Change...

“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back everything is different….” - C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

Often in being a stay at home mother, the statement above is so true.  Especially when you are in the middle of the preschool years.  I mean, of course no day is the same- one day someone flushes the metal model airplanes down the toilet, the next day the child manages to cut holes in the sofa, red fingernail polish is dumped in the carpet, Sharpie pens are used to autograph the coffee table, and the list goes on.  However, the sameness comes from the fact that you have to repeat yourself 452 times a day, answer 1000 questions per day that many would consider useless, and each day you wake up to feed, bathe, dress, change diapers, and clean up countless messes. All seems to be an endless merry go round. But then you look back and everything is different.

As Cheyenne has finished her senior year and is preparing to start college full-time, it has caused me to do a lot of looking back and seeing how everything is different.  Different in a good way.  No child can stay a child forever and I certainly don't want a 36 year old living in my basement ( I don't have a basement, but you get the idea) but yet, the family is changing - entering a new era in our journey.

The thing that sticks out to me is this- I have no regrets.  Choosing to stay home was an easy decision, I never wanted to do anything but get married and have babies.  Staying a stay-a-home mom was not easy.  It is hard.  Living on one income is not easy, but God always provided and I am grateful to Tony for allowing me the privilege of being home with our kids.  He worked A LOT of overtime to make that happen.

Not to toot my own horn, but I am an intelligent person.  So, I would find myself doing these same mundane chores that would have to be done the next day like every day thinking "I am smart and could be doing something way more important than cleaning Koo-laid up for the 100th time answering questions like "I spilled milk in the kitchen, do you want me to clean it up?"   I would like to say I was Christ-like in my answer, but I replied, "No don't worry about it, we have fairies that run around at night cleaning up the house."  The next thought I had was "Whoever said there was no such thing as stupid questions never had children." However, looking back those things were the most important things.  It is in the little things each day that we show the love of Christ to our children.  We model God to our kids in the way we live at home when no one is looking.

I stayed the course (not without a lot of encouragement & help from my husband).  Now, 19 years later I look back and I am so glad I did.  I have no regrets.  I was the one at the field days at school, I was there when they said their first words, I saw their first steps, if they were sick at school I was the one who picked them up. I was there.  Thank God, I was there.  When we decided to home-school, I was now there every minute guiding and choosing what my children were taught. I do know how blessed I have been and am to have the opportunity to get to be at home.  I loved waking up in the morning and not having to be anywhere so I got to lay in the bed and look into the face of my baby smiling at me with a toothless grin and lots of slobber.

I couldn't be more happy and proud of the person that Cheyenne is.  I am glad that for better or for worse (lets face it, it wasn't all roses)  when she thinks back over her childhood, I was present.  Parenting is a journey, a long journey and if we want our children to have the best start and the skills to be successful, we have to begin with the end in mind.

A Bonifide Bookworm

She didn't even bother to make her bed before falling asleep 

with her books piled all around.

To a stranger it would seem very odd to hear me say, "If you don't do your chores, I am going to take away your books."  After all, most parents must threaten punishment to get their kids to read not the reverse. Sierra, however, loves books.  Truly loves books, enough so that gift cards to Half Price Books and Amazon are her favorite things to receive as gifts.  She comes by it honest, I love to read as well.  Her older sister, Savannah, is a passionate bookworm, too.  It was to Savannah that I first made the threat to take away her books and a friend of Cheyenne's who was visiting, looked over at her and said, "That is just weird."

Each year during our school days the kids use poetry or famous speeches as copy work.  It is the premise that in copying really good literature, poetry and speeches that a child will  "pick up" good writing, grammar, and speech patterns.  I have seen this to be the case with mine and the kids find this a much more interesting process than workbooks filled with disconnected nouns and parts of speech.  Of course, as a child enters the older grades the study of grammar and speech becomes more focused and advanced.  But I see no good reason to turn children off to language in the written form before they have had a chance to develop a love of good literature.

Last year both Sierra and Jonathan copied from Emily Dickinson.  I have loved Emily Dickinson since I did my senior research paper on her. It felt like visiting and old friend as I read through her poems choosing those that I thought the kids would enjoy. This year, Jonathan is copying poetry having to do with Texas History, mainly the Texas Revolution.  Sierra requested to keep doing Emily Dickinson, it seems she has grown found of her as well.  She told me that Emily had written her favorite poem, funny enough it was entitled "A Book".  Sierra is also recording her copy work in a spiral with one of her favorite books on the cover: The Hunger Games.

A Book, by Emily Dickinson

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without the oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

Homeschool Year 2012/13- Here we come!

Huntsville State Park- a really great stay!

You know I am just amazed at the amount of laundry that a camping trip can generate!  That is what I have been doing today, that and washing the dishes out of the camping bin.  For every good time, there is a certain amount of work that goes into it.  As every mother knows, this is why we need a day off when we get back from vacation!  I wouldn't have it any other way.

