Goal 1, Week 4

You can read the first part of this post here. This is the list for Week Four of my goal for a Bible Reading Plan.

January - Week Four

24 - The Birth of Isaac ... (Genesis 21:1-21:7)
25 - Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away ... (Genesis 21:8-21:21)
26 - The Treaty at Beersheba ... (Genesis 21:22-21:34)
27 - Abraham Tested ... (Genesis 22:1-22:19)
28 - Nahor's Sons ... (Genesis 22:20-22:24)
29 - The Death of Sarah ... (Genesis 23:1-23:20)
30 - Isaac and Rebekah ... (Genesis 24:1-24:67)

Goal 4: Clean the Little Bathroom Every Day

We have this little bathroom off of our current family room (soon to be den, but you'll read more about that February 1st) and it is my favorite bathroom to use. This is the bathroom that Hubby and I use as "our" bathroom, it is also the bathroom that guests use the most often.

However, it has not been staying in as tip-top shape as I'd like, so I want to make a commitment to cleaning it every morning. I think it will become part of my early morning routine. Wake up, pray, bathroom stuff, bathroom clean, so on and so forth to get on with the rest of my day. It works best to have a specific goal and a specific time frame to do that goal. For me, first thing in the morning works out well, as I routinely wake up half an hour before the alarm goes off, and there's nothing else to distract me from doing it (usually). And for that matter, I could even clean and pray at the same time. Often enough, my prayers are said in a much less formal format anyhow. Just what I'm thinking as I'm thinking it. Like calling a friend on the phone for a chat. That's what my prayer life is like.


So, this week's goal: Clean the Little Bathroom Every Day - swish and swipe at the minimum. I can handle that.

Not One of My Finer Moments

My child, he's awesome. And I mean, like really really awesome. Like other parents would be jealous if they knew how awesome this child is. And I just destroyed his feelings without abandon. I was a total jerk to my awesome kid. And I did it out of complete selfishness. I wanted to do something and he wanted to do something, but we both could not do it at the same time. I pulled rank on him and then when he had a typical childish reaction to it, I compared him to someone that I shouldn't have. And I destroyed his feelings. Wow. That sucks. For both of us.

Boy A has been incredibly helpful, kind and selfless the last couple of days. He selflessly cleaned my bedroom. I didn't ask him to do it, in fact, I'd prefer that he not do it, but he chose to do it because he saw a problem (a huge mess in my own personal space that I am responsible for) and he chose to fix it for me. Without question, without expectation, he did it.

Then today, we were going to take he and Boy B to a basketball game. They were both really excited about it. Boy A even chose to bring along a book to read because he knew that the game gets long for him to sit though. He was responsible, made a good choice, planned ahead, all those things we have been stressing to him.

The wait to get into the game was LONG, and Hubby got tired of waiting, so we went out to lunch instead, which was nice. We had the waiters sing "Happy Birthday" to Boy A and he got a sundae, which he thought was pretty cool.

After lunch, we came home and I took my mom and Boy B back to my mom's place and Hubby and Boy A were on the computer while I was gone. When I got home, I got on the computer to read a couple of blog entries, hoping to write a couple of entries myself, and to watch two shows that I haven't had a chance to view yet. We have televisions in our house, but since we don't have cable, we have four channels, which we don't watch anyhow. Any and all of our television viewing happens online. Mostly our televisions are used for the kids' movies or sometimes a video game.

Anyhow, every two minutes tops, Boy A would come up to me and ask me if I was done yet. After about an hour of this, I was tired of hearing it. Not to say that my reaction was the right one - because it wasn't - but it was my justification for my reaction at the time that it happened.

The first thing that I tried was to let him know that no, I was not done yet, because I had just gotten on. The second thing that I tried was to explain to him that I would let him know when I was done. The third thing that I tried was to explain to him that since the two little ones were napping, and since Boy B was gone, it was a nice, quiet time that I could use to work on things that I wanted to do. I also explained to him that he had already had a chance on the computer and that it was my turn. Then he asked AGAIN. At which point, I was really not happy. I scolded him (probably with more volume and more gusto than necessary - well, not probably - definitely with more of both than necessary) and told him that I got to use the computer because it was MY computer, that I paid for it, that I continue to pay for it by paying for the internet service that we use. And since I have paid for all of that and still do pay for it, I should be able to use it when I want to. Not at all meaning that he had to pay for his ability to use it, just expressing the idea that if I have worked hard to pay for something, I would like to be able to use it as well, right?

