A Sunday in April- John's birthday too!

5:07- Jack wakes me up over the baby monitor. He is now sleeping through the night in his OWN CRIB,,,wow, and only 2 years old! :) But he has started waking up sooo early. Ideally he would sleep until 6-6:30. He might be ready for a later bedtime, but experience has taught me not to be too quick to assume that kids need less sleep...very often they have a glitch like this for a few weeks and then go back happily to their previous schedule. I trudge downstairs and across the house to get him. The downside of being in our new master bedroom is this early morning hike. I bring him upstairs and nurse him, hoping for a little more sleep. This is the only time he nurses anymore, so I figure once he starts sleeping a bit later he will be weaned!

5:15- I hear John quietly get out of bed. I squeeze his hand and want to tell him Happy Birthday, but I'm hoping Jack will go back to sleep and don't want to talk.

5:50- Jack is really up. He nursed and dozed a bit, but there's no going back now. I give up and head downstairs with him. I have been sorting piles of toys in our old playroom turned new master bedroom and I don't want him undoing my sorting. We find John downstairs and officially wish him Happy Birthday. I put on coffee and soak some dishes sitting on the counter. They got backlogged yesterday when Maria was baking and dumped some flour into my soaking sink of dishes, effectively coating them with paste. Yuck.

6:15- John is leaves for work. I change Jack but leave him for now in his warm pajamas. It turned cold last night! There's no PSR this week so we can have a slower start this morning. I pour some coffee and sit at the computer to check my email and read some blogs. I find a friend's email coaching me on how to put links on my blogs and experiment with that for a while. Jack is happy to play with a basket of toys in the living room and watch Baby Doolittle.

7:15- Jack is no longer happy. I pour some more coffee and get him a banana and some milk and we sit to watch Elmo's World. Too much TV? Yeah well...it's a day of rest, after all, and I'm not up for much else yet. :)

I spend the next couple of hours slowly getting everyone fed, taking a shower, getting Jack dressed,,,,it's nice not to have to rush around. Usually I only have an hour or so to do all of this, and three kids instead of two! It does have the disadvantage that everyone *knows* we have more time and I have to kind of kick Maria in the rear to get her finally moving through her morning list...getting dressed, making her bed, cleaning up her bathroom.

9:40- We leave for mass...it starts at 10 but is just a couple of miles away. Maria runs ahead of me and Jack on the way in, hoping as always to get to serve. She's not scheduled to, but she likes to check in case someone didn't show. Today it pays off and she gets to serve so it's me and Jack in the pew. They have the children process through the church during the entrance hymn with palm branches, weaving through the ailes, lead by the altar servers. It was very cute. At the end Father, Maria and the other servers went onto the altar and left the children disoriented and searching for familiar faces in the pews. Jack is restless for a while, then falls asleep on my shoulder until the sign of peace when Maria comes over and plants a kiss on his head and wakes him up. Grrrr. Even when he wakes again he is content to lay on my shoulder quietly. I am grateful for this even though my back aches from holding all 37 pounds of him during the hour and a half mass.

11:30- Home again,,,lunch of leftovers accumulated during the week. Jack gets changed and I optimistically put him down for a nap, hoping he will still sleep even though he catnapped in mass. Maria mixes up cake batter for a Welcome Home cake for Kain while I do this. I come into the kitchen and find that the oven is not working!! The stovetop is working but the oven won't heat up. While I'm trying to figure out what to do with this information, my brother calls and wants to know if I've heard anything from Kain's mom about his arrival home today. I call Kain's mom's cell phone and she doesn't answer. This causes a flurry of phone calls between my brother, my mother and me. I'm all in a fit about this development and trying to figure out what is going on. Is she on her way or not? If not, is she just being flaky or pulling something? In the meantime I dump the cake batter down the sink and figure I'll just have to pick up a cake from a bakery and add the oven to the list of things to get repaired.

1:45- Still haven't heard from Kain's mom. I'm freaking out. Jack isn't napping either, although he has been quitely playing this whole time. We had an interesting moment of nursing intervention when the teenager acrossed the street wreaked his bike and I found him lying in the road screaming his head off. I helped him off to the ER with his mom and then came back inside to fold laundry and stew some more about the whole Kain situation. Also trying to decide what to do about our afternoon plans of going up to the hospital to say hi to John and bringing some birthday goodies...afraid to leave without knowing what is going on with Kain.

2:30- We go ahead and leave for the hopsital and leave a note for Kain's mom taped to the door. I stew the whole way there and back about all the possible things that can go wrong with the whole situation. A quick visit with John and we are heading back home again.

4:00- Still no Kain. Still no answer on his mom's cell phone. Jack is playing in the playroom and I am pacing around, venting via the phone with my mother and grandmother and starting to plan what I will do if she just doesn't bring him back. What possible reason could she have not to even call and let me know when to expect her? She said she would bring him back early in the day, and I don't even know if she's on her way at all!

5:00- I start fixing brinner...waffles, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage...Maria helps a bit with the eggs. I make bacon on my new handy dandy griddle and it is a good thing. I want another, one for bacon and one for pancakes. I half expect Kain to stomp into the kitchen at any time demanding the first piece of bacon. I could just throw up from the knot in my stomach.

6:00- Dinner is served. Jack actually eats, even tries a bite of sausage. He loves the waffles.

6:30- Kain finally shows! His grandmother brings him with a some guy friend of hers....blows in the door and talks talks talks for 10 minutes about how his mother's ride flaked on her and plus she's sick and she left his sneakers at her house but bought him an outfit and Kain is doing really well here and is obviously happy and she's really not ever been a prostitute no matter what I've heard about her and yes she's had problems with drugs before but that was a long time ago and she doesn't even drink and her family tells everyone she's been in the Betty Ford Center and she doesn't even know where the Betty Ford Center is and she has her life together and Joy has her life together and, by the way, I didn't send enough Adderall for Kain because he ran out halfway through the week.....wow. Think she doth protest too much? I've never even spoken to the woman before, how many of you have the urge to spend 10 minutes convincing someone you just met that you are not a drug addict? I paste a grin on my face and nod my head and don't mention the fact that Kain is wheezing and his hair smells like cigarettes and I sent exactly 8 Adderall pills...I counted them three times...so someone is swiping them. I just want her to leave. Finally, she does. Kain wants to play with Maria and the boy across the street, so I send him off to play for a bit. It's late, but he hasn't had his medication and he's been stuck in the car for hours...I know he needs to blow off steam.

7:00- Time to get serious about getting these boys down. Kain tells me he hasn't had dinner so I dish him up some waffles et al...he has two servings of everything with a ton of milk...probably the first non-fast food since he left a week ago. I asked him what kind of stuff he ate at his mom's and he says "McDonald's". I pick up the playroom and get Jack ready for bed. I snuggle briefly with Jack in the rocking chair and read Goodnight Moon, fighting off the overwhelming fatigue that is setting in. Kain, Maria and I say evening prayers...candles are lit, Act of Contrition, Guardian Angel Prayer, Prayer to St. Michael, everyone invokes their patron saints. I pass out jelly beans for their jelly bean jars and we pluck a "thorn" from our salt dough crown of thorns. I then put Kain in bed and we read the dinosaur book Kain brought back with him. He cries because he misses his mom. Kain is not a crier and he looks embarassed and hides his head under the covers. I dig him out and hug him and tell him it's ok and he'll feel better in a couple of days once he gets used to being here again. He looks very tired and tells me he stayed up late a lot, once until midnight. I hug him and listen to him wheeze. I ask him if he's been getting his asthma meds while he's been at his mom's and he says no, his mom forgets a a lot,,,he says it hesitatingly,,,and then says he didn't want to tell me that because he doesn't want me to keep him from visiting his mom again. I wonder who planted that seed in his head. I sing Hush Little Baby and tell him I'm so glad he's back. I plan to let him sleep as late as he needs to in the morning, even if that means he'll be late for school. He needs to catch up and I'm worried about him getting sick if he doesn't get some rest. In spite of his big size, he is a rather delicate thing healthwise. I knew without a doubt he would come back wheezing and probably sick. He cannot handle being without his meds, bad sleep, bad diet, around cigarettes..... I wonder how many weeks it will take for me to get his lungs well again now.

8:30- John is home and steps in to say good night to Kain. I plow on, unpacking Kain's bags, washing dishes...Maria give John a card she made for him and she picks up the living room. Then we watch a bit of Jesus of Nazareth and I send Maria off to bed. We watch it together every Lent. We skipped her reading tonight since I let her stay up a bit late to watch more of the movie.

9:30- Hanging out with John even though I'm tired tired tired. It's hard to make myself go to bed when he's home and not working the next day.

10:45- Finally going to bed. I haul the rest of the clean laundry upstairs to fold tomorrow. I read very briefly from "What Went Wrong with Vatican 2" while John is getting ready for bed, then light's out, finally! I'm blessed to have all of my chickens under my roof again.

