Clairwood Cottage School

Last Post!

2006-12-28T11:30:00.000-08:00

The new blog is www.homeschoolislove.blogspot.com

Thanks and see you over there!

Add your new links, cause i sure dont know how to re-direct anyone using any html tricks!

Goodbye!

Goodbye 2006

2006-12-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

I am starting a new homeschool blog this week! I will tell everyone about it on here. I am so excited. I have learned so much about blogging and cannot wait to return to my original intended format, which was homeschool updates.

Our winter semester plans so far include:
Bowling
Swimming
Cooking
www.Cosmeo.com
www.EnchantedLearning.com
and a Charlotte Mason approach to classic literature

of course we will be doing all sorts of other things academically as well, but these are our new hopes and focuses!

whole-family wise, we have returned to healthy eating, and with a 50 dollar gift card from my mom, I got us a rice cooker, a veggie steamer, a mini food processer and a super coffee machine. We havent ate "very well" since Grosse Pointe, honestly. Casey and Mickey will eat almost anything if they can chop it in the little grinder---spoonfuls of carrots, nuts, pickles, if it is chopped up---what do you know.

I got my whole new wardrobe and whole new hair over the last few weeks and I feel so great. I went from this random blobular brassy blonde with overgrown roots fake bob-ish shag hair with giant mens t shirts and gross flooded jeans for fat short curvy women, white tube socks and converse with no jewelry beside wedding ring----to new girl shoes, long hippie skirts, bracelets, fun socks and tights, new earrings, and dark brown hair with little bangs in two pigtails. I have spent probably 85% of my life as a natural and fake blonde, my kids are blonde, I feel blonde, and yet, of course, it is hard to maintain, and you really have to wear some makeup when your hair is light or else you look dead dead dead. Pale hair pale face pale lips B-L-O-B. with the dark hair, no makeup looks totally fine and makeup looks great! I dont know what color I will have when my hair is long, but the little bangs help me leave the rest to grow grow grow. Interesting, huh? Haha

The new blog will be announced shortly. Blogger has been RIDIN' me to "switch" to the NEW blogger, so I will. Hopefully the new version will let me do what I wanna do, cuz you know me---I can barely barely deal with any preset kind of template in life ; )

Loves and kisses
oh ps Christmas and Christmas Eve were FANTASTIC. Absolutley breathtakingly fun smooth cozy gorgeous happy dreams come true somehow without the use of credit cards yip yip horray, all toys were hits, etc etc super chocolatey peppermint fantastic stuff. Hope you all experienced the same....

at long last, I am a woman

2006-12-19T11:04:00.000-08:00

After years and years of being denied the right to host any kind of HOLIDAY gathering, I am now soon to be a woman.

I am having Christmas Eve here and I have waited a long long time.

I have begged and practically humilated myself with wanting to have Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve or Christmas but no one would ever agree to it. The feeling hit it's zenith when we bought our first home...I could smell the mashed potatoes and stuffing as we signed our names to the mortgage papers that May. Oh god it was gonna be so awesome to finally get to be the ones to serve the Big Meal. My mom told me my house was too small. I told her we had a table for eight and a card table and a couch and a love seat and an armchair like anybody else. But it was always no. The years we had a little baby I begged even harder, but it was no. I wanted to put the good dishes out, I wanted to play my jazz, I wanted to wow 'em with 3 desserts and a warm round of games after the big meal. I wanted to put my little ones to bed on time, and to not have to transport multiple high chairs playpens and bulging diaper bags. I wanted my children to get to host by my side, and to experience throwing a holiday get together with us. I wanted to have a glass of red wine in one hand and a video camera in the other. I wanted to need hand towels and guest soaps. I wanted to light cinnamon candles.

Now we have moved to a big house and I am finally allowed. I am trying not to feel bitter irony and to just be happy. But I cant help but wonder what people think most of the inhabitants of planet Earth do with less than 1800 square feet when it comes time to get together in human holiday love?

whats up lately

2006-12-19T10:17:00.000-08:00

We have been spending this last week and a half working on homemade christmas presents! It has been going slower than I had anticipated, but we are doing well. You see, I babysat for my 4 year old nephew and my 7 month old niece everyday last week, including driving 45 miles a day to go pick him up from his morning preschool. It really threw us all for a loop, as our lunch and naps were all screwed up and the baby was really hard to take care of! She is so cute and tiny but I think I am spoiled and used to my own baby who if he is sad, I can pop him onto his beloved nursey and everything is fine! Taking care of someone elses BABY is really really hard! I dont think I have babysat an actual little baby in years...and I have more of an understanding of why people worry about homeschool with babies---it is a virtual impossibility with someone elses baby, lemme tell ya! My own nursing baby is another thing. they are happy in your arms, you dont need all these musical beepy boppers to keep them happy, it is just different. Either the reader will immediatly understand what I am saying or they wont, and there is nothing I can do about it. And she is a good baby. But I couldnt do anything else besides soothe her and rotate her from furniture piece to furniture piece in between breaking up fight after fight with the little boys----and it was all very foreign to me i felt like a novice!

It wasnt the idea of traveling with six kids that was hard, I had to let Greta sit in the front seat with the AIRBAG looming in her face but obviously we are ok---or the sheep how-to of taking care of six kids, but really my idea that they would sort of assimilate into our activities simply would not occur. I thought we would get tons of cookies and chocolates made and HAHA we did not. I dont think I even went pee or took phone calls.

But we are busy again today, and the rest of the week. Wrapping and baking and watching food network like it is going off the air. Jamming holiday music till our ears fall off, and having a good time, despite lingering and returning illnesses. I have gotten a strong lead on present shopping these past two nights and am not too worried about anything now besides Christmas Eve going nicely.

Take care! Enjoy this precious week!

scout trips

2006-12-19T10:09:00.000-08:00

Last Friday our Campfire USA troop went to the Humane Society to bring the dogs homemade dog biscuits that the children rolled cut and baked the week before, as well as handmade cat toys. We sat through an informational seminar on basic pet care and then had a tour of the facilities. The dogs were very loud and the cats were very smelly. I think the children were incredibly well behaved as a group and that they enjoyed the experience. We had to cut our trip short because I had my 7 month old niece with me and she cried the entire time. Fortunately there were tons of other babies there, too and everyone tried to help me as much as possible with the door and stuff.

Two weeks ago Thursday was the Girl Scout Christmas party. All scouting is done until the new year, now. Coming up are cookie sales and two field trips in January. Greta is going to be involved in two charity fundrasers, one is a "pajama party" in the daytime and one is a swap-fest where I think they are going to be making up care packages for people in need locally. I know after the holidays, people stop giving and so the troop is trying to help with that, helping out the needy in January!

I will try to post pictures but my camera is not wanting to link up to our computer now. * sigh *

Panera sunrise

2006-12-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

Two Fridays ago, me and my four little ones were in Panera Bread at 7:04 am. IN it. Dressed. Brushed. In the pitch dark of the freezing December morning. And it was incredibly cool.

you see, we drove steve to work that morning, and had to be at Campfire Scouts by 10:15. So I got it in my head to try and just stay out. Once you get out of the house with four kids, it is beyond a bummer to go back home. So there we were! In the toasty cozy glow of the best restaurant around, yeah I said it, PANERA is the best yummiest place i adore, and if I were rich I would eat there 4 times a day. Id be so fat and happy, my smile would dazzle your eyes away from my 500 pound body. thats how yummy and awesome Panera is to me. So anyhow....

We sat on the couches. I alwasy thought that we couldnt sit there because it would be too hard with little kids. But it wasnt! Charlie was in his stroller, Greta Mickey and Casey were on the couch, and I sat across from them on the ledge of the fireplace. We were there so early they didnt even have the fireplace turned on and so we asked them if they could please do so and they did! Even cozier! We got coffee and waters and juice and an orange scone and 3 bagels and a giant cookie and it was like 7 bucks. We hung out as the busy people came and went. We saw lots of fancy office people pick up giant bags of food and hilarious BOXES of coffee and laughed about it all. We saw some old guys with laptops working, we saw a dad and his boy come in for breakfast before school, we saw a mom with two tiny girls who commended me on getting out of the house with 4 kids who were so well behaved (to me Casey was being too bouncy on the couch but her girls were actually crying and braying so it was a welcome compliment)--I reassured her that hers were very little and that it does get much easier. She didnt believe me. We saw them premake the pizzas and slice the bagels in the crazy sawblade thing. We saw a guy buy all the coffee cakes and imagined how much that cost him. We saw a lady taste test four kinds of cream cheese and be super rude and were sad for her. But most fantastical: we saw the sunrise. We saw the whole thing, in giant full color view, by the fireplace, together, with treats and laughs. It was a full color pink and orange display, the kind that comes on FREEZING bitter cold mornings in December.

We were in there until 8:48. We tried to go to Petsmart and Michaels and all the other happy stores in the stripmall but they werent even open yet and that was such an eyeopener to us! We really felt encouraged to embrace many more getting up way before dawn adventures, even if it meant going to bed earlier*

* Casey did not agree to this

We sat in the car until Petsmart opened and then we hung out in there until 10, and then we went to Campfire Scouts. We made homebaked cookies for the dogs as a Holiday Present for the humane society field trip. We made toys for the cats. It was a great morning.

check, please

2006-12-16T06:51:00.000-08:00

"So Joy what curriculum are you using?"
"Well we are not using any sort of pre-made expensive curriculum right now, as we do not have the money and I find them to be very dry and dull and hard to use"

"Oh cool you are losers who do nothing! Maybe you have too many kids and you cant teach them"

WHOA
NO
We do things that one would label and recognize as math and reading, writing, science, history, health, art, typing, french, geography, grammer, literature, poetry, phys-ed, cooking, research, and other things. I just do not have to parcel and dissect it all out like that since I am not dealing with 30 strangers, time constraints, government mandated check-points, score-dependant test preparation, crowd control or any thing of the sort.

I have 2 kids, a tot and a baby. Its NOT too many kids. Why in the heck would one child make a good homeschool? I am supposed to have one on one time all day with my kid? Why, because thats what they do in ublic school? Mizz Crabapple sits there with your child on her lap and they gaze into each other's eyes while they sing a merry tune about algebra? That sounds more than a bit demented if you ask me...
We make and work and do good stuff all day. I know it sounds vague, but to me, the stuff they do in school has a large amount of randomness to it too, n'est-ce pas? And to say it is piecemeal and meaningless can be an understatement! So, no, we don't "do" 50 minutes of division then 50 minutes of Egypt then 50 minutes of pottery then 50 minutes of dodgeball then 50 minutes of adverbs then lunch-on-the-clock then 50 minutes of abe lincoln then 50 minutes of filmstrip then STOP GO HOME---
and do you know why not?
BecaUSE THAT IS NOT THE WAY PEOPLE LEARN best
That is the way to appear to be smattering the little kiddies with a "wellrounded" load of miscellanea, that is the way to get the scores on the standardized tests to get the fund for the new ceiling tiles for the junior high, that is they way to WOW-em at the parent teacher conferences, and that is also the precise way to remove each and every sparkle out of each and every iris until everyone who isnt in the 50th percentile is slowly eliminated from the carrot on the stick that is SUCCESS.
Not real success, not actual knowledge or understanding, not real human brain processes, but to be a player in the game of institutionalized living, this 12 year holding cell place that so many of our youth live and grow in. It is an institution and institutions have rules and games that they play. Get an A, get on the honor roll, be somebody, etc.

I remember so well when we would be doing something in school that I really enjoyed, and how sucky it was to have them take it away and say ok byebye go do pottery now. Cuz the bell said. SO after a few years of this, you stop even getting excited. Excitement is right out. And I totally understand. Childhood excitement is so exuberant, so huge and powerful, that to be in a room with 30 truly excited kids might be, well, too much for the weary underpaid bitter Mizz Crabtree.

But in our home, and out and about, nothing could feel more natural. Exhuberant, enthusiastic GENUINE living. Going about your day. Figuring it all out. Looking it up/ Putting 2 and 2 together. Reexamining your original hypothesis. Listening to your body's cues. Rest if you need to. Eat if you need to. Wear the chlothes that make you feel comfortable and good. Buy what you enjoy. Speak your mind. Be kind and tolerant. Do not live removed from those younger older sick or strange. MAKE YOUR DECISIONS NOT OUT OF FEAR OF SHUNNING BUT OUT OF GENUINE DESIRE AND NEED. Feel good knowing that no one is going to torture and torment you because you got the green IPod instead of the bluish-green one. Wear socks to keep your foot warm, not to keep from being called a freakslut or worse. Go about your day in basic safety. Communicate with minimal manipulation and genuine motives. Stop and smell the roses, be yourself, all of it.

I have heard the argument that homeschoolers teach kids that everything is fun and that the children will be shocked and awed when they leave homeschool and find out that life is actually a big poo pile. I have heard this argument from genuinely sincere people, and how do I even begin to unravel all that is implicit in that whole train of thought? I feel so sorry for them that they have been so "schooled" as to ingest and accept that this would possibly be some kind of "truth", then surely life for someone like that has most likely been a poo pile? 18 years of fantasy, 44 years of wage-slave, 15 years of lonely television viewing and then hope there is a heaven? Hmmmm. Sounds like a poo pile to me. Perhaps the reader will find me to be a pampered spoiled housewife who rides the throbbing gravy train of my husband's massive paychecks, blogging about things of which I know nothing of, popping bon bons, clipping coupons and trying not to burn the veggie roast. Perhaps the reader knows nothing of my past, nothing of my stints in various empolyed positions, nothing of how much of the world I have truly seen in 31 years, nothing of the VAST amount of book research and field research I have under my belt. Perhaps another entry, another time....

First of all, it is SCHOOLKIDS who live in a bubble. Do you hear me? This might be the original misconception from which all doubts and unease surrounding homeschooling arises---so I will say it again:
IT IS THE SCHOOLKIDS WHO LIVE IN A PROTECTIVE BUBBLE. IT IS THE SCHOOLKIDS WHO ARE UNSOCIALIZED. IT IS THE SCHOOLKIDS WHO HAVE THE FALSE REALITY PARCELLED OUT AND DISTILLED FOR THEM BY SO MANY LAYERS OF HIGHER-UPS THAT THEY WILL NEVER GET TO MEET, NEVER KNOW WHAT LIES BEHIND THE MOTIVES AND INTENTIONS OF THE MAKERS OF THE SCHEDULED CURRICULAE. IT IS THE SCHOOLKIDS WHO ARE TRAINED FROM AGE 3 TO ONLY DO THINGS FOR THE STICKER OR PRIZE, AND IT IS THE SCHOOLKIDS WHO HAVE NO CONCEPT WHATSOEVER ABOUT THE REAL WORLD, REALITY, LIFE, LIVING, TRUE LEARNING OR DARE I SAY, WHAT IT IS LIKE TO EXPERIENCE FREE WILL ON THIS PLANET.

And so, we have the fabled "twenties" to figure all that out. We get out of the system at 18 and then BOING! And who was it again that was gonna be in for a surprise? the kids who have been living a real life from the start? Or the ones who have lived in an institution governed by all sorts of motives but certainly not one based in any kid of "reality" unless you call a mix of lord of the flies, prison, Survivor, Heathers, Breakfast Club and trendy pharmacuetical sales "reality".

but what would it be like to be a human with rights and free will and to live right here in the world and in the town and on your block and in your home and in the shops and on the internet FROM BIRTH? to do self motivated research, to converse and relate WITHOUT COERSION, without manipulation, with genuine growth based on the individual (with freedom and justice for all!)

It would be homeschooled humans. And I am starting to sound like alot of the claims of the verrrrry elite private schools who advertise in Metro Parent, as well:
Small Class size!
Move at your childs own pace!
Computers in every classroom!
Arts and Integrity!
Character building and Morality!
Rich literature based learning!
Open Mixed age classrooms!

NINE THOUSAND BUCKS A YEAR.

somebody cut me a check.

the 50's 90's crayola boheme

2006-12-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

Ok so here is the look I need. Apparantly it doesnt exist in any universe. On all of the internet I cannot find the tights. It is also vaguely impossible to want to wear any kind of dress if you are tall.

From the bottom up:
Shoes: either some type of doc marten mary janes or some amazing chunky boots or some simple earth shoe-thingy or chucks or vans.

Legs: stripey or patterned cotton or wool tights.

Skirt: Some kneee length cheerful skirt, maybe in a vintage fabric. I will need a few long ones, too.

Under: some bike-shorts type of dealy so I can be a busy Mama playing on the floor and not have to worry about peepshow

Shirt: Long sleeve tshirts, cardigans, fun or funny crazy t shirts, i dont care if it is waaaaay beyond "sell-out" now, I still can go for an old or fake-old pepsi or orange crush or whatever tshirt, especially concert t of a good band.

Head: my fanatastic long hair that is blue, orange, green, red, pink, purple, i will change it all the time as it grows super long so i can have my 2 braids back.

Glasses: new ones that are cool (descriptive, huh?)

Accessories: some myseterious wool or felt backpack that doesnt exist so i will just make it. Little hats with earflaps. Huge sunglasses (think Kurt not Paris) bead bracelets, earrings and necklaces that i make. same perfume as now, but still looking for new ones, short nails in a happy color like green

other options: Gigantic linen overalls, dark jeans, and my elusive 50's shirtdress that i have been hunting dreaming of and chasing since i was 17. I will wear the dress with socks and low top skateboard shoes in summer, and with tights, docs and a cardigan in the summer. Planning the tattoo for a while more.

blue hair

2006-12-07T16:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it again. I have lovely, dare I say "stylish", brown with blond highlighted hair in a good haircut. got the whole long sideswept bangs and layers and everything....just like the people have...and I couldnt hate it more. I look like a LADY and it freaks me out. regular lady. kmart lady. board-meeting lady. giant mystery slacks lady. powder perfume lady. Well, almost. we are surprised to find out that you were into that kind of music lady. why does that nice lady have tickets to this concert? why is that gross lady wearing patchouli--maybe she has teenage kids.

haha
ok this cannot be just an identity crisis, I really really dont want to look like the smooth and luxey ladies at Panera. because they are NOT brethren to me. I want to look like how I feel, which is this:

-----------------

not this

I must come to grips with all of this, I really need to work out whether it sucks more to have fancy ladies think i am some bad news punk road scum or to have cool music awesome people think I am some pantyhose girdle sick geritol mutt. well i know the answer. why do i need to "pass" among rich ladies, ever? I am not rich. I do not do what they do. I do not vote with them, I do not enjoy them, I do not enjoy what they stand for or what they have bought into. I do not enjoy that they would not enjoy me with blue hair. so they suck, and i do not want to be passable anymore among the masses of gently layered blonde streaky stepford wifeys. i want to attract awesome people, little kids, butterflies, and Steve.

if I lived somehwere cool, I wouldnt have to deal with this. My town is so cool, but no one has blue hair that i meet.

the only other hope would be awesome new wardrobe and that costs much more than a jar of manic panic

oh 8 dollar bottle of glory

how much i love to think about you

how much one little dip of the hand, (never gloved, that would destroy the whole thing HAHAHA) makes me all different now. dig yer paw in, smear it on your head, now you are somebody.

for someone such as myself, who has such extreme hair dysphoria, this subject matter is dead serious. I really really like that fairy girl with the green eyes. Maybe she can be my new icon on the thingy. This girl is awesome, too. I guess I just wanna look as extraterrestrial as I know I am. If I saw this girl I would IMMEDIATELY and intensely want to talk to her. thats all Im saying.

* * * *

feelin better

2006-12-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

First of all, I am NOT depressed at all anymore. It was like a 2 day thing and I feel great again! Phew! I hate that!

The kids are in that phase now where they have their own music they like to play over and over again and it is an exercise in patience that I am enjoying so much! I know someday they will be locking me out of their rooms and blasting some scary stuff so for now, Paul McCartney's odd little casio xmas song on repeat is making them so so so happy. they dance and dance and dance and sing--Charlie stands up on the couch and claps and claps and does the CLASSIC baby dance of squat-squat-squat---GOD it is so cute.A nice break from spongebob CD that "had to go back to the library" (it did!)

Today was Gretas christmas party for Girl Scouts and we all went. It was fun! The boys sat with me and Greta was up front in a gymnasium. They sat very quietly for the badge ceremony and clapped when appropriate. Then there was KWAFFS! yes! glitter glue and beads and pipe cleaners oooh it was nice. We ate crazy food and played and Greta got to have fun with her girlfriends.

Tomorrow is campfire scouts again and we are turning in our food for the dogs at the Humane Society, which is next Friday's field trip.

This weekend I am having my nephew over for christmas cookie making and crafts, then Saturday night Steve and I are going out for the first time without any child in probably a year and a half! I do not know how we keep our marriage together sometimes...his mom is going to come here and basically House-sit, the kids will be in bed and she can do what she pleases...

Then Sunday I am taking Greta and Charlie up to my grandma's house to go pay her a much overdue but admittedly dreaded visit. I love her but don't get what I am going to do there with Greta OR Charlie. Oh well. It isnt for my big pleasure, it is to go see my dear sweet Grandma and for her to get to MEET New Baby Charlie who is 13 months old!! I am bringing a vegetarian pastie-like casserole that I just invented this week so by the time we say hi, eat, clean up, play a little, she will probably be shoving us out the door, which is unfortunately cool. If she "lets" us go in the basement I can stay longer, but if we have to sit at the dining room table only, I dont get how long Charlie will want to do that for, and if he cries she will give me the speech about how I cant possibly homeschool with a baby, despite the fact that I have done so every year since the start (Mickey, Mickey and Gracie, Gracie, Casey and Gracie, Charlie and Casey....etc etc etc)

Steve has to work 54 hours next week but that will help with money and we can start to gift shop soon I hope. It is gonna be hard for me to have him gone that much--gulp!

My friends have been so cool in the past few days, including my bestest friend in the galaxy, precious Steve. I am beyond not depressed--thank goodness.

necessary book

2006-12-05T14:37:00.000-08:00

please get this into more peoples hands and onto their lips and minds
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0897894278?tag=earthybirth07-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0897894278&adid=08BKWN6EGD160NYN2NC1&

Ok I am already cheered up!

2006-12-04T17:35:00.000-08:00

Wow! So cool!

http://www.sagefemme.com/works.asp
way cool.

and
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/customize/?id=5
make yr own? as in...my dream? I may open a cyber store soon, who even knows. ok i am off to play with this!

bla poo bla bla

2006-12-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

What is this idiotic little picture of my profile? Where is my fisher price girl? SIGH

We are sick again. Huge head cold. I am getting burnt out...feel like we need to go places, cant seem to be able too, too poor, too sick, and so we rot. time is dragging and our internet is mostly not working--or our 10 year old computer crashes every 5 minutes I should say....things are lame.

I have alot coming up so I guess we are "resting" even though it feels like "festering". I am an extroverted person and that costs money. It costs money to get up and out, no matter how much you are willing to drive on empty and bring gross stale crackers and gross house water with you in your backpack....I am so sick of being this broke. We need paper and hairdye and apparantly I need zit cream and some kind of body transplant...we have like, nothing, and are just waiting for the check, waiting for the check, I am so sorry to write such a blobular lackluster thing as this, but its true.

Beautiful snow fell today and the kids acted like they didnt want to go play in it and frankly I totally understood but I "made them" go outside in some fit of 50's like-it-or-wear-it mean freak out, and so they stood out in the front yard and pouted and then I got super angry about WHATS WRONG WITH KIDS THESE DAYS GOSHDERN FREELOADIN LAZY COMPUTER FREAKS DONT KNOW HOW TO PLAY IN THE RED BLOODED SNOW

Maybe it wasnt beautiful snow. Maybe I am a lunatic. It was 1/4 inch dusting, a windchill of 8 and our sleds and snowpants are lost. Id pout in the frontyard too ...maybe....

I dont know. It just sucked. They are sick, I am sick, Charlie has a rash so horrible he cant pee without freaking out, and he poos every 30 minutes. I dont see how I could leave the house with this current pooing issue. I have eliminated EVERY thing from his diet, including my own diet....so did I mention the last few days have been long and boring and long. The good vibes are missing right now, and I know we need a trip somewhere but are too poor or sick. I really need to just take a $20 and pop it in my pocket everytime Steve gets paid, just so we can go do stuff here and there. MOMMY NEEDS A FRICKIN COFFEE FROM A PLACE. a coffee that doesnt taste like nasty dish soap in a stupid old house cup. I need a reason to spackel makeup over my random new bad skin. I want to go back to Ann Arbor. soon soon soon I hope.

m u s h

2006-11-29T09:51:00.000-08:00

It is like 65 degrees outside and we are blobbing around watching Pingu, picking away at halloween candy, debating whether or not to go to Kroger or Value Center or Meijers for shopping, it must occur before dinner, as we are out of food. I hate this. I hate the whole thing. My enthusiasm is gone for the magical menus, we ate every single thing we like and now we are trying to think of different meals. yawn yawn whiney whiney whine. My body is in hormonal hell, I look like courtney love, all roots and zits and crazy eyes.... Charlie sleeps through the night often enough to tell my body that I dont night nurse anymore, so up starts all sorts of homonal occurances, but then BAM he will wake up several nights in a row several times, and then my body thinks "the baby is back!" and so I have been on a roller coaster ride of moods and skin problems and aches and pains. sucky. I am tired. I am confused, mentally dull, the vitamin B6 can only do so much for the cotton sweater that has replaced my brain. Am I suppossed to go out side and step in some stupid mud just because it is warm out? woowoo we walked in mud. I am not in the mood. I need somethingly sparkly icey indigo to happen as soon as possible and negate this paintrain of gravytan and mushey bread.

