'what's up' weekly.

Well, it's official.  Summer's getting old.  I'm ready for life to go back to normal.

It's been either too rainy or two stiflingly hot to go outside all week, so we've been stuck inside, Cat-In-The-Hat-ing it.  Don't love that.  So, I think it's time to start the new school year.  (As a matter of fact, our legal school year ends tomorrow.  That must be my sign.)  Unfortunately, I am currently underprepared for this, and have literally none of the materials I need for the upcoming year.

One unanticipated drawback of the "one-on, one-off" weekly summer cycle is that I haven't had an adequate chunk of time to dedicate to planning.  Last year was heavenly - since Callista was born in late June, I had an entire week in the middle of July in which all my big kids were at my mom's, and I was couch-bound with a newborn and able to focus on All The Planning.  I have no such luxury this year, so I'll have to carve out bits and pieces here and there.  (Maybe I should have a newborn every summer?)

I'm also working on finishing up Callista's room, planning a closet system install for our laundry room, and continuing to put off the Seasonal Clothing Switcheroo, so I have other irons in the fire.  I really have no idea when I'm going to get around to gathering our supplies for next year.  Gah!

Oh, well.  There have been a few other things to take my mind off the fact that I'm losing my footing on the hamster wheel.  First of all, Callista turned one year old this week.  I may or may not be having an existential crisis about it. "Why am I not pregnant again yet?  Am I unable to have more kids?  Is it because I'm too old?  Am I reaching menopause?  What if I never have another baby?  Where did my current baby go?  If she's my last baby, did I fail to appreciate her infancy as much as I should have?"  It's all kinds of emotional mess.  Callista seems to empathize with my angst.

Luckily, she snapped herself out of it.  "You're making mountains out of mole hills," she told herself.  "Aging is natural, and it will all be okay," she said.

Whew.  I really needed to hear that timely word myself.  Thanks for the pep talk, 'Liss.

Finneas has been begging me for a tank top lately.  Like, begggggging.  I don't know where he got it in his head that he needs one, but he grabbed onto the idea and has white-knuckled it like a cowboy at a rodeo.  The thing is, I don't really like tank tops on boys.  Having grown up in the nineties in rural Iowa, I have a lingering bias against male tank tops as being trashy.  Pair it with a spikey mullet and some crazy bucked teeth, and you have my elementary class bully (who shall remain nameless on the blog, but who is definitely not nameless in memory).  So I've toed a hard no-tank-tops line.

Unfortunately, Finneas didn't get the memo and has worn me down.  I would feel ashamed for caving under the pressure as though it indicated weakness, but I'm confident this kid could defeat ISIS through the simple art of badgering.  So, a tank top it is, and I feel no shame.  As long as he spends his own money on it, because I'm not funding those shenanigans.  (Tank tops, not ISIS.)  (Well, ISIS too.)

So on Wednesday night, I took him with me to Target, where he immediately set his sights on one featuring both an American flag and a shark wearing sunglasses.  It's all kinds of superlatively patriotic.

But then yesterday, after wearing his new tank top for about twelve hours, he realized it was missing something.  Namely, a complementary bicep tattoo.  So as a means of keeping him from drawing all over himself, I found a temporary tattoo for him.  Don't be surprised if the next time you see him, he's wearing a pair of aviators and drinking Bud Heavy from a can.  I've clearly lost control of this situation.

Well, when you give a mouse a cookie and all that jazz.  When you give one kid a tattoo, then All The Kids need tattoos.  Obviously.

Pretty soon they'll all be wearing aviators and drinking canned beer.  I've just reconciled myself to that inevitability now to avoid the heartbreak later.

In other news, this is how we roll around here.

I am so far past knowing why the kids do what they do, and also how anyone survives to adulthood.

And with that, this boring old school week is over, and we're staring down the barrel of an upcoming break week - I have big plans to go to Staples, put some straw mulch on the garden, and otherwise piddle away the days.  Bring it on.

child training: training the attitudes versus the emotions.

