Man!!!

The hits just keep on coming. I am so thankful that I know that God is sovereign otherwise I would have to be thinking by now that there was some big cosmic joke being played on my family. Interestingly enough, usually when Christians start experiencing trials and tribulation, they assume that it is spiritual warfare. I don't. See the thing is, I think that God is teaching me a lesson, quite a few of them actually and all at the same time!

Sure, it's possible that Satan is trying to get us down, in fact we know that is a fact, but at the same time, I don't attribute all these seemingly random events as a negative (spiritual warfare) but instead choose to see them as an opportunity for growth and sanctification.

Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness. -Isaiah 41:10

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. -2 Corinthians 12:9

So what happened? We found out that Eric will likely be deploying to Iraq within the next month, but he was able to take the vacation with us. We were completely out of money when an opportunity came up for me to watch an elderly lady for two days. We visited family (which is both a positive and a negative) and even managed to reconcile differences with a brother. We drove home after being away for two weeks to find someone had broken into our home and stolen our brand new TV and our entire DVD collection (over 300 titles!), but we had been trying (unsuccessfully) to limit our hours in front of it anyway.

Really, the clear message that we have been given these past few months has been, value people, not things. We are still working through all of the various issues, including whether it is "Christian" to declare bankruptcy and whether we have a choice even if it isn't. Getting to this point is the sin. We are learning that it is essential to invest in your family and not always things to surround your family with, that 30 minutes playing a board game is infinitely better than 90 minutes watching a movie, and that poor money management skills will affect every realm of your life.

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. -Romans 13:8

These are hard lessons and they yield a significant amount of stress and self-doubt and plenty other negative feelings, but God is faithful to the end and so must we be.

A Simple Solution

Marriage is a great thing, but it is really hard to keep that fire lit!!! Eric and I have been dealing, for what seems like our entire marriage, the difficulty of finding time together. See, I'm a night owl and he is an early bird. I can very easily stay up past midnight on any given night, provided that I don't have to do anything before 10 in the morning! Home keeping has become an indulgent "job" for me in that no one is here to force me to rise (or set) with the sun. I just label myself as "not a morning person" and I refuse to begin my day. My children have already begun their day, so they get the square babysitter until I can function, which is usually past naptime. Obviously, this needs to change. 

Eric, bless his heart, has tried to stay up a little later with me so that we can talk or spend time together but he needs to be up at 5:30am, sometimes earlier and staying up even until 10 or 11 is difficult for him. We have tried taking a date night, but that is just impractical with our time and budget to be the main thing that this couple uses to connect. While reading Passionate Housewives, Desperate for God by Stacy McDonald and Jennie Chancy, the author mentioned that she had a "tea time" with her husband in the morning before work everyday. After watching Eric struggle to read his Bible the other night because he was talking to me, I offered to wake up with him, make some coffee, and read a chapter from the Bible a day.

Today is day two and though I'm tired in the morning (I still manage to stay up later than he does...), I acknowledge that a morning routine is essential. The other advantage is that I'm up before the kids and therefore capable of being ready to start the day when they get up. I haven't managed to shower before they woke up the last two days, but that's not too terribly bad. As much as I abhor waking up early, this is my labor of love to serve my husband and children and so far, its working! I actually find myself happy to be up...now that's a shock!

Am I the only one who cares about communication?

Not having seen a healthy Christian relationship work...ever...I am a bit at a loss to know exactly how husbands and wives are supposed to relate to one another. I LOVE talking. It is how I process my thoughts and feelings and how I get close to another person. It is my "sex" if that is okay to say. The thing is, the person I want to talk to more than anyone else (my spouse) is not a talker.

How to I negotiate this? How do I "get all my words out" and still submit to his authority? Is my desire to discuss all my future hopes and dreams really my own assertions that he can't do the job properly, my way of taking back some control? Or is this just a need that should be met by my husband? Am I being selfish? I definitely can't trust the world's view on this and even in some Christian circles the male/female relationships have gotten convoluted. 

I have been reading some good blogs lately and like I posted in the previous post, I have been doing a lot of thinking about the Christian Agrarian lifestyle and the community that can follow (or does follow if you live in Santa Anna, TX). [See Biblical Agrarianism and Lazarus Unbound and my personal favorite Country Mom, whose blog I follow on my sidebar] These issues that I keep mulling over are the ones that I so desperately want to discuss with the one person that can truly impact these decisions, my husband. He does allow me to talk about them, but the discussion is usually one-sided because he doesn't have any new information to add. It is always a sermon; me giving away information and not knowing how to ask for any reciprocation. I can't jump into this lifestyle on my own besides being completely impractical, it feels out of the bounds of womanly submission. I know that once Eric gets into this stuff, I think he will really like it (which scares me a little bit too!) because he has never been a "city boy."