COSMEO

2006-11-25T17:17:00.000-08:00

I can officially say we use one website for all of our homeschooling needs at this time. This is what we do. This is our days. This is our curriculum. Sparks flying, gears turning, motors hummin nicely, everyone "on", enagaged, warm, cozy, cool cool cool:

It is called Cosmeo. Please for gods sake click the link. This thing kicks so much rockin booty, I dont know how to even start. I have put off writing this blog about it because I wanted to do it justice but screw that I have 4 kids, I am tired, I am busy, I am bushed. You click it. You check it out. I am tellin ya, though, it is truly for ages 1-100.

you want school lessons to come alive through modern technolgy? Browse through the over 30,000 video clips.

you want basics, math, history, the long lost art of grammar? Have a virtual cyber teacher take you to town! The long division lesson brought tears to my eyes--how I wish my 4th grade teacher had pause, rewind, and infinite review!

The brain games is where we have been just absorbed to the Nth degree, volcanoes, tornados, 3-D predictions, animals, fractions, well, after THREE DAYS we took down our whole tiny computer desk in the living room and converted over 1/2 of our dining room to a computer-nook, we put the computer on a wide table, not desk, with the prtinter and a rug and the abilty to sit three-across comfortably, this is something that has honestly changed our lifestyle, this website.

Casey pops in and out, does his "crafts", which means he is so happy to work for hours cutting and cutting paper (he can use the scissors well now and is in 7th heaven about it) and stapleing and hole-punching---literally hours. He watches How Its Made repeatedly, and somewhat likes to watch Little Einsteins. He likes to play reader rabbit toddler CD-Rom with me, and he loves worships and adores glue, paint and any and all manner of crafts. Everything is his crafts, "Kwaffs". I need to do some kwaffs is what I hear whispered (if im lucky) directly into my earhole around 5:05 am and I have to say hush baby go back to bed, we will do crafts a little later, when it is daytime...its still nitetime now, goodnite, the crafts are sleeping...he will have made 10 or more kwaffs before the other kids are even awake, there will be a hearty pile of cut paper on the floor for Charlie to nibble well before breakfast has been conjured up!

Charlie plays and plays with his baby toys, comes and says hi to us, crawls about, watches Teletubbies and Boobah occasionally, looks out the windows, points at birds, still nurses tons, sits and cuddles, plays patty cake, gives hugs and head-butts, like wild bouncy-lap-ride type of songs, eats little tidbits in his highchair, oyster crackers, shredded cheese, tiny bits of tomato, KIX, Cheerios, cucumber, pickle....takes 2 naps a day, one at 10:30 and one at 4....happy as can be

Mickey does Cosmeo with me, and otherwise does Cosmeo by himself, draws pictures, makes board games, plays video games, makes forts, types on wordpad with size "99" fonts, and has running attacks and leaps on the couch and lays there with his eyes shut for a few seconds and then does it again. Hey Mama? Hey Mama? Hey Mama? is his mantra, and he is always and forever telling me about everything he is gonna make and gonna do and how do you spell such and such. He makes signs, lists and miniature books at a phenominal rate, by the end of the day, you think you are looking at a child's entire "First Grade" portfolio, just all over the dining room table, the dining room floor, the bedroom, the schoolroom, stacked up in the bathroom and bedrooms, a papertrail that makes me grin from ear to ear.

Greta does cosmeo with me, cosmeo by herself, and draws draws draws sketches of great detail and hilarity. Christmas scenes, spongebob scenes, still lifes of food and farm living and outer space...reads and reads alone voraciously, writes stories and lists in a much less manic manner than she used to, she had her piles like Mickey does, but she is more likely to get verrrry into making a book for 4 hours. Poems, lists, plans, rules to games, but not logic-and-or dice rolling games like Mickey, more like games hwere she is the boss and heres what you're gonna do; Casey is extremely into this with her and they have good times being dragons on vacation, or lost time travelers, etc....she likes to make gigantic scenes involving lots of pillows and blankets and great elaborate setting up of characters. She plays with her newt and frogs, she hand tames the parakeet, she listens to the Beatles and the spongebob soundtrack and christmas songs and does fake Karaoke to them...she plans and plans and is so busy and happy and bustling, circling things in catalogs, looking online for things to make or do or save up for...typing on wordpad in funny colors and fonts, watching TV. She has several girlfriends from scouting who want her to call them on the phone but (for now), chatting on the telephone is boring and annoying in her eyes and she much prefers activity and creating things to that. We have several friends whom we plan on having over just to play, and that will be fun. She likes girl scouts alot, and we are looking forward to campfire scouts resuming--we have missed weeks of it due to being sick but now we are better!

Tomorrow we are getting our xmas tree and then Monday, more Cosmeo!!!!!!!

lilly bird

2006-11-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

When Greta and Mickey celebrated their 8th and 5th birthdays, we got them 2 little parakeets. In typical Greta and Mickey fashion, they immediately refused to each pick a bird and so they agreed that both birds were "everyones".

They were two blue male birds whom were promptly named Lilly and Lavender. Yes two "L's" in Lilly. Sadly, Lavender died this spring and so we just have Lilly now.

The reason we got them the birds, is because they so wanted to touch birds. It was all they talked about at the time, how they wanted to hold the sparrows and chickdees, how they wanted to kiss and pet and carry the little cardinals and finches that came to our feeder....so we thought they could hand-tame the parakeets to be their shoulder-pals.
BUT
We never did.

I blamed it on wild little 22 month old Casey, I blamed it on everything. But there was just no way I had the resources available to me (time, babysitters or space) to be lettin' some crazy little bird out of its cage! As David Sedaris said, " Id Rather Eat A Vaseline Sandwhich"--than let those little tiny fragile things out into our cluttered tiny house and into the clutches and under the stamping feet of a toddling madman or worse!
They begged and pleaded and I was like yeah yeah this weekend, this weekend..then when i was pregnant with Charlie I couldnt even walk by the cage without dry heaving--just the thought of birds sick sick sick....and so for 17 1/2 months we did not play with the birdy.

Today Greta accidentally (i dont care if that is true or not) let Lilly out out his cage into my bedroom. It is an extremely spartan bedroom, there is one dresser and a matress on the floor. Two sunny windows and a little basket of Charlies new birthday toys. So, the best possible room in the world for this to happen. We JUST this weekend moved mister Lilly into our bedroom for the parties we had because of the potential for cold drafts with him by the backdoor and all the people coming and going.

SO I just let her and Mickey hang out in there and I kept the little boys out! and lo and behold, somehow, within 1/2 hour, out comes Greta with Lilly wrapped in a little hand towel and sheis like Look Mama kiss him! Kiss him!
At first I was kind of mean and like what did you do? Did you tackle him? Dont squeeze him! Is he okay?
which of course was so rude

But I apologized later. Bless his heart, he gets to fly and have love now. They showed him a great time, he had three seperate play times and seems happy, honestly. Mickey is so entranced, he loves little birds so much, he once told me he can scarcely look at them because they are so cute and he gets so sad that he cant have them that he doesnt even want to look at them. Maybe this will help.

Since becoming a mother I must shamefully admit that for the most part, I can only see pets as just another thing to make you worry, make filth, stench and induce gut wrenching heinous guilt just after you put the kids to bed, like you need more filth and guilt at 8pm....and Lilly was no exception. But now, it looks like he will have a happy life and the kids will learn about parakeets and get to touch birdies!
I am so glad.

like your life depended on it

2006-11-21T09:51:00.002-08:00

A new friend came to our political house party

I met him 2 other times

He is a performance artist who does urban poetry and music

We drank all the wine that Paul brought

There was enough for 50 people

About 1/10 th that many came

This new friend told us all something that night,

while 5 or 6 dejected would-be activists drank all the wine in the schoolroom and absentmindedly played with magnets while blonde redhead and erics trip played so proudly after all this time near the bottom of the cd-pile

I felt like he was talking right to me.

He said:

If youre gonna write, write like your life depended on it

If youre gonna play music, play like your life depended on it

How far removed all this is

Saying such neat and tidy things

Acting such neat and tidy ways

blablablablasafesafesafesafesafesafedead

How crust-removing, beautiful and free would I be

would I have to end this blog and start a new one

Or another one

I would have to put down my guitar chords book and play it like a mad dog on fire again

i would have to be comfortable bragging

comfortable being SoMuchMore

soloudsotallsobigsobrightsooffkiltersogreenyellowredorange

I would have to forget comfortable

Looks like I have a 2-lined New Years resolution now.

Thank you Blair for saying it and Paul for planning it and everyone for coming out that night

live and learn

supermegaOK

The Holidays have only just begun

2006-11-21T09:51:00.001-08:00

Ok, this is another attempt on the part of JOY to SWEAR allegiance to an idea: So here it goes-

I think it is rediculous and sad that the Holiday Feelin comes so quickly and goes so abruptly when, especially in the midwest, Winter has only juuuuuuust begun.

Lest you get the wrong idea, lest you think I am pitching some new-agey bit about Over Commercialism, etc etc etc, hear me out! I am doing no such thing! Despite being a simple living advocate and an aetheist and house poor, I ADORE every corny, genuine, real, phony,plastic metal glass and wood, old, new traditional contemporary and anything else you could possibly name about THE HOLIDAYS.

So, now that you know that about me, let me start my idea, my ideal, my failed plan that I ressurect each new year:

Let's celebrate Winter!

* * * * * *

In a pagan solstice kinda way, in a christmas kinda way, in an Old Navy ad campaign kinda way, in a Norman Rockwell kinda way, in a crushed-peppermint in everything we bake kinda way, why in the WORLD doesnt this happen?

As a child, and this is not to "dis" my family in any way, my mom and aunts read this blog--- but yet I must tell ya, it was made darn clear that Christmas is a general pain-train, and we had better not so much as whisper a note of Rudolph before Thanksgivng night, nor after 12:01 am the 26th of December. No invoking the name of Santa or Frosty, lets get this damn tree down so we can vacuum. We were left up north at my Grandma's so my mom could clean and then when we got home, it was O V E R, thank goodness and good riddance was definately the prevailing sentiment. You had your Christmas "bit" and now our lives can ressume. Lets all complain about the traffic and please get these cookies outta my face so I can go on a diet for spring.

I thought it was incredible and I vowed in my childish mind that I would never do that when I was big, etc. I swore I would jam Jingle Bells in March and eat green and red sprinkle cookies year round, gosh darn it.

Well.....

some of those things I really really can say that Steve and I have been incredibly different than our parents were. We have tried to show great sensitivity and immense caution and gentle ease in how we handle the days and weeks after Christmas and New Years'. It is a family decision to part with our tree, we often let some little strands of lights go into someones bedroom for a spell...but I want to do more!

So this is what I propose:

The wearing of the merry and cheery snowflake sweaters well into April, as is when the snow-flakes fly around here, January through April and into the first week of May.

* * *

The baking and exchanging of wonderfully fattening butter and cinnamon based baked goods made while listening to warm and wonderful 1940's crooners singing gorgeously while we enjoy the Sam Adams Holiday Collection and/or mulled wines. With friends. With chocolates. With rosy cheeks. With the snowflake sweaters on.

* * *

Putting greenery on the grills of our cars. Fabulous!

* * *

White or blue stringed lights as a January 1st tradition. In the house. All denominations and faiths. Optional white, silver and blue glass ornaments and other icy-looking adornments.

* * *

Paper snowflakes taped up in windows. Not only for families with kids, these suckers are hard to make and quite gorgeous.

* * *

Going to the mall still! With friends, dress up nicely, bustle about with lists and budgets---buy stuff for summer birthdays or mothers day or uncle John. Buy stuff for your poor friends whose birthdays are in January or February and who feel like some kind of post-holiday pains in the butt---its not their faults! Get perfume samples to tuck in your mittens! Drink a 4 dollar coffee just to warm your hands! Buy a new snowflake sweater on clearance! While your at it throw in some matching snowflake mittens and peppermint chapstick...your gonna need it for the next 4 months! Catch the astonishing sales and help the economy.

* * *

Wearing of vanilla, butterscotch, cocoa and cinnamon based perfumes and lotions. Boys and girls both. Be yummy and you might get cozy quicker than smelling like bounce and right guard.

* * *

Have decorative snowflake, snowman, or sleigh-ride miniature soaps for decor around the house!

*Go sledding

*Make cocoa in an actual pan

*Go ice skating

*Learn to snowboard

*Have cinnamon-sugar on the dinner table as tho' it were salt or pepper

*Watch football every second in January so you can care about the superbowl

*Get outside! Just walk out the damn door at 7pm and look at the sparkly snow in the streetlights.

*GO for the aforementioned walk for just 30 minutes and come in to your blue and white lights and your peppermint brownies and snowflake decorative soaps and you will really truly feel that The Holidays Have Only Just Begun.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I swear I am gonna do this. Please join me and spread the word! An end to depression, and end to panic, and end to meaningless emptyness and pining for "spring".

Its gonna be awesome.

"I wish I could feed my family healthy foods but can't afford to!"

2006-11-21T09:50:00.000-08:00

.Have you ever thought this? Believe me, I have. I ruefully sniffed and snoffed at any mention of balanced diets, grains, greens, it all pissed me off to no end. Who were these idiots writing these recipes in the backs of magazines? Certainly wealthy idiots, certainly had time in the kitchen with no babies tots or children pulling their pant-leg, climbing over the babygates, playing with white-out, erasing the hard-drive, writing on the dog, giving themselves home haircuts under the beds while they tried to find the pots and knives to even prep this rediculous stuff, right?..... and umm when was the last time they took 4 hungry kids to market, I often wondered---

Wrong!

I must gloat: I did it again! I made a fantastic grocery list with three fantastic HEALTHY meals plus snacks and drinks, for a family of six, who is home all day, including also buying baby wipes, deoderant, chapstick, 2 dishes for Thanskgiving dinner, body lotion and fancy coffee+coffee filters....for under 100 bucks! No coupons!

Heres the latest menu:

Monday dinner

mexican tacos/nachos

Tuesday

breakfast:

Organic Oat crunch cereal+soymilk

lunch:

PB=J sandwhiches

cottage cheese

oranges

v8 splash

snack:

popcorn

oranges

dinner:

Barilla "plus" whole grain pasta

with

Broccoli

snap peas

carrots

in a homemade white cheese sauce made of

soymilk

cream cheese

salt + pepper

parmesan cheese

shredded cheese

margerine

in the microwave stirred up

Homemade "orangina" to drink

(Squirt plus orange juice)

Wednesday

breakfast:

same cereal+soymilk

lunch:

black bean quesadillas

snack:

graham crackers and bananas

dinner:

baked potato "bar"

fruit punch

Thursday

Thanksgiving Day

breakfast:

scrambled eggs over Grands biscuits

orange juice

lunch:

snack tray while watching parade

olives

chips

dip

oranges

pop

Dinner:

(i am pitching in a stuffing and a salad)

my super lovely secret stuffing recipe for the first time ever in print:

celery and onions fried up with Goldens and Cherries

sprinkle in nutmeg and walnuts

crumble in finely chopped Boca italian sausage*optional*

Mix above mixture into Stove Top Sage stuffing

the salad is just a cesar salad kit into which i am going to add cherry tomatoes and more walnuts

Friday:

breakfast

Cereal again

lunch:

grilled cheese

vegetable soup

v8 splash

dinner:

Paul our dear friend is coming over to cook us a dinner.

I feel really healthy and strong after i eat this stuff. Not gross and starched out. Heres to next week!

books i need

2006-11-21T07:17:00.000-08:00

I feel the library is a great place to see if you love a book and need to own it. So heres what I need to own now:

The Happiest Toddler on the Block--I am using the techniques on Charlie and Casey to startling and freakishly good results despite the entire first half of the book being slow and lame--the second half is the techniques and MAN do tots like it.

You Can Teach Yourself Guitar Chords--nice laid out deal. I am practicing as much as possible seeing as I never ever knew how to play anything but a seattle power chord and did not ever want to know how to!

Belly Laughs

Baby Laughs

you may or may not be surprised to see these last two Jenny McCarthy pseudo-parenting books on here, but I tell you what: even though she glosses over some parts of pregnancy and infant care in way that might otherwise make me cringe/become incensed--I do not. You see, these books are written in the vein of: What nobody tells women but they so desperately need to know so they dont launch off the edge of sanity fear reality and depression.

There are a few of these books out there, one of the newish Classics are the Girlfriends Guide To series. ESPECIALLY the girlfriend's guide to the first year of motherhood! She aint kidding, and every human should read it! It is pee your pants funny and true true true.

And so are the Jenny McCarthy books. She is one of my celebrity-pals, of which I can explain later, but she is hilarious hilarious hilarious. She says horrible truthful things and draws nasty vile pictures (I REALLY thought only I did that to amuse my little sister, Steve, and everyone who ever sat next to me or slightly near me in grades 1-12) I like this chick alot! So sick! So rude! So flippin true!

Especially since seeing her rebound somehow and return somehow to an alive and able to write and publish a book human again after 9 months of preg-hell and 12 months of babys first year hell, it really really is worth a read. Funny funny stuff. Im not letting my dear Amanda escape these books and plan to add them to her 34 foot high pile I am making her for someday ; )

maybe just maybe in this Reality-starved current popular culture, this can become a genre. Celeb or no, there is soooooooooooooooooo much more to the road to motherhood than 9 months of a cute round belly --- some scary bit in some hospital---and then a sweet gurgly baby to push at the mall. dont even get me started.

ok so go buy these for me

kidding

but do try to read them sometime!

I think I found what alot of you were looking for

2006-11-13T18:03:00.000-08:00

A homeschooling blog from a leftist/libertarian leaning standpoint.

Someday I will have time to do fancy sidebar links and stuff.

a Monday

2006-11-13T08:08:00.000-08:00

Today we did these things:
I woke up and showered at 6:45 am
Charlie and Casey woke up around 7 am
Drove to bank to make a deposit by myself while Steve and Casey and Charlie snuggled in our bed watching sesame street
I came home and woke up Greta and Mickey
We all ate oatmeal bars and water and coffee
Dada left for work on his bicycle at 8:40 (he works 9-8 today)

Big kids got dressed and brushed teeth and hair and came to the table for science. We were supposed to do it all in the sunroom, but it is cold in there and Dada and I cannot find the lighter which we need to light the gas furnce that is back there---so we moved it all to the dining room table.

Did a giant experiment with measuring water and "solving for X" which was an unlabled syrup bottle---how many ounces does this bottle hold? How many teaspoons? How many tablespoons?...discussed water pressure and displacement and volume.

Put Charlie to bed at 10 am due to extreme fussing

wiped down the table/cleaned up water supplies

plopped Casey down in front of "How Its Made" (his favorite show on Earth)
Greta and Mickey "free time"--decided to work on their perfect drawings of Spongebob in various poses, complete with realistic shading

I got lunch started for everyone.

By the time Steve got home Charlie was crying so he joined us for lunch. During lunch the laundry room flooded somewhat because I left some little rag in the washtub. Nothing was ruined except my big rug, which might be salvagable. Casey, who is obsessed with water and obsessed with the laundry room, and obsessed with drama and danger, became, understandably, obsessed.

After Steve left, the kids all made maracas randomly out of my party cups and our good beads( ? so random!!!?) for a few minutes while I cleared up lunch somewhat.

I put Casey to his nap and took Greta, Mickey, and Charlie into the playroom-schoolroom and we did some fractions as a tie in to the measuring from this morning. We discussed alot of real life fractions and some rudimentary properties and "tricks" having to do with them. We practiced more about clocks because they STILL act as if they are not 100% on board with clock-reading.

I read them the first half of a rather dry book about Henry Ford, which we plugged some dates into our Books of the Ages (homemade history timelines in notebook form) and then we discussed more about the miracle of the assembly line. For some reason envisioning putting together "pizzas" clicked so much more than "Model T's" and so a spin-off game was born of paper-pizza making and challenging ourselves to go faster. We discussed the concept of Efficiency and how you could be slow and correct or fast and wrong, but that to be efficient you gotta be fast and correct, etc...

By then my sore throat and cough were literally knocking off my feet, and so I laid down to nurse the baby on the couch for a few minutes while they continued to tinker with the paper pizzas. I thought Charlie would be nodding off for his 3:30 nap but No, not at all. Wierd.

We had some ideas about entering into the magnetix contest but quickly found out you need ALOT of magnetix, and although they are a beloved toy, hands-down the most played with thing from last Christmas, we only have a little bowl of them and concluded that we could not really be competitive in the contest, sadly.

I got up sleeping Casey and we all had snack. It was sooo nice to have all these foods all planned out! I cant even tell ya! No whining, no begging, just reading the happy menu! It is literally so wonderful.

So then, Casey wanted to do some more water experiments from this morning, Charlie was really really fussing, and I thought yikes whats happening? The day was going downhill fast and Steve had to work until 8pm. So I tried to wrangle us all into the playroom, but then I got distracted by wanting to play the piano, and the boys (Mickey and Casey) were just bickering bickering bickering. Charlie was crying. Greta was purported to be hogging the good chair or some other crime. Charlie was eating markers and magnetix. Casey was purposely walking in the flood-waters of my morning laundry room flood. I ignored it all for a few minutes of playing Swanee River in G and then snapped out of my musical haze and did a rather old-school yelling attack at everyone about getting it together.

5:30pm I put Charlie in the highchair to be my kitchen pal while i prepare dinner. We should be eating by now but I guess I blew it somehow. He shows no signs whatsoever of being my kitchen pal and while he is screaming, I see that there is an entire tip of the Teal crayola marker in his mouth. Thats where the blue drool is coming from! I dig it out and he screams louder. I set the table while carrying him on my hip. *normally Steve would be home by now and all would be salvaged. But not today. Charlie would be happy because he would have had his second nap. But not today. *

There is an unusual bit of spazzing about cleaning up the maraca bulls#@$ and I decide that cleaning can wait. We eat dinner and they really liked it. Teh table and floor looked like a 40 person crime scene afterwards, with 2 highchairs and most of the floor completely covered in cheese and sour cream and tidbits. I put up an oversized babygate so noone will walk in it.

Greta and Mickey are sent to clean their pigsty, and after they pretend they dont know how to, I draw them a diagram. It really helped and they were having fun for a while so I read Casey some stories that my mom used to read to me that I am convinced made me a good person. Charlie is screaming and screaming which is unlike him. I put him to bed with no bath and he is absolutely screaming, which he 99% of the time lays there so sweetly you could cry. I worry that the dinner hurt his tummy. Then Mickey is being a huge idiot and Greta is shouting and the whole room-cleaning is becoming a joke. Daddy working until 8 is a joke.

The room ends up gorgeous, Casey is cuddly and gentle ( ! ) and Charlie gets taken out of his crib. He is tooting up a storm and so I know his tummy hurts. Steve gets home and helps me out. Greta gets to stay up late and have treats. I get to use internet.

Now we are both going to watch TV and eat chili from yesterday and try to unwind a bit. A typical day? No. The morning was good, but the late part got baaaaaad. Tomorrow first thing we are going to finish that Model T book and try to watch these French Videos before they are due back to the library. I want to take them to the library but I am still too sick to go on a giant outing with them. I feel so winded and hot whenever I exhert myself and I dont want to blow up at them and embarass myself in "public". I hope Charlie is ok. I hope I get better. I hope my rug is ok. I am too tired to do the laundry and Steve is running out of patience probably. It is almost ten pm. Goodnight!

Hiya folks!
When I am in control and organized, all is well in the family of six. This weekend was a shining example of such behavior. I wrote out a menu, down to the drink and snack, and here is what it is: The restrictions were that it had to be healthy, balanced, vegetarian, accomodate a very picky eater without making me feel like a short order cook, and ummm oh yeah, it had to be CHEAP. It is a very bad time to be selling auto parts right now, and Dada's commision checks have been m i n i s c u l e for months. Unfortunately we were also out of garbage bags, toilet paper, vacuum bags, detergent, toothpaste and needed new GladWares. Arggg

MENU

Sunday Lunch:

Chili+Juice

Dinner:

Dress yr own baked potatoes+juice

Snack:

Apples and cheese

Bake: double batch of Oatmeal bars

MONDAY:

Breakfast:

Oatmeal bars and water

Lunch:

vegetable soup

peanut butter on triscuits

apples

juice

Dinner:

Make yr own pinto bean with rice and mexican toppings

caffiene free pop

snack:

graham crackers

apples

water

TUESDAY:

breakfast:

bagels and juice

lunch:

veggie sloppy joes

apples

water

dinner:

tofu, green bean, broccoli over rice

juice

snack:

bananas and graham crackers

WEDNESDAY:

breakfast:

oatmeal bars

water

lunch:

grilled munster sanwhiches

apples

juice

dinner:

corn on the cob

redskin potatoes

black beans

rice

juice

snack:

carrots, triscuits, water

THURSDAY:

breakfast:

bagels and juice

lunch:

pinto beans and rice bowl with mexican toppings

dinner:

mostaccioli with veggie hamburger

garlic toast

caffiene free pop

snack:

cheese, apples, homepopped popcorn

We discussed weaning ourselves off of pop, and picked a few meals that were indeed very delicious with pop and agreed not to drink it at random anymore. This includes not randomly eating really anything! if it aint on the menu ya cant have it. All agreed to this and it should be interesting.

Also, Steve is working late Monday Tuesday and Thursday so I needed easy dinners without him home it gets really hard to cook, clean, do the baths, etc all by myself with minimal chaos!

The bill at Kroger was $99.44 (with the detergent and all that other stuff!!!) which is just fanatastic, if you ask me. Alos, walking around with 4 kids and a list was a much different experience than 4 kids and swirling confusion, panic and fear. It seems that the no-list/no menu option adds an extra seventy dollars to the bill and there is "nothing to eat".

We stopped at Thursday because by then we will need to buy for the baby's birthday party and I dont have that all planned out yet. It was scheduled for two weeks ago but that food has been long eaten since the party was cancelled and we were homebound due to illness : (

try the menu approach for your family, no matter what your budget is. It is amazingly free-ing to walk into the kitchen on a wednesday night and not stand there staring into the pantry or freezer or fridge and going ummmmm....toast? Youll save money, stress, and brain cells at home and in the giant disturbing bright loud blasty stores!

blogger clock is wrong

2006-11-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

The times on here are wrong. I am never up at 5:30 typing. Just thought I'd say that. It is 12:33 pm right now. ok bye.

bigger families

2006-11-08T05:22:00.000-08:00

A story about bigger families that is interesting. Not biased, a bit harsh maybe, but hey reading is good for you.

a switch up?

