Tears of Futility

Tears-- tears of happiness, tears of sadness, anger, futility,change
and the kind to simply lubricate your eyes
According to this site when a photographer looked at different tears under a microscope she was amazed to see the different structure and design from the various emotional states.The photos are fascinating, take a look. Supposedly there are only three basic chemical formula though.
Gordon Neufeld talks about "tears of futility" and I've been mulling the phrase around in my mind. As I understand it, the phrase indicates a goal. Children need to explore their environment to the edges and sometimes they run into a "wall"...a "no" or something they actually cannot do because of lack of skill.

He says that a child will have tears and a parents job is to let them have tears and be available and waiting afterward. Then you can show them how to build the block stack again or solve the math problem. ."

When it is the "no" they ran into then our job is to stick to the "no" and stay calm. It might take awhile but the big ticket is to stay out of the turmoil. Afterward give them words "you are upset that I gave that answer", I often add "it is my job as a good parent to keep you safe or teach you the right way

OK, so I have been evaluating all that and wondering if it is fact or fiction.

I'm not as grouchy as I look on here, this was our Sunday afternoon Lego time

The other evening Shekinah needed to do two things for homework, one was to read her reading story aloud to a parent. The other thing was her Victory drill. I needed to make a  batch of mashed potatoes and I told her that daddy will listen to her read her story and read over the next one and I will help with the Victory drill. She cried.

I told myself, " I wonder if these are tears of futility?" It was tempting to change gears and make time to hear her read...and even more tempting to tell her to "stop crying and shape up".
It didn't take terribly long and soon she called daddy and told him she was ready to read to him. The reading went very well and by the time she was ready for Victory Drill, I was too.

So you think letting them feel their feelings and move through them might work better than telling them to "cut it out"?

I'm pondering something I heard on one of Neufeld's you tube videos "If a consequence doesn't make someone sad, it hardens their heart."

 I think I know less than I did 20 years ago.

Oh and the big news? We are adding to our family, but she will be a daughter-in-law!(Sorry to those of you that thought we were adopting again)   Ben is getting married this summer and about a month before the wedding Demetrius and Glenda will be welcoming a baby boy. So a new grand child and a new daughter-in-law in the same year!

Chinese New Year

Our Chinese New Year's party was simple this year

Steamed pork buns (barbecued pork)

Then the dessert ones?

Well good old s'mores of course

Faith and Zeke came up with that one.

Found out last night that this year will be one of changes :)

small Brag

Yesterday the younger kids didn't have school because of parent-teacher conferences. Around 3pm I left to meet hubby to go for our conference. I asked Hope if she is OK with making supper and she said we are having haystacks and she has everything if we stop for tomatoes and lettuce on the way home.
We got home close to 5 PM , walked in the door, the table was set, she was dishing up the last bits of food. While we handed out report cards to the two youngest she cut up tomatoes and lettuce.

We sat down and I realized that somewhere in the time we were gone they had also made a batch of cream cheese cupcakes and deviled eggs.

I said "wow, how did you manage all this?"
Faith was laughing, "I helped!"  Shekinah said, "I helped."
Hope said, " I was teaching them how to use their time wisely. Shekinah was following us around like a Chihuahua  so I gave her something to eat and told her to go hold the bunny."

I started laughing and she said, "Well I learned something from you."

They are listening!

Chicken Corn Noodle Soup and Legos

On Saturday Dad worked some extra overtime and decided we could enjoy a treat.

We went out for supper. Not Mc D's but we still almost all ended up with burgers and fries :)

Except for Little One she ordered Chicken Corn Noodle soup and fries, she got her soup before the rest of us got our food. She slurped it down in a hurry and wanted a refill.

She was disappointed that this kitchen doesn't just do refills like mom's kitchen.

We encouraged her to finish her fries and then we'd talk about it.

The rest of us finished our burgers and talked about some ice cream, but guess what this one ordered?

Yup, a bowl of Chicken Corn Noodle Soup.

We went shopping at the mall...it was very necessary since she claimed to not remember going to a mall before. Visited the pet shop, no fun, cause we didn't get to hold a puppy.

The parking spaces were of interest though. These had double lines between each space for--according to her, "to park the motorcycles and bikes."

Sunday afternoon I read an article on the evils of online games and realized what my blessings were doing. So I hauled the recently sorted-by-color Legos out of the basement. And we played Legos. At one point they all were around the table. Some managed to only make a small item and then spent the rest of the time bouncing a roundish Lego on the table to see how long it took to annoy the rest of us. I think we will be bringing out the Legos again.

We did manage a penguin and a "swan" who later grew tusks because

 Zeke thought I had made a walrus. hmph!

Shekinah made a squadron of penguins that were holding hands,

 they had walked off by the time I took pictures.

OK, it is spelled right, but there are no brakes on a sewing machine people!

