So Much Art

I am not an artist.  I do not have the eye or patience for art.  I would love to be able to create but just find the whole thing so frustrating.  However, every person in my family has some artistic talent.  Some of them are all-around amazing.  Others have a particular talent in art–for instance, maybe they aren’t great at drawing real life things, but they are  awesome at cartooning.  Even some of them have a talent for drawing stick figures.  And you may not think stick figures are very interesting as an art form.  But MY stick figures are terrible.  But some of my boys can draw stick figures that have personality.  I didn’t even know that was possible.  So I am in awe that the Hubba and all of our kids have this talent that was not heritable through me.  At all.

Pink drew this picture.  I love the “3-D” view to explain what that is above the shoulders.  So awesome.

This is Wink’s.  Look at the perfection of that nose and mouth.  And the coloring!  And look at the lines and angles of those legs and the head and neck.  So awesome.  I was sad, though, because previously this white board had a drawing of Wink in her basketball clothes.  And there were notes written all over like “more hair” or “not so fat ankles”.  And I kept meaning to ask which girl had drawn it and who had made the comments.  Was it the artist critiquing her own work?  Or was it her sister?  Every day I meant to take a photo of it because it was a great picture AND the comments were hilarious.  But apparently I was too slow!  😦

This one is Mack’s.  He was just using Paint on the computer.  I’m totally mesmerized by this and think it looks like a still shot of some action-packed animated adventure.  I don’t know how to explain it but he has totally captured the fact that although you can only see from the shoulders up, this guy has a whole body and you know exactly how he is holding his weapon–even though you can’t see the rest of the picture.  He has been drawing these dudes since he was little.  I have kept a lot of his drawings from when he was younger and some day it’s going to be awesome to make a visual timeline of how he has improved.  I think this is just visually stunning.  And though this piece doesn’t have a lot of it, one of the things I love about his drawings is his use of blank spaces.  You can see it a little bit here at the tip of the weapon.  The very tip is white.  Then it’s blank.  Then the rest of the weapon is black.  He draws like that all the time, using those blank spaces as part of the art.  It’s really cool.

Hopefully soon I will get some photos of all the pieces he has been making in his ceramics class this year.

I Just Got a Raise

Lately I have been looking around to see if there were any jobs that caught my fancy.  Turns out my fancy is pretty slippery and hard to pin down.  Anyway, on Tuesday I had my first interview in about 7.5 years.  I was offered the job and declined.

That evening, after I returned home from the interview, Wink asked me to come downstairs into Baboo and Wiyah’s empty room where she and Pink have been playing lately.  She was all dressed up with make up on and had made a desk out of some odds and ends in our basement.  She invited me to sit down and proceeded to interview me for the job of Stay Home Mom.

She outlined my job duties as breakfast, lunch, dinner, and cleaning.  I had to sign off on each task that I agreed to.  I agreed to all of it.  Then there was another form that stated if there was an extra mess, the children had to help.  It wasn’t my sole responsibility.  I signed off on that, too.

She offered to pay me $30–the entire contents of her savings account if I would accept the job.  How could I say no to the best job ever?

So yesterday and today as I’m sitting down to eat dinner with the family, Wink has come to me with money.  Yesterday it was $1 bill and some change.  Today it was the $1 that the tooth fairy brought her last night.  It’s my daily paycheck.

Stress Baking

I think the little girls have been a little stressed out lately.  So I wanted to do something fun with them tonight.  So first of all, after dinner, I started reading Robinson Crusoe to all the kids.  I just summarized the first few chapters and jumped in when the book starts getting good.  I don’t even know if I summarized correctly because I haven’t read the book in so long.  Mostly I was just making stuff up.  But I’m somebody who sleeps through the beginning parts of movies.  It’s never important stuff.  You can always pick up the plot halfway through, no problem!  Also I don’t read prologues or anything italicized at the beginning of chapters or any type of long poems (LOTR, I’m looking at you!).  That stuff is almost always fluff that is not necessary to the progression of the story.

Anyway, I got to start that book with my kids.  Then the boys had activities.  And as soon as they left it was girl time!

So Wink got this cool cake mix for Christmas.  In case you are interested, it’s called Purple Rain.  So baking this cake was our girls’ night activity.

