How Does She Do It All?

Honestly, I have no idea, and I wish some one could tell me the magic solution. Omar has been back to work for three months, and I am seriously floundering. I've got three main jobs: work (meaning chart audits that I get paid for, which is a full time job), housework, and caring for and teaching the kids.  I've come to the conclusion that I can only do two of the three successfully.

I can keep on top of my work and spend quality time with my children, and the house is a disaster (and that is not an exaggeration). Or I can spend quality time with my kids and keep the house clean, and then spend most of the weekend trying to catch up on my work.  Or I can stay caught up on my work, keep the house clean, and the kids watch movies and do whatever else all day long.  I can't seem to find the balance between these three extremes, so I just keep rotating between them and getting stressed out.

So I have come up with yet another plan in a long series of attempts to get my life more organized so I can "do it all." But I'm pretty excited about this one.  I think it might actually work if I do it right. It is less structured than some other plans I've created, but with more visual aides so the kids can be more involved. There will be a board with a short list of daily tasks to be completed with clothespins that can be moved to indicate when things are done. This will include items like Bible study and picking up at the end of the day. Also, instead of stressing about doing "schoolwork" everyday, I'm going to make it a little more informal and list a task called "exercising our brains." My kids love things like moving clothespins, so I am hopeful that this will help them to help me stay on task everyday. 

The other new visual aide will be a chore board.  The kids help already with things like cleaning out the dishwasher and putting away clean clothes, but I want to expand their responsibilities. Omar has already set a great example: he recently suggested that he take on the chore of cleaning the bathrooms every weekend, because he knows that is my least favorite chore. So I am going to assign each of the older kids one chore that they can learn to do well and be responsible for every day (Elijah still just gets to be the helper).  William is going to learn to sweep, and Joy will learn to vacuum. I know they have the ability to learn these tasks; the challenge will be whether I have the patience to teach them. I am gearing myself up for lots of repetition until they master their new chores, reminding myself that investing time now will pay off later.   

In my head, this all works out great, and I know reality is harder, but I think the key is getting the kids more involved. It will teach them more work ethic and responsibility, as well as taking some of the load off of me as they become more independent with their assigned chores. So here we go: a new week, a new plan, and a fresh start. Maybe I don't have to do it all if I rely on my family to help. 

Home

I've been reading recently from a few different sources lately  about having a "word:" one word that symbolizes a goal or focus in your life. Especially with the New Year and resolutions and such, this idea has come across my path again. I never really stopped to give it much thought, but at point I did finally ask myself what my word would be, and very quickly, I realized my word is "home."

Still fresh from my busy California life where I was a working mom, always running, when "home" just meant a place to eat and sleep, I am still actively appreciating the blessing of having "home" be the center of my life. Home is where I spend most of my time and pour out my energy, service, and love. 

The first focus of my home is my family. If I'm not giving everything I have to my marriage, and to my role as mother, then I am missing the point of who God created to me. I am made as a helper to my husband. I want to support him and encourage him. I want to make home a wonderful place that he looks forward to returning to at the end of every day. By keeping home clean and orderly as he likes it, by giving him my attention, respect, and care, I want this to be his favorite place to be. After my role of wife comes mother. I want home to be a refuge for my kids from a world that seems to be getting increasingly hostile and scary. I don't want home to be a shelter or bubble to protect my kids from every evil, but I want it to be a place where they can learn about the world from a proper perspective, so they have the confidence to go forth and explore because they know that our God is in control of everything. I want home for them to be a place where they learn how to love God and love their neighbors, and give them a foundation strong enough to stand against everything the world throws at them. 

The second focus of my home is my neighbor, the Biblical view of neighbor that includes every one who crosses my path that I can serve in some small way. I want my home to open and welcoming. I never want to shy away from having company, and I want every one who walks in the door to feel God's love and peace in this home. I want to teach my kids to be gracious hosts and to serve others. I'm slightly obsessed with feeding any one who walks in my home. Food is such a beautiful way to serve: it is such a basic need yet can also be one of our greatest pleasures. But ultimately, I desire for our home to be a place where people know they can come for help or shelter or food, or even just for happiness and playtime and love. 

I'm not saying I have reached any of the lofty ideals described above, but these are the goals I am striving towards, and "home" is my word. Love starts in the home.  If we can't show God's love to our family at home, it will never reach the world beyond our walls. 

Homeschooling in the Cracks of Life

I was corresponding with one of my sisters-in-law recently, chatting a bit about homemade granola and homeschooling.  She homeschools her 4 kids, and as I asked her about how she juggles it all, she at one point said that she prefers to do school "in the cracks of life."  I liked the sound of that, and the phrase has kind of stuck with me.

