Nostalgia on Jeremiah's 6th Birthday

Today, Jeremiah is 6 years old.
Typing that out doesn't really help me wrap my head around the fact that this boy, who as our first baby turned our lives upside down in the best ways possible, is actually a whopping 6 years old.
I'm feeling nostalgic today, because 6 just feels so freaking old. And because 5 turning into 6 really has brought levels of independence and maturity that take my breath away, and hurt my heart just a tiny little bit, I am allowing myself to reminisce about Jeremiah's actual birth day.

Shortly after buying our first house together we felt like the time was right to start a family. I nervously and excitedly stopped taking birth control pills. We waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, 3 years later the line on the stick turned blue and our lives changed forever.

I had strong contractions every night for about 10 days before Jeremiah was born. Every evening as I stopped to breathe through contractions I thought, "Tonight is the night. It has to be." But then I would wake up in the morning with the contractions gone. I walked for miles with my mom, and helped my dad pull up gigantic azalea bushes by the roots, all in an effort to get this baby born. But showing his independent streak even in the womb he decided to stay put.

At our last doctor's appointment I was an emotional wreck. We didn't want to have any form of medical induction, but I was exhausted and stressed out. We decided to go in to the hospital on Friday morning to be induced. I will never forget that sleepless night and the excited drive to the hospital as the sun rose pink in the sky. By 9:00am my water had been broken and before 10:00am I was experiencing painful, continuous back labor. By noon I was trying to crawl up the back of the bed to get away from the pain and we decided that I should get an epidural. Aaron was by my side the whole time, encouraging, supporting, massaging. Finally, at 8:20pm after 2 hours of pushing, and before the doctor could even make it into the room, Jeremiah was born, practically into my mother's arms.

Every day since that day 6 years ago has been an adventure. Today Jeremiah is an outspoken, intelligent, adventurous, deeply thinking, strongly independent boy. I sometimes miss the chubby baby that had to cuddle in my arms in order to fall asleep. But, as Jeremiah's personality continues to emerge, and I get glimpses into his strengths and weaknesses I am excited about the continued adventure that his life will be.

1000 Gifts - Picking it up again

I have a pretty traditional relationship to church. I love to go.

I don't attend church out of legalistic motives. I really and truly desire to be worshiping God among other believers on a Sunday morning. Something in me craves it.

Yesterday morning Nathaniel insisted on going to church. Despite his lack of sleep the night before, and the pain he was in, he simply would not consider not going to church. I could identify with his desire. I most want to be in church when I am weary and burdened and at the end of myself.

I am so thankful for a church family that doesn't require us to be dressed up and on our best behavior in order to come and worship. Yesterday I sat in the back row, gingerly holding Nathaniel on my lap. I was exhausted from being up all night. I was dressed in my most comfortable pants, very little make up on, and hair thrown back in a pony tail. Nathaniel was a little whiny. But instead of getting irritated looks from others at his distracting behavior we got looks of sympathy and love and concern.

The week ahead felt daunting. My spirit needed filling, encouragement, reminding of grace. I needed the inspiration and balm of worship through music. I needed to see the physical reminder of the body of Christ that I am surrounded by. I needed hugs. I needed to be reminded that I am not alone on this journey to live more like Christ.

Because, it is not just the institution of church. It is God's presence, with us, among His people as they gather.

And that is why I go to church.

Continuing to count my 1000 gifts. Picking up the pen again after taking my eyes away from His presence. They now number 677 in my journal, I share some here.

- a broken collar bone, reminder of God's provision and sovereignty over the lives of my children
- Jeremiah's tender care and concern for his brother
- Nathaniel's joyful and charming spirit, even in the midst of pain
- worship for the weary
- prayer in the watches of the night

broken collar bone

I went walking today. I didn't have a pocket for my phone so I left it in the van. When I got back and checked my phone there was a text message from Aaron, "home asap." I quickly drove home to find Nathaniel snuggled up on Aaron, keening softly, asking for me and saying that his neck hurt. Turns out he had fallen off of his bunk bed. Any movement in his arm caused him to cry so I headed took him to the after hours clinic for x-rays. My suspicions were confirmed, a broken collar bone. Our active little guy is supposed to keep his arm in a sling and as still as possible for about 3 weeks. I have no idea how we are going to do that!

A number of people have suggested wrapping his arm to his side with ace bandages. We did that tonight before bed time and it seemed to help. We will probably wrap it this way for a few weeks. (Note: We wrapped it wrong in this picture. The over the shoulder strap is supposed to go over his good shoulder not his bad shoulder. We fixed it right away.)

Once again Nathaniel charmed all the nurses and had the doctor chuckling as he recounted his fall and injury in great detail. He only complained about the pain when he moved his arm. We'll see how he copes with the pain in the next few days.

