Ordinary Time

As we continue with our plan of children each cooking dinner one night a week, I realize there is an important idea that I need to share if anyone is thinking about doing something similar. And that idea is being flexible. We all know that sometimes things don't go together as quickly or as smoothly as one would like. I've lost count of the number of times we are later than usual because everything just took longer. Younger me used to hate this and feel as though I had failed somehow. Older me? Well, I can't bother to work up anything other than to say, "It happens, we all ate."  If this is true for experienced cooks, then it is doubly true for those still honing their skills. And then if you add in a new skill to learn... Well, sometimes you just eat a bit later than usual. Not getting upset by this or making your child feel badly or anxious is really important if you want your child to enjoy the process. Tonight's menu was turkey pot pie to use up the Thanks...

Oh, don't worry, I'm still sewing, but while I was sewing I watched several episodes of Shiny, Happy People. It has been on my list for a while, but knowing the content I wasn't rushing to watch it. When I needed something to occupy my brain while I was putting bias tape on what felt as though miles of raw edges, I decided this was the perfect opportunity. For those who don't know it is a documentary of sorts looking at Bill Gothard's IBLP cult (and yes, I am using that term in its precise sense) in general and the Duggar family specifically. It was not pleasant to watch.  I'll admit to watching the first couple of Duggar family specials and enjoying them. I think we just had five children at that time and had not started the process to adopt TM. Society was constantly telling us five was a lot, so it was fascinating to watch a family with three times that many. I felt about it the way I felt about watching the show about the DeBolts when I was a child. Having d...

So remember that study I have referred to multiple times about vocabulary being found to be deficient in the younger children of large families? I bet you were getting a little tired of me harping on it.  Well, I have some good news and bad news for you. The good news is you probably won't ever hear me reference it again. Don't get too caught up in your celebration, though, because this looks is only because a new, more egregious study is out. Now it seems, that it has been "proven" that not only are the younger children of large families intellectually behind, but the intellectual ability of the older children declines with each added sibling.  First off, I guess I need to apologize to my older children. Just think how much smarter you could have been without all those pesky younger siblings around sucking up parental attention and causing you untold intellectual damage.  You were reading that as heavy irony, right? There is absolutely nothing wrong with my older ch...

The other night L. was expounding on something during dinner and happened to use several large, multi-syllabic words in a row. This caused G. to comment on the vocabulary choice, which suddenly brought to my mind that long ago study about younger children in large families not having large vocabularies. (And since it still comes to mind, I freely admit that it still rankles.)  So I told the children at the table about the results of the study, which everyone laughed about because it was so far outside the realm of our experience. I also mentioned why I thought the test results were skewed.... because youngest children of large families, at least in my experience, feel no need to comply for the sake of compliance, thus they probably chose not to participate or if they did, try very hard. L. and G. both agreed that this would be very much their reaction. Did it surprise me? No, not at all because I've been there when they both clammed up and stared and someone who was being a bit too...

Long time readers will recognize a couple of these people... now grown up members of the P. family and the H-S Family .  They grew up together, though now they are adults living their adult lives in different places. I used to refer to them by their age, but this doesn't work so well anymore. In the top picture, from the left is, of course, W. Then adult child from the H-S Family in the middle and adult child from the P. Family on the right.  They are still very good friends and it makes me happy to see them together again. 

We've done the transition of older children moving out leaving just younger children at home more than once. While I notice those older children's absence in all aspects of life, it is at the dinner table where I feel the empty place(s) most keenly. By the time a child is old enough to be on their own, years of family dinners have caused them to be pretty decent conversationalists. While younger children most certainly join in the conversation, it is usually the older people at the table who do the heavy conversational lifting. So when one of those people is no longer at the table, the hole is noticeable. Having just the younger six at the table these days has meant that it has taken a while for them to grow into filling the conversational gap. I think we're getting there! For instance, tonight's conversation did not revolve around wanting puppies. (Well, in all honesty, puppies were probably mentioned a few times, but by this time I pretty much tune it out.) Instead, t...

Sad sound number one: Yesterday the dishwasher part arrived in the mail, which was exciting because there was a chance that the dishwasher could be working in time for Thanksgiving. J. spent the evening replacing the part, thought he had done it correctly, and so turned on the dishwasher. The sad sound was water pouring out of the dishwasher all across the kitchen floor. It was a very sad sound. It was even sadder when it happened a second time after J. thought he had figured out what was wrong. Water running across the kitchen floor is never a happy sound. Sad sound number two: After having wiped up all the water I heard R.'s unique and PTSD inducing shriek from her bed. This particular shriek never bodes well. Never. I went up and got her calmed down... twice. The second time she actually fell back asleep while I was sitting on her bed with her. She has never done that before. But then both J. and I were up in the middle of the night, with me finally bringing her into our bed so ...

