, but we could never figure out what was making you so mad and sad because you were with us all the time. No one was hurting you or being mean to you. You weren't in a home that had fighting or anger... So what we did was kept loving you, and kept helping you because it was what you needed even if we didn't understand why, and even though it was hard that you needed me ALL the time I still did it." I explained to her that when she was away from me she'd cry uncontrollably. She listened and looked me in the eyes. I told her that now she is bigger she doesn't have a way to deal with the bad feelings, anger and sadness she gets. I told her that for a long time she has been doing it all alone and it seems to make her feel lonely and even angrier. She listened more. I told her we just had to find a way that she could deal better, anything to help her feel safe while she feels this way. Tomorrow I'll talk to her again about it and see if it helped at all. Tomorrow we are also going to try and buy P.E. shoes.

The rest of the day was a perfect homeschool day. I couldn't have imagined it without her. Even if I was actually trying over and over throughout the day to get her back to school. :(

We had a lot of fun. We learned about robots, made tin can robots, did an assignment about robots, we had a robot parade in the house with our robots to the They Might Be Giants song, Robot Parade! (blog post about it will follow) While I made dinner Layla wanted to read to me. She read two books for her public school reading log.

It's the weekend. Rest, love, and peace to the house.
We will deal with this how we've always been dealing...

one
day
at
a
time ...

We are now a homeschool and public school family...

2012-01-19T00:53:00.008-06:00

I’m waiting by the front window. I’m waiting for Layla to get off the bus from her first day of first grade. Yesterday I asked Layla to do her time4learning program for the 20th time in a week. She didn’t want to, again. She had begged and bothered me to start paying for that online school service again (she did it last year). I finally signed her up again. She did it for 3 days and quit. She said it was too easy and I told her she needed to move up a level then. She didn’t want to. When Layla gets it in her head that she doesn’t like something it sticks for a long while. She is very smart but very impatient and stubborn. Last year she asked me to teach her to tell time. She was really grasping it when suddenly one day she didn’t want to learn it anymore. She picked up books instead and taught herself to read. She did some phonics worksheets but not all the time, mostly she picked up books, asked for help when she got stuck on a word and taught herself to read. Recently she wanted to count money. We started on it a bit, talked about place value and within a couple days she thought the whole thing was dumb. She’s been unhappy, restless , moody, and angry for months. She flew into this world with very a particular set of rules and expectations, none of which she shared with us, we just have to guess them along the way.

She has always had tactile sensory issues. She can’t stand certain clothes, shoes and socks. Tags, seams, bumps, certain clothes and some car and/or booster seats can all send her into a frustrated rage. when she was 2 she'd try on everything she owned -by herself- and cry because nothing felt right. We were shocked. She’d scream as a small baby until I’d finally undress her (this helped sometimes, not always). She seemed to always be under or over stimulated. As a baby she slept a good 8 hours a night but only 10-20 minutes a day. Even as a 4 week old she only slept 10-20 minutes a day. To make things harder I was the only person who she’d have anything to do with until she was 18 months old. She loved her Daddy from a distance but he couldn't hold her after she was about 2 months old. It was a very hard time, I felt lucky she has an amazing Daddy who loves her and respected her without doubting her or me about her needs. To most people she would seem liked a “spoiled brat.” To me she was desperate for me, and when she didn’t have me she’d hyperventilate (seriously). It was confusing to me because everything in her life was perfect. Mommy at home, loving daddy, happy house, a safe, fun environment. We joked that children who have been abandoned fared better than she did! As a baby she became obsessed with my hair and had to hold it it in order to feel safe and secure, as if it were a blanket or stuffed animal. We had to go through a lot with her over the years and the only way we made it was taking it one day at a time. She is now usually: talkative, helpful, bright, witty, funny, and a fantastic sister and daughter. Those mood swings she has are killer though. It’s like a switch gets turned on and so does rage. We’ve researched middle child syndrome, we’ve tried to help her in case that was the problem because a general feeling of unhappiness has struck her this past year. Nothing seemed to work. I was once a very angry child who, when having an ‘on’ day, was also fun to be around. Watch out if it was an off day. The rage, sadness, confusion and anger just couldn’t be explained when I was a child either. It’s kind of like depression, many people don’t know why they have it or what to do about it -except this is just a cranky, horrible, bad feeling mood swing. I recognize her moods.

At the beginning of this school year I didn’t listen to a little voice in my head that told me she’d enjoy, even thrive, in a classroom environment. I didn’t listen to myself when I asked the question: What is best for Layla *right now*? The answer was: A good school that’s not at home. Ricky and I were very close to enrolling her but our own homeschool routine started back up early and Layla was doing well. She was learning, having fun and I couldn’t imagine her away from our homeschool family dynamic. I’ve had a terrible time in the past with Sage. We got through his insecurities, difficulty learning, his lack of drive, his laziness, his developmental delays (according to public school standards, us homeschoolers just call “delays” learning at your own pace). I figured Layla was just another tough cookie and we’d get through it. I’d let her unschool her way to success. The problem with this plan was she became more and more unhappy at home. I tried one on one time, I tried special outings and days just with her, I tried leaving her alone, I tried more structure, then less structure. Nothing seemed to click with her. Recently with her building boredom and flip flop of wanting school work and then practically throwing it in my face I knew we needed a change. When I sat with her yesterday morning with a heap of base 10 blocks talking about place value she seemed interested, for 30 seconds. She suddenly whined and stormed off with an angry tone. I told her I’d call the public school if she wanted and she could go there. It wasn’t a threat, it was an offer. An offer she gobbled up. I asked if she was sure. She said she was. Before I knew it I was on the phone with the assistant principal of the small town school a mile away. A few hours later we were filling out paperwork, meeting her teacher and seeing her classroom. Layla was happy, excited and ready for this adventure. At home her brothers and sisters were excited for her, too. I knew going in that this school is supposed to be a very good school. What I saw when we visited was outstanding. (I have a few gripes, but what I like is outweighing them for now.) Her teacher is kind and understanding. She seemed ready for the challenge of a mid year self taught reader and homeschooled (primarily unschooled) student. I took Layla this morning for her first day and had breakfast with her and then showed back up for lunch with her too. These are the highlights:

The school welcomes parents for visits. The cafeteria has a sign in the food line that says “Welcome Parents.” I love.
All the main lunch ladies said hi to her and told her to ask if she needs help.
I’m allowed to visit anytime. A huge change from Charlotte’s time spent at a public school years ago.
The kids could talk during lunch -again different from Charlotte’s time in the pen. lol. :)
The children were polite, friendly and helpful
Parents are encouraged to have breakfast / lunch with their children
Children at Layla’s table talked about their parents having lunch with them from time to time.
I saw a mission statement sign from the school district that said children should receive individualized instruction, among other things. That’s the item that stood out to me.
The school has an emphasis on respect and manners.
Children were eager to help and told me Layla needs to bring pretzel money for pretzel Friday - fifty cents.
At lunch the kids at her table were kind and told me all the fun things they have done so far this year. Pizza parties, donut tied to a string eating contest, movie nights, earning reading rewards, Etc. They all sounded happy.
A funny boy told me she needs tennis shoes for P.E. He said, “We’re doing dancing right now, I’m not excited about it at all.” It cracked me up.
Her teacher told her if she doesn’t understand something or doesn’t get the review stuff they were doing today she could draw.
The school reminded me of a charter school -in the way that it had a strong community feel, strong emphasis on parental involvement. Very small town feel.
The school has won a very neat award. I don’t want to go into it because I try and keep my location online somewhat private.
As far as schools go, I really like it.
I love a small community school, the office ladies spoke of that too.
The kids I talked to today I REALLY enjoyed. Many of them were hilarious. After lunch I helped a couple of them with reading their papers in class. (And now I want to be a parent helper --because I have time to help 16 other kids, right. LOL ;)

So will Layla tire of this? Will it end up being a mistake? Will she go again next year? When will she come back and be home taught again? What if she is never happy? How long until getting up for school is a “you have to right now” issue?

We have to handle this like we’ve always handled Layla...one day at a time. Right now she’s happy. My eyes flooded with tears when I left her at school today, I miss her. BUT nobody said this mommy thing was easy. It just goes to show I don’t have as thick of skin as I thought when it comes to her. (Over the years I’ve been preparing myself for Layla running away and join in the circus when she’s sixteen, or something).

What's wildly strange is that we took Charlotte out of public school because she was unhappy, and here we are all these years later putting Layla in public school because she seems unhappy. People are all so different. Which leads me to this thought; if public school isn't a fit for every kid then homeschooling isn't either.

Tomorrow I’ll write about her first and second day, riding the bus, and anything else that happens.
This will be so funny if she decides to quit next week. lol. (no not really!)

A few more things:

I adore that she wants to ride the bus. Sure, it makes my life easier, but it's also SO typical of her to want to jump right in feet first and ride the bus. That’s the part I adore. Also, the bus picks her up and drops her off right at our house, perfect! Can you imagine her explaining to her friends on the bus why a yard full of kids greet her everyday. Hahaha.

I enjoyed hearing her get home today and say hi to everyone.

I'm actually completely shell shocked by all of this. It happened SO fast. It's like a dream and it's really weird. I've been extremely busy running back and forth to her school (only a mile away), holding down the household here, homeschooling, and trying to overcome a lot of chores this week. I'm not sure any of this has sunk in and I might have a mini emotional breakdown soon. (Not like a bad one lol, I'm just in a whirlwind of crazy busy overwhelm right now and I feel so exhausted. )

I told the kids I was thinking about putting Sebastian in half day preschool two days a week because he is making me crazy (we are having a hard time getting school work done with him around right now) and Sage quips "Geez mom you're just shipping everybody off aren't you?" It was hilarious.

The whole thing about place value that I wrote about above? Where I tried to teach her yesterday with base 10 blocks and she thought it was dumb. That is THE thing that set off a chain reaction of her going to public school. Well, she brought home a worksheet from today doing the exact same thing. She did the paper front and back and liked it. It sure helped me feel better this is right for now. She also read 3 books tonight for her reading log. My baby-girl's going to school...wow.

My life called, it wants my full attention back

2012-01-18T00:25:00.004-06:00

My family needs my full attention this week. And the week after, and forever. I decided they did.

I decided in part because facebook is way too distracting for me and I spend way to much time online during week days and nights. Last night I abruptly decided I'd go the rest of the week, Tuesday the 17th through Sunday the 22nd, without logging in once.

My decision was so abrupt that today I asked my hubby to log into my account and let friends and family know they can reach my on email only. I made the decision last night when I got bummed out that I had too many unfinished projects. I went to the basement to look for a can of paint -to start another project- and realized what a mess the basement was becoming again. I had Halloween stuff still piled in a corner waiting to be packed back into bins, Easter eggs lay dumped from a basket, winter clothes were everywhere, and Christmas stuff now blocked all those things. Winter clothes were sticking out of plastic tubs as a sign that pretty much anything we needed from the past 6 months hadn’t made it back into it's neat and tidy mold proof containers. Sometimes I feel so defeated by life. I try so hard and I work so hard towards an organized and tidy home that I get bummed when I see a sloppy lazy mess like that. So last night I started cleaning up the storage corner and repacking everything away. In my frenzy I realized that I can not expect to do everything I do with as many distractions as I seem to have by getting online. I made the decision right there to do the things I really want to do this week instead of numbing my mind on the web.

I use the internet to "check out" during crazy kid weeks and hectic but boring days. My mind numbing outlet is internet consumption, like lots of people do with TV or video games. I spend almost no time watching TV so most of my screen time is the internet. On any given day between about 7am and 11pm I’ll spend 3-5 hours reading facebook related posts. This includes news stories, health stories, funny cartoons, funny websites, watching youtube videos, talking to friends via posts (I don’t chat), reading blogs, and searching for any other interesting things I learn about along the way. That time frame probably applies to email use, Pintrest and maybe even writing some blog posts. (All of which are not huge time sucks for me.) Email is quick for me, Pintrest I’m in and out easily even though I LOVE it, writing blogs I enjoy and are beneficial because they are written for our family. I love writing. I love documenting our life. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t day dream about my kids and their kids’ kids and their kids’ kids reading about our life. (Technically writing is computer usage, not internet usage. It only takes a second of internet to post.)

So, I was pondering over why Facebook is such a time suck for me. The constant changing, constant newness and never ending entertainment pulls me in. It’s like all those projects I start up and eventually finish, but only after I start 15 more at a time. I’m not content. The attention deficit, talkative Aries in me loves the constant change as well as interesting surroundings, people and scenery. I truly want to know what my friends and loved ones are doing, but I also want to know everything else in between. It’s part entertainment that I can get on any given day and at any given time and it’s part procrastination -when I’m just tired of washing 10 loads of laundry throughout the week with a biting, cranky teething baby on my hip I just wanna sit and rebel against it!

Ahh procrastination. How I love thee.

Not really. Procrastination makes me feel yucky. Not only am I not getting something done, that cranky baby is often times a really happy baby.

I stopped to think all this over and asked myself what I was trying to avoid. Sure I get tired of certain things, everyone does no matter what they do or how much they love it. When I avoid things I get concerned that I’m “avoiding life” and/or I’m procrastinating because I’m not happy with my life. In short I had a talk with myself and I’m happy... I love staying home, cooking, baking, keeping house, playing with kids all day, homeschooling, I adore my husband, I love being a mom... I just need to get my priorities straight.

Most important priorities: Husband/ kids, school, house. According to this formula internet should never be the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning.

So I asked myself what I should fill my morning with instead. Coffee.
I’m kidding (mostly). Seriously though, I came up with things I say I never have time for: exercise, stretching, shower, pedicure, plucking my eyebrows, getting dressed, curling my hair, ironing my apron (yes I just said that -I have this one apron that is so cute but it comes out of the wash looking like crap).

Magically I realized all of those things have to do with … ME. Taking care of myself. What an amazing self discovery!

What I mainly realized is it’s just a bad habit to check facebook and stay on reading things...and then to go back and check it again and again. Just a habit. When do I check it? When I first wake up, after breakfast, when I nurse the baby, before lunch, after lunch, nursing baby again, in the evening for *just a minute*, and at night when everyone is in bed. Each and every time I nurse the baby I stay on for a half hour or more. Instead while I nurse Everett I could be checking the kids’ school papers, reading to the the kids, writing something of real substance (like blogs!), OR laying down with the baby for a moment of being still and quiet. It’s okay to be still and quiet. I'm a go-go-go person, I want constant stimulation it seems like. I may have the brain of a 3 year old.

Today I was on the internet for about 25 minutes total, not including tonight while writing this. Most of that was spent printing up worksheets for the kids. My life feels better already and I have no idea how I could have spared another second of time for anything else today. I didn’t even spend as much time with Penelope and Sebastian as I wanted to. (But we made BIG gingerbread boy cookies together at least.) It was a long, busy day. Dinner was even served late (I made ginger-honey-chicken with broccoli and rice).

I want 3-5 hours of my life back, I have a lot of use for it.

Lots of changes ahead.
This is just the tip of the ice berg though, big change I need to put on paper tomorrow... (no not a baby!)

Follow up to no facebook for 6 days. Posted 1-23-12

When I wrote the first sentence of this blog post I had no idea how true that statement was

"My family needs my full attention this week."

Soon after that Layla stated public school and with it a whirlwind of events and emotions trickled down. Cutting out facebook from my daily routine is the best thing I've done in a long, long time. It changed my life. My focus was on my household, my husband, my children and my writing and logging of day to day things I like to record for our memories.

I miss everyone on FB but it's over shadowed by how I miss Layla right now so it makes it easier.

Today is my official day I'm "allowed" to log back on to facebook and I don't desire too. I desire to see my friends, but I don't desire to lose the time. There was a time that Sage, 12, couldn't play video games. It took his attention from too many other things...it made him agitated, and scatterbrained. It made him unhappy more than it made him happy. I saw that pattern with how much I used facebook. It's so good for so many reasons, but it's bad for me for lots too. The only real thing I've decided is that I can't spend any daytime hours logging into it. It's just too time consuming for me because I have the computer at my fingertips all day with homeschool stuff so it's just too easy for me to get on and stay on.

My husband recently told me he is only checking his work email twice a day. He was in the habit of checking it as emails come in or every half hour... it was really distracting to what he was already doing. This is exactly what I was letting myself do with facebook. If I was checking: the weather, had a recipe to look up, needed to look up a medical question or a history question, if I had a kids school worksheet to print up or a learning site for the kids to log into I did it all while "peeking" at facebook "real quick." Sometimes it was real quick, other times (many times) it wasn't. It was so distracting.

My life, my focus, my happiness, my routine is 100x better when I do not have that distraction!

Big wonderful, amazing, magical Christmas Surprises!

