Birthday Reflections (a downer post, which gets better towards the end, if you make it that far) :)

My birthday was this week.  I’m 38 years old.  Ack!  38?!  How did that sneak up on me so quickly??  Ah well, 40 is the new 30 you know, so no worries.   You didn’t know that?  Well, now you do because I just said so! :)  Sometimes it really comes in handy to be a mom who can say, “because I said so”, doesn’t it? ;)

I had some time to myself the day before my birthday and I was thankful to have a little time to reflect.  Introverted me always gets super-introverted on the eve of a milestone.  Seriously, I used to LOVE spending New Year’s Eve alone in a room lit with candles, just thinking, or sometimes journaling about the past year and wondering about the year to come.  Can anyone be more nerdy/anti-social than that?

I began thinking about this past year, and other than the passing away of my grandmother, it felt like a relatively uneventful year.  I accomplished pretty much NOTHING. 

The thought struck me that there are quite a few things I regret about the past year – not being on top of tasks; not being a perfect, patient, gentle, loving mommy; not being the world’s best wife (not by a long shot, let me tell you); etc.  I could make a very long list, but I will spare you.  The point is, I was focusing on what I’m not, and seeing very little good in what I am or have done this past year.

As I thought about how I’ve spent my time, I kept returning to the fact that a disproportionate amount of time has been spent online – blogging, surfing, reading blogs, planning activities for M – you know, all the stuff we do with the internet at our fingertips.  It’s been disproportionate in the sense that there’s not much in real life to show for it.  There’s a little. But not enough to justify the amount of time spent on it.  Or so I thought.

As I began thinking about blogging and the role it plays in my life (you know this is not the first time I’ve thought this whole thing over – it seems like I’m always needing a “break”, doesn’t it?), I began to think that maybe I don’t really like having a blog.  Maybe I don’t like rehashing every little thing we do; maybe I don’t like the time spent wondering if anyone is going to comment and tell me they just love my ideas and are going to use them (because the first time I got a comment like that I was immediately addicted to it and wanted more).  Maybe I don’t really like spending so much time thinking about myself.  Maybe that leads to a lot of time wasted instead of a lot of time… not wasted.  Maybe, just maybe I could be a better mommy, a better wife, a better me if I just got over myself!

And then I started down the path of “has blogging had any impact for good in my life?”  I’m talking here about blogging in the early childhood, mama, homeschool community of bloggers. 

And of course, there’s a lot of truth in that paragraph above about spending too much time navel-gazing.  But thankfully there’s more to it than just that.  If I can sort through the bad, I see that there’s some good mixed in there too. 

And it comes down to this: my view of motherhood has changed simply by the fact that I’ve immersed myself into this community of bloggers.  My view of motherhood has changed because all of you have changed my heart.  I no longer think in terms of “when this phase of M being such a needy child ends, I will finally have my life back.”  I’ve come to view motherhood as being my life, my role in life in this season of my life. 

The purpose of my life at this point in time is to raise my child (and children, if we are blessed with more – ahem, are You listening, God? Time’s a-wasting!) and love my husband (who, thankfully, is pretty loveable).  There’s something very liberating about viewing my role as a mother this way.  Maybe it’s partly the sense of peace that comes from having a definite purpose in life that I can know and direct my efforts toward.  But it’s more than that.  It’s an end to the struggle of finding that elusive “balance” between meeting the needs of my family and meeting my own needs.  One doesn’t exclude the other.  If I never saw raising my child as the purpose of my life (at this time) it would be easy for me to put my attention on other things, never really letting it rest on him and his well-being, his education, his faith, his behavior. 

If I never had this realization (and I’m sure many of you are rolling your eyes, wondering why I’m only now getting it), I’d still be trying to make myself happy.  I’d still be searching “out there” for fulfillment.  You know – the way I spent all my time before having a baby – happily living for myself. 

Oh wait… was I really all that happy back then, living and working and doing everything for myself?  I distinctly remember years of unhappiness in the midst of all that self-centeredness, because I wanted a baby so badly and then lost babies through miscarriages and grieved and then went back to trying and then… well, you get the idea.  I wasn’t very happy, not really.  Not until a little blonde boy came along and made me Mama.

Now, I don’t want it to sound like M is my life (well, ok, I probably can’t fool you in regards to that); but let me make it clear that I don’t want this sense of his development being my “purpose” to create any pressure or stress for him.  That’s not what I’m talking about here.  I’m talking about a change that has occurred within myself,;, a change of perspective, I guess.  And I owe so much of it to you wonderful mama bloggers who take the time to write about your busy lives, and inspire the world simply by sharing your joy and love of being Mama.  Thank you for that.

It’s the same joy and love I felt when I was handed this on the morning of my birthday:

“Mommy happy birthday”

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Learning by Heart – week 2 (part 2, where we actually do school stuff)

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
-Henry Ward Beecher

Thank you so much to everyone who had title suggestions for me last week.  You are all so creative and brilliant. :)  I’m going with the above for now (not sold on it 100%, but it’s definitely growing on me).

