Waiting on Sabbath

My third grader still struggles to know what day of the week it is. If he asks and I respond with, "well yesterday was Tuesday, so today is..." He'll scrunch his face, give me a questioning glance and guess, "Thursday?!" 

I can't really even blame the kid. One day looks a lot like all the others around here. Besides attending church on Sunday, there aren't any major events that divide the week for the kids and me. We sleep in on Mondays and take our field trips on Saturdays. There's not a whole lot of reason to get particularly excited about Fridays, except that pizza is on the menu for dinner. For the most part I like our rhythm. The idea of rushing around in the moorings is an anathema to me...but it has been nagging at me lately that all of my days seem to run together too. There's absolutely a Groundhog Day effect going on:

Wake up, make coffee, feed kids. Discipline kids. Re-heat coffee. Teach kids. Make lunch. Discipline kids. Clean kitchen. Teach kids. NAP TIME! Discipline kids. Karate. DAD'S HOME! Dinner. Discipline kids. NETFLIX! Sleep. 

There's nothing wrong with that rhythm, but it starts to feel mind-numbing after a few years. My "work week" looks nearly identical to my weekend and it can be BORING. There's no down beat- the rhythm of the week never changes. I'm guessing whether you work or stay at home or homeschool or put your kids on the bus, a lot of moms can relate to the Groundhog Day thing. 

All of creation was designed to fit into the rhythm of work and rest. You see it in nature's seasons and as humans our circadian rhythm requires an activity-rest cycle. God chose rest after six days of work creating the universe- and then He commanded the Jews to follow his lead - "Work 6 days and do everything you need to do, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don't do any work..." (Exodus 20:8 MSG)

Modern Christians mostly ignore the Sabbath commandment of rhythm and rest. I myself have never been good about observing the Sabbath, considering it something legalistic and no longer required under our new covenant. But I've been ignoring the obvious fact that many things which aren't a requirement are still really good ideas. Like getting vaccinated or exercising frequently or brushing your teeth. We do things we don't have to do all the time for the sake of wisdom - maybe Sabbath is the same? 

This past week I determined to Sabbath. I took inspiration from an Instastory post by @anniefdowns who made a checklist of things she planned to do and things she planned to not-do on her Sabbath. What a concept! The idea that I could determine myself what Sabbath should look like for me in this season?  That I can define "work"? That "rest" might even mean going for a run? All of a sudden Sabbath sounds amazing! 

So on Saturday I was intentional and did ALL of the laundry. Like ALL of it y'all. Four loads. Washed, dried, folded, put away (mostly). I made a pot of chili for Sunday's dinner. I hand-washed dishes I would usually have left in the sink for the next day. I ran the dishwasher. Come Sunday morning we told the kids they were in charge of breakfast. Anything they could prepare themselves was fair game but I was not making waffles, flipping pancakes or schmearing their bagels with cream cheese. 

We left the TV off and played cards with the kids.

We ran out to Home Depot to buy flowers for the front porch because we wanted to.

We ate lunch off paper towels.

We went to church and came home to a dinner that was already prepared.

We left the dinner dishes in the sink for Monday. 

I stayed off social media all day long. Which was really refreshing. Turns out I didn't miss anything. 

It was delightfully simple. Not easy by any means, but simple. And probably, that was God's intent all along. Sabbath should rest our souls. Should provide breathing room to reflect on the lovely in life. Should remind us that it is God who makes the world turn and provides for us. Should allow space for the sacred to enter in and touch us.

One of my intentions this year is to Sabbath more regularly. To leave some space in my life for days that are "unproductive", to give my mama-hands a break from the monotony of the quotidian tasks that fill my non-Sabbath hours. To remind myself and my children that I am not God and I do not make the world turn.

What do y'all think? Anyone out there a committed Sabbath-er? If so give me all the encouragement!  What does your rhythm of work and rest look like? What does a day full of "rest" look like for you?

Anyone up for joining me?!

Reflections on The 3rd Year Of Homeschooling

Truthfully, this year was the hardest. I had a second grader, a Kindergartener, a 4 year old and a 2 year old in the background wreaking havoc.

Jude dropped his morning nap about 8 weeks into the school year. Somedays I plopped him in front of the TV (but when I did that the others would whine and moan about the desperate unfairness of life) other days I would stick him in the bathtub and let him splash until the floor was covered in an inch of water and his fingers looked like peach pits.  On the hardest days I was in tears from his two year old antics by 9am.

Back in August my second grader still stumbled over simple letter blends and could hardly read. Motivating him was a Herculean task. On bad days (there were plenty) I thought I was damaging them. On the days when I was tempted to quit it all (probably five or six if I'm honest) and send my kids to the (delightful, wonderful, amazing) school that is literally a stone's throw away from our house, I reflected on my Why in starting down this crazy road and pondered if it still applied given the chaos.

Our Why of homeschooling is to prolong these fleeting years of play, to give our kids extended time to foster their primary relationships at this age (with parents, siblings and extended family) and to develop a love of learning that springs from the delight of discovery, not the compulsion of drudgery.

This Why reminds me to say yes to stomping in puddles and racing boats down the gutters instead of insisting on the day's spelling lesson. This Why says no (for now) to Parent's Morning Out or homeschool co-op groups. This Why says yes to a trip to the beach to see GranAnn during the school week and an impromptu sleepover on a Tuesday night with Gigi and Pops. This Why whispers, "let it go..." when I want to push another math lesson in place of an hour of Lego building.