We have definitely found a rhythm to our homeschool life, and I am much more relaxed and lenient about it than I thought it would be.  At the beginning of the school year, I had actually composed a daily schedule broken down into half hour increments from when we woke up, to when we did school, what time we ate, etc.  It was impossible to keep.  And I have found that I enjoy "real life" much more than any rigidly crafted structure.

I do have a loose structure.  At the beginning of the year, I organized all of the Abeka worksheets (for William), and I scheduled them all out in a planner, also setting out our days off.  That gives me a base, and from there, I just plan one week at a time.  Over the weekend at some point, I sit down with all my planning things.  I look over the Abeka material, add from any extra relevant material I may have (mostly BOB books and a simple math activity book), and make note of which activities I can involve Joy in.  I also have a separate column for Joy where I plan out activities for her letter of the week.  It usually takes me less than an hour to transform my skeleton lessons into full plans for the week. 

"School" usually happens in the morning. After I've slept in as late as possible, and lingered over my coffee, I gather every one together. We have our circle time, and then work on various worksheets. William has a lot of independent work. Joy mostly works with me, then she just goes off to play while I work with William. Elijah likes to be in the room and usually in the way. Sometimes Omar takes him out, and sometimes he gets an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, but I hate to use the TV too much. I also make little grab bags that I fill with miscellaneous items to entertain him. He loves pulling stuff out. It works so well, I keep one in the diaper bag, too, to use whenever we're stuck waiting somewhere. 

I've learned to be very flexible with that hour of formal work.  William loves to watch Omar doing his woodwork and projects. When I went looking for William to start school one morning, I found him in the garage watching Omar build something. I decided to leave him there. I spent extra time working with Joy that day, and just caught William up with a few worksheets when he came in that evening. I'm not very good yet at pulling the lessons out of every situation, but I am trying to realize the learning potential in every simple activity. How many lessons of hard work and dedication and even practical skills will William learn in the garage with his dad? Or he can practice simple reading and math skills reading a recipe with me to make dinner. Joy in the same situation would be learning to follow directions and sequential steps. I think this is the beauty of homeschooling: realizing that learning goes far beyond the classroom.

Most of our lessons are pretty tame. We use a lot of worksheets and flash cards.  We read tons of books. The kids really enjoy our weekly library trips; we always go on Wednesday mornings for Storytime. I've always got an eye out for educational apps for the iPad that the kids might enjoy. Joy and I use the iPad at least once a week to do google image searches for things that start with our letter of the week.  We also have language skills, math, reading, and spelling apps, as well as some interactive story books that the kids love. 

Every now and then I come up with a "big idea" to break the monotony. We all really enjoyed learning about the how the mail works.  We took a family walk to the mailboxes; William read street names and house numbers, and we learned how addresses work, and we mailed postcards to grandparents. We've started science journals like Sid the Science Kid. So far, we've just observed gravity by dropping balls, and tomorrow we will see if different kinds of balls bounce the same. I think that science experiments will begin to happen more in the new year. We learn about healthy foods during meal times, and we even had a tea party when we talked about manners.

One of the best things about homeschooling is being able to bring the Bible into every subject. Omar will set a theme for the week that goes with our Bible story, and we emphasize it in every area of living. For the month of November, we have been talking about gratitude. We have a thankful tree, and our memory verse this week is Psalms 118:1. I do memory verses and catechism questions with William and Joy during circle time, but the real meat of their religious education comes from Daddy during family Bible time every evening. The theological discussions get pretty deep. It's amazing what these little sponges can soak up, and I am so grateful we have this chance to be so involved in building their characters and love for God. 

And that's how it goes. If we decide we need a few things from the grocery store, it becomes a family trip in the morning, and formal lessons don't happen until the afternoon.  If family is in town, we'll just skip the lessons completely and make them up later. I think doing school in the cracks of life means realizing that learning is happening all the time, and while worksheets and flash cards can be good and useful, they aren't the goal, so it's ok if they get pushed to the side sometimes. Especially when my kids are this young, they are learning more outside the schoolroom than in it, and my goal is to help them realize that, cherish it, and become lifelong learners. 

The Heart of the Home

Our kitchen is right in the heart of our home. As I type this, I have a pizza casserole in the oven, lasagna noodles and quinoa cooking on the stovetop (in separate pots), and some butter sitting out to reach room temperature to make cookies later. I can hear my husband working in the garage, and watch my kids darting back and forth from bedrooms to living room as they play. Since moving to Texas, I have been able to spend so much more time in the kitchen, and I love it. Besides just enjoying cooking and baking, more time in the kitchen is translating into feeding my family healthier food and dramatically reducing our food budget.

