Category Archives: my thoughts

4th child journal my thoughts

words, just words (mostly)

January 16, 2010 – 12:55 pm

I know there are probably more than a few people who check in here periodically, just to look at the pictures. This is not the post for you, but then, you already know that because of your sneaky, fast eyes!

I just feel there’s so much to catch up on! But the most important thing, the one that is going to take my life and thus this blog in a totally new direction, is that I am currently 6 weeks pregnant with our fourth child. See what you photos-only people miss?

If you’ve been following for a little, you probably remember the fourth child journal I started in Spring of 2009. And then there was nothing to report for a long time. It became an inward journey for me to answer the question, “Should we have another baby?” And I did continue the fourth child journal, but it was way too personal to share. It was such a big question and I didn’t want to have to find the “right” answer, I wanted something to just happen to answer it for me. But at the same time, if we were going to conceive, I wanted to do it conscientiously. There was a lot of back and forth for both Sid and I. But we both ended up on the same exact page in mid-December. We want another child! One more feels just right to both of us. We feel that when we are at our best (well-rested and priorities straight . . . this is most of the time I should mention), heaven on earth is spending time all together loving each other and sharing life.

If you don’t already know, Sid almost died 17 days before June was born. She probably would have been born sooner, too, but I asked her to not come out until Daddy was home from the hospital. My midwife also suggested that she may not come very soon after his emergency surgery because of my stress and it’s chemical influence over my physiology. So surrounding June’s birth, we had such immense gratitude that Sid was alive to know her and raise her and that has really effected our experience raising her. Also, being that she was our third child, we were experienced parents and felt much more comfortable knowing what we could just “let go.” And we learned to let even more go (some, at the sight of the condition of our home, might contend we’ve let too much go!), and while it was a challenging time when she was little, it was a wonderful time. We can’t help but feel we’ve come to a place in our parenting, in our spiritual journeys (the two are inherently intertwined), that a fourth child will bring us even more unspeakable joy. Already we savor hearing Jonny’s, Aveline’s and June’s thoughts about the bean-sized baby and what it will be like for them to have a teeny baby come live with us and join our family. We get to give each other those knowing glances, when we’re afraid that any outward expression of our relishing their ideas will influence their continued sharing. You know those, right? Those glances are a whole new level of romance, I must say!!

So that’s where we’re at. It’s early, which can be scary, I did miscarry once and didn’t even know for sure anything was wrong until 10 more weeks from where I’m at now with this one, so I’m just taking it one day at a time and praying this lovely prayer that I found in The Jewish Pregnancy Book:

An Eighteenth-Century Prayer for Every Day of Pregnancy
Lord of the Universe, Ruler of Hosts, all creatures look hopefully to You. In their time of trouble they look to You for salvation. And even though I am not worthy to come before You with my prayer, I harden my resolve and approach to humbly place my request before You. Just as You remembered Sarah, heeded Rebekah, saw Leah’s sorrow, and did not forget Rachel, just as You listened to the voice of all the righteous women when they turned to You, so may You hear the sound of my plea and send the redeeming angel to protect me and to help me throughout my pregnancy.
In accordance with Your graciousness, save me from all harm, sickness, hurt, disability, and pain. Be gracious to me so that the child I carry not be malformed, and grant me an unconditional gift from Your finest treasure trove. Listen to the prayer that springs from the deepest recesses of my heart, and let the child I bear within me be righteous, good, and proper. Strengthen me and gird me so I shall not miscarry.
Be gracious unto me and listen to my prayer, for You listen to the prayers of all who call upon You. Blessed be the One who listens to prayers.

And for you photos-only, I still want you to get the gist of this post, so here’s a photo after all.
evidence of our 4th baby!!

Of course I took a picture of the test!! It’s too crazy, not knowing one minute, and then knowing the next! You’re asking a little plastic thingy to tell you whether your life is about to change drastically and unalterably. It was a truly joyful sight sight for me and I wanted to capture it, I’ll surely not be seeing one of those ever again, tested from my own hormones. Just think, that second line could be the first evidence of what will turn out to be a 80-90 year life! Another person, sacred to God, a soul whom He knew before it was knit together in it’s mother’s womb! I get to be a part of that! Could anything be cooler?! Of course I took a picture :)

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breastfeeding mothering my thoughts thoughts of others

Plath child rearing

November 3, 2009 – 5:02 pm

Do you like Sylvia Plath? I like Sylvia Plath. I enjoyed Gwyneth Paltrow’s portrayal of her a great deal in Sylvia. After I saw that, I checked out some audio tapes of Sylvia Plath reading her own poetry from my library. I enjoyed those a lot, too. Then came The Collected Poems. Initially, I had a harder time trying to read her poetry myself, but I’m getting more into it now, I think. Then came The Bell Jar. I loved The Bell Jar. The edition I have has some biographical information in the back that piqued my interest beyond what the book alone had. So, to get yet more of Sylvia Plath into my brain I ordered Letters Home, which is a collection of Sylvia’s own letters to her family from 1950-1963 (over 600 letters! A true writer), compiled and annotated by her mother. I am reading that now. There was a particular part I just read the other night that was so confirming to my own heart’s conviction, I wanted to post it here.

