Quiet Time

If you are observant, you will have noticed that, e. e. cummings*-style, I neglect to capitalize the titles of my blog posts.  This is to remind myself of how little importance my opinions are.  ([grin] - I'm not sure how effective that is, but it's an attempt, anyway).

Perhaps you have noticed that the title of this post is capitalized.

That is because of its great importance.  I always write about Quiet Time in capital letters.  I even try to speak about it in capital letters, although that is, admittedly, more difficult.

Since time immemorial we have observed Quiet Time in our family.  Originally we called it naptime (I didn't always think to capitalize it then), but as the nappers grew fewer in number - and greater in age - naptime became a misnomer and we transitioned to Quiet Time.

This is what Quiet Time is (for our family):

1)  Everyone is in a separate room (if possible).

2)  No one talks.

3)  Mommy (that's me) gets to read, or nap, or have a snack,

or talk on the phone to a friend without interruptions.

Sometimes, all of the above.

Since it started out as naptime, it was easy at first.  Of course it was quiet; they were asleep!  

But then they stopped needing sleep.  Then it got hard (for a time).  I put on calming music and gave them books to look at and told them no talking.  Someone-who-shall-remain-nameless required quite a bit of training in this.  I had to give up, for a time, my own nap/snack/phone conversation in order to sit in her room with her, at the ready should any corrections be needed (and they usually were). 

Eventually, though, everyone got the hang of it and it stopped being hard and instead became a Thing of Exquisite Beauty, well worth the initial effort required.

In our house now, every day at one o'clock, the children all gather in the livingroom (or the playroom, if Lego projects are in progress) and sit more or less quietly while I read aloud to them from a book.  This is a cozy time and the prime seats are considered to be on either side of Mommy, snuggled up against one shoulder or the other, following along in the book du jour.

By one-thirty, we're usually "right at a good place!" but my throat is parched and after all, it is time to begin Quiet Time, so we put the book away till tomorrow.  If it's a weekday, Sugar, Spice, and Nice gather their schoolbooks and whatever "fun" book they're in the middle of, and Lil' Snip puts a few toys and books into his basket, and up the steps they all go.

* * * sigh * * *

And for the next hour and a half, the house is quiet (except for Lil' Snip's signature request for a bum-wipe:  "I did a poooooo!").

And Mommy gets to read her book, or take a nap, or talk to a friend on the phone without any interruptions.

And when three o'clock arrives, restored by solitude, we are happy to see each other again.

And that, my gentle reader, is Quiet Time.

* [I feel it only honest to add that I know nothing of the poet e. e. cummings other than his uncapitalized name, and what wikipedia just told me.]

proof positive

For those of you who read my last post and are feeling concerned about my qualifications for motherhood, I want to reassure you (if it were possible) with the following facts:


(First, I know I don't deserve them.  No one ever deserves the gifts they are given.)

I love to hug my children and they hug me back.  The feeling of one of my offspring snuggled up trustingly beside me is immeasurably precious.

They smile when I kiss them.

I enjoy working beside them, cooking, or sewing, or doing yardwork.  I even enjoy teaching them these things.

According to them (despite my offering proofs to the contrary), I am a kind, patient, and funny mother who is never selfish and always puts them first.  (Let's just chalk that up to the optimism of youth, shall we?)

I love giving them good things - a favorite meal, a sweet treat, a small gift picked up while I'm running errands - just to see their faces light up with pleased surprise.

They trust me.  Confide in me.  Offer their journals to me to read.

I ask for their opinions and preferences when we make schedule changes or plan family week (photos coming soon ... !).

They still call me Mommy, despite hearing their friends move on to "Mom."

Most of my waking hours are spent considering what is best for them.  They fill my prayer time; God has heard more from me about my children than about any. other. thing.

I trust them.  I regularly answer their "Should I ___ or ____ ?" with a confident "You may choose.  I trust your judgement."

It's true that I dearly love Quiet Time.  It's true that evenings, after the children are in bed and it's just me and my Farmer, are one of my favorite times of the day.  It's true that I look forward all month to the time when my own mom comes to spend the day with my children so that I can (one sweet day a month) meet a friend, or go shopping for fun, or walk in the park with just my thoughts and the birds to listen to.

I am wired for solitude.

And I am a mother.

And I love my children.



[I just don't love to play their games.]

child's play

There are times, I will admit, when - caught without a legitimate reason to decline - I get roped into coloring with Lil' Snip, and I end up enjoying it.

Times when the playdough comes out and he's been deprived of my company to a guilt-inducing extent and before I know it, I'm rolling and sculpting, having fun.

And then, there are times like today.

