The End of 2020...Recap

 January...was a blur. We had a really bad cold and that was pretty much all I remember about that month. AJ and PJ both got their ears pierced at the end of the month. And Hubby and I talked a lot about a potential move. We announced to the kids on Pip's birthday (she turned 8) that we were planning a move to Florida. I feel a bit badly that it ended up being some thing we told them on her Birthday, it just kind of happened that way.

February...We headed down to Florida for two weeks. We enjoyed time with family and we headed out to the center of the state to scope out areas we might be interested in living. We came home the end of the month feeling fairly certain we knew exactly where we were heading when we moved.

March...The first week we were still recovering from our trip and I spent the end of February and the beginning of March trying to slowly fill the freezer we bought when we got home and prepare the house for whatever weirdness we felt coming down the pike. No, I didn't hoard toilet paper, I kind of wish I had it was touch and go there for several weeks on the TP Front. Our state locked down hard on March 13th and everything stopped for 2 weeks. It felt like the beginning of the end. I know that sounds dramatic but I could see the writing on the wall even the, our way of live was ending. :( We felt strongly to keep moving towards moving.

April...Still locked down but I began to go room by room and pack and clean things out. We began to meet up with friends at each others houses just to feel some normalcy.

May...Same story but even better weather more packing...Jeffy turned 2.

June...Real estate opened and we put our house on the market, sold it by the 14th and had a closing date for the middle of July. More packing and preparing and the goodbyes began. 

July...Packed the house up...packed the kids up...packed our life up and moved down to Florida. It was probably the busiest month I've ever experienced. Florida was getting slammed in the media for our COVID case count and everyone was on edge here. But the state was open. It felt like a breath of fresh air, even though people here were on edge it was nothing like it had been in PA.

August...AJ turned 11 and my Mom visited for a week. We had a great visit. We spent most of our weekends driving around land hunting. We found our property and put in an offer in.

September... Isaac turned 5... Lots of paperwork for buying the land...lots of stress...

October...A very hot month...spent a lot of time playing with water and waiting for the cool off. A lot of waiting in general...

November...We closed on our house and land...yay! Mom came to visit for Thanksgiving.

December...getting ready for Christmas, a fun month, met some other homeschoolers...They cleared our lot for the house...RJ turned 13. 

It's been a good year all things considered.

Self-Care in 2020

I was reflecting on the wall I hit Saturday night. I didn't mention this in my last post but after the boys had me up for hours from midnight to 2 a.m. and we finally all got settled and into a good deep sleep there was an unearthly shattering sound at 4a.m. and this is the scene that greeted us...

The giant mirror in the kids' bathroom came off the wall and shattered everywhere. I could draw a lot of parallels to this mirror situations. The fact that the builders didn't secure the mirror to the wall with screws and clips, they just slapped some heavy duty glue up there and called it good. We could draw that out to how that's a lot like Parenthood. If we don't have some things that we do that bolt us and secure us we're going to end up like that mirror.

I wouldn't have said that "Mom Guilt" is something that I have struggled with often. Yesterday writing everything out, it was kind of eye opening how much of that burden I have been carrying lately. I think some of it is due to Hubby's work schedule and stress levels. He doesn't have any extra anything to give and so any time I take from the kids is 95% of the time them just fending for themselves. So sitting alone = guilt. Grocery shopping alone= guilt. Grabbing an extra hour of sleep after a horrible night with the boys= guilt. I've been the primary parent for months and the kids have been getting the short end of the stick. Hubs sees this, he's well aware and struggling with his own guilt.  We can't change the work schedule right now, it is what it is (that's pretty much the phrase of 2020) but it doesn't change the fact that I feel this sense of deep exhaustion tinged with guilt any time I try to catch a break.

But that's not working for me. I need to have something to secure me and keep me strong and in place.

So what do I do?

One thing I need to do is drop the guilt. It's not serving me. 

I went out on the porch for a bit this morning and I stopped the "shoulds" and sat out there and enjoyed myself. I browsed social media and drank my coffee in peace.

Yesterday I ran errands and while that's not exactly recharging (I hate Walmart) I did grab some stuff for my plant babies and they're much happier now.

I think the thing that I really need to do is compartmentalize and be intentional. Yes, I am taking time for myself right now. Yes the littlest does not like being locked away from me or having me leave him but it's just for a little while, he'll be okay. 

This hour I am working on school with the kids and then I'm going to go rest by myself for a little while. For an hour I am going to work on chores and then I'm going to do something fun with the kids, after that I am going to sit and knit and watch a show for 30 minutes. I need to be more intentional about the time I take for myself and not feeling bad about it. 

Today I am going to...

•  Go through the kids school books and get their schedules written for the week. 
• Get Joy2's math pages printed and organized
• Call the dryer repairman and ask him what my options are for our broken dryer (oh yeah on top of the bad sleep and shattered mirror the dryer broke this weekend!)
•  Wash a few loads and dry them outside (yay for a working washing machine!)

