Friday night. End of a long week. Not bad. Just long.

On Monday I was feeling an incredible need for a break, a day off from school, something different in our routine. Then it hit me that we are in our fifth week of school, so no wonder I’m feeling it! Thank goodness for Labor Day!

It’s hard dealing with the attitudes that come up. Even now, laying in bed typing while they get ready for bed. The sass. The bickering. It’s exhausting. I don’t know what to do with it.  I keep praying.

I envy my husband’s ability to fall asleep. And makes me somewhat jealous. I’m pretty sure I could stay awake for three days and not fall asleep as quickly as he does.

Activities are pretty well in full swing, except for a few more things that get added in next week. Learning how to most efficiently manage all the dropping off and picking up this year has been a little more challenging. With only two in ballet, two doing other activities, and some new activities thrown in for some….it’s quite the juggling act. And in years past, I’ve always gotten groceries during ballet classes. But this year that just doesn’t look like it’s going to work and that really threw me for a loop. I think we’ve finally got a workable system. The next couple of weeks will be a good test.

One of my big things this year (and I think I’ve already mentioned it) is handing over more of the housekeeping responsibilities to the girls. This is imperative if we’re going to do all the things they want to do/we think are important for them to do and do school and me keep any shred of sanity that I may still have. It’s been a challenge. There are so many things that it would be so much easier to just go do myself, but I keep pushing them to do it and keep doing it until it’s done right because I know it will be worth it in a few months when they get it down. If this plan is successful, maybe next year I’ll be brave enough to hand over the cooking too.

I changed out Emma’s grammar program this week. Which reminds me, I’ve had good intentions of doing a “back to school” post with what planning and prep look like here as well as what we are using this year. I know pretty much everyone is already back to school, but maybe I can do that next week.

Anyway, I have been faithfully devoted to Rod & Staff grammar for as long as Grace has been using it; so, several years. And both of the older girls have struggled through it quite a bit (the younger two not having been in it long enough to really struggle), but it’s simple in concept and very thorough, so I’ve stubbornly stuck with it. But every day is drama and Emma was really, really struggling so I prayed about it and put out a question on Facebook and a request on our home school e-loop and came up with Shurley Grammar for her. We are only one week in, so it’s hard to say, but it seems to be huge improvement. It’s very teacher-directed, which I’m not typically a fan of, but if it works for her, then it’s worth more involvement on my part. As I was praying about switching and trying to figure out what to do, I had an epiphany of sorts. It occurred to me that Emma does much better when something is read aloud to her. I began to think of the subjects she enjoys and does well in, and they are all read aloud. It was an incredible moment for me. I even looked back at her standardized tests and confirmed that she does well with “listening”. Which is a little interesting when you live real life with her, because half the time it doesn’t seem like she’s listening at all, but apparently she is.

We went and visited what we have dubbed “Mahner Farms” today. It was a wonderful, two hour break from life and the only two hours of the day (up until 7:30) when I didn’t feel like crying.

Tonight was date night. Oh, what a glorious gift. Things have been hectic here the past few weeks. Obviously, my life is full with school and stuff for the girls. Matt recently hired a couple more guys and that has drastically changed his role at work (in a good way), but it has applied more pressure to him to sell jobs and use his time a little differently. It’s been an interesting transition period for both of us and it’s affected our communication and such. It was good to sit on the patio tonight and talk about those issues and the other little details of family life that need to be hashed out.

I think that’s it for me. Getting up early to run 7 miles in the morning. We deviated a bit from our running program this week. We both needed a little break.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!
Sara

It is Monday, the day when I typically count the gifts, and the gifts to count are plenty. But today I’m going to change things up a bit. March was such a whirlwind with so little time to journal our daily lives, I want to do that tonight. Plus, my gratitude journal is downstairs, and i just don’t want to get up to go get it. 😉 My regular counting of the gifts should resume next week.

So, something clicked our lives into overdrive as soon as we turned the calendar page to March last month. I am thankful for all the distractions that have helped the past few weeks pass so quickly, but I am more ready than ever for the “lazy days” of summer! (That term being completely relative, of course!)