We have been having a good time around here.  A little traveling, lotta sun, and a whole lotta fun!  I love my bunch and I love traveling and camping with them. After picking Savannah up in Galveston after Sea Camp, we played on the beach and went to Kemah then spent a few days at Huntsville State Park. There was so much done in this one week, that it will take several blogs to do it justice.

Since being home, I have been catching up on house work (see above) and getting ready for school to start.  Homeschooling is a wonderful part of our lives.  I love that fact that I get to choose subjects based on the interests of my kids and then we get to take trips to study what we are studying in person.  So many subjects are brought into play in the study of one subject.  I am really excited about the Texas History Unit this fall.  By picking up books at the library, we are reading.  Reports will be written, using language and wrtiting skills, and documentaries will be ordered from Netflix.  Then we will travel to a state park near San Antonio so we can go see the Alamo.  In planning the trip, the kids will participate using maps (geography) and have to put together a budget for the trip- everyday use of math- all these subjects are pulled in while we study Texas History and this helps all that good information and knowledge stick.  Children were never meant to learn in tiny boxes, the mind was wired to mesh all the information together.

Another year and a lot of good fun is on the way. We kick off "officially" on Monday.  Unofficially, we homeschool 24/7 all year long. It was quite odd, however, printing up the lessons plans and such.  I have for the past years multiplied everything by four, now I am multiplying by three as Cheyenne has graduated.  Wow, that is so strange.  And yet, it is a relief!  It seems so much easier to just have three, then next year I will only plan for two.  Life is changing big time.  These milestones come no matter what, might as will celebrate them!

Oh How I HATE Snakes

Nasty Chicken snake killed in the hen house

I suppose everyone has at least one irrational fear, mine is snakes.  Now I understand that given the fact that some snakes are poisonous and can make you terribly sick if not dead, some might not consider a fear of snakes irrational.  But, if you had ever witnessed my reactions to ANY snake you would agree, my fear is irrational.  Irrational and hysterical to any onlookers.

This spring and summer have been extremely difficult for my nerves.  A loose count puts us at having killed or seen over 15 snakes.  Now, most of these have been non-venomous rat and chicken snakes.  Not deadly, the chicks, eggs, and chickens would, however; consider these guys deadly, but not us humans.  Unless you count the damage that you do to your self trying to get away.  The last chicken snake was killed last night with a egg in its mouth while attempting to strangle the chicken that it had wrapped up in its coils.  Man, I am glad that my husband and my kids will handle these things.

This snake is over 5 &1/2 feet long.

Yes, you read that right.  My kids kill snakes and I let them.  Cheyenne is the one most commonly running after the offender with a gun, but Savannah has killed her share.  Jonathan has got his licks in too, under the supervision of his father- I am not that hysterical. With this many snakes trying to live on our farm, there is plenty of shooting to go around.  Most of the snakes in the chicken house have been huge.  The copperheads that have been seen or killed have been considerably smaller-but they are the dangerous ones. The sheer size of rat and chicken snakes will scare the devil out of lots of people.

Cheyenne, my snake killer

But even the tiniest snakes can send me packing.  While cleaning up a junk pile, Tony found a tiny garden snake.  He caught it for Jonathan, who loves snakes and always wants to bring them inside.  I have let him a couple of times but they always escape and that is another story all together.  So, Jonathan has the little fellow in his hand and turned around.  In doing so when her turned his hand was pointing towards to me with its little snake head facing right at me.  Its crazy, but my chest seized up and my breathing stopped while my heart rate went crazy.  This is what makes me say this fear is irrational, the snake was harmless and tiny but it still scared me spit-less.

The kids still laugh at the memory of when a racer came out of wood pile and hit me in the leg.  I yelped and ran across the paddock (leaving my children alone with the thing I fear the most).  They all laughed at me while Cheyenne ran to the house to get a gun.  The snake went under an old Bronco we had.  Now all the children are squatted  down peering under the Bronco ready to shoot the snake on site.  However, no one considered what buck shot and a gas tank would do when combined and I had to put a stop to the snake hunt.  Alas, the snake lived to hunt another day.  I still maintain that my response was completely sane and with the bounds of normal behavior.

I once again abandoned my child to a snake just this morning.  Cheyenne and I were cleaning up the milking parlor.  She was standing inside the parlor moving bead board and I was just outside moving trash to the burn box.  I stepped inside and grabbed a folded up tarp.  Sliding the tarp underneath a table several feet away revealed a large copperhead in the corner.  I yelped and and managed to shout "snake" as I jumped over the milking stand into the alley of the barn.  This left Cheyenne in the milking parlor with the snake in between her and the exit and she still wasn't even certain where the snake was.  It didn't take her long to locate it and she then sprinted to the house for a gun.  I remained in the alley, watching.  She returned quickly and after a lot poking about she located the varmint and blew a whole in the thing.  We were both jittery after that and  it was hard to concentrate on our work.  We did manage to get the milking parlor cleaned up and the lumber brought up to the house.  Just another day on the farm.

