Blessings

We've had a week mildly full of sneezing and snot and coughing. Ishy, but not horrid. The "not horrid" part is one of the blessings I encountered this week.  I'm not really used to feeling so blessed in the midst of an illness moving through the whole family, and, honestly, I did not feel very blessed on Tuesday night when sitting in the recliner with a garbage can, tasting blood when I coughed and sure I was going to puke. Thankfully, though, that, so far, was the worst of the effects for the lot of us. Mighty and Miss Mouse are both almost over their snottiness, and I only have a slight cough left.

The biggest blessing this week, though, started with this conversation on Monday night:
Miss Mouse: "I don't feel very well."
Sunny: "I hope I don't get it. I want to be able to take care of you."

Tuesday morning activity began around 7:21 when I saw the light go on in the girls' room. With only one eye open, I noted that they were quiet and dozed back to sleep since I'd been up most of the night with the uncomfortable Mighty Mouse. Well, around 8:05, the girls came hopping into our room, both dressed, and both ready for breakfast. If you know our household well, you know I often have to wrestle (figuratively, anyway) Miss Mouse out of bed and into clothes around 8 a.m. There she was, though, sick and all, dressed and ready for the day!  Dragging my sorry self into the kitchen, I saw Sunny grabbing an apple out of the refrigerator for Miss Mouse's breakfast. I'm not so pathetic as to make a four year old cut up an apple, so I did slice it and split it between the two girls, giving them reheated apple, raisin, vanilla, cinnamon, maple steel-cut oats, as well.  The night before's conversation concluded that morning with this:

Sunny: "I got her dressed this morning. She's kind of like a really big doll, except dolls are harder to dress."
Miss Mouse: "Yes, she got me dressed, so I didn't have to do any work at all!"
Sunny: "Yep. Then I played a game for her (Miss Mouse watched Sunny put together a shape game....apparently Sunny is a full-service caretaker!), and then I read her three books."
Miss Mouse: "Then I pointed to my mouth to do sign language that I was hungry. She understood me, so that's when we came and got you to come into the kitchen."

Yep, so Miss Mouse was even exempt from having to talk. I can't remember the last time I've dressed her or figured out that she was hungry based on the signs she was making, but I'm pretty sure she was around Mighty's age!  It just tickled me to no end how sweet Sunny was to her sickish elder sister. I've been praying that God would perhaps reward Sunny's sweetness by exempting her from our colds, since she often ends up having to do a nebulizer treatment or two, but tonight it seems that Sunny has succumbed to the yuckyness, too.  She was mainly concerned that she make it to dance this week and have the chance to take care of her big sister, so perhaps having done that will help her be content enough to just rest and fight off the bug as quickly as the rest of us have.

It's rewarding - and it's honestly a blessing - to see how kind and caring these children are toward each other. They squabble; they argue; they whine at each other. But at the end of the day, they are best friends.

Summer Fun

We had a wonderful Summer 2013. It was a dream summer, honestly. Mike had an 8-week sabbatical plus 2 weeks of vacation on the end, and the first week, I nearly cried every night because I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that he would be home for dinner that night. And the next night. And the next. And the next. And the next. Really, it brought tears to my eyes - tears of excitement and relief and just complete happiness. It was A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

Now, I know of other pastors and their families who have trekked across Europe, toured the Holy Land, or done something else fairly spectacular and impressive while on sabbatical. That was not the position we are in at this point. Mike built a shed. It's a really, really nice shed, though. It's really more like a "second home" in the backyard. We even talked about perhaps housing guests in it someday (not really, please don't be scared to visit us!). We do truly want to build a loft in it for the kids to have as a playhouse, though. That, however, is a "someday project" right now. The shed was enough for one summer. It was an intense building project, but it was great, too, in that Mike's Dad was able to come help for somewhere around two weeks of the building. It was so fun having him around! Then, our neighbor over-the-fence offered to shingle the thing for us! It's extremely tall with a very steep roof grade, so that was a blessing in so many ways! Anyway, as non-spectacular as it sounds to have spent his sabbatical building a shed (after a really neat bear hunt in Manitoba that yielded not even one bear-siting....), it definitely impressed the ladies (and young man) in Mike's life!

We sort of wrapped up our summer with a trip to SD. We had spent a weekend in the Twin Cities with Mike's family in June, at a wedding and visiting the MN Zoo, which we adore, and at the end of July, my parents joined us for a couple days in the Black Hills.  Here we are at Mount Rushmore. Trust me. My lens just isn't wide enough to get the faces in if we were going to get our faces in. Notice I even color-coordinated us? Well, not Mike. That was just on accident. I know. I know. Color-coordinating for pictures is out-of-style. I couldn't help it. I think the kids had a lot better time than it looks like they are having right here. Mike and I? I think our happy looks pretty much reflect the way we felt all week just being able to play together as a family.

