Setting A Feast

Simple is best.

Do not overcomplicate gathering a bag of tricks.

Books.

Art Supplies.

The option to nap.

The key is quiet activity for a specified amount of time, using no technology.

Finding the great books is something I have learned along the journey.

Here are some resources and names that you can Google if you need direction in finding great books to have on hand.

Carole Joy Seid Reading List

Sarah MacKenzie Reading List

Read Aloud Revival

Honey for a Child's Heart

Sally Clarkson Reading List

Whole Heart Reading List-this link is a compact treasure trove!

Give your children a new book on holidays and birthdays.  Build their library so quality material is always available to pull from.

Good quality colored pencils such as these Prismacolors are a favorite in our house.  Each kiddo has a set. They are high quality and very fun to work with.

Hobby Lobby is another jackpot place to look for art books, Prismacolor pencils and sketch books.

The curriculum we have used for two years now is called Higher Up Further In.  You can click on the link and browse the books we read, choose ones that look good, and add to your library that way.  This is a free resource.

Here is a sample of reading suggestions for our boys this year:

 

Mr. Popper's Penguins
The Story of Doctor Dolittle
Dick Wittington and His Cat
The Boxcar Children Series 1-19 only (RA 1st bk only)
English Fairy Tales illus by Rackham
A Wonder Book by Hawthorne

Child’s Book of Heroes edited by Bennett

Baby steps.  Step one is carving out daily time for no technology.  Step two is giving them a small handful of resources that they can pull from.  Set the feast and let them enjoy.

As Carole Joy Seid puts it, "You can have all of this for the price of a free library card!"

A Gift: time to be bored

Do you have a time period built into your day for quiet?

I am not talking about video games, phone time, or TV time. 

I am talking about a time of quiet with no technology. 

I am talking about creating a space where you have to think about what to do. 

I've noticed we have become reliant on our technology to fill the gaps, dadgummit. 

Mindless time wasting is the golden calf we worship. 

God hates our idolatry and we whiz right along on the path to death with no regard to our sin.

It almost sounds ridiculous to me that establishing a quiet time in our home has been hard for me, but it has.

When I hear older women exhort us younger moms to carve out "quiet hours" it sure sounds like something that would enrich our days.  Mentally I am on board with the idea.  In the early days when my house was filled with nappers I was on board.  Somehow my daytime nappers grew up. Somewhere in the process I avoided cultivating quiet time as they grew older.

There will be pushback and I don't want to deal with it so I foolishly turn a blind eye.  I tell them with my actions that we don't have to cultivate the hard things, that it is OK to fill the gaps with idol worship.

I do not want to be a woman who cowers away from what I believe will be the best because I am running from the pushback.

I don't want my children to be reliant on technology to fill the quiet spaces. 

It is a shiny trap laid by the enemy that seduces far too many of us and paralyzes the fruit that could be coming from our days.  A swipe of the finger is robbing our days, snatching away the legacy we could be leaving.

The first time I implemented quiet hours with my older children (read: this afternoon) it was borderline comical.  They moped around like they had just lost their best friend (read: Minecraft).  Mommy, mommy, mommy...I became the star of the show.  One kiddo sat in the chair across from me chewing his gum, rocking and just looking at me to pass the time.  What the???  And I'm nothing to look at today with my no showered crazy haired self.  Geesh.  He'll figure it out though, they all will.

What am I giving them if their only option during free time is dependent on something that plugs in?

This, by the way, this idea of unplugging a bit each and every day, is not a gift they are going to thank us for anytime soon.  Naw.  They are going to give us the business about it.  They are going to moan about it.  Today it was enough to drive me to a can of Dr. Pepper and some tater chips.  They're smart though, they'll figure it out.

Give those kids of yours space to have to figure things out.  In my next post I will give ideas on setting a feast for them to pull from.  Until then, consider this.

Is there a period of time you could carve out daily for some technology free quiet time?  Don't rob those kiddos of yours of this irreplaceable gift.

Crawling Out From Under The Mess

Life got busy.

Everything is bursting at the seems, from closets to drawers.  We've been barely staying afloat and just trying to survive from one thing to the next.

Every season is not this jam-packed, but this last month was one of the full types.  I am trying to make some intentional choices to get back on track.  Things like:

Make the choice to stay home and create margin.

This one just about kills me because there are so many things I want to do and people I want to see.  My kids also want to see and do.  Staying home can be a hard choice.  Evaluating our commitments is also something to consider.  Have we over-committed?  If so, their may be wisdom in scaling back.  There are a lot of things our family chooses to say no to because we place a high value on having plenty of time to cultivate our family relationships.  What do you value?  Are your choices accomplishing what you want?

Know what fills you up and energizes you, then take the time to do it.