 

Finding the Balance Between Self-Care and Self-Improvement

The 5 year old has been struggling this year with sleep, especially since the Lockdowns started in March. He's a really sensitive guy and he's the perfect little barometer for the atmosphere and stress levels in our home. When we are stressed his sleep goes out the window and he wakes up anxious at night. Between the instability, our private worries about food and money in those early weeks of Lockdown. The work of preparing our house to sell, the insanity of selling our home and moving our family of seven 1,000+ miles, the weeks of getting settled and hunting for land, finding a house to put on the land. Mixed into the midst of that the insane hours Hubby has been working, adjusting to a whole new place, trying to homeschool and function. His sleep issues are expected I suppose. 

Friday night he had me up for hours because he was anxious. I was so patient, I rubbed his head and prayed for him and we muddled through the night. Usually when he has a bad night the next night was better but to my bitter surprise this was not the case and the disappointment and sleep deprivation triggered me. I got angry. I'm right there with him! He sleeps with his head shoved into my all night every night. I have my hand on his body! I can't do any thing more and I WANT SLEEEEEP!!!!!! 

He woke me up again when I was in deep in my first hour of amazing restorative sleep and my sleep deprived brain snapped. I was mean, I threw a hissy fit on the bed  pounding my fists and yelling, I kicked him out of the room and told him to go sleep somewhere else, I didn't care where. Not proud of myself at all. Daddy got him settled and I've made things right but it was eye opening to the level of burn out I am experiencing. 

I laid in bed seething and then feeling deep remorse and guilt for being such a shrew to my sweet and anxious little boy. I started reflecting and berating myself (so helpful) for being so burnt out. I mean I take time for myself! I go grocery shopping once a week! 

And I feel guilty for going alone, going on a weekday (because the stores are less crazy) while Hubby is trying to work. I feel guilty for taking so long when he's juggling the kids.

I workout every day! I take at least 30 minutes for myself every single day to stretch and twist my spine and push my lymphatic system.

I take time to have some Bible time almost every day. I sit out on the front stoop or in my rocking chair in the quiet bedroom for at least 30 minutes and do my daily reading and write and reflect. I mean the kids interrupt me every 5 minutes or so to ask a question or tell me some small person needs their bum wiped or because some one is howling...But I carve out that time!

I was laying there last night ticking all those things off and I was reminded of the book The Introverted Mom by Jamie C. Martin and her profound point that there is a difference between self-care and self-improvement. 

Self-care is doing things that truly recharge you and fill you up. Self-improvement is great and it can make you feel like you're accomplishing things but it is NOT self-care. And when any self-care that you access is constantly intrupted? No bueno. 

 Adding to that, if you're flooding any semblance of self-care with guilt...or feeling guilty meeting basic needs of your family in a way that keeps you sane? So unhelpful! And Exercise is self-improvement. It does make me feel better and is partially self-care but it's not fun, it's not like, "Yes this just filled my tank!!" It definitely falls under, "I did this so my body won't fall apart from stress and I won't slip into depression, go me!" It make me feel physically good afterwards but at it's base: it is self-improvement.

 So where does that leave me? How the heck do I do self-care? In the past self-care was going to Hobby Lobby and wandering around thinking about crafts I'd like to do. It was going to the park and wandering alone for a few hours. 

 But in our old state there was a mask mandate and walking through the masked masses depresses me beyond anything. Add to it that wearing a mask means that I end up with an awful pounding headache after wearing a mask for more than a few minutes. And we don't live near any of the small parks I felt safe wandering alone, all the parks here are trail heads that are very secluded. I miss my old places. So mix in a pile of grief and homesickness to my old self-care habits.  

So how can I do this? How do I recharge during this stressful season? 

I haven't come up with any answers but I'm going to reflect on it today. I'm going to go out alone and buy a pedestal fan to blow on me at night because part of my meltdown last night was also triggered by being physically incredibly uncomfortable. I woke up soaked in sweat because the central air to our bedroom is horrific when the bedroom door is close...but Hubby stays up lat into the night and we have to keep the door closed because he needs the lights.

More tomorrow...I need to go make muffins for the kids, they're hungry again.

Big Changes 2020...Hunt for Home!

 You can read Part 1 and Part 2 of our Big Changes 2020 posts in those links!

It's really strange moving to an entirely different area. It was fun driving into our development...Suburb? I think they call it a "Deed Restricted Community" but it takes 30 minutes to drive across whatever this thing is, neighborhoods are different down here! I remember thinking, "This will all be familiar to me in a few weeks but right now I have no idea where I am or how to get anywhere, how strange!"

You have to use navigation to find your way to the grocery store. You don't know how roads connect or if there's a shorter route. You have no idea what direction your headed in relation to the nearest city or what the name of the highways are. Thanks to my hours and hours scouring Zillow and Trulia for a rental and housing options had gotten me fairly familiar with the different areas of the county. The search was on again for a place to settle. I don't want to give too much information about where we've landed on here but I will say it was just the general feel of the area that got us here. All of Ryan's family is in the Orlando area of Florida, we have some friends in Central Florida and I have some family in the Tampa area but none of those areas appealed. We came to this area and we just knew it was home. It's hilly (for Florida) there are pine forests everywhere and it's just gorgeous, it was very different from our palm tree, scrubby and flat Florida experiences of the past, it felt like home. The counties down here are quite big, it can take over an hour to drive across them and while we knew we wanted to be in this county, we didn't know where. 

