Holy Smokes, It Has Been a Long Time!!!

I have been so terrible at keeping up this blog posting gig...as a way of defending myself, I should say that I've been a wee bit busy this fall because we made a HUGE decision!!!  We are those weird homeschoolers you read about (and talk about to your friends)!!!!  Just kidding.  I mean, we're as weird as we were last year (still no TV in the house and my oldest routinely says things like, "Mommy, I can't sleep because I'm worried about the time in the future when the sun will eventually begin to die and envelop the Earth and everything will die"....yeah, that's a normal worry a 7 year old has, right?), but now we are homeschoolers!
     It's really kind of funny because last year I totally accidentally horrifically insulted a nice homeschoolin' lady (with her four kids sitting right there) at a gymnastics class because I was trying to defend my no-TV house by pointing out that there were FAR weirder people out there than us (i.e.: Weirdo Homeschoolers).  Here's how the conversation went:
 (My 3 year old daughter is furiously doing jumping jacks so that my friend, J, will notice her and think she's awesome).
  J (always game):  "Wow!  You are so strong!  You are probably going to be in the Olympics, huh?!"

  Daughter looks at her quizzically obviously thinking, "What the hell are you talking about???" whilst still jumping-jacking her little heart out...
  J (to me):  "She probably doesn't know what the Olympics are because you don't have TV!" (all in good fun, we love each other, but we like to joke)
Me: "Uhh....we watch TV on the COMPUTER!!! WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE WEIRD LIKE SOME OF THOSE WEIRDO HOMESCHOOLERS!!!"  And of course I keep repeating this even though I begin to notice that a lady who is neatly dressed and has nice hair (I point this out because I was NOT a homeschooling mother although, at the time, all my kids were in school for part of the day at least, I still looked like a hobo) had a shocked, sad look on her face.
Homeschool Lady: "WE are homeschoolers."
Me (turning red, talking too loud): "Oh, right, I wasn't talking about YOU.  I'm sure YOU are not weird.  It's the other homeschoolers I'm talking about.  The WEIRD ones!  You know, not YOU.  You're normal.  I can tell, it's just that there are other weirdos out there..." and it was like that for another five minutes before she walked away, I think....I just could not stop digging that hole!  I really meant no harm, but it seems that my super power in life is accidentally insulting people, feeling awkward about it, and making it ten million times worse when I am trying to make it better.  I need a muzzle.  Or one of those shock collars they put on dogs to stop them from barking and annoying the shit out of people.

So anyway: homeschooling.  It was a big decision, but it was one that I have grown to love and feel confident (mostly) in.  We were between a rock and a hard place: Whale Rescue Boy was having a difficult time finding the right academic situation.  It wouldn't have been the right thing to do to skip him ahead a few grades (emotionally/socially he wasn't ready for older kids) and socially, he was having a hard time finding peers who would understand him and get his personality/games/trains of thought (for example, yesterday at gymnastics, he brought a manual we got from Homeschool Day at the Air/Space Museum from a NASA representative...it was a technical manual that had all the specs of all the airplanes that the United States uses in their military...because you know, that's what most 7 year old boys like to read in their spare time...he brought this to share with his friend...so yeah, it would've been lonely for him in first grade, I think).

I know that most people are concerned with social development among homeschoolers (I was, too) because we have an idea that the most natural place for children is in a group of 25 other children their exact age with one adult supervising the interaction.  And I think most children do well in that situation.  However, I learned a hard lesson last year: whether you are ahead or behind in the education system, the experience of an outlier is a very lonely one.  I saw how much L struggled last year because he could not seem to make the social connections with other kids that seemed so easy and effortless for everyone else.  And we have not been hiding him in a cage in his room, so don't worry about that (well, we only do that if he gets sassy...)...we've joined a big group of other Homeschooling families and have participated in so many field trips and park days that I feel like he is getting a lot of social interaction.  I think because I am afraid that aspect might be lacking, I am much more determined to find those opportunities for him than I was when he was in school and I trusted the school to do it for him.

And here is the truth about socialization (for us, anyway):  it's only a good thing to be in a huge group of kids your own age if you understand what is happening and why.  I saw L go from being a confident kid who assumed everyone liked him (before the last school year) to feeling awkward and being convinced that nobody would want to play with him (because let's face it, not too many other kindergarten boys were all that interested in reenacting a naval battle from WWII between the Japanese and the Americans or pretending to save the Arctic from the threat of global warming).  He absolutely internalized that rejection last year as being indicative of something that was wrong with HIM.  He couldn't see that it was just that he was at a different place than the kids his age.  And with all that is going on in school, it was too hard for the teachers to spend the time that he needed for an adult to explain to him social dynamics and what was going wrong for him.  I had no idea how to help him since I didn't regularly go to recess and he was loathe to talk about it.

