I Hear the Baby Birds

A Woman's Place Is In The Bookstore

2007-01-22T12:22:00.000-08:00

Last week I had to go on the road to help out DH. While I was gone I spent my days far differently than I normally do... I had long blocks of time with nothing required of me, and then short bursts of intense and focused work. The nothing-required time gave me a rare opportunity: to hang out at the B&N like an unemployed IT guy! Wow, what fun!

I think I read every home decorating magazine out there, a couple of business rags, and lots of bits and pieces, whatever seemed interesting at the time. I also reread Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge. It challenged me again to confront what it means to be female - not by examining the hats I wear but by examining my heart, who I am at my core. Fascinating and frightening. Then I came home and went to a marriage conference put on by Dan Allender, where he spent a good part of the weekend analyzing marriage issues in light of what it means to be a man or a woman. I feel like I could spend the next year working out these issues and still only scratch the surface.

Back on the homeschool front, my kids got very little done while I was away. In fact, the amount accomplished follows the age of the kid in a direct and linear fashion: 13yo got almost everything done; 11yo did lots but little math and no grammar (argh!); and 7yo did n.o.t.h.i.n.g. It was a true test of self-control for me today when I discovered her complete lack of progress in anything. But I'm happy to report that there was no yelling, only matter-of-fact consequences. I consider this progress in me (and am happy that God does not yell at me for my lapses).

Small Talk

2007-01-16T16:17:00.000-08:00

For the last week, my wonderful dh has been speechless. Literally. Last Tuesday he underwent surgery to have a node removed from his vocal cords, and a key part of his recovery was the requirement of "total vocal rest." No talking, whispering, humming, even whistling. Coughing only if he had to.

How do you think you'd respond to a week of silence? I think it'd be very insightful. You know where dh found it most difficult? At the dinner table. Sitting around eating the evening meal, talking and laughing, the kids and I had no idea how hard it was for Dad to sit quietly. He wanted to participate! To joke with us! Typing his responses on his laptop was frustratingly slow.

But he also found that, during the day, he was amazingly productive. He tackled all kinds of boring administrative work: Budgeting. Answering non-urgent emails. Researching. And he found that he could get a LOT done when no one was calling. (And we didn't call him - what would be the point? A phone is useless if you can't even whisper. Unless it has text messaging.)

But today, the ban was lifted. The doc cleared dh to speak again... and his voice was music to my ears. It'll be a month or two, they say, before his voice is back to optimal clarity. That's okay with all of us, especially him. You don't have to have perfect vocal clarity to participate in family dinner again.

Time to Check Back In

2007-01-10T13:21:00.000-08:00

Well, if you're reading this right now, then you either have RSS feed or you're really persistent. I know it's been a long time. Forever in Blogworld. For whatever reason I have not been able to write for months, trying but finding that my thoughts to be small and scattered. For the past few days, though, they've seemed more solid, almost visible when I close my eyes, so I'm venturing an attempt to capture them here.

I guess a good place to begin would be to update you on what has happened with my father. My dad is much, much better, physically. He is not the person he used to be, and I've gradually come to realize (and grieve) that he will not be that person again. But releasing the old Dad has surprisingly opened my eyes to the new Dad. This Dad has a terrible short-term memory and bouts of confusion and a frailer body, but his warm heart and the smile that lights up his face when we come to see him are warmer and lighter than they have ever been. He's more joyful, happier than he's been in years. He knows all of us who love him, all the time, even if he doesn't remember our conversation from the last visit. He is game for most any adventure or outing, regales us with funny stories from his childhood, and showers us with appreciation for anything we do for him.

What's more, I am not the person I was before my dad's crisis. I'm making the transition from the daughter who calls on her parents for help to the daughter on whom her parents rely for help. It is a strange position and has taken some getting used to. I did not know how much I loved my dad until I discovered that I can be patient with him when he's telling me the same story for the fourth time in one hour. Really patient, not just pretending to be. I did not know that I would stop feeling frustrated over all the old patterns and tug-of-wars that children play with their parents and start feeling amused by them, even grateful for them.

My dad no longer punches the same buttons he used to in me. Maybe it's the transfer of power; maybe it's the beginning of realizing that I'm standing on my own, and that I will be okay. The strength I got from him no longer depends on his physical presence but on the memories and experiences and lessons he spent years cultivating in me, that have now not only rooted but blossomed into their own being, separate from him but owing their existence to him. It's a wondrous lesson that I can hardly believe.

I have more to say about this process, later. I'm very hopeful that I'm back for a long while.

A Little More Time

2006-09-21T19:19:00.000-07:00

My dad has been in the hospital for a week and a half. Whereas for a lot of people this would cause a lot of anxiety and hand-wringing, for my sisters and me it was a cause for rejoicing, as our Daddy just has not been himself for the last few months and we thought it was well-past time that someone figured out what was wrong. He was forgetting things - lots of things. He couldn't really carry on a conversation with you - it would either be one-word answers, or the same sentence, over and over again. (Spooky, as our Dad is the Champion Endurance Talker of the Century, once holding an old high school buddy of mine captive on the phone for 45 minutes talking about turkey hunting. It took my friend at least a year before he would even call me again.)

At any rate, the kicker was, for about 2 weeks prior to his hospitalization, my dad would not get out of bed. He wouldn't eat. He just lay there, sleeping or staring at a muted TV. It was A.W.F.U.L. When he finally did get up, he went for a haircut, fell out of the chair, and didn't remember falling. That was it. We (Mom and I) took him to the neurologist the next day.

I'm happy to say, one hospital visit and lots of new medications later, my dad is SO much better. He is diabetic, and had let his blood sugar stay way too high for way too long. He also has hypothyroidism, which was going practically untreated. Those conditions are now under control. But the best thing is that he has a renewed state of mind and emotional health, if you know what I mean. I feel like at least a glimmer of the old Dad is back.

I know not everyone gets to keep their parents around for as long as I have. But I'm not ashamed to admit selfishness on this point. I want 'em as long as I can have 'em, and I want 'em as they are - not shells, not bodies without spark or personality. I hope the last two weeks have bought us a little more time together, and I plan to use it. Even if it means listening to turkey stories.

On the Home(School) Front

2006-09-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been doing school around here for about a month, and I have not yet posted about how our year is going so far. Actually, I've been holding my breath a bit, waiting to see if it gets harder. But, I have to say with a little sigh of relief, that I think it's gonna be okay.

For one thing, we're all in new math programs, and that is working out well. You know why? Not because the programs themselves are necessarily better, or my kids like them more. No, it's this: all of them are Mastery programs. You know, some math programs are Spiral-based: they teach a little of a skill, then a little of something else, then a little of a third thing, then come back around to the first thing and teach the next step. That seems to work well for a lot of kids. Not mine, though. Or maybe I should say, not for ME. I got so frustrated when my kids could not get through their math without tons of errors, and then I'd go to try and correct them, and then we'd have to backtrack 20 lessons to find the one little skill they never mastered so that they could not make the rest of the problems work out.

With their new programs, we stay on a skill till I know they've GOT it. If they get more than 3 or 4 problems wrong, we do more of the same the next day. We're not moving on until it is solid. Math is taking a long time this way... but it is SO much easier to correct. And I don't have that horrible twisty feeling in my guts that they are going to blow their math exams in high school because I've failed them as a teacher now.

Someone asked me what we are using - it's Chalkdust for the boys, and Math-U-See for the girl. Yeah, the MUS is a little on the easy side... but I'm okay with that. It's very homeschool friendly, with none of the silly classroom stuff that wastes hours of time, and it's very visual. We're doing two pages a day. The Chalkdust is pretty good. There's a video instructor who teaches each lesson, then the boys do the problem sets that go with the video. I do like being able to control how much practice they get.

At Classical School (the one-day-a-week program the boys attend), the year has gotten off to a good start. Things that were excruciatingly hard for DS2 last year have miraculously gotten easier, such as writing papers. Grammar and Latin we have been doing together, and that is paying off - DS aced his first tests in both subjects! (This TRULY is miraculous, believe me!) Their teacher has come up with a clever plan for Latin... I just love this. Even though the boys are a year apart in the program, they are on the same lessons in the Latin book because the older class started Latin at the same time as the younger class. DS1 is head of his class in Latin, which his little competitive heart just loves, but there are a couple of other kids hot on his heels. So their teacher made a deal with DS1 - he could earn extra credit every time HIS BROTHER aces a Latin quiz or test. In other words, if DS1 helps DS2 succeed, they both win. How cool is that? The best part is... it's working. DS1 has taken over Latin lessons with his brother. Heh, heh, heh. Let the revolution begin.

DD and I are whizzing through First Language Lessons and Story of the World Vol. 1. That's because we were supposed to be halfway done with the former and completely done with the latter by the end of last year, but sadly, we weren't. So I'm trying to stay completely on track this year to catch up. We're skipping some of the SOTW lessons, which is unfortunate, but hey, if we didn't I don't think we'd finish the book by the end of THIS year! I'm hoping to start Vol. 2 in a couple of weeks, and again, we'll have to skip a few chapters, but we should be able to finish up, which is the goal. One thing I do know by now, after 6.25 years of homeschooling, is that you have to be master of the curriculum and not let it master you.

Let's see, what have I left out? Piano lessons! We have another new teacher (long story), but the big advantage of this guy is he comes to my house! Woo hoo! This is so efficient! And I really like him as a teacher... he is very focused, and positive, but he has high standards, which has helped my kids want to practice. Whew. We are not doing any sports right now... which needs to be corrected... but we'll get there. Right now I'm feeling like we're not TOO busy, and not TOO idle, and I hate to upset the balance. Margin is a good thing.

Round Here

2006-09-05T19:07:00.001-07:00

On The Other Side of the World

Were you as sad as I was to learn of Steve Irwin's death? Yeah, yeah, I know you could say it was only a matter of time... but really, don't all of us take risks every day just getting in the car and driving on the highway? Yes, The Crocodile Hunter took unusual risks, but he did so with passion. And enthusiasm. He had a rare gift for making us look at God's world with renewed wonder and making it seem fresh and adventurous. In a world full of too-cool-for-you celebrities, The Crocodile Hunter was never too jaded to express a genuine excitement for learning and exploring. His family's loss is a loss to all of us.

Round Here

The Counting Crows played in Atlanta this weekend, and guess who got to see them? Mamabird! And guess why? Because Mamabird's kid brother is a musician who plays with a singer/songwriter who opened for the Crows! So DH and eldest Babybird and I all got to hang out backstage with a bunch of very cool musicians (no, not the Crows - it's all very segregated, even backstage), but it was very exciting nonetheless. My brother was FABULOUS, if I do say so myself. He's been playing music professionally for about 10 years now, and it was a real thrill to see him perform in front of thousands of people. We've been to enough hole-in-the-wall bars and Arby's parking lots to see him play for dozens, so this was very gratifying.

Back to Real Life

School goes on. Math is a drag. Latin is rockin'. Everything else is just okay. But this is a short week, with the holiday, so I'm going to take what I can get this week and hope that things pick up soon. I'd like to avoid turning into Mean Mommy because we've had too many days of not getting to everything we should.

That's the news around here. Hope your week is going well. I'm still reading Eat This Book but haven't made much progress. Will take some fiction suggestions if anyone has read anything good lately.

Like Honey, Like Sweetheart*

2006-09-02T14:14:00.000-07:00

My dd just turned 7, and she SO identifies with Mom. We are deep, deep into All Things Mommy, from applying lip gloss in the morning to choosing Diet Coke as her preferred soft drink. But this week she channeled Mom again in a way that made me laugh. She was loading the dishwasher with her brothers and got into a little "row" with them (as the Brits say). When I stepped in to referee, I discovered the cause of her frustration: She, who has the permanent job of unloading the silverware, was insisting to uncooperative brothers that spoons be put in THIS compartment, knives in THAT one, forks in THAT ONE ON THE END. This way when she unloads it, all she has to do is grab all the handles in one section and dump them into the drawer, with no sorting! Her exact words were, "Mom, I'm trying to be ORGANIZED."

This is like Mom in two ways. One, it manifests Mom's insane need to keep in order parts of the home that no one ever sees, such as the inside of junk drawers or the Christmas decorations in the attic, while portions of our home open to visitors sport dirty socks and stacks of old magazines. My dd can walk right past a puddle of chocolate milk she spilled on the table, but the SPOONS! the SPOONS, by Jove, are ALL TOGETHER in the DISHWASHER!

Two, she has picked up on a every woman's unspoken belief: Men don't load the dishwasher properly. You can't learn this too early in life.

*The Honey/Sweetheart title came from dd, too - when she was very small, around 2, she used to come to me and ask to play a game she called Honey/Sweetheart. "Okay. I'll be the Honey. You be the Sweetheart. Sweetheart, have you cleaned your room?" This game was just a version of House, where she was the mommy and I was the baby. I was puzzled by the name until I figured out that she always heard DH called me "Honey" and I was always calling her "Sweetheart." The game persists even today, with our cat in the role of Sweetheart. Pity the poor cat.

Getting By

2006-08-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today was a hard day. Don't ask me why, I just don't know. Everything was just hard. I spent the day alternating between crying for no good reason, feeling murderously angry at my poor dear husband (who thankfully timed his phone calls so that when we actually spoke I was no longer ax-wielding), snapping at my children for being children, eating weird foods at any time except mealtime, and burying myself under the covers between math and grammar lessons. Around 3 p.m. I realized that what was needed was... chocolate. And a John Cusack double feature: Must Love Dogs, followed by High Fidelity. John Cusack is lovable, and Jack Black is the truest, most believable used-record-store-snob I have ever seen portrayed on film. He makes me laugh out loud.

My normal favorite movie is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but that was just a little too much real life for today. I needed fantasy escapist movies, not brutal reminders of the realities of love and life.

Chick flicks and chocolate. I am sure I have undone 3 good solid weeks of dieting and gained back in one day what it took 21 to lose. But some days nothing else will do.

The Travel-Go-Round

2006-08-18T05:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a sampling of the hats I've worn this week:

1) Travel agent headset: DH called Sunday night from Costa Rica to beg for help getting home early from his trip with DS. He came down with an ear infection after snorkeling that was so bad his ear canal was completely blocked. And all the resort paramedic (who spoke no English, so it's a good thing DH speaks Espanol!) could do was look at the ear, and say, "Wow!" Gee, that's helpful. I think it's time to come home!

2) Taxi driver's ball cap: After successfully switching DH and DS's flights to one leaving a day early, I had a dilemma: I was already supposed to be picking up his mom, dad, and sister upon THEIR return from a trip, and the pick-up point was in the opposite direction from the airport but at the same time as DH's new flight arrival. Whew. So I enlist my mom to pick them up.

But wait! Dear Sis-in-Law calls and says they missed their flight, and they'll now be arriving at the airport around 7 pm. Why, that's perfect! I'll just get everyone at the same time! I call my mom back and ask her instead to watch my youngers so there'll be room in the car for everyone. No problem. Except... DSIL calls again later, and says they missed THAT flight, and now everyone is arriving back late in the evening and can I come get them around midnight from the original pickup point? Sigh. Of course.

And that's what I do - drop the youngers with mom, go down to the airport, pick up DH and DS, call Pizza Hut on the way home and order dinner, take the suffering DH and DS (who is also coming down with an earache now) home, go back and pick up youngers from Mom's, come home, eat a piece of pizza in random bites as I pass back and forth through the kitchen between the car (unloading) and the bedrooms (putting sick family members to bed). I lie down with DH for a moment to hear about the trip, but he's feeling so bad that he can't really think about much else. Just about the time I think, wow, this pillow sure is comfortable, the phone rings - DSIL and DMIL and DFIL have touched down and the bus is on its way to the pickup point! So, back out to the car.

I arrive at the pickup point about 11:30, maybe 5 minutes before the bus arrives. We load up and I drop DMIL and DFIL off at their house, then swing back by DSIL's house last. But what's that weird noise coming from inside her front door? Yes, folks, it's the BURGLAR ALARM GOING OFF. At midnight. In a single woman's home.

Fortunately, there were no intruders to confront. Unfortunately, the alarm didn't know that. We tried everything to cut the stupid thing off. But then, what else could we do? We had to call DFIL. Poor man. So I sat with DSIL in her very warm house (the phone and the air were both out.) and waited for DFIL. He came BACK out to help, after a long day of missed flights and bus trips. He cut the wires to the stupid alarm thingy that makes noise, and discovered that lightning had taken out the phone, the alarm, and the air. Sigh. Mystery solved. Sis-in-law went home with DFIL to spend the night. I finally went home and went to bed.

And all this was on Monday.

3)The rest of the week I wore a nurse's cap as I shuttled various people to the doctor, the pharmacy, and to bed to recover from earaches. We did school, too, starting Algebra (eeek!) and our new year at Classical. Somehow, along the way, we got laundry done and dinners cooked and teeth brushed and stories read. But now, it is the end of the week, and I am tired.

I think I need a vacation.

But not to Costa Rica.

Battling the Holy Self

2006-08-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

For the past few months, when I have some drive time, or can't-fall-asleep time, or in those other little spaces during the day where your mind isn't otherwise occupied, my thoughts have been occupied with what it means to be a Christian. I know this is a question that others have addressed more thoroughly and more eloquently than I ever will. But I also know that it is a question every Christian ponders, in various forms, throughout his or her spiritual journey; it seems to be part of the process, an exercise that either keeps us from straying off the path or helps us get around obstacles or through deep valleys.

This time around, the variation of this question that is haunting me is, How much of my Christianity - my spiritual beliefs and practices - is a true and accurate interpretation of following Jesus, and how much of it is just cultural norms? I've assimilated a lot of evangelical Christian culture through a lifetime of church attendance, Sunday school, youth groups, worship services, choir singing, Focus on the Family, mission-trips, Vacation Bible School (as student and teacher), Christian books, Christian newsletters, Christian music. I've also assimilated, right along with that culture, my American culture of consumption and materialism, worship of youth and beauty, reduction of thought processes to sound bytes, independence and rebellion, rugged individualism. All of that - all of it! - is mixed together like one big soup in my spirit, my soul, my identity. I am a product of my culture, my upbringing, my place in time and space (20th-21st century U.S. of A.).

So, how much of my faith is true faith, and how much is fluff? Or worse, deeply held convictions that are just plain wrong?

I’m wrestling with this issue, then I read an article in the NYTimes (tried to link it, but it's been too long and now you have to pay to read it) about a pastor who had the courage to tell his congregation, Enough. Enough with calling America a “Christian nation” and accepting every American military campaign as God’s will. Here’s a quote:

“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

I grew up in the kind of church where American flags were flown and political candidates were endorsed. It never occurred to me to question this, until adulthood. And it makes me wonder what else in the church I grew up with is also way off base.

