Author Archives: michellereitemeyer

08.24.07
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Rain, Rain, Don’t Go Away

Last night my sleep was interrupted by a loud ka–BLAM of thunder. I smiled and snuggled deeper into the pillows. Nothing beats a good storm in my opinion. My eldest daughter disagrees, though, and she appeared at the door a moment later in tears frightened by the noise. I told her it was just a storm, nothing to be afraid of (thrilling, not scary, child) and invited her to sleep in “her spot” on the floor where we throw our shams at night.

We finally have a few days’ reprieve from the oppressive temperatures, and today’s high is only expected to reach about 80 degrees. Looking ahead at the 10 day forecast, we go back up to the 90s early next week for a few days and then settle down to the low 80s with overnight temps in the 60s. I am looking forward to opening windows and sitting outside on my swing.

But today should be rainy. Swimming is over, which means we should get school done early. I hope to knock out my long list of to-dos and errands and maybe even get in a nap. Or maybe we’ll just get comfy on the couch and read a few chapters of The Secret Garden and enjoy the rain.

08.23.07
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Pool School

Hooray! Today is the last day of swimming lessons. I look forward to doing school in the mornings and having my afternoons free to do really important things.

Like nap.

I have been hauling books to the pool and having the kids do some work while they waited for their siblings to take their lesson. The young ladies who run the desk have been learning about Lief Erikson and getting a review on addition and subtraction. The other moms with tots running around and their older children safe in classrooms likely think I am nuts. But they smile friendly smiles, so it doesn’t matter.

Billy’s lesson ends just before 11 am when lap swimming begins, so often various adults begin filtering in and sign in at the desk right where we sit. The other day, I read an Aesop Fable to Katie called The Hares and The Frogs. She randomly picked this story out of our Fable book, and I had no idea what it was about. After I read it, she drew a picture in her blank book to go with the story, and then her assignment was to retell the story to me, and I would write down what she said on the page with her illustration.

Just when we got to the retelling part, an older man came in to do lap swimming. There was no attendant at the desk right then – just a sign that said she’d be back in 5 minutes. So he waited. And he listened to Katie tell me this story:

All the hares think all the other animals are their enemies. If they all run away, they will drown themselves. All the hares went to the pond. They saw frogs jumping in like they were drowning themselves. One of the hares said, “Stop! It doesn’t matter whoever you are. Don’t drown yourself. Somebody has it worse.”

Taken completely out of context, I really wonder what that man thought about my 6 year old’s story. Yes, sir, for school today our first graders will be discussing the pros and cons of suicide…

08.23.07
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Prolifesearch

What happened to Prolifesearch dot com?

Esther posted this same question last week, and I’m reposting it here in case someone who reads me and not her knows. Barb reminded me that I still had their link on my sidebar, and I have removed it. I did know that following their link took you to a website devoted to The Cure (as in the band, not as in help for mankind’s ill health). I don’t mind the website on The Cure, but it’s not very useful if one is trying to search for local cub scout supply stores.

I do suspect hacking, but it’s been a long time now – months – since their search engine has worked. They seem to have fallen off cyberspace.

08.22.07
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Rise and Shine…

…and give God your glory, glory!

This is what I’m singing this morning despite the protests of my 17 year old son…oh, no, wait, he’s only SEVEN. I’m a bit confused, but it’s understandable given his reluctance to get up at a decent hour.

Of course, it wouldn’t be so difficult to get UP if one went to sleep when one was told to do so. But instead of sleeping, we find our boys talking, laughing and playing cards by the light of the moon…

…the moon, the moon…playing cards by the light of the moon.

On the one hand, I think it’s amusing. I love that he and his brother are sharing that time together. I love that my kids enjoy playing cards, since that is a pastime of many happy memories from my own life with my family growing up.

But I am a morning person, and I believe that getting up at a regular and reasonable hour every day is a matter of good discipline. Besides, if he were in the local school, he would have to be there by 8 am!

And of all my children, this one doesn’t get any breaks. If he could dress, eat and do his morning chores in a short period of time, then he might be granted maternal dispensation to snooze for another half hour. But this child of mine can take twenty minutes just to put on a pair of socks. Oy vey!

Up and at ’em, buddy. Reveille was over an hour ago!

08.21.07
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A New Tradition is Born

Today is Katie’s 6th birthday.

This past weekend I tried to find a gift locally. The toy department yielded nothing of interest, but I did manage to find one outfit that I think might be good in the girls’ department. It has a skort, but that seems short, so my hope is that if it’s inappropriately short the waist will be too big for her skinny little body, and I’ll have an excuse to return it.

And still, I felt she was too young to get only clothes for her birthday. She needed a toy of some kind. So after swimming lessons, we headed for the Super Walmart (open 24 hours!) that is 20 miles away.

Deserted rural highways prevent the drive from being too long.

I promised them all lunch and then Katie would be able to select a gift (I held ultimate veto power, of course). This idea was a big hit with all of us. Once she understood that she couldn’t have everything that she liked (she had to replace one item in order to get something else she wanted more), she was content in her choices. I’m happy to not have spent money on things she didn’t like. And the other kids are excited at the possibility of being able to do the same thing on their birthdays (although Billy will tell you how very far away February is).

And I received a birth-day gift as well. The kids behaved nicely in the food area. Most of the other customers were elderly men and women. A man at the table next to us asked if they were all mine. I smiled and said yes. He and the two women with him all nodded their approval.

“They are very well behaved,” he said. “Do you homeschool?” Local schools are in session around here.

“Yes, I do. It’s my daughter’s birthday, and we’re letting her pick out a present after lunch.” I guess I feel the need to justify my presence in public during “school” hours.

