In just 3 hours I managed to do this with the middle children(9 and 10) and the younger children (age 4 and 6)

• Morning Devotions
• Pledge of Allegiance

• Baltimore Catechism chapter 9: Holy Spirit (they seem to have it all down pat..will quiz tomorrow for snacks

Sing Come Holy Ghost and discuss what the words mean.

• Each child (except 4yo) read from American Cardinal Readers and discuss new words…also stressing speech skills projection and enunciation
• Character building/Virtues Training:

Mind Your Manners Dick and Jane (from Library)

Read the rest of chapt.1  Children and I take turns reading text and discuss. (it is a rather “light” book but it is a good conversation starter.  We laugh over the fact that Dick and Jane now have a computer…)

• Geography: Yo Sacramento!

Go over Midwest states and quiz all info memorized up to this point (mental note to play a “mother may I” type game with the facts memorized up to this point tomorrow)

• Middle aged Math (for 9 and 10yo):

Review times tables up to and including 5…quiz for speed and acuracy

• for6yo: Standard Bible Story Reader

Read “In the Temple“

while 4yo colors St. Scholastica stained glass coloring from yesterday’s saint story.

• for 6yo: Language of God for Little Folks

Do 2 pages Titles of Respect and Period and Telling Sentences

Laugh over the definition he gives for Mrs. :

“a martyred woman” (supposed to be “married woman”) [LOL]

• 4yo works in phonics workbook for short e and short i

spells words, reads Little Angel Reader “A Cab”, letter practice

• 6,9,10yo Copywork:

Poem: “Little Jesus” by Francis Thompson (worked on better handwriting at the same time)

• 6yo finishes pop-up book of Jacob’s Ladder (started yesterday) and narrates the story to me while I record it on his little booklet…immediately placed in page protector in his binder
• Science:

Read What is a Lifecycle? by Bobbie Kalman

• Computer time: to drill math facts, play Carmen Sandiago, and watch EWTN kids shows 4-5pm

For tomorrow:

put out Montessori cards for Punctuation Stories

print out graphics to be used in lifecycle books to be placed in binder until other parts can be assembled in a lapbook

Notes:

We do pages for a lapbook or scrapbook every other day in one subject or another.

Right now we have a scrapbook going for Religion studies (parts of the Mass, items used at Mass, and  Discovering the inside of the church are pages we are working on right now).   I am marrying this into some COGS work in those areas. ….s l o w l y…we are still trying to get work consistent here and we don’t want to burn out.

In addition, we are working on some lapbook pages for Science exploration on several topics.  These hands-on works really seem to cement new topics and help us to retain more of what we read.

I have been alternating math days with the younger two (4 and 6) so we can really “play” at math for an extended period of time.  I also alternate history and science days with the younger 4 so we can focus on it more…it works for us!

meanwhile…the older 3 were working on independent studies…math, bible study, copyywork/poetry study and more…

Dinner is veggie barley soup with fresh herbs and is bubbling away on the stove…time to hit night speed-clean up and prepare for tomorrow followed by a long refreshing 5 mi walk with good friends after the younger ones have been tucked in….I will be the slightly harried mother nursing in that blue chair while I direct traffic around me. ..I can’t believe that:

1. This is MY job!
2. I am old enough to be a grown-up.
3. I am actually accomplishing amazing things…(it doesn’t  always seem so whenever I start out, however…talk about FAITH!)
4. I actually have a job I don’t mind getting up in the morning to do.
5. I am still vertical without caffiene.

I have been off the computer for a few weeks due to a messy hard drive crash.

I did use my time wisely, though.  My laundry is looking better (I reduced the pile by HALF!) and I have been re-organizing our learning spaces.  I need more time though…  (I won’t even deny that I wonder how I was able to get so much done…it WASN’T the lack of computer….really.)

It is odd to find funny things in your life and not actually blog them.  (I get through some general ick by thinking: “and how could I blog THIS” and it takes the heat off…LOL)  But, I did write  funny things on a piece of paper…You know, the ‘old fashioned’ way?  Now to FIND them… like this:

One night while finishing up a meal of yummy BBQ chicken, sunshine boy (6) was told by his Daddy:  “Go, wash up!”

Sunshine boy was heard scrubbing and bubbling in the bathroom for quite some time…and emerged later holding his hands flat (palms upward) in front of him..”Dad?  I tried and TRIED and I just CAN’T get these LINES off! ( he was rubbing his fingertips really hard and showing them to his dad.

