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In case anybody was wondering, I haven’t been not posting because I’m busy caring for a newborn – alas, I am currently 3 days past due and still counting. I was 3 and 2 days early with the boys and 6 days late with Monica. Naturally, I was hoping that this little boy would be early to on-time like his brothers, rather than tardy like his big sister, but one doesn’t get to decide these things. However, there is a silver lining: thanks to his continuing failure to show, we have been able to attend and accomplish a number of things we would’ve had to pass on otherwise. We made it to the Kings Academy Dinner Theatre last Saturday, Parish Meeting on Sunday, cleaned up the house on Monday, kept it mostly clean all week in anticipation of this Saturday when we were all able to attend Judah’s first piano recital and immediately host a small, low-key cake and ice-cream birthday party for Monica! Pretty good for “Due-Week!” When I was expecting Monica, we naively put faith in her showing up on or before her due date, and therefore blocked off about 2 weeks around my due date, essentially putting life on hold in expectation of having a newborn during most of that time. As a result, we missed most of the things going on (May is a busy month around here), and I for one, was nearly bored out of my mind during the 6 super-long days that we waited for her to show up past her due date! I decided that we were NOT going to do that this time, so I RSVPed, signed up for, and planned numerous activities during that same two week block, and it’s worked out swimmingly. Monica’s birthday party was the capstone – planned with the constant caveat of “only if we’re not in the hospital..”
Only, now all of the activities are pretty much over and all that’s left is the just the pinch from having Family Camp start 3 weeks from Sunday. And we’re still waiting. “I for one, am ready to have this baby now,” declared his father this afternoon. Ditto.
It’s hard to think of Ezra without describing him largely in contrasts to Judah. Their personality differences are as drastic as their physical differences. Judah is very loud; Ezra not so much. Judah is very intense: Ezra not so much. Judah is easily scolded; Ezra not so much. Judah is inclined to hysterics; Ezra not so much. Judah loves to play board/card games; Ezra just watches. They are still best playmates, however. Especially in outdoor activities, Ezra seems follow Judah’s lead, and they enjoy their dirt/mud pit in the backyard (running water in it to make it a river, building dams, digging deaper, etc), riding their bikes up and down our road, and discovering treasures on our hillside. Although Judah loves to be a big brother to Monica, Ezra is more specifically her playmate. Ezra doesn’t like to play most board or card games. While Judah will play them and be heartbroken when he loses (but want to play again), Ezra merely decides not to play if he probably won’t win. He likes to watch Judah play board games himself (with a running commentary, of course) and also to watch Judah draw battles. Lately he has started drawing more himself, as well – also battles, with little stick figures with shields and stairstepped battlefields – with airplanes and helicoptors flying overhead.
In the last month or so, Ezra surprised me by deciding that he wanted to learn how to read! He started asking me if we could “read words” together, and I was pleased to discover that he’s actually pretty good at blending sounds together. He only needs to read a word a few times before he starts to recognize it. And the motivation to do this is largely coming from him. He was quite put out with me last week on Thursday when I forgot to do his reading with him. Part of the problem was that I did school with Judah, and made sure to have a book-reading time with Monica, but spaced his reading lesson until too late – so he felt left out, poor guy. But he was also disappointed when I told him that we were on break from school this week – and relieved when I told him we could still do reading together if he wanted to.(which we did this morning) Such a strange child! Speaking of strange, the other day he asked me if he could eat something. Feeling lazier even than usual, I offered to let him eat some of his own candy, which he can get down by himself. That didn’t serve so I offered chips (which we don’t normally have around, but did that day, easily accessible and usually appealing!). He came back to me a few minutes later and said, “Mom, can I have something to eat other than candy or chips?” I stared at him in disbelief and falteringly offered… an apple? “Yeah!” And I did then actually get up and cut it up for him – some requests are hard to ignore!
