Use the Good Dishes

One of my favorite things about any holiday, especially at my mother's house, is dressing the table.  My mother has, to my recollecting, three full sets of fine china, two full sets of silver, at least one set of crystal water glasses, and too many fine serving dishes to enumerate.  I know that a lot of families have these nice things either on display or locked in a chest somewhere gathering dust, but my mother, God bless her, breaks them out at every occasion.  It is really a blessing that she has enough pieces to use them at our over-large family gatherings, since it is often my family of origin, my in-laws, and my sister's husband and stepson and sometimes her husband's uncle.  Whether it is Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, or just someone's birthday dinner, we love to use the good dishes.  It's fun!  It makes any occasion "special," and makes everyone feel like we're really celebrating something worthwhile (at least it does me).  I also think it shows respect to the people in attendance.  It sends the message that they are worthy of your best things.  Sure, if you use those things it is possible something will get broken, but if you don't what's the point of having it?  I feel that way about a lot of things, actually.  There's a country song that says it all, "wear your red dress and use your good dishes, make a big mess and make lots of wishes..."  (How You Live, by Point of Grace).  I really think that is the way to live.  I let my kids play in their good clothes (sometimes), I encourage the kids to have fun making crafts and art and science projects on my kitchen table.  So what if we get paint on the counter?  It'll wipe up.  And if Warren's new shirt gets strawberries on it, either it will wash out or we'll have a new shirt to eat strawberries in.  I don't mean I'm completely careless.  I try to make Nathan wear the older shoes to play outside in the dirt, and I have a spare bib in my diaper bag.  I usually make the kids eat on plastic plates for regular meals.  But on special occasions, even they get to eat on the fine china. 

Taking a "Time Out"

My oldest son, Nathan, who is 5 years-old, is definitely what  you'd call a "high-energy" kid.  If you could harness the energy that kid uses in a day, you could power Manhattan!  I was very sorry when he stopped taking regular naps when he was about 4 years-old.  We tried the forced nap time thing, but honestly, it usually took more of my energy and effort to fight and cajole him into being quiet for 30 minutes than it did just to let him be.  At almost 5-and-a-half, we really don't even consider naps any more.  Even after playing hard at the park all morning, he will seldom be asleep when we get home (though sometimes).  Although he really is a great and well-behaved child with a generally sweet and cooperative demeanor, he does sometime get too wild or have a bad attitude (sarcastic gasp!).  I suppose it is partly related to all the energy he has, partly genetic, and partly learned from the way he sees his parents (well, mostly his father) react, but I think it's mostly that he's 5.  Like most 5 year-olds, he likes to get his way, and he is learning what his place is in his world, and where the (ever-moving) boundaries are now.  At 5, and with a baby brother and young dog, I give him more responsibility and trust than I did even 6 months ago.  Usually, my trust is well-placed, but he is only 5, after all.  Sometimes he makes mistakes, and sometimes I have to remind myself that it is I who made the mistake of putting too much on his small shoulders.  I expect a lot of him partly because I'm trying to teach him to be responsible, and to treat him like a "big boy", and partly because he acts like a big boy enough that I sometimes forget how little he is.   And honestly, sometimes because I really need the help.  It is a learning process for him, certainly, but it is for his parents at least as much.  Our theme for this week, as we are visiting grandparents and aunts and uncles, is RESPECT.  Other than reminding him of it and talking about it, I haven't yet decided what I'll do for lessons on respect.  Hopefully I'll get to that as soon as I finish writing this blog.

