TOS Review: Mango Languages

For the past six weeks or so, three of my older children and I have been using Mango Languages and their Homeschool Curriculum for teaching languages as part of the Old Schoolhouse Review Crew. For ages 6 to adult, I chose to do this review with Sterling, 6, Eden, 9, and Liberty, 10. Mango offers over fifty languages, so I chose French since my husband has a bachelor’s in French, has spent time in France, and his knowledge gave me courage to tackle a daunting subject. I’d thought we’d avoid it for a few more years, until high school, but when I researched Mango before the review, I couldn’t help but get excited.

Mango lived up to everything I’d hoped for.



The setup for Mango was a bit complicated, but once I figured it out, we were off. We do school four days a week, so we added this to our daily schedule and did it four days a week as well. The very first lesson, the kids met Blaine at the door after work with “Good Evening, Daddy” in French. When he responded in French… oh, the excitement. And we were off.



I found the lessons myself hard to absorb. Nothing to do with Mango and their teaching attempts, I’m having a hard time getting myself back into learning mode. My pregnant brain, plagued first by bronchitis, then the flu, and now a looming due date, does not want to absorb anything. It’s pathetic. The kids can talk me into a corner. Liberty and Eden have absorbed it pretty well, and while I do not expect them to be fabulous at French in the coming year, I am thoroughly enjoying listening to them learn and talk to each other and their Daddy with enthusiasm.

Sterling… that was a whole ‘nother story. He’s learned plenty, don’t get me wrong. He really wants to learn French. He gladly does his lessons each day. But. Getting him to talk to the computer was a little like pulling teeth, and once we got that far, I thought he was doing fabulously. One day, listening to him rattle off French from the next room, I thought he was making fabulous progress. Then I got closer and heard what he was really saying. With great French finesse, he was rattling off, “Blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah blah?” He even had the uptick question cadence.

Really?! Oh, dear boy. Once I got over my desire to laugh, I corrected him at his less than stellar attempt to copy the French speaker on the computer, and we’ve moved on. He’ll learn plenty this year, to be sure, but I don’t anticipate it will be as much as he could if he were a bit older. I wouldn’t say he’s too young, but he’s easily frustrated when he can’t remember phrases properly and, unfortunately, gives up his attempt to be accurate instead of trying harder.

When Sterling spelled “pass” on his spelling test “pas” instead, he blamed the French lessons. He claimed got confused at the spelling, since “pas” is a French word (Meaning nothing close to the English word ‘pass’ and pronounced very differently.) That time… I did laugh. Poor boy, trying to learn these crazy things Momma throws at him and actually expects him to stretch his math-brain further than numbers and multiplication.

While we’ve been thrilled with Mango and all that it offers, I found out recently that even more is coming. I haven’t had to try those things yet, but to sum it up, here’s a list of what’s there and what’s coming:

What is currently available on the site:
Over 60 different languages
Progress Assessments

Built-in journals, discussions and wikis
Collaborative learning spaces
eNote messaging
/chat rooms

Access to embedded/downloadable content

Support from other community members

Calendars to schedule meetings or study groups

Over the next several months, they’ll be introducing other exciting features like:
Enhanced Tracking and Progress Monitoring - including seat time (for students and parents)
Goals and Personal Lesson Plans (both stand-alone and tied into Mango courses)

Resume and Portfolio Builder

Mango Languages offers the following introductory pricing:

• 1 subscription - $18/month or $125/year
• 2 subscriptions - $28/month or $175/year                   
• 3 subscriptions - $38/month or $225/year                
• 4 subscriptions - $48/month or $275/year                 
• 5 subscriptions - $58/month or $325/year
• Anything over 6 subscriptions is a special group rate that will depend on the number in the group.

 

To read more reviews from the Old Schoolhouse Review Crew, check out the Review Crew Blog.

5 days out: goodbye, routine. Hello, padded room.

Life is just a little bit crazy right now. Blaine went back to work today, and Ellie met the pediatrician and got checked out. She’s doing fabulously, had gotten down to 9 lbs. 1 oz. but was at 9 lbs. 2 oz. today so we’re climbing again. Her heart sounds perfect, she’s not jaundiced, and we couldn’t ask for anything more.

