Maybe you can relate to this..

Our fourth child seems to be the comic relief in our family, likely due in part to his birth order.  He tends to be a little more laid back, also.  When you have 3 other children in front of him, your energy is spread out, and you learn not to react to the little things going on.  It’s more like you just throw food onto the high chair table and hope it works out that he teaches himself how to eat because you’re being consumed by everybody else.

Today, he gave me a good laugh while we were driving to preschool (all of our kids have attended outside preschool programs).  Today was show-and-tell with the letter “T” so we were discussing all of the items that he could have taken for his presentation.  He said with a serious tone, “Well, we can’t bring a girl’s private parts”.  I paused for a moment as I processed what he had just said and then tried to figure out what he might be referring to.  My first thought was “tit” referring to a woman’s chest, but I couldn’t believe he’d know that word yet.  So, I went on to ask him what he was referring to.  He said, “You know, toody”.  I tried hard not to laugh.  You see, in our household the word “toody” has sometimes taken the place of the word “vagina”.  I don’t particularly like replacing anatomical words with obscure words like “toody” but for some reason this one has stuck with my kids.  Now why he would have thought to say that he couldn’t take a “toody” to preschool.. I have no idea.

The conversation made me think about how different my children are from one another.  Then, it made me wonder how in the world I’m going to teach all of them at one time as they get older!  Will I just throw the books at the fourth kid and hope it works out for him?  No, I can honestly say I don’t think I’ll do that because I’m a bit neurotic with academics and desire that they love to learn.  That being said, I don’t know how I’ll do all of the little things to make it all come together.  The big picture will be accomplished through His grace, so I’m going to give it my best shot.  Big fan of homeschooling, BIG FAN.

P.S.-The above picture occurred after we’d just finished reading about the Olmec and Aztec Indians.  My children thought it would be fun to paint their bodies like the Indians had done.  You can imagine how my face looked after I saw what they had created, and I’m only showing you just a little bit of the art. Help me.