Daley Ponderings

Jon was with a bunch of people we don't see often last night, and one of the men mentioned that his wife was discouraged by all these homeschooling mother-of-many type blogs where everyone has all their lives together and nothing goes wrong.  So I thought I'd post how my life is not perfect, though it is very blessed.  I am not a perfect mother, but I'm the best one for my children.  I am not a perfect teacher, but I am the best one for my children.  I am not a perfect homemaker, but I'm the best one for my home.  I'm not a perfect wife, but I'm the best one for my husband. I hope this post is encouraging to other not-perfect moms. (More)

Joy has two hair swirls at the back of her head.  One goes clockwise and one counter-clockwise.  Each of my other children only have one.

5/3 - Joy's two month appointment.  12 lb, 3 oz.  She is developing a birthmark in the upper right of her forehead (can't remember the very long medical term, and interestingly enough, "birth"marks can appear within a few months of birth and not only at birth.)  It's likely to grow to about a nickel size and then recede to be gone when she's about five or six.  When her hair grows out, it should completely cover it.  Her bellybutton finally finished its healing and got the ok. (More)

4/15 - Faith and Noah are playing house.  They are married, and are parents to Faith's "purple baby doll".  Noah says to Faith, about their baby, "When she is happy, I hold her.  When she is sad, you milk her."

4/18 - We were talking about heaven (I don't remember the beginning of the conversation) and the boys were discussing what it might be like.  Noah said something about being able to do amazing things to the bad guys.  Then both Jonathan and I said there won't be any bad guys in heaven.  Noah was taken aback by this and the look on his face was priceless.  He just couldn't comprehend how heaven could possibly be fun if there were no bad guys to fight.

Faith still asks me to tell her "Moses and the little boat" every night at bedtime.  She has asked for this since at least December.  I got tired of saying it in my own paraphrase, so I have been reading Exodus 1:7-2:10.  One night recently, when I had finished, she rolled over and sleepily said, "That's a good story."

4/20 - Random dinnertime discussion.  How much salsa can you fit in a minivan?  We calculated about 2 tons.

On Easter Sunday, we were singing some resurrection hymns.  When we had finished, Jonathan was still looking through the hymnal, and he said, "Here's one that has parts about the cross and rising again, this would be a good one."  Which one was this?  St.Patrick's Breastplate.  Honey to a mother's heart. (And a grandmother's, too I'm guessing, as soon as she reads this.)

4/27 - Joy found her thumb.  She has also been grabbing at any fabric that is near her hands, mostly her clothes and sometimes the spitup rag.

And now I leave you with the funniest quote of the week:

4/26 - Another dinnertime discussion, talking about recent holidays.  Noah asked, "What's Lent, Mom?"  I explained a little bit.  Then he responded, "Oh.  I thought it was that stuff in between your toes."

Faith has started calling Jonathan, "Ohnny-int"  This is related to how she says medicine ("meddy-int") and other words that end in /n/.

She also says her own name, which sounds unfortunately rather like "Hate" but the /t/ is a bit softer, maybe halfway between that and "Hathe".

3/30 - In the morning, I woke to the sound of the floorboards squeaking in my bedroom.  I opened my eyes and there was Jonathan with a tray of toast and juice!  What a sweetheart. (More)

3/11 - Faith can count to six.

3/12 - Faith counted to ten.  She isn't consistent with this.  She'll get stuck after six, but if someone says seven, she can do the rest on her own.  I don't think she has quantity recognition past five, though.  And she sometimes likes to start counting with nine.

3/21 - We've been listening to CDs and tapes a lot on my old stereo.  Noah comments, "Mom, tapes are really cool.  But CDs you can skip to the next one.  But tapes you can stop it and then it starts right where you were."

Jonathan has been reading Greek myths and has made himself a Zeus costume, complete with eagle-topped staff and thunderbolts.  Then he discovered an old tape of mine with Holst's The Planets on it.  He was very excited to recognize the personalities of the gods in their respective movements.  He and Noah were marching around with invisible guns to Mars before I even told them what it was.  Holst sure did a good job!  It is fun for me to see me kids enjoying a piece of music that I enjoyed so much (well, I still do!)

Joy has been smiling a lot this week, mostly for her siblings.  I think her hair is growing.  It never fell out as her siblings' birth hair did.  Maybe her hair will start out brown?

