Our semester so far

This might be a good moment to talk about our semester so far.

What we've done this fall, or should I say, what I remember about what we did this fall:

Typically we get schoolwork done 5 days a week. Mondays are dicey. We are busy at RES with writing class, junior great books, geography, and music appreciation and art history adventure for Frances. When classes are over, it is customary now for us to split up children with the Sharpes. It has worked out well, but it doesn't make for accomplished schoolwork. Many Mondays we have gotten the basics covered while Frances is in ballet and flamenco class. There is enough time and there are enough brain cells left to do a bit of math, reading comprehension, finding some keywords for outlining, grammar, and cursive writing.

Here's a breakdown by subject of what we are currently using:

Math: We had been using Saxon Math for all 3. Then Frances decided that she needed a break from it. Walter and Ollie got stressed by the format and length of assignments, so we have recently moved back to Singapore 3B for Ollie (lots of conversion of meters to kilometers and centimeters and graphing) and Key to Algebra: Integers for Walter. Consistency in doing a bit each day has been the key to our successs this year. Neither is completely overwhelmed, and yet they are moving forward and are well on track for both testing and just being ready for new material. We had great success with Times Tales this summer in helping learn the upper multiplication facts. Mrs. Week and the 1st grade class will probably be our friends forever.

Reading: They are reading to their own interests, still primarily graphic novels and short stories. As far as our schoolwork goes, I have been having them work through a number of reading comprehension materials because I had noted some weaknesses in being able to think like a test-maker. Walter also had some attention issues with answering questions about what he has read, especially details or inferences. I am taking advantage of our built-in two person group to have them cooperate in working through "Reading Connections," which breaks down comprehension into different skill sets and provides practice with each one. I have been using the CARS test booklets to help myself better pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses in comprehension. The kids aren't crazy about it, but it's a nice diagnostic tool for me. We also are all satisfied with the McCall-Crabbe 3 minute timed readings and questions. I finally broke down and let them write directly in the books, which is making things easier for everyone. They're cheap enough that we can get some more copies when we need to. Each book has 77 very short comprehension passages on all sorts of topics. And finally, I have had them doing some assignments from Evan-Moor's Non-Fiction REading Practice, 4th grade.

Writing: We have done two writing class sessions this fall. One was with Hilary and Kristi and all of the kids. This was a bit challenging to me because assignments were more open-ended than the boys are capable of handling on their own. The second was at RES, and again, some assignments were longer or more open-ended and not part of our own home prep scheme, but overall, they had a really good time, and I saw some very creative responses and thoughtful sentence structure, as long as I was transcribing and they didn't have to physically write or type on their own. The difference between the products of dictation and of writing are staggering. It is a discrepancy that I will need to keep my finger on. I have been incorporating some elements of IEW into our own home writing work. I have some misgivings aobut this as a complete program, and I disagree with some of what Andrew Pudewa agrees, but as far as exercises and practice, there are some sound suggestions. I just hate to put a lot of limitations and rules on writing when they are just beginning to see the possibilities of how they can communicate, and I think that Pudewa doesn't put enough emphasis on the real purpose of writing, which is to communicate and share information or ideas with other people. To me, that's the whole purpose of learning to write and enjoying writing. Things are an enjoyable challenge when you have a purpose and feeling about what you are doing. I would like to see continued progress and greater comfort with writing as the year goes on, but we simply must confront the fine motor issues that are holding them back.

Spelling: We're doing poorly with this. I was using the 2nd grade Evan-Moor book, but it really doesn't work very well for us. The boys can do the exercises, but still mispell the words if tested. Neither is a natural speller, alas, though Walter has made enormous strides in the past few months in really hearing the sounds in words and being able to determine a more normal spelling. Oliver is a much greater challenge in this area!

Geography: We love the Evan-Moor geography daily practice book. The challenges are fun, manageable in length, but thorough. Geography class as RES has also been a big hit, especially for Ollie. His passion is helping other people and working in a group to share what he knows and help guide other people. One thing you can say about Ollie is that he lives to serve. He just wants to be useful. We supplement with National Geographic GeoBee questions. Oliver particularly likes to choose books from the library about various countries, especially those in Eastern Europe or the Middle East.

