Interesting times

It has been a difficult couple of weeks, but not for the reasons most people are experiencing difficult times.  I don’t feel at the end of my rope balancing home school, house things, meals, spouse, and work.  I think that is partly because my work is currently dried up and so I’m not doing that, partly because we have amazing children and educators leading us, and partly because we are so used to having so little control over our lives that we tend to refocus on what we actually can control (like our responses to others). 

Our weeks have been difficult because it looked like Hubby was going to have to go away for an undetermined amount of time (he didn’t, but it was touch a go for a few days).  It was rough because when a soldier or soldiers are lost, the whole military family feels it and we lost 6 last week.  It has been rough because it has been FOREVER since the monsters have interacted with their class friends and teachers aside from online and it is taking a toll on them.

Feelings happen, and they happen strongly in this house.  Some fire up like dry tinder, others smolder like hot coals, but we all have had our moments.  There has been a lot of battles of wills between parents and assorted offspring, won always by the parents.  That’s hard too.  Parenting is not always finger painting and tickle fights.  But we have those too.  We keep laughing, keep tickling and cuddling, and it doesn’t seem so bad overall anymore.  Like the sun coming out after a grey and rainy day.

Every day I look forward to a walk or a bike ride with the littles.  Every day my highlight is a walk with Hubby as we talk and recap the day, week, and thoughts about life in general.  Every day the kids watch probably too much on screens, but we have reigned that in and reduced it compared to what we were letting them use before. 

The littles have been receiving baking and cooking instruction from both parents, we have planted some seeds to plant later outside (if they work out, I have bad luck with seed starts…), and we are consistent with running in the mornings.  I find that everyone gets along better when we start the day with that physical activity.

When we have our set aside school times we sometimes need to have a wiggle break, get the blood moving and refocus attention.  On our most difficult day we did baking break, made a double batch of muffins, and that was the best medicine for the soul for our most troubled child.  Sometimes all you need is something warm from the oven, baked with love.

Happy Easter!

It has been a really nice Easter weekend for us :)  The weather has been all over the place; sunny, cloudy, super cold wind, and snow... But it has been good to go out for our walks every day just the same.  We painted the living room window all sorts of colours, we made some chocolate eggs as we do every year.  We took the littles out for a drive to deliver some of them and just to get out of the house for a couple of hours.  It was a gorgeous, if chilly, afternoon when we went out and everyone was in very good humour!  It isn't easy for this social crew to stay cooped up all the time, but we are doing our best to maintain distance.

Feature window from the outside.

A secret note left for Momma to find during paint clean up.

Beautiful decorating effort by all the Kids>

Saturday brought quite a bit of baking.  I found myself unable to sleep early in the morning so I got up and started baking.  Bread and buns, because it's been a while and I wanted some fresh buns for supper over the weekend.  Then I had promised Girlie that we would make "bunny buns" like we have often done over Easter in the past, but that she recalled making with my mother a few years ago when we had been down visiting them once.  So we did that in the afternoon and they are nearly all gone now too!

We usually make the twisted bunnies and attempted "little bun buns" this time too. Didn't look terrific but they still tasted great!

 While I was working on those, Hubby directed the egg colouring. There was a wide range of artistic expression displayed, and all of the monsters had fun with Dad.

There was a Charlie Brown one, Pikachu, a few "people", a bunny, and some randomness.

Sunday morning saw lots of chocolate! We have been doing Home Church online with a few friends scattered in various places, and it was wonderful to be able to see and worship with them all through the sugar highs of children.  We are certainly blessed to be able to have a community of faith through the distances of country and pandemic.

After lunch, Hubby and I hid some eggs in the backyard for the crew to find.  All had sugar, some had scripture in them.  Their task afterward was to put together the story that we had gone over in pieces over the last few days and they did that, reading it all for the parents.  My heart was very full as I listened and helped the youngest with some of her reading. 

We went for a walk later in the afternoon, and then Hubby and I made supper.  Delicious chicken Alfredo.  Because it was still so bright and sunny we went for a drive, just because, and it made us smile listening to the kids talk, sing, and laugh with each other while we absorbed the setting sun and took the round about way home.

Teacher-led homeschool!

We have survived a week of teacher-led home schooling!

Between the 2 of us, we prepped and organized the space we have to facilitate learning.  The monsters each have their stuff from school in a set area, the tech being used to communicate assignments and concepts is charged and set for the new day, and all apps needed were installed.

