What we've been up to

My blog has taken a back seat lately.  I've been capturing lots of memories, but just haven't had time to sit down and share them!  (And our wifi is terrible - it kicks me off all the time and, as a result, it takes FOREVER to upload pictures and try to write something on here.  I usually just give up.)  

Let's see...

I've felt stressed lately about getting All The Stuff done.  I emailed an online friend and she was SO encouraging.  She reminded me that all will be well if I cut back for awhile.  I am in a season - with a baby and young children - and I don't need to try to do everything I think we should be doing.  Plus, we all know that education is an atmosphere, and if I try to cram in more than is necessary at this time, causing unnecessary anxiety to myself (and taking it out on everyone around me), what will my children really be learning from me?  Nothing worthwhile.

So, we're focusing on getting the basics done before lunch - math, reading instruction, at least one AO reading, copywork at least 3 days per week - plowing through so that we're free the rest of the day, with plenty of outside time and play time and time to enjoy this sweet, little stinker :)

A few weeks ago, on a day in which we got nothing done and I was feeling discouraged, Izzy came out of her room at one point during the day with a book she had written!  She had been working on it most of the day, here and there, sounding out words (many of them misspelled and all of the letters 's' are backwards :) ), illustrating it, and taping it all together.  It's about her favorite animal - a lion.  

They're laughing at their favorite part in the book - when Addy faints because she sees the lion.

She created.  She thought.  She put forth effort.  And then proceeded to read it about 120 times in a row, lol.  She was so proud.  So, I would say it wasn't a wasted day.  

We finally took Izzy's training wheels off of her bike.  She hasn't ridden it much lately, so we hadn't really thought about it.  But over the weekend I asked her if she wanted us to take them off and she said yes.  Jared was the nervous one this time, not me!, but we convinced him, and she did it on the first try!  She was definitely ready. 

This little booger is getting so big - almost 7 months!  She's not crawling yet, just pushing up with her arms, strengthening those baby muscles :)  She's so fun and sweet, such a happy baby.  <3 Baby love <3

We've been enjoying the beautiful spring weather, as I'm sure you all are as well.  We've gone on lots of nature walks and identified different plants and things, but the nature journaling hasn't been very consistent around here.  Anyone else need encouragement in this area?  

Playing Pooh-sticks.

Trying to catch tadpoles.

See all the periwinkles?

There's a neat bird sanctuary close to where we live with tons of bird - peacocks, guinea fowls, turkeys, and much more.

I don't think I ever realized how ugly the heads of turkeys are.

And other random photos...

This girl and her cat.

What have you been up to?

Only good things

I've been chewing on the following idea I came across when I read this article written by Andrew Kern:

You become what you behold.

This is why I want my children to engage with books.  Books and stories have a way of opening our minds to that which is worthy.  They take awhile to digest, allowing time for ideas to sink in.  They make you think.  They develop imagination.  (As opposed to say, tv.)

I read a great book recently called Caught Up in a Story by Sarah Clarkson.  It's a book about books, which may sound boring, but it was far from it.  It's a book about the why behind books.  Why are books and stories so important for our children?

In her book, Clarkson manages to draw you into the world of stories by telling a passionate and enchanting tale about stories.  She inspires you to engage your children with books so that they can understand what it means to live a life of courage and love.  (I was inspired myself!)

"Stories are a powerfully formative force.  They furnish children with rich vocabulary, broad imagination, and the spirit of possibility necessary to purposeful living or heroic action.  The great tales of literature both inspire heroism and demonstrate what actions must be taken if the world is to be conquered or creation accomplished. 

{...} 

The great tales of the ages confront us with the narrative quality of our existence; they remind us that every choice has meaning and that strong hearts, evil or good, determine the fates of whole kingdoms.  Stories remind us that we work for a purpose, we hope and learn and endure because a good ending is in store."

But not every book or story inspires noble character.  There's plenty of twaddle out there - books that lack depth and are just not worth the time (the comments in the linked article are great).  I'm choosy about the books that come into our home.  When we go to the library, I'm the one who picks out the books.  I'm terrible, aren't I :)  That's not to say my kids never get to pick out a book, but I pick out the majority, because they don't know which stories are worthwhile and lovely and which are not.  Hopefully, someday when they're older, they will know because that's what they will have been used to.