Doesn't Sunny look proud riding a unicorn at Storybook Island? The girls (and even Mighty Mouse) loved Storybook Island. We went twice, though the second time was cut short by a rain shower and a dirty diaper. I offered to wrap Mighty's little bottom in a plastic bag that I got when I bought him a souvenir hat at the gift shop, but Mike decided it was best to make it to a gas station where he could get an actual replacement diaper. What kind of mother leaves their rental-vacation house (it was $30/night cheaper than any hotel would have been and we had an entire HOUSE to ourselves!!!) without a clean diaper? Ugh. Oh well.  We had a blast there.

My Mom and I have a picture like this from about 30 years ago.

Sunny finally got her chance to hold a peep. This was at Old MacDonald's Farm. We went back their twice, as well. 

Mighty Mouse has a hilarious "thinking face", in my opinion. Here he had just come out from hiking into a mountain to see a waterfall called Thunderhead Falls. It was just a little out-of-the-way hike that we stumbled upon while driving around for Mighty to take a nap one afternoon (after spending the morning in Rapid at The Farm - see above). It was so fun, though, and so very family-friendly. Despite his face, even Mighty Mouse seemed to have enjoyed himself. Sunny skipped and hopped the entire way back into the mountain. Only Miss Mouse, usually our bravest child, wanted to leave the falls quickly. She said it was just really loud, which is was. 

I'm not sure what this face signifies, but it cracks me up, too.

Those I love most in this world. They're on a hike around Horsethief Lake on our way home from having pizza in Keystone one evening. I've cropped this photo so you can see their faces, but really they were high above me on a cliff outcropping. I was so proud of Sunny for being brave enough to trek up there!

It's SuperBaby!

We have so many fun pictures from this trip. I can't wait to make a book of them. Sunny says she still misses "our" house in SD. Miss Mouse has made peace with having left, but she says she really, REALLY wants to go back again. It sort of blew me away that we were able to do a trip like this with a 10-month old baby, but I really think having the house made all the difference. We also didn't do nearly everything on my list that I'd made of potential activities, and that was really just totally fine. We really got to know the places we did go, took our time, relaxed, and didn't run ourselves ragged (until the trip home which was a completely different story and nearly landed me in an asylum, I think.....). I should have gotten more pictures on the days that my parents were with us, but, hey, they TOOK the family photo of us at the top. So that's kind of like them being IN it, right? Right, Grammy and Grandpa Bob? Um. Yeah, sorry. I think I was enjoying our time too much to do much photographing. It's all in my mind, neatly tucked away to unpack sometime in January when we've been inside for 42 days straight.

What a great summer this was!

About Us

We have a really sweet mail lady. She's been our most consistent delivery person in the entire six years we've lived here; we've seen her face the longest of any at our mailbox. She waves to us, sometimes visits a very little, just is always pleasant and friendly. She'll definitely be getting some Christmas treats this year.

The other day, however, I had the almost-overwhelming urge to chase her down the street screaming, "Stop! Wait! Come back! Let me go through what I just mailed!".  That was the day we mailed in our "letter of intent" to the school district letting them know that Miss Mouse will be schooling at home for first grade. Last year we didn't have to do anything official because kindergarten is not required. This year, though, we needed to send in lots of official info - immunization records, birth certificate, copies of my degrees, and my signature (as "parent overseeing homeschool activities") on the letter of intent. 

The past six weeks I've been finalizing curriculums, ordering them, looking eagerly for the UPS, FedEx, or USPS (our aforementioned friendly mail lady), but this packet of papers?  This one was scary. I like to imagine, though, that most parents, when making important decisions about their children's lives, feel some degree of anxiety. Honestly, I slept fine that Saturday night after the packet was sent - it was beforehand that I was losing sleep wondering if someone would randomly show up at our door one day to round up our truant daughter! So, I think (think) the momentary panic I felt, that urge to chase down our mail lady, has passed in favor of excitement about our coming academic year. Again, that's probably the process most parents go through - trepidation at sending their little ones off to school for hours a day, followed by excitement for those same little ones at how much they will learn and how much fun they will have. Though our schooling choice might make us seem really "different", at least to some, I'm going to guess we aren't really much different than most families.