Changes at the diner

Always tweaking...
I had been using cereal as a bedtime snack around here...but this isn't working so well anymore. The boys don't eat dinner half the time and fill up on cereal when it is served an hour later at bedtime. So we have decided to do away with the bedtime snack, especially for the boys that go to bed so soon after dinner. Instead I will serve up oatmeal and cold cereal for breakfast with fruit and delete bedtime snack all together except for special occasions and sundaes on Sunday. Cuz I'm mean. (insert evil laugh here)

day in the life postings

There will be one tomorrow on my other blog, smallthingswithgreatlove.blogspot.com if you are interested in all the lovely details of life. Post one on your blog too! :)

a day in the life

I love these postings. I love to read them on other people's blogs and see a little window into how they work the day to day juggling act that is homeschooling, and I love to post them because I like to look back and see a detailed picture of what our life was like at that point in time. Someday, when my kids are grown, it will be very cool to read in detail about what it was like when they were 10, 7, and 2. However, these posts are lengthy to read and time consuming to write. Then there's the whole "picking the perfect day to write about" thing....do we pick a day that we are home all day "doing school", a day with an interesting field trip, a fun Sunday with family? They are all worth remembering. So, I decided to try and do these kinds of posts on the first day of each month. That will let me post about different days of the week, and the choice will be completely random thereby tempting fate to have say, every child get a stomach virus that day....which I'm sure will be riotously funny to read about in 20 years. "Remember that time all three of you were puking in the car on the way back from the doctor's office? haha! Good times!"

The paper tiger

Some of you will be surprised to learn this...so prepare yourselves....but I struggle with organization. No, no,,,,it's really true. And when we started homeschooling over four years ago, well, this just opened up whole new doors of disorganization to me....piles of books, lesson plans, answer keys, art study cards, flashcards, math manipulatives,,,,I've been sorting through them in the effort to move the school room downstairs, and the piles are quite impressive and rather like an archaeological dig...especially the papers- math worksheets, spelling tests, cursive workbooks, pages of narration and copywork. My preferred method of paper storage has been to pile the papers into this giant rubbermaid container to deal with "later"....and when I don't feel like getting out the rubbermaid box, I just pile the papers on the nearest....well, the nearest pile. I had visions of making scrapbooks someday of papers I really wanted to save, maybe combining them with photos of science projects and souvenirs from field trips....ambitious, yes? Well, someone clued me in on way to control the paper tiger, and get this, I've been doing it *all year* with practically no effort at all. It's fabulous, and I wish I had discovered it a long time ago. I bought one of those folding accordion files and I keep it right at our school table. The folders are labeled with the months of the year....all 12 for us, since we school year round. At the end of every day, I take whatever papers we are done with and just drop it in the folder for that month. Wait, it gets easier. I have *another* accordion file, this one is labeled with grades preschool-12th. At the end of this year I will pull out all the papers, one month at a time, and put any that I truly want to save into the "4th grade" section. Then I put the that whole accordion file in a rubbermaid box along with any 3D projects we want to save. My daughter wants to save them *all*, forever and ever, but I leave them on display in the schoolroom for a while and once some time passes she is often satisfied to have me take a picture of the project to save instead. I do plan to save a few small 3d projects forever of course,,,whatever I can fit in the box!! So, that's it,,,,my paper tiger plan. Very simple, and we are actually *using* it.

The paper tiger

Some of you will be surprised to learn this...so prepare yourselves....but I struggle with organization. No, no,,,,it's really true. And when we started homeschooling over four years ago, well, this just opened up whole new doors of disorganization to me....piles of books, lesson plans, answer keys, art study cards, flashcards, math manipulatives,,,,I've been sorting through them in the effort to move the school room downstairs, and the piles are quite impressive and rather like an archaeological dig...especially the papers- math worksheets, spelling tests, cursive workbooks, pages of narration and copywork. My preferred method of paper storage has been to pile the papers into this giant rubbermaid container to deal with "later"....and when I don't feel like getting out the rubbermaid box, I just pile the papers on the nearest....well, the nearest pile. I had visions of making scrapbooks someday of papers I really wanted to save, maybe combining them with photos of science projects and souvenirs from field trips....ambitious, yes? Well, someone clued me in on way to control the paper tiger, and get this, I've been doing it *all year* with practically no effort at all. It's fabulous, and I wish I had discovered it a long time ago. I bought one of those folding accordion files and I keep it right at our school table. The folders are labeled with the months of the year....all 12 for us, since we school year round. At the end of every day, I take whatever papers we are done with and just drop it in the folder for that month. Wait, it gets easier. I have *another* accordion file, this one is labeled with grades preschool-12th. At the end of this year I will pull out all the papers, one month at a time, and put any that I truly want to save into the "4th grade" section. Then I put the that whole accordion file in a rubbermaid box along with any 3D projects we want to save. My daughter wants to save them *all*, forever and ever, but I leave them on display in the schoolroom for a while and once some time passes she is often satisfied to have me take a picture of the project to save instead. I do plan to save a few small 3d projects forever of course,,,whatever I can fit in the box!! So, that's it,,,,my paper tiger plan. Very simple, and we are actually *using* it.

detachment parenting

I've been praying over my pain, over the open sore in my heart that is our situation with Kain. I think I am finding some measure of peace. I think, for me, it is a matter of control, of learning to let go. I control things pretty tightly around here. The world is not a safe place for my children. I firmly believe that. Not in a "mix up a batch of cyanide Kool-aid and wait for the next comet" kind of way that people often associate with homeschoolers, but the world is a scary place in which to release your kids, and I'll admit, it's part of why I like homeschooling. Am I overprotective? You betcha. And because my kids spend most of their time with me, I control what kind of literature they are exposed to, what kind of clothing they are allowed to wear, what kind of music they even know exists, what kind of TV shows they may watch, what kind of math book they use. I have very strong reasons for the choices I have made. I am a conscious parent...every choice I make has thought behind it,,,sometimes a lot of thought. With Kain, I have lost control. During the week, he lives with my kids in a pretty sheltered environment where saying, "Oh God" and "That sucks!" is not allowed, video games are shunned for outside play, tv is shunned for books and legos, granola bars and pretzels are the junkiest snacks you'll find after school and prayers are said every night before bed. I hand him over to his father every weekend where he watches South Park, eats McDonald's every day, plays video games for hours at a time, sees heavy drinking/partying/fornication firsthand, and religion is openly mocked. Then I have to send him to his mother's at her whim, where not only does all of the above happen in spades but I can't even be certain of his physical safety. It drives me *crazy*. I am going crazy! I am constantly finding "what if's" circling around in my head, especially this week while Kain is gone. What if she doesn't bring him back on time and I have to rush him off to bed because he'll have school on Monday? What if she hasn't given him his asthma meds and he's sick? What if she's been smoking around him all week? What if she doesn't bring him back Sunday? What if she doesn't bring him back at all? What will I do when she wants to take him over the summer? What if she won't sign guardianship papers? What happens when he is 12 years old and starts sneaking his dads cigarettes and booze, starts imitating his crazy Goth lifestyle? How can I protect my children from these things of the world I have chosen to reject if they start creeping in the back door with Kain? What should I do if he starts insisting that he live with his mom or dad when he gets older? You'd think deep down he'd rather stay here where life is sane and happy, but let me tell you, the boy would go live with Charles Manson if he had a Nintendo.

It comes down to control, doesn't it? I have an illusion on control over my own children. It *is* an illusion,isn't it? We all know that God holds the cards here. He could take one of my children away at any time. Because I know, deep down, they aren't *my* children at all, they are His, just as Kain is his, and just as with Kain I am at best a poor image of God for them all. The saints and scriptures often speak of detachment, even detachment from our own families. Jesus asked Peter to leave his WIFE and KIDS to go be his disciple, something I've never quite gotten over realizing. Why? How can Christ tell us to love one another as we love ourselves and yet expect us to be detached from them? Aren't those two sentiments at odds with each other, to both be detached and yet to love? Does Christ really expect us to be *detached* from our own children?? Because I'm not. I feel so attached to my own children, and to Kain, that it makes my heart hurt. But yes, we are called to be detached, even from our children. Detachment, gospel detachment, is not the antithesis of love. It is the highest, most Christ-like form of love. It is a complete resignation and acceptance of God's will for me and for them, a complete trust that God loves my children in a far more pure and perfect way than I could ever achieve, that he alone knows the big picture and knows what is necessary to lead them to salvation. That is what Kain is teaching me. I must be mindful of my place, my role. I want to take over and "fix" Kain, I want his parents and their messy problems to go away so that I can fold Kain neatly into our lives and we can all live happily ever after. I must learn to resign myself to God's plan, to God's timing, and trust Him to know what is truly best for all of us. It is incredibly difficult to do. I find myself, with utmost arrogance, to keep trying to coach God along. I think, not quite in the front of my brain but maybe back in the corner, that *I* know what is best and that my prayers to God are more just a petition for Him to get with the program already. With typical human self-importance I think that *I* am responsible for my their salvation. That is simply untrue. I was not given to my children, and maybe especially Kain, to save them. It is the other way around. They are *my* vocation. They are the path that God has chosen to lead *me* down the path to salvation. I cannot do anything to ensure my children's salvation other than form them in the faith the best way I know how. For Kain, all I can do is the best I can for the time that I have him. In the end, they must all chose salvation for themselves. They must find the vocation God has chosen for them.

"Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved."--St. John of the Cross

It's kind of quiet around here....

My big kids are gone. Maria has gone to visit my parents for a few days. And Kain...Kain has gone to visit his mother for a week. That's right. His mother. No, I am not happy. Yes, I have cried many tears. People often tell us what a wonderful thing we are doing for Kain, and when they say that they usually mean things related to taking in a such a difficult child with so many problems and trying to make a difference for him. And yeah, that has brought forth some blood, sweat and tears. But by far, by *way, way, way* far, the hardest and most painful part of having Kain is dealing with his parents. It is so frustrating to deal with, and continue to have to deal with, the effects of someone else's lousy parenting. The more we love Kain and the more we want to raise him as one of our own the more painful this is.....because the reality is that he is *not* ours and we are always at the mercy of the whims of his parents.

The kid's got a point.

This morning-

Maria- What are those little purple flowers under that tree?

