Home Group

I really, really love the people in our home group Bible study. The group meets at our house--12 adults and 13 kids, plus 2 babysitters.

We had our monthly potluck today. By the time the last family left our kitchen was sparkling clean, with the floor swept and the dishes done. I mostly did what I could while sitting down, helped put away some things, and then watched and pointed out where dishes belonged when I reached my limit. They left us with enough food to provide lunches and dinners for the next few days--meals I won't have to cook.

The people in this group are really finding ways to be involved in each others' lives. We trade babysitting, teach each other new skills (I'm currently teaching one person how to make kombucha, and we're learning together about natural/organic food options in the area), pray for one another, encourage each other, and help each other where we can.

"What can we do to help?" is a common question when prayer requests are shared. And these people actually follow through on it.

It's wonderful to have people like this in our lives. Today, especially, they were so caring and encouraging to DH and to me as we shared the happenings and realizations of the last few weeks.

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The 6 families in our group are the kind of people you'd want in your life, both in a crisis and when things are going smoothly. They're the kind of people who would be there in a heartbeat at the hospital or coming to get the kids if a crisis happened--and the type who are learning (though it's a stretch for all of us, I think) to accept help and support from the rest of the group, too. Although we're not related by blood, we're family of another kind. That's the family of Christ in action.

This week DH is going to babysit for one family so the husband and wife can go on a date, and the wife and kids are going to come over another day and help out here. The girls and I will probably visit with another family if I'm feeling up to it one day, too. One of the other women and I are talking about ways to consolidate our grocery shopping, since we're both interested in healthy eating and whole foods.

Two of the ladies talked to each other and decided that they're going to come over together next week to help me work on decluttering or whatever is needed. Several people volunteered to come early to our group meetings and help DH get the house ready, since I usually need to rest between church and group and it's a big job for DH to do alone.

We've pooled resources to help people within the group as needed, and several families have also spearheaded group efforts to raise money or put together food boxes for needy people in the broader church and community.

We're still growing and learning as a group and in our relationships with each other, but this is the type of group we're growing.

I'm so grateful to be a part of it. Even though I'm one of the ones that is still learning to be vulnerable and accept help. :)

Summary of health history

Here's a post I made on the "But You Don't Look Sick" forums introducing myself and telling my "life story" about my past and present health issues. I thought I'd link in case anyone was interested.

Forgot to mention . . .

I did get a referral to a rheumatologist. My appointment is next month. When I explained that I needed a diagnosis confirmed by a specialist in case I decided to file for disability, the doctor agreed to refer me. She said she would put it down as a "second opinion" referral.

I'll be interested to see what a rheumatologist will say.

Doctor appointment leads to more deep thought

Warning: This is a really long post again. Definitely not the light, happy kind. So proceed at your own risk.

I saw a new doctor on Thursday. Since my primary care doctor left the practice and his replacement won't be starting until July or August, his patients are kind of left in limbo, seeing whichever other doctor happens to be available.

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I liked the "bedside manner" of the doctor I saw. She listened carefully, took notes, asked lots of questions, and took the time to interact (at least until she abruptly rushed out of the room at the end of the appointment, leaving me wondering if I was supposed to go or stay). With my level of brain-fog and mental slowness during a flare-up, though, I did find it very difficult to understand her rapid speech and heavy Asian accent.

Basically, she took an update on how I'm doing, and then had some blood and urine testing done to re-check my thyroid, function, kidney function, do a metabolic panel (I think that's what it's called?), check for mononucleosis, and check a few key vitamin/mineral levels.

She told me about one medication option--I can't remember what it was called--that she has seen help one patient with severe fatigue issues. She said that it's normally an anti-anxiety drug, but with this particular patient it helped concentration levels, mental clarity and fatigue.

Frankly, I was rather unimpressed. It seemed rather a stretch to take a single case study of a patient who had basically fatigue, malaise and difficulty concentrating for a mere 9 months (the doctor didn't mention pain, or a diagnosis of any specific condition) and use that one anecdote to justify an off-label use of a strong medication for a patient who has had fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome for over 12 years.

I'm guessing it likely that the other patient probably had fatigue and malaise because of depression (quite common) since the anti-depressant/anti-anxiety drug helped so much, "and with her ATTITUDE, too!" the doctor said. It didn't sound at all like she actually had a similar condition to what I deal with.

