Morning Routine with Little Ones

I just replied to a discussion on a forum with other homeschooling moms and thought my reply might help some of you with lots of little ones at home.  This was addressed to a mom with four kids five and under.

I have five kids -- my first four came within four and a half years. So I UNDERSTAND! My oldest is now nine, and life is changing and getting much, much easier with the tasks you're talking about. So my first piece of advice is don't lose hope...the kids will keep on growing and keep on learning how to take care of themselves. You will not always feel this frazzled. My boys (the oldest four) now all dress themselves, bathe themselves, and they do a decent job taking care of their teeth. There was a time when I thought this might never happen, but it does! :-)
It sounds like you are getting up before them -- that's excellent. If you can be a few steps ahead of them and have some quiet time before they get up, you will be better equipped spiritually, mentally, and physically to deal with all the little upsets that might come your way. If you're showered and dressed and maybe have some food or coffee in your system before they get up, you're ahead of the game. Then you can remain with the kids while they dress, hopefully making it go a little faster (I have nudists in my family, too. I sometimes refer to my upstairs as "the frat house").
I use mealtime as "school time" -- I think if all the kids are sitting in one spot, it's an ideal time to read the Bible and some poetry or a storybook to them. It's so rare that I have them all sitting still in the same location that I try to cash in on that time!
It does help me to have an established goal time to be starting and ending breakfast. I try to get everyone to the table by 8:00. That means they've dressed by this time, and they all work together to empty the dishwasher. If we don't get there by 8, I try to be done in the kitchen by 9. Then we all do chores for just 15 minutes and start school. If choretime goes longer than 15 minutes, the kids tend to lose focus on what they're doing.
But I have to say, if your kids are all 5 and under, you shouldn't be worrying about "lessons" as much as you are spending time reading to them and spending time outdoors. If you feel that your oldest is ready to start some beginning phonics, you can do that. But the large amount of what we know as preschool and kindergarten lessons can be learned in the context of everyday life with little ones. Have the five year old help you put the groceries away and count how many cans there are. Talk about the concepts of yesterday-today-tomorrow in the context of activities you might be doing during the week. Create a love for great stories in them by reading living books. Ambleside has a great list of books for little ones.  Also, if you page down on that link, there is a list of "Formidable Achievements for a Child of Six," which are good goals to work for. Most of them can be taught in a short space of time and come quite naturally to small children.
I think if you work towards creating an atmosphere of learning in your home then you will find yourself feeling freed up from the schedule a bit.
I do use Managers of Their Homes, which is a book for scheduling. But I only do it now that my kids are old enough to read and follow the schedule themselves. If I tried it when they were smaller, I think it would have only fostered frustration in them and me. This book might be helpful to you but be sure that any kind of schedule you develop is your servant and not your master.

The Look

On Saturday night we hosted a surprise going-away party for a young couple from our church who are moving to Chapel Hill for graduate school.

One of the attendees was my friend Heather, who is a professional photographer.  She grabbed my camera at one point during the evening because, as she said, "Maddie's eyes look so pretty in this light."

She went outside and took a few photos and then came back in.  I never asked her to see them because I was distracted with party cleanup.

Later that night, I flipped through the images on my camera and saw these:

How do you think it went?

That's the scowl I keep telling you about.  And believe it or not, I treasure these pictures because I have been unable to capture it as well as Heather did.

Proof of Life

Found on my walk this morning

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A "Tribute" to "Superfluous" Quotation "Marks"

Seen at Mary Jo's on my birthday.

I Secretly Approve of This Kind of Disobedience

Last night we got the kids to bed around 8:45 after a long day in the heat -- thankfully, a friend's pool was a big part of our day.

At 9:00 I walked past the boys' door on my way to the laundry room.  The door was cracked and I could just see by the light of the nightlight my oldest son, hunched over his book, trying desperately to keep reading in the darkness.

I told him to go back to bed...that the nice thing about books is that you can walk away and not miss anything.  They will still be there tomorrow.

"But Mom," Cameron replied, "they're just having their first Quidditch match."

Oh, my dear son...I think you've finally been bitten by the bug.

What I'm Wearing...and What I Think.

Purchased here.

Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis...Meet Me at the Fair

This past weekend we went to St. Louis and met all these fun people at the hotel in Creve Coeur, not at the fair. But we had a good time nonetheless.