Now: here we are homeschooling and at park days, I can watch what is happening and go through it with him later.  The first few park meet-ups were so difficult because he was convinced the other boys wouldn't like him.  There were many tears (for all of us), but with a lot of work and some help from a social skills book, we have worked through many of the issues that were holding him back. More than that, we were able to meet other boys like him whose parents chose to homeschool for some of the same reasons we did.  He has a friend!!!  A friend who gets him and is soooo much like him.  I watched them on the playground the other day and I almost wept with relief.  Just to know that he will not be alone as he grows up.  There are other boys out there like him, with the same penchant for telling elaborate stories about the bombs they create with their Legos, with the same desire to explore outer space, who create whole worlds for themselves with their imaginations!!!!  I can't tell you how it feels to see someone else, someone L's age, HONOR him for who he is and enjoy him!  Someone else who worries about the death of the sun even though he understands it will be billions of years from now (this is a genuine fear, sometimes he can't sleep because he thinks about it too much).  Hallelujah!

It was a challenge to make up a curriculum for the kids (preschool is at home this year, too), but I have loved it.  I love teaching them and being with them (except when they are being assholes, then it's time to take a break).  It has changed my dynamic with them because now I know how to keep them engaged and entertained and I don't mind that I am with them almost all the time.  It helps that the little ones are more rational human beings than they were a year ago...but part of the whole mom-at-home thing for me has been the mental stagnation I have felt (it's not all that mentally engaging or taxing to continually wipe someone's nose/butt/etc), but it is emotionally draining.  And I could see no benchmarks for success in my efforts...but now, when I see my daughter really pick up on how a "magic E" changes the sound of a vowel or how my younger son can now actually blend 3 letter sounds into a word, it's success!  It's a victory and I can see that!  So anyway, that's why I haven't really spent a lot of time writing.  It takes a lot of time to prepare lessons and check out books from the library and set up crafts and activities to go along with our science and history studies, but I feel (for the most part) that it is the most important work of my life.  To come up with ways to make the subject matter interesting and engaging, to make educating oneself both appealing and important, to nurture and encourage their innate curiosity about the world and how it works...that opportunity has been priceless. And really, I know a lot of people will say, "They won't turn out like everyone else if they don't go to school with everyone else," but I was able to let go of that when I really recognized that they were already NOT like everyone else.  Plus, I think a lot of our values are a society are raising people who are quite unhappy...and to be honest, I want L to be able to LOVE watching birds and learning about them without some other 7 year old making fun of him because he thinks it's strange that he feels that the new Star Wars cartoon is too violent.

Next time, I will upload some pictures, I promise...

We're back!!!!

Talk about a busy month!  We were all over the place!  I am dashing this off right before we go on a walk, so I can't expound too much, but we had a blast at our camp up in Maine.  Despite the rain and cold temperatures, the kids never wanted to leave!  I will write more later, just wanted to send these pictures!

Spring Catch-up

We've had quite a warm and busy spring here!  Sorry for not updating this since February.  The days seems to fly by on fast-forward....here are a bunch of pictures hat should catch you up on all we've been doing (I kept the soccer photos to a minimum since soccer games and practices have really taken up a lot of our free time...the kids seem to be happy playing and they are all growing in skill and confidence, so it's really been worth it, I think).

Here are a few really funny things that the kids have said in the last week:
(In Michael's, the craft store...I told the kids to keep their hands in their pockets unless they asked to touch something and I said it was okay)
L: (excited and proud) "Hey, Mom!  I didn't touch anything in the store!  I only took my hands out of my pockets to pick my nose!"

At the preschool class picnic on Friday, Anna ran up to her friend's mom and said, "I have FANTASTIC eyesight!  I can see things really far away.  So if you need to see something really far away, come find me and I will see it for you!  Also, I run 50 miles an hour!"

I am sure I will write more extensively when the school year is over (in about 3 weeks!  Hooray!)!!!  Yay for summer!

Happy Birthday to my Babies!

I've been a mother of three children for FOUR YEARS now and I actually survived!  I can't believe it!  We've done a lot this weekend, so I'm trying to get back into my thoughtful mode as I write this so that I can say something profound or touching or something like that on the day of their birth!  First, let's look back and remember how they started, shall we?

M, the Old Man Baby weighed in at 5 lbs 2 ounces and looked like a tree frog...A, the Scowler Baby, was 6 lbs 5 ounces and had a bruise on her forehead that led to a 3 day hospitalization for jaundice because she was facing the wrong way when she came into the world...which is appropriate because she has always wanted to do things her own way, dammit!  I really wish I had pictures of her in the incubator with her cute purple foam sun goggles while she was being treated...but I was too delirious and exhausted to think of things like that back then...

