February ache

I don't think I'm the only one whose heart cries out this time of year for spring.

February is the month that tries our souls.   How I ever survived a childhood in New England I have no idea.  February there isn't anywhere close to spring. 

Though it isn't so cold here and we don't have snow up to the roof, the world just seems colorless and dreary.

Interesting, isn't it, how we're always longing for something?  If we can just make it til spring...  

We hope to build a new house this summer, with an improved design for our family.

I can't wait til the house is built.

I can't wait to be done with diapers.  

I can't wait til the little ones stop making such a mess. 

I can't wait to have more freedom.

Yet if these hopes are so great, why is there always another one right behind?   Come spring, we can't wait to be done with school.  We can't wait to go to the beach.  Then we can't wait for cooler weather...


"What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy?"  -Laura Story, "Blessings"

Maybe the Lord gives us this time of year to get in touch with our heart's longings.   To see in our ache for springtime a deeper ache for an everlasting spring.


"If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world."  -C. S. Lewis

"'Have you not guessed?'

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.

'There was a real railway accident,' said Aslan softly... 'The term is over:  the holidays have begun.'

...the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them... now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read:  which goes on forever:  in which every chapter is better than the one before."  -The Last Battle

Wordless Wednesday

Dark hours and signs of spring

"There's always one awake--like they're taking shifts.  'All right, I'll annoy 'em from midnight to two.  Who wants three to six?'" -Jim Gaffigan


Ada's been having midnight asthma attacks requiring ten minutes of medication.  And Caleb's been suddenly screaming for no discernible reason at 4am.


So we're sleeping reeeeeal well.


But thank God we're out of the newborn stage, when that would be a good night.  *shudder*


Of all people, guess who saw the first robin of spring?

Seriously, though, what are robins doing here on February 4th?  I can't believe they caught his eye, but he was fascinated by them.  

Let's hope they give him happy dreams tonight.

Addendum to the mid-year progress report

I absolutely love this post from Confessions of a Homeschooler addressing the question of what the toddler(s) do(es) all day while you homeschool.

That's the million-dollar question, folks!  How do you homeschool with a toddler at home?  I'm pretty sure if I figured out the answer to that, high school trigonometry would be no problem.  And also world peace.   

Lizzy turned three in October.  She tags along when we do kindergarten, and after that she spends a lot of time coloring with Ada in their room.  She also enjoys drawing people on the whiteboard:

And portraits of Caleb:

Math manipulatives are always hot items.  Here, Lizzy is putting Jed's pattern blocks on templates to form letters.

Here, the girls are playing with geoboards while Jeddy does his math.

A three-year-old is one thing, but what about the really wee one?

Actually, Caleb has napped through most of school so far.  When he's up, he works together with his siblings toward complete and utter chaos a mostly workable school day.

He plays with toddler Legos.

He chews on plastic forks under tables.

Big Sister shows him how to play Little People.

He plays with Bendaroos.

He falls victim to dress-up.

He steals our demonstration clock while we're doing math and runs away with it.

He sits in the high chair and takes extra-long lunches.

He sits on the floor and rips napkins into tiny little shreds.

Sometimes Big Brother takes a little break to help him watch the garbage truck go by.

And of course, he works diligently on his schoolwork.

My favorite part of the aforementioned post is this:

And what are the advantages for your older kids of having the Teeny Tot roaming around while they try to concentrate and do their school work?

First, they’ll learn independence as they keep on reading while you re-roll the toilet paper your teeny tot likes to drag around the house with her. They’ll learn team-work as they organize how one will hold the teeny tot while the other removes the scissors from her hands. They’ll learnmulti-tasking as they do their math while at the same time keeping the teeny tot from choking to death on manipulatives. And, best of all…they’ll learn a great character skill called patience.

Though we all at times drive each other bonkers, we live and love together.  

And occasionally even learn together.

Mid-year progress report

Homeschooling two beautiful children with a two-year-old and a one-year-old (not pictured)... what could go wrong?  Easy peasy, right?

Third Grade

On very rare occasions, the outdoors is Jed's classroom.  

Here, he's drawing a diagram of a vanillin molecule.  Science is chemistry this year.

Here, he's inspecting an experiment that didn't work right until the third try.

I like that our math program has lots of manipulatives.  Here, he does a lesson on area using pattern blocks.

He also has plenty of math worksheets.

We've done lots of chemistry experiments this year.  This one involves yeast.

Sometimes, Mom gets sick and everyone climbs in her bed for a lesson.

Science is disproportionately represented here because it's the most interesting subject to take pictures of.  Grammar work, reading books, writing history reports... not so photogenic.

This is an experiment about hard versus soft water. 

And one about density...

Sometimes Jeddy recruits help with his grunt work.  The sisters are helping him cut and paste a graph.

We're working on focus and concentration.  Why does he ever gets distracted during school??

Kindergarten

Ada's very favorite thing is cooking for her math lesson.  Fractions, measuring, temperature... and brownies

...which can then be frosted and arranged to learn about repeating patterns.

Ada also loves practicing her handwriting.

More cooking.  Banana bread this time.  Ada also does various other things for math as well as daily reading lessons.  

And when kindergarten is done, she helps to comfort her little brother.

They are lovely children, aren't they?  And pictures are so beautifully noiseless.  Just like our homeschool.


A good half-year's work!

Better than Hoppin' John

You know she's at least your third child when your three-year-old daughter goes out looking like this:

...and when someone asks how it happened, you can't remember.