The doctor said that there could be side effects harming the heart and kidneys and the medication was quite addictive. So, considering my family history of kidney disease and heart problems, and the fact that I've had heart palpitations, she would recommend caution in deciding to use the medication, but that if I was feeling bad enough she would recommend considering using it.

Basically, if I really wanted the doctor to prescribe something to try to make me feel better, she could prescribe it after running some tests on my heart and kidneys to make sure they're OK first. Oh, and also I can't take it while nursing. To her credit, she didn't pressure me to wean Ebee faster than I'm already attempting it.

I've worked hard to manage my illness without medications, considering that I know there's technically no "cure" for my conditions and (as readers of my blog would know) I'm not into using pharmaceuticals unless absolutely necessary. So it's highly unlikely that I'd try something like this just on the off chance that it could help, when even the doctor isn't sure it's really a good idea.

The doctor went on to say that she was really impressed with my attitude and my approach to managing my health, and that basically I'm doing better than could be expected. They always say that. There's really nothing else they can do for me except continue to monitor things like kidney and thyroid function every year or so. They always say that, too.

I asked about a referral to a rheumatologist. My previous doctor had said that if my tests last time for things like lupus, thyroid function, lyme disease, etc. came back normal (which they did) the next step would be to refer me to a rheumatologist. Rheumatology is the specialty fibromyalgia would fall under, but despite having had fibromyalgia for some 12+ years, I've never actually seen a rheumatologist.

This doctor didn't see the point of referring me to a specialist. She said that since fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome aren't treatable anyway, there's nothing a rheumatologist would be able to do to make me feel better. So I didn't need to see one.

I explained that I was considering some options for getting assistance, such as applying for disability (considering that I've never been able to hold down a job--even a weekly volunteer position--for long in the last 10 years, and had to drop out of college because of my health issues). If I could qualify for disability insurance payments, it would go a long way toward enabling us to hire someone to help with the kids and/or housework.

I think that if I could get more help with things like housework and meal preparation, it might allow me to focus my limited energy on spending time with the kids. As it is, most days we do the bare minimum of school and then they read and entertain themselves for most of the rest of the day and have "quiet time" in the afternoon while I rest. DH does what he can, but he works full-time and takes the kids to all their activities, does almost all the shopping and errands, etc. already.

Sometimes I just get so tired of being sick and tired. It takes almost all of my non-resting time and energy, most days, just to get everyone fed and dressed, supervise math and phonics, prepare meals, deal with any needs the kids have, and maybe--if I'm lucky--do a load of dishes or laundry.

It breaks my heart to constantly be making excuses as to why I can't play with, read to, or go on outings with the kids because I'm too tired and/or in too much pain. On a good day I don't hit the wall until close to dinner time or even bed time; but on most days I'm doing well to get through lunch before I run out of spoons .

The doctor strongly advised me to put the kids in school. Not for academics; when I explained what types of things they're doing and reading, she agreed that being in a kindergarten and first grade class would benefit them little if at all from an academic standpoint.

She was worried about their social development, until I explained that they spend time with other kids on at least 4-5 different occasions each week (DH takes them to Sunday School, AWANA, and various music/dance/swimming lessons, and we have our church home group weekly which includes 13 kids in our house playing for several hours while the adults have Bible study and prayer).

But what she said that really rattled me was this: "Your children need to be around healthy people; especially other healthy kids, but healthy adults too. They need to see and spend a lot of time with people who have normal health. Because you don't want sickness to be their reality.

"You have been sick all their lives; all they know is a mother who is ill. A mother who is tired and ill most of the time. That's not good for kids, to be around sickness all the time. They will think it's normal; they'll worry about it. They might start spending a lot of time thinking about whether their own bodies are sick or not. You need to make sure sickness is not their reality."

That struck the deepest place in my heart. Especially since we were so worried about Ebee's health for the first couple of years. I really don't want my kids' reality to be pervaded by health issues. And yet our household has definitely been more affected by health issues and the related stress than most households are. We have had a lot of concerns about health issues over the years.

I try to minimize that as much as possible; I try to be careful about what I say in their hearing and am very careful what I say to them, but I know they have picked up on the concern, especially when Ebee was so unwell for so long.

I don't talk to them a whole lot about my health issues. Usually I make other excuses--the weather, the time, needing to cook dinner, etc--for why I can't always do with them the things they ask.

