A Season for Everything

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build up,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (NIV)

...A time to blog, and a time not to blog.

I made that last bit up...:-)

I've been blogging now for about three and a half years, and it has been a critical part in refining the parenting skills I've used with the child. Now, however, I feel like we've hit a new stage in our journey. It appears to be a stage in which more direct time and energy is required of me, and blogging seems to drain the resources rather than fill them up.  I know part of me will miss this, and I know that if I ever feel it will be useful again then I'll be back in a flash, but more than both of those I know this is the right decision for myself and my daughter.

I've already said goodbye at the other blog that I contribute to here. I'll be leaving the site "up" so if people find it and need the information here it will be here.

Whatever has brought you here, thank you for sharing your time with me, and wherever you go from here, may God bless and direct your steps.

J is for Jelly

Sometimes I wonder if the child can "read my mind." If so it is not a fully realized skill, at least based on this week's Alphabe-Thursday post. I thought for sure she would pick Jelly Beans for her J word...especially since her first field trip by school bus this past year was to a local Jelly Bean factory.

After some false starts she settled on the word Jelly. (Close, but not quite, Mom.)

Jelly is another staple around here. This week we just have grape, and it's just the generic store brand, so not that exciting of a photo...I know. All kind of plain isn't it...but in my book there is little better than hot buttered toast with a bit of grape jelly. Yum!

It is a bit of a bone of contention, though, too. Sometime in the middle of the school year the child started asking for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in her lunch. Not a problem. She generally gets on a streak where she wants the same thing for weeks on end. That's not a problem either, except that evidently she burned out on PB&J. Now it is Summer and we do a fair amount of packing lunches to take them on road trips, or to the park, or whatever. The easiest thing to pack is sandwiches and now she no longer wants peanut butter and Jelly. For a while she would eat meat and cheese, but no more. I personally like peanut butter and Jelly, but not together, so I've tried one half of each, but that was not satisfactory. To make matters worse, the boy has a mild peanut allergy, so I usually just give him Jelly and then...that's what she wants, but she needs the protein and he drinks milk (which she won't). It all sounds very minor until you know that when she isn't happy about something it displays with aggression, sometimes even hours later when I think the whole problem has blown over. When it's over something that I don't feel I can compromise on (like ingesting some protein) it's like being caught in a trap. Well today maybe I got a break. We had sandwiches for lunch and without batting an eye she requested peanut butter and Jelly again. You're sure? Yep.

So what was that all about? I'll never know...

Maybe Alphabe-Thursday just did me a huge favor!

Jump on over to all the other Jubilant Jiffies here.

I is for Ice Cream

We are home again - first day back - so this will be short and sweet (literally!)

It didn't take the child long to think of something that starts with I, and then ask to have it for dessert. Luckily we had some in the freezer.

Ice cream is kind of a staple around here. It is rare to find us with no Ice cream in the house. My husband is a dessert hound, and has passed this on to his children quite nicely. When she asks for Ice cream I really don't mind. She refuses to drink milk, so this is one way to get some calcium in her, and since she is so active she is skinny as a rail. Yes, she gets that from her daddy, too.

I scream

You scream

We all scream

for Ice Cream!

Go get some...you know you want it...

Then hurry back to Investigate other Imaginative Inventions here...

H is for Harness

Here we are at Grandma's House, and just squeaking in for the Alphabe-Thursday letter H through the eyes of the child.

In unfamiliar territory it took a while to think of a word that starts with H, but the one she arrived at is very fitting in a sweet and sad kind of way. It used to be, you see, that a big part of the thrill of going to Grandma's House was getting to see Grandma's dog. Grandma's rambunctious, rascally, over-excitable, but beautiful, brindled boxer. Our children viewed McKenzie as sort of a long-distance pet. We have no pets of our own, and the fun of walking, feeding, and playing with Grandma's dog never got old (we went Home before that ever happened.) Sadly, McKenzie died about six months ago, somewhat suddenly though not unexpectedly. It has been very sad for Grandma, who misses her constant companion, and a great loss for the children as well.

Grandma is not quite up to the task of taking on another pet (though she would if we didn't put our foot down) and so there is a great void now at Grandma's House.

