thewallises

Today was a very big day in Jacob’s life. Just a couple weeks ago for his 6th birthday he got a skateboard. When I took him to the park I surmised very quickly that I was not the one to teach him anything about skateboarding. I didn’t have a clue if a board has a front end, back end, which foot to put on the board, or anything else. It was in that moment I realized I needed to call on the help of someone else. That’s what life is all about, right? Finding the right people and asking for help.

So who did I call? Tony Rosales.

Let me tell you about Tony. He is a young man who is in his Senior year at Hawthorne High School. Steve and I got to know him four years ago when he started attending our Young Life club. He came to us knowing about Young Life- he had been attending the Lennox Middle School YL club. And check out this story! So, so, so cool! When he was 7 or 8 years old, he saw a neighbor kid ollie over a trash can on the sidewalk. Watching that older kid do that trick piqued Tony’s interest in learning how to skateboard. And that’s when he started learning.  Fast forward a few years to when he was in middle school……skating on campus in the evening hours, looking for things to jump, curb….(I don’t know the lingo).

Well now bring into the picture Alma Ventura, a spunky, high-energy Young Life leader of the LMS club. [Alma had attended our high school Young Life club and fell so much in love with God that she decided to become a leader while she was attending LMU. Sooooo cool!!!! And now she’s on paid staff in Northern California following her call to continue the YL ministry for God.] Okay, so here’s Alma……every club night she spotted Tony skating on the LMS campus. She’d shout out a hello to him, invite him to come check out the club. He always declined. This went on week after week. Alma continued to say hi. She continued to invite him to come check it out. He continued to decline. But it was her very persistence in extending a warm, welcoming hello and a genuine invitation for him to join the fun inside the cafeteria with the YL club that one day, weeks weeks weeks weeks weeks later that caused him to stand in the doorway and just check it out. Tony shared with me that it was incredible to him that Alma didn’t just write him off. She could have thought “Well, I already invited him once. He said no, so I’m just going to let him be.” Alma continued to seek after Tony. If that’s not the most beautiful example of exactly what God does with us. He pursues us. He waits for us. He invites us. He greets us. He is just as warm and loving the first time he invites us and calls us, as He is the 39th time. And so on. He is simply ecstatic and excited to bring us into the fold of His loving embrace and all the good that He wants to share with us. And that is what Alma did for Tony.

Now fast forward……Tony is a Senior in high school. He started in Young Life in middle school and now has attended the high school Young Life club for 4 years.  But not only that. He has chosen to be a leader at the very same middle school YL club where it all began for him. Every Thursday night he’s there intentionally waiting out on the pavement inviting skaters and other passersby to come in and hear about God’s glorious good news.  And he’s there welcoming with a huge smile all the kids who’ve decided to check out this place where faith in God is talked about. God is good. Very, very good!!!

And just to think that way back when Tony was 7 or 8, but a mere child…..his interest would be piqued in skateboarding and that very thing would lead him to the place where his faith would grow.  Tony is now a young man submitting his Cal State and UC applications, waiting to see where God leads him into a new chapter of his life as a college student.

And this is the young man who Jacob looked up to today. I have never seen the look on Jacob’s face as I did today. It’s hard to even put words to…..it’s such a new look. It was a look of awe, admiration, respect and complete marvel. Jacob has hung out with Tony before- he already thought so highly of him and his skateboarding skills. But today Tony spoke significance into Jacob’s life. The look began on Jacob’s face when we picked up Tony at his house. And then it continued at the park when we all got out of the car, the guys got their boards, and Tony started to break it all down into basics for him. Two hours. Two full hours of time dedicated solely to Jacob. The worth that Tony spoke into Jacob’s life today is actually bringing tears to my eyes as I type this. It’s actually reminding me of a quote I once read in the biography of Mother Teresa. Someone once asked her how in the world she took care of all the people that she did, without getting overwhelmed by how many more people there were still waiting to be tended to and loved on. She responded saying that making a difference in the world may seem like an enormous task, but she just focuses on the very person(individual) she is with and one person at a time, loves and cares for people.

