Violin Wrap Up

In between our long hours of sitting around doing "simply nothing", we've also been busy wrapping up activities for the season.  For Leah, last week brought the end of her first year with the Des Moines Youth Symphony.

As with the last fall's concert, the conductor had great and inspiring things to say about setting a goal and working hard to achieve it- if you know you want it, then get the motivation you need to get it!  Make a goal and put your goal into action!  I know Leah didn't always love the practicing, but she never asked to quit and the weekly rehearsal in DSM was just enough to keep her improving as the year went by.  And she loved being part of a group that made such beautiful music.  

The concert was simply fantastic, as always.  It makes me a little nervous about the caliber of school band concerts that we'll be attending next year.  I could sit and listen to these talented young musicians for hours.  It can be harder for the kids to sit still, but Cubebot was a huge help for Noah!

 And it's always a treat to get to sit and snuggle with Daddy.

After the final number (that included a talented young drummer that Emma immediately declared that she "like liked", heaven help me if she's not just like her mother), Adam declared that he would like to start learning how to play the drums in addition to the piano.  So all around, the concert was an uplifting night for all of us, and Leah was rightfully proud of a first season very well done.

We're proud of her too!

This is her carpool buddy.  He is such a sweet and helpful young man, and I've been so grateful to his mom for helping share the ride this year.

And here are the beautiful numbers they performed at this final concert.

Appalachian Hymn, combined with the Preludio (younger) orchestra. 

Dance Scenario, by Del Borgo

Medieval Wars, by Brian Balmages- they also played this at their mid-winter lobby concert.

Beethoven's Finale from 5th Symphony- don't mind Noah's sigh and giggle at the beginning.

And everyone's favorite, combined with the Youth Philharmonic- The Maiden Voyage by Lucas Shogren.

Simplicity Parenting

I've been reading a great book lately about the power of keeping things simple in our homes and for our kids.  Limiting toys, screen time, and resisting the urge to stack our schedules full to the brim.  Recognizing the importance of rhythm, consistency, simplicity,  Basically how to raise my kids in today's world with the same ideals we were raised with 30 years ago, with just Saturday morning cartoons instead of entertainment on demand, a toy box rather than a toy room, and plenty of chances to play outside (my childhood memories are split between lots of homes, but my favorite backyards included woods, creeks, secret bush forts, a playhouse that had nothing but a few cups and maybe crates for chairs in it, sandboxes, hills to run up and down, and trees to climb).  A childhood where family dinner, family prayer, and family home evening were constant, and in which we were expected to care for the things we were given, and what we were given was enough (not too much or too little, just enough).  

Over the last 10 years I've slowly realized that very little of what my kids need has to do with plastic toys or screen time (which Noah calls "scream time", ironically) and how much it has to do with consistency, nature, imagination, creativity, reasonable limitations, safety and love.  I could probably quote half of the book as it's been reassuring me that, despite all of the things that we are still trying to figure out as parents, there are a few things we're getting right.

Like slow mornings for reading in our jammies

and imaginations that create castles, 

and sort buttons, 

and publish books.  

And slow afternoons for digging in the sandbox (Adam and his friends have been hard at play with dinosaurs and lizards in the sandbox lately), 

and trying out a homemade balance beam 

 made by the boys

and scootering around or helping a neighbor get ready for a yard sale or just sitting and reading. 

The kids are all excited for camping this summer, and have promised to help me keep an eye out for poison ivy this year.  They have been asking when we're taking our annual trip to Pella for the tulip festival or to Des Moines for the art festival.  We strung up the summer deck lights today and Emma talked fondly of our evenings of fireflies and s'mores.  The simple things seem to be the ones that stick.

It is truly difficult to preserve and protect these precious years of childhood.  All around me I see overscheduled kids whose parents are working long hours to pay for their kids long list of extracurricular activities.  I see kids in 4th grade with Apple watches and iphones, and 1st graders who stop their backyard ball game to check their cell phones.  And I wonder what my kids will remember of their childhood, if they will think of it as a magical time like I did, or if they will feel rushed into adulthood like many of the kids around them.

