Let Thea Do It!

January 1, 2021

Let Thea Do It!

My almost 2 year old thinks she’s a gymnast and the gym is her second home. She thinks she’s a member of Civil Air Patrol like Christina and Kimberly. She thinks she can ride Lucas’ bike. She thinks she can build shelves like Mom. She also thinks she can hide from everyone in plain sight.

She thinks she can fly. (From any object straight into a big sister’s arms without warning!)

She’s been going to WGV Gymnastics attending the Parent and Tot classes (yes, we have classes for those just walking to 3 years old) for a few months and Lucas (big brother) has been doing the Preschool Program for a few months.

Kimberly is in competitive team and set up a workout area on the wall marked with degrees (set up with sticks, a protractor, and a pencil) and was like “I need to go from here to here.”

“I can do that!” Says Lucas.

Bingo.

“Let Thea do it!” Thea says.

Bingo.

Kimberly tosses her hands in the air playfully, “I give up!”

We laughed and asked, “Why?”

“My baby brother has a bigger split than I do!” Kimberly laughed, “actually,” she tries it, “maybe not.”

We all laugh because the littles are so enthusiastic about everything. They love anything and everything big siblings or friends are doing. Thea consistently tries to do everything her big brother and big sisters do. She walked into the front room last night and turned on the game computer, “play a game with Becky!” and the mouse pointer went straight to the correct icon for Becky’s game.

Thea loves to do it! Thea loves to do everything!

“Mom!” (I’m washing dishes, Thea is dragging the stool over to the sink…) “Thea can wash dishes, please?”

How do I say no? I hope she always keeps the can-do will-try attitude she currently possesses.

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Building Buddies

December 28, 2020

Building Buddies

When we think of toddler, stuffing every unknown object into their mouth is standard, right?

I had two where the answer was shockingly “NO!”

They both loved all things small – squinkies, legos, and polly pockets.

The thing I like about small items is that they are easily portable! A small pencil box could hold an army of squinkies, a city of legos, or a family of polly pockets.

You can’t exactly take giant mega blocks everywhere! Well, maybe one or two blocks, but really… tiny is better for portable applications. I love tiny toys to keep littles entertained when on the go. For most of the kids though, tiny toys were not an option until the everything-in-the-mouth stage was finished. I love starting off with tiny toys!

We have been building large mega block forts with the same blocks for over 16 years! From Christina under 1 to Thea now at almost 2… I shake my head at that – yikes! That’s too many years of building forts and garages and houses with mega blocks! (Maybe that’s because mom doesn’t want to admit to that many years of kid toys!)

The building buddies right now are Lucas and Thea. Lucas gets very creative with the big blocks and super detailed with the tiny legos. He’s made Becky even get interested in coming back in because he occasionally gets a sorting bug and sorts their collection! When sorting happens, Becky is like, “yippee!” or comes to show Lucas how to best sort them. She had taught him well.

Thea is not so big on sorting small things into smaller groups – but one type of toy always must go in its correct bin. Grandma gave her a collection of squinkies for Christmas. Those stay in one bin along with their little eggs. Her gravity propelled horses that walk down tracks are in another bin, teething toys (sadly, very few of those left) in one bin, socks take up one of the toy bins (Thea’s idea, not Mom’s), and other small collections in the small bins. Thea keeps a baggie of legos and a few assorted squinkies in her back-pack. (This was another gift from Grandma this year and she carries it literally everywhere now.)

What I love to see is the building buddies when two or more of them are sitting in the little ones’ room surrounded by legos and building their respective creations on boards or the tops of the containers, in a “giant land” as Lucas calls it. (I guess city isn’t big enough.) Becky, Lucas, and Thea, or Kimberly, Jillian, and Thea, or Jaquline, Jillian, and Lucas… all with their own bits in their tiny toy world.

And, yes, Mom ends up in there often too, building some castle-hidden-in-rocks or house-hidden-in-trees on request. I load mine with secret tunnels or passageways, treasure, tiny details, and stories! I love building models of some story land my characters are in and acting scenes out with Lucas and Thea. They always come up with neat ideas that I’m forgetting.

Building buddies are the best! Taking time to encourage the creativity and imagination of little ones is a wonderful thing to be a part of.