When I got married and started having kids, I truly thought my health issues were largely behind me. Because I'd improved so much from where I had been, and I expected the improvement to continue. I'd gone from nearly needing a wheelchair and being almost completely disabled, to being so much closer to normal. I thought I was well, or very nearly so.

But I've been making excuses for years--too many years. I've always thought that once I get over this cold, or once I get things better organized, or once we get out of the infant stage, or once we get past this issue/illness/whatever, or once I start getting more sleep, or once I figure out how to tweak my diet just perfectly--then, THEN I'd be really well.

I'd have energy like a normal person, or very nearly so. My short-term memory and mental clarity would return. I wouldn't be in so much pain. I'd have the energy to carry out the joyful, creative, active, exuberant life I long for. I'd be healthy.

But 9 years later, I'm still sick most of the time; still debilitated to the point that I rarely go anywhere or do anything, because it taxes me too much. I can muster up the energy to appear normal for a while--sometimes for several hours, occasionally for a few days. But I pay for it later. The whole family pays for it.

As the spoon story says, borrowing spoons from tomorrow has its consequences. I'm learning it's not worth being mostly out of commission for the next few days or weeks to overdo it one day, even though I can push myself that way and appear to have normal energy and health for a little while.

Sometimes I wonder if it was really wise to get married and have kids. But my kids are such wonderful people. And, despite my health issues and despite the mistakes we make, I do think DH and I are pretty good parents. I can't look at my kids and wish they didn't exist. I just can't.

I also believe that God knows what He's doing, and that He has a plan somehow which includes me and DH having these kids and being, at least for the moment, in this situation. (I sure hope the plan includes changing the situation soon, though. Please, Lord?)

No, I can't regret getting married and having kids. Having my husband and kids in my life is the most wonderful, incredible thing I can imagine. I often wonder if they would have been better off with a different, healthier wife and mother--but with a different mother, these kids wouldn't exist.

However. Would it really be better for the kids not to be around me so much, as the doctor suggested? Would it? Is it bad for them to spend a lot of time with a person who is less than healthy, even though that illness is not contagious or harmful to others? That is one of the most heartrending questions I have ever had to contemplate.

All I ever really wanted (well, besides the numerous pipe dreams like being a veterinarian, public speaker, or writer) was to get married, have a lot of kids, homeschool them, and dedicate my life to raising them during their childhood years.

For this year I really think that we are best meeting their needs and giving them the best education, teacher/student ratio, customized curriculum, and spiritual/moral training possible by keeping them home. But next year? It's something we can only approach with as much thought, wisdom and prayer as possible.

But I don't want to just do what I want, or even what's best for me. We have to do what's best for them. Or at least the best we can manage under the circumstances.

The question is always, what is that?

Conserving Spoons

Sorry there haven't been many blog posts lately. I'm not expecting an increase in blogging any time soon, as it takes quite a bit of mental and physical energy.

I'm still really struggling health-wise.

I got to go for a few days to a ministry house for women to go rest and spend time with God this past weekend. It was supposed to be Thursday night through Sunday evening, but I ended up coming back early Saturday evening because I wasn't able to sleep there and was steadily deteriorating with pain, fatigue, weakness and difficulty focusing/concentrating to the point that I was having trouble doing things like walking and reading. The time away was still a blessing, though, and some good things came out of that. Maybe I'll be able to share some about that later.

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An epsom salt bath, a backrub from DH, and a good night's sleep in my own bed got me quite a bit more functional by the next day--at least enough to keep Ebee (who is stillsick with the cold/flu virus thngy) home with me while DH took the older kids to all 3 services at church, since he was involved in the service.

I pretty much slept all weekend (I've been sleeping the majority of most weekends anyway, it seems). I am doing better. But I'm still at the point where I'm having to sit down and rest in the middle of simple tasks like climbing the stairs and getting dressed. I did manage to get the kids fed and dressed, etc. and to supervise the kids in doing some school.

I am doing as much as I can while lying or sitting down, and taking lots of rest breaks, so that simple things like preparing meals or unloading the dishwasher take forever, but at least I'm able to do the basic things that HAVE to happen to take care of the kids. For now.

