Prayer Sticks

So we have a jar of popsicle sticks on our dining room table.  

Each stick has a name, event, worry or concern, for whom we'd like to pray.

We draw one stick out at dinner every night and pray for whatever the stick says.  

And every single night, my toddler loses his ever loving mind over these popsicle sticks and thinks he needs to hold one and stir his food with it and put it in his mouth or up his noise or WHATEVER.  And I basically find myself losing my cool over these prayer sticks and firmly suggesting that my children PLEASE PRAY FASTER so we can put them away.  

Yup.  True confessions.  

It maybe happened tonight.

I think the prayer sticks might go on a little vacation.  

We can come up with ideas without them.

#facepalm

#graceupongrace

{Where the ideal is lacking, grace abounds.}

  

Grayson Turns Two

My sweet boy turned two last week.

TWO.

He is a never ending ball of motion.  

He runs and roars and laughs and feels all the feels.

If he had an anthem it would probably be 

"GRAYSON DO IT."

Because he wants to do everything his big sisters are doing.  

Or just everything for that matter.

When I told him he was two he looked at me and said, 

"No.  No two.  No like it."

But he's sweet and cuddly when I can catch him.  

He likes to "rock rock."

He likes to read books.

He eats milk and cheese consistently.  

Anything else depends on his mood.  

Sometimes he doesn't like to eat at all.

Too busy.

He likes trains and dinosaurs and blocks and trucks.

If he hears a loud noise he wants more.

He is teaching us about being boy parents, and we're kinda smitten.

December

 I just love December.  

Advent.  Expectation.  Anticipation.  Tradition.  

Lights.  Beauty.  Smells.  Warmth.  

All of it.  Every year in October or November I pull out a notebook and start to plan.  

It used to be a frenzied "get it all done," but has formed into more of a "slow and steady" out of conviction and necessity to make the first things first.

But even still, sometimes it just doesn't feel very slow or peaceful when extras are added in.  Especially with four kids.  

#wetried

But really, we did try to make the first things the first things this season of advent.  

We talked about gifts a LOT.  Because what kid doesn't like to talk about gifts?  It's really pretty perfect when you think about it, because we were given the most PERFECT gift.

  And that is what we celebrate at Christmas.  We give gifts because we were given THE gift.  The Father of good gifts sent his one and only Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be condemned for our sin. (Romans 8)  

And we get to remember and celebrate and cherish the perfect gift.  

So we pick good gifts for friends and family.  And talk about the gift giver.

And we bake treats and goodies and share them with family and friends.  

And talk about the Bread of Life.  

And we sing songs that explain JOY to the world.

That the Lord has come!  

And we look at the lights.  Because Jesus is the light of the world!

And we do silly things, smell the smells, taste the tastes, read the books, play the games, share the stories, and cozy in together because His Kingdom comes in the way we celebrate!  

 

Fresh Starts

Life looks unbelieveably different since I have written anything on this blog.  

The last time I wrote we had a relatively new babe and we were just starting our homeschool journey.  

Today that new baby is soon turning two and there is yet another Wobbema babe.

We feel like we've been doing this homeschool thing for awhile, and yet are still learning more and more about how we want to do school and how to approach things and what our style is.

The curriculum list in the post below of what our Kindergarten year was supposed to look like didn't convey much of anything other than a year of trial and error.

We pushed through the year of school by starting and finishing some things and learning to let go of other things.  We called Emberly's first year of school "Kindergarten" even though she had just turned 5 and wasn't eligible by Fargo Public Schools to start Kinder, but then at the end of the year decided that our slow and steady start was exactly that - a great start, and we continued on to a second round of Kindergarten this year to bless her with an extra year of childhood.

This year we have fallen into a nice rhythm of school.  We've turned my beloved sewing room into a homeschool room (let's be honest - with four bambinos I wasn't sewing much anyway), and the girls are both excited and generally willing when it comes to getting their school work done.  Emberly is using lots of first grade curriculum, though I've found that in homeschool world, grade levels aren't really all that important.  We just continue the slow and steady progression forward, which I love.  

I am excited to start jotting my thoughts out on this blog again - even if it is just to catalog and file our homeschool journey so I don't need to recreate when the boys are starting school.

And there is so much more.  But I'll start there.

Our First Days of School...

My sweet Emberly is starting Kindergarten this year.  I feel like I should follow that with a big "gulp" but I am honestly just very excited for her.

We are homeschooling, so I don't feel like I need to have all of the emotions that go along with wondering whether or not she will be ok without me, if she will make friends, whether or not she will be kind or polite to others, if her teacher will like her, or if she will try to run the class herself... 

I know this is not for everyone, but we are just really thankful for this soft entrance into the school year.  We are praying it will be something that we continue to enjoy and that will be a good fit for each of our children, but we are willing to evaluate year after year to see if that is the case.  This is not a blanket "forever we homeschool!"  Simply a "for now this is right for us."  