I loved this quite in the book most of all- 

"Compare childhood to sleep, which we die without.  Childhood does something besides mark the time until adulthood.  A protected childhood allows for the slow development of identity, well-being, and resiliency.  Traditions, rhythms, consistency, nature.  Enjoying being kids, to play and to discover and to grow up slowly."

I love the peace that comes from giving my kids permission to be kids.  Because I know that this time will be over all too fast, and before we know it they'll just be remembering the memories of today.  And hopefully they'll be sweet ones.

America

My sweet friend from Peru was over for a visit, and she asked when the kids start learning the Pledge of Allegiance.  I said not until kindergarten, then Emma surprised me with this.  She's learning all kinds of things in preschool!

(That's my friend cheering at the end, not me.  She was delighted, too!)

Grandma and Grandpa's Farm

I was clipping the kids fingernails and toenails during our bedtime scripture and prayer ritual tonight, and noticed that Leah has fingernails that look just like my Grandma Gardner's.  So our conversation morphed into something like this-

When I was a little girl, I got to visit my grandparents on their farm.  They lived on a farm!  With horses and pigs and cats and dogs and a big garden and a treehouse that sat really high up in a tree.  There was a playhouse full of dress ups and a willow tree that we could hide in and my grandma had the best kitchen ever.  There were two windows that met in the corner of the room and an oval table with swivel chairs where I sat to eat breakfast every morning and guess what my grandma had in her kitchen?

Guesses included all sorts of farm animals, including an emu, but they were all wrong.

She had a TV!  My grandma had a TV right there in her kitchen and I could sit every morning and eat my toast and drink my Tang- 

What's Tang?

It's like Country Time lemonade only orange juice flavored!  (Noah thought he would like it because he loves orange juice.)  It's pretty disgusting, but I loved to sit and swivel in my chair and drink my Tang and watch the Price is Right on my grandma's TV in her kitchen.

What's the Price is Right?

It's a game show.

What's a game show?

It's something you watch on TV when there's nothing else on.  Because we didn't get to pick what we watched on the TV, we just watched whatever was on.  And when I didn't want to eat the crusts of my toast my grandma would cut them off and guess where she would put them?

In the garbage can!

No!  It was a farm, they didn't waste any food!  

In the compost bin!

Nope!  In the scraps bucket!  My grandma had a scraps bucket and when it was filled up with all the leftover food that we didn't eat she would add some milk to it and guess who I got to feed it to?

The pigs!

Nope!  Although that would make sense.  I fed it to the kittens.  

At which point Emma's eyes got big and lovey.

My grandma had kittens that lived behind the garage and I would go out and feed them the food in the scraps bucket... and I can still smell the smell of the nearby fire in the burn barrel.... And guess what else my grandma had in her kitchen?  A cookie jar!  A real cookie jar that looked like a teddy bear with a hat on, and the hat was the lid, so if you wanted a cookie you took off the hat and reached in and got a cookie out of his tummy.   

When you are parents you'll tell your kids about visiting Grandma and Grandpa Henscheid's house, and how you sat out on the deck every morning and ate breakfast while looking at this beautiful view of the mountains.  

No we won't!  We don't do that!  We sit at the table with the plastic on it and eat Lucky Charms!  (Truth, and they love it, but next time we're there by George we'll be eating outside- look at that view at their grandparents house!)

There was another window in that kitchen that overlooked the front yard, and that's where my grandma's rose bushes were.  Grandma Gardner loved her rose bushes.  

And there was another room in the house, down in the basement, that was painted white and the bed had a purple bedspread on it, and I hated that bed because once a daddy-long-leg spider crawled on that bed while I was in it, and there was a lamp that was shaped like a ballerina, and there was a wall that had shelves on it and guess what was on all of the shelves?

Books!  Plants!