And that’s exactly what Tony did today. He focused on Jacob. He gave him his utmost attention. He was fully devoted to him in speech, eye contact, encouragement, teaching. He was fully present for my 6-year old son. I can never say thank you enough to Tony for the gift he gave my son today. He spoke volumes today of Jacob’s worth. Jacob knew he was significant because this senior in high school who could have been doing a million other things today and yet chose to hang out with him, a 6-year old boy, at a park.

And that is exactly a mirrored story of what God tries to tell us every day. We are of extreme value to Him. His son, Jesus, died on the cross for us to tell us of our worth. He yearns to hang out with us. One on one. And, man, when I do hang out with God, I am truly filled with the sense of how lovely and loved I am in God’s eyes.

I thank the God of the universe that today my son could look up into the eyes of a young man who was so loving and so patient and feel that fabulously glorious feeling of knowing he’s walked with someone of great stature and great esteem.

I look forward with great anticipation to see the incredible plans God has for Tony’s life!!! I’ve already witnessed sights of Tony’s passion for the Lord, his perseverance and dedication to excellence in school, his phenomenal personality that draws people to him, his incredibly strong leadership skills, his commitment levels to the discipline of training and running a marathon, his humble hard-working nature that will work, work, work to get necessary stuff done even when people don’t ask it of him. And today I witnessed how gifted he is at teaching young children. This is a young man who steps it up to get work done, all types of work, with diligence and excellence- all while maintaining a very, very humble spirit.

If Jacob wants to be like Tony, I won’t stop him. No way! If Jacob continues to look up to Tony, with his eyes wide in awe, admiration, respect and complete marvel of him, I know he will be watching and learning and emulating and growing into a phenomenal man.

Tony, tonight especially I praise God for you.

Another quote Mother Teresa is famous for having said was: “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.” Today, Tony, you were a little pencil in the hand of our awesome God. You helped God send a love letter to my son today at Del Aire Park. And for that I will be eternally grateful. It makes “sense” to us when our parents or family members hang out with us and give us gifts of time, encouragement, acts of service. But when someone who isn’t even part of your family does any of those things, God uses that in VERY powerful ways to speak into our sense of significance and worth. Because in those cases none of it is expected or deserved or even makes sense to us. Our mind gets filled with the thought “Why would that person hang out with me? Why?” It goes contrary to what we expect. And in those moments, God speaks love to us in volumes that our hearts and minds can simply not ignore. And we are filled.

Thank you Tony. Thank you.

Tonight was Natalie’s very 1st dress rehearsal. Tomorrow night she goes on stage as a mouse, in a 3-minute appearance in “The Chronicles of Narnia”. She has been counting down the days. Excitement has been oozing out of her! And yet tonight….we walked down the corridor where all the cast members have their chairs & belongings……costumed people were walking to and fro…..people with all types of make-up and wigs….hello’s…..parts being rehearsed…..sewing machine busy at work on costumes….and more. I saw Natalie’s eyes growing and growing and growing with fear. Her left hand clasped tight to my right hand. At one point I thought a waterfall of tears would come flowing down her face and she’d bury her head in my leg. But she didn’t.  She sure is a brave little girl.

The sight of sweet Shaylee, her friend from last year’s preschool class, was our God-send. In the midst of all the frenzy, Shaylee was radiant and calm, with her ever-flowing joy pouring out of her smiley face. Shaylee was dressed up in a super cute, all-white rabbit costume, her braided hair just as Natalie remembered it from last year. They sat together on a couch waiting for their turn for make-up, Natalie’s body scrunched up as close as she possibly could get to Shaylee for comfort. It was adorable. I was so thankful for Shaylee in that moment. She was our gift of comfort tonight.