What is different, though, as I mentioned earlier and totally acknowledge, is our choice of educational option. Everyone, every family, chooses a way to educate their children. Now, it might have not ever crossed someone's mind to do anything but send his or her child to the public school down the street, but that is still a choice. My parents, for example, had no private school options, and homeschooling, at the time I was in grade school, was just becoming legal in our state. Still, they could have sent me to a boarding school in Fargo; that was still a choice back then. They didn't. Obviously. They wouldn't have. But they chose to live on our family farm (which was great), chose to be farmers (which pretty much rules out private. boarding school - or did in the 1980s anyway! As if they'd have been able to part with me!! Teeheehee!), and, hence, chose to send me off on the bus in first grade at 7:15 a.m. knowing I would return home at about 4:30 p.m., first on, last off.  No wonder my poor mother developed shingles my first week of kindergarten! But I digress. What I am trying to say is that almost all families in our country are able to make some sort of decision on where their child will attend school. Our neighbors choose to send their daughter to a different elementary school district than we are in. It makes more work for the mama as she has to transport her daughter farther to school, but it's important to their family that their children go to the same school their father went to as a child. I'm glad they've found it workable. Many people we know choose to send their children to one of the several private schools in town. Some of them have sent them directly, hoping that their children will have a fuller educational experience if faith is something directly discussed in the classroom by teachers who, parents hope, share their family's beliefs and devotion.  Some have tried the public schools and, for their own reasons, moved their children to a private school. We know of others who have gone the opposite direction, from private to public. A couple of my longest, most dear friends send their children to their nearby public schools; one has had mixed results, good and bad, and one has had an overwhelmingly positive experience (their children are in different towns completely).  What I think is great is that all of these parents are making intentional decisions regarding their children's education.  That's what I love, I guess - being part of a community of friends who are all making the best choices they can for their children.

Soon after sending in our paper work, and after having experienced some of the first (perhaps of many) negative reactions from others finding out about our homeschooling (it hasn't been bad so far - just mostly blank stares or a few snippy comments, but nothing horrendous by any means - I'm just a people-pleaser who is realizing that homeschooling definitely does NOT please some people), I went to dinner with one of my friends who happens to send her children to the public school across the street from their house. I'm so happy for them that they have had such a great experience with teachers, assistants, just everything, with their school system. It hasn't been an easy road, but they are totally raising children who are going to love to learn, regardless of what grade they end up achieving. That's our goal, too. What was so great about that night out, other than laughing so hard I snorted, is that my friend completely built up my confidence again about *our* schooling choice. It's pretty incredible to have multiple friends who make different educational choices but who can all support each other. I.n.c.r.e.d.i.b.l.e.  We women aren't known to be so very good at supporting others' choices when they are different from our own - just think of all the "hot topics" that women all have opinions on - so I wonder if God just blessed me with a really exceptional group of friends? I think so.

Now after saying all that, I'll try to focus on what I intended this post to be: a snippet of an explanation of how we came to our decision to homeschool - or what we see as the advantages to our choice. What I hope the above paragraphs will show, though, is that, though we see some awesome advantages for us in homeschooling, we don't see it as the one and only way to school children! We aren't going to judge others' educational choices! I'm pretty convinced, in fact, that none of us parents really know for sure how our decisions are going to turn out until we have a whole crop of adult children who can tell us where we really messed up and where we really shone out.  So, please, if you're going to read the following paragraphs with the idea in mind of how to contradict each benefit I list or reason I mention, then just don't read it. I'm not good with arguments or rejection. That's why this post has been such a long time coming and why I hesitate when anyone asks why we homeschool. My default answer is just that "it works really well for our family" because that is true and it shouldn't offend anyone. I come from a long line of professional teachers; they are amazingly hardworking people, teachers, and they are about the last group of professionals I'd ever want to hurt or insult. So, that said, if you wish to read on......

1. We're happy with the time we are able to spend together. The homeschooling idea took root when we realized that we were not ready to send Miss Mouse away at 3 or 4 for several hours a week to learn things I could mostly teach her at home. Socialization? She had her own built-in-socializer with a sister so close in age. Neither of them remember a time they weren't required to share, to speak kindly to each other, to wait their turns, to settle disagreements healthily. Do they always do those things? Well, no. But they usually do very well for their ages. The time Miss Mouse and Sunny have had to get to know their baby brother, too, has been precious. Miss Mouse would have already been in school most of the day by the time he was born. She knows him - KNOWS him - in ways she could not have if she'd been out the door at 8 and in the door at 2:50, in bed by 7. We are a unit. We grocery shop together; we play together; we learn together. I've had to find a new preschool curriculum (K4, she tells me is what she's in) for Sunny because Sunny went through the preschool curriculum with Miss Mouse two years ago and remembers most of it. I'm perhaps not describing what I mean by being a "unit" well enough, but the kids are learning to sacrifice and give and share and care for each other in ways they would not have to if they were separated into their own "age groups" for most of the day. It's not for everyone, but we love it.