Speaking of writing this blog, my original intent was to write about a great technique that I learned of during a MOPs (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting a couple of weeks ago.  The speaker was a kindergarten teacher of some experience who gave me all sorts of inspirations and ideas for teaching and playing with the boys.  One of my favorite things she showed us, though, was her "time out bottle."  I don't call it that at my house, we call it the Calming Bottle or sometimes just the Blue Bottle.  It is simply a thick plastic bottle (clear, like a water bottle) with an amount of Karo Light corn syrup and about 3 drops of blue food coloring in it.  I used about 1.5 to 2 Tbsp of syrup, and added a pinch of multicolored glitter to mine.  The idea is to sit with the bottle and turn and twist it until all of the syrup coats the bottle, and the bottle looks blue.  It is basically a mindfulness exercise that promotes calm, and helps center the person.  The amount of Karo determines how long the exercise takes, and how difficult.  For young children, you might put more syrup, and for older ones or adults, you would use less.  My parents (both therapists) thought it was a terrific idea, and I think Mom wants to make several for her clients (she is an addictions counselor).  I think it is a great tool for parents, especially those with a high-strung child.  Nathan has always responded well to imagery. When he was having regular trouble with a bad attitude a year or so ago, we would talk to him about throwing the attitude away or or otherwise trapping or detaining it.  He came up with the most creative ways of getting rid of the attitudes, including drowning them, throwing them out the window, putting bombs on them, and other very "boy" things.  I really think the creative outlet of coming up with various ways of detaining or killing an attitude helped improve his mood.   So, now that the major problem is too much energy, we talk about trapping the excess energy in the blue bottle.  It is still somewhat new in our house, but so far I think it is working as intended.  At the very least, it is a good way of timing a "time out" without telling the child that's exactly what's going on, and while giving the child some control (or sense of) over the amount of time he or she spends calming down.  Rather than the kid bouncing on the bed or sitting there thinking how much he hates being sent to his room, while his energy is only mounting, hopefully this exercise offers the opportunity to focus on accomplishing a small task to show mom that his attitude has improved or energy is trapped,  or whatever the particular issue of the moment.  If we think it is so, it will be.  It helps us turn a negative into a positive and gives the child a chance to seize control of himself and the situation, while effecting a positive change, which is exactly our ultimate goal for our children, isn't it?

A Day at the Park

After dropping Bryan off at the airport this morning, we drove to my dad's office to see when he would be available for the picnic lunch my sister and I had planned.  To my surprised delight, he was available immediately, and we all took off for the park.  Dad played Badminton with Nathan in the grass at Greensboro's Bicentennial Gardens while I took pictures of them playing and Warren in the grass.  Chica and Joel eventually arrived, and we had hoagie-roll sandwiches with leftover chicken and ham and cheese from the weekend.  Everybody played in the grass and laughed.  Nathan and Dad flew (I use the term loosely) Nathan's kite.  We had a wonderful time, and it seemed oddly normal.  Maybe it is because my brother and sister and I have played together at the park countless times in our lives, or maybe it is meant that we should live near to one another and share in each others lives, or maybe it is simply that we were all very relaxed today with hardly any agenda.  But whatever the reason, it was simply lovely.  The weather was wonderful and the park was clean and not crowded.  Neither was it desolate, though.  There was a nice-looking family with two young boys at another picnic table.  The  other wore a head scarf and worked on her laptop computer much of the time we were there.  They were there when we arrived and still when we left.   group of older people sat talking at the table below ours for a long time, but eventually left.  We stayed a long time, but it didn't really seem like it, even though I was looking after two small children.  Dad eventually had to go back to work, but took Joel's car so the rest of us could stay and play longer.  Joel and Chica played soccer with Nathan, and it was really good to see them getting along and laughing so much.

Nathan really enjoyed the attention of his aunt,  uncle and grandfather, and Warren enjoyed the sunshine and the grass.  Warren also enjoyed the badminton rackets, and attempting to eat the shuttlecocks.

It seems I am currently unable to post pics, so I'll have to try to get those up tomorrow.  Right now I am going to turn the Xoom off and go to sleep before I start babbling incoherently.

I got on Mom's laptop and was able to upload pics today!! Yay!

Easter

We are in Greensboro,  NC this week, even though Bryan and I were looking forward to Eastrr at our own church this year.  Bryan is flying to Kentucky Monday, and staying through Thursday, and I didn't want to be stuck at home with the kids , so we decided the best plan woud be for us to drive down for Easter, stay, and DH can fly out of and back into here before we go to the Duke Walk, and then drive home.  Then we found out that Pop needs a quadruple bypass, so we will be going to Asheville to visit them during the week of the surgery, which is conveniently scheduled the Monday following the walk.  I'm happy to see my famiky this week, and his next week, but I'm already starting to miss hubby, and I'm worried for Pop.