History: We are making our way through Story of the World Volume 2, the Middle Ages with our co-op and at RES earlier this fall. Since my stereo in my car has been broken, we have not been able to listen as well as I would have liked, but the greater emphasis on written tests and actually being consistent with doing the mapwork and activities has, I think, cemented some of the material in this book that is at time more dry and contains more to remember than the previous book in the series. We are also working through Volume 2 of Joy Hakim's History of Us. I would kind of like to see us moving a little more quickly than we are, especially since we're not yet at the American Revoluation, but I'm pleased with how thorough this book as been in giving them a sense of the variety of lifestyles in the colonies and what led up to the separation from England. Through the summer and early fall we also did a lot of reading, field trips, and activiities about the American Revolution, so much so that Ollie now claims there is nothing else for him to learn about this, thank you very much.

Science: I have a textbook that we have been using to some extent this year, but primarily as a jumping off point. We did a unit on space and a unit on water and are in the midst of a unit on volcanoes. These texts feel so random, but I'm not viewing this as our only science. Science remains one of our most interest-driven subjects, and we've explored topics from the water cycle to earthquakes and the U.S. Geologica Survey information on seismography to animal classification.

Handwriting: Both of them are doing fairly well with cursive, especially Walter. Even Ollie, though, is finding that he prefers to make some letters more fluidly ("g" is his favorite). We are using Handwriting Without Tears, and I'm generally pleased.

Grammar: I'm overdosing them on this, I think. We continue to use Growing with Grammar, which I have mixed feelings about. It does introduce many topics that were not familiar to them, and I appreciate this, but then other parts will seem like purely busy work. Slow and steady, though, slow and steady. Some days are very helpful days, some less so, but it all evens out, and progress keeps us on track. I am also having them do a page each day from Easy Grammar Systems. There isn't a lot of concentrated practice, but there is plenty of exposure to a variety of topics each day, and it is not frightening to anyone because there are only four or five matters to take care of each day.

We have had fewer field trips than in earlier years, but there are moments when I wonder whether we haven't gone on practically every field trip known to man. Poor Rutledge and Frances, who are suffering from a parental Been There, Done That syndrome.

Walter is learning by leaps and bounds in trumpet. He is amazing at reading music--sight reading comes so very naturally to him. I could not be more pleased with his progress over the past three months. His first performance with the band will be this coming month at a concert before Christmas. Frances is sitll learning piano from me. Oliver should be learning guitar, but Kerry keeps forgetting to set aside time to teach him. Ollie also needs more prodding to get him to build up calluses on his fingers so that practicing won't hurt so much.

Frances remains largely unschooled, which just feels right for her personality and learning needs right now. She initiates so much on her own. today it was writing a short paragraph about cats that she copied from my writing. Yesterday it was drawing a picture for and writing text for a holiday card for her babysitter. She is an incredibly proflific artist these days, using all sorts of media. For a week it was imitations of Miro. Now it is portraits of her whole family, castles and princesses, and landscapes.

Rutledge, bless his heart, does his very best to distract the rest of us from whatever else we might be doing. It's the job of a toddler, I suppose.

As usual, we've been busy. Thus no writing. Some of what we're doing:

* A new thursday co-op with two other families, where I'm teaching writing and the kids are doing Five in a Row, a special "theme week," Story of the World, and P.E.

* Lots and lots of birthday parties. An unprecedented number of birthday parties (3 this week!).

* A "Fall Festival" with our homeschool group tomorrow afternoon.

* A trip to Norfolk to see "Pirates of Penzance" at the opera house.

* A trip to Chesapeake for a LLL enrichment workshop.

* An etiquette class and dinner this afternoon.

* Testing for Frances at gymnastics.

* Me feeling sick much more often than I would like. It's making me a bit crazy, actually.

* Kerry starting a new job--or more accurately, his old job again.

