The Threads of August

I've been really thinking about the purpose of this blog lately, and feeling vulnerable for putting my life out there for all to see each and every month.  It would be safer for me to keep the fabric of my life private.  As I have mentioned in the past though, I believe this blog was a gift from Luke and that he has given me the push to put my unfinished tapestry up on this blog for all of the world to see.  This leaves me feeling exposed and nervous because I am still a novice and my work isn't done yet.  Most of the time I am rewarded by encouragement, love and a renewed commitment to what I am doing as well as positive accountability that keeps my writing regular.  Lately though, I have felt repeatedly judged and attacked, hit by ammunition taken from the very details I have shared on this blog. 

I will not let the critics of the world ruin the design of my tapestry or alter my vision for it.  As lonely and as painful as the stitching may feel at times, I will keep weaving this tapestry with the thread that began with Luke.  Although the pictures and stories tend to show the front of the fabric, I hope that I am providing enough behind the scenes glimpses of the back of the fabric that you know the real me, and that myself and Will and my kids can look back one day and read the step by step story of how our family's tapestry came to be.  It's such a fine balance between a realistic, truthful portrayal and trying not to hurt anyone's feelings while respecting the privacy of my husband and kids too.  There are some thoughts and feelings that I leave unwritten, that are a tangled mess underneath the fabric.  Sometimes I figure out how to resolve the issue and smooth the stitches and can write about it here in a nice, tidy, happy-ending type story.  Other times the colors our family chooses to sew in, or the placement of my stitches make no sense to the people around us.  I may like purple (a lot) and you may like green, but both colors add to a beautiful world and each have their place in the rainbow.  I may not make it clear that I was up all night, stressing about what step to take next or how to tackle a stitch I have never done before but I want you to know that I have no more experience at this tapestry of life than the next person and am simply doing the best I can and would appreciate your unconditional love and support and an openness to see that although I may stitch differently than you, I think that your stitches are beautiful too.

I am starting to become more bold with my pattern choices and less patient with the critics.  If a thread keeps breaking, or tangling over and over again I am going to try my best to work with the materials I have but at some point I will have to decide if that particular material is no longer meant to be in the tapestry of my family.  I am now juggling multiple threads and I feel like once my glittery and fine thread named Violet was introduced that I lost the ability to balance some of the threads that were continually making my fingers raw.  But here's the good news.  I am at the point in my weaving now that I am okay with letting some threads go so that I can focus on what will make this tapestry my masterpiece - Will, Lucy, Emma and Violet.  If you have a problem with how I sew but aren't putting any effort into your own sewing, then your opinion is not worth my time.  I've realized that the people in my life that are busy putting their best into the tapestry of their life have no time or agenda to judge my handiwork but can instead come along side me and offer encouragement and support on this project called life that we are all in.

So with love, light and courage, here is my family's August summed up in pictures and stories.

My sister Jane was in town for a couple of weeks before her big move to the east coast.  I am still in denial that she is now a full 12 hours away, but it is slowly sinking in.  We had a memorable trip to IKEA with her, to help her pick out the most stylish and comfy furniture and home accessories for her new place.

My sister and I did not get along when we were growing up, and the relationship I have with her now is my light at the end of the tunnel with my own daughters and their incessant fighting.  Here they are below taking good care of each other, which is why I took a picture, because I wanted to remember it.

I've heard that sisters fighting is completely normal but it just wears me down and leaves me feeling angry.  I tell the girls repeatedly to imagine someone smacking or being mean to the person you love most in the world.  It's a frustrating feeling.  Now imagine that the people you love most in the world are being mean to each other.  It's like a double whammy and it pushes me over the brink of insanity when my beloved babies are mean to each other.