Tonight was the very 1st time Natalie has ever had make-up applied to her face. When Abigail came in and asked who of the 7 pre-schoolers would like to go first, Natalie’s hand shot right up! She was so so so excited! And what a precious moment it was when she stepped foot in the bathroom to see herself in the mirror. Her cute black nose and whiskers. She stared at herself with pure delight. Though the picture is totally blurry, it captures that moment just right- that magical moment of seeing make-up on her face.

So off they went to rehearse…..Natalie skipped across the stage just as she was supposed to. She swayed with the Christmas present in hand, did her little jump, swayed…..knelt down and held up her hands as tiny paws under her chin. A sweet little mouse, my Natalie.

And yet tonight all she could say when she was getting tucked into bed was “Mama, I’m scared. I’m scared. I’m really scared.” As I tried to explore all the potential reasons she was scared…..the audience, the lights, the number of people walking around in the cast, all the costumes, the make-up, the wigs….she couldn’t pinpoint it to anything. All she could say was that she was scared.

I assured her that she does not need to be in the show. If she feels scared, she doesn’t need to do it. “But mama, I do want to be in the show. I’m just scared.”

I hugged her extra tight tonight as I lay next to her, caressing her soft cheek.

It sure does take a lot of bravery for a 4-year old to go up on stage. I’m very proud of my Natalie-mouse.

The kids tucked in bed

Dishes done, the kitchen clean

The sweet smell of a cinnamon spice candle filling the house

A mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows

Steve and I in the living room playing a game of Bananagrams

A wonderful evening

We have a rule in our home that the kiddos need to stay in their own beds until 5am. After that point they can come snuggle with us before our family’s 6am wake up time.  So last night before going to bed I set all of our clocks back by an hour for the time change. I knew it would cause confusion with their internal body clocks. And it sure did!

At 4:44am Natalie came to my side of the bed and said “mama, I’m not here to snuggle (i.e. please don’t get mad at me for being out of bed before 5am), but it’s soooooooo strange I’ve been looking at my clock for so long now and it never changes from 4 o’clock.” I chuckled to myself. So her internal alarm woke her up at 5ish, which really now all of a sudden was 4ish on the clock on her nightstand. But how could that be? Her little internal clock knew it was time she could come snuggle with mama. But her nightstand clock said it was too early. And so there she lay in her bed for nearly 45 minutes…..waiting…..waiting…..waiting for the face of that clock to give her permission to get out of bed for her much cherished snuggle time. “It never changes from 4 to 5, mama!” Yes, Natalie, it will change soon…..go to bed and keep watching it. 🙂

And dutifully she returned to bed like a sweet little angel. It made me so proud. But when the clock finally said 5:00 she came excited to snuggle. But that’s when the confusion arose for Jacob. His internal body clock said it was time to rise and shine. Huh?! What?! The clock only says 5:00. How can that be??? His internal clock knew it to be 6am- time to start the day.

I love it that my kids’ bodies have fallen into such regular patterns of sleep. I love it that they have internal body clocks. Sleep is such a gift. Awhile back Natalie had bad nightmares that kept waking her up throughout the night. That evening reminded me of how torturous interrupted sleep can be and the havoc it plays on you the next day. Sleep deprivation, thankfully, is a time long gone from those infant days of theirs when I would wake up multiple times throughout the night for their feedings. Oh the joy of having children that are growing up and can sleep for 12 hours straight!!

Talking about sleep, I also want to note the hilarious way that the kiddos get carried to bed by daddy. I don’t even remember how or when he started this with them. For several months now he’s been carrying them from the living room to their room while he holds them completely upside down. Imagine their feet held tight in Steve’s hands at his chest level. And then there they hang with their heads almost touching the floor. The routine consists of Steve first carrying them like that to say goodbye to Charlie, our chocolate labrador retriever, then to say goodbye to Annie, our yellow labrador, then to the location of their sibling to say goodbye and then off to bed. I have nooooooooo idea how it is that Steve can hold onto their ankles/legs that tightly without letting them fall along the way. Okay, yes, I know….he’s strong! I can’t for the life of me imagine carrying them like that with their bodies swaying, them laughing their head off, for a tour through the house as they say goodnight to everyone. It’s something hilarious that Steve does with the kids and they eat it up! Don’t know how long he’ll be able to carry them like that to bed.

