kind of a mom

Watched "Nanny McPhee" tonight with the kiddos. And they were having some trouble understanding who the women in the household were at the beginning. Being middle class kids of the twenty first century it's hard to comprehend the idea of servants, cooks and housekeepers. It's made clear that the mom has died at the beginning of the film, which is the reason a nanny is needed, however, my children were perplexed with the roles of the scullery maid and cook. "Is she the mom?" they persisted in asking. "No," I replied, "she's a housekeeper. You know she brings out the food and cleans up." To which my daughter (age 4) responded matter of factly, "That's kind of a mom." I'm trying not to let that oversimplified job description irk me... and let it be a reminder to get my kids to help out more, especially with the cleaning up!

Poke-a-what?

I thought I'd finally post something! I started school with the boys two weeks ago, we are following a pretty structured schedule now and so far so good. Last week's impromptu art lesson, jumping off from something the boys were already "into," was to create their own Pokemon character in a crayon/watercolor resist. They had already been busy making (rather crudely) some of their very own Pokemon cards drawn out in colored pencil on index cards and then roughly cut to size. My idea was to make a larger painting of one of their favorites. It took very little to motivate them, in fact they were busy before I finished giving them some basic instructions. Today, after fiddling around with the scanner and changing some preexisting cards, at K's request, I thought, we should actually make their paintings into cards. This became an all day project of figuring out the software and remembering once learned, and soon forgotten, computer graphics skills I picked up in high school.

The paintings:



As you can see, K already added some of the card info to his painting.








OK, now their cards. I had to squish D's "Spiraly" to get him to fit our format, and they aren't perfect, but certainly satisfactory for a first time effort, I think.



Twice this week I received emails from different friends with a link to this ebay item. There's a very funny story that goes along with the Pokemon theme here, about shopping with lots of children, and how sometimes we buy things we never even meant to. She is a kindred "mommy blogger" check out her other funny writings here.

bread and butter

I'm still not 100% better from the upper respiratory infection I came down with on Easter. My voice is still hoarse, and I sound like I smoke 3 packs a day. By days end, I summon my energies to read to my children but I haven't been able to sing to them in three weeks. We recently finished reading the Hobbit, and are now beginning the Fellowship of the Rings.

Today at Church, while retrieving the boys from musical rehearsal, a fellow mother said, "Joyella, I don't know how you do it. I've been 'single mom' for the past six Saturdays while my husband is taking classes, and it's really hard." Whenever someone tells me they don't know how I do it, my response is always, "I don't know how I do it either." I often feel like Bilbo when he said he felt like "butter scraped over too much bread." Especially these days. Work has been picking up a little, which is a blessing in a time of need, but I'm getting overwhelmed. If you think of it, pray for me.

On top of it all, something has recently been brought to my attention that I'm very disturbed about, and I'm not sure how I need to go about dealing with it, but it definitely needs to be addressed. Add to that, a semi-dead beat.... and you've got a recipe for stress with a capital S.

Smells like burnt plastic

A few months ago someone forwarded me an email all about what it's like having boys and all the crazy stuff they do. One of the cautions was to always check the oven before turning it on. Well, I assure you that my boys are NOT the reason I need to check my oven. My daughter is the one always finding new "homes" for things. Within a minute of turning the oven on tonight to bake some chicken, smoke started pouring out of the vent. I open the oven door to see what would be causing such a foul odor and the smoke was so thick I couldn't see. I turned off the heat and as the smoke began to clear I found two plastic gears for the Gears, Gears, Gears, Robot set the children were playing with earlier. Unfortunately one gear was melted beyond function and the house smells so bad all the kids took to being outside in the cold while I tried to air out the funk.

So here's a caution to all of you with daughters as well as sons: Always check the oven before turning it on.

Zen Mom

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That's progress, eh?

Yesterday L discovered a "lizard" in the living room. I figured she saw one of the plastic toy ones, but she was very excited about her discovery and was urgent that I come see it. So I checked it out and much to my surprise, there was a living salamander on my livingroom floor! It was a slender little black one covered with fuzz and lint from the carpet. How and why did it get inside? I gently picked it up (they are very delicate little amphibians) and set it free outside. It was happy (I assume) to return to the damp earth.


In other news, life has accelerated and it's been difficult to keep up the posts. Generally speaking, things are good, but very busy. I am behind on many mundane things like laundry (what's new here?) and dusting. Schooling is going well. Although as it is for many home school moms, it's always a challenge to accomplish everything I hope to in a day. I was reminded yesterday at a homeschool baseball game (K and D had their very first baseball playing experience and loved it) by one of the other moms about priorities. She was sharing how she gets stressed seeing the trees instead of the forest. She said her husband asks her, "Do the kids love Jesus? are they learning His word?" And while my kids have never actually said, "Mommy, I love Jesus," they remind me when I forget to read the Bible chapter in the morning. Another friend shared with our group at WOW yesterday about how hard it is to see the fruits of her labors as mother. That sometimes we don't see the evidence of our work until twenty years down the road when the kids have moved out and are competant adults. I think that often as stay-at-home mothers our noses are too close to the big picture. We need to take a few steps back to gain a more complete perspective. Do our children love God? Are they learning His Word? and Are we being the examples we should be to our children that they can witness God's love through Christ in our actions?

Yesterday, my daughter told me I am her hero. And while this filled me with motherly pride, it also reinforced my desire to be the mother she needs me to be (pointing her to the Ultimate Hero). It isn't an easy job, but it certainly is a worthwhile one.