Christmas
In church the choir, including Dad and Jessica, did another beautiful program, which I just bawled all the way through. Stories were told, scriptures read, carols sung, lots of Kleenex was used.
(this was one of the dresses I made for Louise when she was little)
Amazing wonderful time of year, wonderful Christmas morning. ALL the kids got along, ALL day (Nathan even kindly taught Jessica to play chess). Before Christmas, my older kids worked really hard to make Christmas special and magical and "sparkly" for the younger ones. (Michael - I will forever remember a pocketful of the typical bits of lint, metal scraps, wrappers AND the BUNCH of green markers - the sweetest Christmas memory ever.) And the younger kids made sweet little gifts for us and were so fun to watch during the season. Thank you to all Santa's Helpers, who ever you may be. Michael got his own rip stick and Nathan, Jessica and Jacob each got a scooter.
I try to have an equal number of gifts for each of the kids to open. Sometimes I break up a big gift into 2 or more packages to make this work. Sometimes the older kids are getting 1 really good present which I can't really break up into separate packages, so I find cheep little usable things to wrap up for them to open too. I also try to make some of the gifts similar, for instance, everyone gets a book, and everyone gets a clothing item. This year, someone had given a beautiful silky blue blouse for Jessica and a pretty blue sweater for me and I'd found some blue basketball shorts for Jacob at the thrift store. At the last minute, I realized I didn't have a clothing item for Michael and Nathan to open (they were each getting shoes later but I didn't have something for them to open) so I wrapped a nice shirt for Michael I'd recently gotten for him at the thrift store, and wrapped a shirt Michael had pretty much outgrown which was still in good shape for Nathan, and they both happened to be blue. I wrap each of our gifts in different paper or with different colored ribbon to tell them apart. On Christmas morning, when Nathan opened his shirt on one of his turns, he was polite but didn't seem real impressed with "Michael's old shirt." Each time it was Michael's turn, he didn't want to open the "soft one." So then Jacob kept pushing his soft one aside too, even after Jessica was SO thrilled with her "soft package." Finally Jacob was down to his "soft package" and very sad but when he opened it and saw BASKETBALL SHORTS, he was SO excited and proclaimed he LOVED them, and many "thank you, thank you, thank you"s and tight hugs.
A couple weeks later when he had his own basketball shoes (Payless makes some inexpensive ones with a picture of "the basketball guy" on them) AND Jessica's old official Pee Wee size basketball AND his team shirt too, he was SO happy he couldn't contain it. He couldn't hold still and he quivered with joy, wide eyed, with a HUGE grin.
Jon & Venisa and kids came to visit for New Years and then we headed east to meet Gwen and play with family. Saturday was Ki's baptism, then a cousin slumber party at his house. Sunday was Gwen's blessing and then we all hung out at Rob and MaryLou's.
While there, Jacob got a bitter taste of reality. Planet Earth was on in the background with gorgeous film of oceans and meadows and deserts and mountains and animals and flowers and trees, etc. I hadn't realized that it had changed from just showing majestic pictures of God's creations to specifically showing a fox try to catch a baby duck for it's dinner. When I did realize and saw that Jacob was fully focusing on it and that he looked horrified (they have a larger clearer screen and it looked so much more real and scary - and this was the first time he'd ever seen that part). My poor little guy, I thought, crash course learning these parts of the cycle of life. He climbed into my arms, tears streaming down his cheeks and he clung to me. I took him in another room so we could talk, praying that I'd say "the right things" and feeling really guilty for the chicken we'd just had for lunch, and hoping he didn't make that connection too and that if he did, he didn't puke on MaryLou's carpet. I sat down with him and let his tears flow as he tried to form words. Finally he sputtered, "why did it have to eat the baby duck Mommy?" and he sobbed again. Any explanation I gave like "it was the smallest and weakest one of the ducks and easiest for the fox to catch to feed it's own hungry babies" just wasn't going to work. My heart broke for MY baby. Before I could get any kind of explanation out, he sputtered with his next sob, "why couldn't it just eat the mommy duck instead?" and he looked up at me - HIS mommy duck - with those chocolate brown eyes like "isn't that the obvious solution?" WHAT?!?! I didn't know whether to push him off my lap, laugh, or cry. Instead I just hugged him close (less sympathetically) and looked Heavenward with my "WHAT do I do with this?!?!" look. Jacob stayed curled on my lap for a few more minutes and then wanted to go play.
