Her next great adventure

She loved the frog backpack, the frog lunchbox, and the promise of sitting next to her friend Hannah. She even kind of liked the idea of her one-day-a-week homeschool kindergarten class.

What she did not like was the reality of actually going to kindergarten. Until she got there, that is.

"But Mommy," she argued. "You're  my teacher. You need to come with me to kindergarten."

Nope. Nothing doing, I told her. Once a week, it's just her and 11 other kids and two teachers that she has to refer to as Mrs. So-and-so.

"Are they real teachers like you?" she wanted to know. I like this question. It shows me she takes our school-at-the-breakfast-table seriously. I assured her that yes, they are real teachers, totally qualified to teach her nursery rhymes and do math manipulatives and help her open her juice box.

The whole family made the trip to drop her off for the first day. You know all those bus stop photos of kids in their too-big backpacks walking off to their next great adventure? We totally did that. Minus the bus.

It's a good thing she's only going one day a week. That was almost too much for me. I missed my little helper all morning, and tried to remind myself that she was having a great time and surely didn't miss me. (I was right.) And I milked my time with my boys, finding it very easy to give Caleb and Jacob some rare uninterrupted Mommy playtime since I was off the hook for teaching kindergarten for the day.

And Abby, true to form, dove right in and loved every minute of her kindergarten classroom experience.

Her favorite part was eating the gingerbread man that escaped from the oven after they tracked him down, and sitting next to Hannah at lunch.

Her one complaint?

They didn't do enough math. (I told her we'll do extra math on Monday to make up for it.)

One fish, two fish

I walked in on Caleb trying to teach his brother some words and colors using some flash cards he found.

"Jacob, learn these colors!" he demanded. "This is a blue fish. Say 'blue fish.'"

Silence. Caleb kept trying.

"Jacob, say 'blue.' I'm the teacher, and I'm telling you to say 'blue,' so say it!"

This time Jacob responded. "Boo!" he shouted enthusiastically.

"No," Caleb replied, "not 'boo.' Say 'blue." (Which, I should point out, Caleb actually pronounces bwoo.)

"Mommy," Caleb yelled. "Jacob's not saying it right!"

I really hope I'm not this hard on them. Maybe we need fewer lessons on colors and shapes and a couple more lessons on grace.

Out of sorts

The best laid schemes of home school moms go often awry.

I had big plans for preschool. Caleb would finally get to have all the fun that Abby's had with crafts and letters and whatever else it was we did. But somehow I forgot that he's had all this fun before. He's played school right alongside us for two years. So now I'm having to come up with all new material. And trying to squeeze it into a few 30-minute chunks between helping Abby with kindergarten.

We've played Alphabet Bingo a few dozen times. Why he loves this game so much, I do not know. What I do know is that when he goes to bed sobbing because we forgot to play it one day, I've found a winner of an activity. There is a lot of Alphabet Bingo in our future.

And when push comes to shove, we work on basic skills, like sorting. Cleaning up the playroom is a perfect excuse for an exercise in classification and organization. I even threw some tape on the ground and made a real game out of it.

The results? A clean playroom, a happy preschooler, and a one-year-old who is finally starting to learn his colors. Mission accomplished.

Today's lesson

Home school is not all fun and games.

Wait.

This is kindergarten. I take that back.

So far, home school is mostly fun and games. Sometimes we do worksheets, but even then, we try to always use sparkly crayons.

Today's science lesson: aerodynamics.

Lucky for us, daddy loves to make paper airplanes. My kids are totally ready for flight school now.

Happy Birthday, Abby!

We've been counting down for what seems like forever. And Abby's been frustrated daily with my total inability to make time speed up so her birthday would finally get here.

And then it did. And just like that, my firstborn is five.

She wanted to invite five friends, since she's five. One, we knew, would not be able to make the drive from Virginia, but I promised her we'd call her later and she could tell Abby Mae all about her birthday party.

Up until a few weeks ago, she was insisting on a repeat of last year's Frog and Mashed Potato party. And then somewhere the idea of birthday scones came up, so we settled on hosting a birthday brunch and tea for our little girl and her giggly friends. At the very last minute, she informed me I did not have to make froggy cupcakes, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I got off easy this year with pink frosting and pink sparkly sprinkles.

