Far Beyond Pearls

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When Penny has done something wrong, she talks about it like she’s someone else. For instance:

“Mommy! Penny peed in my bed!”

In her defense, I forgot to take her to the potty AND I forgot to put a diaper on. Then I told her to stay in bed. What’s a poor girl to do?

I keep my boots on the porch. I spend so much time walking back and forth, in and out, that bringing them in seems a pointless waste. So there they sit, on the porch, right outside the living room door. When I need to go out, I just open the door and step into them. When I need to come in, I pull them off and leave them for next time. Except yesterday, when there was another ‘next time’, I opened the door, started to step out, and noticed a snake on the threshold! Foot poised in midair, I debated my next course of action. Was it poisonous? Aggressive? Did I have time to call the kids? If I moved, would I scare it, causing it to slither into my living room? While I considered these things, the snake flicked its little red forked tongue in my direction. Then it moved and we all sprung into action. I put my foot down, called the kids, and requested the snake field guide. The kids came, with the guide, scooped up the baby, and closed the door behind them. The snake, disturbed by all this sudden attention, attempted to hide – underneath my boots.
It was, for the curious, a milk snake. Some varieties seem to be quite colorful, but ours was a simple brown snake, with darker brown spots. Also, it was small. But it did waggle its tail at me, making me think it might be a baby rattler for a minute. And it did try to bite me. Twice.
You’d think this would have inspired me to move my boots into the mudroom, lest I stuff my unsuspecting feet into them one morning only to find that some unwitting creature has indeed taken shelter in them, but you’d be wrong. I tried it and it’s just too irritating. I’ll take my chances with the snakes.
Here is a photo for you, though. Not of the snake, which was relocated to greener pasturers, literally, and did not hang around long enough for a photo op. The toad, however, found on the same porch at the same time, was happy to sit for me for several minutes while I maneuvered for just the right angle and fumbled around looking for the perfect focus. It was a patient toad. Thank you, Toad.

This little fellow fell out of the tree this afternoon. It can fly, but only a little, and we don’t see the nest so we can’t give it a lift back home. It’s a pretty little thing, though, isn’t it?

PS: I know we can’t talk to each other just yet. I still don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s more fun to write posts than to fix code. It IS Sunday, after all.

Thanks for coming over.  I’ve missed  you!

Now that you’re here, I just want to tell  you a couple of things.  First, all of those links on the side don’t necessarily go anywhere yet.  They will, though.  It’s just that this website thing takes more time than I have, so I do it in snatches here and there.  And my computer and/or internet connection is kind of slow.  And I don’t really know what I’m doing.    Also, that photo banner?  Not my photos.  Yet.  They will be as soon as I have time to upload them to the server.   If I waited till everything was perfect, though, it would be two more weeks till we got to see each other, and, well, I’d miss you too much.

So, here we are.  Let me know what you think.  And don’t mind those FAQs.  We must’ve been in a mood when we wrote them.

SORRY!  The feed and the comments have quit working and I don’t know why.  Now I’m cranky and don’t care.  I’ll try to fix this tomorrow.

I have a thing for the perfect little hands of babies.

This is Tommy’s, from just the other day. Isn’t it lovely?

This one is Penelope’s, from when she was a wee one-and-a-half-month old thing.

I just love the hands of sweet little babies.

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This little boy of mine caught his biggest fish yet. Big enough to eat. Well, almost. I called his daddy at work to report on the catch. “Is it bigger than a dollar bill?” he asked. It wasn’t quite, but we saved it till he got home, anyway, and he made the call to cook it. Jonny wasn’t so pleased when David cut off its head and sliced it open. There were tears welling up in his eyes, though he didn’t let them spill over. It’s a hard lesson to learn, that animals are food, that this farm is a place of life and death, that sometimes something else has to die so that we can live. I hugged him and praised him for providing good food for his family. David seasoned the fish, wrapped it in foil, and threw it on the grill. Then we all went inside and enjoyed one bite of fish each. It’s a good thing we had pork chops, too.

Question: I noticed from by all that subtle linking that you just finished up a Brave Writer course with your kids. Which course did you take? What did you use? It looks so overwhelming!

Answer: I have had the manual, called The Writer’s Jungle, by Julie Bogart, for an embarrassingly long time. The whole philosophy, with it’s decidedly Charlotte Mason flavor, appealed to me. That’s the kind of lifestyle, the kind of education I want for my kids. But making it work? I struggle with implementation. I signed us up for the class because I love to write and I wanted and needed to know how to get my kids to love to write, too. And it worked! What I discovered is that my eldest two, at thirteen and eleven, actually want to write, love to write, and have so much to express, but they were bogged down in the mechanics of writing. This class let me help them to get their thoughts out first and worry about the spelling and punctuation later. My nine year old Meg was reluctantly participating. She took the course pretty much because I made her. Once she got going, though, she was eager for each new step on the road to a finished piece. And she’s proud of what she did. They all are. So am I.

It was so liberating for me to sit my kids down to write and be able to tell them -and really mean it- that spelling didn’t matter, that punctuation didn’t matter, that it’s all about their ideas. Every time I said that, they beamed. And every time I read their work with that thought in mind, it was like I was reclaiming my status as their adoring mother and stuffing that annoying teacher lady in a closet somewhere. I could just be happy with what was really some pretty good writing, even if it was raw and unreadable by anyone except the writer.

Everything we learned in that course can be transferred over to any other writing assignment we ever do. Sometimes, we’ll write just to write, with no expectations, but when we need to or want to, we know how to turn out a finished piece with no tears and no stress for any of us. That’s a priceless gift, if you ask me.

The course we took is called Kids Write Basic and it’s their foundational course. They offer others, but I’d say this one is a must if you are having trouble teaching your children to write. It’s fairly expensive at $175 for the first child plus $50 for each additional, but if you compare that with the amount of money you’ve spent on courses that aren’t working for you or your kids, you’ll probably come out ahead here. The course brings to life the information in the book. I like having the book to refer to when I need to refresh my memory, but you don’t need it to take the class.

And if you sign up for one of her courses, tell Julie I sent you. Maybe she’ll give me a discount on that Help for High School book. We’re coming up on that a little too fast for my tastes!

Nine year old Megan’s piece can be read here.
Eleven year old Delaney’s piece is here.
And last, but not least, is thirteen year old Brenna’s, here.

Next up in this brand spanking new Q & A series: The bare bones cloth diapering kit! Because my sister asked.

Got a question? Send me an email: armyofeight at gmail dot com.