Five Minutes

OK Ladies,

It is confession time. I went to my homepage and saw nothing new on the MOPS blog and wondered who dropped the ball. Then I looked at the schedule and found that I dropped the ball. And now I must confess that I not only dropped the ball, but am looking blankly at the computer screen wondering what to talk about on this Mommy and Me Thursday.

Last night, Simon and I painted. For about five minutes he spread blue and red paint over five post cards. He discovered the difference between spreading and dotting the paint. He found the fun of accidentally dotting his mother and turned it into the fun of deliberately smearing his mother. After five minutes he was done; the trucks were calling him.

Typically, I don't think much of five minutes and had I known the amount of time he would spend on that activity I probably wouldn't have gotten out the stuff, honestly. I don't often use five minutes to connect waiting for more time. But last night was five minutes and it will be a forever memory.

I wonder what do you do with your five minutes to connect? Seriously, let us inspire and encourage one another. I need five minute ideas!

Question Tuesday

Simon walks over carrying a book.

Book. Book. He says as he bangs it off my knee.

I've read them a hundred times before. Abigail has them memorized. I love the feel of little bodies curled up next to me learning to love words. Watching them sit with a book telling the stories over to themselves.

Abigail and I are working on phonics. She reminds me often that she can't read, implying that she needs to learn. Soon she will have the stories at her fingertips.

I'm a reading mom.

What's your favorite book and where do you read?

Turn Off the Radio

I'm not good with things dueling for my attention. I think it explains why our efforts to have our children closer together were thwarted. One needy thing at a time. God knew.

I'm also a slow learner, preferring to blame something or someone else for my shortcomings. For a long time the car was torture. The ten minute drive to Target felt like a week.

I was used to getting into my car and turning on the radio and driving to my destination. Then Abigail started talking. Then she started having conversations. Then she started asking questions. And expecting answers. (How dare she, right?) The days of tuning out toddler babble were over. And I would spend the time with dueling noises--the radio and the girl.

This went on for a while, an embarrassingly long while. All I wanted was for Abigail to be quiet in the car.

Then I read a little homeschooling book about a method of educating children designed by Charlotte Mason. She observed in her original writings that when a child was thinking she was talking. There wasn't another way for a child to think. (Of course she also observed that adults can think and talk independently often talking without thinking.) It changed my perspective. Perhaps the girl should win the duel. When she wants to converse in the car, the radio is turned off. If she is making random noise, I reserve the right to turn the radio on and ask her to be quiet.

Turning the radio off in the car and in the kitchen has so relaxed me as a mother. I have allowed myself to be invited and to accept the invitation into her head and her heart. The things she thinks about are amazing, the questions she asks confounding, and the way she looks at the world intriguing.

I know some of you are like my husband and exist with background noise. My point isn't that you must mother as I do, but rather to accept that their chatter is an invitation to know them well.

Train up a child in the way he should go, 

Even when he is old he will not depart from it. 

Proverbs 22:6

(While this verse appears to say that if you teach your child about God, he will never turn away. But it has more to deal with teaching your child about his unique design and the ways he can go with that. Getting to know the unique person God has entrusted to us is imperative to giving them this training.)

Stinkin' Storm

Ladies,

I am sorry to report that the MOPS meeting scheduled for tonight has been canceled. We were holding out but it looks as if the storm is unavoidable. We will not be rescheduling the meeting.

But, we are working with our panelists to have them visit The Tea House on January 22nd from 6:30-9:00. So stay tuned for more information about that Mom's Night Out.

Stay Warm and Sled Ride,
Sarah

Count Your Blessings

We get cranky when we don't get what we want. We getting frustrated and whiney and unpleasant and pouty because we have forgotten what God hath done, what He has given. I can get overwhelmed by the asking, the saying "No" and the tirade to follow.

So we count. I start with the chorus. . .
Count your blessings
Name them one by one

She replies with a blessing.

We sing
Count your blessings
Name them one by one

I reply with a blessing.

We sing.
We alternate naming them one by one.

The tirade ends.

If you want to hear the song, here it is. Though I remember it sounding so much better in a little church on a hill in WV.

Candy Cane Ornament

I LOVE this craft idea that I stumbled onto on FamilyFun.com!
I cannot wait to make these with (or without my kids!) and add them into my basket of homemade gifts this year!!

You will need:

2 skeins of DMC Pearl Cotton, one red and one white
Scissors
Red pipe cleaners
½" to 5/8" ribbon

Directions:

1. Open a skein of cotton and snip the loop at each end so you have two bunches; repeat with the other skein. Then take one red bunch and one white bunch and tie them together into a single knot around the end of a pipe cleaner.


2. To make the stripes, twist the two colors around the pipe cleaner and knot the ends together around the other end. Trim the cotton at both ends and trim the pipe cleaner if need be.

3. Bend into a candy cane shape and adorn with a ribbon bow.


Tips:
These canes were created with fine DMC Pearl Cotton, but younger kids may have an easier time with chenille yarn or cord.

DMC Pear Cotton…is also known as cross stitch thread!

Collections

I love to be outside, just being. Abigail likes to be outside to play or to ride a bike or to do something that requires being outside. It is just a difference in our personalities. I want to nurture her desire to be out-of-doors to be out-of-doors, to see the Creator in His creation, one of the ways He reveals Himself to us. But how?

So I started reading, Charlotte Mason (who I wish I was) advocates hours outside, just being outside. (She also advocates lots of unstructured time without Mother participating in the activities of her children but being mindful of them.) Now I can't quite manage that, though I am trying to work toward it, but even then on the days we spend outside Abigail will tromp by a flower, walk over the ants and completely miss the changing leaves and sky without some kind of guidance. For some exposure isn't enough to draw them in.

So then I started reading about nature tables and other ways to mark time with nature, and hit upon something I could use. Now we go for a walk or to work in the garden and I give the girl a purpose:  find something. It requires her to see the world around her, to think about and interact with this thing we call Creation and to think about the One whose work it is.

 Our nature table is the top of a dresser filled with art supplies. Somehow it just feels right that we place the work of the Master Artist atop the tools of our works of creation. We fill baby food jars with seeds and leaves and dirt. We put leaves and plants and figurines in pie plates cracked from the dishwasher (who would have thought they weren't dishwasher safe). We stack gourds in pottery class creations and walnuts shedding hulls in fine china found many years ago at an auction.

Perhaps in Simon I will find one who easily sees the Creator and is satisfied to watch His work without needing a purpose of his own to fulfill in order to venture outside, but for Abigail right now this works. This marking time in collecting His work.

Do you have a way of getting your children to engage outside? Do you have a way of keeping their collections?