We’ve had another not-normal week, because Daddy has a lot of vacation time to use up and was home quite a bit (we celebrated both of our birthdays too).  It is wonderful to have him home, don’t get me wrong, but part of me would like to have a chance to settle into a normal routine for a week or two – to help figure out housework, outings, and “doing school”, as M says.  Since we are just doing preschool, it’s not that big of a deal, just something I have to be patient about (and obviously I need to work on just enjoying having our whole family together).  That said, I have a question for those of you homeschool mamas who are more experienced and have older children.  If your husband works odd hours or is home quite a bit, does it affect your homeschool routine?  And if so, is it affected in a good way, or is it something you struggle with?  What have you done to ensure school work gets done, as well as other responsibilities?  Maybe not everyone is a routine-and-schedule-lover like me, and I do need to learn some flexibility, but it’s something I can see becoming a stress factor for me if I were to homeschool M in the future.  Any thoughts about this are very much appreciated!

On to what we accomplished…

SHELF ACTIVITIES:

Tweezing felt autumn-themed stickers (Target, dollar spot!) into the slot of a little treasure box.

 

Our homemade build-a-letter set, lowercase version:

I used glitter foam for the pieces, which made it a bit more inviting for M, who does like him a little bling:

Uppercase version too, in gold glitter foam ;) :

Hit of the week – rubbing plates for B and b, and objects that begin with ‘b’:

He did this over and over.  He loved using the double stick tape to stick the card to the mini clipboard.  Then he used a brown or blue crayon to rub over the picture:

Here’s a sampling.  They really turned out great, and we had many of these little guys by the end of the week:Clockwise, from upper left – B, b, bumblebee, bus, bird with a balloon.  I made the ‘B’ and ‘b’ and bus from rough sandpaper, and the others were pictures found online; I simply went over the lines with hot glue.  I’m sure regular glue would work too.

Button board, to work those fine motor skills:

Stick puppets for the poems 5 Little Squirrels and 5 Little Owls:

Our puppet theater is simply a tension rod in a doorway with a blanket thrown over it:

Autumn-themed play dough number mats with autumn colored play dough, made with cinnamon, mmm:

These were a pretty big hit too!

Letter leaves to clip and spell M’s name* (with a “cheat sheet” for him to look at):*I know just about everyone knows M’s name is Matthew.  It’s not something I’ve tried to hide… I only use his initial because I am just too darn lazy to spell his name out all the time.  I’m wordy (in case you haven’t noticed!) and there’s enough typing going on here as it is…

 

M’s first weaving lesson, which was also a big hit now that I think of it.  I used a foam bowl that once held mushrooms, and threaded yarn through it to make the warp.  I looked for more “manly” ribbons, but what you see is all I had.  M didn’t seem to mind. ;)

M played with his KID K'NEX , making creations while actually looking at the “constructions” and figuring out how to make each one.  This is not an easy task because the pictures show the finished product, which means M had to use reasoning skills to figure out what to do first, second, and so on.  And sometimes he had to guess at what kind of connector was used.  He did great and was SO proud of himself!

 

Together Activities:

New ‘B’ objects for the phonics box – blue bird, brown button, bead, blue bear button, bear, bumblebee, boat, boy, bunny, bird:

We took out all the ‘A’ and ‘B’ objects and M sorted them into two groups by beginning sound:

 

More work with the bead bars.  This time we added in the number cards and introduced the golden bead bar for #10.  M is itching to really learn how the whole teen and twenties (and so on) thing works, I’m just waiting for him to become more familiar with the color of the beads for each number, since that plays such a big role in this method.  He’s playing around a lot with “twenty-teen” and “eighty-teen” and that kind of thing when he counts, so I know he’s curious and trying to figure it all out. :)

 

I’ve had these sand art color by number kits around for ages.  M doesn’t have the fine motor control to really do color or paint by number activities, but this was perfect!  I used old peanut butter lids to hold the sand and he peeled off the pieces for each number, then pinched a little sand in the correct color and sprinkled it on.  He LOVED this activity!  I got this at Michael’s for $1.00, I think.  I’ve linked the text above to some similar kits on Amazon.

Close up of him working.  If you haven’t seen these before, you peel off each section and the sand sticks to the sticky surface underneath.

In the end, you have these pretties, though not so blurry as my bad photo-taking skills make them out to be:It was a great activity for numeral review and fine motor skills.

 

And then one day when Mommy was awfully busy, he came up with his own little activity.  A car wash with soapy water and an old toothbrush.  He spent over an hour washing all of his little cars!                               

Just having fun…

The newest member of our family is this super cute scarecrow, who is supposed to keep the deer away from our garden, but isn’t quite living up to our expectations.  Ah well, he’s cute, and very loved by someone in particular:

 

AND LASTLY…

We’ve been having gorgeous weather here, exactly like October should be!  We are loving it.  I thought I’d share pics from our favorite walking trail along the creek near our home.

Sunlight hitting the tips of prairie grass.

my boys :)
  There’s a lot of yellow, red, and brown this time of year, but somehow my camera was attracted to the pretty greens that still remain. ;)

Playing “Pooh Sticks”

I love the cool blue of the autumn sky next
to the yellow tips of the tall trees.     

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)