2012-01-12T08:20:00.017-06:00

Las Vegas was an absolutely fantastic time. Everything fell into place; it was an easy peasy, extra fun, trouble free, perfect trip there and back. Seeing my family was amazing. So many people to visit with and enjoy. So many people loving to see the kids and to share Christmas cheer with. Christmas morning couldn't have been better, the kids had so much fun, then the truly unexpected happened.

Rewind back to the day we left for Vegas:

I walked our house sitter Erin through our house as I explained to her the unpleasantness of our really janky toilet situation. The upstairs toilet hadn't worked in a year. We had it fixed once but it soon started having a leaking problem again. We needed to eventually call someone to look at it again but decided it was most likely just the toilet that was leaking. The downstairs toilet over the past year has been working less and less well. Finally it got to the point that we had to pour a half a pitcher of water down it, while simultaneously holding the flusher down in order to get solids to go down. Pee would go down, just maybe not your toilet paper. We lived like this for a long time partly out of not knowing where to begin (we usually try to fix things ourself first) and partly out of the costs involved. We also have a 'well things could be worse' attitude about life - makes things easier that way. We live in a very old house and we are do-it-yourselfers. If it can't be fixed by us then we live with it for usually as long as possible. The toilet thing was really getting crazy though. We needed new toilets.

The dishwasher situation wasn't much better. Our frugal side kept us buying used dish washers on Craigslist. They'd last a couple years but we only had to spend 20-60 bucks on them! This is what big families do. Families of nine don't go out and buy new dishwashers on a whim. ;) This last one we nabbed for 20 bucks was a real pain though. It wasn't cleaning anything. The kids complained. I told them to be happy we even have one. Besides, limping by builds character.

Once our character was built up some and we had limped and limped by a good long while someone put a call into Santa and Santa must have put a call into my parents (because he doesn't make appliances at his workshop).

On Christmas morning 1200 miles away from our home we opened a present that had a toilet seat inside! Attached to it was an invoice for 2 toilets for our house. In another box was dishwasher soap and an invoice for a dishwasher already purchased.

I was so shocked I could have fell over. It was UNBELIEVABLE! We were so excited. (Not kidding THE FIRST thing we did when we arrived at my parents was comment about how we have "working toilets here" and how nice it was to not deal with our freaking toilets at home.)

We were so grateful and felt so blessed and loved to receive such a helpful and amazing gift for our family.

A Toilet Seat!

The last gift we unwrapped was this piece of paper:

My shocked face opening the above paper. See how happy and surprised we are. Awesome.

What went through my head: "Are you kidding me, Ricky doesn't have to install all of this???!!!!"

What went through Ricky's head: "THANK GOD I don't have to install this, all of this would take forever!" (And it would have, we did need a little plumbing work done after all, and without the tools and experience it would have been a headache and we probably would have been with no toilet for more than a day -or 5!! lol.)

At some point I cried happy tears!

Then more of the story and gift started to unfold ...

Before we left for Vegas my parents asked several times who was house sitting for us. I did not ever think anything of it but I never gave them a name I just kept explaining she was a good friend who had three little boys and she's a great person... Finally my dad asked me over the phone, "What's her name?" I never thought it was weird. I thought it was out of character of my dad, but not weird. I told him, "Erin."

I had no clue my parents, being the sneaky sneaks they are, were trying to hunt Erin down. My mom found her through my facebook and asked her if they could talk on the phone... she set the whole entire thing up with Erin. Plumbers were to come the day after Christmas to install everything. So when we got home we would have it all already done. The entire time I was telling Erin about our Janky situation during the house sitting walk through she was smiling on the inside. She said that it was so much fun watching me explain everything and I agree, it was! I love thinking about it.

I realized immediately I now didn't have to mess with setting up appointments, putting the dogs up, wrangling the kids, having the water turned off. My house sitter had it all covered. I felt like a princess. When I talked to her on the phone Christmas day and told her I knew everything it was really fun. She was so happy for us and thought the whole thing was wonderful. It was. Everything was WONDERFUL.

When we got home from our trip we had a stomach bug so the new toilets got use right away! LOL! They flush so fast. It's fantastic. To be so excited about toilets is hilarious! I called a very good friend of ours, a family we enjoy having over, and told them the news right away. They had just been to our house before we left on our trip. We are so happy we can have company over without telling people they'd be better off just not pooping at our house. Hahahaaaaaa.

Because of the excitement I can't remember which surprise came first but the surprises just kept on coming! I believe this is what happened next...

My sister, Heather, the youngest of us five kids gave every household a tall package. Inside was a frame full of old pictures. Everyone loves old pictures! Childhood pictures of myself, my family. It's really special and priceless. She made several for our parents. One of each of their sides of the family, one of just them, and one of them and their 5 kids. The hours she poured into it was unbelievable.

Then everyone, one per household, opened up a tiny gift box. Inside was a flash drive. She explained that she had scanned, over the course of just about a month, 12,000+ old photos from mom and dads photo albums and photo storage. Baby photos of them, of us, family pictures and thousands of old snap shots now all digital and on the drive we each held. It was unbelievable. I knew instantly the amount of work that was. I cried! Her fingers hurt, her eyes were seeing nothing but pictures, she was sleep deprived. I'm a picture person and I spend a lot of time on my pictures. I can not imagine taking on a project like she did. For an entire day I was in shock that I now had all those treasured photographs. I love pictures. Memories are so important to me. It's why I write this blog and it's why I take insane amounts of pictures.

What a blessing my family is, and what a beautiful time we had. Both those gifts are life changing to us. The appliances because they make our life easier and better, the photos because they are treasures that can be passed on for generations to come. I can't wait to put some old photos on our walls!

Photos of my dad

My Great Grandma

My Grandma reading to her kids

My Aunts!

My Uncle Doyle

5 kids (I'm the oldest)

My sister, Christy, and me

12,000 photos... can you imagine?

The really golden moments: a weeks worth of joy and pain

2012-01-11T23:24:00.004-06:00

LAYLA

I'm laughing because after I announced that Thursday would be baked potato bar night Layla, 7, dramatically said, "Ohhh no not baked potato bar night, I always have a problem on baked potato night." She says this kind of stuff in a really cute way.

Then we had a good laugh about it. Layla has really moody moods and really hard times with certain situations. I can't find a pattern or reason to it. I had a difficult time growing up so I can only guess it's something like I had to go through. She gets so frustrated and it's hard and impossible for her to understand why. She does have certain triggers but most of the time her moods and anger come on when we are least prepared for it. She has a point though, baked potato night is a hard night for her because the last 2 or 3 she was in BAD moods and didn't eat. She and I had a laugh about it and talked about how we'd just need to make sure she didn't have a bad night.

SEBASTIAN

I just walked by the bathroom and Sebastian, 3, was naked and 'mummy wrapping' himself with toilet paper, the best part was the toilet paper was still on the roll attached to the wall. He was twirling around in circles and I watched. It was so cute...by the time I ran for the camera he was done and just looking at me sheepishly with a pile of toilet paper at his feet. That kid is so funny.

What are some of the best words I can hear from three year old Sebastian?

"Hold me Mommy." I love those three little words. He's Captain America, a knight, a builder, Superman and a T-rex by day. But, at night he's my baby boy. After a few minutes he said some more sweet words I always love, "Lay down with me." Ever since I could remember he closes his eyes, puts his head to mine and wiggles into bed to get cozy. He nods his head up and down as he nuzzles into my head. Then if he is actually sleepy he simply goes to sleep. I never tire of how cute it is.

Sage comes in the kitchen and says, "Mom, what's today?" Sebastian says, "Banana bread day." heheh. We had banana bread in the oven at the time.

PENELOPE

Five year old Penelope made me laugh today when out of the blue she said, "Mom remember you said you should have another baby if the world's going to end anyway." We were talking about the Mayan calendar the other day...hahaha. Remember that kids are always listening!

BABIES and their sibligs

The other day I was thinking about the keen sense and ear my kids have for little Everett. A stifled baby cough from the next room and I have some kid checking on him (or telling me about it) because it sounds like he could be choking. A dining room table full of kids who are all busy drawing will stop what they are doing when Everett races to the front door that is open; one kid will jump up and intercept his fast feet. An echoed baby voice is recognized from another room and a kid will rescue Everett because he's climbed up a chair and is now dancing on the table top. Any one of our kids ages 3 through 15 will merely walk into the same room as Everett take one look at him and exclaim, "Everett do you have something in your mouth!? What do you have?" I will never forget how awesome it is to watch these kids be so connected to him.

Sure it helps me immensely, and they've learned it from me asking for help from them. But, I love that it shapes who these kids are. They are so aware of so many other people in the home. They all are just ga-ga over him, too. Everyday every single kid calls him cute, plays with him, laughs at him, holds him, and cares for him in some way. Every single day. I never want to forget that, it's a wonderful thing. Children and babies bring even each other tons of joy.

EVERETT

Everett is getting so big. It was just yesterday I was rocking him and soothing him to sleep when I thought about how much he is still my baby. I'm so glad for it too! This is the last really super solid year before he becomes a REAL toddler. Then today seeing him in his car seat he looked huge. His legs are so big. his hands are so chubby. His fat fingers grab things all the time. He can turn lights on and off when lifted up (a game he likes). He says, "light!" He says a few words here and there. He says "side" when he wants to go outside --which is always. He says eat and drink although it's hard to understand. When you give him something and say, "Here you go." He says, "tank" for thank you. Its SO cute. But If you don't say "here you go" he just looks at you waiting for you to say your line first because that's his cue to say "tank." It's hilarious.

Everett has been teething and it's just awful for him. His teeth are coming in sooo slow. He screamed for an hour tonight and finally settled down to nurse. I feel like nursing him sedates him through the night. Luckily at bed time the pain reliever I give him gets him a few hours of good, solid rest. In the wee morning hours he seems to cope by nursing several times. One morning he was sleeping next to me with his little chunky hand on his cheek and once in a while he'd cry out and then go back to sleep.

FUCKING SAVE ME

Tonight I texted my husband the following: Fucking save me!!!

He called me an hour later and told me he was on his way to save me. I told him everything the little kids had been doing; grabbing each other, pushing each other, laughing at each other, peeing on each other (Sebastian peed on Penelope because she was too loud, Huh?), crying at each other, screaming at each other, running, jumping, yelling, fighting, being silly, being mean, being INSANELY CRAZY and bringing the house down loud.

My dear husband said, "Ok! Put a beer in the freezer, because that is like my spinach and I'm coming to save you."

LOL. I loooove him. I feel better already.

Even Everett is in on the wild crazy action, he's biting and hitting when they act like this, and no wonder because he sees them hit and yell. In addition teething makes him act mean just like Sebastian did when he was teething. It just seems like any problem between siblings in the hous makes Everett act out. Usually when the kids act like this they've been watching too much TV or I haven't had enough structure for them. TV off day tomorrow!!!!!! And I feel like we've had structure, but I could do better. Tomorrow/this week we'll try 2 crafts a day, upstairs playtime (which is a huge pain because they don't stay up there unless I go too), outside time and kid yoga.

A good Monday to start off the week

2012-01-09T16:45:00.007-06:00

My little nursling Everett just hopped off my lap, looked up at me, waved good-bye and toddled off. What a love bug. He is getting so big. He just hung out at the window for 6 minutes or so jabbering to me and then finially says, "Side! Side!" He wants to join the kids he sees playing outside. He's running around for a few minutes with them while I take a minute to blog.

This morning I "made" some yogurt for the kids. I just started buying big 4lb plain (rBGH free!) yogurt from Costco. I store about 10 of them in the freezer and a few in the fridge. My kids, like most kids, LOVE yogurt. I hate buying yogurt though because of how much sugar is in it. Even when you buy organic without the additives and food coloring, it's still a dessert. (And organic is too expensive.)

So I take my own sugar and sweeten plain yogurt for the kids and then we add in our own fruit. We also use specialty jams that give it a yummy flavor. By my best estimates this cuts the sugar in half (or more). The kids go crazy for frozen fruit that they like to add in, too. (Also bought in bulk from Costco or Sams Club)

Mixing up breakfast for 7 kids

Everyone has a potato in their bathtub, right? Why is this here? I donno, I have a 1 year old so that must be why. I was passing by the tub and saw it there.

Charlotte, 15, makes an ordinary day fun. Found this in the bathroom and had to do a double take while thinking 'did I just see a toilet paper owl?' lol. Clever, funny kid.

We started a unit study about well known outlaws of the wild west. Today we learned about Billy the Kid and now the kids are watching an old western. I asked the kids to make a fictional wanted poster. Charlotte did Waldo, it cracked me up.

I love part of a review on Netflix of the 1939 movie Days of Jesse James, "Theatre of yesteryear when men were men and women were damned grateful for it!"

Watching westerns together. I take photos all the time of family watching movies together. It's just a memory I want to be able to hold in my hand and my heart. Now they are munching on popcorn and little Sebasian fell asleep. :)

A simply beautiful week in January

2012-01-07T18:58:00.008-06:00

Cobwebs in the chicken house

They were beautiful for a long time... and then just totally out of control!

Putting the Dyson vacuum to the test sucking up cobwebs, I'm almost done!

Very impressive!

Looking like a home

They even have art on the wall. Their wood step-ramp is a old dvd rack we repurposed. That thing sat unused for a long time in storage. We didn't want to just throw it out, so it's so cool I finally found a use for it!

