Just Brimming...

     I've not been blogging the last couple of days.  Oh no, I've become that blogger that apologizes for depriving their millions of daily followers of access to their random, mundane thinkings and doings.  Blogging can be so presumptuous.  Any person under the sun could have something worthwhile to say when they stop and reflect at the end of a day so why should I expect others to read about the highlights of my rather ordinary days.  Oh, but I do love it.  It has kept me so mindful of valuing the gifts that happen even during the worst, horrible, moody days full of screeching and spills.  I feel that it is no accident that our women's group at church is currently reading "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp which is all about seeking out the ordinary gifts of grace that everyone receives from a good God even in the midst of banality, ugliness and even tragedy.  In the end, the gifts, such as a smile from a child who has just finished a 30 minute stint of maniacal wailing, are less significant than the open-handed posture of the mother who is ready to seek out and receive grace in all things. 
     It is Wednesday.  There have been 5 days since my last post.  Too many gifts to explain, in depth, over the weekend, up until now but here are a few:

• Tobin learned to change a headlight with Dad.
• Lots of skating on the backyard rink, even in frigid temperatures.
• Girls coming in from outside brimming with ideas for their very important to do list for the day.  They must play babies, do a craft, play "Old Granny"  (this game is new and it involves sneaking into the kitchen to steal from the sugar bowl before the Old One (Mom) raps them on the knuckles.)   "Let's get started, Ruby, or we won't get these things done!"
• Kids crouching on the stairs to listen to Mom and 5 friends speak broken French at a monthly meeting we've begun just to practice something we have made and effort to learn and enjoy.
• Isaac brimming with pride after he took the responsibility of putting the girls to bed while Mom was downstairs with her French Friends and Dad was out.  Ruby:  "I love Isaac!  He brushed our teeth, tucked us under the blankets and read us the story about potatoes with an Irish accent!".
• The warm smell of baking bread on Sundays when Anneke and Daddy make a loaf from scratch every week.
• Tobin asking for prayer for the Morelli family every evening.
• Cries of "Another chapter!"  when we snuggle under blankets on the couches and read aloud.
• Anneke copying out her library books because she wants to teach herself to write.
• Tobin finishing his math book and the others will be done by tomorrow.
• Tobin found studs in the wall and leveled a book shelf that he and Dad mounted beside his bed to put his reading books on.
• Isaac saying that he calls his marshmallow snowman "Nude Descending a Staircase" because he reads Calvin and Hobbes.  I showed him the Marcel Duchamp version and he laughed.  He will remember that art lesson because it is attached to a moment in his play.
• Tobin got a paying job shoveling someone's snow from the flyers he sent out.
• The boys writing "hamburger paragraphs" ...more on this later...
• Ruby, ever and always immersed in little worlds where the big spoon is the mom to the little spoon and the entire living room floor is needed to house the spoon family.

   Ach, there's so many.   So ordinary.  So wonderful and we don't feel busy in the accomplishment of them.  Now, if anyone has their finger poised on the last digit of the number for Children's Services, you should know that I do see a need for regular instruction for writing and math.  In September, we will return to using a sequential program of instruction in these areas.  Many unschooling families testify that kids will naturally learn what they need to learn in these areas if given support and encouragement and I don't doubt them.  Maybe it's the fear talking, but I see definite deficiencies in my kids' ability to write with confidence.  I must also add that I have seen that gap close as the kids get older and are more ready to tackle this arduous task with the confidence they have gained by reading more fluently and just being generally more mature and aware of the necessity of being able to express oneself  in writing.  But it is still painful to watch my boys struggle with basic sentence and paragraph structure at the ripe old ages of 9 and 12.  But we are both learning the meta-lessons of reducing these mountains to speedbumps by taking baby steps, baby steps, baby steps.  If you have encouragement to share in this regard, as a homeschooler or someone who sends their kids to school,  please share. 
    Another meta-lesson has been learned with our biting hamster.  Anneke's idyllic notions of having a pet that would enjoy being grabbed, squeezed and made to say hello to the cat have been quashed as "Tia" has begun using her teeth to communicate.   "I want to get rid of her" was said through tears as we snuggled it out on the couch.  But instead of giving up on the project the moment it went in a direction she was not happy with, we decided that maybe we should change our approach to the little creature, one thousandth our size and see if we can't make our commitment to her work in a way that both enjoy.  And it worked.  Anneke is slow and quiet and respectful to her hamster and the rodent returns her gentle efforts with causing less bloody fingers.  When things look hopeless and disappointing, maybe it can get better if we pause and problem solve to improve the situation.   She said as much, in her own words, to her brothers.
   And now there are two families coming to do an art lesson on visual problem solving a la Da Vinci.  We're going to read a story about Da Vinci and then work with a pile of materials to solve visual problems to invent a prosthetic for flying creatures with dysfunctional wings.   Hope it works out as well as I hope it will.