2006-11-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

Because the kids are sick, we have been doing what we can, and completely off schedule. I am trying to learn from it and see what is better and what is worse and then implement the change over a course of days.

Today, we did hanging out/puttering around/crafts in the "morning" (930-10:50) and then Dada came home for lunch. He really really likes to come home at 11 and even though there are alot of reasons why this is waaaay too early, I think now that since he loves to come home at 11 so much that it might actually work for this new idea I have. Which is to just completely give up on any hardcore big-kid quiet schooling stuff until after lunch. Eat the silly 11 oclock lunch, then put Casey and Charlie to bed at 12 and spend the early afternoon doing more of these online tests for the K12 curriculum it looks like we are going to be using soon. It was totally quiet and serene, and then when the little ones woke up, we were all abit frazzled and done with the tests anyhow so we had some Halloween candy and watched How Its Made (again).

So: morning housework, crafts, all ages school
afternoon school with Greta and Mickey

hmmm we'll see!

school of rock

2006-11-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

Ok so Charlie's birthday brought back a flood of baby/birth sentiments, but back to the kids---

So, the moment I waited for 9 1/2 years happened today--my daughter ran to me, as sparkling as christmas, and said, "MAMA MAMA I want to totally be in a band! We could be in a band! All of us! Well not Charlie until he is like three---but I cant wait! I already thoughta some great band names!"

t h e r e i s a r e a s o n f o r a l l t h e s u f f e r i n g o f m o t h e r h o o d

the awesome moments like that. like this. like today. they have been begging me to play my guitar, we wanna see it mama we wanna play it mama.....but they are the reason i packed it away, i have been telling myself since fall '99....not mamas cant rock, not nice women dont, but just the idea of trying to jam and getting interrupted by diaperland and crying...trying to strap it on the pregnant belly, or the sore back/breast/neck/feet aw heck the lame and understandable excuses go on forever...what if i suck at it now, what if i forgot all the old songs AND cant write any new ones....well i havent gone there once. Too scared or tired or something...Not once since fall of '99. and now they are the reason it is back out.

So we got it out, it was humungous to their bodies and out of tune and dusty and covered in stickers...pickachu and cat heads and an angel and a canary and X-Large (the Beastie Boys' now defunct Chicago store)and nail polish hearts and the waa waa bar has glued on leopard fake fur. And an Xmen guy of some sort. Wow I was fun back then! So they took turns quite reverently, trying to press the stiff metal strings with thier tiny tiny fingertips. They admired each other's songs quite kindly and I think it was understood that as soon as malarchy ensued, it was going away for another 6 years so they were really cool.

Conversation turned to Paul McCartney and the Bass and what was up with all of that (Massive Beatles' fans here) and so we put in Revolver and listened to TaxMan and went ummm wow thats awesome---kind of a Big one to start with for bass apprciation, but GOD how fun to be doing the stuff i do with my grownup friends here on thursday afternoon with the little ones---snow yes snow was blasting down and it was really really perfect.

I told them that when a person finds their instrument, they cant barely stop thinking about playing it--you want to play it the second you get a free moment, you want to stop chatting to people you like, you dont want to receive a phone call, you dont care about TV---you see that instrument in someone else's house ansd you want to go try it, just for a sec, you can hear it in songs, you like toy plastic versions, fancy autographed versions, and admire people who are super awesome at that instrument. Shyness and embarassment fly out the window when you pluck,blow,bang or tap out your newest jam, and you hear song snippets in the most unmusical of places throughout your day, like the carwash and the shower and the blowdrier and the printer and the washing machine.

I have played the piano the recorder the clarinet the xylophone the handbells and the guitar. Some of those I adored, some were tolerable but did not stir my heart. But the language of music, the written notes, the improvised jam sessions carried me through to the possibility of any instrument---I want to try more of them, especially the string instruments.

I hope the children find their instruments, if it is meant to be, and if they really really do not like music, I will be okay with that obviously and will help them find what they do like to do creatively and support that 100% with my time and my assistance in any way possible.

right wing mommy rules--let me try to sort this out

2006-11-01T11:30:00.000-08:00

Here are some things to think over if you are a woman:

If you have unprotected sex you are bad
If you have birth control you are bad
If you are celibate you are bad

If you get pregnant and get an abortion you are bad
If you get pregnant and keep the baby you have choices:
Stay home and raise it on someone else's dime and be considered simultaneously a failure, a waste of an education, and have working moms say "must be nice".

Pay someone else to raise it and suffer through missing out on your child's life, expensive daycare costs, lowered status on the job, guilt and worry.

If this pregnancy occured outside of marriage, you guessed it, you are bad.

So if you are married, but you arent rich, you are therefore still bad.
Because if you stay home and raise your baby you will be even poorer. And that is bad.
But if you leave your baby with another caregiver that is bad and all you care about is money more than your child.
And you are greedy and that is bad. You didnt plan for your baby financially. So you are bad.

If you have a baby when you are under 25, you wasted your youth and that is bad.
If you have a baby when you are over 30, you "waited too long" and could have health problems and regrets and that is bad.

If you have a baby before you get a college degree, that is bad.
If you get a college degree and then have a baby and decide to raise it yourself, you are a waste of a degree and that is bad.

So, umm I guess only rich married 29 year old people should ever have sex. And only twice. For procreation of course. So no gays. No steriles. No olds, please. And we all know it is selfish to have only one child, and yet to have three or more is revolting---you people who dont care about the environment are bad. So lets keep it to two times, shall we..

The percentage of Mamas in this world for whom these constraints actually apply is probably under 1% worldwide. So, if you are a Mama, and you feel like you are BAD---you're not alone!

Women Unite.

Your first C-Section

2006-10-31T10:36:00.000-08:00

My first C-section was a direct result of the fact that my labor was unnecessarily induced. Pitocin is being outlawed in Europe and Canada....But if you were curious about how your own CSection might be, Heres how it can and did go for one lucky 25 year old Mama:

They put you on Pitocin.
You cant take the pain of the unnatural contractions or laying in a bed like that.
They give you iv drugs so you are confused and sleepy and you vomit for hours.
They give you an epidural and it doesnt work on the left side of the body.
They tell you to push and you cant see very well let alone care to push.
You cant push and they cut you in half.
They take your baby away and you lay alone for hours and hours buck naked and vomit in your own ears and down all over your armpits. 'Cuz your arms are strapped down and you are immobilized onto your back.
They roll you down to your room and hand you a baby who is washed and scraped dry and smells like johnson and johnson and not a human baby. Please do not remove it's hat they admonish.
They leave you alone alone alone and if you died and the baby died it would take 2+ hours for anyone to notice, and it would probably be the lunchtray lady if anyone.
You hurt too badly to turn to press the nurse head button so you cross your arms and hold the other sleeve in each clenched fist and weep over how bad it hurts to weep.
You listen to all the other moms' multiple visitors and contemplate peeing in the bed rather than trying to press the nurse head and waiting the 45 minutes for the possible response/assistance to get out of bed and walk the walk to the bathroom, the indescribably pain in trying to get up stabnd up walk to pee, get on/off the toilet, listening to the baby scream, the hot flashes, the spots and sparkles before your eyes, the walk back to the bed, the attempted nursings of the baby without letting him lay on your incision....you hold your pee.
You cannot sleep from Monday morning to Friday Afternoon because you have to hold your baby for five days straight, yes 120 hours.
You are released Against Medical Advise because your blood pressure is so low and you have like no iron but your 3 year old has had enough and you really want to be in an adult sized bed.
You see Pterydactyls and centipedes and scratch your stomach and nose till they bleed as an effect of some drug.
You hear low low voices that murmur in and out in a germanic languge in rythm with your heartbeat and your hot flashes.

Your scar does not heal right because nobody comes to help you with the toddler. You exhibit every single warning sign on the handout. Heavy red bleeding, high temperature, ripping pain, swelling, infection, numbness, phantom leg pain.

Your family wonders why you wouldnt want to do that again and worries about you persuing a natural and humane home birth, even after it is a roaring success, there are no converts. The hospital is still God. Midwives are still fringey quacks for wannabe hippies. Every woman who takes charge of her life is "lucky".

Your scar holds up for an eleven pound brother in 2003
Your scar does not hold up for a twelve pound brother in 2005.
You get another C-Section to prevent a rupture. Nobody knows if you could have done it at home. But you couldnt have done it in a little hospital bed on your back and you know that when you drive there.
Maybe twelve pounds was too big.
Maybe you would have popped.
But baby#3 had a FULL TWO INCHES bigger of a head and chest circumference.
It doesn't matter now.
Your stomach looks weird now. Picture a balloon with a string tied tightly around it.
It was 8 full months before you didnt feel "Post-Op" at all times.
Your skin is all numb 364 days later.
Yay.

H A L L O W E E N S

2006-10-31T10:06:00.000-08:00

This year Mickey is going as a Lego, Greta is being a black cat, Casey (as of lunch today) is being a Ladybug and Charlie is being a bumblebee. I did take pictures last year, in pretty hard labor, or maybe Steve took them....but we will be scanning them into the computer as soon as we hook up the scanner.

We are excited to trick or treat around our new neighborhood and alot of people have deocrated their houses, so that always makes me think alot of them will be handing out candy!

Here are some halloweens past and what we did:

1997
Greta 4 months old, went as a pumpkin and we trick or treated around my friend Adrienne's father's neighborhood. People give the mom and dad candy for little babies and that was a cool surprise!

1998
Greta was 16 months old and was a little black kitty. We trick or treated around Steve's mom's neighborhood and she was a little tiny new walker. We went about 3 blocks and gave her tiny ripped up licorice and dumdum pops.

1999
Greta was 2 1/2 and was a pumpkin. We were now living in Grosse Pointe and I had just found out I was pregnant! Steve's parents came by that afternoon to see her in her costume, and several of our friends came over to trick or treat with us, all of them childless but all big Greta supporters and great pals. We went really far and she was a champ at saying Twick-A-Tweet all by herself....we all hung out afterwards in our precious upper flat and helped her chow candy! She had a major sugar buzz and was running around in circles singing her own version of OldMacDonald had a Farm with made up lyrics, cracking us up for hours...I was really nauseous and happy to have sour lollipops to suck on, trying to look through the videocamera without barfing.

2000---Greta was 3 1/2, Mickey was 4 months old. they went as Blue and Magenta from Blue's Clues, and we did our trick or treating at a big city party in Grosse Pointe, which was set up with stations that gave out candy. It was very very cold and my friend Adrienne and her new baby went with us. It was really fun.

2001---Greta was 4 1/2, Mickey was 16 months old, and we were ecstatic that Steve took the bus all the way home from Wyoming to be with us on Halloween instead of his scheduled airplane return of November 3rd. We were living in our new house now. Greta was a Ladybug and Mcikey was a bumblebee. They both rode in the double stroller as we trick or treated our whole neighborhood. Mickey was sick and I felt guilty for taking him out but it wasn't very cold...I left him in the stroller and worried about his runny nose and glazey eyes...We were not yet homeschoolers and Greta had a halloween party at her nursery school, too. A rough year but sentimental.

2002---Greta was 5 1/2, Mickey was 2 1/2. She was Winnie the Pooh and he was a Lamb. UNbelieveably adorable and wooly--which was good cause it was like 35 degrees out. Steve worked an hour from home and couldnt be home until at least 7pm...so we trick or treated with my friend Adrienne again, and her two little girls, without our daddy, and we went quite far. Adrienne's mom helped me so much with Mickey, who kept trying to run in the street, and we had a great time despite the cold.

2003---Greta was 6 1/2, Mickey was 3 1/2, Casey was 2 months old. Greta was Snow white, Mickey was MickeyMouse, and Casey was supposed to be a dalmation but we never tried his suit on him til that day and even though it was 3-6 months, it was too small and he ended up going as a screaming newborn. This was back when I thought three kids was nearly impossible and was so afraid of trick or treating without Steve (he had to work far away late again) that Steves mom invited us to trick or treat in her neighborhood! I was so grateful...it was astonishingly warm out, over 70 degrees, and she took them for a while, I took them for a while, nursed Casey alot in her living room, and Daddy showed up and took them out some more too! That year, Greta won best costume in her girl scout troop and was so proud! She went up to a heavily decorated really scary strobe lights/fog/music house to trick or treat and Mickey screamed NO GRETA! COME BACK! and cried and cried out of worry for his sister. He still talks about it, it was such a genuine show of love.

2004---Greta was 7 1/2, Mickey was 4 1/2, Casey was 14 months old. They were a Baby, a Racecar, and a bumblebee. We went around our neighborhood, it was mildly chilly, very straightforward! We got laot of candy and did several homeschool-y things with the candy that year like graphing our candies received, mapping our route, and talking about how candy is made. We had a surprise 80th birthday party for my grandmother at the house that weekend and all the memories are mixed up with that.

2005---last year---Greta was a vampire, Mickey was a bowling pin, and Casey was a pumpkin. I shoved them out the door with steve and entered hard labor after contracting all day. By the time they got back from Trick or Treating, I sent them directly to my friend Beth's house. By the time Steve got back from taking them to Beth's, I had already decided that something was weird and was getting ready to go to the hospital and abandon all hopes of a homebirth. We drove to the hospital and I popped some Butterfingers in my bag, knowing how they starve you in there...knowing all the dangers...wondering and wondering how different my life would have been if they had never ever C-Sectioned me in 2000...to be continued....

TV

2006-10-31T09:30:00.000-08:00

I cannot fathom the televison shows that people let their children watch. It blows my mind.

When Greta was 3, a well intentioned family member let her watch The Lion King, and I remember hitting the roof. the dramatic scenes involving death and deception were things we hadnt even begun to deal with in life--and I was seen as some kind of quack. After all, Disney is for KIDS....

When she was 4, we watched things like Spot and Blues Clues, but stayed away from the sarcastic and negative Franklin and sassy whiney and exasperating Caillou. What? Sensor anything on Nick, Noggin or PBS? you betcha.

When she was 5, we started to get into the disney movies with full supervision and plenty of Pause - button for explanation as well as "skip" certain villains and scenes, and "mute" for the cruder language.

When she was 6, I felt that the full gamut of young childrens programming was suitable, but attempted to shield little Mickey from some things that she did not watch at 3---but it was sort of hard to do! Could I, should I, perfectly recreate her childhood for him? Was it possible homeschooling---certainly I could have done it if she was off at school all day---but home all day, what were we talking about, 2 TVs, ??? But he seemed to be much less sensitive than her about ducks who said "quack" loudly, or even allusions to mild injury or injustice that did not get resolved immediately. Yet still, these were the golden years, 2 little kids who both loved the same shows, Oswald, Little Bear, Maisy, and I tended to baby Casey and the dinner prep quite easily knowing my little girl and boy were happy watching "nice shows" together on the couch.....

But at 7, 4 ,and 1 years old, then 8, 5, and 2 years old and now the hardest yet 9, 6 and 3 years old, it has been so hard to deal with this subject in a way that sits well with everyone. Somehow Greta and Mickey as a team of TV viewers has occured, putting to shame what she was allowed to watch at 6...but Mickey is showing NO ill effects of the slightly older kids stuff like Spongebob, although I still think it is sassy and a bit over the top, it is nothing compared to the astonishing stuff my associates let their kids watch at any age....so now it seems that Casey is going to be TV-teamed up with Charlie for a while, with some shows that Mickey likes very much. Casey is very attuned to the fact that being "big" is somehow "awesome" and this is really difficult! Thank goodness for neutral and kind stuff on animal planet and discovery kids...

Greta and Mickey shows:

Pokemon

Spongebob

Cyberchase

____

Mickey and Casey shows:

Little Einsteins

Blues Clues

Little Bear

Oswald

Wonder Pets

______

Casey and Charlie Shows:

Teletubbies

Boobah

Maisy

______

Whole family adores:

Unwrapped

ToddWorld

Magic School Bus

Good Eats

How its Made

Croc Hunter

Zoom

Price is Right (random!)

___________

My friends used to think I was crazy and now I dont think they care anymore--plus I used to hang out with mommies and now I never get to. So the whole era of someone being over and spending days with us is gone, very very sadly. I stand by my commitment to NOT be one of those parents who gives up on their younger kids out of laziness....it is so common...the first born cant wear makeup in 12 grade and the fifth kid has a love shack in the garage by 9th grade

lol

sort of

and the oldest is a stellar citizen and the youngest is in jail. Believe me, it happens.

TV is a start. Movies, too. The stuff that gets a G rating blows my skull open, and the tiny tots that get dragged to these violent loud intense events are victims in my opinion.

364 days of Lindey

2006-10-31T07:46:00.000-08:00

One year ago today I was a ten days overdue pregnant Mama, working on blowing up my kiddie-pool for the home water birth and trying to finish off Mickey's bowling pin halloween costume. I was too huge to sit in a chair, and so was doing all of this between contractions semi-side-lying on the couch.

In our converted-for-homebirth Den, was a mattress with a plastic pad, 3 pairs of sheets, and a special box which contained all of our birth supplies we had ordered and gathered over the course of the pregnancy. Blue pads, Iodine, thermometers, disinfectant, herbs for fear, herbs for infection, herbs for panic, mesh undies, breast pads, robe, 9 new towels, Bio-Kleen, garbage bags, 9 bottles of Recharge, 9 Tigers milk energy bars, a pink gown for the baby, 3 sterile hats for the baby, a giant bowl, a disposable camera, emergency phone numbers, gauze, motrin, Echinacea, Red Raspberry, Bethroot, Motherwort, Blue and Black Cohosh, Shepherd's Purse. Herbal bath for after the birth, 5 cord clamps, and 12 bucks ear-marked for pizza.

I thought about my baby girl in my belly and how she would slip out into the warm water of the birthpool. I wondered if she would be as big as Casey was (11 pounds). I wondered if she would be born on Halloween or if it would go all the way to November 2nd which is my grandmothers birthday, another family member who got a birthday baby. I was excited to name her Eskarina Poppy and to be done with being pregnant. I thought about Christmas and how it would all go down post-partum. I wondered if I would throw up in labor this time, and I tried to remember all the things I had practiced from my Birthing From Within book. I waddled from the Bowling Pin to the Kiddie Pool to the bathroom all day that day, becoming more and more dreamy and trance-like, a sure sign of laborland.

You all know what happened next and if not, refer to an old blog named Baby Charlie.

Charlie Linden was in my arms by 530 the next morning. He has been a precius presence in our lives ever since. He emits an aura of sweetness and peace and hope. I quietly whispered this song to him that evening, high as a kite from every kind of drug and hormone in the world, holding him up on my collarbone like a little warm bean, as only new new babies can be held:

Whoever heard of a Lindey?
Whoever heard of Charlie Linden
Whoever heard of Charlie Linden
Whoever heard of a Charlie Linden
Growing in my tummy

Now it is a loud and hilarious song that we all shout while giving him raucous lap-rides and he squeals with delight. Thank you thank you thank you thank you Charlie for being made and born and just being you!

what i sent to my homeschooling group re: learning to read

2006-10-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

I worked somewhat to "teach" my oldest to read, meaning, we did little games like playing with magnet letters and frequently talking about G-R-E-T-A and B says Buh and little worksheets (cause I had all the time home alone all day with one kid and she liked that kinda stuff!) but it was right before she was 6, with a video game called Animal Crossing that she went from sounding-it-out to a completely fluent reader in one summer. On her own, through internal motivation. She wanted to read what was on the screen more than she ever wanted to read something in her life and so it all clicked!

Mickey seemed more resistent to Mommy-lessons and extended story times, and yet was a FLUENT reader of ANYTHING by 4 1/2. He went from zero-to-sixty right underneath my nose.....and alot of it was from a video game called Gran Turismo....since he loves cars so much he just needed to be able to read about them , and so.....click again!

He did ALOT of casual, meaningful-to-him writing, and, like his older sister Greta, would constantly, and at all hours and locales, be making all manner of signs and notes and be calling out to me: "MAMA! How do you spell Lava? MAMA! How do you spell magic? MAMA! How do you spell Futuristic?" etc....I always always answered, from behind the bathroom door, in the car, after bedtime, at meals....and the words he wanted me to spell got harder and harder.....

Casey might be different and he might not. So far he has almost NO interest in ABC's or 123's but has been heard to say C-A-S-E-Y is my name while he walks around, so....maybe soon. He does not enjoy more than a couple of minutes here and there of Sit and Listen to Mom, which I know is totally normal, but occassionally a bummer since I really enjoyed that with Greta, and to a lesser extent, Mickey, too. Time will tell what kind of learner he will turn out to be, but I feel confident that he is being raised in an environment where learning is a pleasant constant and thats all I need to do for now!

I have read so many stories online about kids would didnt/couldnt/wouldnt read until "later" ages 8,9, even 14 and I used to marvel at the parents\' patience and the childs\' eventual inevitable sucess and life long love of reading that always follows in those online homeschool feel-good stories. Could I wait until 8, 9, 10+ if one of my own children didnt read before panicking/freaking out? I dont know, I just have no personal experience in that. \n\n \nWe do know personally a little neighbor girl who is almost 12 now and who very much "reads poorly" but goes to school and has been labled/tested/ridiculed/tested/labled some more her entire 6 years of school and says to anyone who is around her "i am bad at reading" like I would tell someone "I like chocolate"......this girl is bright in math, and socially fit and a warm intuitive friend. I feel strongly that if she would have been left to learn to read on her own time she would be much "better" of a reader now...I also know that that isnt very possible in school..... I am willing to bet she will hate reading as long as she lives and that is the tragic point of my story. I hope that NO homeschooled child will ever have to go through this crap she has gone through.

Read and read good literature to your kids day and night......enjoy it. Then watch as they seem to learn to read from the nintendo!

Testy Test

2006-10-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and today we had big fun with standardized testing! Seriously! It started with this website, K12, and me thinking it looked really cool---and me wishing I had money for this stuff---and me clicking on "register your child" and "placement testing"...........soon Greta and I were sitting together taking math tests, and Mickey was flipping out SO curious for his turn! I thought Greta would puke, spaz, fuss and worse, but she really enjoyed this curious new format. It was my job to sit next to her and NOT help in any way, but I wanted to make sure she clicked the mouse where she was suppossed to, and I wanted to see what areas she was whizzing through and which ones were "hot buttons" that triggered fussing and which ones were a complete blank! Man was it hard not to coach! Haha! But I was quiet. You couldnt "pass" you had to answer something, so that was interesting when she didn t know how to do one, to see the guesses.....

then she did an English one, then another one, and then another one....she got 100% on test after test and I see that the computer keeps trying to make a "harder" one, based on the birthdate given....we havent been placed in English yet.

So today Mickey got to do the math one, and it started with like circle and square and he was laughing so hard! Falling over laughing! Which tree is taller, how many pennies are there, and he was sort of getting irritated, then mad, then sad.....they kept saying Test Complete! Time to take another test! They were too easy too easy too easy and then finally, I guess he got enough wrong that he was finished. He did not get a chance to do English yet, but I cant wait to see what English they think is for a 6 year old.

Gretas English was read the little story and answer questions about it. Fill in the missing word that would make sense. Stuff like that.

I cant believe how much they found it very interesting and really begged to do it more. It was really neat to "test" kids who have no ill feelings associated with being "wrong", not to mention "dumb, slow, behind," nor really very much superiority about being "smart, ahead, or fast" rather than just an interesting curve associated with amused, then irritated, then angry then sad then disinterested when material presented was really really below their level.

Well all in all, very interesting to me! Perhaps when we are all done being tested we might really order this course.

Check it out and tell me what u think! To leave a comment, just log on to Blogger.com and make up a name and password. ; ) Now u can tell it to me straight.

Ann Arbor

2006-10-19T19:08:00.000-07:00

***When I first started this blog, I was so worried about being so anonymous/shady about where we lived (to avoid the molester or something! LOL)that I barely wanted it to leak out that it was the Midwest. But it is so important to me to get these special places on the map in hopes that others might feel more able to connect or enjoy them along with us someday...***

The Ann Arbor Hands on Museum is the most awesomest place to take my kids. We have an annual pass that gets you into like 270 places or something, and this is one of them. We went this Tuesday on a total whim, when we do not have any kind of budget for whims. We had the most incredible spectacular smooth and heart warming time...I loved every minute of the entire trip, and now we have vowed that we will go every single week! We figured out that it took 11 dollars in gas and $4.20 to park in the parking structure. We brought all food from our house in my backpack, drank room temperature water from one of our big jugs, and there was very minimal begging for external treats, even when the rediculously delicious smells of Main Street restaurants were blasting us over on the walk from the parking garage through the streets to the museum. From hot coffee and donuts to indian, mexican, chinese and coney island, we were OK knowing there were granola bars and apples and cheese and pretzles and fruit leathers and peanut butter in Mamas backpack, squooshed right down with the diapers and wipes, under the spare socks and keys, wallet and chapstick, receiving blanket and Ergo Carrier. This is all we brought, in the trunk of the stroller, and the water jug.

Since Casey's preschool did not work out for us (understatement!), I have "justified" this weekly exepnditure of 15 dollars (gas and parking) by the fact that we were gonna pay 45 a week for him to go to pre school and now we are not. To even begin to tell the educational value of the Ann Arbor trip versus where he was and what he was doing and what we were doing, etc, during our short run with "pre-school" would take hours. So, Steve and I feel it is a fair and reasonable thing to do, to go to Ann Arbor Hands On Museum every single week.