March brought us field trips like Exchange City in Kansas City and week long Starbase put on by the Department of Defense. Then we had Grace’s fine arts competition and last week we made it through three days of standardized testing. It brought us glimpses of spring and extra doses of winter. It brought us the birthday of our little girls in Haiti. We carried on with ballet and horseback riding and church and small group. Matt attended meetings to learn how we can better support the orphanage in Haiti and the girls and I got four weeks closer to the end of the school year.

And here we are in April already. Saturday all of us went to one of our new favorite mexican restaurants and then did some shopping at one of our favorite outdoor malls. Last night, we watched some wicked thunderstorms roll through and we marveled at God’s greatness. Today I reported for jury duty. It was an interesting experience and one day I wouldn’t mind serving on a jury, but this would be a very difficult time of life to sit in a courtroom for several days. I was very thankful to finally be sent home after being there for close to seven hours.

I feel somewhat caught up now. I’m sorry there aren’t any photos to make this post more interesting. :-). This is the part of my blog that is mostly for me and those that are interested in our daily goings on; these posts of our day-to-day existence are my journal of our daily lives in this season.

I hope you have a wonderful week. Keep your eyes open for Hid grace and good gifts!
~ Sara

It’s been a quiet week here at My Ears Are Tired.  Early in the week things were just too busy to sit down and write and as the week went on, I found time but not words, at least not useful words, so I remained quiet.  While I am usually more than willing to share our struggles if I feel the Lord leading me to, I do not want to come here and whine.  That’s not what this site is for.  And whining is what I would have been doing Thursday or Friday, so I practiced Proverbs 10:19.  In fact, my tongue hurts from how much I’ve been biting it this week.

It was another normal week here.  We are starting to finish up some of our school books already and I normally like this to coincide with warmer weather, but Kansas is not cooperating with me right now, so I’ve been trying to find ways to keep everyone busy in the house, all while continuing our weekday media ban (more on that in a bit).  I have more ideas of things they need to learn/take responsibility for (things that have been easier to do myself but I am now going to force myself to pass on to them – one of which is laundry because it has become impossible to keep up with and someone else needs to help bear that burden), so we will commence that education hopefully next week. I also see some deep cleaning as well as closet sorting/organizing in our future.  Watch, now that I have ideas for them, next week will be 75 and sunny all week and I won’t have the heart to keep them inside working.  😉

As for our weekday media ban, this was our second week of it and frankly, it’s kind of a pain because it is so much easier (and more relaxing for me) to just let them turn on the television or computer (especially during those pre-dinner hours) and then I can do what I need to do quietly and uninterrupted.  But, as I think I mentioned previously (although, it could have been just on Facebook), we were noticing some odd/annoying behaviors so we decided to pull the plug for one week.  Not a complete fast, but no more mindless sitting in front of a screen for who-knows-how-long.  If mom or dad decided to turn on the television (most often for KU basketball this time of year), then the kids were more than welcome to sit down and watch with us.  And we are currently in the habit of a family movie night sometime on the weekend, so we’ve continued that.  But, like I said, no more mindless vegging out and no more mom and dad using the television as a proxy parent.  The first week was fine.  By the end of the week the kids seemed to be settling in to the rule and all seemed a bit calmer.  Adding it back in on the weekend didn’t seem to cause a problem or confusion.  On Monday, it went back off. During our break, I have noticed more piano practicing, more reading, more playing of house, more playing with play doh, more asking to go outside on the nice days, more picking up learning to knit again….all of these things came in to fill their time when camping in front of a screen wasn’t an option.  And I was feeling really good about it all.

On Thursday night, I was planning to meet with another mom to talk about home schooling, so Matt met me at Chipotle and we swapped vehicles so he could take the girls home.  Apparently, he let the girls play on the computer a bit and on the DS.  I was fine with that until Friday.  On Friday morning I noticed every was pretty excited and kinda loud.  They have their outside classes on Friday mornings and they get to see all of their friends, so I just assumed it was that and tried to roll with it.  After classes, I noticed they were still really being loud and a couple of them were suddenly very fidgety again (one of the behaviors that we had been noticing before the media ban).  And then it hit me – the two that I was having trouble with had had screen time the night before.  And I thought, does it really make that much of a difference??? Perhaps I am over-stating the effects of screens (our generic term for television, computer games, DS, Wii, etc.), but the night and day difference in those two girls was shocking to me and I’m still praying about how to handle it with wisdom and balance.