Today when asked for a word starting with H, the child thought for a long time, and then said, "Harness - McKenzie's Harness that we used to walk her," then promptly went to the closet and found it in its usual handy hanging spot. Luckily, the child had also brought (400 miles, in the van) our large stuffed dog which was more than Happy to model the Harness. Then I realized that she probably brought this dog to try to fill the void. Even after I snapped this photo she "walked" the dog around the house, much to our amusement.

In loving memory of sweet McKenzie, and all pets everywhere who have brought us so much joy.

Head over to Ms. Jenny's Headquarters to read more Heavenly Headlines

G is for Green

We are now departing noun-land. So far everything the child has decided I should photograph was a noun: apron, blanket, cup, dresser, elephant, fireflies...GREEN. Maybe there just wasn't a noun in sight that started with G, or maybe she realized photography is visual and you can take a picture of a adjective, too. Maybe she remembered that Green is one of my favorite colors.

Can you take a picture of something Green, Mom?
Sure. What Green thing should I take a picture of?
The palm leaf.

Silly me at first I thought she meant one of Daddy's beautiful house plants. Nope.

No she wants me to reveal to the world (well some small portion of it anyway) that we still have Easter decorations up in plain sight at our house. Yep.

This is a palm leaf made in Sunday School by Little Brother on Palm Sunday (so technically Pre-Easter Decorations.)

He even embellished it a little with some green paint. So it is Green on Green...very Green. And yes, it is (past) the 4th of July, but we all know people who keep their Christmas trees up until Valentine's Day or so, so what's the big deal, right? Go ahead, enjoy a laugh at my expense.

Then Go Gander at other Great Goodies here.

F is for Fireflies

Time for Alphabe-Thursday Fun with the child. This week's letter is F, and when I asked the child to help me think of something that starts with F we Floundered a bit at First. Furniture? File? We have lots of both, but they are not very exciting to look at.

Then over breakfast we were discussing a recent craft from storytime at our local library and it hit us - Fireflies!

Fireflies - of course!

Each child got to make their own Firefly at the library. The parts were already cut out for them, and we just glued them together. This was one of the first craft times that the kids all worked relatively independently and I just watched them in action. It was a special camping-themed story time, so there were also coloring sheets, but only the child did one of those. Nice blue hair, no? And the bear, in case you're wondering, is a polar bear. But I digress...

We were discussing the fireflies and who made which, and which was "better." There was a model to follow, you see, but each kid "followed" it in their own way. Little boy made his firefly friendly - see it waving hello? Little girl made her firefly in flight. We decided the child's firefly was standing in profile - one wing behind and one in front. And so, I concluded, I like all of the Fireflies...very much.

To Find the other Fun Follies click here.

E is for Elephant Fun

When I asked the child for an E word this week she said, "Who is making us do this, Mom?" he he he...
"It's just for fun," I said. And then she proved me wrong. Last week I said I think she just looks around and says the first thing she sees that starts with that letter. Well for E she thought about it and said, "Elephant." Needless to say there weren't any elephants around. So I asked her which elephant she was thinking of. We actually have lots of elephants at our house, because I happen to love elephants. They are my favorite animal. A couple of years ago I was so happy to get to ride an elephant in a natural environment when we visited Bali. I have collected elephant pictures, books, figurines, and stuffed animals. So she caught me off guard, again - it is her specialty - when she said she wanted me to take a picture of the Elephant from Monkey Dunk.

In case you are not familiar, Monkey dunk is a Milton Bradley game from Hasbro. It is sort of a take off from tiddlywinks. Each player is given four plastic monkeys (yellow, red, green, or purple).

These monkeys jump when you push on their backside. It is a little tricky for small fingers, but with a little hand over hand and encouragement I got the four year old twins jumping monkeys in no time.

The object is to jump your monkeys into the swimming hole. The elephant guards one of the swimming holes, and also acts as a timer for the game. When you push the bottom of the elephant in it sets a spring that slowly unwinds and then...POPS! When the elephant pops some of the monkeys jump again. Each player counts how many of his monkeys end up in the swimming hole and takes a banana token for each swimming monkey.

The bonus of getting this game out to take photos of the Elephant is that the kids are all now happily playing monkey dunk while I write the post. It's a super fun win,win, win.

To see other Excellent Excerpts on E click here.

Disclaimer: in case the spontaneous nature of this post wasn't clear enough...no compensation (except laughter and fun times) was provided by Hasbro for this advertisement. Good deal for them, no?