Three Plus Two

Plan It, Don't Panic: A Meal Planning Challenge

Keeper of the Home is hosting the "Plan It, Don't Panic: Meal Planning Challenge" for the next six weeks to give those of us who need it (ahem) some accountability in the meal planning process.  Lately life has been so busy that grocery shopping gets smushed into whatever time slot happens to be available, and meal planning has been rudimentary.  As a result, we've been eating way too much pizza, and I end up feeding the kids toast for breakfast every day.  A low point happened at Costco two weeks ago when I bought a giant box of packaged granola bars to feed the kids snacks in the van on the way home.  Obviously they did not need 60 + granola bars to eat on the way home, so they ended up gorging on them for breakfasts and snacks, at which point it became apparent that my boys had eaten 60+ granola bars in less than a week.  (Like -- a lot less than a week.)  Granted, we were just coming home from vacation, but 60 granola bars??

I signed up with the Plan It, Don't Panic Challenge as soon as I saw it.

Our vital stats:

• Family of 9
• 6 boys, ages 14-1
• 1 nursing mom
• grain-free diet (at least for some of us)

Since I know that people are curious about the grain-free diet, I thought I would try to blog this challenge in a little more detail.  I hope to post not only my meal plans, but what we (and I, the most grain-free of our family) actually ate during the week.  As usual, I'll be keeping it real.  I like Mark Sisson's "Don't Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good"  and 80 %  principles when it comes to eating a grain-free/paleo/primal diet.  I am not perfect.  I have 7 kids. Things are going to fall apart sometimes.  They probably fall apart at your house, too.  But that's okay.  You don't have to be a superhero to make changes in the way you eat.

This what I'm hoping to accomplish with this challenge:

•  Stop eating so much pizza for dinner just because I haven't figured out dinner or managed any prep work.
• Make better use of my (minimal) garden produce as well as the store produce
• Start working in more grain-free breakfasts and lunches for the kids.
• Make it a regular habit to have some real snacks on hand that are a change from the everyday fruit and cheese, which are starting to get a little boring. In addition, I need snacks that I can eat, with a bit of protein in the afternoon.
• Start making my own yogurt and kefir again.
• Keep the grocery budget at a decent level.  I'm not aiming for the lowest level, but I do want to keep a top on it by weeding out the impulse buys (like 60+ granola bars). 

 So how am I doing this first week?

Thursday night I sat down and got some coupons together.  I don't spend a lot of time couponing, and am probably one of the more un-extreme couponers you'll find, but I do find that coupons help us on paper and cleaning products and our Whole Foods shopping especially.  I wanted Andy to make a run to Whole Foods after work on Friday, so I had to get everything together for him.  Our standard Whole Foods run usually includes whole fat yogurt, unhomogenized whole milk (not raw), good quality heavy cream (minus the carageenen), and whatever organic fruit is on sale for a good price.  We also stock up on free-range chicken and pastured butter if we need any (we didn't this week).  This week, in addition to the dairy, Andy bought a little over 4.5 lbs of plums, some chocolate for coconut bark, and got a deal on Clif bars by stacking some manufacturers coupons with Whole Foods coupons.  (He'll take the Clif bars with him when he travels.  No, they aren't grain-free.)   

 On Friday night I watched the videos from the Cook More Real Food Challenge (taking inventories of pantry, freezer, and fridge, and meal planning, all of which are good), so I was ready to jump in Saturday morning as long as Katydid and Andy helped by watching Leo, who was sick and prefers to live outside these days.  (Fortunately, they came to my rescue).  I finally got around to cleaning out the fridge, which I have needed to do for a few weeks now.  We recently bought a second fridge to store veggies and milk and cut down on trips to the store, but the luxury of space brought with it a disturbing habit on the part of all of us to disregard all former organizational rules for using the fridge in the kitchen.

(There are some pictures of a seriously organized fridge and freezer in this post from I Heart Organizing.  My fridge does not look like that, but it's a lot better.)

On Saturday afternoon, I finished up the grocery shopping at Kroger.  (Sure seemed like they raised their prices again.  Their "mega-event" didn't seem so mega to me.)

Stuff in the fridge and freezer I'll be using in my meal plan this week:

• black bean salad (homemade)
• romaine lettuce
• carrots that are looking a little hairy
• baby carrots in a giant bag from Costco (mainly for lunches)
• shrimp stock (freezer)
• chicken broth (freezer)
• stew meat (from a side of beef, freezer)
• gluten-free chicken sausages (from that Costco trip)
• almond flour (which I buy in bulk from Honeyville Grains)
• raspberry "syrup" -- organic frozen raspberries from Costco that had thawed and refrozen into a giant block, cooked down with honey because I had to do something with 3 lbs of raspberries at once... a yummy and sugar-free topping for yogurt and pancakes

Snacks and sweet stuff for the week:

I have the Healthy Snacks to Go e-book and am excited to try many of Katie's ideas.  But... everybody in the house (including me) is sick right now with a cold, so we'll see how much gets accomplished. 

Some simple ideas for this week:

• hardboiled eggs
• chicken broth (good for a cold!)
• apples and bananas with peanut, almond, or sunbutter
• applesauce rollups (from the Healthy Snacks book)
• coconut bark (from Primal Blueprint Quick and Easy Meals)

A Note on the Calendar:

Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday are Ember Days in the Church.  We'll be meatless for those days. Meatless and grain-free can be difficult, especially when your family doesn't like beans or lentils.

Breakfasts:

I am not awake enough in the morning to cook.  What I am aiming for this week is to grind up some nuts and seeds ahead of time in order to make grain-free porridge, which will be a nice change from my regular eggs.  (Our chickens are only beginning to lay, so I'm still buying cage-free eggs from the store.) Hopefully some of the kids will enjoy it, too.

Lunches:

My goal is to have leftovers.  With 6 boys, sometimes you plan for leftovers and in spite of your best efforts, you realize what you have left over is crumbs.  My own go-to lunch for days when there are crumbs is a peanut or almond butter/coconut milk smoothie.   

In other words, I'm still working on lunch.  I'll be getting up to speed on dinners first.

 

 

Dinners:

Sunday -- Black bean soup (leftover black bean salad, stew meat from the freezer)

(I did make this and it turned out well, but the little boys refused to eat it again for lunch on Monday and had cheese sandwiches instead.)

Monday -- chicken wings with baby carrots, fruit, possibly some bleu cheese dip if I feel up to it

Tuesday -- shrimp bisque (I'll be altering this recipe, since I don't have cognac or sherry, and I won't be adding flour) and salad

Wednesday (meatless)  -- Spanish Omelet (I add some cheese to mine, and of course, I use more eggs!), roasted eggplant from the garden, fruit

Thursday  -- gluten-free chicken sausages, green beans from the garden, fruit

Friday (meatless) -- almond flour pancakes with raspberry "syrup"

Saturday (meatless) -- cheese pizza out

Well!  I'm not sure how I spun a menu plan into such a long post, but if you're still with me, check out all the other menu planners at Plan It, Don't Panic! Week One !

