The Saga of Progress

June 2017...

My girls have inspired me. Or life is beginning to settle perhaps, because on more than one occasion recently, I've found myself wanting to write. For a long time, even the thought of writing seemed overwhelming. It takes so much energy navigating through life itself, there never seems to be any energy left to spend time recording it. Maybe it's temporary and won't last, but while all the factors line up, I'll write.

Life here is an oasis. We've been staying home, laying low, avoiding the rest of the world for more than 3 weeks now. From what I read, life is almost incomprehensibly different for many many people. Cooped up in their homes, isolated from the people they used to interact with, working, schooling, living - alone. But not here. We have space to breathe, conveniences and services that make it possible to exist in what seems like a protected bubble. Sir works from home - so there's no difference there, now the all the kids will be learning at home, but I've dabbled in teaching some of them at home before, so it's not something really new. True, I haven't tried teaching 7 students at different levels before, but with teamwork and cooperation, eventually we'll have an established routine that works for us. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm looking forward to it at the moment. Then there's the actual social aspect of all this isolation. I came to the conclusion, that I probably led a rather isolated social life already. I mean, after 2 weeks there were almost NO perceivable differences in my social interactions. And now it seems like I'm connected to even more people because everyone is isolated and interacting remotely. I'm ok with that. In fact, I'm really happy in my chaotic little corner.

Dolly

My little people are growing up. They have been doing that for a long time now, but now some of them are really beginning to look like it. Dolly... well, she's not the pouty-lipped, little blond flibberty-jibbit anymore. She's a conscientious, intelligent and very capable young lady stuck in that awful stage between a child and adult. She willingly, or at least mostly uncomplainingly takes on many of the tasks that always fell to me. Very often, I don't even have to ask, as she finds needs and addresses them of her own accord. Now it seems as if she shares a great deal of my work. I am ever so grateful for her help and it would be better for me to remember to express that more often.

PC (and Pixie)

PC is going to pass me up in height this year... I can sense it. Already, I catch myself getting irritated with him because I think he's squawking at me or rebelling against my decisions or instructions when really he just got excited and his new voice is just trying to catch up to his emotions. But I appreciate his growing strength - it makes life so much easier for me now. Just the other evening, we were doing barnyard chores together. I commented that we'd need to refill the chicken feeder. I was on my way to the barrel to hoist the 45lb feed sack over my shoulder and carry around to the other side of the barn, but he was closer. He didn't wait for me to get there, but pulled the sack out of the barrel and onto his own shoulder clearly not struggling under its weight. As I uselessly followed him to assist with the feeder lid and chicken house door with just a flashlight, I thought to myself, 'I would have done it, but my arm is much more comfortable not having to.' Dislocated elbows seem to take centuries to heal completely.

Emma (and Pixie)

Emma is getting taller too, although I'm not sure if she's still ahead of Butler in stature. She's gradually stepping into a role of being a guide and helper to the younger children. This has taken great willpower, and continues to cost her much in the way of patience. She is very capable of being responsible and reliable, but still works on being cheerfully willing. I can relate or understand her take on many things, but I'm not sure that's always a good thing as sometimes I feel like I'm being too tough on her. However, she never ceases to surprise me and humble me with her ability to sincerely reach out to others. For all her no-nonsense, impatient approach to life in general, she has an incredible skill when it comes to meaningfully and thoughtfully expressing care and kindness.

Butler (and Pixie)

Butler. Definitely not the tiny toddler rolling firewood rounds across the front lawn anymore, but still just as willing to try as ever. He gets himself into more trouble for silliness than any all of the other children combined, but generally it's because he just embraces life with an enthusiastic gusto and willing attitude. Now mind, he's not ALWAYS willing to do tasks, but he is my 'go-to' guy when I need a helper for the more unpleasant or just difficult jobs. I really value and appreciate this trait of his, and I hope he never loses it. He thrives on being outside and is definitely a hands-on kind of person.

