Wind Chimes in the Evening Breeze

We just got back from swim team practice. The kids that can walk have brushed their teeth and headed to bed. Daughter makes last minute door barricades to stop the cats from shoving her door open and playing in her room at night. A plastic Lego bin lid stands upright as a shield to block her door, and a red velvety pillow acts as a noise barrier for Otta, the second cat, who likes to bang the lid against her door, waking my daughter up. It took us a few nights to figure out this system. :)

Hubby has read up on the next two chapters of C.S. Lewis's book "Mere Christianity" for his Bible study group tonight. They have deep discussions usually that go until close to midnight.

Son heads to bed downstairs but wishes he could stay up until 10 or 10:30, occasionally coming to the steps to try another discussion tactic. Should I let him? What were your bedtimes in middle school? Don't teens need more sleep than even younger kids, medically?

Baby nurses quietly, falling asleep. My jerking one-handed typing wakens him gently, and he quickly eats more as if to say, "No, really. I'm still eating!" ........ He sleeps now, so I transfer him to a burping position, inhaling the scent of his face and hair. Kissing his cheek, breathing his sweet milky smell, my body relaxes even more. There is nothing like it.

The small metal wind chimes, a gift from one of my former youth group girls years ago, sing in the night breeze on my deck.

A Brush with Thrush

Last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, baby D and I were battling a brush with thrush. Gentian violet (sp?) was highly recommended to us by a nurse friend. The bright purple-blue stain was hilarious to us those three dosing days.

Schooling has been fun this week. We finished "The Call of the Wild," learned about the North American continent--including a lot about Alaska-- and performed several interesting science labs.

J, my older son--inspired by Jack London's book-- made up a dog sled game, which our family just now played at the kitchen table. Caught up in that excitement, all of us started brainstorming additions to J's fun game idea. Daughter M began to sketch out a map board. Husband M jumped in often with new ideas, and I was eager to throw in story lines. "Oooh, let's have this Lose a Turn spot be called Snowstorm!" or "Oh, neat, the temperature is getting really low. That will benefit my low temperature dogs..." Of course that did mean that some dogs were lost to the cold. By the end of the game, the bitter temperatures killed off all of our dogs, just 60 miles short of their target. Pretty realistic, I thought! Every one else is brainstorming ways of adding food, or buying new dogs or warming equipment along the way. Of course, that would add weight and lower our speeds, hmmm. Fun game, huh? J came up with that idea, inspired by The Oregon Trail, I'm sure. :)

How are you?

Science Labs and Swimwear

Wednesday we started homeschooling. It was a great day of science, geography, literature, Language Arts and more. For J's science, we had a cool lab experiment that broke down water molecules and altered copper into copper hydroxycarbonate. (In other words, his end of the copper wire, after being charged with a battery and baking soda water, turned blueish green. Even the water turned blue! Tasted terrible too!) We had been warned not to touch the two ends of the wires together and were so curious to know what would happen if we did! Standing at the table with their swim goggles on (for lack of better protective eye wear), my kids worked away.

Yesterday was a good day academically but a harder day for me. Among another painful thing that made it hard to pick up and hold baby D, I developed a nauseating migraine throughout the day. By evening, it was miserable. But we still had a good day of school.

Mark likes to listen in on whatever history or literature books the kids and I are reading aloud for school. We enjoy him joining us so we like to read in the morning with him before he heads to work. Currently we are reading Jack London's The Call of the Wild. It's very dramatic, and we get choked up at sections of the book.

Today was a fabulous day! The migraine was gone when I woke up this morning. (Thanks to my brother-in-law who let me know which meds to safely take while nursing.) And thanks to La Leche League for their sage advice, I was feeling better in other ways too. Life was good. School went great today, and my kids were cheerful and polite as they did school today. We had fun studying and learning.

The windows are wide open to let in the cool breezes. Baby D is nursing here in my lap. And we have friends coming over this evening.

How are you? What's been something fun about this week for you?