by Tessa | Motherhood
I don’t often (or maybe ever?) used my boys’ real names on my blog because I don’t need random passers-by to know all that information about my family. That being said, I promised Sue from Stories of an Unschooling Family over a year ago that I would, one day, tell the story of how we came up with our children’s names. So here are those stories:
C:
Before I tell you about C’s name, I have to go back a bit to before I was pregnant with him. I was pregnant before him and my husband and I had for a girl and a boy name picked out within probably a week of conceiving: Rebecca or Jeremiah. Unfortunately, we lost that baby at about 8.5 weeks. There is no way to prove it but, in my heart, I know that we lost a little girl. So, the next time we conceived, I had a hard time thinking of a girl name. Adam figured that we could still use Rebecca but I just couldn’t agree. So we basically had one name that we agreed on: Jeremiah. We sort of added a few names to our list throughout the pregnancy but nothing concrete. We assumed the baby would be a boy named Jeremiah.
I had C as a c-section so I didn’t get to hold him until my husband brought him into the room when he was about an hour old. I had been telling all of the nurses in recovery how I was so excited to hold my little Jeremiah. They all told me it was such a beautiful and unique name. Adam laid our tiny little (just under 7 lbs) boy in my arms and said to me, “Honey, I’m really sorry. He just doesn’t look like a Jeremiah.” I agreed. So now we had to scramble to find a name. Our name list was at home. The only name I could think of was Caleb. A name that I had added just a few days before and had planned to ask Adam about. It has a lot of meanings but the meaning that we chose for our son was “faithful.” And it suits him completely. He also carries on Adam’s Dad’s name as his middle name. Everyone was convinced Caleb was going to be a girl. It’s a good thing he wasn’t, we never did agree on a single girl’s name.
Biscuit:
With almost 3 years in between our boys, you would think we would had had lots of time to figure out some more names. Adam could still only think of Rebecca for a girl while I still felt like we already had our Rebecca as our first. We kept a list of names that each of us liked but truly couldn’t agree on any name. It was tough because everyone (including Adam) thought we were having a girl. I wasn’t convinced so, to be perfectly honest, I didn’t waste a lot of effort thinking of girl names.
When he was born, we sat with our list of names and… debated. My friend who attended the birth couldn’t help but laugh at us as we tried to present our case for our particular picks, only to change our mind right when we had nearly convince the other person. We were so busy trying to figure out a name that we forgot to call my parents (who lived right across the yard and had probably figured out something was up by this point) to tell them they had another grandson. He was also my victorious home birth after my caesarean so there was a lot of joy and laughter.
Isaac means “laughter,” or “he laughs.” The name felt rather unfitting for the first year with our high need son but, once we really started to get to know him, there is no better name. This kids has a gift for humour and the most contagious laugh in the world. It’s a perfect fit for him. He doesn’t have a middle name. We could barely agree on a first name so, true to my Dutch heritage, we chose not to give him one.
Baby Bear:
I can’t believe he’s over a year already. It feels like I was just recently sitting here writing blog posts while pregnant with him and imagining who this little person would turn out to be. I actually had a lot of fun making up a name list for him and it seemed that Adam was a lot more open to name options this time around. We had our perfect list of boy names and girl names. Once again, everyone was convinced it was a girl. Mostly because we had two boy so, statistically speaking, it should be a girl. I even had a week when God put it in my heart that I was going to have a girl and that I should mentally and emotionally prepare for that (I LOVE being a boy mom so the thought of a girl took some time to get used to). After that week, however, I was comfortable with birthing a daughter but truly still hoping and believing I was carrying another son.