Noah is learning simple addition and beginning to read.  He is enthusiastic about this learning and schooltime is fun with him.  It's so neat to watch them figure out things!  School with Jonathan has not been as much fun, but I think we need to find something that challenges him more.

2/11 - Faith, looking at cousin Cole's cute pictures. "Me wikey 'at wittle Tole, Tole, Tole."

2/24 - Milk started coming in Thursday evening.  Joy is a good nurser.

2/26 - Joy's cord fell off.  Noah called it the "umbilicord" when talking with Faith about it. Faith is very excited about the bellybutton.

2/27 - Faith, talking about Joy's hiccups, "Baby 'Oy had hip-up twenty-teen long time."

Things are going well.  Everybody has adjustments to make.  Faith loves her new little sister and likes to hold her a lot.  She is having a bit of a hard time with the reduced Mommy time.  She gets weepy about things that weren't such a big deal before.  Noah is more of a silent sufferer, but I can sense he is also adjusting. Jonathan seems to be doing great and he is very helpful.  He loves to check in on Joy throughout the day.

Jon and Mom are wonderful about doing lots of work and letting me rest.

1/20 - Jonathan, as usual, singing while he plays and works.  This time it was, "Come, Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadil.  Come, Tom Bombadil..."

1/22 - When boys have a tea party:  Noah, Faith and I were playing with Faith's tea set.  Noah said he couldn't eat his soup because the bad guys had poisoned it.  It was such a deadly poison we couldn't even touch it and I had him call 911 to send a squad out to take it away.  I never remember anything like this happening at other tea parties... (More)

12/23 - Noah: "Tomorrow's tomorrow is Christmas!"

Both Jonathan and Noah were sick in the car on the way to New Hampshire.  Blessedly, they both managed to get everything in the bowls and nothing on anyplace else in the car.  By the time we arrived, they were fine and the rest of the visit was sick-free.

12/27 - Jonathan and Mommy were discussing dollar amounts of Christmas presents and what was even thinkable to ask about.  I had said that a $200 set was out of the question.  He then said, "[A particular lego set] is in the question."

12/30 - We went to the Boston Children's Museum with Grammy and I was with Faith at the bubbles section.  She played a long time there and I got to observe other kids as well.  This note is a quote from a young girl next to us, with obvious glee in her voice, "Science is messy!" (More)

I haven't been writing things down much recently, but here are a few.

12/14 - Faith likes to "write" and rarely draws, but she asked me to make a guy for her, which I did.  When she asked for more and more I reverted to a quick stick figure.  Then she started drawing her own guys!  A head with two toes sticking out.  Her first time drawing people!  They are very cute people, and I have her assurance that they are toes and not legs.

12/15 - We watched an Alfred Hitchcock movie.  They are hit or miss and this one was a miss.  Faith got restless before it ended and said, "Me no wikey moonie."  Jonathan and Noah knew to keep still until the end but both were disappointed.  Hoping at least for some comic relief to redeem the time, Noah asked, "Daddy, can we please watch the outtakes?"  Jon just had to laugh out loud at that one.  They didn't do outtakes in the thirties...

12/22 - This morning Jon did some shopping after his meeting and as we were putting away the groceries, Jonathan asked, "Mom, are perogies panterable?"  What?  "Are perogies panter-able?"  He meant "able to be put in the pantry" as opposed to the freezer.

Actually, the only thing written in my pocket notes from all this time is that on 11/16, Jon solved the mirror cube with his eyes closed.

Jonathan's 7th birthday was a very fun time.  He got a lot of cool presents and had a lot of cool people over to play.  Grandma and Dad-o were there for the occasion and the next few days were also busy with fun. (More)

11/6 - Noah and I were making rice krispie treats and Noah was stirring.  He asked for a marshmallow, but I said no, they had to go in the recipe and he could have one of the finished products.  Well, he decided to snitch and got a natural lesson.  I, only a few feet away in the kitchen, heard him screaming.  He had dipped his finger in the melted marshmallow to taste it!  I rushed him over to the sink and after a while of running it under the cold water, I made an ice bath in a bowl for him.  His finger turned out fine after a few minutes and he had learned a good lesson. (More)

11/1 - Jonathan, "My favorite color is green."  Noah, "My favorite color is green, too!"  Jonathan, "Faith, what's your favorite color?  Is it green?"  Faith, "No, flower."