Me- I think those are phlox.

Maria. laughing- As in flocks of sheep?

Me- Well, yeah, but it's spelled differently. The flowers are "phlox", p-h-l-o-x. The sheep are "flocks", f-l-o-c-k-s.

Maria, rolling her eyes sideways at me- So, you really don't think spelling is stupid?

The kid's got a point.

This morning-

Maria- What are those little purple flowers under that tree?

Me- I think those are phlox.

Maria. laughing- As in flocks of sheep?

Me- Well, yeah, but it's spelled differently. The flowers are "phlox", p-h-l-o-x. The sheep are "flocks", f-l-o-c-k-s.

Maria, rolling her eyes sideways at me- So, you really don't think spelling is stupid?

looking for answers

Today I took Maria for an eye exam. Maria, as those close to us know, has always struggled with reading/spelling/writing. In fact, these struggles are what gave us the final push into homeschooling. Her reading and writing skills have slowly improved, but her spelling is still pretty darned bad. I would say that her spelling is probably on about a 2nd grade level. Her reading is at least on grade level, maybe even a bit higher now, but reading is still difficult for her in spite of this and her comprehension is not always very good, especially in something that is packed with a bunch of unfamiliar words and details like a history or science text. And she *hates, hates, hates* to read. Anyway, we have talked off and on about having her evaluated for dyslexia...she has some of the symptoms, but not many of them. She still has some letter reversals, and she will often leave out small words when reading aloud, that kind of thing, and she has some of the past history of someone with dyslexia, like taking a long time to learn to read, having trouble learning left from right, etc. But she does read well now, and I feel like dyslexia is a less likely possibility. A few people have recommend having her evaluated for "vision therapy". Apparently there's other vision problems you can have other than needing glasses. Someone sent me an email detailing their experience with vision therapy and the problems her son had been having sounded very familiar, so we decided to check into this therapy. The first step was today, the eye exam. She had a normal one a couple of years ago, but she's due for another and they want to rule out any other problems. The doctor said she was a bit far-sided and might benefit from some reading glasses, but she wants us to come back for the actual vision therapy evaluation. She did some preliminary checks, things I've never seen before...having her look through prisms and back and forth at different points, I guess looking to see how well her eyes coordinate together, and she said that she did see that she had some problems relaxing her eyes outward to look through the prisms and with focusing her eyes on a point. I have no idea what any of this means, lol....I guess we'll find out more at the next appointment. Anyway, she wanted to wait on the reading glasses to see what she finds out at the evaluation. She said if she doesn't find anything to point to her needing this vision therapy that she would recommend us to someone else for testing for other kinds of disabilities (including dyslexia). It's a little intimidating, and you find yourself a little defensive as a homeschooler when you seek help for these kinds of things. I find myself fighting the "we are really trying the best we can" kind of attitude. I don't know *why*, because the school system wouldn't have done this for her anyway....I mean, here we have Kain with 2 doctors saying he needs speech and occupational therapies, but we can't get the school to do *anything* for him. Anyway, the doctor was very sweet and put us at ease and we are looking forward to finding out if we can do something to help Maria.

Movin' On Up

John was home today, so I put him to work. We moved some more furniture around...a big ugly olive green dresser that was in Kain's room found a new home at the curb, a smaller dresser from our old master bedroom/new playroom went into Kain's room, the bookcase in Kain's room went into the old master bedroom/new playroom, the school table from the new master bedroom/old playroom went into the old master bedroom/new playroom...confusing anyone yet? And I continued to work a bit on moving our clothing and other assorted bedroom items upstairs. We really like our new bedroom! It feels very cozy up there. John calls it the "love loft", haha. This is a bit of wishful thinking on his part. Our first night up there, we found all three kids in our room over the course of the night, including Jack in our bed for the night by 11pm. But, two nights later he slept in his crib until 3am, and last night he SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT in this crib! Wahoooo!!

it has a nice ring to it, yes?

Your Irish Name Is...

Juverna Murphy

What's" your Irish Name?

This is again a holiday where I wish I could say I made fabulous, educational, memory-making plans for my kids. Alas...I was flying by the seat of my pants last night trying to come up with something do-able at the last minute. We will be making Corned Beef and Cabbage for dinner, some green-sugar cookies, and I have a quickie shamrock craft planned that I'll post pictures of later. And I'm planning to pick up a pot of shamrocks while at the store to put on the altar. Tomorrow, instead of our usual sundaes on Sunday I'll offer some green milkshakes. We will watch our CCC St. Patrick video while doing this coloring page at some point over the weekend...

http://www.hillsideeducation.com/stpatrickcoloring.pdf

I had ordered a lovely picture book to read today and it has not come, THANKS AMAZON!
:)

Ready to stay home....

Well, I was so beat last night that I am posting the next morning, so details are a little faded already. I had a bit of wasted time in the morning. Took Kain to his appointment with the psychiatrist and found out I had put the wrong day in my planner and he didn't have an appointment after all. After I dropped Kain off, I decided to have a "girl's day out" with Maria. We do this periodically and she has been asking for one for a few weeks now. These are easy to put off. I feel like I spend a *lot* of time with Maria! But it's not the same thing to her as this special, set aside time. It pained me to give up the afternoon. I have a lot to do around the house, and it would mean missing most of our school day, but it was as good a day as any to do it. After all, there is always schoolwork and cleaning to do. :)

So, I had Maria do a lesson on the DIVE cd-rom about square roots for a little review and read a chapter out of her St. Bernadette book. After returning home I did a little paperwork. I am working on having four menus to rotate during the year. Each menu will have about three weeks worth of meals and I will rotate those meals for a season, then switch them for another menus. Nifty, yes? Then I took Jack outside to play in the yard while Maria practiced soccer. Then we left for our day out while Jack stayed with Daddy. I took Maria to soccer practice...not a formal team, this is more like informal soccer "lessons" set up at a local gym with our homeschool group. Then we went to our favorite Chinese place for lunch, to our favorite thrift store for a little poking around, and to Walmart for groceries and to finish up buying spring/summer clothes for the kids. When we got home, I was just worn out. John was out running an errand at dinner time and Kain was just starving to death. I hadn't even started anything for dinner at that point, so I decided to just scavenge for dinner, offering everyone a choice of sandwiches, leftover spaghetti, and bean burritos. John and I worked together to get the boys done,another nice thing about having him home....most nights I am on my own! Maria went down at nine, and John and I stayed up too late watching re-runs and chatting. It was nice though...but I'm feeling it this morning!

Monday, Monday

Today, we got the day off to a rip-roaring start by oversleeping. I asked John to wake me at 6, and I guess his light pat on the arm was supposed to wake me up. I thought he was just saying good morning! haha! So, Jack and I woke up at 7. I immediately began to freak out,and then made a decision to reign it in and let it go. We were going to be late, nothing I could do to fix it, might as well not make everyone crazy over it. I managed to get Kain off to school on time, then worked on getting the rest of the gang together. Today was picture day at the co-op, so I had to clean em up nice. We managed a quick swing by Walmart on the way to get a few essentials, including lunch for that day. Still chasing that elusive grocery shopping trip.

Went to co-op. This is the second week of the last term. Maria is taking Life Scienc, Math Lit., a literature class, a PE games class, ancient Egypt, and acting. They got their picture taken and that was a bit of a freak show as Jack did not want to cooperate...he wanted to play with the bunnies and chicks that were part of the scene.

Left the co-op during Maria's last class to pick up Kain, back to co-op to pick up Maria, take the kids to get dinner, then Kain to therapy. Then home. Tired, tired, tired. Mondays just wipe me out. The kids were all cranky and snarky with each other. Jack went into overtired destructo-boy mode and was hell bent on destroying the house, so I put him in bed as soon as I got Kain in the tub. Maria helped me finish up Kain's bath and got him his bedtime snack. SHe's my right hand, that girl. Boys in bed, Maria and I watched Extreme Home Makeover tvo'd from last night. I cried through the whole dang thing as usual. John just got home so I'm going to go visit with him and relax for a bit!

menus-all you never wanted to know

Entropy asks at my smallthingswithgreatlove blog

"Hey, so do you plan a menu ahead of time?"

Yes, I do. It is *so* necessary for me. On the weeks that I don't we are too often doomed to the fast food thing. Planning menus saves me so much time and money. I am still perfecting what works best for me though. I have subscribed to different menus, like menu mailer, I have tried using other mom's menus, I have done once a month cooking...nothing has fit just right, so like so many things in life I am left trying to tweak my own thing. Either the menus use too many foods that I consider unhealthy (convenience foods, cream of ____ soups, etc.), have too many meals that my husband won't like (too sprouty, too many soup/salad dinners), or take too much time to prepare, etc. Part of the issue is that we pretty much eat all meals from home. My kids are home, I'm home, even when John is at work he takes lunch from home. And with the exception of occasional "Mom needs a light week so we are going to subside on convenience foods" weeks, I make most meals from scratch. My husband is extremely spoiled rotten when it comes to meals. It's ok. He reads my blog, and he knows I think he is spoiled rotten. But, he is a wonderful guy and this is important to him. He will regularly pretend not to notice my slipshod housekeeping, but he can only take so many meals from a box, so I make an effort. I feel like I spend a *lot* of time on meals- planning them, shopping for them, cooking them, cleaning them up...it gets a little....old. :) And this is coming from someone that generally *does* like to cook! But cooking three meals a day, seven days a week, at least 75% of the time with a toddler wrapped around your knees...it does lose it's charm.

