Time for more baby pictures

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and I am (or really, should be) elbow-deep in dough for 9 dozen rolls. So, I'm taking the blogging version of the easy way out...pictures.

B. with his babies. L. on left and G. on right.

L. on left and G. on right. They were in matching dresses until L. had a diaper incident.

These are my newest creation for the girls. I am working on a second pair which I could finish if the growth spurt the girls are in would ever end. They will have a different cupcake design on them. I'm just a little proud of them since they are the first thing I've ever sewn for which I made the pattern. They're even lined with flannel on the inside so they are soft against little legs.

Parenting adolescents

A few days ago a woman on a Yahoo group I belong to wrote asking for advice about her teenage daughter's attitude toward her younger siblings. After I responded with my thoughts, several people wrote and thanked me for my ideas. Since they seemed to be helpful, I thought I would share them here.


Hi XXXXX,

I'm not sure I can help you with your current situation with you oldest daughter, but I will share how my husband and I train our children who are in their teen(daughter 16, son 14, and daughter 11). First, I just have to say that we don't ever use the term 'teenager' when referring to our children. We feel that teenager has such negative connotations and even just using the term gives a tacit 'pass' to obnoxious behavior. Along the lines of, 'Oh, those teenagers! What can you do?' We give our children a choice of being a young adult, which means that they behave in a mature way, are helpful, and consequently have privileges that the younger children do not have; or of being a child. If they are behaving like a child then they also lose the privileges that a young adult would have. We have discussed this with all of them and they understand the difference.

We also focus on tone and attitude...a lot. It is so easy for this age to fall into habits of being sullen, or snide, or condescending to others around them. I call each of them on poor tone every single time I hear it. We also do not allow them to roll eyes, stomp off in a huff, or to pout in one's room. If one of them says something mean to another I point out why what they said was interpreted as being mean (or sassy or whatever tone I hear) and ask them to rephrase what they said. If it was something mean to a sibling, they must say three nice things about that person. I will sometimes ask the (now) child to do something nice for the injured party or for them to take over the injured party's chores for the day. My goal is to make that kind of behavior completely unworthwhile for the older child. It is going to cost them in a major way. The key here is that we do this every single time, and for all relationships. If a child stomps away from me, I have them practice walking away calmly. Sometimes we do this multiple times. All the children know what the consequences will be for this type of behavior. If they don't comply with the consequence immediately then we practice the correct behavior more times and I often have chores (often involving physical labor) that can be given the recalcitrant child as well. I also (try) to never react myself over this behavior, but keep it very matter-of-fact. If you do this, then this happens. Every single time. I believe that young adults can be in control of what they say and they know what they can get away with.

If I have a child who is needing correction more than usual, I need to ask myself why this is happening. Have I spent enough (positive) time with them? Are they worried about something else and poor behavior is they only way they know to deal with it? Sometimes a string of bad behavior is not about the presenting problem, but only a symptom of something else going on. I really think detective should be added to the list of parenting duties. And if I'm completely truthful, sometimes bad behavior on my children's part is mirroring my own poor attitude. Nothing like seeing my children mimicking my own bad behavior/attitudes to pull me up short. Ugh.

I tend to be slow to offer advice about raising adolescents since my oldest is only 16 and I have yet to raise a child to functioning adult. But, I thought I would share about how we deal with the attitude issue. It has worked for us pretty well and I don't have to deal with these issues very often. I hope you can work through this with your daughter so you can begin to enjoy her again.

What? Thursday already?

Dropping off shoe boxes to the Operation Christmas Child drop-off site. Check.

Buying needed supplies to create Christmas gifts. Check.

Working out rides and logistics for A.'s tech rehearsals and shows this week. (A. is in pictures #2 and #9, counting from the top.) Check.

Being interviewed about homeschooling. Check.

Appearing as the homeschooling representative on a panel about educational options. Check.

Having anything substantial to say on my blog. Um, not so much.

So instead, I'll share the blog that is my newest obsession: Sew, Mama, Sew. It is complete escapism on my part. There is something so enjoyable about seeing what other people have created and to be given the instructions for if I wanted to make it myself. I find the possibilities totally addicting.

And lastly, because nursing half of my waking hours isn't enough, I find myself reading about it as well. If you haven't read about nursing in Mongolia, you really need to.

'Tis the season

As much as I would like to only think about Christmas during the month of December, I just can't get it all done if I wait. Ideally, I have all the gifts taken care of before Thanksgiving, because then I can enjoy the season without being focused on things. But, since money is a little tighter this year, I don't feel as though I can just push a few computer keys and have all my gifts delivered to my door. And that combined with my inability to do significant garage sale/rummage sale shopping this past summer, my stores are pretty low. All this to say, I'm planning on making a significant portion of the gifts we give this year, and really, I should have started planning and making a few months ago. I hope the babies continue to go to sleep nicely because I foresee a lot of late nights.