We had a lovely Easter today, though.  Pop and MomB drove over drom Asheville yesterday morning, and we enjoyed the day hunting Easter eggs with Nathan at a downtown Presbyterian church, shopping (the moms and I, mostly), eating (there's usually food involved in our gatherings- we are southern!), and telling jokes.  Bryan and I are so very blessed to have parents who consider each ither best friends.  It is not at all unusual for us to all share a holoday together.  In fact, we plan every Thanksgiving so that we swap houses each year: my mom's one year, then MomB's the next.  It's wonderful!!  So we went to Eaater church at my sister's 9:45 United Methodist church service.  I think it's alright, but Bryan really doesn't care for the downtown church.  To tell the truth, the sermon was alright, but the music was disappointing.  Call me old fashioned, but I really enjoy some good old Easter hymns, such as He Lives or Were You There? or The Old Rugged Cross.  But they not only didn't sing any hymns, but the usic they did choose wasn't really all that Eastery.  Oh well.  Dinner of lamb and ham, corn puding, salt potatoes, parmesan broccoli, deviled eggs, and lemon cake was fabulous!

And to top it off, Bryan and I got to go to icecream and a movir sans children!!  We aaw Hanna, which wasn't horrible, but honestly wasn't highly entertaining, either.  I mifht write a review of this movie some time this week, along with some more insight anout our trip to NC.

Here are the rest of the pics for the previous post.  I'm still figuring out how to work this blog thing.  I have so far been unsuccessful in pasting text from my notes into the post uploader on my Xoom.  And since it's Bryan's raid night, it'll have to wait until tomorrow.  Sorry.  But enjoy the pics!

Sunshine, Robots, and Plants

I am proud to say that we have green!  I am not at all good with plants, and can seldom get anything to grow.  We planted some herbs, tomatoes, carrots, beans, and onions a week or so ago, and they are actually coming up nicely!  The peas and tomatoes have just started coming up, but the bell peppers have not showed up at all, though.  I hope they are just late.  I love peppers!

Nathan is excited to see them getting bigger all the time, and we turn the tray daily to watch the leaves move from one direction to another.  I was thinking about singing to them with Nathan.  If I can remember, maybe we'll do that during Warren's morning nap tomorrow.

We enjoyed the sunshine with our friends yesterday.  Luke and Alexyss came over, and the kids played outside between math bingo and craft.  I wanted to do a spring-theme craft, but I saw this recycled can craft online, and decided that the boys would love it.  We used recycled food cans (electrical tape along the cut edge for safety), craft paint (not recommended), miscellaneous junk or extra parts such as screws, bolts, nuts, washers, keys, bottle caps, etc., and craft supplies such as googley eyes, pom poms, glitter, and craft foam.  The kids had a really good time making them, and even Nathan retracted his "this is gonna be boring" statement.  I had fun helping them with the hot glue, and I decided to make my own robot with a leftover can when the kids were done.  We learned that craft paint does NOT stick to cans, though.  I'm still finding flaked paint all over my kitchen;  One reason Jen brings her kids over to my house for crafts!
(pics below)

Blogging on my Xoom

Already I'm behind!  I have actually written a couple of things which have not been posted here yet. Why?  Well, I'm busy, and the only time I really have to sit down and type is after the kids go to bed, like most self-respecting moms, of course.  I have the sweetest husband in the world, by the way, who insisted on buying me a tablet when I expressed interest in the option of replacing my smartphone with it.  Or maybe he was just sick of my stealing his computer at every opportunity, I dunno.  I had a Blackberry Storm, which I liked OK, but was up for "new every two."  I had decided to wait until either the iPhone5 or the Droid X2 came out this summer, since I didn't want to spend $200 on a devce which would be "old" in a few months.  Then I saw something about the iPad 2 and new Droid Tablet options.  Long story short, I decided on a Motorola Xoom, and so I got one.  It is absolutely as awesome as I knew it would be!  However, I didn't get all the accessories I need (since I wasn't sure what I would need and didn't want to be frivolous- says the girl who bought the Xoom).  Well, a keyboard would have been a good idea.  So I'm basically texting this entire Blog, and I've never been very good with a "soft" keyboard.  I type 60+ wpm on a standard keyboard, but not so well on this thing.  So, I typed half of a couple of notes to post this weekend, but never got around to finishimg or editing them.  I just now decided to post them belatedly anyway, and pretty much as-is, since they are just snippets of the weekend anyway.  So,  Enjoy.  Hopefully I'll write some opinion pieces soon.

