The Wolf Would Eat You If He Could

If I ever catch up to 2017 in our family photo albums, I will be glad to have kept this blog so I will have records of life as we know it at this point of history... from the microscopic of a certain child's latest tantrum, to the macroscopic of a weekend camping trip with the Kushners, to the larger contexts of life in Northern Virginia with its infuriatingly bipolar spring weather volleys and incompetent motorists. It's difficult to craft blog masterpieces on limited sleep and the insulin shock of having consumed a quarter of a baking pan of brownies in 24 hours, especially if the most interesting thing in my life these days is the zany conversations I have with my 9 year old. 

We did drive out to Cleveland for my cousin Ricky's wedding the last weekend in April. I had a hunch they were going to get married when I first met Sydney at Christmas several years ago. I wish I had that same foresight when I packed our overnight bags for the occasion. When Lake Erie is blowing 40 degree gusts over the city, chiffon dresses and sandals are not appropriate. But isn't that just like spring? How naive, my Floridian thinking, expecting that spring-time was flowers, butterflies, and a white cardigan. No, it's more of a tug-of-war between 80 degree summer previews, among 40 degree wintery reminders that summer starts in June. Gigi recently said to me, "I miss Florida! Why did we ever leave?!" Girl speaks truth. I never felt more Caribbean blooded than the day the temperatures finally rose to 90; the Virginian natives all ran for the shade with their whine glasses, and I came skipping down the alley with my arms wide open singing, "I'm walking on sunshine, whoaaaa!"  And just like that I went from the shy, introverted homeschool hermit back to my old hello-and-how-do-you-do, smiley, sing-songy self. The kind of self that would find confidence in planning and directing the American Heritage Girls' Awards banquet with 2 weeks notice. Or energetically leading large groups of unfamiliar children in a series of impromptu relay games at the Co-op End of Year Picnic. In the rain. The kind of self that won't have a panic attack when, at said picnic, Danny should call me to let me know that our 90 days till pack-out suddenly became 60. 

Truth be told, it's been a rotten week. But Danny took me to dinner last night after I burned my chicken soup dinner to a toxic sludge. So that gave me the strength to hear of the death of my great-aunt who I had wanted to visit in Cuba, and courage to face the news that our landlord will not be extending our lease for the one-month between the end of the lease and the end of Danny's training. What a wrench! Our movers will be here in less than two-months. That's two months to wrap up genealogy interviews and transcriptions; to sort all of our personal effects into rooms designated for donation, storage, Bolivia, air-freight, and the stuff we need to keep with us on the plane. Two months left to identify all those things I can't buy in Bolivia (like sunscreen, apparently) or use in Bolivia (like my car, on account of import restriction), or things that I need to fix (like my kitchen knives that haven't been sharpened in the 12 years I've owned them). We have to figure out cell phone service. We have to get yellow fever vaccines and travel visas. And in the middle of all this, one of my children is beginning testing for auditory processing deficiencies. I could write a whole book on that process but I am tired of the topic. As it is, we have an audiologist appointment tomorrow and a speech-language pathologist appointment on Thursday so I am sure more talking is in my very near future. I started asking friends to pray and wouldn't you know it, Danny got a flat tire on the way home. 

Regarding my turbulent child, I did have a moment of insight today with a little experiment of my own. I had pinned a photo card to the bulletin board behind the front door. I was talking with the others about the card. My last child wanted to see what all the fuss is about. I instruct him to look behind the door. He asks, which door. We direct him to the front door. He walks over to the door and stares at the backside of the door, complaining that there is nothing there. We tell him to keep looking. He keeps staring at the back of the door, beginning to get upset, as if everyone is playing a trick on him. "It's behind the door," the other kids try to get him to think. This upsets the last child even more. He feels left out. He feels puzzled. He begins to whine and then to cry. This is the child who needs to see a specialist. Because moments like this are constant. He defies learning to read by phonics. He has a breakdown when he sees a new word in his readings. He is paralyzed with insecurity when he is asked to draw letters. He demands a "why" for every negative response, but when we give him reasons, they seem to bounce off his brain. He can't hear it. His brain doesn't hear it. To make matters more alarming, he is white as a sheet and no amount of sun is helping. He's also only eating breakfast and is disappearing into skin and bones. So. Someone thinks they can get to the bottom of this. We'll see. We have 60 days to figure it out. Maybe less. I'm not counting... I'm busy trying to keep up with Noemie's reading. Her book list for the month is attached at the end of the post. And that photo card every one was trying to see was a Thank You card from Ricky and Sydney, featuring a picture of their son, Kingston, hugging Gigi. 

Gigi says she's famous now. She writes her own songs, you know. Late at night you can hear her singing, "Red Riding Hood, Red Riding Hood the wolf is crying in the woods. Red Riding Hood, Red Riding Hood the wolf would eat you if he could." Over. And over. And over. While slurring her speech because she is that tired. Maybe she'll sleep in so when I wake up at 7:30 to do Yoga with Adriene (Youtube!) she won't be trying to climb on my back or crawl under my downward facing dog. It's hard to hold an eagle pose when pillow bombs are grazing me.

*I* need to pray. I have a lot to get done. Yet it will be 10 in the morning and the kids are sneaking off to read books any time I turn my head, tattling on each other, UGH. You know what I need? More kids. I'm losing my mind. We have friends coming over this weekend. We are camping tomorrow night. June is a month of absolute crazy. 

In the past month, these are the new books Noemie has read, which I pre-read (to say nothing of the books that she reads in between, while she waited for me to give her new ones):  

Mysterious Benedict Society 

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey 

Charlie and Chocolate Factory 

Charlie and Great Glass Elevator

Serafina’s Promise

Charlotte’s Web

Kingdom’s Dawn

Kingdom’s Hope

Kingdom’s Edge

The Great Brain

Invention of Hugo Cabret

100 Dresses

Wheel on the School

The Cheshire Cheese Cat

King of the Wind

Maniac Magee

The Saturdays

Some Writer

Dominic

Because of Winn Dixie

All of A Kind Family

Hans Brinker

Don Quixote de la Mancha

The Incredible Journey

Wollstonecraft Detective Agency #3

Finding Serendipity

Nurse Matilda 

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

Freddy the Pig and the Men from Mars

(Most of them are below her reading level- she goes through two a day sometimes, but I just can't go any faster!)

Most commonly heard expression these days: "I could never do what you do"... Uprooting every year or two and dragging the family to another random spot on the globe. I would have said the same thing!  I am a homebody! Sometimes you just have to put one foot in front of the other when you're following God's will. One day you will look back at your life and think, "How did I get here? And how did I survive?!" And the only possible answer will be, "With God's grace, and to His glory." And isn't that the point of life?