The Wheat in the Chaff
Summer brings time for cleaning out "stuff," including old school papers. The deluge floods my desk for nine months, and it feels great to recycle most of it. As I sorted papers this morning, one of the keepers inspired me to keep going.
Peter's fill-in-the-blank journal entry for St. Patrick's Day:
I am lucky because: meli ke M lik e Mm.The teacher translated his words for me:
I am lucky because: me like my mom.
Two Cousins
April 6, 1995From Dorothy Benson's journal:
“What a day it was yesterday—to get the news that we were going to have a grandson. It was just a joyous day—one to celebrate and cherish. [Sister] Kylie telling her aunts—hearing Anne scream. [Kylie] telling Anne and Mary the baby will be called ADAM. It was just a very special time. The happiness on [mother] Judy’s face, the beaming on [father] Mark’s face when he walked in the door. One of those few cherished times in life that is complete joy and can be shared and we are privileged to be able to share it. It was a very, very special time. I am glad that we could experience that.”
Only fifty-three days later, May 29, 1995A baby boy was born in Ukraine, the second child in his family. Bogdan's blonde hair and blue eyes set him apart from his other relatives.
July 13, 1995A baby boy with blonde hair and blue eyes was born in Colorado. His parents Mark and Judy named him Jacob. Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Mary rejoiced with them.
August 18, 2005In Ukraine, Mary and Jonathan officially adopted Bogdan and four of his siblings. They named their second son Adam Bogdan and chose his Uncle Mark and Aunt Judy as his godparents because their son Jacob is almost the same age.
May 29, 2009Grandma Benson's birthday card for Adam arrived. She sent a copy of the long-forgotten diary entry from April 6, 1995, in which cousin Kylie announced the arrival of Jacob AND Adam!
Another Homophone
[I'm almost used the following title for today's post:
Not Monday, Therefore A Short One]
Like many children, ours are sometimes subject to exaggeration. One accused another of telling a tall tale. Kola looked at them with curiosity:
"What's a tall tail?"
A Balancing Act
Any child, whether a singleton or a member of a large sibling group, needs interaction with their parents. I remember reading in one of Brazelton's books (perhaps
The Irreducible Needs of Children) that at least thirty minutes a day of uninterrupted one-on-time with a parent helps a child bond with them and flourish.
For our children, belonging to a large family makes them work pretty hard for attention. Each kid has honed their own techniques, some positive and some negative. I work proactively to give them attention, but it's a constant challenge. Thirty minutes a day with six children adds up to three hours!
____________________
As an introvert, I need quiet and time alone to regenerate. I eke out "my" time with three hours off every Monday morning, and solitary work time the rest of the week--laundry, weeding, cooking, waiting in the boys' room for Kola to sleep, etc. Most of my paid job as a music director is solitary, too--planning, computer work, and practicing.
When my need for alone time isn't fulfilled, I get at best crabby and at worst depressed. It does no one in our family any good for Mom to wipe out emotionally.
___________________
So where's the balance? When do I tough it out and play that extra game or pay attention to the fiftieth "Mama, look at this!" When do limits go up? "Mama's taking a nap--is your question really an emergency?" or "I'm in the bathroom right now--is that ok?"
Jonathan and I go round and round about my napping on Sunday afternoons. In our pre-children life, I always took a two-hour nap to recover from rising at 5:00 am and playing two or three worship services. Now Jonathan needs a break from preparing six children for church and doing solitary childcare all morning. In addition, the children haven't had access to me for hours. Consequently, most of my Sunday naps are now more like thirty minutes long.
___________________
Do you ever feel like the message at church was intended just for you? I felt immensely better yesterday to hear that Jesus also dealt with the balance of interaction and regeneration. Here's the appointed Gospel for yesterday's worship service (Mark 4:35-41):
On that day, when evening had come, [Jesus] said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”Before this passage, the Gospel of Mark recounts many of Jesus' parables. The Lord had therefore spent much time teaching and interacting with people. In fact, Mark 1:1 describes the scene before the boat trip:
Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge. The boat trip meant time away and an opportunity for Jesus to rest. He must have been exhausted to sleep through such a storm! Many times in his ministry, Jesus withdrew to rest and pray. If he needed it, surely we do, too.
The storm was a bad one. Even the disciples, who were experienced and professional fishermen, feared for their lives and finally woke Jesus to help them. We also fear the storms in our lives and call on Jesus for assistance. His words and their result are a great comfort:
“Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.Peace!
Be still!
Great calm.____________________
And then on again to our work.
The appointed Gospel for next Sunday (Mark 5:21-43) finds Jesus touched on every side by humanity:
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' " ____________________
Makes dealing with only six children seem more manageable.
Structure
Oh, silly me . . .Kola doesn't know the meaning of "summer." All he understands is that his schedule has changed drastically. During the first ten days after the school year ended, he threw tantrums on a very regular basis. When we created two calendars for him, his behavior improved a lot.
Jonathan drew up a picture-calendar of the entire summer, and I've been drawing daily timelines. Kola studies them all very, very carefully. He doesn't read yet, but he knows his letters and numbers. I put the "number" (i.e., date) at the top of his timeline, which clues him in to the day's location on Jonathan's calendar. A series of pictures accompanied by their letters gives him the activities of the day. The general plan is:
B-Food
H-Homework
L-Food
P-Playtime
S-Food (Snack)
S or L-Swimming or Library
S-Food
B-Bedtime
__________________________
Our house, jammed with camping equipment, needed a great deal of work yesterday. We also had a busy evening planned, with baseball games and church youth meetings. Our normal chore time,after supper, wasn't possible due to the evening's activities.
My plan was to do our family chore (putting away camping gear) before snack, followed by a trip to the swimming pool. That meant "work before play" and some rewards for completing the task. Unfortunately, I had omitted chores from the timeline. In addition, we were doing chores at an unusual time, since they usually take place after supper.
Oh, silly me!!
More on Camping
We returned from a hike, and Paul discovered that someone had left the back door of the tent open. Next thing we heard was "A RACOON HAS BEEN IN THE TENT!!"
The animal hadn't done much damage, but he left behind an empty box of cookies. I didn't recognize the brand at all. Either one of the kids brought cookies from who-knows-where or the racoon dragged the box into the tent from another campsite. Either way, the children learned firsthand that hoarding food is NOT a good idea.
And what was the posted name of our street in the campground?
Racoon Row
First Day
Our fifteen-year old Paul begins playing American football today for the first time. Football camp, starting this afternoon, will prepare him for his upcoming freshman year in high school.
Paul: "Pop, are the coaches going to be hard on us?"
Jonathan: "Yes, I'm afraid so."
Paul looked more pleased than concerned.
Camping
Shades State Park, near Terra Haute, Indiana:
Wednesday, June 10, 2:00 amI awoke to a crash of thunder and the sound of Dakota pacing around the edges of the tent. Grabbing the dog as he neared me, I pulled him down next to my sleeping bag and held on tight. As another flash of light illuminated the tent, Dakota jumped and Kola started rocking. I held on to both of them for all I was worth.
Thursday, June 11, 4:00 amLaying on my back with Kola under one arm and Kota under the other, an hour of lightning, thunder, and heavy rain passed by. I wanted so badly to shift position--my back was killing me--but I couldn't decide which of my charges needed more care. Kola required comforting, and Dakota's pacing would have woken every child in the tent.
Friday, June 12, 8:00 amAfter a night of no rain, Kola told me, "Mama, it didn't rain last night!" He was surprised, since in his experience, camping meant major thunderstorms, every night!
