The 3 Rs

Traditionally, the three r's are reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. A clever old-time alliteration, yes, but for the GLARING exception that arithmetic doesn't even start with an R, or with the sound of an R in the first syllable. That tells me that math is, as I've suspected my whole life, an impostor--an interloper of malicious intent, unworthy of its hypocritical position in the time-honored educational trio. Math does have its uses, however limited, so I won't chuck it out completely; I'll simply relegate math to the dread unrewarded fourth place finish on the educational podium where it belongs. It is with a light heart that I announce my break with American tradition. I have replaced the third R in my life with something far more alliteratively aligned. My ties to mathematics began loosening years ago unconsciously, so it feels good to officially recognize my emancipation. My own personal upgraded three r's arrrrrre reading, writing, and running.

Ahhh, what peace and joy fill my heart when I say the words: reading, writing, running. The thorn of math will puncture my happy bubble no more!

Do you feel the joy? 

I have been taking a lot of pictures of Amber reading, writing, and running lately. I myself have been heavily involved in these activities. So I composed this introduction to preface the regular photographic onslaught of Amber, my last miniature companion, doing her daily explorations at my side. She is such a cute little imitator! Every time Jay or Rose get out their homework or start an art project, she wants her pencil and notebook. She will sit and scribble intently in her used abused notebook for as long as she has company at the table. For the record, Amber is not always a quiet little angel scribbling away on the sidelines. She climbs, grabs, rips, and colors off the paper as often as on it. And some days are screaming yelling days. Those are always earsplitting and zen-jarring.

Reading the news over breakfast. 

 Story time with Daddy: always a favorite.

Amber enjoys unloading the bookshelf in the corner of the family room:

 Library date with my Jay.

Reading and Writing
Over the summer, my friend Janay asked if I would be interested in teaching her homeschooled sixth grade daughter a literature and writing class once a week. At first the task sounded daunting, but the more I pondered and planned, the more I really got IN to it. Reading and writing are two of my main non-Jeff loves! During August I slowly researched and constructed a custom-made curriculum plan for Julia. When I presented my typed up page of numbered ideas to Julia and her mom at our first lesson on September first, it felt strange to be telling someone else's kid what to do. Especially since Julia's mom/my good friend was sitting right at the table with us! Haha, but it's getting to feel more normal now that we're four lessons in. This is my first foray into formal teaching--lists, plans, books, binders, paragraphs, discussions--I'm loving it! Sixth grade is old enough for fun stuff but still young enough for the basics. I rely heavily on the internet for content ideas, but I invent my own lesson plans. If there's one thing that I learned back in the trenches of teaching kids in church Primary, it's that I can't effectively teach someone else's lesson plan.

So one day each week, I get out my laptop, my homeschool binder, and my special Composition notebook, and dive into lesson planning for the next Thursday lesson. My miniature companion Amber sits down right next to me with her notebook and pencil, and we spend a few hours being all intellectual together. I definitely plan and study for at least twice as long as I need to, but it's an enjoyable, interesting, engaging activity, and I am re-learning lots of things along the way. I'm doing most of the assignments and projects right along with Julia, which helps me figure out if the ideas I have are any good and gives me an excuse to write, read, and draw in my notebook. I'm finding this whole experience immensely satisfying, even if my lessons aren't always fluently delivered or flawlessly planned.

Amber likes to help Jay with his homework.

Running

Over the summer--it was quite the summer of ambitions--I started feeling really good about running far, so I decided to train for a half marathon. I followed a training plan from one of my favorite running books, Daniels Running Formula. It whipped me into great shape! Muscle tone and endurance were MINE! One month before the date of my race, school started. Suddenly I went from free anytime anywhere running alone to pushing a stroller and only being able to run during school hours. It cramped my style and honestly kind of sucked the joy out of my half marathon training. That was a summer fun thing, not suitable for everyday life. Well, I stuck it out and ran the Army Base Race half marathon in Selah, WA on September 17th. Here's what I wrote to my missionary sister Mel the day after the race:

My half marathon was yesterday so I'm exhausted. My training plan whipped me into shape but I'm still SORE. And I didn't run how I wanted to. I went out too fast and then basically perished by the wayside for the last 10 miles. Haha, I did not feel very good during that race! Which was annoying because I trained all summer for it. I only ran one minute faster than the half marathon I did in May, and I did that one without any specific training. So, next time I want to run a half marathon, I think I'll just do it without going through all of the annoying workouts! Apparently my normal maintenance running is sufficient training and doing extra does not help. Yesterday I ran the same race that I ran 6 years ago when Rose was 7 months old. Yesterday I ran it SIX MINUTES SLOWER than I did six years ago. And I didn't train specifically for the distance back then either! What is up with me? Am I just bad at training? Also, I just felt OLD and stiff all over afterwards! Haha, but there weren't many super speedy female runners there because I won my age group and came in 3rd overall for women. My time was 1:50:14, an 8:17 average mile pace. But oh man, were my mile splits shameful! I ran everything between 7:22 allll the way up to 9:28 miles during that one race! Yes, the 9:28 was on a significant hill, but STILL. It was comical.

A cool thing about this part of WA is that most community events like road races and festivals hand out free apples. Really big, shiny, crunchy, juicy, sweet, fresh-picked, local apples. I got one at my half marathon. Since Jeff had to coach at a cross country meet on the day of my race, I went solo. Grampa Dan and Grama Leslie watched the kids while Jeff and I went to our respective races.

Wow, I keep combining everything into megaposts this month! What with homeschool, lesson plans, young women meetings at church, and the usual housekeeping necessities of cooking, laundry, cleaning, and childcare, I have been swamped and my blogging time is at a premium. So I make it count when it comes!

A few more photos for the road...yesterday morning the sunlight was flooding Amber's face while she scribbled intently in a notebook. She has a rather advanced pencil grip for her age, if I may say.

5pm and a journal entry

This afternoon the kids were outside playing and I was inside putting the finishing touches on this blog post. Today was a good day--I managed to find a balance between useful activities, relaxing activities, and responsibilities. Then the clock struck 5pm. Amber had been crying over various mishaps from trying to follow the big kids around for the past hour, and it was that hungry tired time of day for all of us. Then I heard Rose's voice call up from the garage door: "Jay is about to spray paint a dumb baby face on the house!" I left this post hanging and ran for it, leaving a crying Amber in my wake. Jay had found a can of black spray paint in the garage and experimented with it on the cement part of the side of the staircase by our basement door. When I started running towards the door, I yelled "NOOOOOOO!" And I think that stopped Jay's vandalism because he only got half of a small circle sprayed.

Quick background: I have been reading the Shredderman series by Wendelin Van Draanen to Jay and Rose for the past few weeks. They love it. Jay has actually read the whole series himself once or twice over the past three weeks too. So he's getting pretty familiar with the stories. With me reading aloud, we are on book 3 of 4. It is such a fun series about a 5th grade boy labeled "nerd" by his peers who creates website, takes pictures on the sly of bullies being mean to other kids and posts them on his website to expose the bullies bad deeds. He calls himself a cyber superhero, Shredderman--he shreds bullies. One of the bullies that Shredderman exposes is a tagger--a 6th grader who spray paints a "dumb baby face" all over various parts of town. It was a satisfying conclusion and Shredderman was a hero in our house. So I thought. Then today happened.

Back to the half circle of spray paint on our house: I swirled down our staircase and out the basement door onto the driveway, viewed the damage, and felt at a complete loss. WHY would Jay do something that was so vilified by his beloved cyber superhero?? I asked him a bunch of questions trying to figure out his line of reasoning leading up to this black BLOT, but he didn't give me anything to work with. I gave him a short, sharp mom-lecture, sent the friends home, and then dashed to my room to collect my wits. AHHHH! It's only been a few weeks since the vanilla incident! I felt nearly the same way after this spray painting incident as I did after the vanilla incident--blindsided. Jeff was not home from work yet and I NEEDED an adult with perspective to talk to, so I called my mom. Thank GOODNESS she answered because I would have gone into full meltdown mode otherwise. She soothed me and commiserated with me and reminded me that Jay is not a bad boy; he's just a little scientist--experimenting with what he reads about. BOY was I upset. How can I trust my son with seemingly harmless books or in our very own garage? And Rose started rubbing her sweaty little body and dirty feet all over my white bedspread while I was moaning to my mom! And Amber kept crying and demanding dinner all at the same time! It was rough going for a while there.

