BIN there, done that

What would you do/buy if you won the lottery tomorrow?  Travel the world?  Give huge anonymous gifts to all your favorite charities?  Buy a vacation home in the south of France?

Nope, not this big spender.  I'd throw away every single bin and bag of hand-me-downs on all three levels of my house.  My luxurious indulgence would be to never have to sort through another blasted bin of clothes.  When kids outgrew stuff, I'd just give it away; and when they needed bigger clothes I'd just go buy them!  Never again would I be bent over, rummaging through a bin of 12-18 month (or is this one mislabeled and it's mainly 18-24 or 2T?), figuring out if it's full of winter or summer clothes and what's going to fit whom; packing up things that are too small for child A, but never packing them too far away because before long, they will be needed by child B.  But oh, that child was born at a different time of year so I need size 18 month winter clothes and this bin is 18 month summer clothes.  Where is that other bin?  Oh, I know, it must be in the same place as my SANITY.

Anyone have something resembling this in your house??

I know any mom of a medium-to-large family, or one with more than one child of the same sex, knows exactly what I'm talking about because 1. this is undoubtedly the WORST job of parenting, and 2. it's that time of year.  Pack away the summer clothes, scavenge for fall/winter clothes, pack away stuff that's too small, and find clothes in the next size up.  And in case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a little visual of the last time my sister and I went through seasonal clothes for a couple of our girls:

Before and after.  Or as I like to call the first picture, the 7th level of Hell.

And don't even get me started on the coats, hats, mittens, and SHOES.  I need an Advil just thinking about it.

So as I was planning to do "the big switch" last week (and my goal was only to get through the 1 year old and 4 year old, mind you), the anticipatory dread was palpable.  I put it off and put it off, complaining to my husband all the while.  I knew I had a blog post in the making - a platform for my ranting.  As I was stockpiling the ammunition that would fuel my tirade, I started thinking that there had to be a better way to approach this.  It's so much a part of our nature to see the negative in situations.  But I really want to be more positive in my life, and set that example for my children.  So I tried looking at it in a different way and here are the 6 things I learned about the time of year previously known as Hand-Me-Down Hell:

1. We want for nothing.  (Relatively speaking.  Of course I want pretty new things as much as the next person, but we don't need them.)  We are blessed to live a life where my kids could go a week (probably two) and not wear the same thing twice.

2. We have been the beneficiary of some really awesome hand-me-downs from other people.  For a while, I think people assumed that with 5 daughters, we must have an over-abundance of girl clothes.  But what article of clothing, aside from a chainmail or coat of armor, would survive being worn by 5 toddlers??  Nothing ever makes it down to the last one.  Heck, most stuff rarely makes it past #2.  So I am extremely grateful to the legions of people who have given us things over the years.  Aside from the practicality of needing to replace clothes that are worn or stained, honestly it's just nice to have something different.  Our daughters are basically all two years apart.  Do you know what that means?  When a particular item of clothing becomes a favorite, I could pretty much be looking at that same item every other year for 13 years.  So yes, I get really sick of looking at the same clothes.  (First World problems, I know.)  But this brings me to my next, somewhat contradictory point...

3.  Ah, the memories.  There is something special and sentimental about pulling out a special dress that #1 wore on her 2nd birthday, #3 wore for #4's baptism, or #2 wore on the first day of preschool.  Getting to see another baby or toddler wearing something that I loved watching her big sister wear is like getting a second chance to burn it into my memory.  God's video camera, replaying my life.  This is something that even the kids have come to appreciate.  I'll hear comments like, "I remember when Tess wore that shirt!" or, "That used to be my very favorite sweater.  Nana gave it to me for my birthday!" 

4. My kids can learn about consumerism.  There's no denying that we live in an age and in a society where we use something and throw it away, buy something else and use it and throw it away, buy something else and use it and throw it away, and on and on.  Things are even manufactured in a way (planned obsolescence) so that they need replacing at regular intervals.  My children can learn that just because something is older (not bought this calendar year), it's not bad.  It's good to recycle and reuse things whenever we can.  We don't always have to have the latest and greatest because some advertiser says we should have it.  I think there's a certain amount of humility in that as well.

5. My kids can learn about charity.  They learn this, not only from being the beneficiaries of clothes from others, but in seeing what we do with our surplus.  When there are things we don't need or that have been replaced by something newer via a gift or hand-me-down, we don't just throw it away.  It gets bagged up and brought to Good Will.  My kids have known from a very young age that's where we bring their old toys and stuffed animals for kids who don't have any.

