Egg-cellent

In my childhood home, once every couple of weeks, we had Humpty Dumpty night. Mom would softboil some eggs, put them in eggcups and set us loose with the crayons to draw melted wax faces onto hot eggs. We would draw lovely ladies and brave young egg-men and then encourage them to have conversations ("Oh Monsieur, you look so very handsome this evening).

Once the egg people had taken their farewells, my mother would brandish her dinner knife guillotine as we all recited:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall...
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...

At which point, my lovely, gentle-spirited mother would chop off the top quarter of the egg in one smooth, decisive gesture, we would finish the rhyme -- complete with toast soldiers -- and we would dunk the strips of toast into the yolks for dinner.

And so the tradition continues. In a gluten-free version, of course.

The Blue Period

This is "Blue" by Any Warhol, one in a series of 25 cats of various colors.


This is our version of this painting:


Here is the artist alongside his handiwork:


When I was first pregnant, I read about a woman whose 4 year old colored the ENTIRE face of her two year old with black permanent marker the day before their Christmas pictures were supposed to be taken. That has helped to me to keep all instances of child-as-canvas art in perspective... this was washable marker (and pretty cute!).

D-A-D

I remember desperately wanting loads of black and white photos at our wedding, and one photographer I interviewed told me that if that was what I wanted, he wasn't the right photographer for the job... he couldn't bear to have a red-headed, blue-eyed bride shot all in black and white.

He didn't get the job, but I now know what he meant... I often sample the photos I take of the kids in black and white, but in the end, I can never enjoy them that way. God delivered three red-heads into our family, and all three have such unique eyes, so that I feel like they aren't even really my kids when they are in black and white.

These are the photos I took and will be presenting to Big E. for his birthday... I'm running a little late, but wait until I scan in the photos the kids did for him on their own! Totally makes up for my deliquency...

35 reasons I love you (not an exhaustive list)

To my sweet husband:

Happy birthday! I don't think I could ever thank God enough for giving me such a gift... but today, on your 35th birthday, I thought I'd tell you my top favorite 35 things about you. If I can't think of 35, then it will be 3.5 which isn't quite so catchy but I would make sure they were really GOOD 3 and half things...

1. You are my favorite playmate (note: that's a lowercase 'p').

2. You delight in all children, but especially in ours.

3. Your enthrallment with God's creation never ceases.

4. You just love people... all of them, in any walk of life. And not from a distance. Never have I known someone equally as compassionate for the wealthy as for the poor.

5. You are endlessly curious - about people, politics, sports, nature, science, technology. What a blessing for me and our family!

6. God comes first. And because of that, I never have to worry that your love for me will sway you to make a bad decision - even when I'm at my most persuasive.

7. Love for us comes next. Always has, and I know it always will. These last two years have been proof positive.


8. You are fierce in your convictions. More fierce than anyone but you and I really know.

9. You are loyal. Your deep friendships are few, but they are for life. What a wonderful example you have been to me, and are to our kids.

10. You have a heart for service balanced by your season of life. You long to serve in so many ways, but always carefully balance it against the needs of your family.

11. Although fully capable of playing "the game" of business, you choose unadorned integrity - refusing to manipulate people or back them into corners. You have chosen to operate in good faith, as a living testimony, every time. I take such comfort in that.

12. You have the coolest hazel/green eyes. Thanks for passing them on, too.

13. You love sports, but are not consumed with our kids being sports phenoms.

14. You love your parents. (I do too.)

15. And yet you understand that we are cleaved together.

16. You love my parents. Even on the days when you don't agree over much.

17. I am so thankful at the energy you put in to relating to each of the kids in their temperaments, instead of insisting that the kids figure out how to relate to you. It takes a lot of energy - and since you get one of them effortlessly, it makes it all the more amazing that you work so hard with the others.


18. You don't have a manipulative bone in your body. You say what you mean and are baffled with the concept of sub-text.

19. The Bible is endlessly interesting to you - and you love to hear what I've discovered too.

20. You love music. And will even put up with my affection for pop music.

21. I still am amazed at how cleverly God put us together - me with my plain old "in the box" systems and you with the ability to make anything work on the fly with only "out of the box" parts.