Nope!  Dolls!  Beautiful dolls that wore the most beautiful dresses.  

Cue even bigger and lovey-er eyes from Emma.

And that was the room with the cedar closet in it.  The closet was full of old coats and hats and it had a musty smell, I know because I had to hide in that closet when I drove my grandpa's tractor up a tree and I thought he was going to kill me so I hid in there and my sister Heather snuck me some grapes and cheese so I wouldn't die since I was going to be living in there forever... she's always been there for me... 

Wait, you drove your grandpa's tractor up a tree?

Yep, but that's a story for another night.  

And I'll stop there with a promise to myself to find more pictures of my grandparents farm and a younger picture of them, although this is basically what I remember them looking like, except my grandma had white hair.  Faye and Maurice (pronounced like Morris), but to me they were just the givers of the cookies in the kitchen and the forgiveness in the shed (after the tractor was fixed back up again!).

Potty Train{ed}

Poor Noah's adventures in potty training didn't get nearly the coverage that his siblings did, but in part that is because it was such a quick and painless deal.  The short story is- we waited until he was nearly three and a half and potty training took about three and a half days.  I did take a few notes about it along the way though, so here's the slightly longer story.

Day negative 40- We just got back from Disney World.  We didn't try much before our trip because I know that potty training can be a huge time commitment and I didn't want to spend our days in Florida tracking down the nearest potty.  New toilet users always love to know just how serious you are when you say that there will always be a potty nearby to utilize instead of a diaper.  But at Disney World?  No thanks.

Day negative 39- Noah wants to try sitting on the potty.  He produces a minuscule amount of pee and we are both so proud.

Day negative 38- Noah peed in the potty first thing in the morning, then wet his pants twice before lunch.  Back to diapers for naptime.  Mama's not ready to deal with the constant wardrobe changes and daily loads of laundry.

Day negative 21- Grandma asks how potty training is going, which reminds me that we should probably get around to actually doing it.  But diapers are just so easy... 

Day negative 20- Noah is sick.  Not gonna happen today. 

Day negative 10- I see Noah's diaper sticking out of his pants at church, and it takes me by surprise.  He is by far the oldest of any of my babies to sport a diaper, and he's actually a big kid now.  A diaper just doesn't look right anymore.

Day number 1- Here we go.  Noah is driving this train, and we're talking about potty, pee and poop all the time now.  He tells me he has to pee in a restaurant, and he gets there in time.  He tells me he has to pee at a friend's house, and he makes it.  He holds it through naptime and wakes up dry.  

Day number 2- It's time to poop.  I'm not sure how this is going to go since bowel movements were such a big, dramatic deal for baby Noah.  But he gets to the bathroom in time and it's NO big deal.  He pooped in the potty!!  We celebrate with Goofy gummies that we brought home from Disney.  This day also happened to be my birthday, and this is definitely one of the best birthday presents a mom could ask for!

Day number 3- He wakes up in the night, flips on the bathroom light and uses the potty without any help or fanfare, then comes into my room, hands me his dry diaper and asks me to help him put it back on.  We are definitely doing this.  

Day number 4- Another poop adventure.  He made it to the bathroom, but not all the way to the toilet... But he's still so proud!  And so am I.

Day 5- Today's poop adventure includes a reminder of the reasons why mommy will help you wipe for now.  Poop everywhere.  Yuck.

This is also the day that Noah asks, "where's my wee-wee?" (not a word we use).  I ask him who taught him that, and he says Adam.  "Adam says dis is my wee-wee, but I think that dis is my wee-wee! So where's my wee-wee??" (lots of gesturing while on the potty).  I explain that he's welcome to call it a penis, a bum, or his private parts, and the conversation ends.

Day 6- Noah has a fascinating realization while in the bathroom and exploring body parts that have previously always been covered by a diaper.  "Mama!  Dere's balls in my wee-wee!"

Clearly yesterday's lecture didn't stick.