Right now a really good day is a day when I can do what I need to in order to care for myself and the kids, help the kids do at least the basics of schoolwork, and then still be able to muster up the energy to do at least one load of dishes and one load of laundry and play with/read to the kids at some point during the day.

Today was not one of those days--just keeping the kids fed and supervised was enough today. AJ and M&M did get at least math and phonics done, although it took much longer than usual because of my low energy levels for helping. Then they played in the afternoon and did some reading on their own. AJ picked up some toys in the family room and M&M helped unload the dishwasher (I did the things that were hazardous or out of her reach). Ebee mostly whined and fussed and needed me to blow her goopy nose all day. She's still not feeling well.

Thankfully DH came home for lunch just as I felt I was about to fall apart and had not an ounce of energy left. Ebee didn't want to nap and I was completely shot. DH took over with the kids and folded some laundry that had been sitting for almost a week waiting to be put away while I laid down and took a short nap.

Then he left and Ebee laid down with me for a while until I tried to get her to take a nap in her own bed, at which point she threw a huge tantrum and then peed on the carpet. That took me about 45 minutes to get the floor and E cleaned up, and then I was totally exhausted again. She did eventually fall asleep for a little while, so I got a rest while the older girls read books.

At least I had soup in the refrigerator that I could just heat up for lunch and dinner today . . . the soup that took me 3 hours to cut up the vegetables for last night. It's a good thing I know I need to start early doing things like that, so I started fixing it at 4 yesterday. Tomorrow I'll try to put something in the crock pot in the morning so we won't be eating dinner so late.

I'm brainstorming ways I can save "spoons" (energy), like buying already-cut-up frozen vegetables instead of fresh veggies that need to be cleaned and cut up. I am going to have to cut more corners. It's not going to be as healthy, but right now that may be a necessary trade-off.

I've also decided that it's not really worth it to push myself so hard to do things in the short-term (like getting up energy to visit with friends without "looking" as tired and sick as I feel, or pushing through to finish a task when I start getting tired) because I pay for it over the next few days. So here's your warning, friends, that I'm going to start allowing myself to sit down and rest when I need to, even when people are watching. Even though it's embarrassing and I hate to show any weakness. Because sitting down to rest in the middle of getting you a cup of tea is better than being almost non-functional for the next day or two because I pushed myself to seem more normal while you were visiting. Yeah. I know you're probably wondering why I didn't do that sooner?

I think I'm coming to terms at another level with the fact that just because I *can* push through and force myself into an almost-normal level of activity for sometimes up to a few hours at a time doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing to do. It would be better if I could keep a steady but slow pace in my life, conserving as much energy as I can but rarely getting to the non-functional or barely-surviving point. My pattern in the past has been to push myself as much as I can when I feel relatively decent, and then crash for a few days or a week or two later because I overdid it. ]

I've been trying to learn how to not overdo it, but I think what I really need to do is start thinking a lot more about conserving spoons rather than about exactly how far I can push myself without QUITE throwing myself into a horrible flare-up.

I don't want to live that way. Really, I don't. I want to be constantly on the go, doing things, enjoying life, expending energy and learning new things. But, at least right now, I can't. And I need to accept that and just try to keep myself and my household running as smoothly as possible even if it means I don't get to do some of the things I really want to do on the days I'm feeling better.

I'm also trying to find help we can afford to hire, like maybe a girl to be a "mother's helper" and play with the kids for a little while some days while I nap.

DH and I have even discussed the possibility of putting the older kids in school, although it probably wouldn't really be much easier anyway (we'd still have to deal with getting them to/from school, preparing lunches, homework, etc. even if we found a school with a good enough gifted program to cater to their needs). Private school is not an option for finacial reasons at this point in our lives. Anyway, it's mainly Ebee that's more energy-intensive to care for. She's not old enough for school, and daycare wouldn't be feasible. The older girls are at least not getting behind academically because we've been able to do the basics and they love reading and learning things on their own.

There's more to tell, I m sure, but I'm out of energy for now and this post has taken forever to write with slow typing and stopping to rest. I'm going to see if I can help DH with the bedtime routine and then rest some more.

Oh, I do have an appointment with a new doctor this week and am going to try to get a referral to a rheumatologist. My doctor had said he was going to refer me to one, but left the practice without doing so.

I hope all my readers and friends are doing well . . . we are doing pretty well here other than this virus we are fighting, and just trying to figure out how to cope with my CFS/FMS stuff. God is still good, and making His presence felt in our lives. I'd sure appreciate any prayers and kind thoughts you can send our way.

