vacation, part 1

We were on vacation last week! My parents gave us all (the four of us Smiths plus my sister and her family) a trip to Saint George Island for Christmas. We were all thrilled. We hadn't been to the beach in three years, so a trip to the shore was much-needed. The only catch... were were going to be camping. I had my doubts, but we wound up having a great week. It would have been a perfect week if the mosquitoes had stayed away, but there was nothing we could do about that.

We set out for our adventure on Monday morning at 4:00 a.m. Everyone except the Hubs, who had to work until Wednesday. My parents pulling their camper, my sister and I in her van, and my brother in law in his van towing their camping. All of the children were scattered in various vehicles. We all thought the kids would fall asleep and be out until it was time to stop for breakfast. It didn't quite work out that way, but all in all it was an uneventful trip. Except for the time when my sister and I became separated from the group and drove 30 minutes in the wrong direction. But that could happen to anybody.

Here is a picture of our view for most of the drive. That's my parents and their camper. Shaun rode with them the entire way and his cousins alternated keeping him company.















We were driving a long time. Ten hours or so, because of bathroom breaks and what not. I guess that's typical when you're traveling with 6 children. The kids passed the time watching movies and playing video games. Lori and I passed the time by laughing, listening to the 90's station on the radio, and talking about life.



































Overall, the kids were pretty good. We were all getting a little antsy by the time we finally made it to the bridge to Saint George. There was lots of cheering.













We made it to our campsite and were immediately swarmed by mosquitoes. These were hard-core mosquitoes. Our regular spray didn't even touch them. They even bit us through our clothes. And they hurt! We had to go back to the "mainland" to get the "real" mosquito repellent. The kind that contains Deet. Horrible for us, but at least it kept us from getting eaten alive.

After we arrived on the island, it was time to set up camp. Of course, my dad had to help me. Or do it for me. Since I had no idea of how to set up a tent. I did help him though. One of my favorite memories from the trip was when my dad was setting up our tent, Jordan sidled up to him, planted a kiss on his cheek and said, "You're the best papa ever".

Here's our tent.












The boys and I had planned on sleeping here, but we only stayed one night. The first night my dad insisted on staying with them, because he thought I'd get scared. I stayed in the camper with my mom, and both boys wound up with us sometime during the night. The next night, the boys and I opted to stay with my sister's family in their camper. Here's a shot of some of the kids, all snuggled up and watching Soul Surfer.

















The tent was used for "recreation" the rest of the week. The kids played in there, and watched movies. Oh, and they also snacked in there and caused the tent to be overrun with ants. My dad had to rescue us again.
















As expected, we spent a lot of time at the beach. The kids loved it. They played for hours and hours and were exhausted at the end of each day.








































Jordan and Jaycee loved the gulls.








































This is why we like the beach in the Fall. We had the place to ourselves!













The funniest picture of the week.



































I love the classic "big brother" look of annoyance on Shaun's face.

Jordan did a lot of running.

I love the looks on the kids faces. Pure joy, most of the time. They had a blast.

on self control

Does anyone know the "Fruits of the Spirit" song? I learned it a long, long time ago at a youth retreat. More recently, Jordan learned it at church. It goes something like this:

"The Fruit of the Spirit's not a coconut
The Fruit of the Spirit's not a coconut
If you wanna be a coconut, you might as well hit it
You can't be a Fruit of the Spirit
'Cause the Fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self contro-o-o-o-l
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self control"

Catchy, right? Jordan had a great time learning this song from Mrs. Jananne and it came in handy for me as a mom, too. Whenever Jordan would have an "impulsive moment", I would sit him down and have a conversation kind of like this:

Me: "Now Jordan. Don't you know that Jesus wants you to be able to control yourself and make good decisions?"

Jordan: "Yes."

Me: "Well, do you think it was a good decision to smack your brother just because he didn't want to watch The Rugrats on Netflix?"

Jordan: "No."

