"Reverently, Quietly"

Today at about 1:40 pm I was a nervous and my hands were cold. Samantha was grinning ear to ear and excited. We were on the sacrament meeting program as a piano duet. I have been teaching Samantha piano for over a year now, but we have never been consistent with the practicing, so it was nice to have something to work towards.

I think Samantha really enjoys performing. She loved playing today, and never even mentioned getting nervous. The idea was that we would play as a duet to give her confidence. I think next time I will let her play on her own, because she would have sounded better without my nervous mistakes and random wrong notes.



Click here to hear, "Reverently, Quietly"

The One Minute Mother

Summer has started!

I have been looking forward to summer this year. About 2-3 weeks ago Samantha and Jacob had to come home early from school (they had fevers and stomach aches). I thought it was gong to be a long afternoon, but it was such a relaxing day everyone playing together and as I sat reading a book I remember thinking “this is how our summer will be.” I guess I didn’t take into account the sickness factor.

Life this last week has been anything but peaceful, I would say it was more of a wild ride, but I have survived. Before, my schedule these last few months with the 3 younger boys has been open and flexible. Basically Alex would get a morning nap, we would eat lunch in the middle and then he would get another nap before the older two got home. But I knew that type of routine wouldn’t work for the summer. Specifically Samantha requires a lot more structure. When she gets board I would like to say she follows me like a little lost puppy, but the best animal to describe her as would be a very loud whinny cow. In order to prevent this unpleasant animal from visiting often this summer I set up a fun summer schedule to keep us all busy.

Everyone has adapted well to the new summer schedule except for me. AHHH! The kids are happy, Alex is still napping, everyone is well entertained, we have had lots of friends over, lots of swimming time, the jobs are getting done, Samantha and Jacob are practicing the piano, Samantha is learning the violin, and the twins are trying to read. So what is the problem? Five kids is a lot to juggle. Surprise, surprise, I know. I am just glad Samantha never noticed that we didn’t do the craft time/cooking time that I had penciled in.

In the morning following breakfast we do jobs, then we have what I like to call centers. Jacob has reminded me multiple times that this is not how they did centers in kindergarten, but that is the best name for it. Basically there are 4 different stations, and they are supposed to rotate every 15-20 minutes. Three of the centers are suppose to be independent activities and then one center is a lesson time where I can focus on that child (Jacob piano, Samantha violin, the twins writing/reading). However since some children require a little more attention than others, it hasn’t worked out that way yet.

For example, I put Josh in front of the computer by himself and he just sat there for 15 minutes calling me to come help him. Apparently over the last few months Matthew has dominated the computer when I have let the twins play preschool computer games. Then, I gave Matthew a work page and came back 15 minutes later and he was playing on the floor and only scribbled a little bit on his paper. I was running back and forth and upstairs so much one day that I never found time to spend with Samantha at all, who just did everything independently. Luckily over the week I have worked out the kinks, Josh can at least move the computer mouse now and clicks randomly, I have simplified what is required of the twins, and Jacob gets a little more time at the computer than the others since he thinks he could just stay there all day.

I guess I went a little overboard with the schedule, but most importantly I forgot to schedule in some time for me. I need a good quiet time where I can get things done on the computer, read a book, or just take a nap if I want too. I just assumed I would do all those things during Alexander’s afternoon nap, but I haven’t gotten my stuff done. I went almost three days without checking email, and it was good no bills were due this week. At least there is nothing good on TV so I have used the night time to catch up.
I am always in awe of mom’s who home school, and now that I have tried to implement a curriculum for this summer I have even more respect for moms that make this their job to take on the enormous responsibility of teaching their children exclusively. I haven’t even mentioned my attempts of teaching my kids swimming lessons-- that is another story. I read a book a few months ago called the One-Minute Mother and I took from it that I really need to look into the faces of my children and give them one minute of my time and let them know that I love them and that I want what is best for them.

I know I made this past week sound like chaos and it really was, but I think it was a good. Once things become more routine, it will just flow together. Last summer I was on bed rest before Alex was born, and although I got a lot of scrapbooking done, I wasn’t able to do much for my kids. I still think this is going to be a great summer, even if it hasn’t been as peaceful as what I imagined a few weeks ago. And as a final note, Samantha didn’t say she was bored once this week.

"I want to win!"

Luckily, this was a quote today by Matthew and not Samantha or Jacob. Matthew asked to play a Tonka race car computer game that I had set up for the twins to play together yesterday. He said that he didn't want Josh to play, and then he said something that I thought was very profound.

“I want to play alone because I want to win.”

I had to laugh, especially because of my last post and the slim odds that either Samantha or Jacob had with their election for the school council. Yesterday the school grades had an assembly so the candidates could introduce themselves. My kids said that there were 12 kindergarteners for the 1st grade position and 42 second graders for the 3 3rd grade positions. Good thing we have been talking about how we were just doing this for fun.

As I mentioned before there has really been no information about anything. Samantha is the one who said she might have to go from class to class to introduce her self. But then next day she said their might be an assembly. Samantha was dressing in her best outfits for 3 days and nothing ever happened. Jacob had no clue what he needed to do, so I tried to prepare him. I talked to both kids about good things to say when they got up to the microphone but I never could get either one to commit to a practice session.

Jacob and I had a good 5 minute talk about his good qualities: that he is a good friend, he can serve the school, he is big so the 5th graders might listen to him as he represents the 1st grade, that he wants to help solve problems…

Here is what he said, “My name is Jacob. I am big.” That was it, and he sat down.

Samantha had a cute little dialog planned out, but we made the mistake of not writing it down. So here is what she said:

“Hi, I am Samantha...”

Then she just paused and just stared at everyone. She didn’t know what to say, so she just didn’t say anything at all. After a minute, finally a teacher whispered something in her ear so she just repeated what she said and then sat down.

Back in their class rooms they got to vote. Samantha said that she voted for herself. Jacob voted for one of his other friends. Then today after being home for awhile Samantha casually mentioned that she didn’t make it on the school council. No big surprise, but she didn’t even know who the 3 people were that were picked. As we were talking, Jacob over heard some of our conversation.

He said,”Oh yeah, I was suppose to go to the office…I heard them announce all the Coyote Council to go to the office- but my teacher didn’t tell me to go.”

We had to break the news to him that he didn’t make it on the council either, and it took a minute to sink in, he actually looked confused. Apparently, he thought they were going to tell them next year. At least both kids didn’t take seem to care, so I am glad we were only doing it for fun.

Tomorrow is the last day of school, so we are getting excited for summer! Now that Jacob will be home I guess Matthew is going to have to wait to take his turn on the computer especially if he wants to keep playing by him self. There is no way he will win against Jacob who holds all the high scores.