Waiting

Today is a big day in our house. Today we're going to take out a rock that we've been shrinking and measure it. Way back at the beginning of the school year, we took a one ounce piece of limestone and put it in some vinegar. Apparently over time, the acid in the vinegar will eat away at the soft limestone, and the rock will get smaller. It doesn't look smaller. I'm really hoping that when we weigh and measure it, we will see some difference, because waiting for this experiment to mature has been an exercise in patience over a couple of months. So why did we decide to do this today? The end time of the experiment is completely arbitrary, I have just been wanting to leave it in there nice and long so that we will be sure of seeing some sort of measurable difference. Today is the big day because taking it out and sparking the interest of the kids who have been waiting to see what happens is my way of coping with waiting for Matt to get home from his latest trip to the UK. He's been gone for several days on this trip, certainly long enough for me to see some measurable difference. Not having Matt around means no one constantly running the tea kettle, producing the countless cups of tea that prompt many enjoyable conversations around our house. Somehow it is so much nicer to sit and talk about things with a cuppa something hot in your hand. Not having Matt around means that I have been in charge of teaching all the kids during our sessions of doing school at home. It is very difficult to engage big kids and little kids at the same time, and usually involves letting one group wait while the others get attention. Not having Matt around means a constant feeling of being on duty every minute. I know that feeling of being in charge is multiplied by having kids home all the time, and that if I had them on a school bus to "away school" every day I would have some time to myself. But the way we do it here really depends on two parents being around for the sanity of everyone. So today, after months of waiting for a rock to shrink, we're going to take it out of the mason jar, rinse it off and measure it to see what happened. Meanwhile, I am discovering dimensions of my relationships while waiting for everything to get back to normal around here.