Radical Motherhood - finding joy at home

Books I Read Last Year

I like to read. I like it even more than watching TV, which baffles my husband and most of my children. If I’m interested in something, my favorite way to learn about it is to find a book (or a dozen books) and read until I’m satisfied. Warning: everything I read last year was either on faith, parenting, or homeschooling – topics that never get old for me. Some of these books were excellent, and I hope you add them to your 2019 reading list.

book recommendation — Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

The List

These are the books I’ve read within the last year or so; you can click the links to find them on GoodReads. I have a very short review/synopsis for each, but if you want to know more, check out the GoodReads link. You can read many, many reviews on that site, and there are links within most of the book descriptions to buy the book on Amazon (Kindle or printed copy) and other sites. There’s also a really cool “Library” button you can click that will show you which libraries in your area have the book on their shelves.

Books on Faith

Not a Fan, by Kyle Idleman: Quick, easy read with a great message: Jesus wants you to be his follower, not just a fan. This would be a good book to read with your teenager. If you have a teenager who would be willing to do that (I don’t).
Divine Mercy for Moms, by Michele Faehnle and Emily Jaminet: Great explanation of what the Divine Mercy is, where it came from, and how to incorporate the Divine Mercy prayer and practice into your life as a mother.
The Virtues We Need Again, by Mitchell Kalpakgian: This might be my favorite book on the list. It explains what the virtues are and how to live them, using a variety of classic literature, from Shakespeare to Mark Twain.
After Virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre: If you’re not a philosophy buff, this is a difficult read, but I was able to pick up on the main idea here – mankind’s ideas about virtue have a history, and if you want to understand (and fight) our current culture of radical individualism and relativism, you have to understand that history. There’s a guide for this book called Reading Alasdair MackIntyre’s After Virtue, by Christopher Stephen Lutz, which is at the top of my reading list for 2019.
Discovering God Together, by Greg and Lisa Popcak: I love these authors, and I love this book. It’s about how to grow in faith together as a family. My favorite parenting book to-date is the Popcak’s Parenting with Grace, which I am trying to read every year until I’m done raising kids. You can catch the Popcaks on Ave Maria/EWTN Radio as well.
How to be Holy, by Peter Kreeft: I want to be holy, and it’s hard. I think this book has helped me focus on holiness as a goal (THE goal) and given me some practical ways to make progress toward it. I also like Kreeft’s Prayer for Beginners, which I’ve read several times.
The Little Oratory, by David Clayton and Leila M. Lawler: An oratory is a space you create in your home to pray and display beautiful objects and images related to your (Catholic) faith. I love this idea, and I had an oratory for a while, but I took it down for the sake of practicality (toddlers + candles/statues/vases of flowers = not an environment conducive to prayer). Maybe someday.
With God in Russia, by Daniel L. Flaherty and Walter Ciszek: This is an amazing story of faith and survival. If you’ve ever thought that what God is calling you to do is just too hard, you need to read this book. Trust me, what Ciszek did was harder.

Books on Parenting

Parenting with Love and Logic, by Foster Cline and Jim Fay: I read this because it’s often discussed in foster parenting circles, and my husband and I are taking a class on it this spring. I like it because the tools and strategies make a lot of sense to me, and the authors give some great explanations of why certain popular parenting tactics don’t work (and I’ve failed at using many a popular parenting tactic). If you’re a firm believer in “my way or the highway” parenting, you will probably hate this book – at first.
Parenting Teens with Love and Logic, by Foster Cline and Jim Fay: The authors take all of the great advice from Parenting with Love and Logic and apply them to teens. My favorite section is the Q&A at the end.
Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control, by Heather T. Forbes: A book about how to parent kids who’ve been through trauma (especially useful for foster parents, although I think it could help any parent). Forbes really dislikes Foster Cline and Jim Fay (Parenting with Love and Logic), but to me, many of the Love and Logic principles seem to be in line with what Forbes proposes.
The Foster Parenting Toolbox, by Kim Phagan Hansel: This is a huge collection of essays and articles on foster parenting and the issues foster parents and foster children face. You get a lot of different perspectives on a lot of different issues, and I think it’s a great read for new or potential foster parents.
Confessions of an Adoptive Parent, by Mike Berry: Berry talks about his experience as a foster and adoptive parent, which has been extremely difficult and lonely. His primary message is, “You are not alone!” This would be a great encouragement to someone struggling with their foster or adopted children; to someone who isn’t, it was a little scary.
The Five Love Languages of Children, by Gary Chapman: If you’ve read the Five Love Languages book, this will be largely familiar, but it was helpful to read how the love languages apply to children. If you’re having trouble figuring out why your child is moody/disrespectful/disobedient/distant/etc., understanding and speaking their love language might make all the difference.
The Five Love Languages of Teens, by Gary Chapman: I enjoyed this book as well, because teenagers are so different from children and from adults; they truly deserve their own book on this subject. It’s a great reminder that teens DO need us to express our love to them, even though it may not seem like it.
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish: This is my second favorite book on the list. This book is very much in sync with the Parenting with Love and Logic books, but it focuses primarily on how you speak to your children. I am almost done with it, and I’m planning to immediately start re-reading it. There’s a workshop you can purchase, so you can teach a class in your community, so if you’re in western Iowa and want to start a group with me, let me know!
What Every Child Needs, by Elisa Morgan and Carol Kuykendall: I like the ideas in this book, but it wasn’t spectacular. I didn’t finish it. I would rather read How to Talk so Kids Will Listen again that read the rest of this one.
Six Ways to Keep the Little in Your Girl, by Dannah Gresh: Scary. Overwhelming. A necessary read for moms with young girls.
From Santa to Sexting, by Brenda Hunter and Kristen Blair: This book was written by a mother and daughter, which I think is cool. Another good read for moms with young girls.
I’ll Hold You in Heaven, by Jack Hayford: I got this book because I wanted to be better able to understand and help women who have lost a baby due to miscarriage, abortion, or shortly after birth. But this book was disappointing. The author made several points that are un-Catholic, so as a Catholic, I had a hard time taking him seriously. This is a complex issue, and I felt like he was trying to over-simplify it…because he doesn’t have the tools he needed to be able to treat it properly. I found a list of Catholic books on miscarriage here: http://www.catholicmiscarriagesupport.com/resources/books/. I’m going to read a couple of those and see what I think.
Jesus on Parenting, by Dr. Teresa Whitehurst: I love the idea of parenting based on how Jesus would parent his children (we’re all his children, right?). But while this book has a lot of great analysis and discussion in it, it lacks practical advice. The author spends a lot of time describing how Jesus interacted with his disciples, which I agree should give me some idea as to how to treat my children, but I needed more “how-to’s”. I read this book twice and still am not sure how I can apply it to my children and my life.
The Sleepeasy Solution, by Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivak: If you have a baby who won’t sleep, you have to read this book. At best, it will fix your sleep issues and change your life; at worst, it will give you hope for a few weeks that will keep you from going off the deep end, at least for a while.
The Happy Sleeper, by Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright: Very similar to The Sleepeasy Solution. Read them both. If you’re sleep-deprived enough, it’ll take at least a couple of these kinds of books to get through to your weary brain.