So yes, school this year looked like role play for hours as each kid fought for the part they wanted, plot lines were debated and accepted, costumes were carefully selected and action commenced.

School looked like was an impromptu tour of the mayor's office and a discussion of local government when we went to get a permit for a garage sale one day.

It looked like my second grader's math practice to determine whether he had enough money saved up for a Pokemon book .

School happened on the beach in late November, finding treasures and seeing math and God's perfection all around us.

It showed up when brother and sister used their bodies as canvases and cracked eggs and read recipes and baked their own birthday cake. 

Looking back I see what couldn't be contained in those tidy 45 minute blocks at the dining room table. More often than not our learning came unexpectedly and in forms that took me by surprise- like a seed our lessons would lay dormant for weeks and then seemingly without cause spring up overnight and send out joyful shoots in wild and unpredictable directions.

It's only when I forget my Why that the How seems insurmountable and the chaos engulfs me. When I look back I can see that the Why expressed itself in the How and we were all better because of it.

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Lately a lot of you have asked about the How: so for those of you that want the nitty gritty, I've broken it down by subject below for your reading pleasure.

(And for those of you who don't care about the How - thanks for reading!)

We have always used a combination of curricula as opposed to turnkey, all-in-one program like Sonlight or an online academy. I am not an expert by ANY means, my knowledge is limited to my experience in the past 3 years and with 2 early elementary students, so take everything I say with that very large caveat.

We have used Singapore Math for the past 2 years. In Kindergarten my oldest used Math-U-See, but teaching it never felt intuitive, so I switched in first grade and definitely prefer it. Math is the one subject you probably NEED to have a curriculum for unless you have an advanced degree in teaching mathematics. Sequence is critical in laying a foundation for later mathematics. Elijah is right on grade level, having just finished up their 2nd book and Brit is a bit ahead, having started on her 1st grade curriculum this Spring.

I used Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with my Kindergartener and it took her from a basic knowledge of the alphabet and some letter sounds in August to reading on a second grade level by April. I chose it because I had very little knowledge of how to teach phonics and this helped me understand the process myself. Once she finished the curriculum she began choosing progressively harder library reads and is now reading simple chapter books (Magic Tree House series are a favorite) She was FAR easier to teach than her older brother, which I think is more a function of the way she is wired than the curriculum I used. She probably would have had similar results had she used Abeka (what my oldest used in Kindergarten) but I switched over because I understood the methods in Teach Your Child to Read better - which I think is KEY. If you don't like what you're using, it's going to be hard to get your kids excited about it.

For history/geography/literature we have followed The Story of the World for two years. I ADORE THIS CURRICULUM. I cannot say enough good things about it. (But hey, I'll give it a try...) I love that this curriculum is not ethnocentrically focused on the Western/Christian world and that my children understood the rich history of the civilizations of Africa and Asia before we ever mentioned Columbus and the colonization of the Americas. There is a Judeo-Christian slant (for instance, the story of the Jewish exodus is taught as fact as well as the life of Christ) but my children have learned about the Greek and Roman gods, the five pillars of Islam, Buddha, Confucius and Hinduism alongside these Biblical accounts and know the role of these religions in history far earlier than I did going through school. I have purchased the audio CDs and the activity book and during our lessons my kids would color a picture or a map for our timeline while we listened to the stories. It was SO nice to have someone else doing the lecturing for a change!! Even if you don't homeschool, I think these CDs would be an amazing addition to your car collection (our local library carries all of them). We all enjoy listening to the stories and the kids will beg me to play it just a little longer when we're in the car. Maybe a different option for your next road trip?!

For spelling this year we switched to All About Spelling as I realized my oldest was not intuitively picking up on spelling as his reading progressed and he actually needed to understand the rules that govern the English language. I started my Kindergartener on it alongside of him and they are both mid-way through Book 2 here at the end of our year. For an intuitive reader, it's probably overkill, but for someone like my son who struggles to see words whole it has been wonderful.

For science, I follow the sequence author Susan Wise Bauer lays out in The Well-Trained Mind, which basically studies the sciences in the order man "discovered" them. This year was divided into the study of the natural earth (rocks, biomes, weather, landforms, the ocean, etc) and astronomy. Next year we will move on to physics at the same time Newton comes onto the scene in history. I usually purchase a comprehensive text (like this one or this one) to help guide our initial exploration of subjects within that science, and then we watch YouTube videos, enjoy Magic School Bus episodes, take field trips (this year to Fernbank and a natural cave system) and do as many hands-on experiments and natural observation as we can. This past semester has definitely been harder since the kids haven't been able to experience zero-gravity and we never did make it to an observatory for some serious star-gazing.

The kids also have to do P.E. everyday - skateboarding, bike riding or push-ups/sit-ups/squats on crummy days -which is why they have such great push-ups and plank form at karate class. Elijah  also began music lessons with my dad this year.

If we tackle each of these subjects daily (and it's rare that we do) it would take a maximum of 2 hours to get through everything with Elijah and about an hour to an hour and a half for Britain. Clearly we are not sitting at the dining room table all day every day. If the kids understand their lessons quickly, we move on. If something takes a long time for them to grasp (ahem, reading) we just keep plugging away at it. If we are having a terrible horrible no good kind of day, we stop. We play. We run errands or go to the park and I pray and trust that the Why will take care of the How.