Judah – 6 and Loving It. He’s still just as enthusiastic as ever, albeit in a slightly self-conscious six-year-old way. His very favorite activity is running around like a maniac with a horde of other little kids – as he was able to do at a wedding we attended last Saturday. His khaki pants came home completely trashed, and his face and especially ears were bright red with exhaustion and heat, but boy, did he have a good time. His favorite quiet activity (yes, he actually has those, too) is drawing. He will spend hours drawing with markers and although he sometimes ventures outside of his comfort zone, the subjects of his pictures are almost always war-spaceship-airplane-soldier related. His interest in his pictures seems to be more in the stories he’s telling in them than in the technical artistic details. Often he and Ezra will sit at the table, Judah drawing a picture (about a battle, no doubt) and telling the story to Ezra, who will look on and listen much longer than you would think possible. We’re knee-deep in drawings around here, and the big question is always what to do with all of them?!! (If you would like a sample, just let me know, I’m sure he’d like to whip our 15 or so to mail to you…) Judah never wants to get rid of them – he never wants to get rid of anything. He seems to have inherited my hoarding gene. His big project recently was reading 20 books, so that we would buy him his own Bible, which we did. He got it on Tuesday and is pretty excited about it – last night Michael asked himto read the first verse in Samuel chapter 8 when we started devotions, and it’s amazing to me how much better he’s gotten with his reading in the last few months. He doesn’t read just for pleasure yet, but is proud of himself, nonetheless. His other big project is saving for a Risk set which we’re hoping to find used at a garage sale or thrift store. He’s drawn himself several maps and used army men, but it’s just not the same.  He doesn’t actually want to play Risk the game, (except occasionally with his dad) he just likes to play with the figures on the map and Michael won’t let him use our nice one, for fear of losing pieces (a wise choice – we’ve seen what happens to small pieces of other sets if we let the boys play with them unsupervised). He and Ezra are still pretty joined at the hip – they love to do things together and can spend hours outside playing in the yard or on the hill across our dead-end road. Judah’s a very good big brother to Monica, too – he can’t necessarily be trusted to watch her closely (outside, for instance), but he frequently gets her breakfast, lunch, or snacks,(even wiping her off after she’s done) and is happy to help her find her blanky or play with her while I’m trying to get things done. I’m training him to get her into her carseat himself, so that when the new baby is born he can do that job while I’m getting the newest passenger sorted out. Today he brought Monica in all decked out in some of my jewelry and with a bunch of hairclips in her hair to keep it out of her face – they were both beaming!
Yes, he’s a treasure, that boy, and I love him!
Every year at Christmas time I struggle to write a Christmas letter that describes our whole year – generally I have a hard time remembering past the previous month or so, let alone what happened in the last 12. I thought I’d help myself out by writing a mini-Christmas letter NOW in May, so that I will at least remember, if not include the first half of the year!
Michael – Busy, but not overwhelmed. The first three months of our year generally can best be described by “Tax Season,” an evocative term for those who’ve worked in the public accounting industry, though most other people think of it as an annoying few hours they have to spend preparing their tax returns or taking their taxes to be prepared before the April 15 deadline. I am pleased to report that this year’s Tax Season was our best one yet! Michael didn’t work nearly as many hours as in some previous years, and was able to maintain a somewhat family-friendly schedule through 2/3rds of the season. He celebrated April 16 (a mandatory holiday in CPA land) by taking the boys to a morning dress rehearsal of the Oregon Symphony – to my surprise, they stayed for the entire 2.5 hours. Amazing! Since then he’s been catching up on his volunteer activities, reconnecting with his tennis-playing friends and making important career decisions. Don’t worry, he’s not neglecting me – the bigger I grow (with child) the more help he’s been, doing dishes, watching the kids so I can rest, running errands, cleaning house and not complaining as dinner gets progressively later and later every day, and the laundry returns again clean more in terms of weeks than days, it seems. For Mother’s Day he and the boys washed my van, (yay) and gave me Sees chocolates.
Elly – Pregnant and starting to not love it so much. Yes, indeed. I am at this current moment, over 8.5 months pregnant, with the count ’til my due date down into days (10), rather than weeks. Naturally I am hoping that the baby decides to make his appearance sooner rather than later. Not so much for my sake (though it’s getting that way) but because we still want to go to Family Camp, which is about 3 weeks after my due date, and naturally, having the baby 2 weeks before would be less than ideal (3 weeks is pushing it as it is). Other than growing progressively larger, I’ve been making progressively more bread in my spiffy new Bosch mixer, which I love, and which can make 6 loaves of bread at a time. I still haven’t found the perfect mostly whole wheat bread recipe, but nobody seems to object to my practicing a lot!