The whole time I was talking with my mom, Jay was outside trying fruitlessly to wash off the spray paint. I thought he might be trying to do that, and I wanted him to struggle with it for a good long while without my help so he could see the gravity of his actions firsthand. Things Jay learned in the 40 minutes I let him work alone: spray paint does not come off with hand soap or wash off with water, or scrape off with fingers or wipe off with a rag or with a Magic Eraser. It cannot be "colored off" with a dry erase marker, like permanent marker on our wood table could. I gave him a toothbrush after a little while and he tried that with water while I finally conceded to search out a more effective cleaning agent. Our nebulous garage counter top revealed the answer: paint thinner. With dire warnings about poison (all while wondering why this can of danger was even sitting out in the open), I dipped the toothbrush into the paint thinner and let Jay go to work with that. It worked faster than I wanted--I wanted the paint removal process to be harder--but Jay got the black spray paint off our house quickly with the toothbrush dipped in paint thinner. While he was applying the toxic substance to the stain, Jeff rolled in on his bike with a cheery "hello!" I quickly caught him up on recent dark events, ha ha.

Punishment is the basic no screens for a week, and after counseling together, Jeff and I decided that the real remedy for these kinds of things is for us to talk to Jay even MORE about what he reads (we already talk SO MUCH!) so he can ask ask ask his questions without resorting to garage-looting and unauthorized experimentation. I reiterated the rule NEVER to touch anything in the garage that's not a bike or a scooter or in the toy bucket. I told him to ask me if he wanted to do something he read about. I explained to Jay about thinking before he acts about whether his actions will hurt someone or damage something or make me sad, and then we had to let it go. We went back to our normal light evening conversation, including Jay as needed. Whew, what an ordeal. This event made me feel like such a hypocrite in a way for composing such a happy-fluffy-golden post minutes before the black paint descended on our day. Then again, if the moments described in the pre-5pm blog post were that wonderful, I guess it was time for the pendulum to swing the other way. Balance and I have a love-hate relationship.

My entire Thursday before 5pm was happy and go-lucky and cheerful! Fall weather puts me in a good mood. I visited a dear friend and did a little homeschool literature and writing lesson with her daughter. Amber only sat on my lap for half of the time we were there this week--progress. Their dog licked my hand as I was leaving and since that hand was contaminated, I conceded to pet the creature, which I actually love doing in spite of all my terrible run-ins (pun intended) with canines. I just did not touch my face with the dog hand until I washed it back at home. Amber took a rare 3 hour nap this afternoon and I spent the time indulging in a little brain-dead boot browsing online rather than doing something productive for homeschool or young women secretary stuff, since I had been so diligent all week in those areas. By boot browsing, I literally mean boots. For feet. A girl can dream! I already have a brown pair and a black pair plus snow boots and slipper-ish booties, so it was only browsing, not shopping. A corner of my dreamland includes a row of boots of all heights and colors, with cushioned soles and waterproof uppers. FYI. Just so you know, Thursday really was 90% good.

Now for the original post--I hope I didn't ruin it for you with my spray paint tirade! MAN kids keep me on my toes!

*  *  * 

Wednesday night's journal entry, streamlined and bloggified for informing and entertaining those who follow the White Things:

Wednesday, September 14, 2016
This morning was a fresh happy fall morning and I loved it so much. The kids were happy and [mostly] willing to do all of the steps needed to get ready for school. After Jay finished practicing piano, I cranked on some Mozart Piano Concertos (their piano teacher has them listen to 10 hours of classical piano per month, along with daily piano practice) for us to listen to while he did his homework and while Rose did her "piano" practicing. She did 8 minutes of "finger walking" up and down the piano keyboard. Then I stuck five long strips of masking tape to the carpet and she jumped back and forth on the lines and spaces.

We have the coolest piano teacher ever! It's only week one and she already has us filling our lives with beautiful classical music and with clever music-building kid-appropriate activities (aka kids jumping joyfully around on a larger than life grand staff!). I am so glad we made the decision to go to a real piano teacher this year. I can read music and play a few crippled hymns, but learning piano is much more than that. I feel so blessed that we "got in" to Sister Cook for lessons. She has a long line of hopeful students--more than she can teach--but she accepted Jay, a lowly beginner student. She is such a dear lady.  Jeff was home teaching companions with her son Peter for five years before Peter left on his mission last month. Over the summer, her sweet, calm college age daughter was my visiting teacher. Sister Cook is one of the sisters who visited me when I was in the hospital for that deathly prego-week in the hospital 2.5 years ago. While I sat hunched weakly in my limp hospital gown in my rumpled hospital bed that day, she leaned over and gave me the best, strongest, longest hug of support and empathy that I have ever received. You know, hugs can be inspired and that one definitely was. I will never forget that hug. It makes me cry to think about it. Bottom line: we love the Cook family! So many different bonds have been forged between us. And it's awesome that she's teaching Jay and Rose piano! As if I could ever only write one "bottom line!" Haha.
________________________________________________________________________________
{pause journal entry for background info: I don't think I've mentioned my quest for piano lessons on the blog yet, so here's a clip from an email I sent to my missionary sister two weeks ago:

I recently decided that Jay needed a more professional piano teacher (than me) this year, so I started asking around about local teachers. Basically, Grandview has none. The amazing professional piano teacher in our ward lives in Prosser and is very popular. I heard through the grapevine that she has a waiting list. So I called her this week to put Jay on the list. I planned to teach him myself until he got in to Sister Cook's lessons. Lo and behold, when I called this week she told me that she recently decided to do away with her wait list. Now if she gets an opening she just picks a kid who would be a good fit for her teaching. She miraculously had an opening and she offered it to Jay!! What with Jeff's coaching job and my mini-homeschool literature tutor gig, our budget will not even be strained. It was so awesome to have $$ fall into place so Jay can really get down to business with piano playing. That is an enormous blessing. So many new exciting things are happening! I love September!

end detour, back to Wednesday night's journal entry}______________________________________

Ok, next topic: after school today, Rose (and Amber) helped me put up our fall leaf garland and it is the coziest warm glow with the lights I strung around those orange leaves. The excitement of putting up our fall decorations made the moment happy, but I must confess to getting slightly peeved and irked at Rose for unwinding the entire string of lights all the way down the hall and around her bedroom before I could explain that I needed them wound up so I could pass the ball of lights through the banister and unwind it as I wrapped it around the garland. Sigh. She keeps on trying my patience and I keep on trying not to let it get to me. Sometimes we meet in the middle of that tangle, and other times I get peeved. Or she starts shrieking. Or both! Ahh! My five year old daughter and I can so easily be at odds with each other! Sometimes I simply dread having teenagers. Maybe it'll get easier to communicate with all of this practice we're getting now? Haha. Anyways, I adore this time of year! It's garland season. From now until the end of December, our banister will be swathed and lit with seasonable taste. That fiery orange glow of the lights on the leaf garland is my own little piece of the Appalachians out here in the wide, wild west.

Switching gears yet again...I ran my last run before my half marathon today: 3 mile jog pushing Amber in the stroller, then 6x20 second strides at the track since it was on the way home. I let Amber out to run around at the track and she had a fun time doing a "wun-wun" (run run) with me. She managed to leave her sunglasses at the track without me noticing and we got all the way home (about a quarter mile via the street) before I noticed. So we walked BACK to the track to find out the fate of Amber's cute little 49 cent thrift store sunglasses. We searched and searched, to no avail. The whole time I was thinking "why am I doing this? It is not really worth 49 cents." But they are such cute sunglasses!

Amber only played on one corner of the track so it should not have been that hard to find a dropped pair of sunglasses. I ended up praying for help to find them. It felt like a good idea to check in all the garbage cans placed along the bleachers (we just peeked in, not touching anything--yuck). No luck. When we were walking down the bleacher ramp back to the track, I glanced down and there they were, folded onto the chain link fence. If I hadn't had the idea of looking in all of the trash cans, I probably would not have seen the sunglasses on that section of fence. I'm pretty sure Amber did not put them there--I think it was the guy who was walking laps around the track while we were there earlier. But we found them and I was grateful.

The indirect "look here, even though it's not where they are, and you'll find them eventually" delivery was enlightening. Life--the big parts and the tiny parts--is all about the journey. We are here for the entire experience, trash cans and all. When we are humble and in tune with the spirit, we will be guided along. The best path is not always the most direct route, but when we keep the faith as we walk along it, we will reach our destination! It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord cares about every little thing and he will always help us if we are humble enough to ask. He really is in the details. I am grateful for that gentle reminder today.