And then I start reading Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book. Listen to these quotes:

Our lives, that is, our experience – what we need and want and feel – are important in forming the Christ-life within us. Our lives are, after all, the stuff that is being formed. But they are not the text for directing the formation itself. Spirituality means, among other things, taking ourselves seriously. It means going against the cultural stream in which we are incessantly trivialized to the menial status of producers and performers, constantly depersonalized behind the labels of our degrees or our salaries. (p. 23)

We learn early, with multiple confirmations as we grow older, that we have a say in the formation of our lives and, within certain bounds, the decisive say. If the culture does a thorough job on us – and it turns out to be mighty effective with most of us – we enter adulthood with the working assumption that whatever we need and want and feel forms the divine control center of our lives. (p. 32)

Sorry, I know that’s a lot of quoting – but it’s powerful, isn’t it? Here's one more:

What has become devastatingly clear in our day is that the core reality of the Christian community, the sovereignty of God revealing himself in three persons, is contested and undermined by virtually everything we learn in our schooling, everything presented to us in the media, every social, workplace, and political expectation directed our way as the experts assure us of the sovereignty of self. …We are hardly aware that we have traded in our Holy Bibles for this new text, the Holy Self. (pp. 33-34)

You can see where he’s going with this – that we need a new way of reading the Bible in which we accept its authority as higher than that of our own experience. And I’m feeling like I need to develop a new, sharper sense of discernment that I can turn upon my convictions – all of them – and test whether they come from Scripture or from some other deeply imprinted place from my past. I have a feeling this discernment is not something I can develop on my own, either. It feels like it will have to come from somewhere outside of myself – will have to be a work of the Holy Spirit.

Eat This Baggage

2006-08-11T06:04:00.000-07:00

You know what's funny? Last post I said I was going to talk next about the book Eat This Book and also about the cultural baggage of American Christianity. When I wrote this, they seemed like two separate topics in my mind. I hadn't started reading the book yet, but it looked interesting; and the topic of baggage was on my mind because of a NYT article I read (see comments on last post). Yet as I started reading Peterson's book, I realized that these topics are beautifully intertwined.

I'm starting to organize my thoughts on this, but am not finished yet. Stay tuned, there is more to come soon. (And Patty, I've been reading your comments and checking out your links - they are great food for thought. Thank you.)

An Exclusive Blogher Conference in Orlando

2006-08-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

This is me, BFF Ruthie, and Cathy, Ruthie's blogging friend in Orlando whose wisdom is also funny (read her here). We had our own little informal blogging conference where Cathy explained to me what RSS feed does (oh! I get it now!) and exhorted me to post more often! (She's right - I've been really lax this summer.) But our blogging conference had no reporters or TV cameras, so it only lasted five minutes. No worries, though - Cathy spent the rest of the time making us laugh, at which she is really good. (Grin.) Visit her blog and read her story of her child and the red flip flops. Then the one down beneath it about her dream. Ha, ha ha ha ha.

DH did a BANG-UP job on his speech in Orlando. I was so proud! He's a born speaker as it is, but I was so proud of him because he never just rests on his natural abilities... he's constantly working to improve, to be more effective, as a communicator. That drive is a quality I have always admired in him.

DS's 13th birthday is only one day away, and he and DH leave on Monday for their big trip. As you can imagine, we will be pretty slammed between now and then. Mostly with laundry. And last minute trips to Target. Travel preparation never happens around here without at least three Target runs (the last one always because you forgot to get something crucial the last two times).

Coming soon, I'm going to talk about a new book I'm reading, Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson. And about some stuff I'm thinking about the cultural baggage of American Christianity (especially here in the South). If you have thoughts about either of these topics, feel free to comment ahead of time - I can always use a little push in getting started.

Summer Ends Soon

2006-08-01T07:20:00.000-07:00

DH has a speaking gig this week in Florida, so I tagged along to link up with BFF Ruthie. The plan worked! We got several good hours yesterday and brought our hubbies along for dinner last night. Good food, good conversation... ahhh. This afternoon we're shooting for a little more best-friend time before I have to get ready for adoring wife duty tonight while DH is speaking.

Adoring wife duty is so easy when your DH is so freakin' smart and adorable! He's giving a speech he's totally revamped from its previous version, so we're both a little nervous. But secretly hopeful that this new and improved version will be a smashing success. There's going to be a guy in the audience who's job it is to decide whether to invite DH to a very large speaking gig later in the year, to thousands. No pressure. (Ha!)

When I get home we get a couple more days of freedom before two big events: 1) School starts back; and 2) Eldest Babybird turns 13. Event #2 is being commemorated in a new and different way this year - DH is taking the birthday boy on rite-of-passage trip. We've been talking a lot this year about what we can do to help usher our kids into adulthood, as our culture really has no meaningful rites or rituals that do the job well. So this trip will be a little experiment in the power of one-on-one father-son time focused on imparting to the son what it means to be a man. DH has done some advance planning for the conversations and experiences he wants the trip to include, but I imagine there will also be some of those unplanned adventures that happen on every big event. I can't wait to hear how it goes.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the younger two birds and I will start back to school. I know they're not that thrilled about the prospect, but I'm hoping to ease the transition with a couple of field trips or just plain fun trips. Maybe we'll hit the aquarium or take a trip up to North GA to hear some bluegrass or tube down a river. Haven't decided quite yet.

It's been a good summer. We didn't do the math and grammar I swore we would do, but that turned out to be good for all of us. Mamabird sure is refreshed, and you know what they say - if Mamabird ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

Good Pickers Never Grow Old

2006-07-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

Here's something new I'm learning this week: Did you know that there are different styles of banjo-picking? For real, Lucille! And I'm not just talking about jazz-four-string banjos vs. bluegrass-five-string. I mean, even in bluegrass banjo, there are different approaches to playing. Why I did not know this is that I grew up learning only the one style, the ULTIMATE style (imho): Scruggs style. Scruggs style is named (of course) after Earl Scruggs, of Scruggs and Flatt. Most people have heard of him, even if they're not bluegrass fanatics. He played the Ballad of Jed Clampett, for instance, and Rockytop, and Foggy Mountain Breakdown. But even if he's not a household name to you, his style of finger-picking is what most people think of when they describe banjo music: hard-driving, fast, twangy, loud. Scruggs defined the genre.

But here is what else I'm learning - there are other ways to play the banjo. There's a whole 'nother style, called melodic style. And yet another called single-string. And all these new banjo pickers use these styles, and mix 'em up, just to make things interesting.

This is an ah-hah moment for me. For the last few years, when asked to play my banjo at church or in other settings, I've been asked to imitate songs in recordings that use the banjo in a way completely unlike how I was taught to play. In some ways it was very frustrating, because I felt like a pretty good baseball pitcher might feel if he were asked to play outfield. Well, yeah, I could do it, but why? Wouldn't you rather me do what I know how to do? On the other hand, it did stretch me and make me learn new things, which is fun in its own way.

But, wow, what a relief to know that I'm not crazy and that I do, in fact, play a pretty good banjo- as long as I stick to a certain style. And what's more, there's a whole new universe of music out there for me to learn. I've got a book now that talks about the melodic and single-string styles, how to do them, how to combine them with Scruggs playing, how to use them. I feel like I'm learning a whole new language.

Which is a good thing, because they say what makes you old is not how many birthdays you have, but whether or not you keep learning and growing. So I'm fighting off over-the-hill-itis (acute this week, as in just 25 hours I will officially crest the mountain) by building new brain connections - learning a new way to pick.

What are you learning this week? Or, if you've already topped the hill recently and have good news from the other side, I'll take that too! Please tell me that the forties are even better than the thirties - regardless of what style you play.

Baby Daze

2006-06-30T05:15:00.000-07:00

Last night we had some friends over for dinner that we haven't seen in over 2 years. They've had a baby since our last reunion, who is now about 22 months old, and was cute in that I-could-eat-you-for-breakfast-without-any-extra-sugar way, just utterly adorable. One thing really noticeable about her was that she is extra cuddly - the kind of kid who will crawl up on your lap and melt into your body and tuck her head into the crook of your neck. And she latched onto DH like he was her long-lost brother for whom she'd been pining away all her life and oh! the reunion!

This really cracked me up (in between my fits of jealously, as she would have NOTHING to do with me!), because generally DH is the kind of dad who loves kids most after they turn 2 or 3 and can walk and talk and tell you what's wrong and play frisbee. Babies, not so much. But if there were ever a toddler that could make DH change his mind about the species, it would be this one. I could almost see the question flitting through his mind: "Hmm, we're not too old for one more, are we?" Such was the power of this little baby girl.

No, not too old. But... wow, how weird it would feel to start all over again. We've given back the baby furniture we borrowed, sold the swings and car seats, donated the little baby shoes that got worn once. We're all about baseball and sleepovers and bikes with no training wheels and pool freedom (you know, where you can take your kids to the pool and never even have to get in the water, if you don't want to, because they all swim! In the deep end!). And math facts and Sponge Bob and ghost stories. You know, the good stuff. You put up with strollers and potty-training so you can get to THIS part.

I love babies, I'll admit it. But it's a little hard to imagine going back. Having a baby now would be nothing at all like it was back then, so new and life-changing and frightening and all-consuming. I like things the way they are. Besides, it's only, say, 15 or 20 years before I get (gulp) GRANDCHILDREN. (Yes, I'm presuming. They'd all darn well better get married and have kids, as THEY OWE ME for all the times I cleaned up their vomit in the middle of the night.)

So, I believe I'll be sticking with borrowing other people's babies. Especially the cute and cuddly ones.

Just Wondering

2006-06-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the land of Midlife. Ok, I haven’t officially arrived in Midlife yet, as it’s still exactly 17 days until my 40th birthday, but I’m almost to shore now and can see the landscape from my cabin window. I’m now old enough to realize that really, truly, I will be old one day. It will happen. Unless I die first. (But that’s another conversation altogether.) I’m not old enough to feel old, yet. But for the first time since childhood, I can wrap my mind around the fact that I won’t always be young.

One way I know this is that time is moving faster for me these days. I had heard from other people who had gone before me that I should expect this, but now it is here and I am still surprised by it. One day you’re diapering the baby; the next day he’s asking for the car keys. What happened to all the years that were supposed to come in between?

Sometimes I wake up in the morning, or from a too-long, too-late-in-the-day nap, and wonder who the heck I am. Not in the groggy, disoriented sense of not being awake yet, but in the distressed, existential sense of Rip Van Winkle wondering why his beard is so long. Is this normal? I’m not unhappy or, to borrow that outdated feminist term, “unfulfilled.” I have a good life. But is it the life I was supposed to lead?

It is tempting when facing this question to start pointing to all the good things you have done with the time you’ve had, so far, as though you could justify a life, as though that were even possible. But none of those things, good though they are, feel like an adequate answer. There have been enough twists and turns in the road – some of my own doing, some forced upon me – that I can’t help but wonder if I left the road altogether. I just never saw this – this place where I am, right now – on the map at all. What does that mean?

I don’t know. All I know is that lately I’m asking the question often.

Bluegrass Therapy

2006-06-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been playing my banjo more often. Daily, in fact. I haven't done this in years, unless preparing for an upcoming performance at church or with my dad. But a couple of weeks ago our whole family went to the Pickin' In The Park up in North Georgia, and it reminded me of my childhood. All over this park, by a river, under giant oak and maple and pine trees, people were playing and singing and listening and tapping their toes and generally having a good time, and it made me nostalgic for a part of myself that has lain dormant for too long.

Ms. MMV has in the past quoted Joan Didion's passage about staying on "nodding terms" with our former selves. The full quote is (thank you MMV):

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.

I think this explains a little of my Banjo Fever.

I've also had a little hard-on-the-pride-but-ultimately-freeing realization about myself in the process of picking up an old interest. As a kid, growing up, I had the same burning desire to be "special" that every member of the human race feels - different in a good way, better than everyone else in some way, no matter how small. Some are blessed with natural beauty or unusual intelligence or physical ability and "special" status is theirs by default. Most of us, though, go through a process of seeking and discarding qualities that can be unique to us, that make us stand out in a crowd. We settle on an amalgamation of those things that fit best, or those things which pay us the biggest rewards, socially or emotionally.

So, as you might imagine, learning the banjo definitely made me "special." I was a 10-year-old girl in a class of old men (at least they all seemed old to me) when I started taking lessons. After a couple of years my dad started letting me practice with his bluegrass buddies, forcing me to learn to without stopping and restarting, to keep going in spite of mistakes. When I was thirteen, I played onstage at a bluegrass festival with my dad's band. Talk about attention! I definitely reaped rewards.

Yet I didn't really love bluegrass music, like my dad did. I gave up lessons when I was fourteen. Now I'm almost forty. But deep down in my DNA, I still believe that I'm "special" because I can play the banjo.

But picking up my old instrument, and listening to banjo teachers on the internet, I'm realizing something: I'm not that great on the banjo. I admit, I used to think I was the cheese. But I'm not. I'm a pretty good intermediate player who has a limited repertoire and has forgotten a lot of what she used to know. There are quite a few banjo virtuosos out there, and I ain't one of them.

Everyone you meet feels deeply in his heart that he is superior to you in some way - better looking, more organized, smarter, taller, faster, more compassionate, more hip, more environmentally-conscious, whatever. I used to think that I was a better picker than you. But the truth is, I'm not.

But here was the freeing part: after a few depressing seconds of realizing I'm only a mediocre banjo picker, I had a good laugh at myself. I don't have to play the banjo to be special! I don't even have to be "special." I yam what I yam. How that compares to anyone else is irrelevant in most ways that matter. I have a unique place in this world, in this life, in my generation, in my family, past present future. Ahhh, the freedom of truth-telling.

There's probably a bluegrass song hiding somewhere in that sentiment, isn't there?

God's Art Class

2006-06-09T19:16:00.000-07:00

Tonight, Littlest Babybird and I watched the sunset together. It was stunning, quite a show. Pink, then gold, then purple, then deeper pink again.

Mom: God's painting the sky.

LBB: Yep.

(Long pause)

LBB: We're in the painting too, aren't we?

(More silence)

Mom: Yep.

(Thinking, as I say it, "Indeed we are, little one. Works of art, still in progress.")

The Diaper Dance

2006-06-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

When my middle bird was about 3 years old, we were sitting at the dinner table one night listening to his older brother (4) whine and complain. I no longer remember what upset eldest brother so much that night, but I will never forget his little brother's response. Without a word, he crawled down off his chair, wearing only his diaper and the jelly on his face, and began spinning around the kitchen, arms flailing, singing:

"The Diaper Dance! The Diaper Dance! The Radi-o-ac-tive Diaper Dance!" (He said radi-o-ac-tive just like in the old Spiderman cartoon theme song.)

I wish I had taken a picture of him that night, but I was too busy doubled over laughing. We laughed so hard we could have squirted milk out of our noses. Even now, when someone is grumpy, someone will occasionally do the Diaper Dance Chant. (No one's in diapers around here anymore, so the Dance has become sadly obsolete. Or maybe that's not sad. Anyway.)

I don't know why that scene has been on my mind so much lately, but it has. DS has remained his cute, hilarious self, sensitive to his brother's needs and looking for ways to help him. Yeah, they argue and fight. But what a great gift to have a brother who'll make up silly dances just to cheer you up. Friends are friends for a short time, but siblings are forever.

Books and Curricula (or, How A Homeschool Mom Attempts to Regain Some Sanity)

2006-05-21T23:47:00.000-07:00

On Friday I did one of my favorite (yet most guilt-inducing) things to do: I buried my nose in a book, almost all day long. I had an intimidating list of things I should have been doing... and yet. The book was Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. It's... well, you could say it's detective fiction, but that really wouldn't do it justice. The detective is believable and the victims all seem like real people, set in real families, whose losses seem unbearable because the author paints such a nuanced portrait of them. I had never heard of the book, or the author, but I came across it at the Scholastic Book Sale and thought it looked intriguing. Nice to have a hunch play out.

I also picked up Amy Tan's Saving Fish From Drowning and Anne Tyler's The Amateur Marriage. Summer projects. Oh! And how come none of you have ever told me about ANNE LAMOTT??????? Oh. My. Gosh! I'm in the middle of Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith, and I'm already plotting to figure out how I can amass everything she's ever written. I picked this one up at Costco purely on the title, and figured out about three pages into the book that I needed to read anything of hers I can ever get my hands on. And I also figured out, after mentioning her to some of my friends, that I'm apparently the last person in America to have heard of her. That, my friends, is one of the hazards of homeschooling, isn't it - Head In Sand Syndrome. (I was also the last person in America to hear of this guy - and how sad, too, since what he's accomplished is so extraordinary!)

Furthermore, to report back in on a book previously mentioned, sometime over the winter I finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Unspeakably good.

And for Patty (and other Dallas Willard fans out there), I'm maybe a third of the way through Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Which is making me wonder about how different my life might look if I practiced even a small fraction of the spiritual disciplines that I know I should. Not in a guilty way, either - more in a curious, maybe-I-should-try-that way.

And Crissy, wow, I can't believe that you remembered that I was looking for new math and grammar programs! Except that I probably am ALWAYS doing that. Sigh. Anyway, I did buy MathUSee for my daughter last month. I'm still giving her the (expletive-expletive) Saxon worksheets for now, but we're not doing any of the (expletive-expletive) lessons. I'm just kind of finishing the book to a point where I feel satisfied, and we'll pick up the MUS at the beginning of next year.

BUT, as for GRAMMAR, I have purchased something that I LOVE, so far - Analytical Grammar. Ah! This program is wonderful! (Yes, I'm infatuated!) It has straight-forward explanations. No-nonsense worksheets. No overkill. Easy to schedule. But thorough instruction. And... diagramming. (Be still, my heart!) We started it last week, and I will let you know how it goes this summer. But so far, it's the New Best Thing.

Now, if I could only figure out the New Best Thing for teaching Algebra. Yes, the time I have dreaded since beginning homeschooling has now arrived: I must research, and select, an Algebra program. Pray for me. Not since potty-training have I had less enthusiasm for a parental duty.

Summer Sampling

2006-05-11T05:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my eldest babybird had his last class of the year at his one-day-a-week Classical School. He had a bruising final exam and their class was held over for about 45 minutes (!) but when he got out, all the guys in his class piled in our truck with their sleeping bags and Airsoft guns to celebrate the end of the year. Now my house is trashed and my lawn is full of little neon-colored plastic bb's and we all got maybe 2 hours sleep last night... but I have one happy 12-year-old.

What's more, we have today to recover, for tomorrow is Homeschool Day at Six Flags! Woo-hoo!

We'll get back to math next week and start our new grammar program for the summer, too. But for this week, we're dipping our fingers in the icing of summer freedom. Mmmm, tasty.

Permission

2006-05-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

All this bad news around here has made me want to get crackin' and do something, anything, positive. I've been gardening, I've been cooking, and, surprise, all of a sudden I'm in the mood to scrapbook. (Why ask why? Just go with it.)

And so, noodling around on the internet, looking for scrapbooking inspiration, I stumbled upon this article. The author's best line, to me, is this:

I want to give my children permission to live an imperfect life.

YYYYYYY--ESSSSSSSS! (Imagine me saying it with great gusto.)

I'm so hard on myself. And my kids. But I would like to be kinder. I have a feeling that if I were okay with certain parts of myself not being perfect, I'd be okay with my kids' shortcomings, too.

Give up Perfectionism! (At least for today.)

