Three Plus Two

Today was the kind of day...

... where you wake up and your eyes feel like they have been rubbed with sandpaper and you realize that 2.5 hours of your 6ish hour sleep time was spent sitting up against a wooden headboard with a baby on your shoulder, and then you realize that two of your little ones have runny noses - again! - and it is December 17 and you are not done with your (online!) Christmas shopping and also that even your well kids are moving in slow motion and so the scheduled cleaning up the house is probably not going to happen.

So I declared a "nothing is going to get done" day.  Having had experience with these sorts of days, I know that the only thing worse than feeling like your eyes have been scoured with sandpaper is the accompanying feeling that you are running behind with no hope of ever accomplishing what you need to accomplish.  If I don't stop and do a reality check, what I end up with is a whole lot of meaningless guilt.  This sort of guilt -- "if God is a God of order, why'd he give me this brain and 7 kids, there's no way I can ever manage, blah, blah, blah" -- is counterproductive in the worst sort of way because at the same time it is paralyzing ("I just want to give up"), it also just gets worse as the day goes on and more falls by the wayside because of that sandpapery-eye thing ("Just how long have I been sitting here staring at this open jar of peanut butter???"). 

Today I wasn't going to get sucked into that well of destruction.  No, today I was just going to give myself a day of not getting anything done.  I called Andy at work and told him the situation and that nothing was going to get done today.  "Fine by me," he said, because he is a nice guy, and also because we have twins and he knows what sandpapery eyes feel like, but mainly because he was having one of those days himself.  So now it was a family affair, and I felt better.  Having your husband's seal of approval on a "nothing is going to get done" day will dispel any remaining shreds of guilt you have. 

So.  There I was.  The day had been completely written off.  There was absolutely no guilt about staring blearily at a computer screen, searching Amazon for Christmas presents...

It was about 2 PM when I realized that I had gotten something done today.  In fact, not just something but some things.

I'd gotten the Christmas shopping done because I gave myself permission to sit at the computer, but I couldn't just stare at the screen.  I might not have done my bedroom the way I was scheduled to because I had to put the baby in the Ergo and picking up the floor seemed a little bit too much like doing squats at the gym, but I did clean my mirror (finally) and I swept up the kitchen and the front room and did two loads of laundry, folded them (!), and put them away (!!)  I made a Target list and gathered coupons for it.  I oversaw the baking of shortbread cookies and my teenage son did his usual Friday bathroom cleaning chores, which does not mean that the bathrooms are clean but that they are cleaner.  I used our stash of emergency Annie's mac and cheese for lunch, but we ate.  I put small people down for naps.  I took out some recycling. 

And now here I am with the third load of laundry awaiting folding, and a fourth in the washer ready for the dryer.  My washing machine may or may not actually be cleaning these clothes -- it's making this high-pitched eeeeeeee noise of the sort you usually hear in bad 50's scifi movies -- but I figure rinsing them in hot soapy water must count for something.

Kind of like a day on which nothing is going to get done so there's nothing to lose by doing just one thing, regardless if it's the thing that's "supposed" to get done or not.

This Advent my primary reflections have been about my vocation and coping with the difficulty of slowing down to embrace ordinary life again after a year (or more) of constant upheaval and uncertainty.  On the one hand, constant upheaval will wear you out.  And on the other hand, some of us have the sort of personality that can come to expect it.  And when the upheaval begins to even out... it's tempting to create more upheaval rather than embracing the ordinariness of staying put.

Anyway, what I'm faced with these days is how to create a new ordinariness here in

 

Unraveling

I'm unraveling.

 A 3/4 inch portion of my C-section incision has not healed yet.  I have a gap in my abdomen and last week it got infected.  I feel like a sweater with a stray thread.  One tug and I might come apart completely.

There's a story in that somewhere, but it's not one I want to tell now. 

