March 1st

In celebration of the first day of March, a list of firsts I love:

the first sip of coffee

the first marshmallows out of the bag

the first smile from a new baby

the first page in a new notebook

the first bite of a banana

the first day of a new school year

the first daffodils of spring

the first barefoot days of summer

the first night on clean sheets

the first sleepy baby smile of the morning

the first sniff of a new book

the first tomato from the garden

the first cries of a newborn

the first day of new snow

What firsts do you love?

On parenting, protecting, and loss of innocence

We, as parents, have chosen to shield our kids from as much as we can.  To preserve their innocence for as long as we can.


As much as it is possible, we want to be the ones to reveal to them the ways of the world, its disappointments and shortcomings.  In our time and in our way.  We can't - and in no way would want to - shelter them forever.  But childhood is so fleeting, and we choose to make it as pure as possible for them in this fallen world.


I learned a tough consequence of that choice yesterday.  And that is the fact that it hurts to have to be the one to ebb away at that innocence.  Even if it is the best for them, it hurts to be the one to do it.


I hadn't realized how little Dale knew about September 11th.  After reading a book that mentioned the twin towers, he asked, out of the blue, "Why aren't the twin towers there anymore?"


My heart skipped a beat, but I took a breath and answered him honestly: "Because someone flew an airplane into them."


Already, I was surprised at the lump in my throat at having to say that.  I hadn't felt that emotional about the attack since the day we watched the towers fall on live tv.


But if that question had been hard to answer, it held no comparison to his next two.


"Was it an accident?"


The tears that had sprung to my eyes at first now threatened to overflow and my throat got even tighter. 


"No. It wasn't an accident."


"Why? Why did they do that?"


Oh my heart.  It broke.  Right then, my heart broke for the innocence of my boy, the lives lost that day, and the evil that is so prevalent in our world.


I did my best to give a brief, yet thorough, honest, 7-year-old appropriate answer to why someone would do something like that.  My answer was relevant to what he already knows about our world, sin, and God's people.  He was satisfied with the explanation and went about his way.  Someday he will learn more about that day and those events.  He will learn more about other evils and disasters.  He will know fear and betrayal.


As long as we can, we will protect him from these things.  As long as they are young, we can often reassure our children with a hug, a cuddle, and simple explanations when unpleasant things must be learned or experienced.


While we are gradually revealing the evils of the world, we are at the same time planting in their hearts the Truth.  Showing them Justice and Holiness.  Teaching them the true source of love, and grace, and peace.  Teaching them of God's goodness, and His power to save. It is our prayer they choose to accept that gift of salvation.  To choose to live in complete surrender to God.


And as their eyes are opened to the world, and their hurts outgrow our hugs and simple explanations, they will have grown up from the decision of salvation into the maturity of a relationship with the King of Kings, the Prince of Peace.  The One who offers much, much more than we as parents ever can.

Weekly Wrap Up - February

It seems I only manage to get a "weekly" wrap up done once a month.  


Ah well, rest assured, we stay busy all month long.

Since January's wrap-up Dale:


- Finished his Beatitudes and weather lapbooks.


- Spent a good amount of time on Spelling City on Long E and Long O words


- Practiced measuring length


- Paused in his math book to better memorize some addition facts


- Began a study of dinosaurs, including making a fun activity book!


- Learned to play a new song on piano


- Learned how to work a sudoku puzzle


Alan:

- Reviewed the letters P, Q, R, and S


- Colored, painted, cut and glued


- Began a dinosaur lapbook


- Read lots of books with me


Together we:
attended the first two meeting of the homeschool garden club at our local library, survived 6 whole days of Daddy being out of town, got back to living by a schedule again, saw our second and third snows of the year, finally made those snowman cookies, celebrated Daddy's birthday and Valentine's Day, finished reading Matthew, read the entire book of Mark, spent a week studying Leonardo da Vinci, and watched the last Discovery shuttle launch on tv.  Among other things.

Why yes that IS a giant chunk of cheese, thank-you-very-much!

In March I would like to:
- Finish dinosaurs, including Alan's lapbook and Dale's activity book
- Blog 5 days a week (with more pictures!)
- See Dale solid on memorized addition facts
- Finish our current *ahem* (4 month old) read-aloud (Heidi)
- Order prints for my January & February pictures


And Spring Break is also coming up this month!  We look forward to having Daddy home all day way more than we anticipate the break from school.


Linking up to:

Borrowing clothes from the Emperor's closet

We started a new schedule this week.  More on that in a later post, but first, this:


Dale is our current earliest riser, and we have asked him to get dressed and start a load of laundry first thing.  


