Hey Elle!

Poor Elle has sick kids at her house and hasn't even answered my text asking how they're doing.

I know there was barfing yesterday afternoon, so hoping she's not got it too.

BUT I have something I need to tell her that only she will understand so I decided to blog it and let her see it when she gets to it.

Hey
Elle,

I'm eating my husband's Easter candy that he hadn't even opened. It was a bag of Ghiradelli caramel filled milk chocolate bunnies. I am not sure if I should feel bad for it. So I was going to ask your thoughts and advice.
But it's too late... they're gone.

In other news I had the most annoying dream ever this morning just before I woke up.

I'd gone to dinner at a restaurant with a friend (it wasn't a real life friend, but I knew I knew her in my dream).  There was someone's bratty 12yo who kept pushing her way past us and just generally NOT displaying appropriate manors for public. Then they sat us at a long cafeteria style table and when we came back from the salad bar someone had moved my sweater off my chair. They never brought our meals but served everyone all around us instead. Even the person who'd "stolen" my seat.
They were trying to close the dinning room and they shut down the salad bar before we were done. Finally my alarm woke me up, but it was right as they were finally walking to the table with our meals, which we'd had to raise a stink to get.

I hate when I have dreams that make me mad and anxious right before I wake up for the day. It sets me on the wrong foot for the whole day.

Hope people aren't too sick at your house.
Love to those monkeys and their keepers.

-EM

Australian Labor Day

So in Wednesday's post I mentioned Australian Labor Day being a March holiday. Well when I shared that story with my local homeschool friends I mused whether they also observed Labor day as the "end" of summer like we do in America. Turned out one of them has a friend living there and she did some investigating for me. That Monday in March was indeed only Labor Day only in Western Australia. I also learned that March 1st is considered the "end" of summer.
So there ya go, one boys simple observation of the holiday marked on his calendar has taught us all so much!

as always STAY AWESOME  -EM

To B-2 and me that this map of western Australia looks like a rhino silhouette.

Pictures of Birds

We've been reading the Little House (by Laura Ingalls Wilder) books and today we should hopefully finish On the Banks of Plum Creek.
In one of the last chapters titled The Day of Games; Ma tells the girls a story that she illustrates on their slate. By the end of the story all her little illustrations come together to make a single picture we learn from Carrie "It's a bird!".

Imagine my delight when shortly after reading this chapter together we discover that indeed today is Draw a Picture of a Bird Day!!!!

My monkeys are busy drawing their own birds in honor of the day,

So it appears I don't know how to scan a drawing and upload it.... so watch for an update with our bird pictures drawn on Draw a Picture of a Bird Day.

The Order Before the Chaos

-This post was written when we first decided to begin the blog. Our first conversation was "What will we call it?". Once we had that answer I wanted to explain what the title meant to us. I thought we'd posted this long ago, but guess we hadn't, so here it is! The explanation of The Order Before the Chaos. Hope you enjoy. 

How many of us make lists and plans: to-do lists, lists of qualities we wish to develop, lists of books we’d like to read, lists of shows we’d like to watch, grocery lists, lists of chores for our family members to complete, dinner plans/menus, exercise plans, lesson plans, plans for what we will do when our husband returns from deployment or before he leaves, plans for the perfect holiday decorations/menus/activities.

What about before you were married, before you had children, before you knew what on earth family life was really like. 

Did you have lists and plans then?  I know I sure did. I had a list of qualities that I was looking for in a man. Sadly (or possibly thankfully) I have not been able to find this list even though it was lovingly tucked into my journal when I wrote it at the age of 23 or 24.  It was not a silly list per say I mean it wasn’t like the list I had made in Jr-High that included things like “cute, looks good in a jean jacket, likes movies like Goonies and Dirty Dancing”. This adult list I made was important things, things like “loves the Lord, makes me smile, will be a worthy husband and father, will desire and be able to provide for a wife and family, will support my desires to be a stay at home mom, wants kids,”. There were more, but since it’s been a long time (note what movies I watched in Jr-High) since I wrote it I don’t remember what they were exactly.   I do however remember that when I was 26 and had met THE ONE that there were only two qualities that I deemed important; his relationship with our Father in Heaven, and that he was “happy like me”. 