We spend a lot of time together, and I think that is part of the reason that tempers flare and patience is short.  Our house is not big by most definitions and so space is limited and I feel like we are drowning in stuff.  Violet is always getting into the older girls toys which of course have numerous tiny pieces which end up all over the house.  Lucy and Emma both are creative with their play, and so regular household items like staples, tape rolls, potato chip clips and empty tissue boxes are regularly found stuffed in corners and under furniture.  There is nothing like stepping on a Lego that your sister left laying around to put you in a bad mood.  But here's the thing - I wouldn't trade my kids, my house, or my life for the world.  No one said it was going to be easy, and just because it is hard doesn't mean I am doing it wrong.  Sometimes life is just hard.  I am hoping the investments I am making now will pay off when they are older and that all of the fighting will just be funny stories to us, reminisced over Christmas dinner.  In the meantime, I am not going to let life being hard stop me from moving toward the dream of a close knit family who enjoys being together.

Some of the things we are trying to learn as a family is what to do when we are in a bad mood.  I say, when life gets tough, go outside and pick flowers.  It is impossible to stay in a bad mood when picking flowers!  Especially if you then give the bouquet as a peace offering to your mom.  In the below right hand picture, I am getting ready to throw some left over seed bombs which is also a great way to dispel frustration while also helping the environment!

Petting our loving cat Charlie always puts us in a good mood too.  There is something about his purring that just radiates peace and calm and love into us that I think Charlie may hold the key to world peace.  How can you stay mad with a friendly fur ball looking adoringly into your eyes?  Charlie continues to scare us though, as this past month we took our car into the dealership for some recall parts and when we went back to pick it up the mechanics gave us a kitten collar that they found in the engine.  Thank God it was a break away collar, as I shudder to think what may have happened to our Charlie.  In the top left picture, Charlie enjoyed spending time on both floors of a doll house our neighbor garbage picked for the girls.  Charlie even got a kick out of using the doll house door to come and go.

Observing nature also helps to improve our spirits.  In the top right hand picture the girls released a monarch butterfly on our cousin in heaven's birthday.  If you look super close at the bottom left hand picture you might be able to see a tadpole just above a frog.  The frog just days before looked like the tadpole above him.  It has been amazing to watch the transformations between caterpillar and butterfly and tadpole and frog.

Playing in the sprinkler or even just with the hose is a good way to blow of steam too, and in the bottom left hand picture you can see us chucking seed bombs into the field across the street from our house.  In the bottom right hand picture is a glimpse of what Will loads into our trailer on a regular basis - cat food, chicken feed and free wood chips from the city.  The free part puts Will in a good mood.

 Playing with friends and cousins is a guarantee for a better day...

…and doing crafts together is even better!

We got on a stepping stone kick this summer and had to laugh when Will read the directions on how to mix the concrete.  "Stir the concrete until it reaches brownie batter consistency" the instructions stated.  Will pointed out that as he is super manly, he stirs concrete until it reaches concrete consistency.  Clearly, the instructions were meant for a different target audience.  We used Will's concrete talent for many stones to decorate our garden with and even made my mom a stepping stone for her birthday that I wanted to keep for myself.

Harvesting food from my yard puts me in an amazingly good mood.  Especially when the harvest is my favorite food in the entire world - fresh, ripe peaches.  Peaches are such a finicky fruit, and I am very picky about what constitutes a delicious peach.  The peaches from my front yard were the best peaches I have ever eaten.

So far the peach tree seems to only give us peaches every other year.  I don't know if it's the rarity effect, or if they were that good, but I savored them and even ate them in secret so I wouldn't have to share.  This backfired on me though, as one evening I went to eat a peach after the girls were in bed and realized that the remaining third of my harvest had rotted in the bowl.  This was devastating for me and I learned to never stack peaches.  I also learned sharing is good too.

We harvested tomatoes, pears (two from our tree a bushel from a wild pear tree across the street), peppers and blueberries.  I made more Popsicles, enjoyed my cousin's shagbark hickory syrup on waffles, and made my own crescent dough for a chicken, cheddar and broccoli combo that was heavenly.  I also processed the wild pears into pear sauce, which was super time consuming and I wonder every year if it is worth my time.  The kids love the pear sauce though, and it is like the dessert version of apple sauce.

Despite my excessive dessert making, my kids had a clean bill of health at the dentist this past month too.  I always hold my breath, as if cavities are a reflection on whether or not I am a good parent, even though my rational side knows that this isn't a logical thought process.

 We finished the Outdoor Explorer program that we started with our friends in July...