More posts about our homeschool journey:

Year One:  We had a newborn, a 2 year old, a 3.5 year old and a Kindergartener. I freaked out and  put the 5 year old Kindergartener in a hybrid-homeschool program that had him out of the house 2 days a week and had me following pre-set lesson plans 3 days a week at home.

Last Year: I decided I wanted more control (I'm a slow learner, control is an illusion...) so I kept our first grader totally at home and did a bit of pre-schooling here and there with his 4 year old sister while our 3 year old and 18 month old wrecked our home in the background.

Shoot me an email or comment if you have any more questions about the whole thing. I love talking homeschool!

Out Of the Blue

I tucked you in last night, kissed your forehead and asked you not to fall asleep so that you would stay four years old forever.

You giggled, pulled your thumb out of your mouth long enough to kiss me back and told me that in the morning you were going to wake up and be five. And then six, and then seven, and then eight...

The day we found out you were coming I called your dad back to our room and blindsided him with the news that I was going to take a pregnancy test. I used the bathroom and set the plastic stick on top of the toilet with a shaking hand. Your dad and I sat silent, not touching, on the edge of the bed while we stared at our phones and waited.

Motherhood and I weren't on the best of terms.

Your sister was seven months old and your brother had just turned two. We lived in a modest house with three bedrooms, all of which were already occupied. Where would you sleep? I cringed thinking about your newborn cries disrupting the precarious sleep we had only just established. We spent our days nursing, eating Cheerios, playing and watching Mickey over and over and over again.

My body and heart were wrung out daily before 10am while my brain rattled around seeking a way to be useful. Any little way, all day long. I was lonely all the time and never, ever, alone.  It was too much and not enough.

Time was up.

Neither of us moved. My legs were numb and my breath was caught in my throat. I told your dad he had to be the one to go look. He walked into the bathroom and came back with a whispered, "we're pregnant..."

"Not pregnant? Oh thank God!" I breathed out and collapsed back onto the bed.

"No babe. Pregnant. It's positive. You're pregnant."

"Oh."

I didn't cry.  I just sat up slowly and began to panic.

Being pregnant with you was an ugly kind of hard. Life felt heavy every day for nine months. Getting your infant sister snapped into her carseat and bending over my swollen belly to tie your brother's shoes took all of my energy. Your sister hated being in her carseat. Your brother always wanted to tie his own damn shoes. I was a yeller. And a crier.

Over and over I would repeat this truth to my heart: children are a blessing. I would remind myself of the many families who prayed for a child month after month. We settled on the name Benjamin because you were going to be our last son. We added the name Isaac - he laughs - because we desperately needed to lift the heaviness and feel the joy of laughter when we looked on you.

Five years later?

Life is an exhausting but joyful chaos of small bodies and spilled milk, time-outs and tantrums, bike rides and bedtime snuggles.

You are our middle child- sandwiched between a big brother and sister and a little brother.  You rarely get anything first. Your clothes are handed-down, your toys at the mercy of big and little brothers. You're too little to ride around the block by yourself, too big to wait at home while they go off to explore. You watch TV shows we never would have let your older siblings watch.

When you were born you had the bluest of eyes. Your brother and sister did at first as well, but theirs soon darkened to deep brown. Yours grew lighter and clearer as the months passed. We were all thrilled that Daddy's eye color had finally overcome my dominant brown-eyed genes.

After your blue-eyed little brother was born it was months before I realized your blue eyes were gone. In typical fashion, they had changed while my back was turned and the blue we had adored and nicknamed you for was quietly been replaced by sea-glass green.

Often times I feel like you're getting lost among stronger personalities and needier siblings. Frequently, I feel like I have let you melt into the mix. When I start to fear I am failing to love you well, I steady my breath and go find you so I can look into directly into your eyes.

Those green eyes have become my reminder, my reassurance that you are unique in the universe. They sing quietly that my fears of not giving you enough are foundless. You are a divine creation. You could never be lost or unknown.

After five years with you, this is what we know:

You crave physical touch and are always asking for a kiss, a back rub, a tickle, a wrestling match.
You delight in taking baths and hunting for turtles by the creek.
You have a lisp and a thumb addiction and you carry that ragged blue lovie around too much of the time.
You like alligators and sharks and monsters with sharp teeth and pointy claws.
You are fiercely sensitive, quick to cry, but quick to forgive and offer your tender heart back to each of us.
You are the only laid-back child out of four dang kids. Thank you for that.
You are the quick-witted one.
The one who makes us laugh til our bellies ache and tears stream down our cheeks.
You are the one who lightens every day.

Happy 5th Birthday to the child we never expected. The son of our right hand, a child of laughter and mischief. Out of the blue, our green-eyed wonder.

The Only Salsa You Need in Your Life

Good salsa is life. And store-bought salsa is a sad and expensive substitute for the kind of life you deserve to be living.

If you have one or two homemade salsa recipes up your sleeve, you can throw together a few kinds, rip open a giant bag of chips, slap some meat on the grill and have a spring/summer backyard get-together to rival anything Giada could host. (And Giada doesn't even make salsa so you've got a leg up already...)

I started making this basic restaurant salsa forever ago and it quickly became my go-to. It's simple; you dump the ingredients and pulse in the blender, it makes a giant batch (two full quart jars), keeps for weeks in the fridge and is made with ingredients I pretty much always have on hand.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!