Ricka

Ricka is another of my kids that seems to be growing up fast these days. She still loves books (you may remember the baby in a basket with a book pictures I posted (here) years ago, and she still would rather not participate in any activity that remotely resembles 'work', but she does tend to be one of my kids that notices when the littlest is getting fussy or when I'm getting frazzled by the said littlest getting fussy, and faithfully comes to aid by keeping the little one entertained. For this I am very thankful. Yes, it seems like an easy job, or a way to get out of doing other required activities, but I love the fact that she sees the need and addresses it without waiting to be prompted. Ricka likes to sleep, and is probably the hardest child of mine to get moving in the mornings, but she is fairly independent and capable of doing many tasks without constant supervision once she gets going.

Clockwise from top left: Dolly, QB, Butler, Hal, Cricket and PC

Then there's Hal. Toothless Hal currently, as he just handed me his 6th (SIXTH!) tooth just a day or so ago. I think four of them came out in the last 3 or 4 weeks. Hal has never waited for anyone to get to him. He's always one step ahead of me. When he was little, he started to crawl before I even noticed he was getting close. He didn't wait for me to stop procrastinating on potty training him, he just started using the bathroom like all the big kids by himself, and now he's reading like a second grader - and no, we never worked through the alphabet together. He's never waited for me to 'get to him'. He just goes ahead on his own. It's nice, but trust me, that boy has made me cry many times because he keeps growing up without me. If I'm not careful, I'll blink and he'll be moving out already.

QB... He's looking less and less like a toddler all the time. He started Kindergarten this past September, and he seemed too little to be sending off to school, but he's grown up so much in the past 7 months, it's not funny. He's itching to start reading like everyone else, and he practices and practices his little sight words every chance he gets. He is physically almost the same size as Hal, and he delights in being mistaken for his brother or assumed he's 'the other twin'. QB has an extraordinary sense of humor and adventure. He's willing to try strange foods, and he quietly laughs to himself at many of his other siblings' cases of drama. He's fun to watch. I think the most distinct thing about QB is his quietness and perseverance. This is noticeable because he's quiet until he's had too much and then he just explodes. Then he gets upset and embarrassed because he lost his temper.

Cricket... (and Pixie)

It's been so long since I've written anything, I couldn't even remember what I called Cricket here. Cricket is THE BOSS. Or so she thinks (and tries to enforce). She's just a itty bitty thing, but don't let her size fool you. She knows what she wants, and she knows how to get it. She's the one who waves the flyswatter around regally in an older sibling's face (like Emma for instance) and says, "Emma! Say, 'buzzzzzzz'!" Emma obediently buzzes as commanded and - SWAT! Cricket triumphantly walloped her sister with the flyswatter. When I called Cricket out for hitting her sister, she very seriously explained, "I was swatting flies." Aside from trying to control her older siblings, she loves to entertain her baby sister. It's adorable, and they get on quite well, actually. Although, I do have to explain from time to time that some things aren't allowed. Like when I gave Criket a bag of cheetos at lunch time, and got busy getting Sir's lunch collected and delivered to his office. When I got back, and picked up the then fussing baby, I noticed the tell-tale orange powder on the onesie collar. "Cricket, I asked "Did you feed Pixie some of your Cheetos?" "No." she confidently began, "I just gived her a lick."

So ready to crawl

And that brings me to my caboose. Sadly, I have never even mentioned my youngest daughter here before and she's already 7 months old. I will adopt Dolly's blog name for this little treasure, and call her Pixie. She really is an adorable delight that has every single person wrapped around her little fingers. From Daddy playing special music for her on his phone, Cricket 'licking the dirt off' fallen soothers, Dolly documenting all the little milestones in pictures (something I'm very very thankful for), PC scooping her up and walking her around in any direction she leans, Emma and Ricka constantly battling over who 'gets to hold Pixie' because the other girl is 'supposed to be doing something else', Butler playing music CDs for her in the boys room so she can dance and the little boys offering her countless toys the moment she makes a peep. This baby is loved, and she knows it. I was worried for a bit that she'd never learn to sit up on her own, crawl, roll over or pretty much anything else babies are supposed to do because she is always being doted on, but in spite of all the attention, she has managed to cut her own 4 teeth (yes, they are very sharp), sit all by herself until she gets too excited about something and loses her balance because she's bouncing too much, and she's almost crawling. She inchworms forward and crawls backwards much to her frustration right now.

