A repost for obvious reasons...

I posted this on my Freedom blog, but it's worth posting here because of the bravery of my son...enjoy!

There are times when, as a woman approaching her fifties, I sense that time is running short to do all the 'fun' things that should be done before I hit the pearly gates!
So, today, I was persuaded to bike ride with twin twelve, soon to be thirteen year old, boys...and mind you, bike riding should be something that's done daily, at least that's what Caleb thinks, and I told him we could do that...

It all began when Isaac came to me and with a Middle Eastern accent, told me that they'd filled my tire (and not blew it up!) and wanted me to take a spin with them...and holding my hand, he drew me away from a letter I was writing...(sometimes these two just amaze me with their wooing skills!)
I told dad I was going to take a ride with the boys to which he responded, "You should take a ride with the boys! Do you have a horn or can you say honk, honk?" I honked and he gave his approval...off we went! (He's been in a really goofy mood lately, very witty and just a hoot!)

Coming around the corner of a street named, 'Anaconda' (that should have been my first clue), a dog came running out of a house when a woman opened her door and a man carrying his little girl walked in. Immediately the dog began barking at us as we rode by and I heard the woman yell the dog's name, but she didn't seem to care and closed her door.
The dog kept pace with us, barking, hair raised on its back and would wander into a front yard and then come back barking...I thought to myself, 'all bark, no bite' just as this dog came into the street and BIT ME!
Immediately, Caleb dropped his bike and went after the dog! I mean literally went for the dog...I was concerned he'd get bit, but instead the dog wandered back into a yard. With great aim, Caleb took off his helmet and threw it at him, hitting the thing square in its back (broke his helmet!!!)! The dog began whimpering, and wandered back toward it's house, which is where I was also headed!

I felt so honored by my son's chivalry that I'd do it all over again just to see the man in him rise up to protect his mother! That's my boy~

This was a big dog, not a little yipey thing, either! I knocked on the woman's door and when I told her, she asked if I was ok, and I told her, "NO, your dog just bit me!" She apologized profusely, but I told her to keep her dog in her yard...I was too overcome to even think of saying all the things I'd thought of on my way to her house!!!! That was a good thing. One never knows if maybe one is going to the same church or worse...I see her in a situation where she'd need ministry and I was the ranting woman she'd had at her front door!!!

Well, my nerves have somewhat settled and I checked my leg...no open flesh! But I just drove to get the address and when I made a report so no one else gets bitten, the man said she'll get between two and six tickets! Wow! Very painful lesson!

Who would have thought that today would have turned out like it has so far? Yet, I did what I set out to do: GET MY HEART RATE UP!

Have a great weekend. Won't be around again until after we get back from the Coast...with tons of pictures, too!!!

A mother's confession...

She daily sits in her wheelchair, a blank stare on her face, gazing out the picture window at birds splashing and gulping water from an aluminum pan he fills every morning...this pan satisfies two needs: their thirst and her desire to connect with the outside world .
So I sit at the table, attempting to strike up a conversation and connect with her...I do try, but despite my best efforts, there's nothing there. Oh, once and a while she'll bring up something from her past or the usual, 'Have you talked to____________', to which I repeat what I've told her previously.

The temperature has been so hot that she cannot go out during the day and so she sits...and stares. Sometimes the silence is so loud it hurts my ears. Other times I wrestle with guilt for not knowing my mother or 'working hard enough' to know her. This is the woman that gave me birth, raised me, took me to all the various lessons parents take kids in order for them to 'become' something amazing when they grow up.
But she also taught me things I wish I'd never learned. She didn't intentionally teach me those things...I don't believe any mother wants to teach her children to be manipulative, angry, bossy, pushy, self-centered...every mom I know does her best to teach her children to respect others, love the unlovely and work hard. Yet, left unchecked and not intentionally worked on, the former are 'qualities' kids become experts at...I'm no exception.

 I wiped the tears off my cheeks today as I listened to spoken words that stung my heart, brought conviction as well as healing about my role as mother. Sometimes the truth does sting, but it's medicine that brings health.

We are nurturers, right? But when does nurturing turn to smothering? At what age do we, as moms, stop telling and begin suggesting things to our boys? When do we let the circumstances of our children's life awaken them to pain that will forge character to develop or do we continue to circumvent their pain because it hurts us to see them suffer?
These were the questions that ran through my mind today...I've been guilty and now that I've been made aware of my behavior, I know there are eternal changes coming...

As I've been praying for answers to the 'do we homeschool this year' or 'do we do something different' question, I've been reminded, once again, that these young warriors He's blessed me to love and care for ARE NOT MINE. I don't own them or their future...and Daddy has been working daily to show me how to stop micromanaging them and begin to allow them to grow up.

We're all growing up!
until next time...

Where has this school year gone?

I ask myself how time could have flown by so quickly just when I was making plans for their education...but it has! 

Because I tend to analyze everything to death, I've decided it's healthier to take this year's experiences to Him, dropping my failures, inadequacies and struggles at His feet and pressing on to what lies ahead!  Learning always seems to take place, whether I plan it or not.  It's not so much whether they're learning at a desk or we're out and about; they're always learning something.  May it be His paths, not mine.

Yesterday was zoo day again.  For some reason, we never tire of the sights and horrid smells of animals from all over the world...and the boys don't seem to mind waiting around for me to click just 'one more picture'!

It's been a challenging year for me and the boys with all the changes, particularly with having a 'quiet' place to do Math...even with a sign posted for my daddy!  But it, too, is just a season.