Ewww. I was feeling so sick so very unexpectedly tonight. Driving home from gymnastics with Frances, I was suddenly overwhelmed with nausea and tingliness in my hands and feet. I was sure I was going to toss my dinner in the car, but being the freak that I am, I was thinking along the lines of just throwing up as I drove, with my blinkers on. Normal people would have pulled over and gotten out of their car, but not me. I waited until my stomach ws flipping over and bad tastes were rising up into my throat. But I breathed like a Lamaze mother in transition, and I was able to hold it back and get home and take some medicaiton. I'm still feeling funky--having those moments where I didn't breathe or swallow right. I hope this is not a new normal.

Frances got her strength and flexibility testing report today at gymnastics, and it was rather disappointing. I guess it shouldn't be--she scored 72.5, which is short of the 79 benchmark for Level 1, but I have to remind myself that this is the goal for the end of the season, not right now. Yes, some did much better, and I think Frances can do better, but she was not alone in having disappointed and disbelieving parents. Would it help if we didn't leave the girls there and go run errands or go home? Can we put the fear of God in them to make them behave and listen?

This must be nanoblomo month, so here's my first entry. i'll try to post pictures tomorrow of our great co-op today.

Yeah, here again

Bouncing back and forth like some kind of rubbery little ball. Homeschooljournal.net. Blogger. Xanga. Thinking about .mac. You know the drill.

Today was our first new co-op. I felt so out of the loop. And I am the loop. That's what's scary. I felt very unprepared. I was supposed to bring a story starter from a book I returned to the library, and suddenly the book isn't on the shelf this morning--it's in the "hold" section, but it's not really there like the online catalog said it was. I planned a little too much with our "theme day" class and we didn't get to it all. The frosting for the cake we were going to make didn't make it out of our cart last night when we were shopping, so we had to put it together at the co-op, which was something we didn't need to take the time to do. And then I had to rush off with Ollie, then rush back to get Frances, then rush over to gymnastics again, only to get there 10 minutes late, where Frances had to warm up on her own with what I call "punishment pushups."

Still, I'm feeling very optimistic about what we have coming up with this. It feels so comfortable to be back with Adena and Hilary and to have a small group of kids who really know each other well and want to be together.

Well, this is a crazy long time without an entry. I did start another blog over at Xanga.com, but I haven't done anything there, either. I'm in blogging limbo. I haven't found my blog niche yet, and I haven't exactly applied myself to the problem. I have also been gone for quite a long time. Here's a brief rundown:

Labor Day 3 day weekend: Camp Bethel in Fincastle, Virginia, which is about midway between Roanoke and Lexington. It was such a peaceful, incredible time apart that we seriously considered trying to land jobs there are a camp cook and office worker. In the end, this wasn't going to work out anyway between the fact that a nepotism clause will not allow us both to hold jobs there at the same time and the fact that the cook position was just filled and the office manager position is not opening until 2008. But what a wake-up call!

The following weekend: Whirlwind trip to Philadelphia to see the king Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute and visit the Mutter Museum full of medical curiosities and see the Liberty Bell. Staying in the historic art deco Loew's Hotel was the biggest draw for Ollie. Our room was on the 17th floor and afforded unbelievable views of the city and surrounding rivers.

Three days later, we packed up yet again to head to Isle of Palms, South Carolina for a family reunion. It was an interesting prospect because other than my Dad, I wasn't sure who in my family might be there, seeing as I haven't seen anyone in my family for many, many years. There were some great surprises--two cousins and my ex-aunt, who I hadn't seen since I was probably four. Their children gave my children the gift of being second cousins. The weather was Camelot-esque--it didnt' rain until after sundown, the days were warm, the water was tub-like. We visited Charleston twice during our stay, touring the aquarium and seeing Fort Sumter and walking around the Market and the Battery.

In the midst of all of this, our regular school year has proceeded on full force. I'm a bit overwhelmed. Some things have to go, and I'm not sure what they are. I'm working on that. But overall, we have a very full life and "school" is going on more consistently than usual.

Oh Geez--there's a blog called Nan's World that isn't mine. I don't even know the name of my own blog. They say that you lose brain cells with each pregnancy, but really.... It's amazing I remember my own name most day. Oh, yeah--it's "Mommy!"