 

Our dream list was at least 2 acres of land but Ryan really wanted trails to wander so upwards of 9 would be preferred. We were really hoping for water access (knowing that we could get water for the Berkey water filter something was wrong with the well was of interest). We wanted to be near the forest but have some open area for any animals we kept. We needed to have at least 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and the property couldn't be too far down a dirt road (we have a minivan and a small car and no desire to upgrade). That's a tall list. 

Once we were settled we started driving around to places listed that might work, most were miles down dirt roads! Some were obvious flood risks, others were too far from any family (we really wanted to be within  2 hours of Ryan's folks). I had come across this listing so many times since February. It's nestled in a vast forest near several large lakes but the top view shown on the listing was this bizarre property line.

3 acres with access to a 14 acre lake...but look at the odd shape!

 

I couldn't make heads or tails of the strange lot and it just didn't seem like it would work, it was only 3 acres and it says that it has an electrical easement on the border of the property, if there are giant power lines, no thanks!

But we drove out to see it. We walked the property lines and thought, this is odd. But the more we walked it the more we loved it. The power lines are very small (just a line and a telephone line) and the property is surrounded by national forest and the power just runs to the few properties near by, really the easement is only on a very small corner part of the property. It is on a dirt road but the driveway is only .2 miles down the road.

We went back to visit again the next day. We liked it even more! It has an area down by the lake, an open area for animals to graze, a foresty area and a HUGE (hundreds of acres) of pine forest across the dirt road. As we were leaving a little 2 door coup came puttering down the dirt road! The neighbor down the way (a retired couple) said that they've lived there for years and have had no problems with the road...a neighbor further back has a tractor and he levels and rakes the road every few months to keep it nice and smooth. 

We went back the next day with Ryan's parents and had them take a look. The neighbor (with the pool you can see pictured, they are actually the sellers) was outside and we chatted with her. They are retired and had 5 kids (she loved seeing that we had 5 kids too), the property has been in his family for over 50 years and our lot was the original site of the cabin (which burnt down some years ago) that his family kept there for when this was their hunting and fishing land. They were originally from up north and would come down for family trips when he as growing up. The little lake is spring fed, has small gators that usually stay to the other side of the lake, it has bass and cat fish and they enjoy taking a row boat out and fishing in all their years they've never had a problem with alligators or snakes.

The property is situated out in what looks like the middle of nowhere but it's 5 minutes from a little shopping center and only 25 minutes from downtown! And it's only an hour from the beach and an hour from Ryan's family! His parents were extremely impressed with the entire property.

We put in an offer the next day. 

The public forest bordering the property goes on for a few miles and ends in a series of large lakes

 

The little lake next to the property, it's lower in these pictures though we've gotten quite a bit of rain since then.

More forest

More lake views

Our offer was accepted and after 2 months of hoops and paperwork we sign closing papers next week!

Now for the house! We looked into so many housing options for this property, we priced out what we could afford, what we were willing to invest and what would actually work for our family. We are a one income family, we work and school from home. We looked into stick built homes and were unhappy with our options. The companies were not well reviewed and had issues with BBB. We looked into modular homes while they were better reviewed and we trusted the building process more, the savings was only a few thousand dollars and we simply could not get the amount of house we needed. We found a manufactured housing company that we researched thoroughly (rave reviews online and from every company we've talked to that works with them, no listings with BBB)and we decided that it was our best option.
There's a stigma with "living in a trailer" b the more we researched the more we realized that manufactured housing ahs come a long way in the last few decades. The model we found and the company that builds it seems amazing. You'd never know it wasn't stick built. We've decided to upgrade  the roof to reflective aluminum, raise the ceiling height 2 feet and upgraded the insulation to the highest density possible. We'll eventually add some really nice permanent brick skirting for the house. It's a 5 bedroom 3 bath house with two living spaces and enough space for us to continue to grow (not planning on more kids but I mean physically, these kids take up space!). It's not exactly what we planned but it seems like the most solid investment. We really don't want (nor can we afford) a half a million dollar mortgage. Our main focus is having a house that fits us and that we can start a little mini farm moving forward, come what may. We hope to put a great big deep front porch on the front of the ranch style home and focus on making it a welcoming place to visit. We'll have a guest bedroom/home office and an extra bathroom to accommodate visitors. We're really excited!

The Future!

I hope to kind of sit down and plan things out a little. I hope to create a food forest, we want to get chickens and maybe ducks and goats. Lots more blogging as a I learn and figure all that out over the next few months!

It's definitely going to be very different from the city life we enjoyed before...To the forest and life by a Florida lake (gators, snakes and all) to new adventures!

What our old walks looked like.

Big Changes Part 2...Getting Settled

 You can read Part 1 of Big Changes here I didn't go into how exactly we chose the area of Florida that we did. I don't want to give too many details about our location publicly. I will go into it a bit more in part 3.

Closing on our home was set for a month from when we went under contract. In those short weeks we packed, we did inspections and repairs and said goodbye to people and places we love so much.  It was a hard month.

Ryan and I played here as children and this has been a special place to visit

A favorite park

On July 11th we worked from morning to night packing up the truck, Ryan's Dad left with the truck that night I could go into all the little miracles and headaches of those last few days. How the reservation we made for the big 26ft truck was somehow canceled. Well no, the reservation wasn't cancelled it was still there but it didn't matter the truck we had reserved was gone. Ryan and his Dad had to drive 3 hours early Saturday morning to get a truck in the state next door. There were blessings too, our church is mostly elderly folks who couldn't help us with our move. Our old church where we were married has a moving ministry and since we're still connected through Ryan's family several people came helped us pack up our truck.