I like to use mostly actual ingredients with few convenience foods, fresh foods when possible, cook with the seasons, have quick and easy things for lunch and breakfast, have at least one crockpot recipe a week for crazy, crazy Monday, and the rest of the week have dinners that will not take me more than 45 minutes to prepare from start to finish. A tall order for any menu, yes? A few things I have accomplished-

--I have a list of just a few meals for breakfast- oatmeal, eggs, and muffins/breads, that I switch around depending on whether John will be getting breakfast on his own (he has to leave the house at 6:15 on days he works) or will be home to have breakfast with us. I pass around the fruit bowl and milk/juice/or yogurt with breakfast too.

--Snacks-- For morning snack we pass around the "green bowl", a large bowl I keep some packaged things in, like granola bars, fruit snacks, graham crackers, etc. For afternoon snack we have started having "tea time"- a bit of homemade goodie (when it's not Lent! right now it's usually toast or bagels), hot tea, and a passing around of the fruit bowl . For bedtime snack I encourage cold cereal- it is quick to make, quick to eat, and filling for the picky eater who didn't get much dinner. Sometimes the kids will want popcorn instead. On Sundays we have sundaes for dessert. :)

--Lunches-- Lunch needs to be quick---like, on the table in 15 minutes, although I can do a little prep in the morning if needed. A person can only eat so many sandwiches. I have tried, with varying success, to have a type of meal assigned to each day. This helps narrow down my planning and streamlines things a bit and avoids too much repetition. We generally have salads on Monday, sandwiches on Tuesday, soup on Wednesday, spaghetti or raviolis on Thursdays, fish sticks or mac and cheese on Friday, quesadillas on Saturday, and clean out the fridge leftovers on Sunday. I have been trying really hard to remember to put out a plate of raw veggies and dip with whatever we are having for lunch as well.

Dinners- My favorite cookbook by far is Saving Dinner. It has a great variety of healthy but not too sprouty, seasonal, and relatively quick to prepare meals. I am in the process of weeding out my favorite ones for each season and making my own collection of dinner meals that I can rotate through and change out each season. The menus in this book also give a meatless meal for each week, a crockpot meal for each week, and often have a soup, sandwich, or salad recipe I can try for lunch. So, dinner changes up a lot, but we do have a few things set down- Friday, of course, is meatless. Saturday is pizza night. I make my own, which sounds really impressive but is actually scary-easy. I make the crust in the bread maker and everyone just tops their own. Sunday is breakfast-for-dinner, or "brinner" as we call it around here- this is when I will make the more time-consuming breakfast stuff like pancakes, waffles, etc., and I try to make enough to have leftovers for Monday's breakfast. Monday is crazy, crazy co-op day and I usually have a crockpot meal for that night. I also keep a "meal in a box" of some kind up in the pantry for those "everything has gone horribly wrong" days.

So, that's it, all you never wanted to know about meal planning. I post all of this because it took me a long time to get this system down,,,,and maybe something here will be of use to someone.

And least you bop on over to smallthingswithgreatlove to check out tomorrow's menu with great anticipation, you should know that I couldn't make my regular grocery shopping trip yesterday with Jack being sick and John working all weekend, so it'll be a "scramble for food" day for sure. :)

fun with blogs

I have made some changes, especially at my secondary homeschool blog, smallchangeswithgreatlove, so check it out, I'm quite proud. I am nearly computer illiterate, so it has taken me a couple of hours to figure out how to do this, haha!! :) I've added some daily lists just fun. I will *try* to update these in the evening for the next day.

high aspirations/and the Room Upstairs

On the way to school yesterday---

Kain- Aunt Mel, I'm going to be an army guy when I grow up. I want to be the army sergeant guy that's in charge of the WHOLE army.

Me- So you want to be a soldier?

Kain- Yeah, the one that's in CHARGE.

Me- That would be a really special job to have.

Kain- Yeah, and I'd finally get to shoot a GUN!

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My mom said once that my motto is "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." In true me-fashion, the project of reorganizing the upstairs school/playroom has morphed into this HUGE project. John and I have decided to move our bedroom to that upstairs room and move the playroom downstairs where our bedroom currently is. This is an enormous undertaking. Both room are very cluttered and overpacked with STUFF. I have so far purged and packed up the school stuff, shoved all the mounds of toys into the large bathroom up there, and now we are in the process of painting. That's right, painting. We have been slowly working on painting our fixer upper, and both of these rooms still need painting...what better time to do it, right? I picked out a spiffy golden yellow yesterday and Maria and I have been hard at work. Most people cringe at the thought of letting a 10yo help paint their house. Talk about a learning experience! But she's actually a great help and loves to paint,,,she's also small enough to get easily into the weird little crawl space areas of this finished attic room. After painting, we will move our essential bedroom stuff uptstairs and I will start the enormous job of sorting through all the junk in the former master bedroom. Oh, the fun that awaits...piles of outgrown baby clothes, all the junkity junk junk I have stashed there when company is coming...my housekeeping style is a little, um, creative...Then I will paint *that* room in a yet undetermined color and organize our school stuff down there. This was not an easy decision. I'm not particularly fond of being further away from the kids at night. But the upstairs room has such a peaceful atmosphere to it, and our current bedroom is so right in the middle of everything. There's a small balcony off the upstairs room, and I have visions of putting a couple of comfy outdoor chairs and some plants and having a lovely little private sitting room. Private, you know, except for the fact that it's completely visable to all the neighbors. :) Plus, it will give our homeschooling more flexibility if I am in the main part of the house. So, we are making the jump!

"Cashew!"

Heard tonight from our bedroom while I was putting Kain to bed-

"MEL- WHAT'S 'CASHEW' MEAN? "

"UM----OK, I'M NOT SURE, HOLD ON."

I finished with Kain and joined John in the bedroom where John was getting Jack ready for bed. Jack was demanding "CASHEW". I frantically searched my brain to figure out what he could mean, the remembered his latest favorite story, "Because a Little Bug Went Kachoo". Some quick searching through piles in the bedroom unearthed the book for a happy Jack.

Some other Jack-ese to know---

"Hahv-row" ==Peanut Butter. Don't ask me where that one came from, but it's critical to know because the kid lives on the stuff.

"Hahn-gee"== Hungry. Probably he wants Hahv-row.

"Dense"==Dance....i.e.- he wants to watch his Baby Mozart dvd.

"Fah Fahse"==Thomas, as in Thomas the Tank Engine, the love of his life. He is crazy about all things Thomas. You must figure it out in the context it is used. If he is bouncing up and down in front of the TV and hollering "Fah Fahse", this means, "Please put on my Thomas dvd." If he is crying it in his crib when you put him down for bed, this means,"Please find my trains, I simply cannot bear to sleep without one in each hand."

"Mess" ==Mess. As in, "I made one, and you'd better come see what I did. Bring a broom."

How I am spending my weekend....

Last night found me in very rare circumstances. I was *alone*. Alone, I say! I was almost giddy with this! I am rarely even alone in the bathroom, so a whole evening....wow! Maria was at a slumber party, Kain was at his dad's house, John was at work and didn't get home until after 10pm....I had Jack with me, but he was in bed early. I, of course, spent the time doing what most mothers would do if they found themselves with a couple of free hours...I cleaned! Our upstairs school/play room is in absolutely horrifying condition. It is a secret nightmare of mine that someone will have a significant injury up there (given the mess, that's entirely possible) and I will have to endure the embarrassment of having paramedics see the messiest room in my house (trust me, that's saying something). Yesterday morning my daughter had her Little Flowers meeting. It was my turn to lead the meeting and the virtue was, haha, orderliness. So I guess I was feeling all motivated when I got home. See, in my defense, it's very difficult to clean this room once it gets really bad. The kids are always using it! You can't go in and clean a bit, then come back later and do a bit more because they will quickly undo anything that you've done. No, no, you must do this all in one swoop. I dowloaded some Catholic radio podcasts onto John's Ipod took up a few trashbags, and went to work. No, I'm not finished. I'm not even close! But John has said he will help me make sure I get some more time up there this weekend, and in the meantime the kids are banned from the room. Oh, the angst! Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth! They should be glad they weren't here last night to see how much I threw away, haha! My goal is to have it done before the weekend is over. I have this vision of a school room that is a delight to walk into each day, with our school table (actually an old dinette) cleared of piles, two small desks under the windows for Kain and Maria to use for their independent work (haven't actually bought those yet), a couple of small bookshelves and beanbag chairs to form a comfy reading corner, a small preschool table for Jack with some shelves to start filling with Montessori lessons, and most importantly, couple of toys shelves with a minimum of toys out at one time! I thought about posting before and after pictures, but honestly, I was too embarrassed. :) I might post an after picture though!

we are in good company

Quote from Pope Benedict XVI--- highjacked from testosterhome.blogspot.com

"I must confess a personal weakness," the Pope said, when answering a question about priestly activities. "At night, I find it difficult to pray. I just want to sleep," he said to much applause. "Nevertheless, it is really necessary to find some time for the Lord."

hush little baby

A few weeks ago, Kain told me he wanted me to start singing to him at night. Specifically, he wanted me to sing "Hush Little Baby". Small enough request, right? It just irked me, singing this song. I couldn't really figure out why, except....

-- I just don't like the song. I've never liked it. Who is this Momma that's gonna buy a baby a cart and bull? A diamond ring? That turns brass??? Where do they get this stuff? What's the message here, "Hush little baby, I'm gonna buy you stuff"?