Is it a book?  A clean house?  A hike?  Window shopping?  Cooking a great meal?  Whatever it is, create the space to do what energizes you.  Mine is order.  Chaos makes me shut down.  This second, my house is chaotic and it makes me struggle.  My solution?

I made a plan of attack.  My style of cleaning is a hybrid of Kon Marie and Flylady.  This month's Flylady habit is to spend 15 minutes a day decluttering.  I divided my house into the Zones that Flylady suggests.  Now I know my missions and can get busy.

Besides order, reading and writing are two biggies that fill my tank, so I am creating space for them.

If you are stuck right now, don't worry.  Look at your calendar and create some white space where you can focus some attention on doing things that energize you.

Turkey Day Dish

We are wrapping up a lovely holiday break.  The house is an utter disaster, four out of four kids have been in tears in the last hour, tonight's dinner is a compilation of air popped popcorn salted and buttered and reheated whatever catches your fancy from the fridge.

These rainy family filled days have been full of all of the good things of life: naps, board games, football games, fun dips and drinks, long hours lounging in bed with the lamps on and a good book in my hand, staying up too late, sleeping too late, pumpkin pie, Piecaken, Turducken, you get the idea.

In about an hour we'll put the exhausted kids to bed and I will go from room to room fluffing and tidying so that the morning will greet me with a smile, but there is something that I read recently that has changed me in so many ways and I wanted to share it with you.

I'm not sure one sentence from a book has ever stayed with me like this one four word sentence.  I may not even be quoting it verbatim, but in my mind this is how I remember the words.  As soon as I read this sentence, I had to put the book down and process for a day or so.

It is the application of these four words that infused my holiday with peace that in turn filled me with joy.  So, here you have it.  Eat more chicken.  OK, really, here you go...

Rest begins with acceptance.

I imagine the freedom that comes from understanding this concept will play out differently between you and me.

There are so darn many things we don't have control over.  We can fuss and get all worked up but at the end of the day nothing has changed.  Could taking steps toward happiness begin with accepting what is?  I'm saying, YES it can.  Change what you can, pray over the stuff bugging you, and then try accepting what is, and then step back and see if your perspective doesn't begin to change.

One of the hardest things for me to accept was that my family hated the "Family Fun Christmas Shopping Day" experience I tried to create for us several years in a row.  Bunch of freaks.  They went postal on me every year I tried to implement the new "fun" tradition.  After year three ending in shambles I raised my white flag and ditched the tradition.  (I wanted us to get dressed up cute, go shop for gifts all afternoon, end at a restaurant with a good dinner, the kind where you can order a Coke and an appetizer if you want, and then come home to watch Elf and eat Candy Cane cookies by the fire)  Turns out, all my peeps hate shopping.  Long story short, I accepted the fact that I live with mentally strange people and now I just shop and eat alone and it rocks.

This year I accepted that my high need for order and the fact that I live in a house with other people who make messes ev-ah-reeeeeee-where often clash.  Somehow I was able to accept that the Mickey Mouse, blanket, sweater, orphan sock, and dancing Santa on the floor don't have to derail me.  Might've been a Christmas Miracle, but I'm going back to my earlier statement that accepting what is might just be the ticket to living in rest.

In the midst of stuff littering every surface, I put into action what I could control.  I lit my candles and tree.  I drank fun drinks.  Every day I napped.  I read a book and played games with my kids.  Most nights we restored the order before bed so we could start again the next day.  It makes me think of Nester when she says it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.  Being able to accept reality brings rest.  None of it has to be perfect.  Change what you can, pray about what you need to, and accept the rest (no pun intended).

(awesome quote taken from Sarah MacKenzie's book, Teaching From Rest)

Day 8 Unplugged

Long story short the house is louder, messier and happier with the absence of TV.

We had a busy weekend at church and so the plan this week was to have a movie night Saturday.  Y'all.  It was the best movie night ever.  After a week of no TV we all had the jitters.

The ol' Pizza Hut special supplied our dinner and then we piled into our bed to watch Inside Out (cutest movie ever).

And then Saturday turned into Sunday with all of its football game glory and here we are to today, Monday, and this is where I am at a crossroads.  Here is the deal.  I have eight kids at the house today.  And our routine is to let them chill in front of a movie in the afternoon during rest time.  Don't hate me, but I think I'm going to let them watch a movie today.

In the meantime, the TV is OFF and they are playing, drawing, and running around with screaming giggles playing chase.

If this is what balance could look like then I like it.  Solid times of play and an occasional window for TV watching.  Not even every day, but during special times.

Yesterday afternoon we came home from church and I loved what happened.  Some kids were on the couch with their journals.  Some were at the table doing things.  Everyone found what they wanted to do and got to it with little to no direction from us.  They are figuring out how to do things in their free time.  This holds immense value.