Speaking of black eyes, I stood in the bean aisle today looking for the kidney beans when my eyes came across the black-eyed peas and I thought "I forgot to make black-eyed peas on New Year's for good luck."  I thought how Hoppin' John would've been good with sausage.... why didn't I do that? I thought.  Oh yeah--I was sick as a dog on New Year's.  Huh.  Maybe if you're too sick to make a good luck food on New Year's, that portends bad luck for the year.  

Or if you start out the year with a black eye and your mother doesn't remember why.

Or if you're a poor sick little boy who can't even stay awake through his brother's lessons.

So it's a good thing we don't believe in luck.

Even if I did, I have a list of indicators that 2014 will be a better year for my mental health than several years in the recent past.  And that totally counts more than black-eyed peas.  

I was inspired by this blog post entitled How it Feels to be on Zoloft, which I read when I was debating going on it myself.  It brought me to tears to read how very similar her "before" sounded to me.  And I wept reading her "after," because I longed to be like that and wondered if it was possible for me.

So, thankfully acknowledging that every good and perfect gift is from God, I present this list of why drugs are good.

This is My Brain on Zoloft

1.  The physical heaviness on my chest, the stomachache, and the occasional hyperventilating all disappeared.

2.  One day I was outside for recess and noticed the sky was blue.  It was pretty.  I hadn't noticed that before.

3.  Pre-Zoloft, I was so overwhelmed with life, I felt if I couldn't fix everything, it was pointless to try to fix anything.  Afterwards, I did a few little things that helped life go a little more smoothly.  I set up a special tupperware drawer just for Caleb to play in.  I moved Lizzy's shoes and clothes within her reach so she could help herself.  These things didn't solve every problem in the world, but they made a noticeable difference for me.  I did one thing without having to do everything.

4.  At Christmastime, I printed out a nativity scene and helped the girls cut out all the figures, getting scraps all over the floor in the process.  I actually enjoyed this and didn't freak out about the scraps!  Unbelievable.  

5.  I laugh more, particularly with my kids.  The sound of my own laughter sounded strange to me at first, but I'm getting used to it.  The very sensation of happiness felt strange.

6.  One day we finished doing school, and only then did I notice how messy the living room was.  Before, if it was messy I couldn't focus and spent the entire school day stressed and grumpy.

7.  Instead of taking three tries to open my bedroom door in the morning, retreating to my bed between each try, now I can get that door open on the first try and face the day.

8.  Jason was surprised one evening to hear me state that I wanted to watch The Simpsons and see me start putting in the DVD.  He was much more used to the indecisive "I dunno; what do you want to do?"

9.  One night Ada's asthma was flaring up and I could hear her coughing in her bed.  I laid in my bed listening and thought, "Maybe she'll get really really sick and she'll have to go to the hospital and they'll have to run an IV and it'll be really scary..."  And then I thought, "But that probably won't happen."  And then I fell asleep.  Formerly, the doomsday scenario would've been like a runaway train, impossible to stop.  And the conclusion would never be "that probably won't happen."

10.  Jason heard the words "It'll be ok" come out of me, referring to some problem with the kids.  I've also been heard saying "It'll be fine" and "No big deal."  Before, everything was a tremendously big deal and nothing was going to be ok.

11.  I gained the self-confidence to start a blog.

12.  One day I was sitting on the bed snuggled up with both girls, doing a kindergarten reading lesson with Ada while Lizzy listened, and I thought "This is fun!"  It's such a gift from God not only to have good things in life, but the ability to enjoy them.  

13.  I had technical problems setting up this blog at first, and I was really frustrated about it for one day.  Then I was over it.  Likewise, I had a bad day with the kids one day, and the next day I woke up feeling fine.  Setbacks don't ruin a whole week anymore.  

14.  When Jason leaves for work in the morning, instead of feeling stricken with doom, I look around at the kids and think, "This will be a fun adventure!"

15.  Before, I sometimes thought my depression was justified because there's so much grief in the world:  starvation, war, abuse.  Now I not only see more of the beauty in this world, but that ultimately joy is greater than grief.  In the end, God and those who love Him triumph.  All things, even now, work together for good for those who are His.  The very real evils in this world cannot deter the ultimate good. 

16.  My mood chart used to be stuck on anxious.  If I didn't have a major reason to be something else, that's where it stayed.  Now it's more interesting because it moves around.  I experience a range of emotions--like a normal person, I imagine.  And I've noticed that now the default position is "happy."  

17.  My evening and morning conversations (monologues?) with Jason used to be completely negative:  fears I had, problems I faced, events I was dreading.  I still tell Jason my fears and problems, but the tone of my talk is balanced with positive comments too.

18.  Being on an antidepressant has made me get over the shame of being on an antidepressant.  I'm able to admit my mood issues.

19.  I'm much calmer overall.  Even amid the frequent noise of screaming and crying around here, I'm often calm and sometimes even smiling.  The noise doesn't jangle my nerves so badly.

20.  Even in this most trying time of year (winter), I've noticed seasonal beauty:  the sparkle of ice, the wonder of foggy breath, the pale stillness of nature.  

"Bless the LORD, O my soul,

And forget none of His benefits...

Who heals all your diseases"  Psalm 103:2-3

"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights"  James 1:17

"Is anyone cheerful?  He is to sing praises."  James 5:13

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think...to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.  Amen."  Ephesians 3:20-21