Hey all, it’s been quite a week and I haven’t been able to get to the computer for any length of time to do justice to a blog entry.  Still can’t really but wanted to check in and tell you all that we have been up to.

Here a Chick, There a Chick:  first of all the chicks.  We had a straggler. Several days after the second chick hatched we found a lone little yellow chick squawking and stumbling atop of the broken eggshells. We set her up in the chick condo with the other two, hoping they wouldn’t eat her. They pecked at her a few times but soon welcomed her. I didn’t write anything at first because she was sooo wobbly and struggled to stand rather unsuccessfully.  I wasn’t convinced she would make it through the first night. She did though and the three of them are doing well. Every week that goes by is a good sign.

Ouch  After our chick excitement we spent the day with friends riding the horses, swimming in their pool, and playing looong games of volleyball (them, not me ; )) We arrived home Sunday night exhausted but happy, got the horses and children unloaded, and settled in for the night.  Noticed that Zach was running late getting home from work.  This isn’t exactly breaking news since the boy is approaching 18, but being a mom I called his cell phone to track him down regardless. Turns out the boy slipped on the island thing at the gas pump and cut his head on his car door. He attempted to clean it up at the station’s bathroom and thought he had it under control – oh if I had a nickel for every time a teenager told me they "had it under control".  Sigh! He pulled in a few minutes later. I took one look at the cut, and the skull showing below it, and told him to go show his dad. I was holding the table lamp for better light while dh lifted the skin which put me right over the top. I dropped the lamp in a chorus of EEEEEEEEEW! and Yuuuuuck! (Ok so I am not great with blood) Ended up losing the rock paper scissors and got my keys to run him to the ER where the boy got 8 staples. It is uncanny the knack our children have for timing these crises – rarely when we are well-rested! It was an odd moment sitting there by the gurney though. Zach, in his neatly trimmed beard and designer shoes looking so much like a man now. Zach, asking the Dr how many stitches were needed and how much it was going to hurt, looking so much the little boy I remember. Time goes by way too fast.

Where’s Wally? That was the name of the game this past week. After taking a temporary leave of our collective senses Allen and I decided to take the plunge and try dog ownership oooooone more time. To our shame we have the world’s absolute worst track record with canines. Livestock is so very much easier!  However, we are also the world’s biggest push-overs and have shockingly short memory of misfortune.  So here we are again!

Our piano teacher  has several sweet Bearded Collies. They are cousin to the English Sheepdog. If you have seen the Shaggy Dog movie- that’s it. I have been intrigued by them each week we visit her but they were out of our reach $$ wise. Then a Beardie showed up at the pound. He then showed up at the piano teacher’s <g> and then…..he was in my van heading to the prairie.

Reflecting his heritage, we gave him a proper Scottish name – Wallace – but he goes by Wally around here. He has been a remarkably gentle, mild mannered dog. No significant vices noted, unlike the rest of us. ; D  So where is Wally?  Well as the pics show he has been spotted monitoring bath time, helping in the garden, even riding in the trailer of the tractor – how I wish I had gotten that picture!! Most often though he is spotted sprawled on the couch, right in Allen’s spot. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Now I need to get cracking on those denim slipcovers…..

The Thrifty Homeschooler http://maureenwittmann.com/ came to rest a spell under the Starry Sky and we couldn’t be happier to see her. She is in Colorado to speak at the Denver Catholic Homeschool Conference this weekend. Maureen and I have known each other for over ten years now, though we are pretty consistently at the opposite sides of the country. So, it was a wonderful treat to have the Wittman ladies spend the night last night. The kids all stayed up way too late playing every card game they knew and talking over each other til they dropped. They were back at it this morning until they had to pack out for Denver. They are delightful all and if you get a chance to hear Maureen in person take advantage of it! If not, her Thrifty Homeschooler yahoo mailings will inspire you to stretch your dimes and make your purchases more purposely.

