Life Skills

Summer is a long time to have the kids at the house.

For two months, I have to keep this pack of malcontents docile and entertained. There is so much pressure in summer—pressure to have fun, make memories, go to new places and do new things. I don’t want to go new places and do new things. Honestly, I just want to survive. We have so much already going on that we are in essence tied to the house.

My thought was: how do I make the most of this limited time I have with the kids so that they are engaged?

I have long advocated that kids learn important life skills before they leave home for college. Part of this was spurred on by watching the college episode of “Chopped”. While I was not expecting these four pre-adults to be masters in the kitchen, I was filled with abject horror while watching round after round of frankly inedible slop being served because of simple cooking errors. My own trial run at self-sufficiency had its own hiccups, a fact my parents gleefully relive as they remember the time I called for instructions on boiling an egg.

There are so many instances you run into as an adult that you feel poorly prepared for--things like applying for school loans or getting your first apartment, filling out applications, managing a household. These are unavoidably adult undertakings that can positively or negatively impact the success your first few years out of the house.

With this in mind, I decided to make this a summer of Home Camps that teach life skills.

There are few (unofficial) experts I have called in for reinforcements. My mother is doing a bi-weekly baking camp. Last week, she taught all the Abilene grandchildren that are old enough to be taught, a group of six ranging in age from 2 to 10, how to make homemade bread. The two smallest, Clara (3) and Maryn (2) were not able to grasp some of the deeper concepts but they were able to help mix and measure, pour and knead. They were all so proud of the product of their work, which engaged them for several hours and yielded four loaves of bread, a dozen rolls, and a braided loaf.

It was Mom’s week off so I used the time to teach my own how to make communion wafers so that we could discuss the significance of the unleavened bread. I believe it was only slightly sacrilegious that I allowed the children to mold them into cat shapes with the cookie cutters.

Next week Mom is coming to show them how to make apple butter and pumpkin butter, how to peel and slice and can. Maybe we will do crackers or rolls to spread the delicious product on; we will see.

My brother Jarrod has also contributed a higher skill: reading and signing a contract. He is going out of town and needed someone to care for his pets while he was away; he made Emerald apply and interview for the position, then drafted a simple contract for her to read over and sign, making sure to note that as she is not yet of age that her parents had to sign as well. I am hoping to engage him for a robotics course later in the summer as well.

Cousin Jessica, who is a talented artist, has (schedule allowing) agreed to come do an art camp one day with the kids, and Cousin Justin is going to teach horseback riding while we are in that area.

Most days lay more firmly in my domain, however, and so I have written down a list of skills that I would like to see them master and have crafted lessons around teaching them.

One that shouldn’t be a thing but you run into it more than you think you would: making a doctor’s appointment.

Telephone etiquette, overall, is an often overlooked but crucial, dying skill--how to listen without interrupting, polite tone, not nodding when someone asks you a question (seriously, why do they do that? Do they think they are on FaceTime?). Making and keeping appointments is important. Especially for September birthdays, you can’t call day-of or week-of and expect to get seen. You have to plan and schedule ahead, get your spot claimed early because a flood of students are going to be getting their well-checks and sports physicals.

My sister Amber works at the doctor’s office where our children are seen, so I called her and gave her a heads up. Then I coached Emerald through--looking up the number, listening to the automated system, speaking clearly and at an appropriate volume, saying please and thank you, answering all the questions. Afterwards, I showed her how to add it to the Google family calendar so that she could remember it in advance and we could all see it when making other appointments.

Another important skill: Cleaning.

It was kind of a revelation to me when I realized that my definition of clean and the children's’ was vastly different. Mine was “everything is picked up and put in its place”; theirs, “there is a clear walkway”. To them, it didn’t matter how much stuff was under the furniture or up against the walls or on top of surfaces, as long as you could walk through the room without stepping on things.

My mother had been pestering me to watch Diane from Denmark who cleans by a popular system called “Zoning”. Basically, you divide your house into six manageable areas. Each day, you clean in that one area and that one area only. On the seventh day, you rest!

Just kidding. There is no rest. There is only more mess.

On the seventh day, you clean the whole house. But the goal is 80% clean, 80% of the time, which means that on that final day you shouldn’t have too much mess accumulated.

