Our First Week With Five
We just wrapped up our first week with all five kids at home, and it didn’t exactly go as I expected. Nathaniel lost a little weight after first coming home from the NICU, so my top priority became trying to nurse him as much as I could. However, I hadn’t anticipated the depth of everyone’s enthusiasm over having a new baby, and the love pouring out of the older children was overwhelming at times (if not for Nathaniel, then at least for me). I found myself locking my bedroom door several times a day to catch a peaceful few moments alone with my wee one to nurse without having everyone else climbing on top of us trying to stroke his hair or touch his tiny feet.
Mom had some school assignments this week as well. I started going through the 
I wanted to start with the very basics to make sure Elijah knew things like where to start writing, exactly how to form letters, and how to use the lines to help him make the letters correctly. Yet I knew he would get bored spending too much time on those things. The program moves pretty quickly through this stage, though we did skip through the first few weeks of lessons selectively so I could have him focus on undoing some of the bad habits he had developed. However, after about 4 weeks we were on lesson 30, and that seemed to be a comfortable fit, so from here on out we’ll continue using the book as intended, with one page for each day.
The story is about a wealthy young Virginian man named Vincent. While he accepts slavery as a part of his world, he fights in his own way against any mistreatment of slaves that he encounters, both on his own plantation and those of his neighbors. When the Civil War breaks out, he joins the Confederate Army and experiences battle, the death of lifelong friends, being taken prisoner, escaping, and finding his way home. Several times throughout the story, he interacts with General Robert E. Lee, who had known his late father.
We listened to the story a few times, both in the car as we drove around town, and at home as we did work around the house. My 7-year old listens to audio stories constantly, so he was immediately drawn in and listened intently to the whole thing. My younger children enjoyed the story while we were in the car but weren’t inclined to stick around for long once we were at home. Like the previous releases from Heirloom Audio, the production quality is impressive. In the background you hear the beautiful score by Emmy-winning composer John Campbell, and many talented actors (including Kirk Cameron and Sean Astin) help bring the story to life.