My sweet hubby sent this quote to me today : - ) Number Two

Today Douglas sent me this quote by none other than himself,

"In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My shirts will not be pressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire your ironing ability."

At first I just had to giggle and giggle, then I was a bit worried- had he run out of ironed shirts? And yes, we ( Erica who enjoys ironing over all other jobs/chores and I) iron his shirts for him but then he will changes nappies, put kids to bed, wash dishes etc and earns good bucks - so you absolutely cannot call him a MCP, all you feminists out there! Besides last time he ironed, the phone rang and he jokingly pretended to pick up the phone/iron and burnt his face! He is better at doing engineering than ironing anyway! 'Tis called team work!

Sometimes I might add he prefers to wear an un-ironed shirt, so don't blame me if you see him wearing a crumpled shirt- he can be somewhat unconventional. (Of course I am never unconventional , am I?) I finally asked him about the shirts when he arrived home after 10 PM tonight, after taxi-ing kids around...he reassured me he was just enjoying playing with words....should have just checked the wardrobe :), but today has just been one of those super-di-duper busy days! And we were at home for most of the day too. I look forward to putting my feet up this weekend, of course only after ironing:-). Never mind, he will put his feet up too, after he has vacumed the house etc...he's a good man, my man; he is and " 'tiz de truph!" (it's the truth)
As I quoted on the 21st January True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love's sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

My sweet hubby sent this quote to me today : - )

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.(Jane Austen)

Having fun together on our Wedding anniversary last year, in the end we couldn't stop laughing and I can't even remember what we were laughing about...20 years together, nearly 21 now and we are still totally committed to each other! MMMM bliss!

Destiny

It isn't the problems which determine our destiny. It's how we respond.

(Elizabeth Elliot from the book, A Path Through Suffering, p 91
Elizabeth Elliot's husband was killed tragically as a missionary pilot)

Coetzee Family: answer to prayer

Many of you followed the needs and prayed for the Coetzee family last year...A homeschooling family of 6 suddenly lost their mother in South Africa. We have much to rejoice about in God's provision! Friends of ours from university days, Wendy and Barry, continued to home school them together with their own children....11 children all together! And a friend of Jessica's, Arrianne, from her play group in South Africa spent some time helping Wendy too. And now after prayers have been uttered for them all over the world a missionary lady, Rentia, has felt called to help them unpaid by tutoring and nurturing the children in their own home, during the day! If you feel led to help this family provide for Rentia financially, leave a post with your email address and I will send you the details.

Granny and Grandad's new house brings childhood memories with the unpacking:

(A pity Jessica was not with us to share our red eyes! She was 'painting the roses red' instead. Where does that silly phrase come from again? Oh that's right, "Alice in Wonderland"!)

My Mom and Dad are settling into their new house, just around the corner from us and are unpacking all sorts of things from my childhood. When one has immigrated internationally twice over it is so nice to have a few snippets of history - even if just a ballerina or a Father Christmas cake decoration, toys, a tray, glasses or little fruit knife; or a slide (what's that the kids ask) , as I was saying, a slide ( no not the type in the park), a slide of a little girl in a gold and brown uniform, standing in front of a block of flats where she lived for a while right close to her school and next to some ancient cars, that really make her feel, well, ancient now!

Here are some photographs of Granny and Grandad's new house; it is big and spacious and I love it, although my Mom and Dad plan to renovate it ...



I love this big old fire place, but Mom and Dad hate it....so we might put it up on our back veranda for an 'outdoor winter warmer'. Hay, we live in Brisbane, so it barely ever gets real cold here but the kids will enjoy toasting marshmallows anyhow! Happily creating happy childhood memories for our children!

Free Art Lessons

http://teachartathome.com/Free.html

Developmental delays or a different wiring!

I have had 3 children with developmental delays. I should be used to it by now and not worry but I still fall into the trap. When the kids were little, books like Raymond and Dorothy Moore's, "Better Late than Early" made such sense...you cannot force a child to develop at the pace you want, they can only go at their own inbuilt pace, just as speech and walking etc has it's won timing so does something like reading. And a late developer does not equate a dumb child. Bright children can read late!

One of my oldest children was not reading very well @ nine, nearly ten. I tested her with the New Zealand reading tests and she did not manage at a grade one level. Six months later I retested her and she was reading at the 16 to adult age level with the same tests. She loves reading now (theology, history, anything good and just for the fun of it!) I still sometimes have to hide books away from her in order to get her to help with chores:) I had not changed what I was doing with her in that time, in fact if anything I did less as I had had a baby and my life was very pressurised with 5 little ones as I was on my own most days with them. I can only say she was suddenly 'ready' to learn.

I had another child who had severe speech dispraxia whose reading pattern followed the same pattern as his speech problems. Do you get reading dispraxia? He too now reads beyond his age level in any good and interesting subject and has to have books taken away from him. His read aloud skills might be a little stilted due to his speech issues. Comprehension wise he does brilliantly!

So why have I been 'tizzing out' privately in my mind re my 7 year old? Peer pressure?Fear of failure as a home shooling teacher?

I don't know? But although this is the third year of doing grade one work, all of a sudden I see she is understanding! Has 2 years of messing around with this and that been of any worth, when quite plainly she was not ready until now? Apart from the fact that I made it a lot of fun for her, I doubt there was any value in what we were doing. If she was still at the concrete operation stage of development, then no amount of learning, playing with letters/number would have helped. If I was on a deserted island I would have left her to dictate her own pace and just run around catching her beloved lizards without all the letter practice etc. I don't think my rote work etc helped much for the last two years when quite plainly she was not ready. Now all of a sudden learning, real learning seems to be falling into place.

I am so grateful that I am able to home school this child in particular....if she was in school she would have long had the stigma of being dumb. Today she got grumpy as her younger brother did a reading exercise more easily than she did. I told her that she was better at science and drawing than he is...he has to practise these more and she the reading more. The penny dropped and she got on and did a bit extra. She knows every inch of our back yard...where each type of lizard/gecko lives, insects etc. She can sing whole songs. She can see patterns in three dimensional puzzles that even the teens can not see. Developmental delays?????or just wired differently?

If I can get it to work ( I am severely developmentally delayed in the computer area)....Take a look at what she did here a few months ago! She figured it out quicker than an adult mathematically minded engineer!