Reading Rose!

 

Rose is really making progress on reading!

It is exciting to see.  She still isn't an expert, but has made significant progress in the last month or two. She can read parts of Frog and Toad pretty easily.

Today she tackled Green Eggs and Ham and did about a third of it by herself.  I keep bribing her by letting her earn toys when she reads!

So yes, it is so fun. Also, she adores being read to, especially Dog Man. I read to her almost every day and she is able to recognize more and more words in Dog Man.

Yes, my 9th child is almost there!!

Godliness with Contentment is Great Gain

1 Timothy 6

6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 

So yes, I have been thinking a lot about contentment.

I have usually not been a content sort of person. And when I say content -- I don't mean about money.  I like money for security (that is another problematic issue) but it isn't like I want a bunch of stuff.  In actual fact, we do have a bunch of stuff.  Our house is kind of stuffed.  I mean, given that 9 people live here, that isn't surprising, and the floors are clear and the stuff fits in storage but still...

No, I will not give into a decluttering frenzy right now!

Anyway, my lack of contentment ties more into this feeling that I have projects that need completed.  I have a great many things on my plate, of course, with homeschooling seven children and keeping track of clothes for said children, and making sure meals are made, and the house is cleaned.  And then there is the publishing business.  I am closing in on finishing another book and that's on my mind.

Every spring I have to jump through hoops for College Credit Plus, which is a glorious program wherein high school students can go to college with the credits being paid by the State of Ohio. It is open to homeschooled, but the process does require attention and collection of various documents.  If I screw up, we don't get any money, so that puts some pressure on me.

So I have not yet found a place where I work hard on what needs done, while also remaining relaxed.  I tend to be uptight because oh this needs to be done, and that needs to be done...

And I am NOT content, because I have this big project hanging over me.

The last few days, my back has been killing me.  This is something left over from my COVID days or something; one of my last COVID symptoms was a horribly sore back. Since then, I have gotten viruses at least twice where, you guessed it, my back hurts a lot.  I am pretty sure I don't have COVID or anything -- I think that when I get a virus, my back gets hit.

Today is better. Two days ago, it hurt a lot to sit down and stand up. So I spent most of the day sitting and ordering kids around. It was mellow.  In spite of the pain, I felt mentally at peace because I wasn't forcing myself to run around doing stuff.

So yeah, I have done a lot of things in this life because I push myself. BUT I also feel anxious about projects.  (That is much diminished because I am taking Lexapro, so part of it is brain chemistry.)

I still long to be content, while also working diligently on what needs done.

So I will pray about it, and work toward it.

Godliness with contentment is great gain.

Snow and Ice Storm!

 

It has been a pretty mellow winter with not much snow, but that changed this last week. This is the before pictures.

This is an after picture, though it doesn't show, of course, the ice under the snow.  The storm was last Thursday; we had sleet for hours and hours, followed by snow for hours and hours.  The end result was a lovely layer of ice underneath 7 or 8 inches of snow. The kids were enthralled.

The kittens thought it very interesting as well!  What is that white stuff??

Kevin made snow ice cream three nights running.  You mix snow and condensed milk and vanilla and voila!  In this particular case, Kevin also added blue food coloring.

The kids loved that!

So yes, all very exciting!  We didn't lose power so we just enjoyed it. Kevin, of course, ended up having to plow our driveway and that was rather fatiguing but it made great snow piles for the kids.

Naomi and Lydia both got last Thursday and Friday off, which made us happy. It was NOT safe out there.

There is still plenty of snow but now the plows have gotten the roads clear.

That is probably our last (and first) big snow of winter, but we will see!

Winter Wonderland

 

A1c

 

I have diabetes.  Every six months, I go in for an A1c check, which is a roughly 3 month average of my blood sugar levels.

I find that getting a higher A1c number helps me be better about eating well, so I shelled out $75 or so to Amazon and purchased a kit for testing A1c.  It has 4 tests total so only $20 apiece, which isn't bad.

Last night I managed to test myself successfully (after watching a video online) and came up with A1c= 5.6!

Yeah!

My last one was 5.9 so according to this, I have come down a bit.

I work so hard on this stupid diabetes. So stinking hard.  This encourages me to keep avoiding wheat and white rice, and to keep exercising at least some, even though I am not too enthused about exercise.

