Category Archives: Family

Here’s what we look like today.

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Single-Tasking

I still think my favorite quote from the TV show Bones was from an interview the title character gave on daytime television.

Interviewer (paraphrased): How do you balance your two careers as world-renown forensic anthropologist and best-selling author?

Brennen: I do one, and then, the other.

~ ~ ~

With the least provocation my mind can leap nearly anywhere, and in the last month I’ve been trying more and more to consciously single-task.

That is, for a while I thought even if I couldn’t do multiple things at the same time, I could be really coordinated and mathematical, overlapping things in a way that would allow for multiple finishes falling out after multiple beginnings. But I learned even that is still beyond my skill-level.

I’m trying to decide if I’m okay with Brennen’s technique (that is, I know I’m not, but I’m wondering if I should be).

There are two things I’m currently learning about single tasking.

  1. To stay focused on what I’ve started, and not get anxious about what’s not happening when my mind jumps there (I still haven’t ordered ballet stuff or pictures, but I am not going to let this food go to waste).
  2. Figure out where to put that collection of littles so they get done (I need to order ballet stuff, so it’ll be here by next class, even though we won’t have it tomorrow).

~ ~ ~

On Wednesday, yesterday, I got more done on a to-do list than maybe I ever have since the beginning of creating to-do lists.

I read to my kids, too, and broke up bickerings and soothed bruised feelings, but I was really focused on the to-do list, and had to wonder if that’s why siblings were so efficient at bruising (albeit not physically) one another.

~ ~ ~

On Tuesday, the day before, I had one of those “ultimate” homeschooling moments that went on for at least an hour.

We had a long drive to make, and (thankfully) my children travel well.  The car is a sort of way I get my physical/mental “space” in the day (children are in their places, I’m in mine; they usually entertain themselves and I can zone out in my own thoughts or with the music).

On our way out of town we passed a long line of cars with Joe Miller signs, spurring questions and I began to talk about elections. I tried to say he was running for Senate, but my 4-, 6-, & 7-year-olds didn’t know what Senate meant.

In the last year I’ve been through the whole DVD series of The Truth Project where the lecturer in one episode pointed out the three branches of government came out of Isaiah. So, starting with that verse I began an extemporaneous description about the three branches of government that lasted something like an hour.

It began with political signs and culminated in a touch on the Civil Rights Movement and a character portrait of Ruby Bridges, the 6-year-old black girl who represented the integration of education.

Now, granted, the children were a captive audience, but the amazing thing was that I kept getting distracted (oops, we missed our turn-off) and every time I’d stop talking one of the girls would beg (just like they do when I’m telling a story), “Keep telling us about the Three Branches of Government, Mom!”

When I got to the part about President Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation (We’ve been reading a lot of slave escape stories) the back seat erupted in cheers. And I was sad to tell them it didn’t mean anything till the end of the war, and even then it took about another 100 years before Ruby Bridges, a little 6-year-old (“Just your age, Melody!”) was allowed to go to the same schools as white children.

“But that’s not kind, Mama!”

Oh I am thankful for my children’s tender hearts.

~ ~ ~

If I’m allowed to look at my days as a whole, I know I am doing everything, and getting better at doing it well. But looking at my children’s needs, I know I need to do differently.

At some point I hope to learn how to multi-task well enough to give that kind of talk while I’m making “fabulous progress” on my to-do lists.

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Life is Getting Complicated

So, lets see.  This has been a busy week.

Sunday:

  • Distributed 6 copies of my novel
  • Realized M’s b-day was the next day and I had *no* plans
  • Didn’t get to freaking out or worrying before God provided for a party opportunity.

Monday:

  • Melody’s 6th birthday
  • “Monday Marvels” at UAF was about physics. Primarily waves, and applied by measuring the speed of sound and the speed of light (live, in front of ~70 people). Highlights included
    • the chocolate burning in the microwave (which apparently didn’t really matter because the presenter had pre-preped his light-measuring ingredient, and
    • Natasha winning her daddy a cool university sweatshirt (she was very proud of this) by coming up with the elements of a wave’s speed.
      • Frequency and wave-length, if I remember right.
  • And Grandma Teena flew in to Fairbanks, for just one night, and the children were thrilled at the chance to see her (though, a little confused in the morning. She had to leave before they woke).

