OCTAMOM (c)

Wordful Wednesday, 1 of 8 Style

2009-11-11T19:32:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to get better at sharing.
I really am.

But when it comes to my Canon, I'm a little, uh, careful.

As in, Canon 40Ds are expensive. And it was for my anniversary. And I'm a little intense about my cameras.

But every now and then I do try to let one of the older kids do a little shutterbug action. I was being very brave and very unselfish the other day when I let 1 of 8 click off a few frames.

Which was worth it.

For example:

I love the way she captured 8 of 8's constant motion and ever-present (mostly) smile.

And then she snapped this one of 2 of 8:

So sharing can be a good thing.

As long as I make her keep the strap around her neck. And I don't let her move. And I ask her fourteen times if she is hanging on to the camera.

She's So Continental....

2009-11-10T04:59:00.001-06:00

Our Thanksgiving plans include frantically scrubbing down the house so as not to gross out The Boy who is coming to see 1 of 8 over the turkey holiday.
One of my brothers has some slightly more, ah, cultured plans.

As in, he's taking his family to France.

They are the cool ones in the extended family line.

No offense, Other Brother.

But we gotta admit, Middle Brother got the cool going on with the French Thanksgiving and all.

Although I still say that Thanksgiving '05 when Other Brother and family and Mike and I and the kids grilled steaks on the island was pretty cool as well.

Anyway.

So 6 of 8 hears of the French Thanksgiving plans and that her cousins will be going all continental on us.

"Oh," she breathes. "They are going to France. I've always wanted to go to France."

She's six years old. Six. And apparently she has wanted to go to France her whole life.

"I so badly want to go to Paris. It's my favorite city in the whole world."

Next to Dallas, apparently. Because the last time we were in Dallas, she told me she was a Dallas Girl.

"Paris. I wish I was going there."

I ask her why she would want to go to Paris.

She looks down her nose at me and says, "The food. The food is amazing. Paris has the best food in the world." She says this as if I am a cretin.

And how does she posses such epicurean knowledge at such a young, tender age, you might ask? How does she know that all her life she has wanted to dabble in the culinary delights of Paris?

By watching Ratatouille, of course.

Cultured, we is. Cultured we aim to be.

A Frog Apart...

2009-11-09T04:59:00.000-06:00

I'm no judge of frog flesh, so I suppose I wouldn't know one way of the other.

But my sons assure me that this is Burt, a frog they rescued earlier in the summer.

They say that he is now living in the front yard, housed in our sprinkler valve box.
Except that they also tell me he is a toad, not a frog.

They tell me they know this is Burt because he has some distinguishing characteristics.

Which is funny.

Because, to me, he looks very similar to the other two ~~frogs~~ toads living in the sprinkler valve box. But I don't have the depth of reptile relationship with him that the boys do. So I suppose I should just trust their identification process.

And, besides, I want to be very supportive of Burt as an Octamom pet. Because any creature that lives in the sprinkler valve box and feeds itself and deals with its own litter box needs is a great Octamom pet candidate.

I'm all about self-sufficient, outside living pets.

Burt, you rock.

Sunday Selah

2009-11-08T04:59:00.001-06:00

How beautiful on the mountains

are the feet of those who bring good news,

who proclaim peace,

who bring good tidings,

who proclaim salvation,

who say to Zion,

"Your God reigns!"

Isaiah 52:7

When I went to shop for shoes to wear with my wedding dress, nigh over twenty years ago now, I was inundated with choices.

White, strappy heels. White satin ballet flats. White pumps. Many, many choices.

All for something that would not really show under the voluminous length of my wedding gown. But still an important consideration as it would be those shoes that would transport me through my wedding day.

And how much more careful consideration needs to go into the footwear adorning the Bride of Christ.

Because when we shod our feet in the readiness of the gospel of peace, we are preparing to head out into a world that will require some heavy marching and dangerous terrain.
Ballet flats just won't do.
We go to the world longing for peace and ready to do battle for souls. We go as a warrior bride.

And as befitting that call, the Bride of Christ wears combat boots.

Throughout history, wars have been lost over the poorly shod feet of an army's soldiers. Frostbite has lamed a battalion, trench foot has crippled many a regiment. When we find ourselves on the field of spiritual warfare, our message must be protected against frigid reception and swamps of muddy sin. We march into the middle of such conditions, but we must somehow maintain the clarity and health of our good news.

Combat boots it is.

