As always, it’s been a busy few weeks for our family. It feels like there are never enough hours in the day. We are still adjusting to the schedule change with adding my son’s martial arts to the mix. Originally, we were planning that my husband would bring him and I would make dinner while they were at class. We’ve done that a few times, but I really, really enjoy watching his practices! So instead, we’ve had to adjust to eating later dinners. Fortunately, homeschooling allows for the flexibility to adjust bedtimes and wake up times. I’ve been blessed over the last few weeks to get to watch my children learn so many new things! I don’t mean things like long division, or the order of the planets, but developmental, life stuff.
Getting our Feet Wet
At the beginning of the month, we had an opportunity to be vendors at a local Fall Festival! It was our first time being vendors at an event, so we weren’t exactly sure what to expect. We didn’t want to only sell soap, so in the weeks before the festival we were busy testing recipes for lip balms and body cream. After a few tries we came up with some pretty awesome products. Of course, as vendors we wanted our products to look as professional and presentable as possible. It took us an entire evening to come up with a label design for our lip balm, but after finishing that one we were able to come up with labels for our other products fairly quickly. You should have seen my husband and I, stacks of soap surrounding us at our kitchen table while we spent hours fixing labels to each and every one. I am in love with how the labels turned out!
The kids helped us set up at the festival and were so excited to see all the other vendor booths. The weather was beautiful and warm with the perfect breeze. We had a decent turn out and sold some of our products. For our first time, I think it went pretty well!
I’m still in the process of getting a store page set up on the site. It turns out that it’s about a thousand times more complicated than I was anticipating, and this technology stuff isn’t exactly my forte. I can’t believe how much computers and software have changed since I was in high school. Usually, I can trouble shoot things eventually, but it definitely takes me way longer than it used to. Anyways, if you are interested in purchasing any of our products (natural soap, lip balm, and body cream) get ahold of me either in person, on social media, or leave a comment here and I will get in touch with you!
As Easy as Riding a Bike
Riding a bike….it’s a simple childhood pleasure. It’s one of those rights of passage type things. I guess I never gave it too much thought, that is, until I realized my son was eight and a half years old and couldn’t ride the bike we got him for his birthday since it didn’t have training wheels. We’ve tried to teach him a few times, but he gets discouraged easily and gives up at the first sign of defeat. The struggle simply wasn’t worth it if he wasn’t willing to at least try.
Last week, we decided whether he liked it or not, the time had come. Fortunately, he was on board with the idea of learning. What he didn’t want to do, was do it the way mom and dad were telling him to. He thought that if I just gave him a fast enough push, he could start pedaling and all would be well. Viola, bike riding mastered. We tried a few different techniques, like holding onto the seat to help him balance while he pedaled and wrapping a towel under his arms that we could hold to give him assistance in balancing. Neither of those worked, at all.
After the first day of struggling, we decided to just take the pedals off completely so he could use it as a balance bike to learn the balancing aspect. Each day we’d go outside and practice for fifteen or twenty minutes until it got too hot. By the fourth day, he was gliding along just fine, as long as he was going straight. We spent the next day working on turning. Finally, on day six, we asked if he wanted to try it with the pedals. It took a couple attempts to get a good start, but within a couple minutes he was off! The biggest smile stretched across his face as he realized he was doing it! A sense of accomplishment flooded over me. I had done a thing. I had figured out, with the help of my husband, how to teach a kid to ride a bike. My son turned to me and said “I never thought this moment would come!”
With that looming sense of success, we have decided to teach my daughter how to ride as well. She is five and not as good of a listener as my son, but also doesn’t tend to overthink things the way he does. We are two days in with her, and I’m hoping in another couple of days she starts to get a feel for balancing. I also know that she’s her own person and probably won’t follow along the same timeline my son did, and that’s okay.
When the Learning Lines up
You may recall from a previous post that we usually do a mini unit study on Mondays. Because of all the bike riding success we’ve been having, I decided it was time to bust out a mini unit I’d been saving for a while. The study was on Bikes of course! The kids were beyond excited when I revealed our study for the day. Actually, I think I learned just as much as they did as we explored the history of bicycles. We learned that they were invented as a solution to a problem, adjusted over time, and responsible for the creation of women’s pants and automobiles! After that we shifted the study to the science side and explored simple machines. We used what we had learned to identify how a bike is made up of simple machines working together to form a complex machine. Ironically, the next letter to work on in my daughters Learn to Read workbook that we’ve been going through is “B for Bike”. I thought that was just the greatest coincidence! Things seem to flow so much better when the learning lines up with what is relevant to my kids. I can’t say I blame them; I’d rather learn about what I’m interested in too!
Celebrate the Little Things
My daughter has had her fair share of new feats these last couple of weeks as well. They are things you probably wouldn’t notice in the grand scheme of things, but to her, they are a big deal. And that means, they should be a big deal for me as well. Over the last few weeks, she has become obsessed with the idea of whistling and found herself incredibly frustrated at not being able to do it. She tried over and over and asked me to teach her how. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to teach someone how to whistle, but if you have then you probably realize that it’s not exactly the kind of thing you can just guide through step by step. It’s definitely one of those things you kinda just have to figure out by yourself. I tried my best to get her as close as possible, but then she would get mad at me when it still wasn’t working. Finally, one day, it happened, and of course it was right at bedtime. Needless to say, for the next hour or so we kept hearing little whistles coming from her closed bedroom door. The next several days were filled with her showing everyone that she knew how to whistle now. It’s a good thing we made those lip balms because after all of that, her poor little lips got chapped!
It seems like all these little changes are happening all at once. My little girl who refused to let me put her hair in a ponytail decided she wanted to learn how to put her hair up all by herself. I showed her one time and now she is obsessed. She fixes her hair several times a day and doesn’t go anywhere without a hair elastic, just in case.
The newest development in my little girl’s life just happened yesterday. She finally figured out how to snap her fingers. Being the music loving girl that she is, she’s been snapping along to the beat every chance she gets!
Like I said, these little things are very minor. They don’t alter the course of her life, or show some stroke of genius, but they mean something to her. They are a source of confidence and show her that she is capable of doing the things she sets out to do. And to me, they are signs that she is growing up before my eyes. Little things that allow my baby to make her way forward, proud and accomplished. The best part is, I got to be there for all of them.
In Closing
There are so many more things I’d love to share, but they will have to wait for another post. Coming up I’m going to share a bit about a fundraiser my son is working on, as well as give a glimpse into some of the things I make at home versus buying at the store. We’ve also changed up our diet a bit recently, which is a pretty big shocker if you are at all familiar with our eating habits. More on that to come later! I hope you all have an amazing week!