Neither Steve nor I can remember how young Jacob was when we started singing him “Jesus Loves Me” as we tucked him into bed. I don’t recall singing it to him when he was in his bassinet or crib, but I also have a notoriously awful memory. Maybe we were singing it to him already then. But I’m just going to start counting from when he was one. Today we celebrated Jacob’s 6th birthday, so that means we’ve sung it to him for at least five years, if not more. Whoa! That means we’ve already sung it one thousand eight hundred twenty five times!!!!! And if we did sing it to him that first year of life, we’d need to add 365 to that, bringing us to 2, 190 times. Mind you, that doesn’t take into account the nights that Steve and I went out for a date and left the kiddos with a babysitter who didn’t sing to him, or the times we were coming back late from somewhere and the kids fell asleep in the car. But one thing is for sure! We have sung those lyrics many, many, many times. My prayer is that the words of that song would resonate deep in Jacob’s soul the rest of his life. That he would know, without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus loves him. And that his life would be devoted to the Lord for all of his days.

I can’t believe that six years have already sped by. To think that God blessed me to be his mama, is very humbling. What an honor and privilege. Thank you Lord.

We started today’s celebration with the opening of gifts. Then off we went for a couple hours of kids’ soccer games with a wonderful picnic lunch on the field in between games. After that was a celebratory dinner with all of the grandparents. What a blessed boy he is to have all 5 grandparents in the same town, available and desirous of a loving relationship with him. A true treasure!!

Since Jacob is currently obsessed with all things related to roller coasters, it seemed only appropriate to make a roller coaster cake. It turned out awesome. A treasured time for Natalie and I as we spent almost all of yesterday baking it, applying the crumb coat, going shopping for the necessary candy, applying the final coat of frosting and decorating it very carefully. My perfectionist tendencies were challenged as I watched Natalie affixing licorice strings, marshmallows, fruit roll-up in less-than-meticulously-detailed ways. Motherhood has taught me it’s okay to let go. It’s vital to let go. To let go and simply enjoy. Yesterday and today was about me enjoying the creation of this cake with my sweet 4-year old daughter, cherishing our shared time and shared creative masterpiece despite it’s unplanned wiggly squiggles and off-set candies and frosting smears.

I’m looking forward with eager anticipation to the marvelously complex roller coaster designs Jacob will create with his new 250-piece box of roller coaster parts. I’m already now telling myself to just let go. To let go of the angst that will come over me when I nearly trip over his extensive creation in the living room as he learns to make elaborate tracks with loop de loops that need taller and longer and steeper runs of track for the marble to accelerate enough into the turns. To marvel at how intuitively he can put parts together and engineer elaborate systems, when I can’t even do it with a detailed coded manual. Ha!

I can’t even remember off the top of my mind what he was doing as a 5-year old last year at this time. But I can tell you that I’m glad I’m blogging now, so that I can look back at this in years to come. This morning after looking at his wrapped gifts and festive balloons and streamers in the dining room, Jacob came into our room and said “on days like this I am just SOOOOO happy I want to cry.” He was genuinely bursting with joy. Oh, what sweetness to hear pour from his mouth!!

I love you Jacob. Happy 6th Birthday! 🙂

How would I describe today? Frustrating at first, but completely satisfying by the end. Ha! And it’s not even the end. It’s only 7pm.

The day started off frustrating because Jacob and Natalie were just at each other. Being impatient with one another. Using annoyed tones as they spoke. Almost egging each other on with comments. It needed to end because it was driving me crazy. I drew attention to the need for resolution and peace. They didn’t have any solutions. I wanted to ban them to their rooms until they could come out with a more loving attitude towards one another. I whispered under my breath “Oh, God, give me your wisdom, I pray. Today is going to be a hard day.” And as I walked from my bedroom into the living room God ever-so-sweetly lay a thought on my mind: draw them closer to me, their God.