We slept on sleeping bags in our empty house that night and woke up and cleaned the house all day on the 12th, finishing up last minute projects. That evening we said goodbye to our house of many years for the last time. We made a video walking through all the rooms and saying goodbye. After all that work we were beat but we were also desperate to get this transition over for the kids. Little ones do not love seeing their house empty, the kids needed this whole thing to be done. So that evening once all the cleaning and goodbyes were complete, we packed the kids into the van and drove all night long to the rental house in Florida. The trip went so well! I mean it was really difficult, Ryan and I were beyond exhausted from all the work but we took turns driving and napping and the kids got naps as they could. The littlest one didn't love sleeping in his car seat but got a pretty decent nights rest as long as I sat next to him and held his hand (Thank the Lord we have an 8 passenger van and I could fit in the back with the kids as needed!). 

After 18 hours of driving we arrived at the rental house at nearly 3pm. Our truck and Ryan's Dad was waiting for us there! I won't go too much into the drama of our arrival....Actually I will, it was difficult. We discovered that the property management company we had so carefully chosen (highly reviewed and well established) had profoundly dropped the ball. It seems the person managing our property had been doing a crappy job and was fired. In the week before the move we knew that our point person had changed but what we hadn't realized is that the company hadn't actually made sure that our property was ready for us! The house was disgusting. The carpets hadn't been cleaned, there was water damage in an area of the house. There was damaged walls and electrical outlets weren't working, the garage door was broken. The bathrooms were atrocious and both toilets were broken!!! It was so bad. After packing a truck all day on Saturday, scrubbing and cleaning all day Sunday and driving through the night (with 5 kids!!!) all night Sunday and into the afternoon Monday: I was shattered.

We had to get settled though the kids needed us to get things as normal as quickly as possible. I ran down to the grocery store (truth be told it was a 3 trip process, thankfully we have a Winn Dixie 5 minutes away!) to grab heavy duty cleaning supplies and I spent 3 hours scrubbing the black ringed, hair crusted tubs (I am not kidding it was so very wrong, I still feel horrified and angry when I think about it) and dirty broken toilets (thankfully one was usable but you had to stick your hand deep in the tank, lovely!) and sinks. I scrubbed and hung the shower curtains. I scrubbed the hard water calcified broken kitchen sink, I did everything I could to make the best of a bad situation. The next day Ryan's brother came out to help us unpack the truck an take Ryan's Dad back to where they lived (about an hour and a half away). Ryan's Dad is very handy and he was able to get the garage door patched up enough to use until the PM company could send a repairman. I had packed for this move as carefully and thoughtfully as I could and I had the kitchen  and living room unpacked and "normal" by the end of Tuesday. Ryan's Dad had all the kids beds built and set up (Seriously, God bless that man) and their rooms were "normal" and ready for them. We were completely settled and had a usable house before his Dad left Tuesday! Miracles, so many miracles happened that weekend, it was unreal.

Moving is hard, making it feel like home as quickly as possible!

By the end of the first week I had all the boxes out of the rooms and every thing as settled as they were going to get in this transitional housing. The house is what it is, it's too small for us and it's cramped but we've mad the best of it. As frustrating as the disgusting greeting was and the damage we discovered (not as picture or shown in the zoom walk through!), I'm thankful. We plan to move out before our lease is up and we have pictures of everything that greeted us. The company still hasn't repaired some things that we've told them about, we have good leverage to break our lease early without penalty.  And that's what we plan to do because we found a new home! More on our Hunt for Home in Part 3!

Before I close I do want to say that even though some things went sideways, the overall feelings I have when I think of our move is awe and peace. There was so much peace even in the exhaustion and frustrations. The memory of our drive down here is so sweet to me, covered in a fog of exhaustion but still so sweet it was a really special trip and driving through the night made the first 14 hours FLY. The  last 4 were rough but still the kids did absolutely amazing. We have some seriously amazing people in our family (including our incredible children) and we had some seriously wonderful prayer warriors covering us on that journey. It was a good time even if it was hard. 

The Hunt for Home coming soon!

Big Changes 2020 Part 1

 It always cracks me up how badly I am at blogging. I'm not trying to cultivate a following so I'm not going to feel badly about my inconsistency. Life is busy and blogging as it is now known has become such a vapid and shallow thing the last few years. I truly don't have the skills or the desire to invest in what it requires, it's all about social media engagement and 99% of the interactions take place on Instagram. I enjoy scrolling through pretty pictures as much as the next person but at this point, I don't have the time or the energy. I just want to write.

Which brings me to now..Sort of...

This year has been insane for pretty much everyone, it's held true for us too: 2020 has meant some wild changes. But let me back up, Spring of 2019 we began seriously talking about a potential 1,000+ mile move. I felt so torn, I didn't want to leave my Mom (who lived next door), we had really close friends and I hated the thought of leaving them. But we were feeling stuck and also nudged and all sorts of unsettled so we began to seriously pray about our next step. 