That about beings us to today.  Allen and I are heading to Denver with Colin who is speaking on the graduates panel tomorrow.  I still need to alter a still larger dress for the event since my midsection is expanding.  My center is outpacing my wardrobe ; )  I am 12 weeks today and will enter trimester two next week!  Woo hoo! One down, two to go! The morning sickness is subsiding and I am still able to do my own chores and run my errands. Given my history of bedrest and contractions I am enjoying every minute of that work. Speaking of which – the goats are calling!  So long for now.

I was talking with a dear old friend this week about her sister-in-law, who just gave birth to her first child. It was a complicated pregnancy followed by an elective c-section (she was told baby was *too big*). Now the little man is just two weeks old, a strapping, beautiful boy. Already his mother is on a determined quest for parenting data and methodology because it is apparent to her that he is manipulating his parents.  She believes they must limit rocking and holding, although it is important (within limits apparently), because it is ‘conditioning’ him to be unable to self-soothe. Instead she is convinced it is critical to carefully schedule cycles of sleeping, eating, playing with the precision of a train conductor or havoc will ensue. She was told you cannot spoil a baby – at least in the first three months (3 mo??) but she doesnt want to take any chances.

I was thinking about this conversation last night sitting in front of a giant model train set at Barnes and Noble with two of my little boys. We had just bought all of our garden plants and were waiting to meet Dad for dinner. It was date night and somehow *only* having two kids along now qualifies as a date for us lol! Anyway, there we sat, the boys moving Thomas around the tracks and I looking over the titles filling the shelves, remembering the books that filled my own shelves and warmed my heart when two little boys is all I had. Wondering also, what happened in the next couple decades that convinced new moms to run their homes like factories?

Shelf after shelf was lined with stern looking *nanny* faces (WHY are we taking advice from nannies and not nanna’s??) and titles that frequently included words like "problem" "disorder" and "solve".  How different from the books that inspired me as a brand spankin’ new mom. I remember Marguerite Kelly’s Mother’s Almanac, Laurel’s Kitchen, and The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. I remember books like Whole Parent, Whole Child  and For The Children’s Sake which suggested that breastfeeding and mothering somehow make us more complete, not imposed upon. Authors like John Holt who urged us to trust our children’s drive to learn.

Parenting is fraught with challenges right from day one, especially if your baby, like our first, is beset with medical issues. Coming off a firm foundation laid by prenatal reads like Gentle Birth Choices and Birth Without Fear I was unwavering in my certainty that mothering, too, was a natural process.  It has been around as long as their have been people after all. ; )  If simple, tribal people could thrive surely we could.

We were told to hold the baby, wear the baby in fact. We were told that contrary to spoiling his chances at self-soothing that it would improve his brain function to process images while moving with our steps. If mom was tired or sick she was advised to tuck the baby into bed with her and nurse and rest, not insist baby cry himself to sleep so as not to overtax her. We were encouraged to read to babies and sing to them and to keep baby very close by to stimulate their development. It was an all-absorbing challenge – one that I have thoroughly enjoyed for a lot of years now.

Not sure where I am going with all this.  These are the same random thoughts that have been occupying me all week. I have battled with self doubt at times over the years over my complete inability to run our home with institutional perfection. I am schedule challenged. I have never owned a wrist watch. We now have children who will NOT allow a baby to cry and will offer to walk them if an adult is not readily available to do so. Our babies have been *worn* by mom and dad and big brother and sisters. They have required more time in the first two years than Baby Trainer babies.  What we have come to see though is that they require way LESS time after age two. They sleep well, play independently and are generally delightful despite the absence of scientific parenting.  In fact, one might argue, "because" of that absence.

Some might view us as reactionary, but I prefer to see it as responsive instead. One thing I am sure of is that, much as we would like to believe it, there is nothing predictable about children or life with them.  That can totally blindside you if you are beholden to the perfect schedule and find yourself tangled up in the inevitable skinned knees, burnt toast, sick dog, hurt feelings,lost socks, wakeful baby type of things that typically fill our days. This is not to say chaos is a given. Routine is comforting all around. We shoot for that. But grace is found in self-emptying and in dying to self. It is in that kind of giving completely that we somehow find ourselves richer and more full than we could ever have imagined.