And so on, and so forth, and day by day adventures in potty training came and went without too much fanfare.  I gave away all of our diapers within a week of using undies so that there was no crutch available (to me) in the case of regression.  Noah did a great job on his first trip away from home- our overnighter to Omaha- and Jason took him to every bathroom at the zoo all day long.  He's learned how to pee outside, and that he's not supposed to pee in our backyard.  If there is a potty nearby, then use it!  There was surely an accident here or there, but thankfully always at home and never on the carpet.  He wet his bed maybe four times and seems to be done with nighttime training already.

When we ran out of the prized Goofy gummies, he kept pooping in the potty.  Adam suggested that we give Noah some kind of a sticker chart to track his progress (Adam's favorite kind of motivator), but I said no.  He was doing great without any extra incentives or prizes (although it was a great surprise to get big boy undies from Grandma!).  We didn't bother with a kid-sized potty either.  The potty seat and step up stool work just fine and mean less mess to clean up.  Also, I learned a few kids back to not pull up and down their pants and undies for them.  If they can pee in the potty, they can manage their clothes, too.  Laziness sets in real quick when mom is there to do it for them.

So many lessons learned... I finally figured out a few years ago that the point of potty training isn't to produce pee on demand, it's to keep underwear clean and dry!  To learn how to hold it until you can get to the potty.  And the older my kids have been, the easier that concept seems to be to grasp.  Jason and I both have said that one of our biggest parenting regrets (so far!) has been trying to potty train before the kid was really ready- mainly that was the case with Adam, and only then because he needed to be potty trained before we went on a Disney Cruise when he was not quite 3 so that he could be checked into the awesome Andy's room kids clubhouse.  But boy was that a long road we traveled together.

Since Leah was my only child and only concern when I potty trained her, I didn't mind that it took a long time.  When Adam was two, I had a big sister and a little sister to juggle, and he didn't care one bit that his pants were wet- there were so many other, more interesting things to do than go potty.  Emma was a bit older, and though I was still juggling a newborn baby Noah, she and I both understood that the point was to keep her undies dry.  And she wanted to use the potty.  And Noah was my final potty training patience test- and I passed!  And he has passed with flying colors.  He knows that when he needs to go, he needs to "run to the potty!"  He will stop watching a show to run to the potty, or stop playing in the sandbox, or stop eating dinner to run to the potty.  He gets it!  We're done!  And we're thrilled!

Family Field Trip

I checked Leah and Adam out of school early for our annual family field trip up to ISU.  This year's youth matinee selections weren't as appealing to me as previous years, but tradition is tradition and we decided on The Teacher From the Black Lagoon and other short stories.  It was better received by some of us than others-

Noah slept through most of it, while Emma didn't miss a second of the singing and dancing, and declared emphatically, "I want to be an actress when I grow up!"

We all had fun and it is a nice way to reward my big kids for their dedication to trucking along at school day after day.  While it seems that we manage to take a week off every year for a vacation or family trip of one sort or another, I don't hear many complaints from day to day about going to school.  They may not always love school, but they always go willingly, they never ask to stay home just because, and I think so far this year Adam has had one sick day and Leah hasn't had any.  I do have a feeling that the overall enthusiasm toward 180 days of school might change once my little actress joins them next year, but we'll keep up this family tradition either way!

Just Life

“Enjoy the little things in life because one day you`ll look back and realize they were the big things.”

Like dressing up friends- 

 playing beauty salon and "waxing" each other- 

 trying something new- 

 two cool dudes- 

 a lunch date-

a fancy french braid- 

cooing over babies (we love babies!  We had a baby over yesterday that had tiny toes! and a tiny nose! and itty bitty fingers and he sneezed and yawned and had hiccups and we were all completely enchanted!) 

beautiful sunsets- 

training for our first family 5K-  

painting a rock-

sharing a good story-  

planting a garden and digging in the dirt-

enjoying our annual April cake (red velvet, in honor of Grandpa Mark's birthday!)

and then taking a good nap.