Curriculum, Snacks, and Mastitis

It is Saturday evening and the house is quiet.

Well, not really quiet, quiet, just sort of quiet. It can't really be quiet with a teething baby in the house, now can it?

But it's the quietest it's been in three weeks, so relatively speaking, it's quiet.

It's been three weeks now since we made the switch over to homeschooling, so I have been surrounded by 4 noisy little bundles of energy nearly nonstop for just long enough to make me think a single crying baby is actually quite peaceful and quiet. Either that or I'm just losing my mind hearing.

So what do I want to do with this peaceful, quiet evening?

SNACK!!!!

Bring on the chips, chocolate, granola bars, peeps, yogurt cups, cheez-its, and while I'm at it I may just grab a spoon and dig out a big blob of peanut butter. It's not like I need my tongue in order to write a blog post, now is it?

*sigh*

No really, I don't even have most of those things in the house right now, but it sounds good! Er, well, maybe not all at once. But I'd settle for one or two.

Why the sudden rush on junk food, you ask? Seriously, if you're a mom you probably already completely understand this. But in case you are NOT a mother and are actually reading my blog anyway, I'll lay out the timeline for you:

First: Cute little bundle of new baby is born. Meals are a little less regular than previously, since baby ALWAYS senses the impending meal and feels the need to be fed during the dinner hour. Since Mommy's got the equipment, Mommy misses dinner.

Fast forward a year: Toddler now needs food cut up, food spooned in, food cleaned up from face, hair, floor, walls, etc. and Mommy once again misses meals or eats cold food. (For those of us with a few MORE children, Mommy starts eating leftovers from toddler plate)

Included in the fast forward: Mommy is now pregnant, ravenously hungry at ALL times, and feels pukey if she doesn't eat every two hours.

Fast forward a bit more: By the time the fourth child is born, Mommy has become extremely adept at hiding the mid-morning granola bar that she invariably eats at 10 o'clock because she was so busy feeding the munchkins that her own breakfast was completely forgotten.

Which makes her not hungry when lunch time comes around, but a few bites of leftover kid food will hold her till dinner. Or so she thinks.

Until about 3 o'clock, when she grabs an apple.

And so the vicious cycle goes.

It's not that we intend to be snackers, it's just that it sort of sneaks up on a mom and the next thing she knows she's quietly chewing in the front seat of the car and surreptitiously taking bites out of the corner of her mouth that's hidden by the seatbelt strap so the backseat doesn't erupt in a chorus of "MOM!!! I'm HUNGRY!!" "Can I have a granola bar?!" "Can I have a bite?!" "Waaahhh!!!" ... that would be the baby.

Of course I know that whole scenario is less than ideal. But denial is a lovely thing, and it has gotten me through many things in life!

So I've been working on correcting some bad habits here and attempting to set a better example on the mealtime front. Mostly because not having a strict mealtime plan leads to absolute chaos and an exponentially increasing level of whine starting at 10 am and crescendoing about 30 seconds before lunch is on the table and .5 seconds before I lose it.

Besides wanting to set a better example, I have found that snacking is no longer an option simply because my older children have this sense of radar that invariably sounds the alarm whenever I reach into the cupboard. It doesn't matter if they are outside, on the swingset, in full swing mode. When their snack radar goes off, they can be at my side, half way up the whineo'meter in a flash. It's amazing.

It seems the mealtime prep, eating, and cleanup with everyone home takes up an insane amount of my day, but besides that, I've been doing all of this research online about homeschool curriculum options. Let me tell you - this is no easy task. There are MILLIONS of options out there and wading through them when you don't know what you're doing is CRAZY! Mind boggling!!

Trying to sort through it all has led me to several great resources, though, and in the meantime we are finishing up the workbooks we received from their school and supplementing with stuff I've picked up here and there. It will be enough to finish out the school year so I still have time to decide what package I want for next year.

