Post Category → Beatrice

celebrating

We’ve made a list and checked it at least twice. Boys have excitedly crossed off “clean bathrooms”, as well as “wrap gifts” (the latter with, perhaps, a bit more excitement.) There’s nothing like waking up on Monday morning and realizing that it’s the week of Christmas!

These last few days have been:

cousin-loving,

baby-gazing,

breakfast-making,

hair-braiding,

baby-clothes-ironing,

nativity-arranging,

pb&j’ing,

book-reading,

gift-wrapping,

tree-gazing…

…kinds of days.

And any minute, my little ones will wake up with an explosion of excitement: A few more hours, and the celebration really begins!

first week of december doings.

Ryan took the boys out one afternoon, and they strung pretty white lights around the lone tree in our yard. When it shines at night, so solitary in a snow-white, moonlit field, it’s just so pretty.

In this picture, Jameson appears to be sweeping the snow away. He’s got a long way to go:

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Cookies are what it’s all about, right? Rum logs are happily consumed at every moment that seems at all appropriate.

Beatrice longs for a cookie:

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There are pre-dawn book-reading moments that happen quite regularly. The basket of Christmas books gets heftier every year.

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The boys had their CFA Christmas Concert this past Friday evening. William was bursting with excitement over his “very first concert ever in his whole life!!!!!” I will be honest: I was not feeling the Christmas “magic” last week, but did my best to remember how exciting that Friday evening concert always was to me as a child. With that in mind, I made sure to carve out plenty of time to iron clothes, straighten ties, wrap scarves, and say in as many ways as I could, “Hey! This is a big deal!” And they had the best night. (Seeing life through someone else’s eyes sure helps a lot, doesn’t it?)

thanks, from me to You.

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Here we are, on the eve of a wonderful celebration. A day to stop and just say, Thank You. What a gift this day is, in and of itself!

In recent years it’s struck me that being thankful is very “on trend.” It’s kind of popular. But somehow, somewhere in its rise to fame, Thankful has become synonymous with Positive Thoughts.

That’s not what it means, I tell my children.

Thankfulness inherently is an acknowledgement of two parties: you, the recipient, and another, the giver. And being thankful without acknowledging the giver is rather like mailing a thank you card with no address.

Thankfulness is a chance to remember who we are and where we stand. It’s an invitation to embrace humility. And joy.

So I ponder this. Tomorrow, I want to respond to that invitation. I don’t want to simply look around me, take note of the good things I enjoy, and proceed to feel good. I want to treat thanksgiving as what it is: a chance to humbly say, All I am, all I have, the very breath I breathe, is a gift. A gift from a Giver.

Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done,
In whom the world rejoices.
Who from our mothers’ arms
Has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love
And still is ours today.

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Moments of blessing far beyond what I deserve (what joy and freedom!):

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more thoughts on reading: getting started

As some follow-up thoughts on reading to your kids, I thought I’d post a link to this entry, wherein I discuss some of the things that have helped us to establish reading as a valued tradition. Because you know what? It takes work and a plan. Some babies are born with an insatiable appetite for page-turning. Others, not so much. Or not at all. Too bad! Ha!

Maybe you’re a little lost on which books to buy. I know. There are so many!

First, ask a friend. Ask me! I’ve got lots of favorites. So does my sister.

Second, keep tabs on your favorite book lists. I am constantly going back to Five-In-A-Row’s lists. I’ve never used their curriculum, but I agree with their ideas of good books. So I trust them.

I also trust this list.

Once you’ve found your titles, either borrow it from the library (aren’t you glad for the internet and inter-library loans? Wow!), or consider buying used — either from amazon or Abe Books. Sometimes it’s the only way to find the really good titles, since they’re not all in print. But it’s also a good way to turn what would be a massive gift investment (4 kids x $16/a book = holy cow!) into a very affordable one.

And then get ready to read! Get a basket or a special sort of out-in-the-open display, and model for your kids that you love to read those pages!

I’ll leave you with links to the three books currently being read by Beatrice on the floor at my feet:

The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh

How I Became a Pirate

Mary Engelbreit’s Nursery Tales

Happy Reading!

life.

Yesterday was a pretty awesome day.

Not because anything super fun or spectacular happened. Just because I got up with my alarm, started laundry and went walking and greeted the kids cheerfully and the sun was shining and school was fun. And at 2:30, instead of crashing, I put on a movie for the boys and took the girls on a grocery run. I felt zippy and on top of the world! Woo-hoo!

And then on my drive home I got a text from a friend, wondering if Jameson would still be able to come to her son’s birthday celebration? (You know, the one that started almost an hour ago?) Gah! Wait! You mean, this awesome day was Wednesday, not Tuesday??

That pretty much sums up my life. I wish I could blame it on having four kids, but I’m pretty sure it has far more to do with this idealistic-flake melancholy-sanguine thing I have always been. Oh well! Thank goodness for gracious friends who say, “Oh, no problem!” And for totally sanguine sons who jump up without missing a beat, ready for a birthday party he previously had no knowledge of.

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While the boys were out (since Daddy saved me and did the birthday party-run after Fiona had scream-choked the whole way home from the grocery store), I cleaned the fridge. It now looks awesome, and I would say, “That wasn’t such a long chore. I need to do it every week!”, but see? That’s idealistic. Reality is that one extra chore happens every month. Or so.

Anyway, while I was in that totally torn apart refrigerator, Beatrice stood right by my side, totally enthralled. Finally she burst out, “Good job! Good job, Mama-girl!” Mama-girl is what she calls me when she has decided to assume the superior role in our relationship. It’s adorable, and you know what? I’ll take all the good-job-mama-girls I can get!

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Beatrice took this photo. Because Apple has made it possible for even 2 year olds to apply filters to photos. And black and white is her favorite.

I just love the baby in the photo.

And friends who understand that it truly is possible to forget what day it is. On a weekly basis.