the baby and toddler years

I was slicing mushrooms this afternoon to put into a braised meat with sauteed mushrooms and wine sauce for shabbos.  I remembered the years when I bought sliced mushrooms, because I had no time to slice mushrooms.  I wanted salad but I had no time to make salad (or was too exhausted) and cutting romaine lettuce (let alone additional vegetables) was beyond me.  I drank hot chocolate instead of cappuccino because it takes me six minutes to make a cappuccino and I never had 6 consecutive minutes.  Hot chocolate was 2 minutes in the microwave.  One time I decided to make meatballs (not sure what I was thinking) and had my hands deep in chopped meat when the baby needed to be fed.  Now what?  (I've been since advised--rubber gloves.)

Now slicing mushrooms is a luxury.  Making a cappuccino is a luxury.  Sitting and catching my breath is a luxury. 

Homeschooling without babies and toddlers is very different than homeschooling with babies and toddlers.  Most years kind of sink into the abyss of no sleep and intense childcare.  My experienced homeschooler friend told me that you lose a year of homeschooling every time you have a baby.  But it seemed to me I lost at least a partial year being pregnant (being so nauseous I lay on the couch for 4 months) (and in my case, having a lot of miscarriages and bedrest--though homeschooling while on bedrest was actually not too bad.  Feeding them was impossible.  But getting them to drag their books over to the bed and learn?  Utterly manageable), and then the sleepless year of baby.  And what about those families who have babies year after year?  Then some of the children grow up and if every year was a lost year, did they get educated?

In secular homeschool circles, they don't talk much about this.  I've found the Christian homeschoolers have similar issues.  A lot of those years were a blur for me.

Nothing to do with post. They made these from clay and love to play with them. Figured I'd stick them here so I can look back on this one day and remember how much they loved playing with toys they made with their own efforts.