There will come a day when we come through a gate made of pearl. We will be wrapped in a wedding gown of purist white of a fabric woven from the righteous deeds of the saints. And as we remove our shoes, eager to walk on holy ground, we take off a pair of mud-spattered, well-worn boots, our transport through the battlefields of the spiritual. That which has been our transport now becomes our testimony. May the combat boots of the Bride earn us the words, "Well done."

Selah.

JPEG of the Week

2009-11-07T08:12:00.000-06:00

~8 of 8, baby archive, circa August '08~

~Flickr & Picnik are being weird today~

~so I'm going back in the photo vault~

~and found this jewel~

Self-Actualization...

2009-11-06T04:59:00.001-06:00

5 of 8 is my steady kid.

Content.

Easy.

Even.

So it was a bit of a surprise the other day when he woke up in one of 'those' moods. He pouted about the selection of breakfast cereal. He was disgruntled at performing his usual chores. He whined about his school assignments.

We tangled. Quite a bit. Unusual for our mother-son relationship.

I finally sat down on the couch, a bit fatigued from this unusual exchange with him. He came and plopped down next to me.

After a pause, he spoke.

"Wow," he intoned in his raspy, Elmer Fudd voice. "I'm grumpy today."

Wow.

How different the world could be if we were all that self-actualized.

Dental Departure...

2009-11-05T04:59:00.001-06:00

6 of 8 has (finally) gone through a certain right of passage...

Yep, she lost her first baby tooth.

And I have to say, that picture just above may be one of the funniest I've ever taken...

Nothin' Like That New Baby Smell...

2009-11-04T04:59:00.003-06:00

Let's begin with a big shout-out to the Octamom Parental Units who have now been married for 47 years. Forty-Seven. Yep.

Wow.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog post...

I was tease.
I admit it.

I gave you a little glimpse of a photo shoot I did of a newborn with his sisters.

But I only showed you one of the shots.

I will now rectify that situation...

Look at those lips!

And here he is with his beautiful mama...

Big sis with the baby brother...

Serene...

An attempt to get a good shot of all three kiddos...

The new middle child...

...and her beloved teddy bear...

Brown eyes and blue...

And now for the sweetest little smile ever...

Many thanks, N & M, for letting me share your precious kiddos with my readers! Happy New Baby!

And don't forget, Dear Readers, to head over to the Octamom Review site and sign up for your chance to win a fantastic gift pack from Orowheat Bread!

Happy Wordful Wednesday!

To Treat or Not To Treat; That is the Question...

2009-11-03T04:59:00.001-06:00

I have a hunch that you just haven't seen enough '7 of 8 as Snow White' yet...
I'm very thoughtful...

So here you go...

We've had an ambivalent relationship with Halloween through the years. For quite a while, 1 of 8 had a strong conviction as a child that she shouldn't participate. We honored that conviction on her part, but didn't put it on the other kids. A great compromise was going to our church's Harvest Party, that allowed 2 and 3 of 8 to dress up and allowed 1 of 8 to gather candy without doing the Halloween 'thing'.

We moved to a different neighborhood when 4 of 8 was an infant and discovered our first Halloween in that house was a full-out neighbor experience. All the neighbors were out, visiting, laughing, enjoying the evening. So, through the years, we came to see the annual trick-or-treating as a way to connect with those living around us, a springboard to further contact and conversations. We always made our Halloween fun and light, carving our pumpkins with Christian symbols, telling each trick-or-treater 'God bless you'...and very much meaning it.

I do understand why families choose to not celebrate Halloween. Our culture has tuned it into such a scary and demonic event, taking it far from its original Christian roots of honoring the memory of the dead. And we have had our seasons of turning our back on the event, choosing to keep the porch lights off.

And we've let the kids vote their conscience as well, sometimes choosing to trick-or-treat, sometimes not.

But ultimately, for us, all through the years, depending on where we have lived, what the tenor of the neighborhood has been, we have found it to be a night to reclaim goodness and being neighborly. Doors are opened, children are greeted and treated, hands are shaken and friendships are made.

And however the world has chosen to twist the night for evil, good wins. Good wins.

A Most Excellent Blossom...Reflecting on Our Words

2009-11-02T07:40:00.000-06:00

As my blog buddies and I continue through our Reflecting on Our Words project, I have been delighted with the number of ways my creative friends have come up with to bring imagery and metaphor to their guiding word for the year. This month, the theme was to choose a flower that exemplifies each of our words. It was a fun mental challenge to think through flora and fauna that would give example to my 2009 word, excellence.