Raging Bull

2006-05-04T05:46:00.000-07:00

One of the best sermons I ever heard was on the passage where Lazarus dies and Jesus gets there too late to prevent it. Everyone is mourning. Martha and Mary question Jesus. And Jesus mourns with them. This is the passage where we get, "Jesus wept."

My pastor told us that the verse, "Jesus wept" is a woefully inept translation. The word we read as "wept" actually means... literally... "snorted." As in rage. Like a bull when he's angry and ready to charge.

I love this picture of Jesus, angry at death, angry at loss, angry that the world He created, so perfect, had been so tainted. Angry that we, His children, must endure the pain of grief.

I need this picture of Jesus right now. A family in my homeschool group lost their 2 1/2 year old son yesterday. He drowned in a friend's pool.

I have no doubt that my friend's son is with Jesus. But I also believe Jesus is with my friend, too. Snorting.

What Can Make Me Whole Again?

2006-04-28T18:57:00.000-07:00

One of the really wonderful things about grief is how it cracks you wide apart, makes your calloused, crusty heart break open. Yes, it's painful, but oh, how refreshing! You feel like you can breathe again, for the first time in a long time. You notice that there is air. And how fine it is to draw it sweetly into your lungs.

Last Friday, after I got the call that my Grandmother was gone, I was in that fog of disbelief you enter right after you get such calls. My whole being was so heavy with loss that I just couldn't see any of the good in this situation. I knew in my head that my Grandmommy was in a better place, but that reality seemed very distant and the reality that I would never see her again seemed all too near.

But Sunday we got to see her and say a private goodbye. And then on Monday, we had the funeral. And I was gratefully amazed at the power of ritual to jumpstart healing. Here are some things that helped:

1. Love, spelled F-O-O-D. My grandmother lived out in the country and went to a little country church. With little old ladies who bake. Apple pie, chocolate pie, coconut cake, German chocolate cake. Squash and corn casserole. Homemade ham biscuits. My aunt's house was a revolving door of little old ladies bearing Reynold's Wrap. And then, before the visitation, they set up the church fellowship hall for us to eat dinner together, all the extended family. Barbecue, Brunswick stew, slaw, potato salad, hush puppies, corn sticks, fried chicken. And, of course, more cake.

And you know what? It helped. We just didn't have to think about what to eat. Or when. The food was just there, all the time. And the ladies who prepared it didn't ask anything of us, except to eat.

2. Viewing the body. I wish we still had the old southern custom of a wake, where you take turns with your family keeping vigil over the body of your loved one for 24-48 hours before the funeral. I know there are some who do not wish to be in the presence of a body without a soul, and I would never force that upon someone else. But I found that it was easier to believe that my Grandmommy was gone once I saw her dressed up for her funeral. The body resting in that casket was in no way my Grandmother. It looked very like her... but of course her beauty came from her living soul, so without it her body resembled a wax likeness of her. And I only had a few moments alone with this body, but I would have liked more time. If we still had wakes, I'd have volunteered for the early morning session, say, 1-3 a.m. That way I could have talked a while with her, no one else to hear me. I really did say everything I needed to say while she was still alive... yet it was comforting to me to say all that stuff again to her body, even though I knew I could say it anywhere and she'd still hear me.

3. The funeral, which was truly a celebration of Grandmommy's life. On the morning of, I arrived at my aunt's house right on time to get geared up for the procession. Before I even got in the door, my mother came out to meet me. "Your brother and K (his wife) are going to play and sing at the funeral today," she said. "Would you and your sisters sing with them?"

Oh, boy. I never saw this coming. Singing in the face of death is one sure way to make me cry... music cuts straight through your defenses, doesn't it? My mom knows this about me, too. I stared at her for a minute and finally said, "Can I wait and decide when I'm there? I don't want to get up in front of a whole crowd of people if I'm blubbering." She agreed, but added, "Your grandmother loved to hear you girls sing. She would have loved this."

Well, she was right. Growing up, whenever we visited my grandparents, we all had to bring our intstruments and sing for her. She loved gospel, so that's what we did - my dad and brother on guitars, me on banjo, one sis on fiddle, the other just singing. We learned to harmonize with each other and it was fun, and it became a bit of a ritual. Whenever we were visiting, we knew we'd sit around and make music together.

I walked into the kitchen, and my brother and his wife started practicing. My sisters came in and we all just listened, at first. Then we began to join in, and we found we could do it, sort of... as long as we didn't look at each other. We finished, and I thought, well, maybe. But I know myself, and I just don't see being composed enough in the actual moment to pull this off.

But you know, there's grace for situations like these. At the church, which is a beautiful old country church, wrapped in stone on the outside and timber frame on the inside, with gorgeous stained glass windows, we proceeded in. The pastor stood up and read some Scripture - the ones about how Jesus is preparing a place for us, and our hearts need not be afraid. Then he motioned to my brother, who got up and strapped on his guitar. Then, as one, my sisters and I stood up and joined him.

And we did it. We all got up there, kind of circled around my brother, and sang "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus." I didn't think about loss, or grief, or death. I thought about those summer evenings when we'd sit around her living room and sing till we ran out of songs. And I felt, not physically, but in my spirit, I felt her grip my hand like she always did. I felt that she was with us, beaming, filled with pride and love and joy.

Then, of course, we wept, but not without comfort. That smart old pastor, he followed up with Psalm 23 and the Lord's Prayer, scriptures you can speak along with even when your heart is broken and your mind is cloudy. Scriptures you can cling to, that remind you of the truth that no one who walked with Jesus ever really dies.

My grandmother loved that service, I think. It had her favorite scriptures, and her favorite people, and her favorite music. It had her grandchildren playing and singing, and it had the truth she believed in featured front and center. It was not about loss, or suffering, or fear, but about truth, and life, and love. Which is what she was about, too.

What can wash away my sins? (Her struggle with sin is done!)
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? (She is whole again, mind, spirit, and body.)
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
Oh, precious is the flow
That makes me white as snow.
No other fount I know,
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
(And she is in His presence, forever, part of the great cloud of witnesses cheering us on.)

She is Gone

2006-04-21T19:13:00.000-07:00

Funeral is on Monday. If you are a praying type, I'd appreciate your including me in your prayers. Losing a Grandmother isn't any easier just because she was old and had a rich, full, long life. Well, maybe a little easier, but not less painful, at least not right now.

Little Snippet

2006-04-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

Well, I've started but never finished several posts. Can't seem to get my mind functioning at the necessary level. But here is a brief summary of what's up:

My grandmother (whom I posted about back in July) is dying. She's was diagnosed last summer with a terminal heart condition but seemed okay and just kept on being Grandmother. Now, however, it's the real thing... hospital beds, catheters, morphine. It's heartbreaking. My grateful voice says, You had her with you for so. long. And she was always fully herself. My anguished voice says, It is excruciating to watch someone suffer a slow decline, knowing it can only end one way but not knowing when. (That's the voice that I wake up to every morning these days. Hearing the grateful voice takes effort.)

My mother is at my Grandmother's house right now and has been for the last two weeks. I've been helping her out with stuff around here, which last night included riding out to her house in the thunder and lightning downpour to see about the COW in her yard. Yes, my mom and dad are holdouts from an older era... suburbanites who live 5 minutes from a major mall, who have lived there for decades and still keep cows on their property. Which is quaint, until you have to be the one to chase them down. In the rain.

As BFF Ruthie likes to say: God is good. God is in control. God loves you more than you can even imagine.

There is more going on... but now the kids are awake. I'm going to stop now and post this, so that it doesn't wind up with the same fate as its recent predecessors....

New Blogs To Check Out

2006-04-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine at church has a new blog that I am REALLY enjoying diving into! It's really fun to read the blog of someone you know IRL... you see a whole new side of her personality.

She had a link to an article by Paula Moldenhauer that she just loved, and after I read it I just had to share it too. Below is a little excerpt; you can go here to read the rest.

I'm learning an important truth: God is the keeper of a mother's dreams. He is the only one who knows how to weave her unique talents and gifts into the landscape of her mothering. He knows the seasons she can reach beyond her family, and the seasons she can't. And He will bring into fullness the dreams He has placed within her in His time and His way. All the Lord brings her through as she is obedient to the call to her children will provide training and a deepening of character that will translate into her other gifts and callings.

I just LOVE that last line (not the part about being obedient, because, frankly, I hate having to be obedient, or anything that reminds me that I'm supposed to be obedient. Just think how interesting life is for God having me for a child!). No, I love the part about how he uses what we find mundane and ordinary and boring and tedious to develop in us the very skills we need if we're actually going to accomplish the things we dream about doing. I'm reading this and screaming, Yes! Yes! (But keeping it all inside.) It is EXACTLY like God to be all Mr. Miagi, with his "Wax-on, wax-off," making us think we're just washing the car when He's really teaching us karate.

Here is another blog that I am reading lately courtesy of BFF Ruthie - Cathy at The Catbird Seat. Funny funny gal. You can read her opinions about infant vomiting here and then you can SEE infant vomiting here! (Sorry, DH. Nothing for you to see, there - move along, move along. But everybody else - the video link is really funny. If you have a strong stomach.)

There! Aren't you edified?

Not In Kansas Anymore

2006-04-03T16:09:00.000-07:00

I belong to a homeschool group with a very active email loop where we share info and ideas. One of the moms sent out a message today asking for help thinking through "middle school" with her daughter. She wanted to know how it looked different than the elementary years. Well, I thought that was an interesting question, one that I cannot fully answer as we have not yet completed this phase... but as we are smack in the middle of it, I could make a few observations. After I got done writing it, I thought I'd post the message here too. That way hopefully more of you who are surviving (or have survived) homeschooling for middle school can join in the conversation.

How Middle School is Different from the Early Years

1) We are less hands-on and more book-focused. I require more reading and more writing of my 7th grader than I do of his younger siblings. And since we do a number of outside classes with assignments given to him, I've discovered that he is far, far more capable of a greater volume of work than I had realized.

2) He can go deeper into a subject than I would go with an elementary student. So we can talk about why things happened instead of just what happened. It's funny - you can almost "see" the capacity for abstract thinking as it develops, just like you used to be able to see it when they were toddlers and were almost ready to walk. There are lots of false starts, and then they start "getting it."

3) If you haven't used them before, this is a good time to introduce textbooks. Not for every subject, certainly - we still use a lot of living books. But one good thing I have discovered about textbooks is that you can use their organizational format to help your middle-schooler learn outlining. In one of my son's classes he has to make an outline of every history chapter he reads. He looks through the chapter at the major headings and then the subheadings to create the outline. It's a nice, easy introduction to outlining because it's done for you - the model is right there in the chapter. Later, I'll expect him to be able to outline material without subheadings, but since he's had lots of practice where it's been given to him, I'm hoping it will make more sense.

4) There is more independence - my son does the majority of his work in his room, away from the rest of us, where it is quiet. I can give him an assignment and then he can go away and do it. But he still needs regular help. I sit down with him at least once a day with one or more subjects. Sometimes it's a math concept that he can't comprehend from just the textbook... sometimes he needs help thinking through a writing assignment. It's easy for me to forget that he still needs my guidance, but he does.

Oh yeah, and one more thing - he sleeps a lot. This is the kid who used to wake me up every day at 6:30 until he got tall enough to reach the breakfast cereal on his own. Now, he does not get up before 10:00 a.m. unless I ignite explosives under his bed. I figure, though, that this too shall pass - probably when summer arrives and waking up means not having to do school!

Windows, for Dy

2006-03-31T08:43:00.000-08:00

Fellow homeschool mommy and blogger Dy is rehabbing her home and has asked for help! (And how often do you get the chance to pitch in to something fun like helping someone create their forever home??) She is finishing up some windows and needs ideas for wood trim and for curtains. I can't even begin to offer how-to advice on the trim, but I did make the curtain panels hanging in my den, so THAT I can help with. So, with apologies to everyone else who just doesn't care, here are window pics for Dy:

2006-03-31T05:43:00.000-08:00

2006-03-31T05:42:00.000-08:00

No-See Dee-Cee

2006-03-29T05:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I called my sister from my house, and when she heard my voice on the phone, she began to stutter and stammer until she finally spat out, "How are you calling me from home if you are in Washington, D.C.?"

How, indeed? The short answer is the obvious one: that I'm not in Washington, D.C. The fact that even my sister did not know that I was here and not there attests to the last-minute, fruit-basket-turnover nature of my weekend. Suffice it to say that I got a phone call Friday night informing me that my presence on the trip was no longer required, so I was off the hook. I spent the weekend waffling and being surprised to discover that, deep down, a large part of me wanted to go on this trip. But in the end I decided not to, for a whole mess o'reasons.

So this week I am at home while eldest babybird flits around the nation's capital. I thought I'd be moping around and wistfully wondering every few hours what "they" were doing right now. But no... I've been enjoying a relaxed pace of school with my other two birdies. Imagine - a school day that begins around 9 and ends around 2! With math after dinner as the only evening requirement!* It's wonderful.** I've also got some fun with Father Bird scheduled - a day trip to North Georgia tomorrow, and a class on Saturday at Starbucks where we're going to learn how to make mochas and capuccinos and lattes and all those yummy drinks we treat ourselves to every once in a while. (Okay, every week.) And today - the kids and I are taking my mom and dad to the GA Aquarium, which, as you know, is one of my favorite places in the world.

So this week I'm learning once again the truth of the words of the famous European philosopher, Mick Jagger:

You can't always get what you want...
But if you try sometimes, you just might find,
You get what you need.

*****************************************************************************************
*Note and **Double Note: I have failed to mention here something absolutely life-giving that DH has done for me recently - he has temporarily taken over math with one of the boys. I had reached the point of meltdown a couple of weeks ago, and he graciously offered to tutor said boy for a while until harmony could be restored. Boy is happy that he has a more patient teacher - Mama is delighted that her school day is now manageable instead of completely and soul-suckingly overwhelming. Kudos to DH for his level head and generous spirit.

Snaggletooth

2006-03-24T06:34:00.000-08:00

You know your baby is no longer a baby when she loses her front teeth. This last one fell out while she slept. If only other milestones were so easy!

School on Steroids

2006-03-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

Science project, ds 1. Science project, ds 2. Science project, dd. Essay on Dante. Double Latin lessons. Vocab. Spelling. Saxon. Reading. Handwriting. Can you tell what the focus has been around here the past few days?

It's always hard settling back into school when you've had a little break. It's especially hard when you have deadlines built into your school. This Friday, for example, all three of my dc have to turn in a major science project that involves maps of biomes, topographical maps, food webs, pictures of relationships between organisms (like mating for life, or interspecies competition). Whew! How much of Mom's time does this require? HOURS.

At the end of this week, ds 1 and I leave for DC on our marathon, whirlwind tour. I think the trip will not be so bad, except for a) not enough sleep, and b) coming home on April Fool's Day. What would YOU say the likelihood is that a van full of 7th graders will refrain from trying to pull an April Fool's prank on the class mom? Yeah, exactly.

When I get back, though... science projects will be behind me. Whirlwind tours will be in the rearview. I am going to do something, anything, that is low-key. Relaxing. FUN. Like sitting around doing nothing. Yeah, that sounds appealing right now.

Ski Birdie Is Back!

2006-03-11T13:05:00.000-08:00

Well, the Bird Family Ski Adventure is now complete, and it was good cold fun. Not too cold, mind you - we saw not a flake of fresh falling snow (except in the car on the way back to the airport). But Colorado had so much snow in January and February that there was still plenty left for us to ski on, and ski we did! Father Bird and I had one day of skiing together, then two more days of skiing with boys. At one point we tried to include babiest bird, but it took, oh, 30 seconds to realize she was not ready and needed to be back in ski school. BUT, by the last run of the last day of the trip, babiest bird was cruising down greens with the rest of us.

Here is the photographic evidence that Mamabird does, indeed, ski:

2006-03-11T10:02:00.001-08:00

tubing

2006-03-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

kyl

2006-03-11T10:00:00.002-08:00

;lkj

2006-03-11T09:59:00.001-08:00

;lkjh

Tooth Is Stranger Than Fiction

2006-02-27T19:41:00.000-08:00

Tonight my middle babybird came to his dad and said, "I think my tooth is broken." Dad looked, and then did what all responsible dads do in the face of medical crisis... he called for a second opinion! (Mamabird's.)

We got out the flashlight and poked around in the babybird's mouth. It just looked... strange. There was a little bleeding, and a definite split in the tooth. Like someone had taken a chisel and driven it down one side of the tooth... but it wasn't broken in half. More like a little piece was carved off the side and just kind of hanging there. And it wasn't just gushing blood, like I'd have thought. There were no screams or even moans of pain. And, weirdest of all, there had been no precipitating event. You know... no tooth meets steakbone and steakbone wins. No flying baseballs landing in the mouth. No falling off the trampoline while biting down on a Jolly Rancher. No, he just came up to Dad and said, "My tooth feels like it's broken."

Well, teeth don't just break, right? Or do they? THIS was a question for... Grandpa Doc!

Grandpa Doc is my dad. He used to be a dentist, before years of practice ruined his back and he had to retire. I just did not appreciate, growing up, how useful it would be to have a dentist for a father... until I was a Mamabird. Boys are hard on their teeth, what with bike ramps and scooter accidents and tree-climbing and zip-line zipping and all those adventures they insist on having. Many's the time we've loaded up for an impromptu, after-hours visit to our own personal dental professional. (He never minds. In fact, he often buys pizza. Does your dentist do this for YOU?)

Well, tonight Doc solved the mystery in about, oh, ten seconds. He sat not-so-little grandson down in his lap, adjusted the lamp, peered in at the mystery tooth and said, "That's not a broken tooth. That's a permanent tooth trying to come in around the baby tooth." Well, who knew! Apparently the way baby teeth fall out is that the permanent tooth slowly erodes the root of the baby tooth as it pushes its way up through the gums. As the baby tooth's roots wear down, the tooth gets loose and finally falls out, making room for the permanent resident. But if the permanent tooth is not lined up just so with the baby tooth, the roots don't erode, and you end up with the top tooth pushing through RIGHT BESIDE the existing tooth in such a way that it looks like one tooth with a rift down the side.

You're lucky that babybird is in bed right now, or you'd be treated to a picture of the mystery tooth, bloody gum and all. I just think the whole thing is pretty fascinating. Especially now that we're not talking major pain and suffering for my poor little boy! Of course, he still has to have a tooth pulled. That's never fun. But it sure beats the heck out of a broken permanent tooth, right?

Some Things Must Be Said

2006-02-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

I have known my DH since I was 12 years old. (That's how old our oldest child is now. Eeek!) DH and I went to the same middle school. We were on the annual staff together (you know, the yearbook). At the annual staff end-of-the-year banquet, my dad and I provided the entertainment in the form of guitar and banjo music. (I am the banjo-picker in the family. And my dad knows the words to every bluegrass song ever written.)

I'm told that after that banquet, my future mother-in-law told her son, "You ought to get to know that little girl." (She liked that my dad and I were close... and DH's family puts a premium on close families, as does mine.) So all through high school, DH had his eye on me. Oh, sure, other girls might have beguiled him... temporarily. But only I had his mom's Maternal Seal of Approval.

