I am once again behind in my blogging for several reasons, but the biggest reason is that my heart and mind (not to mention free time) are being used elsewhere. This past year Ray and I have felt led towards something new in our lives, although we didn’t know what at the time. This past fall we began some serious discussions about job changes, or moves, or other directions we thought might be the pull that we were feeling. We spent some time coming up with our perfect plan for the next stage of our life, and began to act on it.

A week into that process, everything turned upside down. Completely accidentally, I came across a picture of a waiting child on Reece’s Rainbow, an international, special needs adoption site. Within days, Ray and I realized that everything we had planned was taking the back burner to adding one of these children to our lives.

This is Max and Lena, two year old twins living in Eastern Europe. Come on over to our adoption blog, and share our journey as we bring them home.

We started the day with a special breakfast, and put up some bulletin boards for the kids’ room.

We took some Official First Day of School Pictures

Then we sat down for a family project, drawing a mural of all the things we did this past summer.

Most of what I have planned is much more hands on, but Ian really wants to feel like he is ‘doing school’, so we sat down and did some paperwork later on in the day. The brand new pencil sharpener was a big hit, and I predict we will have sharp pencils for quite awhile.

(Chava)

(Micah)

After five years of daily use (often by toddlers well over the recommended weight limit…) our bouncy seat has finally broken. It was the only piece of baby equipment that we picked out, when we knew we were expecting Ian. It’s been a favorite of our babies, and we’ve spent many nights bouncing them to sleep in it. It’s been dragged outside, used as a race car, and shared by multiple siblings at a time. It’s bounced dolls, stuffed animals, and teething children. It’s a little sad to see it go.

So as the weather is beautiful right now, and I know it will only get hotter; I made my goal to spend as much time outside as possible. Then I spent a week or so spending a bit of time outside… but wandering back inside more or less on autopilot, and promising myself that I would spend more time outside the next day.

Then, last Tuesday, Chava had a nasty fall, and broke her jaw. She is supposed to be taking it easy for six weeks. Now, my little girl has more energy than she knows how to do with. After just a couple of days of low activity, she was wanting to play like nothing was wrong. Six weeks of protecting her face feels like an impossible goal.

The accident that she had, the day spent in the ER with her, and my constant attempts to get her to slow down are bringing out all of the anxiety that I worked so hard to put aside. This year has been hard on me, and this accident feels like it is threatening the mental health that I fight hard to hold onto.

So, as of tomorrow, we have five weeks of restricted play left. I started this blog almost a year ago to remind myself to spent intentional time being, instead of worrying. I am going to use this time as Chava heals to post everyday about the time we’ve spent – to remind myself once again to slow down and really see each day, instead of spending five weeks (or longer) in fear. I am going to combine my goals, and focus on pictures of us living life outside – although I’m sure some indoor pictures will sneak in as well. And I am NOT going to obsess about doing this perfectly. If I miss a day of posting, I’ll just move on to the next. (So you all can poke me, if I look obsessive-like.)

My pictures for today – working on a project. Hopefully I’ll post more about these little shelves in the next couple of days.

I love talking to you, and hearing your discoveries and ponderings about life. You think deeply about everything, and you are always aware of what the people around you might need. I have loved being your mommy as you grew from a tiny baby into a little boy, and I am excited to see how you grow and change from here. I have never been the mommy of a five year old before… I am honored to get the chance with you.

A bit ago, my son asked me to come to play with him. I was thrilled to be invited, because my kids are usually so deep into their imaginary worlds that I am given a side role, if that.

Then I realized that he wanted me to play tea party.

He had the whole thing set up on the couch. I was still feeling honored that he invited me to play, so of course I didn’t tell him that I am not very good at tea parties. As it turned out, this tea party included something else I am really bad at – playing cars. I think it’s safe to say that I am even worse at playing cars, than playing tea parties. Never the less… I did my best.

It’s hard to see in this picture, but there is a little (headless) Lego man, roasting on a fire. The cars are all sitting around, waiting to be served. Ian allowed me to serve the top half, and he served the legs. After all of the cars had been given their servings, we put them to bed. Then we set out art supplies, for them to discover in the morning.

When I was a little girl, I really had no idea what being a parent would bring. I am amazed at the depth and beauty it brings to my life. I would never have dreamed that I would be so honored to be invited to play with my boy. Or that a tea party could include Lego-eating cars. Or that I would ever say, “Are you enjoying your roasted torso?”

This year with you has been wonderful. You live life with such curiousity, and find joy in every situation. Everything you do, you do with sweet intensity. I love you, and I am very proud of you.