Just to keep me accountable. I made a resolution to make one comfort for CAM each month this year.

Not much, I know, but it will be 12 more than I made last year.

Rocket Roosters and Kitchen Aid mixers

I am so happy for a husband that will at least try to fix most anything that breaks around here. The other week I was "just looking" at a new Bosch mixer and was showing DH how great they are and debating if I would buy that brand when my Kitchen Aid gives out.

That was only 3 weeks ago!

He was wondering if I tried mixing cement or something so that this one breaks...the very idea!

This Kitchen Aid has quite a history, the first one we bought stopped working 11 months after we bought it. I called Kitchen Aid citing the one year warranty and I had a new mixer withing days.

That mixer stopped working fourteen months later (one month after my birthday) so I called the company again. I gave the lady a long story about how much I love the Kitchen Aid but would really like a model that lasts longer than one year. "Does Kitchen Aid have a good model or would a Bosch be the brand I should be looking at?"

I had a new Kitchen Aid within 2 days.

This one lasted more than five years so I don't think they will go for that spiel again.

Now my hubby knows how to fix them, you watch a youtube video and order the parts online and I have a working mixer a mere 4 days later.

I missed the best picture of Shekinah carefully holding the flash light for daddy while he lined up all the moving parts inside there. But I don't think he will take it apart again so we can re-do that shot.

We are making progress on this turkey.

Another Shekinah quote for you: For some reason we were discussing rockets and moon landings and rocket boosters at supper the other night. Miss Shekinah was doodling in her leftovers on her plate. She pipes up "So what are rocket roosters? Do they go rocka-rocka- roo?"

The Week Between

Christmas and New Year, normally is a bit drawn out and emotional.

This year went OK. Shekinah had one day that had 2 great melt-downs over math.

We didn't even get the Christmas cookies baked that we had planned.

We did get to visit our TN friends who have been staying in Philly close to Shriners for about 2 months. Could not believe it took us that long to actually get together!

The kids acted like it was only a month since we'd seen them, when it actually was about 18 months.

Selfies for the moms. I didn't use the one with her sticking out her tongue.

Then some things I've been working on...who would want that guy on a quilt? In orange and burgundy of course!

The beginnings of  the crazy turkey.

And the quilt from scraps from someone's mom's attic.

Antique Shopping

Earlier this month Zeke had asked me about this one antique shop close to our house. It has big wrought iron gates out front and just looks...interesting.

So the day after Christmas we decided to take a look.

Can you read that price tag? We soon knew that it wasn't a place we were going to find bargains.

More like we were just going to be awed and a bit claustrophobic.

Yes, $9000 a pair for big curved-topped doors. Hmm maybe we need a bigger front door.

Did they carve that or was that bent wood?

Was amazing the care they took in cutting the hole for the lights on this expensive back bar.

Then we wondered how on earth they would get that piece from the back wall out if we were to say...ask to see it better and you know, maybe buy it.

We didn't.

And I was terribly glad I only brought adults with me, cause "do not touch" signs were in abundance.

Come cool room dividers with Chinese- style carvings

Let's see, what size mantle do you need for a ship that size?

Then I started wondering how and EMS crew would get someone out of those narrow aisles if say someone would collapse?

Curved/bowed doors, and plenty of stained glass windows.

AND Al Capone's bar....or at least one of them.

Christmas Eve

Never thought I'd buy a blanket, after all you make blankets, but we were gifted 

a super-soft blanket. It became the center of a few battles so I decided to find them

for the rest of the family.

The picking choice wasn't the greatest when I got there so we wrapped them and let the "chips fall"

Which would be why someone was saying "why do I have a white one?"

He decided it would be OK afterall.

Then this young man turned 19. The cake was a sponge cake with strawberry jam and lemon curd. It got a funny "waist" because I tried to cut it with dental floss but apparently floss does not cut sponge cake like it does a regular cake?

This was the cake that earned the comment, "It is a very good cake even though it looks like a landslide."  (lemon curd sorta wasn't thick enough)




I will leave you with a public service announcement courtesy of Shekinah " Gummy vitamins are not good dipped in ketchup"

Christmas Eve's Eve

This year we made some gifts, like doll clothes for the girls.

Found some bargains at outgrown shops...like boots for each of the girls and a loom that doesn't look like it was used.

Then there were some "boring" gifts like a set of tools for Zeke, but Shekinah thought they looked very interesting and thought she would like that kind of gift next year.

I remember her skill with the screw driver last summer and think maybe we could hold off.

The doctor's kit with real stethoscope and BP cuff, real digital thermometer, and actual pen light are not quite as dangerous at this point.

Then there were the fun gifts...new touch screen kindle

and the tablet ...supposedly in order to read more books and to organize the crazy printed-out recipe file that lives in my kitchen.

  Gotta work on those poses...and the smile...

Then Christmas day with family and our traditional layette bundles for CAM.