  I've been dreaming about this day from the time I quit my classroom job.  Not because I felt like I was missing out.  Teaching other people's kids while someone else teaches yours just didn't make sense for us.  It wasn't hard to transfer all of my brain bites to my own children when we decided that the classroom took too much and gave too little.  But there was always a little something inside of me that missed teaching.  Teaching my own children feels like the best of both worlds.

So here we start.

With my sweet turning 5 year old in just a few days.  

Kindergarten will be filled with fun and flexibility to learn and explore in the ways we see fit.  For my eager to learn child who can already read quite well, can count well above 100, and can articulate many well thought out ideas, kindergarten might be more about learning to learn from mom than learning the content itself.

And that is ok.  

I've chosen curriculum that would be entirely appropriate to be spread over two years if we need to slow down.  But I'm imagining that once we start, she won't want to stop.

I can't wait to see her mind start connecting all of the dots.  

I've debated whether or not I should write out what curriculum we're using because I feel like it just causes my heart to feel a little bit anxious.  There are SO many different choices for curriculum.  It seems to me that everyone decides to homeschool for different reasons.  You may know more about these choices than some people, or you may know less.  It gives an opportunity for you to agree or disagree with me, and even though I generally don't care, for some reason this feels a bit vulnerable to me.  But I know that when I hit the point that I want to start Kindergarten with Piper or Grayson, I will want to remember what we did.  So for better or for worse, here are my picks.  I feel pretty convinced I have too much stuff.  And I know it is not perfect.  But this is where we are starting.    

Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting - K

Bible: Grapevine Traceable Units - Creation to Babel

Phonics/Reading: All About Reading Level 1

Math: Math-u-See Alpha

Art: Home Art Studio - K

Social Studies: Pearson My World S.S.  

Science: Sonlight Science A

Supplemental: COAH K4/5 curriculum

Abeka K5 Letters & Sounds

Abeka K5 Think and Learn

COAH Daily Learning Notebook

 So far we've added Handwriting, Daily Learning Notebook, and Math into our lives over the past two weeks.  We will gradually keep adding more until we have a full coarse load.  I do not intend to teach everything every week... but time will tell! 

And don't forget about my sweet Miss Pip! She is more than just along for the ride. I can tell she is learning by osmosis. We throw in all sorts of fine motor, gross motor, art, alphabet, number correspondence, sorting, and BOOKS galore to give her a nice preschool experience. Nothing is formal, and that is perfect for us at this time.

Refinement

I wrote this blog post when Grayson was about three weeks old. I found it yesterday and am uncertain why I never hit the publish button. Maybe I wondered if I made sense. Or if other people could relate.  Either way, here it is. 

---------

It's 9am on Friday morning and I am sitting down to dump a few thoughts out of my brain as I eat a very soggy bowl of cheerios that I poured over 30 minutes ago while I keep replacing the pacifier in Grayson's mouth as he attempts to sleep in the swing next to me and the girls are doing who knows what downstairs... Let's be honest.  Life is a little different with the addition of a third.  

It's funny really, because people keep asking me this "How ARE you doing REALLY?" question as if I'm lying when I give them the "we are doing well!" answer.  We really ARE doing well.  I think.  It's hard to sum up the addition of a new needy little person and the subtraction of all kinds of sleep and sanity and showers and stuff.  Because it just isn't a fair math problem.  Grayson will always be better than those other things.

But that doesn't mean that I sometimes catch myself saying or doing things that I never thought I would be saying or doing...

Like potty training Piper just a few days after we brought Grayson home from the hospital because Jordan is on paternity leave so #heywhynot.

And consequently cleaning up more poop than I ever knew was possible.

Or changing my clothes approximately 473 times a day thanks to the abundance of spit up one tiny little human can produce.

Or reading a book to one kid while nursing the babe and "overhearing" silence from the middle kid and therefore needing to dash to the bathroom (babe still attached) to find said potty training child dumping their own potty from the potty chair into the toilet...

------

So back to that question about how we're doing.  

I think my token answer has been that the transition from one to two was a lot more difficult than two to three.  And I know you probably think I'm crazy.  Or lying.  Or maybe both.  

But here's the difference.

When you have one child, you're a little bit of a mess as a parent because you're learning everything for the first time.  And then you slowly but surely start to figure things out and develop opinions on how parenting should work and how children should behave based on the fact that it is currently working for you and that one child.  

And then whether you'd admit it or not, you kinda think it will work exactly the same way for the second child.  Except this time you have fewer hands and far less time and far less sleep and far less patience.  So before when you could politely ask your child to get their shoes on at the door and wait until they were "ready to make the right choice" and blah blah blah... you suddenly now have a screaming new baby in a carseat and you've already told your child 7 times to get their shoes on, and instead of making a calm and rational choice, you do that thing you've seen other parents do that you would NEVER do and you maybe raise your voice. Or give a spanking. Or fill in the blank. The control you once thought you had and the predictability that you were so sure of is suddenly gone. And you mourn that loss for a long time after the birth of number two, all while feeling guilty that you decided to raise another human.