Oh, and about the Mastitis (aka the Boob Flu)? Well, I'll spare you all the gory details! Let's just say that combined with a terrible allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was given made for an EXTREMELY fun week! I wasn't sure if I were more thankful that I didn't have to get up early and get children off to school or if I were more chagrined that I had all 4 children home with me to take care of while I was so sick!

At the end of it all, though, I found that I was more at peace with having them at home with me than I was the week before. Somewhere in that miserable week I found joy and anticipation in the prospect of homeschooling and let go of the expectation that I needed to have everything put together perfectly at all times. So in it all there was a blessing for me to find. Now if I could just hold on to that blessing 'cause I'm going to need it for the future!

And while I'm at it... if I could just hold on to a thought process long enough to develop it into an actual blog post more than once a month that would be nice, too!

The Way He Studies

There is nothing more inspiring to me than watching my husband study. He reads quietly, with pen in hand, and shares the highlights with me as we sit together in the early morning. Sometimes he can't settle for just sharing highlights, and soon he's reading whole chapters to me, talking with animation as he learns new things and gains new knowledge. His enthusiasm is infectious, and I not only gain information, I find myself gaining respect for this man that God gave me, and in both I am blessed.

Shoe Addiction

Okay, look, here's the deal. I think it's time for me to make a confession here.

I have... a shoe addiction.

I have tried to change my ways, be more moderate in this area, but I just can't seem to break this addiction!

Maybe with some help, some group therapy, some peer-pressure incentive, I'll be able to get out of this habitual foot-wear offense.

You see, in my cedar-lined walk-in closet tossed under my bed and in the boot box by the front door, I have exactly 8 pairs of shoes. I know, right?! What kind of woman AM I?

EIGHT pairs? Yes, eight pairs.

Pair #1:

The boots. These boots were given to me 6 years ago for Christmas. ALL winter long, whenever I leave the house (except for church) I wear these boots. I wear them to the store, I wear them to school, to the gas station, to get the mail, and to hang up diapers on the line. They stay on the rug next to the door and I slip them on and off every. single. time. I come and go as long as there is snow on the ground, which happens to be nearly six months of the year.

Pair #2:

The black church boots. Bought on final clearance late spring a couple of years ago. I pretty much wear these to church all winter long. They're black. They go with virtually everything in my winter closet. I used to wear them sometimes to go shopping, but not since having to cart a baby around with me everywhere I go. I just don't see any sort of practicality in wearing high-heeled boots with jeans and a baby in the ergo clomping around in icy parking lots.

Pair #3:

The brown boots. Bought at a yard sale for less than $1. These only come out in the fall, really. They have absolutely no traction on the bottom at all, so I'd have to be stupid to wear them in any sort of inclement weather.

Pair #4:

The (phantom)black booties. Goodwill special! I'd wear these more often with jeans, but I can never find them. They're around here somewhere...

Pair #5:
The tennis shoes. These were given to me by someone who found them at the goodwill! Everyone must have a good pair of gym shoes for that in-between weather when the snow is melting and you realize just how heavy those winter boots that you've been wearing absolutely everywhere are. Of course, I also wear these to the actual gym, carrying them in a bag so I can pretend they are "indoor-only" shoes 'cause that's what the sign says I'm supposed to have for gym use. I'm pretty sure that is just so no one walks in off the streets with muddy, wet shoes and gets the equipment all wet, so I make sure they're dry and (mostly) clean before I hit the elliptical. I promise.

Pairs #6 & 7:

The black heels and the snakeskin stilletos. These should be totally self-explanatory to every woman out there. At least I have these two gems to pick me up when I realize how bad my addiction has gotten. And when I just need to feel like a girl.

Pair #8:

Okay. This is where it gets painful. I really don't want to admit ownership of these "shoes". But the first step in any recovery process is admitting that you have a problem.

My friends. I have a problem.

They're called Crocs.

I love my Crocs.

My Crocs go with everything. I wear my Crocs with jeans. I wear them with skirts. I wear them with shorts, and what's worse than all of that? I wear my Crocs... with socks.

That's right. With SOCKS!!!

