I've been teaching Jack how to rhyme.
(Aaaaaand that's all I've got.)
I don't think I've ever been away from my blog for this long, this many times in a row before. But thinking about writing an entry is like deciding to finish that dresser clean-out project I began three days ago. I've dropped the ball, lost the momentum, and now, eh, I could get to it today...or tomorrow...or three days from now because really it will be there. And so will I.
I sort of enjoy this Slow-Down time of year as a stay at home mom because it gives me the chance to just be quiet and experience a practically empty calendar, very different from other times of the year. We are going to get an inch of snow today, or maybe three quarters of one. Just like we did yesterday, and will again next Wednesday. It will be bitter cold again today, and we cannot go outside. I have a new baby this winter, who is now too heavy to lug around in her infant carrier with two other children donning heavy coats, hats and mittens, so we'll just stay home. Again. Nothing is pressing, nothing is really bad, or terribly exciting. It just is what it is, and enjoyable in its own right. The boys and I watched an hour-long Nova special on the annual migration of Monarch butterflies yesterday afternoon, and when we were finished there was nothing left but more open time.
Hello late January, my old friend.
It's not that there is nothing going on, of course. I've enjoyed seemingly ten thousand snowy sunrises and have returned to practicing yoga, which I began more than a year ago now, just before I learned I was pregnant. I've also been been making nice strides in the Baby-Weight Loss Project of 09, now down 16.7 pounds, including even the 4.5 pound gain I had to re-lose after stuffing myself to the gills with every form of baked good available over three weeks of Christmas, New Years and Jack's birthday. (Anyone else still on the dieting bandwagon?)
We finally had our family pictures taken for the first time since Jack was only twenty-one months old,
and I've bundled and tossed these couple of yay-hoo's into the back yard every time afternoon temperatures have reached thirty degrees, giving them plenty of opportunity to enjoy their (poor) (pathetic) make-shift sledding hill slash snow fort. (And therefore if you know of a magically created sledding hill within an hour drive of The Flatlands of Northwest Indiana, Do. Email. Me.)
This, giving me time to teach my four month old daughter important life skills, such as blowing raspberries for the internet.
In learning to make my own baby food (now on my third child, it's about time I give this a go, eh?) I recently checked out this book from the library. And my word of advice would be, should you decide to research baby food recipes?
Reference books written after 1978, unless you're up for a healthy run with dairy-overload-far-too-early or fun with infant botulism. I'm not sure if I was more surprised to see that eighty percent of the recipes in this book call for honey (and yogurt! and raw! apple! shavings! for a four month old!) or to know that this book is still on the shelf of our local library in 2009 for unsuspecting parents to stumble upon.
And last but certainly not least, as a product of All This Stuck-In-The-House Thinking Time, Kevin and I have been having more serious talks about the possibility of alternate or home-schooling for KJ next year, or soon down the line thereafter. Still seeing homework sent home (be it mostly age-appropriate, but still) and wasting our afternoon time on the words "see" and "he" all week for the sake of turning in the homework simply because it is the homework, when KJ is fluently reading level three readers, or writing numbers ten through twenty four when the child can add and subtract double digits in his head, is disheartening to say the least. And while I have infinite patience and understanding for his teacher, who must meet the needs of forty-six kindergartners at many different levels of learning without so much as the help of an assistant, I know that as a teacher myself that I can meet my son where he is academically, and continue to grab his interest.
I've begun looking into materials and costs and local support groups, opportunities for continued socialization and competition, and thinking about what it would take on my part to educate (eventually, three) kids on a daily basis at home, and what that will mean for our family's direction and my planned return to a career. At this point, I'm just not sure that when I look down the road for the next fourteen years I am ready to commit to staying home for that long, and piling lesson plans atop the already massive workload that comes along with caring for a family of five, also considering the long work hours that Kevin takes on during the week. I am completely unsure at this point, and very glad for the handful of months I have to make a decision.
If nothing else, maybe the kids and I can collaborate in after school efforts to write new baby cookbooks for our library circulations, no?





