A Week, Briefly (10/16/17)
We experienced a family crisis this weekend that prevents me writing of the week with my usual transparency. It is not my story to tell.
We are doing well now.
But on Sunday we learned that the little son, J--, of Pixie's and Super Star's Sunday School teacher (he'd been Belle's teacher the year before) died after his heart gave out as he battled pneumonia. He was born with a congenital heart defect, and it couldn't handle the stress of the illness.
So . . .
Monday
Sir Walter Scott and I had an assignment to clean the temple in the morning, so we cancelled school in order to meet that obligation.
We'd planned on having school in the afternoon, but then the memorial service for little J-- was announced for late Monday morning, so we went to that.
It was gut-wrenching.
They have another son--12 years old and a friend to Belle. He broke down weeping in his daddy's arms. I cannot describe the agony in the quiet wail that echoed from his throat into the hearts of all of us standing near enough to hear, but we will be forever affected by it.
At one point Pixie was holding the baby of one of her other church leaders. Little J--'s mama came over to admire him (she's not been to church before because they are recent immigrants from Korea--she and J-- waited 2 extra years in Korea because of J--'s heart condition and inability to travel safely--and she's been in the hospital all of the time). She asked if he belonged to Pixie, and she couldn't help touching his sweet face as he slept.
Another mother walked over and intuited this mama's need to hold a baby. She asked, "Would you like to hold him?"
"Oh! It's been too long!" she exclaimed in gesture and broken English.
"You don't forget how to hold a baby!" the mother said, and Pixie transferred the sleeping infant into the arms of the grieving mama.
Her husband came over, and everyone backed away from the tableau of mother, father, and infant boy as the parents' hearts were nourished by the weight and softness and innocence of this precious bundle.
How I pray for comfort for this family! How I pray to know how to be a comfort to them!
Too emotionally worn out to do school, I cleaned a bit and got my younger crew to talk to me about how their day went while I was away.
In the afternoon I took the teens with me and bought a bunch of thrift store Halloween costumes while Sir Walter Scott monitored quiet time at home.
Rose Red's new love came over for dinner and Brother greeted him with, "I know who you are! [Rose Red] has to stand on her tiptoes to kiss you!"
We didn't have much time to get to know him as we had to leave to take care of more of the family crisis, but I hope that we get to see more of him.
Our evening routines were discarded in the need to take care of more pressing matters.
Tuesday
Most of the day was about appointments and phone calls for coping with the crisis of the weekend. It was all good news, but it was really time-consuming.
However, I did get a chance to gather the littles around the table to read and talk and to have some one-on-one teaching time with each of them.
Ladybug has completed the first reader of The Reading Game. I am very pleased so far with how the game focuses on memorizing words but has just enough phonics so that decoding skills can be learned if the parent/teacher desires . . . and I do. :)
The sweetest moment of the day came in the late afternoon between phone calls when Beowulf came running into the house, just on fire to share something with me.
"I saw a bee getting pollen dust! I saw it, Mom! I saw it!"
In the morning we had read from The Christian Liberty Nature Reader about bees gathering pollen, and he remembered, and he saw the real thing.
He was so excited. So happy. So alive.
It was one of those "I'm so glad we homeschool" moments.
I squeezed 4 piano lessons in between conferences and calls, and then it was dinnertime and time for the youth to head off to church activities.
The rest of us read and went to bed early.
Wednesday
I needed to be near the phone again, so we stayed home. We're falling into a home routine during which the Elementary 8 play outside, and I call them inside for one-on-one time and then I call them all in for a snack and some history/science/poetry read alouds.
Our 5 books of the moment are:
Now We Are Six
A Child's Garden of Verses
How's Inky?
Dear America: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple
The Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1.
But as I had to go with Pixie to seminary because Rose Red had to go to work, our morning was off, and our breakfast was late, so I served a snack and did our table time reading first thing. Then we had breakfast and Morning Meeting. Then we had our one-on-one time.
There were some successes and some total failures.