Layla comes to show me that we had a grape tomato growing on an old vine in the yard. It's pretty mind blowing that it is January 7 and we grew a tomato. I'm totally flabbergasted. Look how cuuute she is.

~~~~Special Things From Special People~~~~~~~~
We received a very special gift from a very special relative with disabled hands due to a bunch of medical problems, all of which I'm not clear. I think it started with carpal tunnel. The gift is from Kathie, my first step mom who had always been a mom and friend to me. We lost contact due to several factors including her severe medical problems, but that's not important, what is important is that her hands are becoming stronger and that she handmade our entire family scarves and hats (and Everett a baby blanket). I'm so touched by this; these handmade crafts are helping her hands to become stronger and she made them for us.

I'm going to send her these photos and call her we have so much to catch up on. I know she's trying to get online to see pictures of us so if you are reading Kathie please know I tell all the kids about you and they adore and love their gifts. They wore them outside all day and truly LOVED them. They are all beautiful, really, really beautiful. The hard work and dedication to send a family of nine all of these does not go unnoticed or appreciated! xoxo

Looks like the same photo but Penelope has her eyes open in this one, Sage is smiling and we aren't in it. Ok so it's a totally different photo! lol. Everett is sitting on the beautiful blanket she made him.

It was a beautiful warm week in January...it felt so good to clean up outside, clean the backporch, get the chicken house clean and run around with the kids. I enjoyed watching Layla play with Everett outside. I watched Layla put Everett on the slide from my kitchen window. To myself I said No Layla noo...I watched and assured myself she was doing a good job, and she carefully let him start to go while still holding on to him an extra few seconds to give him a slow start. He liked it. It's so enjoyable watching her become 'the new big sister.'

I'm seriously ready for spring.

Ricky and I really enjoy doing this stuff together.

Speaking of time I still need to write about so many things here that I've wanted to (including Christmas)! I'll get to it. I the meantime I wanted to write and post pictures of chickens and a special handmade gift.

Having a wonderful time

2011-12-26T17:05:00.008-06:00

I never stopped to love this view when I lived here. You bet I do now. My first home.

Day 1: Made Christmas candles and rosette cookies with my mom and Grandma Smith. Took mini hike in the desert and had a cactus scavenger hunt.
At 8:30pm we did Polar Bear Club at my dads -a family tradition every 10 years we jump into a 35 degree swimming pool. (omg it was WAY worse than I remember!)

Day 2: Christmas surprises galore ...life changing surprises! I will write more when I can! Amazing!!! Lots of family time, lots of blessings, lots of love.

Day 3 family pictures with 35 people! Tonight off to The Tournament of Kings show at the Excalibur. An amazing live action dinner show with dancing maidens, jousting, fireworks, and eating with your fingers! It's my favorite! I've waited a long time to take our kids! 31 of us are going! Then I want to show the kids the volcano eruption at the Mirage.

Desert hike

Polar Bear Club photo...getting ready to go in, most of us in clothes

Could NOT have planned this photo. I snapped it just the right moment. My dad and my husband lol!
They are getting fired up for Polar Bear Club

Christmas Day My husband and Dad still messing with the COLD pool! Ricky was jumping in the spa (not pictured) between cold pool dips, the kids were enjoying a hot spa dip as well.

Kids X mas morning

Follow up about the life changing surprises Click Here

LAS VEGAS BABY!

2011-12-18T14:28:00.011-06:00

This year we planned a surprise Christmas trip to Las Vegas (my hometown) to visit family. We haven't been in a very long time and I never want to go. (Not because I don't want to see my family, my family is awesome, it's just totally exhausting to haul a million kids to Vegas and juggle 15 places to go in 4-5 days! And we have a ton of animals at home, and we are total homebodies!)

Since we wanted it to be a Christmas surprise we had to keep it a secret for a while and only reveal it as close to Christmas as possible! We kept it from tons of people, even friends and some family!

Ricky and I decided last week that last night was our Christmas Eve here.We wrapped the presents the other day and this morning we surprised the kids by having Santa come a week early. The kids didn't know what was going on this morning when they woke up. Penelope was running around excitedly saying there were presents under the tree. First we gave the kids a wrapped suitcase to open. It was a 3 piece suitcase set nested into each other.

Inside the suitcase was an envelope that

said "vacation 1" on it.

This is what they found :

I hate the cold! So this was a bizarre trip to tell the kids we were going on. Plus who wants to sleep in the snow?!!!! Charlotte said, "ARE YOU CRAZY!?" They decided the open the next suitcase.

This is what they found in

vacation envelope #2

This was hilarious. The kids were flabbergasted, wanted to know if it was safe, wanted to know how it would happen. (Would we be in a tank?) One kid asked if we would be in a cage. Hahaha. They decided to trade this vacation in for whatever suitcase # 3 had in it. Sage later said, "I almost picked sharks, would we really have gone?" LOL!

They open the 3rd and last vacation envelope:

They were very surprised and happy we get to go see our family for Christmas. They don't know we have more surprises that await in Las Vegas! They do know it will be a fabulous time though! yayyyyyy!

She's Crafty!

2011-12-16T15:29:00.017-06:00

We love making things!

Old Suitcase

Helping put on travel stickers

I used mod podge over the whole surface so they won't peel off

It is now a decoration and storage for the circle hallway room I've been working on decorating. I want to paint the floor and put in a new light fixture this winter. The light fixture that is hanging on a chain is this gold thing from the 80's with glass and an etched flower on it. BARF.

Charlotte Painting
I plan on framing a bunch of art work made by my kid's and hanging in the upstairs hallway. I love this piece!

Sooooo we decided we were going to do this dryer lint project I saw online. You mix dryer lint with water, flour and a dab of oil to make a modeling compound. I've been saying for at least 10 years dryer lint had to be good for something. Turns out our dryer lint is DISGUSTING.

It's hairy, dirty, crumby...
We have 4 dogs, a ton of cats, and I shed like a dog so we have lots of hair. I sweep the house EVERY DAY (no kidding) and still somehow we have hair go through the wash and apparently dryer. Our lint was more disgusting than we thought. Charlotte and I mixed this stuff up and wanted to barf. It was not working out and so we added more flour. Then we added even more flour so that we couldn't see the yucky dirt and hair as much.

When we had a nice paste that could easily make very realistic owl pellets (we thought about making some lol) we started sculpting on cardboard canvas. (We used the back of a puzzle board that had lost it's pieces.) Charlotte doubted we could make anything out of this gunk, and really so did I, but we had just made a disgusting soup of matted lint and hair we had to do something with it. We had dirtied a pot and wasted 15 minutes of our life. I wanted something to show for our hard work. "It's art!" I shouted. "One can create anything and make it art!" So we began. I made a bird and a nest, we worked on the tree together and Charlotte's faith was restored in ART!

Gross bird we call an Eagle.

When our masterpiece dries, I estimate in 2 years because of how thick it is, we'll paint it and see how it really turned out. For now we wait. We do look forward to painting you, you gross art project!

Boxes Rule

2011-12-16T01:11:00.004-06:00

Cardboard boxes are a blank canvas. No toy can compare to a nice sturdy brown box to crawl into. Since I order almost every Christmas gift for the kids from Amazon we accumulate loads of boxes. Today we put all those boxes to great use!

Airplane ready for take off!

I love this airplane! I love their faces!

We glued lids from various things as controls. I made a strip of buttons from construction paper that say on, off, eject and uh-oh.

This box was a tunnel for cars and trucks, but Everett and Layla found a second use for it

Everett popped out and said, "Raaaaw!" He is cute when he tries to hide and then scare or surprise you. I say, "Ahh!" and he laughs and laughs.

Toy kitchen made from cardboard boxes

Penelope LOVES toy food, tea sets and toy kitchens. Doesn't matter how many tea sets or pretend food she owns, she LOVES all of it. She adores this toy kitchen. She has a "real" toy kitchen in her room but she loves this one more. She asked me if she could keep it for "eighty-four-fourty-days." I told her of course she could.

Christmas Fun and Tradition... and some crafts for the day

2011-12-07T08:50:00.013-06:00

We had a late start to the Christmas season. Our tree went up the day after Thanksgiving, but little else happened around our house. Smith-wick just appeared yesterday. You never know when he will arrive.

Smith-wick is our elf. Our elf on a shelf... we received him 4 (or 5?) years ago from my Grandma Smith. If you are lucky enough to receive your own personal elf from the North Pole then you read the story he comes with and give your own personal elf a name. Your elf reports on good and bad behaviors (naughty or nice!) to Santa every night and returns the next day at your house in a new spot. Children can also talk to him and tell him their Christmas wishes. This part is reallly super cute. They do go up to him and talk. It's adorable.

The children delight in looking for Smith-wick each morning. Sometimes he forgets to leave, in that case the children come running to me exasperated about Smith-wick not leaving for the North Pole. I tell them the reasons he might not have left yet... North Pole is on a different time zone, snow storm, he's tired, his alarm clock didn't go off, Santa was too busy so he needs to give two reports the next day.

My favorite is when I say, "Are you sure he's not there? Wait a second kids, there's dog barf in the living room...hang on...just a..."

I go clean up the "dog barf" and by the time I'm done Smith-wick has moved into a new spot. Then it's show time; "Ok it's cleaned up now! Hey what do you mean Smith-wick hasn't moved? Hey where is he, I don't see him."

Heheh. It actually works.They all find him in a new spot marveling over the fact that he just forgot to move to a different spot...or whatever. I'm not sure what they think.

Believing is believing. It doesn't have to make sense. It's part of the fun. :)

When our elf arrived I wanted the kids to name him something very special that honored my Grandma Smith since she sent it to them. I have lots of very creative, fun, fulfilling Christmas-magic memories of my Grandma Smith. Sage came up with Smith-wick, which to me sounded like a REAL elf name. Everyone loved it and so it was, Smith-wick joined our family. He disappears just like he arrives, unexpected and all at once.

Advent Calendars are another beloved Christmas tradition My cousin Michelle sends the children all their own chocolate Advent calendars. When a new baby is one year old she starts sending them a calendar, too. I always really appreciated this. It's really awesome because the babies really do watch and want to do what their siblings do. They totally get in on the action! As can be told by this picture.

Baby Everett gets a real treat having his first Advent chocolate with the other kids

The first snowfall of the season we have snowman pancakes and hot cocoa. I was low on milk so I talked the kids out of hot cocoa yesterday. Actually they forgot about it after I said, 'We'll do it later on.' Their idea of the first snow is often different than mine. Snow flurries stuck to the car and real snow on the ground are two different things. However, they'll start flailing about the house shouting, "hot cocoa!" at the sight of sawdust on a cold day. Regardless, another nice tradition we typically do is hot cocoa on the first snow, and snowman pancakes around the same time. And just LOOK at these faces, they just love 'em.

whipped cream for snowflakes falling

As I write this my littlest children are complaining, fighting, and need some help from their mother. One day they'll read back at this blog of our life with joy. For now I'm met with a lot of crying over me being at the computer on a cold, boring December morning.

Lucky for them I have some crafts planned for today. Homemade snow globes, paper doll elves, paper chains, stringing cranberries, making a paper Christmas wreath and decorating a real wreath for the door. Wait until I tell you where I got the base for the wreath. You'll never guess...

Thanksgiving crafts: thankful for crafty down time with kids

2011-11-21T17:00:00.001-06:00

We made Thanksgiving napkin holders and placemats today! Glad there were so many of us working on them or it would have taken even longer than the several hours it did! Working together as a family is so much fun. The big kids made all the napkin holders and created an assembly line to get them done, Sage made the eyes and cut beaks, Charlotte assembled hats, Ethan helped cut and glue and make the gobbler thingy. It was great seeing them work together. When they were done I glued them around the napkins.

We all hate the cloth napkins that don't absorb anything so we bought these cheap fall colored wash cloths from Walmart. (That's what we normally use day to day but I felt a little weird giving guests wash cloths but with the napkin holder it dresses them up a bit!)

Place mats made by everyone, covered in clear contact paper

Everett eating grapes as we load tons of Thanksgiving groceries

Overnight Trips Away ~~ PACKING

2011-11-18T15:33:00.001-06:00

Why do these people have so much stuff and only 1 kid, does this make any sense?

My friend told me I should be helping her big family of six kids pack for a weekend away because I should be good at it by now, as we go away on 2-3 night visits more often than she does. Here's what I told her to do :) (Number 7 cracks me up! It's so true!)

1. Wash all clothes, or at least enough to pack. Make sure 1 load is drying right before you leave and stand around waiting for it.

2. Line up kids clothes on the couch in sets with socks and underwear. Older kids bring their own to you and you tell them which ones you approve of and then explain for the 1000th time what play clothes vs nice clothes are.

3. Use 3 laundry baskets instead of suitcases and start packing kids clothes in them. Don't forget extra blankets if needed and a sling (usually only need this for babies), bring a zip lock baggy of Tylenol and/or other care items for kids. ~~For you be glad you don't need to pack cloth diapers! (And be glad you don't need to wuss out and decide to buy throw away diapers on the way there which I have done lol!)

4. Start packing the grown up clothing stuff in one of the baskets, top it off with personal care items: make up bag, toiletry bag, hair dryer, curlers or whatever.

5. Intend on having this all loaded up and ready to go the night before you leave but fail at that thought, I always do. LOL!

6. Get that last load of laundry out of the dryer but forget what you really need out of it because the baskets are already packed. So just pack a couple more clothes just for good measure.

7. Forget to pack your own pajamas.

8. Leave 4 hours later than you thought you would and now every kid is starving to death. At least 1 kid can't find their shoes.

9. Have fun :D

My Knight In Shining Armor

2011-11-11T12:33:00.004-06:00

The other day A CRAZY guy was driving up and down the parking lot rows at Walmart in a mini van, we didn't see why but a man loading groceries with his wife near where we parked told crazy guy to F-off. I thought to myself that I wouldn't do that because this guy looked crazy (like for real mentally ill kinda crazy). He was really big and heavy and he looked a lot like a crazy wild eyed Juggernaut from the X-men.

I got worried when I saw the crazy guy stop his van in the middle of the road and get out. He tensed up and looked like he was metamorphosing into the Hulk. I had just gotten the baby out of the car when I headed for shelter in front of my truck. The guy who had said 'F-you' was in his 50's and I knew my husband wasn't going to stand around and let this older-ish guy get beat up by Juggernaut. I tried to coax my husband into hiding too, but he told me to wait a second. Luckily Juggernaut had some crazy conversation under his breath to himself (with clenched fists!) and then peeled out screeching and squealing his tires in the parking lot. The people there then asked us what that guys problem was, I felt like saying, I have no idea, we just got here and we aren't the ones that just told him to F-off! LOL! We finally started heading for the doors of Walmart and crazy man finally parked somewhere. My husband kept an eye on his van while we walked in the store. Just before we got inside my hubby spotted Juggernaut talking to himself as he was coming in a different door. I said, "Should we be here? What if he starts shooting up the place or something!?" My husband calmly just said, "Well then if that happens get behind me."

What else does a lady need to hear than that?

Me at Walmart:

Virtues of chivalry include such things as mercy, courage, valor, fairness, protection of the weak and the poor.

I've never kissed Batman

2011-10-26T01:20:00.003-05:00

Sebastian told me something tonight and I really had no idea what he was saying. He was so cute and he was carefully explaining it. I nodded at him and smiled lovingly, he was being SO cute. His blue eyes were beaming back at me through a black, hard batman mask. He'd had the mask on for over an hour tonight. When he was done talking I told him he was so cute and to give me a kiss. He leaned in and I kissed him. I suddenly exclaimed, "I kissed Batman!" Without missing a beat he lifted his Batman mask up onto his head like you'd do with a pair of sunglasses, then in an excited and informative voice he said, "It's really 'bastian under here, see!"

As if I didn't know. Hilarious. I adore his innocence, his playfulness, and the joy he brings me.

(He woke up tossing and turning in his sleep tonight talking about Batman :)

I love the fall ~ and early winter fun...

2011-10-24T09:47:00.000-05:00

Fall is the perfect backdrop for cute photos. This is such a great time of year to snuggle up with loved ones and enjoy the holidays. We were just talking about how we are ready for the season of coziness, delicious treats, seasonal foods and coffee creamers! We love warm sweaters, hot cocoa, pumpkin pie, rosette iron cookies. I love decorating early for both Halloween and Christmas to enjoy it for a while. We didn't build and decorate gingerbread houses last year, we will for sure make them this year (save uneaten Halloween candy for them)! Halloween is almost at a close and then two more months of fun before hibernating for the rest of the winter. We are like bears. This winters plans include learning piano and some Spanish, doing lots of crafts, crocheting and sewing.

LOVE: mushy, kissy, make other people sick LOVEEEE...(our wedding anniversary!)

2011-10-19T08:44:00.011-05:00

0.
I finally did my photo wall project for one of our bedroom walls. The theme is classic kisses. You can't see because of the flash glare but the bottom middle 5x7 photo is a picture from our wedding. (posted it below) It was taken in front of the stone steps by the creek at Indian S. Ricky is on one knee and holding my hands and I am leaning over to kiss him. I didn't intend to have it done right around our anniversary, but the timing was perfect.

The spacing of the frames wasn't totally ideal, but I had to work with plaster walls that crumble and needed to stick mostly with studs where I could for the larger pictures. It doesn't look so off in person.

I love this man

with every

ounce of my being.

(the best part is he loves me too!)

Our wedding anniversary was last Sunday and so I'm writing 10 things

I noticed that make our marriage great

1. Kissing (sure it's the same person over and over and over, but it's the person we are madly in love with. Kiss like it.)

