It's so funny that I was so excited in that last post about our having fire wood, because now we have none. We were snowed in for at least a week soon after, and it was sooo incredibly cold, that our fireplace was continuously burning for a while! It was such a god-send.
It's like the world is intent on our staying cooped up at home. But we survived the wintery cold and the lack of much to do. We did a little fun prep work for my brother's wedding- trying out clothes, making sure we had clean nails, and Miss E wanted bangs, so I cut her bangs. I also made silk flower arrangements for a dinner my parents are hosting the night before the wedding.
Miss E loves playing with makeup and doing her nails.
We invited Mr E but he kinda just sat on the bed with his tablet and talked to her while I did her nails.
There was a lot of sitting by the fire and playing, cooking, eating, reading, watching tv, playing games, and stuff like that.
We played Barbies and Calico Critters a lot- of course there was always a friendly dinosaur or such. I forget how exactly our dolls ended up with broken limbs, but the Squirrel (Mr E) immediately decided to take care of us while we healed and was an absolutely excellent nurse.
And of course the day of V-Day we celebrated with chocolate and cards.
I melted the chocolate. They dressed for the occasion and got to work!
We made tons of little mice- too many in fact. Sadly, a lot of them went bad before we ever got around to eating them.
For a few days, it was too cold even for the kids, so we all just sat by the fire. They didn't even ask to go outside. But then after a while things got less icy and more conducive to play. So play they did!
Even the dogs got in on the action. I'll post a couple videos below:
Today it was actually very nice and warm, so I went outside for the first time in a while to clean up the backyard a little and water the plants. I think everything survived- things have started sprouting, and hopefully even the Texas sage will come back to life. It still has a little bit of green left in it, so there's hope. After I had finished my little bit of work, I sat on our bench and looked around at the yard and thought to myself:This is HOME. This is my little bit of Earth, our safe heaven. And I was flooded with gratitude.
We were able to sit back and relax (for the most part) while the entire rest of the world seemed to be struggling to deal with this unexpectedly strong winter storm. We were happy together, warm, and sufficiently fed. I think people call it having basic needs met, but "fundamental" might be a better word. Of course we were already going a little stir-crazy, and the moment it warmed up enough I took the kids to the park. By the end of the week I was making ramen noodles for lunch. But we were protected when we needed protection. However imperfect our family and home might be, we are incredibly blessed. My sister's prayer this morning at "church" (through Facebook) reminded me of that. We should be hyperfocused on our blessings, because they are realistically many and very fundamental, instead of the few and unimportant things I let bother me so much. We are blessed. Truly blessed. Ebenezer. Hasta aquí nos ayudó el Señor.
Éste pensamiento fué escrito para "Unos Minutos de Fe y Confianza," y dirigido a la Iglesia Shekina de Cd Juarez Chih.
Según el
salmo 84, la casa de Dios puede ser el templo, puede ser la protección de Dios,
puede ser incluso el firmamento, junto al cual aún las aves tratan de hacer
su nido. Si pregunto si recuerdan algún versículo o ejemplo bíblico en el que
la imagen de Dios, de sus seguidores, de su templo etc nos hace visualizar un
hogar, yo sé que ustedes ya sabrían darme bastantes ejemplos. Y seguramente
recuerdan el versículo del salmo 91 donde las alas del altísimo son nuestra
protección. Dios mismo, quien es todopoderoso y pudiera representarse a sí mismo como cualquier cosa, seguido toma la forma de un padre, de un ave que
cuida de sus polluelos, o de un pastor. Las metáforas
en la tradición bíblica pudieran estar ahí muy a propósito*, y en tal caso éstas imágenes tienen la importante labor de hacernos sentir en casa, ya que éste
siempre ha sido el plan de Dios para nosotros. Después de todo, antes de irse,
Jesús se despidió prometiendo que iría a preparar un lugar para nosotros en la
casa de su padre, para que donde Él esté, nosotros también estemos. (Juan
14:2-4)
Hay muchas
formas de estar en la casa de Dios. En el salmo 84 la casa de Dios
es el cielo, el templo, o incluso algo intangible como la protección de Dios. Pero
cuando Jesús prometió hacernos un lugar en la casa de Dios, sus discípulos
inmediatamente comenzaron a hacer preguntas, y Jesús respondió con más
metáforas. El uso de éstas metáforas está diseñado para mandar un mensaje: Hay muchas
formas de estar en la casa de Dios, y la mejor forma es una personal. Es diferente para cada persona.
