This Man is on Fire

Just overheard Sean running through the house yelling, "My hair is on fire!" and then saw him come out of the bathroom a minute later with his head sopping wet. 

"It's fine...it's out now" he told me. 

 I didn't ask.

Good Thing We're Not Dramatic

Ari: "Mom, I need some play food."

Me: " I'm sorry Buddy, I don't know where it is right now."

Ari: " But MOM, Sean and I are playing house. And if we don't have any food, then we have to play that we are DEAD."

Words Can Hurt, You Know

Sean: "Mom, guess what? I like Tinkerbell now!"

Me: "Oh? You didn't before?"

Sean: (GASP) "'YOU DIDN'T BEFORE?!'"

Me: "Well, I'm asking you. You didn't like her before?"

Sean: "MOM! Every time you say that, a fairy just...DIES!"

Healthy Eating

Sean: "Hey Mama, whatcha doin'?"

Me: "I'm making a salad."

Sean:  "Oooh, yum, can I help? Can I pour in the Pop Tarts for you?"

Well

At only eleven months, Beatrice threw the tantrum of all tantrums Saturday night.  She's been having more and more difficulty getting to sleep lately, and as she's just on a mattress on our floor and not in a crib, I don't really have the option of putting her somewhere to just settle in on her own (and freak out safely).  Our house is very small and the only bedroom door is the one to the boys' loft upstairs, so I've moved quite far from the "cry it out" techniques I may have used on some of my earlier children.  Now I use what I call my "Little House" model, which is to keep the peace in the house as well as possible, to use the outdoors when really big tantrums occur, and to overall teach the other children to just sleep through it as best as they can.  I think that the model works, as a general rule.  But I also recognize that all children (and probably all adults too) reach the point physically and emotionally when they just WON'T respond to coddling anymore.  They don't want to be held and rocked and shushed back to sleep.  They don't want to go halfway to Freak Out and then recede.  They want to just hit the punching bag as hard as they can and wail for a while and then feel better and get past it.


Haven't you seen that, too?


So here comes Bea with this tantrum that has been building, and she's been growing like crazy, and cutting her first teeth, so I know there's a lot of pent-up energy all in there.  She wouldn't take "no" for an answer.  She didn't want to nurse, to rock, or to sit.  I put her down on the carpet to play with some toys and she crawled over to me and cried.   If I picked her up and held her, she cried.  So finally I did what every good mother would do:  I set her in the exact middle of the room and walked away.  She lost it.  Justin paused our movie and we sat on our couches and just watched her.  She hit it good.  She screamed, she flailed, she rolled over and over.  She knew that we were there and that we were watching her, but she didn't come to us...even though she could have, easily.  She just let the world have it.  She kicked her feet and yelled her little heart out, getting out all that extra growing energy that was stuck somewhere inside of her.  She hollered for probably twenty minutes, and we just sat and watched her and let her have her say.

Finally, she started to quiet and began to make her way over to me.  I picked her up and walked into our dark front room.  She clutched me and was still crying, gasping.  I sang to her then, the first chorus that sprung to mind on that dark night:

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot
Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well
With my soul!

Oh, this daughter of mine.  I have come to call her "Sister" more often than Bea or Beatrice; what began as a simple family name (I often call any of the boys "Brother") has become a sacred name with deep meaning to me.  Yes, she is my daughter and not my sibling, and yet I feel that much of my role as Mother to her is to teach her the things that are common to all women---joys and sorrows that we will someday share as sisters in this world.  Certainly the loftiest of all these lessons is to learn to bear the weight of vast joy and sorrow; as a woman she will know heartache, groan through the pull of labor pains and grit her teeth against the burdens of dirty dishes, diapers, and the overturned toy basket that never seem to cease.  She will counsel her husband and hope that he listens to her wisdom.  She will give the same instructions to her children hundreds of times just before lunch.  She will know the ecstasy of looking into a newborn's eyes that she just convinced herself would never deliver, she will be caught speechless at an unexpected blessing, and she will wish fervently during a fleeting moment on Christmas morning or at a toddler's dance recital that time would please just stand still and allow her to stay in this happiness forever. 

