Good to Know…

All was quiet. Outside was still pitch black, but I had a soft pool of light from the lamp beside the couch. I am always very, very quiet when I get up because my early risers hop out of bed at the first sound of stirring. Then the quiet hour that I sacrificed my sleep for is gone and we are launched into the day. The early risers are the hungry ones. They seem to have this connection from their stomachs to their brains the instant their feet hit the floor. For myself, a fried egg before 9 o’clock has always been kind of gross. I just know God enjoyed the joke when he gave me these children who rise and shine so effortlessly.

This morning the kitchen floor squeaked and maybe I banged the tea kettle a little when I started water a-boiling for my tea. I soon heard stealthy creeping and a small face appeared in the doorway, poised to head back to bed because sometimes I instruct her to go back to sleep! Right behind her the smallest, loudest child peeked out and I sighed. If I send that one back to bed, everybody will be up in minutes.

“You can bring your blankets and snuggle with me, girls, if you hold very still and do not mention breakfast.” They scampered over and wiggled like excited puppies arranging nests. Oh well. Never mind the quiet hour. We will snuggle and visit. They had things on their minds. Dreams, very odd dreams that the small one makes up as she goes. “I saw a dinosaur that got unplugged from its wires that God put in it.” Oh.

From her blanket cocoon, Olivia changed the subject, “Mama, I think other people will die before you do.”

“Really? Don’t you want me to die?” I asked the rhetorical question. I expected her to say that she wouldn’t like if nobody was there to make her breakfast or read her stories, or some such childhood reason.

“NO! I do NOT! I would be so….” She paused, groping for the right word. “BORED!”

Well. That is good to know.

Prayers for Monday

Thank you, Lord, for this day full of new opportunities to learn and to get along with each other, even in confined spaces with mud and drippy fog outside the door.

Thank you that the casters for my desk chair are not permanently lost, but simply disassembled by an ambitious small boy. Thank you that my red pen is not lost either, but found in my son’s desk instead of with my stapler which does seem to be lost for real.

Thank you for paper and this smooth gel pen: that I can grip them in my hands and write orderly lines of assignments for the week. Thank you that the days and days have already added up to 7th grade for my one son and 4th for the other.

Thank you for this pile of quizzes and tests all finished last week and ready to file away in portfolios to prove that we are serious about education. Thank you for this new box of sheet protectors that I ordered last week so that I can actually do this filing.

Thank you for the pages and pages of original artwork that are windows into my children’s thought processes and into the creativity that You have placed in them. Thank you for the paper snibbles and the yarn strings and the puzzles on the kitchen floor that she is clever enough to do on her own now.

Thank you for eggs, scrambled for lunch because the fridge contains only condiments and ingredients.

Thank you for a washer that hums along efficiently so that I only have to toss things into and out of it. Thank you that I get to be domestic and help my 10 year old fold laundry into neat piles. Thank you for the boots and the single glove that are lost no longer.

Thank you for a nap sneaked in while lying on the bed with the smallest tot, and for the audio books that keep my girlies interested for the entire quiet time hour.

Thank you for the puppy that entertains the boys with her antics, and the kitten that the little ones managed to catch and coddle for hours this afternoon. Thank you that the suspicious smell wasn’t what we thought it might be.

Thank you that my first grader can read mostly on her own and enjoy the subtle poetry in “The Little Grey Pony”. Thank you for the astounding motivational power of stickers.

Thank you for a big boy who can mix up granola while I stir the dinner roll dough and the crock pot cooks supper.

Thank you for a long evening with my husband home, reading stories with the girls before tucking them into their nests.

Thank you for bedtime!

Amen.

It’s Midwinter

Need I say more? One does not tend to great feats of achievement when afflicted by lethargy. One does not write overmuch or think overmuch, even. One keeps a mug of tea or coffee close to hand and prays short and heartfelt prayers for patience as one steps over the Suspend sticks and picks up the 9th strand of embroidery floss and searches again for the lost needle on the couch.

Since January is almost over already, I thought it might be appropriate to recap the month. It has been near record cold in Pennsylvania they say. It has been really grey and barren. Also cold. Hibernating weather. Finally this past week we have been blanketed by a snowfall that has lifted all of us. I have thought that in another life I would like to be like a squirrel, curled up with my tail over my face on frigid days, only scampering out for nuts when the sun shines brightly. Come to think of it, this year I did have a rather long period of enforced low activity due to the knee injury. But the people still needed their nuts on a regular schedule, so it wasn’t really all it’s cracked up to be.

