Book Giveaway!

The time has come!  I'm a little slow today. I had a load of wet bedding and a late night last night to blame for that!  But I'm now fueled by coffee, steel cut oats and peaches and should be able to write a book report in short order.

Two years ago, I had the privilege to review Tea and Trouble Brewing.  When I saw that Dorcas Smucker had published another book and was asking for bloggers to review, promote, and give away a copy of her newest book I made sure I volunteered for the job.
Starting November 10 and continuing through the 29th there will be a blog post somewhere in blogger-land promoting this book and offering a  free copy to one lucky reader. If you want the complete list go here and you can follow along.

I confess that I have not read the entire book yet, but am over half way through and can tell you that you will enjoy these short stories.  Read why the book is titled Footprints on the Ceiling (not The Foot Book as Shekinah insists on calling it) in the introduction. Read her grandmother's pronouncement of unfaschtandich  on "those Japanese beetles" in "Grandma and the Media"  Read their adventures in Thailand in the section on Steps on Faraway Soil, the fun of in-laws in  "The Right Way to Tell a Story", and the sorrow of sorting through your elderly parents belongings and making hard decisions.

Yes, she sprinkles Dutch words throughout the book bringing nostalgia. If you didn't grow up hearing Dutch, she inserts the English translation in a way that does not seem clumsy.

 I can't resist the Mennonite joke -- "How many Mennonites does it take to change a light bulb?"

There are two answers to this one, I'll only give you my favorite, you have to find the other answer in the book.

Answer:  Eight. One to change the light bulb and seven to bring the food.

I guess I like her stories so much because I can identify with her in so many ways, she is about my age, she loves the Frances books, quotes Dr. Suess and couldn't part with her shelves full of books.  (Dorcas, don't get rid of those kids books, grandchildren will eventually bless your life too and they will need to hear those classics). She has adopted (only once, but...), she has a son Ben that likes to sing, and she lives close to Harrisburg.  Only her Harrisburg is in Oregon and mine is in Pennsylvania.

So gather your tissues and a cup (or a pot) of tea and settle in to read the new book.

Oh! I need to tell you how to enter the drawing.....

I think I will need to make you work for it a little....

Come and clean a bathroom.....

No, I'm pretty sure there is a rule against that....

Ummm....

You will need to comment with:

 two things that I don't know about you

and some way to contact you if you win the drawing.

You can comment on my blog,  on  Facebook, or at  raychris@dejazzd.com


I will do the drawing Sunday evening and post the winner then, that should give the busy mommy's time to read blogs and catch up on Facebook while the littles have their afternoon naps.

You can order a book if you don't win this drawing, details for that after Sunday night.

Stay Tuned....Book Giveaway! Details tomorrow.

No it isn't about the "Foot Book" as Shekinah calls this book. 

It's the new Dorcas Smucker book.

Tomorrow I'll post the details on how to win a free copy.

Love these things! Brings all the "lurkers" out of the woodwork.

Musings # 25 ( I have no idea)

       So can you get PTSD from you daughter's science project? I thought I might flip this weekend,but I told myself to be a big girl.

 Thursday evening a certain someone told me "Mom, we need to get the bird project done!" So sorry kiddo, but I had no memory of signing up for a bird project . I saw the paper with the instructions then and supposedly I had 2 weeks to do it! But, it was due Monday. 

 I had a project that I needed to finish namely, a quilt to get assembled so that a certain bill could be paid.  I told her that she needed to pick the kind of backyard bird that she wanted to study and then she could look in her science book and draw it. 

PANIC! the child really could not produce anything that resembled a bird. I figured she wasn't trying, but printing a picture from the internet was not an option....the instructions said so!  She tried again...and again. I finally went online for step by step instructions. DELIGHT! yes she did it!  Then we needed habitat, food, nest size and type, egg size and color and description of the song.

Found out I never taught her to draw a pine tree!  Finally the holes were punched on the papers...never mind the holes went right through some of the words.  

      Pre-planning isn't a strong point.  

The yarn was knotted on the hanger.

The hanger looked pretty hanging at the window, but daddy noted that the moisture from the window might not be good for the paper....so he nicely moved it to a different spot and twisted the hook a little so it would stay hanging......

and broke the hanger!

Thankfully it happened to my easy-going child, she said it is OK if we just tape another hanger over the first one so she doesn't have to re-tie the yarn knots. Miss Martin....that is why she has two hangers.

I did get the quilt done

                                         

 Today Miss Shekinah had a friend over. I almost thought we were gonna give the poor child trauma.

Something set Shekinah off and she screamed for an hour (yes I timed it) as soon as we got home.