Books on Homeschooling

Growing Without Schooling, Volume 1, by John Holt: This is a compilation of several issues of John Holt’s unschooling newsletter from the 70’s and 80’s. Holt, though childless, was a huge advocate for children and for giving children more control over they way they learn. He spent his career observing and teaching children, in and out of school, and is a critic of the modern education system because, he says, it fails to educate. This book is a gold mine of ideas and support for those of us who “unschool.” If you don’t know much about homeschooling, or are suspicious of it, or are doing it, you should read at least one book by John Holt.
Learning All The Time, by John Holt: As the title suggests, Holt believes that children are learning all the time and that it’s detrimental to confine learning to a certain room or building or time of day. Lots of food for thought, and lots of great practical ideas for unschoolers.
Teach Your Own, by John Holt: This is very similar to Learning All The Time; Holt gives compelling reasons to “teach your own,” as well as lots of ideas on how to do it successfully.
Passion-Driven Education, by Connor Boyack: Another author who doesn’t like our education system (for good reason, I think) with ideas on what you can do instead. The basic idea is to find out what your child’s passions or interests are and help them explore those. Great resource for homeschoolers, and a good eye-opener for those who have never questioned our (U.S.) education system.
Sandra Dodd’s Big Book of Unschooling, by Sandra Dodd: This is a strange book. Parts of it, I love; parts of it, I disagree with; parts of it make no sense to me at all. The author has a website, sandradodd.com, and this book is basically a compilation of pages from that site. She relates, through a series of essays, how and why she unschooled her three children. I would really enjoy having a conversation with Mrs. Dodd about unschooling, and life, but I don’t think we’d ever be friends.
The Unschooling Handbook, by Mary Griffith: This is a less-opinionated, better organized version of Sandra Dodd’s Big Book of Unschooling. A good reference to have on hand if you’re struggling with how to teach a particular concept or subject, but not nearly as interesting to read.
The Read Aloud Handbook, by Jim Trelease: I still can’t get my kids to listen to me read aloud, but I did enjoy reading this book. I think that constant exposure to electronics has taken a huge toll on our families and our brains, and I don’t know that the strategies in a 30+ year old book work as well in today’s world as they once did. If I had it to do over, I would never have gotten TVs, tablets, Chromebooks, or smartphones, and we would spend hours a day reading books together. As it is now, I’m not sure whether there’s any going back.

I would LOVE to know what you’ve been reading and what’s on your list for 2019. Leave a comment if you want to share!

February 23, 2019 0 comment

Living your Faith

Love your neighbor: volunteer

written by Emily Thams

If you are like me, you have been in a position to recruit volunteers for something. You are on a board or committee and have needed to find people to help you carry out your mission. You got organized, planned your event, and sent out an email to get volunteers. You were enthusiastic and excited to do your thing. You were thinking about how great it would be if so-and-so volunteered because she is great with kids. Or how awesome it was going to be to organize your volunteers based on their gender, skills, and talents.

And then no one responded.

I work with several organizations (probably too many if you ask my husband) that rely on the servant hearts of others. All of the organizations are good causes, worthy of my time and effort. They all also take more than a few people to be successful, and they all have this one thing in common.

They struggle to find volunteers.

There are usually a small number of people who end up carrying the load. And while those people are a great blessing to me and to whatever the cause is, I am also discouraged at the lack of response and frustrated to have to pick up the slack. I wonder why. I take it personally. I want to quit myself.

I have done some reading on the subject, and there are actually some good reasons that people don’t volunteer for things.

They are concerned about not having the knowledge or skill to perform the task (I find this especially true when asking for help at church, people worry that they won’t know what to say or how to interact with a ministry or group).
They haven’t been asked to help. This doesn’t mean that they haven’t received your email asking them to help- they got that email. But they need to be asked personally. Preferably in person, not over the phone. They need to be able to ask questions and hear what a difference they will be making.
They’ve helped in the past, but they didn’t feel needed when they did. They showed up not having a specific task to do, and they didn’t have enough to keep them busy. They felt out of the loop.
They didn’t know anyone in the organization. They felt like an outsider. They weren’t included in the communication or planning. Again, they felt left out.
They are too busy. They are full time employees and trying to balance their work, home, social, and spiritual lives is overwhelming. Their kids play club sports so their evenings and weekends are filled with ballgames and practices.

Another trend I have noticed as I scroll through my Facebook feed is that women are urging each other to spend their free time taking care of themselves. Self-care is the buzz word. The memes and articles tell us that we need to spend time and money on ourselves so that we will feel better. It’s ok to be selfish. We are busy, tired, and we deserve it.

I challenge this.

Most of us, when we do take the time to do something for ourselves (which takes time and usually money), end up feeling guilty and having to catch up on the things we neglected while we were pampering ourselves. Not that we don’t deserve the occasional night off, date with our husbands, or trip to the spa. But these things don’t fill your soul the way giving back to a great cause does. They are a nice occasional treat, but they leave a void. In my experience, giving my time to others fills my cup. It makes me feel good. It reminds me of my purpose.

A few years ago I was trying to learn how to say no. I was working on not putting too many things on my plate. I felt overwhelmed by my responsibilities and decided that I just needed to start saying no- to an extra assignment at work, to a friend who wanted to have dinner, to the PTO asking me to make brownies, to the church asking for my time on a committee. I was going to turn everyone down and spend my time on me.

But I never did learn how to do it.

What I did learn is that I don’t have to say yes to everything, but I shouldn’t always say no either. I should prayerfully consider requests to participate, but not turn them down just for my own comfort and convenience.

Lately, my energy has been spent volunteering at my church more than anywhere else. That is where I feel called to serve. And also where it is the most difficult to recruit help.

I read this article article yesterday, and I love this idea. The author points out that our churches are like our homes and families. And in the same way that you can’t babysit your own kids (because they belong to you), you can’t volunteer in your church. You take care of your church. You look for the need and you help. You care about the salvation of your family, so you teach Sunday school, lead Bible study, and welcome new members.

I would challenge you to look for somewhere that you can give back. Start with your church. They need you. You need them. Look for even small ways that you can give. Ask around to find a need to fill. Be open to a request to join in.

Jesus said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).

Praise Him and serve others. It’s what we are called to do!

February 20, 2019 0 comment

Finding Joy How to be a stay-at-home mom

Comparing and Competing

written by Allison Schoonover

Is motherhood a contest?

