Gleeful

Anyone else in love with this show? I admit that it's become a bit of a guilty pleasure for me (I watch the episodes online when DH is working late) and the songs I have downloaded are pretty much the only thing I listen to on my iPod. The musical ability of the cast just amazes me and singing along makes my work around the house move a little quicker.

How can I......

think that my life is hard? How can I still be in my pajamas at 9:30? I have been so humbled by watching the following video this morning. I hope you are able to feel the message of hope that it is meant to bring and that it may strengthen your testimony of Jesus Christ.

Slavedriver

This past weekend we trekked out to Harper's Ferry for the baptism of Tom's niece (is she really my niece too, even though she never talks to me?)

*Some background information for those who don't know the topography of West Virginia*

You can't just drive across it. The entire state is in the Appalachian *just for the record it's pronounced app-a-LATCH-in, not app-a-LAY-chan* mountain region and although there are many two-lane passes through the mountains, it's usually faster to take the interstate. We live right in the smack-dab middle of the state and to get to the Eastern Panhandle we have to go north, then east through Maryland, then south again back into WV. So because my kids think that driving 40 mins. to the nearest mall and Toys'R'Us 'takes a long time,' the four hours it should take to get to their aunt's house is an eternity. Thus, we have the celebratory cheering when the Potomac River is crossed and we're over state lines.

This past weekend when I announced the crossing Tweedledum asked why the river divides the states which led to a mini-lesson on the Civil War. Citizens of the area that now makes up West Virginia didn't feel that they were fairly represented in Richmond AND they were in favor of abolishing slavery. Quick thinking on my part gave a child-sized definition of slavery as "making someone do work for you without paying them." Can anyone guess the next comment by Tweedledee?

"But you don't pay us for stuff we do!"

A Hundred

by Tweedledee
(fill-in the blank poem from school)

I wish I had a hundred books.
I wish I had a hundred Crayola crayons.
I wish I had a hundred wheels.
But, I wouldn't want a hundred teachers.

What's in a name?

My brother is such an ogre. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. That's him in the picture with the Tank. When I was a freshman in college he legally changed his name to Ogre. Well, it's actually Ochressandro Rettinger but he goes by Ogre. I still have a hard time calling him Ogre and not the name he was given when he was born. The name I grew up calling him, Timothy Alan Gideon. Not a bad name in my opinion. In fact, if The Bug had been a boy I would have really liked to use Timothy.

Now, my brother never wants to have any kids and neither does his wife. They say they're afraid of what would happen since both of their sisters had naturally-occurring twins. Really, they're just not kid-people. I know that in the eternal scheme of things that everyone is a kid-person, but you have to be in the eternal-frame-of-mind. They definitely are not. She grew up Catholic and has nothing to do with religion now, he grew up in the Church like me but when he was in high school he went completely inactive. He is as far as you can get from organized religion. But he hasn't had his name removed for Church records so I still hold out some hope.

Each time I was pregnant DH and I were so picky about the names we considered. It could never be something trendy and we always ended up sticking with family names. Tweedledum was named after DH's uncle who was killed at the Pentagon on 9/11 and Tweedledee was given my middle name which is also the first name of several family members. The Tank was named after DH (DH is the Third and Tank is the Fourth) and The Bug....... I was walking the halls of the hospital in labor and we were still discussing names. It was down to three and I finally said that we would just have to wait and see what she looked like. Because of the baby-naming process I would be devastated if any of our kids ever changed them.

Before I was a mom I always thought what he'd done was pretty crummy (mostly because our dad found out from ME by accident) but now I would just feel rejected. Rejection of everything that I have striven for as a parent. All the ideals and values I'm trying to instill and all the love and thought that went into choosing THAT name for THAT child.

So, what do you think? How would you feel?

Test Kitchen Baker or How it's Going to be even Harder to Lose Weight.

One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is The Mormon Momcast and last year they interviewed Josi Kilpack who is an LDS author. One of her projects is a series of culinary mysteries which includes recipes for the dishes that are discussed in the book. Her latest that is about to be release is called Devil's Food Cake.

To make a long story short, I'm now one of the cooks in her test kitchen! I can't share any of the recipes I try until the book has been released, but as compensation I will get a copy of each book I contribute to and acknowledgements. Many of the recipes are desserts, which I tend to avoid having in my house anyway. Looks like I'll be logging a lot more time on the elliptical.

Sometimes your all just ain't enough.

I give up. I believe that I gave a valiant effort but I just. can't. do. it. anymore. Last week Tom and I were going over our family goals for the year when he says, "I think we need to re-evaluate homeschooling." I agreed that I had been thinking the same thing earlier that week when I ended up having a breakdown over my cluttered house while on the phone with a friend. We had been snowed in and stuck in the house for three weeks and my house never got clean. As soon as I got one room cleared and clean, another would be destroyed.

I know what you're all thinking, "Well, she just needs to teach her kids to clean up after themselves." To you I say a big fat,"Whatever." The point is that I had an epiphany amongst our wrecked, crowded, cabin-fevered mess. If I couldn't keep things together for a few weeks while the Tank was out from pre-K and we couldn't go outside, what the heck was I going to do next year when they were all home, all the time? Not to mention how miserable Tweedledee was with the lack of daily social interaction with her peers. Once a week at the library just wasn't enough. Tweedledum was a little disappointed when we told them but he's been fine since they started. They both love their teachers and are excited to be with their friends again.

I took them down to the school last Monday, filled out the mountain of papers and then walked them to their new classrooms. They desperately wanted to be in the same class but there weren't two spots in any one class. Tweedledum was first and interestingly enough, the class he is in is the one he was originally assigned to at the beginning of the year. Tweedledee was next and when I told her teacher that I had been homeschooling her her response was, "Yes, I know." Ummmm... do the teachers have nothing better to talk about in their spare time than the fact that I had decided to homeschool my kids? How did my family become a conversation piece in a school so large that it has five classes per grade?

While I feel that we made the right decision, I still worry about what to do when they get to middle school. I've heard nothing but the bad things that happen at the middle and high schools. How do we teach our kids to be in the world but not of it? I know that they need to learn how to stand up for their values and what they believe in, but how do we keep them from unnecessary exposure to the evils of this world? I suppose I just don't have faith in my own ability to raise my children to not make the same mistakes that I made in my youth.