Argghhh!!! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Do I just stay silent, on my knees waiting for the Lord to move in my husband? How much do I say, when do I say it? Ladies, please just pray for discernment on my part. I tend to focus on other people so much (and their flaws...if only he would change...) that I miss what the Lord is trying to show me. Perhaps He is showing me that I should run to Him for discussion on these topics and trust that Eric will be moved in the direction the Lord wants us to go.

Labor Pains

Labor hurts. I think most (if not all) women approach labor and the impending delivery with mixed feelings; joy for the new life and fear of the unknown (and sometimes known) pain. At some point you feel like it just can’t be done, you can’t stand the pain any longer, can’t push anymore…and then they tell you the baby is crowning, you’re almost there, just a little more….with a little more effort, your hard work, blood, sweat and tears have resulted in a beautiful baby. The sound of that piercing cry announcing their presence makes it worth it, and you forget that you ever thought you couldn’t do it. I’m in labor right now, albeit a different variety. I won’t produce a crying baby from this labor, but I might just push through to find a happier, more content family.

We had a busy day today, all in different places, but we ended our days at Wal-Mart doing some grocery and random things shopping. By the time we brought in all the stuff, we were ready for a quick dinner and a nice relaxing evening. Noah, on the other hand, had other plans. He wanted to watch TV. My little 2 year old plopped himself on the couch and repeatedly said, “T-view” which is his version of “TV”. This isn’t abnormal and most of the time, he gets his way. Tonight, I told him no, but he kept repeating himself (he does that often). Then Eric stepped in and told Noah no. Eric has a louder voice than I do. Noah bust into tears. The tears didn’t dry up so Eric sent him to his bed (where are children are told to go if they feel the need to cry). Eric was so upset at Noah’s need to have the TV on that he removed the whole thing several minutes ago. Not only that, but he took out the DVD player (which wasn’t a whole lot of good without the TV, I must admit). I feel like Noah, ready to bust into tears.

The kids might enjoy watching TV and Noah really does seem to have a “need” to watch TV, at least it is the first thing he turns to for comfort and in boredom, but it’s really me that has the need. I love being able to “sleep in” on the couch when I have a bad morning. I love being able to shower during the day. I love being able to direct my children somewhere and have them go willingly and stay there so that I can get something done. I love sitting in front of it myself, watching brainless shows. I love being able to put it on even if it serves as only background noise. What don’t I like? I don’t like that I like those things! I want my children to grow up watching me doing the cooking and cleaning and be working right along side me. I want my kids to break out a game to play when they are bored. I want to have time to read to my children. I want my kids to learn at home, and actually learn! But it still hurts.

This is the labor pain; where I must endure something painful in order to give life to something completely new and wonderful. A woman rarely labors alone, she always has a support system in place, people to comfort and to encourage. She sometimes has a knowledgeable person present who can tell her how much further she has to go and to remind her about what she will gain from persevering through this trial. I find that comfort system in the blogs I read, my family, my husband, and mostly in my Lord. He is my Comforter, the one shouting at me in a mixture of excitement and angst, “you’re almost there, don’t stop yet!”

In many ways, labor is just like anything else in life. We go through the fire in our spiritual lives and come out sanctified and closer to God. We struggle to build up a marriage and end knowing each other better than we know ourselves. As a family, our goal is to be beacons to the world, to support and edify each other, to learn to serve and to unconditionally love each other. A family is a safe place to try new ideas, develop lasting friendships, to learn values and beliefs and bring glory to God. The television doesn’t help any of those things. It is a time waster. There is very little material benefit, and though there are good shows to watch (I personally like watching The Duggar’s show, 17 Kids and Counting), not watching them is just fine as well.

I was at my strongest over four years ago when, after having pushed for three and a half hours, my daughter was still unwilling to come out. They told me that I would need a C-Section and the doctor left to go prep the room. The last thing that I wanted was a C-Section. The nurse in front of me knew that and she told me that I didn’t need one, that I could do it. During the next 30 minutes I was pushing well and my daughter was crying on my stomach. Without that nurse, I might have given up. I knew better, I knew what I wanted but I didn’t think I could do it. I DID IT!!! I pray that I can go back to that moment when my will overcame my want.

Garbage Disposal

When we bought our house a year ago this month, the first thing my husband bought to "fix-up" was a garbage disposal since this house didn't have one and I was pretty sure that I couldn't live without one. When he first examined the pipes, he realized that it was going to be harder to do than he had first thought, so he procrastinated. Then came the other things to fix and somehow the box hiding under the kitchen sink didn't bother him...that is until yesterday.