No adjustment is perfect.  Everyone was happy to connect with teachers and friends from class, not everyone liked the new rules about what gets turned on when and where they needed to set computers up at.  There has been some adjusting for parents reading instructions from teachers versus what the teacher might suggest in class.  It has been very positive, though, and I am incredibly grateful for the teaching staff at our schools for working so hard to get the rest of the school year done in this way.  Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

As this is all becoming routine now we have fewer complaints about the self-imposed schedule.  Staying in PJs all day during the week is not an option here.  Gaming all day long is not an option either.  The first couple weeks was mostly anarchy, and anything went.  Now we have pulled ourselves back up and are making routines to help us through.  There are daily walks, they aren't complained about quite as much as at first.  When weather is nicer (which it really isn't right now...) we do some running.  Showers happen, cleaning happens.  Regular scheduled bedtimes don't really happen, but they don't get really late nights unless it's a weekend still. 

This enforced time of not being busy has been interesting.  We are a close-knit unit all the time, but it has been neat to see the way the interactions between siblings shifts and changes with the zero physical interaction with others.  There are days of "I just need my space away from everyone" and days of "I can't get enough of talking and being close to my sibling."  The fire and gasoline duo of Girlie and Sergeant has mostly tempered and they have been best friends these last few days.  They go up ahead when we go for our walks and make up rhymes about things and people.  Just because.  Smarty is loved by his sisters so much, and he is so good natured about it, he gets mauled and hug attacked and he plays back.  Monkey is her regular monkey-self and because she is younger, she is having the most rocky adjustment.  Nothing huge, just really tired of all this stuff that she just cant even. 

Overall though, it has been a good week.  Hubby is doing some work from home, some office hours.  I am working what little I can with job volume significantly reduced.  Yesterday Sergeant helped me start cinnamon buns.  Girlie helped make a salted caramel frosting for them.  OMG, they really are the best thing in the whole world!!  I'll see if I can get a pic before they're gone and post it. 

Social Distancing!

It has been almost a whole year.  Yikes!

We have survived Husband going on deployment.  We have survived a lot of holidays apart.  We have entered "the teen years" and the preview isn't promising... Just kidding.  No one's teen years are the best.

I am off of Facebook until Easter, so I will just write for the sake of writing instead of sharing the posts to that site.

We are in the midst of social distancing.  With COVID-19 and the precautions strongly advised we now have the children home from school until further notice, we have Husband working from home, and my work is incredibly slow as people in the medical field shut down everything but the most crucial to help reduce the spread.

There have been daily walks as often as possible with the weather, there has been a lot of reading.  I am grateful for teachers adapting and working to move learning online for everyone.  

It has been only a week so far and I think I have cooked supper once in that time.  Husband loves to cook and it has been a long time since he has been able to do as much of it as he is now.  I help, I do clean-up, but it's mostly him and that's a nice shift.

Because there is no set end date for all of this we are doing our best to have some sort of routine.  It is really easy to just say "meh, do whatever", but that is a horrible idea.  Weekend rules are a little different than weekday rules, timelines are fluid, as long as some rules are observed everyone is good.  Piano still needs to be practiced and chores still need to be done.

So far no one has threatened to murder a family member.  So far everyone is going a little stir crazy.  I am finding this a good exercise in figuring out how what we can control and what we can't. 

 "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannnot change, the courage to change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference." 

As I was talking Sergeant through some things this morning about feelings of being powerless I reminded him that yes, there is a lot out of our control right now as we listen to leaders (both political leaders and leaders in the field of epidemiology) and follow their advice- we control ourselves and how we choose to do that will affect others.  We can do so making the best of the situation or we can be grumpy and bitter about it and lash out at family members.  Not always an easy lesson. 

Music and bath water

Music is so important in our house.  We encourage the kids to practice their piano, the ukulele is readily available, there are a few recorders laying around, and a guitar or two now.  In the past we have always had our keyboard in the basement but we have had it upstairs these last few months.  And it has been an amazing decision.

It is easier to get the littles to practice, we even have random walk by the piano and play a song or a scale.  When Hubby picks up his guitar there is a reminder that one person practices at a time unless they go downstairs to practice.  

I can tell who is sitting at the keyboard at this point by what they play.  Music festival has come and gone, and all the kids performed in it, so their festival pieces get interesting renditions; that's a side benefit/entertainment value of having an electric keyboard.  Hearing Brahms' Lullaby in saxophone or random street sounds, or Playful Puppy in harpsichord.  Favorite might be Minuet in A Minor done on pipe organ, though.  Sergeant is very dramatic in that particular interpretation of the piece.

Having different classical pieces for the littles to play and learn has been good.  I was humming along to Minuet in A Minor and Sergeant slowed and faltered but my humming continued.  He peeped "I have played this one so much, even you know it Mom!" To which I replied "It may surprise you to know that I knew it before you started playing it."  He paused a beat thoughtfully and said "Well, it is an old piece of music."  Then his eyes got huge when he realized the implications of his words.  "Are you calling me OLD??" We had a good chuckle.