A gaggle of four and five-year-old girls in bows and ruffles ran wild through my house for an hour and a half on Saturday morning. We decorated picture frames for each of the girls to take home (it will be a while before I get all the glitter off of my floor and my children), we drank pink lemonade "tea" out of real teacups, munched on birthday scones (with sprinkles, of course) and ate those pink cupcakes the birthday girl insisted on. We had only a few tears when a misunderstanding over the meaning of being It in a game of hide-and-seek led one little girl to believe that no one wanted to play with her. Once that crisis was averted, the girls played happily together, running around and squealing at a pitch only attainable by a group of young girls until their moms came to rescue them.

There were no boys allowed at this party, with the exception of little baby brothers, Abby told me. "They need their mommies, so it's okay if Levi and Neely's little brother want to come," she informed me. This worked out well, as it seems the only thing little girls love as much as glitter and squealing are little babies, and the two boys in attendance at the party were happily doted on for quite a while.

Later, the family paparazzi descended on our house for a celebratory pizza dinner, and to help us finish off those cupcakes.

"Since I'm five, I can fit a whole cupcake in my mouth at one time," Abby told the grandparents and aunt and uncle in attendance. Then she demonstrated this skill for us, and I reminded her that five year old girls could perhaps eat a little more politely. And by politely, I meant don't shove an entire pink cupcake in your mouth at one time. But it was kind of impressive.

The morning of her birthday was spent with her dad at their traditional Daddy-Daughter birthday breakfast. Last year she laid out some goals for her fifth year of life while they were on this date. This year, we get to celebrate that she's met them.

At five, she can read. And I don't mean she can read a little. She can read a lot. A lot more than I ever thought possible for a kindergartner. Her self-motivating personality is well-suited to the task of learning to read, and she devours any and every book she finds. Most recently, she sat down with her children's encyclopedia and told me after about 20 minutes that it was her favorite book, because it had vortexes and planets and reptiles in it. A few days ago, I caught her reading the first chapter of Genesis in her pink New Living Translation Bible. She still asks for help with big words, but mostly she loves to solve her own problems, so she'll power through a new book by carefully sounding out any words that are unfamiliar to her. This is opening up whole new worlds to her as she enjoys the books that I've been reading to her for years on her own through fresh eyes.

At five, she can swim. Swimming lessons have been a bit of a challenge for her, largely due to her intense fear of failure. But with a careful teacher, she's thriving. She can swim almost the entire length of the pool by herself without stopping, and is totally comfortable in the water unassisted. Her instructor tells me she's probably just a few weeks away from moving up to the next level in her swim class.

At five, she could ride a bike. If she wanted to. Abby and her dad have practiced, practiced, practiced riding her pink bike without the training wheels. She's clocked more miles around our cul-de-sac on two wheels than I can count. But balancing and pedaling at the same time is hard work. And she's just not that into it. When the training wheels are off, she is a fantastic bike rider. She can pedal up and down our street with the best of 'em. I'm amazed at how well she can ride. But she's not convinced yet. And until she has the level of confidence in her bike-riding ability that her dad and I do, she simply will not do it. This is true for a lot of things in her life, and it's the downside of being a perfectionist. So she'll continue to split her time between training wheels and no training wheels, and one of these days she'll decide she's comfortable leaving the little wheels off for good. It happened with potty training, handwriting, reading and swimming. She'll do it, but it will be on her terms and in her timing.

At five, she is goofy. She dances (if you can call it that) with the total freedom and lack of coordination that makes kids so adorable. She sings loudly and cheerfully and often. She is driven, and idealistic, and very easy to please. She still loves frogs, and pink, and ballet and playing dress up. But she's a half-decade old now, and the little girl things she's always enjoyed are taking on a different shape now. She wants to learn about frogs--what they eat, where they live, how many different kinds there are. She wants to write with pink--letters to friends far away, notes for daddy to take to work. She wants to learn to be a big girl ballerina, like the girls down the street, and is willing to practice and stretch and even wear a blue leotard instead of a white one if that's what it takes to be really good at it. And she doesn't just play dress-up like she once did. There are elaborate stories and adventures to be lived out and characters to be developed with each costume change.

In keeping with our goal-setting trend, I asked her to set a few for this upcoming year. Before she turns six, Abby would like to learn to tie her shoes and be able to locate all the countries on the map. (I'll settle for just a few major countries.)