But gradually over time you realize that baby number two is a great gift to both your refinement and the refinement of your first. The Lord is using them to teach you about your sin, your idols, your comforts, your heart... and the list goes on.

As you learn about your lack of control, you start to relax a little. Your love is no less strong, your standards are no less high, you just start to realize that your child will in fact be ok (maybe even better) if you start to let them make a few mistakes. Or make a mess. Or skip a nap. (Not to mention that you've just plain run out of hands and capacity to do for subsequent children what you've done for the first.)

And then you get to child number three and you already realize you have no control. You already realize that they will not always obey, or listen, or use manners. You already realize that they too are little sinners just like you are. You already realize that your kids are going to be unattended at some moments. You already realize that you cannot be their sole source of entertainment.  You already realize that you're going to need to ask people for help sometimes. You don't have time to think about how little sleep you're getting. You don't have time to question if you're doing the best or most perfect thing. You do realize that you are probably not doing the best or most perfect thing, and by God's grace alone it is going to be ok.

And that is why we are doing well after the addition of this sweet babe. Because if there was any illusion before that we had this all figured out, it is clear now that we don't. We've embraced it. We've repented of it. We will continue to repent of it. And day by day we will get to live this messy life together as completely sinful, but fully accepted sons and daughters of the most high King because of what Christ has done for us.  

California and Life and Stuff

This is going to be a big brain dump, because I haven't blogged in a long time.  Because #threekids.

1. We are currently residing in California.  Jordan has been here almost 3 weeks.  The kids and I flew here almost 2 weeks ago.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Go ahead, call me super mom.  (KIDDING.)  More accurately, call me crazy.  The flight was actually really great.  The kids were awesome.  But I don't want to do that again for a long, long time.

2. We will stay in California while Jordan does some training.  I am only allowed to post this on the world wide web because there are people living in our house and because I am using all sorts of non-specifics, thank you OPSEC.  Since arriving here, we have adjusted to a two time zone difference, made friends with all of the animals on the ranch we are staying at, made multiple stops to Targets, grocery stores, Costco, etc., found a library to check out books, been to the beach, attended a rehearsal dinner and participated in a wedding for great friends (Emberly was the flower girl), hosted friends at our ranch home for 4 days, and found Disney Land.  No big deal. 

3.  On Monday we went to Disney Land.  PEOPLE.  It was amazing.  I kid you not, we could have stopped after the bus ride from our car to the park and we would have been winners.  They were enthralled.  We were total skeptics, but the girls loved every single moment.  The characters, the rides, the food, the parade, the shows, the company.  It was just a win win win win win.  As we were riding the bus back to our car at 10pm, Emberly was telling everyone jokes on the bus.  There was not one single tear shed by any of my children in the 8 hours we were there.  And let's be honest... that hardly happens at home.      

4. Grayson is finally starting to be able to be distracted beyond his belly.  This is my favorite, because I can convince him to wait between feedings if say some other child is having a meltdown or something. (This never happens...) He also finally has a nap schedule and is putting himself to sleep at nap time during the day.  Unfortunately, his nighttime routine is not so predictable.  My sweet baby who was sleeping for 8, 10, or 12 hours through the night several months ago is now waking up once, twice, or even three times during the night.  It's usually a quick wake-up and right back to sleep, but I'm ready to be done with that any time.  Grayson is also worming his way around on his belly... it seems that crawling is inevitable.  He has all kinds of opinion on what he wants and thinks his sisters are just absolutely hilarious.

   

5.  Piper is really coming out of her shell.  She seems to bounce, jump, or leap off of any and everything.  She's still struggling with putting things in her mouth, but it is not nearly to the degree it used to be.  She sounds like a big kid when she talks, and plays really well with Emberly (most days).  Her default is to scream whenever she can't get words out to communicate what she needs or wants fast enough... but even that has become a lot better.  Her imagination is crazy great, and she is always dancing, singing, or twirling in some way.  She knows about half of her alphabet, and has pretty much no motivation to learn the others.  :)  She is her own animal! 

6.  Emberly is reading.  READING!  It just sort of happened in the last month or two.  She can read beginning readers, lots and lots of sight words, CVC words, many long vowel words, and many common daily words.  She wants to read everything, and is always asking us about signs while we are driving or labels on boxes, etc.  We have decided that she will start kindergarten this year, even though she misses the age cut-off in our school district by about 30 days.  We are going to give homeschooling a shot, so worst case scenario, we will just slow way down or stop until next year.  I can't really imagine this happening though... she is a very motivated learner.  But you never know!  So stay tuned for our crazy home school life posts that are sure to come... 

I think that is about it for now!