11/1 - Jonathan lost his left front upper tooth!  He bit into a grape (boy, that tooth must have been ready!) at 1pm and the tooth was out at 5pm.  We can already see the grown up tooth showing through.  The matching front tooth is due any day now, I'd guess.

11/3 - On a Sunshine Math page, Jonathan was instructed to find the "value" of words using a code A = 1 cent, B = 2 cents, etc.  The last part said, "Your first name = ____" and he was not so happy that his name has eight letters in it.  But he did something harder and thought it was more fun anyway.  He added up y-o-u-r-f-i-r-s-t-n-a-m-e.  I accepted that as a correct answer. (:

11/3 - Jonathan, "In Japan a long time ago, they didn't have guns... they had shoguns!"

Faith is more often dry at night than she was before.  Last week she had four nights dry in a row!  Daytime is mostly the same.  She doesn't like to sit long enough for #2 so that usually ends up in the underwear.  But I'm taking it in stride right now and encouraging her to keep trying.  "I know" she says when I remind her. (:

11/5 - After a brief phone call with Mom, I related, "Grandma says, 'hi' to everybody."  Faith replied, with a bright face and excited voice, "Mom, hug!?"  She likes phone hugs from Grandma!

10/3 - Jon felt the baby kick!  Since then, Jonathan and Faith have thought maybe they felt it.  If the kids were ever up when I was still in bed but awake in the morning, they would definitely be able to feel it.

10/3 - Noah counted to 20 on his own.  He is most comfortable sticking with 12, though.

10/5 - Faith, seeing a picture of Grandma on the computer said, "'Ma"

10/18 - Jonathan, talking to Noah about where to put a recipe, "I call it her biscuit cookbook because all I ever make out of it is biscuits." (More)

This is short but my pocket notes are full and I need a new paper.

9/25 - Noah, wearing his Swiss tshirt and red shorts, "This is my hockey outfit.  My hockey team is called Swiss Fire!"

In lieu of nursing for any length of time (which is very irritating when pregnant and seems to get more so each pregnancy) I will sing to Faith as we go to bed.  Her favorite hymn is Holy Holy Holy and she will sing along with me, allternating pronunciation between "hohee" and "hodee".  So sweet!

Can't remember the day.  Jon overheard Jonathan talking to Noah as they were getting ready for bed.  "Don't wear that kind of shirt to bed.  You grow in the middle of the night and you might not be able to get it off!"

9/28 - Opening a letter from Grandma:  Noah, "I know what it is: cool stuff!"  It was some more Sunshine Math pages.  Noah exclaimed, "I LOVE Sunshine Math!"  Jonathan replied, rather reluctantly as if he didn't want to admit it, "Yeah, Sunshine Math is pretty fun."

Inspired by an article in Family Fun magazine, I developed a fun motivator for bedtime cleanup that really works.  Before, there would be lots of complaining, dilly-dallying and nagging.  Now the house is clean every night before bed and the job is done quickly!  Here's how it works.

We have a jelly jar to fill up with colorful glass gems (which we call "beads" though they have no holes).  Each evening at clean up time, we set a timer for fifteen minutes.  For every minute left on the timer (rounded to the next whole minute up) they get to put a bead in the jar.  A bonus of five beads is awarded if the whole house is clean before we even start the timer (motivating clean up before the evening even arrives!).  A penalty of three beads is subtracted if the parental inspection reveals that the house is not clean despite the boys' statement that it is.

The reward for a full jar of beads is a special treat selected by the boys.  The most recent one was to watch a VeggieTales movie.

This works so well for our family.  Now, even if it takes the whole fifteen minutes and they get no beads, the job is done in that short time - in the past sometimes it would take until they were falling into bed and still not be done, really.  The past several days they have gotten most of their beads and even the bonus twice!  The jar is now half full again though it was reset only a few days ago!  The house is noticeably cleaner (ask my Mom who just visited!)  I know I'm using a lot of exclamation points, but I am so happy that this is working out.  Everyone benefits and it is turning out ot be really fun.  (We even get some math in as Noah counts out the reward for the evening and Jonathan divides them as evenly as possible for the three kids to place in the jar.)  (: