Watch This!

I cannot possibly recount the number of times in a day that one of my children walks up, runs over, or slams into me and demands, "Mom, watch this!"  So. many. times.

• "Mom, did you see that play in the back yard?!?"
• "Mom, watch my super ninja kick!  Now watch my ballet kick!"  (You'd think this comes from our girl, but no.  It's always the little boy, and he does have amazing jumping ability.)
• "Mom, watch me shoot you in the face with my Nerf gun from ALL THE WAY over here!"  
• "Mom, watch what happens when I mix this stuff with this stuff!"
• "Mom, look at my art!"
• "Mom, watch this HILARIOUS YouTube video we saw!"  
• "Mom, watch this AWESOME Lego battle!"
• "Mom, watch this sand rock crumble into a million pieces!"

The list goes on and on and on. Hundreds and hundreds of opportunities to "watch this" every week.  I have basically been setting things aside and "watching this" for 14 years.  Can I be so honest right now and say that the subjects of small children's interests are almost never inherently interesting to me?  Is that okay to say out loud?  I mean, I love my kids to pieces.  But I just do not get excited about Lego battles and YouTube videos all on my own.

So, why do I watch?  Why do I stop what I'm doing hundreds of times in a week to watch things that aren't seemingly necessary uses of my time?  Well, that's just it.  They don't SEEM to be necessary uses of my time; but they are, in fact, necessary. 

When our oldest was just a tiny one wanting me to watch his trains and cars smash into one another repeatedly (Let me reiterate the "repeatedly" part.), the Lord was so faithful to reveal to me the importance and even necessity of those moments.  It was so clear to me that, if I spent all their little years telling my kids that I'm not interested in the things that excite them, they will inevitably feel like I'm not interested in THEM.  Yikes!  I would be training them to do life without me.  I would be teaching them over the course of hundreds of moments that they need to do life on their own.

I played this forward to their preteen and teen years when emotions run high and social challenges abound.  I thought about the number of times they'd be confronted with choices and conflicts and temptations.  I thought about the number of things they would learn and need to process.  There was the potential that they would get to all those moments, and they wouldn't even have the NOTION to come to me with their concerns or experiences, let alone know that they can freely come to me with anything.

So I watched.  I keep watching.  I don't ALWAYS watch every single thing all the time because I just can't.  I would seriously never get anything done ever.  But most of the time I stop, and I watch.

Here's how that's playing out years later.  Our oldest started public high school this year, and he tells me loads of details about his days!  He shares what he's learning.  He shares hilarious interactions.  He tells me the good and hard parts of his days.  He tells me about his successes and the things he wants to improve.  He lets me ask him questions.  He sometimes rolls his eyes at the things I'm interested in (factoring polynomials, anyone?), but he doesn't hold back.  It's just part of how we have shared life all this time, so we just keep sharing life.

I am not naive enough to think that he will always share every detail of his life with me, and I'm actually more than okay with that.  The cool thing is that, even now, he's not coming to me to ask me to solve all his problems for him or tell him how to run his days.  He's just coming to SHARE his days.  If it turns out that part of that is a little bit of problem solving, fine.  But mostly, I'm thankful for all those crazy car collisions and repeated Lego battles that trained us both to just share life as it is. 

Potentially one of the best things about this is that he loves to come home and ask how our day has gone here.  He loves knowing about all the parts of the day he missed while he was at school because he grew to have an appreciation for those things during the years he was here.

One of my prayers for my kids is that they grow up to be adults who love people well enough to share real life in all its stages and forms.  I want them to be able to play cars with little kids; talk to their peers about school and work; and share details and feelings about their days with their spouses.  I want them to be able to slow down, sit, and watch game shows or history programs with elderly people to share life with them.  I want them to be able to call grandparents on the phone and talk about their lives.  I want them to be able to ask people who come from different backgrounds and cultures to teach them new things.