This Christmas as I was building some huge lego tree with robin hood and castle pieces (who can remember those cool sets?) with Thea and Lucas, I remembered being about three and building the gray castle in the basement/garage in Cherry Hill with my Daddy. The black castle followed when I was four along with Robin Hood’s hideout (Daddy called it that, not sure what the name is that goes along with the set, but I know the number!) – classic sets I can actually print out instructions for from the lego website now! He took the time to build with me (and boost my ego… I was very proud of building a set that had an age on it higher than my current age.) and full circle, I’m taking time to build with mine.

Maybe I haven’t ben fishing with my kids as often as my brothers and I went fishing, but I’ve been building with them! So maybe we are “Building Buddies” instead of “Fishing Buddies” – and in my crazy brain I see five Golden Retriever pups building forts with mega blocks!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

(P.S.: for those wondering… my computer has been down since just before Thanksgiving so I’m a little behind on by release of Devonians #6, but thanks to an awesome gift from a friend – old laptop too old for games but perfect for writing! – it is now just waiting on a cover!)

Sunsets and Rainbows

What I see in sunsets and rainbows!

November 13, 2020

Sunsets and Rainbows

Sometimes when you want to feel amazed, just look up. Seriously. Up at the sunrise or for me at work – the sunset. The sunsets over the intersection of interstate 95 and International Golf Parkway are amazing. It often happens with a bold artist palette of vivid colors like deep purple, bright blue, orange, yellow, pink, and red. Because this is Florida, we often have moisture in the sky (aka raindrops) that hide clear rainbows in the opposite side of the sky.

I’ve seen more double rainbows outside the doors of my gym than everywhere else combined. God’s promise of mercy.

When sunsets come, they remind me of the awesome things God has given us that all too often we brush off. It also reminds me to slow down. I have to take the time to enjoy the blessings I’ve been given rather than race through life as if being chased. I’m not being chased by anything! I’m in an amazing point of my life where I’ve stopped chasing the pipe-dream of home ownership and realized that it really doesn’t matter. I’ve been able to slow down and enjoy. I love the job I have! (stepping outside to see sunsets and rainbows is definitely a sweet bonus) I get to work around smiling, happy faces, hopefully instill confidence, positive work ethic, determination, and excitement in the hearts of the children I am honored to coach, encourage my coworkers as they encourage me, and watch my children grow in skill and confidence (and getting to see them every break is tremendous)!

I have chosen to focus on relationships. I am trying to connect with my family and friends at every opportunity. I want my children to understand the importance of relationship with encouraging believers.

I have chosen to focus on writing again (my computer that was fixed ended up with the cable to the display being pinched by the metal bracket that supports the display because it was moved when “repaired” and now the cable is shorted… so back to borrowed computers until I can repair it myself). I felt such a surge of writing energy – going from less than 5,000 words to over 22,000 in only one story in just a few off days since it was repaired? Wow, I feel like God has opened my creativity again. Despite computer issues, I will be writing!

I sold one ebook through Amazon! First sale in over a year, so that’s positive!

My boss has graciously let me put up a display of real books at her ProShop (At least 50% of sales price gets donated to the gym program!) and I am supposed to have illustrators (*clears throat*) working on drawings for my children’s books.

At this point, I’m trying to study my children, show them how I depend on Jesus, study my husband more so I can love him better, and develop or water friendships I cherish with my sisters, brothers, and friends. We’ve been able to get Becky’s braces, get Christina’s adult dental stuff started, we discovered Kimberly needed glasses & got those, and are planning to start Jillian’s and finish Lucas’ dental needs too. God is providing as we need it. Provision will come. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Rainbows remind me of mercy.

Remember before the flood there was no rain? All the world was watered from the ground. Mists, fog, who knows, but the Bible says “the water rose up from the ground” to water the Earth. So imagine Noah and his family – they had never seen a rainbow! NEVER. This was a first for them. It was recorded as God setting His rainbow in the sky as a promise to every living thing on Earth that He would never again destroy the whole Earth by water.

That is mercy. Mercy is showing undeserved favor. Parenting teaches mercy on a whole new level.

Consider when someone is saying and doing things to cut you down constantly, hurting others you love, cutting deep into the hearts of you and those you love with their words, irritated with life but taking it out on you as if it is your fault, doing things and saying things that hurts them, etc. This irritates and saddens you. You love them still. You can’t stop loving them. You carried them and prayed for them and watched them be birthed and loved and cared for them and slowly watch them grow. You know you have to slowly release them and you hate yourself because you feel they aren’t ready but this is where you have to let go and trust God.

