When I finally got around to doing January's post a month late, I began to realize that I might not be as prompt with these posts as I had so glibly thought before the year began. Now that I'm even later with February's edition, I'm going to go ahead and admit that it will likely be 2016 or later before I manage to squeeze out 12 of these wrap-ups! Oh goodness.
Be that as it may, I'll just do my best to snag a recollection of some things I neglected to mention way back in the second month of this year. Let's see... *putting my thinking cap on* (Actually, I'm relying heavily on notes I jotted down in my all-time favorite planner. Because obviously I wouldn't be able to remember any of this stuff unless I'd written it down.) ;-)
February 2 - Moriah had a pillow in her crib for the first time. :) That night, I put a full-size pillow there for her, and she very happily laid her head on it right away when I put her to bed. But during the night when I checked on her, I discovered that she had moved the pillow and it was partially on top of her--not on her face, but across part of her body. Well, I didn't like the thought of that, so then I gave her a smaller pillow, and that worked wonderfully for her. She always seemed so delighted to lay her sweet little head down on her pillow, and I wondered why I hadn't done that earlier for her. :)
February 4 - Tobin has been a thumb-sucker since birth; and although we had made some half-hearted attempts in the past to help him break the habit, we hadn't been successful. I know now that we were spoiled by David's ability to stop his thumb-sucking habit all by himself. With Tobin, he just did not seem ready to give it up at the other times we tried to help him; but on this day, things were different. I was clued in to the fact that he seemed to be on the verge of making the break because a few times before this day, he would say things about it; he seemed to be wanting to make the change and realizing he needed help. At any rate, on February 4, I told him that we were going to use a new strategy: if he sucked his thumb, he would need to immediately stop whatever he was doing and go to his room for two minutes. This would help him become aware of it because I knew he was doing it completely unconsciously sometimes; and of course since I won't always be with him, he needed to be the one to realize he was doing it and stop it. Besides the go-to-your-room-for-two-minutes strategy, I told him that we could use some of the other things we had tried (that had helped but had not accomplished it), like wearing a glove on that hand, chewing gum so his mouth would be busy, etc. I was not at all sure how things would go, but I'm thrilled to say that the first day, I only caught him sucking his thumb one time, which is huge. HUGE. He went to his room for the two minutes without a word of complaint; I really think he was relieved and grateful that we were tackling this. When I saw him start to move his thumb towards his mouth, then jerk it away, I was so proud of him! There was only one other day when I saw him sucking his thumb and had to send him to his room, but other than that, he did so well with the change. What a relief!!!!! [Let me add that here at the end of April, he still *occasionally* slips up and starts to put his thumb in his mouth, but I'd say his thumb-sucking habit, during times when he's awake, has been 99 percent stopped.]
February 4 - I made a new recipe: chicken spaghetti. I loved it! :)
February 6 - I went out for one last dinner with two dear, dear friends, Julie and Misty, before Misty moves away. Cried. Of course.
February 12 - After having paused Tobin's reading lessons quite some time ago, I started back up...because he asked me to. Maybe he's more ready this time around? :)
February 16 - It was a Sunday afternoon; and while I worked in the kitchen doing dishes, Moriah taught herself how to go down steps. She practiced nearly all afternoon, and I'm not sure who was happier - her or me - at her new skill! :)
February 17-18 - We had a round of sickness which happened to hit David particularly hard on this Monday. It even kept him home from SVCC rehearsal, and you know it's gotta be bad when it does that!
February 20 - Moriah blew a "kiss" to Josiah - the first time I'd ever seen her blow a kiss. It didn't look exactly like my blown kisses look, but there was no mistaking her intention. :)
February 21 - We celebrated Josiah's Family Night by eating dinner here at home and playing Risk - a very typical choice for Josiah. :)
February 22 - Jeff and I had a date and ended up eating at a little Mexican place that is now, I think, Jeff's favorite Mexican restaurant here in our area.
February 25 - I was BLESSED by my wonderful neighbor Wilma and her daughter Rosalie doing some deep cleaning here in my home. They WANTED to do it. They ASKED if they could please do it. They BEGGED me until I said yes. Well, OK, they probably didn't have to get to the begging stage because I said yes before that. ;-) But Wilma did really URGE me to accept their offer of help, motivated solely by her knowledge of how full my schedule seems to stay and how rarely I get to do the kind of deep cleaning that I'd really like to do. And that proves that I have the nicest neighbors in the world. :)
February 27 - Tried another new recipe: shrimp and avocado salad. I used to think I didn't like shrimp, but I sure loved it in this! :)
February 28 - I gave an old trunk from my maternal grandparents to my sister to make a little extra space in Tobin and Shav's room.
Here are some other photos I guess I never got around to posting...
