It has been A Week.

Like the title says! We started the week with temperatures in the low to mid 40s and now we are in the mid 70s! The high was 76f today and it was beautiful. Absolutely lovely. I have plans this weekend to clean out the herb garden (it used to be a sandbox!) and maybe the vegetable garden. Spring has sprung, at least for the foreseeable forecast. Planting might happens...soon!

We have gone to the park twice this week. It's been so beautiful. The kids have been loving the weather too.

Reuben is almost done with cognitive brain development. His writing is better, and his spelling a little bit too! His cognitive skills have improved. He has memorized over 30 presidents! And played a lot of games. We loved the Equipping Minds program and now that I have done it with a tutor for Reuben, I think I can do it at home with Becky and forgo paying for tutoring which will save us a bunch of money. My husband had a long talk with me yesterday about this and we decided I will do the program with her. 

I had reached out to Jill of the Einstein Reading Program and she finally got back to me and said her program is $3,800 for 40 lessons--one lesson each week. Well, I was excited about continuing her program since I only got 6 weeks of it from Kristal, our Equipping Minds teacher, but for that price point we just can't right now. I feel peace about it. I think I will try to save up this year and see if Reuben or Becky needs it next year, if Barton doesn't work out for them. Reuben will start the barton reading and spelling program since I already own it and have been doing it with Becky. Well, my mom is doing it with her. But you get what I mean.  

my cutie.

We also had a very crazy bit of news that went into my choice to stop doing the Equipping Minds program that maybe one day I will share, but not right now. I'm still wounded over it and need time to adjust. I don't know what to think and am gathering my thoughts. It does not involve our family so rest assured, we are all well and love each other quite amiably. 

God is so good. I am so glad I live where there is spring. I know soon it will be 700 degrees and I'll be wilting inside with ice cubes and ceiling fans but I'll take perfection when I can. 

I want to make time to paint today. 

The kids have requested mini-hamburgers and mac and cheese for dinner today! Since we have biscuits and gravy for breakfast and...bagels for lunch, I think a nice well rounded meal will be great for dinner. What is a mini-hamburger? I think most places call them sliders. But when we only have 1 pound of ground beef, tiny hamburgers are perfection. 

Esther is taking the greatest nap after our park day. She was so tired on the way home! I had Becky and Reuben chatting her up on the drive. She ate a bowl of cereal as a snack and started falling asleep at the table so I scooped her up and she's currently curled in Becky's papasan chair snoozing away.

 Bring on the ice cream and the fun, silly summer. I'm ready.

The Weeks Feel So Long

Here we are again, at the tail end of a long homeschooling week, where I cooked every meal...okay, I didn't make every meal actually I think my husband made one last weekend and Reuben made fries one night...but besides that I did, in fact, cook every meal and clean every floor. 

I feel tired but happy. Sometimes I get down about all the work there is to do. It literally never ends. There is always one more wall I could wipe down (those dirty fingerprints!) or chair to clean, one more corner to dust or thing to put away...but I know now, after 39 years of existing, that this life I have built is a privilege. 

It is a privilege to care for my family, to educate them, to nurture them well and to hopefully rear them to love and honor the Lord. I feel deeply grateful that this week despite my ongoing chronic issues and my own emotional ups and downs...and my spiritual struggles, I was able to take it moment by moment and here I am listening to my happy children jump on the trampoline in the 50 degree weather, a new spring here at our doorstep and...dinner still to plan tonight. Granted, many moments were chaotic and crazy and I remain certainly humbled in my motherhood. 

There was a toddler tantrum today when we had to leave the pool. And one of my kids walloped another kid in the face and there were many tears shed and arnica administered. I would have given said child pulsatilla if I'd had it...but I didn't. And there was a rush to make lunch because everyone was hungry after swimming...but we made it through afternoon school today and all is well in the dawn of a new spring and the excitement of a empty afternoon of playtime. 

It was a good day and I won't let the things I didn't get done ruin it. We had beauty, we made memories and we read books. Perfection couldn't dream any bigger.

But the week did feel very long. Day after day, the same rotation of to-do. Breakfast, devotions, dishes, homeschooling. Piano, laundry, pleasure reading (Treasure Island!) and playtime, if it isn't raining, hopefully outside. It rained a lot this week. 

Tomorrow promises even more beauty! It is forecast to be 66 degrees where we live and that sounds heavenly. I need to start planning a garden. Dare we do it? Dare we try to grow something with a toddler and chronic fatigue? Maybe this year I will dare. My 10 year old can probably do a lot of it on his own and he wants to, too. And life is never perfect. Perhaps the lesson my children and I need to learn this year is how to live amidst very real and very challenging imperfections... well, we have those every year but I'm not getting any younger and my health, even as I devote more and more time to it...seems to be on a slow but definitely downward trend. 