I did some internet research on this situation and discovered that it's not that uncommon, especially when "glue" or sutures are used instead of staples. What is uncommon, I think, is when your incision won't close and you've just had your seventh child and you are scheduled to move 1000 miles in 3 weeks and there is no company paying for your move, so you have to do all your packing yourself, and it's just you and your husband and 7 kids aged 13 and under and that open slit in your belly, which kind of makes you sick every time you look at it.  The doctor treats it like it's no big deal... but it is a big deal if you (like me) are in that situation.  And it is a big deal if you (like me) are the child of a woman who died in childbirth.  And the nurses on the phone start to sound more worried when it's taken an extra 10 days and still not closed. 

Sometimes when you unravel, you realize the sweater you were knitting was lopsided, with one arm too long and an uneven number of stitches up the side, and maybe it was time to pull it all out and start all over anyway.  And if only you could have noticed that before the thorns caught hold of it and you tugged open that hole! 

Well, hopefully the unnecessary things are unraveling, too.  The "trying to be someone I'm not".  The "I'm really worried about two mortgages."  The "why don't my kids ever listen to me".  The "there's so much to do around here and this place is always such a wreck!"

There's only so much stress you can knit into a life before everything comes undone.

I don't know what God has in mind for us.  I do know that moving was an answer to prayer... long and constant prayer.  And I know that God's time is not our time.

But I do hope that God will consent to put a few more stitches in this worn-out sweater.  It may not be fancy, but when the frayed sleeve is repaired and the hole patched, I think it will be sturdy, warm, and useful, and will fit me just fine.

But what's his blog name?

Thanks to everyone who left such kind words at his birth!  It's somewhat ridiculous, but I have spent the past 3 weeks trying to decide on a blog name for him.  Poor kid.  It was hard enough for his father and I to agree on his real name.  Now he's nameless in cyberspace, too.

 

 

In other centuries, mothers did not follow their children around like papparazzi either.

(But he's so darn cute!)

He's Here!

James Christopher, born June 15 at 8:09 AM, 7 lbs 14 oz, 19 3/4 inches long...

 

... and welcomed by a very happy family.  (That's my mom in the rocking chair.  Thanks for all your hard work this week, Mom!!!!)

We're at home now, recovering.  I'm dealing with my usual immediately postpartum bout of mastitis, but other than that... we are both doing well. :-)

Seven Quick Takes - Is it Spring Yet?

One

We've had a nice run of weather over the past week or so, and our snow is melting bit by bit.  Yesterday it was 55 degrees.  Unfortunately it takes more than two weeks above freezing to melt four feet of snow.  It seems a little insane to have to put everyone in snow pants, boots, and gloves in order to go out in 55 degree weather, but the only patch of bare ground is a pond that has formed near the chicken coop.  The kids have found that the huge melting piles of snow beside the sidewalk make excellent slides, though.

Two

When you wait long enough to finish a post, the weather changes.  Looks like we're in for another nor'easter tonight into tomorrow -- freezing rain to snow to rain.  Next week looks decent, but one day I will learn not to get my hopes up about the weather in March.

Three

The blog has been quiet because I haven't really had time to write or take or post pictures... and I've also been... hmmm... consumed? with other, homeschool-related stuff.  At the end of February, I realized we were yet again in self-destruct mode and some changes needed to be made.  The most successful change was buying a Seton math workbook for Farmerboy.  He was not enthused about using it for the first time, but once we started in on some subtraction, we ended up doing 4 pages.  At the end, he said, "That was sort of -- kind of -- I mean, well, a little... fun." 

I couldn't believe it either.  Math, fun?  Really?

I don't think his sister is ever going to let him live it down.

