What Jesus Says About Ebola

I hate watching the news. I seriously hate it. There is always something stupid happening somewhere, and I never feel better after having heard about it. So while I'm on the treadmill at the gym where my viewing options are limited, I watch ESPN. It doesn't stress me out. I would much rather worry about which NFL teams have injured players than worry about Isis or Ebola. Either way, it's not something I can control.

But there is literally no way to escape from Ebola madness. And I'm the type of person that worries. I think anyone who has kids instantly becomes prone to worrying about scary things we can't control. But I can really work myself up into a fine frenzy bordering on panic. And Ebola is not here. I have had no contact with it. There is no way my family can catch it now. And yet the worry. Because every new development, relevant or not, is instantly on cable news. 

I asked my husband why. Why does the media get people so worked up when very few people actually have any need to be cautious right now? And he reminded me that the news media doesn't actually get paid to report the news. They get paid to sell advertising space. And fear-mongering sells. People watch because they're too scared not to, and watching just makes them more afraid.

While whipping myself up a fresh batch of worry yesterday, I wondered what God would want me to do with all this information. What does Jesus say about Ebola? Right. Well, in that case, what does he say about worry? So I did a quick Google search and got slapped with the red letters. Here's what he says:

"And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?" Matthew 6:27

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." John 14:27

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me." John 14:1

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." John 16:33

And this is just what Jesus said. There are plenty of other verses I could reference, but I really wanted to hear from Jesus. 

So the Bible says very little about parenting (believe me, I've looked), but there are a multitude of verses dealing with worry, It's such a natural human thing to be anxious over things we can't control in life, and things we may never even have to deal with. It comes down to this: we can either live in fear and pass that fear on to our children, teach them to worry by sheer example and make sure they think that the world is a scary place, or we can enjoy our lives and our families the way God intended and trust Jesus, our deliverer. That's the example I want my kids to see.

Brave New Hypocrite

For those of you who don't know (basically everyone who does not speak to my mother on a regular basis), we've made the difficult decision to send Eddie back to private school this fall. We never expected to change our minds about homeschooling, but I am confident that the right choice was made. And now for a moment of silence.

Basically, he has become a giant ball of clingy fury since summer started. We changed churches over the summer and made a few other changes, and it's just more than he can handle. Plus he misses his friends and teachers. He thrived in preschool. We enjoyed learning at home, and he is very teachable. The education itself is not an issue. But the separation anxiety we're struggling with right now needs to be resolved, and I think keeping him with me at home is only reinforcing it. So it's back to school we go, at least for now. And I get to spend another year devoting more time to my precious little daughter. I reserve the right to revisit homeschool at the end of the year. But if he's still in love with school, then I will find a way to keep him there.

So, that being said, I now have to change the name of the blog. Because keeping a captain's log of our journey, short though it was, has been fun and I don't plan to stop. And begin suggestions...now!

Don't Blink

To the parents at Starbucks with their young son,

You guys seem like nice people. Your one-year-old son is adorable and well-behaved, and enjoyed quietly running around the tables and waving to other patrons. I kinda wanted to pick him up and squish his cheeks.

I understand what your life is like right now. You're tired. So extremely tired. You're wondering if you're ever going to get a decent night's sleep again. (The answer is no, by the way.) You're tired of mashing food, of filling bottles or nursing, and you're loving your child immeasurably, but missing how simple life used to be. But this tiny life is incredible and makes it all worth while. And you guys are doing a great job.

But here's the deal. I know you're tired, and the only thing you really want sometimes is a break. And there are times for that. But that time is not in the middle of Starbucks at 9:30 at night, sucking up the free WiFi while your baby tries desperately to play with you. He's too little right now to realize how checked out you are, but soon he's going to get it. He's going to realize that whatever you're doing with your handheld gizmo is more interesting, more important, and more gratifying to you than spending time with him.