We will definitely be continuing our media ban during the school weeks but I need to find useful ways to fill some of their time on the weekends.  The combination of owning our own business and home schooling means that both Matt and I typically need to use at least part of Saturday and Sunday to work on the computer, which means that we aren’t spending time with the girls during that time.  And the fact that we live in the city (i.e., no land/large animals to tend to) and that they clean with me during the week means that they don’t have significant, time-consuming chores to take care of either on the weekends.  Like I said earlier, I have some ideas for time fillers.  We’ll see how they go.  😉

Well, Matt was gracious enough to take all the girls with him to Emma’s riding lessons so I should go make the most of my quiet time here at home.  I wish you all a wonderful weekend fill with time with those you love most!

~ Sara

Note:  the following was all typed yesterday (Friday) and in the interest of actually getting this post up, I’m not going back to edit it.  So, just pretend today is Friday while you read or make the changes for yourself mentally.  😉

This week has been both long and short.  My heart has been heavy, my arms longing to hold that little girl.  I know this is only the beginning.  I am thankful for four pregnancies to condition me (ever-so-slightly) to the pains and heart tugs of a child you can’t yet hold.  But with a pregnancy, at least you have some assurance of when you will hold that babe.  This road….it has no definite end.  And we’ve only just begun the long, long journey. sigh

Yesterday turned into a good day.  Seventy-five degrees in mid-February makes everything better!  We enjoyed our zoo and the girls all took their cameras and each took about 200 pictures, I think.  And then we hit the Sonic play place for slides and Happy Hour.

Today it is hair cuts for chicks and cleaning house and hopefully this weekend we can de-winter the garage, porch, and patio a bit.  (Only a bit, though, as more winter is forecasted for next week.  😦 )  Everything just feels so cluttered and dirty from the winter, even the floors inside the house showing signs of melted snow tracks.  I may even charge the girls with cleaning out my truck.  It hasn’t been vacuumed in at least a month, probably more.  I don’t do well with dirty, messy, in my own spaces.  I start to feel things closing in on me and my brain just can’t focus on anything until I clean.

Added on Saturday morning:

The house is now clean, girls have trimmed ends.  Everything is feeling better.  Last night Matt and I enjoyed date night at a local Thai restaurant.  Money bags…..mmmmm!  Today is one of Chandler’s last Upward games and then, hopefully, a productive/relaxing day at home.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and that you are able to enjoy both work and rest.

For His Glory ~

~ Sara

*photos of Valentine’s cookies we made last week, in honor of last Monday’s holiday

Friday night is here again.  Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Pot Pie for dinner, followed by How to Train Your Dragon.  The girls sprawl on the floor, sharing the dog’s bed.  I sit in a chair, heat on my neck, fighting off a wicked head ache.  I reply to intermittent texts from my beloved.  We are now on the same soil.  Tomorrow morning, Lord willing, I will hold him in my arms again.  And we all give thanks for this time and this opportunity and we give thanks that tomorrow he will be ours again.  And I wonder tonight at the changes that may be in store, at what God has done in my husband’s heart and mind these past nine days.  I await, with eager anticipation, to see him, to hold him, to talk to him, about all the Lord has done.

Praying that your weekend is filled with anticipation of the Lord’s goodness ~

~ Sara

Oh, my friends, I’ve missed you! Last week I gave myself permission to blog less and look what happened….I fell off the blogging wagon.

Tonight I’m sitting here with the iPad on my lap, watching a movie with the girls, and thankful for the quiet night at home. The past two weeks have gone well. We’ve had two good weeks of school. This week was a little bumpy with Matt going out of town, but it was still good. We’ve had ballet and basketball and several inches of snow. We have a busy weekend ahead, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m also looking forward to a return to blogging next week with more consistency and maybe even some photos! 🙂

Wishing you a wonderful weekend filled with time with those you love most.

~ Sara