Eggs and Breast Milk

Occasionally I think I might have something helpful to share.  Sometimes it is from my heart how the Lord is searching it, stretching it and molding it into something he calls unique.  Sometimes it is what not to do in parenting...or here's how we have tried-failed-tried-failed-tried...ahhh found some results...and sometimes just practical "holy cow who knew" kind of information.  Today is just such a day.  Home remedies at their best.

Let me set the scene for you.

I had just had Hope, our 3rd.  I actually had a fairly good supply of breast milk for once and was so very excited.  Nursing wasn't as difficult the 3rd time around...thank God and things were just trucking right on along.  Well a few weeks in...maybe like 8 ish weeks I noticed one of her eyes looking kind of goopie like "Oh great pink eye."  I took her to the doctor and she thought it was probably just a plugged tear duct and that it would work itself out, but here was some eye drops to do if it didn't get any better, or went to the other eye as well.  And honestly, one of my eyes was kind of getting that pink eye heavy feeling.  So I am sitting there in my full time job of nursing at that point of an infants life, looking at her, in awe of her...and somewhere in the recesses of my brain came something that I had "heard one time."  You know those things that people tell you, and you think is cool, but really how would anyone ever really know.....unless you do it yourself.  So I had heard that putting some of your breast milk in their eyes would heal it right up.  Really?  Breast milk.  So I am staring at her right and running all of those thoughts through my head of...is that gross or really cool?  Is it silly to try?  It can't hurt her, right, I mean I am feeding her with it...let's just say my curiosity got the better of me.  When she was finished I just did a little ol squirt right there in the problem eye...nothing exploded...she didn't wail in agony...I felt kind of like a hippie or something - earth mother-ish...and wouldn't you know I did  it a couple more times and that eye healed right on up.  Guess what else I did?  Yup.  I took a little bit of that excess milk that had been pumped in the freezer...filled up a little syringe that you use to administer meds to your little ones and squirted some of my own milk magic in my own weird eye....yup its true.  It wasn't gross...it wasn't like that Friends episode where Ross won't try the breast milk...it healed my eye right on up too!  Amazing!  Our God is so stinkin' creative and wonderful, and true that he would do that!  I love it.  So... those of you nursing...don't hold back!  Those of you not...so sorry...I do think it'd be weird to ask a nursing mom if you could borrow some of her milk for your bum eye!

Ok...onto the next one.

My parents were here helping us to move into our new home.  Wyatt's lamp had gotten busted in the move, which was really fine I didn't love it.  So we trekked to the all wonderful Target and found the most delightful lamp.  It had an old school wooden red car for the pull down thingy (not sure what that is technically called) and it has a car racing on the shade, but when you turn the light on words appear that say "Champ" and a trophy lights up.  Sweet and precious.  Well, Wyatt just loves it.  That first day all of a sudden I hear him say "Owe my brain hurts my brain hurts."
Pause for a moment.  You know there are parenting moments that you don't know you need to teach about until you are actually in the moment and you need to teach about them.
Well...sweet Wyatt had literally tried to stick his head inside the lamp shade to see the words go on and off as the light went on and off.  But when a light bulb has been on it gets hot...REALLY hot.  That sweet boy had burned himself right in the middle of his forehead.
So here is the home remedy.  Literally earlier that day my mom  and I were talking about the awesomeness of egg whites and what a pure protein they are etc and she began to share with me the story of a man who was having car trouble and had stopped by the side of of a rural road to fix it.  The car actually exploded or something exploded in his face.  A woman who lived on a farm nearby saw this and immediately ran in to get her eggs.  She began to crack them all over his face.  Later the doctors told her that she had saved his face.
So...Wyatt burned a hole in his head (his nickname for the rest of the week became Lightbulb brain) and I said...well go get the eggs...it can't hurt.  We began to dob (is that even a word?) egg whites on that spot several times a day over the next week.  It was amazing.  It never, I mean never blistered up and honestly it should have.  It was a nasty burn.  It scabbed up (we call that a God band-aid) we kept putting on the egg whites...scab fell off about a week later and you can barely tell that anything happened at all!  Again...God is so cool to have put something so easy right in our path for healing.

Isn't that the truth with a lot of the "things" that need healing in our lives.  It's right there.  Sometimes we have to be courageous to try something out of the norm that others might scoff at...sometimes we just need to use what we already have at our disposal but in a little bit different way...sometimes we just need to be willing to see that the Lord chooses to heal us in HIS way...I am thankful for the way he has been healing my heart lately.  Thankful that He chooses to do it!  Thankful that I am letting him.  How are you doing with that dear reader?  Take courage...He desperately loves you!