Dad: “Those are your FINGERPRINTS and they aren’t meant to wash off!“

Sunshine Boy: (Grinning from ear-to-ear)  “Oh Yeah!” and he happily skipped off to play.

The library and I are on better terms.  I am learning to use inter-library loan better and I really wish that the books they found worthy to be on their shelves were of better quality.  I did find however, that if I get out a book I should check back there the next day because it would often be placed out for SALE…sigh!

Well…off to do… more and more of …whatever it is I do…

(I do so much these days, I have no clue what it is called.  The work goes around the labeling part of my brain…to protect me, perhaps ;o) LOL!…my hands and feet just keep on moving and my lips and heart keep on praying!)

….for almost 2! years I have been walking.  Not just a little stroll in the park, mind you.  I have been WALKING in the rain, in the snow, in the cold wind, after a good day, after days that hit so hard that I could barely breathe, while I was pregnant, and while I was greeen with morning sickness, and with muscle aches and pains, and when I was in LABOR! I have been walking for 1.5 years…every night…5 miles a night after the kiddoes are in bed and with a sitter.

The police around town know us…

The people that I see in the supermarket point and say “hey!  its them! and boy is that baby getting big!”

Do I know these people?  Nope.

But I have prayed for them.  Round and round our town past their houses and cars …with a friend from Church and my dh.   We have been walking, and talking and praying and trying to make sense of our world, our vocations, our gifts, our unique calls, and whenever possible…to laugh…out loud! ….for a loooong time….YES! Even in LABOR! (although I am sure it made our friend a little uneasy as I thought the laughter would just evict that little man 2 miles in the middle of no where..and me gasping for breath as my stomach shook up and down and my eyes rained tears for the unexpected joy of friendship!   I tell you, that boy should have been named Issaic!

Today we tested our commitment a bit…

We followed the Letter Carrier’s creed.  We put that to the test.

Neither rain nor gloom of night kept us from our appointed rounds. AKA: “THE Walk”

The rain (I should clarify that, the word DELUGE comes close) was unabaiting, coming sideways…the wind pushed us off course (ok, so there was no wind)

The first thought I had was rather girly of me….“Oh no, my hair!” and “Thank God I didn’t wear a white shirt!” But, once I was in that shower for about 5 minutes and nary a bar of soap in sight,  I started wondering how hard God was laughing….pride be dammed, I decided.  I was going to ‘test the waters a bit’.  We walked on…we took that walk God was leading us on.  We didn’t want to stop.  We wanted to stay strong and finish strong.

…no hat, no raingear, no umbrella to block the view(not that I could keep my eyes open too much).  The puddles turned into rivers (and some nice swimming holes).  Something funny began to happen as the icy rivulets seeped through our soggy clothing and down our necks.  We lost our stress of the day…we lost many years and tried every forgotten yearning of our childhood.  “let’s check the depth of this puddle now…!!” We learned how to play again.

Can you imagine what people were saying??  Here it was 9 something at night…. “why are you doing that??!”

“Because we can!” (and because our kids weren’t with us.)

Truth be told, I had to imagine that I was my 10yo son to figure out what to do with those puddles.

I have to say our friend from church has been such a bad influence on us.  No matter what the stress, what weirdness this world has thrown at us during the last year and a half, his laughter has made it all so much more bearable.

We thought many a day “HOW can we do THIS?”

I think that the correct answer is what we told people in the rain…

“because we CAN!”

and

“This is COMMITTMENT, Baby!”

These beautiful pieces of art work are among my favorites by Morgan Weistling:  Walking With God and The Promise

Darn those kids!  They show you so many things about yourself that you have to work on.  I am so old…(ok I only feel old)…that I find I want to throw a temper tantrum like a three year old when it comes to too much change.  What is wrong with me? 

Growing pains.

The house is getting too small…What’s wrong?  Weeeelll….I need to seriously re-look at my surroundings and declutter.  (and include a novena for a larger home and try not to feel claustrophobic while we are all in the same room.

My little kids are now getting to be BIG kids…the little kid noise…down there, has become the NOISE up HERE and over my head!

I feel tired…what’s odd with that?  Well,  I am doing so much at once trying to “better myself”…

…that the inner me…again

…wants that darned tantrum.  It is begging for some GOOD chocolate now...

