Day 482
Another Sun. night in
paradise...the girls are supposed to be cleaning their room but the noises I am
hearing coming from upstairs do not sound promising. I was up there earlier today looking for
Ellie's sandals, which I never did find.
But what I found under their bed was mounds and mounds of stuff -
apparently they've been stashing it when they've been ordered to clean. So it all got pulled out and now they have to
clean it up. This may take a few days,
at the rate they are going.
Ellie gave me a scare
tonight. I was waiting around after
church because David had a meeting for all the workers for the fall
festival. I was keeping a pretty close
eye on Ellie, but all it took was one moment of me not hanging onto her arm and
she was out the door. I do not let her
play outside because our church is located on a highway and I cannot trust her
to not run into traffic. I finally
caught up with her on the other side of the church property - boy, was I
mad! She started bawling as soon as she
saw me coming because she knew she was in big trouble!
I am toying with the idea of
putting Lizzie in school next year. I
wasn't planning to write about this yet.
I guess my frustrations with the girls and their bedroom and Ellie at
church brought it up in my mind. Someone
suggested the idea to me a couple of weeks ago and I had honestly never thought
about it until then. But I started mulling
over the idea in my mind and honestly, it's really appealing right
now! I have grown to love Lizzie, of
course, but she is a difficult child to live with. I'm sure there are a number of factors at
play that make it this way, but those are the facts. She is hard.
She is hard to live with, to
discipline, and to enjoy. She's actually
not difficult to homeschool because she is an eager learner and very,
very bright.
I don't know what I'm going
to do yet. I've got a number of months
to pray about this and seek counsel.
Already, I've brought it up with a number of different people, seeking
their opinions. Not one has said,
"No, you can't do that!" I'm
fairly certain Paul would not be in favor of the idea, but I'm not living the
rest of my life based on what he would or would not do. He's dead.
I'm not. I'm just wondering if
having a break during the daytime hours would benefit us both. But then, I have concerns, like:
* Lizzie already seems to be
much more aware of worldliness (just feminine intuition? Her early, rough years and exposure to things
she should never have seen?). She's
going to be exposed to a whole lot more in a public school setting and might
she choose to embrace it instead of the Christian principles I am attempting to
instill in her heart?
*How can I win her heart if
she's gone all day?
*Will she suffer
academically? What about Common Core?
*Will she experience racism
attending a nearly all-white school? I doubt this would happen, but as long as
I'm coming up with a list of stuff to worry about, I may as well throw it on
there.
* Will the distance that I
perceive between us increase?
*What if I have a difficult
time with her teacher?
* Am I simply experiencing a
burnt-out time in homeschooling that will pass if I give it time? Or, maybe the Lord is leading me away
from homeschooling altogether...
I don't know. What I do know is that when it was time to
send Ben back to public school I felt a perfect peace about the situation, even
though I was scared to death. Paul was
actually very in favor of it, too, as I recall.
So maybe he wouldn't be as opposed to this as I think he might be. With Ben, I was just completely drained,
emotionally. Puberty was a nightmare
with him and I am beginning to feel now with Lizzie how I remember feeling with
Ben. I am asking the Lord for that
perfect peace, though, that I experienced when I knew that I knew that I knew
he had to go back.
So, we'll see. There have been several times in recent weeks
that Lizzie has been her normal, trying self and I have thought, "Oh, you
are SO going to school next year!"
I'm not saying anything, though.
The last thing I want her to feel is rejected or that school is a
punishment for her bad behavior. I know
that as awful as she is, she is equally frustrated by her seeming inability to
make good choices. She frequently
comments about how she is "the worst kid in this family!" We have had many, many talks about how it is
all up to her and all she has to do is make wise choices instead of foolish
ones, but the bad behavior still persists.
There is always counseling but I have had two bad experiences with
counselors already and I am reluctant to try another.
All right...I'm going to go
put my feminine miscreants to bed and then I'll get back to this. Ben was no picnic tonight either, so I'm not
just picking on the girls, either.
**********************************
Ben went to Iowa City Iowa City
*********************************
Speaking of teeth, Lizzie
lost another one this week. It was her
other top front tooth, so now she's toothless and adorable! This was the third tooth she's lost in about
as many weeks. She has another canine
tooth that's pretty loose now, as well.
For a couple of weeks Lizzie had this solitary top tooth that hung at an
angle because it was so loose. She slurred all her words because that tooth was
just in the way. Will called her a
"hick" when he saw her last
weekend (specifically, a "Nebraska
Cornhusker Hick") When she saw him yesterday, she peeled up her lip
and exclaimed, "See Will- I'm not a hick anymore!"
The tooth actually came out
Thurs. when the Littles spent the day at Jenn's. I guess James, Lizzie's bio brother,
encouraged her to twist the tooth and it popped right out. Lizzie jumped up and exclaimed, "My mom will
be so happy! Now I can get my picture
taken!" I guess I must have
expressed my hope out loud that the tooth would come out by the time we take her
birthday pictures in Oct!
Of course, now we may have to
wait to get Sam's pictures taken. Jenn
took all 8 of the kids to the park and Sam did a face dive off some piece of
equipment and scraped up his whole face.
His nose was healing and then tonight in church he accidentally scraped
the scab off and now it has to heal all over again. Sigh...
I love taking the kids over
to the Merritts. All those kids
absolutely love mine and the feeling is mutual.
James and Lizzie have an especially tight bond. When we get there, they are in eachothers
arms within moments and they are always the last one hugging goodbye. Then, as we leave, James starts flying down
the sidewalk on his long seven year old legs, waving and grinning all the
way. I cannot ever move and take those
two away from eachother. They need one
another.