A while back, I had been feeling really overwhelmed by a lot of the grumbling, arguing, and sulking that was happening around here.  I didn't really know how to go about rectifying things, though - we already spent a lot of time talking about how our feelings can lie to us, and when that happens, how to choose to believe truth rather than our feelings. But I was having a hard time knowing what to do about the general moodiness and malaise I was having to contend with from the peanut gallery on a daily basis.

The Principles Behind Attitude Training.

I honestly had the fear that, if I were to try to train their emotions, the kids would just bottle everything up and stuff it down and eventually go on a bender or a rampage as adults.  If I were to attempt to train their emotions, I would be committing the sin of 'not reaching their hearts'.  I think it's a common fear parents have in our current culture.  But I felt so stuck, because the moodiness was controlling our home and our relationships.  So I started to think about what the Bible has to say about emotions.

What I noticed is that, while the Bible doesn't necessarily command us to feel certain ways, it does command us to adopt certain attitudes - to make choices based on right thinking, which leads to right acting, which, funnily enough, has implications for our emotions.  Feeling happy and being joyful are two different things.  God doesn't tell us to feel happy.  But he does - often - tell us to be joyful, even in less-than-happy circumstances.  In fact, most of the fruits of the Spirit are attitudes.  And if God desires it, and commands it, and wants to foster it in us, then we should value it enough to try to train our kids in those paths.

I started teaching the kids that their attitudes are not enslaved to their emotions, as we tend to assume they are, but rather their emotions are chained to their attitudes.  When we choose cheerfulness, even when doing a job we really don't like, we actually tend to start feeling more cheerful.  When we choose kindness, even when we feel annoyed with a sibling, we tend to start feeling more kind.  Right thinking and right action (in other words, right attitude) lead to positive emotions.

It doesn't mean that we squash their feelings, or teach them to bottle everything up, but it does place a higher value on reveling in feelings that correspond with truth.  And I think that's why 'self-control' is the last mentioned fruit of the Spirit, after a long list of attitudes.  If a child can realize they're in control of their own self, emotions and all, love will be easier.  Joy will be easier.  Peace, patience, and kindness will be easier.  In other words, any good, enjoyable work that the Spirit wishes to do in their hearts will be met with so much more cooperation in a person who has self-control: control over their whole self.

The more I've talked with the kids about this, and corrected wrong attitudes when they've arisen, the more amazed I am at how God knows what he's talking about in this area.  (Shocker!)  I can't command my kids to feel happy when they're told to clean their rooms.  That's pointless and unhelpful, as I don't have the right or authority to tell them 'just feel differently.'  But I can address their grumbling and disrespect when they don't want to clean their rooms - I can talk to them about why grumbling is such an affront to God, and how he wants us to respond instead.  I can model for them an appropriate response, and practice with them over and over until they respond cheerfully.  And I can cheer them on when, time after time, a cheerful response leads to a real feeling of happiness.

The Practical How-To's of Attitude Training.

It has really worked wonders with all of my kids, but one of them specifically is just thriving since I've started being diligent about training them in this area.  This kiddo is given to moodiness and a melancholy disposition a lot of the time.  Teaching them that they (not their feelings) are in charge of their responses, has really lit a fire in them to exercise power over their moods.  It has been so great for all of us - for me, because I feel a cloud lifting from our daily life, and for this kiddo because I think they feel 'in charge' of themselves for the first time!  They don't feel constantly tossed around all day long.  To be honest, this kid is so much happier.  Attitude training has helped them feel better.

One thing that has really helped in all of this (beyond LOTS of talking about heart attitudes) is practicing with them.  If a kid is grumbly, I'll take them aside and say, "No, that's a grumbly response.  Let's try it again with a cheerful attitude.  Let's un-scowl our eyebrows first - lift them high, like this!  Then we're going to wiggle the scowls out of our bodies - wiggle! Relax!  Then we're going to respond in a cheerful voice, so put the scowly voice away.  I'm going to tell you again to clean your room, and I want you to respond rightly this time.  I'll show you - listen to how I say it: 'Okay, Mom!'"