Four

Another area I've been trying to clean up is science.  Not so much for the younger kids, although I did invest in a Sonlight Science I guide just to provide me with some guidance on what to do every day for my science loving 6 year old; ostly for my 13 year old, who has not been terribly interested in science for most of the year.  Trundling along in our usual flighty, unschooly way has left him with a 30 hour deficit in science (according to New York laws) here at the end of the year.  So I have been on a mission to figure out high school science.  I have had a number of interesting conversations with various bright and thoughtful people, and I feel like I have a better idea of how it all fits together now.  I've also been able to make some decisions for the end of this year and into the summer and next year... which, I will tell you, is going to bring us some changes.  I was sent down this trail by the abysmal failure (after a week) of a popular Physical Science textbook.  I do hope to write up a post sort of synthesizing my thoughts, plans, and everything I have learned thus far.  But we have A LOT going on in the next few weeks, so... I suppose it will get done when it gets done.

Five

We're heading down to Tennessee soon.  Trying to get all our trip preparations taken care of, in addition to planning out school for the next few months and writing up quarterly reports which must be mailed before we go is making me a little nuts.  Have I mentioned that my husband has been in California all week???

Six

Since we're going to Tennessee (where temperatures run about ten degrees warmer in a really *good* week and usually at least twenty degrees warmer), I have to do our winter to spring clothes change up early.  This time around I need clothes.  In my online search for decent maternity clothes, I have discovered a few things.

*I am the only short pregnant person on the planet. 

*Maternity skinny jeans exist.  I am sure these were designed by someone who is in favor of population control.  He (had to be he) sat down at his desk and rubbed his hands together gleefully.  "How can we make pregnant women feel so fat and ugly that they will try to avoid pregnancy forever thereafter?"  Sorry, but the words "skinny" and "maternity" should never even be in the same room together.

*I still have SMALL and MEDIUM maternity shirts from 6 or 7 years ago that work for me all the way through pregnancy. So why do I have to buy 1X shirts now???  Clearly, another ploy to make pregnant women feel bad about being pregnant.

Seven

Chipmunk has recently become very interested in letters.  His favorite bedtime read is The Red Letter Alphabet Book, which he wants to read at least twice in addition to a stack of other books, usually including Katy and the Big Snow.  So there I am, giving my two year old phonics lessons at 10 PM, and suffering his wrath when I say we have to go to sleep. 

 

 

This just in...

I went in for a redo of my 20 week ultrasound today.  At 20 weeks the baby was sitting such that the ultrasound tech couldn't get a good picture of its heart.  This also meant that she couldn't tell whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

At 24 weeks the baby was much more cooperative.  And...

.... INSERT DRUM ROLL...

It's a boy!

(Hah.  I bet you thought with all that suspense that it would be a girl.  Nope.  Boy.)

Current kid count = 6 boys, 1 girl.

I arrived home to a list of boy names compiled by the rest of my family which included "Robinson" (Crusoe?), "Aquinas", "Barnabas", and "Xavier".  One of my 4 year olds informed me that we were going to name the baby "Luke" -- for Luke Skywalker, of course.

At boy #6, I guess you have to get creative.

Seven Quick Takes - 12/11

Gee, where do I start? 

One

I am sipping tea with honey because I seem to have a little tickle in my throat.  I know I am going to pay for this in about fifteen minutes because sweets make me nauseous.  I feel strange talking to people about my particular brand of pregnancy nausea because it isn't stereotypical.  I am not on the couch throwing up for three months.  In fact, I rarely throw up.  (Unless beans are involved.  Can't do beans, thank you very much, or vegetable soup.  Or pineapple really.  And when I was pregnant with Gareth the smell of bread made me feel like I was going to throw up, so grocery shopping was always a little dicey.) What happens is I constantly feel like I must eat, but nearly everything makes me feel sick right after I've eaten it.  After 7 first trimesters, I am now sure that this is a torture invented by the ancient Greeks.  It smacks of Tantalus.

Two

On the other hand, while I am sitting on the couch trying not to move and therefore disturb whatever equilibrium my stomach has gained, I like to watch Food Network.  And I like to read about food.  I just finished my annual re-reading of Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen. I first discovered Laurie Colwin's books at a library book sale when we lived in St. Louis.  I did not realize she was dead until I had read most of the book and had already decided that I wanted to be Laurie Colwin when I grew up.  When I learned that she had died at the age of 48, leaving behind her young daughter and husband, I burst into tears.  It took me a while before I could pick the book up again to finish it.  Now I re-read this book every year when I get it down to make her gingerbread recipe right after Thanksgiving.  This year I got it down so my mother-in-law and my kids could make her gingerbread recipe.  The book (and the recipe, which I highly recommend) is just as good as ever.