 

 

The Grocery Project

 

Every year I start out with a project.  Sometimes it's intentional, sometimes not. One year January came and I was hooked on reading about life in the country.   One year I read Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dillemma and started clearing processed food from our diet.  One year we spent New Year's Eve by painting our kitchen.  Last year I decided I wanted to read more classics... but, gee, what with having a baby and getting ready to move, that kind of got hung up at Jane Austen.  (As in, I read two books.)

This year's project is back in familiar territory.  Food again.

I find that this whole "switching to real food" thing is a long, slow process, in which one reads and make changes, reads and makes changes, reads and makes even more changes.  Moving may set you back a ways.  Where is the farmer's market?  Are there any farms that sell pastured meat or eggs in your area?  Or will you have to buy practically everything at the grocery store?

We're still in the "buying everything at the grocery store" phase.  There is more wiggle room in the budget now that our house in New York has been sold (St. Therese certainly had her hand in that one!), but there is not so much wiggle room that I feel happy about plunking down $11.99/lb for strip steak on sale at Whole Foods.  That's why it's cheaper to buy from a local farmer.  You'll get about 200 pounds to the side for beef, which will run you about $900.  If you can free up the funds, that's a deal: $4.50/lb for all cuts, which is cheaper than I can buy grass fed ground beef at my local Whole Foods.  ($5.99/lb is the usual price and sales seem to be rare.)  You might say that those prices are still higher than standard ground beef at Kroger's, but have you cooked with that stuff lately?  Beef fat is not supposed to be sludgy and orange!

Anyway, my goals are not to eat as cheaply as possible, but to eat real food at a reasonable cost.  Lately we are dealing with some health issues and food allergies -- mine, actually, as lately I have had a couple of itchy, wheezy episodes after eating maple syrup (sob) and I am beginning to suspect that my sensitivity to corn may, in fact, be worsening.  I have 2 kids with mild peanut allergies, so I buy the more expensive nut and seed butters in addition to organic, natural peanut butter from Costco for the other kids.  One of the children who is allergic to peanut butter is also allergic to anything weird on his skin, so I have to use the free and clear stuff, and not whatever is on sale in the laundry aisle this week.  And, oh yeah, there's also ADHD, which means no BHT, TBHQ, vanillin, artificial dyes, or conventionally raised fruit or vegetables with heavy pesticide exposure.  (An article about studies linking ADHD to pesticide use here.)  Another necessity is raw, fermented cod liver oil supplemented with Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega, which keeps me depression-free on a daily basis.  (I'm not a doctor and make no claims, yada yada, just saying what works for me.)

I want to make it clear that we are not scraping by here financially. But everybody has financial goals they'd like to meet, beyond the realm of basic subsistence.  Ours include saving for college (for 7) and paying off our house, in the long term, and collecting enough money to redo our kitchen (which is literally falling apart) in the short term.  In addition, I woke up one morning recently and it occurred to me that at some point we will have five boys from the ages of 10 to 17 in the house at the same time.

Ok, so that scared me.

In any case it's time for me to figure all of this out.  Coupons?  Sales? Costco?  Shopping multiple stores?

Have I mentioned lately that I'm not organized by nature?

Fortunately a person can learn.  I will never be as highly efficient at saving money or making everything from scratch or canning all my own produce as many women you see on the internet, but the point is that slow improvement makes a difference.

 So here are the basics:

• I'm feeding 9 people, including 2 adults and 1 teenage boy.  One of us isn't on solid food yet, but that means I'm nursing exclusively.
• We're moving toward a grain-free diet... or at least a graid-reduced diet.  I doubt I will be able to have everybody completely grain-free, as there are a lot of us.  But we'll be cutting out as many grains as we can.
• We will eat organic, pastured, unprocessed, antibiotic and hormone-free food as much as we can.  And local, if possible.
• We will endeavor to use non-toxic cleaning and health/beauty products.  Homemade or store bought.
• I will not drive myself crazy trying to pick up "deals" from every store every week.  I don't have time for that. Two stores is my limit.
• My monthly budget is $1250 -- for everything.  That includes food, diapers, paper products, cleaning products, vitamins - etc. (When I was grocery shopping this weekend, I had to pick up lightbulbs.  It's too hard for me to keep all that stuff separate.)  That may seem high to some of you, but remember -- slow improvement makes a difference.

I'll do my best to blog about what I'm doing.  Maybe I'll even take a picture of a grocery haul or two... if I can stop my kids from putting it away too fast... or from eating it too fast!

(A side note: I will be moving my blog some time in the near future.  More about that when I get my act together!)

A Week in the Life: Tuesday

I managed to wake up at 6:30 AM, but... so did the little boys.  We still didn't sit down for prayers until 9:15, but this morning instead of just talking we did our catechism (Baltimore Catechism #2/The Holy Eucharist), then reviewed what we knew about English history to Edward the Confessor, tried to connect it to what was happening in Europe at the time (before we left for TN we were studying Charlemagne), and I read a chapter from Our Island Story.  The rest of the morning was very busy as I just tried to keep up with the twins and Chipmunk. 

Wet and cold weather.  By the time I left for my doctor's appointment in the afternoon, the rain was mixing with sleet and snow.

 

The little boys begged me for insect coloring pages, which I printed off the computer.  Chipmunk "dotted" a picture of a beehive with Do-a-Dot paint markers.

We also made earthworm books -- the one thing I had "planned" for this week.  I printed out some pages on Sunday night.  Some of these pages are from this set of nature notebooking pages.  This is Pip's book.  Pop dictated to me how he put together his earthworm farm from last week. 

Farmerboy was supposed to be doing his handwriting, but mostly he was listening to his Redwall CDs.

Andy came home around noon so I could go to an OB appointment -- very frustrating, as the tests say I have gestational diabetes and yet my every day sugar numbers are quite low without special diets, etc.  Trying to keep the diet has again resulted in a slight weight loss over a period of 5 weeks or so... which I do not think is so great, but the midwife seemed to think was fine.  I'm still pricking myself 4 times a day and feeling way overregulated.

I arrived back home to a box in the driveway: a birthday present to Farmerboy from my mom.  When I walk in the door at about 3:30, Chipmunk is not napping, Gareth and Katydid have finished their required work for the afternoon, and Andy is trying to juggle Chipmunk and Phonics Pathways, and Farmerboy is having a very hard time concentrating.  All ability to focus is totally shot by the arrival of the box. 

Sometimes you just have to give up.

After I tell Andy about my appointment, he runs down to the post office and retrieves our mail, which has been piling up for a month.  Then he gets on the computer to do some work, and I sort mail.  Gareth is very happy to see that his subscription to Pokemon magazine has been activated and disappears into his room with it.  The American Girl catalog is also scooped off the stack in a hurry.  Chipmunk and I look through the rest of the interesting catalogs later on in the recliner, since my back is killing me.

Andy makes steak for dinner and doesn't even catch the oven on fire.  (Almost).  While we eat, we watch episode 1 of The Adventure of English, a 6 CD collection about the history of English.  The little boys aren't enthused, but the big kids (especially Gareth) find it interesting.  Episode 1 brings us up to William the Conqueror.  And Seamus Haney reads part of Beowulf.

