A few years ago I started writing a book to my girls. I wanted to write down the things that I know, the things that I had learned, the things that I was learning in the process of being a wife and mother. I wrote these things down in a journal that I keep by my bed. But I wasn't consistent with it. It was going to take years to finish and I didn't really care. "Someday I'll finish it."
Then I slowly began to realize that moms forget "how" they did a stage of life.
It seemed that whenever I talked to older women and asked them questions, they would shrug and say, "I don't know, I just did it." Nearly every older woman I would ask questions of would answer me nearly the same.
Far more helpful to me were moms in the next stage of life. The ones who were exiting the stage I am in.
I think that I am just beginning to exit the hard physical work stage of parenting. My children are a tremendous help to me. But conversing with them is getting more challenging. I have 2 in the logic stage, none in the rhetoric stage. What's next? I look forward to the next stage of life and child rearing.
A couple of weeks ago the local homeschool moms group met at my house. On this same day my sil had invited me and the children to lunch and the kids to stay for the afternoon and evening. Matt was going to go there for supper and then my sil was going to come up here for the meeting. It sounded like a fine arrangement.
I wasn't worried about cleaning the house, we had recently had company and it wasn't that messy. Mid-afternoon I went home with the toddler to clean up and make some food for the meeting. Toddler took a nap and I started straightening the house.
I forgot.
I forgot how it is to clean up a house alone. I did not realize how helpful the children are for getting basic straightening chores done. I began to run short on time.
Then the toddler woke up from her nap and there were no big kids to keep her occupied or out of trouble. She began to undo the straightening that I had done or hung on my leg while I tried to make food. I had originally planned to make several "tea party" delicacies. The kind of food that ladies like and are such a treat. I gave up on that and barely had time to make scones.
It felt like I had stepped back into time. I had forgotten what it was like to be alone trying to do all the work and have a little one hanging on the leg. How did I handle that stage? If you asked me on short notice I would probably laugh and say, "oh yes, I remember that frustration. I don't know how I did it. I just muddled through I guess."
That is why I write the blog, this site, and why I am working harder on getting that book done. I need to write before I forget.
Yesterday, we had friends over for Sunday dinner. This family is in the stage of life of seeing their little birds leave the nest. They have 3 adult children, a couple of highschoolers, and 3 younger children. The mother of this family is a wealth of wisdom to me. I could talk forever to her. Over and over she said to me, "You should talk about this on your blog." and then she would start in on a topic. It was such a delight to talk to her! I am so blessed to have her and a couple of other older mothers of large families in our church. I need the wisdom and experience that they have learned over the years.
Look for these women and ask them questions. They are a gift to us from a God. We are all different, our family "personalities" will be different but there are some things that are the same and you can learn from these women.
Large Family Logistics is not necessarily about the "Whys" or the philosophical theories behind the large homeschooling family although I'm sure it will pervade what I write. Large Family Logisitics is to answer the question, "How do you do it?" The practical nitty gritty details of managing the large family while keeping your chin up and your eyes on the vision of Godly seed.