I at first thought of flowers that have great beauty or hardy qualities or are rare. But what kept coming back to me is the flower that we see a lot of during this season, the blossom that someone decided is the 'birth flower' for November. And that would be the chrysanthemum. (The chrysanthemum illustration on the right is from the New International Encyclopedia from 1902, with the image url being hosted at Wikipedia.)

The chrysanthemum is actually native to Asia and wasn't introduced into Europe until the 17th century. It is often seen as a symbol in Chinese and Japanese artwork. In the U.S., it is a floral symbol of the season, a happy spot of color for the autumn.

Chrysanthemums are also used in a number of beneficial ways. The petals can be used to make a sweet tea. The blossoms make a natural insecticide that is not harmful or toxic to animals and humans. The plant is also used as an antibiotic and an antiviral agent. A potted indoor chrysanthemum has also been shown to be effective in reducing indoor pollutants in the air.

And now for the tie-in to my 2009 word, excellence.

True excellence brings with it the benefits similar to the chrysanthemum. When I operate in excellence, I can make life sweeter, more palatable for those around me. When I operate in excellence, I can help reduce the pests of procrastination and apathy. When I operate in excellence, I can help fight off the infecting agents of mediocrity. And when excellence is present in the room, the environment is all the cleaner for it.

Here's the amazing MirusPeg's flower/word combo for balance:

The amazing flower I chose to represent my word is called "Hippeastrum Cinderella".

I took this photo in my hairdresser's garden last week. The complete beauty and balance of this flower called to me as I was leaving his house.

Flowers have always been a source of pleasure and happiness symbolizing love and friendship and since the dawn of time we have instinctively known that flowers can lift our spirits and make us feel well again. They play an important role in restoring or evoking a sense of harmony in mind, body and spirit of healing in its quintessential form.

Mommy Victory florally reflects on her word, discipline:

Thinking about discipline, I chose the orchid because of the amount of dedication it takes to care for this beautiful flower. Here is my post.

----------

The orchid is considered to be one of four noble plants. Because it grew deep in the mountains, it was compared to scholars who had transcended the greed and fame-seeking of the secular world.

Orchid growth is effected by everything from elevation and light to humidity, air movement and nutrition. When I looked up how to care for this "delicate" flower, I realized that this is a flower I would probably kill in just a few days.

In my search for a more disciplined life, I came to an understanding about myself. I like my laid back life. I love that I am not always worried about menus and shopping lists. My children are healthy and happy. Yes, my house is less than tidy, and my flower pots outside are less than tended, but I am happy.

So as this year of searching for discipline is nearing an end, I will begin thinking about what it is that I would like to work on next year....I have two more months to think about it.

Fly Girl shares this bloom with us, along with her thoughts about faith and joy:

This year as I've journeyed through life contemplating faith and joy, I've been more aware of the beauty around me each day. Yet even though my focus has been on these two words, I've still had days when I saw the world through a darker lens. A busy schedule and seemingly constant demands have clouded my world at times. When my friends and I decided to choose a flower that reflected our words, my first thought was on finding a photo that captured the essence of joy. I thought of sunny buttercups and my mother's favorite flower, tulips. I also thought of flowers that connected to my word, faith.

When it comes to photography, there's no one better than Caroline Manrique of http://www.nowordz.com to capture the beauty of everyday life, so I asked if she would be willing to share one of her photographs with me. And she sent this....

The beauty of the flower against the muted tones of the background seemed to perfectly capture my feelings this month. Even when peering through the world in an imperfect fashion, there we find it. Beauty. It stands out against the backdrop of life leaving us with a more peaceful and joyful feeling.

And AVT Coach brings this bouquet in writing about abundance:

I have spent the past ten months with an action plan to have the most abundant life possible. I have cultivated new friendships and renewed old ones. I have committed time to family and used social media to create more connections with people. I made efforts to use my leadership skills in my work and have encouraged countless families in their journey toward spoken language. I have meditated and prayed. I have listened to music that stirs my soul. I have set new goals for fitness and nutrition. Abundance has been all around me each step of the way. My chosen flower can only be the flower that is a personal favorite. I have chosen the poppy. I smile when I see an abundance of poppies scattered across a field as in a Van Gogh painting. The dichotomy is that poppies have a bad rap. They are associated with a shady industry that is the demise of many people, unhealthy, commemorate the death of soldiers in some countries and symbolize remembrance.