The kids with their Paper Sloyd creations <3

Some months I have a week of good health. Some years I have a month of good health. I want to learn to thank the Lord that here I am, still, serving him, even with severe IBS, fatigue, pain, heart trouble, vision problems, diabetes and vein issues. Last week I had an amazing day of health and energy...! It was wonderful. I had energy into the afternoon! I felt human and it was nice to not have to exert so much energy just to exist. 

The good days that are peppered into all the bad keep me going, keep me hoping for another one... the Lord is my strength and I believe he sends me these rainbow days as bright gifts, drops of alabaster in the wreckage that is my life. I don't know what God is doing, and I don't know why I suffer like this, but I will continue to praise him. 

Now I need to go and figure out what's for dinner...I'm thinking salmon, rice, and some type of veggie...

Tuesday Thoughts

I feel like in motherhood I'm either exhausted or my house is a mess and I haven't brushed the toddler's hair in who knows how long. Is there a middle ground? Sometimes I'm exhausted AND my house is a mess. It's probably because I have a chronic illness. And a two year old. 

We just got back from back to back piano lessons. My daughter (age 8, Year 2) is doing the Suzuki method and then we fly across town for my son's (age 10, Year 5) lessons. They both have such amazing piano teachers who suit their personalities and challenge them...but almost every Tuesday I wonder why I am doing this again. I do think music is important, but so is my sanity. 

Reuben has achieved a new high in the Equipping Mind Cognitive Brain Program. By this I mean he has quit sulking, pouting and complaining and seems to be enjoying it again, and I'm glad to see his spirits thriving. We are six weeks in now, and I am still not sure about it...

It's been a lot of work. And it is very expensive. I think it is helping Reuben but I am not sure this is the best program for Becky...I always feel as a mom I am making the wrong decision, and failing my children. This reaction in me is so irritating! Why can't I trust myself? Also, I'm human and allowed to make mistakes too. But when it comes to my children and their education I hate feeling helpless and seeing them stuck. I remember feeling that way as a child and wondering what was wrong with me and I never wanted them to go through that. 

I know I need to pray more and lean into God and his heavenly mercies. I do trust God. But what if I'm missing something? What if I needed to wait and things would be fine? Every week I ask myself if this is the right step for my children and every week we keep going. I told Reuben when he asked if he was better yet, that well, if it doesn't work that's okay, we will have found something that didn't work and that will bring us one more step closer to what should work. I just don't want to unnecessarily torture my children with burdensome curriculums...

We have started on the Einstein Reading Program by Jill M. Ham, from the Children's Dyslexia Center of Georgia. It's so great. Kristel Knaus is who we are using for cognitive brain therapy and she gave us six weeks of the Einstein Program, and I can't for the life of me figure out if there is more of it. Kristel says there is but she doesn't have it. So, I messaged Jill M. Ham last week and I am still waiting to hear back if I can purchase more of it...Jill responded right away when I texted her last week but she hasn't responded since even though I sent a follow up message. Going to give it a few days--maybe she's traveling or there is an illness in her family... I do love this program though. It makes spelling, writing and reading fluid and very streamlined AND the lessons are straightforward and easy to understand for me, which is a relief. I can't find anything about this program when I google it! I think this lady made it up on the fly and isn't even selling it anywhere! Egads! I must have it. When something works, and is made well... it's so frustrating when it is inaccessible! 

Anyway, after we got home from piano I ate an entire chocolate bar and Reuben is downstairs making brownies for his cooking lesson and I've already broken up three fights between the girls while typing this. We still have afternoon subjects--only one today, I'm supposed to do paper sloyd. I want to lay in bed and drink tea, but I think I will power through and THEN lay in bed and drink tea and read a novel with my kids. We are almost done with Winter Holiday and I love it. Will Nancy ever get better from the mumps? The kids and I are hooked. I'm reading that one aloud but we are also listening to Treasure Island on audio. Good books feed the soul. 

I need some adult book recommendations for myself. I have been reading Phineas Redux but I've gotten tired of it. What should I try next? I love Anthony Trollope but please if he has to talk about parliament for one more chapter I think I might fall asleep. I liked the one about the Eustace Diamonds better. She was a narcissist, wasn't she, but I wanted her to end up happy. I don't think she did. 

Apparently that character, Lizzie, is also in Phineas Redux but I cannot get over how angry I am about the last book, Phineas Finn, which had a character that I loved in it and they killed her off in the first chapter of Phineas Redux. And she was the sweetest! And most patient!! Ugh! I can't get over it. Why, Trollope, why, do you have no heart? Livid is an apt way to describe my mood after reading that! Perhaps that is why I can't get into Phineas Redux. I won't contextualize so I don't spoil the story too much, if you haven't read it... 

I need to go clean something to work off my ire over that book. Oh, I need to clean anyway because I have three kids and a type-A personality. 

And paper sloyd is calling...it's a wonderful thing to have leftover soup for dinner and a pre-teen who is making brownies for tea.