When people find out how many children we have, there are three areas that seem to be of highest interest: 1. How much food to I cook? 2. How much laundry I do and 3. What do we drive. Having just finished a food heavy holiday, I thought I would talk about Thanksgiving food and large families. We were hosting this year, so there were twenty-six people total for dinner. My sisters-in-law and I spread out the dishes, so we were only responsible for turkey, stuffing, rolls, and apple pie. I also made cranberry sauce as well as our family's own personal stash of cranberry-orange relish. This is because we are all about the leftover turkey sandwiches, which I may have mentioned before. Much of our Thanksgiving preparations are with an eye towards making sure that there are enough leftovers to have sufficient sandwiches. This is all to explain why I bought three 20-pound turkeys. The first turkey we cooked the day before and cut the meat off the bones, saving the bones. The second turkey...

This morning... if you can even call it morning since it was so far ahead of sunrise... A. and P. hopped into the car and drove to Ohio to bring D. home for Thanksgiving. They made great time and D. was home well ahead of dinner. It is so wonderful to see him! He has a full week off, so I plan on enjoying every minute of his time home. D. is doing very well and is enjoying school. His choice of university is a very good fit for him. K. and Y. have yet to see D., though because I drove them to B.'s apartment to spend the night. There have been times where I have inwardly felt sorry for my younger children as their older siblings grow up and move out on their own that they won't have the crazy, giant family experience. What I didn't realize was that they have a chance to do things their older siblings never did, namely have sleepovers at their older brothers' and sisters' apartments. This is something that they all love and is a very special treat. K. and Y. were thri...

With D. having worked at our library for all of last year, I have finally gotten to know some of the librarians there. This makes me happy. I like being recognized when I walk into the library; it's what I'm used to. It is truly one of those things which makes this place feel more like home. This evening I was running in to the library because there were some books on hold that I wanted to pick up. I went to the shelf to grab the books and noticed there were a couple in the stack that I wasn't expecting. It was confusing because not only was I not expecting them, but they were books we actually owned. "Who the heck put these on hold since we already own them?" was the question that jumped to mind. Oh well, I decided to check them out and sort it all out later. I scanned my card and opened the first book of the surprise books to check it out and looked for the bar code. Funny, the bar code was scratched out. "That's odd," I thought. I looked at the bo...

Since we were just at the Art Institute last week and with the recent docent brouhaha, I'd though I'd chime in here with some of my thoughts. They might shed a little light in what it turning out to be a contentions argument. I have gone to my fair share of field trips led by docents over the years at the Art Institute (and other museums for that matter... I have something to compare with). Field trips where we (other families as well as ours) registered as a homeschooling group and where our demographics were less than typical due to age and ethnicity. Large, adoptive, homeschooling families don't fit neatly into very many boxes. The H-S family mom was usually in charge of organizing these field trips which usually coordinated with whatever period of history we were studying. We had a very narrow niche of art that we were usually interested in. (And without the H-S family mom, the P. family mom and I realized that we are not terribly good at organizing things for ourselves...

Today was our annual not back to school day field trip. This year I decided we would go to the Shedd Aquarium. I knew it had been a while since we had visited the aquarium, but hadn't realized quite how long. During the day, Y. was 100% sure that she had never visited, so I figured that it had been six years or so. Nope, I just looked back at blog entries, and the last time we visited was in 2012 , the year H. came home. It has been nine years since we have gone! I'm not sure how that happened. Since I had many years there where I had a one-woman boycott against the Shedd due to their membership policies, it felt as though it was time to make this year's museum membership to be the Shedd because it had been a while since they had fixed their membership issue , and I should show my support by buying one.  We drove into the city this morning to meet our friends, the P Family . I drove not in the giant van, but J. and switched cars so I could take the newer, smaller one. Thi...

you have enough players for a baseball team. You also have almost enough players to have two teams if you decide to only field the bare minimum, which is usually what happens around here. Often everyone just plays in our yard somewhere, but yesterday J. took them to a park to use a real baseball diamond to celebrate the purchase of new (to us) mitts which were desperately needed. (Photos by TM) And since baseball is a pretty spring-like event, here are some other pictures which show that spring really truly has arrived. (First two photos are by me, the last is by TM) Our crab apple is glorious! None of us remember it being quite so filled with blossoms.  Finally, another photo obviously taken by TM. It is somewhat manipulated in that while we got a little rain this evening, there wasn't enough to create a small lake as in the photo. Enjoy the really good photography, because TM heads to boot camp in 28 days. 

Everyone was able to be home and enjoy our Greek feast this evening. The festivities began with a presentation of "Theseus and the Minotaur". The audience gathered and read the programs while waiting for the play to begin. And then the narrators took the stage. K. and H. were the kings of the two cities and G. was playing Theseus. The narrators doubled as Ariadne (Y.) and Athena (L.) When an audience member became a little unruly, Athena felt the need to step in and remedy the situation. The big battle between Theseus and the Minotaur (K.) And the bows. After the play, we headed inside to fix the food. We had grilled chicken, Greek salad, a roasted eggplant dish, pastitsio, pita bread, and baklava for dessert.  K. created the centerpieces by constructing the Parthenon and a trireme ship out of Lego. A good time was enjoyed by all. It was particularly lovely to have everyone there and filling sixteen seats at the table. I love that my older children still come around to act as...

