seriously.

Oh Man.

After this morning's Bible study, I had a small window of time to get back to our house, grab a quick lunch for everyone (and by "grab" I mean "Mommy has to assemble") and get everyone back in the car and headed in the opposite direction to the afternoon's art lessons.

It was raining. Time was limited. I had five children with me.

I knew it was a recipe for disaster.

But I had no idea how violently it would all break down.

The kids got corralled in, stepping in each puddle and muddy inch in the yard and splash their wet selves across the sun room floor.

Thankfully the kind ladies at the nursery had given Wilder a bottle, which bought me a few minutes to slice an apple and set out some pickles per London's lunch request.

Nursed Wilder. Then fed him his mushy bananas. (I am always glad when my babies begin solid food, but sad too because the meal process becomes so much more involved.)

Changed Piper Finn's diaper and then began slapping peanut butter on sandwiches that kids could eat in the car.

London announced that Magnus was in the car. (Didn't bother to ask how this happened, just passed her a dog biscuit to lure him out.)

Heard Piper screaming. Magnus had stolen her sandwich. "Mommy, please make me another one?" she asked.

I did.

Grabbed my bag and began putting poor Wilder back in his car seat.

Screams.

Magnus ate Piper's second sandwich.

Seriously?

"Mommy, can you please make me another san'wich?"

I did.

Attempted to get five set of small feet out of the door.

Watched Magnus barrel back into the house, knock Bergen over and attempt to grab Bergen's sandwich from the poor boy's very lips.

Forced Magnus out of the house in a less than godly manner using less than godly words that were less than quiet and less than appropriate.

Reached for my own sandwich and watched mustard fall onto my skirt.

Trudged through the rain carrying Wilder and my bag.

Wrestled Piper's eagle and Mosley's blanket away from Magnus at least three separate times.

Grew impatient watching two little girls struggle to enter the Suburban while holding umbrellas.

At long last, started the vehicle and hit the road.

From the backseat, I see Piper's peanut buttery hand reach toward me holding her crumpled sandwich and hear her say,

"I don't care for this anymore Mommy."

One Thing Leads To Another

Ups and downs.

Highs and lows.

This and that.

A chain of events that

connects

one thing

to

another.


We were in the car on the way to the bank.

Piper threw up in the car again. (Is this a pattern?)

I turned the car around, errands never completed. I unbuckled the entire car seat, with the sticky, smelly two-year-old still buckled in, and set it all on the driveway. I left the car seat outside and carried the little Finnian directly in to the bathtub.

I forgot about the car seat.

Magnus did not.

Riley (or as our kids call her - Girl Staff Riley, not to be confused with Riley Our Sister) and Caitlyn came for a weekend visit.

We laughed. They burned cookies. We watched silly shows. They stayed with the wee ones while Kevin and I drove to pick up the finally repaired Tahoe. We caught up on the details of our lives. They helped entertain the young crowd of kids at our house. We moved furniture. (Yes, I disobeyed London's No Moving Furniture rule. Hey, I'm in charge here - right?)

In other words, I was rather distracted.

Which gave Magnus ample opportunity to eat Piper's car seat.

Well, not eat exactly. But solidly destroy, mangle or otherwise make said car seat unsafe for toddler transportation.

And the girls happily and kindly offered to stay at the house while I bought a new car seat.

Apparently I stayed distracted at the store as well.

Perhaps I was confused by the unusual calm surrounding me as I paid for my groceries and car seat. But I walked away from the cash register only to hear feet running behind me. It was my cashier. His name was Josh. He was carrying the milk I had forgotten to put in the grocery cart. I thanked him and headed to the car. I was out in the parking lot, approaching my car at the very end where I had parked. I heard feet running behind me. It was my cashier. Josh. Carrying the bananas I had left behind at the check out line.

Good grief.

But, on the bright side, I now appreciate Josh. I have a newly arranged living room. I listened to a really great CD loaned to me by Riley and discovered a fantastic little pair of musicians named Jenny & Tyler. And I basked in the kindness of two summer staffers who showed us love in action.

