Looking Like October

Mockingbird had to have two teeth pulled so that the new ones could come in straight.
I tried to play it cool, and forget two years ago when my wisdom teeth were removed. Which really wasn't that bad by itself, but thrown in having had a baby 4 weeks prior, and nose surgery two weeks after and it was a streesful time that this only resurfaced.

We there are both doing well, when the nurse leans over to to her coworker, "They're going to be sawing."
Wha-? I sit in disbelief.
He didn't hear so she repeated, pantomiming a handsaw in motion this time over Mockingbird's reclined head.
Soon I realized she wasn't talking about a dental procedure, but the landscapers outside, as the sound of a chainsaw tore through the window. This was a relief, but  unsettling itself. Mockingbird seemed fine and I tried to pat her leg every once in awhile. But when I glanced up to see at just the right angle what was going on inside her mouth, I took a deep breath and decided to just keep my eyes on my book.
Our visit was a total of 15 minutes, 15 long minutes.
Mockingbird wiped her eyes--brave girl--got her toy, and we left.

On the way home I tried to make things lighter.
"Wow, it's officially October now isn't it?...Overcast skies, crisp air, yellow leaves, and pumpkins out-"
"and bloody teeth" Mockingbird mumbled around her gauze. (Twice because I couldn't understand her.)

Those Wicked Apple Trees

"Are you hinting my apples aren't what they ought to be?"

"Oh no. It's just that she doesn't like little green worms!"

Actually, I don't mind the little green worms. Only pesticides can promise pristine produce. What is that saying about my food if even bugs won't eat it?

But that's not my point. Today we went gleaning for our morning break.
I was hearkening back to the peasants in my pedigree as I crawled up the overgrown apple tree near our home that sits on some odd corner of ignored property and shook the trees till fruit rained down and the children said it looked like the Apple Tree in the Wizard of  Oz.
Mockingbird shouted out "Ow! Yow! Hey!", not because she was getting hit but, "because it's fun to say!"
Bowery Bird found me sticks to bat at the high branches full of more fruit she found.
Kingfisher collected apples with grass stuck through them from it hitting the ground so hard & Canary, we just tried to keep track of.

More on gleaning at the Utah Society for Environmental Education blog.
Great links can be found at the end of the article.
Comment if you know of others to add.

Life Skills

I have a love hate relationship with my washer and dryer.
After 9 years of marriage we finally had them in our own home. Luxury! Modern Marvels! Bliss...Until they stopped working.
First the dryer stopped moving. "I'm a smart person. I have a college degree. I can hot wire a car (not really) but if a 15 year-old can do it--how hard can it be? It's just a machine with parts and directions...to be found somewhere, I'm sure. And I can not go another week with dirty laundry."

Boosting my morale with sentences like this (especially the last) I did it. With a great YouTube home video (the Southern drawl eased my anxiety), and some duct tape I replaced the drum belt for $10 in 15 min.
Then 2 weeks later it stopped heating. This time my husband ended up replacing the thermostat for $50.
A few months later the washer stopped moving. We replaced the feed dogs for $10 in 5 min.

We saved money not needing a repairman or entirely new washer & dryer, but the best is yet to come.
A couple more months and somehow, a fully dressed clothespin doll fell from the craft shelf above, into the lint trap. But, from my earlier intimate dealings with the dryer, I was able to not only remain calm, but remove the back panels of the dryer and get it out in less than 10 min--then go on with life. Amazing. I had never repaired anything more than a broken hair clip before this, and here I was welding power tools like a pro! Life Skills at work.

Then a month later a spool of wire fell down the lint trap. Really? Is this a joke? Is some one trying to make a point?
Here, for your reading pleasure are

Helpful Sources  in Teaching Life Skills to Children:

 Life Skills for Kids by Christine Field is a thoroughly covers topics from Time Management  to Navigating the World without it seeming overwhelming.

The Parenting Breakthrough by Merrilee Browne Boyack has, in my opinion, a terrible cover that belies the powerhouse of information within. Her conversational message to parents is that we should give our children the opportunity to take responsibility and control of their lives early. Then they can make mistakes in the safety of our home, and not have to as adults when the stakes are higher, or--Horror of Horrors!--just opt for the safety of perpetually living with mom and dad FOREVER.

What Every Child Needs to Know Along the Way by Gail Martin, I need to check out.

