Good Night Little Bear

     Spring has been absolutely, wonderfully beautiful this year. Except for the lack of rain, I cannot remember a more pleasant time March and early April. Our back door has been propped open for days to allow the kids and puppy to come and go as they wish, and to let the wonderful air in. I call the kids in around 8:30, just as it's getting dark, to get ready for bed. As the time without rain extends there is less grass and more dirt in the yard. Therefore, the kids are coming in covered in ever increasing amounts of filth. Juliana looked like she had been rolling in the dust for hours when she came in last night.

     It's a beautiful sight to me. Last year (and the years before) the kids barely stepped in the backyard. We had two large dogs who made the backyard a minefield of poop. While I miss my pups, I am happy to have regained use of the yard. Add the fact that Max had so much homework that by the time he was finished, there was little time to go outside and I was too exhausted to supervise. Now that we've changed our lives to include homeschooling there is plenty of time for playing outside. On an average day, the kids probably spend three hours playing in the fresh air and sunshine.

     The little girl who cuddled up to me for her story last night had streaks of dirt still under her nails and on her cheeks, even after a good pre-bedtime scrubbing. She was tired after a full day of play, and happy to settle down. We read a chapter of Little House on the Prairie, and then her selection of Good Night, Little Bear by Patsy Scarry and illustrated by one of our favorites, Richard Scarry. It's a book about a playful bedtime, one that made Juliana giggle. She believes that Papa Bear had no idea Baby Bear was on his shoulders the whole time. She wants to see if she can pull that trick on her daddy. Somehow, I think she could.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

     The days are getting longer, yet even less seems to be getting done. In order to get school done, the house has to be ignored. In order to get the house clean, school has to be ignored. Now, school is the priority, so the house is not getting the attention it deserves. I honestly had no idea when I signed up for the whole "stay at home and homeschool" thing that my house would not look perfect every day. In fact, had you told me it would look worse than it did when I worked 40 hours a week, I would have laughed in your face. How disillusioned I was!

     It's been ten months now, since I left working outside the home behind. Ten months in which to retrain my brain to see that homemaking is now my job. I am discovering new things about myself every day-- like the fact that I do not know how to simply "pick-up" a room. Once I get started gathering the dirty clothes, I cannot stop until the entire house is mopped and dusted. Hence, my not so clean house, because who really has it in them to do a deep clean every day? Today I gave myself ten minutes to "pick up" my bedroom. It pained me to leave the mirror un-windexed and the floor unswept, but I did it. There is hope for me yet...

     While this seems completely unrelated to bedtime stories, it is part of the problem with me not reading every night. For it seems that when my bedtime alarm goes off, I still have just one or two things to do to get the house just right, and it kills me to leave them undone. So, I am learning, also, to let things go when the bedtime storytime arrives. As I did tonight.

     We read Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel tonight. When Juliana picked it, I had to remind myself not to roll my eyes in her presence. The book is one of those cheesy ones that has pictures of the movie and an abbreviated storyline, produced just so kids like mine will beg parents like me to buy it because they loved the movie. Surprisingly,  I rather enjoyed reading it to her. She and Max love the movie, and I found I could be as silly, exaggerated and loud without diminishing the overall effect of the story. Max even sat nearby and pretended not to listen. It wasn't the most educational book or a timeless classic, but we all enjoyed storytime. Most importantly, storytime happened tonight.