Motherhood

In celebration of this holiday season, I posted a link to a YouTube video of “Mary, Did You Know?” one of my favorite Christmas songs. This version touched my heart in a special way, as any mother would understand.

Congratulations to Heidi Marie! You won a Lilla Rose hair clip of your choice from Anjanette Barr, Independent Consultant.

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway.

I made some laundry detergent a few weeks ago. It cleaned my clothes well. Although my clothes don’t smell like Tide, that’s fine with me. The cost effectiveness of making your own laundry detergent is worth the time spent making it. (It took me about 30 minutes.) Here’s the recipe I used in case you’re interested in making your own detergent.

Ingredients Needed:

* 1/2 cup of Borax: I use 20 Mule Team Borax.

* 1/2 cup of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda: This isn’t the same as baking soda. Washing soda is sodium bicarbonate or soda ash. Washing Soda helps remove dirt and odors.

* 1/3 bar of Fels Naptha Laundry Soap (You can find this in the laundry aisle of your grocery store)

Making the Detergent

Step One: Grate the soap and put it in a saucepan.

Step Two: Add six cups of water and heat it until it melts.

Step Three: Add washing soda and borax and stir till it dissolves. Then remove saucepan from heat.

Step Four: Fill a large bucket with 4 cups of hot water.

Step Five: Now add your soap mixture and stir.

Step Six: Add 1 gallon plus six cups of hot water and stir.

Step Seven: Let the mixture sit for 24 hours and it will gel.

Step Eight: Use 1/2 per load of laundry.

**This is a low sudsing soap so if you don’t see any suds, that’s okay.**

Last week, I talked about how we do preschool at home. In that post, I mentioned how I enjoy reading to my children regularly and provide a lot of exposure to books. When they’re babies, they gnaw on board books 😉 But they get the hang of it as they get older.

Here’s a list of what I’ve read to our children. It’ll be an ongoing list which I’ll update regularly. I used to pull random books off the shelf at the library, but now I’m more picky. I tend to like books that have stood the test of time, but this doesn’t mean that I’ll rule out newer children’s books.

This is what we’ve read so far. A lot of these books we’ve read many, many many times. My two year old likes to hear the same stories over again.

For the Toddler

• “The Little Red Hen” by Paul Galdone (a great book that talks about the importance of work)
• “Are You My Mother?” by P.D. Eastman
• “Go, Dog, Go” by P.D. Eastman
• “Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day” by Richard Scarry
• “Hop on Pop” by Dr. Seuss (Dr. Seuss is da bomb! His rhymes really capture a young child’s attention.)
• “Fox in Socks” by Dr. Seuss
• “Horton Hatches the Egg” by Dr. Seuss

For the Baby

The baby’s books are mostly non-text books that help my little one develop their visual acuity.  I will show the baby the book and talk about the picture. I often let the two year old do this. Gives him a chance to be the “teacher”

• Black on White by Tana Hoban
• White on Black by Tana Hoban
• What Does Baby See?

More books to come!

Today is the last day for the Back to School Ebook Bundle. Get five ebooks for $10

I’m new to teaching my children at home. Whenever I’m new to something I read a lot about it and observe those who are sucessful at it. My philosophy is: “Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find out what those ahead of me in an area have done (and succeeded in doing!) and follow that.” In my research on teaching at home, the books by Ruth Beechick were recommended as foundational for anyone embarking on the homeschool journey. I’m now reading her book “The Three R’s.” The way she presents teaching is simple, natural. It coincides with something I observed in my two year old:

Children are natural learners.

Many times, I don’t need to “push” a concept or a habit onto my children. Meaning, I don’t have to sit there and “do school.” Children are naturally curious. They love repetition. They have great faith (Meaning, they believe what you say). And they are copy cats (They mimic what you do). As a parent, I just need to be mindful of what I present to my children and exercise diligence in showing them the same information or activity over, and over, and over again.

This requires a commitment on my part.

For me, this commitment begins in infancy. I aim to consistently feed my four month old at close to the same times (emphasis on ‘close’) every day so she can acquire a sense of order and routine. As the babies grow into toddlerhood, I teach them to put things away when they are finished with them (over and over and over again). Say grace before meals. Say ‘please’ when asking for something (We’re still working on this one!). Remove clothes from a dryer. Dry swiffer the floor. And talk, talk, talk. Talking a lot naturally increases speech and vocabulary.

It’s simple, but hard.

