HouseOfLittleMen

2009-01-15T21:11:00.001-05:00

From the Sonlight Beam Newsletter:

THE 7-YEAR-OLD BOY

This little guy is on every homeschool message board I read. He is in every homeschool support group I've ever known.

He's almost always the oldest child in his family. As a firstborn child, he is often very smart and slightly serious of disposition. His parents, his Sunday school teacher, and his pediatrician have all agreed that he is "gifted" and "exceptional."

For a little boy with so many positive qualities, it is sad that he can't seem to do anything right. Everyone who looks at him sees the word "capability" branded across his childish forehead. They think he should always be able to do more. They think he always needs more. They think they have an obligation to provide him with more.

More schoolbooks. More activities. More friends. More rigor. More routine. More planning of each of his hours so that all the boxes of academia and socialization are checked. More responsibility. More heavy expectations.

Is it possible that the homeschool community is failing the firstborn seven year old boy? I think we may be. After all, we teach Mama ways to make him pay attention to his math lessons. We encourage her to buy ever more expensive curriculum that will make her feel that he or she have failed if it is too soon to use it. We stay quiet when she heaps life on him, even when we're farther down the road and know better.

If I could say one thing to a new homeschooling Mama it would be this:

"Your seven year old boy is a little child. He is very little. He is an amazing genius and he will make this world a better place, but for now he is a little child. He doesn't need all the things you think he needs. He needs a safe and loving home and proper food, clothing, and shelter. He needs friends and acquaintances who cross all barriers of age, race, and class. He needs hours and hours in God's beautiful world outdoors. He needs stories and a few toys and tools.

Stop planning. Stop worrying. Stop scheduling every second of his little life in order to get the most out of him right now. You are going backwards. His life will be richer and fuller if you allow him to bloom and ripen in a natural and wholesome way. You will never, ever have these childhood days with him again. Do not fill them up with all your imagined requirements. You will so regret that you didn't just live with him and love him and let your life rub off on him gently. You will blink and he will be twelve and you will wonder what your hurry was. You will blink again and he'll be grown. You'll look at a photo of him at seven years old and see for the first time that he was a little, little child."

I know whereof I speak. I went against my own desires to rush my exceptional child. I wanted to rush him! He could do everything. He was a genius. He was so sober-minded and capable, practically from birth. But I didn't. I taught him to read when he was three, I admit, but I did not "school" him until much later. It seemed to me that he would do great things in his time, and I must not try to make him do great things before then. So I filled the house with good storybooks and held myself back.

When we did begin homeschooling, I kept studies to an hour a day until he was in third grade. That's ALL studies, including religion and life skills. I wanted to see this child run in the sunshine and laugh, laugh, laugh because THAT was the image I wanted to keep of him. Not tired, not toiling over books or being shuttled to schools and activities. No, I wanted to remember little Nathaniel in the sunshine, laughing. I thank God that I do have that image to carry with me forever.

Nathaniel is twelve now. By any definition he is rigorously homeschooled. We use the Well Trained Mind and Sonlight. He is working on Hebrew and Greek, high school level science and English, and he can play four instruments proficiently.

It was OK to wait and let him be little. He took off when he was 10 and the sky is his limit. Learning is still new. He swallows textbooks whole and begs for more. He reads heavy stuff for fun. He spends hours in museums and loves every minute.

He is not just a walking encyclopedia, a lovingly nurtured brain. He is a whole person. He makes friends easily and enjoys God's world. His body is strong and healthy. His music makes strangers laugh and cry for joy. He has the support and love of his extended family and his church. His future is bright and his prospects are endless.

It was RIGHT to deny myself the pleasure and self-satisfaction of teaching him too early. He had the foundation he needed to grow into an amazing young man. The foundation was love, acceptance, and daily family life. A foundation of academia and box-checking seems dusty and moldy to me in comparison. I am thankful that I have no regrets about the early education of Nathaniel James. --Weathertop Academy

Unborn Babies

2008-10-15T05:57:00.001-04:00

I thought this poem was worthy of posting here.

A Second Opinion

The skinny on the Not-so-skinny me!

