(no subject)
Sep. 11th, 2009 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarflame"Busy" does not even begin to cover it lately. But it's not (usually) the stressed out, harried sort of thing you think of as busy. It's more like, productive and engaged every single minute of the day. Sitting around the table all digging into a meal or nursing Elise while I read to A and A "count" in the realm of business I'm talking about. Falling into bed exhausted and accomplished. Repeat. I feel like I'm being purified sometimes, although I doubt that will make any sense really out of context. It puts me in a much better frame of mind to be useful and have a sense of purpose throughout the day.
Our schedule at a glance:
Sunday - Grant newly home with us, Mass and City Church in the morning, who knows what for the rest of the day, bible reading before bed instead of the usual chapter books or whatever. I usually take a long bike ride with A and A since G is back to stay with the others - and we often discover things, like a pond last week. For some reason I've also decided I roast a chicken every Sunday for dinner and that seems to be catching on well. There are often visits to his mother's house, but there's also more lazing about than any other day of the week.
Monday - He's home, but often has meetings out at the winery in the AM, then we have the oportunity to do things like go down to Anne's Beach or up to the zoo or whatever we feel like doing as a family on an "off"/weekday, so it's not too crowded. I find myself cleaning A LOT, and often asking them to clean A LOT, because we slacked off Sunday. Ananda and Aaron have dance classes between 4:45-6:45.
Tuesday - G is still around, school is back on. We have to pick up our produce in the AM. Tuesdays Ananda and Aaron and I do a ton of Right Start Math, usually a couple of hours worth, along with some spanish vocabulary stuff, and this is our music day. So far just music theory. The little kids and I start a new Letter of The Week, which involves coloring pages, word cards, poetry, and some other things on Tuesday. Aaron has one dance class from 5:30-6:30, which last week we used to all go walk around the Falls and check out a couple of stores I hadn't seen before - Teavana and Fransesca's Collections, which is significantly cooler than that site makes it seem like. Grant often ends up going somewhere alone with just Isaac, who seems to need that desperately.
Wednesday - Ananda and Aaron and I do all of our Abeka language arts (grammar, cursive, reading comprehension, spelling and poetry, all kinds of hoohaw), and some workbook math. Little kids and I do Letter of the Week Wednesday stuff, and Isaac does some sit down work. I read them spanish books and poetry. Ananda and Aaron are in dance from 4:45-7:45, and Isaac and Jake are in AWANA from 7-8:15, so this takes some collaborating to make rides and dinner happen. Every other Wednesday Grant is back at work and can pick up A and A on his way back from Doral; the rest of the time I'm hoping to take them, write while they're in, and then bring them back. While the little boys are in AWANA, Elise and I are on our own, usually grocery shopping or at my sister's house.
Thursday - G working, A and A and I do Abeka Language Arts and workbook math again, littles with the LOTW stuff again. Isaac is often using something like Starfall online. PATH in the afternoon at the park - and PATH is just getting better, they really have a lot of ongoing friends at this point.
Friday - G working, Continued LOTW, last day of Abeka, and this time (with Isaac participating) history, for which we are using Story of the World book and activities and they LOVE. IT. Last week they made personal histories and timelines that are hanging on the wall. Sometimes we go to Spellbound Books in the evening for game night, or Friday Night at the Winery.
Saturday - Arts and crafts, science, spanish workbooks, and often a lot of outdoorsy work in flowerbeds/garden
This doesn't mention;
-my rote prayers and wii fit morning routine
-morning chores that we all do every morning
-or bedtime routines, which with teeth and nursing and reading to them all take awhile
-taking care of rabbits, cats and chickens each day
-all the cooking I do lately - really great cooking, I made strawberry and chocolate chip muffins tonight :)
-working on Isaac's 3/4 done ripple blanket every spare minute - I take it with me everywhere since I rarely get to work on it at home
-Grant teaching the kids chess for an hour every evening lately
-Dance Empire's surprise MANDATORY parents' meeting for company dancers tonight
-original play put on by our friends this Saturday
-potluck at another friends' on Sunday
-huge PATH party at John Pennekamp on the 30th
And so on.
The kids all seem so much HAPPIER with me forcing them out of beds, forcing them to make their beds, and then structuring some of their time during the day. It is crazy how quickly they've gone from intimidated by being back "in" school, to saying things like, "Spelling and poetry is my favorite. Or wait, I don't know, I really love the Language..."
I have all these anecdotes of things they've said and done lately and I can't remember any of them.
Produce Share one week.
Early early, before I wake people up.
Regal Chrysanthemum.
Terrified Peter.
The only thing that would calm a little girl who's hang nail ripped down too low.
Late one night.
Made from scrap wood, this thing provides hours of entertainment, particularly when Grant starts assigning challenges.