You know how people say that kids grow up so fast. All you do is blink and they're grown? It's true. So in the words of my favorite Doctor, Don't blink. If you blink, you'll miss it. And guess what. You're missing it. While you sit there on your "smart" phone, you're missing it. While you check Facebook, you're missing it. While you play Angry Birds, you're missing it. While you watch "Real Housewives of Instanbul," you're missing it. Turn off the distractions. They're distracting you from what matters. And we all do it. I'm just as guilty as you are. But I'm realizing that the things you learn about your kids while you're checked in beats the heck out of whatever Haz Cheeseburger Cat is doing.

Your son is only going to want to play peek-a-boo for a breath of time, and then all you'll have are memories. Unless you're too busy being distracted, and then you'll have nothing. Be present, sweet parents. Because this happens too fast to be anything but.

Going all Katniss on the Bullseye

Only two posts this week. Really there's been nothing exciting happening. We did very little schoolwork this week, which I felt bad about, but then my husband reminded me it's still summer. Technically, I don't have to do anything right now. And I'm throwing a baby shower on Sunday, so why stress out about school right now? Next week we'll get back to the routine.

I do have something to gripe about (gasp! quelle surprise!)

I went to Target on Thursday with both children. Always an enjoyable experience, she says sarcastically. And I encountered this, the bane of my existence:

Actually I bought pork chops. This image was ripped off from Target Savers, but you get the idea. 

Big Red Sale Sticker.

Now if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I love a sale. In an unnatural way. So why is the Big Red Sale Sticker the plight of my shopping experience? Because with Target's meat, at least at my local Target, you're basically playing meat roulette. Will it or will it not be fit for human consumption? And then I have to call my sainted mother, oracle for all that is spoiled, and make her sniff my meat. Try saying that with a straight face. And in this particular instance, the aforementioned pork was slimy. Fabulous. Which required another trip to Target to return the pork chops AND a watermelon quarter that also bore the dreaded Big Red Sale Sticker and was also spoiled. Again with the two children in tow.

Now, I have been enamored with Target since they first came to my city over ten years ago. I have been a faithful worshiper at the altar of the Bullseye up to this point, but this is not the first time I've had to scrap my dinner plans because Target sold me maggot food. So to say I've been underwhelmed lately would be an understatement.

My sainted mother left this little nugget on my Facebook page last week, knowing full well that it would make me crazy. She's mean like that, and wants to see just how granola I really am. These brave people are spending a year without groceries, which gets my brain hamster running because I'm a food snob and hate prepackaged food. I also love farms and making things myself. And now Target has pissed me off, so what's a mom to do? I'm also considering having all my food and groceries delivered because I'm lazy and my giant vehicle gets 12 miles to the gallon. And the UPS man is hot.

Art Project Hatched!

Well, our weekend was packed full of festivities. I hope everyone had a happy fourth and still has all their fingers and eyebrows. In stark contrast, our beginning of the week has been full of snarky attitudes and bitchery. And it's not just me, for a change! Consequently, we have gotten very little accomplished, and I have abandoned Daddy in the evenings to drown my sorrows at Starbucks. Their tea is cheap. Don't judge me. Hence, no blog posts until today when I finally have something good to write about.

Drum roll, please... We finally completed the paint-filled egg and canvas project! Ta da! If you'll recall, it was first promised on July 1st. I like to build suspense. Actually, we had quite a few days of cruddy weather, or the weather was good but I had cruddy children. So arming them with tempera paint seemed foolhardy. 

First, the photos:

Daddy attempting to explain

I used brown eggs, which usually have a harder shell than white eggs. The little people had difficulty throwing them hard enough to break them.

(Please ignore the finger over the camera lens.)

So Mom and Dad got in on the action, you know, so one day we'd be finished. It was a good time, but not something I'd do again because it was time consuming getting all those eggs cracked open, and cleanup was a pain. In fact, the yard is still covered in paint. Which the dog found. And turned into performance art. Yeah.

Eventually the paint did make it onto the canvas.

Fin.

OBG-Why?-N

You know when your day starts at the OBGYN, it's going to be a long day. And the sad thing is, that was really the best part of my day. My doctor even hugged me. It was a moment. I think he just felt sorry for me. And it's nice to finally be at the age where the nurse doesn't feel the need to explain in detail how to produce a clean urine sample. I know my way around a towelette, thank you very much. But I probably will get lost on my way to the paper-covered table and walk around with my urine cup like I'm making a toast.