But. How do you take seven children into a doctor’s clinic smoothly? How do you take less than twelve minutes to get everyone into the van and buckled? To carry an infant car seat or to put baby in sling? Stroller – double to contain Pierce too, or single and have Pierce walk? All these questions, along with about a hundred more, have yet to be answered. Hello, overwhelmed. I managed to lose Pierce for about 30 seconds in a small store, (he was by the toys mere feet away, but that didn’t stop the moment of panic) forget to pack a few things we really wished we had taken, forget to change the baby’s diaper before the situation became desperate, and we didn’t make it to three of the stores I’d hoped to make it to. It was a lesson in what not to do, pretty much.

When the doctor looked at my kids and said he really wanted to know how I do what I do, how I have such well behaved children, I couldn’t help but think… “Show them what overwhelmed looks like it. Show them what craziness really is. They’ll all be so terrified Momma’s about to lose the last thread of sanity she owns, they’ll fall into line and act like perfect little ducklings. Who knows… she might forget to feed them next. Yep, better keep your act together, or she’ll lose everything entirely. Our lunch is depending on it.”

I’ve had seven babies. Six times before, I’ve sponge bathed my babies, cared for their umbilical cord stump, waited for it to fall off. This time? I totally forgot. I decided Ellie needed a bath, took her into the shower with me, and was mid-suds when I realized I was not supposed to get her cord wet. Seriously?! Where is my brain? To top it all off, approximately 36 hours later, a friend was over, after spending the last 36 hours cleaning her cord with alcohol trying to ease my regret in having bathed a baby when they tell you not to. I was chatting with my friend when I looked down to the shoulder that Elliot had been resting on moments earlier. There stuck her cord, sitting on my shirt like something entirely revolting. Oh. My. Word.

The best part was when I was relaying the whole story to the pediatrician, waiting for him to scold me and tell me what horrible things I’d done to the well-being of Elliot’s perfectly shaped belly button (that no one will ever see in her teen and adult years, to be certain) and at the end of the story, the pediatrician laughed. He told me to leave it alone, put the rubbing alcohol away, and step away from my mommy guilt… and take a nap. Because apparently I need one.

Sterling drew me an owl picture. When I giggled at his rendition, he asked what was wrong. I pointed to the mouth of the owl, lips and all. I think Sterling was a bit offended at my reaction – until he realized he drawn lips on an owl. Oh, we laughed.

Ruby’s new line: “I was accidentally out of my mind.” She first said, "Is it 'My brain is out of my mind' or 'My mind is out of my brain?'" Somewhere along the line, it’s evolved. I can’t bring myself to correct her. She makes me smile.

Comedic entertainment. It’s all that’s keeping me going right now.

My work is not done.

Pierce still wears a diaper to bed. All of his sisters except Charlotte regularly pitch in and put his (cloth) diaper on. Tonight, Sterling offered to help Pierce get ready for bed. Sterling headed to the place that I keep pull-ups reserved specifically for co-op. He grabbed one. I reminded Sterling that those are NOT what Pierce wears to bed. He asked me what Pierce wears, then. I stared at him.

Really? Same routine for all of Pierce's life, at the very least, the same thing we've done for the eight months since Pierce stopped wearing diapers during the day. I pointed him to the diaper shelf... in another room entirely.

He came back with a newborn diaper. Uh... no. Try again. He came back with just a diaper cover. Still, no. Charlotte headed to tell him which diapers Pierce wears to bed. Let's be fair here, though: 80% of the diapers on the shelf are the ones he wears. Sterling was totally set up for success. And yet. His three year old sister had to show him.

When I told Sterling he really ought to pay more attention, he told me it wasn't his fault. "The girls play with dolls and stuff. They know how to do this because of that." Yeah, sure.

I have a lot more work to do before his future wife thanks me for teaching him how to be helpful with the baby. He's been sharing under the radar, it would seem.

After he put the correct diaper on Pierce, with an extra liner for whatever reason, he headed to brush his teeth... and I tightened the snaps on the diaper that failed to cover Pierce's hiney and was headed for his knees instead.

Nope, my work is not done.