Para
acercarte a Dios, un músico te dirigiría en adoración. Un pastor o las personas
a quienes nos gusta indagar las vicisitudes de la historia te contaríamos más
sobre las muchas maravillas que puedes encontrar por medio de la teología. Un
artista te contaría de aquella vez en que los colores de los montes y los
prados parecían contar del resplandor de su Señor.
Pero ¿y tú? ¿Tú tienes tu
lugar? ¿Estás a gusto en la casa de Dios? ¿Has encontrado tu conexión personal con Dios?
Seguido hablamos en la iglesia sobre la importancia de aprender de Dios por medio de su palabra. Pero hoy te propongo que le
preguntes a Dios acerca de tí mismo. Que hagas lo que Jesús, y prepares un
lugar. Que hagas lo que Maria, la madre de Jesus, y consideres y guardes lo que
pasa dentro de tí. En tu pequeño mundo, ¿cómo puedes preparar un lugar? ¿Cómo puedes hacer tu nido cerca de Dios? ¿Dónde te sientes en casa? ¿En el arte, en la
teología? O tal vez eres un poco mas extrovertid@, y te sientes en casa en un
mundo más social.
Pero como
todos tenemos un espacio personal- es decir, un hogar, un cuarto propio, un
mundo donde todo o casi todo esta bajo nuestro control, te invito a que hagas
de éste nido algo cercano a Dios. Hacer de nuestro hogar un espacio ministerial
es algo que nos conviene a todos los cristianos. Nos acercamos a Dios, y
hacemos un lugar para nosotros mismos en la casa de Dios, cuando nuestra casa
es la casa de Dios. Si nos vamos a la Biblia, nuestra casa debe ser un lugar de
refugio, un lugar de servicio, y un lugar de crecimiento. Una de mis mejores amigas
me inspiró a leer un libro* sobre las muchas formas en que el cuidado del hogar
es una forma de acercarse a Dios. Y hace algunos meses yo habría hecho caso
omiso, pero últimamente mi casa es mi único espacio, y ésta realidad me ha
abierto los ojos. Hay un balance importante de realizar desde el núcleo principal del ser
personal y familiar.En Tito capítulo 2,
el apóstol Pablo habla en específico a cada personaje del núcleo familiar. Todos son importantes: el joven, el hombre, la mujer, incluso controversialmente el sirviente. Pablo concluye que "vivamos en este siglo sobria, justa, y piadosamente" mientras aguardamos, cada uno conforme al plan personal de Dios para nosotros.
Un hogar
limpio, organizado, que refleja nuestras creencias, es verdaderamente lo más
cercano al cielo que podemos tener mientras esperamos. Así que estoy intentando
mantener una casa más limpia. Pero un espacio personal, físico o intangible, puede ser nuestro nido. Nadie conoce mejor tu nido, sólo tú y Dios. Nuestro
rol a llenar, nuestro camino a seguir, es nuestro nido, y el plan de Dios
siempre ha sido que hagamos lo que las aves. Cualquiera que sea tu nido, tu rol
en el núcleo familiar, tu espacio personal, tu responsabilidad cívica y social-
haz lo que el ave. Halla tu casa, donde tener tus polluelos, donde llenar tu
rol, donde hacer lo que debes hacer en éste mundo, y toma ese nido y
constrúyelo o reconstrúyelo un poco más cerca del firmamento. Toma tus
habilidades, tus intereses, tus sueños, y construye tu casa sobre la roca.
Recoge tus raíces y plántalas cerca del rio. Mejor es un día en Sus atrios que
mil fuera de ellos.
Una forma muy práctica de hacer ésto es aplicando los
mandamientos bíblicos a tu espacio personal. Tu casa, tus relaciones
personales, tus aspiraciones e incluso tus hobbies pueden tener un fundamento
cristiano. Por ejemplo, las metáforas de construir un hogar o un nido indican que
toda buena vida necesita un esfuerzo inicial. Éstos tiempos de cuarentena han
sido cansados, pero ¡esfuérzate y sé valiente! Busca un buen balance, y tendrás
buenos resultados. Construir o reconstruir toma disciplina. Y vale mucho la
pena. Ésto es muy bíblico: Para estar a gusto en casa, primero tenemos que
construirla.