Why? Why? Why? But Why?

Baby E is fully immersed in the "why" stage. She is also getting pretty good at using logical arguments.

Today she bumped her arm lightly on a chair and said, "I bumped my awm! I need a band-aid."

I said, "Oh, I think you'll be ok. You don't need a bandage for a little bump like that."

"Why?"

"Because it's not bleeding."

"But it wiw stawt bweeding vewy soon."

"No, I don't think so."

"Why?"

"Because you just bumped it a little bit, and that won't make it bleed."

"Why?"

"Because little bumps don't break the skin."

"Why?"

"Well, because they just make a bump, and it doesn't usually make the skin come open. Only things like cuts and scrapes bleed."

"Why?"

"Because they break the skin open, and that lets blood out."

"I have a tut on my tummy. It's bweeding, see?" She showed me a teeny tiny scratch on her tummy. An old one, already scabbing over.

"Oh, yes, you do have a little tiny scratch on your tummy. But it's not bleeding."

"Why?"

Playing with Kombucha

I've been having fun experimenting with making my own kombucha cultures from purchased kombucha.

I have used only the plain flavor--no flavored tea or tea with juice added, etc. because I don't want to contaminate my culture. You can grow a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast--the stuff that makes the good probiotics and vitamins in the cultured black tea) quite easily from a purchased bottle of fresh raw kombucha.

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A lot of people seem to be using mostly the sediment left at the bottom of the bottle, and that works. I've grown a couple of SCOBYs now by just leaving the last half or third of the kombucha in the bottom of the bottle and leaving it out, covered, at room temperature for a few days. The thin little SCOBYs that grew had no trouble coming out when I poured them through the neck of the bottle into a larger container.

Many bottles of the GT's kombucha have a pretty good start at a SCOBY in them already. Look in the bottoms and try to find a bottle with a pretty good chunk of almost transparent cloudy stuff--it looks like sediment at first, but the difference is that it stays all in one piece when you swirl the tea around in the bottle.

When you take off the lid, the rising bubbles will carry the little SCOBY right to the top. Wait a few minutes, and you can watch it rise slowly to float as a little film or clump of cloudy stuff at the top. If it doesn't float up, put the lid back on and gently turn the bottle upside down a couple of times, and then try again. Or you can just shake the bottle very gently a bit before you open in in the first place. Just don't shake it too hard, or you'll have an exploding bottle on your hands when you open it.

I've had success with pouring the top half of the tea, complete with the little SCOBY, into a sterilized quart jar. I then cover the jar with a natural (brown) coffee filter secured with the metal band that comes with the jars (I take out the flat metal lid, of course, and replace it with the coffee filter).

The first time I tried making kombucha from a jar of purchased kombucha, it didn't work very well. I added the baby SCOBYs from two jars of kombucha along with a cup or two of kombucha into a full-sized batch (2-3 quarts) of sweet tea in a gallon-sized jar. But the ratio of tea to kombucha and SCOBY was too much. The tea went bad before the SCOBYs grew enough to really start turning it into kombucha.

What has worked really well for me is just leaving the purchased kombucha with nothing added at room temperature for a few days. This way the SCOBY really starts to develop within 2-4 days. I've let it culture this way for a week with a few of my experiments, and the tea was pretty sour but it made a good-looking SCOBY.

I start out with about a cup of kombucha in a quart jar and just let it work for a few days, and then tilt the jar to the side and add about a cup of cooled sweet tea. I pour it down the side of the jar to try to avoid disturbing the SCOBY too much, but the SCOBYs I've been really rough with, jostled around, played with and poured stuff on top of seem to be surviving also--they seem to be pretty sturdy little critters.

I made a new batch of sweet tea last night with 6 tea bags and 1.5 cups of sugar to 3.5 quarts of water (I boiled a little more than 2 quarts of filtered water for 10 minutes, steeped the tea for 10 minutes, dissolved the sugar in it, then added bottled spring water to cool it to room temperature more quickly--enough to make 3.5 quarts total tea).

I started a new batch with part of a fresh bottle of GTs tea, but this time I added about 1/4 of the amount of my cooled sweet tea to the prepared kombucha and the baby SCOBY from the jar. I am thinking that might give the SCOBY some extra food to give it a good start without over-diluting the culture.