2. Laughter (This is why we fell in love, really. We made each other laugh all the time and still do.)

3. Honesty

4. Trust

5. Saying sorry (Even when I don't think I'm in the wrong I say it. My husband actually invented this and taught it to me.)

6. Family values (Families stay together and kids deserve parents who aren't selfish or screw ups. Or both.)

7. Friendship (He is the only man that has ever told me I am his best friend.)

8. Loyalty

9. Being considerate (Avoiding fights, helping each other, the little things you do for each other add up to be huge)

10. There is no score (Dearest love of mine, I'll keep picking up your clothes and towels off the floor, you keep kissing me sweetly every single day. I'll keep cleaning up after your coffee cup in the living room, you keep being a fantastic dad. I'll keep cooking awesomely creative meals, you keep helping with the dogs and chickens every night. I'll keep rocking sick fussy kids in the wee hours of the night, you keep food on our table. You keep ignoring my PMS and giving me a hug instead of telling me I'm bitchy, I'll keep the laundry washed and folded. You keep ironing your shirts when you don't have one ironed, I'll keep making you lunch for work. You keep brushing kids' teeth at bedtime, I'll get them to sleep. You keep loving me and I'll keep loving you. You don't keep score and either will I, we are a team and we work together.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cleaning up after the hubby... something so many wives resent. Not me.

My husband leaves at least some part of his clothes or socks on the floor every single day. He leaves his bathroom towel in front of the closet door every single day. I used to think this was annoying. For two years I wondered why it was so hard to walk a towel back to the bathroom, or simply place it in a hamper. I used to complain about it. I rattled off to myself when he wasn't home and I was picking it up. 'Dang towel on the bleepity-bleep floor again, how come you can't pick it up, it's not freaking hard, dang it!'' After a little while I felt stupid complaining about him leaving a towel on the floor while he was gone off to college to earn a bachelors degree and then later a masters degree. A masters degree he had to earn by driving into the city (four hours round trip four days a week) while working part time, keeping a wife happy and able to stay home with the kids, all the while being a good loving, playful father. When I started thinking about this it paled in comparison to me just simply picking it up for him. I started pretending that each time I picked up his towel he was saying 'I love you' to me. He has always treated me like a princess and wanted me to be happy. He gives himself selflessly to his family. He would rather spend time with us than do anything else.

This morning I'm looking to the left of me and in front of the closet floor is his towel on the floor. I'd be disappointed if it wasn't there. It's in my morning routine...nurse baby, check email, pick up his towel and hang it in the bathroom, make our bed, make the children's co sleeping beds in our room, make breakfast, have some coffee. About 4 days a week I get a phone call from him at work sometime between 10am and noon. He says, "Hi, I was wondering how your day is going..."

I love my life.

Happy Anniversary to us

The Barbie Cake Tradition

2011-10-16T09:59:00.031-05:00

The Barbie cake tradition started with Charlotte. She wanted a Barbie cake for her 5th birthday. This was before they had the Barbie cake pans you could buy. So I bought a little metal round mixing bowl from the store and put some cake batter in it. I greased up the bowl, baked it until it was solid in the middle, and it worked. I'm still using that same bowl 15 years later! The first cake took me a crazy three or four hours to make and decorate. When Layla was going to turn five Ricky and I made it together and it took about two hours. Our last girl to turn five is our sweet little Penelope Juliet, and this mom's getting good because I baked the cake the night before and then the next morning it only took 30 minutes to complete. She loves it. We had a really fun birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PENELOPE!

Ok, see the right side at the bottom of the dress, where the frosting is blobby and a different color? THAT is where the dog licked frosting off the cake because Sage put the dog on the chair for some reason ("Mom, I didn't see the cake there!" lol) and all I had was that color to patch it with! hah.

Baby Lisa

2011-10-09T08:24:00.001-05:00

The missing Kansas City baby has my heart pounding and my nerves rattled.

I'm sad and nervous for the parents. I think it's horrible that they've been treated so badly; their local media, the community passing judgment, the police who interrogated them for 11 hours one day and then AGAIN the next day. The police accused her to her face. :(

I think that it's really hard to do the whole innocent until proven guilty thing sometimes...but it's important. Benefit of the freaking doubt people. Just for a little while. The baby hasn't even been gone a week. :( I just feel so bad for them and baby Lisa.

My heart is trembling for them because...

About three weeks ago my kids had the door open and were running in and out all morning. We have a baby gate at the front door that we usually keep up, it's not a great one but it's good enough when we keep an eye on it. The 3 and 5 year old climb over it to get outside and it loosens it after a while and it falls. After lunch Everett had just been walking around the living room playing with toys. I was in and out of my room and in the bathroom sorting laundry and such. After about 5 minutes I said, "Where did Everett go?" I looked at the front door and the gate was down. Usually if the door is open at least some kids are outside, after all we do have 7 of them! I walked outside and it was silent. No kids. We have a fenced in yard so it's not an immediate panic type thing but the fact that a baby could easily be snatched from the front yard never escapes my thoughts. I walked back inside and said to the kids in the dining room, "Have you seen Everett? No one is outside, where is everyone?" Charlotte was in her room upstairs. Two kids were in the dinning room, other kids came from other areas as I spoke. My boys started looking for him and calling his name. I ran to the road outside even though the yard is fenced. Then I saw the side gate was open. It is not close to the road, but he can walk. He can walk verrry fast. I yelled for more kids to come out and look with me. Nothing. We had to make sure the road was clear of him. I walked out in the middle of the street and looked around me before heading back inside. Just like how you check bodies of water FIRST. You check all dangerous places first.

All the kids, even the 3 year old, started looking around the downstairs with me. I sent one kid outside to look in the yard even better (behind the tree, Etc). Still no baby. I yelled for Charlotte who was in her room upstairs to look upstairs. He never goes upstairs but he has the climbing ability to get up there and the door leading upstairs was open. She said he wasn't up there, this is when she joined the search. We scoured the house and I hollered out ideas inside and outside to check. I got panicked after about 90 seconds of frantic looking. Basement door- locked. Behind any doors- no. Under tables - no. In the bathroom or bathroom closet - no. In closets -no. Kitchen pantry - no. We were looking every place we could think of. Layla got panicked and cried out a little, "Mom I'm scared!" I held it together and told her we have to stay calm. I told her I was very scared, but we have to just keep looking. The kids looked and looked and looked.

I knew he was probably here somewhere. Child abductions are rare, even though they haunt us like they lurk in every corner of a neighborhood. I told myself he has to be here, but what am I missing. We have no water that would be a danger. The house is fairly safe if the basement door is locked. I tried to call Ricky at work and got his work voicemail. I sent him a cell phone text that said 9-1-1.

I went to the road again out of fear he was some place dangerous, I didn't know Charlotte was there looking already. I checked the back porch and back yard. He couldn't get to those places, but you still HAVE to check them. When I was checking the back porch I saw the side garage door was open. My eyes caught a image of the open garage door and the sight swirled in my head, it almost made me dizzy. Black from the dark inside, against the white garage siding. I starred at it for a few seconds and thought to myself slowly: What. If. I. Never. See. Him. Ever. Again. What if this has happened to us...someone took him.

If he's not in the garage I'm calling 9-1-1, I decided. He wasn't in the garage. I was still clutching the phone and took a breath. I thought to myself that before I call 9-1-1 I have to make sure I checked every single place. Kids are not reliable searchers. I have to check upstairs, DUH! Charlotte only checked for a second when I called her down. I ran up the stairs and flew down the hallway. He was happily playing in his little sisters bedroom. He looked up at me with those blue eyes and I could barely catch my breath. I wanted to cry my eyes out but instead through tears I send my husband a text that everything was ok. Didn't want him leaving a meeting or freaking out upon seeing it. I yelled for the other kids that he was safe. When Charlotte hit the bedroom she landed on the floor scooped him up and we sat down with him and bawled. He toddled away from us smiling.

I had to spend what, 3-4 minutes with a lost baby? I'm not sure how long, but long enough to get my phone ready to call 9-1-1. I can not even imagine what I would have done if he had been taken or if he had been hurt or killed. I still hold him and think, "I almost never saw you again." That isn't true, I didn't almost never see him again. I did however know what it felt like to search my house for a lost baby. I just didn't have to actually live the part where he doesn't get found :(

If some one had accused me of murder or of being neglectful I would have ripped their tongue out. I have never been judgmental of a family who has lost a baby. It's just not fair. Pool accident, lawnmower accident, gun accident, bath tub accident, pulling a TV on themselves or a kidnapping. Those who judge others think it couldn't happen to them. What a foolish selfish thing to think. I even defend families whose babies die in hot cars. I don't understand it, I barely comprehend it. But to be vicious to others is just not right. I'm compassionate to others. I'd rather give someone a cautious benefit of the doubt than shun them in their hour of darkness and unthinkable pain.

I'm so, so sorry for baby loss. No matter how that loss occurs.

Happy Birthday Charlotte! And other update things I want to remember...

2011-09-30T09:35:00.006-05:00

TODAY is Charlotte's 15 Birthday. She is one of the most fantastically awesome kids you could ever meet! She's helpful, kind, sweet, SUPER witty, and funny. She's very clever too. When she was about 11 years old we got stranded on the side of the highway in a blinding Midwest rainstorm because our wipers broke suddenly. Totally on her own she took the laces off her shoes tied them together and then tied them to the passengers wiper blade. She pulled the strings up and down and exhausted her arms while I drove peering over on her side to get off the highway. She saved the day. We were actually pulled over at a really bad spot on the highway too. One of my favorite memories of her!

Another favorite...
We were driving along and I said a bad word. I don't remember why. Seven year old Charlotte asked if she could say one bad word given the situation. I thought it was cute. I said sure. Charlotte has always been the child that chooses right from wrong and has always been nice and polite. I was anxiously waiting to hear what she might say. Perhaps damn? Whatever it was it had to be fairly mild. I thought "shit" would be BAD in her book so she'd say that. She suddenly yelled, "MOTHER FUCKER!"

I almost ran off the road! Then I couldn't stop laughing. Actually I was on a dirt road and I pulled over and laughed so hard I cried. I didn't say anything or make a big deal out of it other than my laughter and telling her I did not see that one coming. To be honest I've never heard her say another bad word again either. :)

A favorite quote from when she was about 6 years old and her brother Sage was bothering her...

"Mom, Sage is getting on my last nerd!!!"

Happy Birthday my Charlotte!

Charlotte 10 years ago

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday my really great husband took a half day off work and hustled home after he heard his wife on the phone stressed out and ranting about the ceiling leaking (leak in upstairs bath) and kids crying in the background. I was totally surprised when he walked in with a bottle of wine at noon. :) He told me he didn't have any meetings and it sounded like I could use him at home today. Then we played and tickled the little kids and tried to do a little homeschool. We laughed and laughed, too. Our kids keep us so entertained. Mostly we just took the opportunity to just live in the moment. A 20 minute nap with each other and the baby, a chance to sit outside and enjoy the weather and kids playing. Then last night after the kids were finally asleep we just sat on the couch and talked. Such a great afternoon and evening. I am so, so happily married.

Other things the home front:
Besides a coldish sickness, runny noses and mild sore throats we've been really busy. We are in the process of making a big volcano out of chicken wire and paper mache. We are doing a super mish-mash unit study on quilting, the American flag, the history of the telephone and communication. In an attempt to get my kids to write more they are developing fictional characters, I'm hoping they will be inspired to write a story...

This week the kids and I went and bought 40lbs of red grapes to freeze and 25+ lbs of tomatoes to make and can more salsa. Why in the middle of a busy week do we decide to do such a thing...because I'm me and they go along with my love of food storage. lol. We are like little squirrels getting ready for winter. I really missed having a huge tomato garden this year, next year it's going to be massive. In about a week we are going to can apple pie filling. Gotta get rid of these tomatoes and grapes first...

The husband and I are embarking on another project too. It might throw everything off for a while. We are cutting a hole in our bedroom ceiling and trying to fix a bathroom leak ourselves. So adventurous. Our life may look boring to some, it's perfectly zany and fulfilling to us.

Seriously this dang leak looks bad! I hope we can fix it, we have 9 people sharing 1 bathroom now! LOL.

The Googly Eye

2011-09-29T10:10:00.006-05:00

We have lots of these jumbo googly eyes for crafts. Layla came into the kitchen a couple days ago while I was cooking, her hands were over her eyes and she said, "Mom I can see you..." she then stuck out her tongue and a giant googly eye was there. I told her she was very funny. A few minutes had passed and I'm in my cooking groove stirring my food and thinking about what to do next, suddenly I was hit hard with a whapppp sound across my back and side. It really hurt! I spun around and started to say, "WHAT the..." And there she was wide eyed, scared, pointing to her face, and waving her arms frantically. No sound and no air. She was choking. I spun her around and as I got ready to do the Heimlich maneuver I heard a little air slip through her throat, there was a slight wheezing now. She gasped what air she could, she started choking with a small amount of sound. I reassured her, "You are getting it up, I can hear it, keep coughing, I hear sound now, it's ok. Keep doing that..." She started making gagging sounds and I continued to reassure her she was getting it up. "Good! Throw up," I cheered on. She spit up some chocolaty saliva (chocolate covered pretzels was snack that day) and then finally *SPLAT* a big googly eye hit the kitchen floor. My eyes teared up in relief and my sense of humor laughed at the ridiculousness of a googly eye staring back at me in a pile of chocolate drool. Layla's first gasping words were, "I want and rag and drink of water." As we wiped her off and she took a drink I hugged her and told her that was the scariest funniest thing I'd ever seen at one time. We looked over at the googly eye and the puppies had licked up all the chocolate drool and were now sliding the googly eye around the floor with their tongues. We laughed and laughed in a heap of relief.

Stages of getting sick baby back to sleep in the middle of the night

2011-09-28T02:43:00.002-05:00

Stages of baby sickness in the wee early morning hours. Usually applies to colds and/or fever, not stomach bugs.
Stage 1: restless, flops around in bed, needs changed, wide awake, rosy cheeks
Stage 2: happy to get out of bed, talkative, finds a toy
Stage 3: gets bored, throws toys, starts fussing, may need changed
Stage 4:real tears, settles down to nurse, starts kicking legs and gets bored and fussy.
Stage 5: gets bored, sits up, throws toys, looks sad with watery eyes, cries and/or whines a whole bunch
Stage 6: pace around, rocking, singing, more fussing, may need to be in baby carrier/sling
Stage 7: starts to yawn, settles down usually because baby is ready to really nurse, sleep

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's 2:45 am and we are at stage 6

Dear Everett,

2011-09-21T11:47:00.001-05:00

I'm nursing Everett and checking email as I just sang in my sweetest soft voice, "Happpy birthday tooo youuu." And my little Everett closed his droopy little eyes the second I finished. <3 It was a busy fun day. I told him happy birthday and kissed him a million times, he loved the attention. He loves singing, so that was fun for him to get sung to all day long.

~HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY~

Daycare?

2011-09-06T09:22:00.003-05:00

The lady that checked out my giant click 'n pull order at Sam's Club yesterday asked me if I ran a daycare. LOL. I had stuff like 8 bags of bagels, 1 case of cream cheese, 3 boxes of cinnamon rolls, 3 packages yogurt, 3 bags of dinner rolls, pizza rolls, tons of cheese and lunch meat, pretzels, goldfish crackers, crackers, individual chip bags for lunches, 3 huge cans of pineapple tidbits, noodles, salad stuff, frozen fruits and veggies. All the stuff you'd need to feed a whole army of kids!

How to make watermelon smoothie with your car

2011-08-30T21:52:00.007-05:00

Today little Penelope asked to make smoothies. She wanted to try using the frozen watermelon we had in the freezer. It was frozen in a iceberg like hunk in a plastic baggie. I explained to her why we couldn't put it in the blender like that. So as I pondered taking it outside and smashing it with a hammer I asked Penelope,

"What do you think would happen if we ran it over with a car?"

Her blue eyes got wider and she said with a grin, "Let's DO IT!"

So we call all the kids up and down from various rooms of the house and tell them we have an experiment to try if they want to watch. Penelope and Sebastian some how get in our Excursion before I even get outside, the older kids must have opened the doors for them. I put the watermelon baggie in a plastic grocery bag because this is not the first time I've ran food over...LOL. (I've made breadcrumbs from croutons like this before! haha)

The little kids are all excited, I get in the car I start it up... wait it won't start. Big disappointment. Some how the lights got left on and the truck is DEAD.

I call it quits and tell the disappointed little kids we have to wait for Daddy to get home and fix Mommy's car. Sage says, "Wait! Put it in neutral. We'll push it."

They start pushing...

Ethan and Layla join in, and Charlotte takes pictures (Thanks Charlotte! I didn't even know you were taking pictures of this! Awesome!)

They roll the truck over the bag with a splat. I brake and then they roll me backwards. We all gather around to see our watermelon had really splatted. I say, "Five second rule?"

All the kids start scooping watermelon off the ground, leaving most of the underparts that are touching the ground. We figured a little dirt won't hurt.

Penelope puts her frozen watermelon chunks in the blender.

We added this really tasty fresh strawberry and lime drink Charlotte made this week that we had leftover. We also added a handful of blueberries. Which some of the kids thought might be dirt because of the dark flecks of blueberry skin, it was funny!