He went upstairs and got his bank, and brought it to me. He was crying. He asked if he gave me all of his money if I would let him on to play his game. I got more upset. I told him that he didn't need to pay for it, that I just wanted to be able to use my own computer. I also told him that if he was going to cry over not being able to use the computer that he probably did not need to use the computer in the first place. And I compared him to one of Hubby's friends who is obsessed with gaming - in a very serious, life-limiting way.

He ended up going up and hanging out with Hubby. The two of them had some awesome father/son time playing a game together. And I got to watch my show in peace. But you know what? It wasn't worth it. Watching my show in peace and being able to be on the computer was not worth upsetting my son. It was not worth making him feel insignificant. It was not worth any of it.

When my show was over and he and his dad were done with their game, Boy A came back down to the computer. I was signing out of my stuff. He peeked at the computer. "I'm logging off right now, Buddy." I told him. His reply was, "I wasn't going to ask, Mom. I was just seeing what you were doing." Wow. This kid amazes me. When he acts like a mature young man, it catches me off guard when he acts like, well, a kid. He's nine. He is a kid. Sometimes I just expect too much. Sometimes I expect him to understand things that he shouldn't have to. Sometimes I expect him to be patient and selfless. Sometimes I expect all of that, so that I can be selfish and that isn't right. I learned a lesson tonight. Thank you, Boy A. And once again, I'm sorry. I love you.

*side note* Boy A did get on the computer and had some fun time to play. We also had time to sit and talk and I gave him lots and lots of praise for the things he has done the last couple of days that I am so happy and proud of him for doing. I also let him know that I was wrong. I let him know that we all make mistakes, even grown-ups, even parents, but when we do, the best thing is to admit when we were wrong, ask forgiveness, move on, and try to learn from the mistake by trying not to do it again.

This looked like fun

Weekly Accountability Post 3

January - Week Three

Changing things up a little bit here. I had been commenting on each "story" as I read it, but I don't know that it was really doing much other than maybe proving that I actually did read it. Unless someone wants to hear my thoughts on each individual story, I think I will just start keeping track of my reading.

1/17
Hagar and Ishmael ... (Genesis 16:1-16:16) Read.
Daily Prayer Time Done.
Dishes done Done.

1/18
The Covenant of Circumcision ... (Genesis 17:1-17:27) Read.
Daily Prayer Time Done.
Dishes done Done.

1/19
The Three Visitors ... (Genesis 18:1-18:15) Read on 1/22.
Daily Prayer Time Done.
Dishes done Not done.

1/20
Abraham Pleads for Sodom ... (Genesis 18:16-18:33) Read on 1/22.
Daily Prayer Time Honestly not sure.
Dishes done Not done.

1/21
Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed ... (Genesis 19:1-19:29) Read on 1/22.
Daily Prayer Time Done.
Dishes done Some of them done. At least I attempted to work on it, right?

1/22
Lot and His Daughters ... (Genesis 19:30-19:38) Done along with the previous days' reading.
Daily Prayer Time Done.
Dishes done Done.

1/23
Abraham and Abimelech ... (Genesis 20:1-20:18) Done.
Daily Prayer Time Done.
Dishes done Done.

Finish It Friday

Well today was a rather odd day to begin with. I ran over to a friend's work to pick him up and take him back to his place and then went into work myself. I was late to work, but it wasn't a big deal at all. My boss is pretty lax like that where I am concerned. I don't know that he's that lax with everyone, but I don't know. Worked a few hours, then it was time to go get the kids from my mother-in-law's house.

Picked them up, came home, put Boy C down for a nap, as he was falling asleep in the car on the way home. Of course, the fact that Girlie was asking me to sing song after song on the way home may have had something to do with it.

Hubby was already home from work, so he got the boy into bed and was playing on the computer, so I asked him if I could lay down and take a nap until the older boys got home from school. He said that was fine, then he let me sleep until 6pm! Talk about a nap! Four hours! I needed it though. I didn't sleep well last night, Boy C didn't sleep well last night, Girlie didn't sleep well last night...it was just a rough night in general.

