Author: Anna Eastland

I'm a homeschooling mom of 8 and write at "Just East of Crazy Land: Adventures in Parenting." My younger daughters share their art and writing at "The Passionate Pencil" and the older ones at "The Writing Sisters." Enjoy! :)

Mama’s Waiting to Hold You

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry8 Comments

Soon the stillness will be over
my night vigils will be broken by tiny cries
tiny eyes and tiny fingers
a little sweet mouth seeking comfort

A snuggle of a precious person
I’m holding for the first moment
of forever

Until then
you’ve wished to spend this time with me
your child
in silence and contemplation

to help me remember the depths within
buried by the business of day

Carry me the way I’m carrying her
because I need you just as much

Help me see in the fiery heartburn
and endless nighttime trips to the bathroom
the forge of your love

shaping me by these vigils of prayer
for the great work you have for me

entrusting me with another soul
a little person to love forever

Bless her abundantly
this little one squirming in my belly
and through her
bless the world

Random Silliness: Scotty Goes Exploring

On By Anna EastlandIn cartoon4 Comments

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Let’s just say I couldn’t sleep, so this is the random silliness I got up to to distract myself from thinking about being awake. A friend’s mother gave us this giant Scotty bathroom tissue stuffed creature. At first I thought it was straight to the give away pile, but my brother and I laughed so hard over thinking about stupid things we could do with it, that it’s still here, exploring the world and having adventures.

Since I’m frequently up at night in the bathroom (gotta love the squished, almost 9 months pregnant bladder), I may as well have some fun with the Scotty creature. Someone’s gotta have some excitement!

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Thank you to my sweet brother who bought me this fun pen for my iPad!
Perhaps doing kindergarten style art will convince my body it’s way past bedtime and help me sleep… here’s hoping! 😉

Maybe then I could have enough brain power to actually finish the drafts I’ve been working on about leadership in learning and fostering peace in a warring world…but for now, it’s the adventures of Scotty, and me dreaming about soft pillows and happy sleeps.

Academia Nuts

On By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, Homeschool2 Comments

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Tonight my oldest daughter and I were cleaning up the kitchen while the second oldest, ever studious, worked on her homeschool. She had us guess words starting with the same letter:

“A is for apple, armadillo, Australia…”

“Academia nuts!” chimed in my cleaning helper. Hearing me laugh she said,

“Mummy, it’s a good thing you got married and had kids, cause your job is blogs, and otherwise you wouldn’t have much to write about.”

True enough! 😉 So what have we been up to lately in Crazyland anyway?

We’ve been reading lots of books from the library. Here they are reading bedtime stories with their uncle. The big girls also like reading to the little ones, which is great practice for reading aloud and with expression. They also get to feel like the teacher, which pleases them…imparting their greater wisdom as the little ones snuggle up to listen.

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The kids have been colouring pictures and practicing letters.

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And making crazy drawings just for fun. Who can this crazy coffee monster be?!

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They all love stickers but these googly-eyed mermaid and pirate stickers were a special hit with my preschool crowd, who love the mermaid show Bubble Guppies. Three kids kept very happy for half an hour for $1.25. Not bad!

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I finally found the half-blank, half-lined journal notebooks I wanted at Shopper Drug Mart. I told the girls they can draw and write about anything. Not just what happened yesterday, but anything special they did before, read about, learned, etc.

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We’ve enjoyed making shapes on our geoboards. Mouthfuls like ‘parallel’ and ‘perpendicular’ are less intimidating when you get to make them with elastic bands! And we discovered times tables are much more fun when you recite them in silly voices. I’d do my best Gollum impression:
“Threeeee plus threeeee is NIIIIIINE!”
The girls would copy me then say, “Do it again, do it again!” Then they’d have turns choosing the silly voice themselves. Drama and math in one easy package.

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Nanna came and baked this birthday cake with my girls. They practiced math by measuring fractions and doubling the recipe. They sure love baking! I have many kitchen helpers pushing up chairs to stand near the counter, whether I like it or not! 😉

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We have been making cloth dollies and clothes with felt from the dollar store. Very fun, and great way for them to work on fine motor skills with little scizzors.