Una forma
más que se me ocurre es la constante auto-mejoría. Ya construida la casa,
debemos cuidarla. La Biblia está llena de cartas de un mentor a sus
congregaciones, inculcándoles mejores y mejores normas de vida. La Biblia
también nos dice que hagamos todo como para Dios. Así que una forma de
acercarnos a Dios claramente es mejorar nuestros sistemas de trabajo. Buscar constantemente
cómo mejorar, cosas nuevas que aprender, y nunca quedarnos estancados.
Y
finalmente, el servicio a los demás no puede ser omitido. Aunque ya hemos
hablado mucho de ello- te invito a hacerte la pregunta: ¿Cómo sirvo a mi hermano
con lo que yo hago? La gente que está cerca de mí, ¿es bendecida por medio de
mi? ¿Estoy alejándome o acercándome a la gente que Dios puso en mi camino?
¿Se te
ocurre algo más? Me interesaría mucho saber como estás acercándote a Dios
últimamente, y como podemos hacernos un nido cómodo y cálido cerca de los atrios de Dios.
*Para quienes puedan estar interesad@s, el libro al que me refiero se llama Keeping House, por Margaret K. Peterson.
It would actually be much more appropriate to title this post "A School Week in the Life" because this post is going to basically be a long list of all the topics we've been covering in school lately, so I do apologize if this turns out to be a terribly boring post. But here we go...
In the warmer months, we used to wake up early, and I especially would make it a point to go outside in the morning to clean up the yard, water, etc. before the start of the school day. By contrast, our mornings in the cold weather months are actually very late mornings. Yup. We sleep in. All the time. You have my permission to judge me. I just cannot wake up early when it's cold out. And I hate cleaning the yard in the cold, so I let it go until I cannot take it any longer and finally pick a warm day to force us (my poor Quijote and I) to clean up leaves and doggie doo and anything else that might need cleaning. This weekend we finally got things cleaned up. Sorta. We still have a lot of work to do... But this is already soooo much better!
Notice we have fire wood now? Woot woot! Go Daddy! ETA:Actually, Daddy says it was Grandpa who found the firewood person and made this happen! GO GRANDPA!
But yes. We wake up late, and I check my phone and let the kids have a little check in with the world too. But then we have breakfast (usually oatmeal) and I have my cafecito, so we can start the day.
We have been starting out with "Languages" every morning.
Miss E is studying cursive calligraphy, Mr E is practicing his print style lettering. We are also studying the art of sentence formation, paragraph writing, etc. This is what I think of as the "English" part. We are also studying Nahuatl and Spanish, and for those two languages we have so far covered pronouns, possessive pronouns, articles, the verb to be in present tense, simple sentence forming, colors, items in the house, family members, and some random vocabulary.
This week we also started learning a short love song in Nahuatl.
We usually then take a break for lunch. The kids do some laps around the house and some quick aerobics exercises, then take a break while I clean the kitchen and prepare lunch.
The kitchen looks a lot nicer now that I've started starting the dishwasher in the middle of the day to take advantage of the solar power.
When Quijote was home during the start of the pandemic we used to have fancy meals all the time because he was around and he enjoys cooking. Now we only have fancy lunch on weekends. During the week I make lentils, chicken soup, rice and tuna, and hummus platters for lunch. We also reheat leftovers- my love of efficiency can be blamed for this. I think this is the time to quickly put something together, and/or a good time to try and get rid of those containers in the fridge. Q makes such beautiful meals, though. His deserve a picture.
or two.
After a short break, the kids and I usually do "Math and Sciences" for our second half of the day. This to me means doing basic arithmetic, and sometimes a little History, Geography, or Social Studies. We have been working on Miss E's multiplication tables. Have I mentioned we love this guy's songs? They have helped Miss E memorize her tables without stressing out as much. Now that she is almost done memorizing all her tables, we are also moving on to division problems, and the section on division from this book really helped her with that.
Mostly, though, we use the Brain Quest workbooks. They were inexpensive, and have been very useful, in my opinion. We print out some materials, or use loose paper for creative freedom (all of this ends up in their ring binders, separated by topic) and I have them use their notebooks a lot too. Here is Mr E with his workbook.
