I have a job!

Aaaaggggggh!

After a five-year hiatus, I am going back to work. At least a little bit. A little more than I wanted to, in fact. But when a friend called me up and asked me about teaching Spanish as part of an afterschool prgram in a local elementary school, it sounded great. Through various incarnations it has gone from the original idea--two classes, one afternoon per week--to four classes on each of two afternoons a week. I have a few butterflies. OK, a lot. But I'm also excited...to "get back in there" (which I wasn't even looking to do); to get to know people outside of the lovely but very existent "bubble" I've been living in since we got here; and that Pixie can come with me and take Spanish in a class with other students. I start next week.

It's going to be crazy. Please pray.

Happy Birthday, Wombles!

Many Happy Returns of the day of thy birth;
May sunshine and gladness be given;
And may our Dear Savior prepare you on earth
For a glorious birthday in Heaven!

Update

Pixie came strolling out of her room early this morning, and seems recovered. She said her pain is a 2 or 3 (out of 10) which is GREAT compared with yesterday. She is keeping down fluids, reading books, and smiling. We are grateful. And we'll most likely start school in a little while here!

Migraine

Pixie has been having migraines since she was about two-and-a-half, although I didn't know it at the time. I remember going to visit a church in Wheaton shortly after we moved there. My mom was with me (J was at a conference) and Bud was about 6 weeks old. Uncharacteristically Pixie kept throwing fits, screaming, and thrashing. It seemed like a crazy temper tantrum. Finally, getting out of the car in the parking lot at the church I realized there was no way we could take this little girl in...she was COMPLETELY out of control. We got back in the car and headed down Roosevelt towards the Target area. For some reason I turned into a neighborhood--I can't remember WHAT I was going to show my mom (Pixie had calmed down after we gave her some headache medicine, purchased at Target). All of a sudden Pixie was throwing up like crazy in the car. I pulled over, and as Mom and I were trying to comfort Pixie and mop things up, a woman came out of her house. When we explained what was going on, she brought us a couple of bottles of water and a roll of paper towels to clean up with. Amazing. Sometime around then, my ardent love for mid-westerners was cemented (it began when a driver motioned me into his lane when I thought I was out of luck in South Bend, Indiana, on our first visit after years of ruthless drivers & driving in Philly).

Flash forward four years, and now I know what we're dealing with. And again--for the second time in 10 days--Pixie is throwing up. The only complaint is that her head hurts...horribly...on one side. It is really rare that there are two this close together. She is in a lot of pain and has been since she woke up this morning. She's not able to keep down any pain meds. :(

This morning a neighbor-friend-fellow-homeschooler came and taught her fourth-grader at my kitchen table, because I had a commitment I believed I needed to keep. Pixie slept nearly the whole time I was gone--I don't think she realized I really WAS gone--but even so it was hard to be away. And hard that she is still having such a hard time. I am so grateful to Beth, for coming and being here, though. She's not from around here, either. But we're both longing for the same home, and we'll both be from there someday, which colors where we're from today. She loves us with a love that is more than her own.

Thank you, Beth.

The ark

We've had a fun week in school. Looking at creation and the flood, we've also been exploring the composition of the earth...which in turn leads to getting to talk and read about volcanoes, one of Bud's favorite topics!

We've also enjoyed reading different children's books about the flood, especially (for me) with an eye to the choices of illustrators. One of the ones we read was Peter Spier's "Noah's Ark." It begins with the line "Noah found grace in the eyes of God" on the front leaf and closes with "and he planted a vineyard." At the beginning there is a translated poem about the flood--all on one page. Everything in between is progressive illustrations with no text (Spier won the Caldecott for this in 1978).

One double-page spread rocked me back a bit as we read...the water slowly rises outside of the ark, while all of the animals who are outside look on. Eventually there is just the ark on water (not surprisingly, this image is available at the amazon link above). How had I never before considered what that was like? As a friend of mine put it later, she had "thrown out all of the cheery Noah's Ark kids books. That is such a hard story."