2. We are flexible enough to accommodate the very hectic schedule of Pastor-Daddy and still have some family time and time for extracurricular activities. I honestly don't know how we could manage if we had Daddy working 65-75 hours a week, kids in school all day, and kids in even one extra activity each. As it is, we eat fewer than four family meals together many weeks in the "busy seasons".  Due to the obvious occupational hazard, we also don't have the "typical" weekends that many families look forward to. Homeschooling gives us the freedom for the kids to enjoy some hours with Mike on his day off (Friday) when they would otherwise be in school. I see schooling as their biggest "job" right now, so I would never okay them being taken out of school on Fridays to spend playtime with Daddy, but we can certainly work our own schedule around his freetime!

Miss Mouse needs a lot of sleep. If she needed to be at school by 8 or 8:15, we would see a 7 o'clock bedtime for sure just for her to attempt to remain healthy. That would give her very little time to engage in much other than getting home, unwinding, eating, and starting a bedtime routine. Not every child needs that amount of sleep, so please keep in mind I am not giving directions here, just stating why I LOVE our life. Anyway, if she focuses on her schoolwork and projects and gets her responsibilities done, she has hours and hours free for things like: playing with Sunny, teaching Mighty Mouse new "tricks", helping me cook, learning to crochet (what better thing to do on a 96 degree day than make the world's longest chain??? That was an hour of her afternoon today), playing the mandolin (she plays a mean "Ol' Dan Tucker"....and I mean MEAN!), practicing piano, playing outside, practicing her photography skills (she has her Auntie Stephi's old digital camera) - the list could go on and on. Yesterday afternoon Sunny sat down at the piano, Miss Mouse brought up the mandolin, and Mighty Mouse somehow procured a recorder for himself, and they all "jammed". It was hilarious, and I tried as hard as I could to imprint it on my brain so that it never leaves. It also excited me as I saw them, in my mind's eye, twelve years down the road, jamming for real together, loving each other's company, building each other up, just being able to still breathe and enjoy life.

3. We are able to be s.l.o.w. and yet still accomplish amazing amounts of "work". This ties into the above paragraphs a bit. Life is so hectic these days. Can you tell I'm an introvert? Really, though, even extroverts get burned out of running from here to there, I'm sure. The amount of "study" that Miss Mouse has been able to do in preschool, kindergarten, and now starting first grade, is astounding compared to the amount of time we put in. Yes, we are required to put in a certain amount of time (4 hrs/day, 175 days/yr), but what we can DO in that amount of time is what is so fun and exciting. I suppose it's partly similar to teachers who see a difference in classes of 28 compared to classes of 14. It's easier to get more done in the same amount of time with a lower teacher-to-student ratio. The ratio at the school our kids would go to is quite good, I'm told - probably right now the best in our city - but ours is still lower. Teehee.

It's not important to me that the children are "ahead" of their grade levels or that they are academic "super stars". It's important that they are learning to LOVE to LEARN. I was such a people-pleaser, still am, that I focused almost solely on the grade I got on each assignment/paper/test. I was an excellent test-taker, and that skill served me well, earned me a free ride to college which was great since my family was not in a position to pay for higher education. Unfortunately, I sacrificed "love of learning" for "love of test-taking". I didn't want to LEARN; I wanted to get a great grade on the test. Shouldn't that mean the same thing? Nope. Not necessarily. Mike, on the other hand, could not have cared a whole lot less about getting assignments even DONE, let alone getting a great grade on one. He was no slouch; he got decent grades, but in no way did he actually live up to showing off the potential that he had in his mind. Interestingly, though, he loved to learn far more than I did. He just didn't care to show off what he'd learned. My hope, our hope, is to combine our two personalities and turn out children who will have lifelong love affairs with learning - new information, new cultures, new foods, new books, new people, new histories, new languages. It would be totally awesome if they'd be great test-takers and earn their little heads free higher education, too, but above all our academic goals for our children is that they can THINK. No piece of paper anywhere can prove that a person can think. No test score.  With that nebulous goal in mind we approach a rigorous homeschool experience for our budding elementary student(s).

4.  Our children learn how to live in a household organically. It's quite possible that most other parents out there teach their children this while at the same time working fulltime and having their kiddos in public/private schools, but I'm not sure I would/could. The girls are required to help around the house - quite a bit; Mighty Mouse will be, too, someday. When they complain about something they don't want to do, they know full-well what household tasks I DON'T like to do (dishes, specifically), and it silences a lot of the complaining. If they aren't helping with a cleaning task, they are generally in charge of their brother (in his playpen or bedroom - he's safe!) so that I can get said task done quickly. It goes back to that we function as a unit. They help; I help; we all work together, all day long. I think that used to be more common, but somehow life (culture?) has divided families more now so that those tasks just get done seemingly on their own. I see a benefit for the kids' future in knowing that nothing gets done on its own, knowing that they are an integral part of our family, that they have responsibilities to our family unit. If we were a farm family, the girls would definitely have bottle lambs by now, but, alas, we are not. So, they clear their dishes and put away clean clothes instead. Bummer for them! :) Oh, well, they both have sticker charts, so they are earning "prizes" like candlelit breakfasts by their assisting with cheerful attitudes.

