Of Volcanoes and Busy Weeks

Hello everyone! I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since my last post! I tell you what, life has sorta swept me off my feet and most days, it's all I can to do to hang on! Jason is in the middle of working eleven straight days; I barely saw him over the weekend, and by the end of Monday, Caleb and I were getting pretty tired of just having each other for company. ;)

Thanks to my impromptu bloggie break, I feel behind. I have all sorts of pictures and stories and adventures I've wanted to share with y'all, but when I think about these backed up posts in my brain, I tell myself "That was so two weeks ago!"

But since it's 2 am and I find I can't sleep, let me tell you about Caleb and the Volcano, or, How I Surprised Myself. :)

Caleb's been into volcanoes lately. He's seen them in the cartoons he watches, and while he still struggles to pronounce "volcano" clearly (which is totally adorable), he understands the general idea: "Bal-Can-O! Boom! Hot! Hot! Hot!"

On a whim the other day, I decided to order the National Geographic video on volcanoes from Netflix. It's an older film, but I thought Caleb would like to see what real volcanoes look like. I also wondered how long a non-cartoon would hold his attention. Well, he surprised me! He sat through the first half of the movie totally absorbed in footage of lava floes and spectacular eruptions. "Whoa! Wow! Bol-Can-O! Fi-uh (for fire)! Hot! Hot!" I taught him a new word: lava. It comes out more like "wava" when he says it, though. Precious. :)

Inspired by his reaction, I decided to take volcanoes one step further and yesterday, we created our very own miniature volcano in Caleb's sandbox. You know the good old vinegar-and-baking-soda trick? Still works! And he loved it! We made eruption after eruption until the vinegar ran out and even then, he asked for "more bol-can-o, peas!" :)

Basking in our geological and scientific sucesses, a stray thought went through my mind:

"Don't look now, but you're home-schooling!"

That thought took me completely by surprise. I've been on the fence about home-schooling since we learned Caleb was speech delayed and would need special classes to help him catch up. Do I have what it takes to be both stay-at-home-mom AND teacher? Will I be able to fill the hours and teach him everything he needs to know? Will I even enjoy it?

That stray thought did a lot to calm my fears. Without realizing it, I had already started down that road. :) And if our fun with exploding mountains is any indication, it's going to be a pleasant and exciting journey! :)

Now if' you'll excuse me, I should really get back to bed. If the last two weeks have been busy, the next three days are going to be NUTS. Everything starts this week. Everything. Caleb's pre-school classes, the new Beth Moore study at church, the MOPS group I just joined, and the women's ministry at church that I'm helping to head-up this year. Crazy good fun, all of it! But I'm gonna need sleep to make it all work. :)

Night all! Thanks for bearing with my bloggie absences!