2008-09-22T21:25:00.004-04:00

Okay, here is the update I promised on my weight loss journey from last year. Well, since last year I had lost 10 more pounds then gained that back and then 10lbs. of the original 3olbs. I had lost. I've not been exercising either, so any muscle I gained through hard work TaeBo ing it is gone, unfortunately. With this years school schedule being more demanding having 2 kids and sometimes 3 doing school I haven't figured out how to get the exercise in again...but I really want to because I loved how I felt while in shape. I am praying about that. I've had some false starts of trying to get back on the wagon and lose some more weight, but they didn't last more than a week. This time, I've prayed and asked the Lord to help me and He has! I am going strong on week 3! We've had some pretty crazy things come that has kept me from being real strict but in 2 weeks I have lost 5lbs. and things are going pretty easy. I just picked up some nifty gadgets tonight that I think I'm really going to enjoy.

Stonehendge and blocks

2008-09-22T21:04:00.006-04:00

Okay, I never would have thought a 3 1/2 year old (Ben, top left) would get Stonehendge and actually build the best replica of the bunch! Interesting note: some creationist believe Stonehendge could have been started being built shortly after Noah's Flood. They estimate (through experiments and reinactments) that it took about 25 men to move one stone! It was used to record the rising and setting of the sun and track the moon and season. Great proof that early man was indeed the intelligent beings that we believe our God created us to be from Day 1.
Caed's impressionistic version of Stonehendge. And Liam (top right) wasn't too happy about not having the enough blocks to make a circle and decided to creat his own version.....but still not happy.

New Movie

2008-09-20T08:44:00.002-04:00

Fireproof

This brilliantly produced film radiates messages of authentic determination, faith and hope, even for those of us who have felt like giving up on our marriages.

This looks like a really great movie! Here is a link to a review on Focus on the Family:
www.family.org/marriage/A000005058.cfm

You can see several trailers by clicking on the videos link in the picture above.

Boys in the garden

2008-09-19T21:31:00.005-04:00

Daddy is loving all the help he gets in the garden now. The boys are weeding here. But everyone morning, unless it rains, they go out and water the garden and check how things are growing. This morning when they went out Caed came in and said he thought a racoon had gotten in and knocked down all the corn stalks and nibbled on the leaves. Well, turns out, once Daddy got home and took a look, that it was just the wind! So they have the corn all propped up with string now and doing fine.

Working hard! Taking after Daddy!

These guys take after Mommy! =)

Spiderman & Batman @ school today

2008-09-19T21:11:00.009-04:00

Batman and Spiderman showed up at school today!

We were working on our timeline for History (we learned about the Sumarians, the Tower of Babel, and the Epic of Gilgimash), adding our new figures, and the superhero's came to help!!!!

Also this week Ben learned how to write the letter "A"! Yay Ben! Good job, Buddy!

Since we were learning about the Sumerians who wrote in Cunieform writing on clay tablets...we thought we would try!

This is Liam's initials in cunieform, click on the picture to enlarge and you can see it better.

You'll have to wait for a weight update!

2008-09-17T23:42:00.014-04:00

I know my most prominent post on here is about my weight loss last year. Well, I'm going to be posting an update to that soon but you will have to "weight" on that! Ha Ha! Made a funny! =)

Rainbow Pancakes

2008-09-17T23:42:00.012-04:00

I was going through my pictures today and stumbled on these:

Aren't the colors perty?!
Okay, here's the story. The cupboards were pretty bare...waiting for payday to come around. I wanted to make something for dinner that was healthy but also that the kids would enjoy. So I rummaged around and saw I had some flour, eggs, powdered milk, and frozen fruit. I remembered reading about rainbow pancakes online a few weeks back and I decided I was going to try it. I pulled out my juicer and blender, substituted the juices and purees for the liquid in the recipe and Voila! the beautiful colors you have before you. The orange ones were made with carrot juice, the green ones from lettuce (yes, lettuce), purple ones somehow were from raspberries, and yellow was mango. Let me just say....the boys thoroughly enjoyed making these.....now eating them was a different story. If I ever do this again...I'll be sticking with normal flavorings like blueberry and strawberry. NEVER EVER try to make lettuce pancakes!

Daddy and Son

2008-09-17T23:42:00.004-04:00

A picture says a thousand words!

3,2,1 Liftoff

2007-10-31T21:27:00.000-04:00

Recently, about 2-3wks. ago, we went on our first field trip of the year up to Port St. John to see the shuttle lift off. We went to a fellow Sonlighter's house, Robin, to see the show. Thank you Robin for your hospitality. Also there was another fellow Sonlighter, Rose and her children. Robin has 2 boys, and Rose has 3 children.....they had a blast! Teehehe.....blast....get it?! :)

Us Mom's had fun too!
Oh and of course Simon couldn't be left out......he was just hanging around :)

Half Way There!