My wish for new mom’s is that you are carried away with this wonderful vision.  That you trust yourself and trust your baby. That you remember to always have fun. : )  I am still having fun.  I am pretty sure my close friends and companions along the way are also.  Far from being exhausted by the tasks at hand we are looking more at the end of this new baby journey than the beginning and that brings more tears than you can imagine. Don’t waste a minute of this precious time focusing on the problems.

Today was the day I have been waiting for the past two months.  I had my first visit with the midwife and a quick ultrasound to check things out. Things are very good! We found a tiny person waving his arms and rolling over and over.  As busy as his or her siblings apparently! The baby measures right on dates. All the other measures are also right on target. 

We couldn’t be happier! Though it does boggle the mind to be sitting at an OB appt exactly twenty years after my very first – only this time with my *middle kids* along and a husband on his second career.  This time that 1986 *baby* was home with the 2005 baby waiting to hear the good word about number nine.  Who could have guessed in 1985 where we would be now or who we would be sharing our world with. God is good!

Please continue to send prayers our way for this new little person. : )

We had no idea we were about to get clobbered this week.  Allen came home late Sat. and had taken off Monday to catch up. The kids had washed the horses this wknd and you can see by the sky it was clouding up. We had run to the feed store and bookmobile early afternoon. On the way back it began to rain, which is generally a good thing out here. The boys were trying to corral the goats when we pulled in. It was all hands on deck for that and trying to convince the horses it was indeed time to come in. HOW they always know what time it is is beyond me but they were a tough sell two hrs before their dinner time.

We just got everyone in when this bizarre yellow cloud of something started to roll over the hill.  We were wondering what it could be when it hit – literally.  It was a huge ball of dust  that was as large as the horizon – which is saying a lot if you have ever seen this horizon.  It hit like a wall of dirt and we pulled our shirt collars up over our faces and headed for the general direction of the house getting pelted the whole way. 

Once inside the power was out and the rain hit. The trees were bent and it looked like it was raining mud.  It actually was raining mud for a minute or two while that big dust cloud was washed out of the sky.  The sky was such an odd color Allen ran to the nearest car to try to listen to the radio. That confirmed there was a tornado in the little town near us. Fortunately it was heading north and missed us. We were just seeing the edges. 

We spent the early evening hrs listening to the kids play all their new piano pieces for Allen until the power came back on and we could start a late dinner.  Tuesday morning we had good friends visit to watch us milk and get ideas for their upcoming goat purchase. Blogging time has been short all around but I had a couple fun things to share so am trying to sneak in a couple posts. 

…. and sometimes the worst of times.  And now it’s over.  Zach had his athletic awards at the high school last night.  Though he has always been homeschooled he has played at the local high school for the past three years.  He has played ball SOMEplace or another for as long as we can remember. In fact it’s hard to remember a time his life didn’t revolve around the sport. 

Zach began playing ball in early elementary school.  In one of those first games he was so overwhelmed by the noise and motion that the one time he did get the ball he ran down the court – the wrong direction. He quickly got the hang of it though and before long he was eating and drinking and breathing basketball.  I am pretty sure that when he went to bed at night he dreamed about it too. He memorized all the moves, all the stats, all the players.  And the shoes.  The shoes would take a post all it’s own!

Basketball filled our days and nights for so many years. We had our worst tangles over practice versus homework. We had some of our best times hanging on the edge of our seats through the last minutes of a close game.  He made some terrible mistakes, some incredibly masterful shots, and also what his coach called "the best play he ever saw in high school basketball". 

