The Last Pictures Ever of This Five-Year-Old...

...because tomorrow, Tobin turns six!!

Tonight I'm awash in sweet remembrances of this day six years ago.  As Jeff, Josiah, David, and I sat in that darkened theater and watched the VeggieTales movie The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, I felt Tobin wiggle and kick inside me and had no idea I'd be meeting him face to face the next day after a short, "easy" (except for one dreadful half hour) labor.  I loved him fiercely then.

I love him even more fiercely now, this boy on the verge of SIX!

Wordless Wednesday {Three Brothers in Afternoon Sunlight}

Cold Winter Night (and a Little Bit of a Rant)

I wasn't going to write and post this.  I really wasn't.  I truly had another post in mind to finish up this evening, but thoughts and words are bubbling up inside me, demanding to be spilled.  Against my better judgment, I'm going to let them out...

So, it's cold.

Anyone who's had even a tiny part of their brain tuned into the news or the weather forecast or people's conversations, etc. has heard about this polar vortex swirling down from the far north, bringing record-breaking low temperatures to much of our country.  This afternoon it reached its icy hands into Virginia; and as I worked in the kitchen, I noticed a lower temperature on the thermometer right outside the kitchen window every time I glanced at it.

It's cold.

But!  It's not as if we've never experienced cold like this here in my corner of the world.  From weather maps, I can see that certain parts of the U.S. were and are astonishingly, dangerously cold, so I understand the caution that prompts people, businesses, schools, the government, and so forth to change plans and adjust normal life to take into account the weather.  However, I'm pretty sure that every winter, my town gets temps that are in the single digits, if not in the negative--maybe not for long, but at least a night or two or three.  I certainly haven't kept a detailed weather log during our 8+ years here; but from this post, I see that it was 8 degrees in January of 2008, and the following year, this post shows a temperature of 1.  Yet there has seemed to be an overabundance of caution, bordering on panic, in the air as we've watched this storm approach, and I wonder, "How much of this is warranted?"

This morning, our county schools operated on a two-hour delay.  I don't have the foggiest idea why they did so, since there wasn't a drop of precipitation that I could see and the temperature wasn't even below freezing.  As a matter of fact, it was warm during the night--rather odd to watch the numbers on the thermometer climb as darkness fell and the night wore on.  I believe it topped out at 48 degrees, around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning--strange.  Anyway, why did the schools go late today?  I readily acknowledge that there may very well be good reasons for the delay, even if I'm not aware of them; and I definitely don't envy the job of those who have to make weather-related decisions, knowing that there will always be people who disagree with whatever decision is made.  So I'm really not trying to throw stones here!!  I read an article tonight listing reasons for the delay that's already been announced for tomorrow; and since our temperature right now is about 4 degrees, I completely understand the need for a little extra time in the morning to make sure everything is running OK (heating systems in the schools, buses, etc.).  And bottom line, I don't care if the county schools have a delay every day; we do, too.  Welcome to my homeschooling life!!  ;-)

But I do think we're freaking out a little bit, myself included.  Today, for example, I felt like every time I heard another news report about the weather, I instantly felt like I needed to go to the woodstove to see if I could make room to shove another piece of wood in.  As a result, by the time we finished supper and Josiah and David got ready to practice violin (in the living room, where the woodstove is), the temperature inside our house was 77 degrees.  David who wasn't even wearing a shirt said, "Can you please turn the fan on? I'm burning up!"  :)  An hour or so later, the temperature had risen further to 79.9.  Oops.  I guess I didn't do a good job of regulating the amount of heat pouring out of the (overstuffed) woodstove.  :)

So if I'm poking fun at anyone for over-the-top preparations, I'm poking it at myself.  :)

But let me turn the conversation a little and get into my real rant of the night.  (Oh no!)

After I tucked all the kids in bed and finished the dishes, I sat down at the computer and opened Facebook.  As I scrolled through my news feed, I got more and more annoyed.  Why?  Because of all the posts saying, in essence, "It's cold out there.  Don't forget to bring your pets in from outside."  The pictures of half-dead, snow-and-ice-caked, rib-bones-sticking-out dogs and cats were an added touch.

Let me tell you something.  I brought our pet in from outside.

 Jed came in, ate a yummy supper, was given a doggie treat...

 ...chewed on a rawhide bone, and received lots of hands-on affection.

 I had to smile and whip out the camera when I looked through the hole in the wall between the kitchen and living room and saw Jeff and Jed together.  ;-)

Sweet, right?

But then what did Jed do?  He wanted to go out.

Not just a five-second pee break, but a please-let-me-return-to-my-home-in-the-pasture kind of go-out.  So that makes us terrible pet owners, right?

Wrong.