But that wasn't all of it. I had to do some digging, and I think I know why. It doesn't reveal a pretty side of me, necessarily, but I'm not pretty all over. :)

--He's not a baby. Don't get me wrong, I've gotten really very attached to this child, but there's just something kind of odd-feeling about singing a lullaby to a very large, very un-baby-like 7 year old. Not only is he not a baby, I didn't even *know* him as a baby. I met Kain for the first time when he was three years old, and even then it was just for one summer. I only rarely even saw a baby picture. If my 10 year old wanted me to sing her to sleep tonight, other than being amused, it wouldn't phase me much because I can close my eyes and she's a plump sweet-smelling 9 month old laying on my shoulder and playing with my hair. I have no physical memory of Kain as a baby, and that makes it feel kind of weird.

--He's not my baby. It's a rather specific *type* of lullaby, isn't it? "Momma's gonna do this, Momma's gonna do that." The reason he wants me to sing it to him in the first place is because he says his Momma sang it to him. I am a stand-in. He knows it and I know it. He was embarrassed when he asked me to sing this song. Kain, who is usually seemingly oblivious to what others think and feel, knew he sounded a bit babyish and silly asking me to sing him this song. He was admitting vulnerability. He misses his mother. And even though I am not her, he wants me to pretend. He wants me to pretend so that he can pretend. He wants to close his eyes and have me sing and rub his head and pretend that I am his mother and his world is sane and right again, that he has parents that don't party their lives away but instead take care of him and want him enough to do whatever they have to do to provide what he needs.

--And I guess, deep down, it bothers me a little to indulge this good memory of his mother. I need to villianize her, because I can't understand a world where parents mistreat their children any better than Kain can. Other than occasional awkward phone conversations, I don't know Kain's mother, and I don't want to know her. I have a lot of anger towards both of these parents, these people that have abandoned their child and put us in this gut-wrenching position of falling in love with this boy and trying to do what we can for him while his parents continue to toy all of our lives and with his undying devotion to them both. I don't want him to love her because she doesn't deserve it, and because continuing to love and want her will just cause him more pain. I know it's not right to expect him not to love his own mother. I know this in my head, but that's still how I feel. And I have a picture of her I want to keep, a picture of a woman who neglected her children so much that they have been taken away from her not once but several times, who let things so terrifying happen to her child that a year and a half later he is *still* waking up with nightmares, a woman that after doing all of these things will call me and tell me how she really has her life straightened out this time and expects me to actually swallow that without gagging. I don't want a picture in my head of her singing Kain to sleep, of her doing something sweet and maternal.

I don't want to sing this song. And yet...he has asked. This is what he needs. He needs his mother to sing him to sleep. Of all we have done for him, this is the one thing I can't provide, his mother to sing him to sleep. But I can pretend, for him. I will sit on his bed, push his thick blond hair across his head, and sing about mockingbirds and dogs named Rover...and at the end, promise him that he is, indeed, still the sweetest baby in town.

And finally, a Lenten post

Boy, I had a hard time getting my brain around the fact that Lent was starting. We really scrambled to get our preparations ready this year. Maria and I went to the Ash Wednesday mass yesterday afternoon...John was home and stayed with Jack so that he (Jack) could nap. Later that evening we finally got the altar ready. Maria and I made a salt-dough crown of thorns. There's 40 thorns in the crown, and we take a thorn (toothpick) out for each day of Lenten sacrifice and put it in that little glass bowl next to it. On the Easter Vigil, all the thorns will be gone and we will glue flowers to the wreath. The toothpicks in the bowl will disappear and be replaced by candy. So, what are we all giving up for Lent? Well, we pondered and pondered what to do this year. We will do our usually giving up of sweets and treats on all days but Sunday. Other than that, we decided to let the kids focus on their jelly bean jars. Their jars are there on the altar, back in the corners. They aren't exactly jars, more like fancy bowls. You can't tell in the picture, but the bowls are lined with a piece of cardstock to hide the view of the jelly beans because 1. I didn't think it was appropriate to have candy on the altar during Lent, 2. I didn't want Jack to see the candy, and 3. I didn't want the kids to get obsessed with comparing the number of jelly beans in each other's jars. This is a really nice little tradition. Each evening the kids share (with some prompting from us one what we've noticed, good and bad, during the day) what little sacrifices and deeds they have offered up during the day. They get the corresponding beans in their jar...all except for the white ones. This poem goes with the jars--

Red is for the blood He gave. (sacrifice)
Green is for the palm’s cool shade. (good deeds)
White is for the grace He gave. (can’t earn these!)
Yellow is for God’s light so bright. (kindnesses)
Orange is for prayers at twilight. (evening prayers)
Blue is for sweet rest at night. (going to bed well)
Purple is for His hour of sorrow. (asking forgiveness)
Pink is for our new tomorrow. (giving forgiveness)
A bag full of jelly beans colorful and sweet,Is a prayer, is a promise, is a special treat.

The night before Easter, we will fill whatever space is remaining in each jar with white jelly beans...they represent God's grace- you can't earn it, it is freely given to hold us up where we fall short.

So, that's the bulk of our Lenten ideas. We have some nightly scripture readings to add to our evening prayers, we will coordinate with our parish calendar to try and make some of their activities, especially Stations of the Cross, and we have some special activities planned for Holy Week. John and I also have our own things to offer up too...we didn't make our own jelly bean jars. :)

Did you think we were dead?

I was reading my last post, and then realizing I hadn't posted in so long that someone might have assumed the worst. :) We did survive the flu,,,and John and I didn't even come down with it, so that was a blessing. Then we just got busy with life....but here's a few pics of one of Jack's latest accomplishments. :) He worked so hard on this...putting a block on, realizing it was the wrong size and putting on another...I really helped very little. It's a mom-skill, for sure, learning how to sit on your hands and let your kids discover things on their own. He looks quite tickled with himself, doesn't he?

Quarantine

The children are falling fast. Kain became sick early yesterday morning with a high fever, sore throat, etc., and tested positive for both strep AND flu. He is sickity sick sick. His temp reached 105.8! last night...the highest temp I have ever taken, and I used to work pediatrics so that's saying a bit. I was able to quickly bring it down with motrin and cold rags. But last night Jack started with the fever as well. It's been a loooooong 24 hours ya'll. Throw us up a prayer when you get a minute.

Happy Birthday Kain!

Kain turned 7 years old on February 2nd. He has been waiting for his birthday for months...ever since Maria had hers in September and Jack had his in October he has been waiting for his turn! Friday we celebrated a bit early because he was going to spend the night with his dad. So during reading and rest time, I snuck Maria out of her room and we stealthily decorated the living room, put out presents, pizza, and cupcakes and surprised Kain when he came out of his room.

















Saturday we had a little pool party at the Jones Center with some friends and my parents. He had a ball and has been nagging me to go back to the Jones Center pool ever since.

Kain also had his first appointment with the psychiatrist at Schmieding. It was an interesting experience. She had some insights into his behavior I hadn't thought of before, pointing out some progresses we hadn't seen..for example, the way he cries so easily now- when he came here, he *never* cried. Ever. I'd forgotten that, how even when he fell and hurt himself he wouldn't cry. Instead he would become enraged! It was really odd behavior, to see him fall down and get into this angry rage about it. He doesn't do that anymore. In fact, his rages are much less frequent. I keep reminding myself how bad things used to be...we have made a lot of progress and I need to remember how far we've come. He is doing much better in school since starting the medication three weeks ago. He enjoys school and has a very patient teacher that he adores. We were making great progress with his behavior at home even before the medication, but the medication has helped in smaller ways here...he handles things like mass, going to the grocery store, doctor's appointments, overstimulating situations like that much, much better now. We will continue to go the weekly therapy, and we are working on getting OT and speech therapy started through his school. I may have to be a little, ah, assertive about getting that done. There are a lot of kids that need therapy and not enough therapists to go around, so I guess you have to have some pretty severe delays to get therapy...but I've got two doctors now saying he needs this done, and it needs to happen! I also realized how much he has slimmed down since coming to stay with us in August. Between his weight problem and his lung condition, he had no exercise tolerance at all. He would become short of breath and complain about his legs hurting just walking through the walmart parking lot. Now he runs and play outside for a couple of hours everyday, and it is showing. The binge eating that we had such a struggle with is almost nonexistent now. He sleeps through the night many nights now. He used to wander around the house and we would find him asleep on the hallway floor in the morning! Now he still wakes and turns on his bedroom lights some nights, but he doesn't roam anymore, and many nights he seems to sleep straight through.

Thank you to everyone that has prayed for us with this situation with Kain...some of you for three years now since we first started this journey of trying to help him. When we lost him three years ago, I never knew if I'd even see him again. We have prayed and prayed...St. Mother Theresa, St. John Bosco, and John Paul II are ones I have begged prayers and intercessions through...and here he is , and doing *well*. We are so grateful.

Maria's quiz

She got an 83%, which I thought was pretty darned good! I let her do it completely on her own, in fact I wasn't even in the room...which is why she closed the browser window and lost the link to her score...lol. But she says she got an 83%.

I am Melanie...super genius

You are a 100% traditional Catholic!

Congratulations! You are more knowlegeable than most modern theologians! You have achieved mastery over the most important doctrines of the Catholic Faith! You should share your incredible understanding with others!

Do You Know Your Baltimore Catechism?
Make Your Own Quiz

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

I won't get too cocky. Most of the questions in the first one were very, very easy and had at least a couple of "throw away" choices. I may have Maria do this later...a fourth grader that knows her catechism at all should do decently on this!

The bible one had some harder questions...in typical Catholic fashion, I know the catechism better than the bible. So I was suprised I got 100% on that one. I honestly made educated guesses on a couple of them.

hidden motivations

Why do I neglect this blog so? Well, for the same reason I started it...accountability.When I don't want to post what we did (and didn't) get done in a particular day, it's easy to be "too busy" to post it...haha! Ah well,,,a quick catch up.