Me: "I know it's tough when things don't go your way, but you can't just hit your brother because he does something you don't like. You need to have self control. You know... like the song."

Both of us sing the song together.

Jordan: "Oh. I love all the Fruits of the Spirit. Except self control."

I had to stifle my laughter. Because I totally get where he's coming from. At 30 years old, I still haven't mastered the art of self control. Sometimes I think I'm doing really well, and then it backfires in my face.

Take, for instance, my behavior at Shaun's doctor's appointment a few weeks ago. Shaun has seen the same neurologist since he was 2 weeks old. We love her. She's always taken such good care of him. She's a very popular doctor and works at Children's Health Care of Atlanta, so we usually have to wait awhile to see her at our appointments. I've never, ever complained about the wait time. So imagine my surprise when I was asked to reschedule Shaun's appointment when I was 20 minutes late last month. I am never, EVER late for these appointments. The reason we were late this time was because traffic around the hospital was being rerouted due to road construction. We signed in and then sat in the waiting room for about 30 minutes before the receptionist called me up and told me that I had to reschedule. I thought she was joking at first. I even asked her if she was serious. She was. I tried to explain that we had driven an hour and half and that we always had to wait at least an hour for our appointments. She didn't care. Because, you see, Dr W had several new patient appointments that afternoon and she didn't want to get behind on her schedule.

Wow.

By this time, Shaun had joined me at the counter. He smiled and said, "Yay. I don't have to have my appointment!"

The receptionist glanced at him and said, with a little smile, "I don't think mom's saying yay."

I then looked at her and said, "No. Actually I'm pretty pissed right now."

Not my finest moment, at all.

The only thing I accomplished by saying this was to embarrass Chris, Shaun, and myself. I rescheduled the appointment and then we went home.

A month later, we found ourselves making the trek to Atlanta again, for the same appointment. Jordan was with us this time... it just couldn't be helped. We were on time. Early, even. And we still had to wait almost 2 hours. After the first hour, I went out to the nurse's station to find out how much longer it would be. It was already 5:00 and the office was shutting down. Only one nurse was left. I calmly asked for the office manager. She had already gone home. Of course. The sweet nurse brought a complaint form for me to fill out. She also brought Shaun some juice. I spent about 30 more minutes writing a 3 page letter (front and back) explaining my totally justifiable anger. In a nice way, I promise.

We continued to wait. I had a hair appointment and the boys and Chris needed to be back to church by 7:00 for movie night. I lost all sense of self control when I looked at my phone and realized that it was a quarter til 6. I knew it would take at least an hour and a half to get where we needed to be. Probably a lot longer with Friday traffic in Atlanta. I told Shaun to put his shoes on and that we were leaving. We gathered our things and he wandered out into the hall, where he ran into the medical student who had just examined him. Shaun was happy to announce that we were leaving. She just looked at me. "Oh. You're leaving?"

I began to yell. Really yell. So loud that Chris heard me in the waiting room and came back to see what was wrong. Dr W must have heard me too, because she miraculously appeared. And I let her have it. And a few curse words slipped out. And Shaun looked at the medical student and muttered, "She's PISSED!"

Way worse than my last not-my-finest moment.

Of course I cried. And then I had to apologize. The whole time I was thinking, "Man, I hate that stupid self control!"

Really, shouldn't I have a better handle on this by now. Word vomit has always plagued me. I feel it coming up and I know I'm going to say something I'm going to regret, but I just can't stop it. I really can't believe I cussed out my child's doctor. My child's Jewish doctor... who knows that we're Christians. Not exactly my idea of being a good witness. And to behave that way in front of my son. My 11 year old, impressionable son who looks to me as an example for how to behave. And then there's Jordan. He was there, too. I could just hear him thinking to himself, "Mama, you just can't cuss out the doctor because something happens and you don't like it. You need to have self control!"

