I need to go to the bathroom

So chirps the six year old THREE times this afternoon during the dreaded run the road with the kids day. How can one little boy need to go to the bathroom that much???? I suppose the big drink he had while we were out didn't help anything. Fifteen passenger vans are nice but they could be bigger so that I could put even more space between me and the children who are having their latest crises. I look back in the van at the bathroom caller and he has a big cherub like look on his face and gives me the big emploring eye look as he pleads for me to find another bathroom. Enough about that.

I REALLY do not like shopping with short people. The two year old loves to buckle himself up in carts and then tell you he's stuck and ask to be unbuckled. So you unbuckle him and he then rebuckles and it starts all over again. Fifteen passenger vans are also the home of all problem solving for siblings. The siblings love to fix their siblings problems in the van. Direction and instruction is what all children need while driving around from place to place. I personally would vote for total silence myself.

I put on some cute CD for the smallest people and the older ones start mocking it, telling me how creepy Raffi is so I promptly ejected it and dropped it in the library drop. They were stunned but the timing was priceless. I just happened to be five blocks from the drop. I used to be able to play anything without any complaints or commentary but mostly cute singing or swaying or whatever. Those days are gone now. My youngest children will be deprived of such cuteness. They WILL know about the retro rock and roll and country that is played most of the time with some questionable lyrics. But Mother Goose???? Nah!

Now I have thrown in the towel, passed the plate and am ordering pizza for dinner. They cheerfully contributed so we could have two pizzas and I am soon off to go retrieve them. Thursdays have been long and painful. One more week to go and I am thankful I will be able to go to the Wednesday classes next year closer to home.

Scheduling and getting stuff done

LaRena and I have decided on days to meet next year which is a good start to the planning ;o) Somehow I would love to keep the schedule so that there are several days of not needing to go anywhere all day. At least I don't want to leave before late afternoon. There seem to be endless appointments to fit in and breaking up the day seems to prevent anything from happening at home. Today I've been home all day and actually got a bunch of stuff done. I am certainly not caught up but am making some progress. I was going to go plant onions right now but it is raining again. I NEED to go biking so will look for a break in the clouds. Bills are paid, signed up for CCA (yay!), and spent school time with Benjamin. Phew. How can learning how to read be SOOO difficult.

I am amused by the Boy Scout Oath where it says the part about being Mentally Awake. Hmmmm.......some are. The poor little boys. My 10yo ds doesn't even know what mentally awake means so I don't think he was offended when I kept giggling at this part.

Off for a cup of yummy decaf with my eldest dd. Yum.

Charley's landmark experience

I just remembered what happened on Friday. Charley and I went shopping in Shipshewana and he was holding Ingrid while I putzed around in a music store. Well I overheard Charley talking to someone in the hallway saying "I knew this would happen someday and you are the first one to say it" Ahem. I immediately knew what had happened. A fifty something man had asked Charley if Ingrid was his granddaughter. ;o) He took it well and when I appeared in the hallway the man jokingly said "So this must be your daughter". :o) Har har. It hasn't happened to me yet but I am sure it wouldn't be too difficult. The gray count is slowly going up. I suppose if there are any other little Horner's in our future it would certainly increase the chances. Just thought you would enjoy Charley's landmark occasion.

My children play the orphan well

at least my little boys do. They are quite talented at getting this funny looking pathetic look on their faces. Stefan will lie in his bed after realizing I mean business and stare straight ahead with his little skinny self orphan look. He has taken up the habit of lying prostrate on the floor with a little sobbing here and there too. I have to try not to laugh.

Benjamin desperately needs me to locate his summer clothes. I told him to go to bed in his skives (spelling?) and he looked at me with the pathetic orphan look of 'oh oh mom, I have nothing on' and being basically pathetic.

That is all that is new and exciting here today. It isn't even new. The days are definitely muddling. Hot and sweaty today with a feeling of not having accomplished enough. Sigh. Thankful dear 16yo old son paid attention to my rant this morning and cleaned the kitchen without being asked......that is an accomplishment for sure.

I need to read the Hobbit fast and furiously as the boys are having too much fun zipping through it. I am looking forward to something not quite so depressing as our previous reads.
Nighty nighty.