After dinner I read the usual stack of books to Chipmunk.  Andy gives the little boys a bath (always an adventure) and does the dishes.  I attempt a little laundry, but I have shooting pains in my back -- sciatica or a pinched nerve?  We get the boys ready for bed, and Andy reads the customary bedtime Biggles to the twins and Farmerboy, then heads back out to watch TV with Gareth and Katydid ( Drums Along the Mohawk) while I wrestle with Chipmunk and we both finally collapse around 9:45.

Nighttime prayers for me tonight -- part of the chaplet for Our Lady of Sorrows, a randomly opened page in my prayer book.

A Week in the Life: Monday

Well, today isn't "typical" in that we're just getting back to our routine from being away... and being sick over the weekend... but on the other hand it is typical because something like this always happens to throw off my neat plans of how "getting back into our routine" should go.  Over the years I've learned that imperfect is better than nothing, so here we go.

7:30 AM: Since I have been a little sick over the past few days, and Andy has been really sick, and most of the kids have been sick... I wake up late.  The twins and Farmerboy are already up.  Fortunately, Andy is feeling better and gets them set up in the family room watching Word World while I struggle out of bed and take care of Chipmunk, who tells me he is a "doggie" this morning.  I make juice and get breakfast for the little boys and myself, attempt (several times) to wake up Katydid and Gareth, and get online for a few minutes while I eat.

9:45 AM: We're finally sitting down for prayers.  When I got out of the shower, I was greeted with the news that one or both of the twins had gone on a rampage, which meant the family room had been destroyed.  What I mean by "destroyed" is: all the toy bins were dumped out, there were blankets strewn all over the floor, and at least one of the book bins was scattered everywhere.  I had the offending twin help pick up the books at least before we sat down to prayers.  Otherwise, prayers wouldn't have happened until 11 AM.  I had already decided that after prayers I was just going to go over what to expect today, this week, and the next 5 or 6 weeks, but the little boys treat it as if we were reading: I must find dinosaur coloring sheets, get out the markers, etc.

10:15 AM: I send Gareth and Katydid off to get dressed and do chores.  We've talked about what we're doing for history until June (William the Conqueror/Battle of Hastings), the merits and demerits of various planning tools, Katydid's Literature for a Young Lady plans, and Gareth's science -- physics.  The physics discussion turned out to interest everybody, as it involved cannonballs.  I am pleasantly surprised to cover Newton's Laws and Galileo's famous gravity experiment in the space of about 15 minutes.

Farmerboy has been so taken in by the physics discussion that he has his "experiment kit" out before I can tell him to change his clothes so the rest of us can work on the disaster in the family room.  This kit is a Sonlight Science supplies box augmented by lots of batteries, copper wire, tape, and whatever else Farmerboy felt like keeping there.  He does a few battery experiments, then he thinks about taking something apart, so he and the twins get out our broken "stuff" and the screwdrivers, then the Snapcircuits... which eventually turns into about an hour of science/art work for all the boys, including Chipmunk.

The robot mobile Pip and I made from circuit boards.

11:20ish AM: By this time, Katydid and Gareth have finished their chores (Katydid took over Gareth's chicken chores because he has a sore throat) and are settled into... some kind of work... I don't know exactly what because I am still darting hither and thither to keep up with the little boys.  Now that the boys are done with their work, they want to hunt flies and ants with a fly swatter but they're also demanding food, so -- snack time (various fruit, mainly).  I finally get Farmerboy to change clothes, but I give up on getting the littler ones in clothes before we tackled the family room... and another big mess I just discovered in their bedroom.  We all work on the mess for a good long while... some of us more willingly than others.

12:00: Good enough.  I'm starved.  And tired.  I wrestle the boys back to the bedroom to change their clothes and brush their teeth.  Yes, right before lunch.  Farmerboy turns on a Redwall CD; Gareth has drifted away from his work back to his room (he was reading volume 1 of Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples, and then we had a discussion about what to do for spelling); Katydid is hard at work on a bird book she has just decided to write.

12:30: Finally it is lunchtime.  Leftover pasta and sauce (for some of us).  Chipmunk eats 3 or 4 chunks of pineapple.

1:00 PM: The twins have gone on a rampage again because I was trying to finish my lunch, and it was raining so I couldn't let them outside.  This time they rope Chipmunk into turning on the water in the bathtub so they can go wading.  They all suffer the consequences, which seems to be what they need in order to calm down.  The boys (except Chipmunk) settle into setting up a war of Confederate army guys, Playmobil pirates and knights, and aliens?  Katydid is playing with Chipmunk.  I am making notes on this post.

2:00 PM: I've gotten some laundry going, lunch chores are done, and now it's time to read to the boys before naptime.  Pip mysteriously crawls into bed instead of reading or wrestling with Chipmunk.  I read a couple of transportation-related board books to Chipmunk, then Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln and part of Ghosts of the Civil War to Pop and Farmerboy, by request.  Gareth and Katydid begin their math in the dining room.

3:00ish:  After a short nap in the rocking chair, it's time to do Farmerboy's required work.  He's listening to Redwall again and is not happy about stopping to do phonics and math.  We manage about 30 minutes and just finish by the time Chipmunk comes out and wants me to hold him.  Then Pip arrives and starts pestering the big kids, who are working on a One Year Adventure Novel lesson. 

4:15 PM: I release the hounds.  Gareth has worked through algebra, Latin, and a novel-writing lesson, and read a bit of Rosemary Sutcliff's Outcast.  It is now his turn to have computer time.  The little boys decide they want to watch a Star Wars movie for their screen time.  (It's been raining all afternoon.)  Katydid is still working on her Wildflowers, Weeds, and Garden Flowers notebook (begun today), and then decides that for her computer time, she will write a blog entry about her chickens.  Chipmunk's asleep again and -- wonder of wonders -- stays asleep when I put him down.

5:00 PM: More laundry, unload the dishwasher, start dinner.  Crustless cheese quiche.  I use 14 eggs and we still have 5 dozen in the refrigerator. 

6:30 PM: Andy is home and we sit down to eat.  In addition to the quiche, there are peas, and strawberries and blueberries (thawed from frozen.  The strawberries are local.)  I don't have to fight with anybody to eat, which is nice.  After dinner, there is a giant light saber battle and then chores.  My wonderful husband does the dinner dishes for me so I can sit down and put my feet up.

10:00 PM: The little boys are finally in bed and asleep (Chipmunk finally decided to give up the fight) and so am I, after an evening of reading stacks and stacks of books to Chipmunk, discovering with Farmerboy that the French burned Schenectady in 1690, listening to Gareth read Pokemon field guides to Pop, trying to figure out how to handle copywork for myself... and worrying about Pip, as we try to determine whether or not some of his behaviors indicate that he has Tourette Syndrome, too.  I try to read the Bible and pray in bed before I go to sleep, but Chipmunk has a lot of "vim and vinegar" tonight, so... I hope God understands. 