Often at this point, the scowly eyebrows and scowly voice are still sticking around, so I start again.  And I do it again and again and again with them repeating after me until it's perfect.  Not just better, but actually cheerful.  We often have to do it ten or fifteen times.  The word I keep repeating to myself internally is, "Outlast."  Outlast their mood.  Outlast it.  WIN.  It is so funny how little kids seem absolutely unable to act in a way that's inconsistent with their feelings, so if their behavior is addressed, their feelings closely follow suit.  If I can finally get a kid to speak to me cheerfully, their emotions are usually in agreement by that point.  It's counterintuitive, but it works.

The older kids are better able to master acting one way while hanging on to the grumbles on the inside, which is not what I'm going for.  I want to teach them to be truly experiencing heart change, not just giving me lip service.  So talking takes longer, but they're really responsive to reason.  "I understand why that was frustrating to you.  Your brother said something unkind and untrue, and I will definitely address those things with him.  But do you see how your anger is stemming from a place of feeling like you're owed a good name?  If you know that what he said isn't true of you, why are you angry?  If you have a clean conscience in this area, what does it matter if his opinion of you feels unfair or unkind?  God knows your heart, and he knows what's true.  He will vindicate you, and will protect your reputation.  But you're acting like that's not enough.  Your desire to control your brother, and his opinion of you, is stirring up anger in your heart, and that anger is causing you to sin - you are failing to treat your brother with kindness because of your anger.  Take a breath, remember what's true, and together we'll think of a way for you to show kindness to him, even though you feel angry right now."

I know that it's controversial these days to act like we ought to train anything beyond our kids' behaviors.  They should be allowed to feel all their feelings without shame or guilt!  I would say that our kids' feelings, while they are a very real part of them, can be enslaving - and how is it a kindness to them to not teach them that THEY are in charge of how they act, not their feelings?  How is it a kindness to let them grow to adulthood without learning that they don't have to live at the whims of their fickle emotions?  I know there are many days in my own life that would have gone much better if I had been in charge, rather than whatever feeling decided to show up that day.  My words would have been kinder, my disposition would have been more peaceful, and my focus would have been less self-centric.

Our kids will reap so many benefits if we put the hard work into teaching these things to them now!

For more on the topic of feelings, and an example of how this training has looked in our family, don't miss this post: Your Feelings are Real, but They Can Be Liars.

introducing: callista. (happy birthday, little one!)

Today is Callista's first birthday!  Time has flown.  I know I say it all the time, but I am just dumbstruck by how quickly it has gone.

This girl has been such a means of grace to me.  In some ways, she has been my most challenging baby, and yet she's somehow simultaneously so easy.  I have seen God provide the grace I needed to face each challenge this past year with patience and flexibility that I really didn't know I had.  Callista is a constant reminder that I need my children - I need them to push me, and grow me, and open me up to the supernatural work of the Spirit.  I need them to show me that God is not content to let me be my stinky old self, but wants to make me new - and has the power to do so.  I am different because I received her.

The Bible says that "Women... will be saved through childbearing, if they continue in faith, love and holiness, with self-control." When we let Scripture interpret itself, we understand that it doesn't refer to eternal salvation.  I really believe that childbearing - creating and nurturing new life - saves us from ourselves and our prideful patterns of self-centeredness and sin, because it pushes us to live in faith, love and holiness on a level that we wouldn't choose for ourselves otherwise.  I still have a long way to go before I 'arrive', but Callista has been such a means of grace to me, challenging my selfishness and self-centeredness and self-righteousness, and I am so thankful.