The other cultures, I have had going for a week or two. To these I added new tea so that the uncultured tea was about half to three-quarters of the liquid in the jars. I'll be interested to see how quickly the various proportions work, and how they taste and look. Right now I have 5 quart jars and 1 gallon jar culturing, all at different stages, started from 5 different bottles of kombucha.

I did end up using the very old bottle of High Country Kombucha that I'd had sitting in my refrigerator for months. It worked, but I think that it has a much higher proportion of yeast in it. There is a lot of dark cloudy stuff hanging down from the SCOBY and sinking or floating suspended in the tea, and a much more yeasty smell and taste than in my GT cultures.

I've been writing notes on the edges of my coffee filters so I can keep track of which culture is which. Here are the cultures I have at the moment:

1: The culture from the SCOBY on top of the really old bottle of High Country tea.

2. Another culture from the dregs at the bottom of that same bottle. It's now in its 3rd batch of tea.

3. A culture from the last bit of tea in a bottle of GTs kombucha.

4. A hybrid baby SCOBY that grew from adding culture #2 to a GT culture that had been going slowly because I put the baby GT SCOBY in too much sweet tea.

5. A new culture from a fresh bottle of High Country.

6. A new culture from a fresh bottle of GTs.

After culture #2 got going, I added it to a slow-going GTs kombucha in a gallon-sized jar to make culture #4.

Culture #1 had TONS of yeast in it, and I tried to gently scrape off and fish out as much of the yeasty stuff as I could with a spoon when I transferred it to a new container yesterday. The kombucha from this was pretty much undrinkable, so I'll try it on my hair.

When I switched things around yesterday, I peeled the gallon-sized baby SCOBY (#4) off the quart-sized #2 SCOBY and put the smaller one into a fresh quart jar filled about 1/3 of the way with the resulting kombucha. Then I filled it almost up to the shoulders of the jar (before the narrowing) with fresh sweet tea.

I put the #4 SCOBY back into the gallon jar with a good share of the kombucha it had made and filled it up the rest of the way (slightly more than half of the total) with sweet tea.

The #3 culture has made the best kombucha tea so far, I think. I took out about half the tea it had made and replaced the amount with fresh sweet tea.

With the two new cultures I just added about 1/4 the amount of fresh tea. I put the remainder of my sweet tea in the refrigerator and plan to add it to these two new cultures in a few days once the SCOBYs get a little bigger.

Once my SCOBYs get more established, I plan to use a higher proportion of fresh tea to the cultured kombucha in some of the jars. But I also want to try at least one gallon-sized jar as a continuous-ferment kombucha culture.

I bought a glass jar with a plastic spigot at a thrift store yesterday. It didn't look like it had been used much if at all, but once I took the spigot apart there was some gunk inside it that wasn't all that easy to get off. I took it completely apart scrubbed it well and then sterilized all the parts and the jar, but I'm still not sure I trust it.

I can buy a gallon glass jar with a plastic spigot new for about $6, or one with a metal spigot for about $22. I'm trying to figure out which would be better to use for my continuous ferment.

I like the idea of a spout at the bottom of the jar so I would have to disturb the culture a little less often. But both plastic and metal spouts are going to have plastic or rubber washers, anyway, and I'm worried about the metal corroding or the plastic leaching chemicals into the kombucha. So I may just end up using a gallon-sized jar and using a spoon to hold back the SCOBY while I pour some out the top, and then gently pouring in enough fresh tea to replace what I took out.

If the continuous fermentation system works well, I'll probably end up choosing the best culture to keep in that, and going down to just one culture and maybe a backup.

But for now I'm having a lot of fun experimenting with the different cultures. Each one has its own completely unique personality, flavor and look so far. The High Country kombucha does seem to maybe have a higher yeast content than the GTs kombucha even in the fresh cultures, from what I can tell so far. But neither has cultured enough to really tell yet.

How many 2-year-olds know THAT word?

E-Bee: "Fiwst, you stawt with die. You say die. Den you say die-aw-whee-ah. Den I doh poopie."

Math Manipulatives, Art and Sheep

Well, AJ's illness didn't turn into anything special . . . the next day she had cold symptoms, no fever, and a return of her energy. Everybody else seemed to escape with very minor cold symptoms.

