The very last day of summer for us...

is frought with the usual last minute preparations. Everybody has socks and undies. Everybody woke on time, of course. We will see what becomes of our new school year resolutions as the time goes by. We have an army growing and learning in this house. How did they ever get so big?

They saved the best for last

I am just in love with the grammar school teachers and my Wally and Beaver guys (Ethan and Ezra). They have absolutely NO inhibitions. I felt like I was carrying Reverend Walker and Ben with me into the open house yesterday. They talk and talk and...well, you know. It is the most delightful thing to see boys like Tom and Huck letting their imaginations and thinking caps go in a scholastic setting. Grandma Ruth used to say, How do you stand it, Jayne? They all look like baby Ben and they all look like your mother in law? I was so grateful that she could see that in my children. They are the spitting image of all of the Walkers. I can't tell if I am their mother. LOL.
Ezras teacher is Ms Beasley. Ethan was correcting her spelling. Where is the apostrophe there? "Would you mind your business?" I didn't say. "What are you writing a book?" It is clear that they are from the seen and heard generation. Then on to Ms. Henry's class. That is Ethan's Homeroom teacher. She is a pretty young lady. They all look like kindergarteners to me. He fell flat in love and told her his whole life story, including the bookshelf falling on him and the broken arm. Is nothing sacred, Ethan? I forgot he is a (totally transparent)Walker. Then we went to the Social Studies class where he and Mr. Johnson went into a long discussion about the American flag development. That is where he sounded like my father-in-law.
I always said to myself, this father-in-law of mine talks like he was friends with Abe Lincoln. Well here was my Ethan talking about American History as though he had been friends with Betsy Ross. I love watching them growing into men. It was past my imagination to have any sons at one time and now I am the proud momma of the largest investment of Walker men in the entire family. I am grateful to have gone to the cabbage patch that many times, in spite of myself.




God give me grace with these wonderful children and adult children that God is blessing me to live to see grow up.

Tuesday is the first day of school AHHHHH!

The temperatures haven't stayed cool, but it always surprises me that the crickets start chirping here, right before school. It seems much too hot for them to be sitting on the porch with us. The sky is blazing with beauty. The house is hopping with the yelps and yowls of children sucking the last bit of fun out of the summer. We are struggling to keep our sanity and it would be difficult, if there were not the promise of next week. A week where somebody else will be watching my children for me in the daytime. God bless each and everyone of those teachers who are dedicating their lives to the instruction of my children. I am a very grateful mommy.

Freshman Open House!

I carried my eldest son to the open house. 15! He is a man now! He is starting Highschool and I took him.
We are blessed with a really great community and an absolutely brand new school building; beautiful and new.
I didn't get the tennis coaches job that I tried for. I am not beautiful enough. :) Not really, this school is going for the gold and I couldn't have gone to school with my big boy everyday.
We are already too close.
He has World History and English, Art(of course) and French. We are in for it trying to wrestle language skills into this young Walker boy. I have my hands full. I love it though. Last year, we had to charrette every time he had a writing assignment. God give me grace. He's a good boy. They all try, but English is their second language?:) That is what I wonder and I tell them so!
Today is Middle School open House!

She is home!

We waited and waited and the farm girl is home now.
She is a carpentress now! She learned real putting together of a house out there. She has so many stories that I have to lend her my mp3 to tell me about it. We might spend alot of time one day, just talking about the bus trip. God is good and He sent her back home to me! Her dog is especially grateful!

And Now.......

The Glasses!

Saturday! Saturday!

My big woman(Elyse) called from Grand Rapids and is on the bus, on the way home. She had a great time. She met new friends, probably built a house and participated in a wedding and went to the beach there. I didn't even know that they had a beach in Grand Rapids. Now, she is on the bus and calling to let me know. 24 hours on a bus? I don't really find that fun, but she does. I am glad that she is doing what she loves.
I can't believe that she is the spitting image of her mother. Running off to some spiritual adventure to find God. God is near to all who call upon Him in truth. Love affairs with Him are the precursor to a Great Adventure. We don't have much, in terms of stuff, but we know God. He knows us, I mean. That is her interest and I tease her, as though I don't know what she is going through. We are the children and Grandchildren of the NUN. Lo and behold we are walking this far by faith. It is a goodly heritage and God is acting as the Shepherd and leading us in the "way everlasting". I am blessed to see it passing to the next generation.
I can't wait for her to get off the bus tomorrow. We are going to have corned beef and cabbage to celebrate the girl who runs off to visit friends in a far away place for the glory of God. :)

Next week, I changed my schedule

to an earlier time. I don't know how I will be adjusting. I woke earlier this morning to try to get myself oriented. If you don't hear from me for a while, that is why. I do doubt that I will stop writing. It is a real "catharsis"(a mommy word)outlet, for me.
Now, is a great time to change, before the rush of the new year. But, I am sure that when Elyse comes home on Sunday, I will be tempted to do an all nighter to hear all about the cornfields of Iowa. I have never been there, except through reading about it with John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley. :).
My eyes are getting more adjusted and my knee is better from the bad kick that took me out for most of the summer. We were celebrating Enoch's birthday and Evvy said mommy, how do you do that kick and I did 5 backward kicks in a row, don't laugh. The next day I couldn't put pressure on that knee. I am still taking it slow on the steps. Have only been out to the courts a couple of times with a brace and then couldn't walk after that. I am still coddling it. I cannot afford to lose my knees like this. I am grateful for the recent relief, I have felt. I thought it would never heal.