So I called them both to the couch. I sat there with my arms open wide, so that each one of them could take one side next to me. I covered our three laps with my super fuzzy and cozy fleece blanket. I opened up our Action Bible to the New Testament, explained to them who the 4 Gospel writers were: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I stopped and prayed- inviting God into the moment with us, asking Him to draw us together as we read His words and about His Son’s life.

And so together we sat there reading about the birth of Jesus and his early years…all the way up until he was baptized. Which reminded Natalie of a scene from the claymation video Steve had shown them on Netflix called “Jesus, the Miracle Maker”. I hadn’t seen it, so I asked them if they could show me the clip. They found it and showed me. After watching that Jacob said “oh, oh can we watch the part about the man building his house?” Um, what? Huh? I didn’t have any sense of what bible story reference he was talking about. He fast forwarded and found the scene. Ohhhhh, from Matthew 7 “The Wise and Foolish Builders”: Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; and yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

So I went and did a search online to see if there were any kid songs about this. ‘Lo and behold there is a song! And then I found that “Wise Man and Foolish Man” even has hand signals, as I did a search on YouTube. So the next thing I knew there we were- the 3 of us sitting in the kitchen at the computer learning this song and the accompanying hand movements. Peace was in our home. Love was flowing. My heart was profusely thanking God. Thank you God. Thank you.

I then thought of one of my newest, sweet friends Heidi….and how part of her home school curriculum with her children involves bible reading and memorizing verses. Why have I never done this with Jacob and Natalie? Never thought of it. But this morning there we were with a verse: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” I wrote it out on big paper with the blue line, dashed line, red line. And then had that be Jacob’s writing practice for the day. So there he sat reading, writing and committing the Lord’s words to his mind. That was a glorious moment!

And from there the day just got crazy fun. One thing led to another. I can’t possibly do true justice to explaining how in the world all of this flowed, but we moved from one topic to the next in our discovery/reading/research/writing this morning. I fully confess that these things seem SOOOOOOOO bizarre and in no way connected…..but, yes, if you’ve got Marina Wallis as your mama home school teacher allowing the flow of interest and curiosity to direct our learning…..then this is the sequence of instruction that is possible on a Thursday morning:

Remembering about our fieldtrip to the Long Beach Aquarium this past Monday…….remembering the giant blue whale model…..the soda bottle artistic sculpture display of a dolphin…..the sign drawing our attention to the capturing and slaughtering of dolphins in Taiji, Japan……where is Taiji? let’s find it on the map……the movie about it was called “The Cove”…..what is a cove? let’s find pictures of coves……who is Rick O’Barry? how is he advocating for dolphins?…..what are dolphins? fish? whales…..let’s look up a poster of the Order Cetacea…..yes! dolphins are in the same order as whales……what do bottle nose dolphins look like?…..oh what else is a cetacean?…..Narwhals??! what’s that? a whale with a giant unicorn-like tusk? huh?……..let’s look that up…….oh wow! narwhals have two teeth in their mouth. The right tooth stays small but the left tooth keeps growing and growing and growing until it is a giant tusk sticking out of the narwhal……oh let’s go check out narwhals on YouTube…….oh hey look there’s a silly animation…..oh geez, inappropriate content! eeeeeks! …….the song has lyrics about not letting narwhals hit you in the balls….and they say kickass in another line…..aaauughhh!!! i’m screaming inside!!!! how do I get out of this situation?!………okay, let’s focus on something educational in there and get out of the video!!! quick! abort mission!!!! failed attempt!!! so much for go-with-the-flow online research!!! Eeeks!!!……oh look it’s jokingly saying that narwhals are the inventors of shish kebabs…..they have a narwhal illustrated with meat on its tusk, as though it was a skewer……what are shish kebabs?…..let’s look that up…..okay what are skewers?……look, we have skewers: bamboo and metal……okay so what part of the world really likes to eat shish kebabs? who invented kebabs?…….Jacob chimes in: “Maybe Steve Jobs“……we roll on the floor laughing…..yes, yes….Steve Jobs and kebabs rhyme, yes they do!……okay I’m going to now draw on our whiteboard a funny picture……it’s Steve Jobs holding an iPad while riding a narwhal. He’s thinking he’s hungry, so the narwhal says he’ll swim him over to the Middle East for some shish kebabs……where is the Middle East?…..let’s go find it on the map……oh hey, we have other skewers too……fondue skewers……let’s look up pictures of fondues……yes, we’ve had oil fondue, but did you know there’s also cheese fondue? chocolate fondue? The kids were amazed.