Our senior year in high school, DH and I were friends, and DH decided it was about time to ask me out. Just a few days before he did, though, he discovered that my little sister (only a year younger than us) had a crush on him and was hoping that he would ask HER out. Yikes! What to do? DH did the right thing... he walked away. (I've often thought how God's hand was in the timing of that... if DH and I had dated in high school, no doubt we'd have had an ugly, immature breakup and hated each other for years. That's what happened with many of my high-school dating relationships... victims of immaturity.)

It was actually a couple of years later, once I was away at college, that we finally went on our first date. I was home for the summer, and he invited me to a church softball game. I still remember being so surprised when he came to the door - he looked so much... older! better! than I remembered him. In fact, he was downright good-looking! And as the date progressed, the news just got better. We had a lot in common. We were really comfortable around each other. We just... fit.

It only took about 3 weeks for both of us to figure out that this thing had potential. (Ok, it took me 3 weeks. He had known it for years!) We did have some rocky times, of course, but we stuck it out, and two years later - right after college graduation - we got married.

That was almost 18 years ago. We've been married so long now that it's rare that anyone ever asks us how we met. But I'm thinking about it today, because today is a very special day. Today is DH's 40th birthday.

I didn't know my dear Father Bird when he was a little kid. But we grew up in the same town. Our parents had several mutual friends. Our families ate in the same restaurants. We've wondered many times how often our paths probably crossed when we were young children and we were oblivious. I wish I could be a little fly-on-the-wall at one of those path-crossings and see if he ever noticed me, or if I ever looked at him.

But I have known DH for most of his life. In only a year or two, I'll be able to say that he's spent over HALF of his life married to me. And all that time together gives me some perspective on him. I've seen him at his best, and his worst. And this is what I think:

Dear Husband, I am very glad you were born. You are a good man. You are honest, disciplined, hard-working, funny, and real. You love me and our kids with a deeply committed heart. Your life is intertwined with ours in a way that strengthens us and makes us better people.

You are making a valuable contribution to the world outside our family as well. Your business helps hundreds of people every year. You are a fair and compassionate boss who treats his employees well. And you aren't afraid to do the right thing, even when it is hard to do. Even when it costs you something.

You take risks on our behalf. You tackle challenges with great zeal. You are curious about everything, which makes you are one of the most fascinating people I've ever met. You always have something interesting to say, something valuable to contribute to every conversation.

It is a great privilege for me to get to be not just in your life, but at its center.

Happy birthday, darling. I love you with my whole heart.

My Road is Hot, Hot, Hot

2006-02-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm looking over my calendar for the next two months and realize that I've got not one, not two, but THREE week-long trips planned for March and April. Howdy-doody! Slamma-damma-bing-ban! Am I INSANE?

I love travel, but this is a bit much, even for me. All I can say is that I didn't exactly plan it this way. Trip #1 is a family trip, on the books for months, the bi-annual Bird Family Ski Adventure, in which daring Father Bird races down precariously black slopes as if we'd insured him for billions of dollars, laughing maniacally... Eldest Babybird does his Very. Best. to imitate Father Bird, with the added thrill of darting in and out of trees... Babybird #2 grins, organizes snowball battalions, rallies the troops, then beats us all down the mountain... and Babiest Bird peers cautiously down from the top of the Bunny Hill for about 45 minutes, finally decides to risk sliding c.a.r.e.f.u.l.l.y. down it, then can't be persuaded to come in when ski school is over because this sliding thing is just too much fun.

Mamabird... what is Mamabird doing while the family is skiing? Those of you who knew Mamabird in her youth may be shocked to learn that Mamabird has made her Peace with the Snow. Mamabird is no longer the FuddyDuddy KillJoy that she was in her teens and twenties. Oh, no, Mamabird can actually be Seen on Skis, cruising down the easy blues, sun glinting off her fashion goggles, skis almost parallel at every turn. No, she will never, ever be mistaken for Picabo Street, but she's come a long way, baby. And why? Because somewhere along the way Mamabird figured out that skiing was the ONE sport the WHOLE FAMILY could enjoy. Skiing levels the playing field, at least while the dear baby birds are young. Skiing younguns are just about at the same proficiency level as skiing olduns, so we can all go down the same hills, shouting encouragement at each other, laughing at each other, generally having a good ol' time.

The moral behind the Ski Trip is, if you wanna make a Family Memory, you gotta be willing to break a few bones.

Trip #2 is a field trip with Eldest Babybird. This one wasn't exactly planned, at least as far as my involvement. He's going to D.C. with his once-a-week-classical-class. However, no moms signed up to chaperone, so Mamabird has been pressed (bribed) into service. This trip is actually not so fun, as it involves a 12-hour drive there, 24-hour chaperoning duties, an insane touring schedule, not enough sleep, cafeteria meals, and a 12-hour drive home. Plus driving duties. However, Mamabird loves her Baby Bird, who's been a real pain lately. The moral behind the School Trip is, the time together will be a chance to bond with an adolescent who needs all the help he can get.

Trip #3 is a business trip. I'm not telling where, just yet. Let's just say it's warm. It's tropical. There will be beaches involved. And rum. And the baby birds will NOT be attending. (A fact not to be overlooked.) Yeah, we'll have that pesky business to attend to... but once that's done... I see some sleeping by the pool and great Hotel Room you-know-what in our future. (Don't make me spell it out - this is a family blog, after all!) The moral behind the Business Trip is, the best thing you can do for your babybirds is make sure Mama and Father Bird stay in love. (Rum and beaches oughta help with that.)

A Little Inspiration

2006-02-02T13:07:00.000-08:00

DH is reading a book called Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; this morning he read the following excerpt to me, and I was just as inspired as he was to apply it immediately, both personally and in our homeschool. See if it doesn't have the same effect on you:

As far back as there are records of human intelligence, the most prized mental gift has been a well-cultivated memory. My grandfather at seventy could still recall passages from the three thousand lines of The Iliad he had to learn by heart in Greek to graduate from high school. Whenever he did so, a look of pride settled on his features, as his mind returned to the years of his youth. ...For people of his generation, knowledge was still synonymous with memorization. Only in the past century, as written records have become less expensive and more easily available, has the importance of remembering dramatically declined. Nowadays a good memory is considered useless except for performing on some game shows or for playing Trivial Pursuit.

But for a person who has nothing to remember, life can become severely impoverished. ... A mind with some stable content to it is much richer than one without. It is a mistake to assume that creativity and rote learning are incompatible. Some of the most original scientists, for instance, have been known to have memorized music, poetry, or historical information extensively.

A person who can remember stories, poems, lyrics of songs, baseball statistics, chemical formulas, mathematical operations, historical dates, biblical passages, and wise quotations has many advantages over one who has not cultivated such a skill. The consciousness of such a person is independent of the order that may or may not be provided by the environment. She can always amuse herself, and find meaning in the contents of her mind. While others need external stimulation - television, reading, conversation, or drugs - to keep their minds from drifting into chaos, the person whose memory is stocked with patterns of information is autonomous and self-contained. Additionally, such a person is also a much more cherished companion, because she can share the information in her mind, and thus help bring order into the consciousness of those with whom she interacts.

Wow. When I read about such a person - someone who is a delight to be around because they know so much on a variety of subjects and can contribute to conversations in a variety of ways - I am determined to do my part to guide my little people in this direction. It is sometimes easy to let the memory work slide, during school time. When math takes forever and we've had to struggle with a history paper and we've had tears over how and what to capitalize, it's tempting to say, "Enough. Memory work can wait."

But now I think that perhaps memory work is a GREAT way to take a break. If it brings order to the mind... if it helps the mind to organize its work... if it keeps the mind crisp and ready to tackle the tasks of the day... then sign me up! My kids all memorize pretty easily. Memorization is an easy way for them to feel a sense of accomplishment. So it would make sense for me to capitalize on this advantage and fill their minds with the best.

And mine too. I confess that I don't spend as much time memorizing as I used to. But DH and I are both inspired to make this a whole-family project. Maybe we'll start with Proverbs. Or Shakespeare's sonnets. Whatever - I'm excited about this new adventure. And it's nice to feel excited about something - a welcome change.

Hard Packages Come By The Truckload

2006-01-31T18:24:00.000-08:00

I'm not complaining. Really, I'm not. But let me tell you about the last seven days:

1) DH has his aforementioned minor health issue that, despite its minorness (minority? minorinity?) causes him much pain and suffering and requires a good bit of my time and attention, as he is confined to bed for the better part of a week.
2) Various friends and authority figures have their aforementioned difficult conversations with me re: my kiddos.
3) We discover financial impropriety committed against us by someone we trusted.
4) We discover that we are the victims of click fraud and that two months of our advertising budget is drained away in two days. And is unrecoverable.
5) We have to terminate someone's employment. And this individual is NOT happy about it.

To be honest, I've had much harder weeks in my life. So I do have some perspective on the current trials. I know that in the grand scheme of life, I'm a mega-millions lottery winner. I have love and marriage and kids and parents and siblings and friends and health and brains and ability and education and happiness and freedom and help and support out the wa-zoo. I am rarely lonely. I am rarely depressed. I have a million, billion, trillion, googolplex more blessings than I deserve. And I know that counting them is one of the best remedies for self-pity in times like this.

But still I shake my head that life works this way. When things are going your way, it seems like everything's going your way and always will. When everything starts going south, it's like your life is one big black hole sucking all your resources down into an infinite void. Go figure.

I'm grateful to be old enough to know that this too shall pass. It may get worse first. But eventually the UPS truckloads of bad news will start to reduce down to Miata-sized carloads, and some good things will start arriving to counteract the bad, and before you know it I'll be blowing sunshine and handing out daisies with Pollyanna 'cause life is SO sweet. (I've been accused of Pollyanna-ism before. More than once. Let this serve as my public apology to all I've offended.)

But until then, know that I am down in the trenches, praying, crying out, trying to remember how to lean on Him who gives generously and without reproach. I need wisdom. I need strength. I need courage and fortitude and endurance. I need more than I have. This is where I am.

**********

So. Enough about me.

Patty, my sister in combat. Would it comfort you if I said I think I know EXACTLY how you feel? It just stinks when your kid doesn't live up to your expectations for him, but it stinks DOUBLE when he does it in PUBLIC. It takes so much ENERGY, this parenting thing. I will pray for you!!!! To have the wisdom to see what is in his heart and to know how to address it effectively. I think the apology and notes are a good idea.

Tom, it's sad but true: It hurts you A LOT worse than it hurts them. You'll see. (Soon, I hope.)

Needleroo and Melissa: Thanks for the encouragement. It helps to know Patty and I aren't the only ones whose children aren't perfect.

Ok, I'm off now. In the next couple of days I hope to have a positive report.

Good Lessons Come In Hard Packages

2006-01-26T03:46:00.000-08:00

I haven't been blogging lately. (News to y'all, huh?!) I'm currently nursing DH through a minor health issue (nothing serious, thank goodness), trying to stay on top of school, and trying to spend time in earnest prayer for some people I love whose marriage is dissolving. These efforts require time. Away from the computer.

Furthermore, in the last month, I have had not one, not two, but THREE difficult conversations with friends or authority figurews regarding each of my children. Two were about behavior issues. One was about academics. All three were painful in their own way, which reminds me that I am prone to worshipping at the altar of Children Making Their Parents Look Like All-Stars. I know this about myself - that I want perfect kids who will make me look good - yet it always stings to be reminded of my selfishness. Ouch.

Note to self: Parenting is a marathon, not a sprint. And: It's not about me. It's about them.

One good thing that has come out of the pain of confronting my children's shortcomings has been the opportunity to talk with them deeply. A lot. I can say that I do feel closer to my kids because of having to dig down into some of this stuff. And with both of the behavior issues, I have had the chance to reiterate to my kids that I love them and have a duty to them NOT to let them go off in foolish directions. Protecting their boundaries is part of my job. (And DH's too, of course. I'm grateful not to be in this alone.)

And another good thing has been the reminder that my efforts alone cannot produce good kids. Homeschooling isn't sufficient either. Great parenting is a good thing, but it is no substitute for God's grace. It is only His work in our family's life - collectively and individually - that will bear lasting fruit. It is good to be reminded that He is more than sufficient and that my success depends upon dependence. Not on self-reliance.

Again: It's not about me.

If getting that idea tattooed across my forehead would help, I just might do it.

Happy Days

2006-01-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. We did lots and lots of school. DS2 has been assigned Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which means that I am reading it aloud to him and simplifying as I go. Always a mental challenge. I want to keep the majority of the style and the structure, but I have to shorten the sentences and translate some of the words I know he doesn't know. Like "impugn."

DS2 is finally starting to improve in math and grammar. I have gotten more consistent about checking his work, which I think is helping.

DD is halfway through her Saxon! Yay! I have dropped the stupid meeting and have figured out additional ways to pare down the lessons into manageable size. We are unfortunately only maybe 20% through Story of the World, though, so I've go some catching up to do in that arena. Luckily, at least it's interesting.

After school I went to the grocery store armed with a list I started three days ago that contained all the things from the pantry we were running low on. You know it's time for a grocery run when you don't have salt. Or pancake syrup.

While I was there I got the ingredients for beef stew with vegetables. It is simmering right now, but has another hour to cook. DH comes in every 10 minutes to ask if it's ready. Mmmmm, smells good! We're munching on cheese and crackers while we wait.

And the second half of the season premiere of 24 comes on tonight!!! Woo-hoo! Last night was shocking! (But that's how it goes with 24... part of the reason I like it so much.)

Good, normal, happy days. I record this one here because you never know when you're going to hit a streak of bad ones. When that happens, I'll have something pleasant to remember and hang on to.

Shock and Disbelief

2006-01-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

Randi St. Denis is a local homeschooling mom who for years has been the organizer of a local (and wonderful) homeschooling convention held annually in metro Atlanta. Recently her family has been the victim of a great tragedy, and to add trauma to an already terrible experience, DFACS has seized their grandson.

You can read the details here.

I am shocked and horrified.

I do know that there are two sides to every story... and I do know that sometimes we snap to judgment when we don't have the full picture... but wow. This woman has a pretty impeccable record of public service to homeschoolers and regular schoolers alike. She puts on numerous (free) workshops for parents throughout the year. She and her husband generously offer their time, their wisdom, and their hearts to children all over the state of Georgia every year. And none of this generosity or public service seems to have made a whit of difference to DFACS. I wonder if it even made her a target.

If you are a praying person, would you consider praying for the safety of this poor child? I cannot imagine how confused and afraid he must be right now.

Hmph.

2006-01-11T09:05:00.000-08:00

Remember a few posts back when I recommended A Million Little Pieces? Well, guess what NPR featured last night? James Frey just might be a fraud.

Hmph. That's all I have to say. Hmph.

Okay, maybe I have a little more to say. Which is: Aren't you tired of this? This notion that the truth is liquid, flexible, not really something to stand on? I am. I really am. From Stephen Ambrose to all those reporters in the late 90's either plagiarizing or just making things up. Either way, it's so disappointing.

It's not that I'm sad that Frey wasn't as "bad" or didn't suffer as much as he claimed to. It's not even that I'm angry that I was taken in (which I am, because I was). It's that every time an author publishes what isn't really his, or misrepresents his work as truth when it's fiction, or makes up sources, or embellishes his resume, we all suffer. One more little hole is created in the fabric of society. One more pillar of trust falls. One more clause is invalidated in our social contract.

I'm glad the truth came out, in this case. I hope it serves to strengthen the power of truth-telling everywhere. And I'm still open to the possibility that Mr. Frey has a reasonable explanation for all of this. While the article at The Smoking Gun is very convincing, it's always possible that it does not completely represent the whole story. So I'll be watching for further developments. But I must admit that things don't look good for James Frey today.

Patience and Humility are Fine Weapons

2006-01-09T15:18:00.000-08:00

A week or two ago I was all set to write Patty in WA an encouraging missive about parenting through the tough times, imploring her to stay the course and fight the good fight and all that.

Well.

As it so happens, parenting (and blogging) once again turns out to be an exercise in humility, as less than 24 hours after I began putting my thoughts down, I was informed of the misconduct of one of my own… by a close friend whose children were hurt by my child's astounding lack of judgment. Sigh.

And therefore, I really do need to work out what to say to Patty. Because I need to say it to myself as well.

Sometimes parenting is war, and we all know what they say about war. But I don’t mean to say that you are at war with your child (although it often feels that way to me). Really, you – I – all of us parents (who are trying) are at war with a culture, a force, a nebulous, nameless, faceless enemy who wants less for our children than we want for them.

Sometimes the enemy takes the form of our own kids’ baser natures. Their own inherent sinful, selfish “me’s” want only what is easy, comfortable, entertaining, cool, powerful, or attention-provoking. So our job is drill sergeant, the tough guy who must whip these undisciplined souls into shape and help them develop an appreciation for what is good, what is true, and what is eternal. These desires are all tastes that cannot be acquired unless easier but less valuable pursuits are sacrificed.

At other times the enemy is not what is inside our kids, but what surrounds them. It seems that there are great and powerful forces driven by commerce, government, society, and even other parents that buffet our kids daily. I don’t even mean the obvious MTV culture of teenage angst and rebellion or the many evil, evil people who would like to turn our kids into drug users or mindless sex drones. I also mean all those forces out there that would like my kids simply to accept, not to consider and weigh, the messages that they sell. The magazines that want my daughter to be obsessed with her appearance and not her mind or her character. The camp counselors who want to help my boys define “cool” by what movies they’ve seen or how much weight they can lift. The coaches and team parents who promote winning over gaining skills or advancing the fine art of playing as a team. The guidance counselors who want my kids to go to college not so that they can be better people but so that they can get better jobs. All those writers out there who publish articles on the Web about how to get a better career instead how to think about what makes a life successful, ultimately.

There are So. Many. Battles. It seems like every time I relax for even an instant I am sideswiped by some new attack. Exhausting and discouraging, the effort of parenting.

Yet even as I type this I am reminded that the victory goes not to the strong, but to those who trust. “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build at all.” “In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct Thy paths.” “My Yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” It is past time that I ran back to the Source of All Strength and was reminded that His power is made perfect in weakness. It is past time that I rejected the idol of Being The Perfect Mom and ran instead to the Perfect Father. But, thankfully, even though this is what I should have been doing all along, it is never too late.

So. Patty. It is not too late for us. Your current battle is different than my current battle. But this is true for both of us: It is not our kids who are the enemy. We can love them and be strengthened by that love that wants the best for them. And we can go back to our Father for strength. He knows quite well what it is to battle disobedience in the hearts of His children or outside forces who would like to devour them. He can teach us too.

I welcome your insights, now that you have a little distance from your frustrations and things seem to be going a little better. I confess that while I am over the emotional hurt of the current skirmish, I'm still puzzling over how to counter-attack the real enemy.

Patty, I Haven't Forgotten You

2006-01-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

I have just returned home from a visit to my Grandmother's house, where a lightning storm on our first evening there zapped all the power, phones, TV, Internet, and, eventually, toilets. (They have an electric water pump to access the well. No pump... no water.) So... A) I've had no access to Blogger for a few days, and... B) I'm so happy to now be home flushing my toilets with abandon that I'm not going to post my parenting post tonight. I did, however, work on it. And I will keep doing so until I get it right. Parenting has been on my mind lately (for reasons you will soon discover) so I want to get some thoughts out there. As soon as I clarify them.