Mr E is still practicing the clock, but he is also now learning about coins and bills (the US money system) and Quijote did me the huge favor of swinging by the dollar store the other day and got us this play money. The kids seem to enjoy it, and it's helped me keep Mr.E's attention on the topic at hand.We are using the play money to learn to make change, add and subtract by 1, 5, 10, 20, 25.
What else have we been up to?....
Soon after the Inauguration took place, we listened to the now famous poem "The Hill We Climb" and talked about metaphors and similes.
It was also a great introduction to studying the Civil Rights movement, and we have worked our way back from there to the Civil War, the American Revolutionary War, and Colonial times. We had touched on colonialism during Thanksgiving, so that worked out pretty well: we circled right back to studying the 13 colonies. We have now covered (in very wide strokes) a basic history of the US through the eyes of its people. The kids listened to Dr. Martin Luther King's speech "I Have a Dream" and we talked about his masterful use of rhetoric: His use of religious language, the rhetoric behind poetry, the authority of historical literature which MLK quotes in his speech (such as the Declaration of Independence, which we have also studied), and so on. We thought and wrote about the historical practice of slavery, segregation, and modern racism. We studied a number of historical figures from Colonial times, the First and Second Continental Congress, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and finally, the Civil Rights Movement. I was very proud that the kids immediately made a connection that extended from this much more recent social justice movement all the way back to the near demise of Native American rights during the time of Colonialism, without my doing it for them. They connected the dots themselves by pointing out that the same kind of injustice was going on during both historical times, so we talked about the problem of racism and nationalism. These were all somewhat difficult topics for me to cover with honesty AND without making my explanations too heavy and dark or without becoming too pessimistic. I would never want my children to lose the optimism necessary for actionable thought. I repeatedly reminded them of their important and unusual role in society as members of both ends of this cultural intersection. I think this is a testament to their critical thinking and the importance of their exercising it: that they both naturally concentrate their conversations around solutions, which brings me so much hope. Even though they are so young, we have had many wonderful and meaningful conversations about what we can all do to build a better society.
During the days we covered US History, I also had them construct this puzzle at the end of the day. They are getting better and better at it, and I think this will help them learn the US states little bit by little bit.
Now that we are done with all of that, we are going back to studying World History. The widening of our focus came about naturally, after I taught them about maps -mostly for the sake of Mr E, who is apparently supposed to be going over this during 1st grade- and the topic of landmarks came up.
Here we are studying our maps:
We started by studying basic cartography skills, then moved on to the history of landmarks in the National Mall: The Capitol, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial. And from there, we naturally decided to go bigger, and we watched this video of the Wold's Top 100 Landmarks. I realized we have actually talked about a whole bunch of them during our ancient civilization spree we went on at the beginning of the school year, so I think we should extrapolate! And now that we've made a huge jump to modern history, I also want to try to put that in context and build a bit of a clearer, but more inclusive time line. So we are officially widening our scope. As you might have guessed, the plan is to go over World History through the study of its landmarks. Wish me luck!
So that's pretty much it. At the end of the day, as I mentioned, we do a quick puzzle or last activity- sometimes a quick craft. Then the kids clean their room, and after that, they can have the rest of the day to themselves. If we finish very early I do ask them to go play outside or in their room (ie, I make them have screen-free time) until a certain time of the day. That way I can limit their screen time without outright telling them I am doing it. I do this because in these colder months, we are gravitating a whole lot towards our screens, which I think is only natural; but I want to make sure they do the other stuff, too.
And I think that's what our school days have been of late! Though I still have a few more pictures~ from our free time during the rest of the day:
Crafting with recycled materials:
Daisy hates her booties, but they both need them for their walks.
Miss E (in her most dramatic voice): No. I am emotionally and literally not ok!
I can't remember why exactly Q asked her if she was ok, but I thought her wording was endearingly specific. ^.^
***
Mr E is playing a game on his Kindle. It's a pretty cool game that I think is especially educational, because kids have to type things into existence. If they want a dragon, for example, they have to input "large winged dragon." SO aaanyways... he is playing and starts typing:
LAW ENFORCEMENT
nothing happens
LAW ENFORCEMENT
again, nothing.
Mr E comes over to me, asks me to check his spelling while he types. "Am I writing this right?"
LAW ENFORCEMENT
I say to him: "No, that's correct. Try "cops""
Mr E types: COP
That worked! BWAHAHAHA! He's too articulate for his own good. I did try not to laugh out loud, though. I only told him that such is the power of synonyms.
****
Special mention- though this is not my child, but the daughter of a friend of ours:
En Estados Unidos, el día del amor y la amistad es muy de naturaleza romántica, pero en México siempre ha sido tanto para los amigos como para los novios- y ésto es el caso en especial para los niños de edad escolar.
Como ya comenzamos febrero, lo primero que hicimos los niños y yo fue decidir como íbamos a celebrar este año. En lo que los niños empezaron a escribir e ir a la escuela, comenzamos la tradición de buscar pequeños regalitos para los amigos de la escuela, pero también comenzamos a escribir cartas entre nosotros. Voy a buscar si tengo aqui algún post sobre esto.
(Nope. No he tenido suerte. Sólo hay un post en el link de Valentine´s Day y es de antes de que los niños pudieran escribir una cartita)
Éste año en lugar de hacer nuestros propios buzones de cartón o de papel (incluso hicimos unos de tela alguna vez) yo fui a la tienda antes de que comenzara el mes y de casualidad encontré unos buzones ya hechos que me gustaron mucho. Compré tres- uno para cada cuarto- y los pusimos fuera de la puerta de nuestros cuartos como si cada cuarto fuera una casa.
Nos hemos divertido mucho escribiendo cartitas y haciendo pequeños regalitos para ponerlos en el buzón de alguno de nosotros. Hoy Quijote fué a comprar cosas para mis clases de escuela con los niños y hasta compró unos dulcitos para ponerles en su buzón. Me dió mucho gusto que él se nos uniera. Y el otro día Miss E nos puso una invitación para un juego de laser tag.
°°°
Aunque también está relacionado con la amistad, nuestros juegos de Among Us comenzaron muy orgánicamente, sin realmente planear que íbamos a hacer esto en febrero por ser el mes de la amistad ni nada de eso- sólo pasó en el mes perfecto, por casualidad. Hace poco, uno de los niños descubrió el juego y nos puso a jugar a todos. Al principio jugamos nosotros entre familia aquí en la casa, y luego Quijote invitó a familiares y amigos y algunos pudieron estar en el primer juego este martes! Hoy acabamos de jugar por segunda vez y ha sido genial.
Estuvo muy gracioso y divertido. Durante el juego del martes, aquí en casa tratamos de separanos para ser "justos" pero de todas formas pude disfrutar lo mucho que los niños se divirtieron! Se escuchaba desde el cuarto de cada uno cómo se reían y gritaban de la sorpresa o la emoción.
También hemos tenido algunos días calientitos- aquí y allá, no todo el tiempo pero más bien dispersos- y ha sido lindo poder ir al parque de vez en cuando otra vez.
En la noche, aun estamos sentándonos con ellos hasta que se duermen, Ya pronto tendremos que dejarlos dormirse solos, pero aún no le hemos hecho. En realidad es una de las mayores razones por las que les habíamos dado el cuarto juntos: esperábamos que estar juntos les ayudaría a estar "solos" (sin adultos) pero acompañados uno del otro a la hora de dormir. Pero no funcionó. Aún asi teniamos que sentarnos con ellos. Así que decidimos separalos (ya que es mas práctico que tengan su propio espacio por sus intereses, colores, estilos etc) y esperar a ver si se puede dejarlos ir a dormir solos cuando sean mayores.
En fin, realmente lo que quería decir es que la otra noche, mientras ponía a Miss E a dormir, ella tuvo la compañía de los dos perritos. Cuando los niños eran muy chicos, los perritos la verdad los toleraban, pero ahora que son más grandes, los niños pueden jugar y establecer mejores relaciones con una mascota. Ahora que ellos han entablado una mejor relación, se les ve a los niños y perritos haciéndose compañía mucho más a menudo. Es muy lindo!
Y pues creo que eso es todo. Ésto ha sido nuestro vivir últimamente. Ya vendrá un post de las cosas que estamos haciendo en la escuela.