She is such a love.  She's a tiny nugget (I'm going to weigh her today, but I'm guessing she's around 15-16 pounds).  She's in six-month clothing, and size 3 diapers.  She has six teeth - her two front top teeth, plus one on the left side, and her two front bottom teeth, plus one on the right side!  Her lopsided grin melts me.

She's a total champ when it comes to eating - she ate almost two whole scrambled eggs in a sitting yesterday, and is finally starting to get the hang of drinking from a sippy cup.  She eats 2-3 table meals a day, and nurses 4-5 times still.  She is sleeping much better than she was - two naps per day, plus about 12 hours at night.

She is crawling and cruising.  She doesn't talk yet, but she'll mimic sounds and tones of voice.  She loves to fake laugh to get anyone in the general vicinity to laugh back at her.  She hates to be far from me, and unless she's eating, she doesn't like being put down for very long while awake.

She is so very, very loved around here.  Rocco and Penelope are especially adoring fans.

I don't know how we lived without her.  She is so cuddly and sweet and beautiful.

My prayer for her is that she would continue to grow up strong, happy, healthy and safe.  I pray she would always know how precious she is, and how she has felt like such a gift from Day One.  I pray she would never feel overlooked or lost in the crowd of kids, but that she would know that she's always been loved as an individual.  I pray that she would grow to know and love Jesus, and that she would be brave enough to live a life in pursuit of him.  What I want most for her is that she would rest absolutely confident in his love for her and his purposes for her life.

"Callista" means beautiful - the kind of majestic, all-surpassing beauty that makes someone feel immediately awestruck and grateful in its presence.  "Awestruck" and "grateful" are two perfect words to describe how I feel being her mom, and I pray for so many days with her, getting to know her better and love her more and more each day.

Happy birthday, Lissa Lou!  We love you so much!

book recommendation: the prize winner of defiance, ohio.

It's been a while since I've talked about books.  Let's remedy that.

I thought I'd start sharing book reviews with you occasionally, as I finish things that I think you'd enjoy.  So today I wanted to spread the word that this book is amazing.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less by Terry Ryan

I knew I'd enjoy it right off the bat.  It's about a mom of a large family, using her creative writing skills to provide for her family and find an artistic outlet.  I can get behind that.

To go into more detail, it's basically about a mother of ten, married to an alcoholic husband, finding a creative way to keep her family afloat.  She entered a lot of poetry and jingle contests in the fifties and sixties, when companies would offer substantial (and not-so-substantial) prizes to finalists.  She won everything from small cash prizes ($5 or $10 at a time), to small and large kitchen appliances, to bikes, to baseball gloves, to television sets.  She won enough money to put a down payment on a house when they got evicted from their rental.  (They were a family of twelve, renting a two bedroom house with no bathtub or shower!  She was actually able to purchase a larger home with her winnings.)  She won multiple cars, which she sold for cash.  It was incredible to see some of the miraculous timing of some of her wins - she would win things exactly as they were needed.  The story of her final contest will floor you.

But more than just the fascination with the unusual way she was able to take care of her family materially, I felt an awe at her attitude through all of it.  She chose joy and optimism in the face of a lot of difficulty.  She refused to allow herself to become bitter or defeated in her marriage.  She knew and cheered her kids on as individuals.  Her example was such an inspiration and a challenge to me.

On top of a great story line and really interesting characters, it's well-written.  Sometimes memoirs are interesting reading, but not enjoyable reading, if you know what I mean.  But this was really engaging on every level.




I've read this book two, maybe three times now, and I fully intend on reading it again.  It's that good.

On the "How Much Do I Think You Should Read It?" scale of 1-10, I give it an 8.

So go out and read it, and then let's chat about it!  I'm positive you're going to love it.


*This post contains affiliate links, if that wasn't obvious from the clear affiliate links displayed in the post. ;)  Every time you order through one of these links, my family receives a small commission.  It doesn't increase your cost at all, but it is a blessing to us.  Thanks so much for your support!