That night we had an even bigger cousin sleepover before everyone prepared to head back to their own homes. Monday morning I'd planned for my kids and I to walk with their cousins to school so we could play on their playground a bit and they could show off their school. I was even going to have them all wearing their Superhero T-shirts. Even with clothes laid out the night before, even though they weren't going to their own school day, even though it meant a little more time with beloved cousins before we headed back home, my children could not manage to get up, stay awake, dress, and get out the door in time. (just like home!) Taylar, Ki, and Kelten had to leave or be late and took off. I dragged my kids out to follow after them. IT WAS COLD! FREEZING! BELOW FREEZING! my lungs froze and I'm sure they cracked. The ground was so packed with driven on unplowed snow and extremely slippery. Yet my 4th Grade, 2nd Grade, and Kindergarten neice and nephews made it just fine down the block and through a field to school. We had to turn back and we each beelined for a heater vent and tried each tried to shove our bodies into our heater vents, teeth chattering madly, icicles on our eyelashes slowly thawing. We'll visit their school in the summer sometime. Wow, are we wimps compared to them.
Thank you Mom & Dad for taking us. Thank you Sarah for joining us. Thank you Todd & Kristy for housing us and feeding us. Thank you Rob & ML for the use of your house again and to Weese for an awesome meal. Thank you 32-month-old Knightin, 20-month-old Kate, 15-month-old TJ, and 1-month-old Gwen for each of you warming up to me and letting me hold you and play with you before my short trip was over. It was great to see everyone, especially Peter before his mission.
Basketball
The Parks and Rec Department has a wonderful fairly inexpensive and fairly short program to help families survive winter. It gets kids (and parents) out of the house and gives kids a great way to USE UP LOTS OF ENERGY at the perfect time, just when parents need it the most. The program is:
* soon after Christmas (when parents can't use a red suited guy's visit anymore as a severe warning that the kids better calm down, be nice, and quit tormenting each other, QUIT tormenting parents)
* DURING winter (when everyone is stuck indoors due to freezing temperatures and yucky weather, when every one is ON EACH OTHERS NERVES 24/7, when there are more of those horrible dark hours and fewer precious sunny hours and Mama bear just wants to hibernate but her cubs and the rest of the busy world won't cooperate)
* and finishes up by the spring equinox (when LIFE can actually begin again, when I become a reasonable sane human again as I get more of the golden warmth and light SO NEEDED to survive, when children can start running around outdoors on a regular basis again).
They call their little program "basketball" and they actually have teams and coaches and they practice and learn the rules and skills and they play actual basketball games and the kids have tons of fun, but the REAL purpose to the whole thing is so kids can burn off their energy supply (which doesn't decrease in winter even though they can't get outside very much) and so that parents find joy in cheering their kids on, instead of hollering at them, because they are releasing large quantities of said energy in a large safe place and NOT at home, or to just tease their sister.
Jessica and Jacob had fun playing with friends, and learned a lot. 1st and 2nd Graders play with a smaller ball and the basket lowered to 8 feet. They learn the basic rules and skills of the game but there are some major differences. It's okay in the first few games if they "double dribble" or "travel," and even by the last games of the season, the referee may only warn them if they do it too long or too often. Some of these little guys are so excited the first time they get the ball, they just run with it held tight to their chest over to show their parents on the sidelines, grinning so big. The ref points to the basket, parents point to the basket, everyone routing for either team points to the child's basket and smilingly, laughingly, encourages him/her to "shoot it!" They are SO adorable. Jacob learned where "his spot" was and was very talented at running right to it and standing on it and happily watching the game go on around him and then running at break-neck-speed to "his spot" on the other side of the court to do the same thing over there for awhile, and back and forth and back and forth. As the season went on, the coach finally got through to him that it was okay for him to move around, and to try to block the other team from the basket. Then Jacob was just as happy to hop around, arms spread out wide. He loved being on a team, having a uniform, and especially, having his own team party and getting his own trophy. He had a great coach and team, lots of fun.