Clockwise from bottom left: Hal, PC, Emma, QB, Dolly, Ricka and Butler

A New Generation

Not that long ago there was this little girl, with blond hair that gradually turned brown as she grew older, whose stories lived here. Then one day I looked, and not only was she a teenager, but she wanted to write her own stories and capture her own memories just like her mama had done once upon a time when there seemed to be more time in the world.

Anyway, when this little girl, who here has been called 'Dolly' asked me if she could start her own blog. I replied, "Sure. Go ahead!". I was surprised by her reaction of pure shock and delight. It was as if she had thought it was some great privilege far beyond her reach and she fully expected to be denied. The truth is, the privilege is mine. Where I don't have the time to capture the little moments in pictures and play with the words to make the pictures come alive anymore, I still get to see these wonderful memories being preserved as see through the eyes of my own little (and not so little) ones.

So, if you come here to see the little things that happen in my wonderful corner of the world, and again find my words to be old and still, be of good cheer! There is another place where the record of these things is being written. Dolly has her own blog that she has called Memories in the Making. Take a peek, and cheer her on. She has the potential to keep you enthralled and entertained.

World Travelers!

Today, and yesterday if you want to be technical, we traveled over 4000 miles at speeds close to 1000 km/hr for nearly 10 hours to reach the other side of the world. It's been a wonderful adventure so far, and worth every second of the insane stress and frenzy that preparing for it caused.

About 3 weeks ago, Sir found out he had to go to London, UK and participate in some special meetings for his work during the first week of February. We started to talk about what he could do while he was in London for work and before I knew it, Cricket and I were going with him! At that point, the only person in our family that had a passport was Sir. So for the last 20 days or so, we've been packing and planning, and doing everything to get us ready to go and we managed to pull it off!

I promised the 7 kids that were going to be staying home with Grandpa and Grandma C. that I'd send them pictures of our trip. These are the pictures from our trip so far. Wednesday, January 31st and Thursday Feb 1st. They are not in order because I uploaded them weirdly, and I can't stay up long enough tonight to fix them. It's already after midnight here in London.

This sign looked like a person wearing moose antlers to me.


The hallway/tunnel down to the subway from the airport.


London chimneys and a sunset - taken from the subway train.


Looking back at the station on the walk to our hotel.


Our hotel room.


From a different angle.


And another angle.


Cricket at Dinner.


Just before going through security in Vancouver, Canada.


A model plane in the Vancouver airport.


Cricket's reaction to a photo book the other kids made for her before we left.


A really BIG fishtank in the Vancouver airport - on our way to our departure gate.


A closer look at the fish.


A giant chess board in the Vancouver airport - still on our way to our departure gate.


Watching the planes while we waited to board in Vancouver.


The Subway train coming into the station at the airport in London.

My favorite picture from this post. Cricket telling her daddy something special as we waited to board our plane in Vancouver.

And now it's half past midnight, so I'm going to bed!

Spur of the Moment, Sunday Evening Photo Shoot

The two year old.



The boy who never smiles for pictures.




Three months old already!



Almost four years old.




Being silly.



Stair-step line-up.



Not quite the pose I was looking for.



This is harder than it looks!




The smiles!!


Real life.


If at first, you don't succeed...


Try, try...


Again! All Eight.

Introducing...

3:03 AM, Thursday, September 1, 2016.

8 lbs 14 oz, 20.25" long.
Mother and baby are both doing well.