Today I paid $440 for a repair on a car that, predictably, by the time I reached the Mazda dealership, was no longer acting broken. And because I have followed all that advice in books about how to become a millionaire without leaving my armchair, I up and lost my credit card a few months ago and never bothered to report or replace it. This meant that we will be eating a lot more 10 for $10 Hamburger Helper for the rest of the month because our checking account was feeling rather sorry.

I was naughty today--yes, this is motherly martyrdom talking here--and did not intervene when the toddler took a 2 hour nap from 5:15 to 7:15. After nine years of motherhood, I know not to mess with a good thing. I also know the value of an hour of time with a friend without severe interruption. And I know, how exactly did it become my fault that he chose not to nap earlier in the day when it would have been more chronologically convenient? At any rate, this story has a happy ending, since he was asleep by ten o'clock, nothing far from usual.

My life is currently being sucked away by an unhealthy voyeuristic obsession with an email list I've recently joined for parents homeschooling supposedly right-brained children. Between the reading and then the dialogue with myself in my head that goes on for an hour afterwards while I slowly make myself and anyone else who will listen crazy, I'm finding little time for finishing the books that don't seem to be engaging my interest very well. Or for eating. Or for making sure my children eat.

I had the unpleasant experience of taking a child to the pediatrician this week for a "well" checkup and discovering that I had neglected to force him to eat. And it was 3 p.m. There's this part of me that wants to quietly say, "But maybe he wasn't hungry?" So now I'm way into shoving food at him numerous times a day and recording that fact. Is he eating this food? Well, he's making a little show of eating the sandwich that has only two bites out of it. Or the scrambled eggs that I call in the dogs to clear from the floor. But the truth is clear: I AM A BAD PARENT BECAUSE MY CHILD ISN'T HUNGRY!

More from the bad parent files: I did a great deal of steam cleaning of carpets today because of two unfortunate incidents involving poop on the stairs. Meanwhile, my half-naked pooper was walking around in traffic outside, supervised by none but a couple of pre-tweens. Yesterday, while friend was over, a nakey butt that was...unclean...went scooting down a few steps and left its mark. Then today, the olders felt that it was prudent to encourage Rutledge to sit on his potty in the hallway. So they undressed him, took off his diaper, and the poop hanging from his bottom left little presents all down the hallway, which he and they stepped in. It was memorable. Special, even. Believe it or not, we don't have this kind of stuff happening every day, so two for two is rather spectacular. I'm wondering what it means that I'm doing that I shouldn't be, or what I shouldn't be doing but I am, or....well, nevermind.

I feel like were barrelling toward the zone of the busy weekends. Saturday is my final tennis match for the regular season with our combo league, but not perhaps the end of our team if we progress to the championships in October. We'll probably squeeze in one more trip to Busch Gardens or to Yorktown after that (maybe both?). Next weekend is our camping trip at Camp Bethel in Fincastle. The next weekend after that we go to Philadelphia to see the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute, and the weekend after that one is the family reunion in Isle of Palms, SC. Amazingly, we seem to have a weekend off in there, and the month rounds out with another weekend camping trip with our homeschool group. What I'm reading here: if you want to do anything, you have the next three days. Otherwise, ain't gonna happen.

Frightening moment of the day: overheard the amount this family with seven children may be paying to the gymnastics studio every month this fall.

Plans

Tonight was our annual August planning meeting for our homeschool group, and wow was it well attended! 18 people (we currently have 27 on our rosters and 5 of those are either no longer homeschooling or live hundreds of miles away, so this is an excellent showing), including four potential members. We have a pretty full roster of activities. Not necessarily the weekly type, the type, but a variety of things going on that will fill in our year with possibilities we can take or leave as we figure out what we need for ourselves. That's the ticket for me these days...opportunities will come by again and again, so there's no compulsion to do everything all at once. Yorktown will still be there. Ice skating will still be there. There will be another play next season.