Tuesday- we did a decent day of school, but I couldn't recall it for you now. Maria started soccer with our homeschool group and really enjoyed it, which surprised her to pieces...soccer is "for boys" you know. She only tried it because I pushed her to do so. She has never played any team sports...what is the point of a sport that doesn't involved pretty shoes and tutus?

Wednesday- Well,,,what can I say about Wednesday. It snowed about 4 inches. Kain's school closed early, throwing a great big wrench in the middle of my best laid school plans, and then I turned the kids loose to go play. We haven't had a winter with this much snowfall in a few years now, and the kids are eating it up. We did do some school before picking up Kain....a math lesson in Saxon, reading a story in Bible History, catechism questions,,,we started reading "He Went with Marco Polo",,,finally. It has been MIA upstairs. Fabulous book if you can find it. Then I began the 45 minute/2mile drive on extremely hazardous roads and crazy, crazy traffic to pick up Kain from school. Kain was supposed to have therapy yesterday, and Maria was supposed to have choir practice at the church...both were cancelled.

Thursday-, today....letting the kids play in the snow again. Kain's school is closed. We will go upstairs when Jack wakes up and work on the school work we didn't do yesterday, plus read some more of the Marco Polo book.

On the menu- freestyle breakfast...I let the kids sleep in since I knew it would be a "snow day", so breakfast was kind of freeflowing.

Lunch- spaghetti

Tea time- banana bread? Some cookies? Not sure...planning on doing some baking today

Dinner- Beef nacho casserole, asparagus

My very first meme

I'm getting a little misty eyed...Ok here goes--

Homemaking Meme----from A to Z

Aprons – Yes, I have one. If I wore it more often, my shirts would probably be in better shape.

Baking – What is your favorite thing to bake?- Bar cookies of some kind. Much easier and quicker than individual cookies. It's all about efficiency here, folks.

Clothesline – Y/N? Yes, we have one. I don't use it. John doesn't like "crunchy clothes". I have a retractable indoor one in my laundry room that I use to hang up stuff that shouldn't go in the drier. Right now it is holding wet gloves and pants. (snow yesterday!)

Donuts – Have you ever made them? Nope. Would like to try someday...just never have.

Every day – One homemaking thing you do every day: Clean the bathroom sinks (actually, Maria does hers).

Freezer – Do you have a separate deep freeze? Yes, and old upright one my in-laws gave us. It sits unused in the laundry room. It needs a good scrub down before we attempt to use it. Another "someday" thing...it's not a necessity at this point, but will be with the addition of any more people to this family!

Garbage Disposal – Y/N? Oh yes.

Handbook?- I *love* Managers of Their Homes (titus2.com).

Ironing – Love it or hate it?- I don't iron. We have no need. My husband is a nurse, he wears scrubs to work. I don't mind ironing the occasional item, but it is rarely needed.

Junk drawer – Y/N? Where is it? - Ha! My dh has several...practically one in each room. I started off giving him one of his dresser drawers because I got tired of arguing with him over the stuff he would stash in there. He has since taken over a couple of more in other rooms of the house. Need to purge those and hold him to one drawer. He is a packrat, God love him.

Kitchen: Design & Decorating?- Just finished most of our remodeling. Natural wood cabinets with a coffee colored glaze, blue Corian countertops, buff-colored ceramic tile floor...pretty. Still needing to finish some trim work around the window, a bit of paint....

Love: What is your favorite part of homemaking? I love organizing stuff. I am an organization junkie. Big on plans, weak on follow through.

Mop - Y/N? Oh yeah. Mostly hardwood floors in this house. When we are done remodeling the living room the only carpet will be in the upstairs playroom.

Nylons - Wash by hand or in the washing machine?- Dear heavens, I don't wear nylons. What kind of establishment do you think this is! When I wear skirts, they are very long, and I wear sandles or some kind of slip on loafer. No nylons. They are evil. Last time I wore a pair was to my grandfather's funeral, and before that was probably at my wedding.

Oven - Do you use the window, or open the door to check?- Open the door.

Pizza - What do you put on yours? I love a little sausage or bacon and slices of tomatoes, fresh basil if we have it. Yummy. We make homemade pizza every Saturday now.

Quiet - What do you do during the day when you get a quiet moment? Blog, or sit with a cup of coffee and a book.

Recipe card box - Y/N? Yes. I have one and use it regularly.

Style of house -1950's fixer upper, white siding with no trim...very plain outside,,,need to fix that up if we ever get the inside done. In theory 4 bedroom/3bath, but one of the baths is unfinished, and the 4th bedroom is really a finished attic space that we use as a homeschool room/play room. The kids are up there right now destroying it.

Tablecloths and napkins - Y/N?- Placemats and napkins. I don't care for tablecloths with kids. Somebody always seems to spill and drip...would never make it through one meal around here. I can replace a placemat quickly and easily.

Under the kitchen sink - Organized or toxic wasteland? Can of Barkeepers Friend, dishwasher soap, and a giant apple juice jug of dishwashing liquid (long story...I needed 9 empty dishwashing liquid bottles for something like 3 years ago...we are still using up the soap), and my giant stockpot is under there.

Vacuum - How many times per week? Twice a week in the living room.

Wash - How many loads of laundry do you do a week? About 8.

X's - Do you keep a daily list of things to do and cross them off? Oh yes. I'm a big list maker.

Yard - Who does what? John mows and weedwackers, I do the actual gardening. We both do some leaf raking. I enjoy that....like getting out on fall days.

Zzz's - What is your last homemaking task for the day before going to bed?- When things are running smoothly, a quick pick up of any left out stuff. Not been that smooth lately....so lately has been a lick and a promise of more tomorrow....

Stylin'

My daughter....the fashion plate. Maria has always been such a "girly girl". If she were going to high school, she would be the social butterfly cheerleader type at every social event,,,,praise GOD she is not going to high school. Haha! Seriously, homeschooling is often seen as a good thing for kids that are a bit socially awkward, and that's surely true. But it also is a blessing for a child that tends to be a little *too* peer-oriented. At least with homeschooling, I have a little more control over who those peers are! Maria loves clothes, loves to look "cool",,,and loves pink, as evidenced by this picture. I have no idea where she gets this. I am the exact opposite of a clothes-horse and disdain "wasting" money on buying clothing for myself when the money could be put to much better use buying books or something for our home. I don't recall ever caring much about clothing, even as a teenager. But Maria loves to dress up, and she definitely has a style all her own. Now that I can appreciate. The things she chooses to wear are things that *she* likes, not things that the kids at school will accept. I am always tickled when I see her wearing something a bit...unusual. I'm glad she has the space to develop her own tastes with minimal influence from others opinions. And as long as her clothing is modest and reasonable for the occasion, I try to keep even my own opinion to myself. :)

quick Monday post

quick Monday post
Oooooh...Mondays are so long. We had co-op today. Intro to Life Science, Fear Factor Fun (math), Spanish, Cooking, Knitting, and Art for Maria. Running errands, helping out in the preschool, the afternoon freeplay class for 2 hours....we are all wiped out. Maria feels bad this evening...wondering if she is coming down with something or just tired.

Breakfast- leftover pancakes and fruit bowl
Lunch- roast beef sandwiches, clementines, pretzles
Snack- granola bars on the run
Dinner- Burger King (yum...more junk)

What we read- Maria- nothing so far. Will read some of The Secret Garden tonight. Kain- Make Way for Ducklings. Jack- Curious George, some little puppy board book Maria picked out from the library.

GOing to go chase Kain into bed and crash now....

Sunday

Sunday
-PSR this morning. I co-teach a preschool class, Maria and Kain go off to their respective classes. Jack usually goes to the nursery. Maria says they learned "more about Confirmation, and a bunch of different stuff I can't remember." Kain says they learned about "families".

-Mass after PSR. Kain did very well today. Jack was a wildman. Things to work on for next mass- Maria- attention to prayer after communion instead of looking for friends to walk by. Kain- kneeling without complaining and sitting on his ankles.

-Today was Kain's name day, so we went to pick up some donuts after mass. He also got out of chores for the day, but had to tell him later that this did not give him license to do whatever he wanted to do, i.e. not bathe or go to bed.

-Then the kids played outside while I attempted (and failed) to get Jack to nap. He's been resisting naps the last couple of days. Disturbing trend. I read some, channel flipped some, and generally made an effort to relax. Still had to wash dishes by hand, so that took some time this afternoon. Kids played outside and Kain fought often with the other kids. They try to leave him out, skip his turns, that kind of thing, and then he acts out.

- Jack watched a Thomas video, we read some books and played with his new nesting blocks. Didn't go outside with him. Too cold for me!

-Now Jack's in bed, Kain is on his way after bedtime prayers, and I will wash some more dishes and get ready for co-op day tomorrow. Should be a good day, because John is off, so either he can
A. come with us and get in some nice Daddy time, or
B. stay here and pick up Kain from school so I don't have to make the mad dash back to town in time to get him.

His choice will probably depend on what time he gets home tonight!

On the menu----
Breakfast- cereal, not a great choice, but I overslept a bit.
Snack- Donuts
Lunch- Mac and cheese (Kain's choice)
Tea time- Just tea for me. The kids were playing and had a late lunch due to the donuts.
Dinner- pancakes, eggs, sausage and bacon (we always have brinner (breakfast for dinner) on Sundays)
Dessert- Sundaes for Sunday.

Lots of junk...but hey, it's Sunday.

St. Amadeus

"The son of Blessed Amadeus of Clermont, Saint Amadeus of Lausanne (a.k.a. Amadeus von Lausanne) was born in 1110 in the castle Chatte of Dauphine, in what is now France. In his early years, St. Amadeus lived a life of privilege, a member of the Royal family of Franconia. Like many members of the nobililty, he was sent to the famous Benedictine monastery of Cluny for an education. But the influence of his monastic teachers led him to discover a call to the religious life. Rather than embracing the rather comfortable life of Cluny, however, he joined the new reformed Benedictine movement known as the Cistercians and became a disciple of St. Bernard at the monastery of Clairvaux. He went on to become abbott and then, over his protestations, bishop of Lausanne in 1144. He was also selected as chancellor of Burgundy by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. St. Amadeus died on August 24, 1159. His liturgical memorial in the Roman calendar occurs on January 28. "

St. Amadeus is Kain's patron Saint. Kain's middle name is Amadeus, and St. Amadeus' feast day is just a few days before Kain's birthday, something I'm sure Kain's parents were completely unaware of. When we had Kain baptised, I wanted to make sure he had a patron, so I started doing some research and I found the above info and picture. We picked up donuts to celebrate after mass and Kain gets a chore-free day. He also got to pick a meal today, macaroni and cheese for lunch. :)

St. Amadeus, pray for us!

and a (not so )quick catch up

and a (not so )quick catch up
How neglectful I have already been of my new blog! We have tweaked our daily schedule around here to make room for some regular afternoons socialization with our homeschooling friends, and also to respect mom's natural biorhythm of being a morning person who is pretty much out of steam by the time lunchtime comes. Most homeschooling moms, I know, do all their school early in the day and do chores in the late afternoon/evening hours. We have been doing that basic plan too. However, it takes way more energy for me to clean than to sit down with a history read aloud, and the cleaning is just not happening far too often. So, we are trying something new. Maria is doing her independent work in the morning while I work on some daily chores, including getting meals for the day pre-prepped as much as possible. Then, after lunch we will either go to a homeschool group activity or I will catch up on some far behind purging and organization around here. And in the late afternoon, I will work on school work with Maria. I'm hoping that by our Easter break the house will be in shape again. Then we can spend some of those after-lunch afternoons working on rabbit trails together. So far it is working nicely. I'm not sure what we will end up doing next year though....then I'll have to get in school with Kain somewhere. It always amazes me that every school year I think, "Well, that's it. We can't possibly work anything else into the schedule." But we do. It always works out, and there always seems to be just enough time to do what we need to do.

So, briefly....

Tuesday- this is a blur to me already. I know we did a full day of school. I think I worked on our new schedule plan this day quite a bit.

Wednesday- Also a full day of school. Had to pick up Kain and take him to his first therapy appointment. It seemed to go well. I talked to the therapist for a bit first, and then she took Kain back. When she came back out with him she told me that she needed to speak to me first again next week. She had this really meaningful look on her face, like he told her something she wants to talk to me about already...kind of freaked me out a little! Kain likes going a lot. Having someone's attention solely focused on him for a hour....he loves that! He doesn't get a lot of that here, I know...but he's in school all day, and spends half the weekend with his Dad!

Thursday- Fun day, and also recent enough that I can recall a bit more detail. This was our first day on our new schedule. I sent Maria off to do some work on her own,,,reading a catechism chapter on the Eucharist, a worksheet from Let's Learn Music, a narration to copy and illustrate from Bible History, a saxon DIVE lesson on the computer, and some science reading to do that I found out the following day she "forgot". In the afternoon we went roller skating with one of our homeschool groups. John was off of work and came with us. It was Jack's second time roller skating, and he had a ball! We made this a half day of school, because I needed to get dinner on early and everything organized for John so that I could leave in the evening to go to Mom's Share with my Catholic homeschool group. First time out in weeks and weeks. It was very nice to get away for a bit!

Friday- Maria and I both had dental appointments in the morning, so I made this another half day of school. After our appointments I took her to Target to spend a gift card she received for Christmas. $30 is a lot to a 10 year old...until she is in the toy section and has to actually narrow her choices to $30. Jack had one as well and I had fun spending that on him. Maria bought a little electronic keyboard and a "Littlest Pet Shop" addition to the menagerie that lives upstairs. Jack got a colorful set of wooden stacking/nesting blocks. I like Target's toy section. They have far less in the way of trashy toys than Walmart does. Everything at Walmart seems to be battery operated and/or a knock off from some movie or tv show. At home, John and I worked out the details of our new budget (yesterday was the first payday on the new budget). I also gave up on our dishwasher and threw a wrench in the new budget by telling John we were going to have to call a repair guy on Monday. Our dishwasher is three years old and a piece of junk. This is the third repair, and of course now the warrantly is expired. The dishes have been coming out looking questionably clean for a bit now,,,,(one of those is something really wrong or is this just my imagination? things) but this morning's load was not clean in the slightest. I ran an empty load and realized that the spinning/spraying water thingies are now not spinning at all. I spent the rest of the afternoon washing dishes by hand and using the dishwasher as a drying rack. After we picked up Kain from school, Maria and I went upstairs to wrap up her work. We discussed the catechism chapter she had read yesterday, went over her independent work from yesterday, gave a diagnostic spelling test from WRTR (list K this year, woohoo!), drilled catechism for 5 minutes. I gave a fact drill sheet from her math lesson and pulled teeth to get her to work the new lesson problems with me. It was painful and tearful and took forever. By the time she was done with math our time was up. After we got Jack in bed (Kain was spending the night with his Dad), we quickly worked on her current poem (CHristmas Everywhere ...told you we were behind, haha!), recited the Our Father in Latin, and filled in a blank map with the southern states and capitals. So, in spite of the math delays, we managed to get everything done except for drawing.

And today- Saturday- grocery shopping and a library trip. I know, Walmart on a Saturday, right? Not too bad...Kain is not here, so that makes shopping a lot easier! Need to move the childproof latch on the pantry higher up...Jack smashed a giant jar of applesauce on the kitchen floor this morning (sigh).

On the menu for later today- Quesadillas for lunch, and Saturday evening is pizza and popcorn night (homemade,,,very, very easy, much cheaper and quicker than waiting on delivery on a Saturday night!).

standardized testing

How Kain's school prepares for standardized testing-
-making curriculum choices that will maximize test performance
-doing practice tests at school
-sending home packets of practice worksheets every week so that he can practice at home
- giving us a website where we can print off even *more* practice tests
-dangling carrots in front of the teachers- there's been talk in the papers of giving teachers financial rewards for good scores from their classrooms.



How we prepare for standardized testing-
-"Hey Maria, you remember how to fill in those little bubbles on that test you took last year, right?" "Uh-huh."

Homeschoolers in Arkansas are required to take the ITBS in 3rd-10th grades. Last year, since it was her first time taking such a test, we did a couple of "dry runs" so that she would be comfortable. By mid-first grade, she'd had enough experience with "real school" tests to be pretty darn nervous about it. I really did plan to do more that first year, but didn't get to it. I was a little concerned because she was struggled with reading and spelling. She still scored better than the state average. I think this will only improve as she goes on too. Our curriculum is pretty gentle in the early years and slower to progress in certain subjects than the public school's. But it's a well thought out curriculum and starts to pick up the pace right around 3rd-4th grade, and by the junior high years it is pretty darn tough....as good a college prep program as I've ever seen. I like the balance. I *want* the early years to be fun and enjoyable with lots of time for learning through play, and I *want* the curriculum to also be solid enough that my kids go on and do whatever they want in life. I know I could raise her test scores in this "in between" time by teaching to the test the way the public schools do, but I refuse to do that. I refuse to waste one iota of my precious school time by worrying about these silly tests. It's just one of my many prerogatives as a homeschooler. I tell Maria that the test is made for public schoolers and the books that they use, that different books teach things in different grades, and to just do the best she can and not worry about it. I make sure she knows how to actually take the test so that she doesn't miss problems for not coloring the circles properly or something like that. I give her a good night's sleep and a good breakfast. And then I let it go.

A quick post

A quick post
because I'm running out of steam fast. Today was our first day back at our homeschool co-op...so we have been gone alllll day. Dropped Kain off at school, then off we went to the church our co-op uses, spent the day, drove back to pick up Kain from school, then back to pick up Maria from her last co-op class. She is taking a life science class, a math class (fun stuff), spanish, cooking, knitting, and art. I dropped her off and then Jack and I ran an errand to the grocery store and gassed up the car. We came back in time for me to help out in the preschool room for an hour. Then we had our sack lunch together, and then Jack and I went on to teach "free play" for 2 hours. Free play is pretty much a class for the kids that are too young to take regular afternoon classes and is pretty much a place for parents to bring their little kids while they are teaching a class. It's informal...I put out a couple of activities, and they can choose to do them or to just play with friends. Jack had a lot of fun today. The second free play hour there was just Jack and another little boy his age. I blew bubbles for what had to be a good half an hour. They would shriek with surprise every single time I blew on the wand, then run around like crazy trying to catch and stomp the bubbles. Maria also had a good time. She *loves* going to Treehouse, and anytime I feel like it's gotten to be too much trouble I reconsider for her sake. I haven't done anything at home this evening. I am so, so tired! First day fully back on "schedule", so I've been up since 5am an

a lazy weekend for blogging

So I'll just post this sweet picture of my Jack instead. This is the "safari hat" from our dress up trunk upstairs.