'what's up weekly.'

It's Friday again, party people.  Which obviously means it's time to party.  Which obviously means it's time for What's Up Weekly.

Last weekend was full of fun, in both the conventional sense, and the unconventional sense, of the word.  We spent time at the cemetery, which was fun in an unconventional way.  Then on Saturday afternoon, Todd wanted to take the kids to BaconFest, but they got over there right as everything was closing down, so he took them to the grocery store instead to get them free cookies.  No skin off their noses.

Todd preached on Sunday, and we also spent time celebrating Father's Day, which were both fun in a more traditional way.  The kids had all made or purchased gifts for Todd, and were chomping at the bit to give them to him.

Laurelai bought him socks and Sour Patch Kids.

Finneas gave him a board book that we'd gotten him for his birthday, an empty nail box full of chicken feathers he found at the Amish, and a paper puppet he made named Baldy.

Penelope gave him a jar full of ants, although she had caught the ants the previous Tuesday, so by the time they made it into Todd's hands, it was basically a mass grave in a jar.

Atticus made him a book about World War II.

'We all' bought him a Chemex and some nice coffee, and signed a greeting card about having cholera.

After giving gifts and taking naps, the kids were pretty strung out by Sunday evening.

On Monday, Atticus came down with a mystery bug and spent 48 hours with horrible migraine, trying to sleep off his headache and nausea/vomiting.  Penelope also came down with it later in the week.  I swear, I thought cold-and-flu season was in the winter, but apparently I'm wrong, because once Spring hits around here, it seems like we just can't catch a break.

Rocco also started potty training on Monday, and was a total champ.  He had one accident about fifteen minutes into the day, and another one in the evening.  Other than that, he has completely mastered the skill of using the toilet on his own.  He recognizes when he needs to use the bathroom, heads in there, takes his own shorts off, climbs onto the potty by himself, and does his thing, including going poop.

We even spent about three hours up at the Amish on Wednesday morning, and another two hours out running errands Wednesday afternoon, and he didn't have an accident.  He said he had to go pee while we were at Speech, but when he saw the public toilet, he thought twice about it and refused to go.  So I told him he'd have to hold it until we got home, and he did!  As soon as we walked in the door at home, he headed straight for the bathroom.  Color me thoroughly impressed.  I have never had a kid train this easily before.

When I put his first pair of undies on him, he went to find Finneas right away.  "You weerin' undies, and MINE weerin' undies!"

Other than that, the kids have spent a lot of time bonding this week, which has been adorable.

Callista is working on weaning.  (Orrrr, I'm working on weaning her, while trying not to get caught by her.  Sneaky antics.)  I'm ready to be done, and as she turns a year old in just a few days (WHAT?!??!), I figured I can move her to table foods in clean conscience.  So she's been eating most meals with us, and has even begun to tolerate cold cow's milk from a sippy cup.  (I tried goat milk, but she was having none of it.)

In other Callista Milestone news, she got a bath.  I rarely full-on bathe her because she's never all that dirty, and it's better for her skin to not give too many baths.  But it was time.  And she was not thrilled.

As you may have noticed in the picture above, some changes have been happening in Callista's room.  I still have a little ways to go (a few more plants, a painting hung above her crib, some new knobs for her dresser), it is so much cozier in there already.  It's so funny - the kids even feel the difference.  While I would almost never find anyone playing in her room before, now that I'm starting to decorate, I'm constantly finding them in there reading, playing or just hanging out.  Making a house prettier is good for everyone's souls.

And to wrap everything up, Todd joined me for a video this week over on YouTube!

https://youtu.be/3AzzWqwpVXU

***Yes, I know I was hopeful that I'd get the file for the Potty Training Your Toddler ebook ready for download by today, but it turns out that was kind of an overly ambitious goal to set.  It's as though I've never done this before.  But, hope springs eternal, and I'll see if I can get it finished over the weekend!

