to take your shoes off, or not?

Moms, you know the pain of keeping your house clean, right? Never ending and wearing you out. Well, I wanted to get your thoughts.

I personally think it is rude to wear your shoes in someone's home. Someone's home that they have probably just cleaned up to have you over (even if it is the "fake" clean). I have taught my kids to take off their shoes upon entering someone's home and they always do (in fact they kick them off and they go everywhere which perhaps is just as rude as leaving them on). I have battled with: should I ask people to take off their shoes when they come in my home? should I leave obvious signs that I would prefer that? like a sign that says, "Thank you for removing your shoes." or a basket with a sign on it that says, "I want to hold your shoes for you." or some such thing. I always have my shoes off in my home and generally ask little kids that have just tracked through my very muddy yard to take their shoes off, but feel hesitant to do the same thing to their parents.

Now, I know the argument of "you should care more about the person than your floors", and I do, really, I do. My floors will clean. It is much harder to "clean" hurt feelings. I am good with that. If someone feels strongly about it or you are uncomfortable with your socks or your feet are really diry, then please, feel free to wear your shoes.

So, I have battled this for quite some time. Even before having kids who eat things off of my floor. Is it rude to "encourage" people to take off their shoes, is it rude to just automatically take off my shoes (and my kids shoes) upon entering a home (perhaps they would rather have my dirt then be exposed to the bottom of my feet)? Tell me your thoughts and if you are a "shoe taker offer" like me, then tell me how you deal with it...

Just a mom trying to eliminate the ever increasing need to clean my floors...

boy? or girl?

A few weeks ago I was in the McDonald's drive-thru (yes, it was one of those days when lunch was on the run!) and I was paying the attendant. I should also tell you that Benjamin has been on a "boy or girl" kick these days, desiring to label every person he meets into the appropriate gender.

I never realized that this is sometimes ambiguous. That is, until I was paying the cashier through the drive-thru window and heard Benjamin pipe up from the backseat, "Mama? Is that a girl?"

No, it was not a girl.

Somedays...

I am just not so sure I will survive having a boy....

Confession: On Reading

I love to read.  (Feel free to read on.  This is not the confession referenced in the title of this post.)

When I was a little girl, the thing I was most often in trouble for was "having my nose in a book"(quoting my mother here) and therefore being slow to do chores, acknowledge guests, etc.

It seems that Evan, my two year old, has inherited this love for reading.  When I clean up our family room every night, I find his books everywhere.  They have been known to slide under my feet while I am driving.  And, we have had to explain -- more than once -- why books can not be brought into the bathtub.  (I know about those laminated books, and yes, we have some, but I refuse to get more.  I must draw the line somewhere.)  

 Evan's love of books is enabled by our willingness to read aloud to him.  Which we do.  All the time.  

This morning, I sat down to nurse my four month old.  Just like always, Evan came running over with a stack of books he could hardly carry, giddy at the prospect of a half an hour of a captive mother.  And, right on top: The Complete Adventures of Curious George (all 399 pages -- yes, I've looked).

So, here in the safety of other blogging mamas, I will own up to the dread that this sight inspired in me.  And, I will make my confession: I no longer love to read.  At least not when it involves reading aloud.

Some Perks of a Classical Education

The children and I spend our days in a classical Christian school-- they as students and I as a teacher in English and humanities. This is our fourth year there, and we like it for ever so many reasons.

Back when Will was in the 5th grade, I was delighted and truly impressed with his speech on Junius Brutus during Greco-Roman day. Our 5th grade spends their entire history study on the pillar of our Greco-Roman tradition, and Will owned his role well. He made and wore his Roman toga, but added to it a good amount of Caesar's blood in the form of red paint. His (memorized!) speech was impassioned, articulate, and accurate, and I was sure I was glowing in my seat there in the second row.

After all, a good portion of our 9th grade humanities curriculum has to do with the Greeks and Romans: we go from Homer to Alexander all the way to the fall of the Roman Empire. Currently, I'm waist-deep in The Odyssey: the man of pain has returned to Ithaca, and-- Woe to you, suitors! There will be blood.

So it all seemed especially current when, tonight at dinner, Emma Grace announced that she's been playing Gaia during recess. She and some of her classmates have taken on identities from Roman mythology, and her role as goddess of the earth entitles her to some significant authority. Everett asked her what she does as Gaia, and her answer came quickly, matter-of-fact: "Kill people," she said.

But the best moment of them all might have been the one that came a week ago, when my music-loving Everett came to me where I was folding laundry. "Mom, listen to this," he said. And he proceeded to sing the tune of "Song Number 2" by Blur. But the words weren't the ones that Blur penned. No, they came instead from Everett's 5th grade study of the Trojan War and the tragic ending of King Agamemnon, when he returned after ten years of fighting to find he had an adulterous wife. Everett and one of his friends had made the story fit Blur's song, so the words went like this:

I'm Clytemnestra (do-do... do-do-do-do)
I killed my husband (do-do... do-do-do-do)
It wasn't easy (do-do... do-do-do-do)
But nothing i-his....

I think they've got it.

They Left the House at Half Past Nine, At Half Past Nine in Rain or Shine. The Smallest One was...Jesus?

Longest post title ever, I know.

Tonight Eliana sat down to "read" me the story of Jesus' birth. She was doing quite well, remembering phrases such as "Mary, you will bring forth a son," and other such non-toddler-ish verbage. And then she got to the part when Joseph takes his family to Egypt to escape Herod: "God told Joseph in a dream to take Mary and the baby to Paris."

Apparently Mary needed to be up on the latest fashion (she was a teenager, after all)and Jesus, well he liked good croissants as much as the next guy.

Joyeux Noel.

tired of mom already....

My middle one is a girl, 4 years old. She has a lot of personality and never fails to speak her mind or crack me up. Today I pick her up from preschool and as we are walking out, I ask, as I always do, "So, tell me about your day today."

Today's response: "Seriously, Mom, do we have to do this?"

wondering what that will look like in 10 years...

because i want to remember

(cross-posting, because i couldn't figure out where i wanted to post it--thus the lowercase--sorry!)


this is what i love about six.

my big boy--all four feet one inch, fifty-two pounds of him--can climb the climbing structure at school--all the way to the top--without hesitation. gap-toothed, jeans-wearing, soccer-playing, two-wheeler-riding, own-shoe-tying, rough and tumble boy, he is. funny (funny!)--making up jokes that even make sense (sometimes). curious--about everything, really, but especially about math recently (multiplication, division? piece of cake. it's square roots that really interest him these days). consumer of books--yes, long chapter-ish ones like the lord of the rings, but also sweet picture books he'll still read over and over.

i love that he still loves those picture books. and he still loves being read to, even if he reads faster than dad does. and, thankfully, he can climb that climbing structure one-handed...because he still wanted nothing more than to take the class "pet," a lion named cuddles who had his turn to spend the weekend with our family last week, all the way to the top with him. and he definitely wanted dad to take a picture of him up there with cuddles.

that's what i love about six.