There once was an abandoned blog that pined away in loneliness.  It wondered why its author never visited any longer. Occasionally, someone would stumble across the sad little blog, read a few posts, and then move on.  No one visited regularly any longer, after all there were seldom new posts. The blog wondered what had happened to the author’s family to make her abandon it so.

In truth, nothing had happened. The author had just discovered a source of cheap, endless, shallow communication, and had allowed that to be sufficient fare in her comment choice.  It certainly wasn’t that nothing was happening in her family, since one child had made it through a year of private school, come home to school, been miserable, and then decided with Author that public school might be a good choice for him.  The other children had faced challenges, victories, and disappointments in their educational pursuits, and there were so many things that Author could have reflected on for the amusement and consideration of other readers, but she allowed her busy life to pull her in too many directions, and any free time was squandered on mindless entertainment.

So it was that after years of waiting, the sad, lonely little blog was rediscovered, and Author decided to try once again to make regular entries on it.  Only time will tell if Author will be successful, but she certainly doesn’t expect any absence of material to write about!

I thought to check this blog tonight and I’m shocked at how long it’s been since I posted!  I actually haven’t been blogging as much, and Josh and I found Facebook about a month ago, so it has consumed most of our time.  When I do blog, I’ve just done it over on my blogger.com blog . . . anyway, to make a long explanation simpler, I’ve been busy! Guess I’m also winning the ADHD contest, since I basically just forgot I had two blogs!

School for us is different this year.  See my post over at that other place.  I’ll try to do a better job at keeping homeschool and faith ponderings here, and funny boy stuff there.  This year, I only have my two younger boys at home.  I thought this would be a nice change, that I would have more time with them, and that without their brother to terrorize them and distract them we’d get so much more done.  However I’ve discovered that there are distractions even within their own heads!  The other day I was working on reading with AJ, and he starting picking a fingernail.  It wouldn’t have been a problem, except it was mine!  I watch his eyes when we are trying to get something done, and they are all over the room.  I have to constantly remind him where the book we are reading from is located.

I told my dearest friend last Tuesday that somebody is going to need to be medicated before the year is up!  I’m don’t really care who–them, or me–but somebody needs to be put on meds!  Anyway, it all goes back to the usual, I’m putting too much pressure on myself, especially for the day-to-day, and probably putting too much on my plate.

The great thing about sending Josh to school this year is that it has forced me into a schedule, and forced me to plan some things in advance.  Having to plan for him is causing me to plan better for the other two as well.  So even on days  when I feel like we’ve gotten nothing done, we probably have done more than I think. 

Anyway, I’ll try to blog more later about what we are doing.  Not that anyone is reading this . . .after all, I haven’t posted since January!!! Then again, maybe I still have one fan out there . . .  somewhere . . . maybe?

So, I guess I haven’t mentioned that I’m having some evaluations done for AJ.  Yeah.  Last year when we did end-of-the-year evaluations he was a year behind in reading, so I took him to the pediatrician’s office to have him evaluated for ADHD.  The Physician’s Assistant who evaluated him did diagnose him with ADHD, but also detected some auditory processing problems.  Basically this means that even though his ears hear things, the signal to the brain gets lost somewhere or read wrong, and his brain doesn’t "hear" correctly, or that his brain doesn’t store sound-related things in a way that it can pull them back out when he needs them.  Although he is learning and progressing, his reading suffers some from this.  The P.A. gave me a list of things to do, so I’ve spent the last months filling out endless paperwork, and now I am having him processed through the public school system to have a Psychoeducational Evaluation done.  Today I had an interview with a social worker to put together a social history (basically what has life been like for him growing up, and what is he like).

It has been hard to make these decisions.  I cannot afford to go the route of having all private processing done.  He is progressing, but I don’t want to ignore probelms until they are more severe.  In all our homeschooling "training" we are told to "avoid the state" so as not to give them a foothold or precedent in our homeschool program.  I called HSLDA, and talked to friends.  Finally I decided two things.  First, here in our county I have no reason to be fearful of the school board.  It has been very friendly and supportive to homeschooling, and I decided that being super-cautious was a bridge I didn’t need to cross until I saw evidence that it was needed.  Second, because the boys’ dad is opposed to me homeschooling, I decided that it might be worth it to have an interview with a social worker "on the books" in case he ever tried to make some outrageous claims of abuse or neglect.  Still, when I went today, I was a little nervous about putting myself and our home environment out there in front of a stranger for examination.  To complicate things, we overslept (about an hour and a half), and then I couldn’t find my car keys, only to finally find them safely locked in the car.  What a great mom I am.

True to form, my Knight in Shining Armor (Jesus), sent help, and a friend at co-op got my message, came to pick the kids and I up, took me to my appointment, and then picked up the kids and me.  Cool.  The interview?  It went great.  I felt very comfortable with the social worker, made myself share very openly, didn’t bad-mouth their dad (not something I do anyway), but was honest about where there are problems on both his part and mine.  By causing me to work through all of this history and experience wtih the social worker, my Knight in Shining Armor showed me something else.  I’m a good mom.  I am.  I’m NOT perfect, and yes, I’m making plenty of mistakes. I worry that I’m too ADHD to help my boys who are also ADHD.  I worry that I’m "depriving" them of help and experiences that would benefit them.  I worry that I’m just not good enough at what I’m doing, but the boys are doing well and I’m doing a good job.  Plenty of people tell me this, but I often find myself wondering if their love of me has clouded their view, or if they are just biased.  But today I had a stranger who sees all extremes of parenting tell me several times that I’m doing great things with them.  And she wasn’t even counting the spiritual things which my Knight has called me to do!  Anyway, it’s not that I should need that kind of affirmation, but sometimes I do, and today it was very encouraging.