I got a recliner. After many pregnancies wishing for one, and many newborns without a rocking chair, I’m thrilled with my craigslist find – it matches the couch. Problem:

The kids really like my new recliner too. (Sorry about the photo. It was impossible to get a good shot. The coat hooks are on the wall directly behind the chair. Ugh. Six kids times two coats each plus fleeces and purses for four girls equals one mass of outer wear and going-out accessories. Summer can come, anytime.)

Today is pajama day at co-op. Ruby is sporting her feeted zipper pj’s and slippers. She thinks it’s fabulous. Sterling is equally decked out in flannel pj pants and shirt and fuzzy slippers. As a “when you’re awake, you’re dressed” household, they are tickled pink at the thought of leaving the house in their pj’s. Eden’s participating as well. Liberty… she’s wearing jeans. I get that. Me? I’m staying home to deplete the Kleenex box at a ridiculously rapid rate. It might just be pajama day here too.

Shopping battles, missing ribs, and toy invasions.

Life has become mere endurance. At 32 weeks pregnant, I’m miserable beyond words. I. Hurt. Everywhere. But, baby kicks and rolls and from all appearances is doing fabulously. I was warned by my midwife to expect this one to be bigger than all my others, since he/she is already larger than most. My heaviest was 9 lbs. 2 oz. so I’m rather expecting to birth a three month old at this point. The constant question is whether I’m positive I’m not carrying twins, how sure I am of my due date, and if I’m done. Oh, and one particularly fun comment about being like one of those prize pumpkins that never stops growing. I hold onto the knowledge that I won’t be pregnant forever.

I bought new fabric for pillows. We might, by the end of tomorrow (because I need another pillow form, so that’s been added to today’s grocery list) have matching pillows on our not completely mismatched couches for the first time in history. I’m rather excited about this. No, it’s not nesting. I purchased the fabric the day after Christmas. Christmas sewing and dread for getting on the floor to cut out fabric had me putting off the sewing until now. But if my living room could be more intentional, that would be fun. Of course, the Lincoln Logs, the train set, the car basket, the Legos… it’s a toss up on whether I can win this battle.

Pierce got a handful of Tonka toys for his birthday last year. Sterling has had a dump truck since he was about two, so when I found a bunch of them on Craigslist, Pierce got them for his birthday. He loves them. They had, however, been used in the sandbox and lived outside or in the shed. Sterling begged to bring them in for Pierce when it got cold, willingly put them in the tub and scrubbed them until no sandbox remnant remained, and made his brother one very happy boy. My living room/school room now looks like this on a continual basis:

 

I’ve decided Sterling is just trying to balance out the boy toy/girl toy ratio. Or kill me, tripping on large wheeled toys in the night. Take your pick.

I told the kids to get ready for the day. The day consists of school and grocery shopping. Sterling feels like he’s headed into battle, apparently. This is what he came up with.

Last night I made barbecued pork ribs and baked potatoes and our own canned green beans for supper. I got all the kids’ plates dished up, and Ruby went to the garage fridge for more milk. She plopped the brand new gallon of milk down… on the edge of Sterling’s plate. Just like that, potato, beans, and pork rib went flying, catapulted toward nearby Pierce and the floor. Some of it landed on the table, some landed on the floor, but that rib simply disappeared. Brady (the dog) was not so very far away, and the fear that she’d snatched the meat was voiced. Even if she had, a pig rib vs. an eight pound dog seemed like an unlikely match. Surely something would be left. She can’t eat a bone that big that fast. And so the search continued. Everyone’s plates were checked for the extra portion, but no one found it.

It struck me as awfully funny. Eight people, searching floor, plates, counters, and curtains for one catapulted rib.

Finally, I spotted a bit of the sauce on the back of Pierce’s chair, and his chair became the focal point of the search. The rib was behind Pierce, on his chair. Supper was saved, Brady was innocent, and the idea of catapults was discussed.

Pretty sure I’m not going to forget the food flying through the air, plate and all, anytime soon though. Supper around here is never dull… but that was a new one, even for around here.

I never imagined this.