This week's math assignments are totally done, thanks to the efforts of the lovely and talented Gigi who watched my kids this morning. And thinking skills assignments are done due to the stark realization that Mommy is really not going to give the toys back unless we're good. I've had some minor health issues that have turned out to be nothing major, just my body being a freak, but it's been a stressful couple of months. Health problems make me want to strangle. And you know what else makes me want to strangle? Tiny whiners. And big whiners, really, but the tiny ones are what I usually get. And, man, they were going to town today.

Our exciting egg-throwing adventure I promised you yesterday has been postponed until tomorrow due to a toddler falling asleep while coloring at the table and waiting for her dinner. She did eventually wake up to eat.

Two Days, One Post

I hate posting a day late. I can't ever remember what we did. I know we breezed through 10 out of 11 of his weekly reading pages, played with his tiny 3D torso puzzle, read his science book, lost his television privileges, did math problems with Inchimals, and played with this:

Skwooshi!

It's like Play-Doh that doesn't dry out and is less messy. It doesn't stick to stuff. They had lots of fun. Another great activity that came with his Timberdoodle curriculum. Speaking of which, all Timberdoodle complete curriculum is on sale this week for July 4th. I'm sincerely mad that I jumped the gun and ordered early. I could have waited and saved over a hundred bucks. Live and learn.

Today, however, we have done next to nothing. Everyone woke up with upset stomachs. Apparently when small people don't eat enough the night before, they wake up ravenously hungry and with hurting stomachs. So I was on vomit watch all morning and couldn't sneak away to get a shower until the end of Sesame Street. And then it was lunch time. So they are playing, putting train tracks together, taking pretend naps (my kids are weird), and losing their television privileges for the whole week as punishment for being disrespectful. Momma don't play. So it's going to be a very long week.

Fortunately, we have this to do tonight:

Let me explain.

This is a carton of eggs that my husband and I carefully and tediously cracked open on the ends and saved every time we made eggs. This only took us about a week. We eat a LOT of eggs. I rinsed them with a little soapy water and let them dry. Now they are filled with tempera paint and covered by glue-sticking a little tissue paper over the opening. Here's the blog  I swiped the idea from. Be advised, her pictures are WAY better than mine. I blame my outdated phone. 

Anyway, tonight we are taking the eggs into the yard and hurling them at a big canvas that was given to me. I've been waiting for something really great to do with it, since it's not every day someone (my sister) just up and gives you a large canvas. Photos of this hilarity will be in tomorrow's post. Stay tuned...

Honest Diaper Talk

No homeschooling happened so far today. I had a doctor's appointment. We might get a little done this afternoon; we might not. I'm not worried about it.

So instead of the normal break down of our day -which went like this: Toy Story, Veggie Tales, Horton, Veggie Tales- I'm going to talk about my new favorite thing, online subscription shopping. I'm in love love love with a couple of new websites that are making my life easier. Today it's Honest.com.

I know a lot of you moms have seen the ads popping up on Facebook for Honest, and I was extremely skeptical. I thought it was all going to be overpriced and not worth the trouble. Boy, was I wrong. I really had just planned on getting a few diapers samples for my sister and then cancelling the whole thing. But once again, I was snagged by a discount. After receiving the samples, I called to cancel my subscription. The girl at Honest, who spoke English in an American way, offered me a 15% discount, something I am not programmed to refuse. And she took the time to explain to me why Honest diapers are so much more earth- and kid-friendly than commercial diapers. But I can't explain it to you because I don't remember. Basically my kid could eat these diapers and she'd be fine. (*Disclaimer: Please note I do not, nor do I advocate, feeding diapers to children.*) So being the conscious consumer that I am, I got the diapers for my two-year-old daughter, and they fit her better than any pull-up style diaper I have tried so far. And they don't leak unless I've really just let it go.