Beowulf and Ladybug both broke safety rules countless times, threw tantrums that required me to physically restrain them for my own safety (Ladybug managed to kick me in the head), and sat in time out over and over again in order to calm down enough to function.
Brother whined and cried so much through the day that we finally put him to bed immediately after dinner. He never got to have school with me (which he LOVES) because even though I invited him to the table with me repeatedly, he refused to come, and when I asked him to sit with me, he chose to sit in the time out spot and cry instead.
However, Ladybug had a great day of reading!
While our family crisis is seemingly over, I see a possible second break down ahead, and I'm worried. And Rose Red is "kicking against the pricks" again. I have deep concerns for her as well.
The teens and I had Symposium, and then the call I needed to field came through, so I took the littles off to Cave Spring for a couple of hours.
Mostly I sat sewing on Little Princess's doll and trying to breathe in and out, but the kids playing happily in the out-of-doors worked magic on my heart and mind, and after an hour or so I was able to get up and engage with them.
The evening was hard because I had to leave to take Pixie to her new dance session. I had Rose Red drive; as the studio is in the heart of downtown, and there are tricky freeway on/off ramps to navigate I went with them this first time. I hope that Rose Red will take over that duty next week, and I can stay home with my littles--I miss them and our calming evening routine.
There have simply been too many times I've been called away from home of late. I need badly to map out my concerns and needs, have a council with Sir Walter Scott, make some decisions together, and have a family meeting in which we lay out the boundaries for out-of-the-home activities and which kids get priority when.
At least the rest of the teens finally turned in their E.T. essays that were due on Monday!
Thursday
Dance day.
But first there was the whole morning to spend on putting more ducks in a row to work on healing from and preventing our weekend crisis from happening again.
No school.
But the older girls had to dance for an extra hour +, and knowing that, I packed up snacks and school stuff and worked with the littles one-on-one.
Then at dinner I read aloud about Remember Patience.
And even though 2 out of 4 teens were gone, I read The Keeper of the Bees to the remaining two. The elementary crew are enjoying Ginger Pye . . . sort of.
The guy in the mustard-colored hat is pretty creepy.
Friday
I was done. It's been a harder week than I am free to describe. I wanted to take my littles on an outing, but I hadn't folded laundry all week, so I sent them out to play while I folded it all--2 1/2 hours' worth--then I gave them a substantial snack while I read aloud to them, then we took off.
That means I abandoned the teens and forgot Symposium, but they would have been irritable for various reasons, so I think (hope) it was a good call.
We did invite the teens, but they had their own agendas.
We spent 4 or so hours at the lake.
It was lovely.
We'd have stayed longer, but the siren call of the water was too strong to resist, and the kids got soaked and COLD!
I had dry clothes and popcorn in the van, so all was well.
Saturday night is the teen homeschool Halloween dance. My oldest 4 are competing for best group costume by dressing up as characters from The Wizard of Oz. Hopefully there will be awesome pictures to post next week.
(linking here)
We are doing well now.
But on Sunday we learned that the little son, J--, of Pixie's and Super Star's Sunday School teacher (he'd been Belle's teacher the year before) died after his heart gave out as he battled pneumonia. He was born with a congenital heart defect, and it couldn't handle the stress of the illness.
So . . .
Monday
Sir Walter Scott and I had an assignment to clean the temple in the morning, so we cancelled school in order to meet that obligation.
We'd planned on having school in the afternoon, but then the memorial service for little J-- was announced for late Monday morning, so we went to that.
It was gut-wrenching.
They have another son--12 years old and a friend to Belle. He broke down weeping in his daddy's arms. I cannot describe the agony in the quiet wail that echoed from his throat into the hearts of all of us standing near enough to hear, but we will be forever affected by it.
At one point Pixie was holding the baby of one of her other church leaders. Little J--'s mama came over to admire him (she's not been to church before because they are recent immigrants from Korea--she and J-- waited 2 extra years in Korea because of J--'s heart condition and inability to travel safely--and she's been in the hospital all of the time). She asked if he belonged to Pixie, and she couldn't help touching his sweet face as he slept.