January feels sad this year, with the losses of friends on my mind. It also gives me a feeling of slow-motion busyness, in that way that creeps up when I don’t ever seem to accomplish much even though I keep doing stuff and doing stuff all day. Long ago I figured out that projects and accomplishments are not as big a deal as people are. It continues to be a learning process, but in the midwinter, I don’t really care about accomplishments.

So why is it that the things that don’t matter very much are so glaringly obvious, like mud on the floor or pancake syrup on the window? We can’t really see smudges on our souls or wrinkles in our spirits, yet an hour in our own company would likely reveal them. Yesterday I actually heard myself muttering, “I used to have all these buttons and snaps organized, but now I guess I have a thorn in the flesh that doesn’t put stuff away.” It’s embarrassing to admit, but there it was, a huge old stain that needed some cleansing.

Olivia came to me with her memory verse marked in her Bible last night and whispered in my ear, “I thought maybe this would encourage you, Mama.” It was the place in Matthew where Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.” Yes, dear little girl, I do like those verses.

Because that is pretty much what I did in the past month. I invested in my children and cried tears of private frustration and I felt like the Grinch of Homework. I prayed and corrected and encouraged them in the right way, then I stepped aside and let them decide which way they were going to take. Sometimes they messed up and often I messed up. Then we apologized and I doled out rewards and penalties in pretty much equal amounts.

This morning Alex recited his memory verses to me.

Luke 16:10-13 starts out with, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”

It hasn’t been a brilliant month, but I hope that I have been found faithful. The little things, the little people, the little attitudes: I want to remember that they are where it is really at. So will it be walnuts or hazelnuts tonight, my little squirrels?

Not Your Average Weekend

So we have been out of water for a few days. Our hick-town water company is working hard to find the problem, but meanwhile we walk to the faucets multiple times a day and turn them on. Nothing. Last night a company volunteer called and explained that there was no water coming out of the spring; they had been digging all day to try to find the problem; the earth may have shifted in the freezing weather and redirected the water. It wasn’t especially reassuring, but we still had drinking water because as soon as we noticed it starting to trickle, we swiftly filled dishpans and pitchers. Happily Addy had just gotten out of the tub and didn’t remember to drain it, so we could dip out of that for flushing the toilet.

Still. This morning Gabe had to go to work with just a spit bath. I didn’t begrudge him the half gallon of water he used, but there was no way I could get five children presentable for church with the remaining half gallon.

I told the little guys to eat cereal while I gathered up their good clothes and shoes to go over to my parents’ house for baths before church. Olivia objects to cereal. She wanted to fry an egg for herself but I said, “No extra dishes. We can’t wash them.” So she ended up going to church with only a banana to sustain her.

After the service, we came home, checked the spigots. Nothing again. We couldn’t wash hands or dishes or laundry. I had enough. Okay, kids, let’s gather up our stuff and go over to Doddy’s house again. Gregory collected all the dirty laundry. Addy whined about being hungry, so I gave her an apple while I assembled food for our lunch. I knew there was little in my mom’s fridge because they have been away for awhile. Olivia whined about being hungry. Eat an apple. But I don’t like apples. Well then you just have to be hungry until the lunch is served. She settled for another banana.

Meanwhile Alex was unloading all the ski gear out of the back of the Suburban: poles, Gabe’s patrol pack, helmets, boots. Everything got piled inside the basement door so that we would have room to take the puppy’s portable kennel and all our wash and food. A few of the children thought they would want to go skating, so in went the skates. It was snowing at the time and I thought I should probably throw in their gloves. I gathered up a basketful of muddy snow clothes, discovered that Addy was coatless and barefooted in her car seat, grabbed my purse and the laptop and the puppy food.

Deep breath. Are we all in the car? Yes. But someone was weeping. Another person was refusing to buckle and Gregory was repeatedly admonishing her that she would fly out and die if we crashed. Someone was upset because another person whacked his nose. The puppy was extremely nervous.

Another deep breath. “Children, we are going to reset here. Nobody may say anything while we are driving unless it is pleasant.”

There was blessed quietness for a few minutes until Addy piped up, “Mama? Something seems to be bothering me.”

I said, “Really, and what is that?”

“I think that I need a horse. I just really need a horse. To ride.”

Sometimes you have to just seize the moment and have a good belly laugh. The day got much better, especially once the hangry (hungry-angry) people were fed.

I did laundry all afternoon with my mom’s old-fashioned washer that agitates like no tomorrow. I want one like that again. Eight loads in a high-efficiency set up would take all day.

The water company says they hope to have things flowing after midnight tonight. Apparently there was a tree root interfering with the pipe that comes from the spring. It seemed a little vague, but I am truly grateful that the spring was just diverted, not dried up.