This is where you understand mercy. Love when you are undeserving.

You then see that is how Jesus sees you. You hurt His heart with some choices and actions or words. You hurt yourself. You hurt those He loves. You pull away when He is trying to patiently guide you yet it feels wrong or you decide to follow another. You do not deserve His love. You deserve judgement for those you have hurt. Yet Jesus showers us with mercy; new mercies each morning.

This is what rainbows show me.

My heart still hurts for the pains I feel my teens are feeling. I wish I could get them to talk openly and listen as openly. I wish I could once again kiss the hurt and it go away – but that doesn’t work anymore. They now need to allow Jesus to wrap His arms around them and comfort them. They need to allow Jesus to lead them and guide them.

I have to love them.

I also have to protect the hearts of my younger ones. Yes, sometimes from the words or actions of an older sibling. That really hurts.

I’m not going to kick them out of my house and never out of my heart; just as Jesus has not kicked me away and has loved me through all of my mistakes. I need Jesus’ mercy every day.

Rainbows remind me of this.

Thank you, Jesus, for sunsets and rainbows. Thank you that we get to see them almost daily. Thank you for love, mercy, and forgiveness. Thank you that you teach me daily in this task called parenting.

Thank you for reading!

~Nancy Tart

Rubik’s Cube

Is life like a Rubik’s Cube?

August 15, 2020

Rubik’s Cube

Jillian’s friend gave her a Rubik’s Cube to solve. After a full day off and on of spending probably two or three hours attempting it, Jillian gave it to Jaquline and said, “this puzzle is too complicated!”

Jaquline has been trying her hand at it since. She’s one of those kids who stick to the problem until it gets solved so I’m sure eventually she will figure it out. On the way to work this morning Christina and I hear, “oh really!” and a wail.

“What?” we both ask.

“I was sooooo close!” and she passes the cube to Christina in the front seat with one side one square from being all one color. Christina, who has solved a few Rubik’s Cubes in her time, suggests, “start with the corners and try to match the colors two blocks at a time.”

Another wail a few seconds later and the furious almost silent swish, tap, tap, swish of the plastic blocks being moved around. Another wail. Swish, tap, tap, tap… “Yes!” Tap, tap, swish, swish. Dramatic groan, “this is too complicated.”

Encouragement from the front seat, “you can get it,” and “keep trying!”

“Roll On” by Alabama comes through my head.

Life sometimes seems like a Rubik’s Cube.

You get everything lined up the way you think it should be and turn the corner to discover… bam! It isn’t lined up! Fix that problem and solve that issue, turn another corner and nothing looks in order. Changes happen. I think of watching a younger friend when I was younger. He could solve the cube in whatever mess it was within what appeared to be a few twists.

All of us in life have been given Rubik’s Cubes aka “Life” to solve and various levels of frustration mount as we try to solve the puzzle by ourselves. Sometimes everything looks like it is lining up, but we turn a corner and look at a mess. Sometimes we created it, sometimes we didn’t have any control over it, sometimes it was messed up by someone we love or trusted. It isn’t lining up the way we wanted.

The first normal reaction is irritation and frustration – that stage where we try to fix it ourselves by pulling us up by our own bootstraps. In my experience those bootstraps generally tangle us up instead of help us regain our footing. I imagine we are pulling our footing right out from under ourselves – funny, right?

Or we could play the blame game – doesn’t solve anything and only makes us feel bad and alienate us from whomever we consider “the problem.”

Or we could hand our Rubik’s Cube of life to God and let Him direct our puzzle. This is like watching a master puzzle solver. Swish. tap. tap. swish. That looks worse… Tap. tap. swish. swish. Wow. How is that possible? Now all sides are each a solid color.

It looks like magic in the master’s hands.

Next time I feel like wailing because something just isn’t lining up, I hope I remember that image of the Rubik’s Cube in a master puzzle solver’s hands and think of how my life is like a Rubik’s Cube and I need to hand it to God and let Him solve my crazy mess – lead me the way He wants my life to go and then I can see the beauty of order only He can see in my chaos.

Crazy writer’s brain thoughts, I know, but hopefully it makes you smile.

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Growing Little Love

June 1, 2020

Growing Little Love

Thea is getting independent by giant leaps.  I don’t do the whole months thing unless I have to (I love math, but “over one” is just as good as “fourteen point two five months” as far as describing my baby’s age goes) so when people ask, she’s one.