As we entered the high school years and the debate over public school sports, coupled with the difficulty of juggling school work with the intense practice schedules there were times we prayed for this whole thing to be done.  And now it is.  And now, I cry.  All the emotion pent up for a decade now.  All that defined this child.  All of that came to head last night watching the powerpoint his coach’s wife put together for the senior boys. 

I think about the kids we have come to know.  Kids I really didn’t WANT to know but ended up caring about a great deal.  Like the sweet boy from the group home who has been bounced around 4 different homes his senior year as he struggles to make a place for himself as a new legal adult.  About the girls from the girls’ team who supported them, who always kept up on me during Allen’s deployment, and who send me emails of congratulations about the new baby.  About the boy who told Zach how lucky he was to have his dad in the stands no matter how they were getting along that night.  And he should know.  His father died several years ago and never saw a single game.  We will miss you.

We will miss his young sincere Christian coach who set set the bar high for these young men.  He had strict policy against profanity and drinking. He modelled same with his creative Southern (always G rated) expletives. ; )  He supported us as parents and ran a tight ship with the boys helping them understand that this was not just about scorekeeping.  It was about being a team.  A team with integrity. We can only hope these boys remember that critical lesson as they move on.

It’s been a wild ride from his sorely uncoordinated dribbling as a gawky little boy to his beautiful plays as a teen.  He went from stumbling down the court to being a third year letterman.  As this chapter in your life closes my love, I think of the words in the Green Day song played in your senior video last night:

So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind.

Hang it on a shelf
In good health and good time.

I hope you had the time of your life.

Ok technically not, since I am an only child and even mom couldn’t see all this coming.<g>   Life is rarely on *slow* here.   Allen is in Baltimore this week.  We have tripled our milk intake.  Older sons are in the throes of college transfers and graduation and new jobs.  And morning sickness has settled in with a vengeance.  Some days you just want a *pause* button!

A friend and I were discussing the temptation to doubt God and His promise to be faithful, to fill the gaps, to give us strength equal to our tasks. There are days when you think, "No offense, God, but there seems to have been some kind of Divine miscalculation. I am not equal to this after all!"  However 20 years of mothering and living through disasters large and small have done a great deal to bolster my gut feeling that these days also pass.  I try not to give too much attention to those worry words.  They don’t help.

There is a certain steadiness that comes with weathering these days year in and year out.  While at times you stagger under the weight of a particular trial, you do bounce back.  Eight kids require a person to continue to press on and throw yourself into the daily rhythm of cooking, cleaning, teaching, driving, counseling, cuddling and that is a blessing indeed.  It keeps you from indulging in negativity – there is no time for that!

All that to say perhaps God DID know what He was doing giving us this load. While it is formidable at times, it also has likely strengthened us in ways we could not have imagined and protected us in unforeseen ways. So thank you God for days like these.  We may not have seen them coming but I don’t doubt that they were designed perfectly from all time to be exactly what we need.

Z and Brendan hanging out. 

You never know what the day will bring out here. I was in the kitchen last night when the kids came in tumbling over each other proclaiming that a cow was in our pasture.  Sure enough, a steer had crossed the road and was walking through our pasture. Allen was out watching him and trying to spy the neighbors’ pastures to see if he *matched* any of theirs. Before we could close our gate on him the steer broke through the back fence of the pasture and marched on westward.  We hopped in the truck and met our neighbor on the road.  Apparently he had just leased some space to another rancher and a couple of the steers had challenged the fence already. He was on the hunt for another so we tracked this one as far as we could.  Dark arrived before the owners however. The neighbor called it a night and so did we. It’s anyone’s guess how far the critter got by morning. : /  Such is life on the range.  Think we are stickin’ to goats! That was one BIIIIIG cow.

And fwiw girls – here is the new hair pic.  Yes, shockingly short.  Note to self, never go to a stylist so new she has to pencil her name on the business card LOLOL!  Ah well, cheap self that I am I  will be able to get some serious mileage out of this before it needs cutting again. <g>  Be kind!  I can’t un-do this.