Easter tradition- just one

   Not to say we have only one, but I'll focus on only one this time!  A new tradition I established last year was to save any decorating until the last minute, decorating for Easter late on Saturday evening after the children are in bed.  This way, the house, or at least the dining room, is transformed and greets Jesus' new life anew.
   Our dining room is easily closed off from the rest of the downstairs, having doors on three sides that can be closed between it and the kitchen, living room and hallway.  For most occasions, the dining room is the most-decorated room in the house.  This year I didn't put as much in the DR as I did last year!  But there were several colored pictures of flowers, draped crosses that say "He Is Risen" and similar things.
   On the front door, i put a wreath I made with tiny hats and flowered fabric, and in the living room, pretty ribboned eggs a friend gave me years back.  Also, several Easter books, including my mom's old copy of The Egg Tree.

Kids cooking- Sandwiches

   Sandwiches can be simple or complex, and they can be a good starting point for children.  My five-year-old son helped last night in fixing BLTS for supper.  He really did a large part of making them himself.
   Bread: my husband uses a bread machine to keep us in very good bread.  This particular loaf got a bit mangled, so it made for some odd-shaped pieces and awkward shaped sandwiches.  Nevertheless they tasted good!
   Bacon:  we used some thick-cut bacon and broke it in little pieces, because it can be hard to keep bacon *in* a BLT.  I supervised while Joshua was able to turn the bacon while it cooked in the skillet.
  Lettuce- flat pieces of lettuce went on the bread first.
  Tomatoes- I cut the tomatoes in half and then cut off a little slice so it would sit flat on the cutting board.  AFter that, Joshua was able to slice them the rest of the way.
   When all was said and done, as simple a meal as the sandwiches were, they were very good.  I was glad that we could say that Joshua got at least half of the credit for fixing them!

Traditions: A Shared Birthday

    You probably know at least one person who shares your birthday.  There are only 365 days to choose from, after all!  But the only person I know who shares my birthday is my best friend.  I have a very unlikely best friend, a gentleman I've known for over twenty years.  Yes, it's odd, and there are a lot of things about that friendship that take "it's  a long story" to explain.  But  D. and I *do* share a birthday.
  D. lives in the general area where we both grew up, and to which I am greatly looking forward to returning.  (It was military life that took my own little household to several areas of the country for the first ten years of Brett's and my marriage, and now we've remained out of that area for a few years longer.  We want to be back!  )   So it hasn't been possible for D. and I to celebrate together as would be ideal.  But, we make a point of having a good phone chat, no matter what else is going on that day.  And I can always tease him for being older than me!

Always, reading aloud

http://childrenslegacylibrary.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-streak-100-days.html


Lovely article about reading together!

Dividing the work

   Biblical gender roles create a lot of controversy sometimes!  But the specifics of that differ from one couple to another, and I can pretty well assume that no two couples divide everything the same way.  God never does in the Bible tell us "women, this is the list of things that you must do, and men, specifically these things are yours, never to be done another way."  
   For example, cooking is for most families the woman's sphere, and it's probably safest to assume in bringing up daughters that it will end up being her area when she's in a home of her own.  However, she may have a husband like my father-in-law!  He has been the cook for many years in their home, and I'm told his work is far more creative than hers ever was.  My own father cooks supper on the weekends for their household. 
   In many families, managing money is a man's task, but not so with my parents.  My mother handles investments, checking, and most of the banking, even though she's a homemaker and therefore the pay is earned by my dad.
   For us, a lot of the divisions come largely as they fall. We work together whenever possible in cleaning.  Brett has a bread machine and is in charge of making bread regularly.  I haven't made a loaf of regular bread in a few years, which has saved me a huge amount of time.  The only times I make yeast breads anymore are the special occasion ones: sticky buns for Fathers Day, coffeecake for Christmas, and hot cross buns for Good Friday.
   I think that dividing the work of home according to strengths, preferences, and occasionally according to who happens to be there at the right time, is far from wrong in a scriptural sense.  Husband and wife are a team, who can work out what each can do.

Learning to cook

    Josie (age 8) is of course slowly learning to cook.  She's setting up eggs to hard-cook (as I type this) to make egg-salad boats for supper.   Yes, the recipe is written out in one of our vintage Junior Cookbooks (namely the 1963 version.)  In fact, it's shown with a photograph of one made up with a paper sail on a toothpick stuck in!  How cute is that?
   Josie did have to be reminded as to the procedure for hard-cooking eggs, but if it's frequent enough, she'll have it down in no time.  I've already turned over to her the responsibility for oatmeal about twice a week,  cornbread, and preparing a lot of the vegetables.   She knows how to cream butter and sugar for baking. 
   Like many things, cooking is fairly easily learnt, if learnt gradually and in building block steps over time.  It's misguided for people to criticize teaching girls to cook as "sexist" or "stereotypical", because even if you reject Biblical gender roles, someone  has to cook! If it isn't the woman in a home, then it's either the man, or the family is left to rely on prepared foods and restaurant meals which are expensive and not nutritionally good. 
   Certainly boys can, and perhaps ought, to learn plenty of cooking.  To my boys, there's nothing odd about it to see a man cook. My husband only does a little bit, but my father-in-law does almost all their family's cooking- very well indeed.  My own father cooks some of the time (he fixes supper on the weekends, an arrangement that my parents have had for their entire forty-year marriage, and a good example of delegating something however it works for you!).  Also, a little more peripherally, one of my best friends is a man who is a professional chef. 
   What have your children learnt to cook?
  

A new tradition, perhaps?

   Yesterday, March 2, was "Read Across America" day, a day inspired by and honoring the late Dr. Seuss.  Now, like probably every homeschool family, we need NO extra excuse to read!  Nevertheless, we did make a point of reading several Dr. Seuss stories yesterday.  Personally, I can only take a certain amount of the usual Seussian rhythm, so we didn't read much of those.  We chose The Cat in the Hat,   The Zax, Hop on Pop, and Oh the Thinks You Can Think!.    ("The Zax" is one of the stories in the same volume with "The Sneetches".)


What are your favorite Dr. Seuss books?