And I get to start my Monday with the laundry all done. It should be an interesting sensation. Not only that, Gabe has off! We are going to have Saturday on Monday! Have a great week, everybody.

Retrospective

I found myself thinking back over the year when I wanted to write a Christmas letter to my grandma and I concluded that it was a year of tender mercies… every morning new, just like my fresh cup of tea. The tea was tangible, but the mercies less obvious until I started to think of what could have been.

Looking back over the year, I feel the wonder of ordinary life going on day by day. We have friends whose lives were irrevocably changed by tragic loss of loved ones, by brain tumors, by the bad choices of other people, etc. Here we are, mostly unscathed; it isn’t fair. There is a liturgy where the responses of the congregation are only four words repeated, “Have mercy upon us.” I have pleaded this for our friends many times.

I find myself with fewer answers than ever as to why tragedies happen, yet I know with more assurance than ever that God is good. This is not to say that I never question His ways, but He remains good. Like breathing, I live in this confidence. There are aspects of faith that remain mysteries, yet are evidence, just as real as actual substantive things.

We grew this year. What is the point of living if we aren’t learning? The children show the most evidence of this. It’s astounding to look at photos just 12 months ago and see what all those green beans and peanut butter sandwiches and cups of milk have done to them physically. We find ourselves on the edge of parenting adolescents and I am scared spitless. The threes and fours and fives are familiar territory, but this teen thing looks like a different ball of wax. Did someone mention relationships? I anticipate a steep learning curve through this phase of parenting. Like the insatiable desire to be treated like an adult while still having the liberty to act like a little kid whenever that desire dictates… What is up with that? I distinctly remember that mixed up feeling when I was 12-13, so I can appreciate the justice in experiencing the parenting end of the stick. I am sorry I ever rolled my eyes at you, Mom.

We have found our preferred style of vacation to be camping, (4 times this summer) particularly in those nifty cabins at state parks. Perfection for me is a book, a chair beside a campfire, a mug of coffee in hand. The children only want monkey bars, bikes on trails, snacks, frisbees, soccer balls, food cooked on sticks, late night stories, more snacks, early breakfasts, hikes to look-out points. Obviously, not all of us can have our way. Either they have perfection or I do, and since I can’t beat em, I join em. (Why do they never beg their father for food? Hmm?) I can’t believe how often kids from other campsites join ours to play for hours without their parents even once coming to look for them. Probably they are reading beside their campfires…

We are getting better at the packing of stuff when we go away. Each child gets a backpack of their own along with a list of non-negotiable items. What doesn’t fit doesn’t go along. I have to check Rita’s pack for stray fabric scraps and a funny ratio of 5 undies to every play outfit. The boys tend to forget things like towels and toothbrushes, but they never go anywhere without pocket knives and flashlights, paracord bracelets and lighters. Yup, we are learning.

Speaking of paracord, we bought a thousand foot roll of it to use in constructing teepees or clubhouses or in tying down loose stuff. Seems you can never have too much rope or string. It has been a lot of fun for the boys to do youtube tutorials for weaving the cord in compact ways to carry it along outdoors “in case of emergency”. Alex has devised a way to weave 12 feet of cord into one monkey paw keychain. That is the one I want with me in the quite unlikely event that I will need to hang my game high in a tree in the woods after I used the cord to snare it.

If you have ever read The Hatchet, you can only imagine what Brian would have done with a paracord bracelet, especially if he had the kind of clasp that contains a piece of flint. 🙂 I do love my boys.

We got exactly half way through school before our break for Christmas. Both boys prefer reading to all other subjects and they were wallowing around in self pity over their math lessons this morning. Olivia likes math because reading is still pretty hard work for her and Rita is buzzing along in her Kindergarten stuff. She vacillates between speedy efficiency and leisurely putting along, but it is all easy for her. I kind of wish I had put her into the same grade with Olivia to save myself a bit of work, but she is still a dreamy little girl, so I guess we will continue to pace her slowly.

Addy insists on doing “real school” so I looked for some official looking books for her to learn numbers and shapes. She is affronted when I hand her a simple coloring book for school. Part of her growing up this fall included the stowing of the toddler bed. She insisted on the top bunk while the other two girls share the bottom. It actually seems to cut down her night-time ramblings, since it takes a lot of effort to climb out of the bunk in a sleepy state. She just hollers when she has a dream instead of coming to our bedroom to sleep on the floor. Last week one night she was crying in her sleep about stinkbugs, one of the few things in her little world that terrify her.

