The J6 Journey: Year 5, February 3rd-6th, 2020: Picking up the Pace

Ah, this week I have 4 appointments! So, here comes the crazy! But it's also 63 degrees today, which is a recording breaking high for Indianapolis. And yesterday, the record high was broken at 62 degrees. Super warm! And then tomorrow night and Wednesday, it will be 30 degrees and snowy. Fun times! I let everyone sleep in, so we didn't get much school done together. This afternoon we had choir, chiropractor for me, and then birthday party shopping to do. During choir, I loudly suggested that we go outside and since we were the second people there, we kind of led that gig and we ended up staying outside for the whole hour! I was very pleased! I tried to run around a bit more instead of just standing and talking with the moms. Abishai and I played freeze tag (not sure where he learned that, but see, homeschoolers can still pick up the regular playground games), soccer, and hide and seek. I had quickly grabbed two underflated small balls and they helped keep the kids moving. All the kids are working on social skills and it's the perfect environment for them because their older siblings aren't there to butt in. So, I felt great about that hour of the day.

Chiropractor was fine, although Keturah and Abishai were in the lobby for 1 hr by themselves. I didn't hear a peep out of them down the hallway, so I didn't worry about it. I did hear that Abishai was telling Mrs. Angie or one of the other women all about our next errand, birthday party shopping, lol. My kid isn't shy, is he? Well, only in the beginning. He opens up quickly. After that, we did go to Party City, despite my anxiousness about getting home to start the Instapot. We couldn't find anything with the construction truck party theme. But we did find a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pinata for $10, half off original price. I think this year's "theme" is going to be "all the shows and characters Abishai likes" instead of just one show like Paw Patrol. Gotta use up all those extra decorations sometime. Both of the kids were pretty good about keeping their fingers off of things and NOT begging or taking too long to decide, so they were treated to a couple of candies on the way out. We also picked up some more colored hair spray. Keturah likes that stuff and now I know that Party City carries it year round. Yeah!

When we got home, I immediately put the meat in the instapot, but despite being thawed, it still took like 30 minutes to come to pressure and another 1 hr and 15 min to cook. So we ended up eating tuna instead. Justin jumped on making the tuna for me without being asked (note to self to thank him about that). They did argue over the colors of mini peppers, but we had a better conversation after that for the rest of the meal. It's just a reminder to just keep trying to have us altogether. We do get impatient and send them their separate ways often. Or at least I do. I have accepted the fact that no, they won't hate each other for life, and this is just a phase. Then, they all had some screen time, which none of them had until after dinner! Parenting win! I had Keturah ride her bike while I cooked dinner and she met up with Erica and her kids because they were walking the block. Abishai also was riding his bike. I knew he was, but I didn't get up to check on him. Whoops. It was handled by the grace of God. Parenting fail.

And then today started Justin's restrictions on screen time. I haven't checked homework and I don't expect instant results. He said he didn't go on his phone while we were gone. I'm not sure I totally believe that, but at the same time, I'm not here. I can regulate it when I am. He can have a few minutes in the morning and then no screen time until I check homework tomorrow (or he claims he is done if I don't have time to check it). He also should only have gaming time for 1 hr a day. We want to clear his memory bank of some of his thoughts on Lego sets and video games in order to make room for real education. Our brains are finite. That's why we don't remember everything from childhood. It gets overwritten or condense in a way. I think of my brain like a computer and we only have so much RAM and ROM to work with. So, hopefully this will help him. And I need to engage more on studying skills. We both need more patience, too.

Tomorrow is a stay at home day, so hopefully we'll tackle a great day of school and maybe finish some blogs and projects. I NEED to make videos for IAHE as well. I'll try to do that in the afternoon maybe. There's just too much to do! And no time to declutter. But I need to start preparing for the birthday party. I think I might give up or not push too hard on the open house being here. I don't want Benaiah to hold it against me. I haven't prepared like I wanted to either. And I'm not sure Ethan's mom would want it here, and it's more important to support Ethan, and Ethan and Benaiah's friendship, than it is for me to show I can be hospitable. But I need to talk to Ethan's mom and get it settled. Eek! But Benaiah and Ava's first year of memories book has been sent to the printers! AND I got a GREAT discount code so I went and bought two copies so I could have one since I spent a good amount of time on it. I left a lot of room for Ava to be able to journal about the different events. Plus, there really wasn't a great way to add a journaling section. I plan to buy a couple of good archival pens for it as well. I'm super stoked! I hope it makes her cry!