Tuesday:

  • Spent the day getting ready for the 2:00 party:
    • made a train out of four little loafs of crazy cake
      • The recipe for which I had to pull out of my head: apparently  packed my hand-written recipe book.
      • The kids had a ball sticking candy all over the frosted cars, mostly piling it on top, as if they were full and carrying hoppers of M&Ms and Jelly Bellies.
      • Used black licorice to connect to cars, and red to lay out the tracks under the cars.
    • Also made strawberry shortcake, because (After I had mixed up the crazy cake) Melody seemed to realize what I was making and asked if she could have a white cake.  I was very thankful she agreed to shortcake, because I didn’t want to decorate two cakes.
  • The Party was perfect.
    • a pile of church friends were there, including her *best* friend, who, perfectly, gave her the best present– one she’d wanted for a long time.
    • The cake went just far enough, there was ice cream, and everybody got to climb the ladder by the house to see the baby robins (!) in Grandma Judy’s hanging basket.

Wednesday the hard stuff started:

Continue reading →

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Mom Phrases

By unscientific estimate these are currently my most-used mom-phrases:

  • Low voice.
  • Swallow before you talk.
  • Knees under the table.

I love how they are examples of the economy of language, and the extra elements that come from having story and/or experience behind them.

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“Low-voice” came out of a conversation I overheard in high school. The mother of a friend described a woman with an in-home daycare who had a passel of preschoolers and no high-pitched squeals or auditory explotions because she consciously emphasized this concept of “low voice,” teaching both pitch and volume.

Children really can learn to control their voices.

Granted, personality plays a role: Melody has the hardest time with this of any of my children.  Even so, she knows and has proven the capacity to control her volume– with cuing. Her difficulty is the punch of an opening: it just explodes out of her with all her joie de vivre.

My favorite application of this is when my children are engaged in some crazy-wild child’s play and “scream” and “yell” in intensity-modulated voices.  It doesn’t always work without reminders (as I write this I’m reminding the kids to control their play-noise), but the reality is that asking or requiring self-control over voices is not unreasonable and actually can work.

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Swallow before you Speak still makes me smile when I say it.

When we first got to this stage of parenting (when children can both feed themselves and speak) I used the tried-and-true Don’t talk with your mouth full.  But the kids took it literally and, well, emptied their mouths when they had something too important to wait to say.

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Knees under the table.

This is our latest acquisition, and it does so much it’s already topped my list.

You see, if your knees are under the table, you’re at the table. You’re close enough to eat over your plate/bowl, (the required position for little children) and you’re interacting over the table rather than chair to chair.

I don’t know about other families, but this precludes the majority of our table-time and food/mess issues.

~

We have other phrases too, but these are the ones I was thinking of today– phrases that don’t seem to lose their usefulness by repetition.

I know those who think having to repeat yourself is a sign of poor or ineffective training, and that can be true. But I subscribe more to the model that parenting (in part at least) is about carving neural pathways, and I believe that repetition is one of the tools of that.

This is why I like consistent phrases. After a while they have a track playing in their little heads and I don’t need to say it as much.

Case in point: On our way home from anywhere I used to rehearse with the children what we would do when we arrived. Now all I do is ask, “What do we do when we get home?” “Wash hands!” comes the chorus from the back seat.

And lately they’ve been the ones initiating the ritual in the car, and following through without being reminded.  I count that a parenting success.

What are your favorite parenting phrases?

Do you use them yourself or just like the idea?

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Packing up a House

Well, I was feeling twinges of guilt about packing up (nearly) all the children’s toys, but no more.

I sat next to Melody for a huge chunk of time yesterday afternoon while she made up an entire fantasy with…

(…wait for it…..)

…A cribbage board.
And its little colored pegs.

And we’re talking epic fantasy here.  At one point she pulled her brother in, occasionally giving him lines to say for a character, but mostly just holding him in thrall with the perilous adventures and consuming passions of nine one-inch sticks of plastic.

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Ask a simple question…

The children are “ice skating” to their self-created music in the nook normally used as the dining area.