I'm pretty sure there was some jealousy involved because every time I talked to her little friend she screamed louder...cleaned off hooks...flung toys across the room and kicked everything in her way.

Suddenly something flipped a switch and she settled and ate her peanut butter cracker and drank her milk.

Her little friend looked at her side wise and said, "you happy now?"

As you can see they played nicely

Bedtime was a bit of a challenge,but by 7:40 the three youngest were sleeping.

Shekinah told me she NEVER wants someone else to sleep in her bed again and she DOES NOT want to sleep on the floor. She kicked the wall a few times for emphasis. I finally leaned in close to her and hissed nicely suggested"Be quiet! you are keeping her awake and I'm getting angry! GO to sleep!"  Then I lay down on my pillow at her side and read the rest of my book.  And she went to sleep ...the end

And the Very Next Week

            Some of the cats came back.  Needless to say there was a very happy girl. She was waiting for her special "Fur-Ball" to show up but she is still not here. In the meantime she will play with the cats that are here. We had located the owner. This mother cat had brought her babies across a creek, a meadow, and a wooded area to our wood pile. The owner came and took them home. How many times are we going to do this?

The bad thing about the cats being back....her mysterious foot ache is back too.

Think it has anything to do with crouching for hours on the porch playing with kittens?

A little over 2 weeks ago she started complaining about her feet/foot hurting. After the first night we examined her foot and found a splinter that we had thought was just a cut. She allowed us to take it out. We thought maybe she had been walking on the side of her foot thus causing the pain. But the next night we started alll over again. It only hurt at nap time or at bedtime. The pain ONLY started when the story book was half finished OR as I was about to leave her room in the evening. One night she screamed for about an hour.Other nights we allowed her to fall asleep on the sofa and she was fine. One afternoon she screamed the whole way to school and half the way back home. The others quickly jumped in the van and asked me if I can't do anything about her. I told them to grab tissues to stick in their ears---that's what I did. Another afternoon was spent listening to screaming, instead of napping.  I was about to make an appointment with her doctor until one afternoon when she wanted to go out to the cats I asked if her feet hurt "here", "here" and "here" and all the spots her "yes" (with a small grin)  I went up her leg to her knees and hips and "yes" everything hurt.  I got a real concerned look on my face and told her that if she is that sick she needs to be laying on the sofa and I will need to talk to the doctor to see if there is a shot for that.  "My feet don't hurt mama."

My husband had noted after the first night spent with us praying over her "this is her anniversary you know." So I held out, trying to be the adult and not get too pulled into the "trauma-versary".  We are now at about 5 days with no screaming, she even had a few naps. I am still laying on the floor beside her at bedtime (we had just graduated away from that), but she isn't contributing to my hearing loss on a daily basis.  I did talk to her about her anniversary and told her that maybe it is her heart hurting and maybe when she is outside with the cats she is actually missing me. ( I really don't know). Now, every so often during the day she will say "mama I'm missing you, my feet are hurting".  I will hold her for awhile and she soon is off and playing again.

SO?? are we done with screaming for another year? I HOPE SO!

What were we doing last year? I seem to remember that we were having screaming fits on a fairly regular schedule throughout the week, so I probably didn't even think about it if there were some extra traumatic nights.

Adoption is wonderful, but it is born of loss and weeks like this make me remember that.

Time for our yearly funky whole family picture, the one where we have to show a certain country that we are all still alive and can be in the same room together. 

This is for our 2 year post placement report.

We had to catch Ben when he was home AND arrange the social worker visit for a time that he 

actually was home. He is a busy man these days.

Shekinah and Parker understand the wonders of an I-phone.

Parker's mama allowed them to use it for a little bit---brave lady.

                     Tried out the cinnamon play dough. Shekinah made piles of cookies and bars.

We Are Blessed

                                   and tired...some days you really should take a nap when mom tells you.

      A mama cat decided to give birth on the top of our wood pile, we were surprised this week when we heard kittens and found out that there are six of them plus a mama, plus a "teenage" cat.

needless to say Shekinah is very busy keeping track of everything.

We CAN'T keep this many cats!

                But a few pictures from earlier in the week. The weather is great for matching hats!

                                       and someone must have grown an inch or two, he can reach!

That Swing!

 As you can see there was great pleasure in this house on Thursday and ever since... Thursday we were able to stay at home and I was working on the computer for most of the day, Shekinah was in the swing most of the day. Every now and again she would stagger off "I'm dizzy, I need to go to the bathroom"  Then she was back on it. I did manage to get her to eat lunch and take a nap.  The  "fun" started when her siblings came home from school!