If we go even further back to a few years ago we had a seed of an idea for a church plant laid on our hearts. We felt clearly that God wasn't calling us to plan it where we were. We began to ask where we were supposed to go and God kept nudging us to Florida. Florida was our "Never Will I Ever" state, years ago we joked about how much that was not happening. Face Palm. At the time I didn't like heat, I would miss Autumn and Winter too much and FLORIDA??? Blegh! It is a swampy, shrubby, flat place full of alligators, fire ants, giant spiders, flying roaches, poisonous snakes...And hot and muggy all the time, why would we go there??

And yet every door and window pointed to Florida. The Summer of 2019 brought the realization that we were moving there eventually, we knew that is where we were headed. The Autumn of 2019 brought the realization that a move that big was just impossible. How could we do it? How could we possible get the house ready to sell? How could we afford moving 7 people that far? We made a list for the house and started checking things off (it  was a long list). We took the move off the table though, it wasn't happening for at least 2 years.

January of 2020 we still felt a very direct and pressing direction from God to not get comfortable, to start moving towards this change. We told the kids that we were planning to move to Florida sometime in the next year. In February we went down to Florida for a work trip. We took 3 or 4 days at the end of the trip to scout out potential areas to live. The kids were excited, we've spent a lot of time down here over the years and they've always loved visiting. They love the big skies, the beautiful lakes, beaches and family time. That is a draw to being down here, we have just as much family (even more if you're doing math) down here than anywhere else.

February 2020 a Florida Beach Day

Then March 2020 

The day before our state locked down my Mom and I ran out to a little country store to stock up on baking supplies. I was looking at the lovely array of spices when my Mom said "Why Hello!"     

       It was the realtor friend she had recommended to us a few months before. She introduced us and I was able to talk to him about our hope to sell our house "If and when this all settles down."

The next day our world locked down, "Shelter in Place" was declared in our state. We questioned everything through those weeks, would we still be able to move? Would life ever be the same? The oppressive nature of the lockdowns in our area had us feeling very unsettled and extremely stuck. Every thing was closed and when would it open again? I couldn't really clean things out and take things to donation centers but I felt clearly to start organizing and packing, "Start here and keep moving forward!" 

So I started packing and packing....and packing.

Over the 2 months of lockdown we packed and cleaned, patched, painted, repaired and filled up the garage with junk. In early June I called a junk hauler to come take all the crap away. He happened to be a realtor and walked through our home and gave us an estimate. He also said that real estate was opening the next day and we could have this place on the market in a week if we wanted. The next day? It was opening? YES! But we didn't feel a peace about using this guy, I felt clearly we should call my Mom's friend. I contacted the realtor I met in March and asked him to come see the house ASAP. We had the house on the market within 2 weeks. Within 3 days we had had 26 showings and 15 offers, by the end of the 4th day we were under contract. BOOM. We were doing it, we were really moving to Florida!
`Part 2 Coming Soon...Florida!

Setting Goals

I want to make some changes. We've been drifting and surviving with the last 40+ days of "shelter in place" happening in our region. We're tired and drained and Hubby and I are trying not to stress, trying to just take life a day at a time.

But there are three small changes I want to make to how we function, three little intentional changes and I want to get back into some sort of school routine.

First change: I want my dining room table back!

Can you see that mess on the dining room table in the background?


I am going to remove the book shelf in the picture and I'm getting the three kids (who use their computers at the dining room table) individual desks. Two desks will be where that long desk is in the picture (it's a virtual image, I was trying on all sorts of desks on the amazon shopping app!) and one will be in the corner across the room.

I am really hoping giving each child an area to store their school stuff will help  and it will keep my dining room table clear for family meals. I plan on using these baskets (well bought locally)
on the shelf for each of them to store their school books and binder in so that it's all together in one place. They won't arrive for at least 2 weeks so that kind of stinks, but once they do I'm excited to get my dining room back!!!

Second Change
Everyone has an assigned seat at the table and everyone eats at the dining room table, no exceptions. We've gotten super lazy with this because the dining room table is almost always covered in computers and school stuff.  I want us to sit down and eat together and I want it to take less effort to happen.

Third Change: Daily Themes
I did this years ago and it was fantastic and I'm not sure why I stopped...Probably Joy4's arrival...a lot of things stopped when he arrived.

I need to think carefully about daily themes and keeping it workable given current events (like we can't have a Library day right now...but maybe some thing else). I think I will write another post on this subject another time. Right now a little 4 yo is asleep next to me and I need to go get the 1 year old to go to sleep too....More later!

Does Anyone Really Blog Anymore? Update

I doubt it but I need it. This school year has been kind of a bust. We dove in with The Good and the Beautiful and my 6th grade has done fantastic with it, she's finished up an entire level and almost 2 levels in math. No small feat given that we've had a 1 year old tornado in the house and a preschooler who's ability to comply to basic "be quiet" boundaries has felt nearly impossible. He is a chatterbox and also really really wants connection but doesn't seem to understand "in a little bit" yet.

A lot of our days last fall looked like this...

I found that TGATB was just way too intense for my 4/5th grader (Joy2) and 2/3rd grader(Joy3). They enjoyed it but it seriously took 45-90 minutes with each of them to complete their language arts assignments, which means I was spending 2-3 hours a day locked away in a quiet area trying to work through it with them. It was just way too much one-on-one time required for multiple students across so many levels.

