Donkeys like Play-Doh

Who knew? Goats also really like platado.....I guess play-doh and poatato were just a little too close for Aubrey.....but I could've told you that small fact about goats before the children tested out that theory. We're full of all kinds of odd bits of info concerning livestock. Info that people without tons of young children probably don't know. It just so happened that the children were given a 66 pc playdoh set by Brad's mom and after playing with it for hours they then decided to see which animals would eat what. Dogs love platado, goats really love it and donkeys will try it out before eating the piece as a whole. Little 18 month old boys REALLY love it and cannot find it within themselves to merely squish it. It was physically impossible to set it before him without it hitting the mouth before ever even turning around. Of course, then if you left him out of the fun and just gave him a few toys on the floor to occupy him that would never do since, afterall, all 5 older siblings were playing with something far greater and more interesting. You'd think by the 6th one I'd know by now that an 18 month old is not capable of playing nicely with play-doh and refraining from the whole shoving it into the mouth issue. I've never been more thankful for hard floors in all of my life. Truly. The last time they played with it was the 1st and last in that house. We had carpet under our dining room table. It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to envision what it looked like only a few days after installation. After it was exposed to no less than 39 slices of pizza, 252 chocolate milks, 178 Big Red's, 511 Sprite's and 6 large containers of playdoh it was pretty much deemed a disaster zone with no possible signs of helping it in anyway. Yes.......I do love linoleum, ugly and old though it may be.

And today was our 1st real day of col weather. I'm sure at some point the mild 70's will return before the year ends but, for the present, it was incredibly cold. It was fun waking to the light at 6:30 and thoughts of hot pumpkin coffee and pink fluffy house shoes were enough to get me out from under the heavy covers and onto my feet. Big yellow school buses rolled by rumbling their way down the street and I was so grateful and so filled with joy that my 3 school age children were still tucked warmly under covers, healthy and not fighting off every infection that rampages its way through the school. I have the joy of feeding them breakfast in their warm cozy home instead of sitting in the cold lunch room with a lukewarm cinnamon roll and some cold cereal. So, they just ate their cold cereal here. I was not rushing them out the door for the day and giving my time with them over to teachers that would have them for many hours more of the day than I ever would. When they woke up animals were fed and we finished pulling out the remaining winter clothes. Garrison and Grant were bundled up in fleece lined pants and little fleece shirts and Garrett was dressed in one of their sweatsuits....since they all wear the same size now. It makes for easy dressing. Evye threw on 15 layers and huddled under them all day and Grayon threw on his t-shirt and took off out the door running off most of his energy and warming himself up without the need of anything aiding him. And then, of course, Aubrey being Aubrey wore a pink ballerina leotard and went barefooted all day out in the windy cold.....playing as hard as she could.

It was a true November TX sky. Gray and sunless with cold north winds blowing. I marveled at how one day you can look into the sky and see trees laden with leaves and then the very next day you look out again and those same leaves have fallen and naked gray trees stand blowing bare in the wind. Leaves fell and whirled sounding like rain as they landed on the tin above. Gentle, thumping little taps of the changing season. It reminded me of Thanksgivings gone by and how close yet how far away my childhood has become. It made me so entirely grateful to be where I am and for my children to have what they have in a family. I was overwhelmed with gratefulness that my children do not have to endure the insecurities that I did as a child and that through everything that I have been through they have everything to gain. They will never question Brad's and my relationship, they will not have the self image issues to overcome, and if by some chance questions do arise about this I will be fully equipped with dealing with them, having been there myself for too many years. There are things I miss but there are things I would never go back to. I love having my own little family and I love the making of our traditions, things my own children can grow up loving and remembering. I love that they will have the memories of being surrounded by tons of siblings and continual joy and activity. I love what we have been blessed with. It's just amazing to me to feel like my childhood is not so very long ago but to have children of my own that are making these memories. I have come so far in so many ways but still am so very far from reaching the goal.

And on that note, I have been asked to speak at a Homebirth seminar Thursday night. It occurred to me today how I have grown in so many ways when I just said yes without thinking. There was a time in my life....many many years of it........that I would not even speak. And form of public speaking was not even a consideration. It was hard enough to speak to an individual. The thought of speaking to a group was so incapacitating that I avoided any kind of appearances where I thought I might be put on the spot for whatever reason. When being asked to do this and recount Garrett's homebirth and Gavin's unassisted homebirth I was elated and jumped at the opportunity. I love that we have been blessed enough to help others struggling or filled with questions about this process. I love that the Lord has given me Garrison's and Grant's story to tell to give other multiple moms hope. The entire world minus my supportive family and 1 supportive friend told me a c-section was not only inevitable but the only wise way to go about their birth. It was such an entirely emotional journey for me and the Lord heard every cry of my heart and was there catching every tear that was wept through that ordeal. "Though you will walk through the fire you will not be burned." Brad and I both truly walked through the fire in every way and we came out not only smoke free but many more times refined than how we entered. It is such a testimony of a living, breathing, loving God. So it is that I will be one of the speakers at this homebirth seminar. I am excited and being nervous really just isn't an issue anymore. I think I'm just too passionate about it to worry about nerves. I know that The Lord has called me to this as a ministry and it is not I that speaks but He that speaks through me.

I also did a phone interview last night with an author and speaker writing a book on homeschooling children with learning disabilities. I told a very shortened version of our journey with dyslexia and where we are now. I find I am so utterly passionate about that issue also that my lack of social skills and immaturity tend to become a little too evident when it counts. I am overwhelmed by where we were 4 years ago with Grayson and where we are today. The journey has been long and hard with many tears shed along the way but we have been successful and he is a completely normal reading 4th grader. We are successful homeschoolers making it work. When recounting our story I still get overwhelmed with emotions telling of the day we were told he would not be reading had it not been for my intense work with him. The public school learning disability specialist told me that had he been in school he would not be able to read and he was an amazing story that proved homeschooling to be a huge success. That was during some of our deepest darkest times through it all. I went home and cried out all of my deeply, long internalized emotions of frustration, relief, worry, sadness, joy and every other emotion only a mother dealing with this would know. I had been so condemned and suffered from such a guilty conscience for so long. I cried again last night after hanging up the phone just remembering the emotions of what our journey has entailed up to this point. We are blessed in every way.

And then I turned my thought to Evye and how we have been given such freedom in homeschooling her. By the school's mandate she would be 8 wks into 1st grade now. They needed a class leader and advised she stay and promote up from K to 1st. She was bored and restless with her kinder work but they needed someone to lead so they held her there. Here we are 6 wks into her 2nd grade curriculum and she is flying through it with no obstacles or issues. It is an absolute joy to teach her and know she truly is better off here in every way. I love teaching both of them. I love teaching Grayson his math. I actually love relearning it with him. God has used him to teach me in so many ways. He has used Grayson to overcome my own mental block with math. And I have seen there is nothing that I cannot do. It has given me endless amounts of courage to face the years ahead when we step out into foreign lands of subjects I am not that familiar with. I love this journey. It keeps it fun and interesting for us all.

And here's a little fun interesting school conversation with Evye. She is reviewing her silent k rule in the kn words. She had a myriad of pictures in which she was supposed to label c, k, n or kn. She had every one labeled correctly except for the picture of the kettle in which she wrote kn under it. I asked her why every one of them were correct except that one picture. She looked at me with huge honest blue eyes and just said "Well, in that one the n is silent." Not really sure where that one came from but it made me laugh.