"What manner of book will find its way with upheaving effect into the mind of an intelligent boy or girl?  We need not ask what the girl or boy likes.  She very often likes the twaddle of goody-goody story books, he likes condiments, highly-spiced tales of adventure.  We are all capable of liking mental food of a poor quality and a titillating nature; and possibly such food is good for us when our minds are in need of an elbow-chair; but our spiritual life is sustained on other stuff, whether we be boys or girls, men or women.  By spiritual I mean that which is not corporeal; and which, for convenience sake, we call by various names - the life of thought, the life of feeling, the life of the soul."  (Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 168) 

I want my children to engage with good, quality, well-written books.  Books that will help form their souls.  Books embodying worthy ideas - goodness, truth, and beauty.  Books like Charlotte's Web, with the ideas of true friendship, loyalty, and self-worth.  Like Pinocchio, with the idea of choices and consequences, but also of spiritual growth and forgiveness.  Like Little House in the Big Woods with ideas of the importance of family, hard work, and contentedness.  (Can you tell we're in AO year one?)

I'm choosy about picture books, too.  There are a ton of beautiful, worthwhile picture books out there, and a ton of senseless ones.  Why bother with the latter when there are so many better options?  Yes, some books are fun and silly and we enjoy the humor, but for the most part we choose worthwhile books and stories because my children deserve the worthwhile books and stories.  Just like they deserve good, nutritious food.  A little bit of junk is okay, but the majority must be healthy.  And I'm not about to allow my kids to decide what they get to eat everyday!  :)

"In childhood, we form foundational ideas about what is possible, what dreams are in our grasp to accomplish.  We form our ideas of which ways are right, what actions are moral and even desirable.  In childhood, we form the habits of study or activity, imagination or creativity that help us to weave a tale of beauty in and through our lives.

{...}

Terms such as 'courage,' 'kindness,' 'good,' 'evil,' or 'heroic' are abstract concepts for a child.  In order to learn what it means to be 'good,' a child needs to be shown, not merely told.  In all honesty, I think that is true of the human race, adults as well as children.  It is one of the vital reasons that God gave us the great story of Scripture, a book crammed full with concrete, embodied examples of good and evil, love and hate...We grow and form great character in children mostly by putting them in the presence of excellent characters whose goodness breathes and laughs and glows.  We have to make goodness delightful, and this is exactly what the best children's books have to offer.  From Winnie the Pooh to Treasure Island, children's literature is crammed to bursting with a menagerie of people who vividly embody the good and the bad."  (Caught Up in a Story - emphasis mine)

 

There is so much in this impious society that will pull our children in the wrong direction.  So it is up to me and my husband to put in front of our children books that inspire honorable character.  Books that develop their imagination so that they can see a world filled with God's love and goodness and beauty. Because they will become what they behold.  What they see and hear and read will influence them more than we think.

Only good things.

"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things."  (Philippians 4:8)

Embracing the chaos

Since I got pregnant back around December, I've had a difficult time picking up a book.  During the first trimester, the thought of reading made me nauseous.  Weird.  Then after that, I just couldn't get into any book.  I started several over the next few months, but never finished any.

But finally, after seven or so months, I've been able to get back into the enjoyment of reading.  It's kind of a silly time, though, because the baby is due next week and I'm sure I'll be laying my books back down for awhile!

Right now I'm about halfway through the book Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry.  It's about a woman looking back on her life.  The book is very calming and quiet; there's no action or adventure.  Unless you count just the day-to-day living, which, when you think about it, is the adventure of life.

Let me take a detour.  Like most of you know, our third child is due soon.  It's been four and a half years since we've had a newborn in the house.  So, you can probably understand that I've been thinking a lot about the coming weeks and months.  The crying, the sleepless nights, the general chaos of having a new baby, in addition to two other children.  There are moments when I feel overwhelmed thinking about it because I know there will be many overwhelming moments.  I remember.

Anyway, as I was reading Hannah Coulter, I came across this:

"This is the story of my life, that while I lived it weighed upon me and pressed against me and filled all my senses to overflowing and now is like a dream dreamed."  (p.5)

How perfect the author describes life.  While you're living it, it can feel so full and chaotic, especially when you're raising children.  And raising children is such a huge chunk of our lives.

But, like I've heard a thousand times, the moments are fleeting.  At the end of our story, we'll look back and it will all seem like a dream.

My mother-in-law pointed out recently that, looking back, some of her most memorable moments were the tough, seemingly chaotic times.  This is so true.

I think back to when Izzy (6) was a baby.  She was a very fussy baby early on.  I remember we had a big exercise ball and sometimes the only way to get her to calm down was to bounce on that ball while holding her.  At the time, it was frustrating.  But now, we look back on that memory with fondness.  It's a memory that we've shared with Izzy, smiling and laughing about it.

Izzy was also a terrible car rider (terrible may be too strong a word, but I can't think of a lesser one at the moment).  I remember driving home at night from visiting family, Izzy wasn't quite one yet, and we had to stop at a dinky little church and get her out because she had been screaming and screaming in the car.  The minute we got her out, she was fine.  Another fond memory we've shared with her.