Heaven is a Big Stack-o-Books

2005-12-29T13:25:00.000-08:00

I've been reading the last couple of weeks. The books-for-Christmas quota was a little lower this year than usual, but the quality is up. Here's what I've finished so far:

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey. Very compelling. I've had so many friends, IRL and online, recommend this title that I bought it without even reading the back cover while I was out Christmas shopping. An impulse purchase, but not one I regret. There were parts that were very hard to read because they were very, very real... one part I just could not bear. (If you've read it, can you guess what part I couldn't take? Hint: it wasn't the part about his visit to the dentist.) Aside from that one scene, however, I found the book riveting. And I decided that while the book is not great literature, this one title alone could possibly be the most effective anti-drug message a parent could ever give her kid. (If she were of the love-hurts school of protecting her kids. Which at times I can be, I admit.)

The History of Love - Nicole Krauss. Hard to sing the praises of this book too highly. I fell through the looking glass almost immediately and found myself surprised and annoyed whenever one of my kids interrupted my reading to ask me for breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. ("Please, mom, we're hungry!") Such is the power of some books, that you enter their world so completely that you are disoriented when jerked rudely back to your own. This was that kind of book. And the characters in it were people unlike any I personally know, which is always a pleasure to be found in good books. I grew up in the South, have always lived in the South, and all my people are of Protestant Scotch-Irish descent. The characters in this book are Polish Jews who've made their way to the Americas, North and South, and their offspring. Their voices are beautiful and pleading and so different from my own that they are fascinating.

The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd. (Yes, BFF Ruthie, I finally got around to reading this. You're welcome.) This was a find from the Scholastic Book Sale - an unabridged audio CD set of the entire novel. I started off listening little bits at a time in my car. By the midpoint of the book, I had to borrow DH's fancy-schmancy earphones and listen on the DVD player late into the night. What I loved about this book was what a powerful picture of women it presented, the great gift mothers give daughters and that daughters seek out long after their mothers are gone. The narrator for the audio version had a WONDERFULLY authentic deep Southern accent, which just cannot be faked. I don't care if you are Meryl Streep or Emma Thompson, if you did not grow up in the South you should not even try to imitate a Southerner. But I digress. Yes, Ruthie, you were right - I did love this book.

The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness, Joel ben Izzy. A simple and profound true story of a professional storyteller who loses his voice and how he came to see the loss as a gift. Interspersed with the author's story are the legends and fairy tales he used to tell, woven throughout as illustrations for his own journey. This was a short but worthwhile read.

Shopgirl, Steve Martin. I loved this book the first time I read it. Not as much the second time, but I still think it's well-done. Martin surprised me as an author; the element of surprise was missing the second time, but I still found his prose lovely and his insights refreshing. I hope the movie will be as good.

Here is the list of books still stacked up in anticipation of being read:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathon Safran Foer.
Shakespeare and the Art of Language - Sister Miriam Joseph. This one looks rather dense - a thick book with small print - so it will take me a while. But it is about how the Trivium influenced Shakespeare's work. Doesn't that sound intriguing?
Henry V - Kenneth Branagh version, on videotape. Yes, I know it's not a book, but I've put it on the list because it WILL take time to watch and it IS literary. So there.

So, what about y'all? What titles did you get for Christmas? My stack is too short, and I need suggestions!

P.S. To Patty in WA: I am thinking through a response to your recent comments re: the Great BoyBob Wars. Take courage, my friend! You are fighting a good fight! (More soon.)

Delayed Gratification

2005-12-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

This summer, while camping with my folks, we made our annual jaunt to the outlet mall between our home and the campground. At the kitchen store, I found a new, fancy, stainless-steel cookie press. There were other cookie presses - some battery operated! - but I was drawn to this one. It looked... substantial. Like it would not break mid-cookie-batch and leave me with a big bowl of unshaped, unbaked green cookie dough three hours before I needed to take cookies to my kids' fine-arts-class end-of-year-celebration. Not that I'm holding a grudge or anything.

So I bought it. And it sat in its box in an upper cabinet in my kitchen for six months, waiting. Waiting to prove itself to me. Waiting to flex its muscles, click its ratchet, gleam in the glow of mid-morning December sunlight, and press cookies worthy of a magazine cover onto my humble but well-greased cookie sheets.

Late this week we had home economics and applied math (emphasis: fractions) class in the kitchen this morning and put the cookie press to the cookie test.

At first, I was thrilled. THRILLED! What excitement, to press the lever, hear the little, satisfying "click," then lift to see a perfect little green tree resting on the cookie sheet. Success! A ha! I am now a cookie goddess! I shall make a hundred batches! I shall give them to everyone I know! mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha..... DD caught the fever and insisted upon taking over lever duty. I obliged, but stayed near to assist.

Alas, our dreams of world domination via sugar cookies were dashed somewhere in the middle of pan number four. We did the same thing we had been doing, all along, when all of a sudden... no "click." More like, "clunk." Lift the press... no cookie. Only a small smoosh of dough clinging to the bottom of the disc. Mutter, mutter... pull the lever, try again. "Clunk."

Clunk, indeed. Just for fun, I got onto Amazon to see if anyone had reviewed this cookie press. Oh, yes, indeedy... mine was not the only disappointing experience. If you're in the market for a new cookie press, you can go here and read what NOT to buy.

Meanwhile, the rest of the dough became... thumbprint cookies. Not nearly as fun and tasty as little Christmas trees. Bah, humbug. But at least they all were eaten. Multi-colored sprinkles are just irresistable, no matter the appearance of the cookie on which they are delivered.

Favorite Christmas Ornament

2005-12-16T21:02:00.000-08:00

Reading a few of my regularly-read blogs today, I've enjoyed several posts featuring favorite Christmas ornaments. So I just have to follow suit, only my favorite ornament doesn't hang on the tree. It is a very special Nativity set, made by my middle ds, when he was 6 years old, in a pottery class:

You probably can't see this, but the eyes on these figures were formed by his six-year-old thumbnail pressed gently into the soft clay.

He will never be six again. But I will always, always have his thumbnail-prints, even when he is a grown man with children of his own and I am very old and in a nursing home and forced to choose the five or six possessions I am allowed to take with me into my sad and lonely room. I will not be so lonely with my little Nativity set there to remind me of ds.

Once A Reader of Narnia, Always a Reader of Narnia

2005-12-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

This weekend I saw The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe with my family. My dh loved it. My kids loved it. My sister and her husband loved it.

I… have had a hard time putting words around how I felt about it.

It’s not hard to dissect the movie into various elements and discuss what worked and what didn’t. Aslan? Perfect graphics, wrong choice of voice. The Queen? Excellent portrayal, wrong physical build for the part. The children? All outstanding, a nice surprise. The story? Minor plot changes, but in substance, the same (to my great relief).

What’s harder is to accept this movie – the gestalt of it, the whole package. That effort may be an impossibility for me.

A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit the house my Grandmother lived in during my very early childhood. (She moved back to the farmhouse where she’d been born when I was, oh, nine or so, and the house was sold to some distant relatives.) I had spent a couple of Easters and Christmases in that home, and I had good memories of all its rooms. So it was a real shock to me to come back years later and realize how very tiny it was. I never knew it, as a kid. The house never felt small at all. Yet as an adult, I was stunned to realize it had only four rooms: a living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms. Oh, and one miniature bath. I could walk through the front door and out the back in 15 seconds flat. The ceilings were low. Even the yard, with its muscadine grapevine and big tank of propane, was not the giant playground of my memory but a small rural lot at the end of a dirt road with just enough room for the house, driveway, and clothesline, right by that grapevine and the gas tank.

Seeing Narnia as a 21st century moviegoer was a little like revisiting my Grandmother’s old house. I’ve always felt a fierce loyalty to the Narnia series. They were the first books that felt like friends to me, some of the handful that I read over and over and over again throughout my childhood. When I read them as an adult, they had lost none of their magic. Indeed, they felt bigger in some ways, because I caught more of the symbolism and theology in them than I had picked up on as a young reader.

Alas, the movie Narnia feels small to me. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe was very well done, in many ways. But it did not capture my heart and enlarge my imagination as the book did. In my mind, the lamppost in the forest is stately and grand. The trees are massive, like redwoods. They extend for leagues and require days to journey through. Cair Paravel is like the great Scottish castles – thick, impenetrable, medieval. The Ice Palace of Jadis is otherworldly, foreign, and much more frightening than misty green lights can render. Tumnus’ home is homier, the Beavers’ dam is cozier and cleverer. Narnia seems more possible, in my mind. More like a real place that my heart could long to visit.

Perhaps no movie adaptation will ever be able to capture for me what Narnia is. Perhaps I’m asking too much of a limited medium. Or perhaps I’m past the age of being captured and owned by an imaginary world. I had hoped I was not.

Be Back Soon

2005-12-13T06:26:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to write a post about the new Narnia movie. It's taking a while. My feelings are... complicated. But I'm working on it.

More soon.

One More Day Until...

2005-12-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

...the Scholastic Warehouse Sale!

I live, literally, within walking distance of the local Scholastic Book warehouse. But I cannot walk to this sale. For one thing, how would I get all my books home? (grin - yes, I buy a lot of books at this thing.) For another, to walk, I'd have to cross over a golf course, scale a massive chain link fencen topped with barbed wire, try not to get hit by a huge freight train as I sprint over a series of several parallel tracks, and navigate my way past big ol' trucks and big ol' truck drivers in their rigs at the ends of the loading docks in the industrial park where the warehouse sits. Sounds like a game of Frogger, huh?

SO... I reckon I'll drive.

At past sales, I have scored Hooked on Phonics (new and complete) for $50, Kingfisher encyclopedias galore, numerous glitzy cookbooks, abundant cheap paperback readers for all my kids, nifty little crafty kits, Klutz books, beautiful leatherbound classics collections, and lots of teaching and literary guides. You never know what you will find, but almost always I find something that was on my list anyway, or something I'd browsed at B&N but couldn't bring myself to buy. All at half off. Or more. (There's a dollar box that's taller than I am.)

I'm an addict. And there's no 12-step in sight. (Like I want help. No, I don't have a problem. Really. I can quit anytime I want.)

So, How Random CAN I Be?

2005-12-04T19:23:00.000-08:00

Gleaned this weekend from Breaking Out Of Beginner's Spanish by Joseph J. Keenan:

"Hispanisms"

The history of Spanish isn't a distressful one of bombardment by other tongues but a proud one of influencing the languages with which it has come into contact. For all languages, evolving is part taking, part giving, and Spanish has given far more than its share. What follows is a list of Spanish words that have been adopted into English:*

alligator
alcove
booby
bozo
canyon
cinch
embargo
guitar
hazard
lasso
marijuana
mosquito
patio
quixotic
ranch
savvy
silo
tobacco
tornado
vanilla

(*Note that I shortened his already abbreviated list, just to give you a sample of a sample. If you are a student of Espanol, do yourself a favor and get this book - it is just chock-full of "who knew?" mistakes that we newbies make all the time that defeat our attempts at sounding native.)

Did YOU know that we got the word vanilla from Spanish? !Salga! (That's Spanish for, "Get OUT!" ha ha ha) Go ahead - go to Merriam Webster Online and look up any of those words. (Or don't and trust me!)

Isn't English fascinating? We take words from whatever source we like. Words like "adios" and "sombrero" are obvious, but I loved learning that words like "booby" come from Spanish as well. Maybe I'm weird.

ALSO gleaned this weekend: A quote by Martin Luther printed in the worship guide at church.

No matter where you are reading in the Bible, faith is the first mystery you should recognize. Faith is not believing that the story you are reading is true as written. That does nothing for anyone. Even unbelievers can believe the Bible story of Jesus' birth is true. Faith is not a natural work apart from God's grace. Rather the right kind of faith, the kind that flows from Grace and that God's Word demands, is firmly believing that Christ was born for you. His birth is yours and occurred for your benefit. For the Gospel teaches that Christ was born for our benefit and that everything He did and suffered was for us.

Good news indeed.

May I Recommend...

2005-12-01T19:42:00.000-08:00

...a movie I saw for the first time earlier this month called The Sea Inside? When DH pulled it out of the Netflix envelope and read the description, he said, "All yours, babe." "Really? You're not interested?" I queried. "Emphatically not," he replied, "I've learned. No more movies about death and suffering for a while."

(Let me put your mind at ease here and point out here that DH and I are not currently grieving any personal losses at this time that sad movies would only exacerbate. It's just that DH and I have an ongoing battle over the Netflix queue - perhaps you can relate? - where he likes to load it up with Jackie Chan and oldies from the AFI Top 100 list, whereas I love anything like Mystic River or 21 Grams or My Life Without Me where you get very attached to major characters and then they die or commit a crime or both, but not in that order. The more twisted, tragic, and heartwrenching, the better.)

Well, I popped that little disc into the player while DH was working on his computer in the same room. And before long, he was saying, "Can you back it up?" because, a) he'd been looking down at his work and missed something, and b) the movie is all in Spanish so if you are looking down you not only missed action but the English subtitles too. AND... this movie is hard not to watch. The acting is SUPERB. The dialogue is realistic and intelligent. The subject matter is compelling. The emotional impact is shattering.

No, I don't think I'm overdoing the hyperbole. This movie really does merit high praise. It tells the true story of Ramon Sampedro, a Spanish quadriplegic who wanted to end his life but was forbidden to do so by law and unable to do so by nature of his physical condition. The movie is unflinching and unsentimental, yet tells the story with compassion for those on both sides of the issue. It raises questions of ethics, of life, the boundaries of friendship, and the limits of love.

Not exactly the feel-good movie of the year... and yet... still a celebration of life. I much enjoyed it. (And, incidentally, so did DH. Even if he did bug out of the last excruciating 15 minutes and I had to tell him how it ended. I understood, though. I couldn't make it all the way through his Hotel Rwanda without leaving the room every so often to break up the intensity. I suppose we balance each other out somehow.)

Our Books, Our Selves

2005-11-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

This post by Crissy got me thinking about my family and how different we are when it comes to our books. My sisters are as far from me as can be when it comes to our bookshelves. One likes mostly Christian fiction and Mary Higgins Clark (although I did introduce her to J. Austen, whom she now loves). Actually, the more I think about it, the more I suspect that if she came over and raided my library, she find lots of stuff she would love. But, I'm not sure the opposite would be true, as a) she's more of a library-borrower than a bookstore-addict, like me; and b) she's definitely drawn toward titles that leave me cold.

But my other sis? She's even farther away. She reads... cookbooks.* Or gardening books.* Or titles like, Journey into Motherhood: Inspirational Stories of Natural Birth. (She's a Bradley instructor.) See, I told you I had an Earth Mother sister! If you go over to her house, you will find models of women's pelvic bones and little life-size infants and placentas. Nice, huh? But I digress.

My parents are no good for a book discussion, either, unless it's an inspirational title (with my mom) or something about the South (with my dad).

I do have two close family members with whom I can discuss many books. One is dh, who does not like much fiction, but does enrich my world with good historical titles and titles like All Day Permanent Red, and modern poetry. The other is my Aunt D., mentioned last post, who gave me books all throughout my childhood - encyclopedias, Charlotte's Web, Narnia, Middle Earth - all came from her. Quite a debt I owe her, huh? I have fun returning the favor whenever I find a good title.

(Whoops, make that three family members - forgot about my brother. He and I like similar lit. I just don't get to see him enough, so when we do get together we forget to talk books.)

Finally, speaking of good titles, here's one I just finished this weekend:
The Constant Gardener. (Sorry, sis, not the gardening title you might think it to be. grin) Wow. Heady, deep, tragic, slowly paced but very engaging. Don't know if I'll see the movie, but the book was a good buy. The author is John le Carre, a writer I associate with spy movies from my childhood, so I'd never read any of his work. I was pleasantly surprised. I was also impressed with his ability to jump points-of-view - normally it's so jarring and rarely done well. But here the device works, because it really opens up the characters and adds to the plot - so much of what happens happens because of who the players are.

The only thing I don't understand is the cover art on this book. Maybe it would make more sense if I saw the movie, but if I'm correct in assuming that the picture of Ralph Fiennes is meant to be the main character in the story, I can't figure out why they have him pointing a gun. If you have seen the film, and can enlighten me, please feel free.

Well, time to cook dinner. More later.

** I, too, have been known to read a good cookbook, like anything by Nigella Lawson, or my new favorite, The Gift of Southern Cooking. Ditto on gardening books. But I differ from my sister because I ALSO like novels, whereas she owns no non-fiction that she did not buy for her children.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Life

2005-11-29T05:08:00.000-08:00

I am ever amazed at the rejuvenating effect of a little vacation upon my homeschool spirit.

This week the boys have a week off from their weekly classes at The Classical School, but they still have assignments to complete. This, to me, is the perfect combination - they have much work to do, but plenty of time to do it. We started yesterday. I took their lists and divided them into daily assignments. We discussed the necessity of following the daily lists religiously - how work isn't so bad if you do it steadily and diligently, but is overwhelming if you let it pile up. Then we got to work.

Math? Check. Book reports? Begun. Grammar? Check. Science? Under control. This, my friends, is a good feeling.

And today we are going to hit Latin. I've decided that every day we will give a joint lesson in a different subject, to break up the same-old. Yesterday I read the Science lesson aloud and then they did their worksheet. (They do this every week to get ready for the weekly Friday experiments.) Today, we'll have Latin Drill, a game we made up that the boys love, to my amazement. I call out vocab words or ask for declensions or conjugations. They shout out the answers if they know them. It's Mom against Boys - and chocolate chips for the winner. (And the loser, too, if she's Mom.)

I think I'm also bouyed by the knowledge that we only have three weeks of hard work to go before another nice, long, break at Christmas. Perfect! Anyone can do the routine for three weeks if they know there are presents and cookies waiting for them at the end of it.

Hmmm. Maybe we should do school this way ALL the time. Three weeks on - one week of presents and cookies. Any takers?

Giving Thanks

2005-11-28T07:24:00.000-08:00

It was a good Thanksgiving this year.

Every year for the past... hmmm, 12? years, DH and I have hosted my family's Thanksgiving celebration. It started when we moved into our first house. We wanted to take some of the holiday load off of my mom, but more selfishly, we wanted to use and enjoy and share the blessing of finally having a kitchen of our *own*.

This is a tradition I would not trade.

Over the years, we have perfected the menu. Oh, we don't cook it all ourselves - we finally figured out that it was more fun to spread the load. Mom brings the dressing (mmmmm....) and the sweet potato casserole (nuts on top, please, none of this marshmallow nonsense) and the pumpkin pie. Sister Hi-Energy Tornado brings the green beans and the chocolate pies. (Other people associate Thanksgiving with pumpkin pie... not me. My mother's chocolate chess pie, made by my sister, is to die for!) Sister Earth-Nurturing-Mother brings salad and a veggie and bread (2 varieties this year, including blueberry muffins. Mmmm.)

