Friday, February 11, 2011
Updates and Thoughts
I realized this morning as I was reading through my old blog posts that I need to update a couple of things. One of my firsts posts was about a wonderful encourager named Lynn who blessed my life with her words at a time when I really needed it. Lynn went home to be with the Lord just a couple of months ago and even though I didn't know her well, she had a profound impact on me during that first trying year in Mexico. The power of a word spoken in due season is truly miraculous.
It's been 18 months now since my VBAC water-birth in Mexico and it was one of the most healing experiences of my life. I now have a beautiful daughter and I enjoy her more and more each day. For those of you who don't know, I had a very traumatic (unnecessary) C-section with my third son, so this journey toward a VBAC water-birth was very significant for me. God answered my every prayer and exceeded my every expectation for the kind of birth I was desiring, and I look forward to doing it again this August when baby#5 is due.
Okay, back to the present...
I am already in curriculum research mode for next school year. The curriculum craze hits me every February or March and I spend the following months looking for home school catalogues in the mail, perusing used curriculum websites like vegsource.com and homeschoolreviews.com and making notes in my notebook. Each night I settle down to my hot tea and catalogues and am entranced for hours. It's intoxicating; beautiful new materials, exciting possibilities for learning, reading other mom reviews who used this or that writing program last year, putting together dream plans for each child. I get starry eyed just thinking about it. Have I mentioned that I love homeschooling? I do. I don't home educate primarily because I feel like I should or I have to, I home educate because it excites me! This is my dream job!
Of course there are days when I want to throw in the towl, morning sickness for instance has to be the biggest de-motivator there is. The first three months of pregnancy are just survival for me, and many other home school Moms with several children afoot, but there are lessons to be learned in every season and this 'morning sickness season' has produced some good fruit in my boys. B(8) and A(6), have learned how to carry their little brother and sister to the van and safely belt them into their car-seats. They have learned how to change diapers and put socks and shoes on the little ones and have even spent a few mornings rubbing my back or playing with my hair to try to ease my discomfort. I have been so blessed in these moments and tried to remember that all is not lost if we don't get around to math that day. They will not go into adulthood without knowing how to borrow and carry, it will just have to happen another day. And don't let the previous few sentences paint a perfectly rosy picture; we have also had days where someone dropped and exploded a whole gallon of milk on the kitchen floor, a certain 3 yr old did not take his 'business' to the bathroom (several times), and they fought like cats and dogs until the veins on my forehead were popping out. Such is life. Still, I wouldn't trade our home-education adventure for the world. Life is messy any way you look at it, the blessing is being in the mess together!
It's been 18 months now since my VBAC water-birth in Mexico and it was one of the most healing experiences of my life. I now have a beautiful daughter and I enjoy her more and more each day. For those of you who don't know, I had a very traumatic (unnecessary) C-section with my third son, so this journey toward a VBAC water-birth was very significant for me. God answered my every prayer and exceeded my every expectation for the kind of birth I was desiring, and I look forward to doing it again this August when baby#5 is due.
Okay, back to the present...
I am already in curriculum research mode for next school year. The curriculum craze hits me every February or March and I spend the following months looking for home school catalogues in the mail, perusing used curriculum websites like vegsource.com and homeschoolreviews.com and making notes in my notebook. Each night I settle down to my hot tea and catalogues and am entranced for hours. It's intoxicating; beautiful new materials, exciting possibilities for learning, reading other mom reviews who used this or that writing program last year, putting together dream plans for each child. I get starry eyed just thinking about it. Have I mentioned that I love homeschooling? I do. I don't home educate primarily because I feel like I should or I have to, I home educate because it excites me! This is my dream job!
Of course there are days when I want to throw in the towl, morning sickness for instance has to be the biggest de-motivator there is. The first three months of pregnancy are just survival for me, and many other home school Moms with several children afoot, but there are lessons to be learned in every season and this 'morning sickness season' has produced some good fruit in my boys. B(8) and A(6), have learned how to carry their little brother and sister to the van and safely belt them into their car-seats. They have learned how to change diapers and put socks and shoes on the little ones and have even spent a few mornings rubbing my back or playing with my hair to try to ease my discomfort. I have been so blessed in these moments and tried to remember that all is not lost if we don't get around to math that day. They will not go into adulthood without knowing how to borrow and carry, it will just have to happen another day. And don't let the previous few sentences paint a perfectly rosy picture; we have also had days where someone dropped and exploded a whole gallon of milk on the kitchen floor, a certain 3 yr old did not take his 'business' to the bathroom (several times), and they fought like cats and dogs until the veins on my forehead were popping out. Such is life. Still, I wouldn't trade our home-education adventure for the world. Life is messy any way you look at it, the blessing is being in the mess together!