When I was a younger mom, there were places that I would go with my children where I felt like we were on display. Or in some kind of competition. Storytime at the library. Church. Homeschool group meetings. Places where other moms would be able to see – and judge – the fruits of my parenting and homeschooling based on how the kids behaved or how interesting I was to talk to. I loved the idea of hanging out with other moms…but in reality, I sometimes hated it. It often felt like so much pressure that I could barely make myself leave the house. I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious when I was around other families, because it seemed like everyone else was a supermom, with superkids, and my kids and I were just barely clinging to the very last shreds of normal.

woman in mirror, comparing and competing — Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash

Falling short and getting discouraged

Everywhere we went, I met other moms who had cool jobs, grew all their own food, paid attention to the news, and still found time to volunteer for everything. Their kids were adorable, wore nice clothes, and played a bunch of sports and instruments. I couldn’t help but wonder…was I the only one noticing how out of place we were? I used to get really discouraged, and even though I loved my kids and I loved spending time with them, I would start freaking out about how we needed to change everything we were doing so that we could catch up to everyone else.

What?? Me??

Then, one day, I had a mom at one of these mom gatherings compliment me on how patient I was. (Probably because all of my kids were running around screaming while hers were quietly eating a homemade casserole in hand-made, matching outfits). Now, if you know me – if you really know me – you know that I am not patient. I may be more patient than I once was, due to the nearly endless opportunities I’ve had over the last 18 years to practice, but I would still never refer to myself as a patient person. There are many days where it takes every ounce of self-control I possess to keep my temper in check. But to this mom, I appeared to be so patient that she felt moved to compliment me.

Huh.

She even asked me how I did it (I said I had no idea).

I couldn’t stop thinking about our conversation, and how this mom was so admiring of a quality I didn’t even think I possessed. So I wondered…why, when I was with other moms, did I spend so much time obsessing about myself and my kids and how we were being perceived? Why did I feel so inferior to other moms? Why did I think that I had to be so many things – smart, confident, organized, well-dressed, well-informed – to be liked? Why couldn’t I let others have their strengths and gifts, and let myself have my own strengths and gifts…and be content with that? Why did I want ALL the strengths and ALL the gifts and get envious and discouraged when I (repeatedly) discovered that I can’t possibly be or have it all?

As usual, I’m being an idiot

Why didn’t I focus all of that energy on getting to know and encourage the other moms? Were they feeling insecure too? Were they looking at me and imagining that I had it all together, while they were just barely hanging on? Why were we all so scared of each other?

I wanted to be friends with these women, but I didn’t think they’d like the real me. And, a part of me wanted to be BETTER than them at something…at everything, in fact…because that’s the only way I thought I could feel comfortable with them.

And then, I realized that I was being an idiot. People do not want to be friends with perfect people. They want to be friends with REAL people – people who are honest with themselves and about themselves. People with humility and a sense of humor about how flawed they really are.

I know now that if I want to be someone’s friend, I will eventually have to be vulnerable with them. I will have to admit that, yes, I always have a stockpile of frozen pizza and potato chips and marshmallow cereal on hand. I am not teaching my children Latin, I sometimes throw recyclables in the trash, and I occasionally forget the name of our vice president.

One of the best things I can do when I’m around a bunch of other moms is to expose some of my flaws. If I admit that the kids had Pop Tarts for breakfast and we’re all wearing yesterday’s underwear, maybe I’ll stop being someone else’s supermom and start being their friend.

Nobody needs another supermom; everyone could use another friend.

Totinos Pizza is its own food group

Last week, we went to my favorite homeschool group. It is chock full of sweet, intelligent, down-to-earth, Jesus-loving women. I used to be afraid of them. We usually bring our own lunches, which my kids never eat (instead, they beg their friends to share their lunches, because by anyone’s standards, everyone else’s lunches are better than ours). So I decided that instead of our usual peanut butter and jelly, I’d bring frozen pizza – clearly a step up, since it’s hot and contains more food groups. I started chatting with another mom who was in the kitchen getting her family’s lunch ready to go into the oven, so I asked her what she brought. What was it? Homemade turkey pot pie. With homemade crust. And turkey they had raised themselves. So did I spend the rest of our time together feeling embarrassed and inferior and imagining how disgusted this other mom must be? Nope. We laughed, and her kids ate her wonderful pot pie, and mine completely ignored the pizza (because they had already filled up on Oreos and potato chips), and we enjoyed the rest of our day together.

February 16, 2019 0 comment

Homeschool

Our wonderfully frustrating first semester of homeschool

written by Emily Thams

We just finished our first semester of homeschool with my 8^thand 9^thgrade daughters. Actually, this week we started the second semester, and I am really hoping, praying, and planning that some things are much different from last semester. Having never homeschooled before, I had no idea what to expect, and I ended up both frustrated and overjoyed with our first semester.

Our first semester was wonderful. We were able to spend so much time together, laugh a lot, and learn together (a few things, I think). Alyssa made great progress with Geometry. Sarah got to recover from her years at public school. We had field trips and movie days. The girls got a chance to catch up on some sleep. We did some fun projects.

Our first semester was also frustrating. Some days, no one wanted to do any work. Some days the girls fought about everything. Some days we had to run around from activity to activity. I gave them too much to do one week and not enough the next. I bought lots of curriculum that no one liked (including me). We gave up on several (what I thought were) great ideas. I let them sleep in, then got annoyed with them sleeping in. I changed my philosophy several times. Some weeks I was all “let’s unschool!” and some weeks I was scheduling our every moment.

I haven’t got it all figured out. I suspect all homeschoolers have these struggles, I just don’t know because we are so new at it.

A wise homeschool mom3 told me to make a list of all of the things that went well to remind yourself that you have done good work with your kids, even if it feels like the opposite. I will start with that, but then share the things that didn’t go so well, so that you can learn from my rookie mistakes.

Things that worked well:

Starting at 9:00am. Or later. Teenagers do not function well early in the morning. Especially when they know that I’m not giving them “detention” for too many tardies. Most of our best work has been done in the afternoon. And when it only takes about 3 hours a day to complete their work, why make them start early?

Having a homeschool location away from home. We have an empty office space next to my husband’s office that we have made into what we are calling “the studio”. There are couches and a small kitchen and some game tables and bookshelves. It’s homey and it helps us separate our homeschooling from just hanging out at home. Sometimes we would stay home, but we stay on task better if we have a place to “go”.

Enlisting help. My dad is meeting with us once a week or so to help me teach. We started with ethics/morality topics and are now doing literature studies. He is a natural teacher, wise and patient, and we love spending this time together.

Dual enrollment. This might end up in each category. Having the ability to participate in our local high school allows the girls to be involved and see their friends, but the schedule is not conducive to being as spontaneous as we would like. For my kids who have always gone to traditional school, seeing their friends was the one thing they really missed about being home. So, we make do and schedule around classes.

Things that didn’t work well:

Our first geometry curriculum. BJU distance learning is what we started the semester with and it was way too difficult. Alyssa is good at math, and the way the course started out was over both our heads. A friend loaned us Math U See Geometry, and Alyssa is almost finished with the whole year already.

Most of the rest of the BJU curriculum. It’s very traditional, prescribed, and like doing school at home. We wanted our homeschool to fit us, and what we started the year with did not feel like us. We struggled to figure out the girls learning styles at the beginning of the year, so we bought things that appealed to us, but not to them.

