Tuning Back In

I am sitting here at the keyboard in our silent little Orange Blossom Cottage, listening to the occasional far-off whooshing of a car off on the freeway and otherwise, nothing to be heard but the distant burble of the fish tank. 

I have been distant myself, more than I meant to be. Somehow, two years blipped past and I wrote not, shared not and burbled along in the my own little corner, trying to keep the wheels turning, doing dishes and laundry and dishes and laundry as life kept on. Situations kept on oozing into different shapes and the kids kept on growing into new versions of themselves and I kept stacking up post ideas and drafts and snippets of things that drifted across my mind. Things I meant to write about and needed to think about and ought to post about and would love to share and the the pile was so tall that I think it might have slid sideways and toppled down on top of my writer self. Writer-Me may have been here in this dark corner of the house waiting to post, buried sheepishly beneath all those intentions for quite some time now. It's nice to be back.

I am homeschooling 9th grade this year, head-on into high school with enthusiastically interested and yet unabashedly inexpert energy! Ru is reading wonderful classic literature: C.S. Lewis, Ivanhoe, Shakespeare, Defoe and Churchill and the things he is understanding and connecting together impress, delight and underwhelm me by turns. He is still after all, a normal 14 year old boy. Sometimes, he is brilliantly fresh and insightful and sometimes he just misses stuff. I am leaning in toward the promise of life being long, there being seasons for everything, subconscious knowledge still counting and my own role being just a beginning in the long line of teachers and guides he will have in life. My job is not to equip him with the whole body of knowledge, its just to keep his fire going, teach him some habits of discipline, and whet his appetite for the reams of things there are to know and learn. 

Everyone asks me if I am scared to be teaching high school and the truth is I'm not. Its closer to compatriot learning, he can understand and write about and read the things that I am interested in. I can imagine growing into adult friendship and an grown, peer to peer, life-share path. I am sure he will grow up and leave and differ and have areas of his life that he doesn't let me into but, I feel like he is increasingly a whole and separate person looking back at me bringing his own new things into the room and the conversation. Its encouraging and emboldening to me to know that I don't have to know all the things because he is going to be such a different person from me, living in such a different world than the one I grew up in. I also feel encouraged by the fact that his own freedom is allowing him to enrich his own high school experience and by turn our family and the rest of the students below him. 

“Our children should feel that they can peacefully say anything: questions, doubts, criticism, points of view. They should feel that we are genuine interested in what they do and think. We should not deprive them of privacy, but all our words and conduct should encourage an open relationship. One cannot overestimate the value of such relationships.”
― Sister Magdalen

So, that's a little peek into the velvety corners of my inner world in the dark of the night here in California. I hope that you are all well. I have missed you. I hope to pick up the loose threads here and weave onwards, mending the holes and filling in the gaps.  

Wearing Two Hats At Once

This week I playing professional mommy and home mommy at once. I'll be in San Francisco for two whole days for a training conference for a homeschool public speaking gig that I started last summer. I am super stoked and enjoying the whole adventure of an outlet, a chance to put on a little polish and step into some different shoes. Its also so incredibly empowering to go have get-togethers with organizer go-getters who have all self-selected into a room full of energy driven, life loving, spur each other on power. I love the buzz in the room. I love that no question is too wordy or obscure or intellectual. I love that everyone wants to be there and is invested. Also, nobody follows me into my bathroom stall or puts Legos on my plate while I am eating, which is kind of novel and fantastic. I was even thinking happily of the 5 hours I will spend commuting back and forth (I am driving back and forth in the mornings and evenings) and realizing that I in no way dread that time either. I have audio books, sisters to call, mental space that is just waiting for me and all of that time will be a gift.

I was talking to another mom today and mulling over why in the world I would be making the crazy choice to drive back and forth when there will be hotel accommodations provided. It sounds massively inefficient and kind of illogical at surface value but, as a mama I have to say that it seems quite worth it to drive all that way so that I can tuck my kids in at night after they have been playing their friend's house all day. Its worth it to be able to kiss them goodbye in the morning and zip their hoodies myself, after I put all their yogurt dishes in the sink. Even a tiny amount of contact and continuity will carry us and will keep the kids feeling loved and seen in a small measure. I have also learned that I need all the hugs that we share, I need to be with my husband when he gets home from work and to savor the delicious letdown of the quiet house and slipping into bed together for a little pillow talk before sleep. It feels good to be known and seen and connected to those who love you. I also love little things like watering my own houseplants, making space to be barefoot in the backyard for five minutes alone, and putting a roast in the oven for dinner later that night.