This is what Aurelia Schober Plath wrote in 1975 in the introduction to Letters Home. Sylvia Plath, Aurelia’s first child, was born in 1932. Otto Plath was her husband and Sylvia’s father.

“Otto and I wanted to start our family as soon as possible, he hoping our first child would be a daughter. “Little girls are usually more affectionate,” he said. As soon as I was certain I was pregnant, I began reading books relating to the rearing of children. I was totally imbued with the desire to be a good wife and mother. At mealtimes we discussed the varying, and often conflicting, theories of child rearing. Had I been inclined to rigidity in the early training of my children, my husband, who believed in the natural unfolding of an infant’s development, would have strongly opposed me. He constantly voiced his recollections of his mother’s type of child care (he was the oldest of six children). I quietly followed the “demand feeding” accepted as modern today and labeled old-fashioned in the 1930′s, though I would never confess to it in front of my contemporaries, who conscientiously followed the typed instructions of their children’s pediatricians. Both my babies were rocked, cuddled, sung to, recited to and picked up when they cried.”

I think that’s lovely. And I have nothing to add. Yes, I do! But I’m not gonna.

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I made something marriage my thoughts

silver lining

October 18, 2009 – 3:23 pm

Sidney recently went to Barcelona for 7 days. It’s always weird when he’s away. I find myself feeling zombie-ish, or maybe it’s more like sad ghost-ish. I attempt to retreat from the feeling of being only half a person by doing things like adding multiple UFO and haunting documentaries to my instant queue and vegging out, tripping out and creeping out with my favorite friends (a.k.a. our kids).

We had a long Sunday that week that Sid was away, no school, no errands to run, no more UFO documentaries available on instant. I needed something to lose myself in to pass the long day. Sew . . . I sewed. The pattern came from a book I got from the bookstore in Mitsuwa a while back called Cotton & Linen. It has super cute patterns for projects made from cotton and/or linen. Good thing the instructions are illustrated cause the whole of the text is in Japanese.

I used a sheet I bought from a thrift store and the silvery bias tape I made from an old flat sheet of ours. I love this tank top! I extended the length beyond what the pattern called for. I like the fit a lot.
IMG_7980
IMG_7983

Photo by Jonny

Photo by Jonny


I wore it to the airport to pick up my other half. Synchrony of our systems was reestablished, and that felt wonderful.
Aaaahhhhhh, there always is a silver lining . . . Get it? The tank top has silver . . . yah, nevermind.

Then, as a whole, we celebrated the 13th anniversary of our elopement the very next day. <3 4 ∞

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breastfeeding my children my thoughts travels

Our trip to CO, day 9

August 7, 2009 – 3:36 pm

July 16th – Thursday

We packed up, saw Ryan off to the oral surgeon and hung about a bit more. Laura and Lincoln returned and we all said our goodbyes. Lincoln was so upset to be saying goodbye to “the kids.” Hopefully it won’t be too long before we’ll all be enjoying each other’s company again.

We opted to take a new route back to the 70, and so we headed out onto the 24. We were so glad to get to see all of that beauty as we cruised. We soon spotted a tourist spot and decided to stop. It was Manitou, Native American Cliff Dwellings. We got there right in time for the Native American dance performance. We watched a war dance, the eagle dance, dance of the 5 hoops and finally the friendship dance which many children joined in with the dancers to perform.

Next we checked out the museum and gift shop. Each of the kids and I picked up a pair of moccasins, we love ‘em! After that we explored the cliff dwellings. So cool! The kids enjoyed running and climbing around, in and out of the small openings. How amazing to see how they built and utilized the cliff spaces. I felt like I could imagine my own free spirited, happy children as the Native children who once lived there, with their mothers cautioning them against running, lest they slip or crash into something or someone. It was especially easy to see Aveline as a Native child in her braids and moccasins!

The next place we stopped along the 24 was Clear Creek Reservoir. We saw it from the highway and its beauty lured us. The water was clear and so very cold. The boys fished and I could not resist the urge to swim in that clear, cold water! As I was inching in, my submerged bones ached bad, but it was good. I was in to my belly and I lingered there, thinking that may be as far as I would get in. The aching subsided long enough for me to get in to my shoulders, then I knew I would go all the way. When my head went in my skull ached so bad, like it was being compacted, I was especially aware of my temples. Yet it was so, so good. I was in some kind of cold-ache induced euphoria. It was truly blissful. The water on my lips tasted so sweet, I wanted to take gulps. Clearly, I have not swum in nature enough in this life of mine. Or maybe I’m just too used to swimming in grimy, salty sea water, which of course is blissful in its own way. I think I loved the stillness of that reservoir, and the fact that I was the only human in the water during all the time we were there. I lingered in the water after swimming, and then it felt right to get out and into the warm embrace of my towel. I longed for a flat rock to lay and bake in the sunshine on, but no unfulfilled longing would dam the flood of gratitude I embodied.