Yesterday Nathaniel was running around the playground with a stick in his hand. He was waving it around like a gun. He was also running up and down the slides with his stick. It was obviously dangerous and clearly an accident waiting to happen. I joked with my friend that Nathaniel needed more than one guardian angel, he needed a whole legion.

Tonight I snuggled both boys a little longer before bed time. Jeremiah is on the brink of turning 6, time slipping away. And Nathaniel's injury could have been much worse. I was reminded today to cherish the precious, fleeting moments.

Randomness, again

I feel like I have nothing to write about lately. Or maybe I have so much rattling around in my brain that I just don't know what or how to share it. I think I am just in a winter time funk. I stopped counting my 1000 gifts (not good), we haven't been able to go outside much, a few things are causing some financial stress, and various situations with friends and family have me heavy at heart. I have found myself in my brief moments alone retreating from reality into old movies (got to love Netflix!).
But, there is a lot going on around here. So here it is in random bullet points (again).

* Jeremiah and I went on a date, just the 2 of us, the other night. I had errands to run and after a particularly difficult day Aaron suggested that Jeremiah and I needed some time together. It was great! We did some grocery shopping, looked at refrigerators at Home Depot, and had dinner at IHOP. I am realizing more and more that I need to make one-on-one time with Jeremiah a priority.

* We were looking at refrigerators because our refrigerator is dying. Sigh. I guess the good thing is that we have an emergency savings account for things like this. I just hate spending money out of that account.

* Jeremiah has discovered Lego's. He never really enjoyed Duplo's or building with blocks so I just assumed that we wouldn't have the obsession with Lego's that most boys seem to have. I was wrong. He found the Lego's that he received last Christmas and proceeded to spend 2 hours building all manner of Star Wars space vehicles out of about 50 Lego pieces. So now we have small Playmobil and Lego pieces littered around the house.

* Nathaniel may not have much of an interest in learning his letters, but he sure is learning a lot from our History lessons! He will proudly tell you that Betsy Ross made the first American flag and name some of the men who signed the "Paper of Independence." His favorite thing to watch right now is "Liberty's Kids", a terrific cartoon series about the colonies and the Revolutionary war (again, got to love Netflix!).

* I have been trying to be more self-disciplined with working out and watching what I eat. It really helps to have to actually go to a class with friends. I do yoga on Tuesday nights and pilates on Thursday night. I try to do my walking video on the other week days, but that is still kind of hit or miss. The biggest change I have made is not snacking during the day and not eating sweets on weekdays. I think I have lost about 3-5 lb and I am already feeling much better. Maybe one of these days our WiiFit won't shake it's head in disgust at me when I do my weigh-in. :-)

* I am leading a women's Bible study on Wednesday mornings. We are reading through the gospels. It really is amazing to take time to slow down and digest Jesus' words. He says some pretty amazing stuff that is leading to lots of deep thought on my part. Reading books by Francis Chan and listening to the "Radical" sermon series by David Platt is all part of the process too.

* Aaron will be home on winter break next week! My parents are coming to visit for the whole month of April, so we have a list of little projects that need to be done but have been put off. I hope next week will be a good balance between productivity and relaxation.

* Aaron has been brewing beer. In our kitchen. He loves it. I think his first batch was successful. He is now in the process with 2 different batches that are intended as gifts for Chad and Caleb.

So, that is my randomness for today.

white couch...blue couch...

Back in the fall when we first went to IKEA to buy our couch we wanted the blue cover. But it was out of stock so we went with the white cover. I loved the white cover. I thought it looked crisp and modern and clean and light. But, no one wanted to sit on our white couch. Seriously. They would walk in, exclaim, "Wow! I love the white couch!" and then promptly sit on any other chair or surface in the room, leaving the couch completely empty. No amount of information from me regarding the durability or washability (is that even a word?) of the white cover could convince people to just sit on it and relax.

Funny story; the only person who enthusiastically said, "I love your new couch!" without commenting on the color was my friend who has 3 boys who are more wild and crazy than my boys are.

Anyway. Above all we want people to feel comfortable and relaxed in our home. So Aaron declared that the next time we were in Atlanta we would get the blue cover. It's a pretty color. I just don't like it as much as the white. But, people actually sit on the couch now. So, here I am, sacrificing my choice of couch color in order to serve other people. Aren't I holy?

how potty training revealed the heart

Yesterday I made a conscious decision to practice a parenting method of discipline that I had always said I would never, ever do. Funny how that happens.....

A few months ago we assumed Nathaniel was completely potty trained. For a whole week he used the toilet, on his own, with very few accidents. We high-fived each other and figured we had the 2 smartest, easiest to potty train kids in the whole world. That made us pretty good parents, because in the world of parenting your success is measured by your child's success. Ha ha!