(woah…hope that isn’t addictive behavior there)

…and the inner me says..who cares?  I WANT IT NOW

….hmm inner-problem child??

I can’t tell you how much I have grown in the past year.  God has had His hand on my back propelling me through the last year saying “Good job (or read Job as in the Old Testament), but you need to be holier…faster…THEY need you to be…how about this wonderful method of sanctification….the refiners fire“

gulp…the “they” is my family.  We had so many changing needs this year…lots of unexpected medical bills, a new baby, new growth in body (13yo ds is now 5ft8 1/2″!!) mind and soul.   We have to make do with less money, although we are eating more (see last sentence), and the bills all around are so much larger??  I needed heroic virtue to do my job.  I would rather prefer just plain virtuous now and then, just for the break!  Heroic virtue takes so much out of you…eventually you grow into a new normal…but you FEEL like giving in or giving up juuust before the JOY hits (yes Job, you have learned this lesson before

I have learned SOOOO much.  I can’t tell you how creative I can be …even in the kitchen.  With a few onions, some garlic, cilantro, lime and ginger…..think cilantro pesto-type sauce…and herbs are my best-friends..they can add pizazz to any bean to make it sing for joy!  (I finally made my peace with beans after many fouled attempts, although dh claims that it wasn’t THAT awful…)

Dh is praying the rosary with us now… I can tell you one thing, the evil one that deserves no name, hates it.   he lets me know here an there that I am on the track where I need to be…LOL…those unprovoked attacks are a dead give-away….and it only took me some thirty some odd years to learn that trick.

I have good days and bad days.  Three gallons of tears today have passed and later I can tell you I feel a little better.  God is asking me to change so many things at once that sometimes the lack of “MY” control bothers me and I want to do something impulsive…like delete this blog…or paint the livingroom red(oh, only 1 wall over the fireplace…)..or scour clean the basement steps (to which the kids replied:

“Wow, I never saw her do that before!” …ouch!

(btw, the only impulsive thing I did was the stairs…not the other 2…)

…and  I am praying like mad, even though the words are dry as toast in my mouth and I can’t pay attention no matter how hard I try.  I figure that I couldn’t be doing anything better at the moment so praying done however badly is better than none…

…and I am praying through my work.  My work comes close to an escapist job but it isn’t…I am finding God there.  I have to make hard choices de-cluttering our learning spaces…it is a penance and a mortification that frees me…oddly enough.    I thank God for the gift of things even though I cannot afford to purchase the curricula that I really want to get this year.  I have to rely on the library even though I hate the looks they give me when I am there…we are just plain odd ( I mean why be so picky about a book about the life of a plant?  Umm…the book that you have is rather..boring and the one I am looking for isn’t?)… another mortification…arg  So it looks like I need to be HEROICALLY creative…even with our curricula!

…and I am smiling at the baby a lot!  He is so funny and sweet and innocent and he gives unconditional love…even while he is pinching my skin reaaaal hard trying to get my attention while I blog….

so I am off to do the right thing…cuddle my little man…and pray and work..and pray and work and find peace amongst the chaos of trying to put my heart and home in order.

what did I start off saying??  oh yeah…kids.  They show you the things about yourself that you have to work on. Ds(6) came up to me as I was upset today.  He wrapped his arms around me. “It’s ok mommy.  You are my best girl.  Now, do you want me to show you how to play?  I will teach you how to play with my cars. Don’t worry, Mom.  I will go slow!” The lesson I learned is this:  I can’t get so caught up in my own inner struggles and growth that I forget what is important…passing time with a child.  I think I learned more in my son’s arms today than I have in a long time.  Through the heart of a son, this foolish woman learned much today.

Laundry Organization…..Ok, a work in progress, but I am finding things are working better and I don’t think that it is because I am just surviving the passage of todlerhood. I started out with identical twins…followed 20 something months later by a boy…followed 3.4 years later by a living tornado…it was all downhill from there.

I have seen, I have learned, and I shall conquer the clothing monster!! I have learned that I am strong enough to DO. And the doing isn’t just acquiring a few well-placed bumps on the noggin. (Truth be told, it just hurts but doesn’t change anything) Remember creation is an ACTION. Follow the leader. God did it. I am sure He can help you do it too. Decide what is important and keep working the plan. This is what we came up with and we add to it all of the time. I am finally feeling like this is my home and not purgatory.