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
I Will Survive...
I have never been sick for an entire month until now. What's more, is that our whole family has been sick for all of January. I bore myself even writing this all out again, because I've had a big bad case of "complainer-itis" the last several days and the last thing I probably need is to make a list of all of my woes. But, for the sake of purging, here goes:
It was a cool January evening and I had just settled in for the night at my perch on the couch, when I heard " Ugh!" from the bedroom my 3 boys sleep in. I entered the room to find Averic, boy #2, vomiting all over his bed linens. I won't disgust you with the details of that fateful night and the vomiting episodes that ensued, I'll just say that I spent my peaceful evening doing laundry and giving baths. The following morning, Benjamin, boy#1, started off the day in a similar fashion and fortunately, at age 8, was able to aim into the bowl I had provided for him.
Two days and several loads of laundry later, we were in the clear. I was thankful that the worst was over and thrilled that my younger two children seemed untouched by the virus. My relief was short lived as Deacon, boy #3, began vomiting on his bed linens that very night. Yes, the same bed linens that I had just put back on the bed. More laundry, more baths. The next day, Phoebe, age 1, followed suit and so my life was occupied with all this mess for a few more days. I couldn't wait until the weekend; I knew that the kids would be over their virus and we were celebrating our ten year anniversary with a trip to Austin. We had gone all out and made reservations to stay at "The Driskell", an historic hotel right on 6th Street, for two whole nights. At this point, two nights away from the kids seemed magical!
Well, the weekend arrived, with me vomiting...and Nathan vomiting. The grandparents came to stay with the kids and we hastily threw some clothes into a suitcase and made a very miserable drive to Austin. We arrived around 3 pm and went to bed in separate queen beds. We watched TV and made trips to the toilet and fell asleep at 9pm. We woke up at 2:30 pm the NEXT DAY. We were SO sick. So much for eating out at exciting new restaurants downtown and exploring the city and the neat little shops. We drug ourselves out of bed after having some Sprite and headed for IKEA. By golly, come rain or shine, I was going to IKEA; I had never been and had only heard girlfriends rave about the experience. We walked around for 20 minutes before I thought I would faint, and then we left. We went back to the hotel and slept. That evening I decided I could try to eat a roll and some mashed potatoes, so Nathan took me to "The Black Eyed Pea" (oh the romance) and I ate said roll and mashed potatoes. Eeeww. We left feeling sicker than when we had arrived. We headed to the movies where we watched "True Grit" and found it to be a lovely diversion from all our nastiness. We then headed back to the hotel and rented a dumb movie on PayPerView and fell asleep. The next morning, we went to the Capitol building and took a short walk through since I had never been inside, then we headed for home, still sick. Blech. Not the getaway I had imagined when we made those hotel reservations, but at least I didn't have to take care of my children when I felt so horrible myself, and that was something.
A few days later we were all feeling quite a bit better, but I still had the underlying nausea that accompanies every woman through her first tri-mester of pregnancy. I wasn't 100% but this was do-able, and we got back to doing school. Then the coughing, hacking, green snot monster attacked my children one by one, followed by the Pink Eye monster. No school again. We scrambled to find an urgent care facility since we couldn't be seen until the following week, and got the kids loaded up with Erythromicin drops and Amoxocillin. Okay, done and done! Then the coughing, hacking, green snot monster snuck up on me and kicked my rear end, and brought his friend, Influenza to knock Nathan out. Needless to say, we have been down for the count. All six of us.
I confess, my children have watched more movies in the last week than they have in the past 6 months, they have been left to fend for themselves, sometimes eating graham crackers and peanut butter for lunch, and have been forced to wear the same clothes for three days in a row. Which brings me to our next mishap. Our dryer began eating our clothes about 2 and a half weeks ago. Of course, I didn't realize that I had a hungry dryer until after I had dried several loads of laundry, so it wasn't until I started noticing holes and oil marks on several pieces of clothing, that I quit using the thing. I would guess that 40% of our clothing has been damaged as well as our bedding. I was quite excited about this as you can imagine, considering our current state of affairs. My favorite part, is that every stitch of every piece of anything that can be worn by this family, has been worn....several times. At long last the repair man came on Monday and the part needed will be in soon. Soon, is not soon enough for me, but what's a girl to do?