3rd - 6th Grade plays with the basket at full height, and a midsized ball, and they play a real game. This was a big step up for Jessica this year. She and her friend Josie and their team mates (all 3rd Graders) really worked hard and learned a lot. They had great coaches who really taught them a lot and ran some tough but fun practices. They played against some tough teams and some TALL 4th Graders. Jessica is good at defense. She and Josie make it very hard to get passed them. Jessica was more timid about shooting baskets during a game, but got better at "just shooting it" when she had a chance toward the end of the season. Jessica's glasses were new this year too, she didn't have them last year when she played. She really only needs them to read things far away and computer and TV screens. She liked to keep them on though. I asked her if it was to keep checking the score while playing.
There is also a program for 7th Grade and up, but their games are on Sundays, so Nathan didn't play this year. Huge thank you to team mate's parents who helped with rides and meals and snacks!
Volleyball
Nathan played boys volleyball again for the school team. Sometimes it amazes me, and startles me, to see how mature he's becoming - physically. I was watching him at one of the first practices this year. He casually picked up a ball and served and it shot like a bullet and slammed against the far wall. Now that would be an out, and he had to work on being softer, but at the beginning of last year, he had to work hard to get it over the net. It's like he's Clark Kent trying to not be too hard, not be too strong. Actually, that's what most of the boys work on, that balance of enough power and strength but with grace and holding back enough to keep it in the court. It sure makes them appreciate the quiet strength and grace the girls' team has. He played on the 7th Grade team during the season but they moved him up as an alternate to the 8th Grade team for the tournament and they made 2nd! Our little school, against some pretty big schools, and those boys went all the way to the last match. WAY TO GO!!!
Birthday
Michael turned 15 - can you believe it? 15!! see earlier post. Michael was the last to get his Super Hero T-shirt for his birthday and I made them all put their shirts on and get a picture before we left that day. These 2 shots are the only ones where all 4 children AND the camera cooperated, sort of. these were taken at almost 5:00AM, not almost 7:00AM like the date/time stamp says. The date/time stamp is wrong. Anyway, they were VERY sleepy.
School
My first thought is "let's change the subject." probably not a good first thought for someone who wants to be a teacher. I (eternal college student) overloaded myself with 3 English classes this semester and am having a very hard time with all the reading, research and writing (and keeping track of when to use who and when to use whom). One of the classes is on teaching Elementary students reading and I'm working with Mrs. Sargent, our reading coordinator, again. That part of this semester I love, she's amazing, runs several programs, keeps track of all these kids and their needs and their paperwork, truly loves the kids and cheers them on, always smiling and cheerful but firm and runs a tight ship. I want to grow up to be like her, but with just one class of kids, or just one program, I don't know how she does it all. I have awesome professors again too, I really like each of my classes, I just bit off too much, again.
Michael (9th Grade) is still in school. He's not 18 yet. Sorry bud - it's the law, and even if it wasn't, I'd still make you go, even if you already know everything. Awhile back Michael asked a question he asks often, "Can I stay home tomorrow?" and because of all the yucky illness which had been going around and because Jessica and Jacob seemed like they were coming down with something again, I didn't immediately brush off his question that time. "Why?" I asked expecting him to say his usual, something about school being a waste of time or that he was tired or not feeling good. But he said, "because the nurse keeps attacking me with band aids." I knew exactly why - all the scabs from absent mindedly scratching at his poison oak - and Nathan and I cracked up at the mental picture of yet another medical professional trying to take care of any of Michael's owies. Michael does NOT like medical attention of any type (for totally different reasons than Mom) and he HATES being dragged into doctors offices or hospitals even when he does things like resplit open wounds on his feet from going barefoot. I was such a good kind understanding compassionate mother. I told him, "I have to send her a thank you card," and laughed hysterically picturing a nurse in some very fast kung fu/ninja moves flinging band aids at Michael, and in less than a blink of an eye, he'd be standing there all covered with band aids.
Jacob (1st Grade) is struggling in reading, but still loves math and science and hearing stories and strangely enough, he "loves spelling" which is his worst subject. I work with him each week to learn the skill of the week instead of just memorizing the words on the list like a lot of kids do. So if they're working on a "long a" and a "silent e," I have him work on lots of those words during the week, not just the ones on the list. He got the long a and the silent e correct on every word on his test but missed several because he spelled "make" with a c instead of a k, and spelled "place" with a s instead of a c, etc. He also still mixes up "b" and "d," "p"and "q," etc. About half his letters are backwards including the consonants in "Jacob." He loves learning, and so far still likes school and is excited to go.
