Ordinary Time

Look what we came across yesterday: (l-r) L., G., and K. This was K. reading stories to his little sisters.  He is reading them some of their favorite books from The Nutshell Library . (I think they like them mainly because of their size; it's easy for little hands to carry them.  But Pierre and Chicken Soup with Rice are two of my favorite children's books as well.)  As I listened in to K.'s "reading", I was impressed that he was hitting the highlights of the story.  This is an important feat for this little boy.  This has been a big summer for him, developmentally-wise and I can't wait to see what gains he makes this fall. G. and L. are the perfect audience for him.  As long as someone is reading to them, reading anything, they will sit and listen.  At one point the other day, I noticed the two of them sitting side by side and L. had a book open on her lap and she was saying, "Eh, eh, eh, eh-eh, eh." for each page and G. was listening atten...

That's what the bracelet says that I purposefully put on my arm this morning.  (I got it and a couple others from Above Rubies .)  I put it on this morning to remind myself.  And what caused this need?  Well, this morning when A.was looking at her new gerbils, she shrieked and I immediately thought something was dead.  But it turned out to be just the opposite.  Instead of one less gerbil, there were more than the expected two.  Yes, it turns out that A. unknowingly bought one (or two, we're still not sure) pregnant gerbils.  There has been a flurry of excitement over all of it. Looking at the whole thing as an adventure helps to keep a smile on my face and my stress levels low.  Because motherhood really is an adventure, isn't it?  Miriam-Webster defines adventure this way: 1. a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks 2: an exciting or remarkable experience 3: an ent...

Thanks to friends who had extra passes to the Skokie Water Park, that is where we spent the day today.  (Along with the friends, of course.)  It was the perfect thing to do on a 90 degree day when you haven't started school, but nearly everyone else has.  Though, since it seems it was the only water park open in the area, it attracted more people than we were expecting.  But still, it wasn't too crowded. Everyone had a great time... even G. and L., who as a rule are not overly fond of water.  We were billing it as a giant outdoor bathtub that you wear swimming suits in, and in theory, they thought that sounded fun.  Fun that is until we got to the gate of the children's area and they look and see all the water (especially the splashing, spraying water features) and both did a dead stop.  The only way we got them through the gate was to carry them. For most of the day, this is how they played in the water: L. They perched on the outside of the pool ...

I  finished the peaches last night (at 11 pm).  (The tally?  Twenty-one quarts of canned sliced peaches, 11 pints of jam... or peach syrup if you insist that jam must actually be jelled, and 7 pie's worth of frozen peaches in the freezer.  Plus we still have a fruit drawer full of fruit to eat.)  I can now move on to other things. And those other things?  Pondering why this past weekend's article in the paper about large families annoyed me so much.  It wasn't necessarily a bad article.  The mothers of the families interviewed (one of them Mary, from Owlhaven , a blog I regularly read) were articulate and normal sounding.  There wasn't even the requisite interview in the these types of articles from the 'opposition'.  (In homeschooling articles this view is routinely represented by either an upper level school superintendent type or teacher's union rep and in a large family article it would be either some child psychologist about ...

So when you bring home three bushels of peaches, you then must do something with them before they all rot.  So that is what we are doing today... and probably tomorrow.  If I get the peaches under control, I'll sit down and write something.  I have a lovely rant running around my head about the most recent article on large families that was in the Sunday Chicago Tribune.  But, you'll just have to wait for it.  Rants can wait, peaches can't!

We drove into SW Michigan yesterday to go peach picking with some friends.  L. in the red hat and G. in the pink P. K. ... they were tasty peaches L. and A. -- We have 3 bushels.  That means 6 of these bags. G. It was a lovely day... beautiful weather... easy picking... good company.  We went the same place where we go apple picking.  It's a very nice farm that is not very crowded.  That is one of it's benefits in my book, so I am a little hesitant to share the name.  (I don't like crowds.)  But, since I want them to stay in business, I will.  We were at Shafer Orchards in Baroda, Michigan.  If you're close, I highly recommend them.  (They have really good prices, too.  $15/half bushel.)  There were still a lot of peaches, so you haven't missed them.  Don't you want to spend all next week processing peaches, too?

Sometimes being the grown-up means making the hard decisions.  As I have mentioned before, J. has started an intensive 3-year doctoral program on which he is working on top of his regular full-time job.  This is the right career move for him at this time and he is really liking the program and faculty and fellow students.  That said, it is also a serious time commitment.  He will be gone one Saturday a month as well as having to work on papers and assignments during the week.  We got a real taste of what life is going to look like for a while a couple of weeks ago when he had two fairly long papers due back-to-back.  I wish I could say I sailed through those two weeks effortlessly and was completely supportive of my husband and what he needed to got done.  The truth is not so pretty... or flattering. One positive thing that happened was that it made me stop and re-examine what my priorities were and what my schedule was looking like.  It became ...