So my other concern was price. Obviously the diapers are great, but I can't shell out mad money on something for her to pee in. The reality is this: these diapers are more expensive than Pampers or Huggies, but they are on par with the other natural brands.

The Nitty Gritty:

Here's the cost analysis comparing Honest's price with what's available on Amazon, since that's about the cheapest place to buy diapers. The size I'm using is the 3T/4T size since that's what the princess wears.

Honest sends me 138 diapers for $79.95, which comes to $.58 a diaper, plus they send four packages of wipes for free. And if you need more packages, you get a 25% discount. Score! Plus you can actually schedule when the diapers get sent. So if you don't need them every month, you don't automatically get them.

Amazon sells Pampers EasyUps for $.31 a diaper and Huggies Pull-Ups for $.41 a diaper.
The "natural" brands are more expensive with Earth's Best at $.46 a diaper, Seventh Generation at $.55 a diaper, and Naty by Nature Babycare at $.62 a diaper once you add the shipping charge.

So the price isn't crazy compared to the other natural diapers, and I feel better about putting them on the precious bottom. Plus, it's a great incentive to get the kid potty-trained.

Geography Woes

Well, the children seem to be playing nicely together for the moment, so that's a step up from yesterday, also known as the Day of the Demon. Their bedrooms are right across the hall from each other so they can come and go from room to room, and Evil Mommy can put a baby gate across the hallway and still hear what they're doing while enjoying an hour of semi-solitude. Life is good.

But you know what's not good? Geography. Why do little kids even have to do this? He has a good understanding of direction, and can follow a map and do the activities. But there are pages with fill-in-the-blank answers in this bad boy. Let me show you what hell looks like to an impatient homeschooler.

And with an enthusiastic toddler coloring on it.

Oh, my gosh. He got the answers right (with a lot of assistance), but writing the words out was a slow torture, more so for me. In fact, on No. 5 I just grabbed his little hand and formed the word for him. This one small page took three tries over the course of a week to finish it. So until his handwriting is further along, either Mommy writes in the answers, or we give up on Geography and decide which navigation system to buy him for Christmas. 

Other than that, things are great. And here's what Bananagrams look like all over the floor. Enjoy!

Holy Giblets, Batman!

Well, we're halfway through the week. I'm finding that the major subjects like Reading, Math, and Thinking Skills are really easy to zip right through, and the lesser stuff like Geography, Science, and History tend to take a backseat. We've got lots of little things to get through over the next two days, and somehow I have to make it interesting and fun and keep them from killing each other, because today all they did was fight. And watch Curious George, and jump on the furniture, and fight some more.

At least they're cute.

And the one thing no one complained about today was dinner. Eddie asked what we were having and I said, dun dun dun, chicken liver. (Cue horror movie music here.) And his excited response: "Are we eating any boom-booming hearts, too?" 

Perhaps I should explain. Eddie is crazy about biology. He wants to know how everything in his body works and why, so I do my best to explain the parts I understand in an understandable way. And I fall short most of the time. So when I bought a whole roasting chicken that still had the gizzards, I rifled through that stuff to see what was still recognizable. I was richly rewarded with a perfect tiny chicken heart, which I enthusiastically called him over to look at. And this thing was cool. It still had ventricles attached, and then I cut it open so he could see the chambers. He was sufficiently impressed. And then he wanted to eat it. Far be it from me to stand in the way of gastronomical discovery. He's been in love with organ meat ever since. 

Daddy was horrified, but had the good sense to keep it to himself.

Don't Try This at Home

Our Tuesday was a little rocky. We got through most of the reading pages for the week, and that was about it. Eddie finished his 40-something page Amazing Mazes book that he started only a week ago. So much for making it last. We did, however, attend a Music and Movement class at our local library. Eddie feigned tiredness and just sat around for most of it. I think he was a little insulted that I wanted him to participate in a room full of babies and toddlers, but I just figured he'd feel extra smart. Eh. Moira had a good time. At one point, she decided she'd had enough and just walked laps around the room. I'm counting it as Phys Ed. 

