Fall colors, fair fun, moody skies. School days fly by with lots of books and drawing and music and math. Millie is learning about ancient British history, which is a pre-cursor to the (closer-to-home) American history Lyddie is now learning. I am reading through a lot of the girls' books ahead of time so that I am a little ahead of the curve. Homeschooling is really a part-time job, did you know that? It takes me several hours every day to prep, teach, clean up, and prep for the next day. It means I have to pick and choose what I'm able to accomplish or participate in very carefully to leave time for keeping up with running the home, spending time with Rosie, managing my friendships that I cherish, and maintaining one or two things that are mainly for me, like knitting or cross-stitching or reading or, yes, exercising (my least favorite but probably most essential renewed "hobby"). If something doesn't make the cut it doesn't mean it's not wonderful or important but just that I am so completely aware of my finite abilities that I know I won't do anything well if I add it in. What a balancing act.
We are participating/helping with Kingdom Kids two afternoons a week. All of us girls really enjoy going and being with the kids and having fun. I find it really life-giving. I try to keep an open hand with whatever the Lord has put in front of me, knowing that my main priorities of mothering this stage may call me elsewhere, but I feel thankful that my little three are doing well and enabling me to participate in something outside of our home that brings me such joy and delight in the long run.
I haven't done any canning or preserving of any kind this year, which is really unusual but unsurprising, so to make up for it, I bought two boxes of peaches that I'm quickly trying to can so we have several jars to grab this winter to go alongside soup dinners. Fourteen jars in and I still have another whole box to put up. I also have a cantaloupe I want to make into jam from Food in Jars- a recipe I've been wanting to try for a few years because we really love melon. I plan to do some applesauce too, if I can, and that's about it.
We had a surprise batch of chicks hatch from a broody free-ranging hen and they are just the absolute cutest thing. Although we weren't desirous of any more chickens, (we already have about 17), I never get tired of watching them trail after their mama, who is as protective as can be and fiercely fluffs her feathers up and will fly at anyone ostensibly posing a threat to her brood. Motherhood is fierce and wonderful.
As long as I'm just writing a rambly post, I'll note my booklist:
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is a really well written novel in the fantasy genre but is what I'd call "gateway" fantasy. The story is very good and it doesn't really fit all the "tropes" that some of the fantasy series rely so heavily on. Jesse also picked it up to reread it after I started, in order to beat me to the second book, which, since I did give it to him last year as a gift, I guess I should defer to him.
- I'm also reading Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix,
- Slowly making my way through Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard,
- Reading Volume II: Parents and Children of Charlotte Mason's Home Education series (excellent and full of Aha! moments!)
- finally nearing the end of listening to The Count of Monte Cristo along with the CraftLit podcast
- and delighting in listening to The Green Jacket along with the Forgotten Classics podcast
For the girls' school pre-reading, I just read
- Pinocchio for the first time ever and
- Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle, which is a book I remember really loving when I read it as a child for school and I think Lyddie is going to love it when I hand it to her as a free read,
- Now I'm working on the Crimson Fairy Book of fairy stories compiled by Andrew Lang.
I don't know how I'm squeezing in so much reading; I'm not really, I just fly through the school books in a couple days each, and my own reading is much slower than that. How lovely it is that there are so many delicious books.
Back to school! Busy as can be, I wake up early every morning and head to bed a little too late, just to stay on top of things right now. The sky turns to dusk earlier and earlier so that by 8:30 the sun has set and it's quite dark, and I get so disoriented; surely it's time to turn in but there's still so much to do.
Homeschooling two in these early years is surprisingly not much more work than one so far, especially since I spent a significant amount of time this summer preparing and planning. We start school at 8,break for chores at 9, and are done with most everything by noon. The mornings are jam-packed with a great variety of short lessons: Bible, poetry, memorization, drawing, spelling, math, literature, history, geography, natural science, a variety of music, penmanship, and other happy things. Rosie loves to join in sometimes and other times she's making her own fun in the mud or on the swings or in the sensory bins I have put together for her. Afternoons hold splashing in homemade mud puddles while swinging, knitting**, stripping bark from walking sticks ("Daddy's going to give it an oil finish if we get all the bark off!!"), cross-stitch, playing with frogs, digging in the dirt, a bit more pleasure reading... September is nice.
