Present for God

Owen, who just turned 6 a few days ago, took one of his leftover helium birthday balloons outside and let it go.

"What are you are doing?" I asked. I know that he knows it's gone for good and we won't suffer through the tears of a lost balloon like we would if his little brother had done this. So I was wondering if he liked watching how high the balloon would go, how it would travel through the air currents, stuff like that.

"I'm giving it to God," he replied.

An aaaahhhh moment

I was handing out kisses last night on my way out the door to my monthly book club meeting. Owen said something that just made my heart go all gooey.

"Good night my sweet and cuddly Mommy."

A true devourer of books

Of course, we'd love for all our children to be lovers of books and little Annaliese appears to have a head start.

I left her on the floor surrounded by her toys for a couple of minutes while I went to attend to her big brother elsewhere. When I returned I found her happily gnawing on my book.

A good inch of the bottom right-hand corner of my paperback cover was gone.

This is why I homeschool

Check out this article in Newsweek about struggling school-age boys. Interesting stuff about their emotional and behaviorial issues. Really, go click on the link. It's worth it.

First day of school

Well, we did it. We not only survived, but thrived, on our first official day of homeschool.

We've been talking about this a lot trying to build up some excitement for Owen. His attitude toward school has been somewhat lackluster. When people ask, as they always do, if he's excited about starting kindergarten, his response has been, "Um," hanging head, shrugging shoulders, "I dunno know." I am happy, nay thrilled, to report that now he's saying, "I looooove school!"

So what did we do? We read lots of stories, we worked on our memory verse, we sang and danced to "Six Little Ducks," we wrote letters (surprisingly a big hit!) we colored a picture, we counted how many ducks were in the pond and how many ducks were not in the pond and how many ducks were there altogether, we found China on the map, we saw the Yangtze River (where one our stories is placed) and figured out that it would take four times as long to drive the length of the river as it does to drive to Grandmom's house, we ate Chinese food with chopsticks, we talked about how hard it would be for someone used to eating with chopsticks to use a fork and spoon, and we worked on some phonics. We did all this while still doing our regular, everyday stuff of fixing meals and feeding children (including a nursing baby) and changing diapers and doing laundry and picking up around the house and even squeezing in a doctor's appointment somewhere in there.

A good day, a really good day.

This just in

I had to fire up the laptop after I just put it to bed (on my way to bed) to post this one:

While taking out my contacts in the bathroom, my bleary-eyed Jonas walked in. The cute as humble pie one.

"Mom, I'm thirsty."

I take a quick survey of the counter and see, as I suspected, no cup, no glass, no container of any kind.

"I don't have anything to drink with in here, Honey. Could you use your hand?" We do the hand-becomes-cup thing often after teeth-brushing. No, we're not proud.

"How about my mouth?"

Oh. Yeah. Why didn't I think of that?

Humble, no. Honest, yes

Jonas came around the corner dressed up in his red plastic fireman coat and hat. A priceless picture that I wasn't able to capture while I was trying to comfort a 6-month-old cranky from vaccinations.

"Do you know how cute you are?" I said.

And Jonas replied nonchalantly, "Yes."