Life of Fred math for Sarah. This book would have been great for me as a student (which is probably why we tried it). However, Sarah needs repetition of the same skill over and over, rather than a few problems of several different skills. Plus, there is a lot of reading in LOF, and she is not a reader.

Too many subjects! We started with each of the girls having their own separate curriculum for each subject. This was way too much for us to manage. Now we are all doing the same language arts and history curriculum.

Too much real curriculum! Really the only curriculum that I decided we really needed was math and science. Everything else we are making up as we go along, and it’s working.

A daily schedule/to do list for the girls to follow. This led to many arguments that started with “did you get your school done today?” and ended with me yelling or taking away phones. Now I make a list for the week and they can work on whatever they feel like that day (or not). Alyssa is close to finishing geometry for the year, so I decided she can just work on that whenever she wants and we will have a final exam when she is done. Maybe next week, maybe in May.

My goal for this semester is to simplify and at the same time keep us on tas

January 27, 2019 0 comment

Being a Wife How to be a stay-at-home mom Raising Kids

Planning for the New Year

written by Allison Schoonover

I love to plan…but I’m bad at it

I am one of those people who loves organizing stuff. Closets, drawers, desks, files…nothing makes me happier than taking a mess and making it look orderly. I am equally fond of trying to organize my thoughts and my schedule, although that’s usually a lot less successful. I write out lists – to do lists, ideas for blog posts, upcoming events that I don’t want to forget – and I inevitably lose them before I’ve had a chance to cross anything off. I start the year out with a planner…and by February, I’m so far behind in it that I give up. I have a dozen half-used journals in the bookcase, as well as a couple that I’ve abandoned online, and a Google calendar that contains about half of the events I need to remember to go to. I’m the mom who’s at Wal-Mart the night before the Christmas program buying the kids new shoes, because I just realized the program is tomorrow and no one has anything appropriate to wear. I’m the one who forgets “watch week” at gymnastics and always has a negative lunch account balance. I’m the reason why dentists’ offices call you the day before your appointment. I have ALWAYS been absent-minded, and it drives me crazy. I remember going to a sleepover as a kid and being teased because somehow, all I remembered to bring was a book to read and a toothbrush. (Who brings a book to a sleepover?)

What I usually do wrong…and what I’m going to change

So, this year, my goal is to get better at managing my schedule. I am going to stay on top of my to-do list, show up on time for things, and keep all of my brilliant thoughts and blog ideas safe until I can use them. Now, I’ve obviously tried to do this before with limited success, and I think I know why I’ve failed:

I try to do too much. Journaling several pages a day, recording everything I have to do in several different places…I get overwhelmed by how much time it takes, so I just give up altogether.
I use too many tools. I have journals, notebooks for to-do lists, meal plan worksheets, planners, electronic calendars…nothing is ever updated or complete, and it’s all way too much to carry around with me.
I don’t like the way any of it looks. I think the artist in me would be more motivated to use a notebook or planner if it looked attractive and I took more pride in keeping it legible.

Does this sound like you? I think we set ourselves up for failure by making this too hard, and by expecting to do it all perfectly. Busy moms need a system that’s easy, quick, and enjoyable, or it’s just going to be abandoned. If you want to join me in simplifying (and beautifying) your daily/weekly/monthly planning process, keep reading. Here’s what I’m going to try:

I’m whittling my tools down to two: my Google calendar and a (paper) planner. I like the Google calendar because it can send reminders to my email and phone, and I can’t lose it. As long as I can find an electronic device and remember my password, I’ll always have access to it. If you don’t have a Google account, you can sign up for one – totally free of charge – at: https://accounts.google.com/signup/v2/webcreateaccount?hl=en-AU&flowName=GlifWebSignIn&flowEntry=SignUp. You will be assigned a gmail (Google email) address, but you don’t have to use gmail if you don’t want to. You’ll get access to all kinds of stuff, like Google Calendar, Google Drive, and even YouTube. Google’s Calendar isn’t as fancy as some of the family scheduling tools I’ve tried (like Cozi, for example), but I already use gmail, so I love accessing my calendar and email in one spot.
I like a paper planner planner because I can do more with it than just record events (like write a to-do list, or a blog idea), and because it looks pretty. I found a planner online that’s beautiful, and simple, and it even has the weekly Mass readings and saints’ days pre-recorded: http://catholicmothersuk.wixsite.com/home. It’s from the UK, so the bank holidays aren’t always relevant for me here in the US, but I don’t really mind that, I guess. It has some great ideas in the back for celebrating saints’ feast days, as well as some Catholic prayers and even some recipes.
I’m giving myself 30 minutes every Sunday to sit down and get everything scheduled for the upcoming week. I’m not going to try to keep a daily journal, or record how much water I drink every day, or anything that doesn’t feel absolutely necessary. My goal is to get all the events on the calendar and in the planner, schedule out at least three meals per week in advance, and jot down all of my ideas and to-do’s as quickly and simply as I can.
I’m trying to remember that, while God wants me to be effective as the manager of my home, He also wants me to be receptive to His plans for me and my family. I can plan and plan and plan, but at some point, I need to just trust that God is in control and will take care of us – if I let Him. As the bible says in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

What about your plans for the New Year? How are you keeping yourself organized in 2019? Share with us in the comments!

January 4, 2019 0 comment

Uncategorized

Radical Friendship

written by Allison Schoonover

I Think God Wants Me to Be a Better Friend

Have you ever heard someone say that God has really been “showing them” something? Have you ever thought to yourself, “what the heck is that person talking about?” I’ve had several people tell me that God has been showing them something, and every time I hear it, I think…what? How? How do you know it’s God? Is God showing ME something and I’m totally missing it, because I have no idea how to listen to or look for God? It’s one of those things I used to dismiss as someone over-thinking a couple of random coincidences…or maybe even as just a figure of speech that doesn’t really mean anything, even to the person saying it.

However, I have recently changed my mind. I do actually think that God has been trying to show me something lately, and I think it’s because I’ve been praying about the exact thing that he’s been showing me. I think that because I’ve been asking God specifically to show me how I can be a better person – the best version of myself (don’t you like that idea? I read that in a book somewhere, and I like the sound of it) – he has put me in situations where I can see my shortcomings more clearly and practice being…better. So what has God revealed to me? That I am a crappy friend.

Yes, it’s true. I am a really lame friend. The kind that you wouldn’t even know is your friend, because she’s never around when you need her and never calls you or even texts you and possibly even avoids making eye contact with you at the store because she doesn’t want to start a conversation with you because she feels guilty because she knows she’s a bad friend. And I don’t think I’m alone, here. I think there are a lot of us who are great wives and mothers and sisters and daughters, but we completely neglect being a good friend and fail to seek out other women to become friends with.

And God has shown me that there are all kinds of people around me – young women, older women, many of them moms – who desperately need friendship.

Women who are chronically ill or in pain
Women who are lonely
Women who are going through a hard time with one of their children
Women who are going through a hard time with their husband
Women who are in financial trouble, or who have to work more than one job just to pay the bills
Women who are always giving, giving, giving…and need a breather sometimes

Reconnecting with a couple of old friends who are going through some seriously tough times (without any support from me) has forced me to be honest with myself about the kind of friend I typically am. So what kind of friend am I?