Since we got our puppy, it has really helped to get the children outdoors. Always Gregory is up first in the morning, so he takes her out of her kennel for a potty break. Sometimes I see him sitting in the backyard, all bundled up, still half-asleep while Lady cavorts around him and licks him excitedly. She has a way of looking soulfully in the door when she is on the deck and we are eating. Gregory says she is being “wismal” which is a combination of dismal and wistful. It describes her expression perfectly. She just cracks up with joy when they take breaks to play with her. I have been pleasantly surprised at how quickly she is being trained. Springer spaniels are very tractable and love to please their masters. We got the right puppy, thank the Lord! I am really glad Gabe researched for weeks, because I would probably have just gotten something free off Craigslist. 🙂

We have learned a few things about washers and the problems that crop up when you fix your own. After Gabe replaced the transmission and I rejoiced that it was humming along again, it worked perfectly for 2 loads. Then it began to drop the spin cycle, after which it refused to rinse. I am currently using three cycles for every load of laundry. One: wash. Two: rinse. Three: spin. It works except for when the lid locks and refuses to open for a whole day, like it did the day after Christmas and I had 7 loads to wash. For your information, it may or may not help to pound on the lid in exasperation. It opened. Who knows why?

Isn’t life just like that? In the impossible circumstances as well as the minute irritations we say, “Have mercy upon us.”

I pray for you a new year full of confidence in that merciful Love!

Potpourri of Just Happy Stuff

I have another shortcut to misery all ready, but on a drizzly, grey day, who needs that? We need to focus on how to be happy, yes?

There is a sweet, humming sound in my laundry room this morning. I keep tilting my head, listening to make sure it is still going along all right. Thanks to my husband’s skill in ordering and installing the right part from a system that is, at best, user surly, we have a washer again. I am grateful to not be schlepping baskets of dirty laundry to the neighbors or to my mom’s house. When we got married we bought a washer and dryer set at an auction for about forty dollars. They were already old when we got them, but lasted ten years with hardly a hitch. We decided that we must have lucked out and gotten a durable brand, so when we needed a new one, that is what we looked for. Let’s just say we went to the big store that rhymes with gears. Gabe said, “You need a good one, a big one, a dependable one, so we are not going to buy cheap.” Okay by me, the one who always starts at the cheap end of the displays.

Three years later we had a washer that expired in a clunking of alarming engine noises. My resourceful husband had already taken it apart once to try to find the noise, but since it still worked, we kept using it until it didn’t work. Of course. The place that rhymes with gears said their repairman could come out on January 2nd. “What? You have got to be joking! I have 5 children and I cannot wait that long,” I protested weakly.

We started checking out local repairmen, all of whom were ever so helpful and friendly, but afraid to mess with a computerized appliance from “gears” because they do not give any tech support to non-company fixers. Finally we were able to find one who was willing to give it a try if we wouldn’t get mad at him should he be unable to fix the problem. Meanwhile, I called the company people and made my case a little stronger. This time I got Betty, “she’s the bomb,” and she pulled some strings, scheduled me a Company Man for the very next day. So we cancelled the friendly local guy.

The funny thing was, the man they sent out was the most garrulous person I ever met and he spilled the beans about quite a few things, including the fact that he isn’t very busy at all right now. He doesn’t know what the January 2nd date was all about. Tilting the washer up about 45 degrees, he looked underneath and immediately pronounced our transmission shot, maybe a few other things fried as well. It could run into a lot more repair bucks than the machine was worth, he has a bunch of coupons and if we decide to go buy a new one, just give them his number, yada-yada. He didn’t do anything with his tools except carry them in and out again after charging us a hefty little sum for diagnosing our problem. To be fair, he had called ahead and explained all charges and he was very kind and helpfully verbose. Particularly he thought I shouldn’t use so much detergent, even if it is formulated for high-e machines, even if it is packaged in a handy little pod. I have to admit to some incredulity, “You mean, you think that is what fried the transmission?”

Upon careful reflection and an inspection of the family budget, we decided that a repair would be smarter than buying new, only the repair would be done by my husband now that we had been informed that it was not a computer problem. When Gabe ordered the part, they once more gave him that magical January 2nd date for shipping. We resigned ourselves to the inevitable and growled at the children every time they did superfluous changings of attire. The boys actually have no problem with wearing their clothes for a few days, but our girls do love to change outfits at least once a day.

Late last evening, UPS brought our part, Gabe promptly installed it, and now I can do my laundry again! It is only December 16 yet, so this is a gift! Can you see why I am happy after jumping through all those hoops? We have decided that, in future, we will buy new appliances locally, not because we carry any grudges against the friendly unhelpfulness of the big stores, but simply because we don’t like being lost in their shuffle and given dates that don’t mean anything. Also, we would like to keep the breed of small town owners alive, even if we have to pay more up-front, even if they don’t send out reams of coupons with their repair guys.

