But that chill, and the way the sun is fading into the southern sky never ceases to generate this familiar sense of desperation...or perhaps it's some sort of restlessness.
I want to feel the sun and soak it up...want to take in every color...want to remember what the mountains look like right now, today.
It's the first season with an empty chair at the table...the south called, you know. He told me the other day that he "forgot" that it would be getting cold up here. And it's a strange feeling not knowing the new friends and new places.
Somewhere in the world today, someone put child locks on their cabinets....today, after 21 years, I took the child locks off of mine.
Somewhere in the world today, someone went out and bought a big tandem stroller, large enough to hold two bouncy toddlers and all the gear/stuff/junk it takes to care for them.....today I placed my Rolls-Royce of all tandem strollers......on a pile for trash pickup. And I found that I glanced out the window several times to get a last look at it. Had a strange feeling I should take a picture of it....
And I wonder, how in the world can I be sure that they are internalizing everything I'm trying to teach them...or that the ones that are already grown have already internalized it. And the answer is...I can't. I can just pray. This week we've had talks on respect and marriage and godliness and work ethic....just a bit of light small talk.
Man, I love these kids. Sometimes I feel like Lone Ranger Homeschool Mom...my mother, of course, is Tonto. My sweet mother, who is completely tutoring one subject for me this year (and a doosey of a subject it is) - what a blessing. I wouldn't trade having homeschooled this crew for anything in the world. By the time I'm done, I will have homeschooled for 26 years, Lord willing, and I am still thankful daily that nobody gets on the bus in the morning.
As far as interjecting random thoughts...here goes: When I am with my girls among their peers (ballet, etc), I am used to being older than all the other moms. As a matter of fact, Gracie came home from ballet last week and told me all the girls were talking about how old all their 30-somethings mothers were. "I decided to just be quiet," she said. So, since I'm used to it....imagine how strange, when I sat with my 21yr old at Belmont orientation a few months back. I was feeling very un-perky that day, having come off of a 12 hour drive followed by 3 hours of sleep...so I had that haggered-puffy-eyed-oldish kind a thing goin' on. But, low and behold, I looked around the room, and it was a shock to my system...an unfamiliarity of sorts, because....
I was the SAME age as all the other moms in the room !! I had a beautiful visit during a later session with another mom. We discovered we were the same age. I told her she looked beautiful in her 40-something-ness, and she told me I looked great in mine.
I thought it would get easier when everyone was "big"
But each morning these days welcomes me to life in a much faster lane than I ever traveled with a child on my hip. I'm not sure if I keep up, because frankly, I haven't had time to assess whether I'm keeping up or not, and at times I feel I can't quite form an intelligent sentence.
So in honor of that...
Well, I did this once before...many, many years ago in my journal. And I thought perhaps I'd do it again, but this time just throw it out there into cyberspace for posterity.....It is entitled:
Subjects I Touched on Today
The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
The French Huguenots
The metric system
Unit Multipliers
Order of operations
Addition and subtraction fact families
Federal Reserve regulations on U. S. subsidiary banks
How to form cursive D's and F's
Booker T. Washington
Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive reforms of the early 1900's.
Earthquakes and seismographs
Basic geography of China
Capital letters and periods
Giant pandas
Piano
The rotation of the earth makes night and day
Direct and indirect objects
Predicate nominitives and Predicate adjectives
The symbolism of Pilgrim's Progress
Reciprocals
College financial aid paperwork
Long division
Why Taft's presidency is viewed as somewhat of a failure
How to properly answer an essay question
The definition of a society
The polytheism of the ancient Sumerians
Harriet Tubman
And that the number one rule of this house is "We obey our Lord Jesus Christ"
...one day at a time
...because perseverance is not one long race; it is many short races...one after another
- Walter Elliot from The Spiritual Life
Probably some photos would be in order at this point, to grace the pages of my babblings. So since I never yet added any of the kids individual shots, that seems a good place to start.
Gracie excitedly received the news that she will be among the dancers going up on pointe in the next few weeks at ballet. So proud of you my sweet Grace.
Well, Faith is on the far side of her eye surgery and her doctor is pleased with the results thus far.
It has definitely made a big difference as far as we can tell. Her biggest worry when the doctor explained the surgery to her was how soon afterwards she would be allowed to read, and she actually choked back tears when she asked him how soon she could read. Fortunately the answer was the very next day. I have never seen a 6yr old child read like she does. She reads constantly....she reads well, and one can easily tell by her spelling ability that I did not birth this child !!
She had a little trouble getting awake, and she told us MANY things when she was coming out of the anesthesia...
Faith: (with her eyes still shut) "How do they get babies out of you?"
Aunt Sue: "Didn't Jennie (her cousin who's an ob nurse) tell you about that?"
Faith: "I thought they just drilled into you."
Faith: "Tell everyone I'm wearing tacky pajamas (hospital gown) and I don't really like
wearing tacky clothes. Just put that on twitter."
Faith: (struggling to open her eyes) "Is it night time?"
Me: "No, it's daytime."
Faith (very upset) "I'm usually not this tired in the middle of the day!"
Faith: "Well, maybe just one. I don't wanna get sick from too much sugar."
Faith: "When we get home, can I sit on a chair instead of a stool? ....so I don't fall over."
In honor of her 4th Gotcha Day a few weeks back, I was going to write a "Faith-isms" post. I missed my mark, but I thought I'd add it here.
So, here we go....
FAITH...
On Baby Names
If I ever have a little girl and she has cheeks like mine that are puffy and they are a little bit pink...I'm gonna name her Rosy.
On Chinese Culture
I know why I talk so loud and so much...it's cause I'm just remembering how it used to be in China and that's what it's like there.
On Social Media
A lot of people follow me on twitter...that's cause I have a lot of tweets.
On Government Policy
Well....at least Obama doesn't just let people have only one child !!!!
On Dating
Faith: Pappy, who do you have a crush on?
Pappy: Gammy.
Faith: No, no! It can't be anyone you're related to!
On Her Brother
I just like staring at Mitchell whenever he has smiles, because his smile is so cute.
On Higher Education
I've heard of people having night classes...I don't even know what they are and I'd like to keep it that way!
On Real Life
A day just doesn't seem like 24 hours. It's longer if you're in real life, like a day in Earth. Well, pretty much everyone is in real life, unless you're in heaven and then it probably doesn't feel like very long.
On Current World Leaders
George Washington D.C. is the governor of the United States.
On ...well, I'm really not sure...
I'm tellin' you...days have gone by that have never lived!!
On Old Testament History
The promise land...where everything gets promised.
On the History of Country Music
Faith: (disgustedly) Tim McGraw's married ?!!
Grace: Yes
Faith: What's his wife's name?
Grace: Faith
Faith: ME??!! I married him in China, but I ditched him. I ditched him back in the 1800's during the Silver War!
Not biased at all about this girl...we just happen to think she's the bomb!!
When I get a little choked up over how big the bigs are, then I see that colossal personality in pint-sized body sitting next to me. That little one that told me, "I'm glad I have a big family now." That little one that stands and knocks on my bathroom door every single time I go in, hollering through the door, "Mother, I just wanna ask you something!" That little one that stuffed soft, homemade chocolate chip cookies into her purse yesterday.
"Mess?" you ask.
"Oh, yeah!" I reply.
...but, oh well.... they weren't in a cupboard that had ever had a child lock on it anyways.