Old Man Winter...he was too teeny tiny to eat...he kept falling asleep because it took too much energy out of him...

Awwww....this is how they slept for a long time...no matter how far you put M away from his sister, he'd wiggle and scoot until he was cuddling with her...this was before L "shared" a bunch of blankets and stuffed animals with them and almost suffocated them...oh, and these were preemie outfits that were humungous on them!!!!

We should have named him Skeletor...but this was when he was a month old and had fattened up a bit...imagine how scary he looked head-on as a newborn!

She looks different without eyebrows, no?

Proof that they were already plotting against me...

Now I feel all warm and wistful for the babies they were...I wish I remembered more about them as tiny little people.  It seems so long ago since I could cradle them both on my chest.  To tell you the truth, it was a very hectic and exhausting time of my life...and I wish I had had the ability to slow down and relish it a little more (or at least time enough to write shit down that I was going to forget...their baby books are woefully empty and now I'm just going to have to make stuff up to fill it out because I have no idea when they did  a lot of things).  All of this...childhood...motherhood...these periods of our lives that feel like they will kill us by slowly suffocating us under a blanket of other people's  needs...that really goes by so quickly!  And now here I am, four years later...watching these kids ride their bikes, learn to read, etc, etc and I wonder if the next four years will fly by at warp speed, too.
So here are a few thoughts (before I forget them) about my babies (and I will call them babies probably until they start having babies themselves in about 25 or 30 years): 1. Having litters of small babies is physically easier than having one gigantic baby.  L was a gigantic baby...I felt like I had been run over five times by a semi-truck and had a hard time walking for a couple weeks.  With the twins, I was up and at it feeling awesome a couple hours later.  Of course, the downside to having two babies is that you then have two babies and it's a LOT more work. Forever. 2.  People say stupid stuff because of babies.  This is definitely worse when you have twins.  Nobody has any problem asking if you took fertility medications five seconds after you meet them (before they even know your name, in fact).  Try not to judge them too harshly even when you want to punch them in the face.  3.  No matter how scared you are that you can't handle it or that you won't make it another day with all these children without screaming, crying, and packing your stuff for your escape to Mexico, you will make it.  And you will love it more than anything else in your life.
A long time ago, I didn't think I wanted kids at all.  And then I had 3 in 2 1/2 years.  When I found out we were having twins, I said something that wasn't printable in any family magazine in this country (in my defense, F was in Iraq and L stopped sitting down to rest or nap and started getting up at 4:30 am...for the day)....Four years later, I am constantly bowled over by a feeling of gratefulness for my crazy, hectic, energetic, LOUD family.
My daughter is strong-minded, determined, manipulative...ahem, forward-thinking, clever, and highly observant.  She is very kind to others (and even kind to her brothers when it suits her purposes for world domination) and extremely loving.  She appreciates it when I slow down and stop trying to clean the house to hug her and dance with her.  She notices beauty in unexpected places in the world.  A friend of mine, in observing her at school said she is a social savant (she also said she was like a little shopkeeper, doing her work and keeping tabs on everyone and everything at all times)...She is a child who pushes me to be a better person every day...to be kinder than I want to be, to find more patience than I think I have...you cannot force her to go along with your plans, but she will come with you if you are nice about it.  She knows her own mind now (she came out of the womb her own way, remember?) and I hope she always knows it and respects her own strength...she is a force in this world and I am happy to watch her grow into her power (plus, she appreciates fashion, so I know the uniforms will be cute in the country she takes over...also, they'll be kind to cats...)
Little Mikey-Mike...I smile to see him today, remembering how small and sleepy he was when he was born.  When they put him on my chest I remembered thinking he looked exactly like L, only like a half his size.  He was a quiet baby, too weak to nurse, I had to strip him down and put cold cloths on him to keep him awake long enough to eat.  For a while there, he looked like a fuzzy-headed and bewildered chicken!  (Also, his skin folded in big wrinkles like it was a suit two sizes too big...much like a tree frog I saw in one of L's animal encyclopedias)  It took him a month to realize that if he screamed bloody murder like his twin sister, he would be fed first!!!!!  Now look at him!  He's like a Labrador puppy.  Ninety percent of the time, his pants are on backwards and his shoes are on the wrong feet, but he's determined to do things "my own self!"  He is kind-ish...sometimes he is rough, but he doesn't mean to hurt people, he's just enthusiastic.  As my friend said, you never saw a kid more determined and focused on his school work...she said he could dig to China with a spoon if he set his mind to it.  He is joyful, joyful!  The world is full of beauty and fascination...and he appreciates it all.  I said it before and I'll say it again:  Nothing is as carefree and happy as a 3 year old who skips everywhere he goes.
I guess I should end by saying this:  I am lucky, lucky, lucky.  I hope I can stop more to appreciate this life, the vitality they give me by needing me and believing that my kisses are magically healing.  To the twins, what I hope for you is a lifetime of happiness and joy, of work you find stimulating and rewarding, of people who add love and light to your path...may you always be surrounded by the love I have found by choosing to be your mother...everything that is beautiful and true is in you and your brother...I love you now and forever.....