Thankful and proud today!

Cultures Get Squirrely Sometimes

 So this is something I think about a LOT!

Cultures get squirrely.

What do I mean by that?  I mean that sometimes most people in a culture heartily embrace something as sensible and wise and good and healthy when we can see, from our current perspective, that it is not.

Here is a very obvious example: foot binding.

In China, for many generations I believe, baby girls from wealthier families had their feet bound to prevent them from growing large.  Having tiny feet was considered beautiful.  Naturally, it hurt a lot for these girls to have their feet bound so tightly that their body couldn't grow normally. When they grew up, they were partially crippled and had to be assisted to do everything.

But it was normalized totally. It was accepted as good!  In fact, when the Chinese government forbade foot binding, there was a lot of pushback from families to the point that parents would try to hide their girls from the "foot police" so that they could continue binding their girls' feet. It was SO entrenched in the culture that they couldn't see how bad it was!

I would say corsets are similar; seriously, what kind of insanity is it when girls have their waists pinched so tightly they can't breathe well?

A bunch of our children are in orthodontia.  It is expensive.  Frankly, it is painful at times.  Angela had a major adjustment last week and for several days, her mouth and teeth were really sore.

And I found myself thinking -- Ok, we are spending a lot of money to straighten her teeth, which hurts.  Are we so different from parents who bound the feet of their girls?

The answer is, I think, a strong yes.  The reason she has orthodontia is because she inherited the genetics of some members of my family; narrow face, big overbite.  The result is that IF she didn't have orthodontia, her teeth would probably wear away over time and she would have tooth problems in middle age.  Also, her jaw might get messed up from the teeth not meeting properly.

However, it is also true that in American culture, straight teeth are considered attractive.  Even without the medical issues, there might be a strong argument for having orthodontia because it is easier to get jobs and even spouses if one has even, straight teeth.

But really, that kind of sucks.  I mean, if one's teeth WORK fine, and are a crooked, should it matter?

Should we spend tons of money to straighten teeth for merely cosmetic reasons?  Should we hurt our children for cosmetic reasons?

I find myself having a little more sympathy for crazy parents who encouraged corsets and foot binding. I still think it was bad, but when an entire culture embraces something it is hard to swim against the flow.  One worries, as a parent, that their children will have trouble if they don't act.

In our case, the decisions have been easier because there is a medical issue involved.  

By the way, I saw our orthodontist today and he said when he was done caring for Kendigs, he would retire.  It was a joke, but seriously, we have been very, very lucrative for him!

So far, we have had four children in orthodontia, and Miriam is starting soon, and Sarah will need it, and probably Rose as well.

We have vague hopes that Daniel will not. We will see!

Wow.

This Week

Lydia had a friend visiting from California for a couple of weeks. We had a good-bye pizza party for her.  

Jet adored my fuzzy robe as a baby.  He still loves to suck on it and knead it with his now fairly big paws.  A couple of days ago, he managed to squeeze his large body into the sleeve, where he crouched for a good half hour, just enjoying the coziness. This is him squirting out the end!

There was a major winter storm that hit south and east of here. And I guess west as well. Anyway, we just got the northern fringe of it. The children were very excited to have some snow to play in!  

It is beautiful.  You can see we didn't get a ton of snow.

In other news, I was pretty sick on Sunday.  I was very tired, had a sore throat, and a headache.  I have several friends who have gotten COVID twice now so naturally it occurred to me that I might have Omnicron.  Yesterday I felt better and today I feel better still, so if I DID have another bout, it was super mild. Probably it was just some stupid virus that wasn't COVID.  

Kevin made plans for us to go to St. Croix in a few months.  Yeah!  We will have fun. This summer is our 25th wedding anniversary which is frankly CRAZY!  Hard to believe!

Isaac and Joseph are back in the saddle of taking college classes.  Isaac has quite a heavy load of engineering courses.

Lydia spent the last month or so without a job.  She currently has a short term, well paying nannying job and is also interviewing for other positions.  It is hard as a parent not to worry about my offspring who need to earn money, but I keep TRYING to give it all to the Lord.  We would never let Lydia starve, of course.  She is smart, a hard worker and very young still; she has to figure out exactly what she wants to do full time.  Life rarely provides a straight path forward and I am getting better at embracing that reality.