Will all of these things automatically happen because I just stop and "watch this"?  No.  Is it possible for parents to create the kind of relationship with their children that I'm describing even if they aren't around as many hours in a day to "watch this"?  Yes.  I think it's more about percentages.  Do our kids hear us say no more often than we say yes?  Do they see us choose to focus on a million other things before we pay attention to them?

Parents of young ones, let this be an encouragement to you that it does make a difference to do totally random and maybe seemingly pointless things with your kids.  In the process, you will both be learning to share life for what it is... that it doesn't have to be an earth-shattering occurrence before it's worth sharing... and that, in fact, the sharing of life was actually the point all along.

I'm Back!!!

Nearly six years after my last post, after multiple random attempts to even figure out how to log back in to this thing, I decided I'm going to write again.  I have no idea where to start, and I'm sure not going to try to go back and fill in six years of events.  There will be no theme except the one I decided on a long time ago:  Whatever Comes to Mind.  I may or may not quickly get around to updating the sidebar to reflect the fact that there are two additional kids in our mix now, but that's all fine too.  I'm just starting....

What We Do for Ear Infections

It's that time of year when ear infections abound and people ask regularly what we do in our house to heal ear infections while avoiding antibiotics.  I am not a medical professional, so please do not take this as medical advice.  All I can do is share with you what works for us.  With that said, here goes:

1.  Olbas Oil outside your ear.  A drop or two behind and under your ear lobe.  And another drop in front of your ear on that little piece of cartilege that sticks out.  Recline for 5-10 minutes to get the fluids draining down.

2.  Garlic & Olive Oil drops.

• 2-3 tbsp. olive oil in a small pot.  

• Add 1 clove of garlic, peeled and chopped into 4ish pieces.  

• Heat on medium-low for five minutes, stirring regularly and making sure garlic browns but does not burn.  

• Wait for the oil to cool just a bit so it's warm but not hot.  Test on your wrist or some other sensitive area.  It's better to err on the side of cool than to burn the inside of your ear, so be careful here.

• Use a medicine dropper to draw up some oil

• Lay on your side, fill your ear canal with the oil, and let it sit for 1-2 minutes.  

• Flip your ear over onto a towel and let the oil drain out and repeat on the other side.  

• Cover your oil in the pan for re-use.  I often leave the garlic cloves in the pan for the second heating and then remove them for subsequent heatings so they don't burn.  When you're reheating you only need to warm the oil (as opposed to heating to hot and then cooling).  

• We do this every 2-4 hours 

 3.  Cut out pasteurized dairy and refined sugars.  Also limit the amount of grains, fruits, and other starches being consumed since sugar feeds infection.  Grains cause our bodies to produce more fluids of all kinds, so in addition to the fact that they turn to sugar and will feed the infection, the extra fluids give a breeding ground for infection.  Consume lots of good quality broth.

4.  Lots of water, of course.

5.  A warm compress on your ears can help a lot too.  I often do this at the same time that I do the Olbas Oil, and it's very helpful.

6.  Drinking hot tea can also help.  We like the Traditional Medicinals brand and often choose the Breathe Easy or the Lemon Echinacea Throat Coat varieties when we have ear, nose and throat issues.

What We Do for School...

There have been quite a few people who have asked me to share what we do in our home for school.  It's impossible to list it all because there is so much unplanned, unprompted learning and imagination.  But I tried to make a list of as many things I could think of.  There are no fun pictures... because if I took time for that right now, I wouldn't have time to educate my kids.  Hopefully you understand.  