I had to sit down with both of my children later on that night, over ice cream at McDonald's, and explain that I acted inappropriately. Not an easy thing to do...having your children witness you doing the exact same thing that they get punished for.

Regardless of the circumstances that led up to this moment, my behavior was wrong. Not very lady-like and definitely not the way my Heavenly Father wanted me to respond to this situation.

My goal, my prayer is for my tongue to be tamed. This is what I'm striving for, among other things. I really feel that conquering my tongue will be a huge milestone in the act of obedience for me. I look forward to the day when I can take things in stride and not flip out. For now, unfortunately, I'm just a work-in-progress.

who am i?

Anyone who's been around me at all lately knows that I've been a nervous wreck since the second week in August. That's when the school year began. We had enrolled Jordan in the K12 program. For those who don't know, it's basically public school that's taught at home. I thought this program was best for several reasons:

1. It's free. 'Nough said.

2. It's structured. I thought we needed this for Jordan, my little wild man.

3. It's all prepared for you. No coming up with lesson plans... just follow the lesson guides.

4. I was (am) terrified of making colossal mistakes when teaching Jordan to read. I didn't have to worry about this with Shaun. We didn't begin homeschooling until Shaun was in 3rd grade... most of the core stuff was already covered. Jordan, however, is a "fresh slate". There's sooo many ways I can mess him up.

K12 seemed like a good idea in theory. And so I signed him up. Even though my close friend had quit the program cold-turkey during the middle of last year because it was so stressful and required so much busy-work. And even though this is indeed a public school program... and I had basically sworn off public school after Shaun's experience. And even though I adore the year-round school schedule we adopted with Shaun. And even though I hate answering to "the man". My self-doubt got the best of me.

On our first day of school, we were still doing schoolwork at 9:00 pm. Yuck. But I stuck with it. I figured we just hadn't found our groove yet. But really, the more I tried, the more Jordan resented it. He, like his big brother, needs short and to-the-point lessons. He doesn't need to go over the same skill 4 times in one math lesson. He becomes bored extremely easily. Phonics was the worst. It was painful.

With K12, each child is required to do most of the assignments. Some assignments are optional, but for the most part everything is required. And the fact is that my child simply cannot sit though all of that busy-work. After he's had his fill, his brain shuts off and trying to keep going is pointless. I can't tell you how many times I've pulled up his lessons on the computer only to hear him whine "Oh, not (shapes, m's, AABB patterns, etc) again!"

I began to get so frustrated with him. I can't tell you how many times I asked him, "Why can't you just sit still and finish this?" This is complete Deja vu from Shaun's kindergarten homework. Then one day, Jordan walked into the school room where I was straightening up the bookshelf. He looked at all of his materials and said, "I like doing school, I'm just not good at it." Oh, ouch. That hurt my heart. Wasn't this the kind of self-esteem crushing thing we were trying to avoiding by homeschooling in the first place?

The thing is, he is good at it. It's just that he doesn't need to do so much of it. And I'll tell a little secret. Some of that work that he was required to do? I lied and said he did it even when he didn't. And he still aced all of his tests. So there. :)

Anyway, after he said those pitiful words, I immediately gathered him up in my arms and told him exactly how good he was at doing his school work. And then I sent both kids outside to play so that I could meditate about what to do. As I watched them zoom around the yard on their bikes and scooters, I heard from God. "I made them this way. Who are you to try to change who they're meant to be?" I love it when He's direct and to the point, don't you? It reminded me of another time He spoke to me clearly. I blogged about it here.

That was 2 weeks ago. We went on vacation last week and Chris and I took that time to pray about what to do. And tonight, I withdrew him from the K12 program. I feel as free as a bird. I had ordered a new phonics program from Amazon a few weeks ago, and we'll start it tomorrow. I had also purchased Math U See for kindergarten last spring. Between that and the classes he takes at co op, he should be covered. And I won't have to worry about logging hours or forgetting to enter in his attendance every night.