You know, I am not perfect. Far from it, in fact. I am also not terribly patient despite whatever image you have decided to create about me in your head. Most days I hold it together pretty well, other days, not so much. Sometimes the accumulation of little annoyances which get the better of me. Today was one of those days. One of the things you just don't think about when you are adding to your family and are busy and focused on many young children is the sheer length of time that is ahead of you. I've been actively parenting children for twenty-eight years now and still have six more years before the youngest turn eighteen. There are some days I am just weary. Weary of not being able to assume that something I have set down will still be there when I come back for it. (It rarely is.) Weary of still being in the routinely breaking dishes phase of life. (We lost another corning ware dish today. We now have three lids and one container.) Weary of having things just vanish. (A ne...

We had fettuccine Alfredo with spinach for dinner tonight. It is so good. It is sooo rich... complete with three sticks of butter and four cups of cream, not to mention the 8+ ounces of grated Romano. Did I mention how good it was? We add spinach because that seems to help balance out the artery-clogging properties a bit. ... Maybe? Probably not, but it sure tastes good.  At the end of dinner, as L. was finishing a large portion of seconds, she announced, "This dinner makes me feel tired and sluggish." No one disagreed with her. It tastes good, but eat too much and you definitely feel a bit of regret. As she asked to be excused from the table after dinner, 'accused' accidentally came out instead of 'excused'. G. pounced on it immediately and there was some funny word play between them for a moment or two.  All of this brought me immediately back to that study which was purported to prove that younger children of large families would suffer and that this was sh...

A comment on yesterday's post has me thinking about this phrase again. I had a vague feeling that I had written on this topic before, so I did a quick search, and sure enough I had. Having read though it, I still agree with everything I wrote six years ago. You can read the first post, But You Asked For It , with the link I added. I also realize that I wrote it in 2015, which is one year before we brought home R. and Y., and I find I have some more to say. [I also need to add that I write this on behalf of the many hurting adoptive parents out there who have heard this phrase too many times. Personally, no one has ever dared to say it to me.] First let's talk about the phrase itself. This is one of my top five worst things you can say to an adoptive parent. It is right up there with, "Where is her real mom?" or "Are they real siblings? No, really. You know what I mean." or "Why did their mom give them away?" or "How much did you pay for her?...

I have finally updated the " About " page on the blog. They have been pestering me to update it for a couple of years now. Since the last time I did was four years ago, I guess they all have a point. Children grow and change an awful lot in four years. In my defense, do you know what at pain it is to collect pictures of twelve individuals that they both like and approve of showing to the world? This time the heavy lifting of that endeavor went to A. who took care of getting pictures of the younger six. I think you'll find everyone looks quite a bit more grown up. The other thing you'll notice if you head over there (and which you'll also notice in any future posts) is that an initial has changed. It's not a difficult change, so I think you can all manage it. M. for all future posts will be known as W. See? Just turn that M. upside down and there you are. Not hard. W. changed his name a while back and I was slow to keep up. Plus, the initial was already in use,...

I made chicken pot pie tonight for dinner. It is one of those meals that every single person likes, and as a result there are never any leftovers. As I was sitting here wondering I should write about tonight (and coming up with absolutely nothing), I thought, hmmm... dinner was good, maybe I'll share how to make pot pie. Then I idly wondered if I had ever done that before, so decided to look. Well, it seems I did write about it eight years ago.  This is the trouble with having written this blog for so long (10+ years). I can't remember what I've written about and what I haven't. I'm sure this is not the first time I've written about (or tried to write about) the same thing; it's just the one time I thought to check first. It makes for a much shorter blog post, that's for sure. And for those of you who were thinking that a recipe for chicken pot pie sounded like a good idea, here's the link so you don't have to go searching for it. Frugal Large Fa...

I'm not sure listening to current events is good for my blood pressure. As I was driving to my riding lesson today, I caught a bit of the senate judiciary hearings. I think they probably struck me a little differently (and more forcefully) than other people. I want to spend some time explaining why. (And as an extra note, this will be rather partisan. I make no apologies for that.) If you hadn't noticed I have a few children; some are biologically related to me and others were adopted. (Sound like anyone else you've been hearing about recently?) So here's the thing. I am treated differently by a good 80% or so of the people I come across. (And really, I completely made up that statistic, so it is certainly not verifiable, but use it as a benchmark to describe my personal experience.)This usually works one of two ways. Scenario #1: I meet someone new. We talk. I appear normal and conversation moves along as any conversation between new acquaintances does. Inevitably, tho...