A few things before I start:

1. No homeschool environment will look the same because each family is different.  That's one of the great things about homeschooling.
2. We have switched to a block schedule for some subjects because making transitions between subjects takes more time, and we have to gear up for each one.  You're the teacher in your home, so feel free to make similar adjustments as needed.
3. We don't necessarily follow a traditional school schedule.  It takes too long to get through material or takes too much time away from active and/or imaginative play time if we try to jam it all in at once, so we stretch things out over more months.  We break in to the school year with one or two subjects and gradually add a new subject every week or two, working up to a full schedule.  Then we get to taper off at the end of the school year when it's nice outside again.  
4. It doesn't take nearly as much time in the day to cover our content as it would in the school setting.  I don't have to collect lunch money, get a whole class in line, wait for 20 kids to get crayons out, or deal with discipline issues for a whole classroom.  As a result, we legitimately get more free time in a day/year.  Don't think that your kids need to be sitting in a desk for 7 hours in order to be learning things.  
5. The beauty of homeschooling is that you can slow down or speed up according to your child's abilities.  You don't have to do the same thing for every kid at a respective grade level, because each kid will have different abilities.  Remembering this helps to remind us as parent-educators to really sit back and evaluate each child as an individual, recognizing his/her strengths and weaknesses as well as how we can help maximize potential.  

There are a million things that could be said, but that's enough for now.  Here's what we use...

Bible

• Long Story Short by Marty Machowski  (Our whole family does this together, and it's fantastic!)
• ESV Bible for each of the older kids  (WTS Books is a good place to see some great options for kids)
• Jesus Storybook Bible for toddlers (they like to flip through and look at the pictures while listening)
• There are others we use too, but this is what we do on a daily basis

Preschool

• My Giant Sticker Activity Book
• Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
• Letter of the Week.  My sister-in-law did an AWESOME preschool tour through the alphabet for my nephew this year.  I'm so excited to do this for Claire next year.  
• Lots and lots of educational toys, games, and conversation throughout the day
• Keep in mind that you do not need to compartmentalize your child's learning.  Sometimes we like to do that because it helps us check something off a list.  However, so much learning goes on if we just talk about what's happening in our surroundings.  It's important not to minimize the importance of this!

Kindergarten

• Veritas Press Phonics Museum (covers reading, handwriting, art history, art, and quite a few other random subjects)
• Math:  Saxon 1 (We purchased the Rainbow Resource version of the manipulative set to complement Saxon 1-3)
• Listen along with whatever the older kids are doing for History, Science, Latin, Grammar, etc.
• Homeschool Co-op:  PE, Art, and other random fun kindergarten things
• Lots and lots of educational toys, games, and conversation throughout the day

First Grade

• Grammar:  Shurley Level 1
• History:  Mystery of History, Volume 1:  Creation to Resurrection
• History Through the Ages Collection of Timeline Figures  I chose to purchase the CD of figures, and it's perfect!  To make a timeline, I secured 8 ribbons evenly spaced on a tri-fold board.  I printed all the timeline figures that went along with this year's lessons and put them on brightly-colored background paper The colored paper is an unnecessary step, but it makes it more fun.  We have a different color for each quarter, so we feel a sense of accomplishment four times throughout the year. Our second run through history, we will likely make a timeline notebook, but for now, it's really great to see everything in one view and see what came before or after something else.
• Veritas Press Phonics Museum (covers reading, handwriting, art history, art, and quite a few other random subjects)
• Math:  Saxon 2 (We purchased the Rainbow Resource version of the manipulative set to complement Saxon 1-3)
• Reading:  Veritas Press First Favorites Volumes 1 and 2 (Note: There are four pages in this link)
• PE:  Homeschool Co-op class... and LOTS of backyard play (the beauty of homeschooling is that we have HOURS of active play in a day)
• Science:  Exploring Creation with Astronomy (Apologia)

