Sons of Agriculture

I started this blog to document the life change of moving from a full time Agriculture teacher to a full time mom. It was a hard transition for me because I swore I could never stay home with our kids. If anything, my husband was the one who volunteered to stay home. I was also pregnant with baby number three at the time, so rational thinking wasn't always possible.

When I started telling people about my transition the responses were varied, but one in particular got me thinking. The response was, "I know a lot of people that don't use their degrees." My degree is in Agriculture Education with an endorsement in biology for middle school and high school. This seemed like a challenge to use my knowledge and "degree" for my own kids instead of someone else's kids. So this blog was also started as way of holding me accountable.

I love Agriculture, and as I look back at the last year these are some of the ways that I have shared that love with my sons:

1. Iowa State Fair: this was the first year that I wasn't working, and the boys were able to enjoy it.

2. Seedlings: the boys were amazed when a seed grew into a plant when it was smushed between wet cotton balls.

3. Butchering: the boys were respectful of the animals that we would eat. My 5-year old puts on his play apron and asks if he can wear it to butcher chickens next time.

4. Combine rides: this year during harvest the boys saw a couple of deer come out of the corn.

5. Chores: Christmas morning my husband and I drove the van down to the pig pen with the kids strapped in their car seats, so they could watch us do chores. We did chores before opening gifts.

6. Pulling weeds: identifying veggies from weeds and then deciding how the weeds hurt the veggies was an important task.

7. Flower picking: treasure hunting for flowers and then putting them in food coloring water was memorable.

8. Horse rides: They were nervous and didn't want to, but they took the risk. After a while they loved it.

9. Ticks: if you want a pet you have to take care of it, which includes pulling ticks off.

10. Recycling: my 5-year started recognizing the triangle arrow recycling sign, which means that we are at the top of our recycling game.

Agriculture doesn't mean that you have to live on a farm, we don't. But Agriculture is everywhere. It's what feeds us, clothes us, and shelters us. Be an opportunistic farmer, and go find some Agriculture.

 

 

 

How many is too many?

The ideal number of children to have is 2.6, according to recent surveys. I've been asked many times how many children we are going to have, which is an understandable question because we had 3 children in 5 years. My practiced response is to keep a straight face and reply with 6-8. I never say over 10 because I want it to be believable. The responses vary between men and women, but they are always amusing.

Men usually respond with a nervous laugh, and then try to end the conversation as quickly as possible when they see that I'm not laughing. One male co-worker looked at me and asked how we could afford them. He was ready with the $300,000 figure per child. It's more like $245,340, but whose counting. I just shrugged my shoulders in response. Another male co-worker smiled with a "good for you" after I said 6 kids were a good even number.

Women usually think about my answer and ask again. "Six kids, really?" or "You're sure about that?" I'm usually vague about the second answer, but that's usually followed by some 'old woman that lived in a shoe' comment.

My husband suggested that we have kids in the odd years of this decade (2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019). Easy for him to say. From the beginning, we have tried to plan our babies. Planning never worked out though.

So how many is too many? I've done a pros and cons list like my logical mind likes. The cons are obvious: time, money, sanity, etc. However, watching my sons whisper a secret to each other and then burst into contagious giggling is enough to wipe out any cons. Watching the three of them play together is enough proof for me. An outsider might see a chaotic, disastrous household, but a closer look will reveal a lot of love and fun. 

Crayon Foundry

I was about to open my fist full of broken crayons over the trash when I noticed a big crayon in the shape of a heart. That heart was the first Valentine that my 5-year old son received. It was a bunch of different crayons melted together in the shape of a heart, which gave me the idea to try that with our broken crayons. So those trash bound crayons were given a pardon.

The boys started the tedious work of stripping the crayons of their paper clothes. I was impressed that the boys had the patience to pick off the tiny pieces of paper. They lasted through half of the crayons before I was given the task. I made quick work of it by using a knife to split the paper. 

The boys took the naked crayons and sorted them into colors. Then I tried putting them in a cookie cutter in the oven; however, the melted crayons just leaked out the bottom as I thought they would. I was just going to use cup cake liners, but my husband thought it would be fun to make a silicon mold.   My husband has a pattern making kit, so we made some shapes out of play dough along with actual wrenches and poured the liquid silicon around the shapes. After 3 hours we had a mold to melt the crayons in. 

The boys had a blast breaking the crayons and watching them melt in the oven. After they cooled we popped them out of the mold, but the wrenches kept breaking. They were too thin. We couldn't fit enough crayons into the mold to make the finished product thick enough to keep it from breaking when we took it out. 

My problem solving husband wanted to try, so he proposed using a homemade double boiler to melt the crayons and then pour them into the mold, much like a foundry with metal. We were discussing the procedures, and my 5-year old must have been listening intently because at bed time he told Daddy to wait for him to wake up to make the crayon wrenches. 

The whole family really got involved to make this project a success. Really, my husband made this one happen, mainly because he engineered the shit out of it. He would probably shrug his shoulders, put on his half smile, and say he was just helping. He just helps a lot, so thank you husband. 

As I look at this post I realize we did a lot to recycle crayons, but it was awesome to take the boys through the whole thing. I mean what kid has a crayon foundry? 

