Where Has The Time Gone?

 I cannot believe it has been over a month since I have posted.  Where has the time gone?  When I left off last time, I had just been hired for my new job.  Now it is a month later and I am finally back to say something about it.  Crazy!!!!  Or cray, cray as I have learned is the new way of saying crazy.  Hmmmmmm, not sure how I like that one.  Anyway.  I do know the last time I wrote, the Sunflowers I had planted in the middle of my veggie and herb garden had not begun to bloom, nor had they grown to their over 10 feet tall loveliness.  I planted them in memory of my mom.  Her favorite flower was the Sunflower and I couldn't imagine having a garden this year without them in it.  I do believe mom had a bit of her green thumb in our gardens this year.  They have never been as pretty or as prolific as this year.  Our veggie garden has provided us with food all summer long and a pantry full of canned yumminess to last through the winter.  It helped that I was home for most of the season to nurture and talk sweetly to my gardens everyday, but I am sure mama was helping me too:)

As much as I have loved having my garden to pottle around in, I am ready for the season to be done.  The plants are starting to die, the bugs are starting to creep me out, the grasshoppers have feasted on bits and pieces of this and that, my chooks have pecked at the tomatoes they can reach and the fall grass is starting to put up a good fight.  I am ready to settle in and start my Fall/Winter projects.  Learning to crochet and knit well enough to make something, spending quality time with Molly whipping up some granny chic frocks and other goodies, baking breads, making homemade soups and staying warm by the wood stove.  I LOVE fall and winter!!!!!!!!  However, if it hadn't been for such a prosperous summer, our pantry wouldn't be full of tomato juice, tomato sauce, green beans, peppers, potatoes and onions.  It is all worth the work and effort.

So what else have I been doing the past month?  Well, I started my new job which is working with 2 year olds and a local University's child care center.  I am having so much fun!!!  I love the teacher I work with and feel we are a great match.   The kids are amazing, both challenging and rewarding all at the same time.  Each and everyone is very different.  Different home environments make for very different children.  This is something I try very hard to remember when interacting and relating to my new friends.  For 9 hours a day, 5 days a week, I have the responsibility of trying to provide the best and healthiest environment for these kids to be in.  I can't control their home life, but I can do my very best to make their time with me, a wonderful and meaningful time.  When my children were very little, and I would see that I was losing my patience with them.  I would stop and look at their little hands.  Their tiny hands would remind me that they are just little people trying to learn the rules and the ways of a very big world.  For the most part, the things they did "wrong" were not intentional and weren't done with evil intent.  Therefore getting angry with them did not help the situation.  Having the patience to explain to them why certain actions were unacceptable took more time, but in my mind, would result in a better understanding of how not to act.   Making myself have the patience to do that, over and over again, with 10-13 two year olds all day, could have the ability to be a bit trying.  But it is what I have chosen to do.  These kids give unconditional love all day long to those of us who work with them.  We may discipline them and correct them time and time again, but 2 minutes after we have made them sad or cry because we corrected them, they are in our laps asking for a story to be read, wanting to have us play with them on the floor or "time" them as they race around the playground in their new tennis shoes that make them run "real fast."  When I come back from my lunch break, just as they are waking up from their naps, I am greeted by a chorus of "Hi Miss Debbie, I had a really good nap today!!"  They are filled with sweetness and joy and I feel it is my job to make sure they stay that way.  It is also my job to help them learn how to get along with others, share their toys, use kind words when they get angry, be respectful of others and basically just learn to be a part of society.  Their little minds are like sponges and they really do learn so fast.  They are already learning Spanish and Sign Language.  I am certain I did not know either of those when I was 2.  This has been a great fit for me so far.  The days go by so fast, and before I know it, the weekend is here again. 

My boys head back to school tomorrow.  This year I will  have a senior and a sophomore in high school and a sophomore in college.  My oldest is living at home with Robby and I trying to figure out where his life is going to take him.  We are trying to gently make him realize his life will take him where ever he sets his sights.  I feel that good things are on the edge of happening for him and am hoping and praying for this to be true.  It is so hard as a parent to see a child not being able to move forward, either because of lack of desire or lack of belief that they can.  I am not quite sure which is the cause right now, but am trying very hard to help beat whichever the cause may be.  It is such a contrast working with two year olds and their biggest worry may be that they forgot to bring something for Show & Tell or that they don't want to take a nap and then having my sons being the ages that they are and all the concerns and worries that come with that. 

So that has pretty much been my life over the past month.  Busy but wonderful.  My baby chooks are almost as big as their mamas and their daddy.  My lovely Penny has decided to sit on 2 eggs, so it looks as if we will have 2 more babies in another week and a half or so.  It will be fun to watch her be a mama to 2 babies since I was the mama to the last 16.  I leave you with a few pictures that kind of sum up the past month.  I promise not to be gone so long again.  I have my new schedule down pretty good now and have adjusted to my new routine.  Have a great week everyone:)