Coming out of the fog

It's been a while since I've written; too long really.
I'll take a few moments to update you on what is going on with us:

We welcomed our bundle of joy on May 10th. Rachel Eleanor. This means the girls officially out number the boys again. She is now almost 6 months old, and doing something new every day.  She seems fairly easy-going, save for the moments when she wants mom and no one else. ;) Current loves seem to be rolling over and the Jolly Jumper.

Michaela turned two in September, and everything you expect of a two-year old. She is busy, lively, and quite free-spirited. She has a fond dislike for socks, anything that brushes her hair back, and the floor. she is a climber by nature, and seems to push the limits daily on things that must be explored.

Sarah started JK this year and is really enthusiastic about it. She proves much easier in that department than the boys. Let us hope she does not lost her enthusiasm for learning any time soon,
She has turned into quite the chatterbox, and with a larger vocabulary now she is letting everyone know what she thinks.

John is still our resident artist; next to daddy of course. He can often be found with pencil crayons, or crayons or some type of crafty project. Inherently a hands-on individual, he prefers to be working on something; sometimes that means he is using a hammer and nails or screws in the drywall, simply because he wanted to 'fix' something. He is an expert on all things potty language, and takes every opportunity to display his proficiency. He is currently interested in being a zoo keeper when he grows up.

Josh is still as social as ever. He must take after me in that department, cause he doesn't get it from Mark. He's become quite the tech savy little monkey; in fact he is the one called whenever mommy can't figure out the electronics and he generally comes up and takes care of the issues right away.

Things are as active around here as they have always been; I hear that one day we'll miss this..... well, I know one thing I won't miss: not sleeping through the night. That is one thing I want to come back- a night of full sleep. Maybe then I'll feel like I've come out of the fog ;)

"I'm gonna burn my books!"

Wow, this is totally the kind of thing that you want to hear from a homeschooled child......lol

Before it sounds a little too disturbing, let me put it in a bit of perspective for you: John has spent his grade one year working on his books, and as all kids do, enjoying some subjects more than others.....

We knew that he was getting to the end of his grade one year, and we decided that we were going to set goals to finish all of the subjects by certain dates, to keep him motivated to complete his year.
The end of all of this would result in "THE WEEK OF WII" (Does that sound wonderful to anyone but a male child?),
Hopefully this affords me the time to do some long overdue mark recording, and issuing of report cards.

So we've spent the last week ending the subjects on the agreed upon dates, and we have come to today.... the date that the last subject, reading, is finished.
Not the child's favourite subject for the record. And being the child who looks most like me, you'd think he'd have inherited my love for reading...... no, not so much.
He's fine with listening to a story read out loud, but hand the boy a book and you've got a fight on your hands....

Being all boy- he appreciates movies, and Wii...... lots of Wii.

So, He finished reading today while I was occupied putting children down for naps,.... and while I am upstairs, I hear him yell "I'm gonna burn all my books!"
Well, of course I suspect what is going on, and make my way down the stairs just to make sure he's not serious, cause knowing this kid, he know EXACTLY where the gas stove is and HOW to turn it on. And I'm thinking after all the grief we got over this reading curriculum this year he might just do it.

Kind of hard to prove the kid did the work if it somehow goes up in smoke.

Now, sombody ought to get a laugh out of this, cause it's not likely to be me: I waddle my pregnant self down the stairs to observe my child doing a dance in the living room and chanting something about being done school for the year now; I ask him to see the book, and have to notify him that he has three more questions left........and that under no circumstances was he allowed to set fire to his books, cause I need to keep them......Ohhhhh...... that didn't go over too well......

So not to be outdone, the kid does the three questions and saunters over to the trash can and slam dunks the book in the can..... Only to be rescued by mom from the left-over chinese food red sauce recently left there .... and only barely so..... and yes.... the answers were quite in tact and ready for marking.

So, the week of Wii begins.....Congratulations Bee.

The Logic of a Three Year Old.

Okay, so I was taking a couple of minutes today to rest my aching back- via water, in the only private place in my house (relatively speaking, of course).... hopefully I haven't lost you now with any mental images, because I think it'll be worth following me on this one. At least momentarily.

And you would think that in such a place only the most important and urgent of interruptions would be fool enough to break the medium level quiet I was beginning to enjoy.

And so it was: There was an interruption. Something of such large importance that it simply could not wait until the end. Absolutely could not wait until I was satisfied. Certainly too important to for that.

My Three year old bursts into the bathroom. She is holding a long silver string of miniature tree garland, and she has the message of the century for me:

I'm gonna Kill it! The monster in my room; I'm gonna kill it with a necklace...... Cause I'm SUPER PIPPY!
.......oh...... I made a fart.  (looking behind her in minor embarassment)

Now, this was news indeed. Because she has been telling me about monsters in her room for quite some time..... perhaps somewhere in her mind she had been ruminating on the exact solution to her very big problem. But clearly, she had seen the answer, and everyone must know...... or at least the person for whom it was least convenient at the time.

She was so proud of herself, and very confident in the fact that she was Super Pippy! and that  the salvation had been found. I wonder sometimes if we shouldn't be more like a three year old.....

For the record, not the part about bursting in on private moments, but the part about having belief.
She saw the solution and was ready to throw herself headlong into it all.

I wonder if we have enough belief in God that when a solution is provided to the demons that we face,  we are able to fully give ourselves to it.

I know that I find that there are problems that I come up against that seem too big, and sometimes they scare me, just like her monster was front and center for her. I'd like to believe that God has made me all that I need to be in order to handle those situaitons. Sometimes, though, like in the Bible with the Man that said "Lord I believe; Help my unbelief!"
 I have to ackowledge that I'd be better off to have the faith of a three year old, ......but  hopefully not the flatulence.