A Little Update on a Sunday Evening

I thought I’d spend a little time this evening on an old fashioned update, I hope y’all don’t mind.

After our tough period in August, with Mark at the VA, he had a plastic surgery rotation in September, which was a nice change of pace. Plastic surgeons appear to mostly work business hours and no weekends. . . . He’s back in the grind this month, which means we’ve readjusted to 30 hour calls and monitoring duty hours, but after last month’s reprieve, it feels so much more doable.

I’ve been trying to learn lots and lots of new things over here in anticipation of the book coming out. So much of my heart and soul went into writing it, and Rebecca is putting so much of hers into illustrating it, I want to make sure I’m in the best possible position to help it succeed. And so to that end, I’m working on skills like creating graphics for blog posts and (still) trying to understand what in the what Search Engine Optimization is. I also had the opportunity to be a guest on my first podcast- Open Door Policy (it’s not out yet, but it will be in the fourth season- check them out though, it’s fabulous).

This is an interesting season of life in so many ways for me. I’m constantly amazed by what God is doing and the ways that he is working in my heart and life. Very little is what I would have expected it to look like. I feel very called outside my comfort zone these days, and it’s challenging, but good for remembering how desperately I need Jesus. I feel so blessed by that.

Homeschooling G is going well. She is regularly blowing me away with her intelligence and keeping me very much on my toes. I’m learning a lot about the ways that a child with ADHD can hyperfocus on areas of interest, and the ways to leverage that to help her learn all the other things.

History is her current subject of choice, and we are making short work of the Early American History curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books. It’s a spectacular curriculum, and the literature based approach suits her perfectly. They recommend twice a week lessons but she begs for a new history lesson every day. We’ve been supplementing with trips to Greenfield Village (to which we thankfully have a membership) and other books from my teaching days. Her retention is incredible.

She is also always creating. I’m learning to live with the constant messes in our classroom space, the half-finished art projects, the creations that she hobbles together with anything she can find. This morning I walked in and she was fashioning herself a pair of paper slippers, that would later be adorned with stickers and glitter glue and anything else she could find to decorate them. I have learned to pick my battles with G. And interrupting her creative process to tidy up a space isn’t one of them, so I’m mostly thankfully that I can shut the door and not see the mess.

William is reaching his half birthday, a time of year that always seems to bring with it a personality shift and new challenges. He’s currently leaning into his inner grouch, which is such fun for the rest of us, let me tell you. He has also been refusing to sleep and waking daily at 5am, no matter what. Yesterday, we had a particularly rough early morning wherein he woke up both grouchy and loud, loud enough to wake both of his sisters up. After several attempts to get him back to bed, or at least to be quiet in his room, I let him know that he had lost the privilege of attending a planned outing for the day. After much screaming, he finally fell back to sleep. When he awoke some sleep cycles later, he cheerfully descended the stairs with a big smile and greeted me with, “Mom, I talked to Jesus, and He gave me my privileges back!” He then proceeded to invite Jesus to join him on the outing. Check mate little man, check mate.

Charlotte continues to be a ray of sunshine. She’s talking more and finding her voice within the family. She’s still very much enjoying being the baby, and has become very very territorial about my lap, which she believes belongs only to her all the time. I can’t say I mind the extra cuddles.

And Gram is doing well. She enjoys the fact that we now live on the corner of a busier street because she has so much more people watching available to her. And now that the soccer season is in full swing, she enjoys watching the kids play on the field across the street. She is the kids’ favorite reading buddy, and they flock to her at all times of the day, bringing their stories in to be read. Charlotte and she have an especially close bond these days, which is so wonderful for them both.

And with that, I think I’ll say goodbye- I hear the gentle sounds of hungry children coming from the room next door. . . .