I just realized her swimsuit is on backwards. lol.

Super fun. Very yummy.

I LOVE crafty days

2011-08-23T08:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we made magazine / paper organizers

Wiener cancer is usually no laughing matter...but this day it was

2011-07-23T18:51:00.003-05:00

One day while I was pumping gas the 11 year old boys were in the car talking about "wiener cancer" and if there is even such a thing. Sage says that you can have cancer anywhere because you have cells everywhere. So while they are discussing it Ricky overheard and goes around the car to where I am and tells me. I crack the car door and start listening to them, they are aware I'm listening as I hear them settle on the fact that they are in agreement: weiners can get cancer. After a few seconds I abruptly leave to run inside the gas station store for something. When I jump back into the car I matter-of-factly say, "Hey boys, there is such a thing and it's called penile cancer." Caught off guard they say. "What?" I repeat myself, "Wiener cancer... it's such a thing, it's called penile cancer." Sage's eyes opened wide and with a goofy grin he exclaimed in disbelief, "You ASKED THE GAS STATION people?"

Ricky and I almost couldn't stop laughing.

New Moon Magazine for girls ...homebirth!

2011-06-23T23:08:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon Charlotte headed to her room to gobble up the latest issue of New Moon Magazine. New moon is a magazine for girls that is safe, educational and ad free. It's content is always carefully chosen to build self esteem and positive body image. After a bit Charlotte ran downstairs hollering, "Mom! Mom, look!" She flung open the pages and shoved in my face an article about a homebirth family and their experience with the close family bond of birth at home. She was so excited. I'm such a proud mama to that young lady that she understands the impact that article has on our society. The challenge to normalize birth in a culture of birth fear does not go unrecognized by her and that makes me proud. As New Moon strives to never exclude anyone they included a side bar explaining that hospital birth is a choice many families make and that is ok, homebirth is just a different option. Bravo to New Moon for being an amazing influence on girls and for treating birth as a normal family experience.

Sexy pushed on kids... and remembering why I give my kids toy weapons

2011-06-12T09:45:00.009-05:00

I wasn't very happy when my little girls were picking out a generic Barbie from the dollar store… one clearly lacked appropriate clothing. I was pretty shocked at the doll staring back at me and wondered how anyone thought this was ok. Layla laughed and said something was wrong with her clothes. Penelope (4) happily exclaimed, "Mom, look! It’s nursing Barbie with a nursing shirt for nursing babies."

This made me smile.

Perspective is everything. I'm glad I didn't say anything ---and I generally don't because I do not like to point out what I deem is wrong to an impressible child unless I’m sure something needs to be corrected or taught. Six and four are not ages that I worry about my girls getting the wrong message because they are given the right message everyday all day at home. To make a big deal out of something is usually the worst thing to do. In this situation Penelope showed a gleaming example that sometimes it's what you are raised around that really makes the biggest impression on the mind.

This actually reminded me of a great article called "Bang! Bang! You're Dead!" Like a lot of parents I once struggled with the rough play that accompanies swords and guns ...and boys. I was one of those parents who thought it was too violent. I was constantly concerned about the gun play with my first two boys. I thought I could curb the behavior at a young age, switch their interests to more peaceful themed play. I took weapons away or wouldn’t buy them, but to my dismay they made them out of things anyway. Sticks, carrots, pencils, Legos, a finger…all can be used as weapons of mass destruction to the right imagination.

I complained that it's not good to shoot people or stab people. I dramatically worried for their future. Thinking back now it's laughable. A funny thing happened when Penelope was two and a half. She was playing guns with her brothers and as she was saying, “BANG, BANG!” I said in a tender voice, “Penelope I don’t really like that kind of play because guns can hurt people.” Penelope looked up at me with her deep blue eyes, blinked and replied, “Silly mom, this is a ‘tend gun, not a real gun!” I laughed gingerly and agreed that was silly of me. I couldn’t cope with the difference between real and fake… but my bright, happy girly-girl of a daughter could? This gave me some food for thought.

What I realized many years ago was that *I* was putting my fears and knowledge of the big scary world on my very young children. It wasn't right and it wasn't fair. Not only was I smothering their natural instincts of play I was also shaming them. I was often times accidently making my boys feel bad or awkward for wanting to play with things that is very much part of who boys are. Stereotype it all you want –and my girls do like weapon play too- but it's nothing like my boys.

Good guy vs. bad guy is as old as time and I soon realized I was taking all the fun away...and learning. Now you’ll hear me saying things like: "When you’re done playing put your weapons in the weapon box!" "Don’t leave your wood swords in the rain." “Please let your little brother play with that sword.” “Where is the gun Sebastian likes?”

We have two weapon toy boxes, one upstairs and one on the back porch. My girls and boys have lots of fun and dad joins in too; Potato guns, marshmallow guns, squirt guns, Nerf guns, swords, sticks, daggers, plastic grenades. I enjoy seeing my kids being kids.

From the link I shared above:
There is a gap between how adults see weapons play and how children experience it. As one psychiatrist put it, "We are so afraid of aggression in this society that we haven't been able to talk intelligently about it." While adults disapprove, children are often doing the child's work of play: experimenting with power and excitement, action and reaction, in a safe, make-believe world.

While I have no interest in changing my mindset about our ‘too sexy too soon’ society when it comes to young impressionable girls (and boys!) the situation at hand with the dolls breasts exposed was a cute and memorable reminder that how I see things vs. how my child experiences it just might be two very different things.

recap of things that make me happy

2011-06-06T23:51:00.013-05:00

This morning we had a very productive homeschool morning and now we've just returned from dropping Charlotte (14) off at a teen leadership program. It's a overnight youth group training that is full of fun but also serves as a training program for the teens to help lead this summers vacation bible camp (which our boys are signed up for). I was SO impressed when dropping her off. The people were just great. The teens were very enthusiastic and polite. I felt really comfortable leaving her! The pastor speaking was really being fun with the kids and had a look about him that you could tell how much he enjoys what he does. Loved the vibe. I'm really excited for her! This will be our first year participating in a church summer (day) camp.

Last week I had a wonderful time doing yard work and mowing with my grandma. I love when she comes over to visit. It's always fun and productive since Grandma doesn't sit still for a second! I get my love for working outdoors from her. What a great inheritance. Aunt Sharon came over too to play with the kids and brought us two casseroles for dinners. My grandma and I enjoyed watering my plants, weeding, and cleaning up outside. I adore family time. The kids and I are doing more yard work today and I'm going to try and get the belt on my tiller back on. I 'd like to plant some sunflowers this year (I always plant sunflowers!) Overall I'm not planting many veggies. I figured this year I should care and tend for all the thins we've planted over the last few years. It's fun to see how many berries we have growing (raspberries/blackberries). We've been busy this spring making lots of mulch for the everything with yard clippings and tons of chicken manure mixed with old straw. Everything is looking nice. The freshly mowed yard makes me feel so refreshed. What a beautiful place we have. I thank my husband all the time for our beautiful home. I'm really quite charmed by where we live.

I finally feel like life is back to "normal" in regards to our household flow and rhythm. For a long while I was trying to get back to that feeling of normalcy and routine and finally we have it back. It always comes back --it just takes me a long time! We've dealt with lots of bills lately and crazy kids. But it all passes. Sebastian has been a handful but seems to be settling down. We finally have the evenings down to a science which makes life SO much easier.

Generally we do this : 5:30pm dinner, 6pm clean up, 6:30pm story and/or craft and game time, 7-ish bath and snack if needed, 8pm brush teeth and closing conversations, 8:30pm get in bed, 8:45 shhhh kids if they are still awake. 9pm free time for mom and dad!

During the week we don't generally eat dinner with dad so he eats late. We found it was MUCH less crazy and way more relaxing to have the kids fed and dinner and dishes 100% cleaned up by the time he gets home from work -he often gets home at 6:30 or 7. He then eats with me or while we visit/play games with the kids and there are no clean up woes. Actually now that I think of it I think we eat early mainly because it takes so long to clean up.

In the last 10 days I've taken 7 children to the children's museum, science center and the zoo. I couldn't fathom doing all that in a row the last few months but I feel more energized lately! Just leaving the house doesn't feel like a chore anymore. It could be the new thyroid medicine I'm on... we recently discovered I have an under active thyroid. I found a holistic Dr. I really like and the whole family is going to start going there for yearly visits. I was the first guinea pig. lol. Some women have thyroid issues post postpartum so I wonder if that's why it tends to take me a while to get back into the swing of things after having a baby. Often times after I have a baby I feel like I don't care if I ever leave the house again LOL. At least I'm content at home! That isn't so great for the kids here that do like to leave so it's been a struggle making it to library and playgroup the last few months. I knew it would pass though, it always does.

Things have been busy but positively wonderful overall. My husband and I are so very happy. :)

I had a huge surprise a couple days ago when my sister Heather drove 4 1/2 hours out of her way to come see me and the fam --and meet Everett for the first time! She just showed up on my back door! It was amazing! I was making 2 roasted chickens, mashed taters and gravy, veggies, rolls and a chocolate cake for dinner that night! How perfect is that!? Her Birthday was in a few days so we sang to her and lit 2 candles for her 20th birthday. :)

She could only stay about 10 hours and that included sleep time! She's crazy! And wonderful! How much she must love me to make that trip. She is going to Africa for three weeks this summer and I'm very thankful I got to hug her before she left!

Last weekend was our yearly trip to the Renaissance faire in Wentzville. Ricky and I got horribly lost on the way --you'd think the third year in a row of a family tradition we would not get lost. We felt kinda dumb but oh well. We were stressed and frustrated but laughing at the absurdity of it all. We got wrong directions from 3 different people along the route we thought we were suppose to take! LOL! To top it off it was blistering hot and humid. It was pretty much agony but the kids always love it and we enjoy taking them.

After we got home we were utterly exhausted but after we settled in, fed the kids and turned on a move for them Charlotte babysat for us and Ricky and I snuck off to a Mexican Restaurant we hadn't tried yet. It was sooooooo good and we got to enjoy loud music on the patio and drink huge margaritas. We ordered these ice cold frozen margaritas that were supposed to be medium sized... they were HUGE! We ate amazing food and watched Everett play and people gawk at how cute he was being. When we were finished eating and talking we were STILL sucking on our drinks AND we were getting tipsy. LOL. We finished our drinks and walked around some stores and giggled until we were comfortable driving. It was a lot of fun. Everett was in his Ergo carrier singing, "Blah blah ha bababablahhhahahabah" most of the time. He is so cute and talkative! I want to go back to that restaurant NOW...the food WAS SO GOOD.

Mother's Day

2011-05-14T07:52:00.002-05:00

The baby was fussy all weekend but it didn't keep us from having a wonderful time. Since pictures are worth a thousand words I took tons. Click photo to go to album.

The Day Mrs. Cooley Lost Her Cool

2011-04-29T22:41:00.003-05:00

I'm still processing something that happened today. This is me processing thoughts as I type.

Today was a beautiful day at the park. I spent four hours with my seven children having a tea party, feeding ducks, shooting off stomp rockets, hunting for robins with Sebastian(2) and playing on the playground. It ended on a really sad angry note for me though. My children won’t soon forget what they saw either. They have a raw (and not totally accurate) view at what public school could be like. Of course there are many wonderful teachers in the system and maybe this teacher is a good one just caught at a bad moment but what happened was completely inexcusable.

Hoards of kids invaded the playground for a field trip like field day looking event. I say invaded, but they were there before we got there. It was obvious they walked there and that there was many, many classrooms there. The supervision was seriously lacking and kids were going crazy. They were kicking soccer balls into the playground area, up the slides, over our heads. I was really worried about the safety of my kids so we had to hang out in a grassy area. (After Penelope (4) almost took a soccer ball to the face.) We took it in good stride; these kids should be able to have a good time and have a happy end of the school year day.

After a while teacher whistles started blowing and teachers started packing up ice coolers and gathering up trash. Soon we’d have the playground to ourselves! Teachers lined up their children and they started walking away. After about twenty minutes just one class remained. As that class was walking away I heard the teacher tell her class that was a fun day. As they got further I quit observing and started talking to my baby, Everett. I noticed a child run by me to catch up with his class. It appeared he wasn’t paying attention or something. Suddenly I was jolted by the sound of an adult yelling, “ARE YOU CRAZY? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” over and over. It was a cross between a yell and a scream. The kind of yelling that is completely angry and out of control sounding. My kids and I watched as the school teacher belittled, screamed and got into the face of one of the school children. She walked in a circle around him yelling and screaming at him. I was so confused. My mouth dropped open as I tried to comprehend what was going on. My body was rigid and I looked at my children in disbelief. When I looked at my children I saw what I had expected to see… their innocent faces watching what was happening. I was still speechless. It was like everything was in slow motion and the teacher then waved a stick at the boy asking him if he’d like it if she hit him. She was in his face. She was screaming. She was threatening him and I thought she was going to hit him. Finally I said, “How can you scream at your children? How can you do this? STOP YELLING AT A CHILD! Look at you!” She then turned to me in rage and screamed and asked if I had seen what he did. I had not. She yelled at me in horror, “He was hitting a duck with a stick! YOU DID NOT SEE IT! He was hitting it!!!” I thought to myself that is really bad but the words that came out of me were, “You cannot teach children like that. You cannot scream at them. You just CAN’T. ” I was shaking with anger as I tried to imagine a boy, about 9 or 10, hitting a duck with a stick. As she walked away with her class my boys told me most the boys in her class were throwing things –balls, sticks, rocks- at the ducks. My boys said they had told them to stop it earlier. My boys said the one boy in particular who was being screamed at was throwing sticks at the duck as the class was leaving. He had a big stick/branch. He was hitting at the duck. He was not beating it like it was cornered as the lady made it sound; and even if he was… You cannot scream at a child like that. You should never, ever be allowed to be in charge of a room full of children with a temper like that. I’ve snapped at my kids, I’ve yelled, I’ve been out of line, I’ve been very sorry to them for it --but they are my kids. I can yell at them. I shouldn’t -and as a general rule I don’t. However I would NEVER EVER expect a teacher to behave that way. A teacher is a person of power and a person who chose a career of teaching children. That person is supposed to teach and portray a certain character and image to children. A teacher sees those children more waking hours than their own parents do. It always irks me when teachers say their responsibilities end with teaching. Like when a teacher mentions they aren’t babysitters. Our public school teachers actually play a very big role in children’s lives. Teachers do help raise our public schooled youth.

Today a whole classroom learned its ok to freak out and scream when confronted with a situation. That it’s ok to belittle and threaten someone, wave a stick in a violent manner and scream at him, “How about I hit you with a stick.”

I’m so ashamed of what I saw. My children are shocked and Charlotte was so taken back she said she wondered if we should call the police.

I know this child should know better, he is WAY old enough to know better. A teacher should know better too. Teachers and all adults should know at least a tiny bit about the psychology and brain function of children. How cause and effect, reaction time and consequence isn’t fully developed until after twenty years old! I’m not even saying she shouldn’t have yelled. I am saying she should not have exploded into an angry rage and threatened him. Period.

A strange thing happened when she left. Her class stopped down the sidewalk about 300 feet from us. I figured she was talking to her students or gathering herself. I was talking to my kids. Four of her students suddenly appeared in front of me and said, “We are supposed to give this to you.” On a piece of brown paper sack was the teacher’s name, school, principal's name and a phone number.

That is quite interesting of you to do that Mrs. Cooley. I haven’t decided why you gave that to me or what I even want to do with it yet. I just wish none of that would have happened today. I play over what happened a million times. Maybe I should have stepped in and calmly asked you to calm down and offered you help dealing with the situation. Maybe I should have grabbed my camera and videoed the whole thing and stuck it on you tube. Maybe I should mind my own business; those kids in all those classes were driving me nuts too. Maybe I should learn to keep my mouth shut and mind closed. Maybe I should go to the superintendent because the principal does not seem high enough. Maybe I could ruin your life. Maybe you are soaking in a bubble bath right now wishing you had not lost your cool and you are now crazy stressed out. Maybe you are sorry. Maybe you are still mad. Maybe that little boy learned a lesson, or maybe not. I’m glad I spoke up for him though. At the end of it all he is still a child that needs guidance and quality discipline instead of hatred --whether he meant to hurt an animal or not.

Penelope's First Ant Farm

2011-04-27T21:31:00.002-05:00

Yesterday Penelope's ants came for her farm. Today she says, "Mommy, what kind are those ants that are all curled up?" I reply, "Those are sleeper ants." Charlotte is still laughing at my fast reply. Penelope skipped off happily repeating, "Yeah dem are sleeper ants!"