As for my self-doubt... it's still there. Not as prevalent as before, but it's still hanging around. God has brought some "seasoned" homeschooling moms into my life lately and they've been such a source of encouragement. It's nice to hear some needed advice about curriculum and what not. I was talking to a friend at church today and she said, "One good thing about homeschooling... it keeps you praying!" How true. God has led us down this journey, and I know He'll give me the knowledge and ability to teach my children everything they need to know. His promises to us are Yes and Amen. I only wish I wouldn't forget that all of the time.

harvest moon

Jordan and I read Theme in Yellow by Carl Sandburg for a Language Arts lesson on Monday. He really liked it a lot. It turns out that Autumn is his favorite season, as it is mine.

Later on that night, we went to my parents' house for one last swim before the pool is closed up for the season. The water was really too chilly to swim, so the kids didn't stay in for very long. For once, fall seems to be coming early in Georgia. We looked up at the sky and saw a Harvest Moon. Just like the one we read about earlier.

I called Jordan and told him to look up at the Harvest Moon. He was amazed. He watched it for quite some time.

THEME IN YELLOW

I SPOT the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o'-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

Carl Sandburg

Here is Jordan and his Harvest Moon. Cousin Micah is also checking it out. The moon was beautiful that night... this picture really doesn't do it any justice. I love it when God gives me such nice visual aids!

where I was on September 11, 2001

September 11th is tomorrow. It's really hard to believe ten years have passed. Everyone seems to be reflecting on where they were when they heard the news that our country was under attack. It reminds me of the way people used to talk about where they were when they found out that President Kennedy had been shot. As a young child, I always thought that was kind of silly... they way folks can remember every little thing about what was going on around them that day. Who's class they were in when the announcement came over the loud speaker. What they had for breakfast that morning. Who they were sitting with in school that day. It just seemed overly dramatic.

And then came September 11th, 2001. A few weeks ago my children asked me what I was doing when the planes crashed into the towers. And, surprisingly, I could remember every little detail about that day.

I remember what I wore to work... teal shirt, black pants, and black sandals that had a worn spot on the sole.

I remember that I had plans to go to lunch with my friend Angela.

I remember that I was looking forward to going to my sister's college volleyball game that night.

I was still working at Liberty Mutual. I was at my desk, working away at my computer and listening to Deftones through my headphones. It was a pretty boring morning. I had sensed some excited activity going on around me, but I didn't look up from my computer. I was working on my undisclosed operator reports, and those were always kind of interesting. I was reading a policy holder's account of the accident her grown daughter had been involved in while borrowing her vehicle when I noticed that the other ladies on my aisle were talking. Loudly. This was strange... there was always a good bit of non-work related talking going on, but we were always pretty quiet about it. I looked up to see several women huddled around the cubicle across the aisle from me, talking loudly. I pulled my headphones off and joined them.

Someone had heard that a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. At this point, we all assumed it was an accident. Everyone kind of stood around talking for a few more minutes and then we went back to our desks. No one was working anymore. A little later someone announced that another plane had flown into the other tower. We all pulled up CNN or Fox News on our computers... this was an absolute no-no. But no one even bothered trying to be secretive, and management didn't care. We all stared in disbelief at the images from New York. People started talking about terrorism. I was so young and clueless. I was a newly married 19 year old who worked full time and had just started night classes and had a sick baby at home. Paying attention to world events was the last thing on my to-do list at night. When someone mentioned terrorists to me, I laughed it off. This was America! No one would dare attack us, and why would they even want to? It's embarrassing to think about how totally naive I was back then.

Then, the office manager sent out an email. I remember only two lines: "...Two plans have crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in an apparent act of terrorism. A television has been set up in the cafeteria."

