Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Compromises, Et Cetera


We're eating store-bought bread around here. (And the cheap stuff, too.) Yes, that's right. I, Mrs. Homemade-artisan-sourdough-all-the-time bought bread at the store.

There comes a time when one must be sensible about what one can reasonably accomplish and sometimes one simply cannot make bread.

And much to my chagrin, while Nathan and I miss our sourdough, Jonah is rejoicing. "Yay! A sandwich on squishy bread!"

I sigh and remember that I'm getting my just desserts. Yes, I used to do this to my mom, too. Sometimes she would buy bread when she didn't have time to make it and we kids would be all excited about store bread. Mom, I'm sorry. I truly am. What ingrates we were. (For the record, at some point Mom had to pretty much quit making bread all together and we were sad and missed our homemade bread. By that point, we had learned what was good.)

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Jonah now loves to hold his baby brother.




He also daily asks things like, "Mom, can I carry the baby down the stairs?" or "Can I put his diaper on?" "I'll take him out of the swing!" "Can I carry Evan out to the van?" Etc. I'm trying to be careful not to squash his desire to help, but prevent baby-dropping and such similar accidents.

Ah, balance.

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I'm ordering school supplies! Yes, we're doing school for reals this year. Kindergarten here we come!

I was talking to a homeschooling friend about "oh dear, school, hm, I don't know what we're doing..." and she said, "Um, do you have a plan at all? Maybe you need a plan." Yeah. So I started working on that and now I'm excited about it. A little bit intimidated (must stick to a school schedule! No excuses or extended breaks because I'm burnt out. Real school.), but excited. I found some fun books and I'm full of ideas! Wheee! Will share my fun school stuff here soon.

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Now. You must brace yourself for this next picture. It's a bit shocking.


Ready?


Are you sure?


Okay....










Oh my poor baby.

We're dealing with thrush. That's all I'll say about that.


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Jonah was helping his Daddy change a transmission today. Jonah was actually quite necessary to the process (jacking up the engine lift? Or something like that?), so he was partly excited by getting to work like a man, and partly bummed out by having to work like a man.

But then he came in and told me that he wants to talk with his Grandpa about being a car mechanic someday.

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I'm finally getting started at getting caught up around here. (Caught up? HAhahahaha!) I've frozen broccoli and beans, started some lacto bean pickles and today I'm doing the same with my giant kohlrabi. And I made a peach crisp! Yay! It's been a while since we've had anything special and yummy around here. I also pulled a gazillion weeds.

Housecleaning will have to wait. I'm busy.

5 comments:

  1. Good nite nurse! You have been busy. Oh to be YOUNG again. KD had to tell my what the purple stuff on your baby was,
    Susie (lucy)

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  2. BWAWHAHAHAHAHahahahahaha!!! {{coughcough}} Hahahahahhaha! {{cough}}

    He looks......! HAHAHAhahahaha!!!

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  3. My, my! Wonder what his bottle looks like! Tee Hee!

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  4. whew! so you have some gentian violet, that is amazing. I'm glad you are being sensible here....store bought bread but the gazillion weeds?
    Remember kindergarten is not college and kids learn a lot by living life.
    Keep it fun mom. Isn't it cool to be excited too? I loved the early school years, so much fun! Your near the Amish and they have awesome readers, the Pathway books. I loved them. I actually used quite a bit of Amish school materials because they were simple, beautiful, and very inexpensive.

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  5. I stopped baking bread when my second was born, too. It seemed to be the tipping point, for me. Happily for me, my oldest, then three, really, really, reeeeeally loved my oatmeal bread, so while she did enjoy squooshing her store-bought bread into mooshy balls, she also would ask, "When are we getting real bread again, mummy?" Bless her loyal and discerning little heart.

    For kindergarten homeschool, I let the child's interests *be* the curriculum. At the that level, it is REALLY easy to incorporate all necessary subjects into a passionate study of volcanoes or pioneers or dinosaurs or Thailand. (We had neighbours from Thailand back when. The kids were interested!)

    And once you start that way, it's not difficult to continue that way, though by grade two or three, I did introduce math workbooks. Does this work? When my kids entered the school system, they were always in the top 5 - 20% of their class, depending on the child and the subject.

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