Being a kid is great fun.

Don't dare tell her they are dead. I heard the boys do it yesterday and she was MAD at them. LOL. It's not been a healthy farm so far. We lost a lot of good soldiers already. I'm sure it didn't help that Sebastian(2) threw the ant farm across the room as he said they were mean. Penelope bawled her head off. He apologized. Some ants may not have forgiven him (like the dead ones) but she did.

Will our children ever know how much we love them?

2011-04-21T09:27:00.001-05:00

No.

It is something that I accept as being a mother. It's heart wrenchingly beautiful. He will never know how much I love him and he will never love me more than he does right now.

Happy 7th month Everett... the light of my life, love of my world, smile to my heart

Wild and wonderful adventures in motherhood today...

2011-04-20T23:39:00.006-05:00

Today I called 911 when Penelope choked on a chip and the fire department came. I also: had plenty of fun outside time with the kids, took a walk to see news horses down the street, played in the cemetery across the street, cleaned house, made chicken noodle soup, read books, did school work with kids, did laundry and nursed my baby during my dental exam. It was a full day.

So, Penelope didn’t actually choke. I was afraid she would because she was SCREAMING bloody murder and she had a huge chip stuck in her throat that I could feel and see poking out of her throat! I usually don’t think much of things but this seemed extra bad. Plus the screaming freaked me out. Since she couldn’t get it down I called 911 out of frustration more than anything. I totally knew she’d be fine because she was screaming and getting air. When I think back I wonder why I called 911. It was because I could see and feel the chip I think. It was freaky. The fire department is 10 houses away from us. They were here in 30 seconds. (good to know they will get here that fast in a real emergency!) They were super awesome too and made me feel good about calling for help just in case. They even assured to me it was ok to call them again if needed! I remember calling for Charlotte and telling her to make sure Sebastian (2) was looking out the window so he could see the fire truck. LOL. The firemen invited us down to the fire station anytime to visit and have a tour!

My dear husband had to “work late” tonight ...he got to go to a baseball game! Tough job huh? An investment manager invited him and some others. Since it’s his first week at this job he could hardly say no. (He would have if I would have asked him to but I wouldn’t do that. I was also hoping he could relax and have a little fun) So I had to take Everett to the dentist with me. I had an appointment at 6:30 pm specifically so he could help me with the kids. Don't you love when stuff like that happens. I could have just as well had a day time appointment that didn't involve a rushed dinner / clean up and night time outing! When it comes to me and plans they rarely work out right.

Anyway...Last month I nursed Everett during my chiropractic adjustment/massage, and this month during my dental exam I nursed him again. I have really awesome family oriented care providers. It’s really quite refreshing. He sat on my lap as I got my cleaning, played with toys and I lifted him up and garbled sounds at him and he laughed. Then I nursed him throughout my dental exam cause babies don't really wait to eat when they need to eat. My dentist is awesome and has a baby Everett's age too. She is also a nursing mom. Family friendly = awesome.

My darling husband got home before 9pm tonight. He left the ball game early… he wanted to get home to see me. I am so lucky to have such a great guy. Not many men rush home to a wild house of seven kids. And it was wild. LOL.

Penelope being happy

Ring Around The Rosie

helping with dinner

Playing hide in go seek. Sebastian is counting like this: 49, 8, 7, 2, 49, 3, 4, 6, 9, 49

I just had to include this picture my son, Sage, snapped the other day. Sebastian (2) locked me out of the house as I was returning home from picking up our raw milk from our milk co op. I'm at the door saying, "Sebastian don't lock yer mama outta the house, Sebastian I have milk...Sebatian let your mama in..." I felt like such a country mom. I love this picture. It's fun to have this as a memory. I can still feel the ice cold milk against my belly and see his ornery little cute face. :)

P.S. Now anytime my kids scream I tell them I'm going to call the fire department. Which is a pretty awesome thing to say in the midst of a fit.

Tackling Distress Tantrums with Brain Research

2011-04-14T23:19:00.002-05:00

I have many passions and a rapidly growing passion of mine is toddler research. It's fascinating. I am currently studying and learning about how toddlers and very young preschoolers process information as well as respond, feel and handle distress. After having several children every two years like clockwork I've learned a lot about young kids and pay close attention to why they cry, whine, throw fits and can't make decisions. I want to know what makes two year olds tick. They are not terrible at two like the saying implies. If you have a young child or if you will have a young child you should learn why toddlers aren't brats throwing fits. I highly, highly recommend reading this short link, it is so wonderful.
I also cut and pasted it below so I'd have it on my blog.

Finding this comes at a magically perfect time considering my previous blog post about peacefully parenting my two year old through the worst fit I'd ever, ever been through!

P.S. Please never yell or hit a child because they are throwing a distress tantrum

Tackling Distress Tantrums with Brain Research
The following article is an excerpt from the excellent book, The Science of Parenting: How today's brain research can help you raise happy, emotionally balanced children by Margot Sunderland

The RAGE, FEAR, and SEPARATION distress systems are already set up at birth to support a baby's survival. They are designed to be so in order to save infants from being eaten by predators, and to keep them close to mom. The potential dangers in the modern world are very different, but nevertheless, everyday events can easily trigger one or more of these systems in your infant's brain. For example, his fear system may be triggered when a door slams, or his rage system when you try to dress him, or his separation distress system when you walk out of a room. Infants keep getting overwhelmed by the triggering of these brain systems beause there is so little higher rational brain functioning "on-line" yet to help them think, reason, and calm down.

This is important to understand when faced with a genuinely distressed or screaming baby or child. He needs your help to calm down. With consistently emotionally responsive parenting, your child's frontal lobes will start to develop essential brain pathways that will, over time, enable him to calm these alarm states in his lower brain.

A distress tantrum means that one or more of the three alarm systems (rage, fear and/or separation) in your child's lower brain has been very strongly activated. As a result, your child's arousal system will be way out of balance, with too-high levels of stress chemicals searing through his body and brain.

Distress tantrums happen because essential brain pathways between a child's higher brain and his lower brain haven't developed yet. These brain pathways are necessary to enable a child to manage his big feelings. As a parent, your role is to soothe your child while he experiences the huge hormonal storms in his brain and body. If you get angry with a child for having a distress tantrum, he may stop crying, but this may also mean that the fear system in his brain has triggered, over-riding his separation system. Or he may simply have shifted into silent crying, which means his level of the stress chemical cortisol will remain sky-high. As we have seen throughout brain research, uncomforted distress can leave a child with toxic levels of stress hormones washing over the brain.

Children can't talk or listen well when distressed.
The dramatic brain and body changes of a distress tantrum hijack your child's thinking functions and the verbal centers in his higher brain that control the comprehension and expression of speech. It is important to understand this because trying to talk to your child during a distress tantrum, or expecting him to talk about his feelings, is a waste of time. All he can do is discharge his emotions.

A distress tantrum needs sensitive handling.
It is important that you take a genuine distress tantrum seriously and meet your child's pain of loss, frustration, or acute disappointment with sympathy and understanding. When you do this, you will be helping your child to develop vital stress-regulating systems in his higher brain. Repeatedly getting angry with a child's genuine distress can mean that the child never develops effective inhibitory mechanisms in his higher brain. Picture a man who often loses his temper in a restaurant, or violently kicks a faulty vending machine -- in early life he may have missed out on the vital parenting that would have helped him manage rage. (1, 2, 3)

Regulating childhood distress is a key task for all parents, teachers, and other caregivers.
Receiving help to manage intense feelings of rage, frustration, or distress means that a child can develop the brain pathways that enable him to calm himself down when under stress. If we don't respond to a genuine distress tantrum and, instead, adopt a fixed approach to all tantrums, we lose a vital opportunity to sculpt a child's brain in a positive way. It is deeply reassuring to a child to know that an adult can calm and understand the volcanic storms that rip through his body and brain. It is most disturbing to a child that when he is in terrible emotional pain his Mommy or Daddy gets angry or just walks away from him.

How to handle distress tantrums:
Your role is to give your child a sense of safety, comfort, and reassurance when he is having a distress tantrum. These techniques can all help to calm your child.

1. Use simple, calm actions or provide a simple choice. For example, if your child is upset about getting dressed, ask him whether he wants to wear his blue or his brown pants.

2. Distraction is a wonderful, often underused technique. It activates the seeking system in your child's lower brain and makes him feel curious and interested in something. It can naturally override the brain's rage or distress systems. It also triggers a high level of dopamine, a great positive arousal chemical in the brain, which reduces stress and triggers interest and motivation. (4)

3. Hold your child tenderly. Sometimes it really helps to hold a distressed child, but you must feel calm and in control yourself. Being next to your calm body will bring his over aroused body and brain systems back into balance and release natural, calming oxytocin and opioids. Say simple words such as, "I know, I know." (Words alone, however, will not strongly release these wonderful chemicals.) If his rage system has been triggered, as well as his distress system, and he is throwing things around the room or hitting or biting, you will need to use a holding technique.

4. Sometimes a child will feel safe and contained just by you sitting down calmly next to him and talking gently. Some children find this preferable to being held, because it allows them the freedom to move.

5. Avoid using the time-out technique during a distress tantrum. You wouldn't walk away from your best friend or send her to a time-out room if she was writhing and sobbing on the floor, so this is certainly not appropriate for children, who have far fewer emotional resources than adults. Using time out for a child in distress would also mean missing a vital opportunity for rage and distress regulation and establishing effective stress-regulating systems in the brain.

6. Avoid putting a child in a room on his own during a distress tantrum. Although the child may stop vocal crying, he may continue to cry internally-something that research shows is more worrisome. (5, 6) Whereas vocal crying is a request for help, silent, internal crying is a sign that the child has lost faith that help will come (learned helplessness). In some people, this tragic loss of faith can stay for life.

7. Remind yourself that a child's distress is genuine. A two year-old who is screaming because his sibling has snatched a toy car is not just making a fuss. Research shows that a sense of loss activates the pain centers in the brain, causing an agonizing opioid withdrawal. (7) Because small children have been in the world for only a few years, they don't have a clear perspective on life. As adults, we have a backdrop of events and experiences that tell us that the loss of a toy car is a minor disappointment. But for a small child, this loss can mean everything. If a child is repeatedly punished for grief fueled tantrums (grief often includes rage), the lesson he learns is: "Mommy cannot manage or understand my grief." As a result, he is likely to switch off feelings of hurt because they are no longer safe to have. And this has consequences for how a child manages his feelings into adulthood.

Reference Notes:

1) Brody GH, et. al (1982). Contributions of parents and peers to children's moral socialization. Developmental Review 2:31-75.

2) Haley, DW, et. al (2003). Infant stress and parent responsiveness: regulation of physiology and behavior. Child Development 74(5):1534-46.

3) Barbas H, et. al (2003). Serial pathways from primate prefontal cortex to autonomic areas may influence emotional expression. Neuroscience 10(4):25.

4) Panksepp, J (1998). Affective Neuroscience. Oxford University Press, New York: 54.

5) Gunnar MR (1989). Studies of the human infant's adrenocortical response to potentially stressful events. New Directions for Child Development Fall (3-18).

6) Hertgaard, L, et al. (1995) Adrenocortical responses to the strange situation in infants with disorganized/disoriented attachment relationships. Child Development 66:1100-06.

7) Panksepp, J (2003). Neuroscience: Feeling the pain of social loss. Science 302(5643):237-39.

A day in the life with small kids: Peaceful Parenting through the worst of fits

2011-04-13T02:10:00.013-05:00

Crazy day ends with a crazy bath time of Barbie Mermaids swimming in the toilet (thanks Sebastian age 2), lots of noise and much more than necessary splashing. At least Sebastian has decided baths are fun again, as long as I don't wash his hair. Sebastian was then clinging to my leg like a monkey as I tried to wash two little girl heads and give them haircuts (ages 4 and 6). This is all after a long day that included a trip to the dentist as well.

Sebastian threw the biggest fit of anger at the dentist’s office that I have ever seen! Boy does that kid hate his teeth cleaned. I knew that already because I clean them every day and this wasn't his first screaming dentist visit. In the end good reports for teeth though. It’s nice that my hard work of brushing, scraping and flossing kids’ teeth pays off.

Sebastian doesn't get a full cleaning at the dentist yet because we are working up to that level of cooperation with him, statements like that make our pediatric dentist worth driving long distances for. Our pediatric dentist is amazing and we love him so much. He's amazing with parents and kids and he's very respectful. So my little Sebastian gets an inspection and light tooth brushing on my lap which took all of maybe 45 seconds and does include me holding him down. After Sebastian's mini-exam was over he screamed HIS BLOODY HEAD OFF calling me a mean mom and hitting me with his fists. I sternly told him as I held his arm that I don't hit him and he can't hit me. He hit another time but I kept telling him I don't hit him. On the third time of me holding his arm and fist down he accused me of pinching him. He wailed his head off more. He stopped hitting but the crying and screaming continued. His head turned bright red and veins were popping out of his forehead and neck. I don't know how this kid manages to breathe during fits like this but he does. I have seen him get very angry and throw fits, heck it happens just about every day, he's two you know! But, I have never, ever seen any of my kids go on like this especially in public. I kept repeating that I understood he was angry with me and that it was okay to be mad about it. He continued to repeat, "MEAN MOMMY!" over and over.

Mean __insert name here____ is what he says to anyone who has wronged him. It used to hurt my feelings. Then I realized it's only him expressing himself. I tried to reason with Sebastian and told him that we were going home. I tried to explain to him that it was all over and that we should leave this place that made him upset. I couldn't drag him out.

Our dentist fetched me a drink of water in a dixie cup for his throat that was getting hoarser by the second. Sebastian paused and almost went for it. At home when his fits are nearing an end he gladly gulps down water and takes deep breaths signifying the fit-storm is subsiding. Then usually he collapses into my arms. He *almost* was ready to do that but.... another outburst. "No water, no no, YUCKY, no..." So I said it was for me and I started to drink it. Then he grabbed the cup squeezing it with all his might trying to spill it so I couldn't drink it. In a quick swoop I gulped a bunch down as he wrestled me for it like a brat. I knew he wasn't a brat he was just really mad and really sad he was held down against his will. I can't imagine how much that sucks for a child to be completely powerless. It must be really frustrating to be your own person but also be forced to do things you do not want to do.

Regardless I felt like everyone in that room thought he was a brat. There were a few drops of water left at the bottom of the dixie cup and I poured it into his mouth. He drank it like a baby bird. Now I thought to myself; now he'll want more water and he'll collapse into me. Now my sweet boy will let me soothe him and now the whole dentist’s office will smile when mom and son embrace and the bad situation will turn to good. Nope. "Bleah! Yuck, WATER YUCKY. WAHHHHHhhh water yucky! Yucky water. BLEAH!"

Seriously? At that point I knew we needed to flee and flee NOW.

I had tried to explain to our dentist just how bad his reaction was going to be at this visit beforehand (I didn't say so in front of Sebastian) but I'm sure the dentist didn't see this kind of a fit coming! Heck I didn't see it coming! As I stated previously even this fit was a record breaker of all time and I have seven kids!

As I tried to drag Sebastian out of their office a Dental Hygienist told me not to worry and that they've seen it all. Our dentist gave me a reassuring, "This happens, he's just mad at us." I appreciated that. As embarrassing and horrible as it might be for your child to melt down in public I was okay with the fact that this happened and accept it as part of Sebastian's growth as a small person but to have support is always nice. I hate when people look at me as the poor lady with lots of kids though! ;) When I'm at a grocery store or other public place I try and offer support like that to fellow parents as well. An "I understand I've been there" comment can really help parents calm down and do what they need to do to take control of the situation and STAY IN CONTROL of the situation. I think I've seen parents hit their children because they wanted to prove they were the boss and felt others were judging them by not having control over their child.
:(

I carried Sebastian outside with less resistance this time. Once in the car he arched his back so I couldn't buckle him in his car seat. He threw his favorite toy, he screamed. After a few seconds I quit trying to shove him into his car set and just shut the door. I waited a minute as he got quieter and then suddenly he said, "Want out. Want out." I opened the door slowly and asked him if he was ok now. He came to me with open arms and said he was. After a few hugs I asked his sparkling blue but puffy eyes if he'd like to go back inside and pick out his prize from the prize box. He nodded with a quiet and thoughtful small smile. We went in and picked out a toy and then happy but exhausted went home with the other six kids. On the way in to get his toy he had a nice BIG drink of water from our sports bottle and he hugged me again.

The happy Sebastian I know playing in spring mud.

homemade baby teethers

2011-03-12T13:32:00.002-06:00