So, Hubby woke me up at 6pm, and I rushed out the door to go pick the friend up again to take him to work for the night, stopped by Target on the way home to pick up a mousepad for Hubby and some Take-N-Toss straw cups for Boy C and Girlie. Boy C just learned how to drink from a straw last week. It was really exciting and we are so proud of him! It took him a LONG time to get the hang of it (like, 18 months or so) but now he is a straw master...minus the whole part of tipping the cup when the drink is almost gone instead of repositioning the straw. But hey, that will come with time, ya know?

So, on to the tackle for today...I posted on Katie's blog that I was planning on finishing the kitchen. I did a lot of work in the kitchen yesterday and it is close to being cleaned up. The drawers and cupboards all need a good solid, decluttering and reorganizing but that's not what I need to finish up. I just need to finish up cleaning the parts that you can see when you are just standing in the kitchen looking around. I may do the open shelving in the kitchen, but I'm not sure yet. I will take before and after pictures of the reorganizing project once I get started on it, because it is going to be a massive change and I am really excited about it. Not to mention that I plan on putting the picture of what the cupboard is supposed to look like on the inside of the cupboard once the job is finished - that way it will be easier for other people to put things away. At least, I hope it will be. Will have to see how that goes though. So tonight's project is to finish up the kitchen! (And to finally email Katie!)

Curve Ball!

Well, Hubby has surprised me this week. In a really big, major way. He said that after school is let out for the summer this year, he wants to homeschool. Just out of the blue. Well, it seems to be out of the blue. It's something that he has been stewing over and thinking about and evaluating without my knowledge of him doing so.

You see, we had originally planned to homeschool our kiddos. It was our plan all along. Even as we sent Boy A off to Preschool and Academy when he was three and four years old, our plan was to homeschool him and his younger sibling(s). I put the "s" in parenthesis because at the time he only had one sibling, but we were planning and hoping for more. We planned on homeschooling him right up until the week prior to the school year starting back in 2006. That week, we decided to enroll him.

Our home life was going through a lot of turmoil at that time, I had a new baby to take care of, Hubby and I were at the ending point of our marriage. There was a lot of grief in our lives at that time, and Hubby and I were separated. He felt that it was best to enroll Boy A in school so that he had some stability in his life, since our home life was so full of havoc at that time. So I did.

Schooling Boy A hasn't been the most beneficial thing for him, but we stuck it out. Mainly because I was following Hubby's lead in this decision, while still working with Boy A (then Boy B, and now Girlie and Boy C as well) at home. I have very strong opinions and reasons for wanting to homeschool, but that's not what this post is about, so I'll leave those out of this for now.

For the last three and a half years, we have broached the subject of homeschooling the kids probably twice a year or so. Usually, I am the one who approaches Hubby with this topic. This time, he approached me. There was no tentativeness in his conversation about the subject. It was pretty direct and straightforward. "I think when the school year is done, we should start homeschooling instead." Simple, quick, point blank. No question about it, just a statement.

One sentence that completely floored me. I've been wanting to do this, I've been praying about doing this, I cannot even express what this means to me, it is so important. He wants us to homeschool. And by us, I mean me. He wants me to homeschool our kids. At last!

Of course, at this point in our lives, there's a lot to think about and to put into perspective. For one, we really need both of our incomes. Second, our main childcare option is not someone who would be supportive of this decision. Third, well...I guess really there are only two major obstacles to overcome, but we have awhile to do it.

We also were discussing briefly what kind of homeschooling to do. Another flooring surprise from Hubby: "Boy A really likes to do his own research projects and to just learn on his own. I think allowing him to do that would really help matters." What he just described there was child-led unschooling. Letting the boy learn what he wants to know about when he wants to know about it. Hubby did say later on, though, that he thinks it would be good to have a curriculum for homeschooling, as a back-up plan to unschooling. He said that there is a lot he wants to explore before making this decision. I just could not believe my ears. He is really thinking about this.

I don't know if we will end up homeschooling the kiddos. Girlie will attend Academy next year regardless of what happens with the homeschooling aspect, and Boy C will still have his home-based public school teacher once a week, most likely along with other therapies at that point. But Boys A and B? They may very well be homeschooled next year. I'm being patient with this. I don't want to get overly excited or to plan on this happening 100%, because as I said, there are a few obstacles that we will need to work through first before this could become an actuality. But I just wanted to share this with you all, because it is something that I am incredibly excited about. Even if we don't do it, just knowing that Hubby has been reconsidering it and is willing to look into the options more thoroughly is just exciting and wonderful!