 

 

 

Lava Lamp

My over active toddler boys do really well with a structured schedule. With a schedule, the boys are less likely to climb the counters to get the M&Ms or use the chair as a trampoline. I'm also happy with a schedule because it reminds me of an actual job, and I get to be creative and come up with easy 'special' projects. Today's project was a lava lamp.

"I know, I know, I'll be careful," my 5-year replied to me as he was pouring oil into an empty water bottle with no funnel. As he was being careful I was recalling the time I dropped the open oil bottle on the floor and it splattered all over the kitchen. Well, it turns out my 5-year old has better cordination than I do because he didn't spill anything. He even added water and food coloring to top it off without spilling.

The last step to this science experiment was to add Alka Seltzer. I broke the tablet into four pieces to add it to the concoction. The best part about this experiment was watching the tablet pieces shoot the water and food coloring around the bottle giving off carbon dioxide. When all the bubbles settled we put the cap on tight.

The boys had fun shaking the bottle around and watching the water food coloring globules separate than form back into lava. Putting the flashlights around the bottle was really fun for them too even though they don't know what a lava lamp is.

As we were doing the experiment I explained that oil and water don't like each other, but the water and food coloring do like each other. I also explained that the fizzy tablet (Alka Seltzer) made the water and food coloring stick tightly together. This seemed like an acceptable explanation because they could see the proof in the bottle.

After this experiment my 5-year old said to me, "You need to teach us what we want."  And off he went to play with the lava lamp. I'm so thankful he wants to learn and I can teach him.

Toy Library

Our children are so lucky to have such loving family members that rain gifts on them every year for Christmas and their birthdays. Since two out of our three children were born in December, our house turns into a Toys R Us look alike store complete with the all the empty boxes during that month. So this year we came up with the toy library to declutter, organize, and tame the wild toy chaos.

For a long time, my husband has been saying that we needed to go through all the toys. We kept the toys in little containers that were piled onto a built-in bookshelf in our living room. When new toys arrived, my husband and I would sneak some of the old toy containers to the basement to make room for the new. We have been doing this since my 5-year old was born. With the amount of toys that we had in our basement, I wasn't looking forward to this, so putting it off seemed like the thing to do.

My husband came up with the toy library idea, where we put shelving in an easily accessible place in our basement for our boys to keep all of their toys. Just like checking out a book at a library, they pick out a certain toy to play with, bring it upstairs, play, pick-up, return it to the basement shelf, and pick out a different toy.

My 5-year was trying to avoid napping, so he asked if he could "organize" the toys. I agreed, so he dumped all the containers of toys out on the living room floor and started sorting. All of the blocks together; all of the ninja turtles together; all of the animals together. This didn't last long before he asked to bring all the toys up from the basement. I must not have remembered all of our toys in the basement because I agreed. So our 5-year old carried little containers upstairs and opened all of them. By the time my 3-year woke up from napping, it was serious play time.

Eventually the boys helped catagorize and contain all of their toys, which are on shelves waiting to be played with. We set aside some of the bigger toys to be used as rewards, while we fixed, threw away, and donated others. Now our living isn't over run, and the boys are (Hopefully) never bored with their toys.

Merry Christmas!

Santa came to our house Christmas Eve Eve.
He left so much magical glitter you wouldn't believe.
We were so good this year Santa was accommodating.
We had traveling to do so there was no waiting.

Santa was nimble and spry as he came down the chimney.
He left flashlights, hats, and movies by Disney.
He ate the cookies while Rudolph enjoyed a carrot.
Rudolph made so much noise you'd think he flew like a parrot.

Family parties to attend so we drove 2 hours.
Snow tubes were gifted to fly with super powers.
Delicious soup was eaten and games were played.
We contributed a tray full of candy which was not homemade.

So we go to sleep in beds that aren't ours.
We will awake to Christmas and travel by car.
We will celebrate with gifts, drinks, and food.
But we will remember it's Jesus' Birthday and show our gratitude.

Merry Christmas!
With family tradition.
Happy Holidays!
Safe travel always.

Birthday Traditions

Today is my daughter's first birthday. I told my husband he could start a tradition of sending me flowers every year; after all I am the one that pushed a human being out of my body. He didn't seem to keen on that idea. I guess that's what Mother's Day is for. However, I did come up with a few other traditions to start.

We had my daughter's birthday party this last weekend, and I made chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. This was the first time I'd ever made cake from scratch. In the past I had always used a box cake mix. The frosting was homemade too. Now I know the difference between a box cake with can frosting and homemade cake and frosting. The chocolate cake was so good it has ruined me for box cakes. Now the new tradition is to make homemade cake and frosting for all the kids' birthdays.

Thanks to Amy Poehler's book 'Yes Please', I got the idea to tell each child their birth story on their birthdays. This year when I tell the story it will be more for our benefit so we will remember all the details if we say it every year. It might also be a tradition to add more gruesome details each year. My husband will also tell his birth observer story.

Since my baby girl is one today, I thought it would be a good idea to write her a letter. I wrote to her describing her amazing feat of going from a slug to an ape all within a year. She never ceases to amaze me. I'm so proud to be her mom. Every year on her birthday I will write her a letter and put it in her baby book. On her 18th birthday I will give them all to her.

I will start implementing these traditions with our sons. These traditions weren't done with them because it took me that much time to get the hang of just being a mom. By the third child I now accept that my carpets will always need to be vacuumed and something will always need to be fixed. I make time for the traditions and less time for vacuuming and fixing.