“Ugh, Buddy! I’m trying to get STUFF done… and you’re being a distraction!”
He looked up at me and grinned. Big grin. Little baby teeth poking up grin. Excited for Mommy to be paying attention grin.
And it hit me…
“I’m sorry, Buddy. You’re not a distraction. You’re the main attraction.”
It’s easy to forget isn’t it?
This just has to be recorded for posterity’s sake. School time can wait just a bit on this drizzly day.
The boys are all about laughing and having a good time (what little boy isn’t?) and Ean John has joined the ranks of the comedians. Their favorite joke for their daddy to tell goes like this…
Jeremy: Knock knock
Kids: who’s there?
J: Annoying dog
K: Annoyi–
J: WOOF WOOF WOOF!
So Ean’s jokes go like this…
Ean: Knock knock
Anyone who will listen: who’s there?
E: [insert anything... really... anything at all... "banana" or "kid with a tractor"]
AWWL: [whatever] wh–?
E: WOOF WOOF WOOF
And he’s sooo completely adorable as he’s telling this joke for the 93rd time in 10 minutes that I don’t mind being the AWWL (the 95th time does get to be a tad too much!).
These moments are all too fleeting and I have learned the hard way that if I don’t get it down, the memory will likely be lost forever. So here it is for me to come back to later, but also to encourage other young mothers to put memories down somewhere safe.
I have an opinion on just about everything, true. There aren’t many things on which I hold so strong an opinion as on homeschooling. But this isn’t really about homeschooling.
The Romeike family came to America from Germany seeking the right to homeschool their children. In their “motherland” homeschooling is illegal (side note: you may recall that one of the major ways Hitler planned for the future of his Germany was through influencing the children in their schools). If deported, the Romeikes face persecution, prosecution, fines and possibly even the loss of their children into State custody. They have asked for political asylum and their case is being considered.
But, like I said, this isn’t really about homeschooling.
Father knows best or Big Brother knows best? That is the real question here. If homeschooling is not a fundamental right, the logical conclusion is that the government can say that I MUST turn MY children over to THEM. How my husband and I choose to educate our children is OUR choice, not the government’s.
Want to do something about it?
1) Sign this petition– we need A LOT more signatures. If we can get 100,000 total signatures, the White House will make an official response. It’s not a guarantee of favorable action, but it’s a step.
2) Share this information with your friends via Facebook, Twitter, word of mouth… however you can. Get the word out.
Whether you’re a homeschooler or not, this is important and it will have an impact here in the U.S. Our rights are slowly… but surely… being stripped.
It’s not about a German family.
It’s not about homeschooling.
It’s about parental rights. And if you don’t do something, if you don’t stand up, if you don’t fight and pray and do what you can, you may not have the chance to stand and fight down the road.
For more info, click here.
What a day! We started it off with one in the ER and plans for travel cancelled. Ean woke up at 1:30 this morning with wheezing, labored breathing, so he got a visit from the paramedics. X-ray showed nothing amiss, but it was enough to warrant staying home. But seize the day, right? So we decided to make it a Mommy Day for Isaac. PBJ lunches in hand, we headed off to Ikea to get our new table & chairs we’d picked out (yay tax return!). It wasn’t the best plan since Ikea is 2.5 hrs away, but… Anyway, we roamed and looked and had a medium amount of fun. Isaac was really looking forward to surprising his brothers with the new table, but we got to the check out and the card was declined. Must’ve been over the daily limit of the debit card. We’ve quit credit cards so I didn’t have anything else to put it on. All that time… all that effort… Just to leave empty-handed. But we did have fun. We sat in (most) every chair, and spun in the spinny ones. Tried the couches. Laid on the beds. Sword fought in the utensils section. Visited the bathroom twice. Ate Swedish meatballs for dinner. Drank lingonberry juice and lingonberry soda and split a piece of chocolate cake. So it’s not as if the day were a total loss… And I guess we didn’t technically come home empty-handed either. There was a giant cardboard box sitting lonely in the parking lot. That’s gold not to be ignored!
When I catch even a whiff of an excuse to eat chocolate, I take it gleefully. If I can find an excuse to go out to my favorite restaurant, I’m all over it. An excuse for a long, hot bubble bath? Not an opportunity to be missed!
Valentines Day is really just another day.
But not really.
Because today is an excuse. It’s a great excuse to show some love. It’s an excuse to make a little effort in your marriage. It’s an excuse to stop and pick up something special for someone special. It’s also a great excuse to look past yourself and find someone to lift up.