A few weeks ago the whole crew was off school for an extended long weekend, and as luck would have it it was also a morning I woke up with a migraine.  We had had a list already worked out of chores that needed doing, and planned playtime breaks in between, so when I called the kids up to our bedroom where I was laying with the blinds closed, I let them know how I was doing (because I had told them earlier but hoped 5 minutes laying down would help).  When I told them I needed them to start the work and I would join when I could they leaped to action.  Boys got out gloves for toilet scrubbing, girls started sweeping the kitchen for floor washing, it was amazing and wonderful.  A small bit of a glimpse that the fighting and pushing that goes into parenting is slowly developing fruit.  We aren't done yet, but it was a very satisfying feeling, knowing I could focus on getting my head better and the kids were stepping up.

Later in the same day I was sitting on the couch, not 100% but a little better, when the boys asked if they could put some water in the bathtub to test the buoyancy of something they had created.  Okay, sure, just mop up the water that will definitely end up on the floor.  A few minutes later, all 4 of them were up there, in the bathroom, giggling, all changed into bathing suits, with lots of thumps and splashes.  I hollered up a 5 minute warning for clean up before starting lunch, and sat back down.  Then I heard from the bathroom "Hey mom, guess what?? We all fit in the tub at the same time!!" and when I went in after clean up to assess the damage I had absolutely no dry towels in the house... but they had fun and the boys helped with all laundry afterwards.  I bet they are all going to remember the fun they had that day!

Busy schedules

The littles have taken a new interest in the family blog.  Which is cool, it just means that I need to update it again.

Christmas came and went with colds and sniffles.  Monkey got strep in November, piano recitals and Christmas productions were amazing, and we are now in the deep cold of February.  Everyone has been feeling cooped up and squirrely.

Hubby started playing the guitar just before Christmas, which has renewed all musical interest in the house!  It is really neat.  I moved the keyboard upstairs so all music practicing can happen where I can hear it while doing kitchen stuff, and we loaded a music app that will help with ukulele learning and my own piano tinkering.  

Archery practices are up and running, and Girlie has joined the team this year keeping Sergeant company.  Tournaments start up in a couple weeks and they are both getting pretty excited for that.  The instructors place a small balloon in the center of the targets and the students who pop the balloons get prizes and treats, with 5 popped balloons in a practice earning a small stuffed animal.  Sergeant came home 2 practices in a row with a new stuffed toy... he needs a bigger goal to work towards, I think!

We recently had parent teacher interviews with the girls' teachers and they are both doing really well.  I was surprised that Monkey is reading just above where the goal fr this far into the year is, but that is because getting her to read to me is still often a challenge.  I am very glad she is different for her teacher!

It has been interesting giving the boys more responsibilities and seeing them grow into them.  On piano days supper gets interesting if I don't have the crock pot set up.  There was one week that I had put out some tomato soup for the boys to open and heat, which they did and added seasonings to it.  They wrote it down so they could repeat their special soup a la boys.  Smarty also once made a cheesy sauce and pasta solo without following a recipe.  I am glad he's watched me do it enough that it was actually pretty good!  It meant we have upped our culinary lessons for both boys.

Thankful

It has been a long time, but I am thankful. 

I am thankful for opportunities to learn and grow in ways I did not think I would be able to over the years.

I am thankful for a partner in life who sees me as I am, sees my potential, and encourages me to grow and reach for it.

I am thankful for the listening ear, the devil’s advocate, the look at what is on the other hand.

I am thankful for the chance I have to be the listening ear, for the confidence and the trust in sharing thoughts and feelings.

I am thankful for the opportunity to watch four amazing children, that somehow we are blessed to nurture and shape, develop into their own intricate, beautiful, and individual personalities.

I am thankful for parents and parental figures we have been blessed with, who have given us advice, helped us along the way so far, and are wonderful models for us.

I am thankful for the enjoyment I have found in running this little world; of planning and carrying out meals, baking and creating, cleaning and teaching.

I am thankful for the faith that has been given to me.

I am thankful for rest, for work, and for play.

I am thankful for recreation and family time.

I am thankful for family, both of blood and of bond; for the close connections that shared past brings and for the opportunities to create new connections and bonds.

I am thankful for children who cuddle; who still love to hug, to hold paws, and curl up on the couch beside us.

I am thankful for vibrant laughter and sharp humour.

I am thankful for hot tea and coffee.

I am thankful for the freedom that is found in honest communication.

I am thankful for the chance I have to be human; to show the children I am not prefect, just as they are not perfect, but we are perfectly us just the same.

I am thankful for small tasks that feel amazing once they are accomplished.

I am thankful for boots in the hallway of varying sizes.

I am thankful for music and the places it takes me.

I am thankful.