Ordinary Time

As we've been reading through The Story of the Romans, I have crafts planned that (sort of) match elements in what we've been reading. (As we get further along, it gets a little easier... read about Roman roads, make a model of a Roman road.) Right now we've been reading about the early, more mythical stories of Rome which do not always lend themselves to hands-on, educationally-related activities. We've been doing a little stretching. The first history craft we did was to make eagles . (Tarquin had his had stolen and then replaced by an eagle which was seen as an auspicious sign.) Ours didn't turn out quite so eagle-like due to the multi-colored feathers that we used. These eagles have a string that runs through the toilet paper tube so that two people stand across from each other holding both strings. When on spreads his arms apart, the other holds his arms together, thus sending the eagle 'flying' back and forth as the string is moved apart from eith...

Here is my completely-unscientific-due-to-my-small-sample size-observation for the day. I am now working on teaching my 7th and 8th children how to read and I realize that there is a phenomenon that happens every single time I do this. That is, when a young child is working very hard, such as when sounding out words, at some point into the process, every single day, they start to yawn. It's as if the brain is working so hard that it is requiring extra oxygen to process what it is being asked to do. The other thing I have noticed is that once the yawning starts to happen, I know I can only get just a little bit more concentrated effort out of the child, if I push very far past that moment, then it becomes counter-productive. Either the child gets upset or they start to make mistakes or they get silly. It just isn't worth it... believe me, I've tried. Thus I can't help myself from engaging in a little pro-homeschooling propaganda. You see, the length of active engagem...

Remember the t-shirts I made G. and L. with Superman and a panda embroidered on them? Well, I was so pleased with how they turned out that I decided to make another version of it with long sleeves. (The little girls are growing through their clothes and are in dire need of things that actually fit.) So I dug out my embarrassingly large stash of knit fabric and made this. (There are actually two of them, but L. took hers somewhere and I haven't found it yer.)  Cute, huh? I love the fabric. But then they needed pants, so I tried making some leggings to match. I see a lot of leggings in their future because I was able to make two pairs, from tracing the pattern to the final hem in one afternoon. And I'm a little proud of them. They look as good as the leggings I recently bought for the girls at the store, but with the fabric I already had, they were cheaper. Well, then I was on a roll and I had yet more knit fabric, so I decided to try a different version. This ...

Several weeks ago, TM and I were in a local Vietnamese market and while browsing, saw packages of cooked, frozen clams for very little money. TM (who loves seafood in all forms) was instantly smitten by the little shells. As they weren't very expensive, I bought a pound and took them home where they sat in the freezer. Usually something like this would then be forgotten for months on end, except that a boy I know, when he is captured by an idea, is a wee bit preoccupied by it. In self-defense, I had to come up with a way to fix them. Thanks to my favorite Vietnamese cookbook, The Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table by Mai Pham, I found what I thought was a solution. It was a recipe for mussels in a lemongrass broth, but it said you could use clams as well. The other thing that has been going on around here is a cooking bug that has infected several children. I have had numerous requests that each of them be allowed to cook dinner. (Shame, isn't it? You probably couldn't cl...

Yesterday I managed to sneak up to my bedroom and do a little sewing. (I have several things I've made which I want to share... just have to take pictures.) While I was doing so I had the radio on and was listening to Chris Fabry 's program. There was a discussion about an email he received discussing how best to love and support a child who has had a disappointment or crisis. The biggest hang-up the responding listeners had was with the use of the word 'wallow' in the email. As in, we shouldn't let our children wallow in their problems. It was seen as terribly uncaring and unloving. I disagree. Sometimes allowing our children to wallow in their disappointments and problems is the opposite of loving. Here is an excerpt from the letter I wrote to Chris Fabry this morning. I only have the time or energy to do so much critical thinking in a day, thus the double-dipping. (Lorraine was the writer of the email under discussion.) I thought Lorraine's comments were...

There are some mornings when you wake up and the sun is shining and the weather is pleasant. There are also some mornings when before 9 am has even arrived multiple children have either disregulated or melted down. These are the mornings when you know you just need to cancel school and go to the zoo. A change of scene, being outdoors, using lots of energy is just what is needed. This is exactly what we did this morning. We had a lovely time. The zoo wasn't too crowded, the weather wonderful, the children re-regulated. Ahhh... We only missed seeing the brand-new baby rhino because he was napping that the keepers couldn't get him to wake up and come outside. It was even empty enough that I was willing to take the crew to the children's zoo to climb on the huge play structure. (Which always strikes me as a claustrophobic nightmare when too crowded.) After two and a half hours, we headed home in time for a late lunch. It was a good day. Far better than it would have been had ...

A friend on facebook caught the error that I titled yesterday's post about apple picking with the year '2014'. That pretty much sums up how I feel about 2013; I'm ready to see its backside. It's been a year of some pretty tough stuff. I won't lie, nearly all of it has all been trauma/adoption related. It hasn't been easy. There have been some times when I wonder if we had made a mistake. There have been times when I wonder if I can still advocate for families to pursue adoption knowing what I know. There have been times when I want to just get a giant redo and pretend this whole crazy adventure never happened. It has been that hard. The hardest thing I've ever done. This morning when I saw that No Greater Joy Mom was having a link-up about the blessings of adoption, I wondered if I was at a point where I could say that adoption is a blessing. Sometimes in the midst of struggles it is difficult to see clearly what is really happening. Hind site brings...