We have 364 days to do it. She's already started counting down.

Within arm's reach

Someone asked me how I home school with a newborn.

The answer is very, very carefully. And sometimes, if we're right in the middle of something, we have to get a little creative with naptime.

When he starts rolling over, things might get a little tougher.

(Dear panicky people everywhere: No infants were endangered in the taking of this picture. I was right there the whole time.)

Fully accredited

Someone's trying to undermine me. Up until now, I had my kids totally convinced that having school at the kitchen table or on the back porch was completely normal. Shoes are optional, and dress-up attire is completely acceptable. But now that they have friends that go to "real" school, my kids are coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas about what home school should look like.

I'm hearing secondhand about things like circle time, recess, line leaders, backpacks. All sorts of crazy things that aren't necessary when you're educating your children in the dining room. Apparently the way I do things at the School of Mommy just doesn't cut it anymore.

So welcome to the Fisher Preparatory Academy for Excellence in Learning. We're totally legit.

We even have desks.

179 days to go

We're officially back to school today, and officially official, now that I have a kindergartner to educate.

Abby did great on her first day, and loves helping me go through her "school bucket" of folders containing the day's supply of lesson plans and materials for our core, science, math and language arts. The placement test we took put her in first grade language arts, so we'll see how that goes.

So far her favorite subject is math, which further drives home the fact that she is most definitely her father's daughter. Tonight during bedtime prayers, she prayed and thanked God for math. Guess I better learn to like the subject pretty quickly if I'm going to keep up with her enthusiasm.

Caleb gets some directed attention this year to celebrate the fact that I finally consider him preschool age. I'm not sure what we're going to do for preschool, since all the stuff I did with Abby is stuff he already knows from doing it along with us for the past two years.

I gave him a simple placement test this morning to see what we need to be working on this year, and found that he already knows all of his alphabet (upper and lowercase) and all of the sounds, with the exceptions of about three or four letters. He named all the shapes and colors I showed him, and recognizes numbers up to 10. He can count to 30, or to 100 if you forgive the fact that he skips the numbers 31 through 99. He does not know how to write his name, so we might use up a few months of our school year working on that.

Abby reminded me again that I don't need to worry about him, and that she'll read him all his preschool books while I "make dinner or something." True to her word, she read him some book about dolphins today without my knowledge, and Caleb spent dinnertime educating us all on the parts of the dolphin, how they breathe, and the similarities and differences between dolphins and sharks. Apparently I have a budding marine biologist on my hands.

So what if they don't learn how to play Duck, Duck, Goose this year?

Good question

This time, Caleb had a question.

I had warned them all before we went up front for Levi's baptism that they needed to stay quiet.

"It's impolite," I informed them, "to interrupt when someone is speaking. And since Pastor Rick will be speaking, you will need to not be speaking."

Caleb proved very good at following instructions. He waited until it was very, very quiet. He waited until we were all lined up in front of the congregation. He waited until we had everyone's undivided attention. And since no one else was talking yet, he assumed it was safe for him to pipe up.

"Why does he have this," he asked, tugging at Levi's baptismal gown. He was using his inside voice, but a three-year-old boy's inside voice is a lot louder than a whisper. I shushed him. Apparently that was not the right answer. So he asked again, a little more emphatically this time. It was very, very important that someone explain to him why his brother was wearing a dress.

Thankfully, Pastor Rick had the answer he needed. Stooping down meet Caleb eye-to-eye, he explained why his littlest brother was dressed in such finery.

"Do you know why your brother has this on today?" Rick asked Caleb. "Because God wants to do something remarkable in his life."

"Whoa!" Caleb replied, earning a laugh from the congregation.

"It's pretty amazing," Rick went on. "God takes pleasure in turning our hearts and the hearts of our children to a place where they are soft before Him, where they recognize Him, where they fear Him, where they claim Him as their God."

And then we took our vows as Levi's parents, acknowledging our son's need of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, claiming God's covenant promises on Levi's behalf, and looking in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ for his salvation, as we do for our own.

We celebrated his baptism today, but the real celebration will wait. Because on that day when God brings his promises to fruition and changes my son's heart of stone to a heart of flesh; on that day when my son calls my Jesus his savior and becomes not only my son but my brother in Christ; on that day, we will truly celebrate.