 I am also imagining that contact with my normal life and with my kids will keep me grounded in my training. I have a tendency to live utterly in what I am currently learning....in good and bad ways. I see all the trees and forget the forest even exists. I get excited about the ideas and plans I am learning and don't keep planning, home life and self-care in the viewfinder, I also get overwhelmed and intimidated by the grandness of what I encountering and have trouble chunking, right-sizing and staying in the moment. Kids are amazing at keeping you right where you have to be. You learn to spend far more time than you would ever imagine sitting patiently waiting for a shoe to be tied, you learn how very many steps there are to washing hands and how easy it is to forget any of the parts and you learn exactly how pungent a hug is and very much it matters when you make eye contact with an earnest question. These things keep me learning, they keep me stable and they keep me tethered. Its not all some kind of delirious dulcet cocktail though, sometimes these are bitter lessons that I grind through...remembering with some embarrassment and a bit of honest failure exactly where I am. Lest I get to grandiose about my speaker self, the boys and my husband are there with needs like runny noses and fresh underwear to keep me realizing that no matter what intellectual things I offer or achieve, I have to keep myself strung into the action of community and connection, even in the small humble ways and build my character alongside my brain. So here we go!
Speaker Me + Homemaker Me = Real Me

Of Broccoli and Book Clubs

All the little trashcans in our house have fluffy teetering piles of tissues in them. We are fighting off a cough, cold, grab-you-by-the-throat, fevered dreams, headache that pounds when you move kind of a bug. I can just feel it trying to grab me in the back of my throat although I successfully evaded it thus far. I slept over 8 hours the last two nights and I still feel draggy. I have a sudden urge to clean the whole house, stock up on blankets, order the groceries delivered and start a pot of chicken soup. We have had a whole week of hunkering down and clearing the schedule. We cancel activities by the day as it is clear we are still fighting ear infections, coughs and fevers. As long as there is the blessed sunshine in the yard (which there is) and we can eat our lunch outdoors at the picnic table, I do not feel cooped up. It actually feels kind of good to be able to hermit legitimately and just be home together. We can take all day to do read-alouds and write letters to the cousins and fold and fold and fold the laundry. 

I have been making some little brave gestures towards connection and establishing a circle to surround myself. Its time to make sure I am putting down roots here, digging in the support and connection I need, not just making do with whatever falls into my lap. The first thing I did was plan and execute a freezer meal making party which was very successful and not nearly as much hard work as I expected. I have been chewing on plans and ideas for one more in the future. There was an expansive and effervescent response when I timidly broached the topic with women I knew. Its so encouraging to know that the things you think up sound not only tolerable to other people but also exciting. I also have started a little bookclub with a friend and we are co-leading. Little stabs into real discussions and built in rhythms which might be all it takes to get the ball rolling again.

I say these are little brave gestures because they are both small, maybe no big deal to lots of people but were both scary and hard for me. I love people once they are in through my walls and there sipping tea with me kindly in my kitchen but in the meantime I am rather cowed by all the rules I know I don't keep without even meaning to, all the marks I miss as a woman, as an upper middle class person, as a Christian and as a mom, and all the ways other people appear impressively pulled together. I don't hate them for it or wish they were a little muddier for my own comfort, I actually find it inspiring to be around but, I do worry that they'll find me distasteful, embarrassing and indecent. A little of that is fine. I do want to be relate-able...one new acquaintance of mine, that I rather like, is absurdly fawning to the point where I can't seem to get through to real connection as two mamas on equal footing. I struggle with the teeter totter between vulnerability and its accompanying humility and poise and the appropriate level of attainment. Sometimes I think I might look a little over-impressive at first blush, in public but be a little bit astonishingly rough in my private reality. I think this is partly because of my love of inspiration. I do want to strive for ideals. I want to speak optimistically and I want to speak in the direction I am hoping to move. I have no problem being humble but I think some people hear my starry eyed inspiration ideas and then my humble confessions and either decide I'm an over fervent freak who needs to just get her life in line or else that I am my aspirations and my confessions are faux transgressions dramatized for the sake of personal color. Who can tell. I can only really say that real connection is the cry of my heart and something I so dearly love and yet its scary too.