We are trying the zoning system combined with another cleaning trend: the power hour. For one hour, and one hour only, you clean as hard as you can in that one area. After that hour is done, it doesn’t matter if you have anything left, you are finished. Michael particularly likes this because it sets a tangible end goal that isn’t “perfection”. Our zoning goals are:

Sunday: Yards
Monday: Bathrooms
Tuesday: Living Room/Playroom
Wednesday: Bedrooms
Thursday: Kitchen/Dining Room
Friday: Entryway/Hallway/Laundry Room
Saturday: Big Cleaning Day

I am not going to say much on that at the moment because we have only instituted it for a week so I cannot yet speak to its efficacy, but I will let you know more later on.

But during that time, I show the kids what you need to know--how to dust, avoid mixing chemicals or using too much, how to sweep and mop and load a dishwasher properly. It is somewhat slow going. My mind keeps saying “it would go so much faster if you did it…”. I have to keep reminding myself: if I don’t want to be the only one doing this forever, they have to learn it. With that spirit in mind, they are also helping do laundry, beginning to end.

Other life skills I have been working on teaching them:

Basic first aid and what to do in an emergency
Gardening and yard work
Grocery lists, meal planning, reading labels
Simple sewing
Letter writing, gift wrapping
Basic car care--how to wash a car, put in fuel, check fluid levels
Finance--how to make and stick to a budget, write a check, tithing

They are learning a lot and having fun doing it. We make a lot of time for entertainment-only pursuits, too. Days are very long in the summer so there is a lot of time to fit in everything, and we don’t have to have a lesson every day. Most days we wake up and eat breakfast, then go for a walk while it is still not too warm. Then we sit in the backyard and do devotional. They play while I do some writing or cleaning or working on whatever I have going at the moment; at the end, I have them come help clean as well--their power hour is only actually about thirty minutes because I have found you can get them to work really hard for about that long before they lose interest. Then there is lunch; afterwards, the younger kids go down for nap while Emerald and I have our bonding time. Afternoons we go our own way and do our own thing until Michael comes home and from there the day starts its steady downward slope toward bed.

It is important that I work as well to better myself, so to that end I am trying very hard to work on improving my temper and patience. Life gets so very frustrating and overwhelming when you feel like no matter how hard you try, you are falling behind. This diet can be discouraging--our choices feel so limited and prep time is outrageous. We eat five to six times a day: three major meals and two (to three) substantial snacks, and each time it requires nearly an hour of prep. I can’t make things in advance because Gabriel will find and steal them, like the homemade toasted almond granola bars I made for Sunday morning breakfast. He ate two dozen of them while we were sleeping. It was very frustrating.

Michael’s grandmother, Grannymom, gave me a lot of books that have actually helped with that. One of which Michael and I are reading together: “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff...and It Is All Small Stuff”. It gives practical and insightful advice like developing your compassion, allowing yourself to be bored, and practicing patience. Every day, I try and focus on attempting a new skill to soothe my ferocious temper and low tolerance for annoyance.

I think we are getting better. More and more of our day feels smoother, kinder. The kids’ bodies and minds and spirits are being fed, and it shows. They aren’t acting as desperate for attention, their attitudes toward one another are softening.

And I feel, just for a brief moment, like maybe...we can survive this summer.


--Andie
(Rare Post Script: If you have a skill you would like to teach at Home Camp, let me know!!)

Summertime

Michael has long teased by calling me a hillbilly. I guess compared to him, the description is apt. He has a citified air about him, the comfort around crowds and culture, a keener awareness of political and world matters. Maybe that’s just been my idealized perception of him. Comparatively, with my firmly rural background, I am a virtual country bumpkin (fresh as frost out on the pumpkin).

No time makes me as aware of that distinction as summertime--the part of the year my siblings and I were let loose in the woods surrounding our home to roam barefoot and semi-feral until school came back in session.

It is hard to reconcile that former version of myself with the current. When did I become so domesticated? Was it simply a part of growing up, or did I abandon a piece of my country roots along the way? Is that such a bad thing?

Summer was (and is) my favorite season. I have a belief that we are conditioned to prefer the weather surrounding our birthdays because we spend all year looking forward to it as children. To April-born Michael, gray and foggy days are ideal; with my mid-June birth, the best weather is optimally over 100 degrees, golden and sunny.

My hometown was a suburb of a suburb of Dallas/Fort Worth, this moment on the map you pass through on the way to real cities. My siblings and I were part of the last generation to get to wander; I can't even imagine letting my little ones freely roam the neighborhood as I did at that age.

