I am SO done with Halloween. #forthelove

Disclaimer: Please don't think I am judging you if you celebrate or do not.  This is my family, my experience.  I love you whether you do or your don't.

I am going to steal from Jenn Hatmaker.  Let's get over ourselves for Halloween.  Okay?  For the love of sanity!

Many opt out of Halloween because of the dark side of it.  That never really rang true for me.  Maybe it is because I didn't grow up fearing all of that.  It was always a fun time to dress up, get a little spooky (but not too spooky), and gorge ourselves on high fructose corn syrup and red dye #7.  Aside from the occasional witch (gasp!), I was never really into the super scary side so I guess I never  thought it was so evil.  I know, spiritual warfare and all that...  Halloween just doesn't bother me.  My kids have done halloween since the first child was 3 months old.  We never do evil costumes, we don't do haunted houses, we pass the scariest yards in the neighborhood and opt to trick or treat before it gets dark.  I think we got it.

Here is my beef.  I resent the time, money, and energy that I feel pressured to spend on this "holiday" (what a misnomer- it is not a holy-day). I can spend hours on Pinterest trying to find an original costumes.  I can spend hundreds of dollars on new costumes at the store (even consignment sales and stores have costumes overpriced, in my opinion).  I can decorate my door with the cutest burlap wreath.  I can decorate my trunk for trunk or treat so cute that every already over-sugared child will flock to my car.  For what?  Who am I worried about impressing?  If my kids don't have great and original costumes, I'm afraid I will look like I am ruining their childhood Halloween experience (their only young once, don't screw this up!).  Hold the phone!! I want out!!

I came this close () to canceling Halloween for us this year.  I told the kids, I'd rather spend the money on Christmas decorations or clothes or anything really.  So if they want Halloween, they are going to have to come up with "Free" costumes of their own.

Mean Mom.

Or not.

I didn't get the whines and the but Moms I thought I would get.  Instead, they started talking about how they could create costumes out of what they already have.  In the end, the two youngest used some of their dress up clothes from the toy box (Elsa and Batman), and the two oldest completely invented their costumes from their own clothes.  I didn't feel ANY stress about running out to go buy this or that detail for someone's costume.  I still have not spent a red cent on Halloween, even though tomorrow is All Hallows Eve.  I will probably have to go get some treats tomorrow from Wally's world.  But I am not going in there thinking, "I have to have the best candy on the block."  Someone else can win that award this year.  I have a feeling this Halloween will be a great memory for my kiddos despite the lack of the perfect costume or handsomely decorated porch.  They will remember the year that they pulled together their own costumes and had a blast doing it.

And mom was not stressed or insane (maybe that could be my costume).  Win-win.

Why do we home school?