Everett is doing well. He has started to cough a little from Penelope's bad cold but I'm sure he'll fight it off with mama milk antibodies. He has his own battle to fight right now anyway ... teething! Poor lil' tike is starting to get teeth buds showing on the bottom. It's just barely starting.

I came up with this really smart idea to take mismatched kid socks and roll up one and place it inside another, tie it off, wet it with water and then freeze it. Genius, huh? :) Instant baby teether.

Plus, it's fun when your baby is fussing to lovingly say, "Oh put a sock in it!"

Another idea I had is to cut a big chunk of an apple and stick a fork into it as a grip. A toothless baby can gnaw on this without much danger. Everett really enjoyed it. Even though he didn't eat it this was his first technical food/flavor other than breast milk.

Pain relief:

We do use dye-free Motrin and Tylenol. I also like homeopathic teething pills.

I'm a real fan of Boiron Camilia This worked like magic for some of my children and not so magical for others. I use it for calming kids too.

I've never used an amber teething necklace before, but I recently bought us each one. They had mother and baby ones (how could I resist the cuteness of that?) I have chronic bad neck pain and it may help with it, so what the hay I bought one. It's only money, right ;)

I did a whole evenings worth of online research about these things and after it was all said and done I went with Amber Artisans for moderate price, best quality, best website, best information provided and because along with your jewelry they send you loose beads to test the amber yourself for authenticity. OK I'm in I thought.

Worn against your skin the warmth of your skin can absorb the Baltic amber's oils and this promotes healing, well being and is supposed to be anti inflammatory. Lots of moms online love these necklaces and say it helps their babies be less fussy with teething. The babies that sport these necklaces make a darling statement for fashion as well as for the health and well being through natural medicine!

These are ours and should arrive any day now!

Spring, planting stuff and chicken eggs

2011-03-12T12:37:00.003-06:00

I painted us a new sign for the yard!

Spring, oh spring how I love you so! I love where I live in the Midwest. The seasons here are perfect for me. By the time I never think I want to see winter again spring welcomes me with newness and joy. By the time I'm sick of Summer the fall opens me with breezy arms, blue jeans and sweaters. I'm never really sick of the fall, my favorite season, but by the time the leaves have fallen from the trees and family gathers for Thanksgiving the joys of Christmas snow and once a year snow ball Christmas cookies make me giddy with happiness!

At the end of summer I'm always so worn out tired and frustrated with lost crops that I never want to plant anything again. But I'm always wrong. I always find I can't wait to dig into the Earth's dirt after the ground thaws!

My Grandma Wanda and I just ordered 200 day lily bulbs off eBay! We are excited! I'm going to have those things growing at every nook and cranny of my yard. They are really low maintenance! I decided last year I was going to focus on landscaping that works 100% well for my area. Things that need little water for the heat of summer, but won't drowned in hard Midwest downpours. I started paying attention what businesses have planted outside their places. Like gas stations, restaurants, Etc. I noticed everyone has daylilies!
The best part is that they are easy to grow AND they bloom all season and all the way until the first frost! Perfect. I already have some on our property, but I look forward to planting 100 more!

So we are in full force spring mode. The kids are a ton of help! Those little buggers keep getting more and more helpful with age ;) Our big project for the weekend, which is half done now, is cleaning up the front yard, putting up a temporary fence so the dogs can't access the front yard anymore and planting new grass . Our front yard has been really tore up by Great Pyrenees dogs and lots of kids. So the whole front yard is off limits this summer.

I have so many projects started and planned inside and outside I can barely think straight. I LOVE it though. I was trying to stop starting new projects before finishing old ones ....but I realize now it's just my thing. I start a whole bunch, overwhelm myself and them work like heck to get caught up. It's just my thing. I love it.

In other news we had a bad spring cold (croup?) come to our house and my baby girl Penelope (4) is SO sick. You know what my kids just LOVE is Naked Juice Green Machine. It is so full of super foods it's what we drink when we are sick. We buy a ton of it and usually only when we are getting colds or have colds. It's pretty pricey, but we think of it as medicine. We prefer the Naked Juice brand, but Bolthouse farms has a knock off that is tasty and good as well.
Penelope's eyes get really red and sore when she is sick. Her eyes tear up and she often rubs her eyes raw when she'd this sick. Under her eyes I have to use Country Comfort Salve. This stuff is amazing for all kinds of things. It's in my must have mama medicine box. Anyhow, it helps under her eye a lot! We use it for lips, skin sores, sunburns, stings, cuts, etc.

Oh my poor baby !!

A Beautiful Family Day

2011-03-10T08:30:00.000-06:00

My Grandma laughing at and enjoying her Great-Grandkids

I have such a good life and loving family. Aunt Sharon and Grandma Wanda came to visit yesterday. They brought us many surprise gifts: 1 chicken casserole, 1 pan of lasagna, 1 frozen blackberry cobbler and 1 lemon meringue pie. They brought me 5 clear bins to add to my organization efforts of the basement and closets and one bag of special peanut butter cups for my ‘mom sanity chocolate stash’ (which was empty). I watched them play with the kids and enjoy them for hours. My grandma and I drank coffee and bought 200 day lily bulbs online. (We will be planting bulbs until our arms fall off!) I swept the house and folded clothes as my babies and kids were cared for lovingly. We all sat on the floor and folded our socks together and talked. We ate lemon meringue pie for lunch and it was the best meringue pie I’d ever tasted (I don’t tend to like it –but come to find out meringue made with marshmallow cream IS THE BOMB). We stuffed ourselves silly.

We laughed at the kids and talked and talked. I love my family and I just can’t explain how lucky we are to have them in my life.

When my Grandma does the dishes it’s in lightning speed. When she’s over she always shoos me away from the dishes to do them for us. I love how she never uses the dishwasher either; always she does them by hand. (Our dishwasher is broke right now, however.) When everyone had left I was putting away some dishes and I saw a pan on the stove that I had cooked something in it earlier. I went to wash the pan and as I lifted the lid I saw it was so clean it sparkled. Why can grandmas wash dishes better than anyone in the world? It’s like someone making your sandwich better than you can. Sage has a sandwich making theory… Why do sandwiches taste better when made by someone else? He says, “Because you can’t taste the mistakes.”

If someone would have told me… Shauna in your twenties and thirties you’ll move away to the midwest and love it. You'll also spend the best years of your life with your Aunt, Grandma, Husband and seven kids I never would have believed it. What a great way to spend my adult life. Thanks for another beautiful day Aunt Sherry and Grandma!

Good-bye forever cardboard boxes, and I should decorate concrete rooms for a living

2011-03-03T09:54:00.002-06:00

I've been cleaning the basement lately ...and painting it! I've recently discovered the wonderful thing about plastic tubs. I've been buying the clear ones and I'm getting all my kids' clothes organized and I love being able to see inside of them. I always knew tubs were great but who has money laying around to buy them. Or, enough of them rather. Let's face it a normal sized household would have trouble buying enough bins to store all their stuff in. Well recently I've started buying some. My aunt actually started me on them and she at first bought me a bunch. I've cleaned out several closets, Christmas stuff, Halloween stuff, winter coats/snow stuff and packed all the stuff in plastic tubs. They stack great and look tidy and wonderful and they now take up half the space that boxes used to. Plastic bins have changed my life! Then I packed up DVD's, books, and photo albums all nicely away in plastic tubs. They will last forever if cared for right, nothing will ever get wet, ruined, dirty, smelly, Etc. Mice can't get in them (heheh watch out cats I may replace you with tubs and put you out of a job Muahaha!)

Good-bye cardboard boxes. Forever.

Never did I think I could be so happy about plastic tubs. I like that I can see through the clear ones. Plus I'm finding the clear ones stack better and are less bulky. I like seeing the kids clothes in the clear ones, I don't have to dig through anything I can tell by looking about what age clothes and sex they are for.

Have I mentioned plastic tubs have changed my life?

You might say I'm a poor, bored housewife that needs a life to be so thrilled -- but this is my life and if I just found a way to organize my basement and closets it's like some one else getting a new better filing cabinet or computer program at their office! :D

So the basement is coming along! I want to put a picture up of my latest wall mural but I want to do more with it first! One side of the basement is painted as a whimsical land! And It's going really well! I'm not able to paint anymore though until I clean and move some more stuff. In the basement we'll have a really nice sitting area with toys and whatever else. There is a day bed, a love seat hideaway bed and a futon. Oh, and hanging hammock chairs. In some area of the basement the girls want a baby doll area and I think their toy kitchen. I think they want a house type area. I'm considering bringing in a picket fence so they can have a fenced in play area "house."

Then their will be a video game corner for the boys (and girls, but mostly it's for the boys). With lots of bean bags and a set up for their game systems. I'm considering buying a second used TV so they can play more than one system at a time.

I hope to have room for a small table and chairs. There are also cheap shelves filled with bored games and a game table that needs some stools for it.

I've packed away all the art supplies, extra homeschooling items and anything not being used so the clutter is at a minimum. (In plastic tubs!)

I'm turning our unfinished concrete basement into all of this! Because paint and imagination can do anything!!!! :)

Oh oh... one last thing. Behind my washer and dryer was an ugly wall full of drain pipes and stuff. I noticed it would be really really hard to paint. So I collected and hung many shower curtains behind it. All different kinds/colors/patterns/pictures. I created a instant colorful solution to an ugly problem!

Spring is coming

2011-02-24T11:48:00.002-06:00

Last weekend was a joy. It started on a sad note as we had to attend my husband’s grandmother’s memorial, but it was really a beautiful time. The service was really beautiful and full of family and love ... what is not to love and be joyous about that! The food served at the church was really amazing and the family time was just great. Our kids looked adorable in their dress up clothes and I enjoyed watching my husband point and name each kiddo to family and friends who he hadn’t seen in years or had never met. He kept saying yup these are my kids and then stop after naming several and go, “Well this isn’t all of them…over there those are ours too…”

Last week was a bit of a bummer when we learned our big Excursion (8 passenger) needed $3000 worth of repairs on it! Ugh! But we just didn't let that spoil our good mood. We also were practically forced to rent something to get to Ricky's grandmothers memorial. But as usual we made the best out of the situation. We rented a pick-up truck bought a bunch of stuff that we could because we had a pick-up truck.

Since we had the truck we finally bought our first “lawn tractor.” Last year we bought a tiller this year lawn tractor. Yee haw. We are excited! I am officially excited for spring now. I have tomato starter plants germinating and the tulips Ricky bought me for Valentine’s Day last year are starting to come up! We were blessed with an easy going February and I’m ready to jump feet first into March. I think that groundhog knows what he is talking about! This is the first time in a while that he didn’t see his shadow and I think he’s right; spring is on the horizon!

Anyway, back to last weekend, it was a fun 3 day weekend where my lovely hubby and I paraded around town buying up hay, cleaning the chicken house out, raking up leaves and watching the kids enjoy some outside time. Those are the things that make us happy!

I have been working on painting and fixing up our basement in my infrequent spare time. It’s looking SO CUTE. The idea is to make it a friendly colorful space where the kids can play and the grown-ups, when needed, can also sneak away and relax. Mostly it’s for the kids to play and for us to say “GO DOWNSTAIRS AND PLAY” ;) I am making it colorful and whimsical. I can’t wait to post photos! It’s still a mess though. We are also making it comfortable for overnight guests, sleepovers or just hanging out. We have (or will have) 2 futons, 1 love seat hide-a-bed and 1 day bed with a trundle down there. So, total that will sleep 7 people. I also want to hang some hammock chairs from the ceiling.

Lately in homeschool land we have been studying a world atlas, learning map skills, reading a science book (overview of lots of basic stuff), keeping up with Time4learning.com lessons. I tried out spellingcity.com but it’s not really what I wanted. I do like all the games though. I’m still trying to figure it out and getting the kids going on it. I really should have kept spellingime.com. We may go back to that; it was easy and very effective. (Just more than I want to spend per kid, and right now I can’t spend much since we have money going out faster than it’s coming in!)

Penelope (4) and Sebastian (2) are in the kitchen playing with Moon Sand. If you know what Moon Sand is you know I’ll be sweeping the kitchen floor soon. Some one thought two things about moon sand: 1. How can we make play doh even messier and 2. How can we play with sand indoors? Wa-lah…Moon Sand was born!

cooking and eating of odd things

2011-02-10T01:42:00.003-06:00

I’m disappointed I don’t want to cook our beef tongue. I just can’t do it. My dear husband loves tongue sandwiches. He tells me of a place down the street from his work that apparently has the best smoked beef tongue sandwiches on earth. He cannot believe I won’t try it. (I've never even seen them, so I don't even know what they look like.)

I eat all kinds of things. I’m a huge fan of sushi. I’ve eaten escargot more than 3 times. I’ve cooked weird octopus/squid seafood chowders (oh God the smell is bad). I love raw oysters. I’ve had alligator, buffalo and elk; Yum, Yum and Yum. I tried frog legs and squirrel; despite what my husband says neither tastes ‘similar to chicken’. (yuk)

As you can tell I’m not afraid to try things. But this beef tongue thing gives me the hebbie-jebbies. He didn’t understand when I tried to explain about feeling the texture of tongue on my tongue. He says the smoked ones he eats are sooo soft. Um, my tongue is soft too. Yuk! I’m curious but I just have reservations. I think I have it wound up in my head that biting a tongue is going to be thick and moist and fleshy and soft –like biting my own.

Maybe it's like placenta. Did you know you can eat placenta? Maybe that's TMI for this blog. Or is it..humm?

We have a beef tongue in our freezer from our cow amoung other things. I’ve never tried liver and onions so maybe I need to fry that up first. Ease my way into the tongue. We also have ox tail. And I was all jazzed about making ox tail soup when it went in our freezer a year ago but now I have my reservations. Again my imagination is running away with me…I picture this hairy piece of tail that I’m going to cook down into a sweaty broth of a soup. Aren’t imaginations fun?

I tried the turkey’s heart at thanksgiving. There’s a reason kids fight over the wishbone, wishbones are fun. Turkey hearts and giblets are pasty and gross. :)

Life in January

2011-02-05T23:03:00.001-06:00

fatty rolly polly baby

New hair cut --self done (hubby helped with the back!)

Kids get some fun stuff in the mail from Aunt Christy!

Playing smoochy in the snow :)

Chickens DO NOT want out at all...and their hen house is a MESS.

Oh-my-chicken-poo-god is there going to be a lot of fertilizer for the yard this spring.

We usually clean out the house seasonally and it doesn't get too bad because they are outside 99% of the time.

Since it's been so snowy though...this is bad...

We could NOT get Sebastian to sit down for this family photo.

We kept asking him and asking him. So i decided to seize the

moment. This is real life after all.

Food

2011-01-22T16:50:00.004-06:00

I am on a mission to SAVE on groceries. As our second largest expense (first being mortgage -and at one time we did spend equal amounts on mortgage and food!) it’s the one obvious place to cut back. Again.

So first I discovered shopping at Sam’s Club actually costs a lot of money. We’d drop 500 dollars every time we set foot in that store. To help that problem we began ordering online with their click & pull feature. If you place an order by 5pm you can pick it up the next day. You can pull right up front curbside, run in to claim and pay for your order and they have your basket(s) all ready for you! This is genius. It’s fast and if you have a zillion kids, or even one, you don’t have to take them shopping! I have a 14 year old that stays in the car with the younger kids and one of my sons goes into help me with the carts. This is the perfect shopping solution.

Now for the money saving part…when I order this way we spend on average 300-350 dollars instead of $500! That saves money. I can only order what is featured online (plenty of great things) and I know exactly how much it will be before I ever check out. You can save your lists for future ordering too, making it fast!

For the past month I have been using things up around here. If that meant crackers and peanut butter for lunch for 2 days this week so be it. We used up tons of stuff! I was so proud of myself. Leftover Mexican rice from dinner 2 nights ago became lunch with corn chips. I’m usually good about coming up with meals from leftovers but this month it wasn’t done out of the desire to use things up or make a quick meal because I forgot to thaw something…it was done with a WE HAVE TO DO THIS attitude or we’ll starve LOL. I have to have that mindset sometimes or I'll just go shopping. So I stayed away from any store, no matter what.

I’m hoping with the money we saved we’ll be able to buy a whole hog for our freezer. We are quickly running out of beef and a hog will help give some variety and stretch our beef.

I’m really looking forward to raising our own turkey’s this year but I need a money plan to make that happen. We need fence and shelter. I wish I could raise them with the chickens. I see people doing that online but I’ve always been told it’s a no, no. (Turkeys are susceptible to life threatening diseases that chickens are immune to. )
Mostly I’m discovering saving money on food is lowering your food portions and expectations. LOL. I am very picky and very "healthy." Channges I've had to make over the past few months that I rarely buy organic of now : peanut butter, crackers, chicken. Those were huge changes for me. But, until we get some bills paid off and my hubby's car that's just life.

Oh I also miss buying sugar free pasta sauce and organic yogurt. On the plus side all the frozen veggies I buy at Sam's now is GMO free which makes me happy. GMO free corn = awesome!

Our last order.....

2 Dole® Blueberries - 64 oz. - 817663 2 No $7.8 $15.6

2 Totino's® Pepperoni Pizza Rolls® - 2/34.6oz Bags - 364964 2 No $8.98 $17.96

Horizon Organic Reduced Fat Milk w/DHA - 3/64oz - 17905 1 No $10.58 $10.58

Jif® Creamy Peanut Butter - 2 jars - 40 oz. each - 49573 1 No $6.49 $6.49

Dole® Sliced Strawberries - 80 oz. bag - 775841 1 No $8.28 $8.28

Brown Cow Greek Yogurt - Variety Pack - 12/53 oz - 987403 1 No $10.68 $10.68

Seedless Cucumbers - 3 ct. - 810937 1 No $3.98 $3.98

Farmland Hickory Smoked Bacon - 3/1 lb. pks - 33755 1 No $8.98 $8.98