Jacob has so many of the same habits and mannerisms Michael did at that age. Hearing Jacob's teachers tell me about little things he does, or doesn't do, is like déjà vu, the same as what Michael's teachers told me. They are both impossibly, immovably stubborn, they both love and comprehend math and science beyond their years, they both are fascinated by magic tricks, machines and electricity, they're both artistic technically instead of emotionally or "cartoonish," they both struggle with spelling, writing and communicating skills. They have their differences too though. Michael is left handed, has been a good reader since he was little, is physically slower (NO ONE is as fast as Jacob though) but has more endurance, and he gets quiet when angry or frustrated. Jacob is right handed, struggles with reading but is more active and likes competitive team sports, and he gets loud and acts out when he's angry or frustrated.
Jessica (3rd Grade) is really improving in reading. She's worked hard in her extra reading groups. I think reading her hymn books for choir has helped her a lot too. The words are broken into syllables for the notes and it helps her recognize where to "chunk" big words. Her listening comprehension and listening and speaking vocabulary are still high. As reading becomes less and less frustratingly impossible for her, and she gets through sentences and paragraphs quicker, her reading comprehension is improving too. She is still a slow reader, probably always will be, she's very dramatic. It was so cute - one morning I was working with her reading group and listened to her "hot timing" (after reading along with a tape and practicing on their own, they are timed to see how well and how much they read in one minute). She was reading a page on vampire bats and she was so pleasant and animated and happily reading about how "they suck blood and flyyyyyy..." (she demonstrated by sweeping her hand out and up as if swooping through the sky and then had to find her place again to continue) "...away." It was all Mrs. Sargent and I could do to not crack up. Jessica will be awesome in drama, but in the mean time, she's getting low fluency scores and having a real tough time with timed tests. And her big state tests are coming up!
Nathan (7th Grade) slipped a bit 3rd quarter. Kind of weird, this was the first quarter in a long time he didn't have 1 or more sports going on during, and he didn't have practices and games every afternoon during, and this was the quarter he didn't have all As in. I'd worried a bit we he took on 3 sports in the first 2 quarters, but his grades and test scores were awesome then, like usual for him. I guess he thrives on the hectic schedule and energy release during sports seasons. Since he's not on the city basketball team during 3rd quarter anymore, and there's only girls' basketball at the school that quarter, we'll have to find something else.
Talent Show
Nathan did his amazing "finger tapping" for his talent. He and some of his friends can make interesting sounds but Nathan was the only one who got up there and didn't hide his light under a bushel.
Jacob wanted to be in the Talent Show so bad. He practiced and practiced some jokes and shared them for his talent.
Jessica and her friend Savannah sang the School House Rock version of The Preamble, complete with hand actions.
They did a great job, all the kids did, it was a fun night ending with a large group of 6th Grade girls singing their own version of "I Won't Grow Up!"
(I did it! I got the videos to load!!!! Yeah! took FOREVER but it worked! I'm goint to go back and add some others to past posts. Oh, and sorry they are sideways.)
(AARRGGHH!!!!! they loaded but WON'T play! back to the drawing board)
Science Fair
Kindergarten - 3rd Grade are not required to do the whole science fair project process complete with the written report, 4th - 8th Grade are, but it's voluntary to even enter at all, except for 5th Grade when it's part of the Science class curriculum to do the WHOLE project with a written report. Therefore, even though my children LOVE doing science experiments daily, and actually talk about them and think about them, but they hate having to write out a report on any of their Frankenstein/Edison/Einstein/Calvin & Hobbes type projects, they pretty much quit entering the Science Fair after 5th Grade.