This question comes up a lot... it's not a simple answer.
The immediate problem that we had at the time we made the decision to home school was that we were moving for the second time in a year and because we were only renting we knew there would be another move coming.  Continuity was being disrupted once again, and we were not completely sure of when the moving would stop.  The solution that home school offered was continuity.  They didn't have to start over every year.
Another problem we had was class size.  The girls went from being one of 22 to one of 32.  As a former teacher, this bothered me.  It became a real problem when I started noticing some issues with my then first grader's writing.  The teacher was overwhelmed, and could not tell me or even help figure out what my daughter's struggle was.  She wasn't a discipline problem and she was a good faker... so other than myself, nobody seemed to think there was anything wrong.
So these circumstances really pushed me to look at home school as an option.  I had always been attracted to the idea of teaching my own children.  After all, I was a teacher in my before kids life. However, I was afraid of failing my children some way.  When I began researching home schooling, it became apparent that my worries were unfounded.  Everyone worries about being a good enough teacher for their kids...I have an education and a background that should give me the confidence to overcome those fears.  Realizing this freed me up to really look at home school and discover if it would work for our family.
There are a few specific things that we really love about home schooling.  The flexibility in schedule, the opportunity to expand our children's education beyond standards set by the department of education, the teacher to student ratio, and the shared experience our kids have with us and each other are some of the biggest benefits.
The flexibility of the home school schedule is a HUGE benefit.  Our current state (WA) requires 180 days of instruction, just like the public school.  But we can use those 180 days at any time and in any way we want.  So rainy summer days become a school day easily, instead of a wasted day watching TV.  When I was pregnant with our little boy, we planned to take 4 weeks off starting mid-September for his birth (which ended up including a week long stay in the special care nursery).  The girls didn't miss an hour of school for it, we just started early and used some Saturdays.  We are planing a big move across the country in a few weeks.  Again, we will be pushing pause on the school year for a couple of weeks (though you can bet the drive will include some educational stops along the way).
We have also enjoyed going beyond what a public school education would include.  We have added Bible and character education to our curriculum.  Taking the opportunity to deepen their (and mine as well) understanding of our faith.  The girls are also starting Spanish lessons this year, an opportunity they would not have until later in our current school district.
Invaluable is the 1:3 teacher to student ratio of our home school.  Teaching my children has given me an insight into their learning abilities and struggles that I had not been able to see from outside of the classroom.  I understand now what my now 3rd grader's struggle is with reading and writing. I get to help her focus on her strength and the creativity that gets stifled in a large classroom.
The shared experience that all of the girls (1 year old boy is not yet being "schooled") have has brought them closer.  In the last year of public school I noticed that the girls would fight a lot when they came home but during extended breaks they were best friends.  They get along all the time now.  They are each other's best friend.  As a family unit, we just have more time together.  We spend fewer nights struggling through home work, because it's all homework, done during the day.  We go on adventures to explore something we are learning in school.  We look for educational value in everyday activities (something I wish I had done more of when they were in public school).

Home schooling fits our crazy family.  It works for us.

I'm Back!

So much has happened in the FOUR years since I last posted here.  Where do I start?  I haven't been completely blog free.  I blogged about my marathon journey here. Yes, I ran most of a marathon.  Stiff-legged the rest of it.  It was fun though, one of the highlights of my life, for sure. And sadistically, I want to do it again.
I have 2 more kids since the last post. Which brings me up to 4 for those who are counting.  3 girls and 1 sweet little baby boy.  As far as I know, we are done.   So I snuggle all I can with my last little one.
We are living back in Washington again.  This is where we grew up.  Though, it has been interesting to see how it is a little hard to try to fit back in, having lived in our adopted home of Texas for 6 years.
We are homeschooling.  YES!  I guess I am a glutton for punishment.  I like things like marathons and homeschooling to see just how strong I can be.
Other things have shaped and molded me over the last 3 years and beyond that.  Maybe, as I restart this blog, I will be able to get real with you all and share what I have learned about life, love, and poopy diapers. Though "getting real" like, really real, is a bit scary for me these days.  If you really knew everything in my life, my day, my head, would you still want to be my friend?  This is the question at the back of my head all the time.  I know it is Satan's way of telling me I'm not good enough.  I'm not very good at shutting him down though.  Something that I need to remember: I am a daughter of the King, and my Daddy loves me.

What do you need to remind yourself of throughout the day?

A Lesson Learned

Yesterday my daughter came home with her first school pictures. I remember how fun it was as a kid to get those pictures and then share them with parents and grandparents and even great grandparents, friends and aunts and uncles. When you get your little package at school the first thing you do is analyze the picture. Are you smiling? Are your clothes straight? Is your hair just right? Is there a booger hanging out? :-) There is a lot that has to go right!

Well for my little kindergartner, these pictures brought disappointment. At least at first. She bounced into my car yesterday afternoon and the first thing she did was take out these pictures and point to the blaring red eye in her picture. Picture day happened to land smack in the middle of a terrible eye infection. In fact, the infection lasted almost two months and is finally gone due to antibiotics. Her eye, red and shiny from the first medication we attempted, stuck out in the picture and matched the red shirt she had chosen for picture day. She was also disappointed that she didn't smile.