22. You put such effort into serving me even though speaking love through chores is completely foreign to you.

23. You can laugh at yourself better than anyone I know. So endlessly charming...

24. You can cook. Man, you can cook!

25. You work so hard to keep your physical challenges from affecting the kids... I probably know the most about it, and I think you keep a good part of it hidden even from me. It is a HUGE sacrifice and I am deeply appreciative.

26. You are going to heaven too! That would be a burden on my heart and instead it is such a delight.

27. Your feet are ticklish. The necessary equalizer in a wrestling match.

28. You are so NOT a border collie - but you don't fault me for being one. In fact, you try to provide me with as much working dog time as you can...

29. Mermaid Princess: that he works hard everyday so that we can be here doing fun things like school and crafts and painting.

30. Flash: that he does cool things with me like making catapults and rockets.

31. JackJack: riding on the tractor!


32. I love it that we like to read the same stuff. Well, except for Watership Down. And In The Neighborhood.

33. I love it that you have a wet sense of humor... working dogs blow right past dry senses of humor - we need a good splash of water with our humor to slow us down.

34. That you are committed to growing in your Christian walk... I know we will always grow closer together if we are both drawing nearer to God.

35. That after a decade of marriage and a lifetime of knowing each other, you are absolutely the one person I long for time with, love to share my thoughts with, and seek out in most every circumstance. I am so thankful for the years we've been given together and pray for many, many, many more.

Happy Birthday, sweetheart! I love you.

Victoire!

After a full morning of pictures for Daddy, reading, phonics and other sundry school items, we had a well deserved break and then met up again at the kitchen table to look at some math.

Mermaid Princess takes after her mother - she utterly refused help as she struggled to count out all the fingers for 7 + 2, then threw her pencil down in frustration when informed that the answer was not actually 11.

Finally, she allowed me to dig out a jar of pennies (which I had mentioned earlier, but had been firmly refused) and used them to count out her sets. Before she knew it, she had finished her worksheet, found the path through the maze, saved the day... and promply burst into tears because I wouldn't let her do another worksheet since lunch was ready.

Victorious at last
.

Why, oh why, do we hate asking for help, she and I? Why is rage so much better a feeling than dependence? Why is it so much easier to say "I can't do this" than to say "I think I need some help"?

Cary once said, "Why do we work so hard to teach our children independence? Independence isn't hard... the whole of human existence is a striving for independence. Choosing dependence, gracefully accepting dependence, even embracing dependence... now that's hard."

True for me, anyway.

First day

Wow!

Although we homeschooled last year, it was preschool homeschool and pretty low-key. We did a lot of reading, a lot of crafts and I threw in some language lessons during lunch.

This year, we are *serious* homeschoolers. Mermaid Princess is reading up a storm (a 224 page book in two days). Flash is hungry to read and even hungrier to figure out the decimal system. JackJack just wants to be in the mix.

Some highlights from today, our first day of the year:
Flash drawing a dinosaur shark. Mermaid Princess drawing a fairy out of the word "girl" (it's very cool). JackJack drawing a green puppy that only a mother could see the artistic genius in.

Flash picking up his reading right where we left off in May. Mermaid Princess reading her entire language arts book on the first day. JackJack snuggled on my lap for all of our reading time.

My favorite time was at lunch, when we listened to the soundtrack from The Little Mermaid while we ate. This was JackJack's request; JackJack is like his daddy and would have an iPod at age 2 if he knew what one was.

If perhaps your memory is vague, much of the music in Little Mermaid is, well, it's ominous. Like something nasty is swimming in the deep, dark ocean below (appropriate, of course)... After 3 minutes of orchestral music, I could see that everyone was getting a little nervy. So I asked them to tell me the instruments they could hear. (Flash rattled off 5 in 30 seconds. Mermaid Princess launched into a detailed story of what SHE thought the music meant).

No good. In another minute, JackJack started shaking in his chair, then looked at me with tears overflowing. "This is too scary. Mommy, I need SNUGGLE!!!!," his voice escalating.