Back in the motorhome, it was clear that my body was thoroughly and effectively refrigerated from that cold, clear swim. I’ve never had that bodily sensation before, my skin was so cold to the touch, I almost didn’t recognize it as mine and inside, my biology was chilled, but alive and warming fast in the vigor of its work. I felt exceedingly clean, my understanding and experience of refreshment deepened significantly based on the way I felt in that time. I was utterly invigorated as if every cell of my body awoke at once and was grateful for its own miniscule life. The effect was that my whole was awash in those floods of gratitude. I fell in love with my body that day and have felt more of my true beauty since the moment I emerged. It was as if God touched me through the chill.

I drove us away from there still rapt in the effects of my worshipful swim. I felt that nothing could pull my brain and spirit from the new heights on which they’d alighted. Soon after that, lengthy winding roads, the sun’s position and blinding brightness, excessive amounts of candy, and 2 year old molars en route converged in Junie’s body and it made up it’s mind that the candy needed to go, along with her lunch, all over Sid with smaller amounts splashed around hither and thither. There it was, my brain and my spirit came down hard and fast from the heights, right into the moment and it’s immediate and urgent demands. 1, breathe through mouth, open windows. 2, pull over. 3, clean up as best we can, what we can now (nice having a shower, even if the water’s cold, in the motorhome for times such as these). 4, barf-clothes into a plastic garbage bag. 5, hold that little Junegirl and gently let her know it’s okay to throw up (since somehow, my brain never learned that) and that she did a good job letting it out . . . Sid drove us on to our camp spot for the night, Junie got her nummy and that surely brought peace to the tense mama. Thank you, oxytocin (one of the major hormones released while breastfeeding, brings calm to the mama and baby and feelings of mutual bonding)! And that mama continues to feel utmost gratitude for that cold, clear swim in Clear Creek Reservoir. And the next time someone tells her to “chill” (admittedly not something she hears often) she’ll have a whole new point of reference, and consider it more of an invitation to the bliss of God’s touch, than a criticism of an overeactive behavior.

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art my thoughts

June 15, 2009 – 8:40 am

So, let me ask you, do they look like me?

It is beyond interesting to me that Sid doesn’t think either one of these looks very close to my true visage. I see me in both, I ought to, I rendered them, though, obviously, the pink one is meant to be more of a caricature (as much how I felt, as how I thought I looked that day, that’s the face I might copy for my next rendering of Lady Alice). Sid draws my face very differently than I do and he is quick to point out the things on these that aren’t “right.” So I’m left to wonder, what do I look like to him? To others? My self-portaiting is a way for me to look at my face differently than I am used to doing each day. I try to focus on distances, relationships, features, and impressions among other things, rather than, the usual thoughts that arise as I peer into the mirror, like “Ugh, I look tired,” or “Hmmm, 31 year-old Jennifer,” or “What can be done about that hair?” When I get one drawn I feel like I have a new way to see myself, a better idea of what others may see when they look at me. But I don’t know! Anyway, it’s fun and sort of fascinating, I recommend you try it. It’s easier with pencil, you can get better detail, but it’s also fun to just put down the lines that are the most dramatic when you look in the mirror with pen and see what you come up with.

Try!

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home education home life my thoughts thoughts of others

Interest-driven education?

May 24, 2009 – 8:13 pm

Even after having this blog for over a year and a half, I still don’t know what the heck I’m doing with it. Is it a parenting blog? A homeschooling blog? A nature blog? A family diary for future generations of Stankovitses? It seems to be not a very good blog of any particular sort and I’ve often thought about doing away with it altogether. But it isn’t hurting me or bugging me so it has abided.

I have enjoyed getting my thoughts on homeschooling out here periodically so this next piece of writing is me trying to formulate my current views/plans for the next school year.

I have always been drawn to the idea of unschooling, that the parent/child learning team forego conventional ideas of “school” and even “education” altogether in favor of life learning, or maybe just life living! In my mind there’s a tree with the interests and passions as the trunk, which lead into the conventional reading, writing, arithmetic lessons in the branches and leaves, off-shoots of the good stuff, becoming super important as they (gather sunlight) facilitate and nourish the learning of the trunk subjects. But I always thought that holding to an educational philosophy such as unschooling meant that you must abandon structure, discipline and organization. I’ve looked for information to disprove my objections, since the learning tree lures me so. John Holt’s and David Albert’s writings have now carried me to a place where my objections are no longer of concern. It seems that structure and discipline, in the form of the parents’ continued attention to the child and diligence in seeking out more and more materials, resources and information, and definitely organization to boot, are the roots of the tree. I believe that the child will establish discipline on their own, too, though I’m not prepared to write about that.

