It goes pretty much the same way every morning. First there is the click and slide of the stall door latch. Then Clove, it’s nearly always Clove, comes barreling around the corner, pausing briefly to consider knocking the lid off the feed bin and diving in. I tell her not to even think about it and she lurches onto the milking stand. So it goes with each doe, each morning with very little variation.

I didn’t give it too much thought until it was Asher out there helping me the other day. Clove had to be coaxed out of her stall when Asher was holding open the door. Then she refused to go back in and made several laps around the barn in desperate confusion. A goat isn’t a particularly affectionate animal so you don’t realize they have given their complete trust to you and your routine until someone new steps in and they wig out. She hadn’t exactly expressed deep satisfaction with our little system but apparently being off of it totally threw her.

The goats aren’t the only ones around here who are creatures of habit. Allen took the older kids to camp out for the Bolder Boulder run. Asher and I stayed back with Tess and Brendan to hold down the fort. At first I imagined all sorts of free time given half the family here. Reality is, Asher and I had to split up the chores belonging to the missing kids and add them to our own. This always makes for a bit of on the spot decision making and some lapses. While I wouldn’t likely have said we had a well-oiled machine before, we seem to have had a pretty good flow going.

I remember years back a homeschool author writing about habits shared how she had moved a wall clock to a new location. For weeks afterwards various family members would glance over at the now empty space. Nothing could have convinced her of the power of habit better than that object lesson. This weekend has been a compelling example for me as well. “Why are there still dishes on the counter?” Oh yes, Aidan is gone. Lots of that type of thing has happened. More than that, there is Brendan.

We seem to have a pretty good system for supervising the B-bop boy. We seem to REALLY need one. Without those extra sets of eyes, mine are glued to him his every waking moment with the occasional hand-off to Asher so I can sweep a room or run for a bathroom break without disaster striking. We have appealed to his future aspirations, reminding him of the things that good scouts rarely do. For example, scouts do not swipe strawberries and flee to the nether regions under the bunkbeds where their pregnant mother cannot retrieve them. Nor would a good scout climb unto the kitchen table and wear the centerpiece as a hat while singing “I David Cooke!” at the top of his lungs into a cell phone charger. And a good scout never, never paints his sister’s face, even with jam. Never. Sometimes he is game. Sometimes he remains unconvinced. Always he is busy.

These past weeks have been spent factoring that reality into plans for the coming school year. By Thanksgiving there will be three little ones under four years old. One of them will be Brendan. While the details are being worked out I can tell you the master plan is to follow the advice of my mentors, Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori. As Charlotte suggests, he will be right by my side to assure good habits supplant natural inclinations. Montessori work will have to be plentiful because his mind – and his hands – are never still. This should be considerably easier with lots of helpers on deck but it does mean a new school plan for the older kids. More on that to follow!

Meantime, if you have a very, VERY busy three year old and wonder if you will ever get another thing done then know you are not alone. My advice to you is not to even try to get “another thing done” right now. Nothing ensures future opportunity for getting things done like taking a season to instill order, peace, and self control in our whirling dervish children. I know this because I have had two other such little people. They both became skilled athletes. One is the most even tempered, helpful girl I have ever met today. You would have a hard time equating her with the busy toddler hanging upside down off the couch or rolling down the hallway in uproarious laughter or changing her clothes multiple times per day. It happened though and at this moment she is running six miles through Boulder with some thousands of runners – and her Dad. : )

I have every confidence Brendan can be such a boy. I am realistic enough to know it will not happen overnight nor without vigilance on our part. Relaxing that vigilance in early pregnancy is responsible in part for our schoolroom box/tray messes and the periodic closet tornado. What is necessary now is girding our loins and setting those good habits in stone so that he too, comes to find it a very pleasant second nature. Wish us luck!