Lucas gets a new bike, and Thea has to try it!

Lucas gets a water balloon maker (thank you, Grandma! The grenades have shredded latex shrapnel all over the yard – so Thea likes to clean all the pieces up)… and Thea is right alongside them filling up balloons.

At the beach she’s looking for shells with Becky and running into the surf with Lucas – not as far as Lucas, at least she still got a healthy fear of the deep!

Building a cage?  Oh yes, Thea is right there trying to screw in the wood… well, Mommy and Lucas were using this tool on the wood: Thea just hasn’t figured out screwdrivers drive screws!

Grandma brought a pool – “Mommy!” Thea wants it set up so she can splash!

Daddy gets stakes for the garden… Thea is helping him drag them to the right spot!

Thea loves her shoes (Thank you, Jesus! Finally a child who wants her feet covered outside!) and will bring them to her bigger siblings since she can only get her feet partway in and she knows that isn’t proper. …and reading – she loves anything Becky is reading. (Actually, anything Becky is doing!)

I love watching them grow.  I drove Christina and a friend to another friend’s graduation and his mom mentioned how much Thea has grown.  I can already see her at 16 and graduating in a year like her eldest sister… time flies.  Enjoy every minute with them! 

Life has taught me, fortunately at a young age, that we are not promised tomorrow.  The byproduct is that I am frank, honest, and don’t hide my care and concern for those I love.  I try to remember that each time I speak to someone may be the last – I have lost many people and none of my losses are plagued with regret at the last words spoken.  I pray that I keep love first.

I watch my younglings grow and I continually pray that I am guided to teach them how to live without regrets.  To love honestly, to speak in that love, to always stand for truth, to live life taking risks so as never to say, “I regret…” wistfully thinking of some word or action they wanted to do but decided against.  I pray they guard their hearts from evil and think on positive things.

I watch Thea grow, as I’ve watched each of the others and my younger siblings, I smile at her growing independence and blooming personality.  I am so thankful and humbled that God blessed us with the honor of raising our children and leading each of them toward their own way. Our time with them is short. Enjoy every moment.

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Monopoly Crazy

May 6, 2020

Monopoly Crazy

Yes, my family is crazy. Maybe.

We love board games – especially if it involves everyone. This is difficult as most games like battleships, mancala, and chess are two player or maybe four player like labyrinth, the mall game, trouble, spelldown, scrabble, and Lord of the Rings Risk. Even the regular Risk is just six players, along with all the trivial pursuits and Settlers of Catan with the 5-6 player expansion set. Yes, we alter it by adding extra pieces to trivial pursuit (we have four different card sets and ten player pieces with the total amount of wedges) and by using two yahtzee sheets instead of one, but a game where we don’t have to alter?

Yippee!

Monopoly here we come!

Granted, our monopoly set has been victim to a few mishaps; added to from two quarter yard-sale finds with a few pieces here or there, but we maintain the exact number of applicable hotels, houses, and chance and community chest cards. Unfortunately Lucas demolished the Cinderella castle board from a Disney set – but we have the tokens and a few ones and hundreds have Disney characters on them. (Actually, most of our ones are Disney, and due to Barbie Bake Shop and Restaurant Store drafts over 13 years, there is a shortage of one dollar bills insomuch as we have to “borrow” 10 white ones from the poker chip collection to play.)

Today, Aunt Becca took Becky off to babysitting land and Jillian had cleaned the table and set up piles of Monopoly money around the board – “Who wants to play Monopoly?”

“Wait?” Daddy says, taking a second glance at the table with five eager (okay, four eager and one required teenager) faces grinning at him, “everyone is at the table?”

“All except Becky,” pipes Jillian.

“She’s not here,” I added, “so everyone who is here.”

“Not Thea!” someone quips, “but she can’t play yet.”

To answer this, Thea squeals with joy – as Louis says, “roll the dice to see who goes first then I’ll sit down.”

Yippee! They all get excited about playing with Daddy and Mommy… Daddy is the cannon, Mommy is Walt & Mickey (statue from the Disney version), shoe, candlestick (from Clue), Miss Scarlett (from Clue)… someone was Mr. Thimble Moneybags (the thimble with the moneybags inside and the hat on top) – Yes, we collect old tokens from games bought at yard sales for extra pieces! Thea demands Mommy pick her up. Mommy smiles and sits by Lucas. Lucas, Jaquline, and Kimberly all rolled 6s so they roll again. Mom goes to change Thea. Lucas rolls highest! He goes first!