When you live in the country surrounded by farms, you are reminded of the fact that God made animals to withstand the elements.  I've never heard of a herd of cows around here perishing in a cold snap, neither have I heard of a farmer bringing them all into his house on a zero-degree night to keep them warm.  God actually created cows in such a way that their bodies adapt to the weather, and they are prepared for such extreme dips of temperature.  So are the chickens we have in our pen--in previous winters when the nights have been so cold, we've never had a single chicken freeze.  Our first dog Molly has always been an outdoor dog; in fact, she gets uneasy indoors and much prefers to be outside.  She, too, has never frozen to death in any of our previous winters.  ;-)

Before I go further, let me say two things.  First, I firmly believe the truth of Proverbs 12:10 that "the righteous care for the needs of their animals."  I am not endorsing in any way, shape, or form the abuse of an animal.  Tonight in this bitter cold and on every night and day, we make sure that our animals have shelter, food, and water; and we never, ever kick our pets or take any anger out on them.  There are really horrible cruelties that are done to animals, and that saddens me.  What I'm suggesting tonight, however, is that allowing a loved pet to be outside on such a night is not necessarily a cruelty!

Second, clearly there are certain pets that would have a very difficult time staying alive if they were outdoors tonight.  Chihuahuas come to mind--a dog that, without man's intervention, wouldn't have ended up here in Virginia in the first place.  I'm not saying that you should leave any old pet outside; common sense tells us otherwise.  But some animals are really and truly made for this.  Have you felt a collie's fur, for example?  There's got to be some good use for all that mess!  ;-)

Think about St Bernard dogs and the amazing, snowy rescues they've made throughout history.  Think about Alaskan sled dogs and the way they withstand amazingly cold, windy conditions.  Closer to home, think about the little wild rabbit I saw under our lilac bushes this afternoon; somewhere he's got a cozy burrow, and I'm sure he'll make it through this night safely.  Think of the whitetail deer that inhabit the woods across the field from us; where do they go when it's cold?  Think of the barn cats that roam the neighborhood (which I'm always grateful to see because they are very helpful in eliminating any mice problems around here); they're not inside anyone's home tonight, yet they're just fine.

Think about these things.

Before you assume that anyone who leaves his pet outside on such a night is a heartless, terrible person, take a moment and consider.

Is it possible that we use personification* entirely too much?  Is it possible that it distorts our view of reality, causing us to, when we think of a, say, goat in a drafty shed on a cold night like this, picture our own selves there in that shed, shivering and miserable, close to death?

*  "the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure"

I think the answer is yes.  From my own experience, I can attest to the fact that, to give only one example, reading Max Lucado's sweet book The Oak inside the Acorn made me suddenly grieve the fact that thousands of little acorns were feeling afraid as they fell from their mother's arms.  And then I shook myself and said, "For goodness' sake, Davene, THEY'RE ACORNS!!!"  :)

Now I'm not denying the fact that dogs and cats are in a different category from acorns.  ;-)  But maybe once in a while, we need to shake ourselves and say, "They're animals."

If my collie Jed could personify to the point of talking tonight, I'm pretty sure he would let us know that, although he's grateful for the warmth of the fire and the softness of the rug, although he loves having his back scratched and looks forward to the next time, although the treat was yummy and he's happy to have a full tummy, he'd really rather spend the night outside with his best buddy Molly.  After all, there is ground to cover, there are scents to smell, and if he's lucky, there might even be a random cat to chase.

He might even say, "I was made for this."

What Every Mother Loves to Hear and See

When I am away from my children, it gives me great joy, upon returning, to hear from their caregivers that they behaved beautifully.  It doesn't happen every time, to be sure; but when it does, I'm delighted.  :)

It also makes me happy to see how things went, and I'm always grateful when those who are watching my kids (whether it be Jeff while I go somewhere--to a Harmonia Sacra singing, for example, like I mentioned at the end of this blog post--or someone else) snap a picture or two to show me.

I'm sure she didn't realize how much it would mean to me; but last Sunday, a dear lady named Conset who was helping with Moriah's class, did just that.  :)  Here are the pictures she took...

Why am I not surprised that Moriah's holding a baby doll?  She's such a maternal little girl!  :)

And I'm such a happy mama to see my sweet Moriah thriving in a new setting.  :)

When I Don't Know What to Do with Moriah's Hair...

...it's comforting to know that I can call on someone else for help: 

 David, of course.  He knows what to do.  ;-)

 Earlier today, Tobin got this black headband out of the basket in Moriah's room that contains her hair things; and Moriah very cooperatively came over to him, stood still in front of him, and slightly bowed her head so he could put it in her hair.  But getting the headband to stay where it was supposed to was more difficult than he had imagined; it kept slipping down around her neck or up and off her head!

 I wasn't paying close attention to what happened next, but apparently David took over and fixed Moriah's hair.  She ended up looking like this.  :)

 Quite the little rock star, isn't she?  :)

It's not the first time David has "decorated" Moriah, nor the second time, nor all the other times that I didn't capture with a camera.