He's got a mohawk again.
And he put a temporary tattoo on the side of his head - what?
Waiting for me when I lay down at night.
So beautiful; it's kind of ridiculous. There a continuum of how pretty a guy can be before he starts losing some masculinity points, and I swear Aaron is at the absolute peak before the drop off begins.
As for me, personally...
I think about politics a lot. How completely reasonable conservatives and liberals both sound to me, and how tired of everyone's surety that they are right and others are wrong I get.
I think about Catholicism a lot. We all 7 went to Mass for the first time last Sunday and I loved it.
In lieu of novels, I recently read about 350 long winded blog entries by an lj'er who is...all kinds of stuff. Traditional and sexist, a complete and total hypocrite to an absurd extent, very intelligent, SO completely right on about so many things, and generally just entertaining but on a completely different wave length than I've ever encountered before.
I'm in a transitional state, and it's good. Reading some of the things I wrote at the height of my ptsd insanity (I mean short stories and things, nothing here), it is CAH-RAZY to me how nuts I got and how much better I am, now.
I'm examing a lot of things about myself, as honestly as I can, and finding new ways to be and do.
Like I realized for the first time in my life how staying up late at night by myself is bad for my state of mind and leaves me in a bad headspace and spiritually vulnerable. This is huge for me as someone who has spent all of my remembered life staying up late at night by myself and claiming it's a necessary thing for me. This is about as late as I've been up in awhile, which is pretty damned different from my historical norms.
I'm so happy with Grant; so happy. He is totally over the grumpy and short tempered withdrawals of being sugar free, and is into his second week without any secular media at all. These are things he does himself, for his own reasons, that I understand completely and really admire him for. I watch him, the amount of things he does for our kids in a day, the little things for me, the things he just DOES (he made us a tea tray to use in the afternoons! and it's awesome!)...the wildly awesome way he completely understands me through and through and how apt he is at pushing all of my right buttons in the most delicious ways...*shivers of giddiness* Really though.
I think we're both having major personal growth right now. Each our own; but simultaneously.
I am frustrated about weight loss and sick of having nothing to wear, but that is not bothering me as much as it could or has at other times.
Geeeeeeeeeeeeez I've gotta go to bed, I am tiired.
Last: I am mostly through with my dual obsession with Vivaldi and Queen for awhile, and this is my new favorite song, I think:
Prayer Of St. Francis - Sarah McLachlan
Our schedule at a glance:
Sunday - Grant newly home with us, Mass and City Church in the morning, who knows what for the rest of the day, bible reading before bed instead of the usual chapter books or whatever. I usually take a long bike ride with A and A since G is back to stay with the others - and we often discover things, like a pond last week. For some reason I've also decided I roast a chicken every Sunday for dinner and that seems to be catching on well. There are often visits to his mother's house, but there's also more lazing about than any other day of the week.
Monday - He's home, but often has meetings out at the winery in the AM, then we have the oportunity to do things like go down to Anne's Beach or up to the zoo or whatever we feel like doing as a family on an "off"/weekday, so it's not too crowded. I find myself cleaning A LOT, and often asking them to clean A LOT, because we slacked off Sunday. Ananda and Aaron have dance classes between 4:45-6:45.
Tuesday - G is still around, school is back on. We have to pick up our produce in the AM. Tuesdays Ananda and Aaron and I do a ton of Right Start Math, usually a couple of hours worth, along with some spanish vocabulary stuff, and this is our music day. So far just music theory. The little kids and I start a new Letter of The Week, which involves coloring pages, word cards, poetry, and some other things on Tuesday. Aaron has one dance class from 5:30-6:30, which last week we used to all go walk around the Falls and check out a couple of stores I hadn't seen before - Teavana and Fransesca's Collections, which is significantly cooler than that site makes it seem like. Grant often ends up going somewhere alone with just Isaac, who seems to need that desperately.
Wednesday - Ananda and Aaron and I do all of our Abeka language arts (grammar, cursive, reading comprehension, spelling and poetry, all kinds of hoohaw), and some workbook math. Little kids and I do Letter of the Week Wednesday stuff, and Isaac does some sit down work. I read them spanish books and poetry. Ananda and Aaron are in dance from 4:45-7:45, and Isaac and Jake are in AWANA from 7-8:15, so this takes some collaborating to make rides and dinner happen. Every other Wednesday Grant is back at work and can pick up A and A on his way back from Doral; the rest of the time I'm hoping to take them, write while they're in, and then bring them back. While the little boys are in AWANA, Elise and I are on our own, usually grocery shopping or at my sister's house.
Thursday - G working, A and A and I do Abeka Language Arts and workbook math again, littles with the LOTW stuff again. Isaac is often using something like Starfall online. PATH in the afternoon at the park - and PATH is just getting better, they really have a lot of ongoing friends at this point.