5.  This probably should have been higher, but faith is woven throughout our entire curriculum, our entire "school day", our entire life. There are no awkward moments of trying to explain in politically-correct terms the answer to an honest, childlike question.  No one, as of yet, has shown me any compelling reason to "bring back" the Ten Commandments into public schools or such things. I could care less if the public schools offered to take breaks for Jewish holidays or Muslim holidays if they served those populations. Totally doesn't bother me. What does bother me is the political-correctness of the "I'm-okay-you're-okay-we're-all-okay" humanistic gobbledygook.  One big stickler for some conservative Christian families in public schools in recent years has been the new bullying curricula that are being developed. Now, who wants to advocate FOR bullying? What kind of creeps, jerks, horrible people would be against an anti-bullying curriculum? Right? Hmm.  We are teaching our children that it is never okay to make fun of, hurt, insult, or ignore another person - for.any.reason.  We are teaching them that others are created in the image of God, just like they are, and that holds true, even if those others don't know it.  Because others are God's Creations just as well as we are, we are to show them love and grace in hopes that those we come into contact with will feel Christ's love through us in some small way. Now....put that into an anti-bullying curriculum. Right.  It would never, could never, fly, but it is perhaps the only true anti-bullying sentiment there is. It doesn't end there with one specific example; faith informs every aspect of our lives, our decision-making, how we approach failures, how we approach successes, how we approach defeat and disappointment, how we approach others, how we treat ourselves.....

Again, this isn't a time where I'm trying to say that parents who send their children to school cannot impart their faith to their children. What I'm saying is that we see it as a huge benefit to have so much TIME with them to live it. They will know how to confess because they experience it - from me - when I've messed up, yelled out of turn, snipped when I should have snuggled, heaved a sigh when I should have breathed a prayer. They will know how to pray because we do it every day, more than once. They will know their Bible because we have time to read it. Obviously, both Mike's and my parents imparted strong faiths to their children; it can certainly, totally be done. I do, however, think that life has been put on fast-forward since he and I were children, and that fast-forward has had a hard impact on faith formation.

We, in our opinion, are going to be sending these children out into a world that is increasingly hostile to our views on many issues - including the grace of the Gospel. Truly, "t'was grace that taught my heart to fear (because without a Law, there is no need for Grace!) and grace my fears relieved (thank God!)". Rather than sheltering them FROM the world and creating little, shallow, hollow trinkets that will shatter in the first sprinkle of rain, we hope to be building solid, deeply faithful, brave, daring, graceful individuals who will be able to cling to the promise of Christ's resurrection and to SHARE that promise wherever they go and in whatever God calls them to do. To build those characteristics, it doesn't seem necessary, to us, that they have to focus on what so-and-so is wearing, who is the new boyfriend/girlfriend of so-and-so in first grade, etc. We want them to be able to focus on their family system as the most important mirror in life - peers second, but family first - because we know that, fallen as we are, we are trying our best to model faithful, Godly lives. We also have the privilege of introducing other role models to them - swimming instructors (Miss Mouse loved almost all of hers), piano teachers (I will be bossy here - we have THE.BEST.EVER), Sunday School leaders, neighbors, babysitters, family friends, not to mention awesome extended family members that abound - we have a whole army of positive people surrounding these children, and I truly thank God for them.

--If you'd best interested in a better-written explanation of why homeschooling can work for a family, check out this blog post. (click on the highlighted words, and it should take you there..I think....).

I hope this made some sense; I hope you check out the other blog because she writes on some additional points that I couldn't seem to put into words; I hope this helps explain some of why we are continuing on in this homeschooling "experiment" past kindergarten. Thank you for reading and for being interested in our little family!!!!

Legos

Last winter, Sunny and I tried to join the parent-child preschool club that Miss Mouse and I had participated in when Miss Mouse was three-four. Well, Sunny got all dressed up in her "fanciest" clothes and held my hand so proudly as we headed to the children's museum.....and then we both ended up walking away with sagging shoulders. Three times we tried to join. Once, the doors were locked, and the "closed" sign was still in the window. When I called the museum later in the day, no one seemed to know why I would have thought the preschool club started before the museum opened (I pointed to the advertisement in our local public parks magazine for starters). We were supposedly lined up for the correct time the following week. Sadly, when we arrived, all dressed up and chipper and excited again....they had no one to teach the club and had, supposedly, no idea that we were coming. By that time, I was getting suspicious since we were seemingly the only ones who hadn't gotten the secret memo that the little club was no more! Still, we tried a third time, and, upon being told, yet again, that no one knew anything about why we were there, I explained that I'd called, tried to bring my little girl three times, and didn't know how else to sign up for the club. That day they let Sunny play around the museum for free as long as she wanted - before it was even technically open - and gave her a sucker on the way out. The poor guy manning the till felt horrible, and the woman doing the cleaning was nearly in tears. 