I came home from a quick run to the grocery store for a last minute dinner item (I forgot potatoes! How could I have forgotten the potatoes???) to find my husband sprawled under the kitchen sink. He had decided that now was the time to install the garbage disposal. After the we ate the chicken casserole that I made, Eric had to run to the store to get the specific pipe pieces. (Apparently, we had black pipes and that makes it more difficult). He ended up having to install a new outlet under the sink because the dishwasher was hard-wired, which he didn't expect. So, he ran the electrical wires and installed a new outlet so that our garbage disposal would have power. It was right about then, maybe 10:00pm when he realized he had forgotten a pipe. No more installation could be completed because Walmart doesn't carry the part and Home Depot closed at 8:00pm. He would have to finish after work the following day, today. He stopped at Home Depot on the way home from work and less than a hour after he began, we had a brand new garbage disposal in our kitchen sink!!! HOORAY!!!

Now, let me tell you, this thing will grind up a chicken bone, and you won't even hear it working! It can handle all sorts of things and aside from a slight vibration in the counter (like a cell phone in your pocket, not loud at all) you would never even hear it grinding!

This, of course, has sparked a new wave of "kitchen protection" where I redo the kitchen and somehow remember that it is the "heart" of our home and I should maintain it better than I have. Ahh, sigh. I love my husband!

Deciding to Homeschool

I missed the financial aid deadline for school, so I won't be attending St. Martin's in the Fall. As much as I would really like to go back to school and study my way to a bachelor's degree- I feel like I am being led to stay home with my kids; to actually learn to love to be around them, instead of tolerate them until bedtime. We had been talking about putting Jordyn in a preschool while I was in school. She will be 4 in August and I thought that it was time to begin some formal schooling. My version of school so far has been plenty of Dora the Explorer! Hardly educational, though she can count to 10 in Spanish! I feel like I am failing them right now, because I know that they watch WAY TOO MUCH TV and have very little tolerance for reading stories, especially Noah. I suppose he is still a little to young and fidgety to read long stories because he still listens, but he has to be "doing" something. The only problem is that he gets distracted once he starts doing something else and therefore is no longer listening. Anyway, all of this, on top of talking about divorce (mostly because I can't manage to keep the dishes and laundry clean!!!) and talking of moving, I think I just want to do what's best for my kids. I refuse to give in to the lure of divorce because I know that working out a marriage is always better than divorce. Eric is not my soul mate and I never should have married. These are big statements and I mean them. What I feel isn't completely regret, like wishing that I could go back and change it, but realizing that I didn't make a good decision in the past and determination to not further the bad decisions even if the first decision (marrying) wasn't a good one, divorcing right now does not put me back where I was 7 years ago. So I have become somewhat kid-focused right now. I am exercising more now for the kids (so I will be around when they have kids), eating healthy and wanting to do whatever it takes for them to be happy healthy kids.

Homeschooling is part of that. Jordyn seems to be a sensitive kid. It's not that she doesn't get along with her peers, because she does, but I think that kids can be incredibly mean and I think that like most kids, she is vulnerable to that. I don't think that she is emotionally ready to handle bullies and I definitely don't want her to seek after the popular crowd like I did in junior high and high school. I want her to learn where her values are and who she is in Christ first and I want her to learn these values from someone who truly has her best interest at heart. As a young girl, there are so many lessons that peers are all too willing to teach you and I don't want Jordyn to learn them. I want her to evaluate her character, not her chest size. I want Noah to learn to achieve in a safe environment. Noah might well pick up speed educationally, but right now, he's behind. That is probably because all he wants in his day is movie after movie. Still he has plenty of things that he loves to do, but when he is at a loss for something interesting to occupy him with, he turns to the TV. Not a habit I want to encourage. I want Noah to grow up to be secure, to learn how to take care of his family. I don't want him teased for things he can't control (or even things he can, for that matter!!!). There are also expectations on the young men in our society and I don't want him to believe many of the things that society tells our boys that it is okay to do. I want both kids to have a substantial grounding in the Scripture and I want their values formed by that more than their peers or society.

All that said, HOW AM I EVER GOING TO HOMESCHOOL??? Not only am I unsure about what curriculum I want to use (more on that later), I am concerned about how on earth I will manage to not kill them during the course of the day!!! As much as I love my children, no one else is as capable as they are in the art of driving me crazy. How do I manage to keep control and how do I fill my days? I suppose a very good way is to figure out how and when I am going to get out of the house-both with kids and alone, what my schedule is going to be, and how I will be supported. The biggest thing that I am thinking about are the actual methods and curriculum to choose. Five years from now I will probably laugh at my current angst because I will have learned that curriculum and methodology can change from one year to the next and I am still in the mindset that this is a one-time decision. That once I choose a handwriting program, I have to stick with it forever. What on earth am I going to use for grammar? Is it more important to be fun or rigorous? Am I going to be a better teacher if I have someone else's lesson plan in front of me or one that I have created myself?

