It's been J week around here

I must admit, teaching small children does not come naturally to me. The first thing I do after all the children leave on my co-op weeks is call my sister and tell her, for the millionth time, that it's a miracle there are people like her in the world that desire to teach young children for a living. She is brilliant at it, by the way. If we lived in the same city, or heck, even in the same state, my kids would be shipped off to Aunt Ash's for their education. But alas, they are stuck with me who is trying desperately to learn a thing or too {and be a little bit more} like her.

 

But that wasn't really what I sat here to write tonight.

What I sat here to write is the following, kind of:

 

I was sitting on my kitchen floor this evening, eating a giant bag of sour patch kids and hiding from my children who were destroying their bedroom, when I thought about a comment a friend made during our monthly mothers group meeting a few days ago. She was talking about healthy eating habits and she said she basis it on their weekly eating rather than their daily consumption. The kids might eat brownies all three meals one day but if they mostly ate fruits and vegetable that week, shoot, she's patting herself on the back. And who really let's their kids eat brownies all three meals in a day, because two meals is definitely my limit around here. So see, we all should pat ourselves on the back.

 

Umm...back on track. 

 

I guess that thought popped into my head since I was cooking dinner, healthy dinner even, but it probably had more to do with the hard mothering day I had experienced and frankly, my spent mind was just a-wandering wherever the heck it wanted to go. Sometimes I just brush my random thoughts off just as that, random, but it only took a moment before I realized that the foody thought might have been a little taste of inspiration for my hungry soul. I guess I'm realizing lately that life is made up of so many different moments, and by the end of the day it feels like so very many of them are taxing and stressful and just, blah! Because, seriously weather? And let's not mention how my 2-year-old somehow thinks that napping is a thing of his past and my 4-year-old just never stops--that body and that mind of his just never, ever stop. And it's currently 11 degrees outside with wind chill. And as a matter of fact, all of those things put together make my muscles tighten, and the wrinkle in between my eyebrows intensify, and by the end of days like today I am, well, I already told you that I'm eating straight out of a sour patch kids bag--and I'm talking the Costco size one, people. Mothering has been tough lately, and that's the truth.

 

But when I blog before bed at night and I see pictures of this week's adventures, the smiles on T and Ever's faces and the memories that we've made I think, geez, I kind of rock at this mom thing and boy, isn't it the greatest gig ever? Do you get what I'm getting at? Because that's a crazy different picture of how I view my life then the one I painted above. When I look at the bigger picture of mothering and what I am accomplishing with my children as a whole I find more joy, fulfillment and I see success. I think my personal piece of revelation tonight is that some days will still be hard and might be the equivalent to brownies for every meal (think the sugar rush after and not the deliciousness during!), but if I can see that each week Talmage and Everett both get their fill of emotional, spiritual, physical, social and educational veggies, than I'm going to pat myself on the dang back...if I have the energy!

 

Anyway, here are a few J week pictures:

 

J is for jellyfishes. This was Tuesday's project. We also counted jelly beans in jars and had jam sandwiches. The kids were super loving the jellyfish project (especially after we watched a clip on youtube about exotic jellyfish!)

Talmage was tired after a long school day and this is where and how he decided to rest. He was mad that I wanted to photograph him!

I told him that Mom's official job is to take pictures or he wouldn't remember being a little kid when he got older. He understood the logic and decided to give me one little smile!

I just love how this kid writes his name. Just the cutest little letters!

Thursday's preschool was J is for Jesus...one of the perks of having an at-home preschool! We talked about the Christmas story and even acted it out. We also set up this little manger scene...and turns out the whole Bronx Zoo was there in Bethlehem!