So what do DH and I do? Ahh, this is my favorite - we, meaning mostly DH - do the turkey!

It has become a familiar ritual now, born of long years of painful mistakes. First, move the turkey from the freezer to the fridge NO LATER than the Saturday before Thanksgiving. To do otherwise means staying up very late the night before the feast, changing a lot of turkey water baths in the kitchen sink. Second, the night before the feast, unwrap the turkey and remove all those little bags stuffed inside it. (How many of us have roasted that baby with all the giblets and such still inside it? Only once, right?) Third, go to bed early and arise before dawn to light the grill, charcoal please, not gas. Give the fire a couple of hours to get good and hot. (You will need a lot of charcoal! And hickory chips for flavor.) And finally, about 7 a.m., put on the bird. Or birds. (We figure if we're going to this much trouble, we would like enough leftovers to freeze for future meals!)

DH smokes the turkey by building his fire on one side of the grill and putting the bird, in a pan, on the other side, the side with the vent. That way the smoke is drawn over the bird and infuses it with wonderful flavor.

I love DH's smoked turkey. It is moist, it is flavorful, it is HIS. And I love preparing it with him.

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

What I Gave Thanks For This Year (and am thankful for every day):

Family:
A husband who understands and loves me
Children who orbit us (to borrow MFS' metaphor)
Parents who are still alive and well and involved in my kids' lives
Siblings whom I enjoy, not dread
In-laws who love me and accept me as one of their own, in every good way
A grandmother who endures, despite her age and physical limitations
Aunt D., who taught me to love reading and teaches me still

Friends:
DH who is my soul mate
Sisters and a brother who are also friends
A new sister, courtesy of my dear brother's marriage this year
BFF Ruthie who is there for the long haul
New friends who share our spiritual perspective
Homeschool friends who encourage and commiserate
Neighbor friends who make our home a nicer place to be

An Education:
The many, many books read this year that have transported me, if only temporarily, to a different reality than my own
The travel to other countries and other parts of my own country that have opened my eyes to different ways of living and being
The friends I made in college who stick with me still (you know who you are!) and ground me in who I used to be and challenge me
The Internet connection that helps me obtain books, plan travel, and communicate with friends. (It's also connected me to the NYTimes, Arts and Letters Daily, Miriam-Webster online, Spanish lessons, and the world of bloggers, to name just a few of its other benefits.)
A techno-geek dh who keeps our home humming

Beauty:
A view of water out my breakfast room window and trees in my bedroom vista
A hometown with four seasons
A large number of exotic fish who've taken up residence nearby
The North Georgia mountains

Freedom:
To worship
To read and think and learn
To say what we believe to be true
To disagree and argue and debate
To give
To serve
To choose where and how we live
To choose where and how we educate our kids

A final thanksgiving note: One of the biggest blessings is the act of thanksgiving, in itself: The longer your list gets, the longer it could get. Every blessing remembered brings to mind even more.

(Sea)Lions and Tiger(fish) and Bear(Trout) - Oh My!

2005-11-22T21:45:00.000-08:00

(Okay, I'm stretching it with the Bear Trout, as I had to look that up on Google to find some kind of fish with the word "Bear" in its name, but I digress...)

Let me begin this post about the Georgia Aquarium by saying that I have always, throughout my adult life, described Atlanta this way: "It's not a wonderful place to visit. There's not much to do here as a tourist. But it's a GREAT place to live." And I think those of you who may have visited here before will know what I mean. We don't have any great museums (although the High just expanded, so that assessment may have improved somewhat). We have a symphony and several theatre troops, and a ballet, but nothing to compare to most major N. American cities. We have the Braves, and every once in a while the Falcons or the Hawks surprise us for a season, but these are just sports teams... they're fun to watch, but one can hardly call a sporting event "cultural" or "educational."

We do have the Carter Center, and the Martin Luther King Center. And the Atlanta History Center. But these are not major museums by any stretch. No, Atlanta is more the kind of place you want to live. Great weather most of the year... warm, friendly neighbors who wave to each other in the neighborhood... good variety of restaurants... affordable housing, and lots of house for your money... good schools for those who want 'em and low overhead and regulation for those of us who school at home... all of which add up to a good hometown, not such a good temporary destination.

But now... oh, now... we have a reason for people to come see us. Yes, the Aquarium merits a visit down south, all by itself. It's... massive. Yet accessible. Ambitious. Yet user-friendly. Educational. And Joyful.

Yes, I think Joyful is a great word for the place. There are whole rooms - more than one! - where you could happily spend a peaceful afternoon just watching tiny golden trevally and whale sharks and grouper and hammerheads swim in symbiotic balance and contemplate the possibility of world peace. You can crawl through a short tunnel and emerge in an acrylic "bubble" where you are nose-to-nose with a penguin (or ten). You are mesmerized with the pulsations of the otherworldly moon jellies and fantastic sea dragons and you laugh out loud at the playful sea lions who bark and play beach-ball with their ice-encased food. Tiny tropical beauties. Piranhas. Arawanas. Belugas! NEMO!

And there are volunteers and staff at every exhibit, who will tell you where all these amazing creatures live, and what they eat, and how they play their part in the great circle of life.

This place expands you. And it's the first time I've ever, in my 39 years on this earth, been able to say that about a place that I don't have to fly somewhere to reach. (Except the library, and that's different sort of expansion.)

Okay, enough with the words. Here are a few of the shots we took yesterday:

Greeters

2005-11-22T21:38:00.000-08:00

These are the fish that greet you when you enter.

Whale Shark

2005-11-22T21:32:00.000-08:00

Japanese Spider Crab

2005-11-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

These crabs can grow to the size of a car and can live up to 100 years.

African Penguin

2005-11-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

Did YOU know there were penguins who live only in Africa? Neither did I, before yesterday.

My Little Aquascientist

2005-11-22T18:36:00.000-08:00

Long Nose Gar

2005-11-22T18:35:00.000-08:00

Rays

2005-11-22T18:34:00.000-08:00

Harry and Bono and Ralph and Norman*

2005-11-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

Harry rocked!

I liked this movie better than all the others put together. Maybe because I liked the book better than all the rest until #6 came out this summer.

I will say that there are whole plot lines left out (like Fred and George and the goblin gold) and whole characters who never appear (like Dobby the House Elf). And the Quidditch World Cup sequence was woefully short. That was disappointing. Yet I understand why... it was truly amazing that they were able to cover as much as they did, given the time limitations of a movie audience's attention span.

I think I will see it again, before it leaves the theaters.

One more event I am able to review after the weekend is... the Vertigo Tour! I've been a U2 fan for oh, 20 years, and I have never seen them in concert before now. They just sell out too quickly and I have always been unwilling to pay $500 a ticket for a 2 hour show. (Unwilling and unable! grin) But about 24 hours before the show, a friend called and said she had a lead on some tickets in the nosebleed section (read: relatively cheap) and did we want to go? Indeed we did!

The verdict? U2 puts on a great show. They seem to care about giving the audience its money's worth. They did all of my favorite songs, including "Still Haven't Found What I'm Lookin' For," even though they probably gag in private about ever having to sing that, or Sunday Bloody Sunday, or Pride, ever again. But you'd never know it, if they do feel that way. They really gave it their all, which to me is the sign of a real pro.

The best part of the show came at the end, in the encore, where Bono pulled a woman up on stage and held her in an embrace for the entire performance of "With or Without You." A collective sigh went up from every woman in the audience. Who can resist a man singing to her? Not me, that's for sure.

Okay, gotta go for now. Tomorrow is the apogee of my weekend (even if it is on Monday) because tomorrow WE GO TO THE AQUARIUM! Whale sharks! Belugas! And PENGUINS!!!!!! Oh my!

*Ralph and Norman of the title are the names of the two whale sharks featured at the Georgia Aquarium which opens tomorrow.

In Which All Good Intentions Go Out The Window

2005-11-18T05:29:00.000-08:00

Hmmm.... plan some interesting lessons where I dress up in period costume and we all eat historically accurate food?

Or go see Harry Potter?

What do you think I decided?

Ha, ha, ha. You know already, don't you?

2005-11-15T04:35:00.000-08:00

This week MFS at MMV posted a funny little exchange with her daughters and then mused...

You know how I know that I'm doing good work here? Nah, none of those obvious things. I know I'm doing good work because I often think to myself, "Sh-! If I were home educated, I'd want me for a parent-teacher. I. Am. Awesome."

Ayup.

It struck me that a variation on this musing would be a good pep-talk for those days when I just. don't. feel. like. It. (teaching, that is). You know what I mean - those days you wake up and would so NOT like to teach your kids that you decide to clean the oven. Or call the dentist to see if he can do that root canal you've been putting off. Or, Hey, look! The bathroom grout is filthy! Better get out the bleach and toothbrush!

Instead of going into supercleaning mode, next time I'm going to ask myself, "If YOU were the student here, would you want YOU for a teacher?"

Most of the time, I'm approaching home-education from what *I* need to accomplish. And I don't thing that's a bad thing - it's part of my responsibility to my kids. They don't know what they don't know, and they need the guidance of someone more experienced - someone who knows what they need - to lead them. However... I know their lessons would be improved if I could remember to consider, from time to time, their perspective. As in... Am I boring? Am I communicating in such a way that they find this enjoyable? Or am I passing on the dread disease of monotony?

This is not something that comes naturally to me - either teaching, or figuring out ways to make our lessons more interesting. (Ways that I will actually put into practice, not ignore because they intimidate me.) If any of you have any words of wisdom about how to make that process easier, I welcome them.

2005-11-14T08:50:00.000-08:00

This weekend Brennan Manning came and spoke at a church near my home. I had read The Ragamuffin Gospel years ago and was deeply impacted by it, so this was an opportunity not to be missed.

Wow! What an experience. Manning's frail appearance belies his powerful stage presence and booming speaking voice. The auditorium held probably 2000-3000 people and he could easily have spoken without a microphone. But the power of his message was not in the delivery... it was in the content. His basic theme? God loves you just as you are, not as you should be.

I was also impressed by the scholarship that seemed evident in his speaking. He spoke without notes and quoted Pascal, St. Francis, an multiple Scripture references with ease. I am always challenged toward more memorization when I hear speakers do this. Clearly he had internalized the message he was there to deliver.

The two statements he made that I will chew on all week are these (and I apologize for needing to paraphrase - I can't remember them exactly):

"God moved heaven and earth to draw you in to worship Him today, and all He asks in return is that you be astonished that He bothered at all."

"God did not endure being spat upon, flogged, beaten, tortured, and nailed to a cross just to make all of you nicer and more moral people."

Think on that this week, my friends. I know I will be.

Slice of Life

2005-11-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

*********************************************
Things I am Thankful For Tonight:

Crab cakes, made with 12 tablespoons of butter
New CDs that turned out to be really good, not really disappointing
Absolutely GORGEOUS fall foliage this year
A fire in the fireplace
A little girl who likes strawberries
Two boys who wore themselves out skating today
DH who takes care of me and loves me well
Two parents who are alive and love me unconditionally (or as much so as parents can)
Two in-laws who treat me like their own daughter
Siblings who call just to talk
A world so full of new things to know
Life, right here, right now

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

CD recommendations:

Nichole Nordeman - I've loved her past work, but this latest CD, Brave, is outstanding. Listen to these lyrics:

Hold On
It will find you at the bottom of a bottle,
It will find you at the needle's end.
It will find you when you beg and steal and borrow,
It will follow you into a stranger's bed.
It find you when they serve you with the papers,
It will find you when the locks have changed again.
It will find you when you've called in all your favors,
It will meet you at the bridge's highest ledge.
So baby, don't look down, it's a long way down.
So hold on - love will find you.
Hold on - He's right behind you now.
Just turn around, and love will find you.

Natalie Grant - I wasn't expecting much - but what a pleasant surprise! Not as heady as the Nordeman CD, but fun to listen to and the first song on the CD was written just for BFF Ruthie:

Awaken
Sometimes I feel like I'm just existing
I'm not really living.
I'm only watching the time slip away.
I've forgotten who I am in You,
I'm not who I'm meant to be,
I'm drifting farther away from my destiny.
Awaken my heart, awaken my soul,
Awaken Your power and take control,
Awaken the passion to live for You, Lord,
Awaken me.

(Be careful what you ask for, my friend! grin)

Okay, that's what I'm thinking about tonight. Hope your evening is satisfying to you, too.

Pardon Me, Your Toddler is Screaming

2005-11-10T19:09:00.000-08:00

Interesting article today in the NYT about restaurants and coffee shops that are offending customers by asking them to "control" their children. Interesting to me because I can see both sides of the issue. On the one hand, it truly is no fun to go out to eat and be assaulted by the piercing screams of a toddler whose oblivious parents are chatting on their cell phones. On the other, it is truly no fun to take your children out for a treat and endure dirty looks from the young singles and DINKs who obviously think that once you have children you should never be allowed out in public again. Ah, what's a parent to do?

Apparently many restaurant owners are trying to solve the problem by putting up signs requesting that parents be in charge of their children. Many of the parents have responded by "boycotting" the restaurants in question. But what did the offending signs say? According to the article, they say things like, "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices," and "No lifeguard on duty."

Frankly, while I do take issue with adults who treat children as sub-human, I am not offended by such signs as these. Children do need to learn to use inside voices. (So do a lot of cell-phone-brandishing adults.) And parents DO need to take responsibility for their children. It's sadly true that you can see a lot of bad parenting, or non-parenting, when you are out in public.

The only offense I would take would be with the clerks or fellow customers who believed that a child's bad manners justified a response in kind. Like the server cited in the article who snarked, "We've got a screamer!" I mean, really. If you want children to know how polite people behave, you've got to model polite behavior for them.

What's more, isn't every situation improved when there's a little grace available? Do we have to roll our eyes and assume the worst when we see someone of the childhood persuasion walk through our establishment's door? And on the other side, do we have to bristle and assume that a business owner is a child-hater and Scrooge just because he or she would like to maintain a reasonable atmosphere in said business? I think a little grace on both sides could go a long way.

Courtesy is an invaluable life skill. I hope that more people will give this idea the consideration it deserves.

Under the Sea, Right Here in The ATL

2005-11-09T06:58:00.000-08:00

Here is something you may not have known about me.

I love marine life.

Some people have always wanted to go on a safari. Others dream of living on a dude ranch and roping cattle. My big dream is to learn how to scuba dive. One day, one day...

In the meantime, I satisfy my curiosity about all things ocean by visiting different aquaria. (Aquariae? No, I think it's aquaria.) I haven't been to the big famous ones yet, but I've seen some really cool local ones whenever we visit someplace new. Like the one at Clearwater Beach, FL. Or the tiny but fascinating Waikiki Aquarium. (At the Waikiki they had these otherworldly seadragons that looked like they were out of a Dali painting or a Cirque du Soleil costume design. God is so creative. He blows my mind.)

One of the best experiences of my whole life was getting to be a Seakeeper of the Day at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. DH had a business conference to attend and I got to tag along. The resort is one big casino, but since I don't gamble, I was thrilled to discover it is also one giant - and I mean massive - aquarium. All manner of sharks, rays, and fish live there - including piranha. It is utterly fascinating. Best of all, they have drawing, daily, in which the winner gets the privilege of spending a morning with the "Seakeepers" - the scientists who make the whole thing work. You get to help them test the pH of the water, treat ailing fish, prepare their meals, and then you can stand in the lagoon with the fish and feed them.

This was HUGE. I will never forget the feeling of velvety-soft manta ray noses gliding over my feet or the sharks bumping gently against my shins. They weren't bloodthirsty and they weren't frenzied. They were simply wild creatures who tolerated my presence in their habitat. I felt all National Geographic. It was powerful.

I also got to feed the piranhas. Didn't stand in their tank, though. (grin)

Anyway, do you know what is opening in Atlanta during the week of Thanksgiving?

The World's. Biggest. Aquarium.

Season passes have been acquired. Reservations have been made. We're going before it even opens to the GP. Yeah, baby. Thank you, Bernie Marcus.

How To Kill Bugs, Um, I Mean Insects

2005-11-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

Dy asked, and I answer: How to Go on a Six-Legged Killing Spree.

One, you could make a killing jar. (See instructions here.)

Which can kill one bug at a time. Which takes an hour per bug. Which will not allow for the mass murder of the many insects you might happen to need RIGHT AWAY for your impending science project deadline.

So, you could go to method 2. Cruder, but perfect for a killing spree.

You need plastic ziplock bags, cotton balls, and the kind of nail polish remover that does NOT say "acetone free." You want the acetone. It is your secret sauce. You also want a partner. Insect devastation is no fun alone.

Now, go where there are bugs. Turn a ziplock bag inside out and put it over your hand, like a glove. Pounce upon the poor grasshopper, ant, or stinkbug that you crave. Once it is in your plastic-covered hand, turn the bag back over the bug where it is right-side-in again, with the bug safely inside. Now, have your buddy put some acetone on a cotton ball and quickly drop that cotton ball into your bag. Seal it! The bug will hate it, but he will die quickly, while you have moved on to the next bag, the next bug. And the actone will help preserve him for your collection.

Butterflies and bees can be caught more effectively with little plastic containers - margarine tubs, disposable Glad-ware, old Bell jars. A net helps TREMENDOUSLY. Same acetone-soaked-cotton-ball for the murder weapon. (Note - science books will tell you to pinch the butterfly in the thorax, to keep it from damaging its wings in your killing jar. This is hogwash. You are much more likely to mutilate the wings trying to pinch the stupid thorax than you are just putting it in your container and taking your chances. Trust me.)

There you have it. Now I'm sure I'll have PETA knocking on my door or demonstrating in front of my house. Maybe for good reason... this insect-collecting thing is addictive. I went running this weekend and saw more flying weebies and wanted to catch them! My preciousssssssss.......

Wanna see something REALLY scary?

2005-11-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

No, it's not my kids in Halloween costumes.

It's...

It's...

It's....

BUGS!

Or, INSECTS, to be more precise. Did you know that everything we call a bug is not a bug? There is only one scientific order for bugs, and it includes things like stink bugs. Beetles? They're not bugs. Neither are flies, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, or butterflies. All of those insects belong to DIFFERENT orders.

We had a science project due today. For weeks we've been collecting bugs. This week we went on an all-out quest to identify, mount, organize, and label all of them into a massive collection to turn in today. We have 30 of the things from 7 different orders. If that sounds like a lot, consider that at first the teacher wanted EACH of my three children to make their OWN collection of 30. Different. Bugs. Yeah, right. I intervened and pleaded for a family collection instead. Mom only has so much time, right? And my first grader wasn't exactly going to do this independently. So that's what we did instead.

I think my favorite part of this particular science project was last Friday, when we were in a panic over needing about 20 more bugs. We finished our bookwork for the day and loaded up for a field trip. Lunch out, a stop at Publix for plastic bags and nail polish remover (the acetone kills the bugs quickly), then up to the local Civil War park to hunt bugs. It was a gorgeous day and we had both woods and fields to explore. Once we caught the first few, it became an adventure. We spent hours out there, and I think that day will stick in my memory as one of those "This is why we homeschool" sort of days.

Even if it did require me to learn the difference between bugs and insects.