All because Piper threw up.

London Elizabeth Scout Keigley: The Interview

Based on the popularity of my last interview with a young man about town named Bergen Hawkeye, I thought I might ride the coattails of that success and present another interview.

This interview was a bit easier to attain, as this child is less inclined to bolt midway through a sentence.

This small one is a thinker, a philosopher, a leader of her many young siblings and just a darn cute little gal.

She is prone to unusual proclamations such as the one that was pronounced during last evening's bath time.

She had a rather large scab on her ankle from a fall across asphalt. As she was bathing and soaking in large amounts of water, the scab began to do what scabs do when exposed to excess water. It swelled a little and changed colors a bit. And it looked weird. But more than just weird - to London, it looked like food. (Something that is always on that child's brain.)

So she yelled, "I don't like this chicken nugget on my foot!!"

Now, with that shared,

let the interview begin.


Of your many names, which is your favorite?

Scout.

Do you have any nicknames?

Wentzil.

Explain that please.

Because Daddy calls me that and it's not in my real name.

If you could eat anything you wanted for breakfast every day, what would you eat?

Mac and cheese. And cookies.

What do you think about Magnus?

I think he's fun. Daddy loves him. He steals Piper's eagle.

Why do you love Piper Finn so much?

Because she's cute and she's my little sister.

Tell me what you can do in a kitchen.

I can make cake. I can cut the tomatoes. I can make sandwiches, bagels and crackers.

What is your favorite book?
Peter Pan.

Favorite TV show and why?

The Moving Castle even though it's scary. Because I like Howl. That's why I like to watch it. My next favorite show is Spy Kids.
If you could go anywhere for Christmas, where would you go and why?

Disney. Because it's fun! Because they have Mickey Mouse and all the characters!

What makes you happy?

Ummmm. Coloring with Daddy. Drawing, sometimes. That's a funny question.

What makes you sad?

Daddy leaving for a lot of days. Hmmmm. When people die.

Why do you like to sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed so much?

Because I can cuddle with Daddy. I wish I could go in there every night. I don't even know why you won't let me go in there every night. Why only on special nights can I go in there?
Why are you so hungry all the time?

Because it's fun to eat. And I like to eat.

How high can you count?

To 100.

What's your favorite color and why?

Green. It's in a lot of stuff - it's in turtles and on the ground and on shirts and on crayons and paper and scissors and pencils and pants.

Favorite song?

"Bend Little Willow". The Michael Jackson one where he cries at the end - "Will You Be There?" I like "Bad". Michael Jackson's my favorite guy so far.

What do you think about Look Up Lodge?

I like their food, their cheese and I like Noah and Gloria. I like hikes. Can you ask me who my favorite friends are?

Who are your favorite friends?

Gloria and Raven.

What was your favorite vacation?

To the beach. Because it's so much fun and there's so much water and the beach is just so fun. I want to go again.
Can you drive a car?

NO! 'Cause I'm just six.

Anything else you want to add?

I like coloring pages. I want to do one.


(At the close of this interview session, I am trying to maintain my sense of emotional well-being after my daughter exposed the fact that she clearly has a favorite parent. And. I. Am. Not. It.)

Speaks For Itself

I'm not sure I run a great homeschool.

Although I don't think I run a bad one.

There are a lot of things I do poorly. (It would be too detrimental to my psyche to list them.)

But I think I do one or two things pretty well.

(Probably because they are my favorite so they're easy for me.)

This is what we do well.

We read.

A lot.

And a vast variety considering my homeschool's median age is probably four. (Math is not something I do well.)

I love Charlotte Mason, a British educator whose philosophy I have snagged as my own.

A major part of her educational foundation, and therefore The School of Keigley's educational foundation, is living books.

True works of art on paper. Classics. Books written by one person who loves the topic about which he writes. (Read - no textbooks!)

Along with that, Mason advocates letting the original author do the bulk of the talking. Not me. (Which suits me fine in theory. A bit harder to self-enforce in reality.)