Addy (4) tested us a lot at bedtime.  When she was between one and two, we would check on her to see if she was laying down in her crib.  We would walk in, she would be standing up then BAM!, she would see us and dive down onto the mattress.  Oh, how irritated I would get!  But now we laugh.

I remember so many of those nights when the girls were newborns.  I would get up with them in the middle of the night, change their diapers, feed them, pat them back to sleep, lay them down in the bassinet, then WHAAAAA!  Nope, not asleep.  So I would pick them back up, and it would be like starting over trying to get them asleep again.

I could go on and on, but you get my drift.  These moments are not easy.  But this is life.  The good, the (seemingly) bad.  These are the moments that we remember.  These are the moments we share.  These are the moments that help shape us into who we will become.

And these are the moments to be cherished and embraced.

(Now, somebody remind me of this in about two weeks, HA!)

Oh, and since some of you will complain that I didn't put any pictures in my post (you will remain nameless, but you know who you are), here are a couple of pics from back in the day:

 

A reminder to myself

Yesterday, I lost my temper.  I know we all lose our tempers at times, but this was not pretty.

I want to blame it on one (or three) of three things:

First, I'm a mom.

Second, I'm almost 38 weeks pregnant.  (I could probably stop here, ha!)

Third, I'm a human living in a broken state, in a broken world.

While all three of these are true, it doesn't justify my actions, or my words.

For me in particular, it all boils down to perfectionism and control.  I have a tendency to believe this twisted notion that:
"If I'm doing my job as a parent, my children will be perfect."

I don't think I'm the only mom that struggles with this.  I think a lot of us moms place the complete burden of raising our children on ourselves.  Deep down, when things don't go the way we expect and when our children don't behave the way we expect, we blame no one but ourselves.  We forget that not only are we not perfect, but our children aren't either.

Yes, we have the job of teaching and guiding and disciplining and cultivating virtue in our children.  But grace must go hand-in-hand with that job.  And not just grace for our children, which is so easy to give, but grace for ourselves (not so easy to give).

I can't base my worth off of the way my children turn out.  They are persons, too.  They have been born with the privilege of choosing their own way.  Even now, when they are little, they have choices to make.  And if they make the wrong choices, it's not because I'm a crappy parent.

Of course, that doesn't mean that I don't try, that I don't do the best I can to teach them.  I do believe that, as a parent, I must educate myself and grow myself in order to effectively guide and teach and discipline.  And I must be consistent in doing those things.  But after that, I must let go.

I must have faith.

It always comes down to faith, doesn't it?  Believing that God is faithful.  Believing that He is the one who works in our, and our children's, hearts.  Believing that He is the one who changes us, if we are willing, to become like Christ, and He will do the same with our children.

God has given us a gift when He gave us our children.  They bring so much joy and laughter and love into our lives.  But our children are not the only gift.  God has given us the gift of growing in Him, through the task of raising our children.  Being a mother has been the ultimate test for me.  I can think of no other time in my life when my patience, my will, my faith, and everything else, have been tested and tried as these last 6 1/2 years.  And it will be an on-going process throughout my entire life.

So I must relax.  I must cast this burden that I'm choosing to carry onto Christ.  I must believe that He is working, not only in my children, but also in me.

And I must seek joy and love in the process, and focus on the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Bullfrogs, bats, and snakes! {Nature Study}

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.  There are some wonderful places near where we live to explore nature.  There's our neighborhood, of course.  Or our backyard.  The other day we were in the backyard and a red-headed woodpecker came flying down, pecked around in the grass, found a worm, and few off.  Ten feet in front of us!  It was so cool!

There's a park about 15 minutes away that has a good sized pond and a little creek.  We go there every so often (I've posted pictures from that park on this blog before) and the following pictures were taken there.

Eating lunch.

We saw a pretty blue jay flying around - such beautiful detail and design on him.  We never see them at our house.  Please excuse the blurry photo!

We watched the turtles swim around and fed them some bread.

I had checked out the take-along guide, Frogs, Toads & Turtles from the library and we tried to identify the turtles.  I think this one below is a slider, according to this website.  It wasn't in the book, but it was still fun to look and try to identify it.

Wild strawberries.

Trying to feed the ducks.

Izzy spotted a big ole' bullfrog.  The bullfrog was in the above-mentioned take-along guide and the girls were fascinated by the fact that they sometimes eat snakes.

See him in the water?

I tried to get a picture of his webbed feet.

These next few pictures were at one of Izzy's tball practices down by the river.  When we got there the other night, there was cotton stuff flying through the air and all over the ground. 

It was from a cottonwood tree right next to the field.

See the cotton buds?