Jessica really wanted to "put glass in the freezer" so she created a Science Fair project around it and she won Honorable Mention! I helped her collect a glass, a metal, and some plastic containers and she filled them with water and put them in the freezer "to see what would happen." She and I took pictures of the containers at different stages. Her glass jar cracked, but didn't shatter all over like she'd been so excited about, so it wasn't as destructive as she'd hoped, but still a cool project. Her poster literally got put together at the last minute but she did a good job on her oral presentation to the judge. She also told him about the story Dad had told her about people trying to get the metal from old cannonballs and a boy who figured out how to safely get the gunpowder out and use water to crack the metal. (I told her she wasn't allowed to put cannonballs in the freezer.)
Jacob wanted to do a project with rockets. At first I thought he meant the cardboard air compressor rockets we played with last summer, seemed safe enough, doable enough, but Jacob kept saying something about FIRE and FLAMES and EXPLODING!!! I tried to talk him into a simple little rocket but I think we wanted to blast a space shuttle off through the roof. "Grandpa Chuck" (Jacob's classmate's grandpa who has helped the kids with Science lessons and projects since Preschool) gave Jacob a simple inexpensive water rocket and got Jacob excited about that (THANK YOU Grandpa Chuck!) Jacob could pretty much shoot it off himself and Michael, Nathan and Dad helped him with his Science Project. Mom enlarged several pictures of him preparing it, shooting it off, watching it soar, and sending his brothers after it for his poster. I missed his presentation to the judge so I don't know if Jacob told all the cool stuff he'd learned about rockets and the stuff he'd talked to Dad and Michael about. I think he just mostly wanted to see something explode.
Weather
We had snow. It's pretty, and exciting when it first comes each winter, but then we have to drive somewhere and the pretty white stuff the kids prayed for and are so happy to see becomes the enemy - at least to me. When our back country roads are covered with snow, I've noticed that we no longer have 2 lanes, one going each direction. For some bizarre reason, those lanes overlap in a very scary way when I'm slipping and sliding uphill with another car right on my tail following me and a truck or large sedan coming down hill toward me. (WHY is it when weather conditions are at their worst - thick fog, pouring rain or hail, icy roads - people are all the more determined to tailgate?!?!) There are 3 sets of tire tracks on the road. My right tire is in the far right track. The vehicle coming toward me has it's right tire in the track to my far left. But it's left tire is in the middle track AND my left tire is in the middle track. No one intends to suddenly be playing chicken but that's what it ends up as! One, or both of the vehicles have to move to their right into the piled up snow on their right and risk getting stuck or slipping off the road or over-correcting and slipping back toward the middle of the road and hitting the other car anyway. It is insane! With good tire chains or snow tires it's okay if the snow on the side of the road isn't packed rock hard and super tall. I have a nice set of easy to get on and easy to get off chains with which I can confidently and safely drive in upto about 8 inches of snow on a paved nonicy road and slowly across a flat level icy road.
Often, when it's stopped snowing long enough and the sun has been out long enough, the paved roads are clear, but our long shaded driveway is still dangerously icy, I still have to have chains just for our driveway. And then there is no where to pull over to take them off so they stay on too much, too long. One morning, the boys had worked really hard and shoveled a lot and cleared tire paths up our driveway and they told me we wouldn't need chains. Awww, they were so sweet, and gentlemanly. I was able to safely drive up the driveway and onto the paved road. But very soon, we came to the shady places on the road where the water running off the road the afternoon before had since frozen into an ice rink spreading across the road, and there was hard packed walls of snow on the sides of the road making it skinnier than usual and giving hardly enough room to pass oncoming cars which were also sliding on the ice. I screamed and threw a raging fit all the way to safety. I have never understood the whole screaming at your husband when in labor that "this is all your fault" thing. Who has the strength or energy during labor to say anything, let alone that? During that SCARY drive that morning though, I screamed lots of things like, "this is all your fault!!!! You told me I could drive WITHOUT chains today!!! WHAT am I doing WITHOUT chains on out here?!?!?!" We slid and angels must have kept us on the road somehow and not let anything hit us or let us hit anything. It was awful! I was awful for accusing the boys when they'd just worked so hard to do such a nice thing for me, and they didn't know about the road farther up. I was shaking so bad by the time we could finally pull over safely. I kept appologizing for screaming inbetween verbally pronouncing over and over that I would NEVER drive without the chains on again if there was any possible ice or snow or the road.
Now to contrast with that, we've had some beautiful sunny days. We've even gotten a few picnics and walked to church. Horray for sunshine!