Jay is filling out some huge survey, occasionally trying to engage me by asking questions.

I am trying to cruise through my reconceptualized novel despite the activity, and Jay reads from the survey:

“Do you have trouble concentrating or making decisions?”

Me: “YES!”

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Hmmm

This has been the most peaceful trip Jay’s ever been on.

And that was with the 7-years-old birthday party with crafts, donuts and snow-in-the-house.

I can’t imagine it being this peaceful if we had to keep a schedule with the outside world (school, outside work, playdates), but slowing down and doing everything with less intensity.

We’ve gone to bed later, and the kids have slept later, both of which has given me enough of my own space (in the quiet of the house) to maintain a patient, healthy attitude for them.

We’ve continued the 2-chapters-a-day Bible reading Jay started in December, and worked on the house each day as well.

Elisha has, as planned, given up diapers.  This has not (as numerous people seem to predict) resulted in the pre-potty-trained child “making a connection” and using the toilet more.  It does mean he’s mastered the phrase, “I have ah ax-i-dent.”

But, again, the work God is doing in our home (and in me) is such that even multiple changes of clothes and daily laundry haven’t squelched this peace and delight in being together.

I may never be able to articulate everything that has been growing since just before the new year began, but we are currently living in a shower of blessing, and I am grateful for a God who give good gifts.

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Opening 2010. Lots going on.

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written here.

A lot’s been going on, but I’ve waited because none of it “stable” enough for me to write about it; to set in stone as “reality.”

But now I figure if I wait till it’s all at that level I might not remember enough to record a bunch of the neat things that God has provided recently.

While Jay was home over the holidays we made a major effort to pull the house together and (since then) to maintain it on a daily basis.  Two weeks now we’ve maintained the house at what I would call a company-ready level. (A *major* accomplishment for us.)

We have two or three “clean-up sessions” a day: one after breakfast, a sweep somewhere between lunch and Jay coming home and sometimes a third before bedtime.  The kids are getting a little better at responding to the daily (small) tidying, but they’re still not fully on board when it comes to the bigger work days (e.g., when there are 6 baskets of laundry to fold and put away).

They are nearly perfect on their morning staples though: beds made, breakfast cleared, jammies away after getting dressed.  I’m relieved at least one set of jobs is becoming automatic.  I use it as hope for the future, that there will come a time when even more things will happen un- (or minimally-) prompted.

A few days before the end of the year Jay initiated family bible reading.

Our church is following the M’Chayne bible-in-a-year reading plan for the second time this year, and Jay began before the year ended with the assignments for those days.  We read two chapters a day “privately” and two Jay reads aloud to everyone.

It’s a total of four chapters a day, a pace I’ve never been able to maintain before, but reading two per morning and snuggling the kids a bit later while Jay reads us the rest; that’s been quite comfortable.  Morning reading works especially well for us because the children are already inclined to be still and snuggly when they first wake, and having scripture be one of the first things they hear in the day seems very appropriate.

Jay started reading to us from the version he reads from (ESV) but now we’re reading from the NIrV, an adaptation of the NIV to a 3rd-grade reading level.

At the beginning of the year I pulled out my cardfile boxes (the only chore system I’ve ever attempted/maintained with a measure of success) and set it up between what I remembered the “guidelines” being and what I felt I needed to maintain.

The original system (that I maintained between Melody’s and Elisha’s births) divided card color based on chore frequency (yellow was daily, blue weekly, green monthly, etc.).  My current system is divided by assignment, and it works very well for us, allowing for a single (mom-maintained) box that everyone–sans Jay– can work from: Blue are mom’s jobs, yellow the kids and pink are school.

Frequency is listed on the top right corner, and as each job is completed (or day ended) the cards are moved to the next day that assignment is scheduled for, allowing for a perpetually renewed to-do list that requires no additional set up on the day of working.

This in intensely useful in two ways:

  • I don’t have to discover/find/remember what needs to be done in a particular day; it’s already laid out.
    • The biggest thing I learned form my exercise in scheduling last year is that anything already settled doesn’t require further energy from me.
  • I know when I’m *DONE*
    • Everybody reading this knows that housework is never finished, that there is always more to do, and if I ever feel discouraged “at home” it is usually for that reason.  With this system I know that I’ve already planned for the proper time/intervals to accomplish everything that needs to be done, so I only need to wait until the next assigned day comes around.