Day 3 Unplugged

Monday morning I woke up to the sight of Shane carrying our big screens to the closet.

We are unplugging from TV and video games this month, except for an occasional football game perhaps.

I have a love/hate relationship with the idea of unplugging.

Why are we unplugging?

Heck if I know.

Ha.

Well, it's because we are super-spiritual parents.

(insert laughter here)

Man.

In all seriousness there are several reasons, and they all boil down to this:

We want to reprogram. 

I can tell you this about my experience regarding the effect of TV.  Whenever we get around cable, it only takes one short day for the bad attitudes to start taking over.  The switch is nearly instant.

The first two mornings this week the poor children sat around twiddling their thumbs not sure what to do.  It took a couple days for the creative juices to start flowing again.

Last night they played board games with Shane.  They went to bed early and asked to have time to draw with their little lights on.  Today they've been creating smoothie recipes.  They are playing games.  They are creating new games. 

Here is something else that has been happening.  The boys are singing.  For some reason this has surprised me.  But they seem happier and I guess when you are feeling settled on the inside, sometimes it just comes right on out in song.  How does it go?  For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

It is like an atmosphere of joy has invaded our home.

 

I'm not telling you that three screen free days have morphed my kids into perfect creatures. What I am telling you is that the atmosphere has quickly changed for the better and the change has been pretty drastic.

I'll be real honest.  I use screen time every day in my household and while I'm pouring my guts out now is probably a good time to remind you that we also eat sugared cereal. 

The books say to have quiet time in the afternoon and give the kids a choice to read or rest. 

Confession: my version of that is Wii or a movie.

I can't say for sure what has stopped me from enforcing the reading and resting.  Probably because Wii is easier.  There is no backlash from that so I suppose I just choose the easy road by default.

I'm pretty sure we'll reintroduce Wii/TV back into our home.  I can't imagine not having any of that stuff and I like the idea of learning balance.  But these short three days have fascinated me and I thought you might be interested.

Morning Rotations

To say I have been discouraged with getting the hang of schooling with a toddler would be an understatement.

Last year when we fully switched to the WholeHearted learning model, we began experiencing the freedom and joy which I believe every homeschooling mother and family can know.  Joy returned to our learning experience.  Along with the joy came freedom in our days.  My ministry of discipleship to our children is homeschooling them.  We use real, whole books to learn, along with living real life together.

That being said, there are some parts of school (which we call the disciplined studies) that require practice and they require my full attention to teach.  Having a precious toddler running here and there and needing me was stretching me too thin to feel we were accomplishing the things we needed to be getting done.  That left me feeling like a failure.

God has given me this directive to educate our children at home.  He has filled our table with the blessing of a lot of children.  And yet...I did not know how to manage it all and the result was a discouraged mama.

Monday I found a darling lady named Sarah who made a video.  In the video she said something that sparked my attention.  She mentioned the idea of morning rotations with mom.  She has six children herself.  She schools three, and the other three?  A three year old and two year old twins.  Needless to say, she is speaking from experience on how to handle the load.

This is genius.  For morning rotations, you have each older child take a turn at watching the toddler so your focused attention can be on teaching the one on one stuff.  It is such a simple concept.  Each older child gets a turn at watching the toddler and your hands are freed to do the one on one teaching that needs to get done.

These pictures are every mother's dream scenario. 

With incorporating morning rotations, this is becoming our every day reality, even with an active toddler running around.  Little darling loves to climb on the table, find a writing device, and go to town on any paper and surface she can find.

Who me?  Yeah cutie, I'm talking about you!

We are experimenting with times the older kids can handle watching their baby sister.  I think a good starting point is 15-30 minutes a session.  Break and let mom be on duty, then settle into another rotation.

Sometimes I am the queen of forgetting to, you know, PRAY and ask God to give me specific wisdom on how to keep going and what we need to do to change and get back on track.  I get discouraged on how I feel we are failing and I let myself stay stuck for a bit.  So I pray and tell God that things are hard and I feel like I'm failing, but I don't think to ask if He would show me something specific to try. 

This week God was gracious to lead me to an answer to the problem I'd forgotten to pray about. 

He also reminded me that I go without so many things because I fail to ask.

Lesson learned.

Again.

If you want further encouragement on managing the schoolroom, check out Sarah Mackenzie at Amongst the Lovely Things.  www.amongstlovelythings.com.  Not only is Sarah the cutest thing you've ever seen, she is bubbly and full of wisdom.

(p.s. Just as I was about to press the publish button my phone rang.  It was my dear friend calling.  She has been praying about my discouragement with me.  She was standing at the stove stirring her apple butter and I was able to share with her that our prayers have been answered, that I found a solution to the problem.  So much goodness.)