When I'm on the floor, prone, a reluctant driver of Hess trucks (I never get the one I want, no matter how sincerely he seems to be offering it; in Lil' Snip lingo "Which one do you want?" is code for "Which one do you think I want you to have?"), and I succumb.

As soon as he seems to be adequately involved in truckplay, I close my eyes and take a micro-nap until he notices, which I am happy to say can be an entire minute or longer.



Just wanted you to know, from one "supermom" to another.  {*wink*}

on being the "grownup"

Sometimes I forget that I'm a grownup now.  I forget that if life gets too crazy, I don't have to wait for someone to give me permission:  I can slow it down, even stop it.

I don't need to wait for people to exclaim "I don't know how you DO it all!!" in exasperated admiration.  I don't need to wait till I've gained five pounds from eating chocolate trying to stay awake in order to "do it all."  I don't need to wait for my husband to say, "honey, don't you think that's enough?"

I'm a grownup.  (I may not look or act like one, but that's another post).  I can do this pace thing.  I can cut out unnecessary extras.  I can do hard things!

So today, Monday, official "get it all done" day - here that usually means hit the books / housework / laundry at top speed - I didn't.

I took a nap in the morning while Lil' Snip rested and the girls played with the marble machine they made from a PVC pipe, a box, a funnel, and some shoestring.

We played around with "sun-printing" paper instead of doing Real School (well, actually, it was after we finished Real School, but somehow it felt deliciously illicit all the same).

I napped again in the afternoon during Quiet Time.  And then made tea, and a ridiculous number of entries in my gratitude journal while I sat on a step in the sunshine with my mug.

After Quiet Time, since the first attempts at "sun-printing" were noticeably less than stellar, we tried again, patiently watching the sun fade the special paper ... all except where our objets d'art cast their shadows ... we're still waiting for that one to dry.

And now I am cooking hot dogs and baked beans for supper (if that can fairly be called cooking).

And do you know what?  It has happened again.  In trying to "waste" a day, I have accomplished just as much (or as little) as usual, only minus the urgency, the sense of losing control, the frustrated impatience with children, the nagging feeling that I've dropped the most important of the all balls that I'm trying to juggle.

I don't miss any of that.  And I think I found the lost ball.

repeatable pleasures

[dug from the depths of the unpublished, forgotten archives, just for today, another overcast soporific day, great for napping....]

I'm still groggy.

That's right, I had such a crazy deep nap on such a crazy perfect napping day that I woke up with absolutely no idea what day it was.  I love that.

When Sugar came down from quiet time and asked to snuggle with me, I realized that I had just spent the better part of two hours unconscious of my surroundings.

It's overcast and drippy without actually (to my somnolent knowledge, anyway) raining.  It's the first really cold day of fall.  Add that to two nights out with the family and a serious need for sleep catchup and you have the ideal conditions for a knock-em-dead middle-of-the-day nap.

I'm so grateful for variety.  If every day were sunny, when would I nap?  If every day were cloudy, when would I click into gear and get productive?  (of course, the two are sometimes reversed....)

: :

other pleasures, from my refrain of praise....


# 265 - that little indomitable fellow, heart of my heart


# 269 - grey-green caterpillar, a find

# 270 - another walk through Big

# 271 - another sweeping sky

# 273 - shrunken sweater stitched into smiling bear

# 274 - a neighborly chat in a farm lane

# 275 - tucking persimmons into trespassing stranger's cupholder

# 277 - reconnecting, a thin thread

# 280 - stacks & shelves of books, for the reading

# 282 - pendant raindrops on crepe myrtle seed pods

fresh perspective

It doesn't take much to get my eyes off the ground.

a night out at the pottery studio
pizza made by friends' hands & baked outdoors in a clay oven
a suncatcher for me to paint, gift from my daughter
husband's hand on mine
children dropped off happy at Grandma & Grandpa's
us, let loose from schedules, lunching with newspapers spread
cheese from the Savory Gourmet
a drive through the park, looking for (and finding!) mushrooms
the "ahhhhh" of a quiet house
a great illustrated book on pottery techniques
nap on the livingroom floor
chocolate for tea, and mushroom leek cheese
the possibilities of two unplanned days


All these, consecutively, work wonders.  I pray God the days' refreshment will translate into something more lasting - patience, maybe? for the multitudes of wrinkle-makers sent for my refinement.

In the meantime, gratitude, deep and sweet.

Thank you, God above.  Thank you, potter friends.  Thank you, daughter of mine.  Thank you, "Ba."  Thank you, my Farmer, my hero, my friend.

Thank you, God above.

trade-off?