Well. Perhaps half an hour later, Bud called me back to the couch with tears in his eyes. The book was opened again to that very page. "Mom, I'm just so sad for all of the animals who didn't make it on the ark." I held him as he cried. He then went into a fast-talking plan-making mode, explaining how if he was Noah, he would have built it bigger so that all of the animals could fit. He would have gotten more people to help him build it. "That's good thinking, Bud. But what about this? God told Noah exactly how big to build the boat. Also, all of those other people didn't love God and wouldn't have obeyed about building the ark, anyway. Remember?"

Following this was the reminder that the wicked people died in the flood, too, not just the animals...which was very sad. And where Bud (making the cognitive leap that is so much harder for grown-ups, I think) wide-eyed asked, "Are we on the ark, Mama? Are we?" "Yes, Bud. Jesus is our ark. Having faith in Jesus and loving Him is like walking right onto the ark."

Our Bud has been asking a lot of the big questions ever since the fire. What a delight and privilege to have the time to walk through these things together!

Game Day!

Today was the opener for both Georgia and Notre Dame...they even started at the same time. We flipped back and forth between the channels, which was a great way to help Pixie understand the difference between offense and defense (we tried to watch mostly offensive drives). It was not so good for our favorite TV game, "What do they want you to buy?". When Pixie was little and we'd watch a game with her around, we made her turn around during the commercials. While we still censor some--especially the ads for other TV programs (so violent and sexy!)--Pixie and especially Bud clamored today for me to leave commercials on, so they could race to see what was being sold first.They are remarkably good at it (considering we have the sound off). They don't get the banks and stocks ones, though.

But we didn't have many commercials today, going back and forth between two. ND looked good, and things aren't looking great for UGA. They're not (quite) done yet, though.

Here is a photo of the mini-open-faced sandwiches I made for the children for lunch. I don't know quite what came over me:



Too much time on my hands, I guess...hahaha.

It is a lovely and very warm Saturday afternoon. Summer has come to Santa Barbara!...so weird.

Happy Football Season!

A Little Quiet

We have cruised into the second week of school, and although there are some rough patches they are mostly relational rather than curricular. As far as learning and doing the tasks set before us, I'm pretty encouraged (in spite of the fact that I've been shipped the wrong item--TWICE--for Bud's math meeting book. Two different vendors. Here's hoping three's a charm?). Figuring out what love looks like, while growing (I hope) in patience, kindness, justice, mercy, and righteousness, are things that don't happen very easily in isolation...and we have the four of us around the kitchen table every morning. Great. (I will repeat: great. And again: great. And at some point I will have an easier time believing it when it's been an awful day, and not just on the sunshiny ones!).

OK, enough of run-on sentences and gratuitous punctuation usage. I am writing during our daily "quiet time," that midday siesta when Wombles takes his nap and the other two take some quiet. Pixie is devouring Beverly Cleary books (I've started rationing); I can hear Bud listening to "Little House in the Big Woods" on CD...again. This afternoon window is when I eat lunch (I usually read to them during theirs), clean up, do some reading...and spend too much time on the computer.

So off I go to listen to some New Life Glenside Women's Bible Study lectures, which I hope will help prep me for our local study this year.

Before I go, though, I wanted to share my new find of the day. It was sent to me by a local homeschooling mom (thanks, Barbi!): LibriVox. It's an open-source site where you can download free audio of books that are in the public domain...or volunteer to read a chapter or two!

Also, here are some recent late-night, check-on-the-kids photos. So sweet. Every night completely recharges my affection batteries!! :)






In the time it has taken me to upload the photos, Wombles started yelling. He wanted more books. I went in and decided that naptime books were a bad idea today--no sleep happening, and he's exhausted. He is now shrilly screaming in rage over those books. I even hear beating on something. Oi.

Really, I meant a little quiet. :)