And this baby isn't a napper...I get 45 minutes out of him most days if that. It has felt nearly impossible at times.

And this guy! He's learning and growing all the time it's been fun to set aside a little bits of school time with him but again that was an hour of the day generally. I was burning out.

Though we sure had fun!

He's a big fan of little engineering books at the library.

Then it was Christmas and we took off quite a bit of December to enjoy the Holidays...we did some crafties...we had cozy days with Christmas movies...I also just generally really struggled last December. I am really tired of sleep loss of teething little ones. It's been absolutely awful and December was especially rough on sleep and looming deadlines for Hubby's work. 

And then it was January...We buckled down for a few weeks, taking advantage of the freezing temps and not much else to do...

And just when we were really in the swing of things it was time for a 2 week trip to Florida...

 

Ten COVID-19 hit soon after we got home and we've been "sheltering in place" ever since...Well sort of...

We've spent lots and lots of time outside...

We also raised and released some butterflies..

 

I didn't get any picture of our releasing them. I've been struggling with sleep since COVID-19 broke, between teething baby, and a preschooler whose been dealing with some major anxiety....keeping everyone fed and well it's been a lot.
That said, having written it all down, I didn't accomplish the curriculum goals I had in my head last September. I thought I would be able to do more with Joy2 and Joy3, I didn't get to read books out loud as much as I wanted, things felt really chaotic with the little ones into stuff all the time, a lot of weeks it's felt like a constant battle just to keep things from looking like a bomb went off in our living room and kitchen....but it's been a pretty decent school year. The oldest made some serious progress and I'm starting to set more goals and looking down the line that we only have two years until high school!

There is so much uncertainty ahead of us and I've been very much in survival mode the last 6 weeks. I'm ready to make some changes, that coming up in my next post...

Homeschool Joys...

I want to blog more, Sunny is 16 months old and the last 18 months since my last post have been...overwhelming. Everyone always said, "If you can have 3 kids you can have 10! It's just an extra plate." That seemed to hold true for 4 kids. I'm finding 5 kids to be a whole 'nother ball of wax and it's left me feeling a bit blindsided. Some of it is the ages and personalities of my kids...Actually that's a lot of it. We're smack dab in the Middle School transition and it's been a bit of a shock. Personalities that were mostly low key are doling out a lot of hormonal angst. Personalities that were never low key are hinting at the ride ahead and we're...trying to be intentional. Trying to keep learning the same lessons we've been trying to learn for the last decade. I'm so very tired.

He's a super sweet and happy bub though!

 I wanted to start blogging about our days...Homeschooling and how delight directed homeschooling melds and bends a bit in the middle school years. I don't want to teach my kids out of fear. I don't want to have some arbitrary list of things that they "just have to know because I say so."
I want them to really absorb what they're learning and have see the depth and practicality and life applications. This leaves me at odds in this funny in between place of not really being a traditional Homeschooler, not really being an official Unschooler, not really being fully "self-directed" or "delight driven" either. I want my kids to know the importance of pushing themselves to grasp hard things. That not everything in life feels good or is convenient. I feel like they are learning these lessons, being part of a larger family we ask them to contribute to the household in meaningful ways.

Requiring daily lessons doesn't have to mean fights and tears and lines drawn in the sand. Using a curriculum *can* be delight driven. Using different resources and requiring daily intention and progress doesn't automatically shut down all joy and "true learning".

I want to share how this works in our home. Joy in living life at home with Mishmash Homeschooling.

Sunny

Sweet Baby5, lovingly dubbed "Sunny" as it is a play on his actual name. His name has a part of sunshine in it, though it has a completely different meaning. How is that for a riddle?

9 years ago, if you would have told me that I would have 5 kids I would have panicked. I really don't enjoy being pregnant. I feel so introverted the more pregnant I get, I just want to curl up into myself and be left with my thoughts. Like the more baby crowds me, the less I want anything to do with the world's noise. The first few months I really don't enjoy feeling like I am going to puke all the time, though with Ziggy and Sunny the "morning sickness" was only really awful in the evenings, and it was manageable if I got a chance to lay down for a few hours in the afternoon. Which wasn't manageable with Sunny, thanks to after school care and going to school pick up in the September heat. It was pretty miserable.

I really don't enjoy feeling exhausted and this time I have felt the pull of all the big kids needs a lot more than I remember feeling with previous pregnancies. I remember with Ziggyfeeling like I was giving some thing important to our family in adding this siblings, that the lessons learned from a new baby are valuable and the give and take was worth it. The kids are bigger this time, I can't skip school (I mean we do, but I feel guilty) because I am sick and exhausted. Joy1 was 7 when I got pregnant with Ziggy, in some cultures she wouldn't even be in school yet, it wasn't a big deal to turn on some audio books and let the rest slide. I can't skip the violin lessons, the orthodontist appointments, juggling vision and dental care and dietary needs is a lot more to think about than it was 3 years ago.
I feel like this baby is a gift, but I also feel like I can't let the exhaustion cause me to drop the ball, they need me. Which means I am exhausted.
And the still find me like this any chance I have to lay down. Ziggy curled up next to me, my ferocious and ardent cuddle bear.