Restaurant Salsa 
adapted from Pioneer Woman's recipe

2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans Rotel  (I use one can regular and one can of mild, adjust for how spicy you like it)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 big handfuls cilantro (cilantro is also life)
2 Tbsp lime juice
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
(Opt. for those of you who like it HOT - chop and de-seed one jalapeño, add it to the mix)


Note: This makes a HUGE batch. It's a simple thing to half the recipe if you're not hosting a shin-dig and won't eat it quickly enough. But...if you're going to all the trouble to make your own salsa, you should probably throw a party and share the love.

Throw all your ingredients in a (large) blender or food processor and pulse 5-10 times until well-blended and at a consistency you like. Test with a tortilla chip and adjust seasonings to your preference. If you can, make this ahead of time and refrigerate for a few hours so the flavors can really blend.

The Most Strategic Thing I Can Do in this Season

When I first began staying at home and started writing, my day was full of blank space. No one spoke to me much during the day and my only son napped consistently for long stretches of time each day. I would spend hours devouring the blogs of homeschool moms, drinking in their knowledge and their days, eager for the time when I would read the classics aloud to my child while he watercolored quaintly in a sun-drenched schoolroom. I would use my alone time to write, to sew, to bake bread from scratch and I made peace with this strange new existence through a dozen other hobbies I pursued.

Somehow those days turned into months, then years and I'm there now. I have the sun-drenched schoolroom and a son who watercolors and I read aloud. Only there are three other small people in the room with us. One is using my hair to pull himself up on my shoulders, one is crying because she doesn't like this story and one needs help Velcroing the cape onto his Batman costume. I never imagined a home could be so loud and full of constant activity. We turn from peace to chaos in a matter of seconds and my attention is pulled from one child to the next like taffy being stretched thin over and over again.

I've been writing less in the past few months, as homeschooling a second grader and a Kindergartener and managing the younger boys truly wears my brain out. The blank space is gone, replaced by smudged pencil marks and phonics flashcards. I find myself longing for those pre-school days again. When there was enough quiet to be bored and enough peace to think. Oh the irony of looking ahead with such longing only to miss the season you were looking ahead from.

I told you I chose a word for the year back in January - ABIDE.

In the hours just before his death, Jesus gives final instructions to his disciples and shares what he most wants them to grasp when he is no longer with them. In John 15 he says, "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me."(John 15:4)

I'm not much of an abider. I'd say striving is more my specialty. Constantly seeking out a new hill to climb, I don't always know exactly where I'm headed, but I sure as heck devote serious effort and energy towards getting there quickly.

While abiding sounds passive and maybe even weak, I'm discovering that abiding is an incredibly challenging thing to do. Abide means to wait for. To endure without yielding. To bear patiently. If used in another context it can mean to remain stable or to continue in a place.

If I want to bear fruit, the most strategic thing I can do is to ABIDE in Him. 

If there's any thing I hope to achieve in this season. it's fruit. But with days so full of chaos and noise, I often want to do anything but abide. I want to run away from the mess of mothering. I want a distraction, a temporary success. Something that feels better than making sandwiches for the thousandth lunch and disciplining (the same child, yet again) for the same infraction.

Counter-intuitively, I have to lean in to the idea of ABIDE. Abiding in my Lord. Abiding in this home, this calling of homeschool and of mothering. Trusting I am not missing out on greater things. That failing to publish words in other places, failing to grow my blog into a vocation, failing to become something greater in the world outside these walls is not really failure, but a success at something else. Success at waiting patiently. Success at enduring without yielding. Success at remaining stable and continuing in one place.

All that to say, I won't be blogging as much this Spring. I do plan to deep-dive into the archives and re-publish some older content I'm sure many of you have never read. I do constantly post snippets from our days on Instagram-stories (I'm @leipprandt over there...) and will continue that as it's easy, requires little brain-space and makes me smile.

Thanks for keeping up with me here in this space. Thanks for encouraging me with your words and your emails. I pray that in this season you would know your own calling with a deep assurance and be given the peace to simply and courageously abide.

P.S. Thank you sister for the beautiful ABIDE art which hangs in my room and reminds me of what I need to be doing each day. 

If It Feels Like You're the One Making All the Magic this Christmas

You know that scene from the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy and her friends finally get an audience with the wizard? This grand disembodied voice is shouting madly, billows of smoke and flashing lights have the four friends completely captivated...and then Toto pulls back a curtain to reveal that the "great and powerful Oz" is just a little man with a microphone wildly manipulating levers and buttons? Picture that man and you'll have a pretty good idea of me the first year I had kids at Christmas.

I was running around between nursing sessions, stringing up half-burnt out strands of lights and trying to finish off our handmade stockings with faux-fur trim (I know y'all...I know). All around me bells were ringing and people were fa-la-la-la-ing and over at my house I was yelling, "pay no attention to the lady behind the curtain!" while making four different kinds of Christmas cookies I had no business eating.

It occurred to me that year that Christmas doesn't feel so magical when you're the one making all the magic.

That Christmas the kids didn't care about the presents I'd carefully selected and wrapped with love,  they played with the Amazon box they came in and expressed their thanks by throwing up on the brand-new sweater the hubs had given me. I felt so defeated by the whole ordeal. There was no joy in my world, no jolly in my season. And ever since that insane Christmas as a family of four, I've tried to lower my expectations for what this season "should" look like at this stage of life.

