Thinking of fathers.....

*Somehow, this post that was supposed to have published on Sunday, ended up at the tail end of my post for today. So, I'm trying to fix it and rearrange things.....*

I gave my dad a book several years ago called "Why a Daughter Needs A Dad". It is a great book for those fathers out there. I love reading through it and thinking about my dad and the dad that my girls have. Two points from the book that keep coming back to me....

• A Daughter needs a dad.... to teach her that family is more important than work.
• A Daughter needs a dad....who teaches her she is important by stopping what he is doing to watch her.

That is why my husband is such a good dad.

We knew that having a family and with me being a mom first, would require sacrifices. No, we don't have a lot of money to do all the great special things we'd love to show/do with our children. We would SO love to show them things like the Natural History Museum, the Capital, Disney, etc, etc,

But..... we have each other. I got to see my children's first steps, hear their first words, hold their hands while they learned to walk, and sometimes I take for granted that I have had this time.

Sometimes, just stopping and watching them is the most heartfelt and important thing we can do.

Babies Don't Keep.......

My oldest is going to be attending the babysitter's course tomorrow. She will be in 6th grade this coming fall. We have already had 'the talk'. When did I get old enough to need to have that talk with MY children? When did I become old enough to have a daughter who could start caretaking for other people's children.....it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I was doing that myself! I have Facebook friends who I babysat or whose siblings I babysat! Where did the time go?

My 'baby' is 4 yrs old and will go to preschool in the fall with her siblings. All 5 will be in the same school building next year . As I was looking at our littlest, it suddenly dawned on me how much bigger she is, she has a beautiful face, but its not a baby-face anymore! She is tall, hasn't nursed for two years, has a great vocabulary, even corrects people when they don't use proper grammar--even though she, herself, still uses the word "mine" for "my"......

Where has the time gone?

It reminds me of this poem I've had saved.....I don't remember where I got it from, or why, specifically, I saved it. But it is tugging at my heartstrings again:

Mother, oh mother, come shake out your cloth!
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up the bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's in the nursery, blissfully rocking!

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy blue
(Lullabay, rockaby, lullaby loo)
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo)
The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo)

Oh, cleaning and scrubbing will wait until tomorrow,
But children grow up, as I've learned from my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs.
Dust, go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby. Babies don't keep.

1958....Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

(emphasis mine)

Happy Birthday, Amallia Dawn!

On this date 7 yrs ago, my third born daughter was born after an interestingly long labor induction. During my pregnancy with her I craved Chinese food like crazy! Nathan would drive into Hutch from our home in Buhler to satisfy those cravings whenever possible. :-) This was also the pregnancy that I became obsessed with family names. I wanted a family name for this baby and I also really wanted something that I could shorten to Molli. I didn't want to 'just' name her Molli because I felt it was too common a name. So, we named her Amallia Dawn -- Amalia (we added an L because I like to spell our children's names differently) was Nathan's grandma's middle name (his dad's mom) and Dawn is the middle name that both my sister and Nathan's sister have.

My favorite memory from Molli's birth was that as I was pushing her out, Dr found that her cord was wrapped around her neck. As doc reached in to move it, baby Molli's hand came out holding her cord and unwrapped it HERSELF!! It was a pretty amazing sight to see in the mirror and she wasn't even completely born yet! What miraculous creatures God has created and blessed me with!

Family reunion

A couple weeks ago we had a 'tri-annual' family reunion. Every three years the descendants of the late Henry & Anna Wulf get together on Memorial Weekend in Cheney, KS. The kick-off activity is a golf tourney on Saturday AM, then there is a catered meal and program on Saturday evening. Sunday AM there is 'church on the hill' -- a family-led service out at the original homestead outside of Cheney. This time around, Nathan volunteered to help on the committee and of course asked me to help because of my experience with event planning.

We needed to be in Cheney on Friday night, the night before the festivities to help set-up and then on Saturday we were there early again but didn't want the kids playing on the playground and getting stinky and dirty for the nice meal, so they got a little restless. To be realistic, that was a long time for the kiddos to be quiet and relatively behaved, given the fact that they had also ridden in the car for 45 minutes to get there. So when some of the other families (on Saturday evening) were letting their kids play in one corner of the gym, we let ours go over there too. The kids were having a grand time playing on the gym mats and with scooters and balls and other things.....it got a little rambunctuous a couple of times, but they were quieted and obeyed. They were having so much fun and Channdler, our little hyperactive guy who doesn't stop moving - EVER - really enjoyed the chance to get his wiggles out.

But the most impressive thing ever was when the band started playing:

Our little spirited Channdler heard the music start and immediatley came over to the stage, pulled up a chair and SAT directly in front of the stage, for the entire 30 mins or so that they played!
vv Look at the lower left corner of this picture. Chann is in a red shirt. vv

Because Kids Live Here....

I'm joining a friend and her blog Dancing Barefoot on Weathered Ground with an idea "Because Kids Live Here". She is encouraging us to post pictures of things that show children live in our house.