These days are hard. School seems to drag on forever, co-op has become a stress like no other and keeps me awake at night, it’s all I can do to keep up with the house somewhat and laundry, Pierce is tearing the house apart as fast as I can put it back together and refusing to take naps many days, and my belly is bigger and causing me more pain than it’s ever been at just shy of 23 weeks.

It’s funny, as a kid, picturing motherhood didn’t include absolute exhaustion. It didn’t include frustration or anger or sticking to the floor when I stumble into the kitchen after consoling a child with growing pains at 3am. It didn’t include repeating myself over and over and over or searching for lost objects that I didn’t lose or potty training a single child for six months with limited success.

Strangely enough, I pictured lovely children, well-behaved, without all the work. I imagined clean, pressed (HA!) and smiling children. This just wasn’t what I imagined.

Messes. Oh, the messes. The laundry, the mountains of work without the energy to climb anything more than the path to the couch. The pure exhaustion and achiness that pregnancy brings. The unending meal preparation and the inability to feed my children one helping of anything that fills them up.

But.

I didn’t picture the discussions either. The talks of sin and Christ’s love. The discussions of those painful growing up moments that are inevitable.

The laughs. Oh, the laughs. The hilarious things that a child comes up with. The heart stopping moment when you find your two year old standing high in the air, perched on a tiny patch of instability. The baby kissing “his baby” in Momma’s belly, loving someone so unconditionally that they’ve never met, don’t fully understand, and who is taking up more and more of “their” lap space.

The different personalities. The ones I see myself in clearly, and the ones I don’t understand in the slightest because they are so unlike me. The ones who are word oriented and the ones who crunch numbers like nobody’s business. Outgoing. Shy. Energetic. Quiet.

If I had to describe them each in a word…

Liberty… perfectionist

Eden… scattered

Sterling… mathematical

Ruby… passionate

Charlotte… imaginative

Pierce… hungry

Yeah. I never pictured any of this. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The hardest thing I’ve done, and the only thing I can’t quit. Day after day, new struggles face me in the lives of these children. I never imagined this. But I’m having the time of my life – on the good days and the bad.

Today:

• Pierce threw two new rolls of toilet paper into the toilet.
• Someone left the toothpaste, uncapped, on the bathroom rug. Charlotte stepped on it.
• The rug’s in the washing machine. Fourth load for today.
• I took the kids grocery shopping at two stores and to the library.
• A random man asked me when I was going to be done having babies. I sputtered but remained polite.
• I found out Liberty had a huge amount of homework to do for co-op. Due tomorrow. It’s still half done. Three maps to color and label takes a long time.
• I found out Eden had a report on Laura Ingalls Wilder to do, among other things. Also due tomorrow.
• I remembered once again that I’d rather homeschool than deal with daily homework.
• I took the kids to the library. I’d borrowed Courting Cate by Leslie Gould and liked it so much I went to see if she had other titles. None were there. Read Courting Cate if you like Christian Fiction. It’s really good.
• I didn’t have to throw even one kitten out of doors. They seem to be learning. I took Theodore Roosevelt’s advice to speak softly and carry a big stick to heart.
• Floppy rulers qualify as big sticks.
• I counted four gallons of milk in the fridge when we got home and sighed, realizing we’re not going to make another week. I thought we had six.
• I sprayed the tub down with Comet spray at 9 am.
• I finally got the tub scrubbed at 9 pm.
• The tub soaking for that long doesn’t help out anymore than soaking for three minutes.
• Pierce made it to 8 pm before he pooped in his pants. I was just thinking that we’d had an accident-free day.
• Sterling couldn’t remember what lines of symmetry means on his math assessment. Seconds later, he informed me that 22 x 10 = 220. I don’t know what to do with that boy.
• Ruby maybe, just maybe, has caught onto reading. She’s getting faster. It amazes me what personality and a little bit more time means at the ripe old age of five. Thinking back, the older the child was, the easier it was to teach them to read. The oldest one was 5.5 years old. That beats 4.5 any. That’s nearly a quarter of their life difference.
• I stayed up way too late typing this, because I walked into the bathroom and saw the two rolls of tp in the garbage and it was just enough aggravating to write about.

Sterling.

Sterling lost his first tooth last night. He’d mentioned earlier in the day that he had bumps on the inside of his gums that hurt. I told him he must have scratched them up on toast or some such thing. He complained again later, so I looked to see what was going on. His adult tooth was coming in, behind his baby tooth that has been loose for months but he’s babied enough that it never got looser.

I did what any parent would do. I bribed him. “You get it out before tomorrow morning, and I’ll give you a dollar. You still have that baby tooth in your mouth in the morning, and I pull it and you don’t get to complain.”

Compassionate? Of course.

Thing is, money speaks to Sterling like nothing else. He hoards it. So when he got the chance to add to his stash, he was all over it.

“How am I supposed to wiggle my tooth during supper?!” he asked.

I told him he could take a break and eat.

“But then I won’t get it out tonight!”

Pretty soon, he was asking for help. Sounding somewhat like a woman in labor, he moaned and huffed and puffed and I got it looser. He took to eating an apple in hopes that it would help. It didn’t.

I told him I’d get it out. He indulged me and stood there willingly. Thirty seconds later, he was spitting a tooth across the kitchen floor with a look of terror on his face.

Just like that, my baby grew up just a little. And he got his dollar.

Liberty's making pancakes - from a mix. She's over an hour in and I just heard the first oil spray hit the pan. I can teach them how to cook… but how on earth do you teach them speed?!

Sterling asked me how big a yard was. My reply was, “3 feet. 36 inches. A yard stick. You know, that’s why we call it a YARD stick.”

My son just snorted at me. In that brief second, he realized he’d asked a very stupid question. I love it. (If you saw how they play with yard sticks around here, you’d understand better. We have about 10 of them, from the farm show and from Blaine’s parents’ hardware store. They frequently become swords, roads, and, with the help of bread twist ties, bridges. Yard sticks are something he knows VERY well.)

Yesterday Sterling learned about nickels. We sorted out 2 quarters, 10 nickels, 5 dimes, and 50 pennies into four piles to make a point on the value of each coin. What Sterling got out of our piles? “We have $2 here!” I’m not the least bit math minded. My son is scaring me.

Pierce is back to his normal self. Temper tantrums, requiring lots of correction, and eating everything in sight normal Pierce. Thankful. Even for the exhausting job of the constant need to correct him. Funny: I dropped a butter knife onto the tile floor with a crash that sounded worse that it really was. Pierce took the opportunity to correct me back. “Momma! No no!”

Ruby was told that today at co-op she has PE and needs to wear jeans. She came back with five jean skirts for me to choose from, insisting that a jean skirt with leggings is really easy to run in. She just can’t stand it.

Eden is the first child I’ve ever had to tell to write out her math answers using numbers, not words. She had an entire lesson that she wrote answers like “five hundred twenty six thousand nine hundred fifty two” – in cursive. I’m sorry. I’m glad you know place value and how a number reads in words. But my brain does not want to convert that to numbers, so you’ll have to indulge me and use numbers next time.

Charlotte insists she’s three now, so she’s big. Until last night. When asked why she wasn’t helping to clean up supper, she informed me she’s not that big. It went into a several-minute dissertation on why three years old is pretty big, but she’s not quite big enough to do work, because she’s still pretty short. With the ability to have a discussion like that, she’s being recruited into service. She’s a fabulous “Crawl under the table for any runaway cups, silverware, napkins, or large pieces of food picker-upper”.

The pancakes were worth the wait. If you have the chance, the pecan-glazed mix from Aldi is pretty darn fabulous. And a ten year old can make them. If they have an hour and a half.

Underthings proclamation and other short stories.

I was in a dressing room, trying on a purple maternity dress. Charlotte tagged along.

“Mom! That dress matches your glasses!”

Yes. Yes it does.

“It matches your…” she searched for the next purple item she could name. “PANTIES, TOO!”

Could you say that a little louder, dear? I’m not quite sure the cashier at the front of the store heard you. From the chuckles outside the dressing room, the other ladies shopping nearby certainly did.

One dear boy helped his big sister lick out her birthday cake batter bowl. I’m pretty sure he got some in his mouth. Wouldn’t know it by looking at him though. I’m going to take heart between the two faces, and remind myself at the difference a year makes.

Today: Three grocery stores, six children and I, 1.5 hours, a week and a half worth of groceries, tp, and cat food, $200. That might be a new record for time. Between that, and Pierce actually holding onto the cart the entire time he was instructed without failing to obey (down to almost walking away to get in the van and remembering, saying “Oops!” and heading back to his post) it was a day for record-breaking. Maybe that’s why we got done so quickly, come to think of it!

One of my dear children, to remain nameless, was questioned this morning regarding MIA daily 100-problem math timed tests that had been assigned. Turns out, this dear child opted not to do them, pulling the perfectionist card out of the repertoire of bad excuses. “I can get a good score, so I didn’t want to do them. So I didn’t.” How didn’t? 14 lessons didn’t. Between those, the extra lesson that had been assigned but not completed, and the four chapter tests also mysteriously opted out of, one dear child has roughly 1,400 math problems to make up. It makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Today: half done. I’m scared to correct them, for fear said child’s brain opted out of complete operation after all that. Sometimes being the parent and the teacher just stinks. It’s stinking hard to leave the frustrations of our school day during school hours and move on in the evening.

Liberty was conjugating verbs. “Have boughtended?” The sad part was, she looked at me, waiting for my nod of approval instead of realizing her error. She realized it shortly after, however - when I snorted.

I told Sterling to grab his math book today. “Why?” he questioned.

“To do your lesson,” I replied.

“I already did it,” I was told.

“Yeah, fine, but we need to do your lesson. You’re learning about measuring today.”

“That math book is weird, Mom. I already know how to measure. They want to teach me things I already know. I did that page too. Why are the people that wrote that book so weird? That stuff is so easy.” And he had done it. All of it. To perfection.

Tomorrow, we work on humility.

Dear Son, you drive me crazy sometimes.

I’ve had an empty container hanging on my wall for three months, waiting for me to be inspired and figure out how to use it in my attempts at decorating. I finally found something looking like this:

at the local craft store. It was $10. It’s a bunch of sticks! We have five acres, surely my dear exploring son has an in as to where he can find me some similar sticks for free. Surely.

Yesterday, with the admonishment that they must be as long as his arm and no fatter than his thumb, he set out. He came back, minutes later, with this:

I’m not even quite sure what to say. It’s not quite what I was going for. When I asked about thinner, longer sticks, he informed me there weren’t any. Five acres, much wooded, hundreds of trees, and no sticks. Wow.

Turns out, my $10 bunch of sticks at the store is on 50% off this week. I may be paying for sticks, my friends, because empty was better than this.

In doing so, I may break my dear son’s heart. He thinks they’re beautiful. If you come over and see the sticks on the wall… now you know why. I’m not sure I have the heart to tell him it’s not what I had in mind.

So… male.

One day last week, I fought with a new hair pony that had a bow attached. The girls and I discussed how it was cute, but so hard to get the bow to lay correctly.

The next morning, Sterling came to me, all excited.

“I fixed it!”

The bow was in two pieces, and the pony made a third. He’d completely removed the bow from the pony, leaving me with a pony… not all that dissimilar to the other 25 ponies I own.

Why? Why did he feel the need to ruin the bow and hand me a plain old pony? Because it had not been working properly. And… he fixed that.

---

Today, Sterling hollered from the bathroom that he needed more toilet paper. Ruby grabbed four rolls – three to fill the obviously empty extra roll holder I keep in the bathroom, and a fourth to replenish the one on the dispenser. When she got to the bathroom, she found the roll holder full and the dispenser empty. She asked why he hadn’t grabbed one from there.

“I thought those were just for decoration!”

Seriously? We decorate the bathroom with extra tp, but we don’t use those? Since that extra roll holder has been a part of our bathroom for several years, not always full, how observant is he? And how often has he made do with what was on the roll and been the culprit of the child who fails to change the roll?

Just for the record, Sterling is six. Ruby will be five on Tuesday. Ruby understood. Sterling obviously had bigger things to think upon than the upkeep of our hygiene materials in the toiletry department.

It amazes me how entirely male Sterling is. Fearfully and wonderfully made, eh?

Confusion with Ruby.

Ruby: “Sterling, you’re weird.”

My ears perked up. I’m pretty sure she’s never heard anyone called weird before. I’m also nearly certain she has NO CLUE what it means.