So, come on down to the dungeon laundry storage area and let me show you around…

We have stacked labeled bins. These plastic bins have lids!  They are labeled on all sides.  They are not handled by anyone without a permit or a note from a qualified parent!!  (stress is mine I assure you…)

The bins are labeled as follows:

• baby clothing (very little divided by boy/girl unless it is obvious) wrapping outfits around each other so the pieces stay in tact. accessories (like socks)in a bag in that box…(I have several cheapie new cloth bags I got for free that I use for this)

• toddler clothing

generally speaking one bin for the little ones bigger than toddler but under 8, and one for 10-14ish, and then adult sizes. each bin is labeled by type:

• dress clothes boy

• dress clothes girl

• Christmas sweaters

• sweaters

• t shirts and shorts

• pants

• long sleeved shirts

• winter coats
• lighter weight coats
• swim wear
  
• hats/gloves/scarves
• Mom
• Dad

I have a drawer next to my dryer that I place the clean winter accessories in during the winter and clean bathing suits in during the summer so the items stay in ONE location. Even though I wash clothing in a dungeon, they aren’t there long enough to get damp or musty smelling.

…so far so good and I have a 9mo up to 15yo teens and an almost 14yo ds who is now…gulp 5′8″ and built! (my baby!)
…ok…I digress…[LOL]

I try not to put things away that are too worn. A few worn things that still have a lot of mileage in them due to great fabric or something will go into the bin for play clothing, but that is about it.

I love shopping the thrift store and I am very picky about what comes home…I don’t want to bring home anything that won’t last or wear well….that would be more trouble than it is worth. On days I do shop there, I end up putting clothing that is not in season or still too big for someone in the bins RIGHT away…or it will be in the round-and-round laundry monster for endless days[:s] I have a bin at the bottom of my stairs that is labeled PUT AWAY. Even my 4yo knows where her outgrown pants go….in THAT bin and the teens put it away in the appropriate place…

I am learning to look at wear spots before I put them away too. I have been known to use a sharpie(my favorite tool!) on the tag in such garments to label them as play clothing so that I don’t see them wearing them to a gathering without me cking them out first (oi! with several children and hand-me downs, it would be easy for ANY of my kids to dismiss things like this as not important.. [LOL]) I even check the tips of winter dress gloves!
Sweats with holey knees are cut down into sleep shorts (my boys love this)

You know how to make this work?

Have a huge basement flood when you are hugely pregnant.

Then try to bribe…ahem…delegate an adult family member to bring alll of the soaked clothing to the laundromat
(because you didn’t get a chance to put a lid on your already over-flowing bins and the kids decided to dive through the piles and play dress-up in them for weeks before you catch on….) Make sure you make a great dinner for them when they are done complete with a good bottle of wine… ahem…

Then, examine all of your piles of neatly folded clothes! Put them in like piles and then go through with a give away bag for all of those things that you KNOW your kids will never want to wear…and put in the front seat of your van (and wherever it will fit)….say a prayer of thanksgiving for the hard work…“Dear God, thank you for blessing (name child here) with this item”….

Remember…laundry isn’t a curse.
God gave to you out of His abundance. And if the God of this abundance created order out of something as small as the universe, you can handle your little share of it…it make take time. You may have to cull the pile over time like peeling an onion…but you CAN do it! I did. and I got to tell you, 15 years ago, it would have been impossible for me too. Necessity does funny things to some people.

…make a firm purpose of amendment NEVER to let things get this out of hand (yet again[:s])

Then, BRIBE your teenage daughters to maintain the clothing bins spending one time a month putting the outgrown or out of season stuff away.
This bribe MAY look like ( but may not be limited to) time alone with mom or dad at the book store for a few hours about once a month…not a bad deal for ANY of us…(I could use some adult time too! [LOL] See? Win-Win situation??! (Delegation can work under the right circumstances….[;)]

Don’t get discouraged if it gets dumped. You made a system and it will be easier to put away the next time if anything happens because it has a PLACE TO GO!

Have a clothing swap-out day twice a year.   Make it festive…serve something easy for meals/snacks and get a family movie or play a family game that day!

Take out the bins ONE AT A TIME and go shopping…give them a list.  Give them a “shopping cart” aka a laundry basket or….whatever.  Make sure you bring the bins out in a clean room and when finished, ALL of the pieces get put away, and that means EVERY thing!

Each ’shopping basket” gets placed in a neat pile next to the washer and as soon as the items are washed, they get folded right into that basket and they get PUT AWAY right away!! It helps to have some kind of incentive for each child when they show you where everything is neatly away.