~ my beloved :)
~ silly, sweet Shav :)
~ applesauce for Valentine's Day
~ love notes written by David
~ Tobin's block creation
And now some snippets from Facebook... :)
February 1 - (Jeff posted this) David is the two legged man in my pj's!
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February 2 - At some point this evening, the thought popped into my head, "Oh, yeah, I guess the Super Bowl is being played now," and then I moved on to something else, like giving Moriah a bath or reading a Winnie the Pooh story to Tobin and Shav or thinking about which blog background I'm going to use for February. The complete disregard I felt for the game must be how the rest of the world feels towards things that have ME on pins and needles--like when there's a concert of the Shenandoah Valley Children's Choir, or when I have a canner full of peaches on the stove and I'm wondering if all the jars will seal, or when my husband is getting pepper-sprayed (part of the training to become an auxiliary police officer) and I'm awaiting word that he survived. My piano teacher in college told me that one aspect of introverts is that, rather than seeing ourselves as part of what's going on around us, we see ourselves as something separate from it (or something like that--I'm sure he explained it much better than that!). And boy, do I sure feel separate and different on Super Bowl Sunday!
February 3- Shav came to me this morning while I was putting laundry away and tugged on my hand. "Mom," he said, "I need to whisper something in your ear." I leaned down and, with his mouth so close to my ear that it tickled me, heard him whisper, "Moriah hugged me." And then he beamed. I'm not exactly sure why that confession of Moriah's demonstration of love deserved top secret status, but I'd rather hear that than other things I've had whispered in my ear!
February 4 - Jeff and I were just talking about this the other day - how endless is the task of, say, washing dishes...or laundry...or cleaning...or almost every other task associated with housekeeping. This quote is super encouraging!
February 4- If Shav had to choose his favorite book at this stage of life, I'm pretty sure he would say We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. The boy LOVES that book! He's heard it an umpteen number of times and knows it forwards and backwards; but each time I read it to him, he shivers with excitement as if it were the first time. Of course he knows exactly on which page the bear first appears, but that doesn't stop the suspense from building. This morning while I was reading it to him, he stopped me when we got to that part and said, "Let me give you a hug!" Well, I don't mind getting a hug, but it's not like I *needed* one or anything. Maybe HE did. And then on the page when the family is running back home away from the bear, he shouted, "PAUSE!" When I stopped reading, he said this about the family: "They're not scared because God is with them!" It made me smile the kind of smile you sort of hide from your kids because you don't want them to think you're laughing at them. But it was really the kind of smile that remembers other times that dear boy has expressed courage because of the presence of God--like when we vacationed on the Outer Banks of North Carolina back in September of 2012, and nearly every time we walked over the HUGE (to a four-year-old) dunes to get to the ocean, Shav would say, "God is with me, and angels are all around us." May he always remember--and live by--these truths!
February 4 - The best part of the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate we watched tonight? The discussion we had afterwards in our living room. I LOVE living and learning and thinking and questioning and pondering with my sons! And I also love hearing Jeff's input in such situations. For example, David had asked a question; and I was answering it pretty thoroughly--with two passages of scripture, three points, etc. Then Jeff spoke up and very quickly and simply cut right to the heart of David's question. OK then. I'll be quiet now and simply sit and learn. It is a GOOD thing to have Jeff as my partner in this parenting adventure!
February 8 - For the second time in nine days, I got to meet--and hold--a fresh-from-God adorable baby girl. This one is named Esther, and here she is with her sweet mommy. I realized today that the real reason women prepare a meal for a family in which a baby has just been born is so that we can see the baby! The food is just a convenient excuse. Every time I hold such a young one, I can't help but feel like I'm holding a baby doll. They're so tiny! What a precious gift.
February 8 - This morning, I was feeling on top of the world, motherhood-wise, when I received this email from Josiah: "Hi Mom. Just wanted to tell you how great you are:) love, josiah". I mean, really, what better gift could he give me than that?
This evening, I was ready to nominate myself for the Worst Mom of the Year award when I realized, after supper was over, that I had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN to take David to gymnastics today. I mean, it didn't even cross my mind one time. It wasn't even the TINIEST blip on my radar. It was written on my calendar, but apparently I didn't look at it all day long because when it came to my mental recollection--nada, nothing, zip, zilch. I felt so HORRIBLE I could have cried.
From the heights of motherhood to the depths of it, all in the same day. This is real life, and sometimes the roller coaster of it all jerks me around so much I can't even think straight. And then I remember there's grace.
But I surely hope I never again forget David's gymnastics!!!