I've stopped baking Christmas cookies almost entirely and rely on invites to the in-laws or my mom's house to have the goodies I'm so sentimental about. It seems I'm constantly needing to shave an inch or two off my waist anyway, so this is really a win-win.

Every year fewer boxes come down from the attic and fewer decorations make their way into the house. Gone are the twinkly glass Christmas trees that used to live on the coffee table and the massive snow globe that plays 'O Christmas Tree' (which was used as a bludgeoning weapon the last time I put it out...)  

We still buy a real tree, but I've gone from hanging three boxes of ornaments on branches to only putting out a curated selection (on the very highest branches). We still hang stockings but I no longer change out my everyday kitchen linens for ones embroidered with Christmas trees and holiday sayings. Keep it simple is my mantra for the holidays nowadays.

If you're the crazy person behind the curtain at your house this year, might I make a few suggestions?

Pick one party to attend and decline all the other invites. 
Maybe don't put up the holiday village this year?
Ask the grandparents to have your kids over to their house to bake and decorate cookies. 
Get your tree from Home Depot instead of the gorgeous tree farm that is an hour away. 

If taking the kids ice skating downtown defines the season for you, make that a priority but skip caroling with neighbors. If sending Christmas cards is a must, then order them online and pay a little extra to have them addressed and mailed directly to your family and friends.

Pretty soon the kids will care more about watching A Christmas Story than pulling all the ornaments off the tree and in the mean-time, no one will care that your gifts all came straight from Amazon instead of the local fair-trade boutique.

When it comes down to it, it turns out that Christmas is a pretty magical season even without all the Pinterest perfection.



More great advice on how to keep Christmas stress-freee from two moms I greatly admire:

Christmas Guidance for Moms (Clover Lane blog)
How Do I Make the Holidays Run Smoothly? (Wire Talk LIVE w/ Karen Stubbs) 

Hard is Okay Sometimes

"...for we know suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope..." 

Being a Mom is hard.

I'm seven years into this gig, currently homeschooling four little kids age seven and under and quite often not talking to another adult until the afternoon (on a good day) or the evening when my husband gets home. I also happen to be an extreme extrovert and most days it feels hard.

The primary mode of communication around here is very transactional:

You want a banana? I'm sorry, when you asked for an apple, I assumed you wanted an APPLE. 

Please stop running your bike into the garage door.

No, sorry I don't want to read any more books right now.

No, you cannot eat your sandwich in the bathroom.

Your brother hit you? Work it out.

What do you mean you want grapes? You just asked for a banana!

There's about a 30 minute window each day, usually right around lunch time, when my brain, which supposedly thrives on multitasking and being with people, maxes out and starts to misfire.

When quiet time arrives (less quiet these days than it used to be, but at least the toddler is napping and the others know they need to self-entertain) my brain-dead brain just wants to space out. But it also craves adult interaction and friendship and community. So instead of picking up a novel or taking a nap, I'll find myself hidden in a corner (or as of this week, in the pantry...eating their Halloween candy...) scrolling.

And scrolling.

And scrolling.

And it scratches the itch. I see smiling faces of friends I know and love. I read the inspiring caption of a blogger I admire, appreciate the beauty of another adult's creative pursuits, read their words, encourage them with a quick comment.

But it's a 2D substitute for the flesh and spirit I'm really craving.

The other day I asked my sister  (somewhat ironically, but mostly completely seriously) "how do I make friends?" She deadpanned back, "I think you have to leave your house."

Hmm. Leaving my house is a complicated proposition at best, made less-appealing by the fact that I'm supposed to spend my day educating these children rather than in search of friendship.

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I grew up in the 80s and 90s, the era when self-esteem was all the rage. Those decades when coaches started giving us all a trophy for showing up and teachers stopped using red pen to correct essays lest we felt our work wasn't as good as everyone else's.

Somewhere in my formative years I internalized the message that things ought to come easily to me. And if something didn't, I ought to put it down and go find something that did come easily. In high school and college this was easy enough. I dropped classes, dropped relationships, dropped sports, dropped after-school clubs. As adults we operate in a society where it's easy to quit a job, end a pregnancy or leave a marriage that is difficult. I have to fight my innate desire to drop things that aren't easy.

I'm lonely these days. And lonely feels embarrassing and a little pathetic. As someone who is 99% extroverted, lonely is basically my worst nightmare. Lonely is hard.

Friends are difficult to make and friendship is difficult to maintain in this season. It feels really hard some days. But as I teach my kids each day, I'm discovering along the way that maybe hard is okay.

Hard doesn't mean you're doing something wrong.

Hard doesn't mean you need to quit.

Hard doesn't mean you made a bad decision, you're a failure or that you need to seek an out.

Every now and then hard is an indication that you are being pig-headed about whatever it is or truly doing something wrong, but sometimes life is hard. Seasons are difficult. And there are untold lessons to be learned in the persevering.

Homeschooling could be difficult because it's not the right season or the right thing at all for our family. Next year I may have three kids in the public school across the street. And I pray for wisdom and the discernment to make that change if we need to.

But then again, it could be that this feels hard because it is hard. And maybe, just maybe, hard is okay sometimes.