Pre-planning

The School of Mommy is back in session on Monday, and my kitchen-classroom is overrun with lesson plans, reading materials and school supplies.

I have a feeling my pre-planning would go by a lot more quickly if my students would stop asking so many questions and let me get organized. Abby has informed me that she will read "all those books" -- pointing at her kindergarten shelf -- by herself, and I don't need to teach her this year since she can read now.

"I'll read Caleb all his preschool books, too," she added.

Excellent. I was hoping I wouldn't have to hire an assistant teacher this year. Looks like I have a volunteer.

Traffic jam

See how well my children play together? Levi's such a cooperative little brother.

I'm sure Jacob would prefer it if his road would stop rising and falling to the cadence of his little brother's breathing. But those wrinkles in his shirt make awesome speed bumps.

Don't worry. I drew the line at driving the cars over his head.

Why I prefer they use straws

So that they don't drink their spinach smoothies like this...

And wind up looking like this...

Arrrr, matey!

Captain Jack Sparrow's got nothing on this guy.

Except maybe the ability to pronounce the letters R and L correctly.

When you pronounce them both with a W sound, pairing the pilot hat with the pirate costume makes perfect sense.

Slightly taller tiny dancer

August 2012

We kicked off another year of ballet. This year it's "Big Girl Ballet" in the Big Girl Ballet room with the real hardwood floor, wall-to-wall mirrors, and a barre. 

Abby came home from her first lesson feeling like a pretty big deal. I told her she's my favorite little ballerina.

"No, Mommy," she corrected me. "I'm a big ballerina now."

Bigger than last year, maybe. But she'll always be my little girl.

August 2011

Well coifed

It matters not how often we wash or comb it.

An hour later, his hair always looks like this.

I don't think he likes it.

It does a body good

 

Contestant number four enjoys drinking milk, gaining weight, and growing taller.

At the one month mark, Levi is two pounds heavier and two inches longer than he was at birth. He's still packing on about an ounce a day, still eating like a champ seven times a day, and only waking us up once at night. After noticing he was bursting a little at the seams in his newborn diapers, we wisely opened up our size 1 box. A combination of mushy sentimentalism and postpartum hormones made this a weepy event for me. My little guy is growing up! (I know, I know...he's only a month old. But I'm never getting that month back! Where does the time go?)

The other three still adore him, but they're getting a little bored with his lack of interaction.

Abby loves to get right in his face and wait for his eyes to roll her way. "He's looking at me!" she'll squeal with delight. Then a moment later, "Oh. Nevermind. He's asleep now."

Caleb is still determined to teach his youngest brother to talk, and doesn't seem the least bit frustrated when Levi fails to acknowledge his requests to say puppy, or milk, or Daddy. He's a persistent little three-year-old, and we're going to have to give him full credit whenever Levi finally does say his first word.

Jacob has discovered that tummy time is the perfect time to play with his little brother, since his little brother's back makes a mountain perfectly scaled to the monster trucks he wants to drive. The fact that the mountain wiggles and arches makes it that much more fun.

Happy one month birthday, little Levi!

Like mother, like daughter

Abby stayed very, very busy today. It's not easy keeping all those Bible Buddies in line during reading lessons at the School of Abby.

"They're all my kids," she told me. "And it's time for me to teach them to read this book."

Every once in a while she'd let them take a break to have a snack, or to go visit Caleb's sharks. None of her little plastic characters had shoes on, but she said that was okay, since they were doing their lesson in her room.

Some kids play teacher. My kid plays homeschool mom.

Next to godliness

We thought giving three kids baths at bedtime was hard.

But nothing compares to the logistics of trying to squeeze in a bath for the new baby. In our defense, he doesn't get nearly as filthy as the others, so we've kind of lacked a compelling reason to make regular baths a part of his routine. Aside from that bath they gave him at the hospital, and the occasional wipe down we've given him here and there during some of our calmer moments, poor Levi has gone without a real bath since birth. 

All that changed today.

Abby was puzzled by this odd interruption to our mid-morning routine. "Does he need a bath 'cause he stinks so much?" she asked matter-of-factly.

Well, yes. That, and I was starting to feel like a pretty shabby mom for not spending all that time lathering and lotioning my fourth the way I did my first.