That’s when my list no longer mattered; it was time for making plans! What type of plans did I make?  I made plans about how our house would be organized and cleaned and decorated, I made plans about what type of behavior, language, and actions would be allowed inside our home, I made plans for the type of wife and mother I would be, the chores that I would lovingly undertake for the support and welfare of my family, plans for the foods we would eat, plans for the types and amount of children we would have, plans for our daily lives down to how often and to where we would go on  outings.

There are a few famous expressions about plans: “Life is what happens when we’re busy making plans”, “We plan, God laughs”, and “If you fail to plan you plan to fail”. These seem to contradict each other.  Is it bad to plan? Is it pointless to plan? Are we going to miss opportunities because we are spending our time planning? If we don’t plan are we doomed?

Well let’s just talk about my life the way it is now.  I can make a to-do list every day and some days I am done with it by 10am, other days at 10pm I only have 3 things crossed off of the 17 that were on the list.  The lists could be identical, yet why the difference in my ability to complete them:  Might it be the 6 other people and 3 animals living in my house?  Yep probably.  But wait, I had plans for them too! And lists! I made them their own lists!! Why aren’t they sticking to my plans? Why aren’t them following their lists? WHY OH DEAR ME, WHY ARE THEY NOT FOLLOWING MY PLANS!?!?! 

What plans are they not following?   The ones I made when I was 26 and newly in love, the ones I made when I had NO IDEA what being a wife and mother was really like, the ones I made when homeschooling just sounded like a perfect beautiful always happy thing that maybe I’d want to do with my kids someday when I had them.  Most importantly the plans I made that seemed to neglect the fact that the little creatures that were to be born to me would come with their own personalities; personalities which, by the way, may not always be compatible with each other’s.

 One plan that was made, either before I had any children or within the first year of life of my oldest surrounded how I would react to fighting in our home,  I had no intention of allowing it. There was to be NO FIGHTING within the walls of our house.  How was I going to accomplish that? What was my grand plan? Well if my kids fought as I suspected they would, my plan was simply to “toss” them outside in whatever state of dress they were in when the fighting began.  I assumed that this would do a couple things: preserve the spirit of peace that I desired for our home and “shock” the offenders into a quick resolution.  I suspect that God did indeed get a chuckle out of this plan. He sent me two in a row that have butted heads since the 2^nd was a few months old. When these 2 were just about old enough that they could be “tossed out” of the house to either “cool off” or “fight it out” we were sent  to one of the coldest and snowiest places in the US. Well since I love those two monkeys and had no desire to be locked up for endangering them, I never followed through with that plan.

Most of the plans I made in the months before we were married and the early months and years of our lives together and then as parents have not turned out.  It is almost funny to me now to think back on them. I was so hopeful, possibly naive even, but I was; a great planner!

Now here I am a mother of 5 growing kids who’s been a wife for a bit more than a few years and even things as simple as my grocery-list get thrown into a whirlwind! 

WHY?

Well there are a couple answers for that, one being that I rarely get to go shopping alone and when I do I am so confused by the quiet and lack of need to tell people things like, “no we can’t buy 10 boxes of lucky charms we’re not even buying one! “ and “I know it’s hot in here but you can’t take your clothes off” or “I know the fridge section is cold but your brother can’t carry you inside his shirt to keep you warm, No you’re not riding in my shirt either, now go tell your sister to stop making faces on the inside of the freezer door” that I forget how to shop.  Another being the answer to most of this chaos that is my life; I’m not perfect, so my list isn’t perfect and I may have forgotten something or added something I already have 3 of at home.  And that is the same reason that my plans don’t work, my children and my husband are also NOT perfect, so even if my plan had been (which I know is impossible, since I am not perfect) then they are not capable of following it perfectly. 

Then what is the point in planning?

Planning creates order, we are able to make an orderly list of our desires and plan out HOW to accomplish them so even when chaos ensues, as it is bound to since we are mortal beings, we still have a small idea of where we’re headed and what we’re after.  What would happen if we didn’t plan or make lists?
Just ask your 7yo to make some cookies but don’t supply her a recipe or even a list of ingredients.
Good luck eating those cookies! 