Biking and stuff

I am not sure what week I am up to now. Perhaps it is the sixth or seventh week. I finally extended my route when time permits which is a good thing and maybe dropped a few more pounds. With dh's recent spike in cholesterol I am looking for recipes that will help both of us in the same way but different ways. I am also looking into exercise that will strengthen my upper body. I feel like a total wimp.

The garden is slowly progressing. I have most of the onions in and the ones I planted almost a month ago look great. The potatoes should go in soon but the ground was too stinkin wet to get them in. I got some broccoli and and cabbage in too.

School is winding down but I still have a lot of reading to do and am convinced that between Ingrid and the reading, not to mention the laundry and everything else, that blogging has become a challenge.

Had way too much fun giggling last night over certain topics. Laughing sure does a body good.

Need to go rescue Ingrid from herself.

Haven't been blogging lately....reading a lot though

I am not sure why I haven't been blogging although I understand I should be doing less blogging and more snide remarks on other people's blogs. Or is my daughter supposed to do that? I have been having to read a lot for the two classes I teach here at home. Boy have the last few been hum dingers (spelling?). "Cry the Beloved Country" was a great book. I was supposed to read that one in college but the professor kept falling asleep in class and didn't seem to grade our papers so.....I passed on reading it then. It certainly was both depressing and just full of realities of the consequence of sin in people's lives. Oh joy, but actually interesting. I enjoyed the writing style the most even though it was difficult at times to keep track of who was speaking. I most enjoyed talking with the young folks in my class and hearing their perspectives on the books we've read. It is interesting to me to hear their life experience or lack of life experience come through in discussions. I sort of wonder what it has been like for them to read hard truths of the world as we have been slowly working our way through the 20th century in literature. "Cry the Beloved" and the other book we just read "Black Like Me" were the most eye opening to me of the lack of life experience they've had but I suppose it is more sad that I did not find the books as shocking as they did. I was relieved the authors were not too explicit but simply got the point across as to the error of people's ways. Both books cover difficult subject matter but I have no doubt were good for the kids to process.

I think they have left those two books feeling very blessed in their life situations. They have loving parents, are well provided for, and their aspirations for the future seem pretty bright in comparison. The kids reading these are all boys so I also find it refreshing that they are all gentlemen who were properly offended by the offensive and were truly saddened that these sort of things take place in the world. They are looking forward to some lighter reading and the Hobbit is coming up. I will decide tomorrow if we are going to read the next one on the list. It frankly doesn't sound too cheery.......it's NOT 'The Hobbit'.

I don't get flowers, I get bikes

Dh is not what you would call the romantic but rather the practical. The first year we were married he bought me my first new bike. I had never had a bike that was new so I was of course doubly thrilled. We would go biking south of town pretty regularly. We still have that bike but it does need a little work. It has worked well for the boys who are no quite yet giants.

My second bike he got me the year we started biking as a family and even took a bike trip to PA on the rails to trails paths (WAY cool if you can ever do it). In hindsite I think he would have gotten me my newest bike as I do spend more time biking on the open road than in town or on mountain bike paths. It too was a great bike but is now being enjoyed by a friend.

So yesterday he bought me my third bike. It is definitely a road bike and faster than the previous bike. I took it out yesterday with Erik and had a longer spin than usual. I am slowly getting in better shape but watching my son relaxing on his bike while I huff and puff up hills is sort of.....well just sort of......

This bike can also have the Burley hooked to it so perhaps I might be able to get strong enough to take a kid with me. We shall see.

No flowers or chocolate here but hey a bike every so often is pretty nice too. They don't make me fat and I don't have to throw them away after a week or two. :o)

Biking week 4 - in praise of toe clips

A quick update on progress. I can now do my whole route in the highest gear. This is progress. Dh also got me a pair of toe clips for the pedals which solved all my knee troubles. Yay! Thank you Charley. I now walk forward without hurting all the time and it only took one trip with the toe clips to solve the pain issue. Very strange. If biking ever hurt your knees before this was definitely the answer.