About a year and a half ago, I  came across this website: 100daysofrealfood.com.  I already knew that our eating habits weren't the best, but I began to realize just how many chemicals and artificial foods were in things that were even promoted as healthy. I love 100 Days of Real Food because they are not critical, but very encouraging that every small change starts to add up and can make a big difference. 

I keep it simple and prevent it from becoming overwhelming by focusing on one small area to change at a time.  For example, the very first thing I did was start buying whole grain pasta. The kids didn't even notice the change. Very slowly (remember this started a year and a half ago, and we aren't done yet!), we are changing our diet to healthier, less processed foods, mainly by cooking from scratch and eating more fruits and vegetables. Sometimes it just means reading labels: if you can't pronounce it, you probably shouldn't eat it!

I'm pretty happy with where we are now. We are not 100% "real food," and I don't think we ever will be, but we are eating so much better than we used to. I've been making our own bread for a couple of months now.  It's not completely whole wheat, but better than almost all store bought bread that has a gazillion ingredients I can't pronounce. I never thought I would be the kind of person who keeps two kinds of flour in my pantry. We have recently stopped buying cereal, and I make a homemade granola that we all love for breakfast and snacking. Sometimes the kids like it with milk (like cereal), sometimes with plain yogurt sweetened with a touch of honey. We go through fresh fruit faster than I can buy it. The kids are even getting better about eating vegetables; Joy is like a rabbit the way she gobbles up salads. 

I've even made some personal sacrifices for the cause! I've given up my artificially sweetened restaurant espressos. Omar got me an espresso machine for my birthday, and I make my own lattes with just espresso and milk.  Sometimes for a treat I add honey and cocoa powder or pumpkin pie spice. I've also given up microwave popcorn, and I really prefer our air-popped popcorn with a little butter and salt, or a little ranch seasoning (on my to-do list: make my own ranch mix instead of store bought packets).

But all this real food and cooking from scratch means I'm spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I make bread about every other week (two loaves at a time, one goes in the freezer), and I make granola at least twice a week.  I usually try to make muffins or some similar grab and go breakfast for Sunday mornings in case we are running late and need to eat in the car on the way to church. I keep lunches simple: usually sandwiches with fresh fruit and veggies. And then there's dinner (and other miscellaneous baking and cooking). And I still need time to teach the kids and do chart audits. So to save time, I finally got into freezer cooking. 

I wish I had figured this out a year ago when I was working full time; we would have eaten so much better and would have had so much less stress in the evenings trying to figure out dinner!  If you have not heard of this before, the basic idea is that you spend a few hours prepping a bunch of meals at once, then put them in the freezer, and when it's time to cook, just pull out a meal! I have mostly done crockpot meals. The night before, I move the bag from freezer to fridge, then in the morning, just dump in the crockpot. In the evening, I usually just need to cook some pasta or warm some veggies. So easy, and we have discovered some really delicious recipes. This month, I am doing a couple casseroles, too.

Not only has this saved time, it has saved us money, too.  For one, we have meals planned and ready, so we don't eat out nearly as much as we used to.  Almost not at all.  Two, shopping in bulk and planning our meals has helped us save on our grocery bill. We have cut our grocery budget in half since moving to Texas. 

Simplify, plan, and save. This may sound a little hokey, but the changes happening in our kitchen really reflect the changes we are making in our lives as a whole. We are simplifying our lifestyle by focusing on what's important, planning for the future, and working hard to save money, pay off debt, and be good stewards. So the kitchen really is the heart of our home. 

My Kids

To start off, let me tell you I just read over my first post on this blog with the description of our life in California. It made me tear up a little remembering how hard everything was. Life has improved so much and in so many ways since we moved to Texas. Praise God for His work in our lives!

And now for one of my favorite types of blog posts, stories of my kids who give me no end of joy and laughter everyday. 

We were outside checking the weather when we heard some fire trucks in the distance. We talked briefly about how they were going to help people then went back inside to finish our circle time. At the end of circle time, William asked if he could do the prayer, and he prayed for the people the firemen were going to help. 

Joy: "Please may I can have pizza again, Daddy, and can I eat it like a bunny?"

We were sitting at the dinner table talking about taking a shower afterward, and Joy says, "We can make two Joys and two Mommies, and then no one will see us anymore...but first we have to brush our hair."

