Thanksgiving Turkeys

I give thanks for my turkeys... And now a trip back in time... M and I got this large salad bowl as a wedding gift and only used it when we had company or special occasions. Every year we had a new baby, they would get their picture taken in the salad bowl on Thanksgiving... Except E didn't get a baby picture in the bowl. E was born a few days after Thanksgiving an the next year we were visiting Grandparents! This is E with my Nana! Hi Nana! And this year it is F's turn to sit in the bowl...which we now use several times a week to hold popcorn.

Gender and Thanksgiving

I bet Western Washington University would have this class. They could study the different ways men and women eat, behave, and think at Thanksgiving. I bet they would say all straight white men gobble like hogs and watch football on TV while their imprisoned slave-wives work all day in the kitchen cooking and cleaning up. And that Thanksgiving should be changed to a day of mourning instead of a day of giving thanks for our blessings. And that Thanksgiving should be illegal and they should not close campus or government offices on such a racist day. That is what I heard when I went there. Seriously.

The gender roles are reversed at my house on Thanksgiving. That makes us socially acceptable for at least a little while I guess. M does ALL the cooking on Thanksgiving. I have never ever cooked a turkey. All I do is buy them on discount the year before. And we work together on clean up. With My Pathetic Doberman's help. Oh, I guess I do put the frozen vegetables in the microwave (but I don't take them out until after dinner)! I do make the best rolls though... and pie.

My best friend is cooking up a fantastic menu for her husband and two kids. I almost want to go over to her house on Thursday! Here is her menu:

Cheesy Spinach Souffle
Sweet Potatoes in Navel Orange Cups
Corn for the the picky boys that won't eat anything
Cornbread and Squash Stuffing
Costco rolls (gotta love Costco!)
Turkey and gravy, of course:)
Cranberry Sauce, maybe homemade, not sure yet
and homemade pumpkin pie. NOT from a can.
Maybe a chocolate pie for dh, haven't decided that yet, either

I asked M what we were having. He said, "Easy. Turkey. Mashed potatoes. Gravy. Sweet potatoes. Stuffing. Homemade bread?" I nod. "That would be great. Salad. And pie."

And there you have it. Gender and Thanksgiving.

Mirror, Mirror...

...on the wall. Who is the most stubborn one of all? When I look at E, I see myself reflected back to me. Ornery. Strong willed. Stubborn. I'm an adult, so I can moderate my feelings and flaws. I cannot expect the same from an almost three year old. Most days my mantra is, "I am a flowing river. I'm polishing these little stones that I call children. I am slowly rounding their rough corners and wearing down their points of resistance. I am not shattering rocks, I am smoothing them..." BUT THIS GRANOLA HAS BEEN SITTING ON THE TABLE FOR EIGHT HOURS AND SHE IS GOING TO EAT IT!

Where Do I Start?

My computer is fast enough again. Yay! So, where did I leave off? So much is happening around here. My projects outnumber my kids! And I can tell my hard work is paying off. Today is garbage day. We have our garbage and recycling picked up every two weeks. We had only two bags of garbage and one box of recycling!!! Talk about reducing our footprint! If any tree-huggin' peace-lovin' greenneck ever gives me trouble about how many kids I have and how bad they are for the environment, I will smack them upside the head! Yes, I can reconcile my conservative lifestyle with my liberal education! Ahh, nothing like a baby bath picture to soothe the savage beast... Okay, now for some of my projects. I will start with health and wellness... I am on a quest to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from our diet. Mostly for my dear father-in-law (FIL). I like to be able to say, "Yeah, I already do that," to anyone who likes to tell me how to better feed my family, especially my FIL. He is on the cutting edge of health news, and knew all about the benefits of Vitamin D and our special problem with sun exposure, way before my peditrician did. High fructose corn syrup is in my favorite affordable whole wheat bread. And in my favorite affordable pancake syrup. I'm not interested in paying $20 per bottle for the real maple syrup (or $4.99 for a loaf of bread), especially when all kids want is something sweet on their pancakes. So I whipped up a giant batch of vanilla/molasses syrup over the weekend, tested it on my toughest customer, and canned enough to last us the rest of winter. For just a few pennies. Actually, with the canning lids it was probably a buck.

