(And All My) Work Be Praise

I lost a baby this week. I've said it so many times now, as I've called and e-mailed and sent texts to various friends and family, and it still seems surreal. And it's not exactly true, even: technically, I lost the baby four weeks ago, mere days after I found out that I was carrying our sixth child. It just took three and a half weeks for my body to figure it out and respond. We had just told the kids on Sunday. It might have been a bit premature, but I've never struggled to carry a baby before. Levi requested to do another Thanksgiving alphabet  this year. It was so fun to write BABY in the B section and watch their confused little faces: "but we already have Calvin on the list!" Levi was the first to comprehend, of course, and his skeptical, "wait a minute; are you getting pregnant again?" ushered in a cacophony of "are we getting a new car?" and "where will he sleep?" and "is it a boy or a girl baby?" and...

This sat in my drafts folder for six months. I never finished it, but I'm going to post it anyway for my own future self to read at some later date. :) I realized I haven't posted a blog in over four months, and truthfully, I don't foresee having time to do it again any time soon. But I couldn't let a birthday go by without taking a few minutes to record a bit about my middle son! Silas has been reading proficiently for over a year, though I haven't taken the time to determine his actual reading level. He most often has a Magic School Bus book in his hands. He's been carrying around some chapter books and staring intently at the pages, but I honestly have no idea how much he comprehends. (I really ought to figure that out at some point.) This spring, Silas asked to do math "like Levi and Owen," so I pulled out Saxon. We're not super consistent -- maybe two or three days a week -- but he enjoys it. Right now we're working on doubles f...