Question:I have four little ones, ages 6, 4, 2, and 9 months. The older ones want to eat all the time! I’m sympathetic because, with pregnancy and nursing, I’m hungry often, too. But it’s too much to clean up 5-6 times a day after so many snacks. Being home all day makes easy access to the refrigerator…how should I discipline ourselves regarding meals and snack times to make life easier?! [Read more…]
by May Morgan Potter
Fred ate his breakfast dutifully and then slipped down from his chair.
“Now can I go over to Jimmy’s, mother?” he asked.
“But Fred,” I said, “you were over there yesterday and the day before. Why not have Jimmy come here today?”
I’m not quite sure how the tradition started in our homeschool, but for as long as I can remember, we have learned a new Christmas song every single December. Not a common song but a unique song that we may have heard the melody of, but have not learned the words.
I’d like for folks to say of me,
No matter where I roam,
“That child is nice and gentle—but
She’s sweeter far at home.
Toys are the tools of little ones! I learned in college how stimulating a child’s brain led to higher intelligence, so I always wanted to have as many as good toys as possible at my house, feeling like they would help my kids brain develop. I was on the lookout at yard sales when I was a young mother, and pretty soon, the house was littered with toys. And the kids got bored of them. I got a big toy chest thinking I could lasso the toy mess but it just became a black hole—it seemed toys from the bottom were irretrievable! And you could break them just trying to yank them out.
One day when Louisa was nearly 3 years old, I told her to shut the door and she answered, “In a minute!”. I wanted her to learn cheerful and prompt obedience. I tried to explain that to her, and I made sure she shut the door, but I wondered if she really understood that “in […]