Halloween Skirmish

2005-11-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

This year my kids won what they consider a major victory in the kids-vs.-mom wars. For years, I've held my ground against what I consider to be "scary" Halloween costumes. My reasoning was that our family doesn't "do" gory movies like Scream or Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street, so why should we dress up like characters from those movies when there are so many other choices out there? No blood, no axes, no chainsaws. Not now, not ever.

For years, our compromise was: Ninjas. Ninjas fell somewhere in the middle between cartoony-superheroes and ultra-cool-scary-masks. Ninja costumes came in a variety of colors and decorations, they had cool face covers, and they carried swords. Mom liked the historical connection. Kids liked the bad-guy connection. Everyone was happy.

But this year, ninjas weren't right either. So we stood in the aisle at the costume store for a long, long time. The pickings were slim. They didn't want superheroes, which I understood - it's hard to feel cool as a 12-year-old Batman when the 4-year-old neighbor next door has the same getup. They're not quite mature enough to see the humor in dressing up like a garbage pail or a gorilla, like a college kid might do. And they'd been ninjas forever and forever. Except for the Lord of the Rings year. Which meant that the only section left for us was... Horror.

So I thought, and I thought. And I thought, well, they're preteen boys. With only a scant few years left before people start looking funny at them for trick-or-treating at all. I do understand the desire to be "cool." And, there were a few choices in Horror that weren't Scream or Jason or Freddy. Or bloody.

So we settled on the Evil Jester (with the mask with a wicked grin) and the Crypt Monster (with the creepy chestplate and horns on his head). There was still no blood, still no tie-ins to silly plot-less no-brainer Hollywood drivel. But they were SCARY.

(I did tell them they were not allowed to make scary noises at the little kids. And, to their credit, they looked at me as if I'd told them not to set their own hair on fire. You know the look, the one that says, "Of course not, Mom, what kind of morons do you think we are?")

I think the costumes were a success. They each came home with about 50 pounds of candy apiece, which they'll probably devour in secret in less than 3 days.

Pictures are forthcoming. As soon as I figure out where I put my camera.

P.S. The cutest costume I saw all night was a little boy who'd made his own Spongebob outfit out of a cardboard box. It was AWESOME. He used exactly the right shades of poster paint and he made a paper nose that stuck out just like the Bob's does. He was So. Cute.

THIS is Halloween!

2005-10-28T22:12:00.000-07:00

Reading at Mental Multivitamin I found a post that inspired me to write one of my own: A tribute to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

When my boys were 5 and 3, and my daughter only a fond wish, DH looked at me a few days before Halloween and said, "You remember how much we enjoyed The Nightmare Before Christmas when we saw it a few years back? I think the boys would love to see it, too." And I, fuzzy of memory for what was in the film, said, "Sure!"

So we all piled in the car and headed to Blockbuster (this was in our pre-Netflix days, mind you) and came home with a video. We popped our corn, plopped onto the couch, and hit "play."

About halfway through, DH and I are trading worried glances over and behind the boys' heads. We had forgotten about the screaming pumpkins and the scary ghoulies popping out from under beds. But the boys seemed not to mind, and we didn't want to ruin the mood, so we kept going.

When Santa is kidnapped and the mischievous goblins start torturing him, I reached for the remote control. DH stopped me silently, mouthing, "Just wait," and I deferred.

When Jack and his "Christmas presents" start scaring little kids all over town and the townspeople start firing rocket launchers at him, I just covered my eyes and prayed silently, "Oh, please, Lord, let them sleep tonight!"

And when the movie was over, my tender three year old son, who cried pitifully when the Karate Kid got a bloody nose and gave other kids his Happy Meal toys so that no one would feel left out - my sensitive son - looked at me solemnly and said,

"I. LOVE. THIS. MOVIE!"

And then he and his brother went stomping through the house shouting, "THIS is Halloween! THIS is Halloween! Pumpkins SCREAM in the dead of night!" And later, after the fifteenth or so viewing, they bellowed, "I am the one hiding under your STAIRS! Fingers like SNAKES and SPIDERS in my hair!" Then they giggled gleefully and started all over again.

So when dear, sweet daughter turned three, her brothers decided her time had come. She, too, was tragically exposed to talking skeletons and Santa-torture and spidery hair.

And she too, laughed gleefully and asked to see it "A-GAY-AN!"

Now we all know the words to This is Halloween and we sing them as we trick-or-treat. Well, we did until the boys got old enough to run away and not be seen looking like dorks trick-or-treating with their parents. But, thank Sandy Claws, they are not too old to watch Nightmare Before Christmas with us one more time.

Thank you, Jack Skelligan, for making my Halloween memories spidery-sweet.

Sunny (?) California

2005-10-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

CONGRATULATIONS to Patty in WA for correctly identifying the location of the to-scale model of the Chrysler Building built entirely out of LEGOS on view at California's LEGOland! (Tell her what she's won, Johnny... ) Yes, for vacation we cashed in all the frequent flier miles we had and took off for Southern California, home of the Very Rich and Very Beautiful. (Okay, I know not everyone there is rich, but boy did we see our share of dizzyingly expensive sportscars. And really, everyone WAS beautiful, at all ages. Fit, tan, and high cheekboned.)

The educational side of the trip was the chance to expose the kids to a totally different landscape and culture from their own (yes, California is a totally different culture than the one we know in the South). Oh, yeah, and our day at the King Tut exhibit. (woo-hoo!) When I was in middle school, I took a class trip to Washington D.C. and we got to see the very same King Tut exhibit. It's back in the states now for the first time in over 20 years, and I accidently discovered that it would be in L.A. after I'd already booked our flights. I lost no time in scoring tickets and redeeming at least one day of vacation as a school day! (I got all geeked out about it because our state requires homeschoolers to report "attendance." Bleah. It always makes me happy to do a field trip to something educational I would have wanted to do anyway, count it as school, and hold my head up high. With a smug little smirk.)

Anyway, Tut was the same as I remembered it - fascinating. All those carvings, those statues, that furniture, the gold! Decorated and painted and thousands of years old... I always wonder whose hands did the carving and dying and weaving, and if they had any idea that three to five thousand years later total strangers who speak an unknown tongue would ooh and ahh over their skill.)

After Tut, we headed down to a beachside resort, where we sat around our hotel room for a couple of days watching it rain. Bleah again. But we caught up on some movies we'd all been wanting to see, and we found a bookstore with Internet where Daddy could check email, so we survived. And when the sun came out again, we became reacquainted with tide pools, body surfing, sand castles, and vast expanses of horizon. Aaah, salt air and stiff breeze.

Our last day, we decided to hit a theme park. We were close to the big one that begins with a D, but as we hit their bigger sister park only last year, we opted for Legoland instead. That was a nice surprise! Every member of our family marveled at the skill and artistry that is possible with a simple plastic brick. And it was nice to visit a theme park where all of the rides were accessible to the majority of our family, yet no one thought they were too "kiddy" or "boring." And we had nice, cool weather, which helped everyone's mood.

So that's the trip report. I have caught up on the laundry and gotten back into our school routine, so I am ready for reading all of Y'ALL's blogs to see what you were up to while I was gone. And to get ready for HALLOWEEN!!!!!!! (Yes, we're trick-or-treatin' fools around here. No offense to our friends who shun the sport.)

Happy fall, everyone! Below are a couple more vacation photos.

Visiting Hagrid at his cottage

2005-10-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

Demosthenes at the Sea

2005-10-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

There's No Place Like Home

2005-10-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

We're home.

I really like taking vacations, but the very best part, to me, is coming home and seeing the place with new eyes. I always have a renewed sense of gratitude and appreciation for home when I return from a long trip. Do you remember this scene from The Wind in the Willows?

We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses, have not even proper terms to express an animal's inter-communications with his surroundings, living or otherwise, and have only the word `smell,' for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in the nose of the animal night and day, summoning, warning? inciting, repelling. It was one of these mysterious fairy calls from out the void that suddenly reached Mole in the darkness, making him tingle throughand through with its very familiar appeal, even while yet he could not clearly remember what it was. He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current, that had so strongly moved him. A moment, and he had caught it again; and with it this time came recollection in fullest flood.

Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that day when he first found the river! And now it was sending out its scouts and its messengers to capture him and bring him in. Since his escape on that bright morning he had hardly given it a thought, so absorbed had he been in his new life, in all its pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating experiences. Now, with a rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up before him, in the darkness! Shabby indeed, and small and poorly furnished, and yet his, the home he had made for himself, the home he had been so happy to get back to after his day's work. And the home had been happy with him, too, evidently, and was missing him, and wanted him back,and was telling him so, through his nose, sorrowfully, reproachfully, but with no bitterness or anger; only with plaintive reminder that it was there, and wanted him.

The call was clear, the summons was plain. He must obey it instantly, and go.

That's how I feel about home. When I'm off adventuring, I'm absorbed in my "new life, in all its pleasures." But when I get close enough to home to smell it, it's all I want. How grateful I am to be here again!

Next entry I'll tell you where we went and what we did. But for now, here's a little hint. Can you guess where we were? (You have to look carefully - it's not what it appears to be!)?

Getaway Part 2

2005-10-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I liked the whole time-off concept so much I'm going back for more! (grin) No, the truth is that dh and I have finally... FINALLY... finished our big project at work. Deadlines have been met. Obligations have been fulfilled. Follow-up has been turned over. Which means... gasp... WE CAN TAKE A VACATION!

So that's what we're going to do. It will be quiet here for a few days, but I'll post a full report when we get back. (And I'm taking another Dallas Willard book with me to read... so if any of it actually gets read, I might even have some food for thought to post from it. We'll see.)

So please! Don't give up on me when you see the same post sitting here day after day! I will be back... before too long.

Getaway

2005-10-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went on a women's retreat with my church. It was surprisingly refreshing, and not just because I got two nights and two days off from cooking and laundry and Saxon math. No, this weekend was much more.

I went into the weekend with more than a little angst. For the past week I've not slept well, and I know why. I've been all tied up in knots over a decision that dh and I have made/are making/keep talking about endlessly, and I just haven't been able to get any peace about it. I finally decided late in the week that God didn't want me to have peace about it - that it served some purpose of His to keep me all agitated and confused. If that sounds critical of Him, it's not meant to be... it's just that I believe God does this to me and other people I know on a regular basis, because He is not interested in my status quo, especially when I am. He's always on the move, trying to do something in me or for me.

Anyway, I drove up to the retreat center with my sister and told her, on the way, that I expected to spend the weekend either crying or cussing a good bit of the time. I was prepared just to confront God with all this angst and just see what He had to say to me. And I didn't expect it to be pretty.

And yet... once again, He surprised me. I just felt... calm. All weekend. I did cry a little, but I had lots of glorious time alone and even more glorious time in deep conversation with various friends, and the result was that I felt loved, and cared for, and wanted. It reminded me that God loves and cares for and wants me. Which helped me to relax about our big decision and trust that He would not leave us dangling, at least not forever. I was reminded, so gently, that I did not need to know the answer up front... I can stay on the path and just see where it leads and be okay with not knowing the final destination.

Trust - the best sleep aid known to man.

Shout Out To Patty

2005-10-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say a blogger's goodbye to Patty in WA, who posted what she says is her last post at her blog. Which I totally understand, as this blogging thing can be a burden, when you don't have time or "mindshare" (sorry, lazy me to use that word) to devote to it. Nevertheless, Patty is one of those gals that I can just tell I would be good friends with IRL. I love her parenting philosophies and her Lord-of-the-Rings trivia and her funny stories about her BoyBob and her compassionate but no-nonsense responses to the confused or overbearing or insufferable or miserable or amusing homeschooling moms who post on the WTM boards.

I've been reading and sometimes-posting on the WTM boards for over 5 years now. Personalities come and go, there. Nowadays the boards move so fast that I cannot keep up, and often they get clogged with repetitive silliness or arguing that doesn't interest me. However, there are enough hidden treasures of posts there on a regular basis to keep me checking. Patty, I always check your posts... along with Robin in TX, Katherine B., MFS, Diane, abbeyej, Rosemary in CO, Dy, Joanne in TX, Kolbi (when she makes her rare appearance), and a few others who used to be regular but I haven't seen in a long time. I'm sure I've missed some good names in this list, but I make the list anyway as a way of complimenting you - you are in good company with a short list of thoughtful, funny, and wise homeschool moms whose opinions I value.

I hope I haven't read the last from you!

With much affection,
Mamabird

The Next Generation

2005-10-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

This NYT article interested me. It's all about the "new" trend of college gals who want a career until they have kids, then plan to stay home.

I have mixed feelings on this subject, but they mostly trend toward eye-rolling at all the angst and harsh judgmentalism there seems to be out there regarding women who go after a premium education and presumably "waste" it by not sacrificing themselves on the altar of materialism and corporate ladder-climbing.

The faulty assumptions behind the "what-a-waste" mentality are, in my opinion:

1) Raising children is a brainless endeavor that doesn't require an education in order to do well. Okay, I'll grant you that college today is a very expensive life choice, especially if you pursue an Ivy-League diploma. And I do give some credit to the idea that you want a return on that kind of financial investment. But, in the words of my wise mother-in-law... Send a man to school, and you've educated a man. Send a woman to school, and you've educated a family. Even if a mother does not use her education in the pursuit of homeschooling her kids, her life experiences - including the breadth and depth of her education - will all contribute heavily toward her worldview, which cannot help but assert itself in the raising of her children. And if we really value an educated society as much as we say we do, isn't in everyone's best interest that as many citizens as possible receive a higher education? Which segues nicely into Faulty Assumption Numero Dos:

2. The purpose of higher education is to make a lot of money. There is a definite undercurrent of disbelief in this article that anyone would want to give up the presumed six-figures that a prestigious diploma will yield in order to do something as financially unproductive as raising children. Since when did educated voters, jurors, volunteers, participants in low-profile but entirely necessary grass-roots organizations, neighbors, friends, and parents lose their value to society? You can enjoy the benefits of an educated populace in more than spreadsheets.

3. The only way to earn anything with your big college degree is to work full-time in a regular corporate job and put your kids in daycare. As is now obvious, I have a bias towards those gals who were interviewed for that article. I don't think their expectations are "unrealistic" or "naive" or "outdated" (opinions I've read in response to this piece) and I hope they achieve their goals of marrying, working for a time, and then stepping down to stay home. But even if they don't - even if life throws a curve ball, if the husband leaves or they can't get pregnant, or they do get pregnant and have triplets! - they are getting an education. It's an asset. And just because they don't follow a traditional career path does not mean that they can't reap some earning benefit from their degrees.

I got my undergrad degree in psychology. As psych majors everywhere know, this degree is practically useless. So right out of school I worked as a secretary, and after a couple of years I went back to grad school and got a counseling degree. The plan was that I'd work as a counselor for a while and then we'd start talking family, but since I'd have an established practice, I could keep working some, just to keep up my skills.

Well, life is what happens while you're making other plans, right? I got pregnant 9 months before I was to graduate. Ds #1 was born six days after I finished my last class. I did graduate - but I never did get that "established practice" that would enable me to work part-time around my mothering skills.

But you know what? That counseling degree has still been worth its weight in gold. It's informed my parenting decisions. It's helped me keep perspective in the dark times of marriage when I was tempted to believe that throwing dishes might be a valid relationship skill. And, three years ago, when dh said, "I want to start a company," I actually had something to contribute. And still do. Could I have started this company? No, certainly not. But could he have started it without me? I don't think so, and neither does he. My education, combined with his, and our life experiences together, synthesized to make us capable of much more than either of us could have accomplished alone.

So have I gotten a return on my education dollars? You betcha, and not just in money. I was one of those gals who thought she'd just work and then stay home with her kids. Life took an unexpected twist, a good one, and I'm now a homeschooling-mom-who-works-on-the-side. What if I'd never gone to college or to grad school? I'm sure I wouldn't have that choice today, to support my husband as he supports our family. It's a team effort around here, and I think that's what the original women's rights advocates would have applauded.

Cooking Class

2005-10-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Saturday night I had a Barnes and Noble gift card burning a hole in my pocket and a restless, I've-been-working-at-home-all-weekend-and-I'm-sicka-this-place dh, and two boys who needed picking up from their spontaneous get-together with an old friend, and the pickup spot was conveniently down the street from our local Barnes and Noble. Whoo-eee! What more excuse did we need? Anyway, we hightailed it down to B&N, where on the way to the ladies' room (always the first stop when you have a six-year-old daughter) I walked past the display of new releases, and what did I see but Julie and Julia (Julie Powell), nestled, of course, right beside a stack of new editions of Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Julia Child).

It only took me three pages to determine that the gift card was now committed. I brought it home and read till midnight, then picked it up again Sunday morning even before getting out of bed. And then finished it after church. VERY satisfying way to read a book, btw... while there are some books you want to savor and take your time finishing (The Time Traveler's Wife and Five Quarters of the Orange come to mind), there are others that make you want to put the rest of life on hold until you finish. Julie and Julia had that effect on me. For one thing, I love books about food. Like, Like Water for Chocolate. Or the aforementioned Five Quarters (thanks to Crissy in WA for letting me know about it!).

Another reason this book is so great is that it is about breaking out - going down an unconventional path and finding freedom. This has become a precious truth to me over the last few years - that following your instincts, even if you make a few false starts, is not as scary or as fraught with danger as you think it is. In fact, taking that risky path might just lead you to joy. Freedom. Fulfillment.

Anyway, Julie and Julia is a fun read. (I will insert a disclaimer about salty language... if language is an issue for you, then you might want to pass on this book. However, I personally found her word usage very funny. There is profane cussing, and there is laugh-out-loud cussing. Hers is the latter.)

What are you guys reading?

Disappointment

2005-09-26T20:12:00.000-07:00

Wow, what good thoughts you all have on disappointment.

Here is what I think, right now, at this moment in time and with the limited view that I have at this stage in my life. (I’ve lived long enough to eat more than a few words, so that little disclaimer is an acknowledgement that later on down the road I’ll say, “Wow, were you ever an idiot!”)

I think there are several different ways you can look at the question of disappointment. One is a practical, therapeutic approach. I find this approach helpful for a certain “level” of disappointment – the one that you feel is not so big, but it is interfering with your ability to relate to someone or your ability to be content with a small but nagging frustration.

The therapy approach is to change the "tapes" playing in your head. Disappointment and hurt cause stewing. You know the condition – all these emotional, irrational thoughts plague you and you stew on them. “If he loved me he would….” “She must really hate me! Why else would she…” etc. When the stewing starts, you have to confront that thought and replace it with another one. There are many choices here - you can choose a scripture about being God's beloved, or pray and ask Him for a new thought, or tell yourself a different truth about your spouse or parent or friend - that God put them in your life, that their love for you is not solely wrapped up in the unmet-desire-of-the-moment, that the relationship is more important than whatever it is they are not doing for you.