He was born at home and we read through our handy name list as I sat on the couch while he was a few hours old. Adam, Caleb, and Isaac all agreed that he should be called Noah. Adam nearly called the whole family to tell them that Noah had made his arrival. If I hadn’t just given birth, I would have jumped off the couch to snatch his phone from his hand. Instead, I yelled at him. Not a mean yell but I had to raise my voice to get over their excitement. Noah was NOT going to work for this boy. God had laid a different name on my heart for the previous couple of weeks that seemed to match this baby’s temperament more. Noah seems like the name of a Type 3 boy (according to The Child Whisperer’s typing system): determined, physical, forward push type of child. This baby was still, laid back, peaceful, and the whole pregnancy and birth felt like a gift from God. Jesse means gift. It took me about 45 minutes of convincing but all three of them started to wrap their heads around Jesse. Now we look at Jesse and know he could never have been a Noah. (He also doesn’t have a middle name, just in case you were wondering.)
Caleb. Isaac. Jesse. Not the names that we expected but perfectly fitting for our boys.
Did your choose your children’s names because have a significant meaning? Did you know their names before they were born or did you choose a name to suit them after birth?
by Tessa | Motherhood
I cringed when he put on his pants backwards. Normally I wouldn’t have said anything, but it was Sunday. So I gently asked him, “Your pants are on backwards. Can we turn them around?” “Sure,” he responded cheerfully. I hesitated. Was this a trick? Was he going to start screaming the instant I tried to turn his pants around? “May I help you?” I asked tentatively. “Sure!” Enthusiasm. I breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps this morning would remain peaceful after all. I managed to get all three children into their church clothes and I even managed to do my makeup in the bathroom (as opposed to in the vehicle). We were ready to go 15 minutes early. This is such a rare occurrence that the children thought it was time to get their shoes on a buckle in. My husband came in from morning chores and, instead having to help me finish getting children dressed and rushing out the door, he heard me urging the children to slow down. It really felt like they understood what was required and decided there was no use in resisting.
There is a certain craziness in the motherhood marathon that is interspersed with peaceful moments. Read the rest of my guest post to find out what I learned this particular Sunday morning about Surviving the Motherhood Marathon at Thinking Outside the Sandbox.
by Tessa | Motherhood, Personal Development
I’m an introvert. I crave quiet and solitude. Just over a year ago, I discovered that introversion is okay and I really started to embrace the introversion instead of attempting to be extroverted. In retrospect, it was silly to think that I had to be someone I’m not and act in a way that wasn’t true to myself. But I’ve figured it out now and it has hugely benefited my life and family. Guess what? My whole family is introverts! My husband and Biscuit are much less so than C and myself but they still need their quiet recharge time. Even Baby Bear is easily overwhelmed with too many people and is upset easily by disruptions to his peace. For having 3 young sons, my house is typically unusually quiet.
So here’s the big question: how do I fit in my own quiet recharge time when I have a husband, 6 year old, 3 year old and 5 month old around all the time? Not to mention several good friends that I love to catch up with and church and social media. And then there’s my mind. It never seems to stop talking to me!
I laid the baby in his little chair/bassinet and hid in the laundry room. No chocolate, no good book to read, no phone. Just me. Sitting on the floor. Eyes closed so I couldn’t see the laundry in front of me. Forcing my mind to be clear. The peace lasted about 2 minutes before Biscuit got worried because he couldn’t find me. Quick prayer for strength and for my little one’s worried heart.
I sit in my rocking chair while waiting for my baby to fall back to sleep at 5am (after enjoying his smiles and coos for a bit) and read my daily Bible passages on my phone. When he is asleep, I stop rocking, put down my phone, and just sit.
I buckle all the kids in to the vehicle, shut the doors, and wait a minute before I jump in the vehicle to head to town.
Small moments. That’s all that I can manage in this season of my life. Moments of more than simply silence. Moments when I don’t have little people touching me. Moments that I owe to no one except myself. A few minutes sprinkled throughout my week that give me enough to continue forward. One day those little people will not depend on me so heavily. In fact, they are less dependent on me every month. Baby Bear’s gummy smiles and sweet, milky breath are enough to make me delirious with joy. It won’t last. He will grow. They all will. Then I will get my hours of silence and solitude at a time and will know that I have earned it. I won’t need to miss the babies because I made sure to thoroughly enjoy them through all their stages.