I know snakes play a vital role in our ecosystem.  For this reason, I have reigned in my reactions enough that I can leave the garden snakes alone.  Correction, I haven't reigned in my reactions, I just don't go get someone to kill the thing.  I move to another job in garden leaving the snake to do its business.  We do kill those snakes posing harm to our chickens and poisonous snakes in the areas where people must work.  As for the woods, snakes are free to roam and do their thing and I won't go looking for them.

Snake testicles- In case you ever wondered.

On an interesting side note.  Jonathan had the snake from last night laid out on the porch.  I noticed these purplish little glands on its belly.  I asked, "What are these?"  Jonathan replied, "His testicles, Mom."  Me, " I didn't know snakes had testicles."  To this obviously stupid statement Jonathan replies, " How else are they going to reproduce?"  Well, yeah, I just never thought about it, much less saw snake testicles.  Homeschooling  happens every which away around here.

Beautiful Day

Won't be long and the roses and iris will be putting on a show!

Today was just beautiful.  The temps were perfect the sun was gorgeous and the wind was reasonable!  Needles to say, we spent a lot of time outside.

As spring is coming on, a new to-do list emerges.  Tony got the lawn mower and tiller tuned up a ready to go and I got some mowing done.  With such a mild winter, there were all kinds of clover and such growing like crazy in the garden areas.  I like to let them go as long as I can since the bees and bugs like them, however, with it being so warm the plants were already going to seed.  I love the way the gardens look with all the open spaces neatly mowed.  Now I just have to get the clover cleaned up and out of the garden boxes.  Out of six boxes, I have cleaned out three and I did get the herb garden cleaned out, too.  I was tickled pink to see how many herbs were still with me and growing strong.

Savannah and Sierra spent a lot of time reading their books out on a blanket in the sun.  Jonathan helped Tony with the mower and such and lit the burn pile.  I am so grateful for the rain over the past weeks.  Jonathan was going through withdrawals over the summer since he couldn't burn anything for months.  Cheyenne went with me to Athens to update our booth at Winnie and Tallulah's.  We had a great lunch at McAlister's deli.  She had to work inside on college work once we got home so she didn't get to spend as much time outside as the rest of us.

 As it happens, dinner was late.  Once the temps warm up, dinner gets later and later.  We simply don't come in until the sun goes down.  Yes, that means that in the middle of the summer we don't eat until 9pm.  I always come up with a new "plan" to fix this, but the fact is we like being outside and that is all there is to it.  We know the winter is over when dinner is late and I have perpetually dirty knees.  Let the good times roll!

First Monday & Homeschooling

As I sit to write this blog tonight, I am certain that I can feel every muscle in my back.  What a full couple of weeks we have had.  I am so grateful to get to own a business that gives me so much pleasure.  I am bone tired, but I love every minute of it.  Honestly, we have been putting in 12 hour days but it doesn’t feel like work.  And, I get to work with my husband every day!  This may not seem like a perk to some of you, but it thrills my soul.

Of course, when you are working this hard not everything can have your full attention.  I have been worrying over the fact that the kids are only getting the basics done in their homeschooling.  For us this means Bible, English, and Math for the younger two and that plus science for the older two.   Just a five minute conversation with my brilliant sister who teaches advanced biology and anatomy in high school can have me second guessing myself in a heartbeat. My baby sister is an equally brilliant and dedicated teacher as well, but given that she teaches second grade talking with her boosts my confidence in myself that I am more than capable.  Considering that I haven’t had a second grader in two years- I should probably be embarrassed by that statement but I am not, you take encouragement wherever you can get it.  I should also note that all of us inherited and learned our teaching inclinations from our mother- who is a most fabulous second grade teacher.

But then what homeschooling mother hasn’t felt inadequate, even if they weren’t running their own business that required a lot of extra time for two weeks out of every month.  Every mom has had to deal with stress over the “gaps” in their children’s education.  Even if a mother has a masters degree in biology and can teach science until your head explodes- she will worry over her ability to teach art or English.  For those who think diagramming sentences is great fun, they worry over their ability to teach higher level math. Regardless of where the education occurs, there will be gaps- even in public school.

 I have been going over the schedule and looking at all that needs to be done trying to figure out when to work in home economics, botany for Sierra and Jonathan, along with art and some fun stuff.  Then it dawned on me, three of the four children have made at least one meal for our family this week, each person has done some laundry, and all have contributed to compiling grocery lists- if that is not home economics,  I don’t know what is.  Then there is the botany.  Well, Sierra and Jonathan have worked in the nursery for large blocks of time over the past two weeks.  We have divided, potted, collected seeds and propagated plants, on second thought I believe botany is covered.

Life is our classroom.  Not only will our children leave home with a sound education in the basics, they will leave with practical skills that will make them money should they need it.  Factor in the exposure they get at First Monday and you might even call it a liberal education!

Sierra tending to some of the nursery stock

Jonathan & Sierra painting signs for the nursery.