I’ve learned that a lot of what they learn (and not learn) depends on the direction and the tone I set (or don’t set) for them.

But my God given positional authority over my children has helped through the rough patches. (That and prayer!)

I didn’t need to feel insecure in my decision to do preschool at home (something I’ve wrestled with) because, despite my inexperience, God had uniquely created me to be my children’s mother. He also uniquely created my children to be my children. In His design, we will draw on one another’s strengths and be challenged to work on our weaknesses. Becoming a mother has shown me how strong I am. It has revealed hidden gifts and skills which lied dormant. And it has also exposed my character flaws. For example, I have a tendency towards laziness. I have had to be conscious not to model laziness to my children or else they will follow suit.

For the mindful parent, home life can provide a rich learning environment.

In the family, life is brought not only to our doorstep, but into our kitchens, bedrooms, and dens. In the family, life is happening all around us, and it begs to be questioned, evaluated, interpreted and discussed. There is no more consistent, pregnant, dynamic forum for instruction about life than the family, because that is exactly what God designed the family to be, a learning community. (Paul David Tripp)

Children can learn life skills, engage in developmental activities, practice language skills and form a belief system all without a formal education.

As my children grew older, I repeatedly read the same stories to them: Bible stories, Dr. Seuss and other classic children’s stories. I also shown them selected educational videos. When they seemed ready, I added in alphabet flash cards and sight word cards. If it was too much, I put it aside and waited until they matured.

Thankfully, all this “preschool” takes about ten to fifteen minutes a day.

I was surprised that it didn’t take much time or effort on my part. Since we’re together all the time, life has offered many natural opportunities to reinforce the concepts taught in that ten-fifteen minutes of “preschool” each day. However, the chore training may take longer because little ones are easily distracted.

Over a period of time, my two year old began to talk to me about the stories we read (reading comprehension) and mimic some of the simple chores he saw me do around the house. Of course, he didn’t perfect those chores, but perfection wasn’t my goal. I simply wanted to get him into the mindset of helping around the house and developing a basic work ethic (i.e., avoiding idleness).

As my children’s minds mature, we’ll move onto more “complex” activities like learning to read and learning to budget money. But this too will be presented according to their personal readiness and ability.

Children are sponges. At this early stage of life, I plan to fill them with good stuff (good habits, good Bible stories, good children’s stories) which they can later draw on as adults. The toddler may fumble with taking clothes out of a dryer today, but I know he’ll thank me later when he’s living by himself for the first time and there’s no one else to do the laundry but him

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Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he keepeth the law, happy is he. (Proverbs 29:18)

My husband has contributed to today’s post on developing a vision for homeschool. Although in many cases, mom does a lot of the day in and day out work of homeschooling, it’s a joint venture. I hope hearing his thoughts will provide a different perspective.

Teaching children begins at birth. Whether informally or formally, a child is always learning and absorbing information from their environment. When we considered how we’d like to shape our children, we needed a long term perspective. We needed a vision. A vision for the men our sons would become; a vision for the women our daughters would become. That’s where we started.

The vision for training our children is for them to have a Spirit of power, a Spirit of love, and a Spirit of a sound mind.  We believe that our children are precious and that God has given them to us in order to nurture and train them to be the best that they can be.  First and foremost, before any academic training, we would like to impart the knowledge of God through the regular reading and memorization the Word of God.  We also want to teach them about the world around them: the local, state, national, and international governments as well as other cultures.  By providing an environment where education is fun and enjoyable, we hope they will grow into lifelong learners. We also want to show them how to become critical thinkers, as opposed to passive absorbers, of information presented to them.

That’s our vision for homeschooling. Have you developed a vision for how you’d like to train your children? A vision, or mission statement, for this important aspect of life will help ensure that you stay the course during those precious years before your children leave your home.

This is the last post for the series!

Today I want to talk about being all dressed up with a dirty neck, also known as clutter or ‘stuffitis.’

When we moved into our first apartment as newlyweds, all I brought with me was some clothes, a couple of books and shoes. Today, almost a decade later, I have two bookcases filled with books and teaching CDs, a netbook, a desktop computer, a television, two cribs, two beds, and clothes to outfit a family of four. Some of these things are necessary.

But some things have to go.

I occasionally get this urge to purge the house of stuff. I become a woman on a mission: toss, toss, toss. But later, as time passes, I collect more stuff. Other times, I don’t toss. I simply shuffle stuff around or hide it from myself in a poor attempt to fool myself into think I got rid of it.

