Rearing Fashionista Homemakers… with Capital

August 14th, 2010
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Taylor wears a pink party dress with a crinoline lining, a petticoat, a turquoise colored t-shirt that has a butterfly on it, and a crazy-quilted apron of red and yellow fabrics. She sports a diadem on her head, also turquoise, that has beads that shape flowers along the line. She faces away from me, so it looks like she’s wearing a pink skirt with a turquoise shirt.

She is barefooted, standing on a chair in front of the sink, with the back of the chair toward the sink. Turning the water on and off, adding a little bit of dish soap to the sponge, and wiping the food off our dishes and silverware with care, she cleans everything in the sink. She places the plates against the backsplash, the silverware in their container, and the cups and mixing bowls on the towel on the counter to dry.

One morning after we came back from the boys’ swim lesson, she asked permission to wash dishes, and I said, Yes. I reckoned that I would have to wash them again, but she did a good job. Later that week, she was washing dishes after lunch while Dad and I were sitting close to each other. He was a bit surprised by it and quietly asked if that was a good idea. I said, “Oh, let her. It’s good for her confidence.” She has since then dragged her chair to the sink, donned her apron, and gotten her hands wet to wash the dishes. Sometimes she asks permission, which I never negate. Sometimes she just does it without asking. I don’t mind that at all because I like the help.

When she has a hard time getting the food off, either Dad or I will show her how to use her fingers or the sponge to do the job. She hasn’t broken anything — yet, but we don’t have items that would break from falling a few inches such as thin glass. She stays away from sharps and the unique mugs and bowls that we don’t want ANYONE touching.

I love her enthusiasm. Daddy was coming home from work with rewards for the boys for being successful in their swim lessons, and they were small treats such as Clif Bars or Yoo Hoo drinks. I suspect that Taylor must have started feeling left out from those rewards, so she looked for a way to earn them. As we near the dusk of the boys’ swim lessons, I hope that she still has the motivation to continue her new job.

It becomes a chore when we begin to ask her to wash the dishes, similar to asking the boys to feed and water the animals. They do get compensated for their work. I took her to the toy store a few months ago, and she picked out the things that she would like to have. I wrote them down along with their prices. Both Ty and Kyle have earned enough to buy themselves a few things on their own lists.

Before we know it, Taylor will be washing dishes in a Snow White gown and necklaces that she will have crafted herself, using materials that she will have bought herself with her own money.

Swimming Lesson

July 26th, 2010
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This morning, the boys woke up a little bit earlier and were reminded to get ready for their first swimming lesson. They did their chores, had their breakfast, and donned their swim trunks before 7:15am. We piled into the van with Taylor, who wasn’t having a lesson but went to accompany me, and pulled up to the pool ten minutes to eight. The boys went into the locker room that leads to the pool deck. Taylor and I went around the pool and watched the lesson from the bleachers.

Children started showing up just before eight o’clock. Ty prayed with Kyle next to him at the edge of the pool. “Dear God, please make me and Kyle brave so we don’t drown. Amen.” The children sat on a green bench facing east and were instructed to sit at the edge of the pool when the instructor called their names. She called a few names, and the children did as they were told. She called Kyle’s name but mispronounced his last name, so no one answered. She continued to the next name. “I’m not sleepy. Just the sun’s hurting my eyes!” Kyle got up and sat at the edge. A few names later, Kyle announced that he had “to go pee,” and the instructor pointed the way. He was struggling to get the storage room door open when the instructor called to him, “Kyle! What are you doing?”
“I have to pee.”
“The bathroom is in the locker room.”

Then came the evaluation: Neither Kyle nor Ty could swim from one end of the pool to the other, so the instructor asked them to blow bubbles under water. When the class divided into groups based on swimming skill level, Ty and Kyle were in their own group with the same instructor.

With the help of a blue float board, the boys practiced their kicks with straight arms, and they traveled a few feet in the water that way. Ty was instructed to float in a star shape (with straight arms and legs), head down, and blow bubbles. At first, he was scared, but after the second time, he hid his fear. Kyle also floated in the star shape but was only a little scared.

At the end of the lesson, Ty asked the instructor her name. She said, “Miss Dee.” Both boys thanked her and went to change in the locker room.

What a Morning!