The broccoli plants that I put in the ground last spring are still putting out little fairy heads of broccoli and I can't bring myself to tear them out and put in something more substantial. They have big meaty stalks that are hardened and woody like trunks and their output is both speedy and pathetically small. They seem to sprout little branches and bloom out in seedy finality in the space of one or two days. I cannot ever seem to gather together enough for a meal for the family, there is never that much at one time but, I am enjoying the secret pleasure of a few tiny stalks sauteed in butter or quick steamed to lay alongside my belated morning breakfast egg or draped across my plate of leftovers at lunch. There is no end to my enchanted love of the green things growing in the dead of winter here. I plan to never let it grow old. 

Lucid Dreaming, Joy and Exegesis

I have learned the skill of lucid dreaming, knowing that "this is just a dream" is a useful edge when I am trapped in a nightmare like I was early this morning. I can change elements of the story occasionally and if that doesn't work I can exit the dream on command. I woke myself, eject-button-style, when I realized that the story-line (telling my boys to clear the table, item by item by item while they ran off to other parts of the house after each fork or napkin) was only imaginary and that I didn't actually have to walk through that scenario in my sleep as well as in my waking hours. I woke up and lay there in the dark laughing about what a cheated dreamer I was, my brain having nothing better to conjure up for either dream material (if it was a dream) or scary nightmare fright (if it was a nightmare....which I decided was more likely). How lame!

A listened while I related my silly, exhausting dream, annoyed that I had experienced nothing beyond my hum drum real life. I chuckled at the joke that my own daily living had passed for nightmare material to my brain. Not scary, no....but draining and negative, for sure! And then, A said, "Yeah, you know, I'm struggling with that same attitude of unwilling participation with math with one boy right now, each problem means dragging him back into the task and forcibly directing his attention. I wish I knew what to do to fix it." I mused that I had been studying on that for quite a while myself! How to get  the boys to not only do their work but also to learn to cultivate a good attitude while they do it? Oh, to get them to be self-motivated with desire to complete the things they are given to do, with a love of the feeling of satisfaction, the value of industry and skill to find joy in the simple tasks! I get so endlessly sick of the starry-eyed yearning my boys have for video games and the heel dragging, eye rolling attitude they have about helping the family with any kind of work!

I lay there in the dark in my bed and there was silence for a second and then I added off-hand that despite all my searching, the only technique I had turned up was the super bland, usual "leading-by-example thing." We could improve that....and suddenly I was reeling mentally in deep conviction. How often do my boys hear me complain to my friends about the endless laundry pile or sigh heavily before I start washing the mountain of dishes, put off making my own bed because even the process seems discouraging to me or gripe at the end of the day about my righteously earned feeling of weariness??? Oh dear. So, I have no clever ways to teach loving work (bribes don't work so don't even say that....they only teach love of the bribe) except to learn the lesson myself and demonstrate it to my sons so that see and feel around how it is to love your work, to enjoy your own output and to feel useful in your own mundane place. What if my children never absorbed the lesson until adulthood when they were responsible for reminding themselves to work and only then learned to be cheerful about mowing the lawn, helping with carrying in the groceries and picking up Lego after Lego after Lego? Would it be worth it? Would I put in the effort for that end-goal? Absolutely. One thousand times yes!!!! What if I knew that my boys would never, ever "get it" but my own life would change and I would have the virtue I so badly want them to develop? Is it worth it to work simply for my own improvement and the knowledge that I could live my life with the ability to find warmth and goodness in the things I now claim are the bane of my existence? Yes, if it were a sure thing, I'd do it then too.

Suddenly, my mind flew to my friend who I had been wracking my brain to help. This particular pal had been complaining about the grind of her life, the way everything seemed the same and she had nothing to look forward to. I had been thinking about how to suggest ways for her to add thrills to her existence. Could she paint like I do? Write on the side? Get away for ladies nights out with friends once a month? Maybe she was in the wrong career and taking destiny in her hands and changing jobs no matter the cost and work was the thing! This particular friend is rather taken with scriptural advice so I had been looking through scripture for something to support my intended suggestions. Alas, I had been able to find only instructions to: "work at whatever you do with your whole heart," "render your services with good will, working as to the Lord," have a "cheerful heart [which is] good medicine while a crushed spirit dries up the bones," "enjoy the good of all your labor for it is the gift of God," "commit your work to the Lord and your plans will succeed," "work with enthusiasm as if working for the Lord," "excel in your work because you know your labor is not in vain," know that "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" and know that "all hard work brings a profit."
And if you can believe it, I had stopped my exegesis there in a spirit of annoyance at not being able to find anything useful. *head desk*

Here, in the early hours of the morning....the words barely out of my mouth that the only thing I had thought of to help my boys was the boring suggestion to lead by example, and with a litany of scriptural inducements towards humility and joy in mundane work running ticker-tape-style through my mind...I laughed out-loud. Maybe my decision to categorize the dream as a nightmare and my reaction to eject in disgust from the plot were illustrative of something important and maybe it had been given to me as a dream to help me reexamine something I needed to learn. Isn't even teaching and re-teaching unwilling pupils, correcting their work kindly over and over and over....the work I have been given? Why am I complaining about this? Why am I not working to find joy there?

I had intended to teach honesty to my kids and share vulnerably that "Mommy understands your feeling of sloth" and I had accidentally stopped there and not progressed to teaching the vulnerability of Mommy wanting to learn love of industry too, and the authenticity of the fact that sometimes I need to change my own attitude to make things go the way they ought to. There is nothing in any of these things that is actually bad, I'm lucky to have so many dishes to wash, so many clothes to fold, to have all these little boys to teach and to have a husband who humbly asks me to pick up the slack he can't carry instead of doing in all himself or hiring assistance. These are gifts. I need to shoulder my lucky burdens like I'd pile so many presents into the car after a Christmas visit....with gratitude and cheer, showing my sons, my id and my ego the truth of intentional, grateful industry and how it triumphs over the lie of drudgery.

"Work hard, but not just to please your masters when they are watching. As slaves of Christ, do the will of God with all your heart.
Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people."
Ephesians 6:6

Mama Me

          One of the great challenges of motherhood is the push to consider everyone else and to keep drawing out of our well for the great, clamoring throng who beg to be satiated. The trick is that the well must not run dry....mothers need love and nurturing too and as legal adults we are now responsible for our own healthful self-care. Here are some good thoughts for what to try when you're running on E. (I am preaching to the choir.....)

10 Ways To Mother Yourself

1. Give Yourself A Soothing Bath.....Do all the motherly touches, add a scented oil, sail something fun in the water (a blossom or two), have a soft, warm towel ready afterwards and add lotion to your dry skin like a good mama would.
2. Put Yourself Down For A Nap or To Bed Early....This one requires either a good show for your kids to watch and an alarm to wake you before the show is quite finished or more ideally, another adult to sponsor handling the littles (if there are any in your life) while you catch zZzZzz's. Remember, good mamas know that the best thing to do when you're too tired to cope is to lie down for a little while. 
3. Give Yourself A Nourishing Meal....A diligent mama will have none of this junk food business when her small one needs extra caring for. Nourishing, cozy food is the ticket....a warm soup with all the veggies, soft cooked eggs with a side of gently steamed asparagus, a freshly made green juice with a little floral garish to make it more alluring...beautiful but healthful treats.
4. Give Yourself Kind Advice....Be the thoughtful, supportive voice you need to hear. Tell yourself that everyone makes mistakes, gently ask what wonderful lesson there might be in this experience for your edification, tell yourself that you are the most charming self you ever had and there couldn't be another in the world you'd rather have. Let the words you leave rattling around in your own mind be the kind a good mother would give. All warmth and unconditional love without a bit of empty flattery or chintzy trite shallowness. 
5. Try A Gentle Foot Massage....Use a warm oil, add a drop of some essential oil that makes you feel snug and then just go over every inch of your tired little feet. Coax your muscles into softening and your bones into pliable release and let all the exhaustion, pain and work you carry out into your own mother hands.
6. Read Yourself A Story That You Can Dissappear Into....Find a short story or a long one, a printed story or an e-version any kind of adventure that you want to never leave. Settle into pillows for your little getaway. Read aloud to yourself, do all the voices and insist that you close your eyes sometimes to imagine the scene for a second now and then. Sometimes we all need to be whisked off into the magical world of a far away land.
7. Offer Yourself A Little Treat For Behaving....I'm not endorsing rewards and punishments....this is not meant to be a teaching episode or a bribe for accomplishment, just think of something you have done well recently and reward yourself. Perhaps you got caught up on laundry and now can have the nice smelling laundry soap, maybe you remembered fill up the car and so now you can take five minutes to joy-ride someplace that makes your heart sing. Its the little things. Celebrate your good choices and treat yourself in some small way like a mother would. 
8.  Lay Your Things Out The Night Before....Pick out your whole outfit the night before a stressful day. Select everything from your earrings to your socks and lay out all the little things you know you'll forget. Your favorite coffee mug, the car keys, and your best water bottle with a lemon wedge already in it. A good mama knows what her child will need and provides it all thoughtfully.
9. Brag On Yourself To Those Who Will Appreciate....This is not pomposity, this is lovingkindness for your little charge that leaves you bursting at the seams....talk about yourself the way a wonderful mother would speak of the one she is raising. Tell what you are proud of, the little victories, the hard won successes, the silly, charming errors that make you giggle. Those who care will be so pleased to share your personal pride. A good mother knows how to tactfully brag on her child. Follow suite.
10. Be Endlessly Patient....You are just learning, you have never been this age before, you have never done this life stage before, you know very little, you are trying your best and you are a good soul who wants to do well and tires, and lacks knowledge, and flubs it up but is quite allowably imperfect. Mothers know and offer patience and grace to their children when they see their efforts and their exhaustion. See the same in yourself and offer loving support and patience as you learn. 

