Prescription: One grassy hill

I learned another lesson at the hands of my three-year-old today -- nothing cures what ails ya like rolling down a nice green grassy hill!

We've been making our park runs to the bigger, longer-to-walk-to "Easter Park" this week (so named by Cate because last Easter, she met the Easter bunny there at the annual Easter Egg hunt! Makes perfect sense, right?!) There is a neighborhood amphitheater near the park and all this beautiful green grass with perfect rolling-hills all around. Cate has been rolling all week. And I have been cheering her on...assuring her that Mommy was good just watching. But today, that didn't cut it with my persistent little girl. She insisted.

So, I took off my shoes. Lay down on the grass beside her. Tucked my arms (the key to a good roll!) and roll we did!

Can I just tell you that you can not be bogged down in any of life's problems when you are rolling over and over and over again down a big grassy hill? (Or for several dizzy, world-spinning moments after.)

Ah, the blessings of a good hill. Go roll, ya'll. Really.

Sunday School Lessons

Post-Sunday School mornings have always been one of my favorite times with my kids. Benjamin, Mason and Claire are always eager to share -- and eager to be the FIRST one heard, understandably since what they share is the same for all three (we tried sprinkling "forgetting dust" on Mommy for several years when they were younger so that each could be the FIRST to tell me things...but alas, they have apparently outgrown the powers of the dust!). They are full of wonderful details, and are so great to totally get a life-application out of the lesson! I love hearing them share!

Cate learns so much from her "big kids and big girl" (we have NO idea why she doesn't include Claire in the "big kids" category...but she doesn't, she gives her a category all her own.). And she talks about Jesus and his living in her heart a lot for one just barely three, which is no doubt the influence of these great siblings. Since her Sunday School time is currently the only time she is away from me, I am always eager to hear what she did, learned, sang, etc. But alas, this little one has a mind of her own, and regardless of what she has learned from her big three, she doesn't expound quite the same way. I can't remember if they said more at 3 or not...I'm 40, remember. But she does tickle me with her recounts...yesterday, as I picked her up, her teacher Miss Elizabeth (whom Cate adores!) handed me the cutest little boat made from a paper sail, a Popsicle stick and a sponge. Adorable, trust me. I couldn't wait to hear how the lesson went. This is what I got:

Me: "Cate, what did you learn about today?"

Cate: "A bunch of rain."

Me: "Oh, and why did you make the boat."

Cate (with a grunt and sigh, no kidding): "Because they told me to."

Hmm...I was speculating on whether they had studied Noah when I realized I had the "note to parents" sheet in my hand...turns out these kiddos studied Matthew 8 yesterday and how Jesus calmed the raging storm with just a few words. See, Cate picked up way more than I thought -- she was demonstrating!

Ah, the blessings of intuitive children!

Never too early to learn...

This sweet girl of mine has a new favorite pastime...she loves the dollhouse she got for her birthday in November! She added some rooms with her Christmas bounty but we have been so busy navigating the home schooling waters that Mommy had not made time to sit down and play with her and her beloved house lately. Until yesterday.

We had some time with just us -- Cate and Mommy -- and she wanted to play with her dollhouse. I was more than happy to oblige. We set all the rooms up (they get a bit tornado-passed-through-looking when you fold it into its storage position)...and as we did, I made some astounding discoveries about the "new" rooms she has added.

I mean, my girl KNOWS that no home is complete without a laundry room...really, what would be Mommy's purpose in life without a washing machine? And so her dollhouse is not without one...it even has a little tiny laundry basket for goodness sake! Isn't that the cutest thing? (Right up until it gets filled with the little tiny dollhouse people's clothes, that is!)

But the item that brought tears to my eyes...the bathroom included not only a toilet (I mean, we did HAVE to have one of those) but the toilet comes complete with a...are you ready for this? A toilet cleaning brush. Seriously.

Cate has some very specific ideals about the roles all the family members should play. I tried to make Daddy go outside to grill, but because in our house, Mommy does the grilling so that Daddy's time off is just spent being with us...she would not let the Daddy in her doll family grill. The Mommy had to.

So, I'm thinking this weekend maybe her real Daddy should use the toilet-cleaning brush...so that the dollhouse Daddy will know how! Now THAT would be a blessing indeed!!

More than words...

Wednesday, the kids and I took our first Home school Field Trip. A museum exhibit on the History of the Bible is currently visiting our church and we took the morning to visit. Wow. My camera was allowed, but my flash was not. I still snapped away. I wanted to capture as much as possible because I knew my trio -- and their mommy -- would want to see things a second time after we had absorbed as much as possible!

The exhibit had actual fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as many of the early translations of the Bible. Did you know that the monks who did the early scribing of the Bible had to start over if they committed even one error? Even if the error occurred at the very last word of the page? The kids and I recognized the blessing of technology -- of computers that allow us to make any number of mistakes and correct them with a brush of keystrokes.

Below is an actual fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The exhibit had several -- this particular one contains Deuteronomy 8:3:

"Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."

Isn't that amazing?!

Below is one of the first Bibles translated into English. Did you know that William Tyndale broke the laws of England to translate the Bible into his native tongue? And as a result, he was convicted of heresy, killed for his actions and his body burned in 1536. He is considered the Father of the Modern English Bible.

The exhibit was moving and so very informative...the kids and I learned so much about the journey the Word of God has taken in order for us to study and read it at our leisure. But did you know that there are still 2,251 languages with no Bible translations? That is 193 MILLION people that do not have a Bible for the language they speak. 193 Million. Unbelievable.