I was going to do a whole family update, but if I wait to finish it to post it, I might never finish it, so maybe I’ll do a bit by bit approach and write more tomorrow – or the next day. Have a good week everyone!
It is a fact, anyhow, that Tol never hurried. He was not by nature an anxious or a fearful man. But I suspect that he was unhurried also by principle. Tol loved his little farm, and he loved farming. It would have seemed to him a kind of sacrilege to rush through his work without getting the good of it. He never went to the field without the company of a hound or two. [,,,]And when Tol went to work, he would often carry his rifle. If, while he was working, [the hound] treed a squirrel or a young groundhog, then the workday would be interrupted bya little hunting, and [his wife] would have wild meat on the table the next day. That Distant Land, p. 182, italics mine.
Written by a woman who had been captured by Indians and seen her youngest child (6 years old) die a slow lingering death from a gunshot wound and spent several months nearly starving in captivity until she and her remaining 2 children were redeemed:
The Lord hath showed me the vanity of these outward things. That they are the vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit, that they are but a shadow, a blast, a bubble, and things of no continuance. That we must rely on God Himself, and our whole dependance must be upon Him. If trouble from smaller matters begin to arise in me, I have something at hand to check myself with, and say, why am I troubled? It was but the other day that if I had had the world, I would have given it for my freedom, or to have been a servant to a Christian. I have learned to look beyond present and smaller troubles, and to be quieted under them. As Moses said, “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord” (Exodus 14.13). (Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, final paragraph)
It’s a season of change around here. Aside from Tax Season being over, a big change and adjustment in and of itself, we’re also seeing lots of little milestones in our kids lives the past week or so:
- Judah has finished reading the 20 books we set as his goal for him to get his own Bible. (An Army bible, he would be quick to tell you with his name and a cross on it)
- Ezra’s starting to learn how to read. His progress has really surprised me – he seems to have his father’s excellent memory. Because he remembers the words he’s read on site, he doesn’t get as much practice blending as maybe he should, but does seem to be able to blend short words together surprisingly well.
- Both boys moved downstairs last week into Rosanne’s old room.
- Monica has been potty-training since last Friday and is doing very well – much to the whole family’s delight! (the boys are almost as enthused as I am and take great joy in encouraging the process) She’s 23 months old.
- Last night Monica moved out of her crib into the bottom bunk in the boys’ old room. She was gung ho for the change, then changed her mind last minute, but was eventually convinced to stay in her new bed and slept pretty well all night.
- Judah’s two bottom front teeth are loose.
- Last night Michael took the boys on a REALLY long walk after dinner, and Ezra kept up the whole time – he’s definitely outgrown his baby chub and turning into a sturdy little boy.
All my babies are growing up! It’s a good thing I’m due with our third little boy in 4 weeks, or I’d be inclined to feel rather sentimental about all this!
Seriously, if you haven’t read any of the 8 or so noves by Jasper Fforde, then you’re missing out. I have never seen an imagination so bizarre, and yet oddly educated and strangely enthralling. I’m sure it’s not for everybody, but I think that if you love to read novels, you should give these a try!
I just finished Shades of Grey, Mr. Fforde’s newest novel, and it was a hoot. Maybe a little harder to get a grip on in the beginning than some of his other ones, but very worth the effort. It’s about a young man coming of age in a bizarre future world where everybody is colorblind in some way (some can see red, some blue, some yellow, some two colors, but nobody can see the full spectrum), and the society is entirely run by those who have the highest perception of their own particular color, rather than those who are the smartest, most worthy, most educated, most well-bred, or any other way societies are usually organized – all according to the Rules of Munsell, handed down after the Something That Happened wiped out the previous civilization, many, many years in our future. Eddie Russett (an untested, but highly perceptive Red) gets sent out to the boonies to do a Chair Census as a penalty for a minor prank – the boonies are much more complicated than he anticipates, however, and he soon finds himself embroiled in a number of plots, ranging from minor medicinal color smuggling, to helping unsuitable couples elope, to trying to break the hold of the Head Office over the entire civilization and change life as he knows it. It’s the first novel in a series, and I am eagerly anticipating the next installment.
