I'm Old

I have been super tired lately.

*Baby Bird has been sleeping less-than-stellar.
*J has been out of town and/or on watch, so I have had few breaks from the kids.  And when he's not home, I don't sleep as well anyway.
*My hip has been giving more trouble than usual (most likely compounded by carrying a peanut-girl on it).
*The hip problem leads to stiffness in the morning and stiffness if I sit too long.
*Mt Etna has decided to smoke and not just spit steam, so my sinuses are achy
*My pinky finger is a little tingly right now from typing.
*I might be dying.  Or, at the very least, losing spare parts right and left as part of my imminent demise.
*On top of that, I'm about to turn 37.  I really don't care how old I am in theory.  But really, each year, I know I get older.
*And, I found some more gray hairs recently.

I have bulleted my complaints so that you can feel the appropriate amount of sympathy for me on each point.

Most days, when Birdie goes down for her afternoon nap and I have separated the older kids for alone time, or sent them out-doors, I hide up on the top floor and sew.
Some days, I don't feel like it at all.  
Some days, I am super excited on whatever project I'm working on.
Some days, I don't make it to the top floor beyond doing a load of laundry or two.

Today, despite my old age maladies, I finished the older girls dresses.  I have left a mess on the table top, but the dresses are done.  I reserve the right to make one more dress or some shorts for our upcoming trip in August.  But for now, their wardrobes are ready for warmer days and sunshine!  I also am prepared for warmer days.  I have dreams of swinging in my porch swing (mentally, since we left it in Jacksonville) and maybe catching a cat nap or two.

I have posted pictures of the dresses on my crafty blog, if you are so inclined to look.  If not, that's cool.  Just make sure you say a little prayer that I'll make it another day, it's kinda iffy right now, I think my big toe just fell off :)

Mrs. Lynde

"Folks that has brought up children know that there's no hard and fast method in the world that'll suit every child.  But them as never have think it's all as plain and easy as Rule of Three- just set your three terms down so fashion, and the sum'll work out correct.  But flesh and blood don't come under the head of arithmetic..."

~ Mrs. Rachel Lynde, Anne of Green Gables

L.M. Montgomery

Raising kids is hard.  We often, laughingly say, we are "off, like a herd of turtles".  It really should't even be a herd of turtles, it should be a quora of turtles.  But no one can ever remember that, so herd is what we use.  I'm not sure what a real herd of turtles looks like, but in my mind, it is a bunch of  moving creatures going to twenty different directions and thirty different speeds.  Usually we aren't as slow as turtles, quite the opposite.  Maybe a should say,  we are "off like a bunch of bunnies being chased by a fox", that may be more appropriate.  And if you have ever had the pleasure of seeing my kids empty out of the van, you will understand my phrasing.  

When my oldest was a toddler and it was just him, we had this magnet that we stuck on the van.  I had painted a blue dinosaur on it and it said "The Circle of Safety".  When I unloaded him, he was told to put his hand on the dinosaur while I got whatever else I needed. If he was touching the dino, he was not running into the parking lot. 

And then, there were triplets.

When I started teaching my oldest, he just "got" math.  It wasn't hard (except for ordinal numbers, but skittles fixed that) for him to understand.  He didn't always want to do the worksheets, but that was no biggie.  He knew what was going on.  

And then, the girls were school age.

Showing the kids how to stir a bowl of cookie dough.   Simple.

And then, I had two left handed kids.

I have six kids.  Six personalities. Six different tastes in clothing.  Six different food preferences.  Six different responses to schooling.  Six ways to discipline.  Six was to think and act and do.  

I often complain about intricacies and the difficulties.  Then there are times I sit back and enjoy the uniqueness.  Right now they are having an epic battle.  I have broken up about 10 fights and am ready to send them all to their rooms.  But. In the middle of the battle, Baby Bird decided to head up the stairs.  She made it up one step before one of the soldiers stopped her game to play with Birdie to follow her upstairs and pound on the tiger xylophone.

In the battle, a boy and a girl disagreed as to the rules (which they make up as they go along which is part of the problem).  The other two boys united with the third boy.  Not fair to the lone girl, but they united.  

We are about to eat breakfast and they will sit at the table and eat together and probably argue and make plans and laugh and make too much noise.  But their little individual pieces make up our unit. It drives me crazy 99% of the time, but without it I think I would be lost.  

Raising kids is definitely not arithmetic.  It's like trying to read ancient text before the Rosetta Stone was found.  It's hard. 

I am taking heart that it is a season.  A really, really long season.  A season that rains and suns, is wet and dry, cold and warm.  A season, I am told, that I will miss.  A season that is difficult, but worth the effort. I pray I don't miss the golden moments of the days and the rainbows hiding just around the corner.  I pray I see the differences and grin.  I pray I can train these rascals in God honoring ways and that, one day, I can look back with a genuine smile and praise Him for helping me muddle through it.

The Valley of the Temples, Trip 1

Jay Bird works long hours here.  And he has 12 hour watches randomly scattered throughout the month.  Most of his watches are from 8 at night until 8 in the morning.  This means that while we are up doing school and playing, he is counting sheep and sawing logs.  Add in an out of town trip here and there and he stays pretty busy.  Occasionally, he has a whole day off, and we have no plans.  One glorious day just happened (in fact, he had three whole days in a row off), and we decided to check out one of the spots we (if it's any good) plan on taking anyone who comes to visit.

After a leisurely breakfast and little stop on base to run two small errands, we headed out on our 2ish hour trip west to the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento.  Agrigento was home to the Greeks (and others) in the 6th century BC.  There are several ancient ruins to explore.  You can not actually go into the temples, but you can get super close.  And since we showed up early, in February, on a weekday, it was blessedly quiet.  It cost us 4 euro to park and 20 euro to get in (because kids under 18 are free, woot woot).


We took a picture of the map when we first arrived.  Everyone counted that we would see five temples or ruins.  As we prepared to leave, we could only think of two, maybe three ruins that we had seen.  Apparently, we only walked through about half of the things available.  And we were there almost four hours and walked miles... which is a lot for those of us with short legs :)

This is the the Temple of Juno (Hera).  The tree in the background is a newly blossoming Almond tree and it smelt heavenly.  We didn't know it when we went, but in the next few weeks, the grounds, which are covered in Almond trees will be in full bloom!!!

Pretty Girl walked up to this tree while I tried to take a picture.  I let her stay :)

We found this fairly new walk path.  The plants that are being trained over the trellis are jasmine.  We found a few blossoms on them, and it too smelt heavenly.  It will be dizzying once the trellis is covered!

We walked down this dirt path towards the Roman Quarter.  Looking back you can see the Temple of Concordia.

I was completely unprepared to see these mosaics.  I have only seen these type things in text books.  I  spent quite a bit of time trying to get the kids to appreciate the amount of time and work that went into laying mosaic floor like this.  They were not impressed, but I was in awe.

A shepherd was herding his sheep (and a few goat) through a field near the Roman Quarter.  If you click on the picture and look behind the center Almond trees, you can see the Temple of Concordia again.  

Everyone was tired of walking.  But we saw the Temple of Concordia before heading home.  Next visit, we will be better prepared, and we will go earlier in the day so we can see it all!

I am so glad that we got to go on a little adventure this week.  It will have to serve us well as we slide back into our more normal (and less exciting) week!

If you'd like to read more about the Valley of the Temples

Mind. Blown.

I do not watch "shooter" movies.  I do not even enter the room with my head up if my husband is playing a video game that might involve shooting. Why?  I rarely dream, so I can't say I have nightmares, but I do have a very active imagination when I go to bed, or if I wake up in the middle of the night. And during those quiet times, I tend to casually remember blood and guts and... stuff.

My only exception to this rule is the Lego video games, which I can totally handle, because characters "dying" with little lego arms and legs laying about, is not scary (it's actually pretty true to real life in this house).

So if a show J and I are watching happens to have guts and gore, I close my eyes.  To be truthful, I wasn't watching anyway because I'm usually sewing or knitting or working on a puzzle.  I find actual movie watching kinda boring.

Unfortunately, I really like thriller type movies/shows.  I like there to be a problem and a solution and enjoy the roller coaster ride along the way.  This is most likely because I am a scaredy cat in real life.  I have to live vicariously through these characters from the safety of my couch.

Often with this type genre, there tends to be a lot of shooting of the "bad guy", which, I don't watch, but listen to.   So, I know I have seen (heard) shows and movies before that take place in some Middle Eastern Country (I am picturing Jack Bauer in my head).  It's dusty and hot.  There are questionable people loitering in the streets.  And there is always, always, a truck (probably a Toyota) driving down the street.  There is a man in the bed of this truck with his big (illegal in the US) gun.  There is an equally scary man  hanging out the passenger window (without a seat belt on, I'm sure).  While the truck drives by, policing the streets (or whatever it is they are supposed be doing), a (state-of-the-art) sound system spews something.  I assumed it was propaganda or warning ("stay inside or we shoot").  It really just sounds like the teacher on the other end of the phone on Charlie Brown.

In August we transplanted to Sicily.  And in September we moved into our home for the next few years.  We don't live in a super big town, but it's still fairly large.  And, quite obviously, things are done differently here than in the US.  So.  Imagine my surprise one day as I was doing something in my bedroom to hear this strange sound.  The sound of a (not-so-state-of-the-art) speaker blasting up the hill from our home.  In that same (masculine) Charlie Brown teacher voice. I guess I might be more brave  than I figured because I walked outside on my balcony to check it out.

There was only one vehicle rolling down the hill towards the house.  It was dusty, but may have been red. It had a tent-like cover on the back. I thought that maybe a "bad guy" was lurking back there.  There was no passenger, but I could see a rather short driver.  The volume increased on the sound system.  The truck slowly inched past my house and I was going to see what sort of men patrol our streets.  I was curious.   A little nervous.  Mostly curious.

The truck rolled past, speakers blaring.  I turned back inside and laughed at myself.  My mind had been blown. Never again will I watch/hear that sound again in one of those action shows and think fear and intimidation.  Never.  I will always remember this almost daily occurrence of the vegetable and fruit man driving by waiting on people to run out with their euros to purchase artichoke and carrots. Artichoke. And carrots. Well, I guess that's not as exciting, but much safer.  Maybe next summer, he'll start selling gelato too.

Laundry and Clothes

From the time we had more than 4 kids, we always had a laundry room/space/whole-in-the-wall right off or near the kitchen.  It was not difficult to start a load of laundry and tend to those loads while making breakfast or snack, or lunch, or another snack, or dinner.  1-2 loads of laundry a day did not seem too bad to me.

A few years ago (when I only had 5 kids to wash clothes for), a friend told me about her plans to decrease her laundry loads.  So, despite my light loads (pun intended), I was totally interested.  At heart I'm a minimalist.  And less laundry means less stuff to make laundry.

Her plan was simple - each child gets xxx clothes and that was it.  No more trips to Target that involved buying 2 t-shirts because they were cute.  In our house, that meant the kids all had 7 pairs of shorts and 6 shirts and a nice church shirt, and the girls had a nice church dress.  Socks, and underwear, of course.  No full-to-the-brim drawers. Less laundry!

But fall came and I bought clearance stuff for the next summer.  And winter came and I bought layers that were never worn ("I'm not cold, Mama").  Hand-me-downs that I had planned on using didn't fit.  Time went by and we were back up in clothing volume.  I had not followed through with my less-clothing-for-less-laundry plan.  And now, with my business closed due to our move and a fabric buying habit that has forgotten I only have my kids to sew for,  the lack of age appropriate clothing in our US store, and the ignorance as to wear to buy locally sold clothes, I am reinstating the clothing ban.

For now, I know the big girls have some things from last summer, but most of it was tight or short or stained, so anything I find that still fits is a bonus.  I found that the girls wear either jammies or dresses 90% of the time (oh the conveniences of being homeschooled). So this year, I am making them 6 dresses each, one of which will be nicer.  Two sets of jammies, and a new swim suit. The baby gets 7 outfits, and 3 sets of jammies, her swimsuit from last year still fits I believe.

I really think we have enough for the boys to each have 6 pairs of shorts, 6 shirts and 2 nice shirts and a nice pair of shorts or slacks, a pair of swim trunks and rash guard.

As for shoes.  Everyone has a pair of tennis shoes.  The girls get a pair of sandals for the summer.  Some kids have flip flops and I think those that don't, will get a pair for pool trips.  And, that's about it.

That's the plan anyway. I'll let you know if my summer dreams actually take affect.