************************************
The other day I had some time
to kill while David was at Learning RX so I took the Littles to the play area
at Valley West. Oh my goodness, they
poor children must be deprived. They
were SO excited and couldn't keep exclaiming when they realized where I was
taking them, "You are the best mommy, ever! Thank you SO much!" and so on. I just sat there reading my kindle while they
played. After awhile Lizzie bounced over
to where I was and her face was
luminous. She explained that she had
been attempting some sort of jump or trick on the play things and, "I
prayed to God to help me do it and He DID!
I thought God just answered prayers in the Bible times but He answered
me!"
My emotions were so torn right then. Part of me wanted to do a face palm because I
would hope that most of my parenting is geared toward helping the kids realize
that God is real and relevant in their own lives. Has she missed that in the 2 plus years I've
had her? But on the other hand, I was
thrilled. God is becoming real to Lizzie
and as her mom, that excites me.
Now, of course, there will
come a day when she doesn't make the jump.
Or she doesn't get the pony for her birthday that she prayed for. Or, the part in the school play goes to someone
else or a young man breaks her heart.
God's presence will need to be even more real to her when He gives her a
different answer than the one she prayed for.
But for right now, in her 5 year old little world, we're going to enjoy
the moment and say, "Yes, God DID hear your prayer and wasn't that
wonderful of Him to allow you to make the jump?!"
********************************
I think a post or two ago I
wrote some about the current senate and gubernatorial races going on in the
state. I'm not going to belabor the
point, but I do have a couple of funny, related stories.
So, I mentioned that I am
voting for Branstad. I'm not bowled over
by his performance, but he's not terrible, either. I definitely don't want his opponent to win,
and like I said, voting for third party candidates is usually pointless. Well, 4 years ago I did vote for a third
party candidate (Jonathan Narcisse). I
got a call this week from his campaign - he's running again - asking if they
could come put a sign in my front yard again.
I felt kind of guilty knowing for whom I've already decided to vote, but
told them, "sure!" I'm not
sure what kind of hypocrite that makes me.
David found out and said, "So let me get this straight. You're voting for Branstad, right?"
"Um, hm"
"But you're putting a
Narcisse sign in our yard?"
"Yep."
"You make no sense
whatsoever, Mom."
Probably not.
Straight No Chaser, the
accapella group (is that their name? I
always get the order of their name words mixed up because they don't make sense
to me) re-recorded Dolly Parton's famous song from the seventies,
"Jolene." It's a pretty cool
version of it. Dolly even did this one
with them. We were listening to it in
the van the other day and Lizzie said, "I didn't know they made a song
about Joni Earnst!" Poor kid has
been watching way too many political commercials!
*************************************
Will came home
yesterday. I had a list of things for
him to fix, which he did. He couldn't
figure out the fridge, though. I've been
having some on-going trouble with the ice-maker and last week the freezer
itself quit freezing for a few hours. I
don't know if they are separate or related problems. I may have to call someone about that, but I
am not sure who to talk to. Paul would
have known just what to do - grr....
He had me edit a paper he
wrote for his Personal Evangelism class.
Oh, it was just like old times when he took his writing classes at the
school a few years ago! I love doing
that kind of thing. I helped him firm up
the paper, but actually had very little to correct, grammar and
punctuation-wise. He is a good writer
all by himself. I'll be curious to see
what kind of grade we get on it!
Then, he took Ben to the Des Moines
The guys got home around 10
and I asked them how they enjoyed it.
Ben just shook his head and went off to bed. Will groaned and said, "I almost fell
asleep. This class is totally going to
ruin any of my previous enjoyment of classical music!" Ha, ha...I remember struggling in my
classical music class at UNI. I had 8
years of piano as a child but it sure didn't help me in the class. I just found classical music so dry. Now, 25 years later, there is some I enjoy, but honestly - not a
lot. I guess I'm just not highbrow
enough. I like a beat and lyrics. Bring out the fried chicken and lemonade in a
red plastic cup. That's who I am!
**************************
Well, that's all I had to
write about for now. It will be another
busy week. I'm on the hunt for a new
front door. After all the work I went
to, stripping and repainting, I've decided to just replace the whole
thing. The paint just doesn't look all
that great. I want to start over. Plus, with getting the new siding up soon, I
want the door to match what I presume will be a nice-looking exterior. I found what I want at Lowe's yesterday, but
I don't want to pay $300 for a new front door, either. So tomorrow Sam has an eye appt and I think
we'll head over to the Habitat for Humanity Restore store and see what they
have.
Thursday night a bunch of us
are getting together to help my friend, Deb, make pizzas for her son's wedding
rehearsal dinner Friday night. The whole
wedding planning by the bride leaves a lot to be desired and the other night at
church Deb was about to have a break-down over this, I think. So several of us told her we'd help her get
this thing put on. I'm going to bake
some bars for the event, too. This is what I love about our church family and
it feels good to be on the "giving" side of things for a change. Saturday, the Littles and I will attend the
wedding while Ben and David are at Faithfest in Ankeny
But I'm sure a whole lot of other stuff will happen between now and then! And before I know it, another week of surviving without Paul will have occurred. I've noticed that I kind of view Sundays with a sense of relief anymore and I think it's because of the whole "survival" thing. Every week that I make it is a week that I am stronger and more ready for a future without him. Maybe it's called progress.
Or just survival.
I'm the same way about classical music. I don't like it. Sorry, I am who I am, and I don't like it!
ReplyDeleteLaraba