Wow. That's when everything changed for me. I no longer felt safe. I wanted to go home to my baby. And I began crying for Chris' brother, who was a Marine. I knew he'd be involved in a war. I went to call my grandmother. Chris and I only had one cell phone to share back then, and he had taken it that morning. I had to wait in line at the "public" phone by the restroom. I called my Mamaw and asked if she wanted me to come home. She informed me that it would be silly for me to come home and that she and Shaun were just fine. She said she'd be watching the news and that she'd keep my mom posted on any new developments (my mom and I worked for the same company).

I went to lunch by myself. I picked up a sandwich from Subway and ate in my car while listening to the radio. By then, all of the reports were coming in: another plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and another plane had crashed into a field. I went back to work and continued to watch the reports on-line.

After work, on the local radio station, people were calling in to announce prayer vigils. I'll bet there were a hundred prayer meetings in Gainesville that night. I got to my grandma's house and continued to watch the news. Chris came home and said that he had talked with his mother, who had talked with his brother, who was ready to fight. Gotta love those Marines! We decided to go on to my sister's game. I was scared to go anywhere, but didn't want to sit at home and watch the news all night either. One ironic thing. My sister sang the National Anthem before her volleyball game.

After the game we had pizza and came back home so that I could study. My first college math test was scheduled for the next day. We laid Shaun down for the night in our bed. We had been working so hard to get him to sleep in his own bed, but I think he slept with us for at least a year after September 11. I wanted him close to me.

After he fell asleep I got out my math book and sat down at the table. The television was on, so I didn't get much studying done. I kept watching that plane crash into the tower over and over and over.

I didn't do much sleeping that night. I was afraid more attacks were coming.

And that's how I spent September 11, 2001.

quoted

Shaun always surprises me. I get all anxious and nervous about teaching him a new skill, and it's all for nothing. Like in math this week. We were learning the 9 multiplication facts.

Honestly... I still don't know all of my 9's. I had to give myself a refresher course before we started, and it didn't do much good. I'm not the smartest at math.

But, Shaun picked up his 9's very quickly. Much more quickly than I ever anticipated. We started on Tuesday. We watched his Math U See video together and went over some flash cards before getting started on lesson 1. And he finished his worksheet in about 5 minutes. And it was all correct. And I asked if he was cheating. He wasn't.

After I was finished bragging on him, he looked up at me and said, "Yeah, I think you really taught me something this time."

This made me laugh so hard. But then I thought... what does he think I'm doing every other time we have school? Ha ha! I'm glad he felt confident enough to realize he learned something.

new girl gets out of her comfort zone

I stepped out of my comfort zone Monday night. It was MNO for the co-op. The new co-op my family joined last month. I'm the new girl. Okay, I'm not the only new girl, but I'm one of them. This is not easy for me. I love people, but I don't really make friends easily. People who are close to me usually don't believe this, but I'm shy and quiet around people I'm not familiar with. It takes me a little while to get warmed up. I am NOT comfortable around new people. At all.

So, joining this new co-op was hard. We were part of a wonderful co-op last year at our church. Most of my friends were members. I had a support system. So did my kids. We were comfortable. Then, I heard about this other co-op which is only five minutes away from our house. This co-op has been around for a few years. It's bigger, more diverse, and offers more classes that the boys really need.

I agonized over this for weeks. I prayed a lot and talked it over with Chris. We both agreed that we should favor what's best for the kids' education over where we would be most comfortable. So, we switched.

I was worried that the people there wouldn't be nice. I worried about not fitting in and about the kids being unhappy without their old co-op friends. Mainly, I just wanted us all to fit in. Isn't that what everyone wants? To fit in and be accepted?

Turns out I was worried for nothing. This place is crawling with niceness. Seriously... everyone's nice. And inviting and I've felt so welcomed. But still, it was hard for me to commit to meeting some of these ladies for dinner. Especially when I found out my sister couldn't go. I like to hide behind my little sister sometimes.

But I bit my lip and went anyway, even though it was pouring down rain and our area was under a tornado watch. I'm so glad I did. Even though we had to go to four different restaurants because the first three were either crowded, already closed, or closing in 15 minutes due to Labor Day. We finally got settled in at Out Back and I had a really good time. We laughed and cried. Those are the marks of a really good evening.