But they weren’t critical of my being out for lunch. Instead they turned to each other, and I could vaguely make out favorable comments directed toward homeschooled children from large families.

Thank goodness for these good days. May the memory sustain me through the bad ones.

08.19.07
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Rock-a-bye-baby

It wasn’t that long ago that I was still nursing Peter to sleep. We gradually tapered things off, but shortly before his birthday at the end of June, we stopped. That was, what, eight weeks ago, perhaps? Not a long time, but it seems like forever.

From the ashes of our breastfeeding time rose our pre-sleep snuggle time. At night, in a dark and quieting house, I would sing him a song and rock him for 5 minutes or so, then follow an exact tuck-in procedure: carefully positioning his little puppy next to him, placing his blankie just right over him and the puppy, turning on the little birdies that sing Beethoven (always after asking him), singing one last stanza of whatever I had been singing before, and then I would tell him goodnight and that I had to finish the dishes now (even if they were all done). He would happily hug his puppy and smile a goodnight and drift off to sleep.

In the afternoon, it would be harder for him to settle down with the sunlight streaming in and the distant sounds of his siblings having fun without him. But it would only take about ten minutes of gentle swishing in the glider rocker, and he would be fast asleep. None of my older four children ever enjoyed being rocked for longer than a few minutes, and it was a pleasant surprise when he started doing it.

An obnoxious voice in my head tried to tell me that rocking him to sleep was establishing a bad habit that I would have a hard time breaking. Years ago, I might have heeded that voice, or at least it would have caused anxiety as I fretted over managing his nap time routine while caring for the upcoming newborn. But I am older and wiser now. I pooh poohed that voice, reminding myself that rocking babies is the stuff that lullabies are made of and permitting myself to fully indulge in the pleasure of a toddler hugging me tightly as his little head grows heavy on my chest.

And I knew it wouldn’t last long.

As surely as all change is, my gentle rocking ceased to soothe his excited and active body to sleep. I’m not sure how long it’s been, maybe as long as two weeks; transitions with children play havoc with a mother’s sense of time. Five days can seem like five weeks or even five months as we fight our way to new routines. I’ve been leaving him to get himself to sleep for his nap (sometimes with disastrous results). Soon, he’ll be out of the crib, and it will be another wild adventure as he learns how to rest despite the temptation to wander.

I’ve missed the rocking.

On Friday, Jenny wasn’t feeling well and by evening it was clear that she had some virus. She went to bed with a fever after napping most of the afternoon. Around 1:30 am, Pete woke up crying fitfully. He, too, had a fever. After a 40 minute bedside vigil, I brought him into my bed where I hoped we could both get some rest. Instead, he spent the next two hours rolling and fussing and kicking one parent or the other. Finally, I put him back to bed where he fell into a deep sleep and stayed there until nearly 10 am yesterday morning. The rest did him good, and he awoke with no signs of illness (Jenny spent the day on the couch).

Naturally, there was no chance this child would take a nap, and I didn’t even bother. But after dinner, he started getting cranky, and I decided an early bedtime was appropriate. He didn’t protest, but with the din of a household not yet ready for bedtime, I opted to see if rocking him would help him block out those noises.

He snuggled in my arm, taking a few minutes to find a spot around his unborn sibling who now takes up most of my lap. Within minutes his little body had completely relaxed and his head became a heavy weight on my shoulder. And still, I held him, not ready to let go of this moment.

It is not the child for whom this is a hard habit to break; it’s the mother.

08.17.07
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The Absurdity of Religion

Father Jonathan takes on Bill Maher in this article.

If Christianity really taught that the man in the jungle who has never heard the name of Jesus is going to be damned forever to hell, I, too, would doubt.

{snip}

If Christianity really taught that God created cancer, child abusers and earthquakes to torture his own children, I, too, would doubt.

Go, Father J!

08.17.07
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What’s one more load of laundry anyway?

Although she was doing well before our move, since we’ve been here, it has been necessary to scoop sleeping Jenny out of bed and take her for another trip to the bathroom before we go to bed to prevent accidents. Even then, there are some nights where this still doesn’t work. Wednesday night was one, and so I had an additional load of laundry to do yesterday.

By the late afternoon, I had freshly laundered her sheets, her comforter and even the mattress pad and replaced them on her bed. She helped by neatly and ceremoniously placing her various stuffed animals, My Little Ponies, and throw pillows in their proper and exact spots around the perimeter of her sleeping area.

After dinner, Pete was walking around half naked, as usual. He usually does really well with making it to the potty when he’s naked. I sent the girls upstairs to put their jammies on, and he went up too. I usually do him later, but I guess he wanted to get ready for bed, too. Katie helped him change into his night clothes – everything except a diaper. And that’s fine. He came downstairs for stories, and she told me he needed a diaper, but I knew he could wait a bit. He is only about 50% successful at remembering the potty when he has clothing on, but since we were in the living room, not doing much, and the potty is right there (gotta love potty training decorating techniques…Good Housekeeping should do a spread on ideas for incorporating kid potties in your living spaces, perhaps someone could invent an under-the-kitchen-counter pull out shelf that drops down with a stable platform to fit most designs), I thought he’d be fine. And he was…during story time.

OK, you have to see the the impending train wreck, right?

After prayers, the girls and Pete are sent upstairs to brush teeth. I linger for a few minutes to chat with Bill. By the time I get up there, my good children have in fact brushed their teeth, but Pete is standing there uncomfortably wet. Of all the places in the world, he climbed up on Jenny’s bed and had an accident.

{big sigh}