Levi slept through the whole bath, so I'm guessing he wasn't too bothered by the total lack of privacy. Privacy's a pretty hot commodity around here. Better that he go ahead and get used to it while he's young.

Two heads are better than one

Under ordinary circumstances, I would insist they stop interrupting one another. But these were no ordinary circumstances.

This was an epic retelling of the greatest story ever told. And it was, apparently, a duet.

Abby began in the book of Genesis, singing the opening line of the Bible that she learned back when we did a preschool co-op with some friends three years ago.

"Genesis! Verse 1:1!" she sang with gusto. Then Caleb joined in as they finished the tune together: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

"And then he made sharks," Caleb added. "And all the other stuff."

"God made all things. And then he took a break, 'cause it was Sunday," Abby reminded him.

Caleb moved on to the sneaky snake in the garden, the tower of Babel and the battle of Jericho. Abby inserted the story of Noah's Ark where she felt it was appropriate, then closed out the Old Testament with the story of Jonah and the great big fish.

What captured me most was not their vivid recollection of these stories, but the way they worked together to tell them. They weren't just spouting out words. They were telling a story that they understood very well. Much of what they recited was easily recognizable from our nightly Bible readings. But where there were gaps in the story, or simply interesting tidbits that they felt needed telling, they pulled from lessons they've learned all over the place. Bits and pieces of lessons and stories from Sunday school, children's church, Community Bible Study, Vacation Bible School, and our kids' catechism CD all came to mind as they walked each other through the Bible. And it made for a captivating lesson for me as I drove around town listening to them weave their tale in the backseat.

As they continued their tale with Jesus' birth, death and resurrection, I saw first hand the fruits of the labor of all the teachers and helpers who have worked so hard over the years to give my kids a solid scriptural foundation on which to build their little world views.

"Mary had a baby, even though she wasn't married to anybody, and it was Jesus," Abby recalled. "It was a miracle."

"Jesus did lots of those," Caleb added. "With the wine, and the sandwiches and the fish for all the people. He liked food."

Abby was quick to remind him that Jesus didn't limit himself to food miracles. He healed people too, she told him.

"And Jesus died to take away our punishment, Abby." My ears perked up as Caleb went on. "'Cause we do bad things, called sins, like jumping on the bed, but Jesus said we get to be in heaven with him forever."

(And then quietly, almost to himself, he added "I'm sorry for jumping on the bed.")

They briefly broke out in a chorus of my favorite hymn, "Nothing But the Blood of Jesus," then resumed their tale.

"God is everywhere, so he always knows if we do bad things. But Jesus was perfect, Caleb," Abby chimed in. "That's why He can save us. Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins, and when He's in our heart, we get to be with Him in heaven forever."

"But the cross was really heavy, Abby." Caleb was eager to tell her about one of his recent Sunday School lessons. "So one of his friends helped him carry it."

"Yeah," Abby agreed, "his name was Simon." Caleb nodded in agreement. (I have no idea how they knew this. I had to look it up to see if they were right when I got home.)

For another five minutes or so, they continued piecing together the story of the crucifixion, drawing on every little tidbit they've ever heard. Then Abby turned to her brother and, in a voice that perfectly mimicked mine, asked the question I always ask when Jesus' death comes up: "But did Jesus stay dead?"

"Nope!" answered Caleb. Then in perfect unison they shouted a familiar verse from CBS: "Jesus is alive!"

"That's good news, Mommy," Abby yelled from the back of the van.

"It sure is sweetie," I replied.

So to all of those who have poured into my children over the past few years, to the Ruth Annes and the Edies and the Rachels and all the people who work tirelessly behind the scenes to bring my kids sound teaching, thank you. God's word does not return void, and your work with my children is taking hold in their little hearts.

I couldn't ask for more than that.

Precious moments

I love sweet moments like these.

I love watching the grandmother who once held me in her arms that very same way snuggle my son for the first time.

It totally makes up for the chaotic moments that ensue when someone has the bright idea to try to get a picture of that same grandmother with all four of my children.

Hey there, handsome.

Those eyes. Those cheeks. That grin.

My little shark lover is way too adorable for his own good.

This kid's gonna be a looker, for sure.

I've already fallen for him.