{post-run Sesame Street episode while Mommy takes a shower--those little toes peeking over the edge of the couch} 

The more "spiritual stuff" I write, the more I receive so here's my next round of thoughts and inspiration of the night: I have been reading all the New Testament accounts of Jesus feeding the 5,000 and walking on the water this week, along with the corresponding commentary in Jesus the Christ (by James E. Talmage) and the Institute Manual. Tonight at church (since I'm serving in our ward's young women program, I go to the Wednesday night youth activities--tonight's was a back to school meeting with skits and talks about seminary, mutual, and scripture reading) anyways, when one of the speakers referred to a picture of Jesus Christ hanging on the wall, I thought: "I know him--I'm getting to know him better and better every day that I study his life and teachings. He's my friend. I love him. He loves me." That is something we always talk about in church, but it doesn't become a reality until we take the time--make the time--to learn of him, study his gospel, pray often, and ponder about it all. I know he is there. In my personal scripture study this year, I have been studying Jesus Christ's life and teachings specifically. That close study has noticeably brought me closer to him. It is such a good feeling! I know he loves me and every person on earth. I know he cares about the big things and the little things and everything in between. I know that he wants me to come unto him and follow him. I'm so grateful that I can repent and start fresh every day. What a gift that is: a clean, fresh start every single day. 

{walking to school}

My ponderizing scripture of the week is in Ephesians 4 about the armour of God. On Monday morning when I was sitting in bed reading it and saving it onto my phone's lock screen, Rose came into my room, bed head, rumpled pajamas and all. It is inevitable that one or more kids will interrupt my morning scripture study, but I'm getting pretty good at involving them so they know I'm not just ignoring them and scrolling through my phone. So, I told her I was reading my scriptures and this one was about the armor of God. She lit up and said, "it's like the song Scripture Power!" and then she sang it to me in her classic Rose way, with dramatic gestures and a grin on her face:

1. Because I want to be like the Savior, and I can,

I’m reading His instructions, I’m following His plan.

Because I want the power His word will give to me,

I’m changing how I live, I’m changing what I’ll be.

2. I’ll find the sword of truth in each scripture that I learn.

I’ll take the shield of faith from these pages that I turn.

I’ll wear each vital part of the armor of the Lord,

And fight my daily battles, and win a great reward.

[Chorus]

Scripture power keeps me safe from sin.

Scripture power is the power to win.

Scripture power! Ev’ryday I need

The power that I get each time I read.

Copyright © 1987 by Clive Romney. 

That song has always made me chuckle (especially when kids do fist pumps during the chorus), but it has a good message. I was impressed with the connection Rose made between my armor of God scripture verse and this primary song. I loved how her face lit up when she thought of it. My scripture study is not always very deep or long, but I do my best to read and think about it a little every day. There is power in reading scriptures every day--SCRIPTURE POWER! I'm thankful for the spirit it brings into my day so I can be sensitive to the spirit and qualify for guidance and inspiration.

Wednesday: happy. Thursday pre-5pm: happy.

Girls and shoes

There's something about girls and shoes. And crowns and necklaces. This is SUCH a busy time of year! I keep taking pictures, and life keeps on rolling along. I'm doing my best to keep up! Here's a collection of Rose/Amber pictures from the past few weeks:

"Diddy, Zoss!" ["pretty, Rose!"], although since the day this picture was taken, Amber has refined her speech and now Rose is "Wrose."

Rose: "plie!" Amber: "arrrhhhggghh!" Such little ladies.

Last week I hung some hooks on the wall in the girls' room to hold the dress-up clothes. Up until this point, we had kept the dress-ups in our storage ottoman out in the family room. It drove me crazy because every time the kids got one item out of the chest, the clothes would get scattered across the room. Like I need a reminder of all the laundry that needs folding! I scoured Goodwill over a few weeks and finally emerged with a good full-length mirror and a big sturdy basket to hold accessories. Then I bought a rack of hooks from Walmart (hooks are expensive!!) and hung that on one wall--a relatively quick, easy project that I managed to take forever to complete, thanks to numerous trips down to the garage to pick out different sized drill bits. I was getting hot and sweaty! Once the first rack of hooks was up, the wall still needed a bit more. So I scrounged a piece of old baseboard out of the garage and screwed some hooks into that with great difficulty. Operating a power drill is not for the fainthearted! That baseboard wood turned out to be hard and sloping, so the hooks turned out tilted and uneven when I finally muscled them onto the board. I decided to call it "whimsical" rather than "sloppy," hung the boards on the wall by the mirror, hung the dresses on the hooks, and wiped my brow while admiring the finished product nearly two hours after I started. 

A panorama view of the girls' room--bunk beds, dress-up nook, chalkboard wall and all. I used my cell phone's panorama setting and rotated slowly on the spot while it captured the whole room. Cool! 

 

The girls love their dress-up nook.

Dresses, necklaces, sparkles, and shoes: that's what little girls are made of!
{except when they go outside and dig/roll in the mud!}