So, here is kind of how we do it, or at least how we did it this past Tuesday: We get dressed and into the car as quickly as possible, I packed light (for us!) as forementioned, and we hit the road! We listened to several of our favorite cassettes and were happy to see Charlie sleeping most of the way there. Oh my gosh how could I forget to mention--I was a genius and remembered his baby Motrin, which he takes frequently for his 8 teeth that are all coming in at once. We enjoyed the dark rainy cozy ride out there, and our favorite part, passing a big airport, and lucking out almost everytime and seeing a jumbo jet take off or land is the highlight of the trip. We get off the highway and very much enjoy traveling through the heart of U of M area, the kids are as fond of main streets as I am, and we talk tons about hybrid cars and college towns etc etc etc till we get to the big parking garage which to them is some fantastic roller coaster or something! They beg me to park on the roof, and then they beg me to play on the elevator, of which I do both, happily! I enjoy fun. Because Casey and Charlie both weigh between 30 and 40 pounds, but Charlie is a fat rolly poly baby and Casey is a lithe and acrobatic 3 year old, and I have no other adult with me, I decide to put Charlie in the stroller and Casey on my back in the Ergo Carrier-cuz he can jump right on! So, with baby in the stroller, Casey on my back, and Greta and Mickey on with side of me, we play on the elevator in the cold rain and we have already had 2 hours worth of adventure before we even start walking the blocks to the museum!

We got there and headed straightaway for the little-kid part, because it has an 18-month and uder crawling baby part, great books, a huge wood fort, play food, legos, gears, blocks, and the BEST water-table in the place. We were almost the only ones there, and it was so peaceful. Even though I took off Mickey and Casey's shoes socks and rolled thier pants up, AND put 2 smocks on them, they still got really wet and I felt bad for them, but they enjoyed the water table alot. Greta was reading a book with me about frogs (surpise!) and Charlie was in crawly-heaven, shaking and touching and testing (and biting ewww!) any and everything. We were in there until about 1:45 when I was feeling super yucky and needed lunch! Now! So we went to the nearby eating area and chowed our treats we brought. The recieving blanket was our little tablecloth and we ate well. Then we were refreshed and ready to play on the real ambulance, test our skills and strength on the body-stuff, and then it was off to the MEdia Center! We got to play with green-screen technology that they use on TV and make our heads float in outer space! Casey did a news broadcast and Mickey and Greta spent alooooong time on this "binary" code type of thing---hard to explain but fun. We pressed our faces and hands through the needle-3-D thingy, and then we went to the Artsy-floor of bubbles and music and animals...my personal favorite by far. I love to play music so much that I could spend hours wailin' away on the giant rubber pipes if I could...there is a "Harp" that you play by waving your fingers in front of light rays and I was figuring out a Mozart tune when the cries of Mama Mama Mama lookit forced me to move on....so we then played in the turn of the century (1900) ear old time general store...the kids did that for a long time, which was impossible when we went on a Saturday before, all chaos and mean kids and screaming---but this time it was just us and this one Dad and little boy, and I got to sit for a long time in a chair with Charlie while Casey Mickey and Greta weighed out their Dry Goods and did the giant goregeous metal cash register...and then it was 4 o'clock! Oh no! they close in one hour and we are just getting started! So we rushed up to the 4th floor which is called Recollections and is all about geometry and math and stuff--it is sort of a group favorite due to the fact that there is this amazingly fun (when not crowded) light-video wall that you dance in front of that makes these trippy sesame street kid-shapes and shadows to this odd techno music--hopefully this lame explanation makes you want to go 'cuz it is so weird and fun. It had tired Charlie entranced, and while Mickey made this ball ramp thing and Casey played with the rubber-band-nail-board (I keep begging Steve to build one I am gonna have to just do it myself!!) Greta put on a show for me in front of the dance-screen-wall, and I sat down on the floor and held the baby and relaxed.

We popped in to the third floor for a tiny tiny peek, which is the light and optics floor, but we really had to go if we wanted to spend any time in the awesome Museum Store, which we did. So we mosey'ed on down, looked at the marvelous toys in the store, got our coats and such, got Casey in the pack and Charlie in the snowsuit, etc etc and walked out into the town. It was fresh out, the rain had stopped, and it was a welcome temperature change from the museum which got a bit warm near the end. We played on the elevator a little again in the parking garage, but this time it was 5pm and the harried commuters were not in the mood, so we kept it brief. Casey laid on my back the entire backpackride so I knew he would sleep in the car...We were loaded up, out on Main street and onto the expressway by 5:20, with Casey and Charlie asleep and Greta and Mickey leaning over onto their windows with coat-pillows, I listened to some WWJ and NPR in cozy peace as we made good time home to Daddy. FOUR fat airplanes landed as we drove by the airport, but I didn't say a word to my weary passengers, didnt dare break the bubble of sleep and resting--I only smiled and thought how much I cant wait for next Tuesday.

Kid updates: Greta's Wool class

2006-10-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

Greta is in a class called spinning wool. It was suppossed to be a pre-cursor to the Intorductory Knitting class, and it was offered at a small independant wool/crafting store close to our home. The teacher is a warm and gentle woman who has been kinitting for fifty ( ! ) years and now has this adorable store. She offered the class up to a max. of 3 children but only Greta signed up for the Monday afternoon slot and so it has turned into a private lesson thing. It is really really cool--the first day Greta got to pick her favorite color of wool, and carded it and spun it into yarn on the old fashioned wheel, barefooted, working hard, and made some lumpy, but lovely, yarn. The second week she did more of the same, and got to steam it and roll it and I could quickly tell that a big part of the enjoyment of this class was the 90 minutes of comraderie she was enjoying at the wool shop! She told me about the ladies who would bring in their pretty 1/2 done sweaters and blankets, and show where they messed up and they would get to fix their projects over tea...By week three I was getting comments from strangers young and old about how much they enjoyed Greta and how lovely she was to spend time with and share company with. Her and the teacher decided to use some store yarn to do a project with rather than her spun yarn, and she was officially knitting! She decided to make a baby hat for Charlie, and chose a soft yellow. The teacher said that Greta reminded her so much of another little girl in her Wednesday class, who also was wanting to make a baby hat for her baby sister! So sweet! The teacher told me she had jury selection and asked if I would mind bringing /Greta to the Wednesday class, and so the next week we came Wednesday and we were both surprised to find the usually quiet store bustling with girls, about 6 of them! Wow! So when I picked her up that day, man was her energy through the roof! She and the girls didnt do much knitting, but they had a blast--she made good friends with a girl who looked about 12 (??) who was into all the same stuff Greta is---which is Pokemon, Japanese animation, animals-amphibians specifically--, drawing, spongebob squarepants, and being hilarious!!!! She has been meeting lots more girls lately who are not into barbie or bratz or fashion, but who love to just be wild and witty and loud and sarcastic and making houses for their newts and then drawing a big comic book about the newt's adventures, you know? She loves the Beatles and the Flaming Lips, Looney Toons, Meerkat Manor, and more and more spongebob : ) I think just now she is realizing that those are very popular things, not that she would care! The girl she was having so much fun with is homeschooled, too, and they exchanged phone numbers! I still marvel at how many kids we meet who are homeschooled lately, so cool!!! SO, wool class has been changing and morphing and the progress on the baby hat has been sort of slow...but the teacher was wise enough to have Greta type out in her own words, how to knit, so it makde sense to her. Genius. I wonder if it will be something she ends up sticking with? If she is going to, we could do it together! in all my spare time l-o-l.....

Updates: Casey's soccer

2006-10-15T18:15:00.000-07:00

Casey's soccer team had two games this weekend, one Saturday morning and one Sunday afternoon. These guys are honestly good! They have a few super stars who work the ball like a champ, executing turns and takin it up the field time and time again...and everyone else is really really decent! No one cries or flakes out anymore, and the warm and patient yet competitive and inspiring coaches are totally the reason. They are just the nicest folks, I cant stop gushing on about them, it is a husband and wife team, they are just so so so good with the kids. Every single one of these kids is better when they are around these coaches, they come alive and feel great about themselves, and truly give their all to run and kick and cheer and keep focused--did i mention the team is a 3 and 4 year old team? Little teeny guys and girls, but I tell ya, they give you a nice game to go watch! Of all the crazy stuff we have enrolled in this fall, this one is far and away a HIT rather than a MISS. This weekend we had family and friends come to the games both Saturday and Sunday--I think it means so much to all of us in different ways to see that kind of support and togetherness, and both days we ended up going on to other activities with folks--thats my idea of the weekend, you know? Oh and ok, the tiny little cleats and the giant shorts is pretty much as cute as it gets.

my money goes to... friendly / affordable / progressive / new old school caring

2006-10-11T18:21:00.000-07:00

Oh my god Oh my god manic post alert:

I LOVE Doll Hospital and Toy Soldier shop. why why why is this store so awesome? Why do I ever ever ever go anywhere else ever why why why.....From the second you walk in and it is all Plan Toys and precious gorgeous awesome wonderful cool cool cool stuff, god why would any sicko on this Earth go to Toys r us or Walmart eww eww eww why weed through all that nasty stuff for birthdays and xmas and whatnot when you can go to paradise of intelligence and creativity and have a really really enlighteningly fun time doing so? The-whole-family could find gazillions of incredible things there to satisify amuse educate and entertain forever. Real instruments not pink plastic pre-robo recorded character-endorsement Krap. Puzzles sports science equipment, school supllies art supplies as far as the eye can see, posters, games games games, playmobile, trains, wood wood wood everything, old stuff new stuff super cool and rare stuff, stickers, foreign language, CD's, dollies, and not one thing that is something about being on TV. KNOWLEDGABLE cheerful staff that walk the floors making conversation with you, gift wrap, layaway, special order all for free...the cutest nicest coolest stuff, books workbooks activity books--did I mention the staff? Did I mention that they want you to play with the toys and that even Charlie got to bust out of the stroller and do the train table? There is a slide and climbing fort in the store! The bathroom is like some house bathroom!

You see, Greta was at wool class/knitting lessons and we couldnt go to a park due to the sick and bleak rainstorms that have blanketed our area for months now...so we spent the time at this store instead. It was so fun I felt like we went to a hands on museum. We barely made it back to get Greta in time, but this week her private lessons were instead a group affair in which she met some pals (more about that later) and she was too happy and riled up to notice that i was 4 minutes late.

But so back to the subject of stores that rock. Stores that Rule. Stores that make me (you?) absolutely vow that the secind I ever want to spend a penny that I will only do it at this one very incredible store and I would never ever give one cent to anyone else, and I have been feeling that way about a few places lately so I will lay them out and hopefully remember, should I ever have the aforementioned penny someday far away ; 0

IKEA. duh. To buy heinous ugly expensive garbage-for-the-home at yucky horrific stores, or to buy adorable supercheap precious hip great great stuff at a wonderful glorious fun store? A no-brainer. Please go to it. Please take the 900 dollars you almost spent on a brown and pink rose couch at Art Van and go buy yourself a new home.

DOLL HOSPITAL AND TOY SOLDIER SHOP--for reasons mentioned previously. quality selection atmosphere service commitment, it all and more. I hope and pray that all purveyors of Talking Dora Stove or Bratz Pimp Stylin Lava Gun all crumble to the ground and there only remains one toy store and this would be it.

TRADER JOE'S. Do you not shop there? Do you hate goodness? Surely you hate goodness and value if you refuse yourself the Trader Joes. Let me ask you this: how in the WORLD could you ever ever afford convenience foods, "health foods", let alone organic anything(I swear!) foods for a family of six on our salary---you couldnt. Unless you went here. You have to go to Trader Joe's. You have to support this store, smash the DESPICABLE tyrrany and disgusting filth and inflated prices of the mega-supermarkets! From 3 dollar wine that is really decent, to all the cereals, healthy soups, crackers, incredibly cheap cheeses from around the world, 99 cent TOFU---yes 99 cent---soaps and lotions, teas coffees, juice, salsa, sauces, cheap cheap cheap nice nice nice, but the frozen food blows me away. Instead of that funky/lazy weird feeling and taste that the Green Giant type of stuff makes me feel, this stuff is SO cheap, so yummy! all sorts of foreign foods, so much vegetarian stuff--screw Gardenburger and Boca--no offense but I cant do 5 bucks for a tiny bag of fake meat---but Traders Joes meatless meatballs are 1.99 for a large bag---they have meat there too that looked like really good prices, they handwrite little funny things all over the store, little tips and notes and trinkets--Greta and Mickey were so happy to read them all to me---frozen pizzas that were 3 bucks and not gross , not Tony's, not cardboard but whole wheat crust, organic spinach and feta, Margherita, cheeseless, all kinds of stuff. They had frozen grilled red and yellow peppers, big huge GRILLED peppers not nasty little freezer-burned ones --for 1.49 for a large bag.....just go there. They dont have nasty tabloid magazines in the aisles for your kids to read. They are SO nice, you will have a blast. ***produce here is sometimes expensive---not Whole Foods expensive, but no Aldi. Round out your trip with a weekend run to a Farmers Market if possible***

Well the only thing I am looking for is a store that I vow I will only go to for clothes. First of all, behind bills, the kids, etc etc etc me and my wardrobe comes way last. So I make due with thrift stores and old favorites and sometimes go to Old Navy and try to refresh with one pair of modern jeans or a new t-shirt. But I feel a bit cheesy saying Old Navy is my favorite store, they dont have too much for tall women, (no one does) and alot of their stuff is crappy and falls apart but alot of it is great. I will freely admit that many many of our things are from Old Navy---especially anything we bought new. I enjoy it a great deal. And yet....Everywhere else I can think of is either so expensive (over 20 bucks per item) or so filled with TINY TINY clothes/super depressing and irritating to like (Title Nine,Urban Outfitters) that I will have to just wait until I can find the dream clothier to be my Ikea and my Trader Joes of clothes. Its really hard to be 6 foot one because the girl clothes are too short, the fat girl clothes are too short and too wide and the boy clothes dont work like they used to before I had four babies...I usually go with the boy clothes, because despite what the scale says, I am more closer to a tall rectangle than a short circle---and nobody wants to see me in floods and a half shirt, trust me. I am not afraid of "tight", I am afraid of cropped. So to end this boring segment, I will just say that even if money were less of an object, I do not have a fave store where I can get girly simple tall comfy hippyish cheerful clothes as of today. (Does anyone remember when Pier One had clothing?? *sigh*)

happy shopping---we all do it might as well think about it and enjoy it!

a leader's point of view/Campfire USA

2006-10-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

What a bleak picture I painted last post, huh? I just love my little ones and worry worry worry.....But onto other things! I am now a leader of the grade 3-5 (age 8-11ish) level of Campfire USA, of which Greta is in. (Mickey and Casey are campfire scouts as well but I do not lead their troops meaning I do not sit at their table). This is a 100% up-start, brand-new troop/group of homeschoolers from the area who wanted to put their kids in homeschooled troops of originally, Girl or Boy Scouts, and for various reasons, found Campfire USA to be much more tolerant/relaxed and we all started our own new "chapter" as a part of the greater council for the area. We go every Friday morning from 10-12 (or so!!!) and have begun to work on the various badges and paths as laid out in the leader guides. There is a different guide book for each grade level. These guides are SO FULL of such cleaver and awesome ideas, I might end up doing alot of these at home...there are five "Trails" in the Campfire USA system, and they are the same from age 3-18...they are: Trail to Knowing Me, Trail to Family and Community, Trail to the Environment, Trail to Creativity, and Trail to the Future. Within these categories, there are 30 or so activities which are laid out so smoothly: they tell you the Purpose, the Materials you eill need, what Educational Standards it follows (something about national education thingies that it might "count as") how to end the meeting, and then addtional things you could do if you want to pursue it further. I just find it so nice and really enjoy it so far. We all meet together, all the moms and grandmas (no dads so far but they are more than welcome!!) and all the kids and all the "tagalongs" (babies) and we meet at a K of C hall now and we split up the tables into the troops: Little Stars (preschool), Starflight (K-2nd grade) and Adventure (3-5th grade). We have only had two indoor meetings so far but they both were messy crafty so we start covering the tables with newspaper while the kids run around and socialize ; ) Then we meet together in a huge hand holding circle, big kids, medium kids, tiny tots, Moms with all their babies in all their papooses, back-packs, slings and Snuglis, and we (the leaders) take turns welcoming everyone back and welcoming newcomers and saying the secret greeting. Then we ask the kids if they want to try to say the secret greeting in a funny way, and so lots of hands go up. We announce what it is we are doing that day and then we split in to our various troops. I would describe the vibe as warm and very happy. It is never quiet and it is never scary or tense. It feels a bit like a big big birthday party, like that kind of vibe, lots of Mommies and kids and a few Grandmas, and a few crying babies, a few sleeping babies, laughter, chatting, conversations, and lots of bending over the little ones and their handiwork! After sometime, we start to wind it up/switch gears, and the Little Stars do stuff like musical chairs, hide and seek, running around and being squirrels---the leader for them is really good at knowing what that age group can and cannot do and she does really well with them. We clean some, and then we do a big goodbye circle with more Campfire secrets, announcements, and a secret hands squeeze-thing that is really cool. Then the lucky ones (haha) get to leave, and I and the other leaders have to clean and clean and clean. So far this has sucked and been horrendously difficult, to the point where everyone is starving and there is some crying and we are sweating to death and it really pushes your patience and it is really really hard, I dont know how else to describe it. Its the timing, its past lunch, the babies are done with not crawling, the tots are done with it all, the big kids are whining or flaking or pestering---we dont quite know what to do about this aspect except joke about paying some Grandmas like 500 bucks to either clean the damn room or wactch the damn kids so we can get out of there and get on the road to some lunch!!! so it is cool and hard, and hopefully the hard part of it will work out. I am glad I am a leader but around 12 noon on Friday I wish I wasn't! But I would never ditch these guys, we are short on help as it is. I hope it continues to get easier and smoother and we stay totgether for a long long time.

addendum

2006-10-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

In case my sarcastic style is befuddling--

We put Casey in preschool to:
"give me a little break"
"have calmer school-time with Greta and Mickey"
"see if he really did like it and perhaps isnt the type of child who likes being homeschooled"

I was being a smart aleck about relaxing because I feel so guilty and confused. I thought being a NOrmal Mommy would make me feel cosmopolitan or something and so far it has made me feel like a harried, penniless phony. But no we didnt put Casey in preschool to relax, I was being a smart aleck. I see those little ones who really do have to go and be sick with the mean lady and I feel HORRIBLE About it all. Maybe mayeb maybe time will tell and he will like it. I Think we will do next week and search for new options.

Time will tell and hopefully I can get back connected with the voice within me, I need to dust her off and take away all her books and magazines and put on her earplugs and force her to look at the children again.

YOu know what else is sooo ironic? Truly truly ironic and not ALanis M's misuse of the word to mean "sucky" but actual irony? I always used to envision, fantasize actually, about moving away to a new town where we didnt know a soul, to be offline, no TV, new phone number, and all the peace and quiet to just really be myself and kick back with my babies and love them and just BE>>>>> and of course, I had all that and feel like I blew it and wrecked it and wasted it and fuddled it all up and signed us up for all kinds of crapola and got blasting shows back and paintrain internet with spam and stress and email and bills bills bills to pay for all this noise noise noise.
why
why
why
why
: (
we make our own misery as well as our own happiness--I MUST get my self back, soon. SO so bizarre.

so far this sucks and i couldnt be sadder.

2006-10-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

Wow I am so touched and inspired by the well wishers who follow this blog. I will return faithfully to it and a warm hug to everyone!!!!!!!

Oh, how I wish I could say all is well with the nursery school bit with little Casey but it is making me so sad. I worked at these types of places before, I know the deal, I know I know I know but yet when it is your own kid, and %100 for my own "relaxation" or what have you, it hurts even more. Casey went and obviously tolerated the first day. He seemed confused and glad to see me, but was odd the whole afternoon, angry, shaky, jumpy, sad. The next day he had no idea he was going back, and when I brought him in there he cryed so hard, I had never seen him like that. He wouldnt look at the teacher, and I cant say I blame him. She is nothing like you would want for nursery school, no soft grey bun, no wal-martish Halloween sweater, no pumpkin earrings---is that too much to ask??? But the scary part: no smiles thats for sure. She seems cold tense angry and very very detatched. When Casey did try to talk to her she didnt notice at all, and think that was probably the first and last time he will attempt that for a while. OF course, I left him again, and the lady up front asked me "do you want us to call you if he cries for a certain amount of time?" I just couldnt believe I was doing this, (can barely type this to you the reader!!!). "yes please" I mustered and went home to enjoy my 15 bucks worth of stomach cramps and the silence I thought I coveted. When I came back to get him, he had an "OOPS" slip in his cubby-hole that said he fell and cracked his head today and that TLC was administered --sure--and they needed me to sign something. yay. I peeked in at him playing in the gym and he was alone kicking a ball against the wall. I wonder what he thinks of all this, did we hype it enough? Too much? Does he have any concept of "three hours"...He was really glad to see me and had a little worksheet that the teacher had clearly done for him in his cubbyhole along with the OOPS report. Every single child in the room was sick sick sick, their little dark circled eyes and crusted boogers telling the tales of thier mommies who had to work, or like me, wanted to "have some quiet" while we pretended our children were being enriched by the worksheet. He said the snack was Milk and that he fell and hit his head and the teacher "was so mean to me" and began smacking himself in the head and crying when he re told the story.

Ok so Wednesday was off, and it was not really the precious reunion, it was a regular day with 4 kids, kinda hard, very cheerful, busy, normal. We went to library story time and all the little kids whined and wailed and bucked and breakdanced while the nice lady read her story and I thought again, Who am I trying to impress with this bullshit? Why am I playacting this Mommy Who Goes to this Normal Stuff when I never ever did before? This sucks! We live in the car, we are getting germs germs germs, Charlie cant ever crawl anywhere, nobody gets anything out it, but it is all in response to my very very few detractors who claimed we werent socializing??? IS this socializing?

sigh

So Thursday we went back to school and this time he was crying again, and not a brat cry, not a "I wanna cookie" cry, but deathly saddened sobs. I leave him again and we go grocery shopping for stuff for GRetas girl scout meeting. Yes it was slightly easier without him. When we all go get him, he is outside riding a little truck and probably enjoying that. I sense very much that if he had a need he wouldnt go talk to the teacher, and so must be internalizing so much craziness that he never had to before. He said they did a song which I was ecstatic to hear about---and thats just it, the schools I worked at were LIVELY, JOVIAL, CHEERY, FUNNY, COLORFUL......I tried to talk to the teacher about stuff, just asking about the field trip, making small talk, etc, and she is certainly a brisk one! She told me that a little girl helped Casey with his crying and I thanked the little girl but she just was SO sick, she looked like she was going to topple over and didnt look at me answer me. She sneezed and a 4 inch booger was all over her mouth and she just rubbed it all in her eyes and it was so so sad. I envisioned 6 30dollar co-pays flying out of my wallet by Monday when we all get strep or worse...

so um

I dunno. Sounds like a pain train, sounds no good, right? But we will give a it a few more days while I do some soul searching. It is so hard to tell if Nursery school is wrong or this teacher is. (i know she is) We have bombarded this homebaby with SO many new RANDOM authority figures, right as we moved to a new home---A soccer coach, a campfire leader, a schoolteacher, a library reading lady---its just so weird. I gotta step back and see what is right for my kids, not my public image to nobody. I cant believe that as i get older i seem to be losing self confidence rather than gaining it.

Gretas teacher for her nursery school was a dream come true. You wanted her to rock you to sleep. You wanted to be by her and hug her and beg her to come to Thanksgiving. She was GRANDMOTHER. Every freaky little booger eater was her precious angel. Every child was special, she never ever ever ever ever got mad, I mean EVER. She looked and spoke and smelled like a powdery puff of peachy ness, and was twice as sweet as an apple pie. She had one boy, and when she spoke of him, she glowed. He was probably 35 but in her eyes he was 6 or 7, you could just tell. I wish Casey could be with someone like her a couple mornings a week. Thats all for now...I am so sorry about all of this, but pulling him out now doesnt seem right either, so we will keep close close watch on it, thats all I can promise.

Cozy housebound family gets up and out like wild!

2006-10-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

Monday: Casey nursery school, Greta private knitting lessons. Tuesday: Casey nursery school, Casey soccer practice. Wednesday: Library storytime 10am, going to begin taking Mickey to Open Swim at night. Thursday: Casey nursery school, Greta Girl Scouts. Friday: Greta, Mickey and Casey are in Campfire USA now, and we have weekly meetings in the mornings from 10:30 - 12 and I am a Leader for the 4-6grade division. Saturday: Farmers Market rain or shine and Soccer Game. Sunday: Family Fall Field Trips. Baby Charlie cheerfully in tow, clapping his hands, saying Dada Mama Baba and Sasa, waiting patiently for his first birthday as he blooms and glows and remains the blessing and the smiling beacon for all of us as he chews his toys and laughs and sings.

Homeschooled kid goes to school!