and then it was time to get Natalie ready for preschool.

It’s cracking me up thinking how we created this gigantic web of connectivity between the most random bits of information.

And that’s not even the half of it. The day continued with the joy-filled reading and discovery of when chewing gum was invented. Learning about the Mayans in Mexico who chomped on chicle, the dried sap of the sapodilla tree. Centuries later when a Mexican General, Santa Anna, was defeated by the Americans in the acquisition of Texas in 1845, he was exiled to New York. It was there that he, Santa Anna, introduced chicle to an inventor, Charles Adams. Charles at first tried experiment after experiment to make toys, masks and rain boots out of chicle. But to no avail. One day as he sat in his workshop tired and discouraged, he popped a piece of chicle in his mouth. And wham! In that moment realized he could market this if he added different flavorings. Chewing gum factories were made.

And just to think that today this one page on the history of chewing gum, opened up the discussion and learning of…..the Mayans, the fight over land (we now call Texas) between the Americans and Mexicans, what exile means, the calculation of how many years have passed since 1845 until now, and how sometimes in our moments of discouragement is when great enlightenment and ideas occur.

Then a couple hours of intense, awesome math- that I am simply amazed at how Jacob can add a whole string of numbers together. How in the world is it even possible that he knows how to pick up numbers from a deck, with the end goal of 100. He picked up 14, then picked up 6. He knew he had 20. He then picked up 18 and could tell me in an instant that he had 38. He searched the table for more…..added the 32 card to it and then knew he had to go in search of 30 to arrive at the sum of 100. How?! Geez?! Wow! I sat there astounded as I heard him sharing his computational thoughts aloud problem after problem. The strength and might of the skills of mathematical addition all going on in his brain, left me there sitting speechless.

I’m exhausted. But very deeply and completely satisfied with this day. I’ve got to try this more often- of going before the Lord with my kids each morning. You would think I would have thought of that and would have been implementing that for years now. Not. I am thankful for my friend Heidi who planted that seed in my thoughts. Thank you new friend. And thank you God for answering our prayer from this morning.

Tonight as I tucked the kids into bed, I asked if they had anything specific they would like to pray for. Jacob replied, “Mama, I’d like to pray that tomorrow morning Natalie and I would be sweeter to each other and have a better start of our day.” He held onto that bad start all day long; my heart melted. With him I thanked God for answering our prayer this morning and asked God if He, the Prince of Peace, would gift the gift of peace to each of us as we roll out of bed in the wee hours of the morning.

Here’s hoping and praying that 6am looks sweet and loving tomorrow.

Thankful for the blessings of a full, satisfying day.

Thank you God.

So this is a first- I’m recording the date of something that Natalie accomplished, and yet I don’t have a clue when my first-born accomplished this. It’s usually the opposite, right? We tend to record all the 1st’s for our firstborn and then subsequent children live in the busyness of it all, or, like in my case Natalie ends up living in the shadow of all that Jacob is accomplishing as he forges into new territory.

I don’t remember exactly when Jacob started reading. I know that now as an almost 6-year old he is a very proficient reader. But when it all began- yeah, I don’t remember nor did I write it down. Oops. Oh well, can’t feel guilty about that.