Who is my toughest customer? The one that won't eat her veggies unless I make it a point to ask her if she has had any veggies with her dinner. The one who begrudgingly takes a small spoonful and chokes them down with milk. At eighteen years of age. Although last night she actually asked for seconds of one of my smoothie concoctions... Sorry about this picture being dark. You can see My Pathetic Doberman licking her chops in anticipation of that mushy banana on the high chair tray. So, smoothies. Yeah... I'm still making them every day. Last night's smoothie was half of an old avocado, a canister packed full of spinach, some orange juice (to keep the blades from sticking), a handful of frozen strawberries (eveything tastes better cool), and a bit of cranberry applesauce that I made from some old, wrinkled apples. And A came upstairs on her own for more! The avocado made the smoothie so... smooth.

Another smoothie flavorite (get it?) is pumpkin banana.

Next project: Knitting! I've been knitting wool pants for cloth diapering for a long time. I can't help it. They are addictive. One basic pattern, endless opportunities for color and patterns! And they are usefull! And people pay $80 a pair online for these babies! But last night, I finished the gusset on a pair of pants, held them up, and realized they are so huge they would fit IJ! I swear I measured my gague before starting! I rarely do, because if pants are too big now they won't be later. But these were huge! I threw my knitting on the floor, stomped downstairs, and exclaimed to A, "I'm done with knitting! I will never knit again!" and stomped back upstairs. I looked at my yarn stash. I hated everything I had. I couldn't stand thinking about all my projects I had lined up that seemed so exciting over the weekend. I was ready to sell the whole thing and reclaim my two closet shelves for something else (bulk grain perhaps?). And then Dearest M came home from the library, toting a knitting book that I have been waiting for for years, that just came out and is in High Demand at the library. Mason-Dixon Knitting. The funniest knitting books ever written. My heart nearly stopped when I read the tip to turn Fair Isle in the round inside out while you knit so the stranding doesn't bunch. My stranding is always too tight! I can't wait to start F's Christmas stocking!

Yeah, so I changed my mind about knitting. I'm done knitting wool pants (for a while). I'm back to cotton dishrags (and Christmas stockings). Specifcally, cotton dishrags that have buttoned tabs to wrap around mops (instead of those nasty smelling throw away swiffers). Speaking of books... Go, S, Go! Look at that boy go! M has been listening to his children read him this book for fifteen years now. And he read it to his parents long before that. Go, Dog, Go! by P. D. Eastman is one of the best sight-word readers for kids ever written. S, my unschooled self-starter, cruised through his Fun Tales, his Bob books, and is now tackling our I Can Read It! series along with Dr. Suess on his own. He is reading like he is doing math. He is forcing me, once again, to redo my curriculum. It won't be long before I can just combine S and IJ into one study-buddy group. Even though he prefers to color and play with his little buddy, E.

For the next two weeks, we (and every other homeschooler in this country) will be taking a special trip back in time to learn about the first Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims and all that stuff. We are reading The Magic Treehouse book Thanksgiving on Thursday along with the research guide. Plus some other fun stuff.

Dial-Up Blues

Its incredibly painful trying to blog with dial-up when something in Windows is trying to download. I've avoided getting online the last few days because my IT guy (M) has been gone in the field since Tuesday. He got home last night and will be leaving again today for a weekend at Twin Firs. Then he will be home one more day and leaving again on Tuesday for another three days. So my computer time will be unpredictable for the next week...

I have no new pics today because I don't want to wait for an upload, but I do have a few cute snippets of conversation...

IJ said the most poetic thing I've ever heard a 6 year old say (this is approximate): I think that at night, the day is dying. When the sun goes down it is like the day died. After the night is over and the sun comes back up, it is like the day is coming back to life and the sun is being born again. I've thought this for a long time, but I kept it inside. Today I let it out and passed it along.

This morning E decided that she wanted to play with a purse. IJ wanted it so he could put things in all the pockets. I said, "Only girls carry purses. They put their identification and their money and..." What else do girls carry in their purses? E piped up in her squeaky voice, "And LOLLIPOPS in it?!?!"

S is still into numbers. He has been asking, "What is the biggest number you can get to?" which starts a dicussion about infinity. He brings me a piece of paper with a number written on it and asks me what number comes next. S really likes billions and hundred thousands.

F is almost crawling! She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks forward and backwards. Yesterday she was airing out diaperless and practicing her crawling skills. She kept hopping forward and with her fat little thighs she looked just like a baby frog!

I have one busy Friday today...school this morning, a playdate this afternoon with our best Taekwondo pals, and then getting everyone ready for the trip to Twin Firs!

Roly-Poly

I decided to have some fun with my camera last night... This picture was taken with a shutter speed of 3 seconds. Baby F is rolling all over the floor now! It won't be long until she is a Creepy-Crawly instead of a Roly-Poly!