Moving on… We have a new baby at our house. A puppy baby, that is. She is sweet and waggy and might even turn me into a dog lover with her winsomeness. Gabe has dreamed of owning a spaniel for about most of his life. This fall we had started researching and looking at puppies with an eye to raising pups to sell. Our boys have wanted a puppy all of their lives, but we were always afraid of the road out front. There will have to be a kennel, and there is a lot of training involved, but spaniels are supposed to be extremely amiable and willing to obey. For now, there is a crate in the basement with a puppy that is learning to only go potty outside. I wasn’t going to allow even that much, but it is winter and spaniels don’t smell, etc, etc.

She is named Lady Gauge and we like her. May she enjoy a long life and flush many grouse and have many babies!

Some of you know about how I injured my knee while performing the arduous task of fishing some books out from under a dresser. As I twisted to stand up, something popped and I felt alarming pains that affected my walking for a few hours. With ice and elevation, the knee eventually was not painful unless I bent it. Gabe’s doctor friend said it was likely a tear and should be scanned sometime, but mainly I need to keep it braced and inactive. Hahaha, I said mirthlessly to myself. After 10 days in which I walked stiff legged and fantasized about curling up on the couch with my tea instead of extending my leg always into the cold, I am able to bend it carefully. It is healing, and that is happy too! I might add that the washer broke down at the optimal time, when I couldn’t run up and down the basement steps anyway.

Yesterday Rita wanted to ask the blessing at lunchtime. She started with a sweet thanks to Jesus “that I have a family and don’t have to live on the street…” Yes. That is right, little girl.

The boys are deep into codes and acronyms these days. I keep coming across papers with hieroglyphics of some sort or another, with alphabet decoders alongside. The acronyms are less obvious. “That was the MDM!” one of them will exclaim and when I look blank, they say, “Most Delicious Meal, of course.” Or I will hear an argument where one will insist, “I tell you, it is AT! AT!” I have discovered that AT means All True. Of course. Somehow the girls know that they should be insulted if they are referred to as “SLG”, or Silly Little Girl, as well as any other variation on the theme. I roll my inner eyes and laugh at the circus. Or I might say, “Okay, that is EA! Enough Already!”

We had a mega cookie baking spree one day, where each child picked a recipe and we baked it. Alex made rice crispy candy on his own and Greg did his own snicker doodles, but the girls still required a lot of supervision. I made a little mistake when I handed them a Taste of Home cookbook with pictures so they could choose their recipes. They chose things like Peppermint Pinwheels, Evergreen Sandwich Cookies (with two kinds of icing, no joke, although I declined to ice the tops with royal icing…) and Giant Spice Cookies (that look like cracked concrete according to Rita). The batches were small, and we gave a bunch away and ate a bunch and here we are, 10 days to Christmas and the cookies all gone. Addy was crestfallen that she won’t even be able to share her kind with Cousin Jackie. I am a sucker for sad eyes. Yesterday we made Evergreen Sandwich Cookies again.

In wintertime I challenge myself to do things that are inconvenient and require me to give up my personal space, just for love’s sake. After all, it would have been much easier for Jesus to stay in heaven, wouldn’t it? It isn’t that stuffing white socks with batting and making snowmen is so complicated. It is that it requires me to put out patience and long-suffering and time with a generous helping of hot glue and buttons. My children don’t know the difference between that and love that actually is costly. What they recognize is the camaraderie of life with a cheerful giver/mother. Incidentally, the Greek word for “cheerful” is the same root word as “hilarious,” a tidbit I remember from Bible School days. That is the catch, isn’t it, my friends… it isn’t the doing, it is the how they are done.

That is what I mean when I wish you a merry Christmas. I wish you joy in recognizing how extravagantly costly was the gift God gave when He sent His Son. Let’s live His lifestyle of extravagant giving of ourselves!

How to Have Breakfast in Bed

And Other Stories of Small Consequence

Today would probably be as good a day as any to have an emergency around here. They have apple dumplings in the local ER. I know because I got up early to bake them so I could send them with my husband when he left for work. Then I brewed coffee and took the extra apple I had baked for myself and went back to bed to eat it. That was wonderful.

How to Have an Impromptu Sleep-out

“Wow, it’s so warm, we could sleep in the backyard tonight,” I mused out loud. The problem with saying impulsive things like this in front of the little people is that they do not forget. I started to say how tired I was from cleaning like a maniac for days but they were sure this was just excuses from the real burning desire of my life to crawl into a sleeping bag for a change from the usual mattress and blankets routine. I slept in the playhouse that night, at least until 4:30, when I was getting a little tired of my 3 separate couch cushions and the various snufflings of sleeping children. I sneaked into the house, bringing Addy with me so that she would not waken and be frightened, this being her first time to sleep in the backyard.

How to Make a Small Boy Happy

I have mentioned Gregory’s happy place in the kitchen, how he hums and dusts flour and dispenses chocolate chips with benevolence. Recently he has discovered food coloring. It takes me right back to my childhood days when my brothers and cousins put coloring in things like potatoes or eggs. Did I unwittingly pass on this gene as a Schlabach thing, or is it inherent in every small boy? At any rate, we have red and green and blue and orange chocolate chip cookies in the house just now. “They look fantastic!” he said as he pulled them out of the oven. Behold the blue batch.

How to Clean Like a Maniac (as in, Overly Zealous Person)

When we got back from our anniversary jaunt, I looked around my house and knew with surety that the time had come. I strive to remain sensibly calm in regards to children living life fully and the ravages that puts upon my house, but there are seasons when I feel that every area is dirty and every corner is disorganized. The thought of spending winter in this is much more daunting than the thought of attacking it with zeal and getting it all ship shape. Why not just do it all right away, day after day, every afternoon when we are done with school? Why not just shampoo the rugs and wash all the bedding and wipe off the fingerprints and be done with it? So I did…All but the main area in the basement. I didn’t read for days. I was Productive Martha. I wish cleaning nourished my soul. I know some people like that, but for me, it is definitely just a means to an end.

Epiphany While Cleaning

While I was going through the girls’ room with a large trash bag (they were not present at the time) I suddenly realized what it is that is so odd about Pinterest children’s bedrooms. There are no treasures. The rooms have been carefully designed and decorated by a loving adult with gorgeous taste, who then takes photos before they allow the kids into the room. I sincerely hope that within a few weeks there will be rock collections and fronds of beautiful leaves and gigantic handmade paper dolls or fantastic Lego cars on those Ikea shelves. I hope that the tattered, most loved books can come out of hiding and the funny lumpy pillowpets that will not stay clean can return to the beds after the mama has taken the pictures. I felt better after I thought all that out.

Epiphany About Cleaning

Look around two days later. It’s a joke. It is beating back a swiftly returning chaos. But it isn’t wasted effort, surely. Surely?

How to be Late for Church

Stay in bed too long with the apple dumpling and the coffee before starting the process of dressing and polishing the crew. Bonus points for having a clock that needs the battery replaced. Bonus, bonus points for having lost shoes. Walk into church during the singing and smile as if no drama has happened at all in the last half hour.

How to Count Grace

Many years ago a mother taught her small boy that God speaks kindly through not just good and easy times, but through painfully grueling life lessons and this morning he relayed this message to our children. It struck me with the simplicity of Utter Truth. It is all around, the grace of God, the gifts of God, the favor of God. Providence, the foreseeing care of a wise and loving Father, may be an outmoded term, but it is all around me and I am grateful. I will never get finished counting grace.

Livvy’s Birthday

This is my little Livvy girl, my fragile child with the determined, sturdy spirit. She is smiling funny so that her very loose tooth doesn’t show. No matter how much we tried to persuade her that the tooth should stay back with six, she insisted that it needed to dangle along to seven.

We did a spur of the moment birthday party with my parents picking up a cake for her.

Her siblings had some little presents ready for her. As she unwrapped this present, it became evident that Rita had gifted her with one of Addy’s most prized treasures at the moment. It took only a second for Addy to snatch it back, “HEY, that is mine!” It is nice that seven is old enough to be amused instead of offended at such doings.

These two are best buddies, sharing the birthday loot and conspiring on how to quietly play with the teensy Strawberry Shortcake stuff without Addy noticing. Poor Addy.

And here we have the cake she really was hoping for: something with fondant decorations, like flowers and monkeys. We plan to share this with the school children tomorrow when we take a hot lunch to school. Marshmallow fondant is very fun to work with, but a project this large ~~was a little ambitious~~ required all hands on deck. Greg did the bushes, Alex did the monkeys and palm fronds, the little girls punched out flowers and stars with cutters and I supervised, arranged, and made the vine, etc. etc. I was, quite frankly, fried when it was finally finished. Have a happy day, everybody!

(Oh, look! The tooth came out today! Now there is the real smile! )

The Goldenrod Is Yellow

Some of you were wondering where in the world I have been. I will give you multiple choice options and we shall see how good you are at guessing.