“I’m taking Mommy’s spot by Lucas!” Daddy announces. “I go second!”

Mommy does a mental facepalm… luck my foot.

We sit back at the table in the remaining chair between Jillian (#3) and Kimberly (#5) as Louis pops two doubles and lands three properties – 2 of a 3 group already.

At one point, we have Kim roll onto Louis’ hotel, die. #6, Christina, roll onto same hotel, DIE, and #7, Jaquline, roll onto Jillian’s hotel – DIE! Three out of seven down in one turn… with Mommy out the next and Lucas following. We ask Jillian (no hotels by this time) if she’s ready to concede that Daddy wins…

NO WAY! “I don’t quit a game – if I lose, I lose, but I don’t quit!” (Where does that come from? Remember Risk games during Daddy and Mommy’s dating days, brothers and sisters? One lone dude in Australia against the entire red world… “I’ll never surrender!”) Mommy has to laugh.

One thing for sure, out of the government shutdown garbage, Lucas knows how to break a twenty and what change to get back from a $10 or $20 on the $6, $8, and $14 properties (…almost typed the names… I’m too nerdy!)

What board game does your family love to play?

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you Next Time!

~Nancy Tart

February Birthdays!

April 2, 2020

February Birthdays

So for my entire life, until last year, I was the only February birthday in my family – by birth, then by marriage, and then including my children and the sister- and brother-cousins. I was the only February birthday! I had the whole month to myself (haha) but then our miracle baby was born three days before my birthday last year and I now share my birthday month with one nephew and my sixth daughter. Yes, same year, my eighth nephew decided to take February three days before Thea popped out.

This was the first birthday party I shared with Thea!

First off, on Thea’s real birthday I had to work at my office and then gym and Christina was at college. Grandma Joanne came over and Thea had her brithday cupcake, which she refused to get dirty with (little princess, as Becky calls her). Thea would dip her finger in the icing and eat it delicately.

Grandma brought Thea a helium balloon, her adorable birthday outfit, and cupcakes. Thea loved it! She was so exhausted after Grandma’s visit that she couldn’t come to gym in the afternoon, so she spent her birthday afternoon with Daddy and Lucas – giggling and goofing off.

Forward to Saturday and I’m off so we went to Aunt Becca’s for a planned get-together. I love doing anything with my family, so tried to get my sisters and mom to come. I had mentioned to Louis that all I wanted for my birthday was to hang out with my family (already planned) and maybe do a little birthday for Thea. So when the girls were hanging streamers in Aunt Becca’s house, I thought, “awesome, they are decorating for Thea!” and went to chat with Becca while she grilled. Then Mom came too!

Nope, turns out they decided to surprise me.

I love my family!

Sunday, we had even more cake and games with Grandma Tina!

I am so thankful for those I grew up with, married into, and am watching grow up. I love our closeness. I love that my children are growing up babysitting, playing with, and looking up to their sister-cousins and brother-cousins. I am so thankful that God provided my children with positive role models in their aunts and uncles (and now a future Aunt who my teens already consider an awesome friend).

Thank you, Jesus, for family!

Thank you for reading!

Write more later,

~Nancy Tart

Beautiful Beach Day

March 31, 2020

Beautiful Beach Day

I know by the time this gets published, we aren’t going to be allowed on our beautiful beaches anymore due to what my teens tease the history books will call “the corona shutdown,” but don’t judge us.

Anyway, after making sure you understand that my one-month of disabled computer leading to very-very late posts is what causes this to be published way after it happened…

We LOVE our beach days (usually evenings, it is surface-of-the-sun Florida, even in February and March). This lovely day was a perfect, breezy, sunshine day. Our beach was “crowded” today (aka, more than just three groups as far as the eye could see). We actually happened to know both of our distant beach neighbors!

The girls took our boogie boards and caught the tiny waves. They grew to some nice ones and a few surfers started dotting the decent ones past the distant sandbar (if you see a dark dot in the distance, that is a surfer).

The teens buried each other together so that their legs were “eaten by the hungry hippo.”

Thea thought the water was too cold. After Mommy tried to get her wet a few times, she continually raced back up to Daddy, the shade tent, and Mommy’s chair.

In the background you see Kimberly in a deep hole, the other legs belong to part of the kid squad trying to fill that hole with water using sand buckets in a bucket line! We laughed so hard as they kept shrieking “the water’s going down!” after each bucketful of water got lost in the thirsty sands at the bottom.