Anyway, Sunny has needed an outlet for being a "big girl". Desperately.

So, the other day, when I noticed there was a lego building contest at the fair, I jumped on the idea as a potential activity for Sunny. She is quite the builder, so I thought it might be right up her alley. I've tended to shy away from having the girls in "contests" too much because I want them to learn the love of creating, of working, of trying without tying it directly to a reward. I want them to love learning and working and playing and creating for the sheer joy of doing it, rather than just for the carrot on a stick at the end. So, I crossed the lego contest out of my mind for a few days. A few days too long since the registration was supposed to be done on July 8.

But.....I reconsidered this morning. And....I called the fair office to see about late registration. They told me that we could come and just see if they could squeeze Sunny in.

Sunny and I talked a lot about the possibility that we'd haul all her legos there and end up just having to come home if there was not space for her. She still wanted to do it, though. We talked about how she would have to answer the judges when they came and asked her questions about what she was building. She still wanted to do it. We talked about that she'd need to answer them loud enough for them to hear her and not in "baby talk" (which is her default, I'm-feeling-shy-and-so-I'll-be-silly voice). She still wanted to do it and solemnly told me, "I would never do that. I would answer nicely." 

The Most Convenient Baby in the World woke from his nap right when he needed to, ate when he needed to, and was popped into his carseat and then stroller right on schedule for us to make it to the contest. Miss Mouse had initially thought that she should probably do the lego contest, too, but it would have pretty much entirely thwarted my goal for Sunny feeling like the 'big kid of the moment' if they had both entered, and Biggest Sister had come out with a ribbon and Sunny none. So, I explained to Miss Mouse that since she had participated in t-ball yesterday, it was her little sister's turn to be able to be in an activity. The excitement that Miss Mouse had for her little sister was sweet enough to eat right up.

She's smiling here. Well, she's really trying anyway!

So it began.....

She's right in the front there. There is a little boy behind the large, red bin of legos, too. One older lady mistook Sunny and him for being twins. Poor little dude could have cared less to be there. The little guy on the far right is pretty serious, though.

Here she's trying to build from the top down. She tried several times, and it fell off several times. So, she readjusted her plan and built from the bottom up for the second "side" of the tower.

She had the choice to build whatever she wanted. She told me that she had not decided what to build before the contest and just decided during the contest.

Mighty Mouse was pleased with the youth exhibit.

See her concentration? She never cracked a grin. She says she had fun, but she was working seriously hard!

Look at the little guy next to her. Doesn't he look a bit envious of her tower? Cracks me up! Can you also see the cold-fish-face going on with Sunny? Yep, that was her face the entire time - 20 minutes - she worked. She had to sit there 30 minutes because that's the time they had, but I told her whenever she was done, she could just sit and watch the other kids.

I think this did look like a bit of a real smile here. She had finished the tower, though she realized later that she had forgotten to put the top on (that's the red thing in her hand in this picture). I felt kind of bad for awhile that we had shown up with our regular legos while the boy in her same age range down the table had the fancy build-a-car legos. I like the kids to start out with the plain ones because it forces them to think of what to build with their own little minds rather than to follow instructions (though that certainly has its place, too!), but sometimes I feel like maybe I'm a real little "country mouse" in the midst of a whole bunch of smarter "city mice"; maybe I'm behind the times and backwards; maybe I'm scarring our children! I guess our toys are working just fine, though, because little-car-boy down the table took third, and Sunny.......

WON FIRST PLACE!!!!

She got a blue ribbon (when her name was called, I took her hand and ran her up to the judges to collect her ribbon; she was confused and asked, "Where are we going? Why are we running?"..."Because you WON, honey!!!!"....."Oh! Yay!"), a bag of candy (you can see the tootsie roll blocking out her front teeth, yes?), and a gift card to Toys-R-Us!

Most importantly, she participated in a 'big kid' contest; she answered the judges in a 'big kid voice'; she did something she is naturally good at; she was rewarded for it; and she is proud of herself.

PK's

A while back, my sister posted a beautiful writing about growing up on a farm as farmer's (and farmer's wife's) daughters. It was great - the writing and the doing so, both.

Mike and I, however, are raising pastor's kids. Well, pastor's and pastor's wife's kids. Just like I have fond memories of my childhood that have a lot to do with my Dad's occupation, I hope that our children will have fond memories of their childhoods, and I hope that those memories are, in part, attached to their Dad's occupation.

