Sick Day

Except right now the ibuprofin is working, so I'm upright for awhile. We had NO sickness in our family all winter until March & April, when winter began in earnest. It's been nothing but noses since then. Since the end of February, we've had a blizzard a week. So while spring was on our minds and the garden was in our hearts, we had to find something to do with all that cabin fever.

Jason took up mandolin. He can already play several chords smoothly.

I took up Dickens and knitting. I decided to read Little Dorrit after seeing part 1 of a 5-part miniseries on PBS. I was so intrigued, I went to the library that week and found the (800+ page) book. It's been so long since I read a novel, I forgot how they consume your thoughts. Charles Dickens is sarcastic about social structures, compassionate for orphans, and develops his characters so richly. The main character, Little Dorrit is so good as to see through the best intentions in us. Her family is so bad as to embarrass what we see of ourselves in them. Perhaps not coincidentally, I am reading George Mueller to the kids right now. His life work took place in Dickens' England. Dickens can paint such a dreary picture that I love reading of all the light the Mueller's were shining at that time. I thought I'd like to knit because I like to wear knit clothes and it seems like a useful skill. So far, only one stitch mastered.

Aiden & Taliah took up Adventures in Odyssey. Like good little descendants of Johnsons, they can quote episodes with the best of them.

Jared took up a computer game. We hadn't let him play on the computer before this spring. He likes to "color" pictures of David & Goliath, but especially Goliath.

The twins took up toilet training, finally of their own accord. Praise be to God!

I wasn't there to take pictures, but Aiden got to attend his first branding. He was the brand caller for awhile, and he can't wait for his next one. They got him to sit on a calf, but he wasn't quite ready to ride it. He also learned a few new words. He told Mr. Miller, "We need a steer-maker over here."

"It Was A Wild March Day"

This here is a quote from our current "read aloud" (to use a little homeschooling lingo). We're just finishing Mountain Born, a book about the lifecycles of a European family of shepherds. Every time we get to the end of a book, Taliah gets tears in her eyes, because she doesn't want the story to end. Speaking of literature, we were thinking of

Storybook Bears We Love

The Berenstain Bears

Winnie the Pooh

Little Bear

Moonbear

Cordouroy

Paddington

The Three Bears

Can you think of any more? Let us know.

March has been ripe for harvesting kid soundbytes.

Here are a few:

ALETHIA: (watching Jared carry a big box) Jared, awesome!

ALETHIA: My unnerwear hurts.

ALETHIA: I dooted. (A statement which brings great delight to her 8-year old brothers heart).

ANNEKE: My buns falling down.

ANNEKE: No! Not daaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!

JARED: (singing) If I were a caaar, I'd fank you Lord for giving me wheels.

JARED: Mom, did March come out like a monkey, or a lion?

TALIAH: (while beating eggs for an omelet) (crooning) Poor little chickens who couldn't be born. . .

TALIAH: (wrote her name on a teeny scrap of paper and handed it to me) That's for when I'm married, in case you forget me.

ME: Thanks. You mean after you're gone? . . . .

. . . I don't think I'll ever forget you, though.

TALIAH: Just in case.

AIDEN: (upon being scolded by Taliah for his bread-making mistake) Hey, I don't know how to make bread! Boys are supposed to work; girls make bread.

AIDEN: Dad, do you want to know a fact about Mars?

AIDEN: Mom, you look like a rancher in Hank the Cowdog.

Spring is . . .

Calling outside, and I just spent thirty-eight minutes trying to update this blog and get pictures from the camera and change the background and write about spring. But now it's been 39 minutes and only one of the list accomplished, and minutes during the twins' naptime are precious . . . . Perhaps next week I'll be able to write about spring. Hang in there, dear readers.

Jared's Birthday

No time to write this week, but I'll just say that Jared said, "Mom, you can wrap up a present for me. You can wrap up 'de-odor.' Aiden has de-odor, and then all the boys could have de-odor. " Ask and you shall receive! :)

He also has a love/hate relationship with both swords and stuffed animals. He loves to carry them around all day, but at night they seem scarey to him. He has scarey dreams.