It was toward the end of our first full week of maintaining this system (and the rest of the house, as I mentioned before; the card system helped with that), that I saw some unexpected maturity bumps (as in, leveling up) in both Melody and me.

Actually, all the children seem more level and “secure” to me, and I’ve had (overall) more patience and perspective in parenting as we’ve been closing our days.  There are more factors and elements than the cardfile, of course, but having the clear plan to work with each morning has helped all of those areas.  I pray now that this will continue to be an effective tool.

~ ~ ~

Jay put Elisha in underwear all day his last several days at home, hoping the experience would motivate Elisha to use the toilet more.  It didn’t.

This week (Tuesday, actually) I asked Elisha in some exasperation if he wasn’t ready to leave diapers behind.  He said no, and I asked when he would be ready.

“In a week,” he said matter-of-factly.

Staying calm I carefully asked if he was ready to put his last diaper day on the calendar and he agreed.  So we are looking at January 11 being special to Elisha and Natasha both. (I’m very thankful we don’t have many places to go that week. Lord-willing we’ll have several days to solidify things before church and the busier following week.)

January 11 is special to Natasha because she gets both her birthday and party on the same day.

I’m thankful because she agreed peacefully to a very small party (few people) and that excites me as a chance to do interesting stuff (i.e., slightly complicated stuff) with a smaller group, and I think that will make for a more memorable party.

I “picked up” my novel again for the first time in hmmm, 3 months? and cut over 12,000 words in the first go.  I’ve got another perspective on the story and hope working it into reality will both make it better and bring down the word-count significantly.

Just now those words seem like an, “I’ll eat less and exercise more” resolution in its vague meaninglessness, but I’ll try to refine it as I clarify for myself what they look like in reality.

Today was the first in a series of planning meetings for the 2010 Care Net Sonshine Tea that Mom and I co-chaired last year.

We’ve both committed to lead again this year, hoping before we’re done to form a template for whomever comes after us.

Also this week the girls re-started ballet.

Natasha is more enmeshed than ever, moving gracefully through the day (often with sweeping arm-movements), but Melody indicated she might want out.

It was in a tired-but-lucid moment, and I’m praying about how to handle the question.  I’m beginning to sense the beginning of  a desire to differentiate from her sister– something that has not been very strong up to this point.  I want to support her in that (I sometimes imagine I’m a better parent to Melody than Natasha, having grown up the middle kid), but I don’t want her to leave ballet too soon.

And I had my first ESL (English as a second language) class with the two homeschool moms in my group who asked me in December to teach them.

This was amazing, and I wonder if this is the beginning of the more meaningful friendships with women I’ve been praying for.

In all the “class” was simply perfect.  No matter what I talked about it was useful and of relevance.  These are two smart women fluent enough in English to converse with and listen to me, but new enough that specialized words (bias, paraphrase, paradox, extrapolate) still need explanation.

This resulted in a situation where my tendency to fill most of the conversation (and fill it with extensive–if relevant– tangents covering all manner of life and experience) was perfectly suited for the setting.  I pray this interaction continues to be useful and mutually encouraging.

Melody seems to be picking up her interest in reading.

Earlier this week she read to Elisha a book Natasha read to her. Some of it might have been memorized, but we’d just gotten it from the library and if she can recite after one or two hearings she’s a different kind of genius.

Even so, she used her finger under the words with perfect one-to-one correlation, so at lest some of it was word recognition. I’m very excited for her.

Really, I think I was more excited than she was.  My hanging over her shoulder seemed to unnerve her and she asked what a particular line said before she finished the page.

She’s been watching me giving Natasha spelling tests and has asked for her own.  I think we’ll be starting simple 3-letter words on Monday.

This is what I meant by a maturity bump– she seems becoming aware of the world outside herself and beginning to look for her place in it.  By turns I see in her a desire to fit in, stand out, be independent and be catered to.  This is why I’m moving very slowly (for me) in relation to the question about ballet; she’s still learning her own mind, and I want to let it be her mind that is expressed in the conclusion we reach.