Elijah thought the church business meeting was very exciting. He would sit quietly with me in the foyer, but every time I tried to go back into the sanctuary, he got very excited, clapping and waving and squealing. 

One of the lovely ladies at church asked Joy her name, and Joy responded, "Minnie Mouse Joy."

We were all sitting quietly in the car when William suddenly said, "Daddy, what about Miss Cathy?" (Miss Cathy is his Sunday school teacher.) Omar asked, "What about Miss Cathy?" "Umm...Miss Cathy is cool."

Another day sitting in the car, and William pipes up with, "I love God, and I'm going to act like I love God."

One cloudy day, I told the kids that if it rained, we would put on a movie and make hot chocolate. They grabbed their stools and ran to the window where they stood watching the sky. William told Joy to pray to God for lots of rain. 

It didn't rain, but the next morning, William woke me up at 5:30am in tears, "I thought we were going to have hot chocolate?"

(It rained later that day, and we had hot chocolate.)

Omar: Are you cute like a bird?

Joy: No.

Omar: Hm. Are you cute like a frog?

Joy: No. I'm not cute like animals. I'm cute like humans. 

I gave Joy the job of putting silverware away. She stood on a stool by the drawer, and I set the silverware basket from the dishwasher in the drawer so she could reach it easily. When I checked on her after a few minutes, she was playing with the silverware. I told her to put the silverware away, and she immediately tried to close the drawer (with the silverware basket still sitting in it), said, "Oh, it doesn't fit!" Then jumped down and walked away. 

I've got to start writing these things down daily; there are so many moments that I forget too quickly!

Homeschool

Today was our first official day of homeschooling. I think everything went very smoothly, and I am excited to keep going! Here's our schoolroom:

We sit on the couch with lap desks when they are working with me, and they sit at the table for their individual work.  At least, that's the plan so far.  I can't wait to see how everything evolves and develops as we get going. 

One of the best things I've done so far is give myself a break. This is preschool and kindergarten; the most important thing is to give them a little structure and direction and foster a love of learning within a Biblical framework.  I have so many big ideas, and I want to incorporate so many elements, that I was just overwhelmed. Then I realized we can just start slowly, just a few activities a day, keep it light and fun, and we will slowly build momentum as we figure out what works best for our family. Once I took the pressure off, I started to get more enthusiastic as I dug into the planning. 

Texas is one of the best states for homeschooling. I don't even have to notify anybody, and if any authority asks, I just have to provide a letter stating that I am homeschooling and teaching my kids reading, writing, math, and good citizenship.  So I have complete freedom in how I structure and plan our lessons. For William, we have purchased a set of Abeka kindergarten curriculum. It gives me a good framework to work in, and I plan to modify and supplement to fit William's needs as we go. It includes some social studies and science type things that I will include Joy in as well. For Joy's letters and numbers, I plan to use the range of free preschool resources available on line.  I am starting very slowly with her, working on her attention span and cooperation as I figure out where she's out at and what we need to focus on. We will probably be doing a letter of the week type thing. For Elijah, I will let him listen and be involved as he wants to be, and plan a few simple activities now and then for him. I also filled a couple small drawstring bags with small toys and household items that are safe for him to explore, so if he gets restless and cranky, I can hand him a bag and let him investigate, swapping out new items every week or so.  I haven't had a chance to test that yet, so I'll let you know if it works well or not.

I have plotted out our calendar for the year, more of a year round type schedule with several long weekends, extra long Christmas break, and a week off every couple of months.  We will finish July 31 and have the month of August off before starting again in September. I've plotted the Abeka stuff in a planner for the whole year, and I will "fill in" the rest as we go, keeping a week or two ahead. 

I'm really glad we decided to start our circle time a week before our actual academics.  The first morning was a bit of a disaster. But we've improved on it a little everyday, and the kids are starting to enjoy it. I think their favorite part is checking the weather. We also do the good morning song, date, days of the week, and work on a memory verse.  We've also added some catechism questions from the new kids program at church. I'm trying to find more ways of getting them up and active to work off some of that morning energy. We do hand motions with almost everything we are memorizing.  Here is our bulletin board: 

My favorite find is that weather chart. I stumbled across the free template online, it was really easy to put together, and the kids love it. I love how it is teaching them to be more descriptive and use comparative terms.

We have our calendar separate. We haven't given it a permanent home yet. 

For our first day, Elijah left after circle time to go to the grocery store with Daddy, so I was able to focus on William and Joy. That was good to be able to establish how our routine will go. We kept it simple, light, and short. I worked with Joy and some alphabet flash cards while William completed a coloring sheet and practiced writing letters A to D. Then William and I did some letters and reading while Joy worked on tracing patterns. Our big project for the day was our first day of school posters. 

