Colorado Crockers

I am an ADD homeschooler. Maybe all homeschoolers are a little bit. We have the unique ability to ebb and flow with the needs and space our family is in. In my best moments, I am organized but flexible with the attitude of "children will learn what they need to know if exposed to a variety of information in a way they can absorb". This is a very un-school mentality, and a general belief system of education that I subscribe to. And then I freak out, sure my children will end up stupid with no future prospects and living in my basement playing Minecraft, dressing like My Little Pony and eating cheetos until the are 40. This is not my best space. I make dumb choice in this space and drive my kids to do monotonous things they hate and pretty much act like a fun sponge, sucking all the joy from learning. This is usually triggered by hearing what my friends kids are doing in school, like math facts and spelling lists and required reading time. I have started reading a ne...

I watch him, king of his own back yard domain, stomping in his red rubber race car boots. White blond hair sticking up in all directions, shirt smeared with whatever happened to be on his hands. The chickens are smart enough to give him wide berth. But chickens have a short attention span and he is determined. He sneaks, as quietly as his two year old body and sqeaky boots are able, and makes a grab for the chicken. Victoriously, he wrangles his feathered foe and carries it across the yard. Struggling under the weight and wriggling, he manages to hoist his conquest on to the hammock. Back and forth he rocks the dismayed bird, singing at the top of his lungs. As the hammock slows, the chicken makes a break for it. Between fits of giggles, my boy scolds the flustered fowl and sets off to find a new "friend" to rock to sleep. Inside my middelest daughter is snuggled in a chair, reading out loud, covered in blankets. The lumps under the fabric move and shift until two tiny ...

Tuesday morning. At our house, this means swimming lessons. Specifically, it means corralling 3 little girls into swimming suits, braiding 3 heads of hair, grabbing 3 towels and enough snacks to keep a non-swimming 2 year old from coming unhinged while at the pool. We have this system down fairly well, and despite the fact it looks like we are packing for a week long trip across the country, we manage to make it to the pool every Tuesday. This particular day, the boy was feeling very...two. Opinionated. Obstanent. Infuriating. Pick your "describes a two year old" word. He was that, big personality, little patience, lots of feelings, little control. Most of the time, this little blond dude can roll with the punches and is an enjoyable member of our little tribe. But today? Yeah, not so much. We pull up to the pool, disembark from Doug (the Durango) and head for the pool. "Mama, I need up" In my hands I have my purse, my cup of coffee that I haven't had ti...

At 5:45 I am joined in bed by a small, blond man who insists on putting his cold toes on my warm back. I ignore him until 6:30 when his insistent "Is it wake up time yet?" for the 20 time becomes too much to bare. Stumble downstairs and start a pot of coffee. J- "Mama, I'm hungry" M- "Sure buddy, what kind of cereal do you want?" J- "I don't want cereal, I want eggs" M- "Ok, scrambled?" J- "No, dipping ones. With toast" 10 minutes of food prep, with constant commentary and questioning if it was ready yet. Hand him one egg and a piece of toast. J-"Its hot. Blow it, please?" Spend 5 minutes of blowing on eggs and toast until toddler thinks it is safe J- "Toast is icky. I just want the egg." Sister walks in and asks for cheerios. I pour her a bowl, top with blueberries, she says "thanks" and proceeds to eat. J- " I want cereal!" M- " Buddy, you asked for eggs...

I did it, the thing I said I would NEVER do. I have raised entitled children. It started innocently enough. I like to eat, and therefore, place high value on cooking. Add that to being gluten free and I have spent many hours in my kitchen. It is family ritual to sit together every evening and enjoy hot coco and cookies. The other night, I committed the unforgivable sin (at least in my entitled children s eyes) and I served gluten free OREOS. Not a home baked slice of caramel apple cake or a snickerdoodle fresh from the oven, but a boxed-neatly-in-a-row cookie from the store. This is when I realized that my children have reached a dangerous level of home-baked cookie entitlement. We have several types of store bought treats including, but not limited to, candy, cookies, wafers and newtons. All of these are stored at kid-can-reach level, but they remain mostly untouched. Alas, they are ruined, but I guess I am too. It is hard to beat a fresh from the oven treat. This morning I ...

My husband thought I was nuts, he told me it was going to be "my thing" and he wanted no part. Being me, I did it anyway. A childhood friend with a huge heart got herself into animal rescue. She put out an SOS on Facebook in need of foster home for kittens. The job description? Love on a couple cute balls of fluff until they are big enough to get fixed and find forever families. This seemed like the perfect gig; all the kitten loves with none of the cat ownership. I will never forget our first litter. My friend brought us two fluffy balls of orange fur. I am not sure God has ever created anything as heart melting as 4 week old orange kittens. My tough talking husband was smitten, my daughters in love. We loved our month with those babies, and while we were sad to see them go, we felt we had done a good thing for the world in assisting those babies in finding there forever home. Not all rescue stories are this happy. The thing about rescue is you don't get to...

I have always been the kid with the messy room. My mother, bless her, did her damnedest to teach me to be neat and tidy, but to no avail. I come from a beautiful home. My mother had not only a knack for decorating, but for home making in general. Our house was clean, lovely, well stocked and a great place to be. Except for my room, which always looked like a closet vomited on the floor and a pissed off bookshelf chucked its contents out of anger. I lost things, didn't turn in home work if I even knew what it was, and generally just squeaked by. At some point in my adulthood, I realized my brain worked differently than other peoples. Where some people had no problem keeping things like bills, laundry and general life in order, it was was a ton of work for me and I rarely kept things to the standard I had in my head from growing up. Convinced I just lacked a good "system" I attempted to solve this problem like I attack all things I am faced with; the power of informatio...