Ordinary Time

He's going to want to put things in it. When you help him to decide what to keep in the boxes which fit on the bookcase, you will discover that he has beat you to it and just dumped things in. So you make him empty them and sort it all out. As he is sorting it all out, you discover that there are other boxes and bags filled with randomness, So you make him sort out those as well. As he is sorting, you decide to straighten up his dresser. When you straighten up his dresser you discover 24 unmatched socks. So you take them out to find their partners. You also discover a garbage bag full of outgrown clothes. You keep interrupting his sorting to hold up shirts to him. After you finish the dresser, you decide that he could use an actual shelf to keep his books. So you take some of your college age son's books off the shelf and put them away for safe keeping. You also discover piles of little things wedged in between books on the book case. You add these to the ever...

The seven children at home and I took a little trip to IKEA today. It seemed easy enough. J. and I figured out how we could swing some new loft beds for TM and D. that will give them each their own desk and their own delineated space. (Anyone with multiple boys ages 12+ in the house will understand the need to keep the young bucks from knocking their antlers together all the time.) In order to get everything sorted out and ready to use at the beginning of our school year, today was the day I needed to go get them. I also hoped to get a small shelf unit for K. so that he can store things in a drawer rather than scattered across his floor (a pipe dream, I know) and a couple more kitchen chairs so that R. and T. have somewhere to sit when they come home. We already had a bench out of the van and it is a big van, so I figured we were good. It was a lovely day. My intentional nurturing of the little girls is paying off and everyone remained pleasant and regulated. We even managed lunch...

Life with L. has been rather loud for the past few days. She is a particularly explosive child and dealing with frustration or delay is a developing skill. On some days we aren't even reaching the benchmark of development, it just isn't there. And frustrated children are loud. And unpleasant. And loud. It gives you a sense of how life has been here for a couple of days. We are all feeling a little frazzled. As I have thought about it, I realized that I should have expected this and been more proactive. Last weekend, B. and A., two of her special people moved to school. While she seemed to be okay. I don't think she really was. Then when you combine that with my virtual absence while I worked diligently to get school planned in time, you have a recipe for a major meltdown. She was feeling scared and sad and missing her people... including me. Life has been a little quieter today since I have finally connected the dots and figured out what was up. It also explains why inste...

The day has escaped me and I can't even tell you what I did. Certainly not put those piles of books away that I showed you yesterday, that's for sure. So enjoy these instead. First, two articles that I had published recently which I can't remember if I shared here or not. 5 Things You Should Know about how Orphanage Life Affects Children and How to Help Someone Who Doesn't Want Help with Adoption Challenges Then there were these articles I came across that I thought were interesting. One about reading and brains: Bedtime Stories for Young Brains And one about music and brains: Science Shows How Piano Players' Brains are Actually Different From Everybody Elses' A somewhat snarky article about large families: The Ultimate Status Symbol for Millionaire Moms on New York's Upper East Side is not What You'd Expect And finally a brief and not so wonderful update on the current status of adoption from Vietnam: Warning Regarding Partner Agencies...

My whirlwind, last minute, obsessive bout of school planning is nearly done. Once it is, and I've caught up with everything I've been neglecting, I'm going to update my homeschooling page. It is woefully out of date and I know some of you may be interested in what we are studying this year and what resources we will be using. (And by putting it all there, I will spare the rest of you tedious information that you really don't care about.) I'll let you know when it is done. And I do have a lot of resources to list. Here is the stack of books (minus a few yet to arrive from the library and the regular texts that everyone uses for math and English) that made the cut. When D. saw the pile of books we would be reading this year, he was a little concerned. His first question was, "Do you think we have enough?" Yep, that's my boy. To show you the number of books I've slogged through over the past week or so, here is the stack that didn't make ...

I wanted to share a little personal achievement with all of you, but first you need some backstory to fully appreciate it. I have never been terribly athletic. It was the combination of not being able to do something well the first time and little natural interest. (Equestrian sports aside, of course. For those I have both aptitude and interest.) I was the child who hated PE. The child who was always one of the last to finish that dang 600 m. run. (Oh, how I loathed the 600.) The child who preferred sitting and reading to just about anything else. It was a good thing I was also blessed with a fairly high metabolism to make up for my sedentary preferences. Fast forward to a body who gave birth to a set of large and full-term twins combined with heading rapidly towards age 50. (For those of you a little ahead of me, you know exactly what's coming, don't you?) You see, it seems that as we age our metabolism can slow down a bit. Okay, a lot. It also seems that at the same time ...

G. and L. (and K. and H. to some extent) have had a hard day. This morning, J. (along with some littles) helped B. move into the house he is sharing for the school year. At one point, J. looks and sees G. sitting on a tree root, looking extremely glum. B. spent some time holding her before J. took everyone home. Life has been hard and things have not been good today for people. Life has also been loud since little people are having difficulty regulating their emotions. The low point came when J. headed up to the little girls' room to sort out the aftermath of a World War III scale battle between the two of them over doll clothes. When he gets there, he sees G. sitting on her bed with her little bottom lip quivering and L. curled up in a fetal position on the floor. When he says, "It's really hard to say good-bye to A. and B., isn't it?" The flood gates open and he has sobbing girls on his hands. So it turns out to be a very good thing that we are not trying to...