Ordinary Time

The family pet tally is now down by 7 frogs. But, before you break out the tissues, let me assure you that they are well and happy. At least they were well and happy at 8:15 this morning. That was when M. released them back into the pond where she had scooped them up as tadpoles and brought them home. This is the second time we've had the opportunity to watch the transformation process and it remains miraculous. Bullfrog tadpoles are quite large, but by the time they metamorphose into frogs they are pretty little...so 7 of them can fit into a 10 gallon tank. But they grow and the bullfrogs were running out of room. There was also the whole issue of feeding them. They enjoy live food. M. started out feeding them crickets, but that was getting expensive and causing her to run to the pet store every few days because crickets don't live all that long even if they haven't been fed to a frog. So she turned to meal worms. This explains why 1000 mealworms were delivered ...

that machine used by the Cat in the Hat when he cleans up the house at the end of the book. The beginning of summer is so wonderful. The schoolbooks are put away and huge amounts of free time stretch out before us. There is nowhere anyone has to be except for frequent trips to the beach. But I find it all becomes too much by the end of August. The free time that seemed so glorious in June is starting to feel a touch burdensome. Here in late August, the main occupation of Thing One and Thing Two, oops, I mean TM and D, seems to be creating messes. This is not to say that no messes were made in June, it's just that their scope has broadened. Neither want to actually play with something so much as just remove it from its container. To keep any sort of order I find myself following along behind them reminding them to put away what they got out. If I want to go and do other things, such as freeze the 25 pounds of blueberries we picked last weekend, I am greeted with chaos of unbelievabl...

This is a question I've been asked a lot recently. It's a question that always leaves me baffled as to how to respond. The snarky response which my evil twin would love to give someday is, "Well, it's because I'm a superior mother and my children must be more pleasant to be around than yours." Just asking the question does in some way imply this answer. There must be something intrinsically better about me to be able to raise and homeschool 6 children and still wear clothing that matches and is clean. But I can never use that response because it's just too rude and, well, it's not true. I lose my patience, forget things even though they're written on the calendar, and more often than I like to admit, children (or I) run out of clean underwear. My children, in my humble opinion, are bright, but no one has learned to read excessively early or begged to begin learning calculus. And, as far as behavior goes, they are a pretty average bunch. There are g...

Painting..... Reading.... Kayaking.... Sand sculpture (it's a penguin sunning himself, of course)..... Sparklers...... Walking on the beach..... THANK YOU, Aunt G. & Uncle W.!

A recent thread on a bulletin board I am on has me pondering the following question: Is it hypocritical to say one's family is TV-free and yet either still own a set or watch videos and DVDs? My gut says no, but I'm a little fuzzy as to why I have that feeling. If I write down my reasoning, maybe I can stop having arguments with myself and be able to focus on other things.(You know, like all those children running around my house.) We have not always been a TV-free family. (Note: For the sake of argument, I will consider being TV-free as not watching commercial or cable television. This is different from being monitor-free... i.e. no screen-related activities of any kind.... [Sort of like vegetarian vs. vegan....] ) Our oldest two children have certainly watched their share of PBS shows in their younger days, and J. and I once had shows that we enjoyed watching most nights of the week. (Back in the days of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine...

Well, it seems I was correct in my estimation that we wouldn't travel until at least January. K.'s province is moving even slower than usual and the timelines have changed to expect at least 9 months between dossier submission to travel. We knew going into this that it wasn't going to be a fast process, but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have to start worrying about whether Tet would be an issue in travelling. On the positive side....warming-up in Vietnam while everyone else struggles to keep warm during typically brutal January weather sounds lovely....then there are the post-Christmas sales for gift buying....yeah, well, there's two items on the positive side. We did find out that K. only had his lip repaired. But we also learned a new piece of information in that the doctor reported that his palate was not too bad, so he didn't want to repair it at the same time. I'll take this as good news; we had no idea about the extent of clefting in ...

We have had some news about our newest son, K. The biggest piece of information is that he had surgery to correct his lip the second week of June. He was in the hospital for 5 days and is now back at the care center, eating and sleeping normally. A confusing aspect of the report is that is says his palate was also corrected. I suppose this is possible, but in all my research, I have only heard of the lip and palate being repaired separately. I am so glad that he came through the surgery without any problems. It means that we won't necessarily be looking at surgery immediately upon bringing him home. But, it also breaks my heart that we weren't there to hold him as he recovered. The other part of the update states that he is now crawling (very fast...he will fit right in with the other boys in the house) and is beginning to pull to a stand. He likes attention and smiles when people talk to him. This was all two months ago, so who knows what he is doing now. We are now a...