2006-10-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of. These past few weeks we decided to put Casey into a 9-12 am morning program at the local Y. He goes Monday Tuesday Thursday. I don't know what to think about it yet, but today is his second day and we will see how it works for our family. It is suppossed to make a new dynamic, change things up a bit for all of us, and I hope it does that because we cannot afford this whatsoever and if it turns into some germ-fest where we are dropping 100 bucks a week on doctors visits and amoxicillins and all dying and unable to clean or do anything educational or active/Steve missing work, thats gonna be an issue as well. But Greta went to nursery school, and for many reasons when Mickey was of age, it wasnt something that we felt a need for---but this has come around again as an option for our family so we have signed up! I wanted to clear my head, I wanted to see if CASEY wanted something different, It gets us all up out and dressed early...so time will tell. But I hope first and foremost that it is something cute and fun and positive for him and that we can take that morning time for Greta Mickey and Charlie to do some quieter projects or really anything that is "harder" with Casey here. Charlie takes a morning nap so Steve has been coming home from lunch around 11:30 letting me run up to pick up Casey just by myself! Cool, huh? More details in a week or so on how it seems to be working out for us all : )

new everything

2006-10-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

We are all moved in to our new house, and although there have been dozens if not hundreds of blog posts in my head that have come to me everyday and floated away like so much laundry bubbles, I will only say here that I am back and we are here and it was HORRIBLE and now it is good. I am on a new computer that you cant even press "enter" on or crazy windows pop up and you lose your work. So weird. Everything has been WEIRD. New everything, everything, everything is too much. I feel like our children and our clothes are the only things we even recognize, like some witness relocation protection program, it is incredibly disruptive to move it seems!Everything has been so weird/everyone has been so OFF kilter for weeks weeks weeks, but we are whole and sound again, and for that I am here, online, with a moment to type stuff. Last week was the dramatic climax of how hectic and chaotic and bad evetything has been, which crescendo'ed last Wednesday night and then it has been really warm smooth vibes ever since. We have a routine again, we have parental reigns again, and love seems to be the glue instead of tears and fears. I love the house, it is gorgeous and hip and the town is just precious beyond words. Hi-dee-ho neighbor did not die in 1963, it is here in my town, alongside thriving shoe-repair man and vacuum-repair man and unlocked doors (not us Im just sayin) and more bike traffic than cars, people walking on "your" lawn because there arent any sidewalks on many of the corner lots---very country and very un-metropolitan suburb....everyone we meet at the bank 7-11 CVS Rite Aid Meijers is just so nice! Its weird and wonderful. So like anything in life that is a big deal a big change, a swing in energies, there is a painful transition and I dare daresay we have come through the flames and are ready to live as a family does and should. Hooray!

School name search

2006-08-16T09:39:00.000-07:00

New Name Ideas for the new home/school:

Carrot School (an old family joke)

Four Maples Academy

Clawson School

Clawson Cottage

Maple Cottage

please submit yr ideas for us!

Moving Day

2006-08-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

We are moving away from Clairwood Cottage this Saturday. We are moving from a 1200 square foot bungalow to an 1800 square foot L-Shaped ranch. We will be 3 minutes from Dada's work instead of 75 minutes. We will have gleming hardwood floors instead of crusted stained carpet and loose tiles. We will be in a neighborhood where it isnt at all unheard of to have rainbow hair and lefty bumper stickers and homeschool your vegetarian kids. We will have a fireplace and an attached 2 1/2 car garage instead of a broken little shed with bees in it. We will have giant windows that really close and a bathroom whose door opens all the way with a floor that will never ever fall in if you spilled water on it bathing 4 kids. We will have blue jays and chickadees and cardinals and woodpeckers and orioles and chipmunks instead of just pigeon and sparrow and squirrel. We will have giant bedrooms that you can put actual dressers in, and a huge huge playroom with windows all around. We will have so many choices of where to shop for fresh food it is indescribable. We will have new friends and be closer to most of the friends we already have. We will be in a new county and have new doctors dentists and stores. We are leaving behind a dearly despised yet definately beloved funny little saggy house where 2 children were made and 4 children were grown and Casey Stefan was born on the living room floor and millions if not billions of memories were had. I was a girl when we bought this silly rediculous crooked old thing and I am most certainly a woman now. I have no regrets because I don't live that way.

holymoley Fall 2006

2006-08-16T04:41:00.000-07:00

This Fall we sure are putting alot on our plates but all I can do is try my best: so here goes all the things we aspire to do over the next few weeks (gulp):

Move into a new home(Saturday)

Start outside the home music lessons (1x weekly)

Start co-leading Campfire Scouts (3x monthly)

Resume Girl Scouts(2x monthly)

Start practices for our talent/Variety show(2x weekly)

Start a exersize regimine(daily)

Start French immersion days (1x weekly)

Start homeschool with our new curriculum (5x weekly)

Start early to bed early to rise family habits (7x weekly)

We also have a couple of parties to throw, dental appointments to catch up on, eye doctors to see, and want to go camping. This is not like me! I have never been like the over-scheduled run around Mom! I have been more like the nursing a baby in my pajamas while reading to little kids on the floor mom. I have rarely "had it together" or been "jaunty/on the go" over the last 9 years. So wish me luck, be thinking of me, I want to do this, I know we can. I am cutting out all things that consume my time and focusing on sleep or the kids. We have vegged out all summer on TV and Video Games and sitting at parks eating snacks. We needed to do that and it was fun and fine. But wowee zowee here comes a new change and its comin soon!

Something big is going to happen to Greta and Mickey's relationship dynamic, too. I feel that this fall, they will be getting their own friends in a much more dramatic way, and I also feel that Mickey will finally find a good friendship with Casey. They are all going to be in different Campfire Scout troops due to age, and besides the fact that we hope to meet some great kids who will come over and play with all of us, I think this will be a big year for Mickey. He will have his own events and will be more than "one of the babies who rides in the car with Mama while Greta goes to fabulous places"

We are also looking into the local school in our new neighborhood which has something called "ocassional care" for the preschool children. Obviously we are homeschoolers and are not looking to put Casey in school, but for a couple of reasons, I want to register for this. What it is is if you want to drop off your child at this little preschool, you can. It is 5 hours or less, for fifteen bucks. Seems cheap to me! I picture us taking Casey there maybe every other Friday or something, as needed/affordable if he likes it. We already told him about it and he was as gung-ho. Whatever, babysitters are scarce during the daytime in the school year, expensive, and I need a helping hand sometimes, toddlers are the worst things to bring with you to a doctor or dentist, I want to meet parents in the area, they might have older or yournger siblings, and I want Casey to have something that he goes to do, too.

Lack of money shown to be leading cause of creativity part II

2006-08-16T04:28:00.000-07:00

So ok, Greta took a DRAMA CLASS one time, and boy was it lame. I mean lame. lamey lame lame. It was about 50 bucks at an elementary school, and I am sure that if she was in some fantastic troupe for hundreds it might be better. But since the aforementioned hundreds are not so available, whaddaya do?

Do it yourself!

It all started with a ticket. We were at a park last Sunday by 9:30 am so I knew it was gonna be a good day. The sun was blasting, the breeze was fresh, I had my coffee with me, and the children found a silly little ticket on the ground. Admit One. And they freake dout! "We want tickets! We want tickets to play with! Buy us tickets! We want to put on a play! People could come to it! We could have tickets at it!"

Wow

a play!

I have a dear old book, called Simple Plays for Children or something like that, and I have been wanting to explore that...so we sat down and talked. Even Charlie knows when a pow-wow is going on, he was very intensely interested. We discussed a play, who could be in it, what would be involved, and then we discussed the pros and cons of it being a sort of variety show instead...seeing as alot of our friends are little kids, who might not be able to memorize lines and such, we decided to make this very first event be a talent show, which could involve small plays and skits if you wanted to do that.

I sent out a huge email to everyone in the known world to see who wants to be in it. I hope it ends up great.

You see, I have always wanted tons of children to come over and do "classes" with me. I have a deep craving for regular weekly events where mommies and daddies come drop off their kid at my house and we do this thingy for like 60-90 minutes. I have so many "classes" I want to do with kids:
Plays+Skits
Dancing
Foreign Language
Singing
Crafts
Nature Study
Cooking
Gym
Art
Poetry study
Piano/Guitar/Xylophone/Recorder lessons

I want them to come over and do this with us. I cant do too much about this urge right now except to continue to teach my own kids and try to meet new big kids in the new neighborhood. Almost all of my friends kids are younger than Greta, but all that is going to change real real soon--next blog entry is our fall plans!

lack of money shown to be leading cause of creativity Part I

2006-08-16T04:21:00.000-07:00

I saw an ad in Metro Parent for a foreign language immersion school thing. I called and it was super expensive, something like 900 dollars for Greta Mickey and Casey to all go once a week for an hour and play french games for 14 weeks.

hmmmm

So, you know the punch line, with me, lets do it ourselves at home! Like everything I do myself at home, it seems, I was initially looking for high quality or affordability outside of the home and did not find it. Haircare, childcare, entertainment, education, healthcare...

So we are going to slap this idea up on the now enourmous list of ideas we have brewing for this school year. Why on Earth would I want to pay someone 9 hundred non-existent dollars to play a french tape with my kids and dance around when we could do it at home and have soooo much more fun?!?!

Loose Tooth

2006-08-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

Mickey got his first loose tooth this morning!!!!! The little bottom one, as is to be expected! Greta also has one that is hangin' on for dear life, so they are wiggling away and vying for mirror-time.

He is going to look much much older soon with the little jack-o-lantern face and then the big teeth. My baby Holland! I can't believe it.

fairy wishes......

my big boys!

2006-08-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Casey is three!!! How can it be???

In the last month, he has gone from baby in the crib with diapers and pacifier, to 90% potty trained, wearing undies all day, sleeping in the CORVETTE BED. So cool!

I was very nervous about him not being in the crib, figuring he would try to pop right out of a bed w/out walls, but with a bit of training, he has done quite well. It would be weird if he didnt try at least once, to decide hey screw this "nap", Im getting up and outta here......but now he knows that he is not allowed to. if it would have been a major issue then we would have him in the crib, and he could yell if he needed out to go potty, but it hasnt been that bad.

Another big milestone is that baby Charlie now takes regular naps and is sleeping in his own little bed for part of the night, too. He spent 9 months in my arms napping on and off, freaking out if i put him down for even a second, and it went from meeting his needs to him needing more sleep and not being able to get it that way anymore....This is around the age that I did this with the other boys, and it has been what felt right---and pretty easy, too. It took less than a week to get him to sleep in his own special place, and we feel 100% sure that he does not feel abandoned, he knows we are there, he knows that this is the place where he sleeps, and he isnt sad or scared at all. I just have to be sure to nurse him alot during the day to make up for the all-night nurse a thons he was getting before....but this will be really cool for all of us and we did not end up needing two cribs, after all, as Charlie can have Caseys! (he is sleeping in the playpen now because we need to buy a new crib mattress--the one we have goes in the car bed......)

So yay for all of us, changing and growing and entering a new phase. I knew when I got pregnant with Charlie and Casey was only 17 months old that I would have probably a solid year of "Two Babies" and I was right. This is starting to feel alot like 3 kids and a baby, and I can do that--have done that for years =)

when I was 10

2006-07-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

This is not any kind of pity story or something I am complaining about. It is something you might not know about me that I have had on my mind lately, so here we go, on a little trip down my memory lane:

The summer that I was ten years old, I babysat a family of five children. My little sister was always down there as well so it was really 6 children. There was a boy who was 7, who hated my guts and who glared at me with his mean little face and snarly uni-brow. He was so mad at my existence that his only pleasure was in trying to mess me up at lunchtime by saying he wanted grape but then saying no i wanted strawberry---jam of course on the pb+j diet I kept those kids on all summer long. He also seemed to enjoy scoffing and scowling at Sesame Street but never took up my polite offers for him to get out of here if he hated it so much.

There was a girl who was 6 who was funny and my sister's best friend but she was one of those kids born with a potty-mouth and a strong inclination towards anything having to do with "boobies", "weener", etc and frankly she made me kind of nervous.

There was my sister who was precious and who was 5. She helped me translate the weird and moody TWINS--they were 3?4? I really cant remember but they were twin girls and one was cool and cheerful and amiable and one was pouty and sulky but occasionaly they would switch. They would refuse to answer me when i spoke to them and my sister would help with that nonsense. They also wept quite a bit and fought with each other and were frequently sneaky liars.

The littlest was a 1 year old boy who was in cloth diapers-the old old old school kind that you dunk up and down in the toilet ---and you get in big trouble if the wipes got in the toilet---with big safety pins and rubber pants. Yuck. He was cute but pooped alot and "wouldnt" take his nap whatever that means, I dont remember but he got out of his crib I think.

Yes, so I was ten, and this family lived down the street from me, about 6 houses down. So if I needed anything, I could go and alert my Dad who was asleep because he worked the midnight shift. I made $2.50 an hour and I saved up and bought a tent and a big girl bike---a ten-speed which were $200 and $100 dollars respectively. (tents used to be really expensive but now they are cheap)

I learned alot with those kids that I use with my own family today. I learned how to whip up a big meal for many people fast. I learned about making double the kool-aid in a milk gallon thingy. I learned about delegating tasks to older kids in a way that made them feel helpful and proud and not used. I learned about putting three little kids in their high chairs BEFORE you get out all the lunch supplies and I learned about leaving them in the high chairs until after the whole thing was done, stripping them naked in the high chairs if needed instead of letting them go roll in sand whilst still peanut-buttery....I learned about cloth diapers and man have they come a long way...I learned how much cutting the sanwhiches in triangles OR squares, 2's OR 4's, grape OR strawberry, crust OR no crust could make a very tedious repititious diet seem vaguely new and exciting to many different ages of children...this family had a dishwasher and I learned how to use that, they had those little tupperware cups (you know which ones i mean) which soaked up the taste of dishwashing soap and green Kool-Aid made it worse....I learned how to use 3/4 cup of sugar in the Kool-aid instead of a whole cup (their mom's orders) and I still like it like that to this day....I learned how to make kids think you let them stay up later than they were suppossed to by saying "Ok you can watch Sesame Street 'cuz you were so good but then it is naptime" really did make them like me more and how TV helps you get the dishwasher loaded with no guilt cuz its educational programming...I learned that when they are quiet something very very bad is occurring...and I learned how to spot a window of opportunity when a kid is sleepy but if you wait too long they will get to the dreaded world of overtired and how to not let that happen!

Nowadays perhaps that lady would be on the news as "a ten, seven, six, five, three three and one year old were found alone in the city's eastside this afternoon" but I think it was cool, and I really am proud of myself that I did that.

I still have the tent, it is 21 years old this month.

enjoy these dog-days, we sure are trying to...........it has been a long July, but I think July is supposed to be long.

some clips about homeschooling I got from a friend

2006-07-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2001/feb/010226.cfoa.html
here is a cross post in my crude fashion that i got from my friend Hawksbills blog

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1206327
another one ripped off from Hawksbill it is an audio clip

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375507744/sr=8-1/qid=1148652667/ref=sr_1_1/104-8503460-6832743?redirect=true&%5Fencoding=UTF8
her book

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1006551
one more from NPR

Thank you Hawksbill : )

"doing school" in the summer

2006-07-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

Watch ZOOM
Watch CYBERCHASE
Watch Animal Planet
Watch History Channel
Watch Discovery Kids channel
Watch stars
Watch bugs
Watch boats
Watch sunsets
Watch fireworks
Watch gardens

Get filthy
Get filthier
Get strong
Get tan
Get tall
Get brusies
Get cuts
Get skills
Get training
Get smarter

go to Music In The Park
go to The Water Park
go on a walk
go on a bike ride
go to the zoo
go to the museum
go to the library
go to grandmas
go in the pool
go in the sandbox
go on the slip n slide
go to farmer's market
go to the beach
go camping

make plans
make lists
make friends
make jello
make popsicles
make kool aid
make messes
make memories

Campfire Scouts!

2006-07-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

We are joining the campfire scouts, all of us except Charlie. You can be as young as 3 and as old as 17. it is an all ages co-ed deal that doesnt exclude gays or minorities or make you say you promise to "Serve God" or anything like that. Me and some other mothers who homeschool in the area decided to have a rep from the local council come out and speak to us and we were impressed. We are going to open a new troop. We are going to meet weekly at a local community center. We are going to have week one and week two be doing badges and crafts and activities and week three be a field trip and week four be off. I am writing in this boring way because I just typed a huge happy excited blog and it got deleted and now I am sad and deflated.

But anyways here is some more info Www.campfireusa.org I am very happy about this! Even Casey will get to be a "Boy Scout" which is what he wants to call it and I couldnt care less : )

Jonses in the box

2006-07-07T06:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Jonses

Your marked DISDAIN for larger families is almost always out of context to how and if that family size works for that family, if the children are happy, if the vibes are good.

Steve and I practice an intentional, conscious lifestyle, which means we plan for our family, we choose a lifestyle that is meaningful and purposeful, that feels to be appropriate for human children, that doesnt give a darn about what the average americans are doing, and usually veers far away from anything inside the proverbial "box". Maybe you or your partner didnt want your children, didn't plan for your or their life after they came into this world---Im sorry. Its never too late to turn that frown upside down, but you have to want to.

Conscious pregnancy, conscious childbirth, primal, species-appropriate infant care and nurturing, homeschooling, and the very real-ness of living with children, not just evenings and weekends, but actually living with them, as a family, with no "sitter" or "camp" in sight....this is what I do, what I live, what I choose, what has brought me and Steve and all of our children contentment, fulfillment and wholeness---and a dissapointing amount of dirty looks and incredibly disrespectful invasive unwarranted comments. Why not just be glad for me, grab the door for me--- if you see me coming---don't stare like you are disgusted by the sight of a properly geared up larger family----'cause with my baby and toddler and 6 year old and 9 year old and my double stroller and trike and bike and backpack and cooler i dont have too much room to let in psychic noise and crusty vibes from folks who randomly dissaprove of what I am about---if they could even have the capacity to know what it is that I am about. I say Be Glad for yourself if you live an intentional life, a life you have worked hard to choose and plan and live out---and if your life is a passive auto-pilot race to maintain the status quo and you feel upset about that, do something about it. On your own time.

I am completely over the idea that detatchment parenting 2.1 children is the only american dream. It wasnt my american dream, so go look down on my brood as messy wild and embarassingly alive. We have the manners and class to bite our toungues at your sterile life of off-white commuting and dreary spotless Jonsie-ness. But we ain't jealous, i can promise you that. And when your sullen, self-conscious, lethargic kid latches onto me and mine at the playscape all afternoon, tell your pal on the other end of your omnipresent cell-phone call that this 3 hour yak fest was brought to you courtesy of a large homeschooling family all dressed in thrift store clothes---we save money where we can, so we can go do fun stuff like have picnics in the park and buy nice bicycles for everybody... Oh, and by the way, little Styler also ate most of our bread, grapes, cheese and had a juice box. It'll save you a trip to the nugget drive-thru. We come prepared, because, like I said, this is what we do. All day, everyday, 365 days of the year----I would no sooner venture out with out the proper tools and equpiment than you would go to work without your briefcase or files---and also, when you were on the phone call I put a little sunscreen on him too. Some got on his collar and he seemed terrified that you would see it---try a little borax in the wash cycle.

I dont think I am better than anyone else, I am just happily engaged in a full time job like the next guy. But without getting into all the rhetoric about birth control, reproductive rights and responsibilities, who should and possibly should not have any or many children etc, lets just be aware that there are "still" many families who are intentionally large, and that is what they wanted. Maybe they wanted it more than a Lexus. Maybe they wanted it more than a boat. Maybe they have a
Lexus and a boat. But this post 1960 disdain for the more-than-2-children does not and will not and cannot reflect everyone's sensibilities, and there are still going to be big families out there. It is my wish that The Pill and all of that helped every family to be intentional, whether zero children or 16.

No matter what is neat clean hip trendy or acceptable, one thing is certain: somebody is raising the children. So whether it is grandma, the girl at the daycare center, Uncle Timmy, Daddy, Susie, or Mom, s o m e o n e is raising and tending and washing and lotioning and diapering and feeding and ---hopefully--- loving the children, whether it is one child or 35, related, unrelated, biological, adopted, fostered, or enrolled---somebody is raising the children. If it ain't for you, thats good that you know that. I don't think very many people enjoy being around many children anymore---but be glad for the world and for your kid that there are people who do enjoy it, very very much. Maybe even cut 'em a smile next time.

Charlotte Mason

2006-07-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

Charlotte Mason was an educator in the 1800's. Her method "is based on core subjects and incorporates the fine arts. Children deal directly with the best books, music and art. The children are trained in the practice of narration, or telling back what they've learned. The emphasis is always placed on what the children do know rather than what they do not know. This training in essay-style examination effectively prepares children for adulthood and success in college." Her material covers an extensive amount of topics including: the formation of good habits, keeping a Nature Diary, and preparing a handmade Book of the Centuries. Charlotte Mason advocates the avoidance of twaddle, or what we might call "dumbed down" literature, and replaces twaddle with classic literature and noble poetry. Her method also includes a unique style of dictation and spelling.

Charlotte Mason Approach
Charlotte Mason resources
Charlotte Mason Research & Supply Company
Charlotte Mason Education
Simply Charlotte Mason
Ambleside Online

random thoughts and things

2006-06-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is how most blogs are, and not how I usually do it, but all I have time for is stream of thought today..... perhaps a thematic essay tomorrow......

I hate how blogger doesnt let me do pictures anymore.

I love Vitamin B Complex and gigantic 1200 mg FishOil tablets. They keep from from losing my mind. If I miss them even one day I feel depressed, confused and weak.

I hate how we never seem to have it together lately: we have a lemonade stand and lemonade---but no paper cups. just one wierd example.

I love how easy it is to go somehwere in the summer compared to winter. In the summer you say "Hey kids were going to go buy paper cups! " And I grab the diaper bag and we get in the van. In the winter we have to find 4 pairs of boots, 4 pairs of mittens, coats, scarves, blablabla you get it. Hard. Exhausting. Not worth it.

We have started to enforce some previews of our new school year, one of which is The Buddy System which is also a prequel to our new, meaningful, hopefully effective ALLOWANCE system. So far all it is is that Mickey's "buddy" is Charlie and Greta's "buddy" is Casey. It is an offshoot of the now-famous Duggar family from TV who has 16 children and I TiVo'ed and recorded all three of their shows and study closley how they run their days, and got the buddy system from them. more on that later.

our new school year is going to be SO different and SO awesome and SO so so so life changing! just a few sneak peaks: full curriculum for Greta, probably for Mickey, too, full math program, music lessons, swim lessons, allowance, daily rhythms, charts, field trips, so so so many new things and schedules that it makes me excited and exhausted.

we are literally purposley doing NOTHING this month. we might do sparklers with our friend's son and are going to one housewarming party but thats it. everyday we are hanging around. we watch videos. we ride bikes. we swing. we eat popsicles. we use paper plates. we sleep in bathing suits on occasion. we have dusty bare feet and lemonade with meals. its a good time to be a kid: you can turn on the hose without asking. daddy gets home when the sun is still high. you get to stay up late and sleep in late. you can play video games in the morning. you can have popcorn out on the slide and get rinsed off with the slip n slide. it is chill chill chill out time , if only for the children.

Charlie has 8 teeth and weighs almost 30 pounds. My wrists burn and my elbow aches almost constantly from the heaviness of him. He screams much of the day from the teething and thrashes around at night, leaving me almost as tired as the newborn times. Luckily, my heart is also exploding from love and pride and the pains usually cancel each other out.

Casey is really turning into a little boy instead of a monster--- I mean toddler! Greta and Mickey were such persons at 3, and this past year I have been looking at Casey and wondering....but sure enough, he is really really gaining logic, restraint, inquisitiveness, humor, wit, and some degree of empathy. He will be 3 in August. It goes without saying that I cant believe it, but really, I JUST had him. My home born baby. Barreling down the sidewalk on his BigWheel with his pacifier and his big boy haircut and his diaper. Such a juxtaposition of babyhood and childhood is the nearly-3-year-old human. He rewinds his tape player, presses play, pops in his pacie, and sleeps in his crib. He wakes up every morning, stands up in his crib, pulls down his shade, and yells "Mama! Its wakin' time! I'm done sweepin'!" and waits for me to come get him out. He rubs his little eyes with his tiny chubby hands and says "I don't want pancakes today" instead of good morning. He eats in a highchair and cooks his own popcorn. I love him so much. He tells everyone he is 4 and that on his birthday he is gonna be 5. He is rediculous and dear.

Greta rides her bike far away now (off our block at least) and is really maturing about things like hairbrushing, tidying up messes, etc. Thank goodness! I think it will wear off on Mickey too but who knows. She is reading Time magazine and National Geographic and asking lots of questions, which is so cool. She wants to cook and I want her to, but it is so hard, so hard, so hard to leave the 3 boys unattended while I try to do something like that with her. We have been doing more big kid stuff in the evenings when Steve is home---I need another adult here to guard Casey and Charlie. I try so hard to get creative, put one in the jumper thing and one in the highchair, it is still so hard. I often feel like I am 90% underwater with my arms and mouth taped up, trying to function.

I have a backpack carrier for Charlie but the work I need to do involves bending bending bending and I cant bend with him in there. So no laundry no dishes no tidying no mopping no scrubbing no sweeping no stairs. I can do dishes somewhat but I get an icy cold neck ache for days afterwards--- I can vacuum with him in there and I can clean high surfaces. This too shall pass.

Mickey got his gameboy from birthday money and was so affected by my speech about him not "playing it allday long" that he sits and talks to me about his little game and how it is all going and can i play for like ten minutes please Mama.....he is a little lovey. He still has all his baby teeth and I am trying to take lots of pictures of him and them because once the big teeth come that baby face is really changed!!!! SNIFF SNIFF SOB!!!!! He honestly looks exactly the way he did when he was 3 or 4. Fattest little face, same hair, same eyes, still has little hands, but he is getting so so skinny! Just his body, not his face. It cracks me up, Greta was the same way at 6, except she had a couple teeth out. I wonder if all the kids will be so on the same timeline as each other.?

Well thats all for now. Sorry I havent been writing, I am trying my best to make the time.

Our Walks

2006-06-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

When we go on an official walk, I run a tight ship. It stems back from the various times when I have had different ages and skill levels of children who are riding various types of vehicles while I push a stroller. In neighborhoods, where people are in a rush to blast out of their driveways, I will not run any risk of any of my little ones getting run over, especially those on a low-ridin' bike such as a Big Wheel or trike.

There are so many factors lately that have kept us from walking, Greta did not have a suitable bike, it was cold, then it was hot, then Casey didnt like the stroller.............but last week it all came together and Casey got a new Big Wheel and Greta got her bike up and running and Charlie sat alone as lone baby in the double stroller, and Mickey was on his Choppa (giant metal Big Wheel) and we WALKED.