Three

While I sit around and try not to feel guilty because Andy is doing the dishes at night and also dealing with a couple of hyperactive preschoolers, I also think about things like, those people who worry about homeschoolers being unsocialized have it all wrong.  Yeah, I know.  But this is why.  I keep seeing and hearing references women make in blogs, on message boards, and in real life about how they call each other just to talk.  I'm pretty sure this is a normal part of female socialization, and one I seem to have missed out on.  Aside from it being impossible to talk on the phone in my house because of the NOISE and also because seeing Mom on the phone gives certain little people automatic permission (somehow) to do anything they are never, ever allowed to do, I have never figured out how to call somebody on the phone just "to talk".  So apparently 17 years of formal schooling and immersion in peer culture was completely useless from that point of view.  I still have no social skills.

Four

Really, I think I was designed to write letters.  Real letters.  On paper.  In pen.  When I was a teenager, several of my best friends were long-distance (setting up a standard which holds to this day), and we would sit in class and write long, episodic letters to each other, mainly involving our novels, what TV shows we were watching, and how bored we were.  I miss letters.  E-mail was wonderful when people used to use e-mail like letters, but then e-mail took too long, and so people just wrote blogs to keep friends up to date and stayed up all night chatting with Instant Messanger.  But then blogs took too long, and people switched to facebook and twitter.  (Maybe they still IM, I don't know.  I had to give up IM a long time ago because it took too much time.  Which is also why I don't log on to facebook or twitter much anymore either.)  With a pen and paper letter, you could write long, thoughtful responses even if it took you three or four days because paper and pen are so very much more portable than even the most portable computer, and far easier to use to compose long, thoughtful responses than a cell phone.

I'm such a Luddite.

Five

Katydid asked me the other day, "Mommy, is one reason why some women don't like to be pregnant that it makes them look fat?" 

Six

Unrelated to Katydid's comment, which reminded me a little of an innocent comment my husband once made involving shrubberies, a green maternity shirt, and me being 9 months pregnant... I have started trying to exercise in the mornings.  I think it is helping just a bit, although I can barely get through fifteen minutes without someone needing a stinky diaper changed.

Seven

The wind is blowing across the field like a freight train this afternoon, gusts up to 40 mph and a windchill of 5 degrees.  In western NY, the Weather Channel reports "blinding snowfall."  Here it's fairly clear. Puffy purple-gray clouds smear across the sky like healing bruises, that weird, pinkish late afternoon winter light glowing around them.  The trees on top of the hill are a uniform wall of charcoal gray, alleviated here and there by a spike of piney green or a slash of stark birch white. Yellow grass tops bend over a crusty blanket of snow -- about 6 inches now, less than we had on Wednesday because it rained a little Wednesday night.  Every now and then a wind gust whips up a handful of snow and flings it into the sky, but there's little drifting because ice is holding the snow in place. 

The boys keep asking if it's winter now.  Yes, dear, I say.  It's winter.  I make an imperfect attempt to build a fire in the woodstove every day now.  I have finally ordered snow boots for everyone. I would love a big bowl of beef stew, but will settle for the pizza I am going to ask my husband to pick up on his way home.  I am grateful I didn't have to take anyone out today.  Instead, we all hunkered down inside, and listened to the wind blow.  

 

Lucky #7

----- Original Message -----

From: Andrew Boord

To: Everyone;

Sent: Mon Nov 23 10:28:48 2009

Subject: lucky # 7

Just wanted to let everyone know we are having another baby in June. We know it is just one, not twins. Too early to know the sex.

All prayers are obviously appreciated.

