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.

Grace.

My children have an imperfect mother.

I know. Shocker.

I show my children depravity at it’s finest.

But where there is sin, there is grace. Forgiveness. Another day.

I distinctly remember the first time I ever apologized to one of my children. It was the hardest moment I could recall. So humbling. Since then, it’s become far easier. I have had lots of practice.

It’s a balance, this motherhood thing. We make mistakes, we learn from then, we move on, striving to do better. And then we make more mistakes. Scripture talks of the faith of a little child. The forgiveness of a little child is also a remarkable thing. Whereas I want to stay offended, and struggle to forgive and move on, a child forgives and immediately acts as if they really aren’t offended. As if I didn’t really just mess up once again, use a harsh tone, hurry them along when they were already doing their best, or interrupt their story to remind them of chores. They just forgive, move on, and love me still.

It’s incredible.

Today, I’m thankful for grace. God’s grace, grace from my husband, grace from my children, grace from my friends. Lately, I feel more in need of it than ever. I struggle, I sin, I fall flat on my face, and yet, God has offered me free grace. Over and over again, I’m in need of it.
I was called “super mom” again the other day. All I could think is, “Wow, have they got the wrong lady.” I try, I fail, I try again, and fail again. Motherhood is the most humbling experience of my life. My frailty is fully displayed to these six little people – and when I think I might be conquering just one small portion in life, one of my children says or does something that I taught them that reminds me, once again, that it’s so much worse than I ever thought.

Grace. Forgiveness. Thankful.

Pierce: self entertainment.

Pierce dumped out his shoes this morning, then started cleaning them up.

Then he realized I was laughing and taking photos, so he dumped them all out so he could start again.

Cheap entertainment. Unfortunately, as soon as I put the camera away, he gave up, walked away, and left the shoes everywhere. We’ll get there… one day at a time. In the meantime, I’ll marvel that he can actually use a broom and dust pan rather effectively.

TOS Review: Chess House

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine was asked to review the Starter Chess Learning Kit from CHESSHOUSE.COM. It includes a soft-sided bag (given the choice of color, I chose black) and vinyl-front fabric-back chess board that rolls up and is contained in the bag, along with all the pieces required for set up (plus a few extra queens). It also includes DVD Elliot’s Chess School Pawn Level: Level 1 that teaches the very beginning basics of the game of Chess.

Liberty (10) and Eden (8) played and learned with me. While the ages for play are listed as 4 and up, Ruby (5) and Sterling (6) quickly bored with my lack of knowledge and constant referral the the video and they wandered off and lost interest. Eden and Liberty, though, thoroughly enjoyed themselves and picked up the basics quickly. Pierce (2) made the game a little more interesting, moving pieces at will. We quickly learned to play while he was napping.

First, let’s be clear: I’ve never played Chess in my life. I’ve never seen Chess played. Ever. And when I watched the DVD through the first time (we’re going to be wearing it out, to be sure) I got more and more lost. It took jumping in… and referring back to the DVD often, to start to get an idea of what needed to happen. It’s not the simplest game ever. Winning isn’t just a cut and dried thing. There are so many variations of how the game can go it’ll make your head spin. But, we jumped in, played our first game, and guess what? I won. Yes, folks, I beat an 8 and 10 year old team. Such victory.

Since that amazing victory, the game comes out often. We tried playing it outside, but it turns out, we still need the DVD often. My only recommendation for Chess House would be a diagram on the Chess board of how set up should be, and perhaps a quick printout of how each piece move. I was ready to take notes, so frustrated with my ability to remember how the game goes, but Eden always remembered and knew so I trusted her memory (it’s usually ridiculously reliable) and went with it.

The DVD is organized really, really well. With setup, overview, and how each piece can move in individual segments, it made it easy to find the right section to tell me what I’d already forgotten. Explained and demonstrated by National Master Elliott Neff, the DVD made figuring out what we were doing far, far easier than reading it on paper. I’m quite certain I’d have given up if I’d have had to read the rules. If we ever figure this out (or the girls leave me in their dust, given their pursuit of the game is far more enthusiastic than my brain wants to be!) there are many more levels offered on DVD to continue learning the game in greater understanding.

Blaine called one afternoon from work as the girls and I were playing. When I told him what I was doing, he replied, “I didn’t know you knew how to play Chess!” Um, yeah, I don’t very well. But I’m learning. It’s been a fun experience – and a great one to have with my girls. And, as long as I insist we play on the floor in front of the TV so we can continue to double check that we’re playing correctly, it’s pretty fun too.  One of these days, I might just challenge my husband to a game. But, knowing his intellect… I’m going to practice for a while longer first.

This beginner kit from Chess House retails for $49.95 but is currently listed here for a sale price $39.95.

To read more reviews on the Starter Chess Learning Kit from other members of the Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Review Crew, check out the Review Crew Blog.

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.

Garden Supper

Supper the other night was veggie pizza. I wanted to try to make Papa Murphy’s white sauce. Every place I found that discussed it said it was simply ranch dressing with extra garlic cloves in it. I made ranch dressing and added 4 cloves of garlic (to 2 cups of sauce). While it was quite good, I’m not certain it was the same. At any rate, until I think of a better idea, I’ll do that again.

The veggies for our pizza all came out of the garden, except for the mushrooms. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, chives, and basil all came fresh from the outdoors. While I didn’t take a photo of the finished pizza – because, while the crusts I make taste good, they are lumpy and bumpy and full of “warts”. So, you get the cutting board. It’s prettier.

Colorful. Fun. I love it when our food looks pretty.

One little project deserved a bigger one…

My little two-hour sewing project and little purse made yesterday afternoon, proved I can’t leave well enough alone.

I made myself a diaper bag last night. Because I can’t just sew something small and quit while my back is still fully functioning. No, I must find something else to make, dig through scraps until I find enough fabric, and sew until I can’t sit up straight or move without pain. I’ve always wished for a sewing room. Turns out, that might be a bad idea. I’d be forever sewing instead of leaving the machine tucked away because it’s too much work to haul everything down the stairs to a big enough work space.

But, on the bright side, I now have an extra-large ultra-colorful diaper bag with lots of pockets for when baby’s born! Since I have all the baby clothes, bed, blankets, diapers, and everything else I need for a newborn kept from the others, it was kind of fun to do something new for the new baby – you know, the one that won’t be born, Lord willing, for another five months. I might have to find an excuse to use it before then.