*sigh*

I used to think Crocs were silly, and then when I was 9 months pregnant with baby #3 someone bought me my very first pair of Crocs. It took me about 10 seconds to fall in love, and about 10 minutes to start an obsession. It has now been nearly four years and a second pair of Crocs later and I have shunned nearly all else for footwear.

And where, might I ask, have all of you been? My dear friends who should have staged an intervention LONG ago?!

Because this, this is what the world thinks when I step out of my door and into the public eye:



Not only am I the proverbial (and probably deserving) butt of all the Croc jokes out there for wearing these in public, but they have other issues, let me tell you.

For instance, Crocs may have all the necessary equipment for maximum foot comfort, but they have zero traction. In fact, they have negative traction. You think I'm kidding? I tell you, I have hydroplaned on some amazingly miniscule droplets of water on my kitchen floor, flinging and flailing and wondering what in the world has gotten a hold of my feet and shot them in varying directions.

Not fun.

Hazardous, in fact.

It's just one of those things you have to watch out for when you're, say, carrying a baby or rushing to help a kid clean up a spilled glass of water.

So.

Now that I've made my confession, I'm hoping y'all will help me get back on the right track here. I need some better options for comfy, slip on footwear that is conducive to my fanatical-sock-wearing-ocd-self, are comfy, and completely unmickeymousish, thankyouverymuch. Did I mention comfy?

Okay, then.

Now, moving on with the rest of my resolutions to break free of my post-traumatic-winter-sydrome. Like plucking my eyebrows and pumicing those weird callouses on the tops of my Croc-wearing toes.

Yep, eww. There. I said it for you.

Sonlight

I pulled on my boots, heaved the stack of diapers onto my shoulder, and stepped outside.

I inhaled sharply while the cold air burned in my lungs. My breath floated out and swirled up around my eyes as I tried to adjust to the brightness. It wasn't even 10 degrees, but I'd gone out with only a sweatshirt on. My husband likes to say that's how he knows I've acclimated. By the time I was three steps from the door, though, I was wishing I was wrapped in a big, fluffy, down comforter with just my nose sticking out.

The wind nipped at my ears as I carefully picked my steps from the back porch to the clothesline. Every other day I made the same trail through 18 inches of snow, and every other day my trail was drifted over by the wind blowing away all evidence of my efforts. If I followed my exact steps, the packed snow at the bottom of my old tracks would keep my feet up high enough that snow wouldn't seep down into my boots. One misstep and I was up to my knee.

I rubbed my hands together and wrestled the stiffness from my fingers as I started pinning the diapers, inserts, and cloth wipes to the frozen line. By the time I'd started on the second line and was down to my last few items, the thinner of the cloth wipes had become stiff and I had to bend them over the line to pinch the pin over them.

I stole a quick glance at the sun before I carefully followed my steps back to the house. Despite the cold, the wind, the desolation of leafless trees barren of birds and yard without grass or barefooted children, the sun lit up the world around me, reflecting off the snow in blinding glory.

In a few short hours, my baby-poop stained diapers would be fresh and white, without a mark on them. Sure, I'd have to tromp back out there through the snow and pry them off the line to finish drying, but they'd be clean. White, like the snow.

The heat of the woodstove felt wonderful but after a few minutes I wandered back over to the window and watched the bits of cloth waving in the cold, clear wind. They even seemed to be joyful as they danced before the sun.

I thought of how I could have kept them inside, with me, in the warm house and dumped a bunch of bleach on them. After that I could have tossed them in the dryer and continued on using them, calling it "good enough". Would they have been clean? Yes. Would they be functional? Absolutely. Would they have been white as the snow all around them? Nope. Would they have lasted as long? Definitely not.

How simple it seems sometimes to force ourselves to be "washed" or to expect others to "wash" themselves of impurites and stains on their souls. "If you know you're doing something wrong, why don't you just STOP?", we hear them say.

Bleach Yourself. The unspoken motto of the Christian world, it seems.

Pour all kinds of synthetic chemicals into your body and soul and rid yourself of the stains that are readily apparent to us. You won't be accepted until you can at least look like you've been washed white as snow.