We finished with the Alphabet Monster Game.  This was actually in the lesson plans for tomorrow, but the kids saw the monster and were so excited to feed him, and we will probably do it again tomorrow. We have a magnet board with the alphabet magnets.  I named what the monster wanted to eat; William and Joy had to identify the letter it started with, find that letter on the board, and put it in the monsters mouth. I can't claim original idea, although I did slightly modify it, but it was a huge hit with William and Joy.

That was it for the first day.  As we progress, we will expand the morning with more individual work, mostly letters, numbers, math, and reading. I will spend extra time with William during nap time as needed, and art projects will happen in the afternoon, along with some science and social studies. Except on Wednesdays, we have story time at the library in the morning, so we will do our morning stuff in the afternoon. And we can be as flexible as we want to be with field trips or other activities going on in our lives.  I have determined there are no local homeschooling groups in Kyle, so I will have to start searching in surrounding cities to find the closest one.

As I was going through the Abeka curriculum, I was marveling at how much William will learn by the end of the school year, and I am so very excited that I get to be a part of it! Instead of seeing his progress on papers coming home from school, I will be there for every "Ah ha!" moment! And for Joy and Elijah, too.  I won't miss a moment, and I will know exactly what my kids are learning. Most importantly, I can work every moment on shaping and building their character to be God fearing men and woman.

Being Home

I think I can say with confidence now that I love being a stay at home mom. I have found a gentle rhythm in our daily routines, and it gives me immense satisfaction to cook and clean and care for my family. There is still not enough time in a day to get everything done, but I'm able to get enough done, and I'm learning to be satisfied with that.

I love all the time I have to spend in the kitchen. I'm working hard on our grocery budget right now with lots of meal planning. I'm also slowly working towards more healthy eating with more fruits and veggies and more food made from scratch. I'm even making sandwich bread, and it is delicious! I had a freezer cooking session a few nights ago (it was quite an emotional saga), and now my freezer is full of meals for the next few weeks. Of course, I also love to bake, so there have been plenty of goodies coming out of the kitchen, too. Moderation, right?

My biggest challenge (as I predicted) are the mornings.  I know that if I could get up before the kids, even by just 10 or 20 minutes, and have some time to myself to get going before the kids start tugging at me, then my day would almost surely start 100% better. But it's really hard to believe that when the alarm goes off in the morning, and I try to squeeze in every last minute of sleep until the kids drag me out of bed. It would help if I went to bed earlier, but there is always something to do after the kids go to bed: catch up on cleaning, auditing charts (I do about 10 a day), or homeschool planning. It would also help if I didn't let Elijah come to bed with us around 5 every morning (but it's really hard to get him back to sleep on his own at that time, and he is so warm and cozy!). I'm working hard to conquer this before we "officially" start school next week.

I won't talk about the homeschooling yet. That will be its own post sometime next week. For now, I'll just tell you that things are starting to come together, and I'm looking forward to our first day of school!

For my quiet time, I've been reading a chapter of Proverbs every morning. This morning, I finally landed on Proverbs 31.  I know it's cliché, but I truly want to be that Proverbs 31 woman. This is a woman of strength and passion; she works hard for her family.  Verse 27 is on my daily planner: "She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness." And then there's verse 15: "She gets up while it is still dark"...yeah, that is one part I definitely need to work on.  But what struck me most in reading this passage today is the way the husband sees this wife.  He is proud of her; she does nothing but uplift and bring him honor.  He relies on her; he praises her.  God designed woman to be man's helper, and this Proverbs 31 woman has mastered that, and her husband is happy because of that and appreciates her.  She contributes to her family through physical work, financial profit, and wise counsel.  She does not fear for the future of her family because she works hard to provide for them, but also because she fears the Lord. There is the crux of what I'm striving for: a woman who clearly displays her trust in the Lord as she works everyday and is the main support for her husband.

I think it's time to pause in my quiet times, and dwell on these passages for a few days.  There is so much to pull from here, and so much to think on.  As life falls into place, and we are really getting settled here in Texas, this is our great chance to re-define the flow of our family.  I know I play an important role in that in how I treat my husband and my kids, and how I order my day. Even with less on my plate, life is still rolling by so fast, it's easy to lose track of the center of everything.

I love being home everyday, and I desperately need God to be the center of our home.

Lord, be with me in the mundane day to day.  Be my center, and keep my eyes focused on You.