Here are some of the cotton buds.  I don't think I've ever seen/noticed a cottonwood tree before.

Addy thought it was pretty cool.  She looks so much older in this picture!

The next few pictures were taken in our yard.  We watched a bunch of ants carry around a dead bug.  It was quite fascinating.

Jared was weed eating and spotted a tiny frog on our air conditioning unit.  He was probably half an inch long.  We looked him up in that trail guide and determined that he's a spring peeper.

Last Friday we went to a conservation area about 20 minutes away.  This place is so neat and I really hope we visit it often.  They have lots of trails, a pond, and a large creek, plus they do some cool things for kids in the summer - they teach them archery, to fish, and every Wednesday they do little nature "classes."  The day we visited we went on one of the trails.  It was about a mile and took us like an hour and, even though we went before lunch, it was SO HOT.  Thankfully we were in the shade most of the time, but the stretch back to the pavilion where we ate our lunch was in direct sunlight.  And man, the sun was brutal that day.  And Addy had been cranky for quite awhile (note to self:  bring a snack and don't leave it in the car!)  So I gave her a piggy-back ride.  Nothing like giving your 4 year old a piggy back ride in the summer heat, with no shade, when you're 27 weeks pregnant.

Fun times!  Definitely memorable :)

Before we went on this trail, we got to see a couple of really neat things at the visitor's center - of which I did not take any pictures, ugh!  First, one of the workers showed the girls some bat scat scattered around, then proceeded to take down a clock that was hanging outside and, lo and behold, there was the bat!  He had made his home behind that clock, ha.  We watched him just hanging there, and he eventually flew off.  Pretty crazy.  Bats are really hairy, by the way.

Second, there were barn swallow nests all over the place and we saw two with baby birds in them.  We also got to watch a mama swallow feed her babies.  So cute!

On to the trail!

Lots of mushrooms next to a big log.

Snail shells are so cool with their spiral.

Excuse the blurriness, but here's what we guessed was some kind of cocoon.

We saw lots of lizards.

And a snake in the water.  The girls freaked out.  But then when we got back to the main building, they were fascinated with the snakes in the little aquariums.  One of the workers got a black rat snake out and let the girls touch it.  He also let us take home a little snake identification guide and the girls fought over that thing for like 3 days.

We also saw some very large schools of fish.

At one point, there was a butterfly that kept landing on Izzy's hat over and over again.

Nature is so full and the complete opposite of boring.  There is always something to see, if we're willing to look.  I love this quote by Charlotte Mason:  

"We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things."  (Home Education, pg. 61)

I understand and value the importance of nature - it is full of beauty, of diversity.  It brings such a sense of awe at God's creation, which I think is most important for children.  And it's up to us, as parents, to introduce and encourage our children to become aware of what's around us and to excite that sense of awe.  We have so much influence on our little ones.

"Some children are born naturalists, with a bent inherited, perhaps, from an unknown ancestor; but every child has a natural interest in the living things about him which it is the business of his parents to encourage; for, but few children are equal to holding their own in the face of public opinion; and if they see that the things which interest them are indifferent or disgusting to you, their pleasure in them vanishes, and that chapter in the book of Nature is closed to them...Audubon, the American ornithologist, is another instance of the effect of this kind of early training.  'When I had hardly learned to walk,' he says, 'and to articulate those first words always so endearing to parents, the productions of Nature that lay spread all around were constantly pointed out to me...My fauther generally accompanied my steps, procured birds and flowers for me, and pointed out the elegant movements of the former, the beauty and softness of their plumage, the manifestations of their pleasure, or their sense of danger, and the always perfect forms and splendid attire of the latter.  He would speak of the departure and return of the birds with the season, describe their haunts, and, more wonderful than all, their change of livery, thus exciting me to study them, and to raise my mind towards their great Creator.'"  (Home Education, pg. 58-59)

I let myself worry some because Izzy (6), with whom I'm about to begin first grade, has always preferred to be playing and running around outside than slowing down and paying attention to her surroundings.  But I've decided that I can't worry; I just need to do.  It's just like teaching a child to be polite or to read.  Of course there will be some resistance, but we know what's best and what's important for our children so we keep at it.  We must be consistent - develop the habits.  And we trust - trust that God will see our efforts and produce in our children the fruits of our labors.

And I can already see some fruits.  I can tell a difference between now and, say, six months ago.  By being intentional about putting our kids in nature's path, Izzy and Addy (4) are both more inclined to spot and show us random things they found, and be excited about it.

We are laying a foundation upon which to build.  And in the coming weeks, when we officially begin first grade, we'll go on to the next level and utilize a nature journal - which is a whole other form of intimidation for me!  But that's another conversation :)

Have you been enjoying the outdoors lately?  Share with me!