It was Saturday but Daniel worked all day today, so the kids & I had “school” since we missed some days this week with visiting family.
Carissa came down with a fever again (102.6). She has seemed sick all week. We wonder if she never got over whatever she had last week, or if this is something new?
Mara is telling “everyone who will wave at me or say hi” that she has “two loose teeth!”
And, in addition to requesting “boo…boo…” (for “book”), David now requests that I read him specific titles.
David, pointing to the bookshelf: “Buh-buh-buh!”
Me: “Big red barn?”
David, nodding: “Huh!”
or. . .
David: “Caw! Caw!”
Me: “Speedy Little Race Cars?”
David, nodding: “Huh!”
I love him!!!
————

Random Story of the Day

After bathtime, Mara and I were chatting. She said that last Sunday at church one of the boys was talking to the teacher about believing in God, that God is real and that He is always there. The boy was telling the teacher that he wanted to believe, but he didn’t always believe and he wasn’t really sure what to think.
“He seemed kind of . . .” she paused for a minute. “. . . mixed up? I was going to use another word. . .”
“Confused?” I offered, as simultaneously Mara said, “Discombobulated.”
I laughed.
“Why are you laughing?” she asked. “It wasn’t supposed to be funny! . . . Is this one of those times you are laughing at yourself?”
I told her I was laughing at me, no, laughing at both of us–but I wasn’t laughing to make fun. Then I said it was just quite a big word for a six-year-old.
“Now I feel embarrassed,” she finished. “And YOU seem discombobulated!”
I just hugged her, smiling.
“Why didn’t you laugh?” Mara looked at me perplexed. “I was trying to be funny!”

I came up the stairs and saw Carissa pacing up and down the hallway.

She stopped in front of me, eyes sparkling. “I’m a horse!” she said.

So I see.

I’m pretty sure this behavior is hereditary. In fact, her Oklahoma grandmother may have done this very thing as a child.

And I guess when you’re really not a horse, it is easier to trot on two feet instead of four.

She cantered back down the hall and then returned.

“I have a tail!” she declared in her deepest equine voice. Indeed, she did have a tail.

She turned again and galloped away.

Tonight at dinner Daniel remarked that we had good meals this week. Yay! It makes me happy when he’s happy. I took a picture so I could remember what he liked. 🙂

One of those mornings. . . Carissa is still sick. Her temperature is around 102.3 this morning.

David cried and cried in his bed this morning. His morning naps that have helped with the first part of our homeschool year, but I’m realizing: they will not last. David really wants to be up in the mornings now, and I need to get on board. Besides, our afternoons will be much better if both C&D nap at the same time. So I need to re-do our schedule somehow for homeschooling Mara & Micah and keeping Carissa & David busy at the same time.

I spent probably 20-30 minutes upstairs with the little ones: changing diapers, reading, taking Carissa’s temperature and giving her medicine. When I went upstairs, Micah had been playing with the toy laptop, and Mara had been writing down the Dr. Seuss story about a “a nook can’t read, so a nook can’t cook, so what good to a nook is a hook cook book?” I thought that would keep them busy while I was occupied with the little ones.

I was wrong.

When I came downstairs, they had taken packing foam out of a box I recently received. They decided to “make things” out of the foam, seemingly oblivious to the sea of white in which they were swimming.

When does common sense start to kick in?? The big pieces of foam weren’t a problem. But the floors in the kitchen, dining room and part of the living room were literally covered with teeny tiny static-charged foam balls!

David not taking his nap and Carissa being sick were small disturbances to our school schedule, compared with what I was looking at!

I gave Mara and Micah brooms, and we all started sweeping. But there was a problem: When we swept, all the tiny foam balls would jump behind the broom.

As you might imagine, this was amusing to the kids too!

None of the little white balls were following us. {sigh} Even the Swiffer sweeper only captured a few at a time.

Then I stumbled upon a blessing-in-disguise! Dog hair! (Yes, I actually said my archenemy was a blessing!) For once in my existence, I was actually grateful for dog hair because there is some sort of electrical charge that attracts the foam balls to the dog hair. (Yes, it sounds really disgusting but indoor-dog-owners understand the dog hair battle, and for everyone else, I won’t even try to explain.) I found out that if I swept some dog hair across the floor, the foam balls would jump onto the dog hair!

With the help of dog hair and after a lot of Swiffer sweeping, most of the floor was finally free of foam (and dog hair).

I turned my attention next to Mara’s hair, which looked like Jack Sparrow with all the foam balls.

We brushed for 10 minutes, but it was impossible to get the foam out of her hair. She still looks like Jack Sparrow. Hopefully it will come out in the bath. . .

At that point, I just had to look at the humor of it.

Tiny foam balls still cling to my black pants. Micah sees, and he is coming straight at me, brandishing the Swiffer at eye level.

In his very serious ‘I-can-handle-this’ tone, he says, “Hold still, Mommy. This might tickle.”

I woke up this morning to Carissa, bursting into our room to say, “Mommy! It’s Year Day!”

It sure is!

Happy “Year Day!”

Since it was Daniel’s last day before going back to work, we planned to take the kids to Chick-Fil-A with a gift card we received for Christmas. We actually fed them breakfast, so they would want to play more than eat. (That way we get a little “date” together: we eat while the kids play.) When we got there, we found out they weren’t serving breakfast for New Year’s Day–they were opening at 10:30–so we went to Target for coffee and some after-Christmas-sale shopping.

The kids were quite disappointed to miss Chick-Fil-A so we ended up celebrating New Year’s Day at Dunkin Donuts. It was exciting to me that all four kids are old enough to sit alone in chairs and feed themselves! With help, of course. But for the most part, they fed themselves.

Riss predictably chose pink with sprinkles; Mara chose green “because I always always choose pink.” David received the least messy-looking donut. And Micah chose blue: the donut of the day, celebrating New Year’s Day “2013.”

When we got home, I put up the frames I got at Kohls, folded several loads of laundry with Mara and Micah, and worked on meal prep while Daniel worked on the computers.

We’ve enjoyed our Christmas break. But I’m looking forward to the daily structure that “back to school” brings!