Full Time Plus Mommyhood

I have greatly lapsed on my blogging.  I apologize for being absent so much as of late..  I am at an intense stage of parenting right now. My youngest has just turned one and is crawling everywhere..And my two older ones are quite intense during the after school to bed part of the day.  It has not been compatible with being able to write/be on the computer.  (-;  I miss those days of making bread and gardening..But, I would miss my newest daughter more..  She is such a gift.  As are my almost 7 and almost 9 year olds.

I realize I can do one thing for myself at a time right now and that has been learning to knit.  It semi-works while hanging out with the baby or during naptime.  I have always had the desire to learn how to knit for as long as I can remember and it is finally happening.  As a kid/teen I enjoyed latch hooking..but knitting is sooo much better than that!  I need to feel I am creating something...I am beginning to think that I am an artist at heart...and it finds different mediums based on what I am "able" to do at the time; what works for the stage I am at with the kids.  In high school and college, I drew, painted and wrote.  A couple of years ago, I found it in gardening, cooking, and blogging.  Now, I knitting..and also hope to learn how to quilt.

By profession, I am trained to be a teacher and a counselor.  those skills find their way into my parenting (on a good day)..There are some days, I am not so professional with my kids or my husband..and I'd be embarrassed to admit that I am a trained counselor..  I should know better...  I am very much human..  flaws and all.

I find myself thinking, though, what I am going to do when my youngest is in school.  I sometimes wonder if I should homeschool my son, whose class size has risen to 36 students in the 3rd grade..He is not happy at all lately..  I miss his joy..where did it go?  Part of it, I think, is realizing that life is not a constant birthday party..He's been a little "crushed by that" realization..  But, another part of it, is something else..  He is struggling with finding what he is good at.. His gifts are not as obvious as my daughter's..who can draw better than I can without looking at a picture..  My son loves to savor--he savors characters from a movie or book, he savors his food, he makes lists of his classmates names and remembers all their birthdays, he categorizes all the time...Is that kind of scientific?  He is an amazing speller and reader.  He is doing very well in school.  But, what is it..his gift? How do those strengths and inclinations/interests translate for him?

Well, as I said, parenting has taken a front seat this past year..in my mind, and in my energy, and time..  There is very little else I am able to do.

Except knit.