Only one thing can get those dirty diapers that clean: being set before the sun.

And only One can wash a soul from its uncleanness: being set before the Son.

Turn to Him, set your face towards His countenance, and His alone, and just watch what happens to your soul!

For He has promised: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Ps 51:7

Is My Dough...Sour?

A few weeks ago I decided to try making sourdough starter. I tried it once before but didn't recall ever actually making sourdough bread with it. Can't remember why, either! So, I looked up a recipe for starter and went to work. I put it all in the appropriately glass container and stirred it with an appropriately wooden spoon, stuck some saran wrap over the top and put it in a place I knew was going to be warm: the mantel. You see, we live in a drafty old farmhouse and unless I'm actively COOKING in the kitchen, it's not what one would consider "warm" as it is around the corner from the lovely heat of the woodstove.

So, on top of the mantel it sat and I went back to the kitchen to clean up. About ten minutes later I went in to check on it and the sight of dripping doughy goo reminded me of exactly why I'd never made bread with the first starter I made several years ago! Ah, well, the mantel needed a good cleaning anyway, and the mess all dripped conveniently onto the woodpile below.

Back to square one! I got out my biggest glass jar, dumped the rest of my goo in it, added a few more ingredients, and... left it in the kitchen. Near the sink. And stuck a rubber band over the saran wrap. Like that was really going to help! But hey, it made me feel better!

As it bubbled and settled and began to sour over the next twenty-four hours, the smell pricking my nose brought to the surface some old, old memories of breadmaking in my childhood.

When I was a little girl, my mom would make whole wheat bread the old-fashioned way. She'd get out her two biggest bowls, a large silver one and a gigantic green Tupperware one. She'd mix a couple of warm quarts of water with salt, sugar, oil and yeast in each, then start adding in the many, many cups of flour. We had an old hand-crank mill that we made our whole wheat flour from and I'm sure we all had our turns with cranking that long handle around and around and around and around! I have a vita-mix now that I do all of my grinding in, but I wish I had that old mill sometimes!

A few hours of rising and kneading later, and we'd have several lovely loaves of freshly baked bread. Those were happy times. I loved to watch my mother and help and smell the warm, yeasty smells filling up the kitchen.

I learned how to make bread on my own like this when I was seven. These days I never make bread by hand, it's all done with my two bread machines and unless I'm making dinner rolls I do nothing more than dump in the ingredients and push a couple of buttons.

It's a far cry from that little girl who so proudly showed off her baking skills:


But it sure takes a lot less time with a bread machine!

Anyway, the year I was in fourth grade I had advanced enough to be making my own cinnamon rolls. I took a couple of batches to school to share on special occasions. My teacher could hardly believe I made them all by myself. I had to reassure myself many times that I did, indeed, make them myself, his disbelief was so strong! I couldn't understand it - I clearly excelled at EVERYthing else in his classroom, why should he doubt my ability to do something as simple as bake my own cinnamon rolls? I'd often overheard him bragging to the other teachers of how bright and intelligent I was and how advanced in certain subjects I'd become under his teaching. Surely the trek I made each week from one end of the school to the other to procure more difficult classwork from the sixth grade classroom had proven to everyone in the school that I was, indeed, one of the most promising students in the whole district, right? So what was the difficulty in believing I also had the ability to bake some cinnamon rolls, anyway?

*ahem*

Where was I? Oh, yes, telling how how fully I had grown accustomed to my role as "Teacher's Pet". I often fit into that role in grade school but never so much as that year. In theory, teachers never play favorites. In reality, it happens. That was, in some ways, a terrifying year, for as much as that particular teacher gave praise to those whom he felt deserving of it, he punished the ones that did not please him. I shudder to think of what it felt like to be on the other side of his good graces, and of how it must have impacted those little souls.

Even though I often felt as if I were basking in the sunlight when he'd approve of my work, I never felt secure there. Which is probably why this story turned out like it did.