"Family Work" is a thought provoking article on family work by Kathleen Slaugh Bahr and Cheri A. Loveless that has personally altered my thoughts on family and work. Go figure.

Ironically, it is the very things commonly disliked about family work that offer the greatest possibilities for nurturing close relationships and forging family ties. Some people dislike family work because, they say, it is mindless. Yet chores that can be done with a minimum of concentration leave our minds free to focus on one another as we work together. We can talk, sing, or tell stories as we work. Working side by side tends to dissolve feelings of hierarchy, making it easier for children to discuss topics of concern with their parents. Unlike play, which usually requires mental concentration as well as physical involvement, family work invites intimate conversation between parent and child.

 Adventure to Inspire has impressive and detailed lists of life skills to download. The checklists for obtaining skills, with privileges attached are pure genius.

The Art of Manliness has 31 life skills for men ranging from "Managing Your Online Reputation" to "How to Tie the Half-Windsor Necktie Knot". I smell cologne whenever I go to this site.

Everything I did one Wednesday

A few months after I had a baby I was feeling better, but like I wasn't accomplishing anything. I mentioned it to my mom and she gave me an order/suggestion (isn't that the same thing when it comes from a mom?). "Write down one day everything you do, not what you want to do--and you'll see you are doing a lot."
So I did. It was such a validation of my efforts that I repeat the exercise whenever I need a pick me up. For example here's everything I did one

Wednesday:

• Night before: bed 10pm
• 5am alarm goes off.
• 5:10 get out of bed. Dress for the day.
• 5:20 My time-writing, and a chance to laugh at my own jokes.
• 7 grocery store before husband leaves for work because we need milk & eggs
• 7:15 back. Awake kids, start a load of diapers in the washer. change and dress Canary.
• 7:30 My husband leaves for work. Cold cereal breakfast for me, empty dishwasher awake kids again. Remind them to do their Top Row. Toy bin of cars out for Kingfisher & Canary.
• 8am Circle time on couch. I read the Aiken Drum story, we look at Scotland and Canada on the map & watch the YouTube version of this folksong. From our Gospel Picture Art Kit I pull out a picture and we talk about the 2000 stripling warriors from the Book of Mormon while someone cried about the cereal being gone, because they woke up late. We open our Memory Binders,  and practice our parts for the children's Primary Program in church coming up. I text a teacher and my sister.
• 8:30 Puzzles bin out for Canary. Bowery Bird is reading science experiment book...telling me her next plan. Mockingbird is doing her copywork & 4 spelling words at the kitchen table. I remind her, "No drawing our letters into faces and people." Kingfisher practices writing H's & does some gingerbread man tracing from a cookie cutter. Bowery Bird practices piano-have to help her with left hand. Easel and washable markers come out for Canary. Pass off Bowery Bird's Faith in God booklet goal for seeing a play last week.
• 9am Lego bin out for Canary. Mockingbird does independent reading for her Book It Pizza Hut chart. Bowery Bird does her cursive copywork (for dictation on Friday) & spells 5 words.
• 9:30 Bowery Bird starts a terrarium she found in the science book by getting dirt & rocks for our empty fishbowl. I switch laundry to start whites, check email, print Book It reading chart for the month, pick up toys, and we all go outside for our morning break.
• 10 In, H has a friend over to play. Star Wars bin out (reminders to be quiet in hallway). Print Connecticut  line map for Bowery Bird to do map work/notebooking of  This Country of Ours on. She uses the Kindle to review names.
• 10:30 Tried to read aloud with Mockingbird, but she's tired of reading. I read Literature to her: Uundertood Besty while she drew our Halloween costumes. Bowery Bird wants to listen in. Puppets bin out for Canary. Little friend's mom came to take him home. Tell children to stop drawing on the windows with the new white board markers--especially in front of Canary who might get ideas. Started garden tomatoes, scalding. Prepped- 
• 11 Lunch of sandwiches, mangoes, applesauce, and chocolate milk. (on an even better day they'd make their own after breakfast) Pulled out term board, with new Mary Cassatt picture, let them look at it. Did picture study, where I took it down and they each took turns remembering things in the pictures as I prompted. Mockingbird was surprisingly good.
• 11:30 Clean up chores: Mockingbird peeled tomatoes from ice water then did dishes while Kingfisher picked up toys & dusted. Bowery Bird did a science experiment with water, dish soap, and paper triangle she read about in the aforementioned science experiment book (that has been in our home at least 3 years and gone unnoticed till now), then showed us. Reminded Bowery Bird to sweep, clean up stuff, and clear the table. I filled in.
• 12 noon I changed baby, washed baby. Set up Little Duke audio book for Mockingbird in my bedroom, Starfall on the computer for Kingfisher in his top bunk, after ordering Bowery Bird to stop studying face painting on the computer for upcoming Entrepreneur Day. Had her read Poor Richard to herself in the living room as I  read stories to Canary, sang a song, and put her down for a nap
• 12:30 read with Bowery Bird from Age of Fable. 
•  Mockingbird does some reading on Starfall. I spend time with Kingfisher while Bowery Bird sets up art with him. (She initiated these little "art classes" with him once a week.) He and I read The Ladies Who Stopped the Wind, he retold it to me. We two went outside, talked about feeling and seeing the wind and how it moves. We played then I carried him home.
• 130 Bowery Bird and Kingfisher did art. They made houses out of crackers, frosting she made of water & sugar, beans, spaghetti, and trail mix (the last of it). She had directions written in pictographs on a white board. Math with Mockingbird. She feels left out. Canary won't sleep. (She wouldn't eat lunch). I feed her cereal facing away from the few M&Ms in the trail mix project. Put her back to bed. Mockingbird & I drink chocolate milk outside for love. We come up and do math (place value) she does a worksheet independently after. 
•  Canary won't sleep, is up. Bowery Bird and Kingfisher clean up. Kingfisher is bored. Doorbell from neighbor about lost item; not ours. But a package! Give Bowery Bird her math assignment & negotiate when it will be done; 5pm on graph paper.
• 2:30  We open package-home school phonics books from Usborne. This is a day they can watch 30 min of TV. Martha Speaks, all agree on and watch.
• 3 We tidy up house, load dishwasher, prep dinner pots, leave for a friend's house
• 4 The kids play with 8 kids ages 12-2y/o in their new play fort. I visit with a friend. She shares vegetables. I start home.
• 5 We are all home. We are all cleaning-vacuum, clean bedroom (sort of), lip sync to Rapunzel soundtrack, I'm getting snacks for baby and making dinner. Kids run out to play. Oh hi husband you surprised me home at 5:30! I know you've only been working this schedule for a year and a half... I read mail. I ask kids to set table
• 6:20 we sit down to a candlelight dinner. (The better to not see your food by.)
• 7 I leave for a home school meeting about my umbrella charter school.
• 9:10 home-- head spinning with changes. Exhausted.
• 10 bed.