Are you an introvert? Do you have someone in your life who is an introvert? Perhaps you can find some information and encouragement here:
How to be Friends with an Introvert
15 Resolutions for a Homeschool Introvert Mom (these ideas are great for anyone, not just homeschoolers)
Linked up at: Time Warp Wife, Growing Home Blog
*This post may contain affiliate links. If you follow the link and choose to make a purchase, I may receive a small referral commission, at no extra cost to you.*
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by Tessa | Motherhood
It’s a question unschoolers are asked regularly: does unschooling actually work? For our family, unschooling has worked in allowing our boys to learn at their own pace, how and when they decided they are ready. Time and time again my husband and I have been reminded how our kids will figure out what they need to know in their lives/interests and then pursue it. I’ve shared how a simple observation leads to questions in the unschooling process.
Top Gear UK. We have watched every episode on Netflix (also available through Amazon Prime’s Amazon Instant Video
) at least once. Most of them multiple times. Especially the episodes with mustangs. If you haven’t watched the show here’s a low down: three men test drive cars and review them and do a bunch of crazy challenges. From an unschooling perspective, it is a mother of boys’ dream come true. The show involves geography and history (the places they visit), science/mechanics (engines, building experiments), language/vocabulary (the hosts are mostly clean and use fun words like “torque,” “centrifugal force,” and “gravity”), art (in the form of beautifully molded metal as well as the scenery and videography), politics (in various countries, not just England), critical thinking (how can they cross a salt land without sinking?) and even mathematical concepts (horsepower, speed, time).
My boys are young so they’re not quite ready to tear apart an engine to rebuild it but C asks a ton of questions and both boys listen and take in the answers. They have a ton of small cars that they act out the races with, including building ramps and jumps and ferrying them across rivers. They hadn’t really gone beyond that whole cars and racing theme until recently though.
A few weeks ago, they made a train with the kitchen chairs. Certainly not an unusual thing for children to do so I didn’t think much of it. I even packed them a little suitcase with their clothes (ulterior motive: they were still in their jammies so I hoped they would get dressed) and planned to pack them a picnic lunch. They had their tickets and even modified the train to fit a seat for Baby Bear and me. C was the engineer and Biscuit was the conductor.
Then it got even better: they planned a trip.
They were going to drive down Chile to the bottom of South America and see if they would be able to beat (imaginary) Daddy, who was driving a Mustang in the race. This gave us the opportunity to examine our wall map to see what kind of obstacles they would come across (bodies of water, mountains, etc.). We talked about how maps work and calculating distances and how many days the race might take them. It was a really great geography lesson (and probably covered a whole host of other schoolish subjects too) and a really great imaginative game as well.
That is unschooling. It requires very little effort on anyone’s part to follow those questions but it requires a lot of trust that our children are designed to learn. And, if granted the freedom to do so, learn they shall. Even if they spend days at a time watching a tv show with three bickering middle aged men with funny accents.
What has caught the interest of your child recently? What are you willing to do to run with their curiosity?
*This post may contain affiliate links. If you follow the link and choose to make a purchase, I may receive a small referral commission, at no extra cost to you.*
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by Tessa | Motherhood
He is 3 months old and has started gnawing on his hands. It’s too early! We just finished 6 months ago with our last child. Here we go again!
Teeth.
Their appearance is inevitable. Necessary, yet often a dreaded part of the journey. Some babies are not affected at all by teething but, for others, it can be a very painful process that leads to a cranky household. My first son was the former. He would nap for a solid 2-3 hours, something that was otherwise unheard of with him, and wake up with a tooth. My second was up all night for weeks and crying and fussing and often had an elevated temperature so we had to pull out all the stops to help him out.
We chose to stick with alternatives to conventional medications for our children so I did some research and experimentation and found some natural teething remedies that worked.
Read the rest of this guest post at Thinking Outside the Sandbox Family about 7 Natural Teething Remedies.
I don’t often (or maybe ever?) used my boys’ real names on my blog because I don’t need random passers-by to know all that information about my family. That being said, I promised Sue from Stories of an Unschooling Family over a year ago that I would, one day, tell the story of how we came up with our children’s names. So here are those stories:
