{SQT} Summer Baseball

All is right in our world now that all our family birthdays are ODD. It would be okay if they were all EVEN, too. But when we're briefly a mixes of ODD AND EVEN, it just doesn't feel right.

Now we're 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and, well, OLDER ODD and EVEN OLDER ODD!

1. Eating

Now that David has turned one, apparently he has decided it is time to take off with eating and walking in the same week.

He began swallowing food only about three weeks prior, after months of occupational therapy for feeding. As of this week, he discovered that he loves scrambled eggs and ate (inhaled!) the eight bites or so I gave him. I stewed some baby carrots so that they were whole but soft, and one night at dinner he ate four total. He tried peanut butter and likes it so much on toast. He's liked flavors for months, but this week he began eating actual quantity so that it "counts" as a food source.

2. Walking

David had been taking one and two steps for a few weeks, but this week decided he was ready to launch. His record so far is eleven steps in a row, and I've also seen him walk and turn directions to keep walking. He's clearly wanting to be in standing position most of the time.

The video below isn't nearly as impressive as the walking he's doing this week, but it's all I could manage to capture.

3. Baseball

Maybe David is walking because he wants to soon join his siblings for baseball. The children have taken it up as an avid hobby in the back yard. While I have discovered that bickering abounds too much if I'm not out there to supervise, why should I be surprised? Real children's baseball teams require a coach and an umpire to help things along, so how could I expect otherwise of a group of kids with wildly different skill levels trying to maintain peace and harmony on their own?

In short, they're eagerly racing outside to play baseball a couple of times a day right now, and I'm trying to dash out with them, baby under my arm and a cold La Croix in my hand.

This time of year, I take note again of my dear husband who, like all Southern men, absolutely treasures his lawn being lush and green, but has finally abandoned such hope and effort for the back yard. He allows it to be ground to dust by our children playing on it because he's got his priorities straight (and, hey, his front lawn is still green and lush).

4. Dropping Nap

The brand new three-year-old is clearly showing signs of starting to drop his afternoon nap. I've been through this four times prior and I can do it again, but I'm readying for a turbulent six months. On the bright side, he loves his afternoon nap time and requests it most days as lunch is ending, so I think he'll be my easiest preschooler to transition to Quiet Time. Already, on the days he is clearly not napping, I've put on a Bible CD and listened to him over the monitor chatter to himself for an hour and a half while playing with Duplos or books.

It's a good thing that the boy dropping his nap is so cute! Above is a little video I took showing how his pronouns are still all confused at his third birthday. He says "me" for "I" and "them" for "they" and "us's" for "ours" . . . I'm sure there's more. He's come so far from 12 months ago when he said something like five words total, and I've read that pronoun confusion is still normal through this fourth year of life, so I embrace the cuteness.

5. Under Bed Storage at Aldi's

I found a treasure at Aldi's this week (although isn't that always true?): under bed storage containers on wheels with lids that open as halves, so one does not even have to pull the storage bin out all the way. They're only $12! I bought four to store all the toys in the boys' room under their beds, which frees up a lot of space on their upper closet shelves. Now we have a storage bin for Duplos, for Playmobile, and so forth. I share this because I bet many of my friends might want to hustle on down to Aldi's to pick these up, too!

We made quite the sight in Aldi's that day, as my two girls were with Daddy, so I had four little boys with me. John led the train with our firs cart and baby David, then Joseph pushed the under bed storage units (which made a loud wheel-on-tile sound to draw attention), then I was the caboose with the second full cart and Thomas.

6. Music Theory

After learning Music Theory casually, concepts drawn out on paper for the last year, now Joseph is starting his first official book of Music Theory. My big boy starts Kindergarten in a couple of weeks!

7. Bonus Reading

As school years are launching everywhere, I want to share a TREASURE TROVE of a newsletter from Amy at Raising Arrows--whom I highly recommend--on how to keep the house clean with children underfoot. Her copy-and-pasted email newsletter below contains numerous links to more detailed articles.

In our personal life, I'll say that it's really tough keeping a home clean when it's never empty: My husband works from home, I work from home as a homeschool teacher, and our six children do school (and everything else) at home! In the early, early years, when I had no big helpers, I made a chart and cleaned one room or zone of the house per day, every day. Then later, I had helpers so I assigned them to start helping with zones. When school became more serious, we switched to having a set of end-of-day clean-up chores for weekdays, but then did whole family housecleaning on Saturday mornings before any fun outings. (Tip: To make us all take it seriously, I actually block housecleaning on the calendar. No, you can't go to such-and-such event because all members of the family will be busy doing housecleaning.) Right now, our new academic routine is going to look different this year, so I'm switching our whole family housecleaning to Friday afternoons.

But below are so many great tips for families at all stages . . .

* * * * * * * * * *

Cleaning the House with Kids (by Amy at Raising Arrows)

Method #1 - Weekly House Cleaning (without help) - In the podcast I talk about how I used to be a very messy person, and how FLYlady helped to change that.  I describe the weekly home blessing I did on Mondays, as well as what I did to keep up the rest of the week.  At the time, I only had 2 small children, and I could knock it out in 1-2 hours.

Method #2 - Chore Board - As my brood grew, I needed a plan that was more survival-mode than anything.  My chore board was a totally on-the-fly method, but it got the job done, and as my kids got older and more able to help, I added them to the board as well.  Learn more about my Chore Board here >>

Method #3 - Weekly Chore Rotation - This was the method I went to when I had a mix of olders and youngers, a bigger house, and more homeschooling responsibilities.  I divided the house cleaning chores up into different days, and by the end of the week, it was all done!  Learn more about my Weekly Chore Rotation here >>

Method #4 - Weekly House Cleaning (with help) - As my kids got older and more capable, I went back to the Weekly House Cleaning method, only this time I had help!  We all pitched in and cleaned the house top to bottom in 1-2 hours on Friday mornings.  We have been using this method for 6 years now! 
Learn more about my Weekly House Cleaning here >>

In addition to these deeper cleaning methods, we also do a couple of 15 minute tidy uptimes throughout the day, along with Table Chores, and various Laundry Methods(currently, we are on a rotating schedule, but you can see a BIG list of Laundry Systems HERE!) 

I know that's a lot of information to throw at you, but the name of the game is to try, tweak, try again until you find your groove!  It helps to have some ideas to get you started, and then work at making it your own!

Have a blessed weekend!
Amy

* * * * * * * * * *


For more 7 Quick Takes Friday, check out This Ain't the Lyceum.