I’m the kind of friend who always says no when you ask if I can do something with you, unless it’s at my house or your house and I can bring all of the kids.
I’m the kind of friend who never calls or texts you back, because I get so caught up in whatever I’m doing that I forget about it for days, and then I feel guilty about not getting back to you, so I just pretend to myself that you never contacted me in the first place.
I’m the kind of friend who says things like, “We need to get together soon!” and then does absolutely nothing to try to make that happen.
I’m the kind of friend who would never think of telling you something you don’t want to hear, even when you really need it, because my need to be liked is stronger than my need to help you.
I’m the kind of friend who gets freaked out when you’re going through hard times and uses the excuse that “you need some time and space to sort things out” as a reason to avoid you when you need me the most.
I’m the kind of friend who assumes that you are going to reach out to me when you need a friend, and that meanwhile I’ll just do my own thing and wait for that to happen.

Why Am I So Bad at Friendship???

I think that, as moms, we give so much to our families that we think we just don’t have anything left for anyone else. I know that for me, it can be so physically and emotionally draining to take care of my kids all day that by the time my husband gets off work and I could theoretically do something with a friend, the thought of interacting with even one more person is overwhelming. I dread the sound of the phone or doorbell ringing, and I can’t even imagine going somewhere where other people might want to have a conversation with me.

In my mind, “having friends” is something that I did when I was a kid and young adult. My ideas about how to be a friend and what friends do are all from 20 years ago, when friendship was about partying all night, and spending hours together studying, and shopping, and lounging around all day in pajamas. Having friends was all about how much fun we could have together, and being a good friend meant being able to entertain someone. The best kind of friends were the ones who made you laugh the most, or who threw the best parties, or who always had something fun planned for the weekend. When I look at it through that lens, having friends doesn’t make any sense anymore. I can’t go and spend hours doing something “fun” with someone – my house is a mess and I have a thousand errands to run! I can’t party all night – I need to sleep or I’ll be a zombie for days! I can’t be fun or entertaining…unless you’re a 6-month-old who loves peek-a-boo and Dr. Seuss.

I think that my outdated, immature vision of friendship has been preventing me from making and keeping real adult friends. I’m afraid of making the commitment to being a true friend, because I feel like I don’t have what it takes. But the women around me – they all want the same kind of relationships that I do:

A friend who will call them periodically just to say hi
A friend who remembers their birthday, or wedding anniversary, or some other special occasion with a nice (or hilarious) card
A friend who finds out they’re sick or recovering from surgery and shows up with food and an offer to watch kids or run errands
A friend who says “yes” to an invitation for dinner, or coffee, or ladies’ night out
A friend who doesn’t get offended when they don’t return a text or phone call
A friend who doesn’t abandon them when times get tough
A friend they can talk to about anything
A friend who can be honest and tell them what they don’t want to hear – and still be their friend afterward

It’s Not Hopeless…Even I Can Become a Better Friend

At the end of the day, even with seven kids at home, I could take 15 minutes to call a friend and give her some encouragement. On a Saturday morning, I could go out for coffee with a friend and be home before all the kids are even awake. I could write out a quick greeting on a card and pop it in the mail while I’m waiting for the kids at school, or piano lessons, or gymnastics. I have more than enough time, love, energy, and “me” to give to a friend – to lots of friends. I think we all do, and we all need to do a better job of being there for each other.

How About You?

Have you been neglecting your friendships too? What’s one thing you could do this week to make or rekindle a friendship?

December 18, 2018 0 comment

Raising Kids

The Sleep Solution: Getting Your Baby Out of Your Bed

written by Allison Schoonover

Sleep, Glorious Sleep

There is nothing better than snuggling with a new baby. The way he smells, the little cute faces he makes, the feel of his skin on your skin…it’s the most wonderful thing in the world. You nurse him for a while, gaze lovingly upon him for a while longer, then you both fall asleep looking and feeling like an ad for Parents magazine.

Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash

Fast forward one year and it’s a bit different. Trying to relax while nursing your toddler to sleep is futile. He squirms. He bites you. He weighs a million pounds and your arms fall asleep. Every movement, every noise startles him awake. When he finally does fall asleep, you feel trapped and are so afraid of accidentally coughing or moving that you can hardly breathe, let alone fall asleep. Eventually, you decide that you have to put him in his crib, but no matter how careful you are, he wakes up and cries and you have to start all over again. Or you take him into your bed, where the cycle repeats itself over and over all night long.

But what do you do? How else can you get him to fall asleep? Is it okay to let him cry? For how long? Will he be scared? Angry? Permanently psychologically damaged??

Photo by Bastien Jaillot on Unsplash

I won’t get into the co-sleeping debate (or the cry-it-out debate, for that matter – emotions run high around infants and sleeping), but we have slept with most of our babies when they’re tiny. It makes breastfeeding easier, I think it helps with bonding, and I like being able to hear and feel them breathing. To me, the evidence that co-sleeping reduces the risk of SIDS is pretty compelling. And, let’s be honest: I’m lazy, and going back and forth to the crib all night is a lot of work.

However, inevitably, there comes a day when co-sleeping is no longer working – for any of us. No one has enough room, the baby can’t figure out how to fall asleep and ends up nursing ALL NIGHT LONG, and I feel like a zombie who would do anything (sucking out brains? maybe…) for five minutes of sleep without anyone touching me.

Photo by Filip Mroz on Unsplash

Figuring out how to get the baby out of your bed can be overwhelming. It’s hard to do anything new with your baby’s routine, even when what you’re doing isn’t working, because you’re terrified of making it even worse. Is only getting 6 hours of constantly interrupted sleep at night awful? Yes. But what if trying something new keeps you up even more? What if you don’t get any sleep at all? How can you possibly stay awake long enough for your baby to soothe himself to sleep when you’re already exhausted at 7 pm?? When you’re short on sleep, you guard it like a nine year old guards his favorite LEGO minifigure. It takes guts to make a change, and I’ve wimped out many, many times.

However, I have recently gotten desperate enough to read not just one, but two books on how to get your baby to sleep, and they were very similar and VERY effective. I’ll put the links to them below. I’m going to give you the shortened version, without any of the background explanation on why it works (does it matter?) or why it won’t hurt your baby (bottom line: a little bit of crying is not as bad as a miserable, sleep-deprived family). This technique is SO simple, SO fast, and SO gentle. It worked for me in LESS THAN A WEEK, and I’m the worst baby-getter-to-sleeper that I’ve ever met. This works for naps, too, which we are now enjoying on a daily basis. The books advise starting at no earlier than 4 months; it worked like a dream for my 13-month old.