How we do it is this: Greta is way out in front. Mickey is next. Casey is after that, and I am in back with the stroller. I shout out some kind of landmark up ahead, like "RED VAN!" and Greta barrels down to it and waits, with the others in row, behind. there is no crashing allowed whatsoever. If you crash the person in front of you, your bike goes in the stroller. Also, when I yell "STOP!", you do so. (I yell this at random to ensure listening ears)

This was Caseys very first time as a rider and not a stroller-baby, and so we had a test run on our block, which he passed with flying colors, much to my surprise. I am sorry to say but he does not listen to me so very well in the home and so I was unable to envision him listening to STOP as well as he did, which he did with 100% accuracy, and so we moved on to a big long walk! It was great.

So, besides the exercise factor, which is a benefit for all involved except stroller baby, we get alot out of our walks! I try to shout out landmarks that make you think, it I can see one. Stuff like "Horse Chestnut Tree!" or "Michigan Flag!" or "Alaska Liscence Plate Car!"....... it is an exercise in co-operation, self control, listening, safety, togetherness, and fun. Also, we are pounding in Left and Right, something I had difficulty with as a kid for some reason.

Many times I will pretend I don't remeber the way back, and so we are doing some fun directional stuff, too. To prevent Greta, who is the oldest by 3 full years from always getting the answers, I simply say to whom the "question" is to, and if you answer for someone else's question then you don't get a question. I havent had much problems using this method. So obviously, for Casey, I will keep it real simple, harder for Mickey, hardest for Greta. The biggest benefits go to the littlest listeners who absorb all the levels of learning all the time.

If and When we are on a bike trail, we will have much greater freedom to go far from Mama, as the entire factor of getting run over will be eliminated. We have been doing a mini version of Safety Town on our sidewalk, and practice riding on the right side, using our bells or horns to alert someone who is slow or listening to music, etc that we are coming "on the right!". We have discussed how UNcool it is to bonk or crash others, how it ruins trust and damages the bikes we need to pass down to little brothers.......this entire story might sound like I am being The Fun Police or that I dont understand Boys' (and many girls but not Greta) need to crash hurt and wreck---to that I say this:

We also have plenty of fun and freedom times outside. There is injustice and injury a-plenty. But when I strap on my shoes and socks and get waters and blanky and cell phone and sunglasses and sunscreen and double stroller and lock the doors and feed Charlie and email Steve to go on a WALK, we are going to be ladies and gentlemen.

Greta's game review

2006-06-06T17:24:00.000-07:00

Game Review

Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door was A LOT of fun...... but each boss was EXTREMELY hard to beat. The hardest boss was the last boss... The Shadow Queen!
The time I beat her was the time I had her down to 1 life out of 150!!!
Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door is a video game I played, and I am going to try to buy SUPER Paper Mario This October.

Oh ya I Almost forgot you get partners on your team on the way. my favorite partner was Koops (a koopa) and I got him when I was SO exited to battle the second boss. (I'll tell you about the first boss in a few minutes.) The second boss is a dragon known as Hooktail.

Koops was the second partner I got. So as I was saying... the first boss was the boss of the almost-entire-theme-of-the-whole-game.......... X-NAUTS!!! The first boss's name is Lord Crump. (Leader of the x-nauts.) So here is a picture of Koops.

A better link to our new curriculum

2006-06-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

Whoa! the most important part of my last post was the link to the new curriculum and it doesnt work! Sorry!!!

Here is more info and hopefully a live link
http://www.livingbookscurriculum.com/resources-faqs.htm#1

I was ecstatic to read that the teacher's guide has a full book list and that you can make payment plans : )

ok peruse and tell me what u think!

Living Books Curriculum!

2006-06-01T11:08:00.000-07:00

I have never felt more determined, serious, or clear-headed about our homeschooling as I do now.

I have come to feel that it is no longer in Greta's best interests for me to piece-together an eclectic/patchwork curriculum for her, as I have been able to in the past, as my hands are fuller with the babies and she is getting older now---and so we have been searching online and researching the various Grade-Four-In-A-Box types of kits that are out there. for her and the boys....

As with anything ,there is a bunch of stuff that isnt right for your child, and then if youre lucky, you find that special something you were envisioning. You guessed it! I found what I have been dreaming of. I have found something that warmed my heart from the second I clicked on it, and I know that it will be very very "right" for us. It is a full 36-week course from a website/company devoted to the Charlotte Mason Approach.

(For more information on Miss Charlotte Mason and her teachings, try
http://www.charlottemason.com/

or
http://simplycharlottemason.com/home/

or
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/methods/CharlotteMason.htm
(scroll down for tons of links)

or type Charlotte Mason into google.)

Anyhow, she is a hero of mine, an amazing woman, and I feel very comfortable translating her works into our secular homeschool, despite the Christian themes in some of her writings, I find it all very complete and whole and very Poetic and non-offensive or political. for me, feeling a sense of spiritual awe when studying nature in all its glory is not upsetting at all. Telling kids there were no dinosaurs is another story and this isnt anything about that.

So! Here it is:
http://www.livingbookscurriculum.com/gd3_order.htm

After looking it over, I feel that the Third Grade program will be more than rich enough for Greta, as it covers a ton of things we havent covered. this does not mean she is "behind her peers", have you met any 9 year olds lately? i have and she is doing very well comparatively. Anyhow, it simply means that beyond the Reading Writing and Arithmetic, it is very arbitrary and not at all Essential in which "order" you study things. One school might do Rome and one might do Africa that year. i switched schools five times growing up, i ought to know! they all do it a bit differently, and I think this will be a fine kit for us next year. Look it over and tell me what you think!

We are now looking into exactly how to afford the whole thing, as it is over 400$ for the whole deal. We are thinking of a clever (hopefully) combination of pick and choose the books here and there as there is an option to buy it all seperately, as well as library and amazon.com used books which are sometimes a PENNY. We are going to leave out the bible tales and the Handbook of Nature Study as I already use that one and have owned it for years. the main deal is the teacher's guide.

With four children, we will not have to re-purchase the materials each year, as they are not consumable i.e. "workbooks", but rather actual books and study guides, etc. So Third Grade Kit will be used for Mickey, Casey and Charlie........(which is unlike some of the prepackaged curricula I have looked into where alot of it is non-reusable) Way cool.

We might try to do a garage sale, although unfortunately we have been simplifying so much lately by donating all our crap away that I dont know what it left that we dont love.....we'll see....

There is no math in this program and so we will probably start with Saxon math
http://saxonhomeschool.harcourtachieve.com

We know a high school math teacher and he told us it is great, plus it is the only one I hear about that I hear consistent positive reviews. We have been using Miquon Math but it is not really "clicking" it is very very different, and well, live and learn, it isnt for us. Saxon is suppossed to be very very straighforward.

Well, that is the big news today. Have a great weekend, we are excited and anxious to be kicking off our BIRTHDAY Month!
Charlie June 1 he is--7 months old
Steve June 4
My sister June 4
Greta June 9
Mickey June 13

bringing home lame-o's

2006-05-31T11:48:00.000-07:00

Wow did I just get a powerful reality check that maybe what I am doing and what I did are pretty hard or unique or something after all. It may not sound like it, but in my wierd way it made me feel proud as heck. Let me rant a bit:

Ok, so i actually got a second to plop down and try to rest this afternoon, I am SO tired today and my knee is all wrenched for some dumb reason. Greta and Mickey were happily playing with the garden hose, Casey is asleep upstairs and Charlie was asleep in his little bouncy chair. so I clicked onto a show on TLC or something called "Bringing Home Baby" which chronicles new parents their first few days of newborn baby. I should have known better.

The couple featured today had Grandma staying-- LIVING --- with them to help out---"of course", and the mom had a C-Section. the mom was not breastfeeding, so the grandma was giving all the bottles. The mom was taking showers, resting, sleeping, while the grandma changed the diapers, gave baby baths, all of it. AND during all of this, the husband was shown doing things like frying 2 hotdogs (who is that gonna feed?) in a pan and burning them and mumbling about that was all he had the strength to do, he was so exhausted and frazzled (his words).

DO I even need to say anything about this? Are people SO lame or is what I did being home completely alone carved in half with a 12 pound nursing baby a jealous dejected furniture climbing 2 year old a lively chit chatty "starving" picky-eater 5 year old and a helpful but also "starving" 8 year old pretty out-of-the-ordinary? Burning hotdogs? Try bath nurse breakfast nurse lunch nurse dinner nurse bath nurse snack nurse breakfast lunch dinner bath snack etc etc and so on get a clue!!!! and there wasn't no sleepin, and 2 in diapers, and doctors orders to not lift over 10 pounds....

I am still moved to tears when I think of how scary and on-the-edge that all was. I was in grave medical danger, it is quite likely---but Greta knows how to dial 911....but hey no camera crews. I thought that was Life With Kids----So what is with these wimpy wimpy wide eyed Seemingly Educated Quite Rich Older people and the one baby and the live in help and the sleeping all night that drives them to say they are so tired they cant cook a hotdog????? what gives?! That Mom or Dad did not even so much as touch that baby one time during taping of the show---and the dad was like "After all the pain she went through with the c-section she couldnt nurse." Huh? Hey if you dont wanna nurse thats up to you--but ---why blame the C-Section? The C-Scetion HURTS whn you cant take painkillers cuz youre nursing. The C-Section HURTS when you cant rest one hour let alone six weeks. the C-Section HURTS when they leave in your staples too long and your skin grows over them a bit. The C-Section HURTS when you planned and paid for a homebirth. the C-Section HURTS when people you know seem intent on telling you it was "so good" you got one..... oh I just guess I should feel proud. But instead it freaked me out really badly. i wanted to smack their lazy heads together and throw their dumb hotdogs out the window and send their mom away. I wanted to give the dad a coffee and then CORNER him and tell him how UNcool it was to keep talking about how tired he was since after 40 weeks of carrying his son and then promptly being filleted and going through the most intense hormonal shift the human body ever has to undergo (the loss of the placenta which holds more hormones than the entire amount you use during the entirity of puberty) perhaps SHE is "tired". Perhaps GRANNIE is tired from promptly raising your son while you fry 'dogs poorly. Get some respect or go back to work, Dad!

(Or maybe I just wanted Ole Gran to come move in with me and send me to bed with 2 little burnt-up hotdogs...)

The Parents of the tiny bundle were also like "we do not know what we are going to do when Grandma leaves." Did you not have 10 months to plan this over???ummm.heres a hint......wrap your baby up in its blankie and give it the bottle when it makes little lip-smacky noises. Kiss and love it as much as you feel appropriate. Change its dipey when there is poo or pee. Pop it in it's little carrier and go watch Bringing home Baby. Enjoy him while he is teeny. Eat a sandwhich. Have an Iced Tea. Call GRANNIE and tell her to breeze on by with some Chinese food cuz you cant imagine having to go to the grocery store with a bucket. Sleep. Go Online. Chat on the phone to your pals. Paint yer nails. Have loving romantic dinners that you will not get to have when 2 year old is doin' a Jackson Pollack with the sanwhich fixins'and your iced tea is all over the dog. Leave the nailpolish out on the table cuz noone will grab it. Watch an R rated movie in the daytime. Take little pictures of your house to remember it by. Stroke your peanut butter and jelly-free keyboard. Go on a drive in your tidy car and blast some howard stern. drink 3 beers with your painkillers, youre not nursing and apparantly your mom and hubby are home 24/7.

s
i
g
h

AND the couple appeared to be old and rich. maybe all that "good life" made them soft and ill equipped for "real life"
Love, Joy who is either a SuperHeroMegaMama or a bitter jealous brat
or both

Next time I get to rest I think I'll watch MTv instead of TLC and write a blog about gorgeous perky body celebrity moms and how much they suck instead!!!!!!
L O L

Bachelor of the Arts of self defense and some other ramblings about marriage and stuff

2006-05-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

*********************

I earned my B.A. in General Psychology at the age of 21, and it has been brought to my attention a couple of times in the past that (perhaps, because, oh who knows, what are the various ways to say it---I am merely a mommy, I do not receive a paycheck, I have not yet attended grad. school, I, in mutual agreement with my life partner, have chosen a simpler lifestyle and raising our kids ourselves over more material gain., and the laughable "I don't work".....) I never used my degree.

__________________

Well, have I "used my degree?" What does that really mean? It has provided enough food for thought to keep me awake a few nights, even when the baby was kind enough to be asleep, I was not. So here are some little snippets of what has gone through my mind on this subject lately, and like the best Questions of the Ages, it has brought on more questions, many of them unanswerable. and I think thats cool. These questions are coming from someone, who in this instance, ME, is straddling that line between parent and child, since I feel about smack dab in the middle of a college girl and a mom of a college girl, with a 9 year old daughter, having graduated college 10 years ago myself.....

Why do we go to college? Is it really to Get A Job? And how directly-correlated must that job be to make us feel like our $60,000 was worth it? What if we get a job in our "field" but don't make as much money as your average retail clerk? What if we get a high paying job and we are in misery living in a Cube-Farm feeling like a slave to The Man or The Bank, slugging pepto-bismol, etc? What if we just keep going to college forever and leave a trail of 1/2 million bucks in student loans but turn really, really smart and get to see the world and grow wierd hair and carry a backpack forever and eat and sometimes sleep in mostly coffee shops but finally get published and die penniless and incredibly famous? what if we dont do any of those things?

I know of exactly ONE degree-path that gets you a job that is both in the field and pays alot of money right off of the Bachelors Degree, and that is the accelerated 5-year program for Engineering. If you saw the kind of science these kids are doing, you'd pay them 60K yourself for the honor of being in their presence!

But when referring to the very popular Liberal Arts degree.... What gives? I think most teens, by about winter of freshman year realize that this ain't the way to get rich. So are they just putting off "Adulthood" for 4+ more years, wasting Mom and Dads' money that don't grow on trees bein' a no good drunk stoner bum? I am kidding. But is that ok? Is it ok to just learn stuff and do stuff and live and read and write and become sort of well rounded and meet people and hang out and things of this nature? Should "they" tell you that in no uncertain terms, if you get a 4 year liberal arts degree you MUST go to grad school to even think about a Job? Or is it a funtimes getaway for a bunch of unsupervised children who suddenly have this free apartment and no parents, and on someone's bill, get to do whatever they want for the first and probably last time in their lives? and is that ok? Is it the new Assumed Extended Adolescence of the modern age, and should we want this/be expected to supply this for our kids no matter what? Are we old people jealous? Jealous that we didnt go to college or couldnt go to college or blew it at college or dropped out of college or went to the wrong college or didnt stay on at graduate college, etc etc etc.........? I think this must hit home especially hard for families where this is the first person to ever go to college, the "pressure" of Givin' Your Kid What You Never Had is probably enourmous for both parent and child. And yet the job market couldnt care less about hopes dreams or pressures to "Succeed".

And if money is the only goal in life, why arent more people farming out their 14 year olds to apprenticeships in a trade? Why isnt this more of an option, and why is it considered slightly less than ideal? Is it? I don't know ANY tradesmen or women who have anywhere near the dissaffected job dissatisfaction that the cubical farm set does. So there must be something to feeling connected to your paycheck, something much more human...

So, after posing all these querstions, I will share what I do know for sure:

1) I do not know a single person, not a single one, who went from the 4-year degree directly to the related good-paying job. I know people with high paying jobs who did not go to University, and I know people who work in their field (sort of) who dont make a whole lot. I know people who got a high paying job in which a degree of some sort was part of the requirement.....but the classic that they tell you in high school.....havent seen it yet. Perhaps nowadays you need at least a Masters...

2) I love the idea of being University Educated, and I love and adore the time I spent at college and the things I learned and the times I had.

3) I hope that all of my children get to go to college if they want to, when they want to, whether that be at age 15 or 50.

4) I wish that continued education or whatever you want to call it, would be universally available, (not compulsory) just as K-12 is now....I have admitted freely that I am not very eloquent politically, but I believe that is Socialist and I am all for it, high taxes and all. (Do Not get me started about Scandinavia and the free bicycles and the paid Maternity leave and the respect they have for children and all that, it only makes me want to move there more---love it)

5) Being able to choose what you want to learn about, and having access to learning in an environment of people who all chose to be there, who are all ages and truly all backgrounds is SUPER!!! College is awesome and we need more opportunities of this sort for younger people.

So ummmm am I, do I, did I, USE MY DEGREE? Of course! And no! What does that mean?????????????

Have I used the knowledge obtained during my years at college to some monetary gain? Well, I have worked several jobs since graduating, the 2 main ones being a teacher at a small preschool, and being a fulltime in home daycare provider. I think that my degree may have impressed or swayed my employers to choose me. But is that what is meant by that question? the paper or the knowledge? 'Cuz you cant help but use knowledge....

Have I used my knowledge obtained in college in my life? To help myself? To help others? To be a better person? Oh my gosh yes. yesyesyesyesyesyes. Think about me. A Psychology degree. Uh, yeah. I use it. In my ten years of marriage, in my friendships, with my children, in my ability to understand the world around me a little or a lot, more. Psychology. And my focus of study leaned heavily towards the developmental psychology classes. As in babies and children. As in teaching. ummm yeah. If I am a dissapointment or a waste or some kind of failure in some people's eyes, all I can say is that I have eight little grey-green eyes here at home (ten if you count Steves little grey-green eyes) who feel the exact opposite, and at least I got a full 4 year scholarship to pay for the whole thing. Oh and that little thing called I am really really happy. Which is all I want for my own children. Honestly.

So the question still is out there, but not simply towards people who raise their kids with one parent home, not towards Joy, not towards anyone who went to University and didnt strick it rich, didnt go straight to corporateville at age 22, to all of us........what do we go to college for? To better ourselves? and what on EARTH does that mean? Our souls? Our friendships? Our pocketbooks?

Im happy I got my degree, and I plan on continuing to learn everyday, both in a formal institution of learning and here in my daily life. I wouldnt change a thing about the way that Steve and I have chosen to lay out the foundations of our family structure, the timing most notably.

If you want to say I went to college to get my "M.R.S." (an old super sexist joke referring to girls going to college and just getting married anyways and never getting a job) then so be it. I am not insulted because it is so untrue so I'll say I got my Many Reasons to Stayhome

; )

Whats right for us may not be right for others. It was as right for me to go to college at 17 as it was to stay home and raise my own children at 22. I do not wish to appear smug or to ever forget that behind the vast majority of homeschooling parents is a Daddy or somebody who is footing the bill. I am eternally grateful to have the kind of marriage where we can fully discuss what we want out of life well ahead of time and that we strongly agree on what it is we want for our lives and the lives of our children. I am not dissing working moms, working dads, or people who send their kids to school. I am not dissing people who have a baby and feel that it would be best that they obtain childcare elsewhere. I am not dissing people who have to work 2 or 3 or 4 jobs to make it. I dont care if you have a baby at 21 or 51, or no babies or 18 babies. I am merely defending my own self and explaining that the life I have made for myself is one that has been very carefully researched and planned for, and that is all I can say. I dont know how many parenting theory books my own mom and dad poured over together, or how many developmental theories they pondered as I grew. All I know is what I know, what Steve and I choose, and all I can do is live my life the best way I know how.

I also want to say that I feel so worried for young people nowadays, singles and couples-- who feel the enormous pressure to have the material possesions that only a generation ago noone expected you to have until your late 40's or 50's.....it seems that Gone are the days of renting a funny little flat, having one hilarious rusty car, having a very modest wardrobe perhaps Kraft dinner, a mangy cat and one camping trip a summer....now it is a New car or Two, a Huge new mansion, bigscreen Plasma Tv, 3 computers, awesome furniture, cutting edge everything, trips, cruiseships, toys, and the very latest in super fashions, to only scratch the surface. So its much more likely you and your partner will have to both work to afford that. Its much more likely you need credit cards to afford that. Its much more likely you will find yourself waiting until you are 37 to have a baby and of course there are going to be societal reprocussions and health reprocussions from all of it.

In a similar theme to many of my older blog entries, I wish only more informed consent for people and less regrets. More reality and less media. More substance and less image.

I love Salon dot com

2006-05-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.onehotmama.com/pages/salon.htm
Wish I'd written this article, but thankfully this Hip Mama did. Kudos!

___________________

Greta's Trip

2006-05-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

Greta is back from her Girl Scout trip and she had a BLAST! They went to the water park, and played glow in the dark under-the-sea putt putt golf, had a pizza pajama party, and went to a zoo--all in about 26 hours!!!

She took pictures but lost the camera. then we got it back. So I still havent developed them....but I will this week and try to scan them into the BLOG for all to see.

She also got to go to Build-A-Bear workshop, and she made a cool frog with a backpack and a birth certificate and a heart inside his chest. To be honest I wasnt that into the idea of build a bear but it turned out way cooler than I had envisioned---and plus we got to go to the fabulous ritzy mall in which Build-A-Bear is housed and me and the boys played on the moving sidewalk for a good 1/2 hour, much to the smiles of the mall-walkers and plant-watering ladies. The moving sidewalk RULES! You cant take a stroller on it so Casey and Mickey would ride on it, and I would speed-walk next to them on the regular flooring---Casey was just very solemnly trying to keep his balance, but Mickey was moonwalking and doing all kinds of tricks....quite fun.

Girl scouts is over for the summer, we have to get her her green JUNIOR girl scout vest and get the patches put on--she already has a few junior patches---and I am assuming it will resume in August or September again.

Mickey will be 6 next month, and he will be old enough for boy scouts. My friend and I have talked about becoming boy scout leaders--her son is going to be 7 and she wants to become more involved in his life....so maybe I will end up doing that---pretty cool since I have-GULP-THREE BOYS!!!!! ; )

Ive heard some wierd stuff about boy scouts unfortunately who hasnt but I am sure that the premise is very much like girl scouts, having adventures, learning skills, making friends, etc. Mickey has been dragged along and witnessed first hand the multitudinous adventures Greta has had for four years with girl scouts---since he was a little tot at her Daisy meetings, he has been told BY GRETA that "when you are a big boy you can be a boy scout!" so who knows if it will be something he enjoys, or if it will be all that he hopes it will be...but so far I think we will plan on trying it out for him in the fall. We really lucked out with the Homeschooled Troop for Greta, but I dont think we will get a chance to go that route for Mickey--at least I cant seem to find anything online about anything like that locally.

Gotta go for now

gifts aplenty

2006-05-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Can I say PHEW?!?!?!

When your baby, or in my case, babies, actually start having a bit of a schedule to when they sleep, HOLY MACKERAL does it all come back so nicely!

My house is coming back together! Closets and mysterious piles and all of it!
My homeschool is totally rockin again!
My menus are coming back together!
My sense of humor is back!
My patience is much much greater and more flexible!
We are baking again!

Casey sleeps from 1-3:30
Charlie sleeps at 11 am, 3ish, and sometimes during dinner-prep as well. Whadda ya know?????

I am already planning so much school-improvement stuff, we have been having actual rythms to our days, really really smooth week. LOVE IT.

My actual precious husband has actually taken it upon himself to join Flylady.net website (i know-- lady--- go figure---so sexist---so guilt inducing--but bless his heart---) and has gotten all of us so enthused about home organization and little routines, etc....check it out, great site.....he was the spark that got us to re-re do our old playroom which was turning into a pit/sty/drop box for tiny doll shoes and random legos and laundry, and has us making a nice cozy spot for the kids and the MOBILE BABY CHARLIE to flop and chill out!!! This has "bumped" all the school stuff back out into the dining room, where it is getting a new lease on life and center stage status where it always was meant to be.........

well hooray hooray Charlie is asleep. Casey is asleep.

Greta Mickey and I are gonna go make a Cinnabon "kit" that I bought LAST SUMMER --- shows how long it has been a bit coocoo around here, huh?

Math lesson: how many calories in a Cinnabon kit
hahahahahaha

bye for now

Helping Hands

2006-05-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

Why it is good to be a helper and why that should be self evident

..........................................

........................

......

I can finally say that I have children big enough to be actual helpers, and boy is it nice. Even though it may seen like WOW now I have FOUR children, I have lived through seasons of my life that were MUCH MUCH more demanding, let me illustrate:

2002/2003: Greta was 5, Mickey was 2, Gracie was 1, Aaron was 4, I was pregnant. (Aaron and Gracie were kids I used to babysit fulltime). None of them could buckle their own seat belts, obtain their own food, clear their plates, tie their shoes, and only Greta could read or take care of her own bathroom needs. They truly were FOUR LITTLE KIDS. 3 of them took naps but on all funny schedules, they had various pacifiers and favorite blankies, rash creams and bibs, four sippy cups, and half of them were still putting crayons in their mouths and choking on small toys.

2004/2005: Greta was 7, Mickey was 4, Gracie was 3, Casey was 1, I was pregnant and nursing again. Greta was the only one who was semi-self sufficient, but she was so overshadowed by the actual TORNADO that was Casey, it didnt make much difference! It was still very much hands-on world, and I relied more heavily on baby-safety items than I ever had before: gates were everywhere, locks and guards and protectors...at least only one was in diapers! It was exhausting, physical, and I felt so very outnumbered.

NOW: Greta and Mickey can do SO much! They get in and out of the car, they don't tot away into the road, they dont ride in the cart, they don't choke on their food, they don't need a special carseat (Mickey uses a booster), they dont need diapers or anything from Gerber whatsoever (ok i lie we all use the babywash even me and Steve) they use the computer and TV and video games alone, they hear a baby crying and go to help him right away, they see me struggling and they run to help---Charlie cries in the car and they are right there with a rattle or peek a boo, Casey needs something off a high shelf, they help him out, they turn on his cassette for him, they tell me if he has something in his mouth that is not edible, they clear their places and brush their teeth........

MAN o MAN they are good helpers.

But believe it or not, there has been some slight hinted-at made-up issue inthe past about homeschooled children being "forced" or "stuck" assisting with younger children---quote--ALL DAY. Ok.......anyone who knows me knows what I will say to that:

H O G W A S H !