I am seriously considering three different styles of homeschooling right now: Sonlight's prepackaged complete curriculum which makes homeschooling incredibly simple for me, but doesn't necessarily give me complete control over what my children are using in each subject (they only have a choice of 3 handwriting curriculums and my favorite is not among them), but I know it works and even though it might not be my favorite method, I know that it's do-able, Christian based, and thorough. One of my other choices is Tapestry of Grace. TOG is a unit-study curriculum that takes most of it's methods from the classical and Charlotte Mason methods. The parent is required to do a significant amount of the choosing, but they point you in the right direction with your choices. It is set up to be repeatable, so that I will only have to buy the four different sets and then I will repeat it 3 different times as the kids age at more depth each time. Since it follows the classical approach, I know that it is going to be rigorous and that is really something I desire for my kids. However, since it is a unit-study approach, I can always add and subtract, plus I can teach multiple levels at one time. When Noah starts formal schooling, Jordyn will probably be about 2 years ahead of him and he will be able to just jump in with assignments that are tailored to him. Sonlight does this to a certain extent, but it seems like it might be a little more difficult. I have already ordered my Sonlight catalog even though I can read it online because I much prefer to do my reading in print and I wanted to look more into Tapestry of Grace. One other major concern is that TOG doesn't have a pre-school program and Sonlight does. However, the basis of Sonlight's curriculum is literature, so the preschool program is essentially a book list with some developmental books added for good measure. Where they excel is in the teacher's guide which helps clueless parents like me tie it all together. TOG also has good parent/teacher guides, but again, no preschool program-though they do allow for children to start their program at a Kindergarten level, though I assume that you would just extend the first unit for two years and start the second unit during what would be second grade.

The last thing that I am considering is to go it alone: that is to use a classical approach to homeschooling- specifically the book, The Well-Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. I will probably need a few other books if I decide to take this route; there are a few books on designing your own classical curriculum and one in particular about Christian Classical Homeschooling that I consider an essential. Combining all of those resources, I think that I could do a good job of creating a personal program- TWTM is probably sufficient with all their suggestions and resource selections. They are probably the number one source right now for parents attempting a classical homeschool. I would be surprised if a family were classically homeschooling without owning this book. However, I am a little intimidated by it. I have read it over and over again and I am a little concerned with just the amount of information presented. In many ways, it seems like the authors consider some of the information common sense and perhaps it is, but it isn't common practice and therefore, I am finding it a little difficult to attempt some things. The other thing is that my view of the way this style should be meted out is a little like a cold schoolhouse with the children chained to their chairs. Obviously, that is the LAST thing I want to accomplish with homeschooling- instead I want to create children who love to learn and know how to learn. The last bit there is extremely important to me! I love to learn new things and because I am a good reader can learn most things THAT INTEREST ME, but tell me to learn something from a book that doesn't interest me or is slightly above my natural level and I falter. I don't think that I learned well (enough) HOW to learn. These are skills, not desires or inclinations. Learning is part of life and often times you are required to learn something that you don't necessarily want to learn. I want my children to be able to successfully learn new things, but also be able to carefully interpret them according to their worldview. I don't want them to be swayed by whatever the newest research is, I want them to go searching for the rest of the story and figure out how what they have learned fits in with what they already know and believe. I honestly believe that classical education is the best way to go about doing that, but I think that classical education can be poorly suited to someone who is tactically minded, for example, and craves physical involvement to learn something new. I think that Jordyn might enjoy physical activity in her lessons, though I think that she is well suited to the classical approach. I can't see Noah sitting still long enough to write his name, let alone learn something. Time will tell with Noah though, and changing his habits from TV watching/wandering to books and playing will probably help.

TOG seems to be a pretty good compromise of all my goals, so I am pretty interested in finding out more. I might just order the Pre-K program through Sonlight just for the quality books and schedule for this year. This year is pre-school; next year I will want to develop a better program for Jordyn's kindergarten because that is the year that she needs to learn to read, and read well. So, we start this year. She is already interested in knowing her letters, but she seems to be a little spacey when asked to recall any of the information. I can't tell if she truly doesn't know or if she is just playing. How to include serious behavior as part of the school routine eludes me as of yet. I think that I will start with creating "school-time" for the first 30 minutes of Noah's nap and then require quiet time of her in her room. I will probably get some books on tape for her to listen to during this time instead of the typical movie. That should be a pretty good preschool start...no matter what program I choose in the end!