Second Grade

• Art and Music:  Homeschool co-op and random things associated with other subjects.  This is a really fun book:  Discovering Great Artists:  Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters
• Grammar:  Shurley Level 2
• History:  Mystery of History, Volume 2:  Early Church - Middle Ages
• History Through the Ages Collection of Timeline Figures (See notes on this in First Grade section)
• Latin:  Song School Latin 
• Math:  Saxon 3 (We purchased the Rainbow Resource version of the manipulative set to complement Saxon 1-3)
• Reading:  Lots of reading!  Magic Tree House (www.magictreehouse.com has short comprehension quizzes for each book), Boxcar Children, books that correspond with history lessons, and just a couple of the Veritas Press Comprehension Guides (also several pages on this link, so flip through to look for books your child may be interested in)
• PE:  Homeschool Co-op class, YMCA basketball, and lots of active play
• Science:  Exploring Creation with Botany (Apologia) and corresponding lapbooks (Kit 1 and Kit 2)
• Spelling:  Institute for Excellence in Writing Phonics Zoo, Level A  (We'll be starting this right after the 2nd grade school year ends to get some headway before the start of 3rd grade)
• Typing Instructor for Kids

Third Grade

• Art and Music:  Homeschool co-op and random things associated with other subjects.  This is a really fun book:  Discovering Great Artists:  Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters
• Grammar:  Shurley Level 3
• History:  Mystery of History, Volume 3:  The Rennaissance, Reformation and Growth of Nations
• History Through the Ages Collection of Timeline Figures (See notes on this in First Grade section)
• Latin:  Latin for Children Primer A
• Math:  Saxon 5/4  (I chose to purchase the materials and the teacher CD-ROM)
• Reading:  More Magic Tree House, Boxcar Children, Chronicles of Narnia with Veritas Press Comprehension Guide, and books to accompany history lessons (the Veritas Press catalog has all kinds of great suggestions.  We are looking at the fourth grade list to match our history for this year--again, lots of pages to flip through)
• Book Reports:  How to Report on Books: Grades 3 and 4
• PE:  Homeschool Co-op class
• Science:  Exploring Creation with Zoology 1:  Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day (Apologia) and corresponding lapbooks
• Spelling:  Institute for Excellence in Writing Phonics Zoo, Level A
• Typing Instructor for Kids
• Writing:  Institute for Excellence in Writing, Teaching Writing, Structure & Style

Helpful Organizational Tools/Ideas

• Purchase some side-load sheet protectors and some wet erase markers.  Slide the sheet protector over a workbook page (you may have to cut off the binder hole strip first) and have the student answer the questions with a wet erase marker.  Once you've checked the answers, remove the sheet protector, wash it, and use it again.  Save yourself loads of time and money that you would have spent photocopying pages or buying disposable workbooks for additional children.  
• I love the index card idea listed in this blog entry:  Raising an Independent Learner
• MP3 players for each kid if possible.  You can load all their audio learning tools onto their individual MP3 players, and they can listen to History, Latin, Grammar, Spelling, etc. through headphones while building Legos, playing with dolls, staring up at the clouds, whatever.  I found some very inexpensive 4GB players on sale the day after Thanksgiving.  They're not iPods (my kids don't need anything that expensive), and they do take a little bit more time to load than an iPod, but the Philips players we have definitely work for what we need.  I also purchased an MP3 player speaker/case for each kid ($7 each) the day after Thanksgiving.  Their headphones are tucked inside with their players, and they can choose between headphones or speakers.  Also, it allows toddlers to walk around listening to all their older siblings' school stuff, which they thing is GREAT, without putting and MP3 player in their hands directly!
• Managers of Their Homes and Managers of Their Chores
• Large Family Logistics by Kim Brenneman.  There are ALL SORTS of great ideas in this book!  Even if you don't have a large family, there are great ideas you can implement and get yourself off to a good start.  I wish I had thought through some of these things with only one child.  (Note:  The beginning of the book seems a bit less balanced than the book as a whole, so if you're like me and think it's a bit over-the-top in certain ways at the beginning, keep reading.)
• A laminator!  The Scotch Thermal Laminating Machine is pretty economical.  Purchase the laminating sheets from Amazon to save money on those.  