This ended up being a typical "Good Day"; a day when we are progressing, our house is functional, the kids cooperative (relative term), I have patience to handle what comes, and we are learning even if its not exactly what I planned.

To some this may set heads spinning--and it does mine if I don't have that time to myself in the morning. But you get rhythms and habits and it starts to work. We've been at it for 4 years now and I see this being a turning point for us in terms of things actually coming together.
To others this may seem like not much is being accomplished--and yet it is. It's little bits here and there that add up over time.

FYI- Note, none of the laundry got folded for 2 days, and I slept in the next morning till 8am, which is kind of typical too.

Karma Counter-September

Sept 23-OUT
by 2 Kiwi's and a hug, arrived by freecycle : 4 drawer metal filing cabinet (good riddance ye hoarder of space!)

Sept 25-IN
from family- owl pellets, Miracle berries, MadMen dress, short hipster dress, several books, 2 Old Navy dresses, clothes for Kingfisher, 2 formal dresses for Mockingbird & Bowery Bird, new Grandma handmade dress for Bowery Bird--needed.
Sept 25-OUT
for family; 6 handmade lavendar sachets for the dryer out by plane (so sad to see them go-of course I'm talking about the family, Sheesh!)

Sept 27-IN
keyboard for Bowery Bird's piano practice--arrived by silver Honda (this is a loan, but so generous I break the rules to include it)

Sept 28-OUT
1 large garbage bag of misc. toys, Avent baby bottles, binders, women's and children's clothing to my favorite Vintage Charity Donation Boutique (Deseret Industries thrift store).

Sept 29-IN
4 lovely autumn-colored skirts--I'd previously admired-- arrived by doorbell with friend attached! (is this good karma already or what!)