It has made crowding out the world a lot more difficult. Though I have tried. We've stayed home all winter, after an insanely stressful fall I called Operation Hibernation and we've been staying home a lot. I feel a bit bad hunkering down to the extreme that we have, but we've mostly enjoyed it.

Crowded life has also made it difficult to connect with the little one keeping me awake at night with his antics.
I like to take time to get a feel for my babies. With Joy1 I remember she was jumpy and fidgety. I felt kind of unsettled with her, maybe even a bit anxious. I was so sick when I was pregnant with her as well, the entire pregnancy was miserable. I loved her ferociously, and would do every thing in the world to be sure I was making the best choices for her- but I have definitely always had a hard time "settling" with her, feeling comfortable. It felt like once she weaned she always settled down for HubbyJoy better than she would for me. 

Joy2 was a powerhouse. I just remember all her movements were strong and rough and striking. I struggled with a lot of really awful personal stress and exhaustion when I was pregnant with her. My diet was abysmal and I felt horrible the entire pregnancy. She came roaring into our world and she had this deep intensity about her from day 1. She smiled from birth. She loved people. She was happy and sad with all her might and has been since the day she was born.

Joy3 I felt this peaceful snuggle bug. I remember I was around 5 months pregnant with her and reflecting on the feelings I got from her and it was just "snuggle me close and I am good" and that has been true for her up through now. Hold her close, let her know how cherished she is, she's good. She was happy if she had my arms. I am still really the only person on earth that can calm her down and get through to her when she's upset and "locks up".

Ziggy. He was just a joyball. I just felt how happy he was to be with us, to be in there and joining our world. All the way through I just kept feeling this sweetness. And he came out this sweet sensitive thinker. He is happy when he is with the people he loves, particularly his Mama.

Sunny, what do I feel about Sunny? His movements make me think of Joy2 but they are even stronger. They aren't quite as reactive as hers were (she seemed downright annoyed to be honest), he takes the poking and body slamming (Thank you, Ziggy) in stride. He seems more chill than Joy2 was.  But he does get worked up! He hears a noise when it has been quiet and he starts kicking and flipping out about it. Some one talks to him and he wakes up and starts moving all around. But he will also go for LONG periods where he sleeps, he's an active sleeper but it's not the intense "Oh my gosh! Are you going to break out????" movements that he pulls some times. The movie Alien? Some nights he hears Ziggy fuss and that stomach bursting depiction doesn't seem that far fetched.  He seems like he's going to be really chilled out about some things and then have these  "Oh my goodness where did THAT comes from?" moments.

I also love thinking about what clothes feel like him, is that weird? Probably. With Ziggy it was foxes and bears,  reds, and blues, and stripes. He really is like a little fox, so cute and sweet and a little bit of a stinker. And he growled like a baby bear as a newborn, constant loud growly grunts when he was happy or sad.

With Sunny I just keep seeing bright colors and black stripes and patterns, dinosaurs and elephants (there's a combination!). I am sure the season has some thing to do with it too! Ziggy was born near the Autumn and I was craving Autumn colors and themes. With Sunny I want bright and fresh and striking colors.

It will be interesting to see if my intuition is right about him or if he will come out surprising me.

Seasons Shifting

I always feel this way when I am pregnant, but this time it's been hitting me especially hard.

Heading into the home stretch of this pregnancy and I think it is hitting me for real: this is it for me and babies. The end of an era. 11 years of baby building...13 or 14 probably by the time that Baby5 weans (if all goes well with nursing). I am tired. Not just physically from the pregnancy (though I after all these years my body has been growing babies from nothing into big happy toddlers, I am feeling depleted there too!) I am feeling tired trying to keep every thing running. Between homeschooling, keeping the house and laundry kind of decent, and a busy toddler: so much work!

It's funny and it's probably completely mental, but I feel like in choosing this fifth baby- in taking the leap into "look at that big family, they're crazy" territory. I mean we're not the Duggars by any leap. But when people notice my belly and ask me if Sunny is my first or second (usually I am out alone grocery shopping, or all of my children have blissfully abandoned me at the playground) and I say "Actually, he will be my 5th." I get these stunned looks. It's quite amusing! I am pretending it is because they thought I was 24 and look far too young to have so many children (almost a decade past that, and I look it too) and not because they are judging my birth control choices (he was specifically planned and tried for, thank you very much!).

I am probably putting too much pressure on my self, more than I ever did when I had a couple kids. Are their nails all clean? Did they brush their hair and teeth? Are they wearing ripped clothing? Are their glasses clean or do they have 3 weeks of gunk on them? Do they smell good? When was the last time every one showered? I really need to get a better schedule 2 of my kids hate bathing in the winter and will try to fly under the radar until it can't be missed...Usually when I am running through this mental checklist and it's too late to hose them down.
We chose a bigger-ish family but they are all loved, nurtured, cared for and generally clean- see? 

The fact of the matter is things have shifted in life the last year or two. HubbyJoy is super busy with work and I can't depend on him like I used to. I mean he tries and he is far from being uninvolved, but when he has a client waiting on stuff the Honey Do List waits for quite a bit longer than Nesting Mama can stomach sometimes. So I have been reorganizing a lot mentally this year. Handing off some basic household chore to the oldest two kids has helped keep things going fairly well.