Our circumstances do not define who we are.  This precious moment, this stomping of feet, this beautiful wailing that my daughter indulged this past weekend is just the first of many.  What a sacred thing to witness, the tantrum of the soul; yet I pray the day will come when she will be able to look into my face and say

Whatever my lot
He hast taught me to say
It is well, it is WELL
With my soul!










 

Halloween Menu

Yep...you better believe that these little lovelies will be on our table come Halloween night! Nobody tell the boys!!

Monster Mash Shepherd's Pie

Mondays, October style

Two oldest boys are in a rice fight in my front room. Four youngest boys are jumping on my bed. I'm retreating to the kitchen to eat a chocolate eyeball. These are October Mondays, people!

Book Club

"I belong on a farm. I'm never lonesome here like I used to be in town. You remember what sad spells I used to have, when I didn't know what was the matter with me? I've never had them out here. And I don't mind work a bit, if I don't have to put up with sadness." --excerpt from My Antonia, by Willa Cather

Barn Raising

Quote of the Day: "If the Teen Room goes into the hayloft, then I can ACTUALLY say that I was raised in a barn." (cole, age 12)

Eat Plants, Be Healthy

LOVE this! I get asked sometimes how having a large family DOESN'T prove to be a drain on resources. My stock answer is that we have to grow as much as our own food as possible due to budget restraints, and we use VERY little fuel as we don't fit it a vehicle and can't go anywhere! Our latest venture has been to move to a mostly plant-based diet, eating meat only for a hearty Sunday Dinner. This author shows just a little glimpse into the economy of eating healthy plant foods!

$1.50 a Day Challenge 

Rosh

Last year, we spent Rosh Hashanah with the Zollitsch family, who had been unemployed for nearly a year with no end in sight. We invited our friend Maria to join our table, and when she called me with her regrets, she said excitedly that she had "met someone". I cooked dinner slowly, very pregnant with what I was sure was our seventh son. We broke bread and thanked the Lord for His everlasting goodness, praying blessing and sweetness over these three households and the year to come. Today, the Zollitsches are employed and living in Texas, Maria is a happy newlywed, and I am ironing a dress for my daughter's first Jewish New Year. What a difference a year makes! All thanks to the Lord for his provision and care!

The Burnin' Ring of Fire

Henry just walked past me singing Johnny Cash. Thank you, 18-hour road trip!

Prison

Justin: Look at that little bus over there! Now THAT'S the kind of car we need!

Me: That's a prison work van.

Justin: Well...yeah. But wouldn't it be great to have one of those cyclone fence dividers? We could dress the kids in little worksuits that are all the same color....it would make laundry so much easier for you. And we could have a WARDEN--I mean, a nanny--sit in back there with them while we're driving. Don't you think?

School Planning

Boxes of books for the boys are starting to arrive every day in the mail, so it is time now to make a Back To School list for Mama. On my list this year: A devotional, a watch, a coffee pot, a juicer, and a trip to the chiropractor. They are coming out of the school budget, because I'm pretty sure I won't make it through the year without them!

Chocolate Cake

Mama's QOTD:

"You don't eat chocolate cake because you're hungry.  You eat chocolate cake because you have emotional problems."

Unfinished

Trying to finish a conversation with my husband in this house is like

12

My oldest turned 12 at 11:47 this morning. I unpacked my grandma's cake pans to make his waterslide birthday cake. It will be my first time working with them...but she used them to bake wedding cakes, and they are well worn.   LOVE!

Kate

Admittedly I have nothing in common with Kate Middleton...BUT I so vividly remember this very week twelve years ago, so hot and uncomfortable and wondering if my first baby would EVER come. Makes me feel just the tiniest bit of kinship with the beautiful duchess right now!

Windows

My children are playing tennis in my front room. You know, the one that's filled with windows.

Summer School

I try to reread this at the beginning of every summer just to scare myself into being super-aware. This article is so, so powerful. Save lives!

Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning