Thursday, April 30, 2009

Knoxville, Tennessee

Knoxville Tennessee

I always like summer
best
you can eat fresh corn
from daddy's garden
and okra
and greens
and cabbage
and lots of
barbeque
and buttermilk
and homemade ice-cream
at the church picnic
and listen to
gospel music
outside
at the church
homecoming
and go to the mountains with
your grandmother
and go barefooted
and be warm
all the time
not only when you go to bed
and sleep

Nikki Giovanni

We read this sweet poem yesterday from a children's book of poetry as part of our schoolwork. I actually lived in Knoxville, TN for 5 years, but yesterday was the first time I'd ever read this poem. I just love homeschooling. There is always so much more to learn and discover. Everybody should homeschool... even if they are only "homeschooling" themselves.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Scatter-brained


The other day I walked in my room and this is what my bed looked like. I started to make my bed. I'm not sure why I couldn't quite finish. What I do know is that this time of year is busy and I am so scatter-brained that this bed is a picture of the sort of chaos that I have going on around me lately. What I'm trying to say is, I can't possibly sit down and write a coherent blog post right now. But I hope you'll keep checking back.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The King David

Sometimes Christina shares the throne. She made the crown for David (which says "The King David" on it... click picture to enlarge) and dressed him in his royal robe.



Here's a sweet picture of the king, resting after having dealt with the rigors of ruling.


Actually, what happened is David kept messing up Christina's game and she told him he had to "sit on his royal throne and not get off". I guess that got so boring he just fell asleep. Apparently Christina will share the throne, but she's still the boss.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Overheard

Another entry for the Farmer family dictionary.
Present tense:glow
Past tense: glew?
Used in a sentence: Wouldn't it be cool if your shirt glew in the dark too?


Tina and her friends were playing beauty parlor. It was quite the elaborate set-up.
Later, I asked Tina if she had fun. Her response?
"Yes, but I didn't have a chance to be beautied."





There are a number of meals that I fix which I just put grated cheese in a bowl on the table. Everyone is supposed to just take a little cheese and sprinkle it on the soup or pasta or whatever. The kids really like cheese, so they will often take a little extra and eat it plain. One night at dinner John picks up the cheese to pass it. The child who had just served himself cried, "wait!" John looked at the plate and said, "you already got some cheese." The child said, "I only got topping cheese. But I didn't get my 'plate' cheese." You know how they say eskimos have so many different words for ice. I guess that's how it is for us and cheese.

Poor Tina. She was just marveling at something she thought made her unique. She came and proudly showed me her foot. "Look at my blue cut, Mama." Turns out it was a splinter, quite big too and yeah, it had to come out.

When I fix salad I always use romaine lettuce and for the biggest outside leaves, I usually cut out the ribs in the middle. Taryn loves to eat these. David saw her eating one and since it was near dinner decided he was hungry too. He comes into the kitchen. "Mama, I want one of those." "One of what, honey?" "One of those yucky things."


Taryn was collecting all the erasers in the house into a small backpack purse. I was talking to a friend one day about my housekeeping failures. I explained about Taryn's collection, how we needed the small backpack, so we dumped out the erasers, how the erasers had found their way onto the steps where they were being set up into little eraser communities. My friend looked sympathetically at Taryn. "Taryn you poor girl. Trying to be organized in all that chaos." Taryn, a bit surprised, says, "Oh no. I was just keeping them to throw at Joseph."

John told me this one. He has a CD in his car he loves to listen to (The Incredibles Soundtrack) and he had it quite loud because he had been riding with the convertible top down. Later when he was going somewhere with Tina and Rebekah he turned the car on and the music came blaring out. Rebekah quickly put her hands over her ears and winced. Tina simultaneously bobs her head and in her deepest little girl voice says, "Oh yeah!"

I guess I should preface this little story by mentioning that Rebekah loves food and never misses a chance to eat. A friend of Rebekah's was telling her how she had gotten some immunizations and had been paid $1 for each one she had gotten. Rebekah nodded a bit sympathetically and told of her immunization experience (which incidentally was rewarded by a few stickers from the doctor). She seemed unfazed by the seemingly unfair rewards offered until her friend added, "and I got a milkshake afterwards." Rebekah's eyes lit up, "Lucky!"


David has this little game he likes to play with me. When I carry up baskets of laundry from the basement, he likes to block the doorway until I get to the top. Once I arrive he mechanically pulls his arm down and steps to the side (with appropriate sound effect, "shoonk"). And then I say, "Thank you Gate." One day as I was walking down the hall he calls, "Mommy, the gate is following you."

When we were hiking on Taryn's birthday, David did a great job. He walked a long way for such a little guy. At one point where there were rocks or roots or something on the path, David saw that it was a bit of a problem for him. He calmly said, "Need a hand, Dad." John, of course, reached down to grab his hand and help him. Once he was over the obstacle, David calmly said again, "Finished with need-a-hand."

The kids had requested something once again that wasn't going to work, and John had told them so. He said to ask when he was in a good mood. Then he jokingly added "Unfortunately for you I'm always in a bad mood." One of the kids responds, "That's why we always ask Mommy first."

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Through a Child's Eye

Switching to the digital camera has many advantages not the least of which is that stingy, cheapskates like myself, can allow their kids to use the camera as much as they like. I don't even cringe when I download hundreds of blurry, repetitive, or otherwise not very good pictures. I would die a thousand deaths if I wasted actual film and paid for developing. I have issues.

It is fun to see the world through their eyes. (I will include a word of warning here. Pictures, taken of adults by kids, are not very flattering, hence no pictures included of me. I'm sorry they have had to spend their entire lives basically looking up my nose. In that regard, it's better not to look through their eyes.)

Of course, I do have to overlook the self-portraits:




And the pictures of toys (lots and lots of pictures of toys):


But once I overlook those, I see all the pictures they take of things I normally wouldn't and in doing so they capture well our everyday life and the craziness thereof.



No Running in the kitchen!!! I wonder how many times a day I say that?



And finally there are those pictures that I love. They were taken in just the right light or they captured a great expression or they tell a story:



(I believe all these pictures were taken by Christina except the two self-portraits by Taryn and Joseph).

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Ham 1 and Ham 2


I've got a couple of kids who love the spotlight. Can you guess which ones?

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Practice Makes Presentable

When God blesses a mother with girls, it seems it would behoove the mother if He also blessed her with some ability to style the poor girl's hair. I did not get that gift (and neither did my mother, truth be told). Anyway, until now I have been fortunate enough to have a friend willing to fix Taryn and Rebekah's hair into braids for their gymnastics meets. But because of the scheduling for this weekend's meet, she will be unable to do it. In addition, Christina needs her hair fixed into a bun for her dance performance. Yes, she did tell the teacher in front of her class that she did not think I could do that. Nothing like a little embarrassment to prod me into action. So I bought the supplies I thought I needed and designated yesterday as my day to practice on their hair. Hair gel is the amazing equalizer... it covers a multitude of sins. The results were not perfect, but presentable. We took pictures in full costumer per Tina's request. I didn't have a picture of the girls in their Tiger Paw leotards anyway.