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This was our easy birthday party craft…even uncle and grandpa got into it!

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Our days have been very full…all this can be exhausting, especially if you only just turned three! 😉

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For a very interesting article featuring retired UBC prof Bob Steele on the importance of spontaneous drawing for the development of self-expression and literacy in children, check out the link below. It will make you happy for all the “scribbling” your kids do, and help you see that in drawing and expressing things they can’t yet put in words, they are learning to communicate, bond and interact in ways essential to developing later literacy skills.

Raise-a-Reader: Is childhood art key to developing language literacy?

On 2 am Poetry (and Chocolate Cake)

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry4 Comments

Oh the strange vigils of late pregnancy
when losing the battle between hunger and heartburn
means staying awake for the long haul
shuffling position in bed
and crunching tums like candy

Then taking long showers past midnight
and finally giving in to chocolate cake
at 2am
to appease that nocturnal belly beast
who jealously demands spoils
the way a dragon demands treasure

Only in this strange vigil of late pregnancy
would I be submitting poems to a prairie newspaper
at this ungodly hour
while eating plain yogurt with maple syrup
and sipping warm almond milk
to get sleepy

I wonder if I should go stare at the moon
with the ravenous racoons
who prowl my back yard

or stay inside and pray
cause it seems—
after the craziness of the day with kids—
that in this quiet moment
God wants to hang out
keeping me company in this sleepy solitude
as we wait together for the dawn of birth

Friday Photo: Sisters

On By Anna EastlandIn Photos2 Comments

A Friday ritual.
A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

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If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

Inspired by SouleMama.

SouleMama

Pregosaurs: A Scientific Study

On By Anna EastlandIn cartoon, motherhood2 Comments

After living in the jungle for quite some time, I have been able to make a detailed study of the little known creature called the pregosaur. Here are my findings.

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Pregosaurs are large, sleepy beasts with ferocious appetites and dreadful tempers. Neither nocturnal or creatures of the day, pregosaurs sleep in small fits throughout the day and night, and frequently wake to roam in search of food.

After feeding, they often fall asleep, but are prone to waking up shortly after belching gas and roaring terribly. Other wildlife wakens them at risk of their own lives, due to this peculiar crabbiness.

Pregosaurs have difficulty getting comfortable, perhaps in part due to their distinctly shaped body, which includes a large protruding stomach, so it takes them a long time to settle in their nests. Their belly appears swollen, and seems to have life of its own as it ripples about in strange movements when the pregosaur is resting.

Their skin is rather like that of a chameleon, capable of taking on the shades and patterns of the jungle around it. Thus you will find floral pregosaurs, spotted pregosaurs, striped pregosaurs, etc. It is quite the sight to behold a pack of them socializing. They communicate through a variety of sounds from growls and moans to what sounds like hysterical laughter. They like to carry each other food in their claws and eat it together as they interact.

Some go together to the steaming mud pools to drink herbal soups or that dark sludge called caffeinus perkius, which seems to make the pregosaurs a lot more cheerful.

After nearly a year in this strange stage of development, pregosaurs morph into a new creature: the Momosaurus Reck. But that is a topic for a future study!

Laying the Foundation for Homeschool

On By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, Homeschool2 Comments

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This summer I’ve been busy working to organize our home and lay the foundations for homeschool. While I prefer a flexible, creative approach to homeschool, rather than a workbook only style, I realize that having an orderly environment where we know where all our great books and supplies are is conducive to achieving this. So in this spirit we’ve been clearing out our junk (over 7 garbage bags have gone to the thrift store, not to mention all the garbage and recycling we’ve cleared out). And we’ve been organizing our homeschool books and supplies. My oldest daughter has had lots of fun helping write labels for them.