I have a feeling it's not the last time either.  ;-)

Bouncing Our Way into 2014

For Christmas, Jeff's mom kindly and generously gave us a gift card to Walmart, with a certain amount of money specified for each person to spend on whatever he or she wanted.  So far, with my portion, I've only purchased a scrumptious scented candle; I do, however, have my sights on a...wait for it...new kitchen trashcan!!  I'm a wild spender, I tell ya!  :)

Well, you can imagine how excited the boys were to go to Walmart and pick out their gifts, so a few days after Christmas, I loaded up all the kids into the Big White Van, and we went shopping.  I don't often do that, but I guess I was feeling brave that day.  :)  Actually, the trip went very well, and nobody even made any off-the-wall comments to me about the size of my family...until we were in the parking lot, almost to our van.  Then an older lady saw us, stopped walking, and said, "If I had a camera, that would make a GREAT picture!"  I wasn't quite sure what she meant by that, but I'll just assume it was the nicest kind of compliment.  :)

I wasn't sure what to get for Moriah; after all, she doesn't really NEED anything, and she's too little to express much of a preference for anything.  But as we stood in one of the toy aisles, and the big boys deliberated about exactly which Nerf guns to get, and whether they would have any money left over for anything else, and Tobin held onto his superheroes LEGO set that he chose, and Shav looked at his Toothless dragon that shoots real steam and light(!), I glanced around, and my eyes fell on a box containing this:

Can you tell what it is?  We can't really figure out a good name for it, so we usually end up calling it the bouncy house, or the indoor bouncy thing, or the blow-up playpen, or some other profound name like that.

When I saw it, I immediately thought of how much fun Moriah would have with it.  The girl LOVES to bounce.  She'll bounce in her bed, on the couch if anyone is so kind as to help her up on it, on the trampoline when it's warm, on pillows on the floor, and even on us.  She can't really jump yet and get her feet off the ground, but she sure tries.

Another thing about Moriah: she's more of a move-around-and-do-stuff girl, rather than a sit-down-and-play-with-a-pile-of-toys kind of child.  She does play with toys sometimes, and in her bed before she falls asleep (and after she wakes up) is a particularly good time for her to sit and do that--and look at books, too.  But when she's down on the floor and ready to play, it almost always involves whole-body movement.  And if she can get her brothers or me or someone to do it with her, that's the cherry on top!  :)

So for all these reasons, I figured this would be the best gift for Moriah.

I think I was right.  :)

I know these pictures have been blurry, but it's pretty tough to take natural-light, evening-time pictures of on-the-move bouncing kids without having some blur...especially for one who knows so little about the technical side of photography and camera settings.  Oh, well, I don't mind the blur, since it shows the joy.  :)

The action the first evening we had it...

Thanks a million, Grandma Fisher, from Moriah and all her big brothers for such a cool gift!!!!!  :)

Planning the Day, the Week, the Year

The year begins with hope.  A fresh start, a blank page, a chance to do things better than preceding years.  And I jump out of bed, my mind swirling with all I'm going to accomplish today.

"Let's see...I need to choose which song I'll lead at the Harmonia Sacra singing tonight and practice that until I'm comfortable with it.  I need to move all the wood from the right side of the woodshed so Mother has a place to carry in wood from the outside woodpile.  I need to change the sheets on the bed that someone had an accident in last night.  I'll make potato soup for supper, but I'll need to peel all the potatoes completely and use onion powder instead of chopped onions because Dad is on a special diet in preparation for his colonoscopy on Friday.  I want to start taking down Christmas decorations and get the tree moved outside so I can clean and rearrange the living room.  I definitely want to make sure I listen to my boys when they talk to me so they will know how important they are to me.  Jeff is off today, so I want to be sure to show love to him.  There's that awful pile of papers accumulating on the telephone counter again that I should get to.  And oh yes, it's a new month so I need to make a blog header and find a background that goes well with it!"

And on it goes.

Truth be told, it's not just on New Years Day that I do this.  Every night as I go to sleep, I think about what projects I need to tackle the next day, and how I can accomplish them while working around Moriah's schedule, especially her naptimes; certain jobs are easy to do with her "help" and certain ones are nearly impossible.  Every morning as I wake up, my brain automatically opens the file called "To-Do List" and thinks what I can get started doing so I can check something off.  Some days, this process is sluggish, and some days, it's energetic; but it always happens.

Maybe because of this, my heart breathed deeply and said, "Yes!" when I read the following prayer recently.

Maybe today is the perfect day to be reminded of what's more important than lists.

Planning the Day

The lists grow--
sometimes on lengthy strips of paper.
How easily my life becomes a list--
a long scroll of dutes.

Sometimes the lists break down
into separate memos--
A batch of yellow memory scraps
each with an injunction.
Do this! Do that!

I can't get rid of my lists.

Perhaps there is some primitive magic here,
that if I name my duties I must perform them.
But then I almost always rebel.
These lists when they aren't burdening me,
give me an oppositional determination
to disobey and to do whatever I please.

Why do I put this "have-to-do-it" burden
on myself? It only makes me righteous,
artificially safe, and soul-tired.

Help me to sit here quietly.
Help me not so much to plan as to listen.
Help me to be informed, as in
"shaped from within," by Your will.
My burden is so heavy.
Yours is always light.

~ Gunilla Norris, in Being Home