I currently have a flat tire so need to fix that little problem. I managed to get two walks in today and took Ingrid with on the one. She had fun pulling my hair and my friend's hair. It was quite fascinating to watch her stroke Cindy's hair and examine it as if she were plotting her next move.....pulling. She looked so delighted and triumphant then. Anyway, the walks were good and it is always nice to be able to talk to someone while walking. I still think that biking shaves off more inches on me at the moment.

Speaking of inches I decided to start measuring the difference instead of focusing on the pounds. I have lost quite a few inches actually so that is a good thing by itself.

Looking forward to biking again tomorrow even if I need to borrow someones bike to get it accomplished.

brrrr...cold but summer's work has begun

Last weekend the boys and their dad put on a new barn roof and today the boys are cleaning out the chicken coop. We got rid of 75 plus laying hens (which weren't laying much of anything) last fall. Well, we did not clean out the coop as there really wasn't an urgent need to. So, now we are back to urgent need as the coop is going to be used to house the pigs till the weather warms up a little. Erik, Martin, and Matthew have been hauling wheel barrow after wheel barrow of the dry dusty stuff out for most of the day. Fortunately it is lighter as it is a dry and fine dust now. I pictured this job taking all weekend but I think they will be able to knock it out today. I suppose they have only been at it for three to four hours now so it hasn't been all day but my hats off to them for doing this with little complaint. I need to go make them a nice big farmer boy type of meal and plan to do something fun with them this evening.

With the pigs coming we begin the daily feeding and watering routine. It is earlier this year than last but the fair is also earlier so we will be done earlier. We are not getting new laying hens as I really would like to be done feeding, watering, collecting and washing eggs. There are SO many other irons in the fire that we decided it wasn't worth it right now.

Our meat birds come next month and a package of bees comes in a matter of days. I need to go out and prepare for that this weekend as well.....summer is here. :o)

Never ending noise

At the moment it is SILENT. I think I hear a few crickets (?really?) and maybe dd just walked by downstairs. The kids made NEVER ENDING NOISE today. Every time I began to say something someone else was talking or whining or making little two year old and seven month old noise. It did not stop all day. My dad comments on this while he is here visiting and I have to laugh as what does he expect from a family of ten??? I have heard that my kids are perhaps calmer than most but....truth be told they are very capable of being loud. I SOOO love the quiet of the evening and morning and need to laugh at myself as far as what am I expecting from a family of ten? Perhaps that is why I love biking and walking with friends so much . It is so not interrupted and nice and enjoyable. Laugh more Karin.

Biking week 3

Tackling the hills has become MUCH easier and reminds me of my cross country days of the thrill of the challenge and being able to push myself to GET UP THE HILL FASTER!!!! Go Karin go! It was very tempting to go a little further this past week but I think I am still going to wait till next week. My thighs do still talk to me as I start each day and say "No Karin, please don't do this. Please just stay like a slug at home and read another book and feel tired." I am not listening so far. My knees are struggling a little still. They feel most bizarre when I am trying to walk fast as they did yesterday while walking with Sandy. It is a sensation of not being to put effort into moving forward quickly. They don't want to move like that without a little pain. Must work on that Comasabi (spelling?). I won't be able to chase my lawn mower if this keeps up.

I did go walking with Sandy yesterday and boy does that exercise other areas of the body. Ouch. It was a sad attempt at race walking and the knees not cooperating kept me back a little. I did not go biking as a result but will hit the road this morning.

I have not lost a whole lot of weight so far but there is a little progress. I decided to keep track of how far around I am as muscle does weigh more than fat so I suppose it will take awhile before I see a lot of difference. Sigh. I need to be happy with the progress I've made and be patient.

Onward!!!

Training kids to use their brains

The DOWN side to homeschooling I think is that the kids tend to rely too much on me, the mom, to keep track of their lives. The various groups they are involved with almost always give them schedules and for some reason they tend not to look at them or give the parental units advance warning of events to come. I guess there has been some improvement but I don't seem to recall my parents keeping track of any of my life when I was their age. So how do I get my kiddos to take more responsibility and WHY do other people seem to think or imply that I had something to do with messing stuff up when they drop the ball. Excuse me while I peel a baby and toddler off my head and help you keep track of your life and plan for it. Oh yes, this mommy is sometimes negative. Persevere, persevere, persevere...... Hopefully we survive Holy Week, the month of April and all the summer fair stuff that is looming ahead of us a month earlier this year. Then there is the mommy suffering from contemplating changes in the family next fall with one less load of laundry to be done etc.......sniff, sniff. B positive.....wish I had that blood type and not O negative......perhaps I would be of sounder mind.