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She is actually, unlike some of my other kids, quite naturally orderly and loves all this house beautifying. We spent one morning hauling apart our overcrowded kids book shelf, giving away or recycling some, and putting the rest back in categories like stories, French books, reference books, science books, pre-school, arts and crafts, etc. After I took this picture we got out our dollar store labels and wrote all of these and put them on the shelves.

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My 8 year old was very satisfied:
“I’m so proud of us, Mama! Here, tell me to get a science book.”
“Ok, grab a science book.”
She ran and got it and showed me.
“See, we look at it and then we put it back where it goes!”
I’m so glad she gets excited about this; as order is not my natural forté it helps a lot!

We labeled our binders with partitions for our different subjects, too.

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I recently read a great post on the blog “Capturing the Charmed Life” about homeschooling:

The Art and Science of An Education

It’s a beautiful testament to the benefits of a flexible education tailored to your own children specifically. I like her broad vision of education as something that helps us learn how to live, not just how to pass certain exams. Definately worth reading for anyone interested in education or child-rearing.

Here’s a wonderful quote by John Taylor Gatto she included in her piece:

“Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist: it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges: it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing; wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die”.

This is what I hope to do: expose my kids to great works of art, literature, science, etc and help them to develop a life-long love of learning. I also want to teach them to think for themselves, to care for others and to become the best people they can be. It’s a big goal; wish me luck!

What Happens When a Mom of Five Goes to Buy Milk

On By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, motherhood2 Comments

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Whoops. You buy about half the store and your kids ride in a rocket.

They spent about half an hour playing in it as I dug through my bottomless pit purse to find my debit card (don’t worry, Mum, I found it when I got home), couldn’t, then had to use the store office to call my chip credit card to ask what my PIN was again…and you know how fast calling credit cards is…Thank goodness the kids got along and the office guy was super patient and friendly.

“Well,” said my oldest, “today was a good adventure!”

Guess we really earned our ice cream after all that. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup goodness, here we come! Oh, yeah, and reorganizing that purse, too…

“Do Not Be Afraid of Tenderness.”

On By Anna EastlandIn Friendship, motherhood, Ponderings1 Comment

These were words Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio spoke during the homily at the Mass inaugurating his pontificate as Pope Francis. They echoed the first words of Pope John Paul II: “Do not be afraid,” spoken when the threat of Cold War still loomed. But they have a distinctive twist that catches my heart, and seems particularly relevant for today’s world.

How often, in the business of our daily lives, in our many interactions with neighbours, strangers, co-workers, friends and even family members, are we mindful of the need for tenderness? Is it not easier to be brusque, dismissive, too busy to care, too busy to listen when someone is longing to open up their heart?

And yet listening attentively, with tenderness and understanding, is a powerful gift which can change someone’s whole day, and perhaps much more. It makes the other feel valued, respected, and cherished.

It is a deep need of our souls to be received like this, to feel that we are journeying through life accompanied by friends and family who love us, and by fellow human beings who value us. I can’t express how much it means for me that people I love take the time, even over the phone, to listen to my joys and struggles, to encourage me and console me.

This kind of tenderness is a gift we can all give. It affirms the sacredness of the other, that they have value and are worth our time…worth dropping everything for a moment for. In our materialist “time is money” culture this tender listening is so needed. It is what deepens relationships and builds community. It is what binds us together no matter what our culture, finances or background, bringing unity in diversity.

I hope that we can extend this attentiveness to people beyond our immediate circle of friends. To the person waiting with you at the bus stop. To the grocery clerk or banker. To the homeless man you see every day. To the neighbour who needs a smile and a kind word. And to our spouse and children when we are tired and don’t feel like it. This is perhaps the hardest one.

It is difficult to be truly present to the little ones who tramp around all day demanding it. But it’s so important to have special moments together, even if they are brief. There is an add on the bus for helping troubled youth that says something like, “Tell kids they matter. They’ll believe you.” Listening to our children’s little stories, as well as those of other people we meet in our day, is a way of telling them they matter.

So in our busy, individualistic world, more concerned with productivity and money than relationships, don’t be afraid to take time for tenderness.

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