Yay! Winter Is Here!

Some tigers got to work in the back yard...

We love snow days!

Look, Mom!  The water froze in our bucket!

 Winter has finally come to coastal Virginia!  Yay!  Last night while we were watching a movie called "Dolphin's Tale," the wind started picking up and the rain came pelting down.  Then, as the sun went down, the rain turned to SNOW!  And get this, it also thundered and lightning-ed with the snow storm for a little while...I don't think I've ever been in a snow/lighting storm before!  Not that it was a snow storm...we only got a little dusting, but it was enough to make the kids absolutely thrilled! (M's first words this morning were: "Mom! Snow!  We have to go play in it!" as he was perched on the back of his bed, peering out the window when I walked in his room).
As I write this, Anna is sitting beside me making Valentine's Day cards for her classmates and the boys are still out there, doing what they can with the little snow we have and some trucks and shovels.  Before I forget to write this down, I have to say that watching that dolphin movie last night was a big hit here.  It's about Winter, a dolphin in Florida who was caught in a crab trap as a baby and had to have her tail amputated...eventually, she learns to swim without it and then gets a prosthetic tail.  At one point in the movie, the boy who befriends Winter starts cutting summer school classes to be with her and his mother finds out.  He is trying to explain why he wants to spend so much time with the dolphin and his mother gets very stern and says, "You are going to school tomorrow!  Period!!!"  L, cuddled up on my shoulder smiled and said cheerfully, "Hey!  She sounds just like YOU, Mommy!"  Which made me laugh so hard because it's true!
At bedtime, Luke said, "Winter was very brave when she had to get that plastic tail!"  So I said, "You were very brave this week, too, Luke. Do you know when you were brave?"  He said, "At MRI!  I was as brave as a knight, as brave as Winter the dolphin!"  The kids were so excited about that dolphin movie that they eventually all got into trouble with Dad for making too many dolphin noises instead of going to bed.
Well, the boys are straggling in here, so I'd better clean them up and help them take off their layers of clothing...

What do you do when there isn't enough snow for a snowman?  Make a Snow Dolphin of course!  Then you celebrate National Snow Dolphin Day!

Hey, These MRI clothes are my favorite color!

Yesterday was our MRI day!  Everything went very well for us, L was super brave, like a knight.  He said he was very nervous about the MRI, but that being brave doesn't mean you aren't scared, it just means you still do what you have to do even though you are scared.  I guess that pep talk from Daddy really helped him manage his fears...

Super handsome and brave 6 year old, no?  We stayed with him until he went to the MRI room and didn't have to see him put out with the gas or the breathing tube he had to have in order to make sure he was still breathing when he was under.  He asked for strawberry "sleepy air" and had about a million questions for all the nurses and doctors.  He also figured out immediately how to lower and lift the hospital bed.  He slept for about 3 hours...and woke up with a sore throat and some dizziness.

I must say that while I wasn't looking forward to this necessary procedure, our experience there really put things into perspective for me.  Since L had to be sedated by an anesthesiologist, we had to go to the Day Surgery part of the Children's Hospital.  There were babies having surgery, folks, and there is nothing like a teeny baby in diapers being wheeled away by some surgeons to put into perspective how lucky we are with the health our children have enjoyed.  On my hardest day, there is always someone, somewhere facing terrifying situations with their children...on my hardest day, there is always reason to be thankful for all that we have....like blue scrubs for L!!!  Which happens to be his favorite color!  And a caring teacher who saved him an orca whale toy out of her daughter's Happy Meal!  There is so much love in our lives...and we are grateful for it.

I'll let you know what the results are when we get them in a few weeks.  They take thousands of pictures and have to go over the measurements and confer with our cardiologist, so we'll know whether L needs medication to help his heart out or not when they do all that...L is happy and healthy and the procedure wasn't too hard on him...at about 4 pm, I had to force him to put down his sword and promise me he'd stop trying to joust with his brother on a day when he'd been sedated!  Boys!  

The difference between...

how Anna watches Bambi...

and the boys watch an airplane movie...