Friday - G working, Continued LOTW, last day of Abeka, and this time (with Isaac participating) history, for which we are using Story of the World book and activities and they LOVE. IT. Last week they made personal histories and timelines that are hanging on the wall. Sometimes we go to Spellbound Books in the evening for game night, or Friday Night at the Winery.
Saturday - Arts and crafts, science, spanish workbooks, and often a lot of outdoorsy work in flowerbeds/garden
This doesn't mention;
-my rote prayers and wii fit morning routine
-morning chores that we all do every morning
-or bedtime routines, which with teeth and nursing and reading to them all take awhile
-taking care of rabbits, cats and chickens each day
-all the cooking I do lately - really great cooking, I made strawberry and chocolate chip muffins tonight :)
-working on Isaac's 3/4 done ripple blanket every spare minute - I take it with me everywhere since I rarely get to work on it at home
-Grant teaching the kids chess for an hour every evening lately
-Dance Empire's surprise MANDATORY parents' meeting for company dancers tonight
-original play put on by our friends this Saturday
-potluck at another friends' on Sunday
-huge PATH party at John Pennekamp on the 30th
And so on.
The kids all seem so much HAPPIER with me forcing them out of beds, forcing them to make their beds, and then structuring some of their time during the day. It is crazy how quickly they've gone from intimidated by being back "in" school, to saying things like, "Spelling and poetry is my favorite. Or wait, I don't know, I really love the Language..."
I have all these anecdotes of things they've said and done lately and I can't remember any of them.
Produce Share one week.
Early early, before I wake people up.
Regal Chrysanthemum.
Terrified Peter.
The only thing that would calm a little girl who's hang nail ripped down too low.
Late one night.
Made from scrap wood, this thing provides hours of entertainment, particularly when Grant starts assigning challenges.
He's got a mohawk again.
And he put a temporary tattoo on the side of his head - what?
Waiting for me when I lay down at night.
So beautiful; it's kind of ridiculous. There a continuum of how pretty a guy can be before he starts losing some masculinity points, and I swear Aaron is at the absolute peak before the drop off begins.
As for me, personally...
I think about politics a lot. How completely reasonable conservatives and liberals both sound to me, and how tired of everyone's surety that they are right and others are wrong I get.
I think about Catholicism a lot. We all 7 went to Mass for the first time last Sunday and I loved it.
In lieu of novels, I recently read about 350 long winded blog entries by an lj'er who is...all kinds of stuff. Traditional and sexist, a complete and total hypocrite to an absurd extent, very intelligent, SO completely right on about so many things, and generally just entertaining but on a completely different wave length than I've ever encountered before.
I'm in a transitional state, and it's good. Reading some of the things I wrote at the height of my ptsd insanity (I mean short stories and things, nothing here), it is CAH-RAZY to me how nuts I got and how much better I am, now.
I'm examing a lot of things about myself, as honestly as I can, and finding new ways to be and do.
Like I realized for the first time in my life how staying up late at night by myself is bad for my state of mind and leaves me in a bad headspace and spiritually vulnerable. This is huge for me as someone who has spent all of my remembered life staying up late at night by myself and claiming it's a necessary thing for me. This is about as late as I've been up in awhile, which is pretty damned different from my historical norms.
I'm so happy with Grant; so happy. He is totally over the grumpy and short tempered withdrawals of being sugar free, and is into his second week without any secular media at all. These are things he does himself, for his own reasons, that I understand completely and really admire him for. I watch him, the amount of things he does for our kids in a day, the little things for me, the things he just DOES (he made us a tea tray to use in the afternoons! and it's awesome!)...the wildly awesome way he completely understands me through and through and how apt he is at pushing all of my right buttons in the most delicious ways...*shivers of giddiness* Really though.
I think we're both having major personal growth right now. Each our own; but simultaneously.
I am frustrated about weight loss and sick of having nothing to wear, but that is not bothering me as much as it could or has at other times.
Geeeeeeeeeeeeez I've gotta go to bed, I am tiired.
Last: I am mostly through with my dual obsession with Vivaldi and Queen for awhile, and this is my new favorite song, I think:
Prayer Of St. Francis - Sarah McLachlan
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 08:47 am (UTC)PS. Your kids are gorgeous.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 08:47 am (UTC)FIRST.
... because I want to annoy you. :-P
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 12:07 pm (UTC)That is probably still later than you, though :p
And thanks <3
no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-11 05:04 pm (UTC)I've love Sarah McLachlan for years. I don't remember when I first heard of her, but I do know it was because a friend from college sent me the Fumbling Toward Ecstasy CD. I wore that thing out.
Go GRANT!! Go YOU! I'm happy that you guys are in such a good place right now. It makes me smile.