Spotlight on Dee!

Time to slow down for a minute, in the middle of all the baseball and spring holidays and gorgeous weather and garden days and just look at this second son of mine. Its all too easy to get revving right up like crazy and just survive parenthood. (we all do it, its necessary) Every once in a while we need to take little ordained appointments with ourselves to notice our lives. This is my "Notice Dee" pause button session. Time to take a deep breath and be present with who he is.

Suddenly, I feel like this boy is stretching out and getting all long-legged. I can tell his face is changing too and he's relaxing into his big boy role now. Its cool to see him learning to deal more amiably with pressure and anxiety and figure out how to confidently set boundaries for himself and make choices that can allow him to feel emotionally safe. For instance, he still occasionally has migraine type headaches from junk food but he now refuses proffered foods that he knows will make him feel like crap or limits how much he eats and voluntarily puts the rest away for later or just pitches it. Its great to learn that kind of confidence. So much else emerging for him right now too...

Dee Loves

1. Shadow play. This is one of his latest obsessions....the high bleachers at baseball practices are one of his favorite stages for shadow casting. His favorite thing to do is to make his own shadow into things just but changing his body position or holding things that can change the shape of the shadow he throws. He's pretty brilliant at it. He can make himself look like a weight lifter, a roman column and Darth Vader using nothing but a spare sweatshirt and his own body.

2. Scootering in the backyard. We have a pair of little Razor scooters for the boys to share and Dee loves to ride one or BOTH of them. He works on tricks a lot lately which kind of new for him. Usually Ru or Nib are hot dogging all over. Its a mind game for him though, he is less of the crash and burn type and more about clever engineering mixed with whimiscal jokes. My favorite at the moment is when he rides two scooters at once!

3. Wearing his pajama top in the daytime. He thinks its a very clever joke on his Mommy and the height of efficiency to go chance just his pajama pants when told to get dressed in the morning. Its amazing what a mother won't notice when her boy shows up to the table dressed in jeans and tennis shoes, with his teeth all brushed and his bed made. Keep your eyes open...I bet you catch him doing it.

4.What-If questions. He loves to ask me which kind of imaginary vehicle would go faster, what would happen if a volcano blew up on the moon and what I think would be the hardest thing to get in through a keyhole. Lots of these kinds of questions while we are driving places in the car. Love hearing that little mind a whirling.

5. Braiding. He asked me one day how I braid my hair and so I showed him on three strands of grass. Now its a frequent activity....sometimes he braids my hair and sometimes he braids other things: ribbons, plant stems, cords or even seaweed.

6. Pokemon. He and Ru play Pokemon pretend games and battles almost perpetually around the house and he is the master at sound effects, always making all the sounds for each character in an astounding variety of sound registers and voices. He is also the walking encyclopedia of Pokemon factoids. Ru always consults him to answer questions like "What color is Digalit?" "Tell me one the strongest attacks that Slo-King has?" He has an incredible memory for a the data and is very pleased to be consulted like a kind of personal reference librarian.

Dee Loathes

1. Doing Things Without Mastery. He has the hardest time being an early learner at any subject and really feels frustrated and easily like he is being made a fool of, simply because he isn't demonstrating high skill at any given task. He prefers to say he "doesn't know how" so that he can fly under the radar while he practices, only admitting that he can when he feels really confident and smooth. This is tricky in school.