 We had screaming (ahem firm words)and frustration (me) ...screaming and tears  (her). Well, actually we had to put the timer on for 12 minutes for Shekinah and then 12 minutes for Faith. My evening was split up into 12 minute increments. Every 24 minutes I had to come and dump an unwilling child out of the swing. Faith knew how to manage her time, she read a book until it was her turn, but little missy just stood and complained until it was her turn to swing again.

Surely Friday would be better!

Friday we went to grandma's house and Shekinah got very little swinging time before the troops came home from school PLUS she had no nap!
After having my ears pierced...well actually my eardrums, I put in pieces of a tissue so that I can hear my grandchildren speak to me one day. I sat and rocked her until the phone rang...got my head screwed back on straight (thanks K).

Finally, I told her that she will have NO MORE turns until after supper, four hours away, and she can stand on the porch to scream until she can be nice.   The sorta funny thing is that when she screams the turkeys gobble at her and it sounds like they are laughing.
Dear neighbors: I was not hurting my child, she was just angry.

Finally she accepted a spoonful of peanut butter, a drink and her consequence.

She did keep checking periodically if it was "after supper yet".

Saturday went much better, tho I had to take down the swing until the cleaning was finished because too many people got distracted.

                   Saturday looked more like this......

Our New Swing!

I've had this pinned on my task bar for days/ weeks. We finally attached this to the ceiling tonight.
  Some big people sat in it and it didn't pull out of the ceiling, so I think it is safe for the little people.
    Those big people think we need to make a row of these in the basement...if we attach them to the steel beams they should hold even me.

My "Budget" Post

For those of you that don't know what I mean by "the Budget" go here  I heard someone compare social media today as "the Budget on steroids" and it made my mind go to what I would write if I wrote about our life. So here goes:        keep in mind I've only read the Budget a few times-- just looked and it has pictures now? 

Hello from the sunny hills of eastern Lancaster county where we are finally having a taste of fall. This summer I decided to try and fill all my canning jars and I actually did it!  Peaches, tomatoes, some free pears, salsa, pizza sauce, strawberry jelly.  I decided not to can Baby Gold peaches even though my mother thinks they are the best kind. I just think they are a lot of work when you can just do Canadian Harmony and not have your hands hurting when you are done. I ended up buying two dozen new jars (wide mouth for $9.99) I called Uncle Leroy first to see if he found any at the auction in town and he said people are paying more-than-new price for used jars and he didn't buy any lately.

I froze my apple sauce this year because I'm not sure I really like the taste of canned apple sauce. Then I had about 3 baskets of apples left over so I decided to snitz them. I filled the oven and the dehydrator three times then decided we can just eat the rest of them. That is a lot of peeling!
I sealed the snitz in canning jars using the method with the Ziploc vacuum pump. See the method here   I did dried onions that way last year and they are still good.

The neighbor lady gave me a whole box of pears, but they are plenty green yet.

Our daughter Shekinah had some kind of swollen glands in her neck last week. The doctor called it "mumps" but said she wouldn't give them to anyone. Guess he knows what he's talking about. Her face was only swollen for about 4 days, but he put her on antibiotics anyway.

Heard tell the other week, someone has a new foster baby, the baby is white,but the parents are said to be black. You hope that someone didn't mix up paper work somewhere, but I guess that could happen.

Found these three frogs posed prettily on the edge of an old dog water dish.

Two weekends ago the big building at Green Dragon burned down. Thankfully it was early in the morning and no people were there. Well actually I guess the night watchman was there,but he was sleeping in another building. Must've been sleeping pretty good if he slept through all those fire sirens! They say 19 businesses were destroyed,but they plan to have the market open this Friday.

Guess I have to move stuff around in my freezer tomorrow, as we plan to butcher six of our eight turkeys  on Saturday. Not sure how I'm going to fit that many in the freezer as my husband thinks they will weigh about 14 lbs each. Thinking about putting some in a brine to make it taste like ham.
Wonder how many of the children will have homework and not be able to help? One of the children thought they wanted to take up deer hunting this year, I told him/her that they need to help clean the turkeys first, it was "really gross".

Managed to finally finish a quilt order, of course there is another one sitting here already, but I'm taking a break and sewing sweaters from t-shirts for the girls.

Well it's time to get to bed because everyone else is already there, just a few last thoughts:

One of the children was trying to figure out how many calories we use, I thought the estimates were sort of low, then I was informed that it takes twenty kisses to use up five calories.....a boy at school was the source of that information.

Ezekiel wondered about those bucket lists people have...." is the last item--kick it?"

Conferences

First I'll just post a really good picture of Shekinah.