In Value Village last night Natasha was cooing over the horse coloring book we found, burbling about the pictures she was going to color first, when a subdued Melody admitted, “I like horses too.” Natasha expressed genuine surprise. “I thought you just liked kittens!” “I didn’t learn I liked horses till just now.  I’m still learning things about myself.” She sounded defensive and confused.

I assured her it was just fine to continue learning new things about one’s self, and that I’m still learning things about myself too.  She seemed surprised and relieved at this and visibly relaxed.

Another first with Melody was a discussion about her appearance, where I was able to tell her exactly what I find beautiful about her and that seemed to be very effective– not to mention God’s good timing.  (I’ve always been reluctant to complement one child at a time– about the same thing– and to complement everyone at the same time, well, I never trusted that kind of complement, since I couldn’t be sure if it came out of fairness rather than full truth.)

And Melody was the first one up so we had a very sweet and meaningful time together where I could focus just on her.

SO there you have it.  The last couple weeks, basically, but mostly the last three days.

Can’t promise I’ll do better with posting in future, but I know I don’t want to forget these steps.  God’s good faithfulness is beyond words.

~ ~ ~

Last Sunday the topic under discussion was Psalm 1.  The question was offered, What is *BLESSING*?

Most answers thrown out were along the lines of “happy” “good” and variations on that theme, sometimes with material implications.

When I hear “blessing” the word seems more like being wrapped in a huge blanket.

It’s nothing small enough to hand to someone or wrap in another single word.

After a few minutes listening I couldn’t sit quiet any more and burst out, “It’s so much more than something you feel or get!”

I felt an unexpected surge of emotion and felt a desperate need to say more; to say something that had meaning to more than me.  My mind was swirling with the hugeness of what God has given me– the tangible, yes, but so much ineffable beyond that that the physical things are just an outward manifestation of.

I knew I didn’t have much time and I fought to keep the emotion out of my voice as I tried to hold the floor long enough for my words to reach the essence of my thought.  I finally lost the first battle as I won the second: “Have you ever had the feeling like falling back into a ball pit and being completely buried?”

You know, those play places with the bins of light, colorful balls are piled in an area almost deep enough to swim in. At least a few people seemed to know what I was talking about.

That‘s what it feels like God is doing for me.  It continually feels unreal; how so many things just work, how the connections happen, and the *joy* that permeates it all.

“How can I keep from singing?”

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This week is booked:

Monday: last chance to walk if I want to meet my 4x/week goal before my WW meeting

Tuesday: 3 extra kids from 7:30 – 4:30

Wednesday: my kids visiting friends in a.m. while I work a to-do list for my mom– finish getting her house ready for long-term guests

Thursday: p.m. the long-awaited return to “bonkers” indoor playground for homeschoolers’ get-together

Friday: noon– Ballet classes

Saturday: Guests arrive

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Party Approaching

The girls are in ecstasies: we are having a Fairy Party this Saturday, complete (Lord-willing, and mom-capable) with things like a fairy cake, fairy games and fairy crafts.

If I’m *really* together I’ll have adorable pictures (that may or may not end up on the blog…) of the ladies in their finery and enjoying themselves.

Right now I’ll be happy if the laundry is all put away before then, but the girls have high ideas about decorations too…

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Scaling Back

We are dropping grammar and spelling for now.

I’ve decided it’s too soon to really push those for Natasha, and I expect regular copy work to open those topics in a more complete and natural way than I’ve yet come up with on my own.

Math continues to be insanely easy for Natasha, but has just begun to be a bit of a challenge for Melody.  It’s interesting: I decided to use one book for both girls, thinking it would simplify my (teaching) life to have them at the same level, but even in the same book they are clearly not at the same level.

I really am teaching everything twice.

But it was really neat to watch Melody *get* something this evening.  That was delightful.  And Natasha’s enjoying her sense of mastery, and the feeling (different from summer) that this is *real* school now.

I’ve tried to tell her that all our reading is part of school, but she wants *math.*  “It’s exciting,” she said, with her I’m-being-so-honest-I’m-embarrassed laugh.