2.Taking a bath. Never much for bathing, he still hates it. He doesn't scream through bathtime like he did when he was a baby but he sure does grumble and gripe about the suggestion that he take one. Once in the tub he loathes the soap getting in his eyes and the being chilly when you come out of the bath, having water in his ears and countless other little physical irritations and inconveniences about the whole process. So many reasons to never get clean.

3. Mushrooms. I don't know where he gets it. Mushrooms are one of God's best inventions, if you ask me...but my boy isn't of the same opinion. Even if I mince them and mix them into a mixture and cook them, he'll often discover they are there and make sure I know that he doesn't approve.

4. Math homework. I don't know if its the fact that A (who teaches math at our house) keeps a strict progress schedule and makes it clear when his students are "behind" and insists that they get no weekends off in such a status, or if its just the subject matter itself that get Dee's goat. Whatever it is, almost nothing gets under his skin and makes him melt down more spectacularly. Its very tough for me because I see so much of myself in him. I have a hard time listening and watching and remember, "This is NOT my emergency, its his." because I was so frustrated by math for so much of my young learning years. Weird how empathy can be a stumbling block sometimes.

5. Being ordered along on hikes. Dee hates most forms of being ordered around, he's the independent sorts (fits right in at our house...we are a house of clashingly independent thinkers and strong wills) and he doesn't hate hikes themselves or the outdoors which is one of his favorite retreats and play spaces. But he really does hate being told that he'll be going hiking with the family at such and such a time in so and so many minutes though. "Go get your shoes on, we're going for a walk soon and yes, you have to come." is pretty much always certain to put him in a bad mood. No choices, forced forward walking, ordered time in nature with a strict schedule....all his buttons.

6. Being asked about his eye. Remember this post?  This doesn't embarrass or infuriate him like it used to but does annoy him. He gets asked all the time if he's okay and "What happened to his eye??" and told that his eye looks funny and it gets old. Its hard for a kid who lives with some little visual difference to understand why its so broken-record-fascinating to everyone around him. He feels like, "Big deal! My eye! Who cares! I don't wanna explain again." If you're a new California friend who wonders why his eyes looks different, ask me for the story on the side, out of ear shot.

Sacred Maternal Brokeness

My husband rocks. Love him so much. He's kind and thoughtful and sentimental to the max but also pushes my edge, is tough as nails to argue with and has a more willpower than anyone I know. Sometimes he says exactly the right thing, I love having anther person there to be stable and think clearly when I am feeling off or melting a little.

Last night one of the boys was having a bedtime meltdown....after having a dinnertime fit....and a pre-Daddy coming home screaming and crying session. I took a break because I couldn't handle it anymore and was on the verge of crying myself. I found A, and shut the door to the room, and told him, " Sometimes I feel like such a broken person that I can't handle the crying anymore. What's wrong with me?"

He laughed, and he hugged me and he told me..."That's your design....remember? Nothing is wrong with you. You're wired to not be able to ignore it. Good motherhood means being bothered by the cries of your little ones. You're perfect."

I cried. And felt totally good and right and seen.

Christmas Do-Nothing

Merry Christmas to you, world of internets! I am partway through my card addressing stack and am working on considering making something ambitious like gingerbread or some cut-out cookies....I have most of my shopping squared away and I actually got the oil changed. I feel productive. I feel sane. Its Christmas-time and I feel sane. Because I feel good, I'm going to do less.

Tomorrow I am going to take the day off from Christmas and I will paint.

Its my own personal, self-care holiday gift-day to myself. I will shower. I will go to yoga. I will drink lots of water. I will meditate. I will paint. There will be many paintings. And if the boys want to paint, they can paint too. Anyone can paint! There can be paint all over us....that's allowed. At sundown, there will be baths....and before that there may just be a lot of underwear. We are all washable and we all need to create and breathe and fill our buckets, just as much as we need to do our math homework and catch up with the washing and finish all the Christmas cards.

There may be take-out for dinner. Merry Christmas. I plan to be merry, very. This is part of my prep.

That Holiday Feel

I am working on thinking about the Christmas cards. I did buy the voucher thingie from Costco that you use to print your photo cards...I did take a photo that I think might work (after some editing) and I even bought stamps....the truth is though....I haven't even looked at my address list since last year when I didn't get my cards out. Ha!