July 13th, 2010
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This morning, I woke up to go running. I stepped into the kitchen to drink water when I realized that I had to bake and decorate two cakes for the babies’ birthday. Since it’s cooler in the mornings than in the afternoons, I decided to forgo the running and start on the cakes before the sun came up (the oven heats up the house).

Slowly the house started getting louder with each child who was waking up, screaming, asking for water, giggling, screaming, laughing, tickling, screaming. By 7:30am, I had baked two cakes and set them aside for cooling.

At 8am, I got a call from the piano moving company, saying that they can be ready to move the piano at 9am. The church that hires me to play music has moved locations, where there is already a piano (two, actually). They gave me the piano from their previous location, and I was supposed to pick it up before the end of the month, when their lease ran out. Dad and I cleared out a space for the upright piano, and Dad went on a quick errand to the store to pick up confectioner’s sugar and other things we needed. As soon as he came back, I hopped in the van to meet the movers. Everything was relocated and paid by 10am, and the children were playing the new piano as if they didn’t already have one in their house.

I spent the rest of the morning making icing, coloring the icing, and decorating the cakes. In the middle of all that standing around in the kitchen, the children kept walking by, standing next to me, telling me that they wanted to watch me decorate or that they were hungry. It reminded me of the day that my great aunt and mother stood in the kitchen for what seemed like all day, baking and decorating my birthday cake. Why did it take them eight hours? My brothers and I were staARGHving, and all we got to eat was an apple. A quarter after twelve, I chopped onions, sauteed them in butter, and made stuffing for lunch. I had a glass of milk, put a load of clothes in to wash, and took the time to hang them outside to dry. Half past twelve, I continued my project.

An hour later, I finished decorating both cakes. I placed them on top of the bookshelves and washed the utensils (and put them away).

Now, I’m going to take a nap.

From Couchwarmer to Goalscorer

July 8th, 2010
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Kyle isn’t much of an active child. He prefers to lay on the couch in the fetal position with his thumb in his mouth, eyes wide open, thinking about Heaven-only-knows. Every once in a while, he’ll let out a chuckle or get up quickly and run to Dad or me and ask a question. If he does that, it’s a really deep, life altering question such as, “How do the astronauts get to the Moon?” or “When the dinosaurs died, why did the other animals not?” It comes as a surprise usually because he changes gears rapidly, from lazily lounging on the couch to springing up and asking his question with such intensity and haste that his voice rises as high as his eyebrows!

This morning, Dad left to run some errands, and the children completed their laundry chores. Kyle took his favored spot on the couch and coiled into position. I tinkered with my sewing project in the den with the doors open. After a few minutes, I heard Kyle’s feet shuffling across the rug. Actually, his pants’ legs were making the shuffle sound because he wears them so low. I stopped moving scissors and pattern tissue across my desk to hear his mumbling:

“Takes the puck… passes to Yzerman… Federov…”

I take a peek into the living room and see Kyle’s handling the hockey stick, gliding it along the rug. His hair is long, to his waist, covers his face as he looks down to the end of the hockey stick.

“Hull… takes the puck… Chelios… to Federov…”

We make eye contact. He stops. I pretend to stare as he continues to look at me but moves toward the couch.

“Mommy, why are you staring?”
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking of something.” I go back to my tinkering at the sewing table. He returns to his game. After a few minutes, I hear his mumbling again:

“Yzerman takes the puck. To Chelios. He shoots! HE SCORES!”

From the corner of my eye, I see that Kyle has his stick above his head. He picks up his heels and “skates” like Mike Eruzione did when he scored the winning goal against the Soviets during the Olympic games in 1980.

I try my darndest to be nonchalant when we make eye contact again. He puts down his stick and runs into his bedroom where he and Ty have their own hockey game, leaving me to my own giggles for the next few minutes.

Toy shopping…Sleppy style

June 16th, 2010
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Dad here….for the second day in a row I took one of the boys to the toy store. Each wanted to spend his saved paycheck. Kyle made his very first purchase with his own money yesterday. He bought the Bionicle Skrall. Today, Ty made his fourth purchase, second toy purchase, with his money. Each time in the toy store I was keenly aware that my boys, our oldest children, were the only children in the store making their own purchases. I cannot begin to describe my pride. Ty also went to work with me and ran all of the normal errands. He met every encounter with the people of my world with engagement and politeness. Rarely did I have to step in and help direct his conversation to facilitate adult to seven year old communication. Our confident seven year old boy was remarkably friendly, polite, and refreshing as he talked about the nature in our yard, his helpfulness around the house, and the accomplishments of his siblings. Now, if only this home-schooled child could learn some basic social skills.

