Excitement

Well, not exactly the kind of excitement one wants.  As we were cooking dinner tonight (we as in my niece and I, Eric is out of town), Josiah started crying.  Since he does a fair amount of that normally, I ignored it at first.  When he didn't stop, I asked Abigail to see what was going on.  She looks over at him (yes, he whines and cries enough that we literally ignore him if he's in the same room) and says, "he's bleeding all over the place!".  WHAT?  I was cutting up a hot pepper, so I started washing my hands and yelling at her to get him into the bathroom.  Oh, she had told me his foot was cut.  I'm yelling, she's yelling back, I'm washing my hands, he's screaming and crying ...  See, excitement!  My niece came in and carried him into the bathroom, Abigail is wiping up blood behind them.  He has blood all over both feet.  We put pressure on the cut on his heel and wait.  I check it.  About an inch long cut and it won't stop bleeding.  I realize it's about 5, the urgent care clinic near the house closes at 6.  Hmmm.  Do you take him in now, not knowing if he needs stitches or do you wait and end up taking him to the ER?  Obvious choice.  I put him in the car, thank GOD my niece is with us and head over to the wonderful urgent care 5 minutes from our house.  (Where, incidentally, they know us by name.  Funny how that works.)  They quickly determine he does not need stitches, clean him up, bandage him and we're back home in 30 minutes.  I love these people!

As I was driving to the urgent care, I figured I should call Eric and give him a heads up.  Who knows what story he would get if he just calls the house and the kids tell him.  He answers his phone, "HEY!  You won't believe who I ran into at the gym!"  Me, "I don't know."  I named a friend of ours who lives in the Wright-Patterson area.  Eric, "No, you'll never guess."  Me, "Who?"  Eric, "Tim!"  Me, "So, I guess you guys are going to go out to dinner, have a beer ..."  Eric, "YES!"  Me, "Well, that's nice.  Have fun.  I'm on my way to see if Josiah needs stitches in his foot."  Obviously that changed Eric's excitement a bit.  :-) 

I love being with my kids.  I love that God chose this life for me.  But sometimes, sometimes life seems a tad unfair.  Don't you think?  :-)

The Start of School

I've been a tad absent from the blog.  We spent two weeks out of town visiting my family and going to Albuquerque with Eric for his work.  It was a great trip and I'm so glad we went!  My parents are wonderful.  If only they didn't live in Texas, we would move in next door.  Too bad for the whole Texas thing.  :-)

We came back and I attempted to hit the ground running.  We returned on a Thursday and my plan was to start school the following Wednesday.  That didn't exactly happen, unless you count getting school supplies and telling the kids what we were doing for school as school.  :-)  We did start the next Monday though, so only a few days behind my plan!  This is day 4 of school this year and it's going, hmmm, just ok.

One big change right now is that I have my 18 year old niece living with us for a couple of months.  I begged, pleaded, bribed and cajoled her, told her I was dying and needed help.  Actually, I asked her a few months ago, as she finished high school with her associate's degree and she didn't feel like she had a "plan".  She agreed and despite life looking better for her, she still arrived.  Now, she did only commit to staying for 6-8 weeks.  My goal for the time I have extra help is to get the school and chore routine down so that when she leaves we are a little bit more on auto-pilot.

I'm still feeling incredibly burnt out, so the whole thought of starting school this year has been met with very little enthusiasm on my part.  Thoughts like "how bad is it for my kids to be uneducated" and "whomever came up with the idea to homeschool is an absolute idiot" have crossed my mind.  Don't misunderstand me.  I love having my kids home with me.  I even love the idea of homeschooling.  When I can teach my older kids without the younger ones interfering, homeschooling is wonderful.  But there is the problem.  How in the world am I supposed to focus my attention on teaching a 1st grader, 4th grader and 7th grader with a toddler and a preschooler running around?  Neither of them know how to be quiet and the 4 year old is a difficult child every single day.

This week has been just all right.  The schedule needs to be tweaked considerably.  I just need to figure out what to do with the little ones, how to arrange the subjects so that we can get it all done.

Oh, a couple of hilarious quotes.  The first one came from a discussion I had with Eric.  We were talking about the school year.  I told him I wasn't super concerned about the academics, but I was concerned about not yelling at the kids.  To me that is a failure.  I laughed and said, "so how do I execute the plan without executing my children?"  :-)  At church a couple days later, some friends and I were discussing homeschooling.  One of them said, "even Jesus said, 'how long do I have to be with this wicked and perverse generation?' "  Ha ha ha - can you picture yelling that at your kids?

** I meant to add this.  One of the good things about homeschooling this year is that I am fully aware of my inability to do this in my own strength.  Knowing that I am going to have to spend every second relying on Christ's strength is a good thing.