It's time to get rid of this thing, except, the kids still want to munch on it. I did dismantle it today. I think I'll toss the rest of it by this weekend. We have a birthday party to plan for!

Who's coming to the states from PEI? We need this! lol!

I did not get a chance to read this before the library wanted it back. I think I want to buy it.

Eli and Abishai trying to chop down a tree.

Abishai played with the blocks while I was with the chiropractor. I didn't think about it until now that the flu is running rampant out here and maybe other kids have touched these blocks. However, I heard Abishai went to the bathroom a couple of times and washed his hands. He even killed a bug in the men's bathroom! So, I'll try not to worry too much.

Keturah finished her school reading. Yeah!

I'd love to do something like this. However, Abishai doesn't understand the cupcake pull apart cake concept. Sigh.

I could try something like this.

Or this.

I love the oveturned hats as bowls. I couldn't find any today. But we will go shopping on Amazon tomorrow.

Too much shopping!

From one of our charities! It's a donation calendar! What a great idea! I'll look to see if they have it on their website to download. Maybe the kids and I can work on donations!

A ribbon fell off of this, so he pretended to be Donatello. My brother had a large stuffed animal Donatello growing up, so this picture is for him. This pinata was on the clearance rack because the theme is no longer available and it was slightly crushed. $10! Can't beat that!

This was the only part I saw of the show live. I did say, aww, they are singing together. And then turned away then the dancers starting dancing. See, media is showing that this was a great show. But for me, it's not. it's just not.

There is never enough time in the day. When I do one thing, something is neglected. And I engaged in a theological debate that has now left me exhausted and mad again. But I'm becoming more and more confident in who I am through it. Maybe because I'll be 40 yrs old in a 16 months. Who knows. But it's tainted my day. I wish I could be one or the other, teacher or social activist. I get my brain engaged in too many places at once and then I get mad when dinner isn't on the table right on time. Sigh. Plus I'm sore from my chiropractor treatment yesterday. I think every part of the treatment pushed a little too hard and deep. Or, I was just that out of whack. I was hangry and sore. My patience is gone. It's 9pm. Time for kids to go to bed. We've got a full day tomorrow.

I ended up reading all of Keturah's history today because they were a bit shorter and I have appointments of some kind for the next few days. Justin is still setting at a D+ on math and Spanish. I've got to figure in some participation points somewhere. I also just got his PSAT results in the mail and he was right at average, just like his brother. What the heck!? I just listened to a talk on the importance of the PSAT, which was also a slight commercial for a course in how to figure out how test writers try to trick you. I thinking investing in that course will up their score significantly enough to maybe get some scholarships. Sigh. Are these results show how poorly we've studied or that we can't take tests or are the tests rigged? I don't get it. I'm disappointed. I know it says he's on track for college, but I always want better than that. Sigh.

I think I'll just climb into my YouTube hidey hole and forget about responsibilities for a bit. I didn't get far in my to do list either. Well, I tried, but didn't complete tasks. And the rest of the week is worse. I can barely keep up on weeks like this. And then next week are appointments, birthday party, and regular life. Yuck. Let's keep truckin'.

Abishai asked for bed selfie this morning. He said he wanted to do a silly face while I smiled. So there ya go.

I made a stage with band members. I didn't have exactly the right pieces, but good enough.

This is what happens when you put your phone in and out of your pocket a million times a day. Oh, and the ONE day I put my phone down for 2 hrs, I get 5 phone calls! This is why I carry it all day in my pocket, even at home.

Yup.

In case you need a yummy recipe.

Today's science experiment. Rub the balloon on your hair and in the dark, wave it over your fist and see the sparks fly! For some reason, I couldn't see the sparks until I got down under it a bit. But the other kids saw it. In the dark. But I can't take a picture of Justin in the dark, so, here's proof we did an experiment.

Wednesday I tried to get the kids up as soon as I got up (around 8:15am) but it still took them until 9 to get out of bed. Dudes, when I say get up, I mean now, not 45 minutes from now. How can other people's kids bounce out of bed at 6 am every day? Ok, they don't. Especially homeschooler friends. But I'm tired of the rush of the day and not feeling like we get anything done before lunchtime. I'm not saying I'm setting an alarm clock for myself, but I'm not going to lounge in bed or wait to get the kids up because I want peace and quiet. Well, it's not quiet, Abishai is always the first of the four of us to get up. In fact, today, he got socks out of my drawer to give to me when I got out of bed because he noticed I had bare feet and was going to wear my slippers that I usually wear socks with. He's always the one pulling me out of bed, "Mommy, it's time for bweakfast!" He's usually in my bed after Daddy leaves the room. Today, Jared tried bringing him into our room with his blanket and Abishai wanted to put back into his bed. And what did he do 5 minutes later? Walk into our room for snuggles of course. He just wanted to do it on his own terms. 5 yr olds! I'm seeing a bit more tantrums and power struggles out of him lately. And whining. But I know other 5 yr olds are acting up, too, right now, so I'll count this one as phase.