Wait ’til They Get to the Real World

June 16th, 2010
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I was telling a mother of two girls that Ty went to a boy’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. At three years old, he clung to Dad’s arm for an hour before he sat by himself in the booth. The other children ran around and played. He was still, quiet, observant, and no more than four inches away from Dad the entire time.

“Wait until he gets to the real world!” exclaimed she.

A young public schooled boy asked me why I home school our children. He mentioned that his school was a good school. He also talked about a family who lives on his No Outlet street with five children who are home schooled. Without waiting for my response, he said, “The mom does that because she’s afraid of the world.”

“Oh, is she?” I wondered where he got such an idea.

“Yea, and her kids are never allowed to come over.”

I didn’t answer the boys original question because he obviously didn’t want to hear it and because I didn’t want to get into topics such as parental influence, abdication of responsibilities, and low quality government workers with a nine year old boy.

On a Teacher Work Day, Dear Husband was at Target when he overheard a mother’s telling her children, “This is why I shop while you are at school, so I don’t have to put up with your misbehavior.”

Yet… our children give a proper greeting, hold open the door, give the right of way to elders. When prompted, they give up their seat for others. They sit quietly at the bank, and stand in single file when I’m shopping. They are children who forget where they are sometimes, so every once in a while, I have to call attention to them while in public.

Do we not ALL live in the real world? A successful bachelor banker doesn’t live the life that a single mother of two who is on the dole lives, but they both live in the real world. What exactly do people mean when they mention “the real world”? If it means gangs, drug pushers, and people of questionable values, the sexual education of young children, loud music, video games, and high fructose corn syrup, then, by the power invested in us by God Himself, we will strike it down with our flaming swords!

But it is all in how we treat people and to what we are accustomed. Ty’s clinging to his father for an hour is a representation of how we chose to live, where we chose to go on our free times… the library, the park, the wilderness, places that harbor mostly quiet (the real world). When Taylor accompanies me to my trips to the fabric store, she stays close to me, on the right side of the walkway, with her voice down, exhibiting behavior that is lacking from other four year olds. She’ll get a little shriek in her voice when she sees a pink, glittery fabric that would be perfect for a tutu. In our “real world,” Kyle greets the grocery store’s security guard and cashiers with a hearty “Good Morning” and stands aside when a stock clerk has to make his way down an aisle while pushing a filled cart.

We, Sleppys, are not afraid of the real world. School cannot be counted on to do what is clearly a parent’s responsibility, which is to teach a child how to treat others. NOT EVEN CHURCH will teach them that. We, Sleppys, already live in the real world, day after day, guiding, teaching, encouraging, witnessing to, sacrificing for, correcting, and molding our young breed.

Just you wait until *your* children get to the “real world.” Wait to see how shunned they’ll be, classified as rude, crass, grotesque, tasteless, loud.

(Aside, Talon loves wearing her siblings’ boots. They are so big on her, so she stomps around the house, looking like Link in Iron Boots. Totally adorable.)

For the record: A word about responsibility and media deception…

June 15th, 2010
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From The McLaughlin Group, June 11, 2010:

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: This is from the government manual on what the Minerals Management Service does. It assesses the nature, extent, recoverability and value of leasable minerals on the Outer Continental Shelf. The service conducts extensive environmental studies and consultations with state officials prior to issuing leases, easements or rights of way. Once permits or other approvals have been issued, inspectors conduct frequent inspections of offshore operations and environmental studies, personnel, collect data to ensure that marine and coastal environments are kept free of pollution.

Searching for the original document, I found this, though not the source material, an interesting discovery.

Why does the media focus on BP over this oil leak? We the people, through the President, through the Department of Interior (a Cabinet member), through the Minerals Management Service (MMS), bear responsibility for this. We as a people have oversight, yet have decided to look the other way. The Chief Executive is ultimately responsible when one of his departments under-performs at best or causes the citizens harm at worst.