Step One:

Figure out a bedtime routine. It can be as elaborate or as simple as you want it to be. Include elements like: taking a bath, putting on pajamas, playing quietly together, reading a story, saying goodnight to the baby’s toys, turning on a noise machine or fan, saying prayers, etc. Try to do the routine in the same order every night. If you make nursing or a bottle part of the routine, make sure the baby is NOT asleep when you put him in his bed. We started out pretty elaborate but have pared it down to: bath, pajamas, nurse for five minutes, bed. The optimal bedtime for toddlers and babies is between 7 and 7:30, so start your routine well before that time. Don’t worry, your baby will sleep for HOURS when he’s in his own bed. Our one-year-old is regularly sleeping for 12 hours at night now that he’s not in bed with us; he used to sleep fewer than 9. Don’t try to move bedtime later in order to get a later wake-up time; that actually backfires and causes them to wake up earlier (I don’t understand why, but the books both go into the science behind it).

Step Two:

Figure out what you’re going to say when you check on your baby. It should be the same phrase every time you check on him. Ours is, “I’m just checking on you; I love you; good night.” Practice it, post it on the door, and make sure you say it in a calm, loving voice. If you sound frazzled and annoyed, it won’t be as effective. If you vary the wording, even a little bit, it won’t be as effective.

Step Three:

Do it. Do your bedtime routine and put the baby in bed. Say your phrase (we omit the “I’m just checking on you” and just say, “I love you; good night”). He will probably be crying. If he is crying, check on him at these intervals until he stops:

1st check: 5 minutes after you put him in bed

2nd check: 10 minutes after the first check

3rd check: 15 minutes after the second check

All subsequent checks: 15 minutes apart until he stops crying

When you do your checks, walk into the room, say your phrase, and leave. Don’t touch him. Don’t add anything to your phrase. Don’t rearrange his blankets, give him a toy, or do anything other than say your phrase. If you vary what you do, the baby doesn’t know what to expect, and it stresses him out. If you do the exact same thing every time, it soothes and reassures him.

If he starts crying again later in the night, do the checks at the same intervals until he stops.

If he’s poopy, or he’s got his arm or leg stuck in the crib, or something like that, go ahead and fix the problem as quickly and quietly as possible, then continue with your checks.

Step Four:

Marvel at how great a parent you are. For us, this system worked immediately, and we’ve never had to do more than four checks. Usually, especially at naptime, we don’t have to do any checks at all. It doesn’t seem to matter which one of us does the bedtime routine or the checks, but I usually do most of it because our baby is going through kind of a mom obsession right now. This is working for us even though we’re using the laundry room for his sleeping space, since he shares a room with his brothers and we can’t figure out how to get them all to sleep at the same time. We’re just using a portable crib and a white noise machine, and he seems to love it.

The books I’m linking below will give you more information about troubleshooting, how to modify the system for older kids, and why sleep is so important for development. I highly recommend finding both of these books – even paying full price if you have to – and reading them cover to cover. But if you’re desperate and too sleep-deprived to imagine reading an entire book, or waiting for it to ship, just start with this post and see what happens. If it worked for us, there is hope for everyone.

Photo by Dave Clubb on Unsplash

The Books That Helped Me:

The Happy Sleeper: http://thehappysleeper.com/book/

The Sleepeasy Solution: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/474621.The_Sleepeasy_Solution

October 13, 2018 0 comment

Homeschool Living your Faith

Be Still and… Homeschool

written by Emily Thams

I’m back! After an incredibly busy summer, making the decision to homeschool and preparing to teach two of our three daughters (our oldest is a senior and doesn’t want to homeschool), I am returning to the place where I have been longing to be, Radical Motherhood.

The last couple of weeks I have been learning how to homeschool teenagers. Let me tell you, it is way more difficult than sending them to public school. There is a considerable amount of preparation each week (even though sometimes it is fruitless-we don’t stick to the plan), constant navigating the waters of teenage moodiness, juggling activities that we chose to incorporate in our school, volunteering, socializing, not to mention someone still has to make dinner every night (and that’s still me). It has been a steep learning curve.

My biggest struggle has been internal (which, Alyssa could tell you, is a type of conflict found in literature, and that her favorite character Holden Caulfield is experiencing). I am torn between two separate worlds. The one where I want us to dig in and get school done as efficiently and orderly as possible, on a schedule, focused and organized, filling all of our time with learning, and the one where I want to let the girls sleep a little later, study a little less, paint, draw, laugh, and play games.

I have moments of panic looking at their weekly assignment schedule and not seeing enough items crossed off at the end of the week. I start to think about if we are as far as we should be and if we are doing enough. Then I scold them a little, pointing at the list, asking “what have you been doing all week”? We argue, I win, they do the work grudgingly.

Then we have other moments, when none of us wants to learn about supplementary angles or edit a sentence from the workbook, but we all want to listen to music and paint, or play a game of ping-pong, or talk and laugh. Those days we just enjoy ourselves.

This week I have been thinking a lot about the sermon from last Sunday. It was based on James 4:4, and all week I have been noticing the message playing out in my real life. (I think I had another AHA! moment if you will, like when I quit my job to be a SAHM again.)

Anyway, James 4:4 says

“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”

How do we avoid being friends of this world?

We are surrounded by messages that tell us to invest ourselves in this world. That we should have a big house and nice cars, that it’s ok to spend all of our free time watching Netflix, that our kids should be involved in an after school activity everyday, no matter the cost or time commitment. We start to believe that God is for Sunday’s and holidays, not every day. Everyday is for the world.

For teenagers especially, homeschooling allows us to ignore a lot of the things of the world. We avoid so many things that draw kids into worldly temptations- boy-girl relationships, competition, comparison, alcohol and drugs. That’s not to say that we are living under a rock not socializing with anyone. But the difference in attitude in my girls when they were going to public school versus homeschool (not absence of attitude-just not as constantly aggravating), the openness and communication, and their innocence, which was slowly disappearing, has returned. Our days are more lighthearted, calm, quiet. There are fewer tears, less yelling, and more hugs.

We don’t feel like it’s necessary to be involved in everything and don’t feel like we’re missing out on everything (because most of the time we are unaware of what everyone else is doing). Feeling like you are missing out is a huge, terrible thing for teenagers that often leads to bad decisions.

I am reading “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World” for my Monday Bible study, and in it I found another great example of why I need to learn not to be a friend of this world. The story of Mary and Martha resonates with all women of course- the desire to be a perfect hostess for the Lord versus the desire to ignore the world and sit at his feet. It certainly speaks to me. I love this passage from the book:

“The world clamors, “Do more! Be all that you can be!” But our Father whispers, “Be still and know that I am God.”

The world tells our teens to ace that test! Be in every sport! Do that activity so it can go on your resume! Buy that outfit! Look like her! Fit in! You’re too old to play! You need to be busy!

I think that God whispers through Christian homeschoolers to be still, take the time, know each other, love each other, focus on truly important goals. He shows us that busyness is a distraction and waste of time. He tells us, as he told Martha, that she need not be worried and upset about many things, that “few things are needed-or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:42) He keeps us away from the destructive things that face our teens in schools. He shows us where we need to grow and allows us the time to do so.