Going Grey

“Your sister asked for Taylor Swift and I’m not changing songs again until this song is over!” I locked eyes with the 6 year old in the rearview mirror to make sure he got my point. That’s when I caught sight of the barely recognizable mousy brown-haired girl in the driver’s seat. "Ugh, I'm so overdue for highlights." I reached up and smoothed down the hair on either side of my part, realizing that without the assistance of my quarterly foils, I had essentially become a brunette.

I eased into a left-hand turn, still glaring at the unfamiliar woman in the mirror, when a glint at the crown of my head caught my eye. "What was that? Surely… no. It couldn't be. It's not. Is it?" I straightened out the wheel and cast a more thorough glance into the mirror.

Rolling to a stop at a red light, I probed my part, isolating the sparkling strand from her more modest sisters. There she was, sticking straight up like a proud first grader's hand, begging for attention... 

...read the rest over at Coffee+Crumbs today. And you might want to grab a cup of coffee before you go, I wouldn't be surprised if you find yourself reading more words than mine.  

How Homeschool's (Really) Going

Some of y'all may have seen on Facebook that I took a bit of a blog hiatus last month because I was too busy losing my mind to write lovely posts about how I'm nailing motherhood/homeschooling/wifeing. The school year started out like most things do: high on hopes and dreams and low on reality. By the end of Week 3 the wheels were starting to fall off the bus.

Homeschooling has been hard. My classroom consists of an unmotivated 2nd grader, a precocious Kindergartener, a rambunctious four year old and one very loud and very opinionated two year old - who has a penchant for pooping in the middle of particularly hands-on lessons.

Learning: patterns and shapes

 Illuminating: our first names

 Discovering: turtles like mushrooms

 Baking: Brownies 101

Creating: biome models

Destroying: what once was lovely and good

 Observing: a failed science experiment

Escaping: the home part of school

Drawing: a Viking longship

Pretending: SpiderMan vs. Thor

Feasting: Like royalty

It hasn't helped that I'm very much an all-or-nothing kind of person. I laid out my August and September work-out plan right alongside my kids' lesson plans and was dutifully getting up each morning at 6am to get in the workout (Insanity...should have taken a hint there...) and a shower before throwing up a quick Hail Mary and greeting the kids at 7am.

By the end of Week 5 everything just seemed really hard. I was overwhelmed by four distinct personalities, two different grade levels of curriculum, three tornadoes of testosterone and one dramatic diva. Each moment of peace was shattered before I could sink into it. Each lesson was interrupted. Each one of us cried at some point each day.

I felt like I could ace homeschooling if only it weren't for my 2 year old. Or maybe it's my second grader who's the issue. Yes, I'd be fine and in total control if my second grader were less stubborn. Maybe both school-age kids should be in school...then I could go back in time and live my pre-school mom life! Mornings at the park and Bible studies with childcare included....Or maybe I just need a Parent's Morning Out program! Then I could ship off both the little guys and just be a teacher for the morning...I spent each afternoon replaying the morning to figure out what needed tweaking.

Week 6 ended with me having a come-to-Jesus with my second grader. It wasn't a pretty conversation, I'm quite certain I handled it badly. There was a toddler banging on the locked door while I talked to his back as he lay in his bunk above me. I told him he could do school here or he could do school down the street, but I refused to fight with him over it anymore.

In Week 7 I let our science curriculum slide. And I let my workouts slide. I replaced spelling lessons with read-alouds and we limped into Fall Break happy to have survived.

Last week was Fall Break. We slept late and read a lot and my second-grader wrote a beautiful essay about our dog completely without prompting. (Writing is one of the subjects we specialize in fighting over.) It was glorious and just what my soul needed. This week we're forging ahead. I don't really have a different game plan. I did buy candy and toys from the Dollar Store and if the kids get through school with no attitude, they can choose a prize at the end of the week.

I'm still convinced less-school is a good thing at their age. I still believe learning to pull their weight with chores and to speak respectfully to mom and dad are more important than reading at grade level.  I still love our slow mornings and the sound of their voices blending in protest as I close our read-aloud. I still dream of the possibilities that open up when high schoolers are homeschooled.

But I'm praying more and trying to hold this precious homeschool dream, this thing I wanted to do even before I wanted to have kids, with open hands.

Lord you created these kids and you gave them to us. You created us and you know our hearts and hopes intimately. Would you guide us and lead us into your best for us in this season?

3 Times You're Holding Your Toddler The Wrong Way (*Video*)

There are times in your little love's life when it's incredibly important they be still and it just so happens that those are usually the times when they are least likely to want to stay still.

Ever tried to hold down a squirmy toddler and change their dirty diaper? Or suction out snot from their tiny tiny nostrils? Or my least favorite... at the doctor's office when it's time for shots?

My pediatric nurse of a sister and one of my friends heard my frustration in these situations as a newer mama and graciously taught me their ways.

I've realized over the years that a lot of my friends have never used these holds (which is why I always recommend having a nurse for a sister.) so for all of you who haven't seen these techniques, please enjoy the first ever video tutorial in the history of this blog - and forgive my voice, poor camera skills and everything else that is amateur-hour about this video.

Knowing how to hold my toddler at these times has made me a saner mama and has resulted in less-traumatized kids. It's my hope that these help you out the next time you find yourself with a squirmy toddler in a high-stakes situation! Let me know your thoughts in the comments and as always, thanks for reading/watching. :)

How Not to Potty Train Your Child

Last weekend BJ was working in the yard when he came across an unsightly mess that was sure to end up on the bottom of a child's shoe if not taken care of quickly - dog poop. I'm hesitant to admit there's always a fair amount of dog poop in our yard. In our defense, we have had a child (often two) in diapers for seven years now. A person can only be expected to deal with so much poop right? In our poo-weariness, we often neglect to clean up the yard as often as respectable homeowners should.