Researching John and Abigail Adams
Going to the zoo
Feeding hundreds of people
Canning my tail feathers off
Refraining from saying things that are not kind
Hauling things up and down my attic steps
Bike shopping
Taking time to savor my coffee
Cutting holes in my daughter’s dress
All of the above

Let’s just assume you are smart about this sort of list and I will tell you that 10 is indeed the right answer. Regarding number 1, I am not certain that reading a page out of David McCullough’s 646 page biography every day at nap time can be considered research, especially as it is a library book and I doubt whether they will allow me to renew it often enough to finish it. I cannot believe the prodigious quantity of letters, sometimes 2 or 3 in a single day, that he and Abigail wrote during their frequent separations while America was learning how to be a country on her own. It is noteworthy, also, how very important it was in the early days for a politician to be scrupulously honest and virtuous. There is also an interesting biographical film of John Adams on Amazon that fascinated me. So yes, research of the Wikipedia and one page a day variety.

In all my childhood memory bank, I cannot recall anyone ever puking on the way to the zoo. Nor can I remember anyone desperately insisting that they Have to Go Potty when we were stuck in traffic so that my mom had to climb over seats to help them relieve themselves in a small goldfish crackers container. But I wasn’t the mom back then, so I may have forgotten. The zoo was fun though, especially with my sister and her family joining us from Ohio. That is my cute niece Jackie in the middle.

As for feeding hundreds of people, I should explain that I am counting my children 3 times a day, along with occasional friends and relations. When you figure it out, it’s 21 people a day just for our family (I pack Gabe’s lunch). No wonder the groceries fly off the shelves as fast as I haul them home. Or can them. I know the amount of food I preserve is laughably small compared to some. Gabe’s mom does hundreds of quarts of tomato juice every year. On the day I was hauling home 2 bushels of tomatoes to make into pasta sauce, I passed a middle aged guy in a red convertible, top down, hair ruffled in the wind, blissful expression on his face and all. I thought, “I don’t envy your life at all, buddy. But could we just trade for the next 24 hours?” Cause I think it would do him good to see a child’s delight at learning to mix primary colors in icing… after the tomato canning was done, of course. School marches on. I think we have 24 days done, even with all the days we took off. I love having the freedom to dismiss lessons for busy days because we started early. It took the pressure off majorly. And I have little runners to fetch and carry and husk and peel. They are such good helpers that some days I had time to write posts, but I found myself rereading them and hearing my mom in my head, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” So I didn’t. And no, you may not see my drafts folder.

The bike shopping turned out to be a bit of a fiasco. Olivia has been riding a small boy’s bike all year, and all year we have looked for a pink bike at yard sales. We don’t really see the point of buying brand new ones when they are still in the learning stages and crash all the time, but by her birthday she still didn’t have a bike her size. So I took her and Rita with me on an excursion to Altoona, first to a consignment sale where the only bikes were boys’ bikes, then to Walmart where I opened my eyes to the prices as well as the ugliness of the decals. I could just imagine how the Disney princesses would look after scraping against backyard trees and riding through the mud in the garden. Meanwhile Rita saw a teensy bike with a dolly carseat attached to it and began to sob quietly in her hopeless desire to own it. We decided to check Target, where they did not have a single 16 or 18 inch bike on stock. As we were walking out, the girls saw the Lego friends sets and Olivia said she would rather have one of those anyway, so I got her one for her birthday. That is not all, though. Our neighbors had a yard sale this weekend, and there was a lavender girl bike for 5 dollars, so the boys bought it for the birthday girl. Whew. *dusts off hands*

The birthday girl brings us to another subject: that of letting her pick out fabric at Walmart for a dress. If you know their fabric selection, you know that it is varied and unreliable as to quality, but right now they have a lot of cheap stuff, likely for costumes. We found some we liked and I planned the charcoal dress with a filmy purple overskirt. I was feeling a bit smug as I entered the home stretch of doing the overlock seam on the skirt in just under 3 hours. Suddenly I realized that the slippery fabric had doubled under and I was overlocking too many layers. Oh, please, please. But yes, the blade on the serger had cut a large gash right into the middle of the front bodice. The longer I studied it, the more I wanted to chuck the whole thing into the trash can. But I picked it apart and kept on working at it until it was all done. I love my little girl dearly but I have to admit that I kept thinking, “Ain’t nobody got time for this.” Here is the damage. Tomorrow I will try to post a picture of the girly in the dress. I have convinced her that she is now old enough to put her beloved blanket into the attic in her keepsakes box and the dress is a sort of swap or reward for bravery. The first time I broached the subject of the blanket, she burst into tears. You have to understand that with a dysfunctional adrenal gland, this blanket has gone with her for every lab draw and every scary doctor’s visit and swaddled her in every stressful situation since she was just wee. It has supplied comfort and calmed her for her entire childhood. She has staunchly defended it from her brothers’ merciless teasing. (Are you going to share your blanket with your husband?) And she has agreed to give it up. After all, it is flannel and it says Baby on the front. I am so proud of her! To the attic it went.