One phase I can't wait to be done with is Mr. Senioritis! Instead of "finishing strong" like his Grandfather's email tagline says, man child wants to skirt through by the seat of his pants. They literally had a discussion in Bible class today about "Well, I already got excepted into college so why do grades and test scores matter now?" Mr. Nanney put them in their place and said that when a student submitted their final grades to the school that accepted them, he was booted out of admissions! I'm not sure where these attitudes of minimal work come from, but it doesn't come from me! It doesn't matter if I had 85% on my SAT's, it was not good enough. I wanted full rides to colleges. I cried the first time I got a "C" on an assignment. It's not funny to hear your oldest say, "I got all the scholarships I wanted, I don't want to get anymore." Uh, the scholarship only covers 20% of his college costs, if that. Yeah, boy, I'm not signing no parent loan for you. Not when you gave in to your girlfriend's whining about a stuffed animal that she named Timothy and you pretend is your child. Oi! Man that child spoils that girl! Then I turn towards Jared and say, "I never got stuffed animals and a 'care package' of a (borrowed) hoodie and snacks' when I would whine and said I missed you." Jared was and still is the most stingiest of romantics of them all. We were way, way, way too practical. And look at us now, taking the 5 yr old to Monster Jam. Not blinking an eye when we treat ourselves to coffee. Our budget could be better if we didn't do those things. But I think we realized we would miss out on some things if we didn't loosen the purse strings sometimes. Ok, I'm the bigger culprit. Anyway, sigh. Senioritis.

But I did talk with Ethan's mom and figure out a plan and I caved big time on the open house. This is her third and final open house for her kids. She's the pro. She's got the equipment and time to put it altogether (I think she has the time, I can't remember if she got a job or not after she stopped babysitting). I think I caved after hearing about SCS wanting to do a joint open house and hearing the response that one stepmom gave, "Well, I will go with the group one and I bet her mom will throw her another one if she whines enough." And I thought to myself, it's their party, they should have a say. And then I said it myself, it's his party, why am I being so stubborn. Give up the dream, would ya? You have three more kids to do this with. You won't have the house ready by then, not when you want to do it jointly and they have loads and loads of friends and Benaiah is the first grandchild, etc. etc. And when I let Lisa know my concerns about carrying everything to the park, she said that's what kids are for! She knows my health issues, and she's great at taking care of things and being laid back, too. Sometimes, I just need to give it up.

I did have a graduation ceremony with cake and punch afterwards at my church when I graduated from homeschooling. We sang praise songs, I gave a speech, my dad presented me with my homemade on special paper diploma, and I remember my diploma sitting on the table next to the cake. So I'm not trying to live through my children in order to have a party. Actually, it's a selfish thing because I want to prove that hospitality doesn't have to be in a big, uncluttered house. My home is plenty hospitable when I've picked it up and put some things away. We'll be doing that in 10 days. Kid birthday parties are at my house, period, unless they choose an experience like SkyZone. Anyway, I think Lisa and I are just grateful this will be over soon. Like I said, this is her last one, and to be honest, I'm done with the drama at SCS and nagging at Benaiah to do well, and blah, blah, blah. I'm ready to move on from this experience, that won't be repeated if I can help it. These four years were tough in many different ways, and it's a relief that they are almost over. Now I can focus on the others as they go through it. I have learned some hard lessons and ready to tackle high school in a different way, my way, for the rest of them. Just like I had goals and hopes do things differently with each new pregnancy, birth, and infant years, I have hopes and goals and dreams to learn from the past and do things differently with the others. I'm tired of being disappointed. Less of "how do you want to handle this?" and more of "you are going to do it this way." So maybe I have senioritis, too. I'm ready to move on. Sigh.