So much of what is good about a book and an author's original ideas, we muddle up with our own perspectives and prejudices. We ruin a lot when we open our mouths. (Or, more accurately, I ruin a lot when I open my mouth.)

Example.

Recently, I heard a scurry of business being conducted in the only room of our house where little feet seldom traverse - Riley's bedroom. Alarmed and ready to gently remind the rebels of the rules (or prepared to blast some truant children) I opened Riley's closed bedroom door.

Instead of seeing the dishevelment I expected, I saw order. No clothes on the floor. Books stacked neatly on the desk. Stuffed animals and pillows placed appealingly near Riley's black lounger.

Suspicious, I asked for an explanation.

"We want to be elves," Mosely said. "Just like the elves in the fairy tale about the shoemaker!"

Oh, the fairy tale from Andrew Lang's fun collection - The Blue Fairy Book.

I remember that one.

And I remember not saying anything after reading the story together. Refraining from offering my adult/mommyized Cliff's Notes on the story. Letting each child take what they would from the words crafted so concisely and precisely.

Because,
you know . . .

great literature always speaks for itself.

I Knew Her When

A gifted student. A kind junior high girl (more a rarity than it should be). A godly young lady. Our favorite Virginia babysitter. A great soccer player. A dedicated worker. A faithful finisher of assignments. A considerate friend. A joyful spirit. A reliable actress on the high school stage.

Jamie Newton.

What a good kid.

That's what we used to think.

And now we can say . . .

What a great grown-up.

It was so much fun for our family to load up the Suburban this weekend and drive a little bit into the North Carolina hills to meet Jamie and her equally cool husband of four months, Cole, for a little fall-weather-enjoying, catch-up-on-your-life-chatting, tour-Gardner-Webb-University-walking kind of day.

I met Jamie when she was in seventh grade in my English class. And Bible class. And theatre program. (It was a small school, demanding multi-tasking at its finest. Or worst.)

(I know - it makes me old!)

And our family fell in love with her family.

What a pleasure - really, a pleasure - to watch Jamie grow up, mature, have roots and make a difference.

To even have a role in her journey, however small it may have been, is an incredible blessing.

And it made me proud just to hear about her job and her experiences and her outlook and her heart for serving others and her love of Christ.

I thought about all the things her mom and dad did well.

And the high school that Jamie attended.

And how all of our lives ebb and flow into and out of one another's lives all the time.

Ebb. And. Flow.

And we seldom know what the end will look like.

Or the roles we will play.

But what a spectacular moment just to see a life headed in the right direction. A series of choices made that honor God and the reward of those choices plain on her sweet and pure face.

Yeah, the Keigleys love Jamie Newton. And Cole Harden.

So - Newton parents . . . guess who we will be turning to for that parenting advice now.

Constant

Really, this post is about chaos.

And I think the photo demonstrates that fairly well.

And it's funny.

And Leanne said she will only read my posts if they are accompanied by a photo.

Our house is lived in.

It's comfortable.

And we like that.

But comfortable can ooze into cluttered faster than Bergen can ride a bike down a hill. And cluttered can morph into chaos with a speed faster than Riley's fingers can text.

Last weekend Kevin and I looked around our home.

And it looked like chaos had settled in.

I was tired of messy children's rooms where a child could not play with any particular item if they desired because there were simply too many toys strewn across the floor. Clean laundry was flowing out of the basket and beginning to be contaminated by dirty laundry piled near it.

I wanted a change.

So did Kevin.

And we had a yard sale quickly approaching.

It was the Perfect Storm.

So we organized. Cleaned every nook and cranny. Bagged up all but four stuffed animals per kid. (Veggie Tales, Curious George and Eagle are the only ones who have made the current cut.) We swept. Sorted clothing. Stashed the doll house in the closet for a rainy day. Sold the train table on craigslist. Threw away only what even GoodWill would refuse.

It was hard work.

But rewarding.