6. My sister rocks.  First of all, she is an amazing motivator.  She makes me pick a date to go through clothes and put it on my calendar.  (Yes, Type A here. If it's on the calendar, of course that means I MUST do it.)  Secondly, she actually comes to my house and does it with me.  You heard me.  She willingly puts herself in the line of fire when I'm throwing clothes across the room and swearing about why and how we have accumulated 8 pairs of size 18 month jeans - what toddler needs that many. (I don't even own close to that.)  Granted, a lot of times I'm passing things her way and vice versa.  Between the two of us, there are only 2 boys, but 8 girls in a span of 11 years.  She does often walk out the door after one of our marathon sessions with a few bags or bins of things for her own kids, but I still think she goes way above and beyond the call of duty.  I am always so grateful to have such a great sister, and even more grateful that she lives 2 minutes away.

Of course there are all the other small benefits, too... the sense of accomplishment of completing a monster task, the satisfaction of weeding through my life and cutting out the excess baggage, and the signaling of the transition to fall - my favorite time of year, with windows open, beautiful colors, and crisp fragrant air.   So the next time I hear The Guess Who singing "Don't give me no hand-me-down shoes", I'm going to turn the radio off and smile with my uber positive thoughts.

Clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy

It's no secret that cleaning up with kids is like herding cats.  But that's not my main problem.  The straightening up, the tidying, the putting away toys - I've got that.  For a long time, I've been of the mindset that when a child gets out a particular toy (Legos, Barbies, especially anything with small parts), it gets put away when he or she is done playing with it.  Even the baby toys get put away at least at the end of the day.  Early on in my parenting adventure, I realized that I cannot start the day at a deficit.  What that means is that every night, things have to be back at what I call "par" levels.  No dishes in the sink, toys picked up, clutter put away.  As moms, our days are long enough and busy enough; who wants to start the day with a house that's already a mess?  Fortunately, I have a husband and kids who (although maybe begrudgingly?) are on board with that philosophy and pitch in.  So most nights I can go to bed feeling pretty OK with the fact that someone could pop in for coffee and I wouldn't be mortified.  (Oh how my standards have changed.  I used to want a clean house, now I just don't want to be mortified.  Sigh.)

So I had a grasp on the picking up part, but the actual cleaning part was seriously making me crazy.  Capital "C" crazy.  Kids (and husbands) don't understand that "picked up" is not necessarily CLEAN.  How do they not see a big smudge of peanut butter on the counter that, inevitably, I am going to place some important paper on!?  Why does someone spill the stickiest thing possible on a floor I've just finished mopping 30 seconds before? Or what about those fresh fingerprints and lip prints all over a clean window.  I was getting so frustrated at these stupid little things.  And actually yelling at my kids.  And I would go to bed at night, stressed out about all the stuff I didn't do. 

Do other people beat themselves up because they didn't get to the vacuuming, or because another day went by without the guest bathroom being cleaned or the living room dusted?  Well, I was.  At one point last year (*true confession time*), I even hired someone to come and clean the 4 bathrooms every other week and mop the wood floors, just so I could have the peace of mind knowing at least it was getting done every 2 weeks.  But even that didn't solve the problem because then I would start fretting about something else I didn't get done.  Of course my loving husband was constantly telling me to stop focusing on what I didn't do, and focus on all the things I did do.  But I wouldn't listen and kept beating myself up because my house was never perfect. 

So... given my aforementioned neurosis, you can imagine my apprehension about starting homeschooling - less time to get all the things done I thought I had to do, more things to actually do, and more people at home every day making messes.  But you know what?  I totally needed the reality check.  Yet another example of how, through homeschooling, my kids are actually teaching me.  I realized how much they need me to be present to them, and how much they appreciate me spending time with them and helping them.  And guess what - they couldn't care less if the kitchen floor is (or, rather, isn't) swept after every meal. 

The other thing is that I had been totally underestimating the types of jobs my kids could do.  As soon as I had them take on some of the cleaning jobs I had been doing, I learned two things.  First, they could do it.  Is it done the same as when I do it?  No.  But is it done better than if I fret and fret and never actually get to it?  You bet.  And that is the second thing I learned - that the pressure was off me.  As long as I knew the dusting was getting done (even if it's by a 10 year old boy), it was something I didn't have to think about.  I could think about (and do) other things - like just be with the kids.