“The only person weirder than you is Satan,” she continued. Now I’m quite certain she has no idea what she’s saying.

“No, you’re even weirder than Satan. Satan is just evil. He’s not weird.” Okay, now I’m wondering who on earth taught her what “evil” means, since she seems to have a clear perspective of the word.

I stepped in. “Ruby, what does weird mean?”

“It means you’re really funny.”

Alrighty then. Now that we have that one cleared up, she’s making slightly more sense. Slightly. Earlier in the morning she’d asked me if Satan eats fire for his food. I think it’s time to sit the kids down, figure out what they think, what they know, and set a few things straight. Wow.

Updates.

Remember the day I met my neighbor in Walmart? I made an update later and, well, nothing much has happened since then. I called to see if I could bring them a meal shortly after Christmas and was told, quite firmly, by the wife that they did not need my help. Uncertain what to do after that, I did nothing.

Last week, after six months of not seeing or hearing from them, the neighbor pulled into my yard with a bag of vegetables from his garden and the request that we take the rest of his green beans when they were ready. Awesome. Then yesterday he brought us 15 quarts of beans and asked if we could use a few things he’d found in his attic, asked Blaine if he could hire him (after vehemently denying that Blaine could do anything for them for free and insisting payment would be made) to wash his house. It would seem, after all that, the neighbor relationship is still there. It rather fell into my lap, but it seemed like it was for a reason. I’m thankful for the vegetables, to be sure, but I look forward to seeing how we can serve this elderly couple in the coming months. Pretty cool.

I’ll be eight weeks along tomorrow. I’m feeling better today than I have in a month. It’s good; I was starting to question if I could endure many more months without losing my sanity. I’ll have an ultrasound next month sometime. After my sister having twins, and twins elsewhere in my family history, it always eases my mind to see one little heartbeat. Why my belly has gotten so big, so fast has me a little worried, but since we’ve had six singletons so far, it’s probably just the, well, six singletons! Twins added to this chaos might just do me in.

Sterling got to work in this movie a few months ago. The trailer is out! Check it out, it’s pretty awesome.

Lazy summer days…

Ruby gets full enjoyment out of the swing.

You know, as opposed to the lesser enjoyment she gets out of other things in life. No, not so much. Life is full speed ahead and quite the fun game for Ruby. (And she wears this dress about three days a week. As in, every time it’s clean. It is, according to her, the cutest thing she owns.)

Sterling has been playing with wood lately. He asked me what I wanted him to make me. I told him I’d like another bedroom and bathroom added on to our house. He informed me he’d have to break a wall out to connect it, and he’d probably just build me a new house instead. Um… okay! He hasn’t realized the value of a good demo job. If current talk around here turns into more than talk, he might just get to try his hand at both demoing a wall and building. We’ll see!

Sigh. It’s such a rough life.

The garden is doing well. We’re eating broccoli, beans, zucchini, peppers, kale, and yesterday brought the first tomatoes.

This is (one of) my lavender plants. It’s the oldest. It moved in a pot from one place to another many times, before finally going in the ground when we bought our house. Turns out, planting it over the septic tank does good things for lavender. It’s huge!

Brady thought she needed in on my photos the other day. All 8.5 pounds of her, she’s much loved and believes herself to be human, I think. I haven’t found her eyes in a while, though…

Disconnected.

Here I sit, typing a post that can’t be published for another two days – I hope it’s only two days, anyway. Life without internet seems strangely quiet. I rather expected to have a bunch more free time, but I don’t. I have a bunch more nauseous and tired time instead. Something about a rolling stomach doesn’t encourage a clean house. Shocker, I know.

Life moves on. Liberty has rather mastered the doggy paddle and is having a great time in the deep end. Fun skills to master. Eden remains the flailing octopus, doing her best to drown herself and anyone trying to keep her afloat. She’ll get there. Pierce though… he thinks he can swim. He kicks and swings his arms and I haven’t completely gotten the nerve to let him go, but it would seem that he might have some ability to keep himself above water. Funny boy. Sterling and Ruby and Charlotte love their lifejackets.