Lyddie and Millie had their very first ballet class this week and couldn't have been more delighted. Rosie will be well prepared when it comes to be her turn in a couple years since they have spent all kinds of time talking and teaching her what they learned. And they are just the sweetest little ballerinas in their dearly loved leotards.
** I am working on a little knit dress for Rosie that she picked out called Anakhoreo by Taiga Hilliard, who designed the Rio dress I made for Rosie when she was an infant, and which she was able to wear until she was probably three. This is a very similar pattern but with a cable panel rather than a seed stitch panel. Part of why I loved the Rio so much was the yarn - frog tree pediboo was delightful and totally held up like a dream. This is just knit picks swish which I like - it's a good quality for the price, but which will probably not hold up as well and it definitely won't have the same soft drape as the Pediboo. But it will be sweet all the same!
I feel like a genius for finally coming up with a system to help keep the kids' "town clothes" from getting ruined, lost, and torn in country living play. Do you live in a place that requires "town clothes" and "play clothes"? Or maybe church clothes and school clothes or play clothes.
I wanted had to figure out a way to keep nice clothes separate - but accessible and organized because we do need them regularly- from the clothes I have for rolling around in the dirt, because that's what my kids really look like most of the time now. Here's what I did:
My big girls have two and a half drawers each on a tall dresser that stores their clothes and also a spot in the closet for hanging items. I try not to have too many clothes for them but frankly, I love buying clothes for the girls and it's something I only get to do for a little while longer, so for now I give myself freedom to buy what I love when I see it for a reasonable price. So I took everything out of the dresser drawers, and declared one drawer for each girl as ALL her "town clothes" and one drawer for all the play clothes and pajamas. Then the fifth, shared drawer has each girl's underwear, socks, tights, swimsuits etc. It's working like a charm!
To keep it smooth, I just quickly pull out the occasional town outfit from each load of laundry (I have to sort mine and Jesse's out anyway) and put those back in the town drawer, and the girls fold and put away their own play clothes and I don't care HOW those drawers look since I never have to dig around in them in moments of stress to find the cute leggings that would match that Sunday dress! It makes packing for out of town trips a breeze too! I know I will be able to find clothing acceptable for when we speak at churches or visit family for special events! The girls seem to know not to mess around with the tidy drawers of town clothes and I think the like having those clothes ready for when we need them, and when I sorted everything originally I stuck a few "new" $1 shirts and shorts from Goodwill in the play clothes drawer so they didn't just feel like I took out all the cute stuff and left them with the boring old stuff for everyday use.
Rosie has a different small dresser and all her play clothes are in her drawers as always - I just took the town clothes out and folded them into the cupboard of that same dresser.
No more overstuffed drawers, no more yelling-frustrated mom trying to help a child find a clean unstained, unripped outfit when it's time to go to town or pack a suitcase! Such a small change but with a daily impact: I love not having to send a child back downstairs to change when they inevitably come up in the morning wearing the adorable new outfit from Grandma on a day they're going to run like banshees through the field or dig in the garden or become covered in sap from tree-climbing...
Do you have this same problem? Have you found a different solution that you like better? If not, maybe you want to try this simple solution!
The Lord will fight for you; you need only be still. Exodus 14:14 -- Our memory verse for this week.
Spring break was a much needed change last week! I was so thankful for a little time to rest, work in the garden, and visit family for a couple days, and plan and prepare for the rest of our school year. I can't believe we have only eight more weeks before we change things up for summer break. How glad I am that I have a game plan for the weeks ahead. For several weeks I have been reading Happy Times in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren and this morning we finished it. What a delightful read! In our "morning basket" time I try to choose a selection that Rosie will really appreciate, like Beatrix Potter, along with a few different longer books, like Noisy Village or Winnie-the-Pooh. We have been loving Life of Fred during this morning time as a fun addition to our math curriculum, and I've kind of been developing our own Spanish curriculum using picture books, songs, and occasionally videos. That's been a challenge but I finally am happy with the direction we're going for now.
Do you plan for the summer with your kids? I think we might continue with a few things that feel "fun" - Life of Fred which they rejoice over, maybe Spanish so we can continue to move ahead a little bit, and lots of reading that I might need to prepare in advance for, since our library's selection is very mediocre when it comes to really good children's literature.