The Goldenrod Is Yellow…It really is, but the reason I used it for my title is because it is the first line of a poem I learned in second grade and this time of year I can hear our class chanting it vigorously as Teacher Sarah beamed at us with approval. Any of you others remember it? I can’t recall the whole thing but I would love to teach it to my children just for fun.

Anyway, that’s where I have been, plus a lot more besides. Where have you been?

August Potpourri

I was dragging my tail at 2 o’clock this afternoon, so naturally I made myself a cup of coffee. Now, at 11 o’clock, I am still feeling it. I can’t handle caffeine, I know.

The last 2 weeks were stuffed full of fun and relatives on both sides of the family. We spent a few days up north with Gabe’s family in the middle of August. His folks hosted a reunion for the Peight family, no small matter when you consider that there were 14 boys and 2 girls in the original clan and most of them had substantial families as well. Gabe has more cousins than you could shake a stick at! The Peights are notorious for not getting together very much, but when they do, they have a great time, especially telling tales of the old days. I have often wished I could have met the mother of all those boys. (Or wait, was it 12 boys and 2 girls? Pretty sure it was 14, give or take a few.)

We were back home for a few days before two of my siblings and their families came for a visit. My parents have guest quarters in their basement, so we spent most of our visiting time at their house. With our limited space, it is easier for us to host a crowd if the weather is nice so that we can spill out onto the deck. However, it poured on the evening that we had the crew at our place for supper. Gabe grilled sausages with a big umbrella over himself. Eight adults and twelve children in our living room felt nice and snug. 🙂 To top it off, I had roasted cauliflower in my oven. It tasted amazing but put off an awful stench that lingered the entire evening. Note to self: next time roast on the grill and let the zephyrs drift away.

Over this past weekend we also did some last minute socializing with Gabe’s SD brother and his family, sharing our popcorn and ice cream with them on Sunday night before they packed up to leave Monday morning. I would venture to say that we value time spent with them more now that they live 20 hours away than we did when their house was just a mile down the road!

We keep putting in about 3 days a week on school, in between all the mingling. For those who wonder about the social aspect of homeschooling…. It’s not a problem, truly. I was so worn out yesterday that I just feebly lay on the recliner with a book and let the children scatter Legos all over the living room. Eventually I bethought myself of the hampers flowing over onto the floors and we did laundry. That was all. Just that and a bucket full of green beans. Well, we cleaned some floors too, and mowed the lawn, but I had the troops busy and let me tell you, that is a huge asset!

Every year I like to adopt a motto when school starts up again. When I was a teacher I used to have a weekly pep saying or verse for myself in my plan book, but homeschool is a little different. I just need one to hang onto all year since I really don’t have time to rethink every week. :p I have been reading Hebrews and seeing a continual pattern of faith, of course. I had never noticed before how many times it is coupled with endurance, patience, and just general “do the next thing-ness”. As soon as I have time I want to paint myself a little sign for this year’s motto: FAITH and PATIENCE

It comes from Hebrews 6:11,12 in the ESV.

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

And again in Hebrews 10:36 this idea is repeated.

“ For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”

I don’t know about you, but I really, really need endurance and so do my children. None of us are thrilled with hard stuff day after day. I explained to my boys how doing difficult assignments opens more neural pathways in their brains so that they can think better and do even harder stuff. “It’s like a mole tunneling new ways and making more connections for thinking to happen in your brain. If you never do anything that is hard work, your brain stays mushy.” They want the expanded tunnels but aren’t so sure about long division and summary writing to get them.

All the while I was explaining this to the boys, I was telling myself, “So quit trying to constantly make your life easier. Embrace the season and the mess and the hardness! Don’t complain about how everybody always needs you. Just wash the floor already instead of sighing at the remnants of fruit jello smeared under the table. Take the time to address that bad attitude instead of hoping it will go away while you sip your tea. Let it all expand your capacities…”

Oh, but Lord, it is hard sometimes…

And it is funny sometimes. We had a sign up sheet for a 24 hour prayer chain at church. Just a fifteen minute slot- that was all I signed for. Yesterday I made sure everyone was fed and happily employed before my 15 minutes. Predictably, there were calls for help in the bathroom, which I serenely ignored until my big boy came racing up the steps calling that there was water dripping from the basement ceiling. Out of the entire day, that was the time for my tot to clog the toilet with paper and flush repeatedly. And that is why there were 15 towels on my clothesline today.

Faith and patience.