Along with feeling sorry for myself, however, I spent some time feeling very thankful. On Friday, when I felt my worst, I couldn’t sleep for most of the night. In between whining to myself about how miserable I felt, I was constantly thankful that we co-sleep. I couldn’t imagine having to get out of bed, calm a fussy baby, get him back to sleep, and repeat throughout the night, when I was feeling that awful. I know that different sleeping arrangements work better for different families, but I personally love having my baby next to me.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about how very thankful I am to live here, with the luxuries that I have. I have a husband who does even more around here when I am sick. Some of my friends don’t have anyone to help them parent, let alone wash clothes and dishes.

And beyond that, all night long I thought about water, and how I take it for granted. (I was pretty dehydrated at this point…)

I can get clean, fresh water any time I need it. There are women and families all over the world that do not have that luxury. I kept thinking about women, or even children, who feel as bad as I felt, and still need to go draw water from a well, and carry it back. And the water that they have access to isn’t necessarily clean. According to Living Water International, some household in Africa spend up to 26% of their time getting water for their family. And 1.8 million children die every year because of unclean water.

That is 5,000 deaths a day. Today. Right Now.

I hadn’t intended for this to be a Thanksgiving post, but as I am writing the day before – and writing about my thankfulness – it is clearly turning into one. So here is what I am thankful for, this year.

My children are not dying of thirst. They are not dying of diseases from unsafe water. I can give my family clean water every day, without even thinking about it.

And although it is Thanksgiving time, I am not content to just voice my thankfulness. Tomorrow, when we eat Thanksgiving meal, everyone will go around and say what they are thankful for this year. I am not willing to sit in a chair, with more food than I can eat in front of me, and say out loud that I am thankful for my children’s health, and eat the rest of my food, and drive home, and feel content and justified that I have given proper thanks for my blessings, while other women’s babies are dying.

There are several organizations that provide wells for communities that need them, World Vision and Living Water International being two of them. While I do not think that kind of donation is the end of my thought process, it is certainly a place to begin.

When I am listening to the voice in my head that says, “if you let them get away with this, they will want to do it again…”, I lose my creativity. I lose my perspective. I lose my ability to keep my temper. As soon as I let my fear of “what if” override what is really happening in the here and now; I create a battle where there doesn’t have to be one.

My children are responsible for helping with our daily chore. In the beginning of this routine, I felt that I needed to draw a hard line in making them help. Because if I let them get away with slacking off once, surely they would want to do it again. And I was afraid of loosing control of that situation. More than once, I created a meltdown that didn’t need to happen. It certainly didn’t get the cleaning done. It did nothing for my relationship with my children. It didn’t teach them anything about perseverance or hard work. And at the end of the day, I knew that I had let my fear turn into anger, and treated my children unfairly.

I have since discovered that if one of my children isn’t as into cleaning that day, it is ok to back off. That day of not helping doesn’t turn into a life time of trying to get out of work. They return to chore time the next day ready and willing to help. If I just keep doing my thing, and working with the child who is wanting to work, the other one often joins right in.

There are so many things to be afraid of. If I don’t get him to sleep on time tonight, he will think bedtime is negotiable every night. If I let her draw on her arms, she will think she can draw on her arms whenever she wants. This fear gets me nowhere. I am not a better parent for it. My children are not learning anything from it. When will I learn to let go of this?

It’s the fear that if I don’t somehow control my kids’ immaturity, they will always be this immature.

It gets a little easier, as my oldest grows. Things that were all encompassing before are not even issues now. He doesn’t throw his food on the floor. He doesn’t throw his toys. Someday he will learn all of the other things I am trying so hard to teach him. I suspect he would learn them better, if I relaxed and let him learn.

When I am parenting in the moment, I am able to keep my temper. I am more creative. I can be the parent I want to be, without letting the behavior of a child determine my mood. I keep my perspective and my sense of humor…  and, of all things, my children actually learn by what they see me do, when the message doesn’t get lost in my frustration and anger.

Your son comes and tell you there are “strange creatures” in a bucket in the backyard.

And upon further investigation, they turn out to be mosquito larva.

And as you go to dump the big bucket, your children decide that they need some, to have.

And as they watch their “flippers”, they start asking all sorts of questions and making observations.

“Mommy, what do they eat?”

“…. maybe they eat SOUND!”

“Mommy, they swim down into the sand when they see me looking at them.”

“Mommy! Maybe mosquitos don’t bite because they drink blood; maybe they bite because they are scared of us!”

Meanwhile Chava is putting sand into her water, and stirring it up for them. And trying to hold them in her hands… ”

So, what do you do, as a homeschooling mama, with two buckets of mosquitos on your back porch? Do you leave them there? Or dump them out?

I suspect we’ll have many similar dilemas around here…