Another mother walked over and intuited this mama's need to hold a baby. She asked, "Would you like to hold him?"
"Oh! It's been too long!" she exclaimed in gesture and broken English.
"You don't forget how to hold a baby!" the mother said, and Pixie transferred the sleeping infant into the arms of the grieving mama.
Her husband came over, and everyone backed away from the tableau of mother, father, and infant boy as the parents' hearts were nourished by the weight and softness and innocence of this precious bundle.
How I pray for comfort for this family! How I pray to know how to be a comfort to them!
Too emotionally worn out to do school, I cleaned a bit and got my younger crew to talk to me about how their day went while I was away.
In the afternoon I took the teens with me and bought a bunch of thrift store Halloween costumes while Sir Walter Scott monitored quiet time at home.
Rose Red's new love came over for dinner and Brother greeted him with, "I know who you are! [Rose Red] has to stand on her tiptoes to kiss you!"
We didn't have much time to get to know him as we had to leave to take care of more of the family crisis, but I hope that we get to see more of him.
Our evening routines were discarded in the need to take care of more pressing matters.
Tuesday
Most of the day was about appointments and phone calls for coping with the crisis of the weekend. It was all good news, but it was really time-consuming.
However, I did get a chance to gather the littles around the table to read and talk and to have some one-on-one teaching time with each of them.
Ladybug has completed the first reader of The Reading Game. I am very pleased so far with how the game focuses on memorizing words but has just enough phonics so that decoding skills can be learned if the parent/teacher desires . . . and I do. :)
The sweetest moment of the day came in the late afternoon between phone calls when Beowulf came running into the house, just on fire to share something with me.
"I saw a bee getting pollen dust! I saw it, Mom! I saw it!"
In the morning we had read from The Christian Liberty Nature Reader about bees gathering pollen, and he remembered, and he saw the real thing.
He was so excited. So happy. So alive.
It was one of those "I'm so glad we homeschool" moments.
I squeezed 4 piano lessons in between conferences and calls, and then it was dinnertime and time for the youth to head off to church activities.
The rest of us read and went to bed early.
Wednesday
I needed to be near the phone again, so we stayed home. We're falling into a home routine during which the Elementary 8 play outside, and I call them inside for one-on-one time and then I call them all in for a snack and some history/science/poetry read alouds.
Our 5 books of the moment are:
Now We Are Six
A Child's Garden of Verses
How's Inky?
Dear America: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple
The Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1.
But as I had to go with Pixie to seminary because Rose Red had to go to work, our morning was off, and our breakfast was late, so I served a snack and did our table time reading first thing. Then we had breakfast and Morning Meeting. Then we had our one-on-one time.
 |
| Brother is working on fine-motor skills with a cut-and-paste book I found at a thrift store for $.75. It was in brand-new condition! |
There were some successes and some total failures.
Beowulf and Ladybug both broke safety rules countless times, threw tantrums that required me to physically restrain them for my own safety (Ladybug managed to kick me in the head), and sat in time out over and over again in order to calm down enough to function.
Brother whined and cried so much through the day that we finally put him to bed immediately after dinner. He never got to have school with me (which he LOVES) because even though I invited him to the table with me repeatedly, he refused to come, and when I asked him to sit with me, he chose to sit in the time out spot and cry instead.
However, Ladybug had a great day of reading!
While our family crisis is seemingly over, I see a possible second break down ahead, and I'm worried. And Rose Red is "kicking against the pricks" again. I have deep concerns for her as well.
The teens and I had Symposium, and then the call I needed to field came through, so I took the littles off to Cave Spring for a couple of hours.