And lastly, a cautionary tale of dinner. I bought this lovely-looking Cooksimple box-o-food-like-substances at Target over the weekend, thinking it would be a good use of ground turkey. It turned out to be a good use of a Hefty trash bag. 

See how they lured me in with the clearance sticker. They know my weakness.

And here are the impossible-to-read directions. They remind me of those dance charts you put on the floor with the footprints on them. Not the ideal way to cook your dog food, er, I mean dinner.

Please don't try this at home. You have been warned.

Easy Monday

Monday morning is not my favorite thing. My young progeny do not understand why Daddy can't keep having weekend with us. So they drag, they cry, they moan and groan and generally do their best to be despicable on Monday morning. Because that will make Daddy want to stay. 

His advice, when he called me from work and heard the unmistakable sounds of human torture, was to take an easy day. The only problem, I told him, is that Easy Monday invariably turns into Still-Slacking Tuesday, which begets Why-Bother Wednesday, which begets Might-As-Well-Be-Friday Thursday, and then Friday is basically the weekend prequel. Basically one slack day at the beginning of the week turns into one giant bender of laziness. So I pulled the kids together with threats of destruction and they got some work done.

We did some math, some language, lots of toys and art. We enjoyed making planets out of Play-Doh until Little Moira decided to become a devour-er of worlds. Little kids freaked out over an afternoon thunderstorm, so I distracted them with the better-remembered parts of Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment. It is now generally accepted around my house that he was a cool dude.

And we made cookies just because.

Here is last Friday's dinner recipe. I didn't want to post it until I knew how it turned out, since it was my own creation and all. Making things up in the kitchen is kind of like interpretive dance. Sometimes you get a winner, and sometimes we're all left going "Huh.Won't be doing this again."

I mixed about 1/2 cup barbecue sauce, 1/2 cup of peach preserves, and a few shakes of soy sauce together (basically all that was left in the fridge until payday) and poured it over a small beef roast.

And added potatoes and threw it in the crock pot.

And then forgot to take pictures of the finished product. But it was amazingly delicious.

Now I leave you with a picture of a happy child stuffing sprinkles in his mouth, his greatest contribution to making cookies.

One Small Week for Man...

You may have noticed a change to the blog. Do not attempt to adjust your set. I was having some editing issues, so my sister Rachel slapped some lipstick on this pig and fancied her up a little. Obligatory shout-out over.

Today marks the end of our first week of homeschooling, and the observations of a new teacher-mom are as follows:

My son will do anything for his maze book, like finish-his-math anything
Trips to the store are more exciting when we learn or see something new
We don't have nearly enough art supplies
When describing a new project or activity, my husband will invariably look at me like I'm crazy
There's a lot less time to get life-related action items done

I have way too much going on in the next few weeks. And I feel like I'm knocking helium balloons out of the sky only to have them rise right back up and say, "Is that all you got?" Which is how stress-related ice cream and I have gotten to be good friends. Stress-related ice cream is ice cream consumed in the middle of the day, sometimes mid-morning, for absolutely no reason other than the fact that it's there and you have clean spoons. Sometimes it even evolves into stress-related chips and dip, cookies, or the ever-popular luncharita. But it will never ever be stress-related carrot sticks. So school has left very little time for me to plan the rest of my life. So next week will include more life planning. But not in a creepy, write-your-will kind of way.

And lastly, this mess-free art project has been everywhere on the web, but we finally tried it today. I set it up before breakfast so the kids would have something to do besides beg for cartoons while I cooked. Here's what we had by the end.

And the bags are still taped to the table. I called them place-mats so I wouldn't have to move them.

And here's the kids playing with their Pajaggle, which Eddie absolutely loves. He's playing while his sister laments the plight of post-modern man. Sharing's a bitch.

Mommy Like a Rock Star

I totally rocked Day 4. No lie. Eddie has basically finished his work this week. He's got a few little assignments to do and then his book work is done, so we went for a field trip to get some errands run. We went to one of his favorite places, the pet supply store. Dogface needed food and a new collar (which she was super pleased with) and Eddie needed to look at fish. The employees at the Pet Supermarket by our house are really friendly and helpful. We got to watch them feed the baby ferrets, and one employee saw the kids oohing and aahing over the fish and came to show us some interesting varieties, like a fish that swims upside-down and a fish with no eyes. It was pretty cool.