Ok, I'll say it. I don't feel like celebrating Benaiah's graduation. I'm disappointed in his high school academics and I'm disappointed in his personal views on life. I'm sure the second part is normal as adult kids won't always agree with their parents. I don't feel like celebrating when I know he could have done better but refused to. How can I say, "Good job." when I don't feel like it is a good job? I'm going to have to work on that and find the "good" in these last 4 years, like he said, in learning how to navigate socially. By getting ok grades while working full time? Which leads me down the path that if he had just stayed home, maybe he wouldn't have had to work full time to pay for schooling. And then he retorts that homeschooling doesn't work for him. And then I'm disappointed in myself for not doing better. So yeah, I will have to focus on something other than academics. Maybe, "Yeah! You survived until adulthood!" Or "yeah, you now know how to break up love triangles!" I hope I'm not the only mother disappointed in the academics. I don't feel like any of them in their class (the ones I hear about at least) deserve a diploma or are ready for adulthood. They haven't mastered the material in their classes. They goof off and cause drama. It's just not up to my standard. And that's where I stand today. Hopefully, by God's grace, I will have a different mindset by May. But right now, "C's get degrees" is very disappointing in my book. Ok, at least my kid is graduating when other kids committed suicide or died in car accidents and won't be graduating. And yes, I put too much worth on academics. I want to thrive, not just survive. So, we'll see. We have a couple more months yet.

Abishai's breakfast. Although, he only ate 2 quarters of a waffle and half of his blueberries and ice cream. I polished off the blueberries and ice cream after they melted about two hours later. The waffles weren't gluten free but they ended up being eaten by the end of the day.

I could hear this quiet beeping sound all morning. It was the skid steer or whatever leveling out the driveway on the new house! Ah! It's so close to being done! Soon!

Abishai decided his police car needed to be up off the ground so he could put the wheels on so he basically built a jack system like a real car garage would have. Genius!

Because the boy doesn't know how to use a calendar properly, he didn't get time off for work to make it next Tuesday when I originally scheduled our appointments. And work wouldn't let him come in late (I sometimes don't like how inflexible they are!). So I had to reschedule his part of the appointment and add yet another day I have to out to my own. We need his to be done before he's off of Medicaid, which could be by July, depending on how I interpreted what I found about it. I don't like when appointments are moved to more than a month away just because someone else didn't do their job. Sigh.

My sister shared this with me after I asked her about left handed writing. She's a leftie, and so is Abishai. This is a pretty good description. And then a new friend of mine who is a Kindergarten teacher gave me a book that all the homeschoolers love to use to teach their kids handwriting because it's an older edition of what she uses. Oh my word, it's very hands on and visual and I can't wait to try it! Teaching penmanship is not something I do well, so I'm willing to try new methods. Reading, however, I'm dead set on, unless he shows big problems with it. I know what I'm doing with that part.

Upside down and turned around but he listened to part of our read alouds today. I'm going to try to let him hand around in the same room as Keturah and I during read aloud time (and without a screen) so he gets used to being part of the read aloud time for next year or the year after that. We might not actually get to do read alouds together because of the age gap, but it doesn't hurt to prepare either. Actually, he was listening and piped in when I was talking about flooding and comparing it to his Bible study app and how the water went up and up and over the mountains during Noah's flood. He also remembered the houses near the orange grove in New Orleans and why they were up on stilts. Impressive memory! That's why I need to catch him now and start memory work! Oh, which reminds me, I'll have to get a Bible class book ready for him so he and Grandpa can do class together!

Haircut time! Although I LOVE this look on Justin!

When his hair is thick and big like this, it helps to hide the fact that Justin has a huge nose! But he's tired of hte hair in his eyes, so it's time for a trim!

Abishai wanted to show Jennae his Marshall bandaid from his splinter boo boo earlier today.

Shaggy dog. I love all my kids' hair, well, not Keturah's unless it's freshly washed.

Stop moving!

Consolation pride for walking through the dollar store. We did find something Shauna found and sent a picture of for his birthday party. Abishai carefully opened the box on the way home so he could have a parking garage for his ATV and a ramp!