Wink held the box and read us all the instructions.  She preheated the oven and told us what to do when.  And she generously allowed Pink to help with the manual labor.

I didn’t think I had ever made a layer cake before (I was surprised to find we even had two pans.  I’m still not entirely sure one of those wasn’t a wedding  gift for Baboo.).  But Wink tells me she and I made one together for Pink’s birthday a while back.

Once we got the cakes in the oven and baking, I sat down to rest.  Because today was a big day of going and going and going and this was my first time to relax.  That’s when the girls started talking about “the frosting”.  Ugh.  I told them that I would look up a recipe later and maybe make something.  Then without my body telling my brain what it was doing, there I was in the kitchen making buttercream frosting from scratch.

They thought the cake looked plain without candles or something.  But I wasn’t about to put candles on it.  So they decided that strawberries would look pretty.  I could do strawberries.

The cake itself was actually really good.  I was surprised.  The frosting, unfortunately, was just not that great.  And too sweet.  I actually really enjoyed the unsweetened strawberries in it, though.  And that’s how I ate my leftover glob of frosting on my plate–just grabbed a couple extra strawberries to wipe it up with.

But for me at least, the point wasn’t about the cake at all.  It was just getting to spend some stress-free time with my girls and smile and laugh with them.  Check and check.

Wiyah is Gone

Taken this morning when I realized that I hadn’t taken nearly enough photos of my girl!

It wasn’t heart-wrenching when we took her to college.  It wasn’t an emotional parting at Thanksgiving.  But boy, howdy!  I was feeling it this past weekend, knowing she’d be leaving today.  Wiyah is not one for emotional goodbyes, or emotional anythings for that matter.  So I pretty well held myself together at all the crucial moments.  But it was hard.

While we were waiting at the airport today, I was telling Wiyah about how when Baboo was born, it was overwhelming and new.  But there were two parents for this one little baby.  It was hard, but we could manage.  Then Wiyah came and it was harder.  Now there was just one adult for every child.  And when I was alone with them, which I often was, it was one on two.  But at least I still had one hand to hold and guide and each girl.  Then JJ came and it was a whole different ball game.  I had been playing a man-to-man defense and it was time to learn zone.

I remember the first time I went out with three children.  I had to get them from the vehicle across a huge and dangerous parking lot and into a building unscathed.  I had newborn JJ in my left arm and I was holding Wiyah’s hand with my right.  And there was sweet, innocent 3 year old Baboo who wasn’t even properly potty trained yet not physically tied to my body in any way.  She was just roaming free and I thought it was ridiculous that she should be in this scary place without being tethered to me somehow.  And I just had to trust that she would listen and obey and stay close so that I could keep her safe.

Having the adult children leave home is like that multiplied by a billion.  The zone is HUGE.

Tonight at dinner, Mack was talking about the definition of homeostasis.  I said, “Homeostasis is not what I am experiencing as a parent at this stage in my life.”

At bedtime, Wink was in tears because she was missing Wiyah.  Before the wedding, Baboo and Wiyah had been sharing their old room.  After the honeymoon, Baboo and Boss stayed in that bedroom and Wiyah moved up with the little girls for a few days.  When Baboo and Boss moved out, Wiyah decided to stay in the little girls’ room because she thought it would be special for them.  That was almost two weeks.

So I had Wink get ready for bed and then we did a video call.  It was so the most precious, pathetic thing you’ve ever seen.  Seeing Wiyah didn’t make her happy, it just made her more miserable and her face crumpled and she could hardly talk for crying.  Wiyah tried so hard to be sweet and understanding and kind and helpful but there was no stopping Wink from crying.

After we ended the call I listened to her as she bemoaned how hard it was to be the littlest with people she loved always leaving.  She relived her separation from Baboo and Wiyah and JJ and that soon X would be leaving (he just started filling out paperwork for his mission) and eventually it would just be her with us here at home and that she never wanted to leave us!  She was angry that Wiyah had to go to school so far away.  She should go to school here so she could live at home.  What was wrong with our schools anyway?

The Hubba came up at some point and gave her hugs and cuddles, too.  Then while I was getting my pajamas on, X came into the room and apparently saw her crying on my bed.  When I walked in, he was wrapping his hulking man-body around her tiny little 8 year old frame, hugging and comforting her.