February 8 - As a mom with a never-ending to-do list (literally, NEVER-ending), I sometimes feel like "if I just work harder, things will be better" or "I shouldn't sit down and take a break because I should be up doing something" and so forth. So when I was reading in the book Prayers for Homeschool Moms this evening while watching Moriah in the bathtub, I was struck by this thought in a section on the sad situation of moms being so driven to accomplish more that they neglect rest: "For truly, if I cannot stop myself from working, then I'm no more in control than the person who refuses to work at all." It's a good thought for me as we near a day of rest.
February 12 - Things I love:
~ the way Moriah helps me in the laundry room by standing at the dryer and picking items out of it, one by one, to hand to me so I can fold them
~ a certain look I catch from time to time on Shav's face, that reminds me SO MUCH of this look [pictured below] from when he was three weeks old - it cracks me right up!
~ Tobin coming over to peer more closely at the red tulips, an early Valentine's gift, Jeff brought home from town for me this morning, and then asking, "Are you going to have a wedding, or is this just for fun?"
~ Wednesday afternoons with Josiah and David, which always involve violin lessons, usually involve a stop at the library, and frequently involve random conversations that end in hilarious laughter
~ Jeff's kindness in bringing me, not only gorgeous tulips, but also 20(!) containers of coffee yogurt - that might not be considered the most romantic gift ever given, but since in my opinion, food is actually the 6th love language (Gary Chapman got it a little bit wrong when he said there are only five!) , that coffee yogurt makes me feel loved, loved, loved.
February 13 - Yesterday was the kind of day in which I wished I could follow Tobin around with a video camera all day to record the conversations he was having. So many of the cute things he said have slipped from my mind already, but I do remember that as he and Shav and Moriah and I walked out of Food Lion with our sausage and pomelos last evening after it had already started snowing, I felt some snowflakes actually falling on my ear and tickling it. When I mentioned that aloud, he then wondered, in a slightly worried voice, what would happen if snow should fall onto his eardrum - would it be OK? As I was explaining why it was highly unlikely that the snow would actually reach his eardrum, a lady walking near us in the parking lot was cracking up at his question. Surely one of the good things children do for the world is cause us to see life in new ways and ponder new questions--not to mention, making us laugh.
I also remember that a short while after that, as we walked into EMU's Lehman Auditorium to pick up Josiah and David from their respective Junior Strings practice and group violin lesson, Tobin was concerned that after he grows up and "is a dad," Jeff and I will be lonely if all the boys have left home and only Moriah is here with us. His solution to the problem? We should *definitely* have another baby.
But the funniest conversation happened as we rode along in the Big White Van. Tobin started asking me what some good "dad names" are. I wasn't quite sure what his thoughts were that had prompted his question, but I started answering with the names of dads we know: Jeff, Harold, Michael, David, Douglas, etc. Then it came out (and I wish I could remember exactly what he said) that Tobin thought that when his daddy was little, he was called Tobin or a name like that--and only when he was grown and became a daddy did he start being called Jeff. "Oh no," I explained, "people get named when they're babies, and then they keep that same name their whole life!" "YOU MEAN," he said with absolute incredulity (and I remember this quote with crystal clarity), "MY WIFE WILL CALL ME TOBIN???" Through my laughter, I assured him that yes, she would do just that.
What fun to watch a newly-turned six-year-old figure out how life works!
February 15 - As Tobin made his way down the steps this morning, David announced rather loudly from his perch on the couch, "Tobin, it's snowing! And Moriah's throwing up!" Well, folks, that about sums up the news from our corner of the world, in one three-second broadcast from our favorite eight-year-old announcer.
February 16 - "I know three bad words," my youngest son confided softly to me yesterday.
"Oh!" my eyes widened as my mouth got round. Then, thinking fast and remembering that there is much power in bringing things into the light and taking the mystery from evil, I whispered, "Do you want to tell me what they are?"
He nodded, then began.
"Stupid."
"What the heck."
"Duh."
I'll admit to feeling some relief. How sweet is his innocence, if these are the worst words he knows.
We've had the "stupid isn't a word we say about people (unless we're quoting 2 Timothy 2:23-24)" talk many times, as well as the "duh is almost always used to show disrespect for people, and it hurts feelings" one, so those weren't a surprise to me. But I'm not sure where he learned "what the heck" - maybe from a movie? maybe Tangled? In any case, he told me that he didn't know it was a bad word and so he said it one time but then one of his brothers corrected him. It's easy to imagine that being the case, quick as they are to hold each other to the straight and narrow.
After his confession, we talked a little bit about how one of the fruits of God's Spirit is self-control, and how without His help, we're unable to control our tongues. But how, because of Him, we can have the power to not say the bad words! Is this the Gospel for four-year-olds?
This morning, Shav informed me that he knows three bad WORDS and one bad THING.
"Sticking out my tongue."
I love that boy.
February 17 - Me to Shav: "Shavi, does your tummy hurt?"
Shav: "No, it doesn't hurt. But I do have a tummy ache."