The traffic is busier in the mornings going to work, my Farmer tells me. School has started up again and the buses are out in full force, figuring out their routes and complicating everyone else's. I wouldn't know. I'm at home, teaching my three daughters and caring for my little son.

This is the time of year when I alternately question our decision to homeschool and rejoice that such a privilege is available to us. When you've never had the opportunity, homeschooling can look a lot like insanity. Why in the world would I trade my “freedom” for the enormous extra responsibility of teaching three students on my own? Especially when we're in such a good school district?!

Here, to remind myself as much as to inform you, is why:

~ for the joy of hearing Sugar sing to Lil' Snip while she sweeps the back porch

~ being able to hold Spice on my lap in the middle of the morning and talk about whether the glass is half full or half empty, whether the sky is mostly sunny or mostly cloudy, and how gratitude can help train us to optimism

~ vast quantities of free time for all four, today to make ink from pokeberries (“I read about it somewhere” says Sugar) and, using quills they made from feathers they found, write notes to their friends

~ the friendships cemented between sisters and brother, caring for each other and learning to “fight nice”

~ watching Nice religiously shepherd Lil' Snip and try to practice her reading on him

~ a chance to discover, again, to learn things I missed the first time through

~ flexibility to add to the curriculum spontaneously when my Farmer spots a new mushroom species or we find a caterpillar on the flowers Grandma helped them pick

~ an intimate knowledge of creation that is only possible through constantly touching it, smelling it, hearing it, and tasting it – and the opportunity to give credit to the Creator

~  and the harder joy of sacrifice, learning not just penmanship but patience

It's not all roses, of course. If it were, there would be no need for me to write this list. We passed a bus the other day, full of small children on their way to school. Their mothers were probably shopping. Or sipping their first cup of coffee at the quiet kitchen table, musing, able to hear their own thoughts, mapping out their day till 3:30.

I was taking a meal to a friend, then home to work on figuring area and doing multiplication, learn about the history of coal mining in Pennsylvania and read aloud the next exciting chapters from George MacDonald's The Princess & Curdie. We'd study nature and sketch it, write down our observations about weather conditions, practice penmanship and memorize poetry. After Sugar and Spice made lunch, they'd wash up the dishes while Nice gave Lil' Snip a ride in her dolly stroller.

In the afternoon we have an hour or so of Quiet Time (which I always think of capitalized). Sugar and Spice read on their own, Nice listens to music and looks at books, and Lil' Snip, we hope, sleeps.

I read, or nap myself, and sometimes . . . I take the time to count my blessings. The trade-off is worth it. I'd rather have my children home, learning life together, no matter how much leisure I give up.

a little sleep, a little slumber....

Last night I did something revolutionary:  I went to bed before eight o'clock (one minute before, actually).  Despite several interruptions - refereeing sibling issues, husband coming to bed, husband getting out of bed, husband pulling up covers - I was a new person this morning.  (see this post for the person I was yesterday!).

I answered my husband's "good morning" decently.  I was eager for my baby to wake up (he, too, has been suffering from sleep deprivation and went to bed over an hour early last night, exhausted).  I made baked oatmeal for my family's breakfast.  I started a load of laundry and hung it out to dry.  I took my children on a walk through dew-drenched grass between fields of corn and soybeans.  We saw an indigo bunting!  We played "guess where I'm sitting" (which idea came to me last night as I was waiting to fall asleep).  I did some hemming that I've been procrastinating for weeks - and had the patience to explain the whole process to an audience of three.

My mind is clear and able to think creatively.  I am calm and patient with my children, and able to enjoy including them in my activities.  (Unfortunately, this has been unusual lately!)

I must confess, though, that it was NOT easy to go to bed early last night.  I had no time to myself after putting the girls to bed.  No leisure reading.  No relaxing conversation with my Farmer, catching up on each other's days.  No snacking.  No finishing up leftover chores.

But you know what?  It was worth it.  I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat!  (Not tonight, though, probably - I'll just try to go to bed when I'm tired, instead of waiting until everything is crossed off my to-do list).

What inspired me to go to bed so crazy early was a book I'm reading, Sleepless in America by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.  I am so grateful for this book, I could cry.  It has helped me understand why some of my children sleep easily, and why some get so wired (and what to do about it).

Mary Sheedy Kurcinka has more than twenty years' experience as a teacher, an award-winning parent educator, and an international trainer, and she's written some great books on related topics.  What she has to say may revolutionize your world.

Just to whet your appetite, the subtitle of the book is "Is Your Child Misbehaving or Missing Sleep?"  The book is full of real-life examples of parents solving tantrums and bedtime struggles, attention problems and whining, by changing the way they approach sleep.  It is definitely aimed at helping children, but her points applied to parents can have dramatic effects, as I found out.