Did I mention that on Monday when the repair guy came, we were in the middle of mopping up the flood of water in our living room caused by the broken water heater? Yes, well, I'm just waiting for the roof to cave in or the car to quit working, or someone to lose a limb. I doubt it would shock me at this point. So it is with joy that I bid farewell to January 2011 and give it a swift kick in the arse on the way out. :)
It was a cool January evening and I had just settled in for the night at my perch on the couch, when I heard " Ugh!" from the bedroom my 3 boys sleep in. I entered the room to find Averic, boy #2, vomiting all over his bed linens. I won't disgust you with the details of that fateful night and the vomiting episodes that ensued, I'll just say that I spent my peaceful evening doing laundry and giving baths. The following morning, Benjamin, boy#1, started off the day in a similar fashion and fortunately, at age 8, was able to aim into the bowl I had provided for him.
Two days and several loads of laundry later, we were in the clear. I was thankful that the worst was over and thrilled that my younger two children seemed untouched by the virus. My relief was short lived as Deacon, boy #3, began vomiting on his bed linens that very night. Yes, the same bed linens that I had just put back on the bed. More laundry, more baths. The next day, Phoebe, age 1, followed suit and so my life was occupied with all this mess for a few more days. I couldn't wait until the weekend; I knew that the kids would be over their virus and we were celebrating our ten year anniversary with a trip to Austin. We had gone all out and made reservations to stay at "The Driskell", an historic hotel right on 6th Street, for two whole nights. At this point, two nights away from the kids seemed magical!
Well, the weekend arrived, with me vomiting...and Nathan vomiting. The grandparents came to stay with the kids and we hastily threw some clothes into a suitcase and made a very miserable drive to Austin. We arrived around 3 pm and went to bed in separate queen beds. We watched TV and made trips to the toilet and fell asleep at 9pm. We woke up at 2:30 pm the NEXT DAY. We were SO sick. So much for eating out at exciting new restaurants downtown and exploring the city and the neat little shops. We drug ourselves out of bed after having some Sprite and headed for IKEA. By golly, come rain or shine, I was going to IKEA; I had never been and had only heard girlfriends rave about the experience. We walked around for 20 minutes before I thought I would faint, and then we left. We went back to the hotel and slept. That evening I decided I could try to eat a roll and some mashed potatoes, so Nathan took me to "The Black Eyed Pea" (oh the romance) and I ate said roll and mashed potatoes. Eeeww. We left feeling sicker than when we had arrived. We headed to the movies where we watched "True Grit" and found it to be a lovely diversion from all our nastiness. We then headed back to the hotel and rented a dumb movie on PayPerView and fell asleep. The next morning, we went to the Capitol building and took a short walk through since I had never been inside, then we headed for home, still sick. Blech. Not the getaway I had imagined when we made those hotel reservations, but at least I didn't have to take care of my children when I felt so horrible myself, and that was something.
A few days later we were all feeling quite a bit better, but I still had the underlying nausea that accompanies every woman through her first tri-mester of pregnancy. I wasn't 100% but this was do-able, and we got back to doing school. Then the coughing, hacking, green snot monster attacked my children one by one, followed by the Pink Eye monster. No school again. We scrambled to find an urgent care facility since we couldn't be seen until the following week, and got the kids loaded up with Erythromicin drops and Amoxocillin. Okay, done and done! Then the coughing, hacking, green snot monster snuck up on me and kicked my rear end, and brought his friend, Influenza to knock Nathan out. Needless to say, we have been down for the count. All six of us.
I confess, my children have watched more movies in the last week than they have in the past 6 months, they have been left to fend for themselves, sometimes eating graham crackers and peanut butter for lunch, and have been forced to wear the same clothes for three days in a row. Which brings me to our next mishap. Our dryer began eating our clothes about 2 and a half weeks ago. Of course, I didn't realize that I had a hungry dryer until after I had dried several loads of laundry, so it wasn't until I started noticing holes and oil marks on several pieces of clothing, that I quit using the thing. I would guess that 40% of our clothing has been damaged as well as our bedding. I was quite excited about this as you can imagine, considering our current state of affairs. My favorite part, is that every stitch of every piece of anything that can be worn by this family, has been worn....several times. At long last the repair man came on Monday and the part needed will be in soon. Soon, is not soon enough for me, but what's a girl to do?
Did I mention that on Monday when the repair guy came, we were in the middle of mopping up the flood of water in our living room caused by the broken water heater? Yes, well, I'm just waiting for the roof to cave in or the car to quit working, or someone to lose a limb. I doubt it would shock me at this point. So it is with joy that I bid farewell to January 2011 and give it a swift kick in the arse on the way out. :)
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