a new blog

Check out my dashboard. I have a secondary blog, smallthingswithgreatlove.blogspot.com. It's a list of our daily homeschool/homemaking doings. I started it for my own reference, realizing that that level of detail is not something everyone wants to read, but it may be of some use to those interested in seeing the nuts and bolts of someone else's day once in a while. I plan to start posting there on Sunday (that's right. Every day is a school day here! :))

A pause for math

Sometimes I really need to be reigned in. Yesterday we had a rough go at school. Jack has taken a liking to pitching toys down the stairs, and was just generally clingy and whiny. Maria was just *not* getting the math. I was getting really frustrated. We are quite behind on our syllabus and I was anxious to check off another day's worth of boxes. I sure didn't want to get any more behind. Not a great attitude to have, for sure. We had been working up to this since Christmas break. Maria was just not getting the concept of borrowing in subtraction. I had been plowing ahead anyway, and she was getting more and more problems wrong with each assignment. And I was getting more and more impatient with her for causing us to fall "behind". I finally realized what I was doing to us all, and that trying to do anything that required concentration with Jack in the mood he was in was futile anyway. I closed the books and we all went downstairs. I fed everyone an early lunch and put Jack to sleep, then sent Maria to lay down in her room with Charlotte's Web for 30 minutes. Then we both sat down with her math book in the quiet house. I printed another set of answer sheets off for myself, and we slowly worked through each problem together. She seemed to make some progress and by the end of the lesson she was solving borrowing problems correctly on her own. Afterwards, we hung up school for the day. What's another half day lost in the grand scheme of things?

art show

Ever since Maria was three or four years old, art supplies and craft kits have been her gift of choice. I have always made it a rule to make supplies readily available to her, and as a result we spend a small fortune on keeping her in crafty things. People are starting to roll their eyes when I suggest, year after year, art supplies for birthday and Christmas gifts, but this is truly what she loves to do. I have always said that if we were unschoolers, Maria would do nothing but art projects all day long. Here's what she did just on Sunday afternoon...various collages, and dinosaur picture for Kain, a homemade cat toy, and a piece of lovely pipe cleaner/plastic gemstone jewelry.

bathroom clutter

Here's a picture of my latest nod to my vow to get more organized. The kids got these wooden bins for Epiphany gifts. After Christmas, I raid Walmart and buy up those fancy bath baskets on clearance and put away a year's supply of lotions and potions. This time they had some in these nifty wooden containers, so I bought three of them. I painted and stenciled them,,,Maria's with flowers, Kain's with dinosaurs, and Jack's with trains and cars,,, and now they are "bath boxes". They corral toothbrushes, bathroom cups, flossers, hairbrushes, etc. We have tiny bathrooms here, and these shelves are the only storage space in the bathroom that the kids use. The small sink was constantly crowded with all their stuff, and this has been a good solution. We have also color coded all the bathroom stuff. Maria is pink, Kain is blue, Jack is green...you'll notice the washrags hanging on pegs next to the boxes in the appropriate colors. To the right, over the clawfoot tub, there hangs their three bath towels in pink, blue, and green. I'm quite tickled with myself.
You might wonder, as Maria already has, what will happen when (God willing) we have another child. Right now, you see, it works out quite neatly, three shelves for three kids. Well, we also have a larger not-quite-finished upstairs bathroom. Hopefully by the time we have another bathroom user this upstairs bathroom will be completed and can become a "big kids" bathroom. Then the tiny downstairs bathroom can just be for kids still young enough to need some hand-holding during the grooming/bathing process.

Oh, and you're not hallucinating, Maria's bath box is bigger than the others. I didn't realize I'd bought one in a different size, but it's worked out well enough. Maria, true to femine tradition, already has more bathroom "stuff" to keep track of than the boys do.

TV takeover

Dear Sprout People,

You have overstayed your welcome. Months ago, you "generously" ran a "free preview" with our basic cable programming, an obvious attempt to get us to advance our cable from our paltry basic channels into full-blown cable programming. It almost worked. All of a sudden, we had all our favorite PBS Kids TV shows on 24/7! Even favorite shows that we don't even get on our local PBS channel, like Thomas the Tank Engine, Angelina Ballerina, and Kipper. Brilliant! Even I appreciated the old-school Sesame Street episodes. It's come in so handy during these long winter school-free days, especially when everyone was sick. I would even panic a little at the thought that we might lose our "free preview" at any time. If you had disappeared from our channel lineup at that point, it might have been enough to push me into expanding our cable package. But, thankfully, you were kind enough to get us over the hump...and now, well, you need to go. Now, my 2yo comes running out of the bedroom in the morning to turn on the TV and watch "the show". The kids spend the evening hours captivated by "The Goodnight Show". And it's precious stuff, really,,,it's decent programming. But I'm tired of the constant television and tired of battling Nina and Star and Lucy to get my children into baths and into bed. I'm alarmed by the glazed look in my toddlers eyes and the fact that he can recognize the theme song to every show in your line up. I know, I know, I could be more consistent about limiting their viewing, but it's a temptation for me too, this instant entertainment that instantly captivates 3 children of varying ages and keeps them quiet and out of trouble. It's become a bad habit for us all. And so, now, when I see the scroll across the top of the screen saying that the "free preview" comes to an end the first week of February, I'm not even tempted to call the cable company. Christmas break is over, everyone is healthy, and I'm ready to take my children back.

Back to the Ordinary

Here's our latest Ordinary Time altar. You can't tell very well in this picture, but that is a green altar cloth! Christmas things are finally put away, and it's back to "normal life"...such as it is...heehee...we are slowly and painfully back to school and trying hard to discipline ourselves to stay on schedule.

Please note Maria's homemade bouquet of pipe cleaner/tissue paper flowers and cattails scavenged along the bike trail. I assembled this altar, as evidenced by it's sparse decor. When Maria decorates the altar she covers every square inch with holy cards, rosaries, and our small collection of statues.

Another Kain update

Lately, having Kain around is rather like living with a little old man...we have been spending lots of time in doctors' offices, and it's not over yet. There's been a lot going on, so I thought I'd post an update for those of you that have been offering prayers for him.

First of all, we have been to the pulmonologist for a check up this week. His lung function has improved a good deal...the doc was impressed. So, no changes there, we are going to keep on keepin on with the same meds and treatments. We also found out that he has lost 4 pounds since his visit two months ago. This is great news. We have not been putting any emphasis on losing weight...just on improving his lifestyle...but it's still nice to see the results. His previous lifestyle of living on pizza and cheeseburgers/playing videos 24 hours a day has left him pretty chunky, and the extra weight isn't good for his lung condition. He gets much less junk food here, but his portion sizes are usually still way too big. He is much, much more active though, and I know that has made the difference. When he came here, he was so deconditioned that he would complain about his legs hurting from walking through the walmart parking lot. A short walk or bike ride would leave him huffing and puffing. Now he plays outside for a couple of hours a day, and I still love to see him come in sweaty and red-faced, knowing he is getting so much physical activity and *enjoying* it...and the physical activity does great things for his mood as well. We also see much less of the binging behavior that was a daily problem in the beginning. He still tends to go overboard on a few foods....so we just try to limit the availability of those foods as much as we can.

Our other big accomplishment has been finally getting him into the Schmeiding Center for evaluation. It was an all day appointment...lots of testing. They have diagnosed him with ADHD (no surprise) and tentatively with Mood Disorder NOS. We are hoping that the mood disorder part will be rectified in time...that it is a result of his terrible early childhood experiences that can be worked out with time and therapy and not an indicator of something like Bipolar Disorder (we have a very strong family history of this). He is too young and has too complicated a history to be diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder of course, but the concern is always in the back of my mind. He will be going to behavioral therapy once a week at Schmeiding for this. The doctor that did the testing is also recommending to the school to do an occupational therapy and speech therapy evaluation...he tested with some delays there. He also tested with some processing delays, such as being able to quickly name shapes and colors when they are held up on flashcards. This may just be from his ADHD and inability to stay focused, so they will look for this to improve with treatment. Otherwise, his congnitive skills all tested in normal range. As far as treatment for his ADHD, we have made the difficult decision to try medication. Yes, we have researched other options...anyone that knows me knows that I compulsively research my "options" for everything :). But for a lot of reasons that I won't go into in this post (because it's getting so long already!), we have decided that it is in his best interest to try medication, at least at this time. His symptoms are very severe and his quality of life is so impacted by them, especially when it comes to making friends with other children.

As far as the other issues surrounding Kain...we are hoping to hire a lawyer with our income tax return and get legal guardianship. We continue to have various conflicts with Kain's parents. I can't go into a lot of detail regarding our struggles with this on a public blog,,,any of those questions should really be discussed privately. We are anxious to get guardianship settled...my worst nightmare is always that he will be taken away from us. As far as our assorted discipline issues...it's getting better. No magic changes, but we are having more good days than bad ones. His overall attitude is generally much less confrontational and more cooperative. I feel much more of a bond with him now. He is very affectionate and loving with me, which makes it feel easier and more natural for me to be the same with him. John still has a harder time with him...maybe because he just isn't with him as much because of his work schedule, or maybe because it's easier for me to bond with a 6yo dropped unexpectedly into our lives because I'm a mom,,,or maybe Kain has an easier time bonding with *me* because I'm a mom. Much of his abuse has happened at the hands of men, so there is that issue too. There are small victories there though, and I hope to see their relationship continue to improve. We have come a long way, I have to keep remembering this...how bad things were when he first came here, how much he has learned. I watched him struggling to make his bed the other day and remembered how when he first came here he wouldn't even dress himself. We have all worked hard, and we are all proud of him. Here's a new picture of the little imp with his favorite sword and his new obsession, the guardian angel doll he received for Epiphany. He's trying his best not smile.