Ruby wants to know why she can’t feel the baby kick yet. Charlotte wants to know why it isn’t born yet. Pierce just wants to know why my belly is getting bigger. It’s rather fun to watch them look forward to the new sibling. As the youngest child of two, I never experienced anything like it. I’ve had fun watching them experience it. Watching Pierce become a big brother though – I’m a little scared of that. It’ll be interesting how he handles it.

Ruby came in from a trip to the outside garbage can for me. She was blowing out of her nose strangely.

“Is there a bead up my nose?” She sticks her nose in my face. Is this a trick question?

“Why would there be a bead up your nose?”

“Because I stuck one up there but now I can’t find it.”

Wavering between laughing and scolding, I opted for the latter. I plugged one side and told her to blow. Nothing. I told her to blow again. And with that, a pink pony bead flew out and hit me in the face. I’ll have to work on my defense strategy next time. Although, should there ever be a next time, we’re quite clear on the consequences.

I’ve never thought to tell them not to put things up their noses. I don’t ever remember encountering this problem before. I’d have thought that at 4 years 10.5 months, she’d have been past the point of seeing that as a good idea. Leave it to Ruby.

Sterling was told to get the clothes out of the dryer and bring them to me. I was halfway through folding them when an obviously food-clad shirt was drawn up for the folding. Then I found two kids cups in the load. Really? Upon questioning, Sterling wasn’t sure where the cups came from. But he was QUITE certain he brought me the clean clothes. He was sent to the laundry room to check. He came back empty handed, adamant they were the clothes he’d taken from the dryer. Liberty went to investigate. She came back with a laundry basket of clean clothes. They’d been sitting in the laundry room.

They were whites. All whites. My dear six year old son took all-white clothes out of the dryer, put them in a basket, then grabbed the basket next to his clean basket and brought me a basket of dark colored clothes instead. And he never noticed the discrepancy.

Oh. My. Word.

I was headed to a meeting the other night and the kids were all in the yard. As I drove along the front of our yard on the road, the kids were waving like crazy in the yard. What was a mom to do? I waved back, hand out the window, hollering my goodbyes. Right then a car was coming towards me, and he was waving like a maniac back at me.

Excuse me while I feel like an idiot. That guy must have thought I was the friendliest neighbor ever.

Just because I felt like it.

Pierce walked up to Sterling, grabbed his arm at the wrist and elbow, and bit him for all he was worth mid-forearm.

He got enough skin it apparently didn’t hurt too bad, because in slow motion, Sterling realized he was being bitten, turned, saw Pierce, and hollered, “Pie-rce!”

Pierce let go, looked up, saw I’d seen the whole thing, and ran.

Pierce ran into the bathroom, slammed the door, and held the door shut.

I’m afraid parenting this boy is going to stretch me. Who am I kidding? It’s already stretched me, humiliated me, and made me rethink everything parenting-wise I’ve ever believed to be true.

Sterling’s new glasses.

Sterling had to get new glasses… again… because his dear brother broke them… again… so instead of blue, he chose the same frame in black. He’s pretty happy. I loved the blue, but he tells me that was so yesterday.

In other news, my flower beds are oh so colorful right now. It makes me smile.

Education: beginning again.

These four children started back to school today.

Ruby’s in kindergarten.

Sterling’s in first grade.

Eden’s in fourth grade.

Liberty’s in fifth grade.

Momma’s in shock.

These two have the sole responsibility to keep themselves busy – and out of trouble – during our educating hours.

Deep breath. I can do this. We did it today. We got done before supper time. Laundry is four loads deep but didn’t get started until 4 pm. Supper happened, late, but it happened. The house… yeah, don’t ask too many questions about it.

I can do this.

Camping: Stump Lake, ND

 

While the kids spun around on an old-fashioned (read: super fun) merry-go-round, my mother took these photos:

In order to get said photos, she did this:

I’m nearly positive it is the first time I have ever seen my mother on a merry-go-round. Go Mom.

 

 

 

 

In other stories, Charlotte gave it her best attempt in learning to ride a bike. She was marginally successful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And since Sterling learned how to do this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and do it fabulously well, Ruby decided to do this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

although she’s not quite so fabulous at it. Give her some time. She’s not about to be one-upped by her older brother.