So I’m going to record this so I remember forever, at least for Natalie. Tonight was the very 1st night that she read a book to our family. She has been sounding out words and giving it a try as I’ve coached her along, in the quietness of our together time. But tonight it was Daddy, Mama and Jacob sitting on the couch all ears for Natalie as she read a Level 1 book: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I can not even sufficiently describe the radiance on her face as she heard the three of us cheering for her and clapping for her at the culmination of the story. She did it! And she sure was proud of herself! And I was very, very proud of her. This was a book we just checked out of the library yesterday, so it was the first time she read through it.

I’m one very proud mama right now. I love, love, love that our family loves to read. I love it that piles of books are everywhere in our living room, our rooms and our cars. I love it that my children love to grab books as though they were candy. They inhale stories. I am so thankful for libraries. At this point we would have already spent a small fortune if we had been buying new books for these past years. So thankful for the accessibility of books. So thankful for the way I can almost visibly see my children’s minds being stretched with vocabulary acquisition and new ideas and imaginative stories. Thankful to God for the complexity and gift of Natalie’s 4-year old ears, eyes, mouth and brain that can work together in a miraculous way to see letters on a page and know what to do with them. Yay for the joy of reading!!!

It’s only 6:35pm but I’m wiped out. Today was a full day and a very hot day. Quite bizarre to be the middle of October, feeling like it’s 100 degrees, my daughter’s cheeks flushed red from the heat as she plays in her summer dress. So I know that heat drains me. It leaves me feeling exhausted and sluggish. But on top of that it was also a full day. So I’m beat tired. The kids are already down for the night. The night air is now cool and I’m unwinding, thinking of how much I love my life as mama and educator of my children.

Played 18 rounds of Double Shutter with Jacob while at the same time teaching him how to keep our scores using place value blocks. Whoa! That was something to keep my mind active and busy. There was adding of the dots on the dice, thinking of different number combinations to make certain sums (10= 9+1 or 8+2 or 4+6, etc), adding our final score of the tabs left unused, then transferring that total number into the use of the place value blocks of hundreds, tens, ones. I’m getting tired just thinking about it again. But the great thing is that I know Jacob’s brain got stretched. That’s an awesome feeling.

A very exciting part of today was profusely celebrating Natalie that of her own accord, for the 1st time ever, she made her bed. Okay I have no idea at what age other people expect their kids to make their beds. But Natalie is 4. And today she came running to me to show me what she had done. I was astonished and overjoyed. It was a beautiful moment of her feeling super proud of herself. I too was shouting her praises.

There was the reading and discussion of random things to add to our wall-sized timeline: the invention of wigs, remote-controlled toys and the death of Mozart.

Then there was Natalie’s preschool field trip to a pumpkin patch. Feeding goats, sheep and the llama. Riding ponies. Jumping in the bounce houses. Realizing that these hoofed animals (goats & sheep) have horizontal rectangular shaped pupils instead of round ones like we do. Having Jacob use his math skills to figure out how much tickets would cost for both he and I for certain things and then having him calculate how much change he should expect to have returned to him if he paid with my money. Inquiring about all the things that our minds were curious about:

• Question: Why does the hay on the ground look different than the hay that the ponies eat?
• Answer: the ‘hay’ on the floor is really straw, but the ‘hay’ that the animals were eating was a combination of alfalfa and two other kinds of special grasses)

• Question: How can you tell if an animal is a boy or a girl?
• Answer: (yeah, that was interesting- the farmhand didn’t know whether she had permission to go there or not; I nodded to her and let her know it was okay and I started the conversation. Jacob, how do you know that you are a boy? His answer: I have shorter hair than Natalie. Well, yes, that’s true….but specifically what’s different about your privates? Ohhhhhh……yes….then he knew. So we crouched next to the fence by the ponies to look carefully at who had one or not.

• Question: Why do some goats have these long hanging things under their bellies?
• Answer: turns out they can get mastitis when their baby goat chooses not to drink from a particular nipple. If a baby goat shows a preference to only one nipple and the other goes unused and undetected by the farmer, then the goat gets these enlarged masses of milk that over time become hard tissue and then hang there. With time and the pull of gravity, they become quite the unsightly body appendage.