Martin's latest ha ha moment

My sweet ten year old son came home from Scouts tonight all excited because they are supposed to collect cans for Scouts for Food. I told him, sure there were some things we could certainly put towards that in the pantry downstairs and then Matthew mentioned that they could go down the street to collect some more. Well.....I am not sure EXACTLY how Martin put it but since he collects the recycling he said he could go through the recycling bin and get some more cans........ The lightbulb went off in my head. I started to chuckle. "Martin, there needs to be food IN the cans." Then I really started laughing. "Don't you think the poor would like to eat what is in the cans we give them or rather just contemplate how good the food must have been that isn't in there anymore?" Martin then understood and started laughing too. I said "Hey Martin, there is an empty chip bag downstairs. I'll give it to you tomorrow so you can think about how yummy they must have been." More hysterical laughing. Now I can't stop laughing myself. Kids are so cute.

I do so love two year olds

That may sound insane but there is something so endearing to me about a two year old discovering life etc., all their little antics, their adoring love for their mommy and daddy, and just their cute little selves. I will miss Stefan not being two any more. He has the most serious conversations with me and he is ever so helpful. Sigh. I was staring into his little eyes as he pointed out all of Ingrid's body parts (and laughed at my chubby tummy.....biking, biking.....). Those eyes are so very serious in what they are saying. I could just spend all day just talking to him. He sits on the counter with me while I am cooking and watches everything I do and talks and talks. I love watching him play outside too. He is a man on a mission. It fascinates me that this little person can have so much fun just running and playing, digging and riding on his little bike. He also loves to tell everyone what is going on. "Anna, cum HERE Anna....eat, eat! Daddy! Daddy! Cum here!!!! ime to eat Daddy!!! " Sigh, sigh and double sigh.

Holding a friend's newborn today was sweet as well. His little newborn self was gazing about, snuggling on my shoulder and making all those newborn gestures.....arms swimming about and his little frustrations dealing with hicups etc. THAT passes way too quickly. On the other side of me was another 'newborn' - five weeks. She is getting visibly bigger by the day. I don't see growth in my own babies in that same way of course since I am with them all the time but wow, babies are amazing. Keep your eyes wide open everyone and don't blink!

Sigh. Sentimental I am......

Too much to get done, no motivation

Sigh. In brief, we keep slaving away at schoolwork, and our life outside this crazy house and life inside this house keeps getting more and more out of control. Today is the day I go to the market and I need to go to the feed store for potato seed etc, so what usually happens is that while I am away at these errands, people strangely get hungry, work on things like roofing the barn, and generally speaking there is no one left to work on keeping up on the cleaning and.......and......and......the house gets worse not better. The FlyLady can't help my mood here and frankly I AM overwhelmed. Tyranny of the urgent seems to be reigning here. Besides the errands, the paper work/bills need addressed the worse so the house will still putz along. Good thing we are not having co-op here right now. Sigh, sigh, sigh.....where to begin. The older male population is out at the barn again and they will be hungry before you know it. I will be quiet now and go change another diaper.

Biking week two

So I have completed two weeks of biking. This week went a little better. I don't feel like a TOTAL wimp anymore. Hills have gotten a little easier and I even managed to get up a few in a higher gear. Phew. I plan to stick to this route for at least two more weeks before going and farther. Perhaps I should make that four more weeks. Trying to find time to do this has been a challenge but so far so good I think I have only missed a few days.

I am soliciting Erik's help to help me do some strengthening exercises. Again I am starting in on that SLOWLY as I don't want to knock myself out of commission. Erik seems delighted to be my personal trainer and I even asked him to look into more information about this subject to help his old mom out. I do need to take the boys with me when I am biking more often as when I go alone there are places that give me the creeps. Being isolated and a wimp is not a good combination. There are LOTS of spring flowers coming out though so that gives me something fresh to look at. I figured out that my route is almost exactly five miles and it is taking me a little under 30 minutes to complete it. The hills definitely slow me up for about half of the route but like I said that was a little better. Time to go hit the hay before the exercise known as mommyhood hits again tomorrow.