Apparently I wasn't keeping CLOSE enough tabs on the kids.....or they have already learned that when I'm on the phone I can't come in the playroom and check on them:



They GLUED their crayons to the WALL!!

and right under THIS Sign:

Our Summer Schedule......or How JoLyn stays sane while taking 5 kids to work....

Since I mentioned it in an earlier post, ie-Math Monday, here's a little sneak peek into our plan for this summer:

Please forgive the (ish) after every time, it IS Summer after all :-)

8:30 (ish) -- Arrive at the office, chat with Grandma/pa, get settled, eat breakfast or AM snack (whichever applies)
9:30 (ish) -- Work on Summer Bridge Homeschool books

• Erikka (11 yrs old)-- Math Monday; Reading Tuesday; Writing Wednesday; English Thursday; & Reading Comprehension Friday
• Morgyn (9yrs) --Math Monday; Social Studies Tuesday; Writing Wednesday; Science Thursday; Language Arts Friday
• Molli & Chann (6 yrs) -- Math Monday; Lang. Arts Tuesday; Writing Wednesday; Science Thursday; Social Studies Friday
• NataleaAnna (4yrs) -- Matching Monday; Vocabulary Tuesday; Letters & Numbers Wednesday; My World Thursday; Phonics Friday

When they're done with 2 full pages (or more) in their workbooks, then they may have free choice time, either working on FreeRice.com or playing in the playroom.

Noon-1pm -- Lunch time & Wednesday's only-Erikka's band lesson

1pm-2:30pm -- Free Choice, taking turns on computer games; working on sewing; or playing in the playroom

2:30pm-3pm -- Snack time

3pm-4pm -- Quiet carpet time: reading or being read to or resting

Its Not Fair!!!!

Wow, what a fun phrase! "AGHHHHH, IT'S NOT FAIR!!" "You're MEAN!"

I love my kids. Sometimes I feel so apathetic about the 'fairness' issue. As a parent, is it our job to make things F-A-I-R or is it our job to raise our children to understand the concept of "LIFE's NOT FAIR!" Even as an adult, I've used that phrase myself....so the question remains, IS Life supposed to be fair or are we just supposed to deal with it?

Real estate offers are based on FAIR market value. If my neighbor sells their house for $182,000, then its probably not gonna fly for me to sell my house for $275,000.

I don't let my kids stay up as late as I do, because I can't handle how crabby they'll be the next day because they require more sleep than I do -- but that's the difference between adults and children. My 11 yr old has to go to bed at the same time as the 4 yr old.....is THAT fair? SHOULD it be?? Can an 11 yr old handle a later bedtime than a 4 yr old?? What if the 4 yr old naps??

If one of my children has a snack, they all want a snack. I can't ALWAYS tell if they are truly hungry or just bored (and thinking they wanna eat) so is it fair to give one a snack and not the others? I can tell you THEY don't think so! I don't want any of my children to go hungry, but I also don't want any of them dealing with the same weight problem I am..... What's a mom to do?

I think that the answer is individual for each family, each person: if decisions such as who gets to do this or that, who gets to stay up later than someone else, etc. is based on how well THAT person can handle it, then I suppose it is only fair ;-) to say that the decision is individual and not based on fairness......

Is that FAIR to say? :-)

Its Monday! Happy June!

Wow, I can't believe it is already June 2009! Where does the time go? I hope that the summer flies by as quickly as the school year does, but that doesn't usually seem to happen. Bringing 5 kids to work with me is trying (at best) and can get interesting. We have home-school books for the summer and Mondays are "Math Mondays" so they were already excited about this morning ! Then E sits down with her book and discovers, "Hey, this isn't so hard after all." Uh, yeah, its not like I'm trying to get them to work out college statistics or something....just a review of things they should have learned this past year to keep them from forgetting so much when August rolls around.

So the great thing that happened already this AM -- my laptop mouse has quit working. I broke it a long time ago and tried a tape fix, but now it is just done. Oh well, I guess I got my $6 out of it.

The kids have been SO cranky today (yes, already). M stood over her book telling me she couldn't write out "4 hundreds, 5 tens, 2 ones" on her number notations (that she'd already done 2 pages of) and just sat on the floor and cried like a pre-menstrual teenager....problem is, she's only 6! Not to mention the fact that she's a really good speller! and was reading two years ago when others in her class were still learning phonics......

I have not gotten enough studying done for the exam I'm taking next month! I can't believe I'm already saying "next month"! I keep trying to tell myself, "'ll have time to study as soon as the quarterly reports are done" or the kids are out of school, or the laundry's all caught up, etc. etc. Thing is: with a family of seven, the laundry is NEVER all caught up; studying is more difficult with 5 kids around (duh) and once the 1st quarter reports are done, there are second quarter reports to do.....blah blah blah, life goes on. It never stops, does it? I guess I'll just have to remember:

"I'll have time to sleep when I die!"