Pre-K Home Schooling Thoughts

Quickly some updates...
We did indeed move.  I suppose that is why it has been awhile since I posted.  We have been settling in and it has been glorious to be this close to Jason's work.  He even came home for lunch one day.  Amazing!  He says the stress level has shrunk so much just knowing that when he leaves our home he isn't going to go sit in traffic.
Sweet Wyatt has regressed a bit in the potty training...sigh...but alas his little world has been rocked the past month with his buddy going to school and us moving.  Although I will say almost every day he looks at me and says, "Momma, I love our new house."  And when he has an accident and we chat about what to do next time.  As he is running up the stairs to grab a clean pair of underwear I hear him calling down to me saying, "Next time momma, I am going to go on the potty.  I am not gonna let you down."  Sigh.  Precious and distressing all at the same time.  I don't think I have ever told him that it "let's me down" when he doesn't go on the potty...but I am sure my body language communicates such.
Caroline has adjusted so great to her new school.  She is making friends, and we are finding kids in her class that go to our church!  So excited about that.  It has been interested to have her come home with the first PTA fundraiser and it cause the need for a discussion that I didn't know would have to happen between J and I.  Hilarious....really.  Who knew we would have differing opinions on whether or not you participate in the fundraisers.  Ha!
Hope is 16 months and ALL OVER the place!  She is so active...and falling off of and into most anything.  As her world expands I find myself praying this, "Lord as Hope's world and boundaries expands please protect her when I don't know where she is, or can't see the danger in her path."  I pray this often right now.
This past week was pretty emotional for me.  I found myself missing little glory baby often.  It comes out of the blue and surprises me that I will still need to grieve this child.  More on that in another post.  Just updating.

Ok...so moving on to today's post.  I had a good friend ask me to post some of my thoughts and resource ideas on what homeschooling a 3 year old looks like.  Not sure I really know.  Most of it I got from my mom and sister-in-law as Teri (my brother's wife) home schools her 4 kiddos.
I also had the privilege of doing this with a dear friend/neighbor who also had kiddos my kids ages.  So we tackled this together, and actually this fall will be the first I have done it without her.

We set up a schedule and each "class" or segment really only lasted like 20ish min.  Sometimes those 20 felt VERY long and other times they flew.  I think you can put the classes in whatever order you would like, but I think it is important to begin always w/ Bible time.

Here are classes and what they kind of looked like.

Bible time: get creative.  I either read a story from a children's version of the bible and then might have them draw a picture about the story.  I might have them listen to the audio bible we have a draw a picture while listening to it.  Sometimes we would read the story and then assign parts and act it out.  Then we would go over the Catechism.  This was AWESOME!  I watched my sister in law do this with her kids and to hear them recite these truths about God touched my heart so I knew I wanted it in my "curriculum".  We would teach 1-2 of these a week.  After that, then it was memory verse time.  Then share prayer requests and pray as a class.  After that it would be worship time.  This helped get the wiggles out.  We would move from the table to the living room and I would put on something like the "Praise Baby" DVD or some other kids Praise DVD and we would do about 2-3 songs.  This segment of school would last the longest almost taking 25-30 for ALL of this.

Next would be handwriting.  I chose this next mainly b/c it was hard and it would get it out of the way. I use a book called "Handwriting Without Tears".  The first one I use is called "My First School Book" (it is the green one) you can get it from lots of places but on line at www.getsetforschool.com.  I would usually just do 2 pages a day...this made the book last all year b/c I only do this homeschooling w/ a pre-k kids 2 days a week.  For us, Tuesday and Thursday.

After Handwriting was Math time.  At this age it is number recognition, counting, sequences, shapes, colors etc.  There are lots of manipulatives you can use.  I got these small rubber cars/trucks etc and animals.  They come in like 5 different colors.  I could then use these to talk about groups, and sequences of colors or numbers.  You can have flash cards of the numerals and then ask them to put that number of beans or coins on top of the flash card.

After Math was PE.  Time for some more wiggle time.  This would involve learning about kicking a ball, throwing a ball, balancing, hopping on one foot, skipping, marching etc.  We ran a lot of races down the sidewalk!  :)

After PE they would come in for some additional "language arts" time...this was one of those that could be let go if they are just done with school for the day, or you need to get out the door...but basically we talked about rhyming words, and opposites, we would play games and read books.

That's it.  That is our hour and a half to two hours of school time.  I will say it is going to look different this fall because I don't have Shannon to do this with.  Both of us had kids that weren't pre-k age yet and we would tag team them.  So while I was doing handwriting with the older kids, she would have the littler ones upstairs singing songs, reading books, and racing cars.  Then when she did math with the big kids I took the little ones on a walk outside...so I will have some thinking to do about this concerning Hope...but I do know for probably 30-45 min of the time she will be in her pack-n-play having her independent play time again.  She will do bible time with us, then go to the pack-n-play while I am trying to do handwriting and math and then she can come outside with us for PE.  I may save the puzzle, game, opposites stuff for a bit later in the day when she goes down for a nap about an hour before Wyatt does.

You can add other books in there as well for additional book pages to help with everything and just for varying things.  I used a book called BIG Preschool workbook ages 3-5 with both Caroline and Wyatt and it was a good supplemental book as well.

We would also have parties throughout the year for things like Halloween (scandalous I am sure), Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines, St. Patricks, Holy Week to set up Easter.

This always feels daunting to me before we begin...but then when I am in the midst of it with my children I LOVE this time with them.  I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to have this time with Caroline before we sent her out the door to kindergarten this fall.  I am thankful for friends to circle around with me to do this.  I am even thankful for this new season of figuring out how to do this alone in this new season.

Have fun.  Pour into them.  It will be amazing to you that by the end of the year your little 3 year will probably be able to write their names.  Recognize all the letters, and sounds, shapes, and numbers!  This is an awesome time.  Go for it.

I hope this has been helpful.  It has been good to write about this as it gets me excited to get going with Wyatt this Tuesday!  I am doing a good work and I can not come down.  So are you!