I'm genuinely content and truly happy to spend time with my kids, but I'm sad that I didn't realize that sooner.  Thankfully it's never too late to make changes and I guess this old dog can still learn some new tricks.  The other night after dinner and putting the baby to bed, I'm sure there was a load of laundry to start or a bathroom to clean, but I grabbed my book and curled up on the couch with 3 of the girls and their books, and we all read for an hour and a half.  Calling all mothers!!  We are never getting this time back.  Sit down and read.  Don't feel guilty about it.  Just do it, please.

So I think the motto I would like to permanently adopt, instead of the ridiculous "Cleanliness is next to godliness", is "Clean enough to be healthy, but dirty enough to be happy."  I'm not relinquishing the routine of disinfecting those doorknobs every week, but when your 8 year old sweeps the floor and your 6 year old cleans bathrooms, it is what it is.  Last I checked, the Queen of England isn't coming over with her white gloves any time soon.  But these people are here every day - and they just want a mom who does stuff with them, doesn't yell all the time, and isn't obsessed about fingerprints on stuff.


At the library, after a fun concert with face paint and ice cream.

Are you helping each other get to Heaven?

Around here we call it Post-Party Depression.  You know, that lull the day after Christmas, or the day you return to work after your honeymoon, or the "back to reality" after a weekend away with your girlfriends.  Whatever it is, we're not used to experiencing it the second week in September.  But we had the opportunity to go on an extremely inexpensive vacation to the beach (during what's considered off-season, in a house my brother-in-law bartered for doing some work through his tree service company.)  And fortunately my teacher-husband has an extremely understanding principal who let him leave during the second week of school, so off we went for a glorious week at the beach with my sister and family.

As everyone knows, the more glorious the vacation, the harder the return to reality.  This time, our "re-entry" was compounded by two sick kids and a longer-than-expected car trip home.  One transition day of nothing but salty, sandy laundry, then it was back to the grind.

If, as adults, we return to reality kicking and screaming, yearning for that sand still between our toes, I can imagine the kids must feel the same.  Or at least that's my hypothesis.  Otherwise, I have no way to explain the pure treachery that was the beginning of our school week.  We hadn't even cracked a book (in fact, I don't think breakfast dishes were even in the dishwasher) and two people had cried.  I was not one of them at that point, but I was close as well. 

In retrospect, I maybe should have just broken down in tears along with them, rather than performing the tirade that ensued.  I'm sure it was partly sleep deprivation from dealing with a sick baby for 3 nights in a row, but something just snapped. 

The constant bickering, the tattle-tailing, the negativity, the nit-picking, the antagonizing, it was more than I could take.  Don't get me wrong, these things exist on a daily basis in a house with 6 kids ages 1-12, but it pretty much came to a breaking point.  I think it was a strange mix of anger and sadness that these siblings, who are supposed to love each other, were treating each other so terribly.  I said, if you were still in school, would you treat your classmates that way?  What about your friends or teammates?  The answer to both questions was no.  Then why do you do this to each other?  Silence.

Rather than tackling the impossible task of figuring out why this was happening, I dealt with how to address the problem.  Ironically, this led me back to my general philosophy on homeschooling.  When we made the decision to homeschool this year, I got a lot of questions from family and friends like, "Don't they already go to Catholic School?"  Yes, and an excellent one that I would recommend to anyone looking for a school for their children.  So the follow-up question would be, "Then why homeschool?"  The obvious answer was the flexibility of curriculum to fit each child, the ability to go at a faster or slower pace as needed, the flexibility of the schedule, etc.  But it made me really start to think about what was the real driving force behind wanting to do this and really believing in it.  I remembered reading about a woman who said, "I'm homeschooling because I want our family to meet in Heaven someday, and I think we have a better shot at it if we journey together as much as possible."  I think this is where so many parents lose their children along the way.  They let them go on the journey by themselves way too early.  If we were traveling through Europe, would we let our three-year-olds go with a group of other three-year-olds?  What about our four-year-olds?  Seven-year-olds?  Twelve-year-olds?  Not that we should shelter our children from the world, but I have to believe that the home environment is so much more conducive to encouraging kids to excel, both intellectually AND morally, cheered on (and held to higher standards) by their siblings.   Everyone knows that the most well adjusted families and kids are the ones that actually spend time together - even something as simple as families sitting down to dinner together apparently makes such a huge difference.