He leapt from his chair to my lap and buried his face in my shoulder, foregoing the potato chips on his plate (this was fear, indeed!).

What is this curse that Big E. has married into? I react to ominous music the same way, as does my sister, my mother, my daughter... and now, his son. I pray that Flash retains some of his immunity, so that they may enjoy movies together for a lifetime.

How bad can it be, you think. Well, I wanted to show them a VeggieTales video today because it tied into our lesson on lighthouses. MP utterly refused, making elaborate plans to escape to her room instead of watching something so terrifying. I told her we would pass on Junior Asparagus if she could memorize a quatrain for me instead - she had that thing down in 2 minutes flat.

(My sister used to run behind the sofa when Cookie Monster came on during Sesame Street... it is somehow comforting to know that it's genetic, not just a failure of character. Big E. just about had to strap me down when we saw Monsters, Inc. in the theater - needless to say, movie-going is not an oft-chosen date night activity).

At any rate, today was a huge success. I had fairly low expectations - it is going to be a work in progress, figuring out scheduling and lesson plans and the balance between mommy-ing and teacher-ing. But we had a great time together and got back in the groove. Tomorrow we start our French lessons. Bonsoir, mes amis! A demain...

Cary and Clay - final update

It is with a heavy heart that I post today that Cary and Clay's baby has gone on to his forever home. The Cauthen family has gone out of town to mourn their loss privately. Please pray for all of them.

Summer days, drifting away

As summer draws to a close, we've been spending more time at home, just us. I didn't want the start of our school year to coincide with a sudden disappearance of all the friends we've played with all summer. This would not go over well (especially with Mermaid Princess).

Example of our summer social time with friends. These are the minnows preparing to get past yours truly, aka "The Shark."

This is one of those childhood games that seems like it should make sense, but somehow never executes. They were warned that the bungee cord 'parade' might not turn out quite as envisioned. We escaped without any scrapes or bruises, but just barely.

Tent day. This was a great success until the ants decided that this looked good to them too.

A friend made a conscious decision not to enroll her friends in much this summer, hoping to see creativity stimulated by boredom. I followed suit, more because of gas prices than any good parenting philosophy, but I have to admit, it worked. Our best days were the ones that they came up with outlandish ideas (let's create a luau for Daddy to come home to!) that we then set about trying to make happen.

Lesson noted.

I don't want to say lesson learned because I'm sure this one is going to need to smack me a couple more times before I truly get it.

Some random cuteness

Just realized today that Flash has been calling it "sunscream" all summer.

JackJack saying, "I nunno," "I told ya," and "Come ON, Mommy!" in the most charming, happy-go-lucky voice.

Watching Mermaid Princess really, really read. We've blown through books with pictures and are now into early readers. And writing to the authors when we finish.

A friend gave JackJack a blue pawprint magnet. As any parent of a two year old will know, this means that JackJack is now an official Blues Clues executive producer. He has taken to carrying around a little notebook with a pencil all the time so he can draw his clues.

JackJack's colleague over at Blues Clues HQ.

August 6?? What the...

Wow, three weeks since the last post. Astute friends (ahem, Katie A.) always email me when I haven't posted for a while because it usually means something's up.

And indeed, so it has been.

It's no wonder Jesus only gathered 12 people around him; if you're going to give your friends your heart, twelve is about all it's possible to keep up with. And Jesus, of course, was perfect, so I'm giving myself, maybe, 8. Maybe not even.

Major surgeries, major diagnoses, major decisions, major moves, major turmoil. And all of it affecting kids.

I have fallen on the sofa each night after getting my own little guys to bed, thinking, "I really need to blog." But I just didn't know where the words were going to come from. Or the energy. (Or the photos, since I left my camera out in the rain.)

I think I'm back in the saddle now. I've almost emptied my email inbox. The house is getting reassembled. The yard is looking decent. I'm getting to bed at a good time (usually) and actually sleeping. And the camera miraculously healed itself (crazy, huh?). AND it kept all my old photos, so I can catch you up-to-date with the kids' antics.

For those who checked in - thank you. For those who have need the checking in on, I'll be calling tomorrow.