A Bewitchingly Ordinary Life!

It has been quite a couple of weeks for the school of Gouge!  The boys, especially David, have enjoyed being home so very much!   I've been trying to keep them busy with a myrid of fun but educational activities.  Hey, why NOT be sneaky about it when I can? ;) I realized that even though I would love to take them to "far off places", time and money can be a hindrance.  As I was eating dinner one night I looked out the window to a tree stump where we put bird seed to feed our local birds.  I saw 2 beautifully growing mushrooms.  It struck me that we don't have to "go" anywhere beyond our driveway.  A whole world waited just outside our door to explore!  So exploring we would do! The next day we went on a mushroom hunt!  We started by watching some time lapse YouTube clips of various fungi growing.  The boys LOVED it!  And it was a great way for them to begin to learn the life cycle via pictorials and simplicity!   ...

This summer we have our own one room schoolhouse, but this thought....this action has a much deeper meaning. There's something about history that draws me.  Pictures of ancient days...decades, generations, centuries gone by... black and white, faded...torn...all draw me in.  I wonder about the buildings.  About the people who came and went from those buildings.   As I was looking at old one room schoolhouse photos online I came across one that was both beautiful and eerily haunting all at once.  An abandoned, almost dilapated schoolhouse.  Not much around it, just emptiness where once there had been life. And I began to wonder again.  About the teacher or teachers that the schoolhouse had seen.  About the students who had come and gone.  About their lives, what they did, about the marriages they may have had, their own children.  If any of those descendents were living today.  And how those lives touched other lives...th...

Having watched a DVD on Unconditional Parenting, a lecture given by Alfie Kohn a wonderful discussion has followed between some of my natural parenting friends and I.  [Alfie Kohn's website: http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.php ] One friend and myself were both saying how sometimes we as adults 'forget' how to play or don't like to play.  And it's something I've been thinking about for a great many months on my own.   I need to play more with my children.  I need to recapture my own childhood and live it with them, along side of them.  Use my imagination again.  Lose track of time, get messy and giggle like there were no other cares in the world. More often I find myself saying "go play while I clean...while I cook....while I do this or that..."  When in reality I could be incorporating them more into my life!  I didn't have children to fit them into my life.  I had children to grow WITH them, learn WITH them, laugh, cry, shout, whisper....

I hear that phrase daily from David!  "Mom, stay home right now and let's do little school home!"  David, my more introverted, somewhat of a loner, happy to be just him and around me.   My son, the less adapatable one.  Takes him quite awhile to adjust to many things.  Change is not his friend.  He is a creature of habit, of routine.  All on his own he's like this.  As a general rule, I let my children find their own schedules and adapt to that.  Early on I could tell that David thrived on routine.   He didn't tolerate change to well.  He preferred to be one on one or a small group. Aaron, my outgoing people person, is totally the opposite.  He can't stand being alone, is quite adaptable and goes with the flow when it comes to change.  I found this out early with him! Aaron is totally "public school" material.   I worry less about him in that respect.  But David, oh David.  The desire of m...

I'm watching a show on Netflix about a family who visited El Salvador, the poorest parts, helping families in true poverty. I am reminded of 3 major things. 1.) Even though we [my family and I] struggle, we are still extremely blessed.  Our struggles are no where near their struggles.  One El Salvadorian family on there had 14 children, but 4 have died.  One was 3 weeks old from malnutrition.   2.) I am reminded of my own mission trip with my home church in Ohio to Honduras roughly 13 years ago.  We saw, encountered and felt so many of the same things as this family did while visiting.  It seems like only yesterday that I was there. AND... 3.)  No matter how hard I have denied it these past 13 years, no matter how much I push it to the back of my mind, no matter how much I don't want to acknowledge the deep connection I felt in Honduras and how I did not want to board the plane to come back to "reality", no matter how hard I try, I can...

Call me a geek but there are times that certain movie or TV lines can resonate what I feel, think or believe on a something.  The X-Files, when it was on TV, was one of my all time favorite shows.  I remember one episode where Mulder was frustrated after his many attempts, and many dead ends.  He demanded:  "I want an answer!"  To which the reply was from some obscure character, "There are no answers for you." I hate that!  I hate not having answers to something that I have to assign a reason too.  Especially when it involves my children.  I go over this all the time, talk about a lot, and no matter how many times I do, or how many times someone says "It's not your fault" or "It's the past anyway, no matter what", I still have to re-visit it.  I want an answer! I had a short conversation with the principal of David's school and my place of employement.  David has been having a rough time with the fire drills and just did no...

It's been a long, stressful 3 days for us.  One of those times where you are so tired and so drained that you just want to fall into bed, into oblivion for hours and hours and hours.  Not because work has tired us out, or life has been busy.  Instead I am emotionally drained as I watch David cope with his anxiety and try to pinpoint what else could be going on with him. Thank God I have people at my work, whom I would consider close enough friends to cry in front of [like I did today, and have in the past] to share my concerns, fears and frustrations.  And to know they may not always agree, but they understand a mother's heart. I completely understand the side of the coin where people think it is better to help children learn to face their fears, even if it means some days/weeks/months of "uncomfortability".  I really DO understand that. On the flip side, I am not that parent.  Instead I am the parent who follows my child's cues as another good frien...