Category: family

Our kids don’t know we’re different

We are doing something this summer that we haven’t done before — sending our kids to a bunch of camps. Now, these are “day camps”, where they spend a few hours off doing something, then come home before dinner. However, for us it’s new.

Zoe is 13, and at “zoo camp” this week. This is a great experience for her, but it means she leaves the house at 7:30 and comes back around 4:30. Then at 6, she and her siblings head off to soccer camp for two hours.

We’ve only been doing this for two days (Monday and Tuesday), when Tommy said something that made me stop and think. He’s 11, and was talking with Zoe about the day. He said, “You leave early in the morning, get home just in time for dinner, then leave again. I hardly ever see you.” My wife Brenda overheard him, and said, “That’s what normal families do.”

See, we homeschool, so he’s used to being around all of the family all of the day. Having an older sister whom he doesn’t see all day is different, it’s weird. It’s not normal.

When we first started homeschooling, one of our goals was to have our kids be best friends with each other. We each had friends who were great companions during our school years, but whom we never see anymore. However, we do see our brothers and sisters, so our thought was to strengthen and deepen those relationships; we know those will last throughout their lifetimes.

So it struck me, as Brenda was talking with Tommy, that Tommy didn’t know what “normal” families do. He didn’t know that normal families don’t spend a lot of time with each other, don’t see each other throughout the day, and often begin to drift apart as the kids reach their teen years. At least, that’s what happened in Brenda and my families. We still have good relationships with our siblings, but they’re not as strong as they were…or as they could be.

My oldest, Samantha, makes sure this doesn’t happen. She told me a little while ago that even though she’s attending the local college, she thought about moving out of the house. She opted not to, though, and her main reason was this: her littlest sister, Nellie, was only four years old. If Samantha moved out, she reasoned, then she wouldn’t end up being a sister to Nellie, but more like an aunt. She would come over to visit, and maybe stay for dinner, but she wouldn’t spend quantity time with Nellie, she wouldn’t see her in passing…she wouldn’t live with Nellie. So Sam chose to live at home, if only to form a lasting bond with a pre-schooler sixteen years her junior.

That’s our family. That’s different. But our kids don’t know it.

What’s your family like?

Church and church

On Sunday morning, Brenda told four-year-old Nellie that we’re going to church today. Nellie asked, “Is that Reeve’s place, or the place where they turn the lights off?”

Now, I thought that was funny. Reeve is the one-year-old son of the leaders of our small group, and we meet at the leaders’ house — Reeve’s house! The place “where they turn the lights off” is the building where we have our Sunday meetings, and yes, the vibe involves very dim lighting.

I like it, though, that she thinks of each of these meetings as “church”. To her, church isn’t a building you go to, it’s a group of people you meet with. That’s pretty good ecclesiology; the four-year-old can teach this forty-six-year-old a thing or two.

Saying good-bye to Christmas

I have a policy in our house about Christmas songs. It’s my idea, my own rule. It’s this: no Christmas songs before Thanksgiving! My own way to stem the tide of Christmas creeping earlier into the year.

So the kids asked me this: when must we stop singing Christmas songs? Oooh, that’s a tough one. I chose New Year’s Day; as good a day as any.

So my four-year-old daughter Nellie asked me why we can’t sing Christmas songs anymore. It was hard for me to explain in a way she could understand that if we keep the songs isolated to that time frame, it makes them that much more special. Maybe she got it; maybe she didn’t.

But Christmas this year was very green — not a snowflake in sight. And today, 17 days after Christmas Day, there are 6 inches of snow on the ground. Ah well, a little late but certainly welcomed. The boys were out with Allie today, snow shovels in hand. They weren’t exactly shoveling, Allie informed me, “more like playing.”

I’m good with that.

Books to read aloud

Here is a list of the books I’ve read aloud to the family. I have a variety of ages, and from four to twelve they listen when I read aloud in the car or at home. In their teen years, they don’t listen to every book. 🙂

You can see from the list that we like adventure, magic, and especially books in a series.

All The Mad Scientists Club books by Bertrand Brinley

All the Redwall books by Brian Jacques (20 out of the 21; the next one is on our list).

All the Septimus Heap books by Angie Sage (six and counting).

Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes by Frank Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. With eight kids in our own family, this is especially appealing. We also liked Ten P’s in a Pod by Arnold Pent III.

The Ranger’s Apprentice books by John Flanagan (we’ve read 7 of the 9).

Peter and the Starcatchers series by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. We haven’t read The Sword of Mercy; the older girls read it and said it was a little too scary for the littles.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater (Brenda read this one).

Savvy by Ingrid Law.

The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander.

The Brill and the Dragators series by Peggy Downing (Brenda read this series, too).

I’ll add more as I think of them.