They say pride goes before a fall. And Nathaniel must have decided that we were too prideful because he promptly decided to stop using the potty and do his business everywhere but the potty. Unless we begged, and reminded, and set timers, and prompted, he chose to either go in his pants or go all over the floor. No amount of m&m's or other candy bribe seemed to be enough incentive. He honestly and truly didn't care if his pants were wet. He seemed to think it was easier to go in his pants, dump the contents in the toilet, and then put on clean pants, then to just go in the toilet in the first place. Ugh!!

Now, let me be clear here. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit that is not very abundant in me. And potty training brings out the worst of my lack of patience. I huff and puff. I yell. I complain about the extra work for me. And after months of dealing with pee and poop I was losing what small vestiges of patience I still had.

In the past few days I noticed a pattern. I would ask Nathaniel if he needed to use the potty. He would tell me "no." I would ask him if he was listening to his body. He would tell me "yes." Then, less then 5 minutes later I would find him hiding somewhere and doing his business. So yesterday I made a clear and conscious decision. I told Nathaniel that if he peed or pooped in his pants after telling me he didn't need to go I would spank him. Yep. Everything I learned as a social worker about not spanking, especially for bodily functions, went out the window. Because I realized that Nathaniel was not trying his best and then having accidents, he was choosing to disobey. I knew that Nathaniel was capable of going in the potty, he was being passive aggressive in his disobedience.

Of course, he tested me. Less than an hour after our conversation and about 5 minutes after I had asked him to take a potty break and he had told me that he didn't need to I found him in his room taking off dirty pants and trying to dispose of the contents. I cleaned him up, talked to him about our earlier conversation, and then spanked him. It hurt. Him and me. I hated to do it. But I did, twice yesterday he received a spanking for going in his pants.

Last night before bed we talked about it again. We talked about outward obedience as a measure of the inward obedience of the heart. As I went to bed last night I prayed that I was not scarring my kid for life by my discipline methods of the day.

This morning when he woke up I went over it all again with Nathaniel. He knew the consequence for disobeying when it came to potty time. And lo and behold! In the midst of making Valentine cards Nathaniel ran to the potty, was gone a few minutes, then came running back shouting, "I WENT POOP IN THE POTTY! COME LOOK! I DID IT!" We did a silly, loud, happy dance and I told him I was so proud of him!

Funny, how potty training Nathaniel came to be about more than just where he went poop and pee. None of the tips or tricks that we heard or read about helped. For him, it was a heart issue of obedience and that had to be dealt with before the poop and pee could be dealt with. Today I am hopeful. He has, on his own initiative, stayed clean and dry all morning. This is a huge victory considering that for the past few weeks I have already changed his pants 3 times by this time.

This parenting thing is pretty complicated!

School Update

At some point in January we passed the 100 days of school mark. So I figured it was time for an update.

I feel like we are making good progress. Jeremiah finished his Social Studies lessons back in the fall and I assessed him out of Phonics since that involved learning to read and he is reading full chapter books right now (just finished The Tale of Despereux). I don't follow the suggested Language Arts lesson because we read and do a lot of discussion on our own. Science and History are Jeremiah's two favorite subjects. He especially loves History! So far we have covered the basics of the globe and continents and are now moving into the history of the founding of the United States. This is somewhat new territory for me too since I never lived in the US long enough to get a really good grasp of US history. For right now Jeremiah is practicing his handwriting by writing in his own "gratitude journal" every morning (see above picture). Math is going well too. We have moved ahead and are now to the point where he is really learning new things in Math. I don't remember doing 3 step, estimation story problems in kindergarten!

Before Christmas I had a conference with Jeremiah's teacher. She said that if I assessed him out of Language Arts then we could start him on 1st grade material for LA and Phonics. But we decided not to do that simply because what we are doing works for us this year and we didn't want to push ahead and put more pressure than was necessary on him or on me.

Because right now I feel like we have a good rhythm. We can do the bulk of the assigned school work in about 2 hours a day. This leaves us free time for other things like hanging out with friends, going to museums or plays, taking hikes, or reading & learning about a subject that is of interest to Jeremiah (dinosaurs and pirates have been favorite study material).

I am still not comfortable with everything being so computer based. One day last week my computer was not starting up and so I had no way to access our lessons for the day. That was a pain. And as far as the curriculum goes, there is nothing wrong with it, but I just don't find it terribly interesting. Especially since I have to keep reading the lessons off of the computer.

People always ask me, "But what about his socialization?" Honestly, I don't really understand the question. We constantly have people of all ages in and out of our house. He may not be spending 7 hours a day with 30 other 5&6 year olds but he is learning how to be patient and self-less with children who are younger than him as well as articulate and thoughtful (and fun!) with children older than him. We also make sure that he has opportunities to develop friendships with children who are closer to his age.

I never thought I would be a homeschooling mom. There are great days and there are days where I feel completely overwhelmed and wish I could send Jeremiah off to school. But for right now this is working for us. And I must say, there is a particular joy I feel in being a part of Jeremiah's learning process. It helps too that we don't have to get up at the crack of dawn to get dressed and out the door for school. :-)