Random musings

I have a multitude of events, issues and thoughts that have occurred over the past several weeks.  I kept a running list of them in this post and have been waiting for a time to add in the details.  Time hasn't made itself available until today and even now, the trash is overflowing out of the toters in driveway.  Writing is the perfect procrastinator to tackling my least favorite chore...bundling and taking the trash to the dump.

We keep swimming along.  Literally.  Today, Lily will attempt to swim her first 25 yard freestyle.  Monday, at the pool, she overheard another mom offer to fix her daughter a grilled cheese.  Lily became fixated.  However, I am militant about not being a short-order cook.  I already had dinner planned for that evening and was not going to add to my work load to whip out a grilled cheese.  I know, harsh.  So, I threw out the idea that I would be thrilled to fix her a grilled cheese if she swam that 25 on Wednesday (which is today).  She seems quite pleased with the idea.  I don't have the heart to tell her that we have dinner plans out and therefore, the grilled cheese won't actually be fixed by me.  Hopefully, she won't drown and won't care where it originates.

Sadie is on her own little rewards obsession.  She is consumed with getting her ears pierced.  I was not allowed this treat until I was in junior high and buy into that old school of thought.  Not to be deterred, Sadie has offered up what I consider a quite amazing goal.  If she gets her A time, she gets her ears pierced.  Mind you, an A time in swimming is somewhere around a junior olympic time.  I told her a BB time would suffice (which is slower).  She wouldn't hear it, insisting on it being an A time.  Time will tell.

Ethan has reached another teenage plateau.  This time, it is not a bad thing.  He realizes that he likes taking a shower in the morning before school and here is the kicker...he likes taking a shower every day!  Wow!  Hip hip hooray for personal hygiene!  He also likes topping it off with a little dab of cologne, which nearly caused my olfactory sense to revolt to my own child.  Thankfully, we have worked our way through "Pepe Le Pew," to "I bathed in it," to "My prescence is known," to now "subtle and appropriate." 

Yesterday, I found an empty cling wrap carton in my driveway.  For several weeks now, I have uncovered some bizarre uses of the wrap by none other than...Sadie.  First I discovered that she wrapped the base of a small pine tree, multiple times.  I am not sure if she thought this would protect the tree? Yesterday, I noticed she made a "wrap" for Lily that served as a wedding gown.  Then she used the wrap like duct tape and attached a glass jar to her scooter into which she deposited a bunch of rose petals.  While Lily walked the driveway, Sadie rode along on her scooter scattering the rose petals.  Later the saran wrap was used to create a sling for Sadie's imaginary broken arm along with some scotch tape.  I guess it is time to start creating a box with all kinds of materials - cardboard, wrap, tin foil, tape, bits and baubles from the office to spur this "creativity?"  The one thing that definitely needs to be included is a pair of scissors as those never seem to be handy when I am in "clean-up and repair mode."

Speaking of Sadie, God has revealed great insight into Sadie over the past several weeks. In all of my praying about her academic future, along with a very odd and difficult circumstance I cannot write about on here, I have discovered this:  Sadie does not have an inherently trustful heart.  The only way that she believes something to be true is if she experiences it.  When I talk about consequences for certain actions to her, I realize those don't resonate with her, until it happens.  When she would climb trees at age 3, I would warn her not to do it because she would fall and hurt herself.  Her response, "I not fall, Mommy.  I not fall."  The tricky issue with all of this is that Sadie does not often "fall," in the literal and figurative sense.  She is good at most everything she tries and therefore, does not encounter many situations that she either has to deal with or can't solve on her own.  Let me clarify.  She makes a LOT of poor decisions, but has become a master of making sure no one knows.  However, this recent difficult situation provided me the opportunity to "save" her from major embarrassment, thereby building a new level of trust.  I am confident that one of the reasons why I am to homsechool next year is to provide more opportunities to grow our relationship. 

I think everyone has heard the phrase, "God has such a sense of humor."  I'll mark this entire homeschool decision into that column.  I mean, Sadie has been my child that I have never shed a tear over when it has come to separation.  First days of preschool, school, camps, etc. I might have appeared to ever so slightly push her through the door, turn and walk very quickly away.  I know, that sounds terrible, doesn't it?  This is no indication of my love for her, but is a statement on my patience and understanding of her.  A year ago, she would have been the LAST one I would ever have considered homeschooling - my most head-strong, strong-willed, challenging, curious, intelligent, tenacious, and crazy child.  God must have howled when I announced that I would never homeschool her. Now, here I sit, just as calm and peace-filled about this decision.  I am excited about it...with Sadie. 

I love my little Lily's inquisitiveness.  I don't recall either of my other two asking so many questions about reading.  Ethan struggled a bit more in the beginning and Sadie just always seemed to know how to read.  However, Lily wants to know why behind everything she doesn't know. Last night it was, "What is that?" as she points to a quotation mark.  "Why do you not sound the "e" on the word gate?" " Why is "want" pronounced "want." Obviously, she wants to push forward with reading.  Looks like I will try to come up with some sort of enrichment for her this summer, too.

So, this is random, but worth mentioning.  I had a complete impulse buy yesterday at Wal-Mart.  I find it fascinating how they package food these days.  Choosing to tout some new health benefit, enticing you to buy a product...and I am Gussy Gullible.  This time around...Ann's House Chocolate Nut Antioxidant.  The label says, "trans fat free, cholesterol free, very low sodium, good source of Antioxidant Vitamin E."  I am sure all of this is true, but not when you consume half the bag in one sitting resulting in 30 g of fat and nearly 800 calories.  Sigh. 

I could continue this post by writing about my ire for these new silly bandz, but time is ticking on the garbage. Yes, I purposely wrote silly bandz and garbage in the same sentence.