I wish I could say that I reacted perfectly right away. That I immediately made a big deal about how much I loved the picture just because it was her. I was sad for her and wanted to make her feel better and told her that we could see if we could get retakes. The rest of the afternoon, weather it was due to the photo fiasco or not, she was a little monster. She spent the entire afternoon being nasty to her little sister and to me. Well it took me all night (and a reminder from my husband) to figure out that I really needed to focus on helping her realize that what is important is that it is her, not the eye or the smile, in the picture that I love. So this morning I told her that I Love the picture because it reminds me of how strong and brave she has been to go to school even when she wasn't feeling great. Whew! Almost missed that opportunity to build up what is important in her and remind her that It's what is on the inside that counts! Why can't these things come to my mind right away, instead of hours later?

Potty Training, Revisited

One of my very first posts was on potty training. And at the time, I was feeling pretty good about my success with my first born daughter. She was easy. We were really laid back about it, she nearly trained herself and a week after starting, she was accident and diaper free! So my plan with the second daughter was to be the same laid back mom I was with the first. Sometimes being laid back is really difficult!
It was about 2 weeks after she turned 3 that our second oldest started showing interest. And it wasn't long until she had a day without an accident. This joy didn't last too long. She would have several days without an accident, then #2 would come! Then we would have several days where I was wondering if I needed to go get diapers. Anyway, 3 months later, we still can't declare our 3 year old potty trained. She wears panties every day but usually doesn't make it through the day with the same pair. She doesn't seem to be afraid of going #2 in the potty, she's done it a couple of times. But now that she has gone so much in her pants I think she actually thinks you go in your pants then put it in the potty. One day I found her in the bathroom and she said she needed to go poop, when I started to help her with her pants she said "no! I haven't gone yet!" I refuse to put pressure on her but It is hard when I am cleaning poop out of her underwear daily and we usually have one day a week that she runs out of pants and panties thanks to tinkle accidents.
So my next plan of attack is bribery. It worked to get our older daughter off of the thumb sucking, maybe it will work for this one and her potty problem. I've decided to make a chart and when she fills the chart with 7 no accident days in a row, she will get a gift. I think that the only way this will work is if I take her to the store and let her pick it out so she has some idea of the goal.

Well, wish me luck!

Read a Book, It'll Make You More Interesting.

Isn't this mommy-ism right?! Unfortunately being a mom makes it hard to read anything more than a paragraph long. But in a mom's world full of baby talk it's really helpful for our own sanity to curl up with a good book every once in a while. Reading can help us combat the ever present "mommy brain." Mommy brain is a proper title for that mushy brain that we seem to get once we become pregnant. Reading gives us something adult to think about. And maybe even talk about when we encounter other adults. Lets get real though, this is easily said but not so easily done. I think I have a list a mile long of what I want to read. Currently I am reading a book for Bible study (only 2 weeks left). I talked about that book in a post last week. And from time to time I actually get a little devotional time in a book called Women of the Bible (I totally recommend it). I've managed to carve some reading time out of my day thanks to the carpool line but I could also do better to turn off the TV and Computer in the evening to get some more reading time. My next step is to add some reading for pleasure. I love history (pre-kids I was a history teacher) so I think I will try to finally pick up my copy of 1776 that I got last Christmas. Wish me luck!

I'm letting it go...

I'm letting go of my need to have my daughter's clothes match when she walks out the door! I want her to know it is more important who she is than what she wears. It is hard to keep to this, so I am letting it go today!

(click the widget to see what another mommy is trying to let go of today!)

Why don't you take a little time out.

How many times do we say this to our kids?? Maybe we should follow our own advice and take a little time out, especially when things get stressful. A daily time out would be best. For moms, this is a difficult task when it seems like every waking moment is spent in motion. So how about working it into your motion in some way? One thing I have discovered since my daughter started Kindergarten is the joy of carpool. I get 25-30 minutes to read, write, do whatever I want within the confines of my car. The 3 year old in the back seat usually falls asleep in that time, if not, she draws quietly. This gives me a little time out, in motion.

If you've been able to work out a "time out" in your daily schedule, how have you made it work?