Back to James. I love the book of James, for one, because it’s short and I can read it in one sitting. But I also love the no-nonsense writing, the urging to do what is right and good. It’s an instruction manual for how to persevere through persecution. James reminds us that we will have problems, but that we need to commit ourselves to Godly living and persevere.

As a homeschooler, I sometimes feel persecution (sometimes just from my own mind). Sometimes I doubt whether we are doing the right thing. Whether my girls will get enough from being at home. If they are missing out on something at school. Whether they are learning enough and checking off enough of the boxes.

I just need to remember that the goal is not to measure up to the standards of the world. I need to listen for that whisper.

October 4, 2018 0 comment

Finding Joy Homeschool

Our Homeschool Un-Curriculum and Routine

written by Allison Schoonover

So, apparently, we took the summer off from blogging. I don’t think we intended to, but I truly didn’t have ANY time to sit down with the computer at any point during the last three months, aside from sending an occasional email and pulling up PJ Masks on YouTube for my 3 year old. We were so busy just keeping the kids alive and safe and the house from deteriorating into a cesspool that I didn’t have any brainpower left to do anything creative at all. Needless to say, we did not homeschool this summer. In fact, I have never homeschooled during the summer, nor have I ever even briefly considered homeschooling during the summer. I can see why parents do it, and I do think that many math and geography and grammar facts probably do evaporate into the ozone during the summer months, but I just can’t make myself or my children “do school” when we could be at the pool, or at the park, or building something awesome out of LEGOs, or just lying around in our pajamas basking in the air conditioning. Plus, two of my kids go to a “normal” school, and it just seems unfair to make the other ones do schoolish things while those two take the summer off.

https://unsplash.com/@kellysikkema

Anyway, before I get into what we’re doing for homeschool this year, I have to share how my homeschooling philosophy has evolved since we started homeschooling in 2010. I’ve talked to other homeschool moms I know, and I think that the way my thinking about education and how kids learn has changed over the years is pretty typical. Maybe, if you’re new to homeschooling or considering homeschooling, I can help you skip some of the struggles that I had in earlier years. When I started out, my idea of homeschooling was to replicate regular school at home. We had a school room, desks, textbooks, regular school hours, lunch time, recess time, and a very rigorous 32-week agenda. We all pretty much hated it, but I couldn’t conceive of any other way for the kids to learn what I thought they had to learn. Wasn’t school the ideal way to learn? Weren’t textbooks and worksheets the best way to impart information? Didn’t we need to sit still, at our desks, for 6 hours a day so that the kids would learn how to sit still, at desks, for 6 hours a day? Aren’t you kind of supposed to hate school? Shouldn’t kids get used to doing stuff they hate, so they’re prepared for doing stuff they hate at their jobs?

https://unsplash.com/@charleingracia

We tried many, many, MANY different curricula – Saxon Math, Teaching Textbooks, Math U See, Our Father’s World, Learning Language Arts Through Literature, Emma Serl’s Primary Language Lessons, Institute for Excellence in Writing, the Robinson Curriculum, and Story of the World, just to name a small fraction. Every year, we changed curriculum in the hopes that we would eventually find THE curriculum that would make school fun. Or, at least more tolerable. My kids liked NOTHING. None of it. Each school year got progressively more horrible until, in desperation, I enrolled them in a private school in January of 2015. In 2016, I decided we would try homeschooling again with my younger kids, and I proceeded to do exactly what I had done the last time, setting up a school room, buying a bunch of textbooks and workbooks, and scheduling our days down to the minute. Again, everyone was miserable. Every day, my daughter complained about how her preschool class was SO much better than this, and she hated all of our textbooks, and it was so unfair that her younger brother didn’t have to do anything. But, we endured, and she learned how to read and add, so I felt like the year was a success.

https://unsplash.com/@bernardhermant

In 2017, we enrolled in Classical Conversations (https://www.classicalconversations.com/), which is sort of hard to describe. You go to a group lesson once a week where the kids memorize a bunch of facts in a bunch of different subject areas, then you practice memorizing those facts at home. The older kids put those facts to use and learn more about each subject, but the little kids just focus on memorization and building a foundation for later years. It’s based on the Classical model of education, which is pretty rigorous and intimidating to me. I mean, you have to learn Latin, for one thing. To be totally honest, I didn’t (and still don’t) really understand or enjoy what I perceive to be the Classical model of education. My only purpose was, and still is, to get the kids out of the house, around other kids, and have someone else teach them for a while. And to be around other moms and possibly have an adult conversation with them. And, there’s no required homework, so if we decide we don’t want to practice our memory work at home, no one knows (or cares) whether we did it or not. Grace gets to have a bookbag, and a teacher, and recess, and friends, and for those reasons, we love Classical Conversations. It’s expensive, and getting ready to go there is like packing for a week-long vacation, but right now, it’s well worth it. And you can really impress homeschool naysayers when your 4-year-old can skip count by 15 and rattle off a bunch of random history facts. So that really worked last year, but our at-home schooling continued to deteriorate until, in January, I decided to quit. We closed up the Math books and the Language Arts books and the Handwriting books and just did whatever we felt like doing instead. Were we unschooling? I don’t know. I’ve read a ton of books on unschooling, and I feel like it’s this secret society of ultra-cool parents who would scorn all of my ideas on parenting and education, so I’m not going to call us unschoolers. But we did not do anything that looked like any kind of school from January till May, and it was such a relief. We were still learning – because we are all learning, all the time, even when we aren’t doing worksheets to prove it. When learning isn’t forced, and you let kids’ natural curiosity take over, they actually learn more and retain it longer. For real. You just have to be there, ready to answer questions, and have conversations, and find resources for them to use.

https://unsplash.com/@hannaholinger

One thing that doesn’t get much attention in homeschooling circles is how awful it can be to be not only the “bad guy” in the mom/parenting realm, but to also be the “bad guy” in the teacher/school realm. I felt like all I did all day long was order my children to do things they hate. “Do page 36!” “Rinse off your dishes!” “Pick up that toy!” I was CONSTANTLY telling them what to do (and stop doing), every minute of the day. Now, I know that kids have to learn to do things they dislike, but our WHOLE day was one long series of chores that they (and I) hated. It was nice to say yes to things like going to the park, building forts, and even (gasp) watching cartoons. Not surprisingly, I’ve found that many of the things I’ve taught my kids while we’re all in the hating-school frame of mind doesn’t stay with them, so all of that time we spent doing workbooks was actually less productive than trips to the park or playing Barbies (which, if nothing else, at least teaches us that we can enjoy each other). So, while we were on hiatus from homeschooling, I read a LOT of books. The best were by John Holt (https://www.johnholtgws.com/), who is sort of the father of modern homeschooling, although his vision for homeschooling is to just let kids learn naturally, without curriculum or structure. He gives a very convincing critique of our education system in the United States, and he’s therefore very against the type of homeschooling that I had always thought I needed to do, and the type I had been basically failing at for 7 years. Ask yourself these two questions: Did I learn what I was supposed to learn from school? Do I use what I learned in school? For many of us, the answer to those questions is “No!”, yet we continue to think that school is a great way to educate and prepare children for the adult world. As the mom of a high school senior, I am seeing first hand that what school does to prepare our kids for real life is very, very limited. Read one of John Holt’s books (links below); he says it much better and more convincingly than I do.