This will be edited over time.

Flag Season

June 15th, 2010
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It starts in the middle of May, when the heat index rises above 100, when the Royal Poincianas bloom in reds and yellows, when the “wet” season in South Florida begins… The dawn of flag season.

Our flag is on continuous display in our foyer, between the Ten Commandments and the Ten Home Rules posters. We have it mounted on a pole, which is stuck in a pipe, which is embedded in a bucket of concrete. At sunrise on Armed Forces Day, we take it outside to wave, and we carry it inside at sunset. No more than two weeks later, we carry out the same procedure for Memorial Day. Two weeks after that, we fly it on Flag Day, June 14. Again, on Independence Day, we let it fly in the free American breeze.

We do display it outside for other days such as Patriot Day and Presidents Day, but I do love the quick succession of display days in the early summertime. Four times in six weeks make it memorable.

November 14th, Ty’s 7th birthday

June 14th, 2010
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We had been packing all week. Dad made a checklist of all we needed including sleeping bags, camp stove, cooking utensils dry foods, cloth napkins. We packed it all in The Charles Daniels (our van) on Friday night, so on Saturday morning, we just had to put our boots on and brush our teeth… after eating.

At eight o’clock, we reached the gate of the National Park. The water levels were the lowest that we’d seen them. The dry season was afoot in the Everglades. Birds that we hadn’t seen all summer long were flying about, concentrated in pools of water along the park’s main road, picking what mosquito larvae was left. A small alligator, four footer, relaxed by itself in one of the pools.

The Anhinga Trail was busy with people as it is extremely inviting during the dry season. The parking lot was at 80% capacity (in the summers, it’s at 10%). We met with the children’s maternal grandfather and participated in the ranger-led walk. Of the ten children (12 and under) in a party of 30, our two boys asked the most questions. They stayed close to the ranger the whole time, listening intently.

After the walk, the children’s paternal grandmother met with us to walk the Gumbo Limbo Trail, which is adjacent to Anhinga. It is a different habitat, made of hardwood trees (Gumbo Limbo), ferns, and palms.

We drove to Long Pine Key where we had sandwiches and chips at the picnic area. Grandma made cupcakes at her house and brought them over to sing “Happy Birthday.” We presented Ty with his presents. I took a nap on the Everglades ground. The boys took a walk to the pond while the girls cleaned up.

After we said our goodbyes we drove to the campground and set up our tent. It wasn’t even three o’clock, yet the sun cast long shadows on the pineland. The boys went off to look firewood. The girls stayed by the tent to prepare a dinner of kernel corn, potatoes, and ham. At twilight, we packed into the van again to drive over to Anhinga Trail.

It was dark. We were the only ones there. The sky was clear. To the northeast, there was an orange glow of the city, but the lights didn’t take over the stars much. We saw two shooting stars and two satellites. Thankfully there wasn’t a whole lot of alligator action because the sky distracted us with all its gems.

We were about to pile back into the van when Dad asked if we wanted to hike the Gumbo Limbo trail. “Okay, let’s do it,” was my response. We all still had our flashlights on and walked it rather swiftly. Every once in a while, however, we would give instructions to place the light toward the belly and make it pitch black again.

We made it safely to the campground where the children brushed their teeth and went to sleep in the tent while Dad and I talked while sitting near the fire.

Jibber jabber

June 14th, 2010
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Kendall and Talon say Please, Thank you, and You’re Welcome. They doesn’t sound the like way practiced speakers do, and each girl has a unique way of speaking. But for experienced parents, we understand that they are trying to say these phrases. Talon points to something, anything, and asks, “What’s this?” She points to something else and asks, “What’s that?” But it sounds like “wash deesh” and “wash dat.” Kendall is repeating the Knock, Knock jokes that she hears from Kyle. “Na na,” she says. “Who’s there?” I ask. And there’s a pause. She smiles and says, “Eee!” I think that’s the extent of the joke because I ask “Eee Who?” and she giggles.

*******

Dad brewed some beer a month ago. Ty and I helped him bottle and cap it. We had some during the “Lost” season premiere. We gave some to Dad’s brother and a cashier, with whom we are friendly, at the grocery store. We really downed the bottles during the Daytona 500 last weekend.