Its a new year. We are flying for Christmas....first time ever. Time to try to get all the way back to Michigan where all the grandparents are waiting in expectant, glee. In order to pull this off I need to not only stock up on sleep (Hello, 3AM wake-up on Christmas Eve for our flight!) but I also need to mail all our gifts ahead of us since four little boys, one daddy and all our suitcases is all that one mama can possible wrangle in an airport. Of course, Santa will take care of his part which is a relief....isn't it nice to not have to manage someone!?! But most of the giving is on the head of the mama. I love giving gifts and I now have four weeks to plot it all out....okay, three. I need a week just to pack and prep for the travel. Three rows of days to make it happen. Whew....

Time for the making to start. Time for coupons and buying sprees and clever ideas about how to maximize our best ideas for all involved. Have ideas about how you are going to make Christmas a little more do-able and sane at your house this year? I am making bow-ties for the boys instead of new outfits, I bought my dress already and I try to give just three or four gifts per kid....although, A who is the fun-time man around the house always tries to edge me upward. I am determined to find a few "experience" gifts this year too. Stuff that isn't "stuff" and will satisfy a fun-time Daddy and a minimalist mama who wants peace for Christmas herself.

A Mama Legacy

Thinking about parenting a lot lately. I mean, obviously, its job one in my life most of the time so maybe that sounds a little contrived....but its not. Its one thing to do parenting with most of your time and another thing to consciously "think" about parenting a lot. Honestly, a lot of the time I really feel like I can't think about parenting very much. Its so personal, so weighty, so unknown and has waaaaay too many variables. I struggle, a lot, with feeling like I am accomplishing the job and with letting go of the responsibility for "making" my kids turn out. I also can be an over-processor who thinks too much about everything and forgets to actually do it so, sometimes I need to sing loudly and march in!

 Thinking today about what truly matters and trying to help myself cut through the fog of things that clamor for attention when I think about parenting my sons and focus down to what matters not just right this minute or this week or even this year....but what really matters.

There are so many things to consider in shaping up your children and teaching and training and equipping them that it can be a total head spinner. I often feel like I can't see the forest for the trees and so sometimes a little focus can be a good thing. This is kind of a parenting manifesto. If I dropped off tomorrow (God forbid), what would I want my kids to remember about their childhood with me? This seems clarifying. Might these answers be "the point" when all the rest is a little bit of extra muddle? Yes, just so.

I'd hope they'd say:

1. They were certain I loved them dearly.
2. They felt capable and important, they knew they were people who mattered and could make their own path. 
3. They knew I wanted them to give love and they were trained in it often: mercy, generosity and thinking of others around them. 
4. They saw me live in fresh wonder and learned to always be excited about the world and to avoid a useless, bitter jaded-ness. 
5. They learned to organize, mobilize, strategize, tackle things fearlessly and be movers and shakers from their mama who was a fearless learner and maker. 

That's my list. 

Tomorrow, I may need to read this when I find another plum smashed into the drain of the bathroom sink and shredded all over the tile, or when Pom has a total meltdown on the kitchen floor while I am trying to cook dinner and A is texting me on his way home. I might need to remind myself while going over piano lessons and checking math problems and prompting along beginning readers who simply cannot remember what the letter "i" says no matter how many times I have gone over it. I will have to go and read the list of five things again when I find beds unmade, break up fist fights and hear the kids tell me that they think I'm the meanest mom in the world again. The point isn't any of these little annoying things....those are trees. The point is that stuff....up there. 

They are loved. They matter. They can love. The world is amazing. They can do things. 

And so can I. 

Dying The Tub Purple

We almost dyed the bathtub purple today during a lesson on the Phoenicians which was exciting. Whew. Yay for bleach. Seriously, I know it t'isn't green but it gets anything out. The shirts we all dyed purple are out in the washing machine having their first wash and after I finish writing I am going to dash out to the garage to lay them out on the heaps of boxes (we still don't have a dryer or a clothesline hooked up) and we'll see how they really turned out in the morning. Dido would be proud! (the Phoenician queen who founded Carthage, not the singer....although maybe she'd fancy purple shirts too....who knows!)

I love it when I have the energy, and thought and time to actually get to the cool projects like this. We all enjoy the whole learning business a lot more if becomes less about galloping through our required reading and more about dabbling and trying things and exploring our way through more hands on experiences. This is the kind of teacher I want to be.