When BJ scooped the offending waste into a bag and whisked it out of sight our two year old was enthralled. Moments later BJ caught our little guy across the yard bending down to do a little pooper-scooping of his own. Swooping in to prevent him from grabbing a turd with his bare hand, BJ picked him up with a, "Yucky!" He made a big show of removing this second land mine with another bag and returned to mowing the lawn. 

Which brings us to yesterday. Please keep in mind I knew nothing about the lesson my little guy had received from BJ. I was cleaning up lunch when a familiar odor wafted through the kitchen. It was obvious our little guy was the culprit, so I asked him, "Are you poopy buddy? Need Mommy to change your diaper?" 

"Yucky!" was his one-word reply. 

"Poopy?" I asked again.

"Yucky!" he proudly declared. 

This back and forth continued as we made our way down the hall to his room. I decided "yucky" was as good a word as any for the situation. 

We sat on the floor together and I changed his diaper while we repeated his new word over and over again. "Yucky." "YUCKY." "Yucky!" Never one to miss a teachable moment I decided to turn our vocabulary lesson into a life skills class. 

"Should we put your yucky in the potty buddy?"

"YUCKY!"

"Ok, here we go, can you lift the lid of the potty?"

(Lifting lid) "Yucky."

"Mommy's going to put the poop in the potty now, say 'bye-bye yucky'."

"Bye-bye yucky."

"Great job! Can you flush the potty?" 

"Yucky go bye-bye!" 

"Yes, buddy! Yucky go bye-bye. That's what we do with poop buddy. We put it in the potty." 

Triumphant, we washed hands and I got back to washing dishes. A full 5 minutes had passed when I heard a pint-sized commotion from the hall bathroom. 

I opened the door to the bathroom just in time to see a fully-clothed two year old closing the toilet lid.

"What are you doing buddy!?" I asked, lifting the lid. 

Huddled in the depths of the bowl was a small, misshapen lump. 

My initial thought was that another of my kids had neglected to flush. My split-second later thought was that all the other kids were outside with BJ.

I grabbed his hand.

Streaks.

I smelled his tiny hand.

Oh dear heaven. 

It was suddenly crystal clear that my sweet child had gone outside and searched the yard until he found this treasure. Then he had carefully carried it inside and put it where all the yuckies go.

Because that's what we do with poop buddy.

We put it in the potty.

Why I Want To Be More Like My Needy Kids

I know I'm about to be interrupted when I hear the familiar cadence of small feet pounding down the hallway over the spray of the shower.

Seconds later the garbled voice of a seven-year-old enthusiastically erupts just outside the bathroom door.

"What's that buddy?' I pull the shower curtain back and lean out, creating a puddle on the tile floor outside the tub.

"Mom! Violet just told Benny he should put the milk bottles in the stream!"

"Oh, that's great - you love that part!"

Message delivered, my son retreats to his movie and I get back to my shampoo routine.

Half amused and half annoyed I wonder, 'why on earth would he run all the way down here to tell me that? He knows I'm in the shower. Why did he feel the need to tell me that right now?'

I have only just reached for conditioner when a different child (who has learned the art of plastering his lips to the crack at the bottom of the door and deepening his four year old voice for maximum volume) thunders at me, "MOM! I NEED GUMMY WORMS...NOW!"

I actually burst into laughter at his urgency and match his tone of voice with my own good-natured shout, "YOU CAN HAVE SOME...WHEN I AM FINISHED TAKING A SHOWER!"

At this stage of life, getting interrupted multiple times during a 10 minute shower is par for the course. And my capacity to respond lovingly to these hundreds of requests throughout the day is limited. More often than not I pay half-attention to the tales my kids s l o w l y tell me and I am unnerved by their endless requests for more snacks, another book, a spot in my lap and help cutting their food.

I rinse out my hair and wrap up in a towel still marveling at the way they come to me for everything. At the way their tiny bodies come undone by their emotions and explode onto me with regularity. Their highs and lows, their good and bad. They come and offer their hearts. They ask me to help make sense of their world. To meet their needs. To take joy in what they find delightful and to commiserate with their sorrows. It simply never occurred to my son that I might not care about the movie scene that had just delighted him. That I might be too busy to pay him attention. Or that I might not be in a position to provide gummy worms from the shower.

He instinctively takes his heart to the one he trusts with it. 

Isn't this just the way our heavenly Father wants us to approach him? Hebrews 4:16 says, "So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.' 

God actually wants me to be more like my needy kids in prayer.

To come boldly to him and assume he is ready and waiting to hear my heart. To know unquestioningly that he cares about my needs and enjoys when I lay them before him (even when they are as frivolous and fleeting as GUMMY WORMS NOW.) To approach him with confidence no matter the subject or the time.

And unlike me, our God is never too busy for his kids. Our Father is never uninterested, never preoccupied with weightier matters, never bound by such earthly things as time and space. Psalm 116:2 actually says, "because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath." 

Can you even picture that? The God of the universe bending down to listen to you? Like a tender mother who kneels face-to-face to listen to her child, God eagerly attends to our prayers.