Handing off more of their education to them has been freeing as well, actually it is amazing! I have daily requirements that they meet before they can do any thing with screens: big motivator. Most days they knock out the list before 9:30a.m. and we sit down for 30 minutes and I have them narrate what they are reading about and go over their math questions and science material with them. It definitely lightens my load.

There are definitely areas we could improve in educationally, but that isn't this season, we're getting it done and they are all learning and growing, this list is good enough for now.

Which brings me back to sweet Sunny Joy. He's due in May and I can't remember ever feeling like this about a pregnancy. 

Done, numb, apathetic, exhausted, giving myself pep talks, unable to wrap my head around the fact that I am doing this again. 

I wanted this baby. Last summer I had a dream about little boy, it wasn't Ziggy. That little guy in my dream had a name I had never considered for any of my kids before, he was a lot like Ziggy but completely different and the were playing together. I told God in the dream (and in many conversations afterwards) that I felt a little selfish asking for one more little boy in our family, but I wanted that one, his little arms around my neck were so real and his name was exactly right and fit so perfectly into our family convictions. HubbyJoy and I talked about it for weeks and kind of came to a point where we knew I was ovulating soon, we knew the window in which the spacing would be anywhere near what we wanted was closing. So we decided to go for it. 

If we had known how insane the next 4 months would be, there is no way we would have tried for baby! My wisdom teeth were impacted and causing severe pain, as soon as we realized there was no turning back on that move I kind of panicked about dealing with that through the first trimester. I scheduled surgery to have them removed immediately. That took 2 weeks out of my life by the time I was recovered.
I was getting back to normal and feeling good and took a job doing before and after school care for our neighbors again. That was going to be a tall order with homeschooling, I honestly didn't think we would get pregnant after the surgery stress and I was kind of second guessing our decision, it wasn't a good time for a pregnancy. 

Famous last words. The day before I started watching the kids, on Ziggy's second birthday actually, I got a positive pregnancy test. 

A few days after the neighbors started with Before and After school care, they announced they were moving in November, and would Mom like to buy their house (some thing we had talked about and planned to do the next year)? Which meant we were buying this house! It would be all ours well before the baby arrived. What an answer to prayer!! 

What a freaking headache. If you've ever bought a house and gone through mortgage paperwork,  you know what a completely thrilling experience it is. So many phone calls. So many emails. So many forms. So many phone calls. phone calls phone calls. Oh my goodness it sucks. 

Add into the mix that HubbyJoy was taking a Seminary course 1 weekend a month all Autumn in preparation for his Ordination (also scheduled for some time that Fall) and on top of the mortgage process, on top of a pregnant sick wife working part time, on top of working full-time himself. 

A test of our endurance. 

We closed on the house in November and moved Mom next door the next week. It has been wonderful having our own home, it was desperately needed and it was on the table for next summer but the fact that it worked out so soon was completely God and an answer to our over-crowded prayers. This house is the perfect size for all of us, even a little bit big. We are feeling little nudges that we might not be here forever (and that makes me sad because I love this house) but for the next several years this will be our home. 

All of that adjustment it is no wonder I am feeling a little bit of a hard time connecting with this little guy. 

I wanted him, I asked for him, but I am having a hard time wrapping my head around how soon he will be here. And that my Ziggy Joy won't be my "baby" anymore. Maybe it is all in my head. Maybe because he was my baby boy, but in some ways I am feeling like I did with my oldest when I was pregnant with my second, can I love another little boy this much? Ziggy was a breath of fresh air, a little joy ball, a baby I thoroughly just enjoyed.  He has been such a little sweet bear that just oozes love. I am so tired, what if Sunny is a fussy baby?  What if we don't connect as easily? What if I have used up all my baby love? 

And I know love grows, it surprises you, and it is different every time and that's okay. Still a lot to process. 

I didn't get around to what I wanted to reflect on in this post, which is that I am also feeling really ready. I see how big my older three are getting and I am ready to be done with babies and toddlers. I am ready to be able to go and do stuff as a family with out worrying about diaper blowouts, milk leaking and soaking my shirt, with out some one melting down because they are missing their nap, with out having to be hyper vigilant because toddlers are unpredictable. 

I think about the fact that I am about to be doing these scooter walks with my big kids with a toddler and a baby in tow. 

With Ziggy I felt all the pluses and no minuses for adding another baby to our family. I saw love grow in a way I had never witnessed and it has been an blessing to watch it blossom over the last two years. With Sunny I am again watching love grow. But instead of feeling that it is all gains for every member of the family, I am seeing that continuing this baby season of our life past Sunny, I will be limiting and changing some goals and ideals and I am not sure I am willing to do that. Pregnancy isn't easy for me. I am sick for about 4 months every time, I deal with hip and back pain, hormonal mood swings, and horrible insomnia which leaves me feeling tired and frustrated. My births are for 4/4 for being longer and dramatic. I am really not looking forward to the process again and I hope we can go out with a decent experience on that front as well. A post on that another time.

I am ready I think to move on and maybe there is a bit of denial and grief that Sunny is "it" and I wish I had more to give him and could slow time down and savor this. 

But mostly I just want to get him here, and know that we are complete and moving forward. I am so ready to know him. Also a post about him another time.