The girls come in with handfuls of kale (which overwintered) from the garden and discovered some carrots that were frozen in the ground all winter so they dug those up and have been chopping them up into their own "salads" with the kale. The carrots are fine but they look slightly shriveled and totally unappetizing to me and I just laugh. In the garden everything is coming up: lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, bok choy, onions, peas... my potatoes are still under the earth with no signs of life but one of these days I know they will make an appearance.
My "Love and Joy" cross-stitch sampler was finished today, just in time to start a new spring sampler! We dyed eggs with friends and I caught up on laundry and started some chick eggs in the incubator just for fun. We'll see if they hatch! Apparently I think 18 chickens isn't enough for us, so why not try for half a dozen more...I'm sure I'm crazy. But why not be a little crazy if it makes life more fun, right?
I feel a little like I might be limping to the finish line of our ministry-laden March, but we are certain to finish it out in due course, right?
There are things about working in ministry on the Rez that are really difficult to put into words but I know they must be real because I'm not the only one who experiences it. Sometimes I think, "I really want to write about this" so I can share and hopefully encourage and challenge others to see God's faithfulness, but when I try to write, the thoughts and concepts are so tangled that I don't often know where to start. {And in my effort to be realistic, I also sometimes feel like I end up with a "downer" of a post, or that I'm going to sound really depressed when I'm not. After gradually easing into the knowing of these things you kind of learn to live with the knowing of them without being constantly devastated by the brokenness it reveals.}
Someone recently said to me, "I did not know what true spiritual warfare was until my first trip to the reservation." Whew! Sometimes I convince myself I am imagining the dark cloud of difficulty or even sorrow that gathers. Sometimes the struggle is my own doing, consequences for choices I'm making about my sleep, my attitude, my habits. Sometimes it's sorrow directly related to sorrow over things I carry now, things I know. Sometimes the struggle is clearly a direct attempt to discourage and disable: opposition.
We know that as God's children we have an enemy. We know that when we are engaging in the front lines of ministry the enemy would surely rather us not be successful. We know that the enemy of our souls prowls like a lion seeking to devour. We also know we have nothing to fear because of the lover of our souls. Here on the Rez we are without a doubt on the front lines of the Kingdom of God. Our lives intentionally center around serving and loving "the least of these" within a people group that is so marginalized that many people talk about them in the past tense. "When the Indians lived..." "The Indians did..."
I believe God protects our church family mightily from deep darkness all around. I believe He completely controls the suffering His children encounter and experience. I believe He means all of the things we walk through to be for our good - no, not an abstract version of "good"- He has in mind the deepest, most beautiful healing of our selves.
Bear in mind that as I write these things I am thinking of children I have seen recently with suspicious bruises. Of a child who never has adequate clothing for the weather. Of a young mom I came in contact with today who told me her brother passed away in a fatal car wreck in her own car last week. I'm thinking of children who haven't got any running water at their house; of a family with several precious children that didn't even have a door on their house for a significant part of last year; of a couple that lived in a tent last summer and now live in an RV with a leaky roof.
I'm also thinking of how the Lord has met each of those scenarios with His love now and His promise of care for the future. How the children I worry over have tasted the goodness of His love and safety through the church. How the mother got a listening ear and got to see her young children having fun in a safe place today. How the children without water have had showers and care at the home of some of our friends. How the missing door was replaced by some of the men from our church, and how the man and woman in the RV can have a double understanding of what it is like to be cared for by the Lord, an understanding I may never fully grasp in this lifetime. His healing touch is merciful and perfect in His time.
I can say that all our experiences are meant for the healing of our souls because He promises it, not because I never doubt it. Sometimes I can't touch that in my mind, sometimes my heart is too broken to land on the truth of His goodness, and then I do sob. But soon the reminders come: This world is not our home. This sorrow is fleeting. Jesus knows our every weakness. Jesus loves the little children. Jesus suffered first for us. Joy comes in the morning.
"Come then, my beloved, my lovely one come.
For see, winter is past, the rains are over and gone." (NJB Song of Solomon 2:10)
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I am working on Lyddie's Suzanne sweater in KnitPicks DK Swish. Her chest measurement is small so I am knitting a smaller size but forgot to adjust the sleeve length and just had to rip it back to increase the length of the sleeve. The multicolored yarn was a beautiful gift from a sweet reader here and I can't wait to plan a project for it - possibly a sweater for Millie next.