Here is one of our latest conversations:

Tonight at bedtime I sang Sunny "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam", but after her song, while we were still waiting for Miss Mouse to join us, I pointed out that the reason we are sunbeams for Jesus is not to make Him love us more but to point others toward Him. She seemed to understand pretty well, and then I moved onto doing songs for her sister. Well, partway through Miss Mouse's first song, which happened, by Miss Mouse's choice, to be Sunny's "I love you" song (they both have one, but we're working on Mighty's yet), Sunny leaned down and said, 

  "So, some of the people we want to show sunbeams to are those people who invite us to go to that thing that we say we'll try to make it to but won't go to because it's not about Jesus, right?" Um, huh?! Thankfully, I recovered pretty quickly and agreed with her that, yes, we should be kind and nice to the Jehovah Witnesses. This spiraled quickly into an all-out plan to evangelize the next, unsuspecting Jehovah Witnesses to show up at our door. Miss Mouse pointed out they always come in twos. Sunny asked how we could know they are coming so that we could give them cookies (I had said we should be nice to them and not rude and that we could even offer them a cookie....Sunny ran with that one). Sunny also pointed out that they perhaps wouldn't know we aren't at their meeting since they "might just think we are way in the back where they can't see us".  So, that developed into me confessing to them that we are sort of lying if we say we'll try to go because we won't go and won't try to go. That's when the girls decided we really should tell them that we aren't going to go because we know Jesus loves us, and we have faith in Him and want them to, as well. Oh dear. Mike visited with a young man who came to our door one time for 45 minutes. Apparently his daughters learned well (though one of them wasn't even born yet at that time!). The best part about the whole thing was Sunny's theology. They were chattering about whether the Jehovah Witnesses know Jesus or don't know Him, and Sunny said, "I think they KNOW Him, but they just don't BELIEVE in Him." I gave her a high five. Miss Mouse, of course, has been in Sunday School where they use cool words like "BFF", so I knew she was trying to configure something in her head about them not knowing that Jesus wants to be their BFF.  It was a pretty great statement to hear from a four-year-old, though.

They seem to have gotten over their obsession with Satan coming after them. That was last summer and was sort of upsetting. We did a lot of talking, though, and they really just seemed to want reassurance that Jesus is stronger than Satan. We did a lot of reading last summer. Pregnant over the hottest summer in many years equated with lots.of.reading.time.  After countless times through their children's Bible, they decided that King Herod must be in Hell (yes, we talked about our not being able to decide those things, but they decided anyway), and that King Herod must love Satan even though Satan doesn't love anyone but himself. They decided King Herod must be Satan's wife. Yeah. That was last summer.  On to the evangelism of the Jehovah Witnesses (I guess I won't tell the girls that I always hid from them when they stopped at the farm? I was a pretty worthless evangelical!)

On a non-religious topic, Sunny told her brother the other day, "If you were a dog, I think your name should be Cupcake."

Let Them Stay Little

There's a song out that brings tears to my eyes whenever I hear it and reminds me of the fleeting nature of these hectic, harried, crazy childhood days.  I thought of this one when I was going through pictures this spring, some from the Daddy/Daughter Dance - Sunny's first, terrified experience there - some from just regular playtime around the house.

"I can remember when you fit in the palm of my hand.

Felt so good in it, no bigger than a minute

How it amazes me,

You're changing with every blink

Faster than a flower blooms,

They grow up all too soon....

So let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, just let them be little

I've never felt so much in one little tender touch

I live for those kisses, prayers, and your wishes

Now that you're teaching me things only a child can see

Every night while we're on our knees, all I ask is please....

Let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, let them be little

So innocent, a precious soul, 

You turn around

It's time to let them go

So, let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, let them be little."

--I've seen this credited to both Billy Dean and Lonestar, so I'm assuming both recorded/performed this song. In my immersion into children's music, I've been away from the contemporary scene long enough to know I like the song but not who to credit with it!

He's a bit shocked at all the floofiness at the Daddy/Daughter Grand March.  Actually, he cheered for the ladies here, too, just like he did at their dance recital.

Mike introducing his terrified and oh-so-excited four year old. Miss Mouse has that exact same expression at her first Daddy/Daughter dance two years ago. Precious.

Miss Mouse reminded Mike all.day.long that she wanted to introduce herself. When it came down to it, we thought she might get too nervous, but she took the microphone and clearly stated her name and her age with such gusto that she got a spirited round of applause (everyone got applause, but hers was more spirited with quite a few chuckles interspersed). What a difference two years has made!!!