At the end of the school year I wanted to do something extra special for my teacher so I baked him a loaf of bread. It was a lovely, freshly baked, golden-crusted loaf of whole-wheat goodness. I presented it to him grandly, after all of the other children had gone with the remnants of their cleaned-out desks. He looked pleased as he examined it, then he took a deep breath, holding the loaf up to his nose.

"Is this sourdough?", he asked.

My eyes smarted as I tried to decipher the words. Was that a smile? Or a smirk? Aaah! I couldn't tell!

I carefully tried to explain that it wasn't sour, it was fresh and that it was whole wheat bread that I'd made the day before! I reached out carefully to take it back, thinking he didn't want it, but he didn't hand it back, and I didn't snatch. Snatching was NOT something you did in that classroom.

"No way!", he exclaimed, "It's smells like sourdough! Are you sure it's not sourdough?!"

I bit the insides of my cheeks. Hard. There were no words left to say. I had to get out of there before the floodgates opened. I slowly started backing away, turned and fled with my backpack as soon as I was out of reach and never looked back.

I hadn't exactly gone home and demanded answers to why my teacher thought I was feeding him rotten bread. I was much too quiet about these kinds of things. It was many years later that someone finally explained to me what sourdough bread was.

And even more years before I finally found joy in bread making again.

Once again, I'm never looking back. I have a lot of years to make up for and there is a LOT of fun in breadmaking, especially when I have such adorable little helpers!

Okay, Who Turned Up The Heat?

Right about the time I realized I'd paid for my food, took my cups of water, and drove away without my burritos, it also occurred to me that someone must have thrown a hot coal down my shirt when I wasn't looking.

I thought at first it must have been all the banging on the steering wheel and growling through clenched teeth as I realized there were no burritos to be had seeing as how I'd left them back at the Taco Bell drive-thru. Or maybe the stress of being on hold, transferred to a dead connection, redialing to be put on hold again all while my phone is beeping at me that I have a low battery. Oh yes, and all on a tight deadline.

But it didn't go away even when I took a few deep, cleansing, in-through-the-nose-out-through-the-mouth breaths.

It just kept getting... worse.

Good heavens!!! What's wrong with me?!, I thought as I frantically fanned my face with one hand. I mean, sure I'm still shedding hair like a cat in spring, but I haven't had hormonal hot flashes in a few months, at least!

Okay, this was NOT going to do it. HOT!!! FLASH!!!!

I grabbed the hem of my sweatshirt and reefed it up over my head, flinging my arms out of the sleeves one and a time and reveling in the relief of the short-sleeved t-shirt underneath.

Whew!

Much better. But I still considered rolling all the windows down, too, except for that part about the wind on the baby's face. Poor kid would have been holding her breath so hard she wouldn't even be able to cry. She'd be all telepathically screaming at me to turn off the horrid wind tunnel already.

I was...drenched... with sweat. There's no other way to put it.

And not like that lovely, glistening, dewy kind of sweat that pretty girls do when they've hit the gym for the third time today.

No, no. Mine was more like those unfortunate people in front of an audience with enormous dark circles under their arms and a soaking wet hankie they keep mopping their brow with.

I didn't even dare look around at the other drivers when we reached the stop light. I'm pretty sure they were all stopped several car lengths back with fingers poised to call the state patrol after watching me with my arms flailing wildly in my big ole' suburban.

Instead I rolled down the window closest to me and hung my bare arm over the side. Whew! The warm air and sunshine felt so good! That whole February thaw was so incredibly WONDERFUL! And RARE! We usually don't see 40 degrees through both January AND February and we're lucky to have an early March thaw like this, let alone the week of Valentine's!

Ahh, feel the breeze! Ahhh! OH! Ooops, time to go, green light!

I reluctantly rolled up the window as I turned.

And finally it occurred to me that the background noise, the sound that got absolutely NO attention whatsoever from me because it was an ever-present white-noise kind of sound, one that I'd gotten used to the absolute constancy of for the past 8 weeks thanks to the frigid temperatures...


... was the heater fan going full blast.