Of Tomatoes, Tea Parties, School Plans and Mute Children

We're pretty amazed at the connections we are making with our neighbors and community through our lovely, giant tomatoes. We are also finding out that we probably eat more tomatoes than any other family in the whole valley. We eat more tomatoes in meal than most people can eat in a week! We'll never be rich selling our produce, but it's worth the effort just for friendships alone.

Bri and I were in Costco today. We could hardly stand it when a family who was obviously planning a big picnic put 4 boxes of those orange, cardboardy tomatoes on their cart. We wanted to tell them we could sell them much more appealing tomatoes .... and ours are cheaper by 4 cents a pound ; D. But alas, we don't have that kind of nerve, though for a second I was preparing to be embarrassed as Brianna looked for all the world like she was just going to go do it. {Phew!}

The other day I received a phone call from a neighbor looking for singers for the apple days festival at the Pioneer Village. I've had choir kids sing there before. It's a whole lot of fun and a good place to mingle with the town people. The neighbor mentioned that he had a daughter interested in choir - actually, looking for friends, so I filled a basket of plums and tomatoes and the girls went trotting off straight through the orchard to the house with the red roof. This evening the girls from there paid us a visit  and returned the basket filled with lovely peaches from their trees. There are 7 kids in that family 18 yrs down to 4. We've seen them around town and knew they lived within view of our house, but never had a good way to just go and befriend them {Which is really silly, if you think about it.} Christina was ready for them tonight with a special printed invite to her tea party coming up. Even the 18 year old girl was excited to plan for it.

Speaking of the tea party. Christina took an invite up to the little girls next door and left it on their doorstep. This afternoon the oldest girl came down to return a garden basket. She was beside herself with anticipation of the tea party, "We're so excited! My mom is going to curl our hair and we're going to use hairspray!" {said with great emphasis on curl and hairspray!} Haha, I LOVE it.

 James is going to school. And I am so EXCITED for him... {and for me}. This is quite an interesting little turn events. A lady down the road homeschooled her kids and has just sent the last one off to college and she's looking to help homeschoolers. She also needs  to make a living at the same time. She is offering a neat little program three days a week for three hours a day of lots of hands on nature, history - starting in Genesis, art, music - some sort of Hungarian music program, Bible memorization, and math fact drills, spelling, etc... It's a very physically active, hands on style. I would still teach him reading. James little friend Peyton is the only other child signed up to date. At first it was only going to happen if 5 kids signed up, however I prayed that if this was the right thing for James, and if it would be the help I am needing that it would work out. It so happens that the gal was offered an afternoon job at a Christian school nearby, so her mornings are still free work with the little boys and she will be earning enough money to live.

This is such a blessing. If Missy didn't consume most of my day on a regular basis I probably would not have considered it, but it's a fact.  James is a sponge and ready for learning and I feel like he is cheated somehow . It's not so bad when the girls are around. There's interaction and learning going on all the time, but when the girls are busy with their school and Missy is struggling I only have so much of me to offer. Missy just needs to learn trust right now. She's gonna hit the roof about all this when she realizes he's going off without her and she's stuck with me and Christina at home. {Yikes!! You can all pray we live through those first two weeks}. But just think of all that one-on-one time she'll get!

This no-talking bit was a really good exercise in self-control today. She did it. It was an eye opener for me, too. This child demands and fusses and hollers out for me a zillion times a day. Today she just sat and waited for someone to notice she needed something. I tried to look out for those times. She watched us and participated in only what she was invited instead of diving in impulsively. She would begin to scowl and open her mouth to emit some crabbiness and remember and her face would take on a "Oh, brother, can't do that look" and a smile would come to her lips at the nuttiness of it all. She came to me and put her hand on me to get my attention rather than yelling MOM over and over. It was so peaceful everyone commented on it, but James took over with the motormouth thing. It was as if he was trying to make up for lost time. We finally sent him to go read a book. We were canning tomatoes and he was talking more than he was helping. Anyway, tomorrow Missy plans on talking. I plan on keeping it within certain positive parameters or we are back to NO-TALKING.