Sleep well:  live well.

was it a morning like this? (irony)

Recipe for a bad morning:

Wake up several times during the night, preferably to the sound of your youngest child crying.  Sleep through your husband's alarm clock so that you can be disoriented when you hear your own.  Answer your husband's “good morning” with a sleepy (ok, growly) mumble.  Think dark thoughts in the shower.  Read James during your quiet time and feel inadequate and burdened.  Fight with your husband over whether or not he should wear an ill-fitting birthday present.  Make coffee without replacing the carafe completely, so that the coffee accumulates in the basket with the grounds and spills out into the carafe, the counter, and the coffeemaker's water reservoir.  Allow your children to come to you with problems they should be able to solve on their own.  Remember to check when those homeschool affidavits and educational objectives are due and discover that it was two weeks ago.

Recipe for recovering the rest of the day:

Remember that the world will not end over this, and that if it did, that would be a good thing!  Spend a couple of hours with a friend and her children (after first printing out generic objectives and affidavits and filling in all blanks preparatory to zipping in to the notary in the afternoon).  Get the crying out of the way first, then laugh as much as possible while solving the more complex of the world's problems.  Have a random lunch, just for comic relief.  Nap.  Plan frozen pizza for supper, even though it's not Friday.  Try not to think about those late affidavits........

quick tip

Today was definitely a napping day; by "quiet time", my morning iron pill had long since worn off.

I tried out a tip from Gene Stone's book, The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick:  before you nap, drink a cup of coffee (or eat chocolate, my favorite all-natural source for caffeine).  Then, when you wake up from your nap, the caffeine will have hit your system and you'll be bright-eyed and busy-tailed (instead of groggy and grumpy, as occasionally happens here - say, when my nap has been interrupted by excessively cheerful daughters bounding down from their quiet time to pounce on their prone momma).

I am here to tell you that it works!!

I ate one of the Newman's Own Dark Chocolate Espresso Bars leftover from my birthday splurge (they're single size, unlike the Lindt) while reading Godric (itself almost a form of caffeine) and then, reluctantly (by then I was caught up in my book), lay down.

Twenty-five minutes later, I woke up, refreshed and raring to go!!  We'll see how long it lasts.....but for now, I'm definitely feeling "squirrely-er" than I did half an hour ago!

caught napping

I just want to say that I love naps.  If you are having any kind of difficulty today, may I recommend one?

You never outgrow them, no matter what you think when you're five, or twenty-five, for that matter.  At five you want to put them behind you as things suitable only for the lisping babies.  At twenty-five maybe you're taking a hiatus from naps for some years (depending, perhaps, on whether or not you've started a family of your own yet).

Things that seemed impossible before your nap look easy when you wake up.  Chores that loomed onerously become mere child's play.  People whose conversation you could barely tolerate an hour before take on the glow of the beloved.

Ahhhh, naps!  Nicest snatched on a sofa with a neglected job or two in the background, most delicious when most desperately needed, there is nothing like a nap for restoring the world to its proper perspective.

(can you tell I got one today?!)

the sun cure

I just spent the better part of an hour in my husband's greenhouse.

Hit by the heat (it was 105 degrees Fahrenheit), I opened the jaw of the vent wider.  I watered the lettuces and the children's hopeful log-lined garden plots, twice.  I hooked the water wand over the hydrant, ready for next time.  And then, I sat on the permanently reclining green chair at the back and just basked in the sun.

When I opened the door to leave, thinking it had been only a few minutes, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees in the open air.  Everything looked a bit dim.  Two mourning doves took flight.  Tiny little blue flowers in the grass shivered under a honeybee's attentions.  A squirrel scampered off, interrupted.  I had to reorient myself, like coming home from vacation.

On the way back to the house, I took off my flipflops and walked barefoot on the grass.

My husband (let's see, what shall I call him on this blog.....?) has, for the last two months, regularly recommended this treatment - greenhouse time.  Somehow, though, once the children are all separated for quiet time, the allure of a snack and a good book drives all thoughts of the outdoors from my mind.  I just want to shut down, as quickly as possible, for my own little quiet time.

He was right, though (as he very often is).  There is something very physically relaxing about green things and Extreme Sun (it was down to about 90 when I left).  It's as if my very pores are hit with tranquilizers, and the effect lingers.

So I spent my time lying in the sun instead of catching up on email or starting supper or crossing something off my to-do list.  My chores all still here, none the worse for the wait.

And even away from the sun, my skin still tingles.