Uncle

Just a brief note to anyone who is going to wonder where is Angela and why isn't she posting (all two of you ;-)...

I tried to post some learning notes over the weekend, but every time I tried to add a picture, my browser would lock up.  I have glittery pictures, pictures of St. Lucia buns, pictures of our Christmas tree... but after about 45 minutes of nothing working, I just gave up.  I will try to post again sometime, but...

I have a two year old with croup, one 4 year old who woke us up at 4 AM by throwing up in his bed (I feel kind of mean being thankful it was his bed, as we already had one sick kid in our bed), and another 4 year old who just came down with the general ickiness today.  And...

Andy has a busy week, which means he'll be working late most days.  And...

Christmas is next week and I am not done shopping.  And...

My parents are coming up to spend several days with us (finally!), so somebody had better pick up this house. 

I have made it to 13 weeks, and after a tense moment yesterday at my OB appointment, the midwife was able to find a good heartbeat.  (Much relief there.)  The first trimester ickiness is beginning to lift a little, but I'm still not moving fast enough to be very efficient at all of this.  So the blog will probably be quiet for a while as I try to get the kids to wrap up some of their schoolwork, sit with little boys in the bathroom with the shower on cold, and (ahem) do laundry. 

Wishing everyone a peaceful Advent and a merry Christmas!

The schools here had their second day...

... and what did we do?

We got up early so we could do all the poultry-related chores plus the house chores and then drive an hour to the doctor's office so Gareth could get the staples out of his leg and 3 of the kids could get flu shots.  Because 5 kids getting flu shots would have taken so much more time, and they didn't have the infant flu shot.

On the way to the doctor's office, I think the kids were reading Fellowship of the Rings and a biography of Clara Schumann, but they might also have been reading a Pokemon magazine and a Warriors novel.  I don't know; I was driving. Gareth was supposed to be writing me a little piece about what his ideal day would look like.  I do know that Farmerboy drew a pirate picture because he told everybody about it.  Then the little boys argued about how many points they should get for every semi truck they saw.

At the doctor's office, we learned that it will be possible to get the flu not once, but three times this flu season!  And also that you could possibly get two different strains of flu at the same time.  And also that the thing they use to pull staples out of your leg is not that different than the thing you use to pry staples out of a piece of paper.  And I didn't even jump up and correct the guy in the waiting room who was telling his little girl that the plants in the fish tank made algae.  No, I just focused on trying to keep the train pieces where they would not block every single path into or out of the waiting room.  And I read the Tomie de Paola Cloud Book. 

On the way out, one of the back office people asked my kids why they weren't in school. Sigh.  We've only been going to this doctor's office for 4.5 years now and I know we're the biggest family there so everyone has to know us.  Except apparently not, because every time we go, I hear variations of: 1. So why aren't you in school?  2. Oh, you've got everybody today?  3. How many kids do you have?

Erf.

So then -- off to McDonald's for lunch.  In the drive-thru, because I am not crazy enough to try to go in with all these kids by myself.  Oh, except we must collect acorn caps in the parking lot for wee felt dolls first.

And then the oh-so-personable McDonald's employees forget to hand me my debit card, and like a moron (or a woman who has 6 kids in the back arguing with each other about how many points a Fed-Ex truck gets) I do not notice.  In fact, I do not notice until we arrive at the farm store cashier with a lot of expensive local food and local soap and, er, a dozen cider donuts (You can't really mumble electronically, can you?)  And then I must dig around in the van for a while to make sure I didn't lose my card.  And also to find a checkbook -- which, blessedly, thanks to St. Anthony, I do.

The people here are very friendly, and Katydid gets a lot of babysitting experience.  Also, when a couple of the boys need to make a trip to the bathroom, we get to walk through the place where they bag all the potatoes.  Which is very cool. 

So, anyway, I pay the very nice, very patient cashier, haul everybody across the parking lot to the van, change a bunch of diapers, and hand out cider donuts.  Then it's off to see Andy at work to tell him about my missing debit card.  He comes up with the phone # for the McDonald's, I call, and yes, they have my card!  Only now... I have to drive all the way back to Albany to get it.  Which means 2 more hours round trip in the van.

The kids want to know if this means we can't go to the library, like I thought we might -- I mean, if the library is open, which is not guaranteed.  No, no, we're still going to the library.  I have a ginormous fine to pay and we need to start going again; I have put it off long enough.  So we head over to the library and make a whirlwind tour through the children's section, which thankfully only involves one lie-down-on-the-floor-scream-and-kick fit and one big stack of dinosaur books pulled entirely off the shelves.  I pay the fine, check out the books, and we head home to unload groceries. 

Chipmunk has fallen asleep, so the kids unload and put away groceries while I stay with Chipmunk and incidentally, rake some of the trash out of the van.  After everybody goes to the bathroom, gets changed, and gets drinks, we turn around and head back up to Albany.  Gareth has not written what I asked him to because he says he can only think of one thing to go in his ideal day: fewer book reports. O-kay.  Gareth checked out a Patricia Wrede book, so he's reading that, and Katydid is reading an American Girl magazine that she checked out.  I pop in a book on CD I checked out from the library's miniscule collection: The Best School Year Ever by Barbara Robinson.  It's funny, but not as good as The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.  Anyway, at least the kids are not arguing about how many points the Price Chopper trucks are worth.

We finally get to McDonald's, and I get my card back.  Every time I go somewhere to retrieve something important I have lost or misplaced or whatever, I have flashbacks to the time I left my purse by accident in an OB's office at Albany Med.  When I went to pick it up, the receptionist didn't know where it was.  When I asked her to check with somebody else, she started yelling at me.  I had to sit and wait an hour with 3 young kids and me, very pregnant with twins, when my purse was behind the desk the whole time.  Thankfully, this time everyone knows exactly where my card is, and I get it back, no problem.  Then we turn around to go meet Andy for dinner, because by now it is getting rather late.

I have to stop halfway to change a diaper at a gas station.

I have to turn off the CD because the little boys are beating on each other.

We finally make it to meet Andy.  We go to a Chinese buffet where Farmerboy is the kid who tips backward in his seat this time (somebody always tips their chair over here, I have no idea why).  He's also the kid who decides to eat stuffed mussels.  Everyone stares at us while we eat, but nobody asks how many kids we have this time.  I guess they can all count.

After we eat dinner, we head home. I am cheered on because I am ahead of Daddy.  Chants of, "Go, Mommy! Go, Mommy!" emanate from the middle seat where the little boys are.  I feel like a hero.  A short little 30-something heroine driving a great big van.

When we get home, the kids help Andy do chicken chores and pick blackberries.  And then the little boys watch a recorded Dinosaur Train. And it's time to read The Hobbit and say the rosary.

And that's the kind of day homeschoolers can have when all the other kids are shut up in a brick building for 6 or 7 hours on their second day back at school. ;-)

Seven Quick Takes: Ordinary Life

Because I have a lot of odds and ends in my head...