This occurs around the same time that I am showering and getting makeup on and all that.


This morning I had yet to see Dale when I got into the shower, but as I was rinsing the shampoo from my hair I heard him thumping and bumping in the bathroom (where we keep the hampers).  


Upon questioning his presence, my hopeful suspicions were confirmed: he was starting the laundry!  Yay for Dale!


As he was leaving the bathroom he told me he had put my clothes in, too.  The pajamas I had tossed in the bathroom floor as I got into the shower didn't really need to be washed yet, but I kept my mouth shut and thanked Dale for his thorough thoughtfulness.  


I had no clue just how thorough he had actually been.


I conditioned my hair and gave it a final rinse before shutting off the water and grabbing my towel.  I stepped out of the shower and continued drying off, and then...


Well then one would want to get dressed, yes?


But then is when I noticed... my clothes were gone.


In an instant I clearly understood what Dale had meant when he said, "I got your clothes, too."  He really meant "clothes."  


I wrapped myself in my towel and made a mad dash for the laundry room, but it was too late.  Understandably, the last things into the hamper were the first ones into the washer.


I was careful not to let my haste and surprise come out as anger or displeasure.


I mean, really, how can you get onto a little dude for a simple mistake when there he is, doing your laundry at 7 o'something in the morning?  Even if your clothes are at the bottom of the washing machine while you stand wrapped in a towel in the laundry room.

Juxtaposition

This week Tyler is 6 weeks past his first birthday.

Yesterday Mom and I got together and she took some stinkin' adorable pictures of him.


Aside from the simple documenting of Tyler's babyhood, there was another reason I wanted those pictures made.


The pictures we took of Tyler were exactly 6 weeks and 5 days after his first birthday.  


This is Alan, exactly 6 weeks and 5 days after his first birthday:

This Sunday, Tyler was the exact age Alan was when he received his transplant.  Down the very hour.


Both boys were born on Tuesdays in the 11 o'clock hour.  Both boys' first birthdays were on a Wednesday.


Alan's call for transplant came in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, six weeks and four days after he turned 1.  


So all day Sunday we noticed the time and what had been doing at that time in January 2008.


All day we marveled.


We marveled that Alan had only been a baby when he underwent such a tremendous thing.  A baby much like, and yet so very different from his yet innocent little brother.

And we marveled, once again, at the many miracles we've witnessed these last 4 years.  I think we'll never stop being amazed and grateful at God's goodness he has given us in the gift that is this boy:

I love 'em all, with all my heart!

Happy Birthday, Daddy Buffalo!

Happy Birthday to the man who mows our grass, 

maintains our vehicles, 

works hard to put money in the bank, 

takes our family to church, 

holds me up when things are going south, 

holds me close when they already have, 

logs many hours of Candyland, Sorry, Yahtzee Jr. & Battleship with the boys, 

changes a truckload of diapers, 

buys our groceries (literally), 

pays our bills (again, literally), 

principals our school, 

makes me laugh, 

makes me sigh,

makes me swoon,

helps me grow.

If at first you don't succeed...

Waaaaaaaay back in the last days of 2009, I decided I would read through the Bible in 2010.


I liked the idea of using a plan similar to this one, that skipped around to a different place in the Bible each day of the week.


I printed this color-the-boxes-in checklist and got started!


And then 5 days into 2010 I had a baby. 


I kept reading, but my progress slowed from 3-4 chapters a day to 0-2.


Fall of 2010 rolled around, and my fun checklist definitely had a good number of boxes shaded yellow, but there was no way I was realistically going to finish by the end of the year.


So I reset my goal to finish by the end of the 2010-2011 school year and recalculated how many chapters a day I needed to read to finish by the end of May.


Somewhere along the way I reprinted and recolored my purty little checklist, because that purty little baby had torn it in two.  Somewhere else along the way I only began loosely following the 'skip-around' plan.  Mostly I'm just trying to fill in all the little boxes and absorb at least some of God's word at the same time.


And now, here we are at just around 100 days until the end of May, and guess what?  I have a LOT of Bible left.  All of Numbers.  All of the 1sts & 2nds of the Old Testament.  All of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  All of John,  Acts and Revelation.  A lot of little books and odds and ends chapters scattered throughout.  


But then, there are all those bloggers that have read the Bible in 90 days, so it certainly seems do-able that I can read about half of it in 100, right?  Right!


So today, once again, I recalculated my chapters per day goal (6 or 7) and off I go, for the final push!  May 31st, here I come!  


I'll keep you posted. 


Have you ever read the entire Bible?  How many times?  What was your method and how long did it take?