I'm actually kind of excited about it as I love to make things and because it makes the gifts a bit more special. Plus, we don't really need more stuff. I spend far too much time fixing, putting away, and then giving away stuff. We've talked with the children and explained there won't be as much under the tree, but emphasized we would still do all the things we usually do that make Christmas special. They all seem OK with it. They're probably more OK with it than I am since I love to give them gifts.


We've also changed one other family tradition this year. In the past, I have helped each child make a gift for each sibling. It started out manageable enough. Four children meant that each child made three gifts. I would get kits or some project for them to do and part of the specialness was the new craft plus time alone spent with Mom. As the number of children grew, this process became incredibly unwieldy. I was really scrambling last year to come up with ideas for each child to make and the time to work on them. Something had to change. So this year we have drawn names. One child will make a gift for one other person. Since we aren't including the babies this year, that's 7 gifts. Actually it's 5 gifts that I have to help with because M. and B. are quite capable of tackling that project on their own. The children all decided that they wanted to keep the names a secret so as to add to the surprise. They are quite happy with the new plan. They like the idea of being able to take a little more time and do something a bit more elaborate for their chosen brother or sister. We drew names a couple of nights ago since they all wanted to start planning right away.


And because no post is complete without baby pictures:

A blurry G. because she was being very wiggly...but she's smiling.

G. on left and L. on right. Once again, G. is the moving blurry one. Many people think they look identical, but we have started seeing a lot more differences between them. We've even let G.'s red toe nail polish wear off.

Preparing for the Enlightenment

Our history co-op is finally getting going for the year, though a bit later than usual. We cover the eras of history in chronological order, so the Enlightenment is our present focus. Since we have so many children between the five families involved (27 children) and the age range is so vast (17 years down to the babies), we split the group into two, with the olders doing more in depth study with more rigorous reading and writing and the youngers doing more story-based, hands-on learning. The picture is of M. and B. working on preparing the assignment that they need to have done for the first class tomorrow...they had to look up ~67 key people from the period, listing dates and major works (if any), then they had to create a timeline for those people. The timeline has ended up being about 12 1/2 feet. Each student will then give a presentation to the group on two of the people as well as a two presentations on key events. We also do a literature component which involves reading major works from the period. This year it will be Pilgrim's Progress, Gulliver's Travels, and Robinson Crusoe.

Here are the baby girls being entertained by the timeline work:

L. (with her soft dolly)

G. (who refused to smile no matter what I did)


And since we're talking about school-type stuff, here is the creation that K. made yesterday while playing with the Cuisinaire Rods. It's a person and an oven, of course.

Crochet confessions

My obsession with sewing for the baby girls continues. Here are a trial set of soft baby shoes for them. I wasn't sure how they would turn out, so these are made from some acrylic felt I had lying around. Having practiced, I'm now ready to use the wool felt I made from some thrifted wool skirts.

They were pretty easy to make until I got to the crocheted laces. You see, I don't crochet. I can do a lot of other crafty-type things...sewing, knitting, embroidery. I can even spin wool on a spinning wheel. But crochet? It's just one of those things I don't do. (It's right up there with making jello, but that's another post.) My grandmother tried to teach me once (to crochet,not make jello), but when I couldn't hold the hook the proper way she gave up. After that one attempt, I never tried again. My desire to finish the shoes made me overcome my crochet hang-up and I can now crochet a single chain thanks to a brief lesson from a friend. M., A., and P. were amused at my efforts since all three of them can crochet single chains at what seems to me to be the speed of light. (Obviously, I did not teach them this skill.) I did get faster by the fourth lace, but I'm pretty sure I'm not holding any part of it the correct way.

Such a Monday-ish Monday

"Well, life isn't very good around here anymore. No clothes to wear; no raisins for the oatmeal. I think I'll run away." ...Frances in A Baby Sister for Frances by Russell Hoban


Many children around here a having a "Frances day". Mondays can be difficult in general, but some Mondays are more trying than others. It's as if over the weekend, they lost all memory of what they know and how life works. Consequently, when I remind them that they have chores and schoolwork, there is much complaining. Surely no other child in the universe has been made to pick-up dirty laundry, eat oatmeal and drink orange juice, or (the horror!) do math. Instead of being the calm and understanding mother, I turn into something more of a drill sergeant. (Yes, you can count be threes. Figure out what the next number is. No it's not too hard.) I have learned that Mondays are key to a successful week. If we can grit our teeth and get into our schedule, life settles back down into a normal (and calm) routine. But if Monday escapes without it being wrestled back under control, the whole week is sabotaged. I feel as though we're a living example of entropy. The worst is usually over by lunch, and so it was today. There have been just a few left over grumblings.


The littlest family members seem the most unaffected by the Monday malaise. K. continues to play in his toy kitchen, feeding us a non-stop stream of 'food' which he has lovingly prepared. We are hearing new words everyday, the newest being 'wummy' (yummy). For the past couple of meals, he has announced to me that this 'food wummy, Mommy!' It's hard not to smile at that even on the Monday-est of Mondays.

And a couple of baby pictures for the grandparents (and anyone else who likes to follow the babies' progress.)

G.

L.