Wednesday March 13, 2024
So yesterday was a success. Looking back, I realized that I was convicted with the realization that basic care and respect for your things is just as much a part of learning as science and math is. My conviction came, not by this realization that I had interwoven into our homeschool entitiled “Life Skills”, but rather because I have been inconsistent in my monitoring of how the little guys are managing themselves (personal hygeine) and their bedrooms (laundry and just over all cleanliness. So I figured it had to start somewhere and, for me, it always starts with a dump out all the drawers, cleanout the whole closet kind of cleaning and so, that is just what I did to both the boys rooms.
I cleaned Eli’s room. Meaning I moved all the furniture to a new spot and got everything done but shampooing the carpet! He loved the fresher, cleaner, & more organized space which made the hard work more than worth it! We organized his toys, planned for book shelves (he loves to read) and got the FatHead Mario ‘stickers’ out and looked at them. Hopefully an accent wall is in our future. The one thing he must do to get a update in his room is to keep clean until his birthday (if you need to catch up on what that means check out my last post). In addition to this big goal (of a bedroom refresh), I also plan to incentivize him with smaller daily goals where we will reflect on the day, how he transitions from activity to activty or event to event, how he chose to respond well vs reacting poorly (with hurtful words or throwing himself on the ground and refusing to do what we’ve asked), and most of all… I plan to celebrate the pause. The breath before he chooses how to react because that, my friends, is where the magic happens. That pause, is everything. It is what allows us to turn away from reacting and choose responding. It switches our mind from acting reflexively to acting reflectively. It gives us self control by monitoring our thoughts in a top down approach vs a bottom up approach.
Top down thinking is what researchers refer to as the way of thinking that sets humans apart from other species. Other animals can learn things (think Pavlov’s dog), but they may not know why they are doing what they are doing. They understand the what and maybe even where and how… but not the why. So a dog will sit, roll over, lay down, go fetch a toy, find a stick with a special scent, etc because he (or she) learned it through repetition and consistent training. They just don’t understand that we – humans – train them to do these crazy things not just because it is super cute, but more so because it allows us to trust them by showing that they trust us. We can train animals to do things that humans cannot do, but they will never understand the why. Think about police dogs or first responder dogs. They are trained from puppy-hood to save lives, seek illegal substances, etc. But they don’t understand why. This is bottom up thinking. It happens because we are trained to allow it to happen. Much like the parent who has trained him or herself to yell in response to not feeling heard or feeling angry. Greatest thing about this scenerio is that anything we have learned… we can unlearn! Also, top down thinking is when we use all the parts of our brain that have learned life lessons, through experience, listening to others, etc, and choose to react differently than what we would have in the past. That’s the power in the pause. That is transforming our thoughts by renewing minds.
And, so today. I will set up the parameters to what that sticker poster will look like for Eli and we will make it a nightly ritual to go over the milestone moments of the day and talk about how they went. If we need course correction we will do it then because in the moments just gets way too messy. I believe his little mind is able to acheive reflection at this point in his development – especially when we are looking back daily vs weekly,etc.- but if this proves to be too much, I’ll reassess and go back to teh drawing board with how to help him make short term goals (staying clean, pottying well, dressing each morning in clean clothes, etc.) to acheive his long term plan (bedroom refresh). I can only imagine this will help him break seemingly big goals into bitesize pieces because it took me way to long to realize that is what works for me too.
I was also able to get some cleaning done in Noah’s room yesterday. Our house has incredibly disproportionate-in-size bedrooms, so 1/2 of Noah’s bedroom is now the little guys play room (so they can keep all the Lego’s in one spot) not just to give them a place to play that is customized to their ages (soon to be 9 & 10) but also to keep them from messing with the big kids game room. This will hopefully help define Noah’s room better and improve the bigs vs littles relationship because when the little ones get in and start messing with the games, books, lego’s, etc in the main game room it creates some serious tension. We are blessed to have enough space to seperate the toys/ games and since there is a 4 year difference between the 2 groups of kiddos it makes sense to do this now with the hope that someday we will merge them back together. At that time, depending on how the boys mature (think no more jumping on beds or climbing closets) they may be able to share Noah’s giant room and we can make Eli’s bedroom into a guest room or maybe even a sewing room (gasp!).
Today I plan on finishing the shampooing from yesterday as well as finding a place for what I moved out of their rooms and getting the bags in the car to drop off for donation. And, since we have a shortened afternoon, we will do a little work on our forrestry course that we are taking through the Penn State Extension, then the kids will do their (math and language arts) apps individually. I will stay close by in case they need help. Before we know it, it will be time for youth group and we will be on our way to church so the kids can get their fill of friends and Jesus and the littles and I can prep for Sunday (Pre)School.
Tonight I may rely on leftovers because they are starting to stack up in the fridge beyond what we can keep up with with just reinventing them for breakfasts or lunches. But if we have some extra time I will stick with the plan and have stir fry. TBH stirfry is just a glorified left over meal anyway in many ways because we ressurect the chicken, rice & veggies from past batches of cooking. We mix em all up, add some spices and BOOM stir-fry for dinner!
As I sit here concluding this blog for the day I am smelling an incredible a mix of banana bread and lemon bread (one) cooking & (one) cooling in the kitchen. I realize that Fia took me up on my offer to incorporate her math work (working with fractions and decimals) into making a double batch of quick breads for our Bible study tomorrow morning. Learning how to add fractions, convert decimals to fractions AND getting to enjoy dark chocolate peanut butter banana bread and/ or glazed lemon bread is a pretty lovely thing. Now you see why I aked her to double the recipe… all in the name of math (and did I mention an extra loaf of each bread to satisfy the hunger brought on by the incredible smell 😉 )
I then, I am forced to realize that, despite all the questioning and desperate prayers I have prayed lately, God truly is in this story and He is so, so good.