silence

Today the Sharing time lesson called for the activity where one child is blindfolded and another child directs them with their voice.  Jr. Primary did great!  It was so nice to have them so engaged.  Sr. Primary had the giggles and the girl I chose wound up directing the girl into the wall and chairs deliberately.  I was pretty upset by it and took the blindfold off.  I told them that it was giving me a bad feeling for them to do that.  I didn't scold the girl in question, but I talked about how we were here to practice feeling the spirit.  When you go to soccer practice, if you spend the time playing on your ipod, you are wasting you time.

The girl in question was very clearly effected.  We struggled through the rest of the lesson very quietly and got got through somehow.  Later during singing time I asked the girl to come out in the hall.  I apologized to her.  I had gotten my feelings hurt by her actions, which were not so bad.  I asked her forgiveness.  I told her how she is such a sweet girl and about some of the nice things that she does for my children in particular.

Overall it was actually a great lesson.  I called her mom later to make sure they knew what had happened.  Later our Home Teacher let me know that he thought I handled it perfectly.  He was thrilled that the children were able to experience the exact opposite of a good spirit.   It wasn't contrived, but we really did have a powerful experience of what it feels like to have the spirit leave.

Enrichment

 This is a tree that G and M can climb outside of the speech therapy office.  Trees that can actually be climbed are a rare and precious thing.

We've joined a homeschool group that does a waldorf approach.  They do awesome activities like this maypole dance that focus on developing appreciation and connectivity with the body's spirit.  Cool stuff.  I am teaching them solfege and maybe ASL soon.  It's interesting that I turn out to be somewhat expert in these two areas.  They fit the philosophy of using the body to express, so well.

stuck in the mud

New rule: when raking leaves, take your phone with you. 

Today I raked leaves after a long sickness that is hopefully clearing up.  I raked up 5 big piles and dragged them down to the swampy mud to cover up some mosquito breeding ground.  One load was so big that while hauling it down, I got stuck up to the knee in gross mud.  So there I was, one leg up to the knee, the other one threatening to do the same, nothing to grab on too...

lP was wandering around close by and P was inside his new closet office.  Nobody would even have heard me screaming!  Luckily I just embraced the muck and hauled myself out of there.  Phew!

Like a game of make believe

 Today I had the pleasure of having 3 wonderful children come hang out with us.  G was home too but he doesn't eat Popsicle so he isn't pictured here.  With 6 kids you'd think it would be sort of hectic but our friends are wonderful and the occasional bursts of screaming and running were instigated by M, and lP was very happy to accept the torch. 

 My sister has 6 children and we had a wonderful visit with them earlier in April.  Since then I wonder more often what it is like having 2X the number of children I have now.  Hanging out with these amazing children let me pretend it would be just fine.

I hope it will be.

ladies!

Today I got to visit with some fabulous ladies!  Wa-hoo for children playing nicely.

A gift from our Home Owner's Insurance

Just Kidding!  They didn't send me a bag of plagues.  But the gentlemen who installed the amazing tile below were attacked by fleas.  Apparently the cat we sometimes see, has a nest under the porch.  When they pot the piece of vinyl, for the shower pan, out there it attracted the fleas.  When they unfolded ther said it was like a swarm!

 The top right picture is of our old shower.  Three weeks ago when Phillip got his new job,  we planned to make him an office in our walk in closet.  Then we found water in the corner.  Hmmm.  It turns out that the shower pan was leaking.  I had never heard of a shower pan until now and apparently it needed to be replaced and that would involve ripping out the shower! $$

Plumbers referred us to a water mitigation company who suggested filing a claim with our Home Owner's Insurance company.  I called them, got things started, then panicked that I was putting our relationship at risk by making a claim.  Ahhhh.  We had some stress thinking through this.  Then we had a lot of stress when we found out that the water mitigation company was asking the insurance company for $3,200.  Then we embraced making a claim.  We had a few disappointments by companies that wouldn't follow up with us or return calls (The plumber, the contractor the water mitigation company brought who said we should inflate the claim and repair it as cheeply as we wanted to...).  

Eventually we called the Adjuster that the insurance company had sent and asked for a referral.  She connected us with some great guys who are experienced in insurance claims (so they stay in budget), honest, enthusiastic, and who did a great job!