One

The recent wave of tragedies in the online community has left me feeling shaky, with a whole jumble of emotions.  I don't feel like I ought to post anything normal when the worlds of so many are anything but.  I wonder what there is to say.  What do you say to a family that has lost a child? There isn't anything.  It's an event that renders us all shocked and mute.  I try to turn the shock into me being a better parent.  I take that extra deep breath when one of the kids has done something infuriating. I take that extra deep breath when the toys and laundry have piled up, and I pick up the paintbrush to paint with the child who wants to paint instead of picking up the laundry. The laundry will wait for later.  But will the painting wait?  No.  I think it will not.

Two

So on the one hand I am continually turning these events over in my mind, feeling terrible for those who have lost their children, and on the other hand, I dread going online anymore, fearing more bad news.  I pray fervrently for an uneventful, unremarkable, unknown life.  I feel selfish when I do.  I feel as if I am completely focused on myself.  In reality, I pray for comfort for those families in  mourning -- I pray most fervrently for that, too -- but when I pray for the hum-drum, I am really praying for my children.  I am praying for them to grow up and grow old.  I am praying for them to outlive me.   I used to want to be famous.  My dream was to write and publish books, to see my name in print, to be able to go into a bookstore and pick up my own book and smell that book-smell when I rifled the pages.  But now I see that I would hand God all the books I could ever write if it meant keeping my family safe.

Three

Which, of course, I can't do.  I can't keep them safe.  And you know, this gets right at the hardest thing, the biggest obstacle I have in contemplating more children.  The worry.  The constant anxiety at not being able to keep them from getting sick, or having to wrestle with Tourette Syndrome, or falling on their bicycles and needing to be rushed to the ER, or maybe another child will have a febrile seizure while eating a cookie and nearly choke to death... I can find so many things to worry about.  By nature, I am a worrier.  I don't watch the news.  I don't read the headlines.  I can't and function on a daily basis.  I know that I am called to have faith, but faith is hard.  Faith is not a noun.  Faith is a verb.  It's a constant process, day after day, like climbing a rock wall and learning not to look down. 

Four

So I put aside my stack of books to read, because all of them seem to be... well, depressing.  Dystopian.  I need something boring and ordinary.  Today I read the Dick Blick catalog.  The Dick Blick catalog is actually fascinating.  I learned a lot about the purpose of mixing media for acrylic paint, and the effects of paper on paint, and that canvas is not that expensive.  I learned that you can mix your own oils and acrylics.  I learned how pastels are made.  I learned about Japanese paper.  The Dick Blick catalog turned out to be just what I needed.

Five

We've actually been sick here for the past couple weeks -- nothing serious, just a cold -- and are just starting to feel better. I had to cancel the Little Flowers/Blue Knights meeting we were supposed to have here on Sunday. Wednesday Gareth did actually fall off his bike and need a trip to the ER: 6 staples in a cut on his leg, about which he was remarkably calm. Today is gorgeous -- sunny and 78 degrees -- and so I called off school this afternoon so everyone could get outside.  Katydid spent two hours doing watercolor.  I sometimes wonder whether all my "plans" don't interfere with the real learning that could go on around here if I would get out of the way.

Six

There was a lot of laundry to do, but I sat down with Katydid and Farmerboy this afternoon to experiment with wet-on-wet painting.  My little tree leaves (it wasn't supposed to be a pun, honest) a lot to be desired, but it's a start.  I'm thinking maybe that I will call off school on every Friday, so I can enjoy the kids and writing and reading and painting and a sunny day.  We do our extra chores in the morning, and then -- it's nice to have a companionable afternoon, so very ordinary.

Seven

There are a lot of things to be said for ordinary life.  Yesterday morning we walked into the dining room and found that the prisms on the nature table had been placed just right to reflect a vivid rainbow over the crucifix that hangs above the door to the kitchen.  We were all amazed.  Someone moved the prisms and the rainbow disappeared and we never could get them back to the place where they cast their light on the Cross.  I felt that I had been given a gift.  I wish I had thought to take a picture right then, but it didn't occur to me that I might be able to take pictures of the rainbows until later, when the kids were playing with them.

  

Lord, whose ways are beyond understanding,
listen to the prayers of your faithful people:
that those weighed down by grief
at the loss of this [little] child
may we find reassurance in your infinite goodness.

Not quite your average day

The other day I picked up an old favorite that I used to read every year, Homeschooling: A Patchwork of Days: Share a Day With 30 Homeschooling Families.  Reading it reminded me of what homeschooling used to be like before blogs.  It also reminded me that I haven't done a "day in the life" post in a while.  As it happens, on the day I decided to do a day in the life post, it also turns out that it was "Day in the Life Week" at the Not Back to School Blog Hop over at My 3 Boybarians.  But, as usual, it took me a week to actually write this post (because I don't know how to do anything that isn't long and complicated) so I missed the deadline.  However, if any of you, dear readers, would like to share a "Back to School" day at your house, I would love to read it.  Just leave me a comment with the link!

A few notes before I start. 

1) This day was "not quite average" because Andy was home for the morning, and then left around lunchtime to go on a business trip for most of the week.  This happens often enough, though, that it's just not "quite" average.  This is just our second week of school, so we did do school today. 

2) I don't usually work this hard first thing in the morning.  Usually I'm on the computer for a little while.

Monday, August 24

7:15 AM  I wake up, later than I wanted to.  Chipmunk went to bed at 11 last night and I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I might have a touch of whatever Pip and Farmerboy had this weekend.  Thankfully, I feel decent this morning.  The little boys are getting up, and Andy takes care of them while I take a shower.

8:00 AM: The boys are eating breakfast when I come out.  Gareth is up, too.  I head down to Katydid's room to begin the process of getting her up. (Which sometimes takes a while.)  The little boys finish their breakfast and talk Andy into letting them watch Chased By Dinosaurs: "Most Dangerous Seas of All Time". Andy made me some eggs, and while I eat I switch around some binders so I can organize the originals of some new recordkeeping forms I handwrote over the weekend.  (The USB ports on our desktop are fried, and the software from our printer is incompatible with the Vista on my laptop.  So I have a copier, but no printer right now.)

 

My "desk": tea cup, garden/nature journal, planner, record-keeping book, new Circa notebook for forms, etc.

8:30 AM: Katydid finally comes out. Now everyone is watching Chased By Dinosaurs.  Andy wants to take some food from the garden we (along with our Little Flowers/ Blue Knights group) are growing for the Little Sisters of the Poor.  We have a couple bushels of potatoes to give this time, several pounds of zucchini and patty pan squash, and there's more zucchini out in the garden to pick.  I head out while everyone is occupied and come back with several more pounds of zuchinni.

9:00 AM: Time for prayers.  After prayers, Gareth and Katydid go to brush their teeth and start on their chores, which include feeding and watering all the poultry (turkeys, layers, meat chickens, and bantams).  All together, we have a total of 59 chickens right now, and 6 turkeys.  It takes a little while to get it all done.  The kids dawdle a while, so they're a bit late getting out.  When they come back in, they do their inside chores: collecting and sorting laundry, and wiping out the bathroom sinks for Katydid, and cleaning up the breakfast kitchen for Gareth.  Andy takes the time to take the trash out to the curb so I won't have to do it tomorrow.  Farmerboy is supposed to be picking up the family room, but right now he is involved in a complicated game of "Divers into Dangerous Seas."  Props for this game include all my pots and pans, and cameras, which the boys construct from various toys and tape:

(I help with the tape a little bit.)