Because I just can’t let it go.

In our society, the need to gather things can easily rule us. We are consciously bombarded with thousands of marketing messages each day. We are told that we are somehow inadequate and having this or that item will make us better in some way. If we aren’t on guard, we’ll believe those marketing lies, spend money and end up in debt.

One day, while I was pondering all this, I felt the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit ask me: “How much stuff do you really need?”

When I thought about what I actually needed, I nailed it down to four simple things: food and water, a few outfits and shoes that can be flexible for different occasions, a clean, peaceful place to live, and some toiletries like deoderant, soap and toothpaste . That was the bare minimum. If I had a great family to share that home and food with, that would be a blessing. I then realized that I already had all these things. The rest of the stuff was clutter. Clutter that was shuffled around, tossed and/or dusted to no end. Time wasters.

Being all dressed up with a dirty neck is about confronting the inner need to collect stuff, and it’s about examining the reasons behind this need. After doing those two steps, we embark on a gradual process of clearing out our living space to make room for the important things: like family.

Fly Lady says “You can’t organize clutter.”

Today, I spend about a half hour each week going through my things and seeing what I don’t need. I then give it away or sell it. During this process, my husband has warned me against collecting more stuff to fill the open space. He suggested I keep things as they are and don’t buy more. I can follow along with his line of reasoning but resisting the need to buy on impulse is a habit I am working on. For now, I’m clearing away for thirty minutes a week and learning ways to curb the need to collect more stuff.

Do you have too many things in your home that you don’t use or need? Does all this stuff weigh you down emotionally? Try de-cluttering for a few minutes each week and then examine why you collect, collect, collect. You may want to journal about it, you’ll be surprised at the solutions you discover for yourself.

On Monday, I’m starting a new series. This one will be about teaching our children at home. I have a two year old and a four month old, so I may be a little early but I’m the type of person who likes to be prepared, especially when I don’t have a clue about what I’m doing. Homeschooling is one of those areas.

Have a great weekend.

Doesn’t that Jello salad look yummy?

Today we’re going to learn how to use the index system to make Jello salad.

(Just kidding.)

But we are talking about meal planning. There are two ways you can plan your meals:

1. Create a card where you list the type of meal you’ll eat on certain days of the week. For example, Monday can be chicken, Tuesday is pasta, Wednesday is for leftovers, etc.
2. Each week write down a specific meal using choices from your file of recipe cards.

I usually do option #2. After deciding what I want to eat for the week, I’ll check my pantry and fridge for what I don’t have and create a shopping list. I used to never plan meals, but after I looked at how much we were spending on eating out each month, I quickly changed.

We are almost done with our Sidetracked Home Executives series, only one post left. On Friday, we’ll discuss being “all dressed up with a dirty neck,” a term coined by Peggy and Pam, the authors of Sidetracked Home Executives.

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The Address File

Confession here…

I haven’t set up the address file yet for the system, but I’ll discuss how Peggy and Pam in Sidetracked Home Executives use it.

The S.H.E. address system is very flexible. In addition to having basic contact information on each card, you can add in things like clothing/shoe sizes, birthdays, anniversaries and even nicknames (in case you forget). You can even put the card in the month divider of that person’s birthday. When it comes time for you to set up your cards for that month, you won’t forget it.

The Blank Dividers

The S.H.E. book recommends labeling the blank dividers as follows:

• Christmas
• Special Projects
• Storage
• Family

Christmas

The Christmas divider is a mini-holiday planner. You can create an activity list for the things you typically do to prepare for the holidays and then organize them on color coded index cards, just like the one you have created for your home. This is a huge time saver.

Special Projects

Use this space to dream. Maybe you’d like to start a business, complete a craft project – anything you can imagine. This is also your space to also plan your dreams. Create a project list, write them on color coded index cards, and file them away as you get one step closer to your goals.

Storage

Here you can catalog the items you’ve stored in your home: children’s clothes, holiday décor, etc.

Family

This is where you can keep information about each of the members in your family. Keep track of their sizes, likes, dislikes. You can even use this space to write prayer points for each person.

On Wednesday, we’ll talk about menu planning using the S.H.E. system.

Read Other Posts In This Series:

Sidetracked Home Executives, Part 1

Sidetracked Home Executives, Part 2

Sidetracked Home Executives, Part 3

Sidetracked Home Executives, Part 4

Sidetracked Home Executives, Part 5

Sidetracked Home Executives, Part 6

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