2007-10-31T20:29:00.001-04:00

I wanted to post this for ALL to see and for ME to remember! I have lost 30lbs since July and it has been a hard spiritual and physical battle. Now that I am older and trying to lose weight I have realized, that for me, working hard to lose weight and exercise is more spiritual than physical. My journey started when I found out that on one of my recent medical charts the doctor described me as moderately obese. OBESE! I couldn't believe it. Sure enough I looked it up on all the BMI charts online and it was true. I knew I was a bigger girl, but I had always been "bigger". But not ever this big when not pregnant. So I knew I had to do something about it. At the time I was taking a Kay Arthur Bible study called, "Lord, I Want To Know You," and we were studying El Elyon which is the name for our God the Almighty Creator. For the first time in my life it came to me that I should go to my Creator about my weight and how to lose it. So I did and He led through various things and people to the way I should go about losing weight and I have been following Him ever since. This time I know it is Him who is giving me the strength and perseverance to get up early and exercise and stick to eating right, because before when I tried losing weight it was so hard and I would give up. So I give God the glory! I am now halfway to my goal and yes, I've had some bad days/weeks, but I've picked myself again, with the Lord's help and leading and started right back into doing what I need to be doing.
Now I know some of you are probably wondering, "Well, just tell us how you went about losing this weight!" I knew that one of my major problems was with sugar and I knew I was addicted to it. I was wanting something sweet, morning, noon, and night! I knew I needed to beat that addiction, so for the first month I followed a diet I had followed in the past that was a metabolism diet called "The Hilton Head Diet." It is not well known but I had done it in the past and I knew it was healthy and worked and there was no sugar allowed at all. And with the help of the Lord and my wonderful husband cheering me on and challenging me to do the HARD thing I plugged along and started walking and doing some easy exercise almost everyday. After that I needed something more flexible so I turned to Weight Watchers. I had done that in the past I knew it worked. I didn't go to the meetings or anything I just used what I had at home and then I kicked the exercise up a notch and started doing a series of TAE-BO DVD's I had. TAE-BO bootcamp kicked my butt for first couple of weeks. First, I couldn't even finish without feeling nauseas. Then I moved past that and at least could finish, then I worked my way up to being able to use the strength bands that are used in the muscle training. After 2 months of that it is still hard! and I sweat like crazy, but it is changing the way I fit in clothes big time, so I'm sticking to it. This week, has been a bad week because I have been sick with a soar throat and a cold, so no exercise and I made the mistake of baking a double batch of chocolate chip cookies :( But after today I am back to the grind and hard work! I can't give up......I have 30 more pounds to lose! So, as I progress in my weight loss journey I will try to keep you up to date with pictures......and hopefully only a few confessions! This is been a real life style change and how I eat, not just to eat differently temporarily to lose weight and then go back to the way I was. I can't do that! I can't do that for the One that created me, I can't do that for my husband, I can't do that for my children, I can't do that for MY HEALTH!

Rainy ,Windy Day

2007-10-30T20:55:00.000-04:00

It's been cloudy, rainy and VERY windy here the last 3 days. My boys had finally had enough and said, "heck with it, we are going outside!" So they did and of course they got very wet, but had lots of fun. See them here in there towels trying to decide if they want to go back out. School had to come to a halt when the wind really started blowing and rain was blowing everywhere.....no concentration could be held in such cool weather. Oh and Simon says, "Let me out to play in the rain!"

I'm well protected!

2007-10-30T20:35:00.000-04:00

"Don't you even try anything!"
Last week we just finished reading the book, "The Apple and The Arrow." It was about the legend of William Tell. I found some plans online to make simple and easy crossbows and daddy did a great job putting them together. They had a blast.....their arrows were clothes pins, sticks, acorns, anything they could find to shoot.
We are using Sonlight Curriculum this year and this is our 7th week of school and they are really enjoying it. There is some serious concentration going on in some of these. Never a dull moment in my Houseoflittlemen! :)

My First Blog

2007-10-26T12:57:00.000-04:00

This is my first post in my first blog!

Here are my 4 little men and my one big sexy hot looking MAN!