Best of all, she said that it sounds like AJ is only mildly affected by whatever struggles he has, and she affirmed some of the decisions I have made as being right on target, so I’m feeling good about it all.  Oh, and I did get my keys our of the car minutes ago.  It definitely pays to have good insurance!

I don’t pressure myself to necessarily participate in many aspects of most holidays.  At Christmas, for example, I ask the boys what traditions mean most to them–what they would like to do to celebrate.  If we get other things done, fine.  If not, fine too.  I’m slowly adapting to the limitations of my circumstances, and to my laid-back nature, and it’s OK if I don’t have photographs of every holiday on the books because we actually didn’t do much for some of them.

But New Years . . . that’s different.  I recently stated my view to a friend, that New Year’s Resolutions are not a waste of time making promises to yourself that you don’t intend to keep.  Instead, new years are fresh starts.  They are reminders to me that God lets us have regular do-overs . . . or at least try-agains. 

Tonight I got the following e-mail from a friend:

I didn’t plan to write to you about "New Year’s Resolutions."

In fact, I’ve sometimes disparaged them, preferring the term "goals"–partly because they’re not linked to the calendar, but partly, I’m afraid, because they seem less intimidating.

Resolutions require–well, you know–resolve!

I’ve just read a blog post on the topic of resolutions--and especially resolve–by a dear friend, Lynn Bruce, who had a double mastectomy last fall. What a perspective!

Not only is she a cancer survivor, but she’s also one of the most intelligent and literary women I’ve ever known.  (She’s one of the founders of the wonderful free online Charlotte-Mason-based curriculum Ambleside Online.)

Please take a few moments now to read Lynn’s compelling and convicting blog post about resolutions and resolve. Don’t set it aside to read "later."

I went and read the blog post and found there a very eloquent and convincing case for the importance of not only making New Year’s Resolutions, but of resolving to keep them.  So I encourage you to go NOW and read this wonderful entry.  Then do what I plan on doing this weekend–spend some lengthy, quality time alone with God, asking Him what His plans are for you this year.  Make those resolutions that He gives you, and plot out how you will keep them! 

Let’s not waste our fresh starts on piddly, silly things.  Let’s go for the Kingdom!

My kids came home from a weekend at their dad’s yesterday . . . yet another reminder of what a failure I feel like.  They had presents with them–all surprises–which made it more fun. I’m all about surprises.  But two of my three kids are all about figuring out my surprises and know me just a little too well, so they found the key to my locking closet and have already checked out many of their presents. 

They came home with individually packed bags of goodies.  Their dad’s girlfriend baked!  She works full-time and she baked!  I haven’t even started my baking.  I plan to . . . but it’s almost lunch time on the day before Christmas.  Yeah.  That’ll happen.

My house is a mess still.  My "to do" list is daily getting longer because of the things I keep moving to the next day.  I have five hours until church service and about twelve hours of stuff to do.  And oh yeah . . . . Do I plan on going in my pajamas?

I walk around feeling like a failure.  One day a year that I really want to be special, and I can’t even pull that off.  To make matters worse, the plans I had for the kids and I to really focus on Jesus–to spend time in the scriptures, to quietly reflect on His advent (me, not the kids.  They don’t do anything quietly.), to celebrate HIM even if nothing else got done . . . . I even failed at that.  I don’t even have that to hold on to.  BUT . . .

Yesterday God gave me one of His presents.  I’ve asked Him to give me just one new insight into the Christmas story each year, and I got it yesterday.  My dear pastor taught from Isaiah 42:1-4, and I was reminded that Jesus came to satisfy the Law.  I was under the law.  God expected perfection from me, or I would receive death.  Again and again I failed.  I couldn’t even be perfect for one day.  But He loved me.  So God, who was over the Law, placed Himself under the Law and kept it.  Then, even though He was innocent of transgressing it, even though HE had been perfect . . . He was judged, sentenced, and put to death by the Law, paying the price even though He had no debt.  That was His gift to me.  Not just payment for my failure, but His perfection.  God, who made the rules . . . who could change them at His will . . . who didn’t need to prove that He never breaks the rules . . . He came anyway, and lived under them.  I sure wouldn’t have done that. 

From time to time I’ve asked myself if God is truly humble.  Why should He be, He’s God?  There is nothing for Him to be humble about.  Yet in this gift, I realized that God did show humility.  He did it by playing by His own rules.  He did it by coming in the person of Jesus . . . by confining Himself for a short time to human form and subjecting Himself, the Creator and Ruler of everything, to His own rules.

And He did it for me.  If I live another 40 years, I’ll never understand why I didn’t get the better end of the gift.  ‘Cause from appearances sake, he still got failure.  But now when He looks at me He sees Jesus . . .and He delights in both of us.  Cool.