There were some very funny teenager-talk jokes passing around during the sand sculpture time.

Besides enjoying hours with my family – my absolute favorite activity in the Earth, the beach allows me to breathe like I used to. I dunk my head in the salty water, rinse my sinuses and after a half-hour or so, I can breathe like before the mold allergy. I love the beach. This is why I live in Florida. I am a surfer in my soul. I managed one wave where Lucas baby-surfed on me (I bodysurfed and he was clinging on) but he has learned how to bodysurf on his own and Thea isn’t ready for that yet!

I pray to be able to continue to live near these amazing sandy tapestries of God’s wonderful design where I can feel refueled and whole. We packed up, watched the sunset, and trudged back to our van.

We left our sanctuary and returned to “real life.” I refused the radio and we listened and tried to sing-along to uplifting fun songs.

Are we in uncertain times? Yes, but nature always makes me remember that God is in control and my job is to do what I am able to and leave everything else that I can’t control in His hands.

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Stages to Come

Stages To Come

February 27, 2020

Life is lived in stages, seasons, steps… whatever you call it. It’s somewhat like a roller coaster with ups and downs. Our memories are made of snippets of this fun journey called life and when I’m feeling nostalgic, I like to look back at my memories!

Like this one: both my and Christina’s first university tour (and Christina wanted to start immediately, but has to wait for next fall).

It meant spending time just Louis, me, and our oldest! This happy smiling girl!

Then there are so many smiling snapshots of my littles in various fun spots!

Kimberly & Jillian driving late, Christina & Kimberly on a CAP flight, Lucas & Thea when she started chasing him, Jaquline & Mandy in their spot, Mom’s first 4th of July with us with my teens, Sister-cousins with our first Guinea Pig baby, Family Fun Fest painted faces, Tree climbing fun at the park, making mud pictures after learning about mound-builders, impromptu group photo.

These make me happy as I realize there are always smiling faces in our pictures. Most of the memories I have bring smiles to my face. The no-picture memories, like board games, risk tournaments, Heroes 3 Warlords competitions (or Crimson & Clover versus), monopoly, long nature walks, tennis, playgrounds, Disney Springs… Fun.

Thank you, Jesus, for happy memories! Thank you for a full life!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Read Me A Story

Read Me A Story!

February 21, 2020

One of the things I like best in the whole world is to read books. Aloud. To children.

Don’t get me wrong, I love reading personally too, but there is just something so amazing about getting to play all characters in a book for wide-eyed child audiences. My first audiences were my younger siblings – actually, most of them were just trapped. It’s like “not again!” but one or two would be like “yes! read this one!”

One of my biggest encouragers in my writing was my youngest brother. His favorite read-aloud story is actually completed (a trilogy, actually) but because of my perfectionist nature, needs tons of work before I would publish them. So Olivia and Alex will be left right there in our imaginations for now… The next one he wanted me to read was “Web of Deception” in which I created a character to “be him.”

Along came my own children; to whom I read old stories and created the Long Tails, Funny Sisters, and Devonian series for.

And Becky begging for more “Pirate Baby Story” – I wanted to see the sparks of interest in reading. Reading is the open door to so much knowledge.

Now I’m sitting on my comfy bed with Lucas and Thea, starting “Fibbing Fisherman” (Lucas calls it “the fish boy that Becky draws” because Becky illustrated the cover). Jillian hears and lumbers in from her spot on the couch (did I really just draw her away from a movie). Kimberly hops in, “are you reading?”

The last big one was Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (I love the Narnia books!) I’m always reading something – in progress on a big one and reading through little ones at least one in a sitting. They fall asleep around me – the big kids hadn’t even shown up at the fishing spot yet – as I read and pretend I’m each different character. We discuss each decision as the characters make them because most of the time book readings are interrupted by “why’d he do that?” or “what was she thinking?” questions. (YIPPEE! time for socratic questions to answer these and get their own mental gears turning!)

I hope I’ll always be reading so someone. I don’t really read to Christina anymore. Sometimes Becky will wander in when it’s a book she likes or when she wants to read (she is a great oral expressionist – I expect she could be a great speaker or do drama or some such). Right now, I’m happy to be in the stage I’m at where there are still some younglings begging, “Read me a Story, please?”

Treasure each moment, it turns into a memory as soon as it passes.

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

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