I want to carry that picture in my heart forever. I want to always remember Elijah shouting his favorite movie scene through the bathroom door and to memorize the sound of Ben's impertinent demand for gummy worms. In place of my imperfect self, I want to imagine the perfect God of the galaxy, filled with joy as I bring him my heart, bending down closer to hear me completely. In the place of my children I want to imagine myself. Freely and boldly approaching my heavenly Father, confident that in his presence I will find grace to help me when I need it most.


Do you know that God delights in your prayers? That like a perfect parent he takes joy in his kids and  stands at the ready to meet their needs?

How can you be more like your kids as you approach your heavenly Father today?

How Do I Entertain My One Year Old All Day Long? (Part 2)

If you missed Part One in this series, head here first to read that post about Being Productive and making time for Creative Play. To be clear, this series is specifically about those first two years of staying at home when you have ONE very small child with you all day long. 

When almost everything you do on Monday needs to be done again on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday, you start to feel like you're running with a parachute on your back. Your life is Groundhog Day and you're Bill Murray, "It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey and it's gonna last for the rest of your life." Pretty soon you're ready to get in your car and drive off - anywhere - to do something -anything- that reminds you who you were before Disney and diapers became your to-do list.

As a stay-at-home mom, it often feels like the entire day boils down to what fun thing I did and if there's something other than frozen pizza for dinner. Did we go to the park? A+ in Motherhood! We stayed at home and watched Mickey while catching up on laundry and bills? Well I can always try harder tomorrow.

To avoid the feeling that my identity and worth are wrapped up in what I accomplish each day (which  is often nothing beyond keeping my children alive and fed) I try to incorporate two things into my routine that have nothing to do with my role as a mom - connecting with community and recharging with quiet. These are the mom-equivalent of putting your own oxygen mask on before assisting another.

Unless you are fortunate enough to live near other women staying at home with a child the same age as yours, connecting with your community doesn't happen spontaneously during the day. Social media makes us feel like we're connected to hundreds of friends and family, when in fact we're settling for two dimensional picture of what could be a 3D experience. Seeing pictures of your best friend's baby is nothing like hearing her tell you the birth story. Posting a picture of your little guy and reading the sweet comments doesn't fill the same hole that writing to your grandmother would. I adore social media (hello, I'm a blogger) but I can't fill the need I have for authentic relationships solely by scrolling through Instagram.

I love scheduling face-to-face connections into my weekly routine so I don't have to think about it. A few avenues I've found for connection throughout the years of staying at home are:

• Signing up for a Bible study that provides childcare during the day
• Participating in my local MOPS group (Mothers of pre-schoolers)
• Attending the same group exercise class at the gym regularly 
• Volunteering at a nursing home - cannot tell you how much joy a baby brings to this place!
• Mentoring high schoolers through the local church
• Becoming involved in a small group with other couples at the same stage of life in the evening
• Going out for coffee with a girlfriend after the kids are in bed

When I'm able to take off my mommy cape and enjoy something other than parenting a few times a week, I have more energy and excitement when I re-connect with the kids. On days I don't have anything scheduled, I reach outside my little world by emailing an old friend, writing a letter to a grandparent or calling my sister, my mom or a girlfriend. Connection doesn't necessarily require a babysitter but it does require intentionality.

After the laundry is put away, the blocks have been stacked and toppled, the treadmill has been conquered, lunch has been eaten and The Hungry Caterpillar has been read and re-read and then read again - my favorite part of the day arrives. Quiet Time. Year after year, I make it through the long mornings of motherhood knowing this sacred time awaits when the clock strikes 2pm.

If you have a one year old at home, this is when they take a nap - but the genius of Quiet Time is that it never has to end. I currently have a 7 year old, 5 year old, 4 year old and 22 month old and our home is (relatively) quiet each day from 2 to 4pm while the littlest one naps. My older kids read books, play with Legos, color or do puzzles. Occasionally I'll let them watch a movie (especially in the summer when all rules go out the window) but for the most part it's a time for them to be alone - a rarity in our full house- and to recharge. I plan on keeping Quiet Time around until they are teenagers and start taking naps again.

Quiet Time is when I engage my heart and my soul in a meaningful, non-mommy way. This blog was born because my first child napped a solid four to five hours each day at home in his crib. It was awesome - and boring. Writing began as a way to pass the time and connect with the outside world, and now it's one way I recharge and connect to my own soul. Maybe for you recharging looks like doing yoga or reading a book. Find something that energizes you during that brief quiet window each day. Maybe that's when you call a friend or write a letter or take your own nap. (If you're pregnant or have a newborn, please, just take a nap.) Maybe it's when you work on your side business or sew. On some days quiet time is simply me sitting outside in the driveway with a Diet Coke and a blank look on my face. The point is I use this time to do something that fills me up, not drains me. When your precious little one wakes in the afternoon, you've got to be energized and ready - they don't call 4-7pm the witching hours for nothing. 

Give them an engaged mom, who knows that she has been productive with her day, who has filled her heart and soul with the connection of community and has recharged in the quiet, a mom who is ready to play with and love on them with the best she has to give until bedtime. When I schedule these four things into each day, I'm amazed at how much peace I have with this stage of motherhood and how free I feel to be present with the amazing kids I get to raise.


Are you currently making community connection and time to recharge a priority in your daily routine? Is there anything I've missed that's an essential to surviving your stay-at-home life with a little?