Fun Supplementary Materials

• The flash cards in the dollar bins at Target at back-to-school time are fantastic!  I laminated several sets, hole punched them, and put them on binder/index card rings.  I use suction cup hooks (found at Target in the hardware section) on the side of our school bookshelf to store them in easy reach for the kids who need them but out-of-reach for babies and toddlers
• Building Thinking Skills Series 
• Math-in-a-Flash flash cards
• Rocket Math is a free app for iPhones or iPads that is pretty fun for the kids
• Scientific Explorer's and ScienceWiz science kits
• AnimaLogic
• Imaginets
• Legos and K-Nex 
• Strategy games
• Puzzles
• Magnifying glasses
• Art supplies
• Grow your own butterflies
• The list could go on and on and on.  You get the point.  The hands-on stuff is fun AND educational!  Do not diminish the value of letting your kids explore and learn along the way.

Helpful Resources

• The Great Courses
• The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
• Search for local homeschool co-ops in your area
• Homeschool Legal Defense Association--lists requirements for each state and has a whole host of other helpful resources available
• Classical Conversations  Even if you don't sign up for the CC co-op, you can purchase and use many of their resources.  

Favorite Homeschool Suppliers

• Amazon.com
• Christian Book Distributor
• Rainbow Resource
• Timberdoodle
• Veritas Press

Thoughts On Adding a Third Child (or Fourth, Fifth, etc.)

I had a friend ask for some helpful thoughts as she prepares to move from two to three kids. Here are some of the things I shared...

1. Try to schedule some extra help right away, but also again at about weeks 6, 7 and 8 when you've reached the peak of your exhaustion. It's such a blessing to have someone come and take the olders to the park in the morning so you can rest, enjoy a little quiet, or just get something done that's driving you crazy. If that person can also put the baby in the stroller and go for a walk with all three kids for 45 minutes, you'll be amazed at how refreshed you are when it's over.
2. For me, it's sometimes not easier for someone to be in my house helping me. It's actually easier if, once every couple weeks, Chet can take all the kids out for an hour and a half (between me feeding Will) so I can be in the house by myself to get things done or just collect myself.
3. Suggestions of spending time with each kid are great. And it's also true that it might only be 5 minutes. Somehow, the Lord multiplies that 5-10 minutes so that it means a lot more than that to the kids.
4. Remember that babies don't often die from crying. If you have to leave the baby laying down screaming his/her face off for a few minutes so you can pick up your screaming toddler, that's okay. It's not quiet. But it's okay.
5. Try to be conscientious of the fact that you're asking your kids to drop what they're doing regularly to help you... and be willing to drop what you're doing every once in a while to help them too. Not always. I am certainly not kid-centric around here... but I definitely don't want my kids feeling like they're put on this planet just to help me.
6. Consistency with discipline is key, and at the same time consistency with attention is key. As you consistently pay attention to your kids, they become assured that your discipline is really for their individual good and not just because they've interrupted you again.
7. Make plans and try to improve them when they're not working... but mostly realize that no day can look exactly like any other day. The Lord will challenge you to become more and more flexible, to grow in grace more and more, and to die to yourself and become content in Him more and more every day. As you are growing in this, your kids will see where your joy comes from (helps to explain it too), and you can help them grow in contentment with the things the Lord has given them as well.
8. I like to keep this thought in mind: If I sent my kids to a child care center, I wouldn't want the workers to be neglecting my kids in the name of constantly cleaning and doing projects... and I wouldn't want them neglecting the cleaning altogether in the name of playing with my kids. Sometimes the kids have to wait while you get something done, and sometimes the dishes can sit on the counter and pee in the potty seat because you're reading a story to them. It's impossible to be everything to everyone. Only God can be everything to them, so when you feel like you're failing, point them to the Lord and remind them that only He can satisfy the desires of their hearts.