Heinz Tomato Ketchup - 3/ 44 oz. - 281710 1 No $5.98 $5.98

Hellmann's® Real Mayonnaise - 64 oz. jar - 61167 1 No $6.15 $6.15

2 WindStone Farms® Seedless Blackberry Jam - 2/18 oz. - 476342 2 No $4.98 $9.96

Member's Mark® Salted Butter Quarters- 4/1 lb. - 907581 1 No $7.98 $7.98

JosÃ© OlÃ©® Chicken&Cheese Chimichangas-18ct - 137075 1 No $11.48 $11.48

2 Frozen Boneless Skinless Breasts - 6lb bag - 65525 2 No $13.48 $26.96

Flav-R-Pac® Whole Kernel Corn - 5 lb. bag - 452328 1 No $4.98 $4.98

FLAV-R-PAC® Broccoli Florets - 4lb bag - 216444 1 No $4.98 $4.98

Newman's Special Blend - Keurig K-Cups - 80 ct. - 728126 1 No $33.88 $33.88

Nabisco® Ritz Crackers - 4/12 oz. packs - 684362 1 No $5.94 $5.94

Ore-Ida Tater Tots 8lb. - 78016 1 No $6.62 $6.62

Yoplait® Original Yogurt Multi Pack-18/6oz. cups - 201472 1 No $7.22 $7.22

Pedigree® Adult Dry Dog Food - 52 lb. - 994976 1 No $23.84 $23.84

Kellogg's® Raisin Bran Crunch® - 43.3oz - 906053 1 No $6.58 $6.58

Quaker® Life® Cereal Variety Pack- 62 oz. - 680184 1 No $6.28 $6.28

Macaroni Grill® Meat Lasagna - 2/40 oz. trays - 230743 1 No $12.98 $12.98

Prego® Heart Smart™ Traditional - 2/67oz - 32754 1 No $6.49 $6.49

Baker's & Chef™ Wide Egg Noodles - 5 lbs. - 622386 1 No $5.98 $5.98

Earthbound Farm® Organic Mini Carrots - 3 lbs. - 351278 1 No $3.98 $3.98

Treasures from the Sea® Parmesan Tilapia - 40oz - 81405 1 No $11.98 $11.98

Bakers & Chefs™ Shredded Mild Cheddar - 5lbs - 63910 1 No $11.86 $11.86

2 Sister Schubert's Dinner Yeast Rolls - 30ct - 796504 2 No $5.88 $11.76

Total with tax $332.72

A snowy day

2011-01-11T11:46:00.000-06:00

The snow out my window is a white blanket of sweet luster. It makes me happy to see how bright it is outside. The bare gray tress and skies of Missouri make me loathe winter more than the cold does. But the snow, well snow is pure and elegant. It’s pretty and soft. It’s romantic and cinematic. Snow makes winter palatable.

I have been making myself complete tasks and go to things lately. I’m very much a homebody. I’m a hermit. In general I can stay home most of the time, but the winter…well it’s ridiculous. I never want to leave. I could never leave and be so happy about it. You may hear me say that I should get out of the house or that it will be good for me to get out of the house, but you will rarely hear me say that I have to get out of the house. So I’m making myself get some things done and I’m making myself get out of the house for other things besides homeschool events and grocery shopping. Even though I often find it easy to get myself motivated to get out of the house for homeschool things I still had to make myself sign up for this session of a homeschool co-op. I also enjoy that it’s called the spring session even though it’s still the dead of winter. This means spring is going to unfold during the period in which we are enrolled. This means spring is in sight.

So I had to go to a Mother blessing this last week. I say had to like it was a chore, it was not! It was just a 100% priority type of thing. It was amazing beauty and fun. Then this week I’m bowling with the kids and I have on Saturday a women’s retreat to attend. This for me is being BUSY. LOL. But I’m making myself do these things. It’s good for me and when I do things for me I feel good. But I do have to MAKE myself.

The kids are painting in the kitchen and sound really obnoxious, which is ruining my peaceful snow mood! I must go to play a game with Layla now and ponder on what dinner might be. Oh and lunch…. Hummm.

Oh I haven’t even let the chickens out yet today, they probably don’t want out in the snow anyway. Fun for me is a walk in the snow to collect eggs. I love my life. It might be boring to some, but I really just love it.

A new WHAT?

2011-01-04T00:40:00.002-06:00

It's JANUARY? January!? Serious? I haven't posted since last year. Shameful.

Can I gush about HIM then? Everett turned 3 months old recently. Oh I love him more than the moon. More than the nights glorious starry sky. I love him like a Mama bear loves her cub. He is sunshine on a rainy day. He is SO.MUCH.FUN.

Below is a recent picture of our next three youngest, Penelope 4, Layla 6 and Sebastian 2

I've tried to blog. I think I even have a draft saved from December. I need to write. I need to make time.

So Christmas was divine family time. I am one of those people that throws on a big Christmas production. Gifts, gifts and more gifts. I look at it this way: Some people go on vacations, I throw big Christmases for the kids. But we've had lots of fun games and toys to play. We are having the MOST fun with Sum Swamp, Zingo, and Pandabo ( I found it for cheap -but I've seen it everywhere for 24.99. Don't pay that much!! Amazon has it for $39.99 definitely don't pay that much!)

These have been some of the funnest (educational! unschooling!) games we've bought ---and we have millions of games in this house.

I've got a million projects going. It's so crazy. My goal in the new year is to finish them. Every time I get one done (or partially done) I start 3 more. Then while starting those three I find 4 more I want to start. And this continues an endless pattern.

The word for this year...I hadn't thought of one until this very moment... it is:

completion

So tomorrow our homechool activity will be for every one to find a special word and we will print it up or write it and the kids can decorate it, write companion words or goals to go with it or draw pictures around it and make it *theirs* then we can talk about how we can each make our word come to life!

Day in the life...

2010-11-13T14:14:00.007-06:00

Updating..
Everett still has no middle name, and we better finalize his name soon I need to get his birth certificate filled out and sent in so I can get a SS card for taxes. Turns out these little blessings are worth money! ;)

We have been pulling up our carpet to get to our hardwood floors. That has been a great family project and a perfect example of life learning. The kids have learned about how carpet and flooring is put in and how to pull it up. They are also learning about many kinds of tools, how to use them carefully and the importance of doing things yourself. It's fun to have the confidence for a do-it-yourself project and then the feeling of accomplishment to see it through. This is only the beginning because hopefully in the near future we will sand and refinish the old floors together!

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I had a dream I got pregnant ... and then two days later in the dream I got pregnant again. LOL! This dream cracked me up. Fertile much?
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Kids crack me up...
I was stressed one evening and didn't come up with anything for dinner. I was changing clothes and thinking about dinner verbalizing my stress saying, "What am I going to do..what am I going to feed everyone? I'm so stressed!" Layla heard me and started pestering me verbalizing her own stress at a computer game she was playing in my room. She started dramatically repeating over and over, "Ohhh what am I going to doooo?!" I said, "At least you don't have to feed all these kids...what am I going to do!?" She replied, "YOU should hope you don't have any more kids."

bwahaha. Layla is 6 going on 12. She's also a lawyer in the making. You can't get the last word in and she has a come back for everything. Everything.
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Last night I was remembering the time Penelope's footie PJ's didn't fit her. I said calmly to her and her daddy, "Well we could cut the feet off I guess." In horror she cried, "Noooooooooooooooooo." I didn't know if I should laugh or cry when I explained to her that Mommy and Daddy were talking about cutting the footie socks feet off off the jammies and not her actual feet! Poor girl.
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Recently I was asked what funny things Charlotte said incorrectly when she was a little girl and I recalled the time she told me that her little brother Sage was bothering her. She said, , "Mom! Sage is getting on my last nerd!"

Love. kids.

The days are running into each other for me. Everett is getting big --over 12 lbs. He is almost 8 weeks old. He has fat rolls. He is awesome. I need to post a picture! Pictures coming.

3 weeks old today

2010-10-12T08:08:00.003-05:00

This is what I know about Everett...he coos like a dove, squeaks like a baby mouse and snorts like a baby piggy when he wants to nurse. His skin is smooth like silk and his head soft like velvet. He smells like hints of buttered popcorn, vanilla and sugar. He snores like a baby dragon and is content like a tiger. He smiles in his sleep which means he is happy. ♥

My First Painful Birth

2010-10-01T15:54:00.008-05:00

Photos taken less than 10 min after birth

We have seven children. I have given birth five times at home unassisted. Every birth is so different, but for the most part my labors are intensely quick and the actual birth quite easy and nearly painless. This birth had some surprises...

I went into labor Monday September 20, 2010 around 4 pm, the day before my "due date." Light back achy labor lasted through a trip to the library and the six kids’ bedtime routine. Around 9pm things started picking up and at 10:30pm my husband, Ricky, and I tried to get some sleep. I figured my water would break soon (most of the time it does for me before labor even begins). I couldn't really sleep so as contractions picked up I quickly snuck out of bed and cleaned the bathroom, did laundry and tried to watch some TV. When the contractions started to need my attention I got through them by chanting a song, humming, walking fast and visualization exercises. I managed to doze off on the couch a few times before getting in a hot shower around 2am. (A hot shower is my normal routine for when they really start hurting at around 6 or 7 cm dilated. I have done this for every home birth.) As usual the shower was great. I usually can stay in so long I'll run out of hot water before I'm ready to get out, but this time I'd been up all night laboring and cleaning house so I was tired of standing. I decided to run a bath and labor in that. I tried to relax thinking all the while that a bath was nice but not as great as the shower. Suddenly I had an epiphany and say out loud, "I have jets!" A perk we discovered when we moved in last year, a jetted tub! The moving water feels much more relaxing to me and simulates the shower feeling.
At 3am I tip toed soaking wet to my sleeping husbands side and tell him my water sac is still intact making it hurt like it did with Penelope. Ricky quickly got up and sympathetically looked at me with soft eyes. I tip toed back to the tub and he followed and got me a few things I wanted, like some water to drink.
Some time around 3:15 am I felt I was dilated if not darn near close to it but my water hadn't broken and it still hurt A LOT. I felt for the squishy water sac, made sure the baby's head was presenting well and after several attempts at the tough sac I broke it with my fingers. Nearly four years ago I had to break our little Penelope's water too and learned a lot from that birth because I kept wanting to wait it out not wanting to interfere with the birth and thinking I'd just birth her in what is called the caul (born in the water sac). She was just not moving down into the birth canal though and labor started to really hurt awfully bad -but once I broke the sac she was born almost immediately.
After breaking yet another really tough sac I told Ricky that hopefully we'd have our baby soon. I could still feel a thick spot or "lip"on my cervix despite that I was probably fully dilated. Ricky helped me through about six contractions in the bath that were fiercely bad. For most of these contractions I was kneeling in the tub facing him as he kneeled outside the tub. I started having him push against my shoulders as I pushed into his hands with my shoulders. I also hung around his neck several times collapsed into a heap of contractions and loud pushy grunts as we hugged tightly. He could feel the tornado in my body swirl and I bore down repeatedly with contractions one after another as I looked the storm in the eye. The contractions felt absolutely overpowering. They did not overpower me though; there is a great birth affirmation quote that says, "The power and intensity of your contractions cannot be stronger than you, because it is you."
This was the only birth I remember where Ricky actually talked to me through these transitional contractions. They were so fierce he got into doula mode and talked me through them, praised me and said I could do this. Soon after this storm my body started trying to push a baby down and out. I don't forcefully push my babies out, I let them come. I find it extremely painful, tiring and unnecessary to forcefully push. I still had that thick area around part of my cervix and it was stretching over the babies head slowly. Something I've heard can be quite painful. And it was!
It got more apparent the baby was making his way down so I got out of the bath and sat on the toilet to give my legs a rest, help my pelvis relax and still use gravity to the baby’s advantage. Two painful but milder in intensity contractions later I moved to the floor in a part kneel part squatting position. I had a very powerful contraction where Ricky held me again at the shoulders to steady me and allow me to push against him. As the contraction subsided my hip felt like it was going to lock up on me and I yelped and pushed him away and barely avoided it locking up on me.
The next contraction brought on the unmistakable 'baby is coming out of my butt feeling'. It went away as he rounded that corner of my body and then he finally slipped down further into the birth canal. I could feel his head fully in me and in mere seconds I went from thinking 'this is taking for-freaking-ever-and-hurting-like-freaking-hell' to thinking 'oh shoot this baby is going to fly out of me.' He was coming quite fast and I tried to hold his crown in a little bit for a contraction or two so as not to tear. The concentration that it takes to wait can be overwhelming. During all of this Ricky was in front of me still. I soon told him to move though because he was blocking the video camera. He moved off to the side and started taking some still photos while still keeping a supportive hand on my shoulder/back.
This was the first of any of my births that I felt an unmistakable ring of burning fire sensation as the baby crowned. I've never felt it all that much before, just a little bit and then it quickly passed. Eventually his head was born into my hands (thank god) and then about 30 seconds later as I waited patiently his top shoulder presented and then the rest of him slid out in one plop of great relief. I was sure I had torn somewhere. Or, everywhere.
He was born September 21, 2010 at 4:33am weighing 7 lbs 12 oz and measuring 19 ½ inches long.
He gurgled and sputtered and was born a really, really beautiful pink color. I brought him to my chest and cradled him. I asked Ricky, "Did you see yet?" Meaning if he saw that we had a boy. He said he did. Our baby drooled out some fluid from the corner of his mouth and continued to sputter and then gasp signifying he was taking in oxygen. I wasn’t yet concerned with hearing him actually cry as I proceeded to count fingers and toes and noticed he was covered in the softest velvety vernix (natural baby lotion) that seemed to just seep into his skin effortlessly as I watched. His daddy looked over us thoughtfully and said, "Give us a cry now" and the baby did right on cue. We got it on video, it's adorable.
Not long after the birth I sat nursing him on the living room couch and thought about how I'd given birth much less painfully and gracefully in the past. "That really hurt! But his head is tiny!" I suddenly said. I pondered over how I had not torn anywhere at all. My pubic bone nor my pelvis was not even sore. At all. Even days later recovery from this birth was as if nothing ever happened. I told Ricky as I pointed to the baby, "THIS little head is what I was making such a fuss over!?" And we laughed.
Less than an hour later sleepy eyed children one by one began to wake earlier than usual sensing newness and love. All the hard work and pain was long forgotten and replaced with a morning sunrise that promised the magic and wonder of a new day and a new life ahead. Three brothers and three sisters happily welcomed the seventh child to our family and with my new nursling latching on we all had breakfast together and talked about what to name him.

Like Christmas
For about a week after our little Everett was born I was trying to pinpoint the magic and feeling of it all. I wanted to describe home birth and the unity of my family. This piece I wrote a week after Everett's birthing day was published in the fall of 2010 Friends of Missouri Midwives newsletter.

August 1, 2004 we had a little girl and as she was being born in the early morning hours our older three children woke up one at a time and found me squatting down to give birth on the bathroom floor as their father snapped photos.

October 17, 2006 as the sun rose into the sky our new baby girl was going to soon start crowning and inch her way into the outside world. My husband awoke our youngest daughter so she could see the birth, as she fell back asleep near me the other kids woke up on their own and joined in to watch. As I quietly gave birth the youngest woke up at the last minute in awe to watch. About 20 minutes after the birth our oldest daughter reached out to touch the newborn but the two year old snapped, "My baby!" And smacked her older sisters hand away.

August 23, 2008 I decided I wanted a quiet couples birth with my husband and got just that. Within minutes however our youngest two little girls woke up at 6am and met their new little brother. Ten minutes later our oldest daughter, whose bedroom was very far away, sensed something and came to our room to see as well. Then our other two boys followed.

September 21, 2010 within a half hour of me birthing a baby boy at 4:33am our almost four year old woke up and to her surprise I was holding a new baby. Her eyes went from sleepy to bugged-out-surprised and awake in just seconds! After the shock she put her head to my chest and we had a quiet snuggle in the dark as sleepiness started setting in again. Then finally she asked, "Mommy, did we have a girl baby or a boy baby?" I’ll treasure that thoughtful cuddly moment always.
Our two year old followed about 10 minutes later. Venturing from our bed and into the living room where I sat I excitedly told him the baby came out and to come see. I know he won't remember but I will; it was the happiest day of his two year old life. He was beaming from excitement and love. He was at that moment given the gift of a brother and you could tell he cherished his new baby brother completely. Then a half hour later our 14 year old sensed something and came downstairs followed by our two 10 year old sons soon after.

Being in the home for birth brings my family together. It ties a bond between home and heart. There is an element of privacy and intimacy that is shared within these sacred walls of our own home. A special bond that ties a freshly birthed wet newborn to his kin without interference or interruption in the family space. When I bring forth a child into the world I do so without leaving and so the children receive a sibling that seemingly has always been here. After all, since being created the baby has never left.

On that beautiful early September morning in 2010 I noticed something as I sat back watching my family. Six children between the ages of 14 and two years old rushed about happily as my ears took in their excited chatter. They greeted their new brother. They asked questions and explored baby hands and toes. I took in the sight of our pajamas and bed head hair. My husband and I were smiling at each other looking on proudly and feeling content; and as I observed this glorious morning I had a familiar warm feeling overcome me.

The smells of breakfast and coffee, the pitter-patter of feet, the laughter, the newness, the hope and promise of a fun day; taking all this in I realized the warm feeling that came over me was like Christmas. The early morning happiness and coming together of Christmas. The familiar and blessed feeling of family and of gifts. This time the gift was wrapped in a snugly blanket, suckling at my breast and being kissed by siblings atop his newborn velvety head. This was the feeling of family coming together, the feelings of love...like Christmas magic.