Well, hello, snow and ice! I guess it IS still winter! Which made for a bit of a yucky time to be running errands, but it didn't stop me because I have so many and my to do list can't complete unless I cross them off! Counseling, drop off old vacuums, grocery store (with a Starbucks inside) and library. Nicest cashier at the Starbucks as well. Any day running errands without kids is a great day. I just kept smiling at the lady in front of me with a 1 yr old and 3 yr old. They were all doing ok, so I didn't offer to help, but I tried to give her space and a knowing smile a lot. I didn't have kids with me, so I could be the patient one and not make her feel rushed. I should have said something like that, but that's ok. The story was pretty quiet anyway. Tomrrow we have gym day, dermatologist recheck, and hopefully the post office to drop off some more invites to our state congressmen and women to come to our IAHE convention, which is coming up fast. The emails have slowed down some, which I'm grateful for because I'm super busy for the next two weeks. I got home, made sure everyone got lunch, pulled the 5 yr old off the tablet that he had been watching the previous 3 hrs while I was gone, and told the others that they had to help watch him while I worked with the other one. Went over homework with the two, they had Grandpa class, time to pull out leftovers for supper, piano lesson, bedtime. Pretty much the same thing as every day, right? No emotionally charged messages to people today. I have some phone calls to make tomorrow that I might have to slip out of gym day to do. And then taxes, IAHE videos, and house prep for the birthday party on Saturday. And I'm procrastinating as well. So there's that. I don't know what I can tackle tonight though. Sigh. I think I have some time, so we'll see.

At least I managed to take a few photos today. It did snow and Abishai was feeling cooped up again. I told him that he has to eat a good breakfast and then plan to run around at gym day tomorrow and not cling to me like he did last week. And then we can't go to the store or eat out because I have to book it home to go to the next appointment. Yup. Since I talked to my counselor today, I really have nothing else to say, lol. I did have a couple of aha moments as I vented that I wrote down in my journal before I came home, so that was good. Oh, and one thing I'm realizing more and more is that Jared and I don't connect much. Sometimes we do after the kids leave the dinner table, but it's hard to do that on the days we have other things going on. We need to pencil in more time to go over parenting issues and my personal theological struggles. It's something to think about. Because even too much time together can be draining for us, especially if the rest of the world has already drained us for the day. That's why we don't sit together or watch movies together or whatever in the evening. We want our space to rejuvenate. Not always healthy, but that's where we are at right now. We are stable. This parenting thing knocks the wind out of you sometimes.

It's Benaiah's last CIY! Super sad face!

Man child might hate me for posting this, but isn't this the sweetest title?!

So of course I had to stand there and read some of them. These are two that I found that describe Jared and I. HOME

If this doesn't fit us, I don't know what does! Except it's me on my computer, not reading a book. Lol

Mommy, it's the Palcon! (Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's ship). I think that's one of the first times I heard him compare a food item to a toy, but there ya go. It was a chicken nugget, which, gasp, we didn't have any chicken nuggets in the house for a week! oh the horror! What did we ever feed this child during that time? Well, it actually was difficult because he didn't want any other proteins and we don't eat hot dogs, he doesn't do peanut butter and jelly, he hasn't been eating a lot of cheese. Eek!

I'm the king and everyone has to do what I say!

And the king said, "Socks, you have to protect the kingdom!"

Jared doesn't know what he sent this. It's weird. He's weird. 'nuff said. And I call our relationship "stable." Bwhahahaha, it's because nothing has to be said.

Hello, meet Timothy, the stuffed animal that Ava begged Benaiah to buy for her, and now they share it. In fact, he wanted it, so he drove over to her house to get it. SMH These kids! What are we going to do with them? Grow up! Well, not too fast!

Abishai wanted to play near me, so he found me and brought his stuff in. Then I pretended my foot was a person and my big toe knocked on the door of the castle so the police could let me in. Then we went on a mission together.

Yup snow. Not that exciting. It's not enough. But there was enough at Ozark Christian College to cancel classes today I saw on Instagram. Well, they had about two inches and it was icy.

This kid asked for the sour cream and the veggie dip (hummus) to come out of the fridge when I was getting leftovers. He saw Daddy with lettuce leaves so he ran over, grabbed one, and dipped it directly into the hummus. It's great when kids love their veggies! And we also all love hummus, too!

I thought we were doing a construction birthday again until we saw a TMNT pinata at the store on clearance. And now, I have bought all the TMNT things and hardly any construction things. Oh well. I did buy these because they said cake toppers but with the intention that he could play with them later. I have no idea where he has picked up on who these characters are, but of course, being a child of the '80's and '90's, Jared and I know who they are. Jared even knows which guy has what and what their weapons are called. Cowabunga, dude! Heroes (I say turtles, whoops) in a half shell, turtle power! Now let's go get some pizza!

Abishai and Daddy played in the fireside room while I taught piano lesson. Abishai was being the boss as usual. "Let's do it this way, Daddy, and then we'll do that." But there's no attitude, just statements, like his Grandpa.