Here is a quote from John Holt, taken from his book Learning All the Time.
“We can best help children learn, not by deciding what we think they should learn and thinking of ingenious ways to teach it to them, but by making accessible to them, paying serious attention to what they do, answering their questions – if they have any – and helping them explore the things they are most interested in.” I have come to agree with that, by watching Jonny’s experience with school. He absorbs math fast, but hates the amount of busy work the curriculum requests. Even after I tailor it down significantly, it exasperates any interest he came to the concept with. How awful is that? Here’s a kid that can barely sit still for any amount of time, he’s good at math, interested in numbers and time, but the work I give him involving these very subjects, repels him from them! That is the opposite of what I hope education is and will be in this house.

So, my way of getting started on unschooling is to observe Jonny and decipher what it is that he is passionate about. The kid loves and I mean LOVES the video game Call of Duty. I should mention that I was so very opposed, at first, but couldn’t take it away because Jonny and Sid had such great times together, bonding over it. Jonny is really, really good at it too. When he plays live with other players, his team mates and opponents think he must be Sid because he’s so good! He loves the guns, loves the fighting and is 100% aware that it is just a game. In fact, when I get bothered by the violence, he reminds me, “Mom, it’s just a game.” He knows he doesn’t want to be in a real war. So, what can I extract and elaborate on so that Call of Duty can serve as a gateway to knowledge for Jonny? Well, on our Netflix xBox instant queue we got a show from the Military Channel called Future Weapons, hosted by an ex-Navy Seal. Sid and I love that show! So we watch it together with Jonny. During last night’s viewing, Jonny was suddenly overcome by the best idea ever! A Nerf tank!! And a Nerf missile launcher! Then I followed with adding a Nerf Cornershot to the idea list after the weapon and it’s Israeli creator were featured on the show. So Sid is going to draw up the ideas, at Jonny’s direction, and we’ll send them to Nerf. We’ve also checked out various books about military weapons from the library. Super cool. I love that I get to learn about this stuff too!

Thus begins our journey into the gloriously colorful, sparkling and unpredictable, yet satisfying, world of unschooling, for lack of a better term, or maybe my title here is a better term, interest-driven education? (I bet if I google it, it already exists and has an excessively detailed description which I am not prepared to advocate!) We will not abandon math lessons, next year we’ll try out the Math on the Level curriculum. Also, we’ll continue to be loosely guided by curriculum for the other core subjects, but with flexibility. And that’s where we’re at with that.

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4th child journal my thoughts

4th child journal 3

May 20, 2009 – 4:56 pm

I continue to dream, dream of the time to start trying to conceive, dream of the delight in wondering whether I’ve conceived, dream of the time to take the test, dream of the results. It is hard now, to keep my mind off of it, but I’m sure the best time to try for our fourth and final child is a bit later. The more time goes by, the less sure I am of our choice to get pregnant, but the more sure I am that I want four kids! Can that possibly make any sense?

June is still so little, though her initiation and success with her own potty-training suggests otherwise! And Sid wants to take a family vacation to Tokyo at the end of Summer. It will be nice to not be pregnant while traveling. It feels right in my heart to wait until after June is 3 to give birth. So hopefully, conception will occur sometime this fall, maybe around my birthday? We’ll see.

At an estate sale a few weeks ago I was picking out some books to buy and I came across a copy of Name Your Baby and I had to get it due to the fact that it was only 50 cents. It has been fun to go through it page by page and, again, dream. I was surprised to see the name Aveline in there. And I’m even more surprised that the name is so rare, given that it was included in that book which was printed in 1986 (it seems to me that every mother would want to name her baby daughter Aveline!). Just now I found a post-it note on one page in the girl names section with “Jessica Jennifer Shannon Monica” scrawled on it. So fun to come across an expectant mother’s dreaming! I do the same thing, practice writing out the prospective name, middle name with Stankovits trailing. Then if it looks good, I write out the names and middle names of those of us who already exist alongside. So fun! Sometimes, when I get just too pumped about this other little person I want to raise so badly, I think that if I write out my current favorite names (one boy and one girl name) and decorate the paper with my bestest creativity, then that’ll stave off my baby appetite for a while! I haven’t quite gotten to that point yet, though : )

So much to look forward to! Summer trips and a break from structured education, a possible trip to Japan, starting a new semester with a new educational philosophy and a possible pregnancy somewhere thereafter! Life is so good, God is so good. And that’s where I’m at with that.

Looks like I overpaid for my copy!!

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