I tried to point out to the kids that their relationships with each other and their interactions shape who they are.  The world has plenty of smart people.  The world needs nice people.  Kind, compassionate people.  Ethical people.  Holy people.  So as much as I want them to learn math and grammar, my PRIMARY JOB is to try to get them to Heaven.  Which is why I care WAY more about how they treat each other than I do about their Latin declensions (although they still have to learn those too, as I was quick to point out!)  Our primary goal needs to be sanctification.  Whenever we interact with people, whether that be family or strangers or people we pray for, we should be thinking about how to bring them closer to God.  And fortunately, it often works in the reverse.  Those people are helping us grow closer to God as well.

So their main assignment for the week was this: Whenever you feel like snapping at your sister, rolling your eyes at your brother, tattle-tailing on someone, calling someone something cruel, just STOP.  Ask yourself, "Am I helping this person get to Heaven?"  If the answer is no, then react another way.  As simple as that.  And as a parent, instead of screaming at them to stop fighting, scolding them to give back that toy, help your sister if she needs help, etc., etc., etc., I've used one phrase...

"Are you helping each other get to Heaven?"

Schedule, shhmedule

Type A, oldest child, uber planner.  I've been called these things for as long as I can remember and I own those titles!  I'm not ashamed that I'm organized and that I manage details like it's my job. It IS my job.  Not at a Fortune 500 company, but as a mother.  The problem is that I've been ordering my life by these personality traits for 40 years and all of a sudden it's not working.  Rigid schedules plus homeschooling with 6 kids is like shoveling in a blizzard... No matter how hard you work at it (doing exactly what you think you're supposed to do), the natural forces are working against you.  So this week, my kids put on their teacher hats and taught me some valuable lessons about going with the flow.

If we hadn't taken time to swim on Tuesday, this wouldn't have happened:

And if we hadn't stopped everything we were doing during Religion to examine the huge slug leaving a slime trail on the screen of the window in our school room, we would have missed the chance to run outside for a closer look.

I'm trying really hard to banish the phrase "we're behind schedule" from my vocabulary as a homeschooler.  WHO'S SCHEDULE???  It's OURS!  We make it.  So who cares if you only do half the math today and double tomorrow because today you want to spend extra time on a science experiment and it bleeds into "math time".  By the end of the week, month, year, will it really matter?  No.  Because everyone will have learned math regardless.  And hopefully they'll also understand science better, when we take the time to do things like demonstrate circular ocean surface currents with two hair dryers, a dish of water, and some Cheerios.

Don't get me wrong, we still need order and routines or certain things would never get done.  Daily chores are after dinner, weekly chores are on Friday afternoons, everyone gets dressed and makes their beds before breakfast.  But if something comes up after dinner, or on Friday afternoon, I'm trying really hard to let it go and know that change and flexibility are good things. 

(However, if anyone has some suggestions on how to get 8 and 10 year olds to bathe regularly of their own volition, I'm all ears.)

We made it through week one!

Six kids are all still alive at the end of the first week, and not to brag, but I think they actually learned something.  And I have to say, I loved teaching them WAY more than I expected I would.  This seemed to please Pat because when he came home from work he seemed very relieved.  I think the direct quote was, "Well, I knew you'd either love it or be in a drunken stupor."  Um, thanks, honey?

I'm not going to lie.  The first day was terrifying.  I had no idea what to do with the baby while we tried to work, and I was a total fish out of water just doing simple things like starting our school day together around the table.  I tried entirely too hard to schedule blocks of time, like 'first we all do math', 'now we all do science' but it just didn't work.  No one knew what to do or where to start and there was no way I could help everyone at once.  I hadn't taken into consideration that THEY were completely new to this whole thing too!  To describe it as chaos is putting it mildly.  One child was close to tears three different times (and it was not the one I expected it would be!), Bernadette was either hanging on my leg or pulling every book off the bookshelves, and by lunch time I was pretty convinced that there was no way I was ever going to be able to do this, let alone be anywhere close to good at it.  That day I did figure out, however, which kids needed my help and direction the most, and in which subjects.  So that made Day 2 much easier. 