But there is a deeper approach that, while more difficult, also brings greater blessing. This way of thinking about disappointment is particularly applicable to marriage, as there’s just nothing like living with another person to bring out the whiner in any of us! (grin) Seriously, though, this approach is predicated on the truth that your spouse is your mission field, as you are his. I have long believed this, but I heard a sermon on a CD this week that affirmed it - that God gives us our spouses not for our happiness but for our holiness. Husbands are His chosen instrument for making us like Christ. This pastor said, "Most people get divorced just when the process God wants them to go through is starting to work!" (I said, "Amen!") Not that there's never a reason to divorce - but the point is that the difficulty - the disappointment - the not getting what we want - has a divine purpose, and if we try to escape that purpose by leaving the situation, or even by numbing ourselves to the disappointed desire, we are thwarting the real work God is trying to do.

So a deeper way to deal with disappointment is to ask, "What is God exposing in your heart that He wants you to let go of? Is there an idol rearing its ugly head in your frustration? An enslavement that is deeply embedded in your heart from which He longs to free you? A lie from your past whose wounds He wants to heal?" The weight of a human soul is too heavy for any other mortal to bear. Whatever it is that you want and are not getting may look like a surface desire, maybe even a “silly” one – but if it is producing that kind of deep disappointment in you, causing you to spiral into discontentment, then perhaps there is really a bulkier issue under the surface.

Our deep, deep need to be loved and affirmed and cherished was never designed to be met by our husbands (or wives). Only our Maker, our True Lover, can take it on. Trust that He is REALLY good. Tell yourself the truth about what you really want, about what your disappointment reveals. Take it to Him without fear. He will not condemn you. He confronted you about it in the first place, putting you in your situation to drive you into His arms. His love will transform you into a Great Beauty.

(And - lest we get too lofty here - like Patty said, I don’t do this well either. I’m a real baby when it comes to maturity in this area. But that doesn’t discourage me. As Dallas Willard says, just because you’re not a perfect disciple doesn’t mean you’re not a disciple.)

Question of the Day

2005-09-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

BFF* Ruthie posed to me today a whopper of a question that I am posting here for two reasons. One, if I post it, I have to wrestle with it... there's a built-in accountability in blogging about something and leaving it unfinished. You feel like you owe it to people to finish what you started.

Two, I'm sure there are some of you out there who would have much wisdom to contribute toward forming an answer. Hence, this is also an invitation to jump in with your own thoughts.

My answer is percolating now but is not yet full-strength.

The question is this:

What do you do with your disappointment to keep it from turning into despair?

Think on this, cyber-friends. I shall return with some thoughts soon.

*BFF=Best Friend Forever, a title Ruthie has earned by sticking with me through the majority of my not-so-attractive times in life and living to tell about it. I use it here to let her know that I just finished reading Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and am also percolating some ideas on what it means to be a woman, a conversation we have been having for a while now and might someday make it up onto the blog as well. How's that for a related and yet not-related footnote?

Which Book of the Bible are You?

2005-09-21T20:32:00.001-07:00

Corny, but fun: go to this link to find out what book of the Bible you are.

I am Ephesians!

Here's the tag. I like what it says about understanding grace, and I'm always happy to be labeled "a bit on the non-traditional side." Isn't that nice? Any quiz that tells me what I want to hear is okay by me! (grin)

brought to you by Quizilla

Bedtime Story

2005-09-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

We settle into the papasan chair, the Chair of Goodness just big enough for the both of us that is tucked into the dormer space with sunlight filtering through the half-closed blinds. She is the mama; I am the sweetheart. Her 6 year old weight settles against my side and her hair falls onto my cheek. "Now, honey, I'm going to read you a story."

"Thanks, Mommy," I say. "Can it be a bedtime story? I'm sleepy."

"Sure, sweetie," she graciously agrees. So I close my eyes. She opens the book.

"Slam and Dunk and The Big Game. See that & sign? It means 'and.'"

"Oh."

And so she reads, faltering only over a few words, but not the hardest ones. She sounds out "basketball" and "game" all by herself, but she has trouble with "what." When we get to it, she says, "Now, honey, what does this word say?"

"I don't know, Mommy. You read it to me."

"No, honey, you can do it. Sound it out." (Ha. She got me.)

"Okay. W... whhhh... whaaaaa..... what!"

"Very good, sweetie. What!" And seamlessly, naturally, she continues the story. Slam and Dunk win the game. Mom wins 20 sweet, drowsy minutes with her eyes closed and her baby curled up next to her, practicing phonics. DD wins time alone with mom and the chance to be the mommy for once.

The best of homeschooling.

Finishing One Thing and Beginning Another

2005-09-19T10:13:00.000-07:00

It's done!

We transferred the book file to the printer this morning.

I feel like I've given birth. All weekend long we were heads-down in editing... all day Friday (with exception noted below), all day Saturday, all day Sunday. At 11:10 last night, we finally pronounced it Good Enough. And this morning dh hit "Send." Now, whatever mistakes we've made, whatever errors we missed, will be reproduced in 2000 copies for the world to read. Que sera, sera.

The only fun thing we did all weekend was take a break Friday night to go to a picnic with ds's classes. One thing I guess I've never blogged about is the fact that both ds's go to a one-day-a-week classical program called - get this - The Classical School. (Original, yes. Also guaranteed to cause confusion when you try to explain to other homeschool moms that yes, you do follow the classical model of education at home, and yes, your kids participate in a program of the same name.) At this program they take notes, have discussions, learn a little Latin, and get some reading and writing assignments to take home and complete. It's pretty rigorous, but we've seen a big jump in both boys' abilities since they started there.

Anyway, Friday night was Family Night for CS . This is where every family who has a kid in the program (grades 5-8) meets at a Christian retreat center about 40 minutes north of town and has a picnic and schmooze. Parents and kids alike do the picnic and schmooze thing, then the parents go home and the kids and a few brave chaperones stay up all night for games of Risk and chess and such.

Two important things happened for us at Family Night. One, dh met and hit it off with another CS dad. They talked work, they talked theology, they talked church. And then when we wives joined them, we had an awesome conversation in which we discovered something pretty rare: commonality. Two suburban-livin', SUV-drivin', kid-raisin' families who feel like total misfits at all the churches that are anywhere reasonably close to our homes. Two professional, homeschooling, meat-eating, milk-drinking, non-grain-milling, nothing-alternative-about-their-lifestyles-except-homeschooling-and-being-entrepreneurs families who have visited church after church in their county and cannot find even ONE where the teaching is intelligent and true and full of the grace of the gospel. Youth groups abound... which is a problem with our current church situation. Community and small groups abound... another problem we seek resolution for. But how can we stomach the dead, dry, Pharisaic religion that goes with them?

Anyway - we and this other family - we want grace. We want depth. We want authenticity. And we want fellowship and activities for our kids, too, that's close to home so we can participate. It was so... validating. It's so nice not to feel crazy. I just wanted to hug them.

And the second important thing that happened Friday night was that oldest ds cut his foot open while playing Capture the Flag barefoot in the dark. By the next morning it was determined that he needed stitches. But guess what? Cool new friend dad turned out to be... a doctor. Who met us at his office on the way home from the all-nighter (where he had chaperoned) and stitched up ds' foot neat as a whistle and wouldn't take a penny for his trouble.

Now we have new friends. And a friend-debt that will be very enjoyable to repay. How many home-cooked dinners do you think will it take to even up the score? Yeah, I agree - a lot.

Shoulder to the Wheel (and red pen to the papers)

2005-09-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

This week I am in full editor mode.

Mornings, I am editing little compositions... a fictional story featuring da Vinci and Michelangelo written by 7th grade ds. An essay on his favorite Greek heroes by 5th grade ds. Her first, middle, and last names, spelled correctly and properly capitalized, by 1st grade dd. And corrections of the number 9, which for some reason this week has become much more difficult to form correctly than it was last week. (Go figure.)

Evenings is when the real fun begins. I think I mentioned a while back that I've been typesetting. Well, what I've been typesetting is DH's book. This is a book we publish through our business and use in the classes we teach. It's been out for a few years now, but this year he had to rewrite it completely to make it compatible with new standards in our industry.

You would think that having written, typeset, edited, and published a book before would make it easier to do a second time. And yes... it is easier in the sense that there is less of a learning curve in figuring out how to do everything that needs to be done. And yet... the last time, there was no deadline looming. There were no middle school children whose school demands could not be put off. There were no other employees needing time and attention and no company to run and people to meet with and fires to put out. It was just us.

I had forgotten how never-ending this process seems. You go through what you think is your final copy with a fine-tooth comb... only to discover that your comb has, in fact, big ol' wide gaps between its teeth! You print out another copy, just SURE that this time you won't find any more glaring errors. Ooops, there's another whole area you just MISSED last time. Maybe you need glasses. Or more coffee. 'Cause it's going to be a loooonnnnnggggg night, again.

Sigh.... I sound more whiny than I actually feel. The truth is, as tedious as editing and re-editing is, I am very grateful to have a livelihood that lets us work independently and allows DH lots of family time. Sure, we are in a crunch right now, but these times are few and far between and we really can see the light at the end of this particular tunnel. And I appreciate knowing that I am making a real, tangible contribution to our family livelihood. Our business depends on all of us - dh, me, even the kids. (Ds 1 is our shipping clerk, and Ds 2 was just hired to help with book packaging and class prep.)

But... when all this is over and the book is delivered to the printer... I want a steak dinner. Or a spa day. Maybe both.

A little weekend fun

2005-09-10T09:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, I stole this MeMe off of PuppDaddy's blog (who stole it off of someone else). I don't usually go for stuff like this, but it was fun to think through this stuff. So forgive the MeMe, I promise not to make it a habit.

Seven things that scare me

Car accidents and near-misses
Mean, growling dogs
Cancer
Pictures of me in my big-frizzy-hair days
Salmonella, e coli, and other threats you can’t see
Heights
Movies where someone gets trapped alive in a coffin

Seven things I like the most

Meeting someone and really hitting it off with her/him
Belgian chocolates (or Heath bars, in a pinch)
72-degree days in Georgia
Vacation
Bike rides
Learning new stuff or discovering a really great book, all on my own
Singing in the car with the music loud and the windows rolled down

Seven important things in my room

My bed
The dresser drawer where I keep things like old birthday cards and the kids baby teeth and locks of hair
A great view of the backyard
The door to the deck
The big, rotating stack of books on my nightstand
My banjo, kept under my bed
Candles that make the place smell good

Seven random facts about me

My fingernails are paper-thin.
I’m awesome at word-unscrambling puzzles.
I grew up in the same town where I live now.
I lost 20 pounds this year and only gained back 5.
I’m the oldest of 4 kids and we’re all close.
I started reading when I was 4 years old. I learned by watching The Electric Company.
I'm cold a lot these days.

Seven things I plan to do before I die

Visit Australia
Learn to scuba-dive
Paint a painting that's good enough to hang in my living room
Help my kids discover the grace of God
See the Grand Canyon
Volunteer somewhere on a regular basis
Live in a big city

Seven things I can do

Play a five-string (bluegrass) banjo
Bake killer chocolate-chip cookies
Tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue
Write a research paper of any length necessary
Speak stuttering Spanish
Talk people down from the ledge
Drive a stick shift

Seven things I can’t or won’t do

Eat beans of any variety
Sit through any more Quentin Tarantino films
Wear a bikini (ever again)
Break up with my husband
Send my kids to middle school anywhere but here at home
Let someone else tell me that I can’t… (whatever… fill in the blank)
Watch professional wrestling

Seven things I say the most

Now, honey!
That makes me nuts!
Yup.
How’s my girl? (or, How’re my boys?)
Tired, but good.
Mmmmm - hm! (Drawing out the first Mmmmmm)
Give me just a minute…
(Ds just added one more... he said, "You say 'We'll see.' A lot.")

Seven Celebrity Crushes

John Cusack
Ed Norton
Jon Bon Jovi
Bono
Alan, the Yard-Sale Guy (from Clean House)
Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice
DH (who is a celebrity in his own way! grin)

The Teacher Becomes The Student

2005-09-09T19:31:00.000-07:00

School lessons learned this week:

1. A single lesson in Saxon Math 1 takes about AN HOUR AND HALF to complete if you do EVERYTHING in the lesson... fill in the calendar, the weather graph, the number line. Count the coins. Write today's date - twice. Complete the number pattern. Do side one of the worksheet. Do the fact-drill sheet. Do the lesson with the pattern blocks and the master pattern-block sheet. Write your name on all those sheets (as if your teacher won't be able to tell which one is yours). HELLO! And we didn't even do Side 2 of the worksheet! Sheesh!

(Just fyi, I never do all the stuff in Saxon. It's just that on Thursday I found a little extra time to spend with dd, and I thought, let's just do the whole dang math lesson and see how far it'll go. Boy, was I shocked! It only confirms my decision to pick and choose, pick and choose. You can't let the lesson book be your master - YOU must master the LESSON BOOK. Can you imagine spending an hour and a half on every child every day? When would you get to any other subject?)

2. If you have a ds who labors to write, and if you relent after the first month of school and finally let him start dictating some of his writing assignments for you to type instead of agonizing over writing them out in his difficult cursive, you will be AMAZED at the results. Happy child, who composes almost effortlessly in complete sentences with extraordinary vocabulary. Happy mom, who is able to be finished with the school day before dinner time!

3. Mummies are a lot more interesting to a first-grader if you use a book with pictures.

4. Sometimes your children have hidden talents. It is a good thing to be surprised by them.

This week DH looked at me in shock and said, "What grade is (oldest ds) in?" I replied, "Seventh." He said, "Wow. I guess it's time."

I knew what he meant. For years, DH has said that when his kids get to seventh grade he is going to start them taking the SAT. Not because we have little budding Einsteins over here... no, just normal, grade-level kids in our house. DH just wants them to get very, very comfortable and very, very experienced in taking important tests. And it just dawned on DH that this is the year.

So we started talking, to each other and to ds, about what the test will require. We all know that there is much he has not learned and will not yet be prepared to answer. But when we started thinking through the big holes, the biggest one we saw was that he has had no geometry whatsoever. So DH decided to start working with ds on geometry. Nothing too formal. Just some basic principles. (DH is a math kind of guy, so he finds this fun. Why has he not been teaching math all this time, I want to know! Think of the needless tears and premature graying of hair!)

So ds has been learning a little geometry... and guess what. He likes it! He understands it! Who knew? I was encouraged... there's hope for all of us, yet. Not that ds has ever been "bad" at math. Just that for years it's been a struggle for me to teach and communicate with the (not-so) little guy on the subject. I don't think of him as a math whiz. But maybe I was underestimating him... maybe it was the teacher, not the student, who wasn't the whiz.

Happy schooling, y'all!

Word recognition

2005-09-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

I was typing a comment in Melissa's blog today (where she has some mighty fine pictures of her multi-talented son), and the word recognition software had me type the following:

bmbfukze

Anyone want to hazard a guess on how to pronounce this one? I think it would make an EXCELLENT cuss word.

So much birthday cake. So little time.

2005-09-06T04:15:00.000-07:00

Guess what I did this weekend?

On Sunday night, we hosted a birthday party for dh's best friend, who is turning 40 this year. (It was great fun. We built a fire in the backyard and had ice-cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery. Mmmmm.)

Last night, we went to my parents' house to celebrate my dad turning 70 and my nephew turning 6. My mom made ribs and my sis brought homemade birthday cake. Mmmmmm. (My nephew's instructions to her were that he wanted Spiderman on one half and Barbie on the other, so that no one at the party would feel left out. What a guy!)

On Thursday we will celebrate dh's dad's birthday. Dear sis-in-law is making pound cake. Mmmmm.

On Saturday night we will go to a surprise party for one of my dear homeschooling-mommy friends who, you guessed it, is turning 40 this year. I have no idea what dessert will be, but I have a feeling there is more cake in my future.

Good thing I had time to go running this weekend! If I survive this month with only an extra pound or two, I'll be lucky.

Stress

2005-09-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

When I was a grad student (in counseling), THE most valuable class I took was called Stress Management. It wasn't my favorite class at the time... I was in my third trimester of pregnancy, working 20 hours a week, doing an internship another 20 hours a week, and taking two classes so I could finish my degree before the baby arrived. And this was a fairly demanding class - lots of reading, difficult tests, lots of neuroscience and brain chemistry and data from research articles... Lots of stress, ha ha.

But I've been so grateful over the years that I took that class, because that and Theories of Family Counseling are the two classes where I learned practical, every-day, real-life stuff that I could use to help myself and my family and my friends who come to me for help with bad situations. It's been 12 years since I took those classes, yet I still remember and use much of the information I gleaned from them. (Yet another reason for getting that degree even though I've never earned a dime from it.)

This week I am reminded of something helpful I learned in Stress Management.

For about two weeks now, this has been what every day has looked like for me: Get up before 7. Start school at 8:30. Do school straight through till lunch. Eat lunch at computer, catching up on other people's blogs. Go back for more school till 2 or 3 or 4, depending on how much the kids piddle. Run the errand for the day - say, the grocery store, or picking up or dropping off a kid somewhere. Come home and typeset for dh's company until dinner. Dinner is either leftovers or a quick trip out to the strip mall down the street that has either Mexican, Chinese, or Italian. Come back and keep typesetting until 10 or 11 or 12 at night, depending on how much there is to do for that day. Fall into bed. Repeat the next day. Only exception to this is weekends, in which we don't do school but I still do the typesetting, stopping long enough to throw a birthday party or go to church.

This, my friends, is a recipe for burnout.

Wednesday night I lost it. About 10:00 I finished the work for the day. And started yelling and bursting into tears. Not rational, I knew even at the time, just sick. of. everything. Tired of working so hard and never feeling done. Tired of having even more to do still hanging over my head. Tired of hearing myself snap at the kids and bite dh's head off, when they are working just as hard as I am. Just tired.

So yesterday (Thursday) when I woke up, I remembered some of the science of Stress Management that I learned all those years ago. Number 1, stress sucks all the serotonin out of your brain and makes you depressed. Irritable. Mean to people you love. To build up more serotonin, you gotta a) get some sleep; b) exercise; c) practice deep, rhythmic breathing. These are not new-agey Eastern religious concepts... these remedies have sound research to back them up.

So yesterday I took not one, but TWO naps. Short, but helpful. I went for an hour-long walk. Helped even more. I took about 10-12 moments out of the day and was intentional about taking, holding, and releasing deep breaths. Helped. And I read. (Haven't read any research on that, but a good book relaxes me. I picked up Nicholas Evans' The Smoke Jumpers, which was perfect light brain candy for the type of relaxation I needed.)

And I monitored my reaction to all these efforts. It was almost textbook: In the morning, I was still very jumpy and felt that terrible internal pressure in my heart and head that screams, "You'll never get done! Get back to work!" After nap and deep breathing, I felt a little ease of the pressure. After reading, a little less. After nap #2, a sense of something that reminded me of calm. And after my walk last night, I was downright peaceful. Even - dare I say, cheerful?

The deadlines still loom. But I have to stop and "sharpen the saw," as Thomas Covey used to say, so that I have the resources to keep going until this project is over.

One final thought - this morning after breakfast I finally emerged from the media-free cocoon I've been in all week to read some of the horrible accounts of the devastation and suffering in New Orleans. Now my heart is heavy again, for different reasons. Funny how God sends you just the reminders you need right when you need them. I needed to be reminded that my problems are just no big deal.