I baked a loaf of no-knead sourdough bread (for sandwiches for Parish meeting tomorrow), an apple pie (also for Parish meeting), and an apple tart (to celebrate the end of Tax Season and to take to Rose and David’s for dinner tonight) today. Ezra told me, “You’re like a bakery, Mom.”
No, not Harry Potter, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clark. My friend Amanda recommended it and I got it out of the library. If you’re looking for something to read, you might add this to your list. It’s not a gripping page-turner (a good thing for my family since it’s over 700 pages long), and except for the last hundred or so pages, it doesn’t leave you on the edge of your seat, but it has much to recommend it anyway. The writing style is very dry and witty in that oh-so-reserved English way, and I found myself chuckling numerous times throughout. An example:
Childermass inquired drily if Mr. Norrell wished him to seek out architecture expressive of the proposition that magic was as respectable as the Church?
Mr. Norrell (who knew there were such things as jokes in the world or people would not write about them in books, but who had never actually been introduced to a joke or shaken its hand) considered a while before replying at last that no, he did not think they could quite claim that. (p. 40-41)
What is it about? It’s about an imaginary 18th century England (Jane Austen’s time again) where history is much the same as our version, but modified by the existence of a long standing effective English magic, recently fallen into disuse and disrepair. Mr. Norrell, and his student Mr. Strange attempt to bring magic back to England – the drama is brought by the abduction of ladies by crazy fairies, the Napoleanic wars, and the mysterious influence of the gone, but not dead, Raven King.
On a lonely tax season evening the other night I finally got a chance to watch Becoming Jane, which I had borrowed from the library. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed it. I decided before-hand that I would just try to watch the movie as a piece of fiction, not as an autobiographical documentary, and as such, it was enjoyable. And I don’t usually say that about movies where I’m crying at the end. But knowing that it was ostensibly Jane Austen’s story prepared me for the bittersweet ending. (even partially informed Jane Austen readers such as myself know that Miss Austen never married – thus any romance involving her was doomed) I enjoyed looking at Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy, and the glimpse into into 19th century England, as always, was intriguing. A chick flick with some historical context. Enjoy.
A friend is getting married. Her caterer cancelled due to illness a week before the wedding. My sister-in-law stepped in to do the catering, and another friend volunteered a day to help her prep the food today. She called me, and the upshot is that I had 7 children at my house (not including unborn son) from 9 ’til 3 today! ”What are we doing to do all day,” I wondered? True, my friends two older daughters did a lot of the work, including playing very nicely with Monica and teaching her how to play with dolls, but the fact is that we still probably needed to DO something. So here’s what we did:
- Free Play
- Listened to kids game songs (ex: The Farmer in the Dell) while the four boys ran around in circles in the living room.
- Played with Bubber
- Kids played outside – they whacked off the heads of dandelions with sticks and imaginary games.
- Fed kids a snack.
- Played outside more.
- Fed kids lunch (sandwiches, fruit, juice, and cookies)
- Kids built fort in bunk beds
- Kids got out construction paper, stickers, staples, glue, etc. and made crowns, books, etc.
- Went to the park for the last hour (brought granola bars and water) and got home less than 10 minutes before their mom showed up to claim them.
All in all, it sent pretty slick, I thought. The house is still standing and I had the kids clean up the messes as they made them, so it’s not even in shambles. And during that time I made 4 loves of bread and a double batch of granola and even got to lay down for 10 minutes or so. (thanks to the two older daughters!) So, all’s well that ends well – now to prepare for a big weekend!
 All Done! (with the painting)
 The boys cleaning up the tape and newspaper - score!
 Michael and I
That’s right, I decided to take a couple days off of school this week for Easter week (I’m doing a year-round school schedule, anyway) – so that I can paint. And the first coat is done – a coat of primer.
Now the question is: Another coat of primer, then paint, or just do the paint and hope that two coats is sufficient?
As an addendum: it wasn’t my dear husband’s idea to have me paint the room by myself – he simply thought we should wait ’til after Tax Season when he isn’t working 70 hours a week. I was impatient and wanted it done – well, two months ago! Now it’ll be done just before the end of TS – great planning, huh?
I hate to admit it, but I work best toward deadlines. Not to say I generally meet deadlines, just that if I don’t have one, whatever-it-is doesn’t tend to get done for.. well, years.