Oh. Hmmm. Well, I'm glad he cleared that up for me!
February 19 - While watching Moriah in the bathtub tonight, I picked up my go-to book for such moments, Prayers for Homeschool Moms by Michele Howe; and here is the gem I found in it tonight. It's actually a quote from Liz Curtis Higgs' book, Really Bad Girls of the Bible: "That's the hook we hang our hope on, sisters. Not in 'getting it right,' but in knowing that although we get it wrong--over and over, consistently, even blatantly--God's power to accomplish his will is not limited to our meager efforts." So comforting to my heart after a couple of rough, I'm-getting-it-wrong days due to the sickness that has swept through my family (and wreaked havoc on my home! major clean-up begins tomorrow!).
February 19 - The first thing Shav did this morning was wander into Moriah's room where I was changing her clothes. He was clutching a green plastic sword; then he slumped down on the floor with a gloomy look on his face and said tragically, "The battle's going rough." I had to smile a little at his four-year-old drama, but then I thought, "That may not be a sentiment that morning people EVER feel first thing in the morning; but I'll admit that as a night owl, there have been not a few mornings when my first feelings have been, 'The battle's going rough'."
February 19 - While I was feeding Moriah some oatmeal this morning, Shav was lying on the couch; but after a little while, he came over to me and showed me some lighter-than-his-skin-color lines on his leg. "You must have been scratching your leg," I told him and showed him on my own leg how light lines appear when the skin is scratched. He informed me that wasn't the case, so I played along and said, "Maybe a family of ants was using your leg as a highway last night!" When he smiled and told me that wasn't it either, I said, "Well, maybe Tobin was drawing on your leg during the night!" He laughed and said no. Then he said, "I have to whisper something in your ear." When I leaned close, he told me this secret: "Maybe I'm turning into an alien!"
February 19 - Me and my girl!
February 21 - Some days I worry that our homeschooling is too rabbit-trailish.
Some days I rejoice that our homeschooling is so rabbit-trailish.
For example, today in history, we read a chapter about the Spanish-American War. And then we had to chase some rabbit trails. For example...
When we read about Cuba being 90 miles off the coast of Florida, it reminded me of the story of the 64-year-old woman, Diana Nyad, who swam from Cuba to Florida last September. So we had to look up some info and read an article about her.
When we read about William Randolph Hearst pushing the country toward war by using the influence of his newspaper, the New York Journal, I had to tell the boys about the Hearst Castle and the time Jeff and I drove north along the coast of California stopping at various places, including that castle. We looked up its location on Google Maps and saw how far away it is from San Diego and other California cities. We used Google Images to look at pictures of it (which totally impressed the boys and reminded me of how utterly GORGEOUS that place is!). We looked up how much it cost to build it and how much it would be worth today. The boys decided that if they ever win the lottery, they're going to build a castle like that.
We read about Joseph Pulitzer and "yellow journalism," and I told the boys about Pulitzer Prizes. Later in the day while we were reading an article Jeff sent us about a police officer on a freeway in Florida who helped save a five-month-old baby who had stopped breathing, we saw that a photographer who had won a Pulitzer Prize happened to be right there and captured the action as it happened.
When we read about the 385 battle deaths in the Spanish-American War, we wondered how that compared with the deaths of Americans in, say, the Civil War or the World Wars. Once again, Google made it easy to find a nifty chart showing the comparison. Then we had to see if we remembered correctly and if the battle of Gettysburg was truly the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. (It was.)
We read about Spain giving up control of Cuba and the United States assuming the protection of it; then we wondered when Cuba finally got its independence and how it ended up with Communist leadership, so we had to look up an article about the brief history of Cuba. I'm embarrassed to admit that I actually couldn't remember if Fidel Castro was still alive, so we had to look that up. (He is.) Then we had to find out who is leading Cuba now. (Fidel's brother Raul.) Then the boys decided that Fidel Castro looks mean and Raul looks friendly. Then we talked about how looks can be deceiving and how even bad guys can be friendly and loving towards their own family and friends.
And then I think we took a break and ate lunch.
Today I was grateful for the rabbit trails we explored--AND for Google that made it all possible!
February 22 - Spring must be near. Proof? 1) This morning I saw robins cavorting on our lawn for the first time this year. 2) My daffodils are poking their heads up above the earth. 3) EVERYONE in Harrisonburg was out and about today. Town was crawling, as my mom used to say. I guess the beautiful weather made us all feel released from our winter cages, and we just had to get out! (Although I had a good excuse: David's gymnastics lesson, which I did NOT forget today.) I smiled as I saw the Dream Come True park full of happy kids again. My smile faded a bit as I waited (and waited) to turn left on Reservoir Street. Ah, traffic. #littlecityproblems
February 23 - What it all comes down to...
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