Have a fantastic weekend, everyone!

how to train your dragon. i mean, toddler. (i'm writing a book!)

Well, Rocco has, surprisingly, ended up being my easiest kid to potty train, and at the risk of jinxing myself, I would like to hereby declare him trained.  It took him less than twelve hours.  Go, Brother!  I'll tell you more about it all tomorrow.

While this timeframe is NOT typical, I will say that there is a formula that I've used with all my kids that seems to be a winner, as measured by the fact that I don't usually find myself cleaning up urine throughout a normal day, even though five of my kids are now in underwear, so that's good.  I figured I'd share with you what has worked for us!

But the thing is, I sat down to write it all out in a detailed blog post, and it was long.  I mean, like, looooong.  And I realized that not every single person who reads this blog would want 1500 words on how to convince another human being to use a toilet, and the ones who did want to read that much on the topic probably didn't want it all in one huuuuuuuuuge, way-too-long post.  So, at 11:05 last night, I decided to write it as an ebook.

This is kind of momentous for me, for a couple reasons.  One, and most obviously, I've never written an ebook, and it feels so official, even though it's basically just writing a long blog post and then formatting it to look nicer.  Two, I've only ever read one ebook in my whole life.  But that was actually just a digital copy of a real book that I read on my Kindle.  Is that the same thing?  I clearly am not '21st-century' enough to be trying this, and yet, here I am.  And three, I will now be able to say that I literally wrote the book on potty training.  If that doesn't make me an authority in my field, I don't know what will. #breakingtheglassceiling

Obviously, since it just kind of happened last-minute, it's not quite ready to post for today.  I'll be doing my darnedest to have it ready by tomorrow, so I'll hopefully have a link to the free download available on tomorrow's What's Up Weekly post for anyone who's interested!  At that point, it would be appropriate to congratulate me on being a published author or whatever, but I'm not telling you how to live your life.

introducing: penelope.

Meet Penelope.

If you don't know her personally yet, you are missing out.  She is incredible.  I'm afraid I won't even be able to describe her adequately.

She is soft and compassionate.  She is tender-hearted towards people and animals.  She looks for ways to serve and care for others, and is especially good with babies.  She mostly spends her allowance on gifts for other people, and is a truly epic gift-giver.  She often spends her days making things to show her siblings how much she cares for them.  She delights in surprising the other kids by occasionally doing their chores for them, or making them a lunch she knows they'll like.

But she is also strong.  She is passionate and driven, and self-controlled.  She is a truth-speaker, and confessional about her own sin.  She is hungry for growth, and so incredibly wise.  I am just in awe of her maturity and depth, and she is an example for me in my own walk with Christ.

She is my right hand around the house.  I honestly don't know what I'd do without her.  She is quick to help me, and quick to cheer me up if I'm in a funk.  She is an absolute joy to be around - she's so witty and affectionate and intelligent.  She is responsible without resentment - she is so eager to help in whatever ways she can.

One thing I love about Penelope is that she's endlessly interested.  She's curious about, and engaged with, the world around her.  Her mind is almost superhuman in what it can comprehend, remember and form connections with.

She has big dreams for herself when she grows up: while she has so many different creative interests that I'm absolutely positive she'll pursue to excellence (cooking and baking, writing, playing and composing music, singing, dancing), the goal she talks most often about is farming.  She would love to operate an organic, humane, diversified farm, and sell the products she raises.  (At a discount for veterans, of course.)  She wants to marry someone who's also passionate about farming, and have a large family.

She brings so much joy, creativity, fun and curiosity into our lives.

My prayer for her is that she will continue to understand grace more and more deeply.  She is so incredibly hard on herself sometimes, and I pray she will always find comfort in Jesus' declaration that "It is finished."  She is enough - as she is, where she is - because she is wrapped up in and covered by the righteousness of Christ.  I pray she would be quick to believe God when he defines her identity.  I pray she would have the courage to stay both soft and strong as she grows.  I pray that I would never forget to tell her how much I respect her and take pride in her, and that she will find a husband who cherishes her and puts his full trust in her.  I pray she will be able to have all the kids she wants, and that I'd get the honor of watching her be a mother someday.