Don’t get me wrong – I start making preparations early enough – back in college I would check out books for my term paper about two weeks into the quarter. I just wouldn’t actually DO anything with them until much, much closer to the deadline for the first draft!
Why am I writing this, you may ask? Because it has happened again. My goal was to get the bedroom downstairs (currently a very dark pink) painted a pleasant off-white by the time tax season was over. Well, actually I thought maybe I’d just do it in January, then it’d be done, the boys could move downstairs and there’d be plenty of time to transition Monica into the boys current room. Easy, peasy. So I bought the paint and primer in January and moved the futniture away from the walls sometime around then. I was all ready to paint!
But there it was the end of March and I hadn’t so much as cracked the lid of the primer.
And last week I remembered that my parents are coming next weekend and the bed that my sister is supposed to sleep in, not only doesn’t have clean sheets with a vase of fresh flowers nearby (ha-ha), but is in fact scrunched in the middle of the room with a bunch of stuff temporarioy stored ON TOP of it.
Well, I wish this was one of those, “So I got my rear in gear and painted the room in a day and a half and here’s the picture” sort of story. But, sad to say, though I have now opened the paint, I haven’t done more than one full wall with the primer and am 3/4 of the way through doing the brushwork around the rest of the room – with the first coat of primer! (As in, I still have to actually PAINT it)
I have high hopes of finishing it this week – otherwise I don’t know what I’m going to do. But with three little kids, and being 7 months pregnant, I can’t exactly just “clear my schedule” and paint for a day, so we’ll see. I’ll let you know when I finish. And hopefully there’ll be a picture!
I recently went through all my pictures to burn a CD of pictures to put on my new computer as a screensaverr. Here are a few good memories:
 Grandpa Mike Bathing baby Judah  Meghan, Mystie and I with our first children  Baby Ezra
It’s the end of March now, so I feel that I can safely say what we “do” for school, without the risk of the pattern changing dramatically in the next week or so. (Probably in the next 10 weeks though – I’m due May 19th!)
Whatwe study is this: Bible Memory, Catechism (Harry VanDyken’s Bible catechism series), Reading, Handwriting, Math (Singapore Book 1B), Science (Young Explorer’s Astronomy), History (American history, currently reading an Ingri D’Aulaire book about Columbus), Literature (Leaves from a Child’s Garden of Verses and The Chronicles of Narnia). We also try to memorize hymns, with the Honeycomb Kids group from our church, and I try to review the states and capitals and the sounds of the Greek lowercase letters from time to time. Judah’s Aunt Rose is also giving him piano lessons.
We only do regular school 4 days a week – Fridays are our catch-up/other day – if we do science experiments or art lessons, we do those on Fridays. Also, cleaning the house for company, and cooking for the weekend! On Monday through Thursday we start at 8:30 (alright, generally a little after) and are done by 11:15 – although we read our literature after lunch, or sometimes in the evening after Monica goes to bed. I go by a scheduled, rather than a prearranged lesson plan: e.g. we do Math for 20-30 minutes between 10:00 and 10:30 – and whatever we get done, that’s what we do for the day – I don’t schedule so many pages a day. (“Literature” is also known as “read-a-louds!!”) I also have half an hour scheduled for preschool with Ezra (I read picture books to him, or sometimes we do preschool “math” books or mix up bread dough and recently I’ve been starting to have him practice phonograms during that time), and ten minutes for board books to Monica (she especially likes Sandra Boynton books) so that she doesn’t feel left out.
So that’s what we do for school! I don’t know why I wrote this down, really – I suppose grandparents might be interested in knowing how we spend our mornings. And that way when I someday am asked “what did you do for first grade” I might pull this up and be able to tell them!
…Batting 1000 today (whatever that means!). Just a little almost-Facebook status update for my non-facebook friends! (This is really for you, Mystie!)
Yes, I have accomplished my two major goals: trim the snowball bush away from the house so as to decrease the above-ground access the ants have to our house, and called Price-Pfister about my leaky sprayer hose – $5 S&H later and new parts are on their way!
We’ve done school, most of it, and the sun is shining, and my yogurt jelled, pretty much, and my new haircombs worked, and everything is looking good! Hope you all are having a good day, too!!
Multigrain Struan, torpedo shaped, with a poppyseed glaze.
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