So Many Books. So Little Time.

I wrote this in 2009 when we had planned on our Family Stories topic being about hobbies.  We ended up writing about childhood games that year, but I still had this saved in the Family Stories file on the computer.  When I realized I hadn't written a single thing in my blog this month, I thought of this and decided I'd add it in with my other ramblings about life.

Books have meant a great deal to me since I was very young. I remember longing to learn how to read and following my mother around, toting a book, hoping to convince her to read it just one more time.  I spent much of the money I earned in my youth on books and a good deal of my free time reading them.  I not only love to read books, but I love how books smell and feel. I love how they look organized on shelves and desktops or in bins and baskets.

The first long conversation Mat and I shared was about books.  We have read many books together and to our kids. When we were dating, we read parts of The Book of Mormon together as he investigated the church.  When we were engaged, we read The Tao of Pooh snuggled up together between our college classes.  During one of those first lean years of marriage, Mat splurged and picked up a hardcover copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for a surprise family Christmas present, and we read it aloud together.  What warm feelings that memory brings!  Now, we have books in every room in our home.

When I was pregnant with Kimball, I excitedly signed up for The Children’s Book of the Month Club. I slowly began to build our library of children’s books before I even picked out a crib set.  Some of the first books I ordered were four Little Critter board books.  Whenever I see them, I think of Kimball pulling all the books down from the shelf in our living room in Aggie Village.  He would sit among them and “read.”  Each child, in turn, has pulled out whole bookshelves and explored the magic contained inside all different kinds of books.  Only Evan has pulled an actual bookshelf down on himself!

I have learned through the years that what I read has a strong impact on the way I feel and how I look at life.  I have learned to be wise about what I read, and I try to encourage the kids to choose good books.  I try to help them to find favorite authors and explore new genres.  We strive to read out of the scriptures as a family each day so we can bring the Spirit into our home.

I’m excited to see the growth our children make as they come to love different books, subjects, and authors.  And, I hope our family will continue to experience joy as we share our love of books.

Christmas All Year Round

Well, it's time to start thinking about taking the Christmas tree down.

Isaac is objecting to any such talk.  He loves to watch the lights slowly fade from white to multicolored and back again.  Many nights during the Christmas season, he sneaks from his bed to enjoy this relaxing site during the dark and quiet of the night and falls asleep on the couch.  Part of me says that I should be more careful not to let him form bad habits.  The other part of me leaves the Christmas tree lights on all night to allow him this small pleasure.

December 2008

Isaac is a kiddo that enjoys Christmas all year round.  His teachers at school know that he'll be interested in any book that has a reindeer in it, whether it's December or May.

July 2008

When Isaac was four, he began asking me to watch the Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer video in June.  At the time, I was desperately trying to get him to understand that any language he attempted would be rewarded, so I dug through the Christmas boxes under the stairs.  I emerged dusty and smiling.  I handed him the video proudly and said, "See, you asked Mommy for Rudolph and you got it!"


Little did I know I was creating a monster.  I dug through the boxes often that summer, pulling out all kinds of Christmas stuff.  I made him a Rudolph cake using my Cricut machine, putting sunglasses on Santa, to celebrate his summer birthday.

Isaac turns 5!

Isaac's love for the poem, The Night Before Christmas, inspired a game we played when he needed calming down.  I would recite it and leave out words for him to fill in.  This Christmas he worked extra hard and memorized the whole thing, with me jumping in every so often.  He performed it as a gift for his teacher and paras in his special ed classroom.  Then, he performed it for all the grandparents as well.


I love to watch all my kids enjoy Christmas, and I'm glad we have Isaac to remind us of the sweet things of Christmas all year round.

A Little More Holiday Spirit

Thanksgiving Break always ends with our annual Taylor Tree Lighting Ceremony.  OK--there's not much of a ceremony, but we put up the Christmas tree then turn off all the lights in the house and bask in the Christmas tree's soft glow.  It officially starts the Christmas season for me, and I love it!

This year putting up the Christmas tree brought more holiday spirit with it than usual.

Josie was full of her normal questions about everything, and one question caught me off guard.  She asked why we didn't have a star on top of our tree like everybody else.  The real answer is that I always had an angel on the top of my Christmas tree as a child, so that's what I looked for when purchasing a tree topper for my family.  But, as I glanced up at the angel and began to answer her, something else came out:  "We have an angel to remind us of the angels that came to announce the birth of the Savior to the shepherds on the very first Christmas."

"Oh!" she said, looking delighted.

I smiled and thought how odd it was that even though it's always my job to place the angel, I hadn't thought of the true meaning of this Christmas symbol in years.  I went on to explain that people put stars on the tree to remind them of the new star that appeared in the sky on the night of Christ's birth.

This little parenting moment, like so many others, had me thinking for days.  It's not that I'd forgotten what we are truly celebrating at Christmastime.  It's just that, for the past few years, all the "commercial stuff" of Christmas seemed completely separate from the true meaning.  Josie reminded me to look at the symbols of Christmas hung all around me and remember the meaning behind the symbol along with all the fun memories of Christmases past.  She reminded me that, even to a little child, the wonder of Christmas isn't about what is under the wrapping paper.  She reminded me that this season of giving places Christ and Santa in our thoughts together and, with a little effort, we can enjoy the wonder of both.

