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question. answer.
“Momma, why don’t we ever eat at Burger King?” some back seat voice politely inquired over the gentle strains of Bach playing on our car’s stellar sound system as our family traveled the highway to yet another culturally enlightening event. Wait. Most of that first sentence was a lie. Can I just start over? “Momma, why don’t we ever eat at Burger King?” some back seat voice screeched over the sounds of the Avett Brothers and the other four mostly shouting children as our family traveled the highway in our shamefully dirty Suburban to the grocery store or to the dumpster or on some other errand our life requires. Before…
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treasures, surprises: the makings of a childhood
It’s been too rainy to be outside most days this week. So when the sun finally came shining through, the kids did not find it a difficult task to convince me to let them play outside. Despite the fact that we all knew (although none of us spoke of it) that outside play would probably end in mud and mess and varying degrees of wet and/or ruined shoes and clothes. And it was a messy adventure. And a Keen shoe is M.I.A. And the path in front of our house is covered in crumpled wet clothes that were required to be shed pre-entry into our home. And the area beside…
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Oh Finn. You Never Stop Being Funny.
I’m sorry. I try to represent all six of the kids (mostly) equally here. But that’s pretty tricky. Okay. It’s basically impossible. And here I am again. Sharing a Piper-Finn-said-this story. Please accept my humble apologies. A few days ago, at the sink, having not seen a ladybug nor while having a conversation about anything remotely related to insects in general, Piper says: “Mandy is right – ladybugs are good luck.” Still at the sink, washing hands, face covered in chocolate chunk muffin Mosely just made by herself, Piper announces: “Mom, I’m not afraid of hair anymore. I am only afraid of talking toilet paper and walking underwear.”
Keep Reading . . .
Weekend Ramble: Les Mis, A Kitten & Daylight Savings Time
Oh hi. It’s me.
swipe left.
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The Burgess Animal Book For Children: A Book Review
The majority of books that I read to the kids for school purposes come from a list on Ambleside Online – our primary homeschool curriculum source. Last year we read Thornton W. Burgess’ Bird Book for Children so I was already familiar with this author’s style. Burgess creates animal characters and a storyline for his creatures. In The Burgess Animal Book for Children the woodland animals gather each morning to attend school with Old Mother Nature, who serves as the teacher for both the animals in her school and for the readers of the novel. Each of the forty chapters covers several animals in the same family group and describes the habits and characteristics…
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baggage
We’ve all got baggage – right? Actually, I’m not even talking about the emotional type. (Remember those little red wagons?) I mean, to be people who live and breathe and eat and drink and to care for other people who live and breathe and eat and drink, requires a lot of stuff. It was definitely worse back in the days when Mosely and London were both toddlers and Berg was a newborn. I might as well have hoisted one of those gigantic plastic carrying cases for your car’s roof top onto my shoulders and carried the pack and play and the changing table and the vast array of toys and…
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Over The Weekend
This weekend was rainy. Which resulted in a lot of extra inside time. There were a lot of forts made of blankets built over the last few days. (Which means the floor is still currently littered with those blankets along with the random paraphernalia stacked on the tables to hold those blankets together.) And the Lego spaceships and houses and twelve-person cars created have been legendary. (Which means that the floor in Bergen’s room is now a carpet of Lego bricks. Painful, sharp Lego bricks.) These girls were invited for a sleepover at the Boone house. Riley had some friends over to watch movies and eat popcorn. I played with…
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Progress That Is Slow Is Still Called Progress
So much of homeschool seems like a Grand Experiment to me. I mean, I won’t really know if my work was a success or a failure until the kids graduate. Maybe not even then. I might not know until Berg is thirty or Mosely is married with kids of her own or Piper Finn is running her own small country. In other words, I won’t know if this project called homeschool worked until it is too late. Tell me, what other job works that way? Anyway. I feel as if some school projects seem as open-ended as school itself can seem. Take, for example, our School of Keigley Nature Notes…
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Wanted: Your Ideas
Now that she can write, London loves to express herself through words. And you know I love that. She has started keeping a journal that she writes in while she is in bed at night. It is precious to me. Filled with paragraphs of ideas and thoughts. A page filled to bursting with a retelling of her day and how she thought it would turn out one way when it really turned out a different way. A listing of all the places she would like to visit on her upcoming daddy-daughter date. And lately, she has been leaving little notes for me all over the house. And I love finding…
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Not Too Early
March has literally just begun. We’re talking – the earliest of the single digits of the month. Spring has not officially started. Does that mean that it is too early to drive over to Lowe’s and buy five of the cutest little green resin Adirondack-style lawn chairs? Is it too early to let my adorable toddler son lounge in the lawn chairs set up semi-circle in the front lawn for a windy breakfast of a warm bowl of oatmeal? Or to hang out in the warm afternoon sun with Bergen and take a long series of silly, mostly unusable camera shots? Tell me, is the beginning of March too early…
Keep Reading . . .
books that work their own magic.
Bear Grylls Survival Camp: A Timberdoodle Review
45.
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Try This At Home
At heart, I want to be a no television, live in the woods, everybody drink from a shared tin cup we dip in the stream outside of our door, type of family. Or so I like to imagine. But I married this guy and he likes movies and big televisions and gadgets. And, uh, I sort of have found that I love gadgets too. Plus, as much as I love the idea of a Laura Ingalls Wilder existence, (and I do love the idea – I mean, I named a kid after the Wilder family so that should prove something) I know that I would soon grow weary of an outhouse…
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“(insert expletive) yes, I am.”
This weekend I went running again. It was maybe the first or second time I laced up my grey running shoes since November. Seems like it was always too cold or too busy or too many kids to teach or too many Cadbury eggs to eat. But the sun had been shining for too many days to ignore and the winter blahs had been dragging me down for too many months and I didn’t have bronchitis and no child was sick and it was a Saturday and not a duty in the world was urgently calling my name. So I ran. A few yards down the trail, despite the Avett…
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The Two Tiniest
Dear Fox and Finnian, Can you please stay small forever? Love, Momma
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Let Them Eat History
First copyright – 1931. Newspaper clippings of Paul Harvey articles slid between the thick, yellowed pages. A postcard dated 1969 and addressed to my mother before her last name was the same that mine used to be. The Searchlight Recipe Book. The binding is almost off the black and red cover and the paper tabs denoting recipe categories are torn and rugged. This was first my grandmother’s cookbook. And then it was my mother’s. And now it is mine. “Who will get this cookbook next in our family, Momma?” London asked. “I guess you’ll have to take turns with it,” I answered, hopeful that one day my girls would want…