In this picture he is enjoying a handful of oats.

Jared loves to sing, and often sings a mixture of the ABCs, O-B-E-D-I-E-N-C-E, I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N and G-O-D is L-O-V-E. He also recently sang, (a la the butterfly song), "If I were a car . . . I'd fank you Lord for giving me wheels."

For his birthday, Aiden & Taliah gave him presents they'd made and found at the AWANA store. We invited the Most family over for supper. Their son Lukan is one of Jared's friends.

Happy Birthday, little guy! We love you so much!

Our Week

Aiden got to "roast cookies." (Huh?)

Aiden's goldfish was dying in the fishbowl, but he loves his new home.

Anneke

(sorry; I'm still learning how do pictures)

Annie, Allie in a coop box

Coop order came in; nothing like raw rolled oats!

Jared "reads" to the twins during school time.

Look-alikes (Allie & Taliah)

Valentine's Day Tea with friends and

Great-Grandma Bennett's tea dishes

Another batch of snow (but he melted by suppertime.)

A Love/Hate Relationship

. . . with blogs, of course!
What's to love? A blog is like a scrapbook and a journal and a letter and a soapbox all in one! All 4 happen to have been some of my favorite things my whole life. Thanks to blogger, we get to be creative and spill our guts and preach and share pictures with faraway peeps. It's like writing our own little magazine.

What's to hate? Well, that was the previous article's subject. And the amount of time it takes. As a matter of fact, I have a love/hate relationship with computers in general! They're so useful and fun, even, but so plastic and glass and electric and flickering and technical and so demanding of my eyes and hands. Unlike the mythical mother with eyes in the back of her head, I need to actually give my face to my children and husband. :)

Last weekend I spent an evening perusing Other People's Blogs and had lots of fun and gathered a few ideas. Hope to put those ideas "up" soon.

Facebook Friends

Facebook friends aren't really friends! Or are they . . . ? This is a rant I've been building for a long time.

Blogs got me started, because I didn't understand why people would rather go look at virtual "pages" about each other than write each other real personal letters in handwriting. Or give each other a phone call and talk with their real voices. Or even . . . "go visiting" or have a maple syrup party like the Wilders/Ingalls did when they wanted to socialize.

So we went from physically visiting each other to phone calls to emails (which became too lengthy). So it was text messages or Twitter. Or MySpace or Facebook, or just driving around the internet visiting people's blogs, where you don't have to interact at all; just put up your stuff and read other people's stuff and somehow, you feel connected. Even instant messaging can be multitasked or ignored. Does anyone else feel the superficiality of some of this? I miss real people!

Real friendships are not made or kept by clicking "confirm."

Friday night Jason & Ben stayed home with our 9 children so that Julie & I could go out for supper. When she lived in town, she & the girls would drive over on their tractor mower for a visit. Now that she's moved, we call or email sometimes and visit a snatch at church, but we haven't just hashed things out for quite awhile. We went to Ruby Tuesday and ate our meals and drank many refills of water with lemon, and talked. Face to face in a tiny booth where we could hear each other's tones of voice and see each other's facial reactions and without even realizing it, we'd been there almost 4 hours!

Now, everybody's not as intense as I am (I don't like to shoot the breeze). But that evening just meant so much more to me than spending an afternoon "socially networking."

Here are the pros and cons of Facebook, etc. as I see it:

PROS:

• people will talk to me on Facebook that would never ever call or write
• it is easier to look up someone on FB than hunting their address or phone #
• people can catch up at each other's convenience without having to plan a time/place
• we can see photos of people we wouldn't be able to visit
• it's free, fun, and it's not just for teenagers

CONS

• friendship is reduced to click click (not even clique)
• all the fakeness is taken so seriously (fake pokes, fake food fights, fake gifts, fake top friends lists, fake games with fake prizes, fake groups, fake shouting matches . . . )
• i do not care that so-and-so just got up from a nap/hates work/is a fan of ___/went outside/came in/blah blah blah, and they don't really care that i did either
• it's just a new toy, and pretty soon something else will replace it

My nephew has over 400 "friends" on facebook. I hope that he has one or two real friends.