My plans and my lists are the order before my chaos.  

Sometimes I get discouraged and stop making them thinking “Well if life is just going to be a whole lot of crazy then why bother?”.  That never works out very well. I wind up with more crazy, more chaos and NO idea where I am headed.

Hope this helps you understand how we came up with our name, and helps you feel not so alone in the chaos that is your life. 

Lots of Love
and as always STAY AWESOME

-EM 

Leaving the House

Taking children out in public is often times an interesting event.

Taking home schooled children out in public during "regular school hours" can make you a spectacle that sometimes garnishes unwanted comments.

These comments vary depending on many factors and sometimes the tone is all you have to go by to determine if the comment is: friendly, curious, from a fellow homeschooler, or from someone who thinks it’s their place to judge how and where you educate your children.

First, you have to understand that home schooled children (at least most that I have met, and especially those who have spent no, or very little, time in public school) tend to stand out in public. They are comfortable answering adults and even engaging them in conversation because they have not grown up in the social constructs created by the public school system that tells them, "Adults are in charge and kids only socialize with other kids.” 

They also don't necessarily notice the whole line and turn taking thing since they're excited learners who aren't often restrained by an extremely large group (this topic will probably be covered at a later date). Not that their parents aren't teaching them to be fair and to have a sharing generous heart, it's just that they have limited experience with things like waiting in a line for 20 other people to pee before they can.

Now, on to my story!!!

One day last month I ventured to a warehouse store with my five children while on the way home from some educational “something” we had done that day. It was still early afternoon and I noticed many families in the parking lot.  I was glad to see them as then I figured we wouldn't get asked any of the, "What are you doing out of school today?" type questions. These types of questions (a type of the unwanted comments I mentioned earlier) can plague a home school family who's out and about during the hours of 7am-3pm. There are also interesting comments made when your children are out "late", after 8pm, on a "school night", but those can be saved for another time. When we got into the store, there were tons of sample carts out and I remember thinking that the managers must have known school was out that day as it is not common to have the sample carts out on a Monday unless it’s a holiday.

My children LOVE the sample carts; you'd think they were giving away free candy or something!! Oh wait sometimes they are!

I was in a bit of a hurry that day, so I had to limit them to only carts that were in our path, lucky for them I needed frozen veggies and there were lots of carts near the freezers to choose from. We had stopped at one of the carts; the boys (B-1 and B-2) were doling out the samples to their younger siblings (g-1 g-2 and b-3) and asking if I wanted any. The sample lady looks around the store and, seeing that I have at least 3-maybe 4 "school aged" children with me, asks in a very conversational tone, "Is today some sort of holiday?” 

I open my mouth to say, 
"We home school so I'm not sure why, 
but it does look like the schools are out." 

Before I could get it all out, B-2 nonchalantly shoots out, “AUSTRALIAN LABOR DAY! It's Australian Labor Day, saw it on my calendar this morning."I can only imagine the look on my face, but the look on the sample lady's face was priceless!!! I almost burst out in laughter as I very seriously perhaps even melodramatically responded (because I may have a tendency toward sarcasm) "I'm sure that's it! That is why our Midwest American town has schools closed…on a Monday… in March.” At this point, the poor woman is just looking at us in stunned silence as we walk away discussing Australia, the point and concept of Labor Day and eating our over-processed microwaved frozen food sample. I did later find out that it was INDEED a state/regional holiday (which to me was almost as irrelevant as Australian Labor Day) that had things closed that day.

This whole situation, as amusing as it was, gave me a fantastic idea: we (all awesome homeschoolers) should take note of international holidays, or even the quirky American ones, so as to always be ready with an answer, when the “why are your children with you in the middle of the day?” questions and comments arise. President and icon's birthdays would also be great!

As a bonus, you’ll also be educating your children…and your community!



as always STAY AWESOME

LOVE -EM

PS Thomas Jefferson’s 273^rd
Birthday is April 13^th.