This past weekend my hubby and I went AWAY.... ALONE! It was the first time we were away overnight without any kids....ummmm since we went to Ch*na for Hope. That is almost 13 years ago.

Yes we went to an Empowered to Connect Conference, but we did not have to talk if we didn't want to, or even listen if we didn't feel like it. But the conference was one of those that made you sit up and listen, take notes, and laugh till your all your kleenex were saturated. (didn't know a lawyer could be so funny) Look for them at Empowered to Connect

The funny thing is that one of the speakers mentioned peanut butter spoons and a whole row of Mennonite mamas gave a thumbs up. The basics to remember:

feed 'em and water 'em every two hours.  That comes around pretty often!

 Connect- "look in my eyes, buddy"

 give them voice -while we shut up  (within limits) "tell me what you need"

 give them choices (two and be sure you are OK with either choice) sometimes they need help with their "voice"
 I can hear you saying, "hmph, they won't pick either choice!" If they are regulated, they can ASK (with respect) for a compromise (you need to teach that in a relaxed time), if  the decision is important and really has no compromise you may need to tell them "sorry this time it is #1 or #2 choice...good job accepting 'no' "

 get them moving- they hear best when they are playing  and movement helps with a whole other raft of issues

most "feelings" pass in 90 seconds if you let them

Rewind and Remember...don't fast-forward and forget- take time to look in your past and figure out why you have "hot buttons" and how you can dis-arm them.

Flexibility is your friend, Expectations are you enemy somewhere I read, "teach the child you have, not the one you wish you had"

Oh and you will make mistakes, but our kids will allow you to have re-do's

"Bring them up in the nurture and admonition (structure) of the Lord" Eph 6:4

Balance the nurture and the structure.

We walked away with our minds full...I've read a lot of Karyn Purvis' materials and watched her videos online, but the refresher was so necessary.

Then we collected our children from my brother's house. We had my brother and his wife keep them, they already have 8 children at home...we figured we could slip 4 more in the door and they'd never notice.  Shekinah had a wonderful weekend, she'd had a night terror the night before we left and I was worried that staying at someone's house would trigger another. Thankfully she did great, she had two cousins close her age to keep her occupied the whole time.

The interesting twist to this came on Monday night as we were doing the dishes, "Mom, why do you need to go to these "parent-teacher" conferences anyway. Isn't that for people who have trouble with their kids?"
Hmm maybe that was what was behind the protests against mom and dad going away for their anniversary.



Quote of the YEAR:  "You never helped me with my homework last year, I almost didn't make it in math!  (wait for it)



  I got an A-!"

Peanut Butter

After about 23 years of trying to rear (correct grammar here) children, I 'm still learning some new things.  I've known for quite awhile that food is important to little people-and some big people too- but does it affect their behavior?
Our youngest, can be the sweetest little girl. She is the one that tells me, "I don't want to wear that mom, because people will tell me I'm cute."  But what turns that little princess into a screaming, hitting, double barreled, kicking machine?

Yes this cute one.

Does she need a good-old-fashioned-warm rear end?
Ever since I've been reading up on children who come with unknown histories, I've heard the thing about "food every two hours" even if mom isn't hungry yet.

So I started checking the clock when my child changes into and "irascible child" and whatyano?
It's been at least two hours or she only ate Ramen noodles for the last meal.

changing before your eyes....well not really but there is a warning there

They tell me protein is the ticket, but burgers at 10 AM?  My budget isn't going to handle that.

But peanut butter?  We buy it by the six pound containers.

I've started giving her a teaspoon full of peanut butter. Most of the time I either call her from the scene of the screaming accusations of "you're rude" and say "Shekinah, I have something for you."  Plop her on a chair and in it goes.

Now sometimes it is my ears that are being assaulted by "you're rude" so then I might need to calm my face first and haul the 30-some-pounder out to the kitchen and plop her on a chair.  " I think you need to calm down, here's some peanut butter."
Occasionally she will turn her head and refuse, so I lay the spoon beside her and turn my back and do what ever needs doing at the sink.
So Far...she has never refused it completely. I try not to view it as a punishment, more like....see if this will help you calm down.

The change is almost instant! Often she will say "mommy, I love you"  or "I'm sorry."
Or you will just see the nice little girl has come back and she is relaxed.

So please let me know-- if you try it, what are the results. I know of one other mom that does it, but her girls were old enough to go for the peanut butter jar themselves and I never thought to administer it TO my child.

Note:  Now of course you will be an attentive mama and not leave your child to choke on a mouthful of peanut butter! My children seem to handle it just fine, but you know your child.