They were used in the Wizard of Oz to hinder Dorothy's journey down the yellow brick road. Even so, looking over a field of these beautiful flowers gives me a feeling of abundance and of gratitude. Abundance spread in the open for all to see and enjoy.

Sunday Selah

2009-11-01T04:59:00.013-06:00

And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Matthew 10:30

That verse means even more to me now.

Now that I've spent some fair amount of time going through my children's hair, searching for nearly invisible little nits.

Meditating on their follicles, strand by strand.

By strand.

The irony of our recent lice situation is that, for the most part, the kids have found the extraction process rather bonding. And I suppose I have too.

It feels good to them to have my hands combing through their hair. They enjoy the undivided attention. They enjoy the feel of oil and conditioners being massaged into their scalps. And as I peer at each strand of hair through my magnifying lamp, they peer back up at me through the glass, chatting, looking at my face, asking me questions, all while I work to remove the pests from their heads.

And then it hits me.

That's how Abba knows me, knows the hair count of my head.

Sin comes to infest my life, quietly. I don't really see anything at first, just that occasional tickle of the conscience, that little itch of the soul. But sin is a prolific reproducer and before long, many strands of my life have a nit of rebellion, a nit of pride, a nit of self-indulgence attached to them. I can try to treat it myself, slathering a bottle of self-help onto my mind. But when I comb back through to the roots of my heart, the progeny of sin remains, ready to burst forth in my complacence.

And then my Abba sits me down. He anoints my head with the oil of His Holy Spirit, smothering those clinging trespasses, conditioning the dry places in my heart. He combs out the tangles of fear and doubt, deftly going through each strand of my life, the tresses that cover the surface as well as the fibers that lay underneath. And when I come under His merciful ministrations, as He cleanses the particles of peccancy, I find myself chatting more with Him, basking in the presence of His attention. As I peer back through the magnifying glass that exposes all my shortcomings, I see His face, His holiness glorified, enlarged in contrast to minutiae of my self.

He knows the very hairs of my head. Because He has been willing to come comb through the nits of sin. Strand by strand.

All to make me clean.

Selah.

JPEG of the Week

2009-10-31T00:50:00.001-05:00

~Look what I got to take pictures of last week...

~it's a brand new baby boy~

~and his adorable big sister~

~and my ovaries ache a little bit~

~just sayin'~

Shameless Commercialism...

2009-10-30T04:59:00.001-05:00

Back in the day, I sewed the kids' costumes.
I'm older...and tireder now...

And, you know, the Disney Corporation surely needs my financial support.

Or something like that...

So here we go.

And now the money shot...

So do you think this might get me some free tickets to Disney World?

The Maiming O' the Gourds

2009-10-29T04:59:00.001-05:00

Nothing like that time honored tradition of turning your kids loose in the backyard with sharp objects and garden vegetables...

Or are pumpkins technically fruit?

I forget.

The kids finally had their way with the orange squash. They had been begging me for two weeks to carve up these beauties and seemed genuinely shocked that pumpkins which have been gutted tend to have a shorter shelf life.

They were likewise amazed that I would be so cruel as to allow the pumpkins to exist outside in the rain.

Since pumpkins are only used to climate controlled indoor environments.

Like the grocery store.

Their pumpkins are still a work in progress. I'm hoping these Pumpkin Picassos and Maiming Monets will finish their masterpieces today so I can show off their handiwork.

And for next month...

We tackle ice carving.

Nothing will keep a kid's attention like a chainsaw....

Snack Time

2009-10-28T04:59:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure that it you put bat guano in individual snack packs, my kids would probably eat it.
Because in their economy, anything pre-packaged into individual bags by the factory has got to be more savory, more delicious, more valuable than those big family size boxes.

But let's run a little financial report on those individual snack packs, shall we?

Okay, okay, I'll leave you alone. You love those little snack packs and I'm going to ruin your mojo.

So let's just put it this way...in a house with eight children, it is not economically feasible to provide each Octamom kid with an individual snack pack for our snack sessions that run throughout the day.

As in, we would be out of house and home in short order if we tried to keep these ravenous hoards in little bits of colorfully printed foil envelopes of Goldfish.

Hence, this system.

I've started making our own snack packs, scooping 1/2 cup measurements of snacking goodness into little snack bags.

And then those little snack bags go into a bin that the kids are allowed to pilfer through and find a 'snack pack' that's meet their palate.

I'm sure some of you had already been using this method at your homes...I'm just a little slow on the uptake. But the kids are thrilled to have their own individual bags...because things just taste better out of your own little baggie.