And seeing as how we were right next to the natural food store and had no dinner plans, we grabbed a few things and jetted home to throw together a crock pot meal. I picked this up from Laura Must Lose Weight on Facebook. I can't find the link to the exact recipe, but I want to make sure she gets credit.  Forgive my amateur photos.

I threw together about three pounds of chicken breast, a can of coconut milk, a bag of frozen mangoes, and a dash of red pepper and salt. Ideally I would have gotten two bags of mangoes, but I only had one coupon. C'est la vie.

Put it in the crock pot and turn it on low. I'm only cooking it for about six hours, but I've left it in for longer before and it was fine.

When we came home, we did a science project from our curriculum, Messy Science, that required we be outside learning about UV rays and the sun and how to protect ourselves from it, so naturally we had to cool down. And naturally we killed two birds with one stone and brought out the shampoo and a sponge. It totally counts as a bath, shut up.

Captain, that's Not Logical...Word Problems from Hell

So today I introduced a new game called Logic Street, which is supposed to help kids with problem solving skills. Take a look at the link and it will give you a good idea of what's involved. But it has little houses, little people, and little animals, and based on the clue cards, your child has to figure out where each critter is supposed to live. It's words problem with no math, basically kinder-algebra. The only catch is there's no answer key, and, (heh heh) to say Mama's not so good at algebra would be an understatement. There are 84 clue cards that get progressively harder, and by card 3 I was feeling a little brain fatigue.

 
I think we've established that this is a Daddy game. But I will diagram the hell out of some sentences when the time comes.

I'm also at a loss as to how to keep Little Miss Priss occupied while her brother works. She has a few of her own workbooks she colors in, but that only goes so far. I love the idea of sensory bins, but I also don't want to distract her brother. Any ideas?

Day 2 - Intro to Online Shopping, and Other Homeschool Courses

Welcome to Intro to Online Shopping, also called Avoiding Children 101.

It wasn't just me, okay. The kiddos didn't particularly want to work either. I've heard Day 2 can be rough, so I tried not to push too hard, but I'm beat. We actually got a lot more done than I thought: geography, science, art, finished yesterday's math, and worked through a reader. But what they really want is the toys.

If you're not familiar with Timberdoodle, it's a very hands-on curriculum, which means it comes with a lot of toys. Heck, I even ordered some extra toys just because I thought they looked fun. And I'm finding that the toys really come in handy when a little boy has to be bribed to finish his math copy work.

And all of my spare time (when Sesame Street was on) was spent cleaning the craft cabinet and shopping online for stuff I never actually buy. Online window shopping is a glorious thing, and my window of choice (time killer) lately has been Zulily. It's a problem.

Yes, It's Still Summer

But we're starting homeschool early. My almost-five-year-old has been out of preschool for a week, and it's already getting desperate. This kid needs something to do! Thank God I ordered curriculum early. So we're starting the big experiment.

He had a great preschool year in private school. He loved it; the school was great; he made friends. But now our voucher year is over, and most of his friends are going to public school in the fall. I can afford to keep him in private school. But he has a little sister, and tuition costs go up every year, so I'm not willing to start him at a school when I can't commit to him finishing. So my husband and I arrived at the decision we always kind of knew we'd make. Of course, he has a day job. And I don't. (Insert disembowelment scene here.)

Hey, Botticelli, it just got real. 

So today was our first day, and it went well. We're just kind of winging it. I have a loose schedule that came with the kindergarten curriculum I ordered from Timberdoodle which just says what you should complete in a week to get done in a school year, but I'm thinking a planner might be a good idea. And, of course, the little kindergartner wants to play with every single toy and manipulative the first day, and he just had an early birthday party, so he's suffering from toy overload. It looks kind of like this:

Yeah, Mama's not scared. But homeschool's freaking me out just a little.