And the house looked good. Shiny. Clean. Simplified. Clutter-free. You could walk. You could run. Your socks didn't get dirty just walking around the kitchen. Your clothing choices were infinite because every article of clothing was cleaned and neatly folded or hung in the closet.

It was beautiful.

And heartbreakingly short-lived.

It still looks pretty good. It does.

But not pristine.

We had to eat. We had to get dressed. We had to play. We had to live.

One busy weekend later and things are a little misplaced again.

Laundry is dirty. (Why did man ever have to sin in the garden? Nakedness is so much easier to maintain.)

Dishes are in the sink.

Larry and Junior and George are flopped on the floor.

Disorder is always waiting around the corner.

It is always waiting.

And it takes steady, concentrated effort to maintain order.

To push back chaos.

This is true at our house.

And in our relationships.

With our friends. Our spouse. Our children. God.

Steady, concentrated effort to maintain order.

To maintain relationship.

Harmony.

Peace.

And how quickly it falls apart if we stop.

Even for a weekend.

Remember When?

This is a recent photo of the Little Willow.

The "bigger" kids dressed her up one day.

For no reason.

And yesterday was Halloween.

Which, at the Keigley house, did not imply anything out of the ordinary this year.

Kevin and Riley ran a race. The rest of the kids and I had a less-than-financially successful yard sale. We relaxed in the afternoon, went to the store, had tacos for dinner and watched a movie with friends. You know - the regular.

But this Halloween made me think of last Halloween.

And that made me laugh.

And since yesterday was so . . . . normal, I thought I might choose to entertain today with last year's Halloween.

And maybe you will laugh too.
(Cue the soft lights, appropriate music and squiggly dream sequence waves across the screen.)

Disclaimer: This story may make the Keigleys sound as if they deprive their children of holiday joy. In fact, we do not. (Or maybe we do - it depends on your perspective.)

It was Halloween day.

In our house, that doesn't mean an awful lot. Or, well, anything really. For the whole of our children's lives we lived on the farm in Virginia where no honest soul dared traverse the long dark drive through the woods to get a measly candy bar from a stranger.

Hence, no Halloween for Keigley kids.

I bought Riley a bag of her candy of choice. The other kids were very young. They didn't know. They didn't care. It seemed to work out just fine.

So along comes our friend Jane on Halloween afternoon. She asks if the kids are dressed up.

Well, they aren't currently naked - so....yes.

She asks if we are going anywhere. We aren't. And then she tells us of a nearby college that decorates their dorms and passes out candy.

Our Friday night held no plans. At all. And I like candy too. Especially bite sized amounts of candy.

"Hey kids, you should go find some fun costumes and wear them," I told them.

They didn't even question me. They just ran to the dress up trunk and found some dandies.

They came back, dressed as tiny ninja, ninja boy, ninja turtle and, in Mosely's own words, "Ummm ....[cute head tilt and crooked grin]....I don't know."

I told them that we were going to go to a college dressed up to say "trick or treat".

They happily agreed.

"Do you know what will happen when you say that?"

Blank stares all around.

"You'll get candy!"

Then applause, glee, rapture, such joy as three ninjas and an I Don't Know could display.

We went to the college, we got our free candy.

Bergen approached every door and first said "thank you" and then as he exited he followed it up with "shrick or shreat"!

As we got in the car Berg announced, "I like Halloween. Let's do it tomorrow!"

No Longer

No longer will I look scornfully upon you when I notice your child walking down the street wearing only one flip flop. Maybe your daughter just tripped on her left flip flop, took it off and used her teeth to try to "fix" the problem, thus creating a new problem - a completely unwearable piece of footwear. And maybe you were only a block or so away from your car anyway so it just made more sense to walk back to the car with her one shoe-less than to really address the problem on the street with four other children in addition to the one-shoe-wonder walking down the street.
No longer will I assume you are a disrespectful food addict when I watch you sneak a granola bar/graham cracker/ cookie/ candy bar/ fruit roll up/ milkshake/ five course meal during a church service/ theatre performance/ meeting/ class/ study/ funeral. Maybe you had no time for breakfast between the morning mayhem of feeding your many small children, giving a loopy overgrown puppy his morning meal, dressing ten legs and ten feet and ten arms and being sure your bag was loaded for every potential disaster a day away from the safety of your home could bring. Maybe your lunch was a half eaten slice of apple and lick of brownie batter.