Mostly I sat sewing on Little Princess's doll and trying to breathe in and out, but the kids playing happily in the out-of-doors worked magic on my heart and mind, and after an hour or so I was able to get up and engage with them.
 |
| The decaying matter in this old tree is just like clay. |
 |
| The kids love to collect it and sculpt with it. |
 |
| Eventually this will be a tiny dolly for Little Princess. |
 |
| Oops. An owie for Lola. But it was tiny enough to kiss it all better so she could still have fun. |
 |
| Found a fun toy on my phone to play with while kids jumped and climbed. |
The evening was hard because I had to leave to take Pixie to her new dance session. I had Rose Red drive; as the studio is in the heart of downtown, and there are tricky freeway on/off ramps to navigate I went with them this first time. I hope that Rose Red will take over that duty next week, and I can stay home with my littles--I miss them and our calming evening routine.
There have simply been too many times I've been called away from home of late. I need badly to map out my concerns and needs, have a council with Sir Walter Scott, make some decisions together, and have a family meeting in which we lay out the boundaries for out-of-the-home activities and which kids get priority when.
At least the rest of the teens finally turned in their E.T. essays that were due on Monday!
Thursday
Dance day.
But first there was the whole morning to spend on putting more ducks in a row to work on healing from and preventing our weekend crisis from happening again.
No school.
But the older girls had to dance for an extra hour +, and knowing that, I packed up snacks and school stuff and worked with the littles one-on-one.
Then at dinner I read aloud about Remember Patience.
And even though 2 out of 4 teens were gone, I read The Keeper of the Bees to the remaining two. The elementary crew are enjoying Ginger Pye . . . sort of.
The guy in the mustard-colored hat is pretty creepy.
Friday
I was done. It's been a harder week than I am free to describe. I wanted to take my littles on an outing, but I hadn't folded laundry all week, so I sent them out to play while I folded it all--2 1/2 hours' worth--then I gave them a substantial snack while I read aloud to them, then we took off.
That means I abandoned the teens and forgot Symposium, but they would have been irritable for various reasons, so I think (hope) it was a good call.
We did invite the teens, but they had their own agendas.
We spent 4 or so hours at the lake.
It was lovely.
We'd have stayed longer, but the siren call of the water was too strong to resist, and the kids got soaked and COLD!
I had dry clothes and popcorn in the van, so all was well.
Saturday night is the teen homeschool Halloween dance. My oldest 4 are competing for best group costume by dressing up as characters from The Wizard of Oz. Hopefully there will be awesome pictures to post next week.
(linking here)
May the Father comfort that grieving family, and may the situation you're going through be resolved soon.
ReplyDeleteI have to laugh at you so casually saying, "the elementary eight..." Sometimes I think I have a big family, but when I read that, I realize I'm an amateur. ;)
Sending hugs to you all. Wishing you all a long period of peace and tranquility.
ReplyDeleteHugs.
ReplyDeleteI will have to catch up on your crisis later--my weekend has been out of control!
ReplyDeleteMy prayers are with you in your crisis and the loss your friends experienced. We came so close to losing Timothy under the same circumstances when he was three. I pray your crisis comes to an end and you are able to have some peace in routine and love.
ReplyDeleteThanks to everyone. :) We are really quite well. It just takes time to deal with a crisis and then adjust to a new normal. I appreciate your hugs, your prayers, and your words of encouragement more than I can say.
ReplyDeleteSo this is the third time I've tried to comment on his post.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry about that sweet family dealing with thier family tragedy.
The picture with Lola wearing goggles reminds me of my youngest who used to wear goggles around the house for hours. Very nostalgic for me. :)
I hope this week gives you time to breathe and heal from last week struggles.
I’m so sorry about your family troubles. But I’m amazed at what you accomplish on even a “less-productive” day! You seem to have such a calm perspective on everything. I’m sure the moments are still hard, but I love your vision.
ReplyDeleteI love the story about the bee. I remember having that same experience—but it was ME getting so excited! I'd been teaching the kids about bees. When I noticed one with full pollen sacs, I couldn’t contain myself! And the kids weren’t even around. :)
That “elementary 8” phrase makes me laugh every time too. You’re amazing!