And yes. At the end of the night, I felt like I fit in. Still the "new girl", but not an outsider. It's a nice feeling.

Here's to getting out of my comfort zone. Maybe I should try it more often.

musical rooms

Life has been hectic lately. We're still trying to find our "groove" for this year. Shaun is doing really, really well in school. Jordan is too... when he can make himself sit down and do it. Have I mentioned that I don't think his curriculum is working out for him? That's a whole 'nother post.

Anyway. Life is hard right now. New co-op. New school year. It is so much harder for me to home school 2 children than it was to home school 1. I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before. I don't think we made the wrong decision. I just haven't gotten used to this yet.

I've spent the past few weeks barely getting by. At the end of the day, I'm spent. I hadn't checked my email in about a month because I just didn't have time. I peeked into my inbox the other day and saw that I had 500 messages. Instead of reading them all, I opted to just delete everything and start over. I feel good about this decision. I went to the grocery store yesterday, for the first time in 3 weeks. I didn't wait so long because we had no money, I just didn't have time. So we've been eating out a lot. I found "Crock Pot Girls" on Facebook and loaded up on crock pot dish ideas for the next 2 weeks. It's nice to have food in the house again.

Clutter has taken over. The Hubs finally had enough and declared today a work day. He took a load of our old, unused stuff off to the dump. Said we needed to have a place for everything and to keep everything in it's place. We rearranged some rooms. The old school room is now his computer room. Jordan's old bedroom is now the new school room. I'm in here now. It's quiet, down the hall from the living room and out of the way. I can see this room becoming my reading room as well.

We moved some of the boys "louder" toys downstairs. That way, they can play without annoying everyone and we can also get a break from each other during the day. My kids and I love each other, but breaks are often needed.

There's still a lot to do, but I can breath now. Breathing is nice.

Home School Connection Kickoff Party 2011

My family had a great time tonight kicking off the school year with our church family. This is our 3rd year home schooling, and we've been a part of our church's Home School Connection since we started on this journey. I remember our first kickoff party two years ago. I was so nervous and unsure of myself. I wasn't sure what to expect. I had an (incorrect) preconceived notion that home schooling moms wore dresses every day and never got hair cuts. Thank goodness, I was wrong! I remember walking into the room that night and seeing tons of families I already knew but didn't know were home schoolers. What a relief. We had a great time that night as well, and I blogged about it here. We were a great group back then, and are even better now. We've grown. There are many more families and we've made lots of new friends over the past 2 years. Some of my best friendships have stemmed from this group. I'm so thankful for everyone involved.

As I was saying, tonight was awesome. Chris led worship again, along with his new band- Ambered Stripes. I was actually manning the sign in table and didn't get to watch, but I could hear everything and they sounded amazing.



Shaun performed in a skit with his drama group. The skit was called "Daniel and the Mysterious Dream". Shaun portrayed one of the Hebrew boys... I think he was Shadrach. It was a hilarious reenactment of King Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Shaun was a little nervous, but he did really well. We're very proud of him.




There was also tons of food, laughs, and fellowship.




This year's party was also exciting because my sister was there! She began home schooling her children this year. I'm happy to be able to spend this time with her. Here we are tonight with our friend Becki.


I would just like to say here that I do NOT like pictures of myself, but I do love my friends. They make me happy. So I posted these pictures anyway. :)

We partied, ate, laughed, and talked for about four hours. Some of us may have had a little too much sugar.


After the party was over, a few of us stayed to clean up. And then we let our kids have a little party of their own while we were waiting for our men to bring our cars to the door. The sprinkler system came on and we let our children dance and splash in the water. Are we the coolest or what?


I'm at home now, nursing a headache. I probably jarred my neck or something during one of my fits of laughter. I think it's definitely worth it.