Passing the Peas and Passing Out

Where have I been, you ask? Wednesday morning I awoke to a tender breast which turned quickly into mastitis, leaving me feeling like I had a carpet pulled out from under my feet. I went from shivering so violently that I couldn't feel my fingers from the nerve damage to a temperature of 103.5! Thank God I have a good friend that came to take care of me and our six kids (collectively). She brought me medicine and water and made sure I went to the doctor instead of just sticking it out and I am now feeling much better. Of course when the mom is sick, the whole home falls apart. So I have been busy trying to catch up while remembering to take my meds... oops, missed one.

Baby F got her first taste of peas last night! No nasty Gerber peas for this little ogre! Frozen peas, pureed, are much much tastier and you can see by the look on her face that she really enjoyed them! So pass the peas, please! And early, early, this morning, like around 4:30, sweet E woke me up, woke the baby up, and decided she needed to sleep in my bed. I couldn't argue with her. My body still ached from the mastitis, I stayed up too late last night from sleeping so much on Wednesday and Thursday, so I just scooted over for her. Before I could get back to sleep, another voice echoed through my room... "I had a bad dream!" wailed S. "Oh, you poor thing," says M, "Here, get in bed with us. A, could you scoot over? You have plenty of room over there!" Keep in mind Baby F is in between us. And M had no idea E was on my other side. We were squished like sardines and no one went back to sleep...until now: And a big congratulations to M, who took his second level test for his second degree black belt last night. This was a huge test, especially since this is his busy time of year for surveys. He did a three kick combination for board breaking without putting his foot down once! His side kick (which was the second in the series) was so fast his foot got caught in the broken board as he pulled it back!

Latest Savant News.... Anyone remember S's special gift for knowing the ordinal position of every letter in the alphabet? The other day he said to me, "J plus J equals T." I say, "Huh?" and think for a second before I start counting letters on my fingers. (Start counting, I won't tell you the answer.) This morning, as we were watching Thomas the Train at 5:30, M turns to S and asks, "What's Thomas plus Percy?" We could see a smile start to creep over his face as he realized what game his dad was playing. He also knew Percy minus James equals Thomas. Can you figure out the game?

Another Eclectic Day

I can't remember if I've defined eclectic homeschooling yet, so if I haven't it just means that I use a variety of homeschooling methods. Today started with rigid, scripted, boring Saxon math. We moved on to Sonlight Language Arts and Reading, with each kid taking turns with Kumon workbooks. After that I took a break and browsed through my friend's Montessori catalog, making up my wish list. Inspired, I cooked up a batch of bean soup, getting the kids involved. E and S argued over who got to take out the compost, with E refusing to put the compost pot down just in case S tried to take it from her. With dinner cooking away in the crockpot, I sent the kids outside so I could have some peace and quiet. The fall colors are beautiful today, so I thought I would take F outside for some fresh air. The kid weighs a ton! My arms are killing me! The kids and I gathered leaves so we could make some leaf rubbings for a Cub Scout project. And then I decided today was a perfect day for us to take a nature walk (Charlotte Mason style) over to the cemetary on the corner. The cemetary has a whole bunch of deciduous trees that are brilliantly colored. While we were gathering shoes, S and IJ were fooling around at the bottom of the stairs and S bumped his head. On the hand rail. And cried. I told him if he had been listening and not fooling around and sitting calmly putting his shoes on he wouldn't get hurt. I finished my lecture with, "Now get outside, its time to go!" IJ and S ran out the front door, slamming it behind them. And then I heard some more cries of pain. I opened the door to find S holding his head in the front yard. Apparently he decided to jump over the bush by our door instead of walking down the stairs and hit his head on the side of the house...not two seconds after I finished telling him he hurts himself by acting foolish!!! Our trip was cancelled. So we sat around eating as much Halloween candy as we wanted (unschooling) instead.

Lucky Number Seven

Against all odds (second marriages fail more often than first marriages, age differences, children from previous marriage, and low income/high debt) we made it to SEVEN YEARS today. We started our special day with a tasty bowl of warm oatmeal eaten on the kitchen floor, snuggled up with three of our kids. We've listened to good music-The Best of Van Morrison- with a special dedication to M's "Brown Eyed Girl." We aren't going to go out to dinner or do anything that costs money today, we are just going to focus on how much we love each other and how money "can't buy me love." Sigh... I love my life! God knew what he was doing with us all this time!