I want my children to helpful to me! Duh! I want my children to see work as a part of living, not a punishment, or a chore, or something to drudge through seperately. I want my children to be the ones who jump up, to volunteer, to pitch a hand. I want my children to feel super about doing something that nobody saw them do. I want them to know intimately the dying art of SELFsatisfaction w/out praise rewards or external motivation a.k.a. prizes. I want them to stop when they see someone fall, to help a little bird, to help a little kid reach up higher. TO BE USEFUL and have a life that is MEANINGFUL cannot exist in a life that is self centered and materialistic and isolated. That is the EXACT recipe for MISERY that PLAGUES most of the "developed" world today.

---------

Especially in these times, where people are so fiercely individualstic to the point of total human isolation and selfish callousness towards our neighbors, our sick and elderly, our fellow man, when our planet has over 6 billion people but so many of us are lonely, I say yes to helping, and yes to assisting and yes to humane caring and yes yes yes to loving those who are smaller than yourself, yes to protecting others and yes to having my children pitch in a great deal around their homes and their neighborhood and you betcha I will expect it to translate into the rest of the world as they grow older.

The spoiled self centered me-first Modern American Bratmonsters that we are allprompted and pleaded and sold into wanting and striving to BECOME via our TVs and other media is not anything we are interested in as a family. I feel absolutely ZERO mixed-emotions on this subject, and am very sure that there will be no shortage of people who do not help their Mama and Daddy whatsoever in this world so I dont feel badly for bringing up 4 people who are nice and who are helpful and who are caring and hard working and self-less.....at least I am trying to!

the last 2 generations I will even venture to generalize have seen WAAAAAY too many "advances" to possibly be good for anyone, and to raise a child "despite" all of it is a daunting task. As far as I can see, all this over abundance of money, technology, food and "me-time" has proven to be a horrendous FLOP. Then you have all these parents of 25 year olds who lament that they "just lay in their bedrooms or new cars listening to ipods and eating prozacs and refuse to get it together"

hmmm

if this infuriates you or doesnt make sense to you or you think i am nuts or rude or a freak then please WRITE a comment! Food for thought is something we all could use, and plus why write a blog if noone reads it.

tata for now

Rose Petal School

2006-05-05T13:25:00.000-07:00

*********************************

Basically, take everything I said in the month of March and April and flush it. We are not going to be making a forest trail, or anything to attract the butterflies. We are going to try to move away from Clairwood Cottage.

It could sound sad, but it will be very good for our family! You see, Clairwood Cottage is a old old house with many many problems. The problems are getting worse and worse, and it is to the point now already where any non-existant money that we put into it will just buy us a few more months before something else breaks, cracks, sags or self-destructs.

The children have been through many phases of us declaring "We're going to move!" and they always seem optimistic, curious, and bright about it. But will we still call ourselves Clairwood School? That is the big question to them. Honestly, it might depend on the name of our new street! What if we move to Rose Petal Lane? Or Ignatius Ave? Time will only tell. But I like that this is the only big issue, and that they know that no matter where we go, we will be a warm and close family with daily adventures to rival anything else they could ever compare ourselves to..indoors and out, inside our minds and with our physical selves as well. Man, do we have fun.

I think back to our old apartment, with the smashed down orange carpet, and the 75 cent washing machine, and I watch home movies we made, and we had a B L A S T. Plus, it seemed like we were always eating such healthier fresher foods than we do now, and we all looked a bit more relaxed....we had a lot more money in the bank then, thats for sure ; ) We walked everyday, sometimes 3 or more miles, and we would sit up on our little balcony porch and listen for Daddy's LOUD LOUD LOUD 1978 Monte Carlo to come home to us, to join us on the little balcony porch and have barbecued dinner--- we had a gas grill and I became queen of baked potatoes---alot of nights Greta and Mickey and I would walk down to the corner store--- "Gus's Store"---and buy our dinner supplies....sometimes Steve would grab something on the way home to pop on the grill....Gus still owns that store, still gives "credit" to all the people in the neighborhood, still lets the children go behind the counter and pick out free candy, still gives babies a pretzel rod to chew on.....I have no idea how he made a dime because his "markup" was quite minimal, and certainly worth every penny just to know you could bop in 1/2 block away and grab butter or bread without packing up all the kiddies and driving to the horrid supermarkets, without a doubt.

In the warmer months, we would wait for him either up on that porch or across the street at the big park that belonged to the elementary school....you could hear the Monte Carlo so well, we always knew he was coming and would head home to meet him.

There were so many KIDS in that neighborhood, too, so many families pushing strollers, roller blading, walking everywhere. There were more houses with bikes and strollers on the porches than without, it sure seemed.

I am not certain where we will end up relocating to, but we need to be somewhere that we can afford. I think it has taken us many years to realize that "afford" means so much more than just adding up your income and seeing if the total is one dollar more than the basic bills. Especially when you are committed to living on and stretching one modest income, and living without the crutch of credit cards (we have one but do not carry a balance on it) Can you afford your car to get a flat tire? What about a traffic ticket? Can you afford someone to throw a baseball through your window? What about a new roof or fence or driveway or hot water tank? Can you afford not to spend any time together? What about going on little family trips, or date-nights? Can you afford to not have anything saved for the future? Can you afford to be under constant fear and stress? The answers will vary tremendously from person to person, and throughout your life the answers will change as well. Where do you want to "be" literally and figuratively, in 5 years? 10 years? 20? Can you afford not to talk and think about this kind of stuff? Do you want to live your life on Auto-Pilot, or do you want to live an authentic life, one that is true to you and your own family's North Star? What are some warm memories and feelings you have had? Where were you the last time you were relaxed, happy, loving the feelings of security and lack of overwhelming strain and impending constant fear and doom? What can you do to continue to simplify, simplify, simplify?

For now, we are continuing to de-clutter, organize, talk, plan, clean, and research our options.

To be continued for sure.....

Girl Scout Graduation and Trip

2006-05-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

Greta graduated, or as they call it in Girl Scouting, BRIDGED, up to Junior Girl Scout status yesterday afternoon at a lovely park celebration. The order of Girl Scouts goes:

Daisy
Brownie
Junior
Cadet
Senior
Adult

As a result of the money they earned from their cookie sales this year, the girls in Greta's troop are all going on a trip to Western Michigan this upcoming Monday and Tuesday. They are going to a water park/hotel and to a zoo! (the girls sell cookies every year to fund trips like this, although I must say, this seems much funner and more fabulous than any thing she has ever done as a scout before, and I think the money was well managed by the troop leaders---I am very thankful!)

Next week, the girls from scouts are also having an End-Of-The-Year celebration at something called Build-A-Bear-Workshop where they get to build a teddy bear, I am assuming they get to customize and choose his nose, ears, fur, etc........so cute!

Greta is excited about her trip, and we are sending her along with a disposable camera or two to capture some fun times. Her best friend and her already are planning to sleep together and sit by each other...so it might be all pics of her..... : )

I was happy at the ceremony to be in the company of over 75 homeschooled kids and their family members, and to see them bein' just as *normal* as can be, har har har....although the teens were a bit less enraged than some teens I have observed in the neighborhood lately, the nature of the event wasn't very rage-inducing......all in all I would say that the homeschoolers were fun and funny and looked "hip" and VERY V E R Y social. Cheerful, loud, rambunctious, and lively!

It was heart-warming if I may be so corny, to see so many old girls (17, 18) who were "still" into scouting. And the patches on their sashes were so awesome! "Mexico Trip 2005" and "Peace Corps" and "1000 Mile walk" and "Washington D.C. 2004"........much more traveled than I, thats for sure! so cool!

Thanks to everyone who bought cookies this year from Greta, she will be looking forward to showing and telling us all about her trip!

happy birthday Charlie Linden

2006-05-01T12:58:00.000-07:00

Baby Charlie is six months old, today! I love him so much. I almost "made it" to the recommended six months for exclusive breastfeeding, but last week we "broke down" ---hahah and gave him some smashed up banana. He eats a tiny bit of it and spits out most of it, as is to be expected.

__________________

He also can really roll around and turn around on the floor, as well as "scoot" a bit, backwards mostly. He has three bottom teeth and no top teeth (silly!) and has been having very hard time with them, crying and screaming alot in pain.

i havent been able to find time for the blog anymore, but hopefully soon I will. I typed the whole thing nursing him with one hand but he is too big to hold with one hand now, and if I can get him settled down, there are about 7685 other things I have to hurry and do besides sit down and type, as sad as that sounds.

Hope to try to add more frequently, though! Happy spring!!!!

another ray of light

2006-04-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

It seems like whenever there is a really bad patch of days, and I think that I can't get much more distraught, or I can't take another rainy day, or I can't handle another temper tantrum or astronomical utility bill or broken glass or what have you, I get a Ray of Light.

.......................................................................

Today was such a day, and it isnt even over because tonight I am going out for a birthday dinner with my mom and sister!

But this morning, on a simple visit to a new park, so many things happened-to-happen to me, around me, amongst the children, that I feel like yes its gonna be alright.

A woman was walking her dog, and we exchaged pleasantries, when she asked the common question: "No school today?" When I told her we homeschooled, she completely changed her whole demeanor. She got so serious and so passionate, and she took off her sunglasses and looked me right in the eyes. She said that I will never regret this decision, and that I should be so proud of myself. She said that her biggest regret in life ( ! ) is that she didnt homeschool her children. She told me her daughters are grown now but that one is a schoolteacher in a private school, as well as her finace, and they are so horrified by the children and the whole scene that they don't want to have kids ( !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! )

She was like "Bless you on your journey stay strong" It was SO what I needed.

THEN, the kids met some other children and started playing with them. I hate even thinking about the fakest worry ever, "socialization", but it is nice to see them so confident and casual and comfortable with any kids they meet during our outings.

They have a very good sense of how to "tailor" their behavior to whom it is that they are playing with. Example: the 1st group they met consisted of a little girl about 6, a little boy about 3 and a tot. They kind of ran around and chatted lightly about their plastic dinosaurs and made "magic wands" out of sticks and colored yarn.

But later, Mickey encountered a "big boy" (later revealed to be 8) and his whole demeanor changed as he approached. the boy was rollerblading and Mickey spoke to him in a lower voice, and asked him if he had ever played SSX Tricky---a snowboarding video game. They quietly exchanged a few words, and the boy left. then he came back with a little dog in his arms, and Mickey said "Cool Chihuahua" and they started walking around the path together.

SO different than the way Mickey would approach a little kid or even a girl. I thought it was awesome that I got to see that, and thought how neat it was how even very young children can cater and alter their behaviors to fit the scene. I am also learning alot about boys and how they interact. I feel sure that if it was Greta and a girl, it would have been squeals of i LOVE YOUR DOGGIE OHMYGOSH WHAT IS HIS NAME???? very interesting to me.

Well, it was nice to have these cool things happen when i was feeling that stupid old self-doubt creep in again about things.....you just never know who you'll meet at the park!

_____________

The beginnings of our backyard forest trail

2006-04-09T16:10:00.000-07:00

Today we started our trail in the backyard. I had a few prerequsites:

100% native materials to our property
0 cost
100% kid friendly

So, ummm since we never exactly raked last fall---well we raked but never bagged (extraordinarily idiotic human activity, to rake and bag the leaves......but dont get me started!) SO we had this huge huge pile of dead wet Oak Leaves. We all decided tpgether on the Main Path, and we scooped and carried all the wet leaves and formed and heaped them along the Path. From the back door, curving snakey through the yard, ending at the appleblossom tree. We had these big irregular flagstones from our wayback landscaping that the city put in when they plopped a grocery store in the middle of a neighborhood----so we layed these here and there long the path---not necessarily as stepping stones, but more as "weights" to hold the wet leaves down

Dada told us that not only do wet leaves block the sun from the grass, but they actually release a grass-killing poison that kills the grass---which in this case is a good thing!

The path looks really good so far. It is raining alot and I think this will "burn" a definate trail into the lawn and we will hopefully be able to take the stones off soon, since you cant pull a wagon through it or even walk hardly since it is lumpy.

We plan on planting 5 or 6 white pines in the back, and 2 more deciduous trees in the yard. It will be really cool, I hope!

The kids are so into it and thats what makes it so fun and real.

I also did my little dream of yellow-red-yellow-red-yellow-red tulips around the Hawthorn tree in our front yard. I hope no squirrels eat them and that they turn out cool.

________________________________

I miss my pink hair!

2006-04-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

This is all the same girl!

_________________

I miss my pink hair! I feel like when you have your look, people will assume things about you, and if those things are not true, you might feel wierd and misunderstood all the time.

Now that my hair is a regular color, I feel that people will assume things about me that are not true. Like that I am a normal or regular girl or lady or something. Its gross when I think about it. I drive a minivan, I have 4 kids, with blonde lady-hair, I am like masquerading as RandomSuburbanFrostyGoldenGrodyWoman and this forces me to want to do exciting things with my clothes to express myself except I cant afford to!

There are a few few few social situations where if I had FunkyHair I would feel really self-concious and shy, but that list of imagined places is dwindling quickly, I am happy to say.

Here is the list of places:

In any type of church or church group.
With elderly people
With people who hate me anyway

Here are the places where I don't care anymore about satisfying total strangers with a status-quo crowd-pleasing hair-hue:

Restaurants
Parks
Malls

Here are the places where I loved having a vibrant hair color:
With friends
With family
Around children
Everywhere music or art was sold

I'm probably not going to do anything about this right now, but i wanted to say it. I feel that Simple Living is not ANYTHING about blobby boring plain or ugly living, quite the opposite. It is about staying true to what is meaningful for you, to do things conciously, not on "auto-pilot". to have a reason for what you are and what you say and what you DO, not just cause Walmart or the Joneses or Glamour said so. Why do people put blue crap on their eyelids? Why do people walk on little shoes with high heels on them? Why do people tatoo themselves? I am assuming because they feel cool or hot or pretty or happy that way. Still, many people dont have any good reason for anything they do, and I bet that when asked "does your hair make you feel extremely happy and awesome?" alot of people would say "No".

How could you be a Nature Girl and still have crayola hair? Maybe dye it green ; D

Outdoor Living

2006-04-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

__________________________

When you really sit down and do the math, there are very few precious "nice" days, weather-wise, in our State. I am leaving out snow, because it is really hard to go stand out in the snow holding a 22 pound baby in a snowsuit and besides it didnt even snow this year. So, leaving out the 5-7 months that it is freezing out, and the 2-4 months that it is scorching out, and leaving out all the days that it rains or you are sick or it is heavily windy or you have to go to the dentist or something, I am gonna shout out to the universe, that on these few leftover days that may be, WE ARE GOING OUTSIDE TO PLAY, period!

There will be no books or pencils or erasers or chairs whatsoever. Last week, we got a glorious taste of SpringLiving, and man was it good. We ate breakfast and went outside in the yard. For like 7 hours. For the Day. When we wanted to run to the store, I grabbed keys. No 45-minute search for tiny boots and mittens. The kids dug in the mud, and swung up to the cloud-ies. Earth and Sky and everything in between. They ran and climbed and turned from fussy self-involved mopes of late-winter, to vibrant and useful meaningful active members of the Earth with more ideas than we had hours in the day. Even Casey was agreeable as we talked and planned trees we would plant, bushes we will buy to attract butterflies, and where to store the birdseed once the shed is full of bikes and strollers and shovels again. We had lunch on the ground and snack of popcorn later, out there, too.

I didnt quite know what I was gonna do with Charlie, but I put him in our baby swing stuffed with blankets and he instantly fell asleep! He did this twice that day, but alot of the time I held him sitting on a bench in the sunshine. I'm pretty sure that once he becomes mobile, things won't be so simple, so even more reason to enjoy these days.

We went to 3 parks in 2 days, and 2 daily walks, as well! I didnt even think about emails, phone calls or the blog, and that is good. For me, the instant we are outside, all the minutae of the past 5 months, all the teeny tiny products we obsess over, all the electronics and the detailed clothing just scram into the far far distance, and our thoughts turn to much more normalized things such as hunger, thirst, movement, lofty thoughts, dreams, poetry, music, and open conversation. To get those walls down, to be a human being on the planet, is the only true settling thing for me. I wish my comfort zone of 50-79 degrees was less limiting, or maybe thats how it is for everyone.

We are working alot on planning how to get rid of our Rectangle of Green Grass type yard and form it into a much more naturalized small forest with trails and paths and logs. We want to revel in nature, even if it is only 100x40 feet of it, not fight it and spray it and tame it and train it and be a slave against it. I really really hope our plan works.

Common objections to homeschooling

2006-03-29T09:50:00.000-08:00

http://www.naturalchild.org/common_objections/

Flower of Days

2006-03-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

A while back, I decided to write down what really was important for us to focus on for our studies. What was the "core". What we could do and if that was all we did that day (or week or many weeks) we could still feel completely on track!

I started adding little subjects to the paper and realized without meaning to, that it was making a flower.

___________________

_____________________

______________________

So, here is the original Flower of Days that I made. It has its place taped to the dining room wall, and sometimes I feel like we should make a glamorous new one, and sometimes I feel very smitten with the original, in all its crinkly unassuming rightness. This Flower of Days has been so useful to me!

So as you see, at the center are Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. These are not an option. These are basic skills that have to be practiced and honed everyday.

Reading:
Being homeschool, we can be creative, that is to say, more than just literature can count for Reading, but cereal boxes do not. We also feel strongly that children need to be read to long after they can read themselves, and so being read to is part of this as well. We include an extensive amount of Poetry.

Writing:
We assign copywork to the children pretty much from as soon as they are old enough to hold a marker. What is to be copied depends, but I like to find a bit of something seasonal or something the child might have some interest in. Copywork is to be done in the neatest handwriting possible, and is an excercise in fine motor control as well as forming the habit of paying attention, and so we keep it short.

Then there is writing for communication and pleasure--and this one is a cinch around here. The children are constantly, well into the evenings, making signs and notes and tickets and books and letters and cards, as well as typing on the computer. I feel like after the age of about 4, a major part of my communication with my kids has something to do with "Mama! How do you spell___?" I love it, and will never ever ruin the spirit of someone working happily and feverishly on their latest "novel" by refusing to spell something for them. To me, saying "look it up" to my children is very very lazy, rude, and a sure-fire way to turn a creative artist into a resentful give-upper. This cold and aggressive way of treating someone makes about as much sense to me as if your child asked you any question and your response was a bleak "look it up". So, after years of writing hearing and seeing words spelled properly, the kids are learning how to spell the words. We do allow for a modest amount of "phonics", but as there are more exceptions than rules in english, it has to be balanced with a great deal of actual writing and memorization of how to spell each word through repeated usage and eventual familiarity.

That being said, knowing how to use reference materials for oneself, as well as having a commanding grasp of alphabetical order are very important life-skills that we practice frequently. I just so happen to think they have little to do with spelling!

Arithmetic:
This encompasses everything from good old + - X % to things like clocks, money, manipulatives such as cuisenaire rods and scales, measuring with rulers, scales and cups/spoons, recipes and story problems. The internet is a wide open gold mine for awesome games and the show Cyberchase on PBS has got my 5 and 8 year olds talking about Symmetry, Fractions, Quarks, Atoms, Remainders, Decimals and Perpendicular just to name a few.
www.pbskids.org/cyberchase
www.mathworld.wolfram.com/Polygon.html
www.kids.discovery.com/games/whizzball/whizzball.html

Around the center of the flower are Character and Habits, which simply refers to how we need to work daily to live our lives peaceably and properly.

Like I said, if we never get to the Petals, we would still be doing quite well.

The Petals!
Art:
This includes all creation of anything using crayon. marker, oil pastel, paint, clay, plaster, glitter, construction paper, scissors, etc.
We also reinstated our Composer Study, where we study one particular artist for a week or so. We try to encorporate a bit about the person's background, a little project in their "style" as well as plenty of exposure to works by the artist. So far recently we have studied:
Beatrix Potter
Eric Carle
Clement Hurd
Vincent VanGogh

Cicely Mary Barker

Movement:
If you did not run and play outside that day, and you did not run and play inside that day, we do some sort of running and playing. Music, twirling ribbons, and balls all help. Parking far away from the location can be a help in the dead of winter, but most of all, we have a daily walk about 8 months out of the year. The kids can walk or ride their bike, I walk and push the stroller. These walks are some of the best times we ever have together, and can't wait to reinstate them again. usually we go from about 4-5:30 but this varies.

Music:
We have had the incredible good fortune to inherit a piano, and Greta and Mickey have started their first "official" book-lessons this week. Casey, Mickey and Greta also enjoy making up songs for me, and I never ever get sick of the happy sounds of my favorite instrument!

We also have, and actually use almost daily, a xylophone.

When Casey is a tiny bit older I will bust out my guitar.

We also listen to music daily and will begin Composer Study again very soon. We did Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Bizet, and the kids have picked up a few Classical standards from Little Einsteins and Classical Baby (TV shows).

If there is interest, professional lessons will be available in the future. We have a music lesson studio about 1/2 block from our front door that looks very nice.

Geography:
We study different regions of America at a time, not afraid to "linger" if there is a special interest. this often crosses over into history-stuff. Today we learned all about the Mississippi River and made a day of it. We are mostly sticking to America and States right now, but just out of a sort of "Whats out my front door" ethic rather than anything Amero-centric- haha! the kids definately know where France, China, India, Japan, Austrailia, north/South pole, England, Africa, Canada, Greenland are on the map. We are planning on doing more oceans and bodies of water soon.

French:
I took French from age 7-20 and thought I could impart some of this to my own children. To be honest, their interest is luke-warm as they have their hearts set on studying Japanese. I took out some books from the library as well as a CD of Japanese songs and found a couple of websites. We will see what comes of it but I support them all the way and would love to learn it alongside them. We continue to do some French weekly.

Life-Skills:

Anything useful to being a human! Laundry, cooking, using technology like the telephone, microwave, U-Scan.........just being a family and doing stuff. You can't help but "do" this one everyday, even if all you do is brush your teeth, clear your plate, tie your shoe and watch a video. But of course, we try to do much more than that : )

History+Society:

Pretty self-explanatory. We definately are working in a "living books" approach to character studies rather than textbooks, which can kill the most interesting stories of our times. We watch alot of History Channel, war shows, and have gotten into the Little House books as well as American Girl books. We have spent some time on dinosaurs, civil rights, urban sprawl, The Ice Age, and a ton about the Pioneers. Our new one is Japan, and we have 2 new books about Japanese culture from the library this week. People, places, laws, current events, local neighboorhood, where does your food come from, etc.

Computer Skills:

Greta and Mickey use the computer and internet every single day. they hunt and peck but are aware that there is a thing called "typing" and have mild interest in learning it. We might try "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" which is a game of some kind. they cruise all over Windows with word pad, notepad, internet, email, "Favorites", etc. Run the printer, make copies, and just about everything I couldnt do until like 1998 : )

Science and Nature:

Ahhh, what isnt science or nature? But basically this means we are absolutley enamoured with the Natural World, and spend a ton of our time discovering and learning about it. Library books and Animal Planet help us out during the winter months but the children spend a great deal of time outside most of the year. Some of our favorite hang-outs are:
Local Nature center where they know us by name
Another Nature Center that has trails to walk
Local beach
7 major parks we go to frequently
Daily Walks
Camping
Backyard/Front Yard

We keep Nature Notebooks into which we draw "what we see". Even toddlers get to keep one, and when possible, on the opposite page we write something about what we drew, perhaps the Latin Name if it is a known specimen, a relevant short poem, or some other simple addition or embellishment.

Our front yard has been an amazing insect world for Greta since we moved here. Mickey respects her willingness to touch all the insects, and he works by her side, but she does almost all the dirty work, per se, lifting each stone and taking out all the critters. Worms, grubs, centipedes, pillbugs, beetles, ants, moths, praying mantis(!), caterpillars and slugs are their favorite front yard pals, into all my good tupperware they go, into which of course comes leaves, grass, and assorted items to make their little "homes" so much cushier.

Our backyard has a tiny pond and lots of good bird-watching opportunities in the big Oak tree or the Horse-Chestnut tree. We have made alot of crafts with the acorns and buckeyes (conkers) through the years, as well as watching the fish live grow and die in our little pond. We had 2 little toads for almost a year, who loved to swim in the pond, and whom Greta was convinced she had "trained" to hop along the swingset!

For most young children, botany and biology are appropriate science subjects, but we have gotten into a bit of chemistry and physics as well. I keep taking out those "101 experiements to do at home" books but they either are too hard or too dumb or require way more adults-to-children ratio or older kids or something than I have here....but we know about baking soda and vinegar, cornstarch and water, lemon batteries, we play with magnets alot, and ummm maybe when Charlie is 3 we will be more willing and able to give up an entire room for some volcano or explosives and whatnot.

Well, that is our Flower of Days! I am going to stick with this for a long, long time unless/until it seems like it no longer suits our needs, it will be our School Flower!

How we handle the age diffferences:

Much like one would think, sometimes we do seperate Mommy-Time and sometimes we do Greta+Mickey and sometimes all of us do a subject together. As in the old one-room schoolhouses I suppose, the older child does more extensive work than the younger one(s). For example, today, we learned all about the Mississippi River. I told them a story about the River. Then we looked and took turns touching it on the big map. Then we took turns saying which States it bordered and influenced. Then we learned a little song of how you spell M-i-ss-iss-i-pp-i. Then we drew in our Main notebooks Lake Itasca, which is where the river starts, the river coming down, the Gulf of Mexico. Well obviously Greta's looked really neat and tidy and little Mickey's was scrawly and big and that's just something we don't even worry about. When it was time to draw in the states, Greta quietly wrote them in, wheras I had to spell them for Mickey and Casey ran away to go play. Totally natural and fine. Then Mickey was getting antsy so he got to do something else while Greta and I wrote some more things down in the book, filled in our hand-drawn states, and talked some more about rivers and commerce. We finished up by asking Mickey back to join us in painting huge pictures of what we thought the river would look like on long butcher paper, continued to sing the M-i-ss-i-ss-i-pp-i song and began to tidy up all the mess by lunch.