Today we had a fabulous time out on the streets of downtown Los Angeles, at the CICLAVIA event. Hundreds upon hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were out on their bikes, roller skates and skateboards cruising down the streets of a 10-mile stretch of roads that had been closed specifically for this event. It was awesome! Jacob and Natalie were so excited to try out their new bike bells. Watching their thumbs happily and repeatedly ringing their bells, listening to that sweet bell sound as I watched them pedal pedal pedal to keep up with the steadily moving pack of bicyclists, I was just soooooo proud of them. I was so impressed that they could keep up with the fairly fast moving crowd of bikes. They were soooooo happy…….Steve was sooooooo happy……..I was soooooo happy. We were one big happy bunch.

Being out as a family on an adventure brings me such intense joy. There was SO much for us to look at! Natalie’s favorite was the bike trailer that a person was towing, that had a dog sitting in it. My favorite was watching one man carefully balance on his unicycle and ever so smoothly dismounting when everyone had to come to the occasional stops for vehicle traffic crossings. Jacob’s favorite was seeing all the tandem bikes. Steve’s favorite was getting to experience this grand-scale community feeling in L.A.

We made several stops along the way. One to buy sunscreen at Walgreens so that our arms and faces wouldn’t get toasted by the blazing sun. A few stops for water. One stop to help a man who had flipped over the handlebars of his bike when his skinny bike tire got caught in a gap in the street. Another stop to sit and treat Jacob & Natalie to newly discovered Pez candy. And the last stop was awesome! To watch a community game of dodgeball that was underway in one of the side streets. Jacob was totally intrigued and ended up jumping into several games. I was hoping with all my might that he wouldn’t get whacked by the balls that seemed to be flying through the air at crazy speeds! Natalie was on the curb with me, equally worried with me. But daddy and son were there together dodging the fiery bullets.

Finally, after getting back to our car we then began what seemed like an eternal, circuitous route of trying to circumvent miles of road closures for both this event and some big parade event happening in Chinatown. Thankfully we finally made it to the Yogurtland in Koreatown. A fabulous way to end the event! My tastebuds enjoyed the awesome flavors of pumpkin, pistachio and chocolate frozen yogurt topped with cinnamon toast crunch cereal and fine graham cracker powder.

Oh the delight of this day! It’s more than I can adequately explain. I am so thankful.

Today was Jacob’s day at school. After dropping him off and taking Natalie to her Spanish class, I had 35 minutes to myself by the time I accounted for travel time to & from home. I treasured that time. It was precious beyond precious. All of a sudden I had this awesome view of what lies ahead next year. When both Jacob and Natalie will be in elementary school, I will have 2 whole days from 9:30am-3:00pm to myself. Wow. Unthinkable. I am waiting in happy anticipation.

Why is it that tonight with both kids tucked in bed by 6:30pm, with the whole night ahead of me, I don’t feel like doing anything around the house? For some very, very odd reason I only feel like doing chores in the morning, at the start of my day. At the end of the day I just feel like curling up on the couch and reading, or sitting at the computer catching up with emails or Facebook. Why is that? There’s something about the morning that puts me in the mood to clean and tidy-up. Definitely don’t feel that at night. At night I just want to unwind. Right now that poses a significant problem- because it’s my night time that I currently have free when the kids are tucked in bed and sound asleep. So I end up living with laundry undone, bathrooms that need cleaning, dirty dishes in the sink and a pantry that desperately needs re-organizing and a good cleaning out. What’s my deal? Somehow I just need to plow through it even though I don’t feel like doing any of it in the evening hours.

So I’m going to keep dreaming of the day next year when two days a week I will have that glorious morning time. And for now somehow force myself to do housework at night. Now that I’ve written about it, identified my need to just suck it up and figure out a way to go against what I desire most to do with my evening time, I’m going to log off and give it a try. Alright, here it goes…….