Letters from Pemberley

At the end of another tough day, it does a mommy’s heart good to have Tommy ask, “Can I have a bath tonight and can Lizzie be in the bath tub with me?  Please?!”

It’s been an event-filled week at the Muller household.

March 1: Tommy finds lotion in the bathroom, squirts it all over his hands, and, with too much on his hands, wipes his hands all over his rug.

March 2: Tommy walks around the block with his wagon but can’t seem to stay on the sidewalk, stepping into every muddied snow pile on every lawn along the way.

March 3: Tommy dumps a mug of bath water on his sister’s head while in the bathtub.

March 4: Tommy knocks over the lamp in his room and breaks a mercury-filled CFL light bulb.

March 5: Tommy poops during his quiet rest time, takes off his diaper, and tramps across his rug.

March 6: Tommy stands precariously on a stool at a friend’s house, exploring their Legos, before the entire bin crashes to the floor, spilling every last Lego across the basement.

March 7: Tommy fills the toilet with toilet paper and flushes the toilet three times in succession, standing on his step stool as the bathroom (and, subsequently, the basement) floods.

This might be too graphic for everyone except grandparents and fellow moms, so I’ll start by saying that Derek has uploaded several more videos to youtube.  Check them out!

So today has been defined by poop. It actually started last night, when we had an hour and a half not-pooping-on-the-potty incident that ended with Derek throwing up his hands, putting the potties away, and telling Tommy that if he wanted to be a baby, by gum, he’d be back in diapers for a week to remember how awful it is.

So this morning Derek woke up with a 101.5 fever. So he stayed home and in bed all day. But Tommy was up at the crack of dawn, having wet his sheets but happy as a clam. At breakfast, I tried to get him to sit with his bottom on his chair, but he wanted to kneel because he’d been poopy “for several hours.” Poop #1 was probably a combination of everything he didn’t let out last night as well as a ton more. It took four and a half tries to flush it down the toilet. After lunch, Tommy’s sheets were still in the dryer, so I made him a little nest in the corner and told him to have quiet rest time there. When I let him out an hour and a half later, he was naked. He’d taken off his poopy diaper (and the liner) and had stepped in them, then pranced around his room. Yeah. Derek emerged from the bedroom to give me moral support while I wiped up the poop I could see. He cleaned off Tommy and remarked that it’s a good thing I’m borrowing a special carpet/upholstery cleaner thing from Diane tomorrow to clean up the lotion Tommy spread over his room during Quiet Rest Time last week. Now I can just clean the poop off the rug, too. Then huge poop #3 happened in the bathtub, after dinner. I was drying Lizzie off and getting her lotioned up and into pajamas, when suddenly Tommy appeared in his towel and told me he had to get out of the bathtub because the water was poopy. And was it ever. I am SO glad I’d already gotten the Little One out. I hosed Tommy off again in our shower while my feverish hero emerged once again to clean out the tub. Because that’s what heroes do.

Tommy’s recent obsession is his cheerios playbook.  It’s a board book that you can put cheerios into to complete the pictures.  Here’s what he was up to while I was posting some things for my class this afternoon.  Yep, that’s a whole box of cheerios on the floor.  The first picture was his first attempt to clean up (when I came down), and the second is what he’s doing now.  Elizabeth is in heaven.

So we had the Caris baby shower tonight.  The kids were up at 6 am, and I was on my feet ’til now.  Next time I will hire a babysitter for the day to take them out of the house while I get ready and run last-minute errands.  Lots of tantrums today.  Discipline abounded.  I feel like I walked 10 miles.  My feet and legs are so sore!  And I have to finish prepping for class tomorrow, so I can’t just collapse in bed.  I think the shower went well.  Six girls came.  Jen took pictures, so when I get some from her, I might post a couple.  I just now realized that I forgot again to pray for them as a group.  Oh well.  Hopefully it was worthwhile.  I’m starting to feel burned out, so it’s good that we’ll only be around for one more, and then I’ll be forced to take a break.  Off to read Keats and hopefully fall asleep quickly.

Several friends are having babies this year, and we feel like we’ve gotten a few things figured out with two kids under the belt.  So here is the long-promised (sorry, girls!) list of baby items we recommend…or which we wish we’d known about!  Continue Reading »

Before the Johnsons sent me Home Education  last summer, all I knew about Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy was “living books”–the idea that kids learn things like history better from interesting, well-written literature than from dry, boring textbooks.  I was definitely on board!  But there’s so much more to Charlotte Mason.

First of all, I was stuck by the emphasis on teaching children to observe things.  I tried it out on Tommy, asking him to describe to me what he saw at the park, as we drove to church, in the backyard, etc.  I determined that he’s not good at observing yet and that we need to get out of the big city (as Mason urges) so that he can actually see nature, not just buildings, from time to time!

Finally, a justification for not sending Tommy to preschool–Mason points out that “sometimes the society of his equals is too stimulating for a child.”  “The clash and sparkle of our equals now and then stirs us up to health; but for everyday life, the mixed society of elders, juniors, and equals, which we get in a family, gives at the same time the most repose and the most room for individual development.”

Mason gives a lot of practical suggestions in the second half as to what lessons might look like, and she thinks that definite lessons shouldn’t start until 6 or 7.  I have mixed thoughts on this–on the one hand, I agree that all-day kindergarten and sending kids off to school at 4 or 5 is more for the convenience of working parents than for the good of the child.  But I personally went to kindergarten that early because I knew how to read and was ready to learn more.  I think it really depends on the maturity of the child.  Tommy knows many of his states and capitals, the geography of the US and parts of Africa, three alphabets, and some French vocabulary, just because those happen to be things we do by play (puzzles, music, picture books).  I’m tempted to push him to start reading soon because he does seem like he’ll be ready, but Mason emphasizes that lessons should be short and sweet and not a burden to a restless child.  I was amazed at how short–like 10 minutes of reading at a time!  With this in mind, I’ve definitely scaled back my plans for kindergarten.  (I know, it’s like 2 years down the road…but I can’t help myself from planning!)

I loved reading Mason’s suggestions for how to teach a child to read, especially that  “even for their earliest reading lessons, it is unnecessary to put twaddle into the hands of children.”  Her methodology is actually less phonics-based than I believe in, but it’s fun to think about.  I’ve also been trying to get Tommy to do a bit of narration–telling me stories, telling back to me what happened in his Bible story, etc.  She insists that we shouldn’t allow children to do slip-shod work even at the beginning, as it sets up habits (bad penmanship, etc) that will plague them for life.  I could go on, but this book will certainly be reread many times as we start officially homeschooling down the road.

There are downsides–Mason actually quotes the ridiculous children-come-”trailing-clouds-of-glory” nonsense, and though she seems to admit that children have a sin nature, her theology shows the influence of 19th century liberalism.  Some of her scientific rationales are kindof funny–we’ve learned a lot in biology and physiology in the past 100 years.  But in general, I smirked a lot less than I underlined.

I’m excited about homeschooling, and I’m looking forward to reading more Mason (and Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer, my favorite homeschooling writers) in years to come!

This is what happens when you leave a 3 year old eating his second (!) AB and J sandwich while you put the baby down for a nap.  He just might decide he needs a third.  Yep.