So here are a few (mostly) free ideas on how to capitalize on this lovely excuse (get it? Lovely? hee hee)…
~Stuff your pockets with little cut out hearts and hand them to whoever you meet… even a stranger. Maybe you’ll get to see the smile you just gave away.If you’re single today, it can be rough. I get that. But a surefire way out of the emotional dumps is to look outside yourself and help another human being. So seize the excuse you’ve been given today.
If you’re married, don’t cop out. Grab this chance you’re given today and run with it. Run with it for the sake of your marriage. Run with it for the sake of the example you leave your children. Run with the excuse to show your love… not just for your spouse, but for others too.
Whatever your circumstance, take advantage of an excuse given to you on this otherwise most usual day and find yourself somebody to love.
Victims of the shooting. Click to see full-sized.
On a day like today, it’s sometimes hard to laugh. I keep thinking about the mommies of the kids who aren’t coming home tonight. At least one of them probably yelled at her kid this morning because they were running late… again. Maybe one or two forgot in all the rush to kiss her baby’s precious head and say “I love you…” Perhaps one was preoccupied with a text conversation or the latest thing a friend posted on Facebook. Maybe prayer time got missed last night… or even lots of nights. I imagine the regrets swirling around in their minds and wonder what regrets I would have if tragedy struck. Overall, I think it would amount to not treasuring each moment, to taking all of this for granted… to missing the extraordinary in what seems so mundane at first glance.
So this evening I’m trying harder, using an extra measure of patience, and when Isaac asked– in the middle of dinner preparations– if I would read his Bible to him, I did.
But here’s the thing… sometimes we are late and sometimes I do lose my cool. Sometimes I will forget to kiss my sons’ heads. Occasionally a text conversation is important and friends do post important bits from time to time. Prayer time was missed here last night. We were in the car and the kids were fast asleep before we could get it in. These things happen. Life happens. So maybe deciding I’ll never again text in my children’s presence would be unrealistic. And I can guarantee we’ll be late again. Likely soon. I can’t ensure against life or against regrets any more than I can ensure against tragedy.
But I can do my best.
I can appreciate their smiles and tell them how lovely they are as people.
I can remind them that I’m proud to be their mommy and grateful to have them in my life.
I can soak up their laughter and store it in my heart for safe keeping.
I can praise God with them for the amazing blessing it is to have a family like we have.
I can pause to appreciate the dandetigers (a.k.a dandelions) they proffer in small sticky hands and when they gleefully ask if I’ll wear it in my hair… I can say yes.
I can hug them tight and swing them around till we’re both dizzy.
I can participate in the pillow fights, wrestling matches, tickle battles and World War III marshmallow gun attacks.
I can help them imagine new endings for their bad dreams and remind them that Frank, the robot Christmas ornament, can actually turn the bad robots to good.
I can appreciate the good, pray they’ll be guarded against evil…
and help them look forward to a day, a world, a Heaven where there are no tears… no gunmen… no days like this one.
I thought I’d missed it. Figured the last time to rock him to sleep had come and gone… no pomp… no circumstance… and I hadn’t even realized it. But tonight I got a bonus.
We heard the whimpers in the hall and couldn’t quite identify who was upset, but soon Jaden shuffled through the kitchen in his stocking feet, just a touch panicked. He saw me and I asked what was wrong, but he couldn’t tell me. He just wrapped his not-so-little-anymore, seven year-old arms around my neck and climbed up in my lap. We couldn’t get an intelligible word out of him and finally decided he was having a bad dream and sleep walking (which he does from time to time). We said a prayer, he got a hug from his daddy and came back to me. He curled up, clung on and slowly calmed as I sang.
When he was a baby, he would wake in the night nearly unconsolable. He would cry and cry, scream and wail. Once I got him settled, the only thing to do was to rock and sing, rock and sing. Finally I started keeping a song book by the rocking chair so I would have songs to sing at 4:00AM when my brain was fully disengaged. I would sing and praise at full volume and most of the time, I loved it. Holding a tiny baby we’d prayed for, longed for, suffered for and with… praising the God who had given him to us when all the world was still and dark… it all became a treasured routine, and now a cherished memory.
So here I am seven years later, sitting in a different chair, in a different house, in a different state, mulling over those cherished memories and the tears are welling in my eyes because I got one more chance with my little man… my not-a-baby. He’s grown into more than I dreamed of back then. Kind and loving. Respectful, courteous, thoughtful. He genuinely loves God and mankind. Sometimes “servant heart” gets thrown around flippantly, but it really and truly applies to this old soul in a young boy’s body. He remembers everything and asks after people long after I’ve forgotten there was ever anything wrong. And he’s smart to boot. He is so mature that I often forget he isn’t any older than he is. But he’s still my baby. He’s still my little man. And he still clings to his momma. :o)
It sounds horrible to say, but I love bad dreams. 
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