All those kids belong to David and his siblings -- four of the five have little ones.

Saturday night David's mom and I went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream in the park in St. Charles.  Before the sun went down, it was steamy and Maddie got nice and sticky from the lollipop she ate.

The guy in the hat is the boys' favorite part of the weekend, their cousin Neil.
He's just seven months older than Cameron, so they all got along swimmingly.  The handsome guy in the back is David's Uncle John, who was a sportswriter for the Boston Herald a few decades back.  He has some great stories.

The mighty Mississippi was swollen beyond its banks.  See those benches?  We were supposed to drive along that road down there, but the water had other plans for us.

Here are some of the cousins waiting to get into the Gateway Arch.

Here we are on the way to the top of the arch.  Those elevators are TEENY and they only hold five people.  They also have no windows.  I hide my claustrophobic near-panic well, don't I?

Then we finally reached the top and enjoyed the views.

Here's those same benches.  If you look at the bottom of the picture, you can see the bases of the arch.  I got a little dizzy taking it.

Look!  I'm still alive.  Can't wait to get down.

Where Have You Been?

I've been here...

Proof of Life

"It's yours"

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Recipe for Summer Deliciousness

In the bottle on the left:  Make Your Own French Vanilla Coffee Creamer
In the bottle on the right:  smitten kitchen's cold-brewed iced coffee

A Hidden Gem

A few months ago, Maddie decided she wanted to see if my glasses were made of play-dough, so she grabbed the earpiece in one hand, the lenses in the other and wrenched them apart.

And just like that, I was out a pair of glasses.  Fortunately most of the time I wear contacts.

Last week I finally visited my optometrist who informed me that (a) they couldn't be repaired; (b) the frames had been discontinued and couldn't be ordered; and (c) I could buy replacement frames to fit my existing lenses for the low, low price of $180.

I hemmed and hawed about it, tried on frames, found some cute Vera Wang ones that didn't fit my lenses (of course), and deliberated some more.

While I tried to make up my mind, the lady who was helping me quietly said, "you know, there is a repair guy...down off of Independence Road...you should look him up."  So I took my sad sad broken glasses, thanked her profusely, packed up the children and hot-footed it outta there.

Yesterday I visited "the guy."

It was quite a trip... a long trip down a tree-lined street in Plaza Midwood, one of my favorite neighborhoods in Charlotte, clearing speed bumps as I went.  Then the "Dead End" signs started popping up.  The GPS told me to go on, so I forged ahead.  Quite randomly, at the end of the neighborhood street, there is an industrial park.  It looks like it's deserted.  After a little exploration, I came across a series of tiny storefronts.  Each is about one room wide.  "The guy" has a sign on his little window made of adhesive letters:  "Dan's Eyeglass Repair."

I went in and found a man in his early 60's wearing a black industrial apron with "Dan" embroidered in red on the front.  He stood behind a counter in an area filled with equipment and tiny tools.  He looked at the damage to my glasses, set them in a tray, and motioned to the chairs in the waiting area.

As the boys ran up and down the sidewalk outside, I sat with Maddie and talked with the older man who was also waiting.  He shook his head and laughed at my situation, having four boys in a row.  He said two boys were enough for him.  Now he enjoys his grandchildren and sends them home when he gets tired.

After a little while, the boys got hot and sweaty and came into the air conditioning.  They looked at nature magazines and Popular Mechanics while we waited.

Twenty minutes after I entered Dan's Eyeglass Repair, I was happily walking out the door with a working pair of glasses, having spent only fifteen bucks.

Dan has a good business, from what I saw.  Over the course of my brief visit, I saw four other people there.

It was worth the drive.  You should visit him if you are in need of a repair.

"Oh! Mr. Frank Churchill, I must tell you my mother's spectacles have never been in fault since; the rivet never came out again. My mother often talks of your good-nature. Does not she, Jane?--Do not we often talk of Mr. Frank Churchill?--"

Miss Bates, in chapter 38 of Jane Austen's Emma

Counting Stars

Proof of Life

Popcorn night
(can I just say that my rug is not that color?  I was too lazy to fix the picture.)

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My Space

For reasons I will expound on later, I have inherited our dining room as an office/sewing room.

It's nice in here.  I like it a lot.