9:30 AM: Pop used buttons (like the kind you sew) for his camera, and Chipmunk (who is sitting on the table) is enthralled.  He wants me to identify the colors of all the buttons.  The other three little boys are still involved in their diving game, so I sit down with Chipmunk and help him sort the buttons according to color.  On one of Pop's trips through the dining room, he notices what we are doing and wants to sort, too.  I don't have enough buttons for that, but I set him up with some dyed feathers. Chipmunk soon moves on to pouring the buttons.  He's been occupied for about 30 minutes.

10:00 AM: The boys decide they want to glue.  I get them set up with collage materials, cardboard trays, scissors, papers, and their choice of glue -- Elmer's in a bottle or Mod Podge in a bowl with a brush.  Chipmunk is soon covered in glue, but does manage to also put some on his tray.  There is some frustration on the twins' part: Pip is gluing natural feathers to a piece of cardstock and unfortunately, most of them are small down feathers which are hard to glue without getting all gummed up and coming apart.  And Pop's scissors are not cooperating with him.  This is pretty typical.  My role is to dart from one kid to another providing help, encouragement, and exhortations for patience.  Andy tells me that there is a special room in heaven reserved for homeschooling mothers. 

Pip sets up his collage as part of our nature area.

10: 45 AM: By this time Katydid and Gareth are involved in their own activities.  We're experimenting with different ways to plan for them... or actually, to help them plan their own work. I asked on the 4real boards about planning with Literature for a Young Lady and Jen helpfully replied with how she helps her eldest plan her own work.  I presented that as an option for the kids, and they decided they would like to give it a shot.  So I wrote out a chart (no printer, remember) with days and times on it, and on Sunday we sat down to figure out what they wanted to do during the week, and also what was required for them to do (like math, Latin, and language). 

I clipped off a bit of the top, but you get the picture. 

When I emerge from helping the boys with their collages (and washing all the glue off Chipmunk), I find Gareth working on his math and Katydid comfortably esconced on the couch with Little Women.  Andy takes a break from working on the computer to get the little boys dressed and play with the transportation counters on the floor -- more sorting. Farmerboy can no longer avoid his chores and must get dressed and pick up the family room.  Because people need me -- often -- it takes a good 45 minutes to clean up the dining room. 

11:15 AM: Gareth is now working on his religion and informs Farmerboy that he's going to be done soon so Farmerboy had better get to work if he wants to go out to the archery range.  Katydid didn't know that Gareth was going to do archery, so she scraps the plans she made yesterday to go out and shoot, too.  She's been reading for about an hour with only a brief break, so it's just about time for her to do something active.

11:30 AM: The dining room is not completely clean, but the little boys are clamoring to be let out of the small fenced yard by the deck, and it would be nice to talk to Andy a while before he goes.  Andy takes the little boys out with him to feed greens to the turkeys, and the three older kids head out to practice some archery.  I pick up the transportation counters for the nth time this morning and follow.

 

(Andy took these pictures.  Gareth told me later he got a bullseye!)

While the big kids shoot, the little boys play "dinosaur hunter" in the sideyard with me.  They're gathering sticks and pretending they're dinosaur bones.

12:15 PM: Everyone is hungry by now, so we head in for lunch.  Someone lets Chipmunk in the bathroom first to wash his hands and is not supervising and Chipmunk dunks his truck in the toilet.  I clean him up (and the truck) and then make cheese quesadillas for the kids.  Andy and I eat leftover steak from the night before (I found a stash in the back of the freezer) and canteloupe. At lunch Andy mentions a book that has been recommended to him called The Ten Commandments of How to Fail at Business.  We have a discussion about that, and also about how a Christian should view or use wealth.  Then Andy loads his luggage and the vegetables for the nuns into his van and heads off to the airport.  The big kids are in charge of cleaning up after lunch.  The little boys and I go outside to play some more dinosaur hunter.

2:00 PM: I'm taking the little boys in for some read alouds and a nap.  Katydid comes in to get the camera, because she says the older three want to "study turkey behavior".  It turns out they just want to make the toms strut.

(Pictures by Katydid)

While I admit that the Naragansett tom is particularly impressive when he struts, banging things and making a lot of noise to get him agitated is probably not a good idea.  So no more "studying turkey behavior".

While the big kids are outside, I read Dinosaurs Big and Small (A Let's Read and Find Out title) , Little Tom Turkey (a book about wild turkeys told from the point of view of a small male poult; the writing is not so great, but it's tough to find picture books about wild/heritage turkeys), and a tractor book to the three little boys.  Then it's to bed for them.

2:45-3:00 ish: I've gotten the boys to sleep. When I come into the kitchen, I notice that the cleaning job done after lunch was not all that great.  But now it's time to do some concentrated book work with the older 3 kids.  Since the twins and Chipmunk require most (if not all) of my attention in the morning, the bigger kids have to save anything that needs my attention until the afternoon.  This is not my preferred way of doing things -- nor, to be honest, always the preferred way for my kids either.  But it's what we have to do.  It turns out that they have come in at 2:30 just like they were supposed to and gotten to work.  We've had this basic template schedule for a long time now, but this is only the start of our second week after being "off" for summer.  So I'm pleased that they're readjusting to our school schedule so quickly.  Katydid is working on the first lesson of Lingua Mater 6, and Gareth has finished his lesson for the day in Lingua Mater 7 and is on the couch reading Fellowship of the Ring.  Farmerboy has already done his handwriting (Handwriting Without Tears, My Printing Book) so I take him into the dining room to work on some phonics.  First I need to see what letter sounds he remembers from earlier in the summer, so we do a short "quiz".  Turns out he's forgotten about half his letter sounds.  He wants me to write some words for him to read, though, so I compose a variety of silly sentences using mainly -at words. (Sample: "I sat on the cat.")  He enjoys this and runs to show Katydid and Gareth how silly the sentences are after we're done.

3:30 PM: Katydid is done with her language, so we move on to Latin.  We're redoing the lesson we ended with in June, Review Lesson III from Latina Christiana I.  For some reason we only got through half the book last year.  I'm hoping to do better this year.  Farmerboy wants to get a board game out of the closet and "pretend to play it himself". Ok... he actually chooses the Rush Hour puzzle, which I mentally chalk up to math for the day.  I'm still trying to figure out math for him. I bought Making Math Meaningful Level I for him in the spring, but it turns out I don't really like it at that level. 

4:00 PM: When we're done with our chants and reviewing the vocabulary, Katydid switches to math, which she is able to do independently for the day.  (She is using Making Math Meaningful Level 4, which I do like at least for Katydid, as it seems to be sticking... no small feat for her.  Sometimes it requires me to make presentations, but I think she's finally gotten the concept of multiplying two digits by two digits... albeit in the non-traditional way taught by this curriculum.)  Gareth has written on his chart that he is going to work on a book "response" to Out of the Silent Planet, which he read last week.  He can either work on a graphic novel/comic book version of the book or he can write a book report.  I expect him to choose the comic book, but he surprises me by choosing the book report.  We spend a little over a half an hour discussing the book, how to write a book report, and then planning it out. 