Penen, you are a gift.  You are so valuable and unique and precious to us.  What a bright spot you have been in our lives!

visiting the cemetery, and thoughts on leaving a legacy.

There's an historic cemetery right down the road from the building where we hold church, and for a while now, Todd has been wanting to go check it out.  (Because he knows how to party, if that's not obvious.)  So on Saturday, we chucked the kids in the car and drove over there.

It was small and beautiful, and so old.  One stone marked the grave of someone born in 1700.

The history geek in me was hopped up on a contact high.  (The 'mother of preschoolers' in me was popping homeopathic anxiety tablets while I tried to keep the running, shouting, climbing and other various attempts at grave desecration to a minimum.)  It was so amazing to think about all of the life that cemetery held - parents, children, husbands, wives.  Every single grave marked a story.

It was a family cemetery, and it was small, and there were so many infants and toddlers commemorated.  It was sobering to think about how much pain a single extended family experienced.  There was one tombstone marking the grave of a seventeen-year-old, who was remembered as 'a clever and talented youth.'  That struck me - if you had to sum up your young adult child's life in a brief sentence, what could you even say?  It seemed so affectionate in its brevity.

It seems like a weird place to take kids, I know.  But, as Christians, we actually talk about death pretty often with our kids.  Not in a morbid, sinister kind of way, but in a way that is absolutely necessary and foundational to our faith.  Jesus died.  We will die, too.  Our sins warrant eternal, never-ending death, but Christ in his goodness died so that we can live.  In Christ, we die every day to ourselves, and we identify with him in both his crucifixion and his resurrection.  Though we die with him, we'll be raised with him.

No, it's not the most pleasant thing we discuss, but in Christ, death loses its sting.  It's the final enemy, and Christ has conquered it already, so we don't need to be afraid of it.  So while it's not something we talk about constantly, it's far from a taboo topic at our house.  So the trip to the cemetery was a really great opportunity to talk to the kids about how we all have only one life to live, and how our days matter because we aren't given an endless supply.  We talked a lot about Ecclesiastes, in the spirit of chapter 7, verse 2: "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart."


The next day, Todd preached at Anthem - "coincidentally," over Psalm 127 and Christian legacy: how we ought to think about the time we've been given, and how we ought to use it.  It was a really, really powerful message - you should take a listen!

and so it begins. (potty training a toddler.)

I'm undertaking something ambitious this week:

It's time to potty train Rocco.

Oh, yes, my friends.  It's that time.  Actually, I think it was that time about three months ago, but we have been so stinking busy with everything that I just haven't had a week to set aside to actually train him, so I've made him wait.  I know.  Terrible parenting.

I always equally look forward to and dread this stage.  It is always so worth the work, but man, is it work.  It doesn't matter how ready they are.  It doesn't matter how prepared you feel.  There is always a moment during the week where you break down in tears and pray for the rapture to come and take the kid straight to heaven.  (Sadly, you will be left down below, because if anything can get you right to the edge of losing your salvation, it's potty training a toddler.  But at least you'll be down here with nothing left on the day's agenda and a sparkling, urine-free floor.)

I'm planning on posting about how to actually go about potty training a child, but every single time I have my feet on the starting blocks with the up-and-coming trainer, I panic that I really don't remember how this works.  So I'll get a few days under my belt with Rocco this week before spouting off advice.

But I will say this: before jumping in with any of the kids, I take them to Walmart to pick out their choice of new undies.  Rocco picked out Paw Patrol.

We spent all last evening talking about how he's going to get to wear big boy undies like his brothers, and stressing how much the puppies don't like to get pee on them.  "Do we put our pee on the puppies?  No.  The puppies think that's gross.  Where do we put our pee?  That's right! In the potty!"  Etc. etc.