https://spielgaben.com/spielgaben-toy/

This year, we are just getting started, and I didn’t buy any curriculum at all. I bought some really cool toys (links below), and this thing called Spielgaben (super expensive, but still less than buying curriculum for two students), and that’s it (other than Classical Conversations, which we are going to do again as well). My plan is to read aloud to the kids every day from “good” books (Alice in Wonderland is what we’re starting with), to put supplies on the kitchen table every morning for them to play with (art projects, Spielgaben pieces, LEGOs, math games, magnetic letters), and to get outside (or to the Rec Center, when the weather is bad) for at least an hour a day. My plan is to back way off and let them take charge of what they learn. Just yesterday, Grace told me she wants to learn more about animals and dinosaurs, so I’m going to get out a bunch of books on animals and dinosaurs from our home library. She can read them or look at them or totally ignore them; my role is to give her the resources she needs and let her use them however she wants. Phil and Stevie love to build things, so I’m going to make sure we have plenty of Play-Doh, LEGOs, and blocks to play with. We’ll cook together. We’ll clean up together. We’ll pick up weird rocks and leaves. We’ll Google things. We’ll see what happens when you mix toothpaste and glue and lotion and glitter. We’ll have deep conversations about life, and God. We’ll go places and meet people. I’ll still be the parent, and I’ll still be in charge, but not in the same tyrannical way I was before. It’s a little scary, and I have had moments of panic where I came this close to buying Math books, but remembering this is what keeps me from doing it: I am NOT on a mission to raise kids who are like everyone else, who end up looking to the world to give them a sense of worth and purpose. I am on a mission to raise kids who know and trust God, and look to Him for their sense of worth and purpose. Their natural curiosity will lead them to learning – and to God – much more effectively than any curriculum. I’m their first model of what God is like, and God is not the kind of teacher who screams, “I SAID no snack until your Geography lesson is done!” I know that sounds weird. But I’ve decided that the weirder – the more RADICAL – my homeschool looks in the eyes of the world, the better.

If you’re skeptical, try this: Try to pretend that school as you know it doesn’t exist, has never existed, and imagine how you would help your kids learn about the world and become great thinkers – and responsible adults. I’m going to guess that sitting at a desk with a textbook and number 2 pencil is not what first comes to mind.

Links to our homeschool toys:

Geo boards: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XP1Z1A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Balance scale: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000296LRK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Fort builder: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007CMF5SG/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Magnetic Poetry First Words: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CBHTGA/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Magnetic Poetry Story Maker: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1928576737/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Magnetic Alphabet Tiles: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JEVRXMY/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Spielgaben: https://spielgaben.com/spielgaben-toy/

Other great “learning” toys we use all the time: LEGOs, DUPLOs, Play-Doh, paint, paper, chalk, cardboard tubes and boxes, dolls, stuffed animals, a dollhouse and dollhouse furniture (mostly homemade), costumes (capes, masks, old Halloween costumes, old gymnastics outfits), puzzles, board games, DIY slime

Un-curriculum Math Books:

Family Math (book of math games I got FREE because my library didn’t want it anymore): https://www.amazon.com/Family-Math-Equals-Jean-Stenmark/dp/0912511060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535209395&sr=8-1&keywords=family+math+book

The Joy of Mathematics (cool math facts, tricks, ideas) https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Mathematics-Theoni-Pappas-ebook/dp/B003WJRONC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535209483&sr=8-1&keywords=joy+of+mathematics

Playing with Math: https://naturalmath.com/playingwithmath/

John Holt’s Books (there are many more that I haven’t read):

How Children Learn: https://www.amazon.com/Children-Learn-Classics-Child-Development-ebook/dp/B00ADO79QQ/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1535808738&sr=8-5&keywords=john+holt

How Children Fail: https://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Fail-John-Holt-ebook/dp/B018P2AB94/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1535808738&sr=8-4&keywords=john+holt

Teach Your Own: https://www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Own-John-Homeschooling-ebook/dp/B00A8SIKBA/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1535808738&sr=8-3&keywords=john+holt

Learning All the Time: https://www.amazon.com/Learning-All-Time-John-Holt-ebook/dp/B019NT84TW/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1535808738&sr=8-7

September 1, 2018 0 comment

Being a Wife

How to Make Every Day Father’s Day

written by Allison Schoonover

…Because Every Day Should Feel Like Father’s Day

Father’s Day always seems to sneak up on me, and before I know it, it’s the Friday beforehand and I have no cards, no gifts, and no idea how to celebrate. So this post is not going to help you solve that problem, because I have yet to solve it myself. However, I think all of us moms and wives can do a better job of honoring our husbands in their roles as fathers all year long. Me especially, because I spend WAY more time thinking about how hard I’M working and how hard MY role is than about all of the (mostly thankless) work my husband does for our family. If we celebrate them all year long, maybe they won’t mind so much when they get a card that’s not signed, a gift card to Wal-Mart, and a frozen pizza for dinner on the actual holiday.

I know that in my household, Mom tends to get most of the attention and praise, while Dad usually takes on more of a background, supporting role. And maybe that’s how things need to be when kids are young. But dads do so much in terms of guiding, providing, encouraging, and supporting us as moms, they deserve to be cherished and honored every single day of the year.

I admit that I don’t show my love and appreciation for my husband as often or as clearly as I should. There are days when he comes home to a chaotic mess of a house full of whiny kids and a less-than-cheerful wife and probably wishes he could go right back to work. Or at least hide out in the garage for a while. But there are little things I’ve found that I can do pretty easily that go a long way toward making him feel special and happy to be home. Things like:

Doing a quick pick-up around the house before he gets home
Sending him off for the day and greeting him when he gets home with a smile and a hug (or even better, a kiss)
Asking about his day and actually listening to what he says
Making some of his favorite snacks and meals throughout the week
Giving him some “me” time to read the paper and relax
Being physically affectionate and touching him
Thanking him for what he does – big things, like his job, and little things, like putting the clothes in the dryer
Consulting him on decisions around the house and taking his advice seriously
Stopping the kids when they interrupt our conversations and making them wait until we’re done talking
Giving him time for his hobbies
Letting him help with disciplining the kids
Trying to support, rather than undermine, his disciplinary decisions
Letting him wash the dishes, the toilet, and the laundry his way (even though it’s clearly inferior to my way)
Not always making him the bad guy when the kids need to be punished or given bad news
Keeping my mouth shut when I want to complain to him, correct him, gossip with him, or say any of the pointless and un-Christian thoughts that crop up in my head throughout the day
Praying for him
Singing his praises to my family and friends and defending him against criticism
Dressing modestly and avoiding any behavior that might be interpreted as flirting with other men
Letting him have the remote control
Welcoming his friends and family into our home

What do you do to make every day feel like Father’s Day for your husband?

June 16, 2018 0 comment

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