 …and hit the zoo one more time with Will before he headed back to work for the school year.

We also enjoyed lots of playtime outside including performances put on by the girls with the empty garage as their stage, play doh and science experiments on the picnic table for easy clean up and forts inside when the weather got too hot.

Will cleaned out a section of the basement for me and installed recessed lighting and shelves so that I could have my own honey room.  I am really excited to have a permanent location for my side business and I had fun getting all of my supplies organized, labeled and together in one place.  I have had a horrible year with my bees and will probably get very little honey.  Will accidentally dropped two frames of honeycomb when we were working in the bees this past month and as bad as we felt for damaging the bees hard work, the silver lining was we were able to harvest some honey that we otherwise wouldn't have in good conscience been able to take.  Sorry not sorry.  In the bottom right hand picture Lucy is enjoying a taste of honeycomb and in the bottom left hand picture Will is prepping an order of math posters.  We had a great season for math posters, so our side businesses weren't a complete loss this year.

After much thought and discussion, Will and I have decided to home school Lucy for first grade.  It never occurred to me that this was a decision that other people would feel strongly about.  Will and I feel very strongly about education, and obviously Will's career IS education.  Our view of education is that it is something that is a life long process, and is exciting and integrated into the daily routine of our life.  Homeschooling Lucy for preschool and then kindergarten showed us that it is just an extension of how we already live our life.  We never set out to home school our kids, but feel as though we have been lead to this decision through many baby steps that we believe God directed us through.  We are happy with our decision, despite the opinions of others and the fact that it does not make my life any easier in a lot of ways.  Because of this, it does feel lonely a lot of the time, but again, just because it is uncomfortable and challenging does not mean that we will be detracted from our decision.

After Will went back to work the second week of August, the girls and I started back to school and had a very successful review of last year's lessons.  We viewed the three weeks before public schools headed back to class as a trial period to determine if we were confident in our decision.  Fortunately for us, we are blessed with the ability to have multiple school choices, and if homeschooling turns out to be something that we no longer feel fits our life's goals, we have an excellent school system just a couple of houses down the street from us.  Here the girls are below opening up their curriculum for the new year.  It was like Christmas morning at our house as the girls went through their new books for First Grade and Pre-K.

Violet is our wild card, and that coupled with Lucy and Emma's fighting presents the biggest challenge to pulling off our homeschooling goal.  Usually our routine is that Lucy and Emma do their school work directly after breakfast is cleaned up while Violet systematically destroys the entire first floor of the house.  Here she is below after I found her sucking on a blue and then a yellow bingo dauber.

Perhaps there is just not enough known about homeschooling and that is why it is practically drowning in stereotypes, fear and opinions.  I will be happy to answer any questions people may have about it, as long as they are asked with an open mind and no hidden agenda.  I feel nervous about this post, but it is something that has been on my mind for several months now and situations keep happening that have given me the fuel to post this, and find the courage within me to even continue this blog in the public arena.

This blog has become a steady presence in the fabric of my life.  Writing monthly blog posts is therapeutic for me, and the routine review of my life helps keep me on track with goals and reminds me of how far I've come, overcoming obstacles and realizing dreams.  For now I will trust that the intricate patterns I am figuring out now will become beautifully established in the future, and that the tension of my thread is balanced, my needle is straight and my vision is clear.  If you have loyally followed the weaving of my family's life, free of an agenda but instead with love and support, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I assure you that you have greatly contributed to a one of a kind piece of art.

Our Wild Card at 16 Months

Violet is establishing herself as the comedian of the family.  Her vocabulary has grown so much this past month, and she is definitely using it in her comedy.  The other day Lucy and I were locking horns as we were trying to get everyone in the car to get someplace on time.  As I was buckling Violet into her car seat, I leaned over her and put my face right next to Lucy's and asked, "Who's the boss?"  Silence and a cold stare back from Lucy followed my stern question, so I asked again, "Who's the boss?"  Silence and more icy stares from Lucy until Violet piped up and yelled with glee, "MAMA!!!"  We all burst out laughing and it's safe to say that Violet saved the day.

A couple of days ago, Will came home from work and settled onto the couch to catch up with the girls.  He put his feet up on the ottoman and Violet waddled over and for some reason sniffed his feet which were resting right at her nose level.  As soon as she took a whiff, she recoiled in shock yelling "EWWWWW!"  We laughed so hard that now every time she feels the need to insert some humor she will stick her feet in our face while saying "Ewww" or she will sniff our feet while showing huge disgust.

For better or worse, we can't help but describe Violet as our Wild Card.  Will and I find ourselves telling a story of something we thought we could do and then our surprise as to how Violet foiled our plan.  Things that we assume are simple tasks are often far more complicated with Violet in tow.  A simple trip to the library?  Sounds fun, let's go!  The reality - leaving the children's section with a screaming Violet and apologies left and right to the little boy she yanked a toy from, the books all off of the shelves, and the general volume of noise that surrounds her with me dictating to Lucy and Emma on how to best clean up her wake of destruction while I remove her from the situation.  Or how about the other day, how Lucy, Emma and I thought a trip to the craft store would be a fun diversion in our free time.  Wrong again!  I bought each of the girls a ball of yarn as the exciting first step in teaching them how to knit.  Then we got sidetracked in the scrapbook paper aisle, looking for cute paper to mod podge on top of old baby food jar lids.  The next thing I know I look down and Violet is a tangled mess of yarn in the shopping cart.  I try taking the yarn from her and she starts screaming at the top of her lungs a new word, "MINE!!"  I decide that it's time to go and as I try pushing the cart with my screaming child in it to the check out line, the cart stops dead in it's tracks and I realize there is a trail of yarn wrapping around and down the aisle we just came through.  After Lucy and Emma tracked down the trail of yarn and came back with the end of it we high tailed it to the check out line and of course there was a long line.  No one made eye contact with us as Violet continued yelling "MINE!!" and Lucy, Emma and I tried untangling the mess she had made so that we could pay for the disaster.  When it was our turn, the cashier laughed out loud at the mess and offered me a pair of scissors.  Clouded by my own frugal judgement of wasting the yarn I declined the scissors, and instead said yes to whatever knick knack impulse buy Lucy and Emma asked me for in the check out line.

We got out to the parking lot, found our car and as I tried getting Violet out of the cart I realized that she had knotted herself to the seat.  I wanted to kick myself for not accepting the scissors when they were offered because now I was left with two options - going back into the store with the still screaming Violet to make a fresh new scene with what was left of my dignity or to detangle her myself in the privacy of the oh so public parking lot.  What felt like ten minutes later, with Violet screaming "MINE!!" for all to hear still, I finally got her free and strapped her into her car seat.  My stubborn and cheap self still didn't know when to call it quits though, so I spent another ten minutes detangling the yarn.  In retrospect, I should have just left the cart and gotten in the car and never looked back as the stares and the sweat and the screams were just not worth it.  Hindsight is twenty twenty.  It's a good thing this kid is so cute.

At Violet's well visit this past month the doctor asked how many words Violet knew.  I realized just how much she knows when Lucy, Emma and I started listing them off: hot dog, pop for Popsicle, box for juice box, stuck, up, wow, ow, mine, hi, bye bye, nack for snack, slide, nigh nigh for night night, wawa for water, boat, duck, socks and rocks!

Violet can also point to all of her body parts when you ask her - belly, toes, feet, legs, nose, eyes, ears, hair, etc.

She is our feisty, funny girl and knows exactly what she wants and doesn't back down for a second.  Here she is below staring down one of our chickens.  "Bawk bawk" is what she says when she talks about chickens.

She has gotten really confident on her feet and can even run now.  I no longer feel like I need to be her second shadow to keep her from scraping her baby skin on the driveway.  I am amazed to say that I even feel comfortable with her on the slide all by herself too.  I mean, she's already figured out how to go down face first, which is far more exciting than feet first.

This kid defies all expectations.  She is a full time job and I love her so much.  She is our Wild Card, and is whoever she wants to be, that is for sure.  I can't help but feel amazed and proud at this child that has been entrusted to us.  Violet, you keep life interesting and are exactly what our family needed!