Each day, Josie asks me about hiding places for Christmas presents and vibrates with the excitement of unknown surprises.  Each night, Josie prays that Jesus will have a good birthday this year.  Thank you for these sweet reminders, Josie!

A Builder

I have often heard life described as a book in which each new day is a blank page upon which we can write.

Although I love to write, I feel this analogy lacking.

I have always felt more like a builder...

The Builders

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,

 Some with ornaments of rhyme.

 

Nothing useless is, or low;
Each thing in its place is best;
And what seems but idle show
Strengthens and supports the rest.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where Gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

 

Build to-day, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure
Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain
To those turrets, where the eye
Sees the world as one vast plain,
And one boundless reach of sky.

Sweet Success

 Who says fine motor therapy can't be fun?

Ahhh, the sweet taste of success! 

Isaac Speaks: Update

Picture taken in Utah at the Inn on the Hill

Sept. 22, 2010:   I had a great day with Isaac today.

I found an unfamiliar bag next to the pile of backpacks in the foyer. I picked it up to find a letter in it saying my child was to present to the class about themselves using this half piece of poster board and this questionnaire. It was due any day this week. It being Wednesday already, I couldn't believe I had missed this assignment coming home. Oh well, I thought, Isaac is not one to tell me about extra stuff he gets assigned.

After all the regular reading homework had been done, I sat down on the couch with Isaac to fill out the questionnaire. It was wonderful. I asked him the questions. He answered them. And I understood him! Many of the answers I never knew, like the fact that his favorite candy is orange Starburst. Like the fact that when he grows up he wants to be Robin (from Teen Titans) because Robin is awesome. His favorite sport is football. And his favorite animal is a mammoth (I would have guessed elephant, so I was close). His favorite ice cream is "chocolate cookie dough." It went on and on, front and back. What fun we had!

Many times throughout the past few years I have been brought to tears by frustration and sadness because I couldn't REALLY talk to Isaac. My sign language wasn't good enough, and therefore neither was his, to give him a range of conversation much beyond the labeling of things. And although he could label a great many things, it just wasn't enough. Then, when he started to talk, there were so many times that I didn't know what he was trying to say. My head would hurt with the effort of trying to understand, but still, it was not enough. I knew I was standing on a beach looking out over the ocean, unable to see the vastness that lay beneath the waves. It hurt.

These past few months, we have started being able to really speak to one another and today was a shining example of all that is left to be explored with him.

I spent a good part of the evening working on the poster board for his presentation. Isaac is still at the scribble phase in his fine motor, but that fact didn't bother me as I looked at his answers and filled the space with his favorite things. I had a great time using my scrapbooking supplies and stickers. At one point, Evan came in and commented that he had the same assignment but it wasn't due this week. He spoke of his plans for the poster board and the bag he needed to fill with things he wanted to share. Huh, I thought, the second and third grade teachers must have come up with the idea together.

Now, here's the kicker: If your brain is working at a quicker pace then mine was, you've probably figured it out already...At 11:00pm Mat came to bed and I woke up to move Josie into her own bed. As I lay down after a few hours of sleep and thought back over the evening, I realized that the letter inside the bag had no defining characteristics like a teacher's name or grade on it and that the bag I had found was Evan's all along! How's that for communication?

I couldn't stop laughing. After I woke Mat up with my "quiet" giggling, I decided I'd get up and write it all out in my blog.

UPDATE:

For those of you wondering what happened with Isaac's project, here it is...

 His teacher, Mrs. Pfohl, was nice enough to give him some time to present it to the class.  He dressed up in his Robin costume, used his musical Kung Fu Panda birthday card for an attention getter, and told the class about himself (with a little help from Mom).

He concluded with a video of his favorite dance from So You Think You Can Dance.  It's called Yellow.  Check it out--  http://youtu.be/rrxOBxlQmho    It is amazing!!!

20 Kisses

Anyone who has ever tried to teach a child to count has probably been frustrated with "The Teens."  My kids always sound something like this....10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20.  They are fine after that.  The teens are always learned last.

They also need to be taught how to read and write these mysterious numbers!  Grrr...and understand that you say the second number first...9...teen, but write it last.  Why is it so confusing?

Josie and Isaac are in this stage together right now.  Because Isaac is older he's been working on it longer.  Because he has Down syndrome, Josie is pulling ahead.  But, I had to laugh as we put our Halloween decorations up last month because they were trying to help each other count the ghost lights we were assembling in the front yard.  They were proud because they were doing it repeatedly without my help and always coming up with the same answer:  23.  I was amazed at their consistent results!

I was amazed because there are only 12 ghost lights.  They must have been skipping around a lot.

That is when I thought to myself---These kids need more kisses.  One of my favorite strategies to teach counting is a daily dose of 20 kisses.  They help me count (when they aren't giggling).  They get repetition and I get to kiss their faces off.  It's a win-win.

It doesn't help with the reading and writing part, but it's really fun.