Two happenings I found amusing

I took my kids and my friend's kids to Maple Syrup Days (I think that is what it is called). They had a demonstration of how some people think the Indians made maple sugar. They basically had a hollowed out log with sugar water in the hollowed out part. Then they were putting hot rocks into the water to cook off the water so that in theory it would boil down to make maple sugar. Well.......we proceeded to the modern day sugar house and the kids all went in to see what was involved in making a gallon of maple syrup. I am fairly familiar with this process so I eventually took Ingrid outside and waited outside the door for them to finish up. The kids did seem to have enjoyed the talk and I asked them what they learned. My friend's ten year old son in his classic dry tone said "I learned that there is not much chance the Indians made much maple sugar in hollowed out logs with rocks" (The talk told them it took forty gallons of sugar water to make one gallon of syrup). Well....I found this amusing and clearly he was paying attention to the talk. I love that boy.

The other moment of amusement was during church this morning. Ingrid has become quite the little wiggler/screamer during services. I had her for most of the service and Charley offered to take her out. I was not going to argue. So there I was, just me, myself, and I and thought to myself "Gosh this is a nice little breather" and glanced down the pew at my other little cherubs. They glanced back and suddenly they all shifted down to squish themselves on and beside me. It was like a signal went off - ah, the little squirt is gone, time to attack. I wondered if the church tipped as all that weight moved over. I found it funny anyway. I'm glad somebody loves me :o).

What six kids can accomplish in 30 minutes

We got home last night with 30 minutes to spare before we had to leave for the Divine Service. In that time we cooked dinner from scratch which involved browning the meat, cooking pasta and combining it all, took down the laundry, got ready for church, cleared and reset the table, fed the baby, one kid took a shower and we ate dinner without getting indegestion. Phew. If they are motivated to get somewhere they can move at an amazing speed. I think there were a few other feats in there but I can't remember what they were. That must mean we could sleep into 8:00 on Sundays eh? Not. We are slower than slow on Sundays and I am not sure how we get there at all. Why can we move faster for a service on Thursday?????

Busy days and mobile Ingrid

I am theorizing that the busyness of the last few weeks is making everyone so distracted that any 'normal' life activities are not working. I think this busyness has also made time to just sit and talk things out nearly impossible. These are just a few random observations that.....are probably not that true but just how thing seem to me. I have had too many little misunderstandings lately that it makes me wonder if anything I say is making any sense so......I might try avoiding the communication thing a little for awhile.....biking.....reading......entertaining Ingrid.

Ingrid is FAST and getting faster. She is becoming quite adept at moving backwards and then turning around to get whatever is within reach. Babies really are amazing. They grow and change SOOO fast that blinking at this age is rather depressing. How long till she will be disappearing out of the room or out of the house???? Hopefully she gets some hair soon. She is altogether adorable. She has been saying Ma ma directly at me for well over a month. She regularly has panic attacks if I leave her sight and she is making up for her littleness quickly with her rampant appetite. She is ever so sweet.


Gotta scoot out the door.....again....

Exercise progress week one

I spent the week running and biking in my 'spare' time. The running part was going OK and I was able to go a little longer each time but as soon as my knees felt twinges of pain I decided to stick to the biking. Biking takes longer but it seems to be of equal challenge for this slovenly body of mine. It is also a lot easier on my knees as a wise young man pointed out. I would love to take my mp3 player with me to prevent my mind from working too much but I guess that is not a good idea. I am writing this down mainly so next week I can check this out and compare it to next weeks progress.

We have quite a few hills south of town so I spent much of my time geared completely down. I also noted that even the prospect of standing up to go faster up hill was more than I could handle. This will take time and PLEASE do NOT give me any girl scout cookies or any other such temptation right now! After one child I stuck to popcorn as my treat of choice and that did make a difference too so perhaps I will try that too. I am just happy the weather has been cooperating to allow me to get out and try this at all but something MUST be done. We'll see if I can manage to get up the hills a little faster next week and keep my mind from wandering off into irrational thought land.