FAQ’s:

Aren’t you done yet? No.

You do know how this happens, don’t you? Yes.

Where will you put another baby? I don’t know.

Will you ever be able to retire? No.

Chipmunk Turned One!

On August 22 last year, life looked like this.

This Friday, it looked like this:

Happy Birthday, Chipmunk! 

Week in Review: Focus on the little ones

This week I'm focusing on the little ones quite a bit.  We started out the week with Chipmunk's baptism:

(Sorry, Grandma, that was the best picture!)

Do not ask why it has taken us this long to have him baptized.  Just know that although we are not the kind of family who have many beautifully posed pictures up on our walls, the event was indeed a faith-filled one.  Two of the priests at our parish are retiring (again) at the end of August, and so we were very happy that one of them was able to baptize Chipmunk.

But can anybody tell me why this child will eat bugs, dirt, old pieces of macaroni, stale Cheerios, and anything else he finds on the floor but refuses to eat anything I give him?  I want to know why a week old french fry is better than a ripe peach.  I don't remember my other kids being quite this bad, but maybe I have a selective memory.  Or maybe we were just able to keep all the small things away better when I was only policing three kids instead of five.  It's a little nervewracking.

Good thing he's cute.  (He's still not sleeping either.)

We've stayed home more this week, which is a good thing, but some of us (me included) have also been sick, so I wouldn't say that we have all been on top of our game.  On the other hand, in thinking about writing this review, I have realized that although pieces of our days have been absolutely nuts, other pieces have worked out fairly well  -- or at least they've given me cause to be optimistic.  I'm trying to find something other than the tired analogy of the glass-half full or half empty here, but my head is half-full (not half-empty) of gunk and my brain is not working that well. 

Moving right along, here are a few more pictures from the week:

Farmerboy has been on a cleaning kick this week, and Pip and Pop have followed him.  I made up a solution of vinegar, lemon juice, and water for them to use.  Whatever proportions I used are not terrific for cleaning windows and our house smells a lot like vinegar, but the boys enjoyed themselves.  The twins apparently require hats to clean properly.

To vacuum, too.  This is Pop.  He did a lot of "vacuuming" with the carpet sweeper this morning.  The handle is a little long, but the amount of pushing needed to go over the rugs was good for him.  I think, in homeschooling circles at least, that all the fine motor Montessori work is emphasized while the gross motor stuff is given short shrift (or is at least something we don't think about as much).  But two year old boys need to use their big muscles and will often demonstrate this to our detriment, as in when they dump out an entire bin full of wooden train tracks all over the floor for no other purpose than to dump them.  The point was driven home to me this week a little more constructively as well.

The boys cooperated to load the wagon with firewood. 

As you can see, it's completely full.

With Gareth's help, they took the wagon down to the driveway and hitched it to the pedal tractor.  Pip was then done; he jumped on top of the wagon with his "fishing pole".  Pop, however, had more work to do.

(I think these pictures were actually taken by Gareth after Pop had pushed Pip and the tractor over to the grass, because the tractor clearly isn't moving much here! LOL)

When the boys are doing this kind of work, they are totally engaged.  I think Pop spent almost an hour working like this, resting when he had to.  I know that some mothers would be a little leery of having their two year olds having anything to do with heavy logs, but they weren't being dangerous or silly; I would have stopped them if they were and directed them to some other activity.  On another day, Pop hauled a bunch of scrap lumber over to the tractor and built a "field" (or the outline of one) to plow. 

The challenge is to think of activities for big muscles that can be done inside -- when it's raining or when it's winter. 

Something else the boys like these days is to have me type letters and words on the computer, then print them out.  All my kids have done this, once they figure out what I'm doing when I sit down at the computer.  When I'm typing for little people I type in 72 point, in different colors as requested.  This is Pip, and he has all his papers spread out on one of our learning table benches, which is he is using as a table.

I also presented rolling and unrolling a mat this week.  That process has its own post, though, which I'm not through writing yet.