And then there were the quotes at the end of the exhibit from America's founding fathers -- quotes like the one above by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams. There were quotes from George Washington and James Madison and even Noah Webster. All quotes about the importance of the Bible in governing this great country of ours, in raising and educating our children, and in living life in general.

Oh Father God, thank you for those who worked tirelessly, risking life and limb to give us YOUR word and the freedom to study it for ourselves. May you help us individually and as a country to come back to a place where your word is the measuring stick for all our decisions.

Amen.

Progress Report...

Day three of homeschooling...I still have hair. I still have four beautiful kids (who also still have hair). And the house is still intact (dirty, mind you, but intact.). Homeschooling is going great!

Ok, the routine is still coming together and I am more tired than I have possibly been since they were infants and needed to be fed round-the-clock, but all in all, we are having a good time and I, at least, am learning a ton. Hopefully, the three sixth graders and one little preschooler are as well!

The best part though is that we are so much more relaxed. Time is on OUR side for a change, not battling us. And the difference is amazing. We have laughed more in the last three days then we possibly did all last semester. So, I'll take the exhaustion. Thank you very much!

The funniest moment so far...I just have to share. But first, let me assure you that I am attempting to give them a balanced education. Really. Even though those who know me, probably recognize my propensity to focus on reading and writing...we ARE doing Math and Science. Truly. But I also get to do things I like to do...so each morning over breakfast, I give them a newspaper article (yes, I may be archaic, but as a former newspaper reporter, I still VALUE getting ink print on my hands while I get my news.), a well-screened newspaper article that they are to read and then share when we gather for school later in the morning.

Yesterday, Claire's article was a feature piece on a couple living with the effects of Alzheimer's. I only scanned this one because it was so apparently appropriate for her to read. So we sit down for our "Current Events" time and she begins to share about the man who is so affected by this terrible disease that he is barely able to focus his eyes EXCEPT when his sweet wife comes to visit. Claire explains that when she is there he is alert, makes eye-contact with people and even sings, and I quote, "Star Wars' songs."

Well, Benjamin's hand shot up when it was time to ask questions. As you may know, my boys (and I mean the two little and the one big) LOVE Star Wars. Love it. So, he immediately wanted to know which Star Wars' songs this gentleman is singing.

Claire didn't miss a beat. She looked at him and said, "Oh, the Battle Hymn of the Republic."

No kidding.

Needless to say, her first assignment for the day was looking up the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" on the Internet.

God bless her...she just knew anything with Republic in it had to be affiliated with Star Wars. Thank you, Daddy.

But after a good laugh. And I mean a good long laugh. The five of us -- Cate possibly the loudest -- have just finished a rousing "Glory, glory, Hallelujah" at the tops of our lungs. She won't make that mistake again!

Oh, there are blessings in this, ya'll. Blessings in deed. Glory, glory.

Needing a break from all the spin...

Sometimes life starts spinning at full tilt, like our favorite Teacup ride at Disneyland but without the kind-hearted operator who knows exactly when to hit the stop button before we all get sick. Our Fall was pretty much just that.

So much was coming at us -- some things just plain silly. Some downright aggravating. Some anxiety-provoking. And then some completely NOT unexpected and yet blind-siding at the same time.

My Benjamin has Cerebral Palsy. He uses a super cool Power Wheelchair to ambulate...and he can zoom to and fro much much faster than I can ambulate anywhere. He has: A heart of gold. A personality that makes friends easier than anybody in the family. A brain that remembers the itsy-bitsy minutiae that the rest of us never even notice (Like being able to recite our van's license plate yesterday when I had to call our insurance agent to report the dings made by a sweet lady at church who backed into us on the way out of the parking lot...ah, but that is another tale, entirely.) A love for his Mommy that is completely undeserved but oh-so-appreciated.

And a pair of hips that are precariously close to dislocating and causing him all manner of pain. He needs surgery. A big hip surgery. Soon.

I've known since he was little that this was a possibility. By six, that it was a probability. And yet, when Dr. Daddy reviewed the x-rays (he's useful for so many reasons...reading x-rays prior to our "official" doctor arriving is one of them!) and looked at me, I still felt the breath whoosh out of my lungs as if I had been punched.

Hip surgery. My 11-year-old. Casting to follow. Possibly for weeks and weeks.

And then there is this: Wade is the specialist in our area that does this surgery. Daddy.

So now, we have to find a surgeon among Wade's colleagues. Probably out of state. And decide when to schedule this surgery (possibly two surgeries depending on the surgeon's opinion.).

All of a sudden, the spinning was too much. I can't stop it. I can't even get off (nor would I...the teacups are my favorite for a reason I guess.). But I needed to make a change. To grasp at control of some aspect of all the crazy swirling around us.

And so as of today: The Shrader trio (and their very eager 3-year-old sister) are being home schooled by this Mommy who desperately needed to control something in our lives -- at least their days, their calendar, and our ability to remove the school calendar from the equation when planning this surgery.

Today was delightful. I loved it. Not sure if it was just having these kiddos with me -- I was the worst of basket-cases when they started kindergarten -- or watching them absorb the knowledge I was putting out there, or their eager faces as we studied Russian Poetry and the life of the Russian poet, something completely new. Or maybe, and I'm not afraid to admit it, it was just nice to be finished with "school" in time for Band (they are still doing that daily) at noon and have the rest of the afternoon to our self. (Read: NO HOMEWORK.)

Whatever. Today was a blessing. And in the midst of a season of uncertainty, of this I am certain: God has opened a door for me to enjoy this little bit and I plan on doing just that. (I may need to whine now and again...please don't think I won't...you'll let me, right?)

But regardless, my friends, no matter the speed of the spin, God is always on His throne and He knows exactly when to hit the stop button.