4:45 PM: The kids are done with their work for the day, and Chipmunk is up, but not up, and is dozing on my shoulder.  I check email and the kids have their computer time.  Katydid heads back to her room when it is not her turn to practice her violin and say a rosary.

5:15 PM: Chipmunk is now up and playing with the Rush Hour cars that Farmerboy neglected to put away.  The twins are up and clamoring for their computer time, too. I go to start dinner and realize that I can not make a Dutch Baby because I do not have enough eggs.  What?  Right -- we gave away a dozen eggs on Friday and I made scrambled eggs and ratatouille one night for dinner.  Now we have to wait for the hens to build the supply again.  I remember that I have some frozen spaghetti sauce downstairs in the freezer, though, so I can still make dinner!

I also have to work on the mess left over from lunch.

Chipmunk keeps me company with the pots and pans.

6:00 PM: It took forever to defrost the spaghetti sauce. Dinner is going to be late.  The little boys are clamoring to be let out of the gate (again), so I take my record book and head outside with them while I wait on dinner.

7:00 PM: Dinner's finally ready.  I cave and let the kids eat in front of the TV.  I'd like to say they watched something educational, but no, it was SpongeBob.  And I eat in front of the computer, starting this post. Then Andy calls to let me know he's in Chicago and will be departing for Iowa shortly and also that the Little Sisters would like pictures of us planting the garden for their newsletter.  I am embarassed to say that I have no pictures.  We'll have to take some pictures of harvest instead.

7:30ish: Time for after dinner chores.  Usually I clean the kitchen, Katydid picks up the dining room and kitchen and sweeps both rooms, Farmerboy picks up the family room and vacuums the rug, and Gareth has the living room/entryway area, picking up and sweeping.  This makes it sound as if everything ought to be clean, but this doesn't account for stacks of books and other things on tables and counters, or the disorganization of the toy shelves.  Plus tonight the kids will have to knock off early to do all the chicken/turkey chores that Andy usually does (with Chipmunk and the little boys tagging along).

8:00 PM: The kids are out putting the chickens in for the night and I am trying to hurriedly wash the last pans and sweep the dining room and kitchen floors and switch the laundry before the little boys rev up too much.  (My kids never look tired because they just wind up more and more as they get tired.)

8:30 PM: I didn't make it.  There are still pans in the sink but it's time to get the little boys in their pajamas.  When the big kids come in from doing their outside chores, I ask Katydid to read to the little boys while I put on my pajamas.  Pop has been fascinated by the weather lately, so we also check the weather on the Weather Channel.  Then Katydid reads Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie! while I change for the night. 

9:00 PM: The boys still want books.  Katydid reads a couple of tractor books to Chipmunk, Little Tom Turkey (again), and Where Do Chicks Come From?  I take this opportunity to rotate the books in the book display, which sorely needs it.

9:30 PM: Time for bed.  Gareth and Katydid head back to their rooms and bathroom to take showers and read until who knows when.  The little boys want to know if I will read Farmer Boy while they're in bed like Daddy does.  I tell them that since it's Daddy's favorite book, we'll save it for him.  But I will read the next story from Egermeir's Story Bible.  Chipmunk is not having it, though.  I tell the boys I can't read because I need to nurse Chipmunk.  Pip starts complaining.  I attempt to balance the heavy book precariously past Chipmunk while I nurse him and read the story of "The Great Flood."  It begins with Enoch being taken up to God.  Pop wants to know how people get to heaven, and once you're there, how you can get back home.  Farmerboy tells him you can't get back home.  Pop starts to cry.  Farmerboy tells him that heaven is a wonderful place where you'll know everything, including what happened to the dinosaurs.  Pop says he wants our home to be his home forever.  Farmerboy says, well, his soul will go to heaven after he dies.  Pip says he doesn't want to go to heaven if souls are there.  Farmerboy says everybody has a soul.  Pip is furious because he thought souls were bad things! I'm sure he's confusing them with ghosts.  I would just really like to go to sleep.  But no.  As soon as I get them calmed down, Chipmunk starts fussing because this isn't our usual routine.  I try to take him into my bedroom, and Pip starts crying because he wants Daddy.  I sit back down in the rocking chair, and Pip stops crying but Chipmunk starts.  Finally, I have to take Chipmunk into my room and just let Pip cry for a while.  It's keeping Pop and Farmerboy awake, but I have to get one of the two fussing kids to sleep. 

10:30 PM: Chipmunk is finally asleep and I go back in to sit with Pip.  I bring my book and read a little in the hall light.

11:00 PM: Pip is finally asleep.  I add the last few things to the dishwasher and turn it on.  Then I head back to my bed, where Chipmunk is sleeping for the moment.  I try to write down a few notes, but apparently the scratching of the pen wakes Chipmunk up again.

11:30 PM: Everything is finally quiet.  Andy won't be home till Thursday, and I'm not sure I can survive that long. (But obviously, I do! :-)

 

It's football time...

... in upstate New York.  (Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it, Grandma? ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then somebody decided to switch sports.

A Simple Life?

A recent thread on the 4Real Boards has prompted me to think about "simplicity" and "simple" homeschooling.  Not "easy" homeschooling, but homeschooling that is simple, rich, and beautiful.  I sat down on Saturday and started to write.

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Here I am on a Saturday morning. It's after 9 AM and I am just now sitting down with breakfast: 2 fried eggs (fresh from the hen yesterday), a piece of toast, coffee.  I don't usually drink coffee, but I have had a cold all week, compounded by allergies and asthma, and Chipmunk woke up at 6:30 this morning and needed to be held.  So I held him and caught up on some blogs and boards (since the twins were still asleep), except I didn't have my glasses on and was apparently too lazy to go get them, so then my eyes started to hurt.  I'm hoping the extra dose of caffeine will help.  Really, though, I am a coffee weenie, and what I am drinking is half coffee, half light cream, with a generous amount of sugar. I don't normally like to start off my day with so much sugar, but when I came out with Chipmunk this morning and "had my hands full", as people like to say, there was a box of Fig Newtons on top of the microwave, so I ate two of them.  Do Fig Newtons count as First Breakfast?