Royce, Jarrod, Amber, and I would ride bikes until Dad’s whistle would call us home for meals. After it rained, the creeks behind our house overflowed so we would go out with the Summers girls to catch crawdads. Wild green onion grew all over which we would harvest to present as bouquets to our mother, dirt still clinging to the small white bulbs.

When the sun went down, Amber and I would hunt for bullfrogs, gathering them in ten-gallon buckets to release en masse on our front porch, watching them hop away and disappear into the night. Fireflies we held in our hands, their little lights flickering a message to the swarm of their compatriots flittering around our head.

My grandparents--my dad’s mother and father--had a swimming pool with a deck around it and lived just a few minutes away. We spent a lot of time swimming over there, never-ending games of Marco Polo and making whirlpools that would carry you around on the current. I'd lay out on my Little Mermaid towel and let the sun warm me until I was too hot, then jump back in. Pawpaw grilled hot dogs, saying that he made them special just for me, and I'd smile and say they were my favorite, even though I didn't like hot dogs. Sometimes Grandma Pat would make a pallet for us in her room so we could rest, watching California Raisins or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoons.

Barbeques are pretty traditional for every southern kid I would imagine. Dad and his buddies would get together and get out the smokers to fill them with meat that slow cooked for hours. Standing around drinking cold sodas and beer fished out of galvanized tubs full of ice, they'd keep an eye on the meat; inside, the ladies made all manner of mayonnaise-based salads and beans while sipping on margaritas and telling the kids to get outside and play.

A lot of summers, before Dad got sick, we’d get up one morning while it was still dark outside and load up in the car to drive to Great Grandma Hill’s house. She lived in Littleton, Colorado, in the part that is Centennial now, so it would take twelve or so hours of straight driving. Dad has a weakness for hole-in-the-wall restaurants in dinky towns, places that made better stories than food. We’d break up the drive by staying in cheap motels occasionally, but Dad prefers to drive straight on through with as few breaks as possible, except for those little restaurants.

I can still remember Grandma’s house. Not everything, just bits and pieces. She loved butterflies, and collected dolls, including Little Miss No Name. We drank out of jam jars with cartoon characters on the side while she taught us how to play cribbage. If we were lucky, she'd make what we called cabbage rolls--German runzas filled with hamburger and cabbage that we couldn't get enough of.

Between summer visits, Grandma was my pen pal. I'd send her drawings and accounts of school, and she would tell me about her childhood and how the other members of the family were doing. Letters cost around 32 cents to send at that time, so I’d scrounge around to find enough loose change to leave in the mailbox. They don't let you do that now; you have to have a stamp. Maybe they didn't let you back then either, but our mailman always took it and the letter. When a bird built its nest in our mailbox, mom and dad started using a p.o. box and it became harder for me to maintain a correspondence.

Grandma started me on my ceramic cow collection. I loved cows when I was growing up, so she gave me the cows that held creamer for coffee which poured out through their mouth, beautiful handpainted ones with scenes on the side. I named them all and kept them for years, until they unfortunately got smashed during a move.

In Colorado, mom and dad would take us hiking in the mountains. Dad would carry me over the streams that I was too frightened to walk through. We used birthday money to buy fool’s gold at mountain gift shops, plotting how we would use it to buy a mansion for mom so she'd never have to work again. Drawstring bags of gum that looked like coal turned our mouths a most becoming shade of black.

Ten was a special birthday because then you were old enough to go to camp. We went with our church youth group to Camp Deer Run (where the deer run) in Winnesboro, Texas. That was one of my favorite places in the world, a place I felt an unparalleled closeness to God.

Summertime was always heavy on church activities. Summer Youth Series brought kids from congregations all over the metroplex to sing and worship together. Volunteer projects, lock-ins, devotionals, and outings outside of regular service kept our hearts and our minds in the right place and out of trouble.

In High School, summer always ended in band camp. For a while, they are all day--get there early in the morning and practice hard until dinner. The band director kept it fun by bringing orange juice and kolaches in the morning. Taco Bueno would sell us tacos four for a dollar for lunch, or she'd bring pizza. At the end of the long, hot day of practice, we’d put a movie on in the band hall and wind down before starting it all again the next day.

I've had all of this on my mind because Emerald has said, loudly, daily, and to anyone who will listen, how very much she hates summer. She misses school, misses her friends. She isn't learning anything. And (as Benjamin so succinctly put it), “two months!? But that's too much time with mommy!”