Other times where age is/isnt an issue is in Math. I simply give Greta "harder" problems.

I do not talk to Mickey about injustice or war like I do with Greta. I will be able to feel when he is more ready for that. He is just now getting curious about truth-in-advertising and moral issues such as factory farming and corporate greed.

I guess it is pretty intuitive, and not an issue. Mickey does less or easier work, as seems appropriate, but there isnt any fuss or to-do about it, as we dont have any thing here about "hating" "school", as i dont really approach it that way....so there isn't too much about anyone being "lucky" to do less work or any of that.

COSI Toledo

2006-03-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

A couple of weekends ago, we took a trip to COSI, in Toledo. It was really really a peaceful, spacious wonderful place! Greta rode a bicycle across a wire way up in the air, Mickey made a giant soap bubble go around his whole body, Casey measured his running speed........we all did so much fun stuff!

I want to go back frequently, preferrably with another adult or two (or more!) It was really fun, but could be much better if we had a couple more hands with us. We saw a lot of families (with only one or two old kids! )who brought grandma and grandpa along, or some friends, and the parents looked a bit, less, WIGGED out, you could say.

So, if anyone ever wants to caravan to COSI with us someday, please let us know! It is the furthest thing from "for kids only"....... we have an annual pass now and can go for free 'til next March!
http://www.cositoledo.org/calendar/index.htm

Check it out!

town and country

2006-03-23T09:46:00.000-08:00

In flip-flopping my entire first 30 years of life between wanting to live somewhere culturally vibrant like Vancouver or Seattle and wanting to live in an actual cabin in the actual woods, I am now starting to try to settle on all of it.

(if we could afford a "cottage" all i would do is want to stay there everyday so why not follow that path....)

So here are a few of my internal pros/cons, moral dilemnas, truths for my family, what have you:

I want the children to run and run and run and run in the fresh air.

**************

The cult of American Lawn Obsession makes me ill.

**************

I don't want to be somewhere so rural and lonesome and backwards that the fun activity for kids is making crystal meth or huffing paint

***************

I hate suburban row-housing, especially as it translates to the current societal norms of not looking at or knowing your neighbors whatsoever, yet living 20 feet apart from each other.

***************

I would like to be somewhere where we could meet radical families, where you might see some kids "out" in the daytime, some people on their FRONT porches, some Mommies with crazy hair, some vans with bumper stickers, some diapers on the clotheslines, some chalk on the sidewalks, and maybe some Radiohead or Iggy on the stereos.

***************

I would like there to be better birds at our feeder than just sparrow (we did get a few cool ones last year)

****************

I want to be by a lake that isnt closed due to fecal coli every summer

****************

I want to be in State or country where "country" doesnt mean country. Like, because you love trees and birds you can also still read and write and arent a racist hunter who thinks mountain dew is a fine dinner.

***************

I do not want to live in a high-rise just because I hate devoting 3 seasons of the year obsessing over the maintenance of idiotic GRASS.

****************

I want to live somewhere where you could have maybe one pet chicken or duck and not go to jail.

*****************

I want community but would like to step outside on a summer morning and not have anyone creepy staring at me if I looked shaggy while having a quiet bird-watching coffee.

*****************

I probably would move to The Farm in Tennessee if Steve were more into it. Maybe we can go down there and visit this summer.

www.thefarm.org

In the meantime, I am going to work and work on simplifying here at home, and looking into Urban Homesteading, alternatives to lawns, etc.

http://home.twcny.rr.com/allenz/lawns.htm

http://www.lesslawn.com/index.html

http://arboretum.conncoll.edu/salt/salt.html

simple living link

2006-03-17T16:43:00.000-08:00

Please check out this link for a Voluntary Simplicity website. It saves me the grief of trying to paraphrase anything, and it is definately worth your time.

http://www.simpleliving.org/indexoth.php?place=what.php

______________________________

pink hair

2006-03-17T12:09:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to dye my hair a bright, clear, red, it turned out a bright, clear pink. Now, I have been coloring my hair for about 12 years, and I have had many, many hits and many, many misses. Its all par for the course when you are your own hairdresser, as well as a creative and impulsive person, I suppose. I have had "ash blonde" turn out greenish, "pale brown" turn out silvery purple, and other various mistakes that were easily correctable.

But this is different. It is really, really PINK! Like the artist named Pink. Like Gwen Stefani. Like Lil' Kim. Like a highlighter or a clearance tag or a neon sign, P-I-N-K! So, my hair is pink. I thought, well, the kids think it is genius, the neighbor girl thinks I am some kind of super-goddess, I can't really get out to the beauty supply store until the weekend to "fix" it, might as well go on with my life. I'll wear my converse instead of my mom-shoes, I'll do up my makeup a little funky-er, and I'll go take the kids out per our plans.

WOW. Like, I shouldnt be surprised and yet I am. People really really were hating the hair. And me! they just treated me SO differently that I am used to being treated! I was definately not imagining it, and it sucked! No one would talk to me, or the kids. They tut-tutted and grumbled. Seriously! Would I do that to someone? Did they think I was somehow a bad or wierd or unworthy etc etc etc person over something like this? I am not naive, nor am I pretending in any way that I am now a persecuted people or any such nonsense, but the vibes were very very real. It wasn't "Whoa thats some nutty hair" it was like I was total scum. In 2006!

i try to find little lessons where I can, and long after this weekend when I dont have pink hair anymore, I will hold onto this one:

When you look at people with disgust or disdain, no matter how quickly or secretly or tiny or subtly you do it, they can see it and feel it and it is totally crappy. You dont know anyone you see in passing anymore than they know you.

Beyond sexism

2006-03-13T11:53:00.000-08:00

To me, the issue of gender roles for children and the crippling limits of sex-bias is a long favorite topic. Since high school ( ! ) I have been fascinated by the theories of (mostly 3rd wave)feminism, and children. What it means to raise kids who are true to their hearts, what it means to be a mama and still be so much more than a mama, equality and balance in a marriage, etc. I would say if I had had a "minor" in college, it would have been something along these lines, seeing as I took many more classes than needed in this area for my basic psych. degree.

So, all that being said, I had my basic ideas in my head about if and when I ever had a child or children, what I was gonna do to try and live free of gender stereotypes in order to help release whatever "true" self was inside of the child. I planned on comfortable primary colored clothing, creative, open-ended toys, yellow bicycles and plenty of Daddy in the kitchen/Mommy fixing and building stuff. I was also open to the realistic possibility of a dolly-loving daughter or a super-jock son and fully willing to support that as well. I naively thought that this was about all that I would face, at least in the early years. (This was before I knew we would end up homeschooling)

I thought at least on a surface level, that most people we would encounter along the road of parenthood would say that they felt that it was a noble cause to "raise a strong girl" or a "loving, emotionally intelligent son"; given the fact that it was the modern era, and knowing at least a little bit about me and the things I was "into".

I am sorry to report that this has not been the case.

We have had issues upon issues with people imposing thier hangups on us and attempting to put these onto our children. And if something is going really lovely in our lives, that gets attacked, too.

My number one major imaginary "issue" I am currently finding myself defending right now is the fact that Greta and Mickey are the best of friends. HUH? a normal person would think. Dont we all want our children to get along, play nicely, etc? Isnt "Sibling Rivalry" the number one parenting problem facing bookstores and counselors today?

__________________

________________________

yes yes and yes, but alas, since my children are sweet and close and respectful and play with each other, we must invent a problem. so here is the imaginary problem: Greta and Mickey are (GASP!) not the same gender. You heard it right. So therefore, their loving relationship has fallen outside of the narrow idiotic box-boundaries that include such age-old comforting favorite stereotypes as Annoying little brother and Bossy big sister.

Who knows what kind of earth-shattering thing will occur when Casey and Charlie begin to follow in this pattern? Might we have a peaceful family?! Wouldnt that be embarassing! How wierd! The sitcom said so!

there is also another "clause" or "easy-out" for people when judging my family, if thinking that maybe just maybe I have done a good job with my kids is too unthinkable, and thinking that they might just be "good" is too difficult, there is always BLAME HOMESCHOOLING. Maybe if the children were apart from each other all day everyday they wouldnt be such good friends. Yep, probably. But where I see that as an enourmous benefit of homeschooling, it can also be twisted around all distortedly into something ugly. I am certain that this will be my case to bear until the last of them is 18.but why?

Look, I am being sarcastic and cross, because I feel that way. I am mad about this bullcrap. I am sick of it all. Im sick of gender stuff, it is so tedious and limiting and I don't want my kids to play a part of anyone else's wierd issues from their past. My kids are who they are, and I am verrrrrry proud of them. I like that they are into what they are into, and that they have had a true and open chance in their lives to really find their way among all the clothes and movies and toys and products and lifestyles available nowadays and to come out of todays insane marketing evil corporate landscape quite unscathed and whole. i think they make really healthy unique creative choices, and that they live genuine lives---much more so than I and probably you have been able to, (although i am definately still working on conquering all of that for my own self, I find midwestern suburban hell to be stifling, sickening and smothering me most of the time, clouding my ability to be "me", whoever she really really is)

There is so much to say on the subject of sexism as it applies to todays' child. So for now, I will wind up this part one by simply saying I am through with the insanity that my children are "supposed to" anything, especially hate each other. We dont have annoying little brother here, we have names and faces and hearts and feelings and we are humans who love each other. Even when we are not getting along that day, there is a love and an understanding that has nothing to do with boy or girl. and if that makes you uncomfortable or jealous or you cant understand, then that is your problem to deal with. GO hang out with a family that doesnt get along--they arent hard to find. I've gotta go help Greta and Mickey work on turning their bunk-bed into a fishing boat........complete with fishing nets because they dont wanna hurt the fishies' mouths with hooks.

____________________

nursing gallery

2006-03-10T18:56:00.000-08:00

Super cool website, wish I wasn't so sleepy, I could think of a better word than supercool.

yawwwwn from this Mama, I'm off to sleepyland with my baby---I hope people can enjoy these precious photos of mamas and their little ones who all decided not to have their lunch in a toilet stall that day. peace.

http://www.projectgotbreastmilk.com/gallery/index.html

The circle of simplicity

2006-03-09T12:26:00.000-08:00

The Circle of Simplicity

I just read the most awesome and perfect book I have ever read. It is called The Circle of Simplicity, by Cecile Andrews. This is one of many books ou there on the subject of Voluntary Simplicity. It is not that the content is anything so new or so different, in fact the opposite. There isn't hardly one thing in this book that I haven't thought or felt before, but, I just never put it all together in this manner.

I am talkin' about, like, throw away (recycle) all your other books. Erase all your web-favorites. Peel off your bumper stickers. Scratch all the clever quotes off your notebook. Re-paint the inside of your locker. All you need is this book, now, in your back pocket--kind of a book. Like, I wanna be one of those obsessed people who buys up all the copies and hands them out of the back of my van. Dead serious.

i just cannot express how many books I have read in my lifetime about parenting, the environment, homeschooling, health, economics, psychology, relationships, women's health, natural foods, de-cluttering, living authentically, etc etc etc etc etc infinity......when all it was about was this idea of Simplicity, and the Voluntary Simplicity movement. Duh duh duh how did i miss this one? Well i am glad it has come to my attention now.

--------------------------------------------

To just be thinking about these things, to have something enlivening going through my head, can be and is enough today. This is not about Self-Denial or Survivalism or more guilt for me. It is about consciencious living. about being awake. About seeing what is working and what isnt working and changing it. About noticing what is life-affirming and what is deadening. about every Hallmark-y cliche referring to stopping and smelling the roses and kids only playing with the cardborard box being true or holding the possibility of truth for you. About the poetry guy on the riverbank with his backpack and his dog being much much happier than you and your neighbor and billgates and thedonald combined and stopping right now to see what that is all about right now right now. the imaginary people arent really judging you, and the real people who are can and should be weeded out of your life.

________________________________________________________

Part 2: What we are gonna do now that we have somewhat dabbled our toes in living outside the box and realized the earth still spins and the sun still shines---is it time to really jump in with both feet?

TV: Steve and I have discussed television and its role in our lives and our family for 10+ years now. We see how much we have learned from PBS, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and how much we enjoy Survivor and the occasional film. We also see how passive and negative and inferior and dissatisfied and lazy and competitive and horrendous it makes us all act when we watch it. We see how nobody ever ever chooses toys or books until the TV is officially "OFF", making it somehow the subconcious number one choice. We see how much it eats up our only precious evening adult time together, and how much fun we have when we choose hanging out listening to music over watching shows. We see how we design our whole homes around this flashing commercial machine, buying specially shaped couches and chairs, stringing special wires and lines and dishes and boxes, all to get a front row seat to dullsville, the best opportunity to lose another hour or two or seven. We see how even the most active children will mysteriously be able to sit completely still for HOURS at a time, and how messed up that is, no matter how convenient. We see how magical our children behave when they are punished in the form of "no TV", and how awesome it was 3 years ago when we couldnt afford cable.

What could we do as a family about this TV issue? this is what Steve and I are heavily discussing right now. TV and TiVo and Satellite only upstairs in our bedroom, for special treat or illness? or maybe Cold turkey, nothing for anyone, and our media could be New York Times, watch films and listen to radio and internet? or maybe Go down to just 2 /4 / 7 /pbs and wait for interest to die down? don't know yet.

This is nothing about the shows on TV being bad or dangerous or evil or yucky, that is irrelevant. this is about over and over experiencing how we behave/what activities we choose as a family instead of TV when it is banished/unavailable and wanting that to be what we do all the time now. For some people, "just turn it off" would be enough, and I am not referring to willpower, I am referring to it may be wierd to have the Television set at all. The huge black box would still be there in its exalted place as the crown jewel of our front room of our home.......and that could be sort of wierd.......maybe if it was off in a small corner?? Or gone, truly gone.

I dont know yet. I mean, what a huge deal we made of becoming vegetarians, we thought it was such a big deal, we thought we would be wierd, too odd, what would people think? Whatever would we eat? What if we got invited to McDonalds? How silly! These are such non-issues as to be endearingly laughable, but it was made into some Big Thing at the time. So silly now! Who gives a damn? whoopdeedoo?! Perhaps the TV thing will become that way, too. I think I wanna get rid of it, and I think we will have a lot of fun together without it. Its not really about whether we like it 'cuz yes we do like some of it. But I really wanna be freed from the whole deal, 99% of the time.

Housing:

To be living simply, must we move to a tiny cabin? Must we grow our own cotton, weave our own clothes? Have no electricity, eat only beans? See, this type of thinking is wrong from the start, because of the "must". To be true to thy own self, only you could decide if the cabin and the beans and the cotton would work for you. Would you feel more free, closer to the authentic you? Then at once you should make plans to get closer to this. But what I got out of the book, and the movement and what I understand of it, living a pretend lifestyle is the tragedy, doing whatever you are told to by an outside source is the issue, so no more "should" you do the cabin than a high rise apartment, if it was in contrast to your own personal ethics.

We grapple with the house thing all the time, all the time. Our house is too small to move around in, too huge to clean, too old to not fix up, so old it is the only cool thing left on our block. too many rooms, no "room". yard too small to feel like we live in the country, yet WAY too big to take care of or maintain. we flip flop constantly with moving to a gorgeous apartment/townhouse 100 feet from Steve's work, with five swimming pools, basements, 2 1/2 baths, a 17 acre park out our front door, having steve with us 15 more hours a week (no more 2 hour commute, lunches with us as well) paid water bill, ZERO maintenance...............to downsizing to something akin to the cabin, with accompanying downsizing of consumption, waste, and having both Steve and I working pleasurable, fulfilling part time jobs and using life skills to earn money here and there in alternative ways.

Which one is the right choice? We dont know yet. We have a lot to talk about and a lot of soul searching to do. I will be adding more here soon. We are working on decluttering our home as well as our minds. We have some cool ideas for the kids' birthday parties so we dont get anymore toys! looking forward to exploring this further,,,,,,,,PLEASE borrow my book!

heres a couple neat links to some stuff like this

www.theworkingcentre.com/index.php?cPath=75

www.newdream.org

the newest in Bowling Action

2006-03-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

Charlie and Adrienne!

Casey's trauma over leaving was somewhat eased with a lollipop and a tiara

Greta got on the board of Stars! For bowling most over her average! Cammie got on the board, too! GO CAT CLUB

Smooshy baby Charlie

The hi-fi technology. Makes me wanna play Pong.

Dada lovingly squeezing the heck out of Casey in an attempt to keep him off the lanes for just a little longer

Charlie loves his hat (not)

Yay!

Vulcan nerve pinch (im kidding!!!!)

Mysterious little dance! Go Greta!

Thank you, Detroit!

The fine dining chez bowling alley

Very lovely!

Go Cammie!

Payton and Cammie, Adrienne's little ones.

Mickey running up for the shot

Charlie says goodbye for now! See you next Saturday!

what is the issue????????

2006-03-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

i hate what has happened to my blog. i have gone and deleted so many cool pictures, even whole entries like the cloth diaper one. and still my little "profile" is all jammed down at the bottom. it hasnt fixed anything. i am really mad. i wish someone would give me some advice. i wish someone would write me any comments. i cannot do a blog with no pictures. dear Barb called me an artist. maybe thats it.

SIGH

bye

Feng Sui

2006-03-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

Feng Sui

__________________

I have no business using this word because I do not really know what it means. Sometimes words, through pop culture, get a more casual meaning that is accepted. I am trying to say good vibes in the home through design. The only thing I know about Feng Sui is that my friend Victoria told me your feet shouldn't point out of your doorway when you sleep, 'cause your energy flows right out the door and you will feel like crap.

but all I am trying to say, is that in this Tiny/Big old house, it is fun and maddening and necessary to switch rooms around. With the addition of new babies, new needs, new furniture, we often move our stuff around.

We moved our two front rooms around again this weekend, and it is really really nice in here. it looks like we got an addition on the house! I told several people about this, and they were sort of cold about it like they were laughing at me or sick of me being excited about things or something. PHOOEY to them. I am EXCITED! the vibes are ASTONISHING, the kids spent the entire day yesterday saying "I love it in here now, Mama, I feel so happy today, Mama!" So I feel grateful to have such asthetic children who are as sensitive to their environment as I am.

It was a great thing to do to welcome spring, as I am looking out two sunny windows right now as I type, instead of a little wall. Phooey phooey phooey! Maybe all my naysayers should take a look at their own toesies tonight when they go to sleep. Anyones' pointing out the door? ; )

Winter baby

2006-03-06T11:58:00.001-08:00

Winter Baby

___________

When I was pregnant with Charlie, I really thought it was going to be quite awful to have a Winter Baby. I have three summer babies, and so I thought it would be a nightmarish christmas, and pictured dragging a screaming newborn out to the malls. I imagined being snappy and evil and weak through all the required holiday family visits. I thought we would go stir crazy. I pictured having to bundle up the baby with snowsuits and hats and running the car in the driveway for 1/2 hour to warm it up. I envisioned feeling trapped, isolated, and I feared post-partum depression under the weight and pressure of the scrutinous family who doubted my homeschooling skills and feared the lack of assistance I would have to endure again.......

Somebody get this chicky-Mama the world's tinyest violin! Waaa Waaa and a Sam's Club box of kleenex! Sheesh! I am very happy to report that it has been nothing like that at all! (And all of this was when I was certain I would have a sweet and gentle homebirth in "October"! not an overdue baby, another brutal CSection, a blood transfusion, etc)

It has been really, really nice to have a winter baby. Damn glad, all around, and I aim to tell ya why!

It has been SUCH a slow recovery, physically, this time around, and I tell you what: I have been damn glad for my big soft warm cozy comfy baggy thick clothes. They have protected my incredibly painful tummy and covered my generous maternal fat stores very well. I have been damn glad for my dark evenings and my husband curled up with me everynight on the couch by 7:30. I have been damn glad for NetFlix and TiVo and pizza delivery and Killian's Irish Red. I have been damn glad for video games and CDRoms and Blogging ; ) I had lots of help with the older children, from all kinds of sources. I have been damn glad for this incredible hibernation period, which just wouldn't have been the same if it was summertime.

No skimpy clothes
No State Fair
No water park
No pool
No hot hot hot hot hot nights (prolactin is a killer hormone for being too hot)
No heat rash
No sunburned baby/cant use sunscreen until they are 6 months
No social pressure to go on walks, swimming, picnics, or to stay up late and party
No air conditioner guilt (mama is hot but maybe the baby is cold)

ahhhh the list goes on. did I mention no skimpy clothes? I am so so so so so so so GRATEFUL for this right now, and it isnt about being 1000 pounds heavier than I would like. It is just the sheer comfort, emotionally as well as physically, of being so incredibly sore and stiff and pinched and aching and exhausted and just taking a hot shower and putting on my long sleeve t shirts and my sweaters and my hoodies and my cardigans and my jeans or my "athletic" (haha!) pants, thick socks, grabbing a quilt, my boppy pillow, and baby Charlie, and DIVING into the couch for a nice restful evening with Steve. Not rockin' and rollin'. Not hot to trot. Not goin' places. Hibernating, recooperating, eating, resting, drinking my fluids, taking my vitamins, going slow.

Charlie is 4 months old now, and I am JUST NOW BARELY able to say I feel like I am coming around from the birth. Spring is coming soon, and it is going to be perfect timing! i am ready to walk again. I am ready to stretch it out. I am ready to move Charlie to the big boy carseat (dont have a choice he is over the weight and height of the infant carrier!) and let him actually sit in the stroller on his own. i am ready to open the windows. I am ready to go to Eastern Market. I am ready to wash the porch with the hose and I am ready to pack up my maternity shirts to sell on Ebay.

Welcome spring! Thank you winter for protecting me and the baby. We really needed it.

.

Music we are diggin right now

2006-03-06T11:58:00.000-08:00

Here is how it all started:
It was fall of 2001. Greta was 4 and Mickey was 1. Steve was in Wyoming. We were listening to the "Kids" station on the digital cable. I heard a song that made my head whip around. It was called Rover, by a band called The Roches. I hummed it all day. We went to the library and we saw it on cassette. I was so surprised! We checked it out and fell IN LOVE with the songs.

* * * * * *

Now, I thought that I knew a little bit about folk music, and I knew there were tons of kids' music collections out there, but my limited knowledge of either subject held me back into stereotypes and prejudices. Like for example, I thought "folk music" was exclusively acoustic guitar stuff you heard at camping. Kumbya and Bob Dylan. (I enjoy both somewhat, BTW). And I thought "kids' music" was pretty much some syrupy, insincere renditions of baa baa black sheep and the Wheels on the Bus you could buy at the gas station.

boy was I wrong!

Okay, so after we learned to love The Roches, our next big band came to us courtesy, again, of the digital cable station. Again my head whipped around, and in the sea of hideous annoying screechy commercial C-R-A-P, came the glorious harmonic sounds of The Babysitters. I knew instantly that it was an old recording, and had to know more. I got their CD off of amazon for Christmas that year. This band has a truly all-star cast, including Alan Arkin. 1974, truly incredible, xylophone, guitar.

* * * * * *

While reading the liner notes from The Babysitters, I saw time and time again that the songs were over 50% covers of songs by Woody Guthrie. I was sort of surprised! I had definately heard of him, but knew only about his dust-bowl ballads and his political stances. I had to know more immediately. But this time it was a little harder. There were a few things on amazon that were sold out, out of print, and Ebay was the same story. The libraries had nothing. Steve and I started learning more and more about Woody online, and learned about the Smithsonian Folkways record label. going this route, we were able to access some stuff off of amazon, and a few months ago steve ordered me Woody Guthrie's Songs To Grow On For Mother And Child. it is so awesome. We knew a few of the songs from the Babysitters, and alot were new to us. it has a really REALLY organic feeling to it, sparse and human, like this guy is your dad's funny friend, and he came over one night after supper and started clacking a couple of spoons on his knee, and the baby loved it and the dog howled, and mama hummed along and the kids jumped and clapped. When I say "organic", I mean, like really really really raw, like a heartbeat or a train, this recording is from 1946, and the few little cultural referneces that are now obsolete make this all the more endearing to me. Many times it is out of tune, awkward, and wonderful. The very first song on this CD is almost like a little chant, and for a moment I thought, oh no this isnt what I thought it was gonna be, and then Greta, Mickey, and Casey INSTANTLY busted into this wild dancing attack, squealing and freaking out, and I knew we had a winner. it is so, so good. it is real songs that Woody made up for his wife and children, and you can feel it so much.

* * * * * *

On that same record label, Smithsonian Folkways, we just oirdered a CD called Smithsonian Folkways Children's Music Collection, and man, is it diverse! There are songs from all over the world, some even in different languages, it is just great. Unlike anything else I have ever heard. The liner notes tell alot about the history of the label, and give even more directions you could follow and shoot off into. So promising!

* * * * * *

Another SO KOOL addition is a band called Lunch Money, that we got courtesy of Beth for Casey's second birthday. Here is their website, PLEASE look at it!
http://www.lunchmoneymusic.com/

* * * * * *

Our very newest purchase is Woody Guthrie's Nursery Days, and it is much like the other one, wonderful and raw and plain and intense and odd and cool and catchy catchy catchy---Casey has begun to make up alot of little daily songs, as Greta and Mickey also did around this age, and it is so obvious to hear the Wooody Guthrie cadence in his rhymes! LOVE IT.

So, here can be your essential starter kit for a musical journey of this nature:

* * * * * *
The Roches, Will You Be My Friend?

The Babysitters, Best of the Babysitters

Woody Guthrie, Nursery Days

Woody Guthrie, Songs To Grow On For Mother And Child

Smithsonian Folkways Children's Music Collection

Lunch Money, Silly Reflections

* * * * * *

* * * * * *

I want to thank these artists and bands from the bottom of my heart for showing me this kind of music, and I can say with 100% honesty that this stuff is so good I would, will, and do listen to it with or without any kids around.