I've felt like I'm fighting a cold all week, but I think it's allergies. Lots of things are blooming right now.

It's been overall a rather nice week.

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This week we got some Cuisenaire rods to supplement the kids' math program. The Singapore Math series is great, but it is a bit lacking in hands-on learning. I'd read that a lot of people supplement with Miqon math, which utilized the Cuisenaire rods. We got the Miquon Orange book and a couple of other Cuisenaire books to try out.

So far the kids are really loving it. Even Baby E can do some of the simpler activities with the Cuisenaire rods. The rods seem to be the perfect addition to our math studies. M&M, especially, really seems to be helped by having a manipulative to help explain various concepts--no surprise there, since I already knew she was a highly kinetic and visual learner.

Baby E seems to be a kinetic learner, too. She picked out an alphabet puzzle that has upper and lower case letters with pictures underneath, and is really loving that. She is learning the letters and their sounds quickly with letters she can handle and feel. She loves puzzles and has really been wanting to learn how to read, so this is a great toy for her.

The other day I was doing the puzzle with her and she picked up a lowercase "j". I said, "What does that one say?" and she said, "I don't know . . . oh, I know! It says, 'Put me on wee jewwy beans!'" And she did.

One way I've utilized kinetic and visual activities in our homeschooling is by having the kids color or draw while they listen to me read. They really enjoy that, and it actually seems to really help them pay attention and retain the information. AJ, especially, likes to illustrate the story I'm reading, and then show her pictures to the rest of the family as we discuss the story afterwards.

Here are some pictures they drew while listening to a Bible story this week (can you guess which one?) [Click to view larger versions]










(E-Bee did have a little help with the heart here)



We've been studying Israel, which has been a lot of fun. The kids have discovered that they really love hummus. What's not to love about a food that just about anything can be dipped into? Here's a photo of one of this week's lunches (the kids also had goat's milk yogurt and, yes, we did talk about the fact that eating lamb meat and yogurt together wasn't kosher):





(Heehee, I just noticed the typo in the copyright notice. Ooops. Too much effort to change it at the moment, LOL.)

Yesterday afternoon everybody was grumpy and stir-crazy, so I decided to surprise the kids and take them for a walk. We ended up walking about a mile each way to see the sheep at the bottom of the hill. That was a lot of fun, especially since it was prime time for counting schoolbuses. We saw over 20 schoolbuses, a couple of hourses, 5 or 10 dogs, a jogger, a bicyclist, and the sheep. The girls and I enjoyed collecting some strands of wool off the fence to feel.

When we got home the kids still weren't worn out, so they ride tricycles in the driveway for a while as I did some very belated pruning and tidying of the roses and herbs in the front yard.

Then night Doctor A and a friend came over for dinner and we played Dutch Blitz. It had been a long time since I'd played. I'd forgotten how much fun it was. Dr. A's friend was playing for the first time, but was a really good sport about being the most inexperienced (and thus the slowest) player.

For those who have never played Dutch Blitz, I highly recommend it. It's an Amish/Pennsylvania Dutch game much like Nertz. It's a fast and frenzied game with everyone playing at once and trying to beat each other to play their cards.

Maybe I should try tying our ankles together with strings?

AJ is sick with a headache and fever. Now she's starting to get upper respiratory symptoms as well. At least 3 kids in our church have Fifth Disease, which supposedly starts out looking a lot like a common cold/flu illness with a low fever, so it will be interesting to see what will happen. Since I'm not pregnant, I'm not concerned about it. It's a relatively minor childhood disease as long as pregnancy is not involved.

I've been giving her lots of fluids, making her hot tea, mixing Vitamin C in with her juice, and encouraging her to rest as much as possible.

I feel like I could be fighting coming down with something too. But, of course, that doesn't necessarily mean anything when it's me we're talking about.

E-Bee was extra-tired today, too. That may have contributed to her potty accident in the kitchen. But occasional potty accidents are to be expected when one is two and a half. She went right back to successfully taking herself potty. Then she proceeded to sit on my lap with a bare and very poopy bottom.

"Let me know if you need help wiping your bottom," I'd said, as usual. "Otay, Mommy, but I tan do it myfewf," she'd said, as usual.