I know that all of these things sound like terrible cliches and like a list of impossible demands. Hopefully, you'll just read it as thoughts to keep in mind to help you balance yourself when you feel like things are out of control. I'm in a stage right now where I just can't seem to catch up. And then I have to remember that, even if it's 5 or 20 years from now, I'll catch up... I just hope that I've spent enough time with my kids along the way that they'll come back when I'm sitting in my clean, empty house.

Did the Teen Years Come Early?

I wish I could record all of my conversations with my kids. Ladan was having a hard time sleeping, and we ended up having the best chat until 11:30. He might be tired tomorrow, but I'm hopeful that his sleep will be more restful than it would have been with all those thoughts swimming around in his head. Some of his thoughts:

• He remembered the time last semester when one of the kids in his class had an eye patch. It just so happened that his friend started wearing the patch the week after Ladan kicked the ball in dodge ball, and it accidentally hit his friend in the eye. He's been feeling guilty because he thought he hurt his friend. Turns out his friend was just having an eye problem corrected that had been there for years.
• He started thinking about how terrible it must be for kids whose parents are separated and how they might feel like half-orphans a lot of the time.
• He was concerned that his friend, Byron, might be on the opposing soccer team in PE tomorrow. He doesn't want to accidentally hurt his friend if they're both going for the ball at the same time.
• He's a little bit nervous about Saturday's basketball game against his coach and former teammate from last session. He wants to do the best job he can for his own team, but he wants their team to do a good job too.
• He's realizing that, while God has provided some really great friends here, he might never forget some of his Louisville friends for the rest of his life. I hope he's right.

These are just a few of the topics we discussed. I'm so glad he felt like he could tell me his concerns. They might seem like small potatoes to some, but for a seven-year-old, it's big stuff.

The theme throughout our discussion was how cool it is to see God working and providing what we need at every stage... even if what we need isn't the same as what we want. No matter what, He is there with us helping us when we feel alone or scared.

And at the end of it all, in a way, I'm kind of glad that I didn't have to wait until the teen years to have a late-night heart-to-heart with my kiddo.

Realistic Optimism: Lessons from a Seven-Year-Old

Earlier today, I was explaining to the kids that I want to try out an Ergo baby carrier with Claire in it (one of our local stores has them in stock and allows you to test them with your kiddos). Ladan replied, "Cool. I guess if it works, you can use it for Claire when we walk too far for her to keep up. And then, if our baby doesn't die, you can use it for the baby too." Just that matter of fact. Yes. Precisely. And WOW!

I love that he doesn't take things for granted and at the same time isn't fatalistic and woeful. We have walked through some tough situations with friends who have miscarried, friends who have had stillborn babies, friends who have had children die shortly after birth, and friends who have had children die at very young ages. As it turns out, several of our friends are dealing with trials like these right now. We explain to Ladan what's happening and how we can pray for these families throughout. Ladan has learned not to just assume that everything is always going to be fine. He tears up when he learns about the death of a baby. And he prays for the families he knows are struggling as they grieve the loss of their little ones.

At the same time, he can maintain a balance that also does not assume that something WILL go wrong. As he is fully aware that things can and do go wrong sometimes, he is also consistently looking at the bright side of things and remembering all that there is to be thankful for. He can do this in a way that doesn't make light of horrifying situations and at the same time doesn't minimize the great things that are happening. It's a pretty great characteristic for a barely-7-year-old, I think.

It's the kind of approach where you truly look forward to what's ahead and can be genuinely and overwhelmingly thankful if and when things go really well... because you know that it didn't have to be that way. You know that things could have gone really wrong. But they didn't. And that is not to be taken for granted. But what if things go wrong? Well, you knew that was a possibility. And as much as it still stinks to high heaven when you're in the middle of it, and you could be gasping for air to breathe because it's so hard, you know that there must be SOMETHING to be thankful for. You just have to find it. It might take time, but you'll find it if your eyes and heart are open.

It's realistic optimism, and I love it! It's just a hunch, but I think the Lord also delights in seeing this kind of thinking in the mind of a 7-year-old He created.