They played "marriage". I was the pastor. Mighty Mouse was the congregation and the ring bearer. Miss Mouse is wearing one of Mike's old bowties and also has her second-prize-cooking-contest ribbon attached to her sweater as a boutinier (no idea how to spell that and too tired to look it up). She's wearing a Mr. Bubble shirt on backwards to double as her tuxedo shirt and a pair of Hello Kitty pajama pants on inside out for suit pants. Sunny goes with much explanation since she is the bride in the fancy dress. Mmmmm....I don't know exactly how to explain how much I love breathing in this beautiful "littleness".

  

Because it just terrifies me that suddenly we'll have blinked, and these little girls will be posing for wedding photographs.....

Not looking all that different than Sunny does here...

With big goofy smiles like their mommy's on her wedding day....

Thankfully, for now, the background is still our lowly screen door and our ever-faithful neighbors' blue house.

Incidentally, I've been working on a post, mulling it around in my head, to more openly explain why we homeschooled Miss Mouse for her kindergarten year and why we are going to continue on next year. It's going to come down to probably just listing all the benefits we have seen of this educational method for our own family, but this is definitely one of them. It's been such a privilege to be able to witness these kiddos grow in love and patience and understanding and care of and for each other over this past year. Not having to give up six hours of Miss Mouse's time with her family has been a huge benefit for our family in that endeavour - and for her, too, we believe. We deal, of course, with rivalry and jealousy and nastiness that comes apparently with certain ages of human beings, but it's been a blessing for us to just let her "be little" for a little while longer. She can read well; she understands some pretty advanced math concepts for her age; she placed in a writing and illustrating contest (more on that in another post sometime, too), but she also spends the afternoons in activities like planning a wedding for her and her sister. She deals as a six-year-old can with adult issues like infant death, loss of a sister she never met, serious illnesses in people she dearly loves....not "little" things by any means. We've talked about cigarette smoking and alcohol use simply because it's come up in conversations about other kids' parents' choices or television commercials....not "little" things, either. Yet, some of the harder things of older childhood haven't hit her close quite yet - bullying, cliques, etc. She's still "little", and that's so nice.

Strawberries

We've been clearing out our strawberry patch. The poor berry plants are nearly strangled by grass invading their cozy, little bed. I've been digging the near-sod up and then gently separating the twisted grass roots from the remaining strawberry plants. It's fairly delicate surgery for some of the berries. Their roots are nearly rotten - brown, dried, dying - choked.  The grass has invaded and is trying to choke the life out of those roots.

It's my Grandma's birthday today. We called the nursing home where she lives and got ourselves transferred back to her special care unit. The nurse put her on the portable phone that gets shared when residents get phone calls. The girls got the cue and sang their little hearts out. Grandma perked up a bit when I told her it was me and repeated my name with a hint of happy emotion in her voice. A hint. Emotion is one of those areas, I think, that has been attacked by disease. She asked where I was and just said nothing when I told her I was at home in town here. I could tell that it didn't make sense that I was somewhere other than my farm home. I'm a little girl again, the girl she remembers from so many years ago. Laura and I are "the little girls" and will probably remain that now. 

The strawberry roots reminded me of her mind, how the grass wrapped around those roots just like dementia has wrapped around her mind, her memories. It sounds sinister, and, in my mind, it is. I'm convinced that Satan loves it. He laughs at our tears, smiles with glee at her confusion and struggles. Not because of anything my Grandma did or did not do - no sin of hers - but just our fallen humanity. I think about my Grandma's life; it has not been easy. From watching an infant sister die, to losing a younger brother years later, beginning marriage in a grainery, and then losing the home she and Grandpa thought they had finally built to retire in to a failure of a governmental project, very little of her life was easy. I'm humbled to know Laura and I have been bright spots in there. All of her children have been - caring for others, though not always perfectly, I suppose, has been her life.

Each year these weeks are solemn ones for me, in my mind anyway.  In the weeks between Mothers' Day weekend and the anniversary of Hope's birth and death, I'm struck this year by all the problems I cannot fix. Sometimes the sadness of it is overwhelming; I sit rocking my sleeping, teething son, wondering, wondering, wondering about all that I cannot fix.

Alzheimers. Dementia. Cancer. Veins in a baby's heart. Parkinson's. 

So much that none of us can completely, really, totally fix.

And so, and Mike reminds me, we cling to the One who has fixed it all.  Who, regardless of the outcomes down here of diseases and disasters, has fixed us a place free of all of this - f.o.r.e.v.e.r.  The One who, as Satan salivates over our pain, walks with us through all of it, holding our hands, holding us up, walking straight through death with us as the best friend we could ever imagine. The One who gently untangles all those choking, nasty grass roots from around our tender, bruised selves, dusts us off, and replants us where we really belong, in the spot He's been preparing for us from the beginning.