Isn't this just how it is with children?  They're in our face...and we love it!

How was your year?  Did you accomplish everything you set out to do?  What challenges did you face and how did you deal with them? 

Just curious.

Until next time...

Bananagrams...

On New Year's eve we played a new game called Banana Grams...I absolutely love it!
So, for fun learning, we are playing it for spelling.  The coolest thing is that we didn't have to go and buy the game, we're just using our Scrabble letters.  I like it so much more than Scrabble because we don't have to wait to take turns...everyone picks either eleven or twenty-one one letters, depending on how many are playing and then you play your own game.  If you can't use a letter, you 'dump' it, and pick up three more.  If you use all your letters, you say, 'peel'. Then everyone has to pick up one letter...the first one to use all their letters, wins!
I was quite impressed when Caleb spelled DEFINITELY!  Genius!

Why can't learning be fun?

Yesterday, I needed time off!  So we headed out to the library to pick up a book Isaac had put on hold and then headed to the Japanese Tea Garden and took in the beauty and lots of pix!

The first creature Isaac found:  a stink bug...and do they smell bad!

I think posing is their favorite thing when the camera is on!

The caretaker of the Gardens asked if they'd like to feed the giant fish~that was so cool.

Rocks and boys go together like peanut butter and jelly...until the workers come around...they got down before they were noticed.  What is a mother to do?

Just to get a picture of the size of this building...

Unscheduled days off are great every once and a while, don't ya think?

Warm weather and cereal!

Duck/Chicken boys...

Some days, things are just funny...and they intentionally work to make me laugh.  That was this day.  Pringles are great for this.

Mom is gettin' it together better everyday.  This week I sat and, once again, typed out a schedule for them...THEY LOVED IT!  It helped so much to bring order to their day, my expectations, the time they could say, 'we're done...sign here, mom.'  Whew...it was worth the hours of arranging, praying, thinking, and then finally printing a copy for them, me, and Love...school went sooo well this week.  Kinda like when I start and restart to exercise...no guilt that it failed in the past, cuz He is Lord of today and tomorrow and though I(we) fall, I (we) shall get up again and run the race set before us...but if there is nothing 'set', how can I (they) run in any direction...
It seems the hardest part is consistency...working with my parent's to STOP COMING INTO THE SCHOOL ROOM AND JUST TALKIN' ABOUT WHATEVER!!!  One day, not sure which, dad recognized how he'd frustrated me and so he came home with a candy bar, sat it down next to my computer and walked out...then later told me it was for his annoying me~!  I smiled.
Life is good, full of surprises and good things. 

Savor each day.

Last Sat., we had planned on dropping the boy's off at church to serve, but First Sat. Serve was cancelled, so we headed to Home Depot and it just so happened to be the kid class day and they wanted to do the project...they're just about too old for this, but until then, I'll just savor the desire.

Lessons from the Hawks

Well, this week we've been doing some 'remedial' work...particularly in Math for both of them...this Saxon math is challenging and though I know it's a great curriculum, when they're both getting between 5-12 wrong consistently, I knew that if I didn't do something soon, they'd abhor the subject!

So, I've found a website that has worksheets and Caleb has been cheered on all week along with the supplemental work at the back of the book--three days of 100's!  Yeah!!!  Isaac doesn't struggle with Math as much-- he just is not giving his best (I refuse to say he's lazy, because he's not!)...so, I've had to sit with him and spend more time discussing why his math is important and this mom has been tested to the core!  I have to CONSTANTLY check my motives and the level of frustration with a child that borders on genius but fails to apply himself because his brain and heart are in his room building Lego forts...oh, no, this week he built a 'latrine', a laundry room, guest rooms and other things that I can't remember!  I reminded him the mantra will always be that to do the great things later on means we do the hard things now...all of life is like that!  Oh, to breathe deeply and remember that myself every time I repeat myself!

Then I love this site for geography...we've been challenging each other with the states, capitals and geographic regions!  It's challenged me because I never really cared much for geography...so we're all learning.

Then there's the hens...their delight.  We've had two hawks perch in this huge tree behind our home and the one next door, squacking (which is a gift to know they're there) and a couple of times have swooped down to get a closer look!  Due to the danger, the poor girls have had to be shut up in their house and boy, do they let us know they're not happy!...But it's just another way to explain how discipline is important for their safety, despite the hens hating it!  I just love how Daddy God gives real life experiences to teach us about Him and the way of Life!

This week held many challenges, but the successes they've experienced in Math alone have encouraged me to keep plugging away.  They're getting it.

I've been reading them "The Time Machine" and then dictating parts of it for them to underline the prepositional phrases to help them learn what those are and, how, if taken out of a sentence, make it easy to figure out the subject and predicate!  Ha!  I found this site with Easy Grammar and watched a couple of the woman's video clips and took it from there...they're bored already and believe they know what prepositional phrases are, but one more day of it and then we'll move on...to more remedial work.

There's always the issues of how they speak to each other--character training--and mom is learning character along the way, as well!!!

And, oh, yes, WE cleaned their room again this week...it's the funniest thing to me that when their room is clean, they spend more time in there, they enjoy each other more and they're more creative...hmmm. 

One day it will click that: KEEPING THEIR ROOM CLEAN IS IN THEIR BEST INTEREST AND THEY'LL DO IT FOR THEMSELVES, WITHOUT BEING REMINDED, RIGHT???

It's a dream I am holding onto!