The Nit-ly Update...

2009-10-27T04:59:00.002-05:00

I've been schooled.

In Phthiraptera.

That would be the Latin for lice.

Yummy.

When I posted our little louse adventures last week, so many of you were just amazing, letting me know what to watch out for, methods to try, tips and tricks.

You rock.

You just do.

Pediculosis.

That would be that Latin term describing lice infesting a human host.

Just trying to sharpen up your Trivial Pursuit skills.

So here's what we've learned thus far, just in case you ever need the Octamom Reader Cumulative Lice Knowledge.

1. Lice have a 7-10 day life cycle, meaning that, just because you doused your kid's head in over-the-counter lice shampoo pesticide does not mean that your issues are now over. It's very important to remain vigilant, particularly in that 7-10 day window after the initial treatment, checking for nits (the egg structures of lice that attach themselves to the hair follicle.)

2. Some strains of lice are becoming somewhat resistant to the over-the-counter shampoos used for eliminating them.

3. Nits actually have a saliva that bonds them to human hair like glue. Who knew?

4. Lice typically do not like oils. I used conditioner of the kids' hair to make things a little more unpleasant for the parasites. We topped it off with shower caps to contain all that greasiness.

5. Lice also apparently are opposed to tea tree oil. I've been using a tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner as extra measure.

6. Suburban Correspondent hooked me up to the Cetaphil method--and I do believe it's going to prove to be our winner. Check out this link she sent me. We have used this method and in addition to the fact it's far more gentle on my kids' scalps, it also seems to help dissolve that glue hold nits have on the hair shaft. After just one treatment, we could easily brush the nits from the hair, a huge improvement after nit-picking for two days.

7. We have bagged all ancillary soft textiles in the house, meaning that all throw pillows, extra blankets, and stuffed animals are now contained in plastic bags and secreted away. And the bonus? The house seems far less cluttered. I plan on leaving these items in bags for at least two weeks and may go longer in the interest of extremism.

8. After laundering every necessary item in sight, I'm now daily running sleeping pillows and comforters through the dryer for about 45 minutes.

9. Nit combs are a joke. J-O-K-E.

10. I cut the boys' hair to crew cuts less than a 1/4 inch--and so far, so good. The boys have remained nit free.

11. I was reminded to make sure I thoroughly vacuumed the van. Although fabric to scalp transmission of lice is not considered all that common, it certainly seems like good common sense to clean headrest zones.

12. Apparently the little critters don't like heat--so we've been blow-drying, blow-drying, blow-drying...does 'blow-drying' actually use a hyphen?

So, for the moment, I breathing a tentative sigh of relief. While I'm not yet ready to proclaim Phthiraptera Vanquishment (and, no, I'm not sure 'vanquishment' is a real word...but it should be...), I am hopeful that I can at least claim Containment...which may be half the battle.

Not that I want to get cocky or anything.

Because I'm pretty sure those Lice Fates are a vengeful bunch...

Who's in the Mood for an Awesome Giveaway?!?

2009-10-26T04:59:00.000-05:00

So here's the dealio--

I participated in a compensated review for Orowheat bread and have posted my thoughts over at Octamom Reviews. Orowheat has offered a gift pack of some of their products as a giveaway to Octamom readers, so head over to the link, check out my review, and then comment away for chances to win some bread...as in, literal bread. Be sure and leave your comments for entry in the contest at the Octamom Reviews site. Good luck!~

Sunday Selah

2009-10-25T04:59:00.002-05:00

When Saul realized that the LORD was with David and that his daughter Michal loved David, Saul became still more afraid of him, and he remained his enemy the rest of his days.

1 Samuel 18:28-29

Saul's daughter Michal.
David's wife Michal.

She's just a girl who can't seem to make up her mind.

When the first king of Israel, King Saul, began to use worldly means for the advancement of his kingdom, he was warned by the prophet Samuel that things would go sour. And sour they go.

Saul begins to realize that the defeater of Goliath, the giant warrior of the Philistines, is now the darling of Israel.

And the darling of his youngest daughter's heart.

David pays the bride price of Michal in the gory form of one hundred foreskins taken from the Philistine army. It was a tab Saul was sure David couldn't pay. But David does.

And so Michal is wed to her warrior bridegroom.

But she is a girl who can't seem to decide if she wants to be the daughter of the king or the wife of the future king.