He got her to stop crying.  Then he told her he loved her and said, “I think we need to give Mom her bed back, Goose.”  And he lifted her up and carried her into her bed and tucked her in.

Overheard

Wink is sick.  In the middle of the night she woke up with an incessant cough.  I finally dragged myself out of bed and went down in the cold to grab the cough syrup and bring it back for her.  When I walked into her bedroom, she was sitting up in bed…

Wink:  Thank goodness you came!

Overheard

I had asked Wink to run down to our food storage and bring me up four cans of corn.  She only returned with one…

Me:  I actually need three more of these.  Run back down and go get them.

Wink:  (whiny noises)

Kelvinator:  Just go down quickly and find three more cans.  It’ll build character for you to do something you don’t want to do.

Wink:  You sound like Kelvinator’s dad.

Overheard

The Hubba walked by me in the kitchen and I squinched his buns…

Me:  Do you feel like that’s sexual harrassment?

Hubba:  I’m not even sure that’s sexual.

---

The little girls had gone to bed but when I walked by their room, they were talking lying side by side on Wink’s bed.  I went in to tell them I love them.

Wink:  Mom!  We were just playing “Who would you marry?  Who would you peck?  Who would you kiss?” And I just asked Pinkleberry about Matt, Corey, and Jack.

Pink:  They were all boys from the same family!

Wink:  Yeah, only we had to change “kill” to “peck” because I didn’t want to kill Joshua.

Overheard

After scripture study and prayer this morning…

Wink:  Mom!  I just thought up a nickname that my husband could call me for my blog when I grow up.  “Faleece daughter da Deece!”

Self-Directed Learning

Mars

Mars Rover

Today the little kids are off from school.  About an hour ago, Mack asked me where a poster was.  At first I didn’t think we had any.  But then I remembered that I think I put a poster board between the piano and the wall.  So I directed him there.  A few minutes later he came and asked me if we had any just regular posters because he didn’t want to waste a brand new poster board that we use for book reports.  Having just de-cluttered, I couldn’t think of any actual posters he could use the back of.  But then I just threw out that they could use some freezer paper and I told Pink where to find it.

Then I hopped in the shower for a bit of a long beauty routine and didn’t give it a second thought.  When I came back downstairs the three kids were all busy and I asked them if they knew where the brush was.  No one did.  I noted that Mack and Wink were coloring together.  Sweet.  And they had successfully found the butcher paper.  Good.  As I passed by Pinkleberry I was a little annoyed that she was on the computer and wished that she was involved in an activity like her siblings.  I checked what was up on her screen because that’s what good parents do.  The page was titled, “How bad are the dust storms on Mars?”  Pink was taking notes.  Then I realized that the picture Mack and Wink were working was a big circle with orbiting smaller dots on the outside.  It was Mars.

Me:  What are you guys doing?

Pink:  We’re reporters doing a news story about Mars.  We’re going to video tape it.

THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME!

I loved how they had thought this all up on their own and they were learning and working together.  Over the past little while I have tried to verbalize to myself why I think this is so wonderful when if they had been given the same assignment in school, I would be completely irritated.  Here are my thoughts.

1.  They thought it up themselves.  No one told them, “You should learn about this.”  They decided on their own that they wanted to find out.  Which means they are much more likely to be interested, engaged, learn and retain what they learn.
2. The work they do will be exactly at their level(s).  They won’t be frustrated trying to make it better than they are capable because I am pushing them to fulfill all the requirements of the grading rubric that the teacher gave them.
3. They actually won’t be graded at all.  There will be no one to tell them that they did not do well on this task.  They won’t miss points if not’s creative enough or if they didn’t use their best handwriting.  There will be no one to tell them that they mastered the topic and did a good job.  The only reward will be their own sense of satisfaction, fun, and understanding.  Totally intrinsic rewards that will teach them how to continue learning for a lifetime even when no one else is watching.

Overheard

I was reading an article about Donald Trump when Wink woke up and came to sit by me this morning…

Wink:  You know how Donald Trump hates women?  Well, we were talking at school and what if Donald Trump sends all the women away?  I don’t really like him.