Thursday, November 20, 2008

Current Conditions on the Prairie

Lately I write a lot of blog posts in my head that never make it down through my fingers to the computer keyboard. I used to blog while feeding the Rabbit and now she's getting too big to hold still and eat while I compute. At the moment she is asleep in my arms and I can finally catch you up on my world.

The Rabbit is doing better and better with big people food. She has figured out how to eat rice cereal, but she prefers to self-feed. As I do not have much time to sit and spoon things into her, this is fine with me. She had a great time with a pile of peas the other night at dinner. I didn't even have to replenish her supply because Roo took care of that for me. (Isn't that one of the oldest tricks in the book-- pawn your vegetables off on your younger sibling?)

While we're on the food front, I'm happy to report that I did not gain any weight this month. Unfortunately I did not lose any, but this is a tough time of year for me (can you say "homemade pumpkin pie with real whipped cream"?) My goal is to hold steady through the holidays and then get serious about these last ten pounds when cookieless January rolls around.

I haven't been doing my weekly homeschooling reports, mostly because I believed they were boring the majority of you to tears. However, the vocal minority among my readers has expressed disappointment in their absence. So I'll try to keep you updated without being tedious. Homeschooling has been going very well and I'm enjoying it more and more. I am still struggling to sort out mentally what is realistic and stop judging myself by other people's standards. I think I am growing as much as the kids are. I hope so. Anyway, Bean's progress with reading has been slow but steady. He loves Geography and History. We've been talking about the Southern states and the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. And he has been finger knitting up a storm. I bought one of those Knifty Knitter looms for him so he could make some real scarves for his friends, but he hasn't got the hang of it yet. Both the boys love "Making Day" the very most of all the days of our homeschool week. Oriental Trading Company is my new best friend for Making Day projects. We've done some great autumn crafts from OTC these last few weeks.

We had the missionaries over for dinner the other night and one of them is a virtuoso pianist. I asked him to play while I was getting dinner ready and he sat down and played the third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. I about passed out in the kitchen. It was so incredible. My boys were riveted and I said to Bean, "THAT is what you can do with a piano if you practice." Bean has music in his soul and loves to play, so hopefully the memory of Elder Nielson's performance will help him develop discipline.

Roo refuses to wear pants lately. She MUST have a skirt. I don't know where she got this. Certainly not from watching me. But I'm going with it. She's so cute in her little skirts. Pajamas are the problem now though. Sleepers are unacceptable in the new Roo Regulations. So I am working on making her some nightgowns for Christmas. It is difficult to sew with everything else I've got going on, but it's so fun to have a project that energizes me.

I paid $1.68 a gallon for gas yesterday. Oh, how happy that makes me!

Another thing that makes me happy is my new fleece turtleneck from Land's End. I put it on this morning and I don't ever want to take it off. EVER. It is so soft. All day long when the kids were acting like little monsters (I don't know WHAT got into them today!) I would stop and take a deep breath to calm down and say to myself, "Oh, my shirt is so soft and fuzzy and comfortable!" and then I would feel better and be nicer to my kids. Also, the Badger gave me a great back rub because he liked it so much. I would encourage all you moms to go buy one in the interest of promoting domestic tranquility except I don't know yet whether or not the fleece is going to stay really soft or pill up really quick. I'll let you know in my next General Prairie Update.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My companion is a pretty good pianist, but a few companionships back they had a companionship here. The guy's name was Elder Harline, and he was training to be a concert pianist and could play the violin amazingly well as well. His companion, Elder Clark, also was a spendid singer. Which is why, right when we arrived here, we were asked to do stuff. Unfortunately we're not nearly as good as them, but that is absolutely amazing that you got a missionary who could do that so wonderfully!!