"A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple,
of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard
us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended
unto the things which were spoken."
Acts 16:14

Preserving Summer (aka Nesting)

So this is a lot of what's been keeping us busy lately. There were also swimming lessons for almost half the kids and miscellaneous school prep for the older 5. And all but QB got to spend at least one Tuesday with Grandma C at the cousin's house across the border. But now pretty much all the canning I wanted to do is done (we probably should make more applesauce though) and the official due date is tomorrow, so we're down to the waiting for baby game.

What I love most about this picture though is how much time it represents that I was able to spend with various individual children.

Over 100lbs of butternuts (25lbs pictured here) were collected over five days of swimming lessons at the local park. While the kids in lessons were swimming most of the others played on the playground and one or two kids would help me collect shopping bags or feed pails of nuts off the ground at the park. This gave me time with just about all the kids individually. Later when we dried the nuts in the dryer, it was Dolly who spent hours washing out the walnut stain that was left behind each time we dried a batch of nuts. I'm sure she was happy to see the long range forecast with record temperatures and no cloud cover that prompted the nut drying process to be moved outdoors. Without the threat of rain, we spread the butternuts across the driveway and let the sun dry them for us.

This pail of apples came from the two trees we have, and I got to spend time with Hal and QB picking them up off the ground. Well, I carried the pail and they picked up the apples since they are already a lot closer to the ground and can bend over better than I can currently. :) These apples are the best of what we collected and have been reserved for school lunches. We collected other apples and pears from the neighborhood trees and Granny sent bags of windfall apples from her house to us via Grandpa and Grandma C. Butler was my one-on one applesauce maker - we made 6 quarts, but then ate one quart right away because everyone loved the samples from our canning leftovers. QB especially loved the 'app-sauce!' and in spite of his size, he probably got the lion's share of what we put out for dinner. The plan is to make more since we still have buckets of apples sitting outside the front door, but they can wait until after the baby comes.

The 4½qts of hazelnuts were Ricka and Dolly's specialty. They were my 'hazelnut hunters' and we had a lot of fun wandering the property identifying trees together. Ricka still brings me an odd hazelnut that she finds every once in a while.

PC nearly did all the work involved in making the 10 pints of peach salsa and he willingly helped me pit and chop a whole pail of plums that I needed for later. Emma worked with me to make one of the two batches of plum jam including picking the crab apples in the sheep field that we needed for making the jam pectin. We ended up with a total of 5 pints of plum jam and 4 more of plum jam/sauce (those didn't set up quite as nicely as the first batch).

Dolly worked in tandem with me to make the first two batches of peach jam which was a really fun project because she did all of her batch herself after watching me and copying what I did on my batch. She took a few minutes longer to get her batch off the stove, and ended up with a darker jam that set up better than my lighter colored batch. It was a rainbow after the thunderstorm type of thing and I was really thankful for that because she had worked so hard and thought she ruined everything by letting the jam cook longer than it was supposed to. For the other batches of peach jam I had random helpers that came and went, but we ended up with a total of 16 pints and the kids gobbled one up in sandwiches the first few days after we made the first batch.

The five older kids collected the one pail of pears that we let ripen in the living room for a week before I turned most of them into baby food. Any leftover peaches and plums were also turned into baby food and we ended up with a total of 18 half pints of baby food split between the three flavors. It works out to about 36 jars of store-bought baby food. Again, I had random helpers during the baby food batches, but they came and went and helped while there was something that kept them interested in the job at hand. One of my favorite quotes was from one of the older kids, "Don't worry Mommy, when I grow up, I'm going to do canning too!" And it was immediately followed by a sibling's enthusiastic, "Yeah! me too!".

I think it was rewarding to all of the kids when we collected everything we put up during the month to take a picture and they could see all their hard work in collecting and preparing the bit we did all in one place. And it's rewarding to me to see all my children learning and appreciating the value of projects like these while they're still young.

"Go to the ant.... consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest."
Proverbs 6:6-8