"sidewalk" orange from one of our strolls through the neighborhood

So, there's that proud fact. There's also the fact when we left the house for a walk so the shirts could have their dye soak....a certain child took it upon himself to go stir the bucket full of dye one last time and sprayed the tub with a grapey drip stain. That's how it got purple. I was aghast when we got back from sidewalk windfall harvesting oranges, apples, limes and jelly-palm fruits (Oh, California!) and found out that all this time the shirts had been soaking beautifully but so had our newly be-speckled tub. Boo!

The good news is that although I was super pissed (not my proudest teacher moment) and the child in question quickly lied to me...I calmed down and he got brave and confessed...which meant I had to calm down even more and remember to be kind and a safe place for that scary admission of guilt. So, he helped me clean it off the wall trim and I scrubbed the tub and it ALL came off! What a thing....plus, the bathtub actually got properly cleaned. Maybe tomorrow someone should spray something all over the inside of the van? Man, do I need to get to cleaning the car.

In other news... We are settling in well...this morning Aaron, I and our van all became registered Californians at the DMV (best license picture every!), the kids are excitedly involved in 4-H and see their piano teacher for the first time this coming Wednesday, we all have library cards and have scheduled a "Library Day" once a week on our calendars, I even have several new friends who have first names I really remember and although I'm not to the last name or phone number stage with most of them....I feel hopeful. I have begun hauling anything I am wondering about back outside to the garage. Yes, that means that the garage is completely overwhelming and insane but it means that I have slightly more room to think and process the house and what should go where. Its amazing how quickly it gets overwhelming. The list of things I actually missed while we were waiting for our absurd about of possessions is impressively small:

• My juicer
• My hair dryer
• My spices
• The coffee maker
• My cowboy boots
• My hiking shoes
• My guitar
• The kids crayons and paints
• My good chef knife
• My field guides
• A full-size shovel (the previous tenants had left a trowel)
• A washing machine
• My sundresses

I was talking to a sounding board kind of friend the other day and realized that I need to take almost everything back to the garage and only unpack and bring in the things that I truly want and think we're going to happily use. There is so much extra. Must cull and must own what we actually mean to. Pinterest board about Brilliant Yard-Sale-ing in the works! I will not hold on to all this STUFF!

If you are local and interested in coffee with me....please report below. I need socializing.

Isolation And A Washing Machine

All the experts say that one of the keys to "good blogging" is to be perfectly consistent. Oops. I took a month off, with no warning or explanation and as one reader pointed out....it looked like quitting. Surprise! It's just me, blogging erratically while aiming at consistency. Things I am learning in my life...



We now have a washing machine, which feels very luxurious. Our old dryer is on the moving truck, driving across the country with all of our belongings. We have one week left to get our plans straight for where things should go before our world becomes a chaotic whirl of boxes and homeschooling.

All this moving craziness has meant pushing formal homeschool learning off (except for math and reading) until this coming Monday. In California you have to pick a method of homeschool registration and that research has also taken time. I have decided that I am going to give it a year and basically continue our current model while getting to know area homeschoolers. Then in the fall of I want to try connecting to a charter school or an umbrella organization (options here in CA) I will know a little more about the options and have had time to decide what I think. Sometimes it is good to defer some of the crazy and the new and the pressure and give yourself a few outs to keep things a little simpler. These are lessons I need to teach myself.
We have found a park day, homeschool playgroup to hang out with which is really encouraging and fun. Love getting these little pieces built into our life again. I am also looking into joining 4-H and have a co-op that is studying science on the docket for options too. There is a much larger buffet of choices out here.

I am starting to get to the point of moving where you feel a little lonely. I know my way to the local grocery store and I remember my own zip code now, I have a library card and favorite neighborhood walks but I don't have chums yet. I wish we had a babysitter for a night out once a week to explore and reconnect and I wish I had a community of mamas to kick back with and laugh hysterically beside for Lady Night outings, I wish I had a church community to share the sacred and support my children with an undergirding network of faith and to serve as a safe place for spiritual letdown and restoration and I wish I had a little circle of painters who were growing and making and observing the world in streaks and puddles of paint and advice.  I miss al of that but I know that it will all come. 

This part is a little frayed. It's hard to keep settling and nesting and making and finding and learning and starting over because it's depleting even though it's fresh and fun. Must refill. So I am reading Madeline L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet which is crazy good and I am working out every single morning (day 12!) and I am drinking coffee and deadheading my new roses. Prayer is good, texting is good and family rocks.

Rise above, friends! I will too!