No longer will I secretly laugh at you when I watch you fall asleep during a children's theatre performance. Maybe your head is sinking over onto your son's head because you stayed up too late talking on the telephone to a friend from another state. Maybe your eyes have been blinked ten minutes too long because your infant son decided his regularly scheduled wake time needed an hour and a half earlier than usual morning call. Maybe that one night is reflective of how several weeks have been of trying to do too much too late too often.

I Didn't Know

I am constantly learning new things.

Sure, plenty of those things are powerful, spiritual and perspective-altering.

But some of them are not.

For example.

I didn't know that size 6 jeans for six-year-olds are already $15 even at low-cost stores such as T.J. Maxx. (I just visited Ye Olde Good Will Shoppe to cure that one.)

I didn't know that petite clothing has very little do with your overall size. I always thought those clothes were for very tiny people so I sidestepped those racks. I recently found out that petite is actually talking about your height! As a relatively short person, why hasn't someone, anyone, told me this before? Was every salesperson in my life ignorant or uninformed? What? I have been walking on the hems of my jeans since....well, since I could walk. And now, now at thirty-six, I discover the world of petite. It's about time!

And this week I just solved another mystery that had left me confused for years.

After carving many pumpkins I always wondered how the innards of the pumpkins we carved could ever mutate into the form of the condensed pumpkin stuff I bought in cans for less than two dollars. I just chalked it up to the mysteries of processed foods and let it go. But I could never connect how the stringy, seedy pulp we plopped in the compost became such a different texture and consistency. And I assumed it must take hordes of real-life pumpkins to fill even one can of pumpkin at the store.

Guess what?

It was just this week that I was enlightened.

It's not the stringy, goopy, seedy stuff that makes it to the cans. Nope. It's the rest of the pumpkin. All the golden thick walls of the pumpkin which your knife slices right through.

Who knew?

Okay, well, probably everybody but me.

(And yeah - I was raised on a farm. So what? We had cows, not pumpkins!)

So in the spirit of making me feel less ridiculous,
wouldn't you like to tell me what you never knew?

Calls It Like He Sees It

Bergen likes to call things by the names he thinks are best, even if they are not correct.

These delicious little peanut butter kiss cookies?

Needle Tips.

Are You Sure?

I find myself always asking,

(repetitively, yes)

How can I best serve God?

(Right now. In this life. In the present.)

And the answer seems to always be given

(repetitively, yes)

softly in my mind,

boldly in my life.


By serving the people living at this house.

No, no, no.

Can't I do something glamorous?
Something big?
Exciting?
Cool?
Highly visible?
Dramatic?

God,
Don't you need a writer for a really popular magazine?
Do you need me to work at a theatre like Flat Rock Playhouse?
Do you want me to sell all of my possessions and travel across the country with my family in an RV for you?
Do you want me to sequester myself away in some private hideaway and write the next great novel?

Oh.

You
want
me
to stay
here?

To wash these clothes?
To wipe so many sticky hands?
To kiss golden heads when they cry?
To stay up late holding inconsolable babies?

To
serve
the
small
humans
who
may
(or may not)
ever say
thank you.

Are you sure?

Oh.

I am supposed to be busy
about the business
of
straightening
the
arrows
you gently placed
in
our
quiver?

Oh.

But . . . .
No one notices.
The hours are really long.
The salary is sub-standard.
The benefits
are
not entirely
tangible.

And
it's
hard.

Really hard.

Oh.

Not Allowed

Maybe I have been a little too busy moving furniture around lately.

London secretly made this sign all by herself and then displayed it prominently on the fridge.

Translation: No Moving Furniture