Glasses are ordered and gotten for my sight-deficient fellows. Now, there are 5 with glasses and 3 without. What a ratio!
At work, I am able to congeal my thoughts and get away from the ratrace and confusion of so many needs. I feel refreshed, somewhat, when I get home and can better enter into the 5 year old and 10 yr old and 14,15, 19, 22 year old varied conversations, not to mention, you know who. Work seems to put the differing relationships in perspective for me. I have been looking at it as wearing different hats and I can say, what am I doing right now? I am being this persons mother, I owe a listening ear and a sympathetic heart. I am being a wife and or a friend, I owe a loving commitment and feeling of loyalty to this or that conversation. It seems to help, when I think about it that way and I don't get overwhelmed as much. There is always going to be an unsatisfied customer in my house as there always is at work. I don't have to be everybody's everything, just their mom and wife, or visa-versa.

It is beautiful there and I have been trying to write to my Ezra, giving him some little stories about the grounds and how I think about him, even when I can't be with him. He reads like a whip so I leave him stuff on the blogs for him to read and hopefully get to know me. I am sympathetic to the lessened time that the baby of the family has with mom, being married to one of the younger ones of the family and I hope to leave him something that will help him to know that I thought about the fact that I didn't want to jip him by having him at an older age. I know that sounds stupid to you, but Ben misses his mom and dad and it does seem unfair that the older children got so much more time with them. It does all equal out at the end, I know.
We see how the older grandchildren, in the W. family have memories of my mother-in-law and mine don't. They have a few, but...Well, anyway Ezra reads so well and is always going on the computer for the PBS and other things. My goal is to work on an interactive website and put some of my games and stories on their. I am starting with the blog and he reads it, when I remind him. I am patterning it somewhat after AA Milne and a book when we were 6. I started when Ethan and Christina were 6 and the theme is outdated for them, so now Ez will be 6 in Sept. and I am hoping to finish it sometime this year. Time flies when you are having fun. It is just a tool to give him some exposure to me, even though sometimes my nerves are fried and I can't give him the attention that I would wish to. I am trying and I hope that he can see that, one day.

Jackie is going to say, You are thinking too much again Jayne. Okay, I am, but, what else is a mother to do?

Rain, rain, rain...Welcomed change.

It is nice to cool down the overheated temps. And remind us that school is in 2 weeks for us. We must get back to some semblance of a schedule around here. Getting in the bed and waking up on time~~~~? We have had a really nice summer and many blessings. The children are looking forward to school and I am hoping to change my schedule, so that I can be part of the homework and bedtime routine more this year than at other years. I have been working 11:30 - 8 pm and I have missed the evening routine for participating in the morning time with them. Ben will be working evenings now, so I hope that my job will be able to accommodate my need for this change. We will see today. It really doesn't worry me, we will work it out and oil the machinery that is our family and with 2 women and 2 elderly people Maybe not elderly, but Ben and I are elderly to the children:)(he's 50 now) Hooray!, we can work it out, whichever way.
What an interesting system of weather patterns brings in the back to school season. The weather seems to always say "We better start reminding the Walkers to get ready for back to school, they are having entirely too much fun with one-another, staying up till all hours and such." It looks like one of the angels, just walked pulling a blanket of clouds to cool things down.:) It is foggy and cooler today and looks like a day in NY in Mid September instead of a NC August day. We needed a day like this to get ready, it was just too hot last week.:) I am not complaining I love it!
We will get batteries, to take pictures.

Well,(hands on hips!) I think Sarah Palin is pretty.

And I thought it was pretty brave of her to take on politics and parenting at this point in the battle. Not an easy task for anyone. I saw on the oldest daughter's face the very first moment that there was going to be some kind of conflict with this juggling of roles. I have had that struggle many, many times. Now that she is a grandmother, and I am not, I applaud her taking the humble route, but I loved her glasses. Enough of her...
My eyes are adjusting to the glasses and it is very strange for me, who read for a living. I read all day, at work and I read all night at home. My eyes are a major part of me. I had no idea that they had deteriorated so. Now I feel a little dizzy with the change in the lens from distance to reading. I have to use my neck to look down at the steps and such. It makes me feel old. :(
I am just complaining, because my children don't listen any more when I do. How do you stand all those masculine voices in the house? "Calm down mom." I jump. They are all so strong voiced and dominating? I don't know about your boys, but, my Enoch is far more apt to take liberties at my word than the girls are? I can't send him to the store for Scott tissue. He always buys the store brand. What is that about? I want to beat him for that, not really. He is a dear, but I can't get him to see that there is more to what I am asking him to do than interpreting everything that I say. He is always trying to find some, "better" way to do what we do and say what I say. It is his masculinity coming out and he will be starting High School in a week or so. I hope that he will make some other friends and stop being so focused on fixing his mom!
Ev is just a barrel of laughs. He and she make a super team together, but this year they will be separated: she, in eighth grade and he, in High School. I am still the tallest woman in the house but Evv is catching up on me. I am stretching my neck to be taller.:)
I am really okay, just cyber-grumbling.

Elyse is square-dancing in Iowa,(not really) that is what we call, working with Habitat or something or other like that and I miss her alot. She saved up her money and planned this with an old friend who grew up with her in NJ and now lives in Grand Rapids. I hear it is alot of work. She said, she would never travel any other way but bus, now. I guess it is more comfortable than in the van squished between sisters and brothers. I hadn't thought of that before. She loved seeing the country that way.
Probably, Emily misses her most.