How could anyone hate this magical time of year? The time of going fishing and camping, boating out on the lake and sleeping under the stars. Of visiting family you rarely get to see and go on adventures in places unknown. Getting pickle slushes from the public swimming pool, attending vacation bible school, lounging in the sun, and reading a new pile of books from the library every week. This season was a celebration of enjoying yourself, a break from the stresses of school.

It's made me question if I just don't plan enough for the kids to do over the summer. We are somewhat tied to the house in an effort to miss as few therapy sessions as possible, as well as finances and having three difficult children (Benjamin is less difficult and more of the “grab and go” variety).

But she still gets a fair amount of trotting around. She goes to vbs and swim lessons, visiting family. We enroll her in activities and take her on as many vacations as we feel we can safely manage. We have a lot going on.

Which makes me wonder: was I appreciative enough at the time of what a good life I led? Did I thank my mother, or did I complain that it was too hot and I was bored? Were we begging our parents to take us to Disney World, pouting that we “never got to go anywhere fun”?

Was my mother as discouraged as I get, feeling like no matter how much we do, it's never enough?

I may not be able to fly the kids to Hawaii as they suggested, but I can take them fishing. Teach them how to tell the difference between a frog and a toad, and how to catch a firefly without squishing him. Make cabbage rolls for them and tell stories about their Great Great Grandma Hill that had this laugh that made you feel happy to your toes. We can make whirlpools and let the current carry us away, and eat hot dogs laying in the sun.

And, with any luck, they will look back on their summers when they're grown as fondly as I do mine.

Bright Horizons

So, Emerald just got out of daycare for the summer. I can't believe she went to "school" for a whole year!! She just blossomed under her teachers' care--she started out incredibly shy and wanting to explore and play on her own. But since then, she has turned into quite the little social butterfly, and made many adorable little friends.

Amanda and Miranda (her teachers) said that she was their most studious student--during free play time, she especially enjoyed pretending to be the teacher, and reading books to herself and others. Which, I suppose is no surprise if you remember that both her parents have been bookworms their whole lives. I remember one of my favorite stories that Rhonda tells me about when Michael was a little boy was that he brought her a book and asked if he could read it--it was the dictionary! What a weird little guy J.

Besides reading, she has also gotten very interested in dance and art. Every day, she wants me to take her outside to color on the sidewalk with chalk, she colors several pictures a day for Daddy while he is at work (she especially favors markers and colored pencils, and prefers to use crayon on the fridge!), and dances her little heart out. I taught her how to twirl, and she mimics the Wiggle dancers surprisingly well. I've read that infants have a natural rhythm and connection with music, and it is definitely true of Emerald!

To encourage her new found love of the arts, Michael and I bought her some Christian children's albums that she seems to just adore. A forum friend suggested a recipe for toddler-friendly finger paints as well--plain yogurt with food coloring added--she can eat it and not get sick, and it doesn't stain quite as badly!

She may be out for the summer, but she and Gabriel are enrolled for next semester so mama can get a much needed break!!

--ANDIE!--

Memorial Day

 

This past Memorial Day, Rhonda and Ken bought Emerald an inflatable froggie swimming pool, and this adorable striped swimsuit. Can you believe it's all ready a 3T?! The previous attempts at getting Emerald to swim had been a little unsuccessful--she enjoyed floating in the water at my parent's house in Tyler last July, but she was still very tentative.

This time, you couldn't keep up with her! She ran from the pool, to the slide, to everyone outside, and back again all night! It wasn't that big of a surprise then that she ended up eating TWO AND A HALF of Rhonda's grilled Bratwurst, plus sauerkraut, potato chips, peanut butter crackers, lemonade, and some of the delicious blackberry sundaes. She must really be showing that German Huse/Black!


Michael wasn't able to be there--he had to work every day this week, and it is really wearing on him. He can't wait for Sunday, when he finally gets to kick back and relax. I feel sorry for him--he would have loved to see Emerald splashing around, and I know that he is sick to death of my "thrift" meals (I'm a little too frugal for my own good some days).

Gabriel didn't seem to be feeling well--even though he is generally a very active baby, he was content to sleep in Grannymom’s arms the entire time. Poor sleepy little guy.

I guess all that play wore on her--on our walk home, she fell asleep on the ride, and stayed asleep almost the rest of the night.

She is so super cute!!

--Andie--