Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Family update

*Our babysitter, Graceann, was able to come babysit today. The last time she babysat was around Christmas time. I was very thankful for her help, especially when she took all 3 Lambs to the park. They did play doh for a long time too. They haven't done play doh for a very long time. She is homeschooled (high school) so it looks like she may be able to come back more regularly now. This is Ram's long day visiting people so I was thankful for another person over age 5 to talk with for the afternoon too. Lamb 3 seemed to do ok with her too. I was afraid he might not remember her and get scared. It helps that I stay home while she is here. Hopefully I can get lots accomplished while she is here.

*When I taught in IN, I had laminated prayers for my classroom. I found the mealtime prayers (from the catechism) but I have looked everywhere I can think of without finding the morning prayer. I finally gave up and I needed to type up the evening prayer any way so I typed them both (without laminating) and hung them up. I hate it when I can't find something I want. Then I want to drop everything and clean out things until I find that thing I'm missing. Life doesn't work that way for a mom though.

*Tonight we are going to a wrap up for a visit your local park program. We will take a picnic supper. I made a photo book with photos from the parks. This was not required for the program, but it will be a nice memory for the boys when we are in the middle of a MN winter. It was a great idea-free to go to your local parks. I had no idea the small town 7 miles away had 7 parks. It was a good thing they gave us a map or we never would have found a few of the parks. The Lambs enjoyed going to the parks. Lamb 3 even cried when we left the last park. We had a slow start because I sprained my foot early this summer and then we were gone a lot in June and July, but we were able to go to all the parks before the deadline tonight. The weather has been cool and it will be nice for tonight even though it is very humid.

*Ram and I listened (we didn't call in) along with 10,000 other Minnesotans to Senator Klobachar's tele-town hall meeting about health care last Sunday. If you care to listen it is on her website here. One of the several things that she said that I didn't like is that "her" plan would save us 50 billion dollars. She has no concept of how much debt this country is in. 50 billion is about half a percent of 9 trillion. Plus she kept saying that Medicare was important to her because her parents are on Medicare. So what? Is she volunteering to have the same health care plan as us? When I tried to call her and leave a message, her voice mailbox was full. I'm in the process of writing her a letter. In the letter I am going to encourage her to read every word in whatever health care bill the Senate comes up with plus read every word in the Constitution.

*Ram turned in our boxes we put together for LLL Global Care Packages today. I volunteered when we moved here to be the chairperson for our tri-parish for this program. They have changed the directions several times for this program. Some years we put together boxes for new mothers. Most years we did boxes for school children. I remember even helping with this program when I was teaching in IN. So I have been involved several years. They recently announced they are no longer doing this program. In a way I'm thankful to reclaim a part of my room that kept the supplies while they were gathered from the churches. I'm also thankful because I don't have to figure out new rules each year. But I'm sad after so many years and what I thought was a great program. Lamb 1 helped as soon as he could walk. Our church needs programs like this to make it helping people in other countries more personal. I know there is a lack of funds and personnel, but it's too bad. I hope and pray that they can do this program again.

*This morning I wrote out a schedule for Lamb 1 with clocks (Target $1 find). As I read the schedule to Lamb 1, he had a question for everything. Why do we have to do school? Why math? Why schedule? It would drive a teacher crazy. I'm preparing him for a schedule because there will be a few things that he has to do without Lamb 2 like handwriting. He hates to do activities without Lamb 2. Many will stay the same as they have been for years at our house like 3pm snack time. I'm trying to prepare him mentally for a schedule even if we don't follow it exactly each day. Thank goodness he is going to be homeschooled, he would hate a school schedule and drive the teacher crazy. At least if he drives me crazy, I'm already half way there because of raising him the last 5 years!

*I have thought about a lot of blog topics recently but freezing corn, canning beets, making zucchini cupcakes etc. has taken priority. Hopefully I can post photos from our park program wrap up tonight soon.

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