Saul, out of jealousy over David's successes, devises a plot to take his life. He sends some of his men to stake out David's house and take the opportunity to kill him. Michal warns David of this plan, a good decision, but then follows it with a poor one: she stays behind. She does not go with her husband. And evidence of another poor decision is found in her own bed; she creates what looks like David's sleeping form in the bed with a household idol. She has known the laws of the Lord. She is a daughter of Israel. But she is still hanging on to superstition. And then she makes yet another decision, one that digs the dividing line between her father and her husband even deeper. When Saul discovers that Michal was implicit in David's escape, he confronts her and demands to know why she would deceive her father and help his enemy evade detection. Michal literally puts words in her husband's mouth, stating that David threatened to kill her if she did not help him escape. She doesn't own her love story for her husband.

That Michal. Wishy-washy. A foot in each camp. Trouble deciding which king she will follow.

We sometimes act like her daughters.

We see the sparkling trappings of following a worldly kingdom and we waffle. We are confronted with a moment where we should follow our rightful Bridegroom, but we waver. And we try to span the difference between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven.

Michal ultimately is cursed with an unfruitful life. David's one peace treaty demand when he takes the throne of Judah over the now divided Israel is that Michal be returned to him. Saul had given her to another man after her claim of spousal abuse. But David does not forget his first love. He could have demanded anything from Michal's brother who takes the throne of Israel after Saul's death, but he asks for one thing. Michal.

When David achieves his ultimate triumph in bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem, it is Michal who mocks and rebukes him. And for her continued inability to put her love firmly in David's court, she never bears him children, never sees the fruit of legacy. She is the bitter and sharp-tongued anecdote in the chronicles of David's life.

There's a little recipe here, found for leading a fruitful life and leaving a legacy. It's the antithesis of Michal's actions. Follow your Bridegroom, rid your spiritual house of its idols and own your love story.

Simply delight in your rightful King.

Selah.

JPEG of the Week

2009-10-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

~8 of 8~

~pondering his next adventure~

~which will probably involve climbing something~

~or throwing something so as to hear the noise it makes when it breaks~

~or both~

Progress.....

2009-10-23T08:17:00.002-05:00

I suppose that in the middle of the dealing with the dander and debris of human earthly life, it's only appropriate a should come up for an intellectual breather now and then. As in, you can only nit pick for so long...

While I love re-exploring the classics that made up the bulk of my college reading list, I also enjoy introducing my kids to the oldies and goodies. But the archaic language and slower pace of some of these works makes for frustration fodder when it comes to keeping the kids' attention.

Hence that little beauty you see up there, Little Pilgrim's Progress by Helen Taylor.

I've looked at other books of classics rewritten at a younger level but have not been dazzled. Too casual, too silly, too predicated on the style of today's younger audience literature. But Helen Taylor's reworking of John Bunyan's classic really stands on its own. She follows the story of Little Christian as he begins his journey to the Celestial City, meeting along the way such characters as Obstinate, Pliable and Worldly. I've read this book before to my older kiddos and started again last night with some of the younger set. My eight year old in particular was all ears and my six year old began to grasp the allegorical nature of the story.

I don't remember where I picked up our copy originally. (I think it is available on Amazon and educational sites.) But I certainly wish there were more of the classics presented in this style for kids. Helen Taylor still uses more challenging language, but in a way that grows vocabulary and usage. And I'm a firm believer that good readers get their start in good listening: listening to great books being read aloud. Of all the things I've tried and experimented with and purchased for our homeschooling, I would still maintain that it is the time I have spent reading aloud to the kids from books that are of a higher level that has been one of the most successful mainstays of our homeschool experience. And the quiet time of sitting snuggled up, the only sound input being the cadence of well-placed words and pages turning is a beautiful thing...

Even in a season of nit picking.

It's a Classic

2009-10-22T04:59:00.001-05:00

One of my degrees is in English Literature.
I have a diploma that says so.

Which is a good thing, because if we based that B.A. on my memory of the books that I read for completion of that degree, I'd have a hard time proving it.

I've been a little busy since my college days.

And a little sleep deprived.

And some of those tomes are adrift in the soup we call my long term memory.

But it does create a unique opportunity.

For several years now, I've been re-reading many of the classics.

And they practically seem like different books to me.

Now, granted, I don't always remember a whole lot about the story line or characters since a couple of decades have now passed since the original reading. But it's not just that.

To read anew some of these works, now that I've traveled further down the path of life, now that I know myself a bit better, now that I have a treasury of people and places and experiences in my personal baggage, well, it's just a whole new read.