On the second day, instead of dividing up our day by subject, I divided it up by which things people could do independently versus what things required me to do one-on-one.  I set up the pack-and-play in the foyer right outside the school room (yes, that makes such a lovely home decorating statement in the middle of my entryway) and tried to make sure that we all took a turn giving Bernadette some TLC.  It didn't hurt that she took a well-timed nap that morning either.  So we started with Religion all together with a little break-out where Tess (8) and Helen (6) read to each other then each gave me the recap of their own Religion reading while Maggie (12) and Colin (10) did theirs independently.  That was a great time for me to sit on the couch with Vivian (4) and do her reading lesson while having Bernadette (1) on my lap.  It worked.  Vivi was happy after having had some "mommy" time, so she was willing to sit in the pack and play and entertain B while I did science with Colin and Tess.  Helen did handwriting and journaling and Maggie started on the rest of her work, most of which she just works on independently.  The beauty of having homeschooled Maggie last semester as sort of a trial period, is that she is very independent - she looks at her Homeschool Tracker, sees what she has to do, and does it.  She asks for help when she needs it, and we chat about what she's reading, but for the most part she is the least squeaky wheel.  So next we did the "baby juggle".  Tess played with her while I did Math with Helen, then Helen played with her while I did Math with Tess.  Colin and Maggie can do Math on their own, so we can all get that done early in the day while everyone's fresh.  Naptime for B freed me up to really bounce from kid to kid, getting them started on various things - history, language arts, etc. - and actually sit down and teach Latin to the older kids.

The rest of the week we just sort of went with the same flexible schedule of taking turns keeping B happy and moving from subject to subject as the flow allowed.  But I have to say my favorite part of the day was the afternoon quiet reading.  After lunch, I let everyone just play until about 2:00 (one day I actually took them all to the pool for an hour and a half).  Then when B took her afternoon nap, we all just sprawled out on the couches and chairs in the living room and sunroom and everyone read from 2:00 - 3:00.  Peace and quiet and kids reading.  It doesn't get any more beautiful than that. 

As I looked around at my serene environment that afternoon, I thought about what my life USED to be like at 3:30 in the afternoon... baby waking up from a nap, cranky toddler, and 4 school kids bounding in the door from school dropping their backpacks and shoes all over the entryway and kitchen, waving papers that I needed to read or sign "RIGHT NOW, MOM!", foraging for snacks because they were STARVING but none of them wanted the same thing, so out came the pretzels and the yogurt and the cheese sticks and the bananas and...... and then, and THEN the homework.  Everyone needed help all at once and the next two hours was spent wiping tears (not just mine) and trying to explain some concept I knew nothing about, while bouncing a baby on my hip AND trying to make dinner.  Is it any wonder moms need happy hour on a Monday?  And a Tuesday and a Wednesday and a Thursday? 

This week of school was the first time that I didn't dread the dinner hour and what we affectionately refer to around here as the "witching hour" before bed.  I wasn't stressed out and exhausted and being pulled in a million directions, even though I'd been alone with all six kids all day!!  It's the craziest thing.  The kids weren't cranky either, or exhausted from spending 8 hours in school and 2 hours on homework.  So they happily helped set the table and make dinner, play with the baby, and do their after-dinner chores with still plenty of time to spare before bed to do whatever they wanted.

Now, I know what you're thinking (especially all you veteran homeschoolers out there) - Listen, lady, you've done this for all of 5 days.  It ain't all butterflies and rainbows.  I get it.  But honestly, even on what I thought was an epic fail (Day 1), one of my kids thanked me for taking time to teach them.  To teach them.  Not give them ice cream or buy them a new video game.  To teach them.  I almost cried.  And yesterday Tess told me it was the best day even though we spent most of the afternoon cleaning the basement playroom. 

Well, in all fairness, the ice cream reward after hours spent cleaning the dungeon may have had something to do with that.

On to Week 2..............

Fondant to Phonics

One of the scariest things I've ever done was to start my own baking company.  I didn't go to culinary school; I didn't go to business school.  But my husband asked me,  "Don't you love to bake?  Isn't it also a great creative outlet for you?  Isn't there a big demand for this type of thing in our community, that would sustain your business?"  So I took the plunge and I never could have imagined the success I've been blessed to achieve.  And it allowed me to be home with my babies, which was what I wanted all along underneath it all.

But when my husband and I started talking about the idea of homeschooling our 6 kids, I was terrified.  "I'm not a teacher; my degree isn't even in Education," I insisted.  To which Mr. Smarty Pants replied, "You love spending time with the kids, right?  You know what they're each passionate about, where they excel, and where they struggle, right?  You know that you can teach them twice as much in half the time, right?"  Right.  Right.  Right.  And right.  I hate it when he's THAT right.

In both cases, it was something I had always wanted to do, but was too afraid.  I needed someone to push me out of my comfort zone and tell me I could do it.

So this is me taking the plunge and counting on God's grace to lead me.   He loaned me these 6 amazing kids to raise, so presumably He thinks I am equipped for the job.   Hopefully when people read this blog, see our struggles and successes, they'll have the confidence to dive in too.  Here's to trading fondant for phonics, ganache for geography, and pie for pi.   For the good of my baker's half-dozen of kids...