Anyway, I meant to get up earlier because Andy and Gareth got up around 5:30 to go camping with Scouts. Andy was in New York City yesterday, for the second time this week, and to spend a little time with him I decided that we would go pick up all the last minute camping stuff at Wal-Mart and then meet him in town for dinner on his way home from the train station.  He got to Wal-Mart before we were done, and we split up to pick up supplies. I took the cart full of small children -- Chipmunk in the front seat, Pip and Pop in the cart's bucket.  (What do you call that part of the cart? The "cart" part? The buggy? The bucket? A dilemma.)  I then proceeded to whisk down the aisles picking up granola bars, juice, Cheddar Bunnies, bread, and bananas, trying to squeeze all this stuff in around two three year olds playing STRONG MAN! GRR! AND THE X-MEN in the bucket (or buggy) or whatever of the cart.  You should know that what STRONG MAN AND THE X-MEN really means is LET'S PUNCH EACH OTHER AND YELL REALLY LOUD.  It wasn't until we got home that I noticed I'd picked up 2 bottles of "Cherry Burst" juice instead of White Grape Cherry.  Cherry Burst proudly proclaims that it is "20% juice!"  The other 80% is water, high fructose corn syrup, and Red #40.  This is not exactly what I want STRONG MAN AND THE X-MEN to drink. 

In the interval between buying Cherry Burst and discovering that it was, in fact, Cherry Burst, we went to eat at Arby's.  We also dropped sandwiches on the floor at Arby's, screamed and stole our brother's sandwich at Arby's, yelled loudly whenever a truck passed by Arby's, and spilled a full cup of rootbeer all over the booth at Arby's. "Have a nice night!" the cashier yelled as we walked out the door, and I'm glad I had my hands full of toddler and couldn't turn around because I'm pretty sure he was smirking when he said it.  

So today, Saturday.  After starting this post this morning, I took a long break before picking it up again.  I broke up a squabble about a snorkel that Farmerboy lifted from his sister's room, and which he wanted to wear as part of his Digimon gear.

I took care of my seedlings, which are mostly holding up, although the watermelons are dying off one by one.  I was surprised to see Andy back home, but he said he came to help me out and Gareth was fine, so we spent a couple of hours attempting to make the house look less like it had been ransacked by a pack of thieves, and while we worked we had a discussion about how we were both aggravated by our inability to pare down various obligations so that the life we actually want to live -- chickens, garden, animals, and all -- wouldn't be so incredibly hard.  Andy mopped all the floors with a tea-tree spray I made yesterday; I cleared some clutter; Katydid did Gareth's kitchen chores; and the boys threw dirt at each other outside.

We decided to order a pizza for lunch and call it a cleaning expense.  Andy went to pick it up, and I went outside with the boys, who were by now finding Eastern tent caterpillars and dropping them into my freezer containers.  Farmerboy directed the twins to find crabapple and oak leaves for them to eat.  We walked over to the crabapple tree, which was loosing its petals like rain in every gust of wind.  "Winter!" Pip called out happily.  "Butterflies!"  The ground was pink with blossoms.  We stepped on them like a carpet and breathed in their perfume. 

At lunch we talked about mushrooms and discovered that Pip's caterpillar was different than the other boys', and possibly a Black Swallowtail caterpillar.  After we were done eating, we all headed back outside.  While I cleaned up the table, Andy cleaned out the back of the chicken coop while holding Chipmunk.  When Chipmunk finally got down, he ran back and forth by the new fence shouting, "Buck! Buck! Buck!"  The kids all picked up chickens while I admonished them not to hold them up to thier faces because a chicken pecked Farmerboy in the eye the other day, resulting in a trip to the doctor and eye drops for a scratched conjunctivum.  Then I attempted to sneak away to thin radishes, but Chipmunk found me out.  We all worked in the garden as best we could, until Farmerboy saw a delivery truck pull into the driveway.

"Our piano!"

We've been thinking about a piano for a long time. When we were in Tennessee Katydid spent hours playing my mother's piano, and Andy started secretly searching for one in earnest.  But everything he could find was too expensive.  I gave him the advice I had once heard given by a mother of 10 in our homeschool group: "You decide what you need, and then you pray." Two weeks ago one of Andy's coworkers was driving down a back road near her house and saw a sign for a FREE PIANO.  She thought of us, stopped her car, and went in to talk to the owners.  It seems that they were trying to clear out the house of their elderly parent.  The piano had not been played in three years, and they wanted it to go to a home where it would be played and enjoyed.  Well, we fit that bill.  We paid for the piano movers, but that was it.  And now we have a piano.

After the piano movers left, the kids messed around on the piano for a while (rules will have to be made about how to take turns, do not bang on the keys when your sister is trying to play, do not drop the keyboard cover on your brother's hands, etc., etc.), then I read a few picture books to the little boys (including a Magic School Bus book for Farmerboy), Katydid went back to her room to read, Andy went back outside to mow grass for an hour, and I put the little ones down for a nap. Chipmunk didn't lie down for long, and I was back where I began this post: reading on the computer and holding him while he slept.

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So.  Do I have a "simple" life?  Hmm.  Some of the accoutrements are there: the fresh eggs, the garden, the chickens, the crabapple.  But you can stop laughing now, because no, I don't think my life is very simple.  It's actually pretty darn complicated.  But as I was writing all this down and thinking about it, I began to ask myself the question, "Are my kids' lives simple?"

I think the answer is yes.  For starters, their parents are still married and enjoy each other's company.  For another thing, they do not have to deal with all the weird situations you hear about from people whose kids go to school.  (I'm not talking about academics; I'm talking about "socialization".  This has been particularly driven home to me lately whenever I hear about what other 12 and 13 year olds have to deal with.)  Starting from that base, what about the way we "school"?

To be honest, I just winced when I wrote that word, "school".  It's inadequate for the way my kids live their lives.  I've written before that my kids only think of the sit down work we do -- math, spelling, diagramming sentences -- as "schoolwork".  The rest of it -- reading books, drawing pictures, making volcanoes, collecting caterpillars -- is not "school".  It's life.  Without time to do those things, their lives would be diminished.  And I'm sure they would rebel.  In fact, they do rebel -- if "schoolwork" starts to crowd out what to them are the more meaningful pieces of their world. 

But they are not the kind of kids who, as a rule, will want to do math problems on their own.  And one of my kids would spend a lot of time setting up Lego armies and then wonder where all the time went, because there were other things he wanted to do, too, and now he's frustrated.  So I make some requirements.  Sometimes it's hard to resist just focusing on the basics. For the sake of "simplicity".  But that path only leads to burnout.  Because it's the rest of it -- the walks in the crabapple blossoms, the chickens, the garden, the piano, the sitting at a table on a Sunday morning and trying to build a ship out of a milk jug to go along with the Magic School Bus book you heard yesterday -- it's all that stuff that makes learning real.  Actually, that's not right.  It doesn't "make" learning real, because the learning is real already.  It's the way humans are built.  We were made to learn.

But it takes work on a parent's part to keep it that way. It takes a certain resistance to what everyone else is doing, in order to figure out what is best for your family.  It takes a certain courage, to ignore all the naysayers, and to fight one's own fears of failing one's children in various ways.  It takes a certain humility, to realize one's limitations -- and not to obsess over them.  And it takes a certain sense of humor, to realize that when your three year olds are playing X-Men in the cart at Wal-Mart and you come home with Cherry Burst instead of juice, it's not the end of the world.   

What I have come to believe is that "a simple life" is not really a destination, but a constant road one is always walking.  If I can keep my kids from some of the snares along the way in order to keep their childhoods "simple", then I'll be happy.