I've just finished up Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and was completely enchanted in a very different way. I slowed down my reading; I wasn't under deadline for an assignment. I wasn't yanking out passages to display in a critical essay. I just read it to read it.

And was it gorgeous. Melodic, haunting. A bit frilly in its language and beautifully tough in its message.

And then there's Henry James.

Ah, Henry. How you speak to me.

Have you read The Portrait of a Lady, now that you're a grown-up? (Okay, okay, a grown-up supposedly...)

Mr. James just makes my heart flutter with his analysis of relationship and manipulation and ambition and defeat. Flutter, I tell you.

I've done the Bronte sisters again and Jane Austen. I've dusted off my Hemingway and my Steinbeck. Gustave Flaubert has graced my night table and with enough caffeine, I have high hopes of tackling all my Shakespeare again.

I'm now on my third, fourth and fifth read of some of these volumes and I've learned a little something that an English degree simply doesn't afford. Because in the scurry of the class syllabus and the test prep and the assigned papers and the critical analysis, one of the primary features of reading literature is lost.

And that is the art of savoring the language. Allowing a phrase to linger on the tongue of the mind, to taste its sweetness, its tartness, the bitterness of it revelation and the zest of its truth.

So I read the classics anew. And I savor the recipes of gorgeous rendered rhetoric.

Which imparts a deep satisfaction in the heart.

Nit Wits

2009-10-21T04:59:00.000-05:00

Louse Field Study.

Day 3.

In case you missed the Octamom Scalp Update from yesterday, let me catch you up.

We made a disturbing discovery on Monday. It seems that two of the kids have lice.

Ew.

So we've done the shampoo thing and the OCD level of cleaning thing. And we've now moved on the Internet Cures.

Hence the Heavy Conditioner/Shower Cap methodology:

This theory states that if you douse the kids' heads in conditioner and let it sit for hours and hours, any parasite will be drowned in that wave of creamy goodness.

We don't think that 7 of 8 has any nits...but we're playing it safe. And the boys? I gave them close crew cuts.

And the photo shoot? Well, I figure that we might as well 'celebrate' the experience. 1 and 2 of 8 conducted the photo shoot and I think they did a stellar job capturing the glamor of the day.

And I figure that it's true beauty when you can show off your lice treatment with pizazz....

I Hate to Nit Pick....

2009-10-20T04:59:00.000-05:00

But I am.

Literally.

One of the bonuses of homeschooling is that you don't have to deal with some of the inconveniences traditional within the public school experience.

Or so I thought.

Until yesterday.

At which time I received a little news bulletin that went something like this:

"Mom, 6 of 8 has some kind of little bug crawling in her hair."

Yeah.

It was just on Sunday that I was teaching on the dangers of bowing down to an idol of pride.

I think now that perhaps I was harboring Lice Pride.

As in, my kids have never had them.

Until yesterday.

And don't let the exponential possibility of this circumstance escape your purview. There are ten people in this family.

Ten.

Several of whom share bedrooms. And linens. And the occasional toothbrush.

Accidentally.

But still.

So I wasn't going to post about this nit picking issue. But then I thought that maybe I should. Maybe I could use a little dose of housekeeping humility. So there it is. Two of my kids had lice yesterday. And if this makes you feel a little superior, good for you. And if you can commiserate, bless you. Bless you.

So we fire-bombed those little critters. We did the whole lice shampoo thing. We did the whole comb-out thing. 2 of 8 worked on 6 of 8's follicles for five hours. Five.

I wasn't personally quite that dedicated when it came to 4 of 8's head.

All told, there were actually very few critters, although one seems one too many. The laundry has all been boiled on the 'white' cycle, then cooked in the dryer. All the other kids have been examined and plastered in tea tree oil (which, urban legend has it, is a natural deterrent). The stuffed animals are bagged, the furniture vacuumed, my cuticles peeled and raw.

My amazing neighbor JT soothed my literally ruffled (and picked through and thoroughly examined) feathers and told me that she had always heard that lice prefer clean hair, ergo, my children must be quite clean. Maybe it's just something they tell suburban moms to assuage the guilt, but I don't care. I'm hanging on to it.

My best buddy JK scrambled to look up removal info for me as I called her multiple times yesterday. She affirmed my initial actions of scrubbing, drying, vacuuming, picking, washing, bagging and bleaching. And then she found this profound tidbit of advice on some internet site that said, "For prevention, do not let your children play with other neighborhood children who have untreated lice."