She's even decided lately that she's too big to need the on-the-seat potty ring: "I'm a big dwown-up. I don't need dat potty teat on wee towwet. I don't mahnt it! I won't faww in, see? NO! Doh away. I tan do it by myfewf. Don't hewp me. Doh out of hewe now, pease." I stopped hovering after a few days, seeing that she could, in fact, do it by herself and usually asked for help if she needed it.

M&M has developed a habit recently of using huge handfuls of toilet paper. Combined with her long-standing habit of neglecting to flush the toilet (because the noise hurts her ears, she says), this creates a rather worrisome situation.

So when the toilet clogged up and nearly overflowed today, she was suitably impressed with the object lesson. It validated the truth of my warnings in her eyes, I think.

All three kids were quite upset at the sight of the water nearly cresting the brim of the bowl.

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I really didn't think it was necessary to make the lesson more memorable or compelling than that. I was highly relieved that the water had stopped rising just before it reached the rim.

So I told the kids not to touch the toilet and ESPECIALLY not to try to flush it again. "Stay away from the toilet down here," I said, "and if you need to use the potty go upstairs to do it." Then I ran upstairs to look for the plunger.

I got downstairs again just in time to hear E-Bee flush the toilet.

E-Bee was in the middle of the ensuing flood. She was not thrilled with the water gushing over her feet onto the stool and cascading onto the floor, pooling across the room and threatening to overflow the wooden ridge at the bathroom door. As I threw back the lid and ineffectively tried to stop the flow of the water with my hands, she was shrieking, "I don't wike it, Mommy! I'm aww diwty! I'm wet! It dot on me! The watew tame out of the toiwet! It's scawwing me!"

It took me at least an hour to get the toilet unclogged, to get Baby E, the bathroom, and myself thoroughly cleaned up, and to get the armload of toilet-water-soaked towels in the wash.

That was before E-Bee had her potty accident, which was before the poopy bottom incident, which was before she managed to slip away from DH and come upstairs with her bowl of pumpkin pudding to find me at my computer and, of course, spill it just as I turned to greet her. (DH had agreed to give me a bit of a break after dinner, but was doing something to make AJ more comfortable at the moment E absconded with the pudding.)

Thankfully, when we went to my parents' house on Saturday we borrowed some videos for the kids to watch. Because, by afternoon, this was one. tired. mommy.

Oh, and a bonus conversation over dinner:

M&M: Mommy, I accidentally swallowed a bead today.

Me: What? How did you manage to swallow a bead?!?

M&M: Well, you see, it's just that I enjoy putting small things in my mouth.

She said it in such a matter-of-fact way.

I shouldn't have laughed, I know. But by that point in the day I couldn't help it.

It's days like this that I really wish there were three or four of me. Someone told me the other day that the way to deal with sibling spats is to just stay on top of things and always be supervising well so that you are right there to intervene in any little disagreements before they become big arguments.

I was thinking, "Wait a minute; how many kids do you have, anyway? You are aware that I have three young children and a two-story house, right?"

I do occasionally have to go to the bathroom, help a child go to the bathroom, put a load of laundry in the wash, prepare a meal, or answer the telephone.

Obviously I try to keep close tabs on all three of my children at all times. They are never outdoors or using any kind of potentially dangerous equipment (scissors, for example, at least for the little one) without me right there giving them my full attention (or at least pretty close to my full attention). But I do allow them to play upstairs in the playroom or their bedroom if I am downstairs, or to play downstairs in the family room while I am cooking dinner or doing laundry or whatever. I am always within earshot, at least, and I check on them frequently--especially when the noise levels escalate or they get unnaturally quiet.

It would be a little weird if I tried to keep all 3 kids within arm's reach of me every moment of the day. I have, at times (especially if one child is repeatedly being hurtful to the others) made one or more of them stay right with me for a while (they don't like it much). But all day, every day? I don't think so. And it only takes about 2 seconds for a kid to grab a toy from someone else, spill something, or, um, flush the toilet.

In hindsight, it might have been a good idea to take all the kids upstairs with me to get the toilet plunger.

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ETA: E-Bee is finally, I think, starting to nod off now at 12:40 AM. I knew letting E take that late nap probably wasn't a good idea, no matter how much I needed the break. :) Her being up late was a good thing in a way, though, because it meant that I was still awake when the washing machine started leaking.

Smiles

This post from Confessions of a CF Husband is absolutely precious. I've never before seen such a big smile on such a tiny face. So beautiful.