For those of you without teens…
I will come over and help.
REALLY!
(I always wished someone would do this for me… lend a non-judgemental hand …and I think I will spend my life after the littles grow up doing unto others as I LONGED for them to do unto me [LOL]

Some of my favorite workbooks can be so expensive to purchase 8 times (or more!) so I have found that an inexpensive option is making them re-usable by laminating them.

I am placing each dismantled sheet in a letter-sized laminating pouch and feeding it to my inexpensive duck laminator (that I purchased from Walmart) and storing them in my file cabinet in a large labeled folder for each dismantled workbook. I found it easy to keep like pages together by running a sharpie around the outside edge of the laminated card to tint it a bit. That way red cards go back with the red cards. When I get really good, I will color coordinate the folder to match the cards. I am just not THAT good…yet

I place a few of these double-sided laminated cards out on the school shelves (separated by subject) in a magazine holder for use and replace when needed. I am still deciding what kind of marker to use for this…right now it is a marker that I keep in a little holder attached to the magazine holder and a colorful rag to wipe it off with that is pinked from a beautiful piece of remnant fabric.

This does save me a ton of visual space on the school shelves, looks neat, and you can find what you need at a glance. …that, and if my soon to be highly mobile toddler knocks it off the shelf, it is somewhat durable and I don’t have that much to pick up!

I and several of my dc are very visual learners. I hit up the thrift store recently and found a collection of small photo books (the kind that looks like a bunch of page protectors in a stiff cover) (Move over Pottery Barn Kids…learning spaces I covet on a regular basis [:$] )

had the idea of placing timeline cards in these books and having the kids narrate everything they can remember about the person and approximate time period. The beauty of this is that I don’t have to commit any one image to any one child. We can view them in the books or pull them out for a moveable timeline or play games with them…etc…

I have been known to use timeline cards on a moveable timeline….
but, this is different…fresh…new….aaand there is chocolate involved as a bribe learning incentive!
I use the cards from Our Father’s House’s program The ABC’s of Christian Culture and RC History cards.
The heck with using these hand-held books for family albums! I can make a “Jesus’ family album” for Salvation History studies…..etc… and then! I thought about having my middle aged children write the text to put in these books on the opposing page….hmmm…. I am still fleshing this out a bit. These books are right with my history center on my history learning shelf.

I have so many ideas lately that my head hurts. (Although I really think the ache is from my pulled muscle under my shoulder blade from scrubbing that one wall in the kitchen….)

I am decluttering for school. Whenever this happens, I get a better sense of what I have and what I can do with what I already got. And right now I already got too many ideas and too little of me to go around.

I had a rough night with some mild PMI (insomnia) and a teething 9mo and just when I would go to sleep, he would think it was a great opportunity to get up. If I got 3 hrs total that would be a generous estimate…

I was supposed to lose my 2 bestest helpers to my mom first thing this morning as they wanted to help her re-organize her school stuff(she is a teacher) I begged one of them to stay so I could get some shut-eye.

I was finally able to hand him off to someone and then I heard a ..bang! A huge branch fell in front of our house into the road and did NOT hit any cars!! (rush hour) …the road was loaded with them..how did that happen?? The branch ripped all of the electric and phone lines out of the house though.

About a half hour later my 4yo accidentally scratched the cornea of my 13yo ds. and he wasn’t a very happy camper…it was a beauty!

After several hours I finally got my twin that was out of the house back (thanking God that one of them stayed home with me) I was able to borrow my mom’s cell phone and call the eye dr…could I come now?? sure. no shower, no sleep…sure I can drive.

When I got back the power came on but the phone was off. I ran out before they left and asked them when the phone company was coming. “Well lady, we are the power company. We don’t really communicate with anyone…”

I managed a cat nap and now I am out to the garden store to pick up plants for our church garden which I was supposed to plant (last month!) but due to rain and lack of funds due to some re-structuring at the parish, I just got the money…oh! and my name is on the “the person in charge of the garden is” list. (I don’t know how THAT happened…) “They” (the people who don’t help but are great at gossip) think ‘I’ am a slacker! LOL!!

So, my 13yo is sleeping and the kids are full of dirt and I am going to just transplant them to the garden down the street…dirt is dirt. and I am dirt tired!

How was your day?

Thank you so much Cara!

She is so cute!!