Whew.

How helpful.

'Cuz, ya know, all the kids in my neighborhood who have untreated lice wander the sidewalks with signs around their necks alerting us to this fact.

Not.

I'd keep writing, but I think I've grossed you out enough for now.

And my head itches.

Communication is a Crock...

2009-10-19T04:59:00.001-05:00

After twenty-two years of relationship, Michael and I have learned quite a bit about communicating with each other.
Not that we've perfected our methods, you understand.

But we have figured out a few things that work for us, such as me learning to not attempt to discuss important issues while there is some significant soccer game on the FoxSoccer channel. And Mike has learned that I don't find jokes funny while I'm in labor.

Hurray for us.

But every now and then we have a miscommunication event that takes on a level of significance.

For example, this weekend.

I asked Mike to turn unplug a certain kitchen appliance. And he complied.

Except that was a slight hitch. You might even say that he got his wires crossed.

Literally.

Which meant that Sunday dinner turned out like...this.

This would be the plump pot roast that was going to grace our table yesterday afternoon.

And those black sticks? The ones nestled next to that former plump pot roast?

Those were originally carrots...before they turned into candidates for carbon dating.

So I guess Michael and I still have some refining to do with our communication. Our Crock Pot Communication, to be specific. Because our present level of comprehension when it comes to discussing the Crock Pot is just, well, a crock.

(My apologies for the particularly bad pun...I just couldn't resist...)

Sunday Selah

2009-10-18T04:59:00.000-05:00

The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes of bread for the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to provoke me to anger.

Jeremiah 7:18

Human beings seem to gravitate toward deification.
Often deification of ourselves.

When the Israelites were deep in the wilderness on their way to the promised land, they dealt with the stress of their escape and the absence of Moses by creating a community project, one that involved artistry, sacrificial giving and a focus of commonwealth.

Which resulted in the unfortunate sculpting of a golden idol cast in the form of a calf and a subsequent worship of that rendered object.

And it seems to me that we women have our idol worship as well, unique to our gender, unique to the stresses we face.

The Hebrew women adopted into their liturgy the worship of a female mythological character called the Queen of Heaven. This pseudo-deity was the amalgam of female goddesses of their pagan neighbors, under the names of Asherah, Astarte and Ishtar. She was known as the consort of Baal and to the human mind, seemed to embody the mysterious feminine aspects of the spiritual that no male god could possess.

The husbands of the Hebrew women initially tolerated this worship as a 'girly' thing that would seemingly do no harm. And over the course of the years, the celebration of the Queen of Heaven would become central to the traditions surrounding harvest time.

And it all was a pageant declaring that God alone was not enough for the needs and seasons.

The prophet Jeremiah warns the people that their adherence to this practice will lead to their enslavement. The people knock off from their practices for a bit, but then retort that as long as they made sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven, their crops produced more and they saw more increase. And the Hebrew women return to their idol.

We sometimes talk of 'modern' idols in our lives, the television set, money, materialism. And these do emerge as focuses of our daily devotion. But we women also have our little shrines in the heart, those places where we think our gender deserves a special devotion, a unique need only other women can understand.

We caress the idea that women have a higher intelligence in practical matters, that men operate out of brute and power. We sprinkle offerings at the altar of self-pity, with chants of how tough it is to be a woman. We bristle at any sniff of some man trying to control us. We offer crumbs of our hopes at the icon of 'If-Then'...'if' this situation will occur, 'then' we will walk in happiness. We smooth unguents over the results of sulking behavior, blaming hormones and circumstances for our lack of emotional discipline. And we do it all in the name of Womanhood, taking up a mantle of chromosomes as justification for sin areas in our lives that are difficult to prune and bend to the discipline of the spirit.

But when we read of the fruit that is to be evident in our lives through the Holy Spirit, it is fruit that is not predicated on our specific gender. We are all created in the image of God, all of us. Whether male or female, we represent unique and specific aspects of the character of our Creator. We are to walk in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, no matter the arrangement of our DNA. It is the ultimate leveling, the complete culmination of women's rights, to be able to traffic in the same quality and character as the Creator of the universe, the One who is Light. While we can and should rejoice in the unique way we are knit together as women, our devotion belongs alone to Jehovah. And in that sole worship, we acknowledge that Jehovah is the I Am, the One who is complete and in whom we are completed.

May we tear down those high places and shrines that keep us from this truth.

Selah.