Well, I'm Blogging!!

So, what is this oddly-titled blog about, you ask?  Well, anything I can think of, of course!!  Isn’t that the beauty of blogs?  But, since “anything” is probably a bit vague as a subject, and won’t help you decide if you are interested in reading any further, let’s start out saying it’s about me, an atypical ordinary mom, and my beautiful family as we go about life, learn about homeschooling, and continue getting crunchier by the day.  In order to decide if you are interested in reading further, or keeping up with my blog, you should probably like to know a little (or a lot) about me and my family, so here we go.

I am an Audiologist.  Strike that.  I am a mother of two, a wife, and an Audiologist.  I recently took a sabbatical from my career in order to focus on raising my beautiful boys and keeping our little old house as best I can.  I was a really good Audiologist.  I am a terrible housekeeper.  I am a great mother, and a pretty great wife, too.  But I’m only an OK pet owner.  I am also a great cook, but not so great at remembering to start dinner on time.  I am only a mediocre Methodist.  I’m a good daughter, and a good sister, I think.  I am always late.  I am really good with people, especially older people.  I claim to be crunchy, but I have never even considered going vegetarian or compulsively recycling.  I love to read and to write.  I am highly opinionated, and I love to share.  My opinions are sometimes well-researched, other times just whims, but they are always well-defended.  I can admit when I am wrong, though, and am not opposed to changing my opinion if presented with a good enough argument that holds up to my obsessive looking-into (I can’t really say research, because sometimes I use Google and online forums instead of peer-reviewed works).  I obsess.

My minor obsessions change frequently, though the major ones tend to be long-term, such as mothering and becoming crunchier.  I’m not sure where I picked up the term “crunchy” to describe more naturalistic, holistic, conscientious practices that go against the mainstream, but that’s what it means here.  My crunchiness is directly related to my mothering obsession, and probably is a result of my belief that children are born perfect, and we can only mess them up by adding things that are less than pure.  Of course, it is impossible (and not necessarily desirable) to keep children completely perfect, but I strive to make my children’s environments as pure as possible through breastfeeding, cloth diapering, whole food choices, and anything else I can think of and successfully adopt. 

What is so “atypically ordinary” about me, you want to know?  Well, I’d say that my husband and I are pretty ordinary people in most ways.  I am average height and build (in America), I have brown eyes and brown hair.  I drive a minivan, my husband drives a Fusion.  We have two children and a dog, and live in a 1600 sq. foot house built in the 1960s.  We are (struggling now that I’m not working) middle-class.  We have a mortgage and two car payments, as well as educational debt for four college degrees (we both hold Master’s degrees), and three credit cards which we’re trying desperately to pay off.  My husband is a Business Analyst (computer guy), and I am a stay-at-home-mom with a career on the back burner.  My dad was a Methodist Pastor until he recently “took an appointment outside of the church,” which means he became a full-time Executive Director and therapist for a church-affiliated counseling center in North Carolina.  My mom was a stay-at-home mother to me, and then got her Master’s degree at the same time I did (we went to school together), and is now a licensed addictions counselor.  My mother-in-law is a Captain of Police, and my father-in-law retired from the Sheriff’s department and now does private security.  All-in-all, I’d say that’s pretty ordinary.  As for the things that set us apart and make us atypical: we are an over-educated family (six Master’s degrees, three Bachelor’s just in our immediate families), we cloth diaper, homeschool without any planned curriculum, practice extended breastfeeding, our sons are intact, we bed-share, baby-wear, make our own baby food, are very careful about sweets we give our children, we don’t vaccinate, and we practice mindful parenting.  We had a son who passed away 17 hours after his birth 12 years ago, I attempted and failed two Vaginal Births After Cesarean Sections (VBAC), the second of which was an attempted homebirth.  Although any one of those things may not make me quite a freak in most circles, my passionate belief in the rightness of these things sometimes alienates me and makes it difficult to make friends with other moms.  Nevertheless, I love to converse, I love to share, and so here we are.  I hope that you are interested enough to continue reading and find out what crazy things might come out of my brain, and to share in little tidbits of my life as I learn how to homeschool my active five year-old while nursing my 9 month-old, and trying to keep the dog off of everybody.