We'll see how convincing that all was as the day progresses.  I'll keep you posted.

what's up weekly.

This week was yet another fun one!  LONG LIVE SUMMERRRRRRRRR!

Last Friday, I took the kids to get frozen custard at this adorable, kitschy little place in town to celebrate the last day of The Week of Unmatched Fun.  I was so proud of myself, getting the kids there on my own, not freaking out when they spilled ice cream all over their clean clothes, keeping eyes on everyone by myself, all while taking adorable pictures.  I even remember explicitly thinking, "These photos are going to be so good!"  I should have known - I should have just assumed - that I forgot to put the memory card IN the camera.  So, no photos of Friday, because I'm a giant dolt.

On Saturday, Todd and I made a spontaneous decision to take the kids to The Big Tree.  We're not usually spur-of-the-moment decision makers, but we've become more and more flexible as we've had more kids, and as they've gotten older.  When they were all little, we almost never left the house if we didn't have to - it was too. much. work.  It was so very hard.  But now things are getting easier, and we're able to just load the kids up quick and go for an impulsive drive out of town.

The Big Tree is estimated to be 350 years old, and is absolutely massive.  It has weathered age and multiple lightning strikes, as well as the vandalism of countless irreverent hoodlums.  It absolutely garnered our respect and awe, and we were privileged to get to marvel at it for a while on Saturday morning.

Can you see us under there?

Penelope found a caterpillar, which she loved and named Fuzzy, and which freaked Rocco out beyond all reasonable comprehension.

On the way home, we stopped at a roadside fruit stand, where I met a guy who not only hailed from the tinyyyyyy town in Iowa where my grandparents are from (population: 950), but actually knew them well.  His father-in-law performed my uncle's funeral, and my grandparents babysat his kids.  I am always amazed at how many Iowa connections there are down here, but this was by far the closest connection I've come across.

After getting home, I took the girls out for some mani/pedi fun time.  I had promised Penelope if she'd stop biting her nails, I'd take her to get them painted.  Well, then Laurelai wanted to go.  And instead of just fingernails, why not do toenails, too?  It ended up being a whole thing.  But I'm glad it did, because it was so fun!

Monday, we jumped back into a normal week of school.  This has been such a good routine for us - during school weeks, I don't hear nearly as many complaints of boredom, and Laurelai lays down for naps in the afternoon, which are both wins.  But on break weeks, I don't hear complaints about having to do school, and Laurelai gets to stay up to play with the big kids, which are also wins, so it's nice getting to alternate.

On Wednesday, we headed up to the Amish like usual.  Unlike usual, I was on assignment from a friend to find some laying chickens.  When I found a great, but urgent, deal on some, I somehow found myself with a cardboard box full of live chickens on my front seat for the entire van ride home.  The box had a lid (thank goodness) but it also had large air holes in the side (also thank goodness) and every so often, a chicken would stick its head out of a hole and give me the stankiest stank eye you can fathom.  I think, because they were Amish chickens, they were judging me for wearing a tank top and driving them away in a rubber-tired Devil's Wagon.  I was mostly glad to hand them over to my friend when we got back to town, but the kids did beg to keep one... and if we'd had a place to keep it, I might have caved.  Luckily, we still have the turtle to fill the pet-shaped hole in our family.

We also ended up with a bunch of peas, so I set the kids to shelling them while I made dinner.  I'm currently reading a book that stresses the importance of keeping your kids close to you more often throughout the day, and I've really been noodling on whether I actually need as much personal space as I think I do, or that I'm told I'm entitled to claim.  It was nice having them near but occupied, and even Rocco was a stunningly proficient sheller.

Other than that, this has been a pretty normal week.  We have big plans to attend BaconFest this weekend, so look forward to that review next week.  What are your big plans for the weekend?