I'm on a roll with tennis these days. This morning I was fairly on--not stellar, and definitely still self-conscious when I'm consciously working on too many things in my head and not just letting go, but I am so eager for tomorrow morning. I'm playing with some friends, and I expect it will be a good time. Then Friday is our twice-weekly round robin. And Saturday is the big match with ACAC, the one where we defend our #1 position in the combo league. I'm feeling more confident as this league goes on, I'm feeling like I'm wrapping up points and games a little better than I had been. I love this game!

Today I played tennis in the morning while Frances and Rutledge were in the nursery and Walter and Ollie did their best to stay busy next to the courts. Then we turned in our Notice of Intent to homeschool at the county public schools office, since today is the deadline for filing the paperwork and stay legally compliant. Then it was off to a pool day at a friend's pool with our homeschool group. We got home with some time to do a little bit of schoolwork, and then the kids went to the pool while I went to the meeting. Tomorrow is free ice skating day at two local rinks, so I think we might head over for the afternoon. And summer rushes right on.

I'm still struggling with how we are not exactly doing the things that were on my mental list of activities this year--a music lesson, an athletic/physical activity, an art class, and a foreign language. We're doing okay on the physical activities, at least Ollie and Frances are. Walter and Frances are doing art. No one is doing a foreign language at this point. And we're not doing so well either with the music thing. I'm still tossing around the idea of trumpet lessons, private trumpet lessons, or asking if we can move the time of the trumpet class. Need to discuss it with Kerry.

I'm tired. I'm trying to read a book by Chris Bohjalian. Trying to get things ready so that we will have a smooth morning tomorrow. Wondering whether this is just what life is like and whether I'm just being whiny.

Mid-late summer

Here we are, winding down the official summer vacation according to the vast majority of the American world...whatever that is. Around here, we're taking in these final lazy days by being a little less than lazy. I'm actually feeling like a big 'ol slacker these days. Not exactly creating opportunities for us, not really taking full advantage of the freedom that we have homeschooling. We should be doing exciting things, searching for unique learning opportunities, or at the least making use of our weekday freedom, and here I am, doing little more than going to our local pool, playing tennis, and spending too much time in the car according to our audio book count. We're halfway through Silverwing, which is 7 hours long and we just started yesterday, I think. That's bad news for our car time!

Frances has a buddy at gymnastics, a buddy who shares her on again/off again relationship with the sport. Eve and Frances look very similar--tiny with blond bobs--and they are separated during training because they prevent each other from learning with their shenanigans. Story of my life, actually. Nancy and Alison. Count off to find your groups--1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1.... I am promoting the concept of a "Gymnastics Treat" similar to the old "Ballet Treat" that motivated Frances during the first year when she desperately wanted to take ballet and we had paid for the semester but she kept refusing to actually go out onto the floor with her class. Now she is saying that ballet is her one true love. And it's not as though I insist on gymnastics being her one true love, but darnit, we just ordered the new sky blue sparkly leotard, and it would be nice if she didn't drop out 6 weeks into the year. It is her belief that gymnastics practice prevents her from going to birthday parties and having fun. A misperception that probably isn't helped by the fact that she keeps getting separated from the person who makes gymnastics an entertaining venture for her. But the logic of people trying to get cooperation and "learning" has never been what I'd consider flawless.

Today Ollie has been hooked on www.brainpop.com. He must have watched at least 25 mini-video lessons on topics ranging from internet safety to Adolf Hitler to twins to the Vietnam War to genetic mutations and aliens. He gets a kick out of the quizzes, and with his tenacious memory, this is just the right fit. His amazing desire to scratch the surface of every topic on earth is also fed by the bite sized portions of facts and exposure. Walter...well, he's Walter. He can watch one or two things, miss 8 out of 10 questions on the quiz immediately afterward, but boy can he entertain himself with a boatload of action figures, a tub of Legos, and his quirky imagination. And his openness to new math concepts far outdoes Ollie's whimpering at having to actually do a problem on his own. To combat my own lack of patience, I am implementing a new system where I do the writing again for Ollie's math work and I sit with him in a comfortable spot and we do the problems together. My master plan is to take this approach for as long as makes sense and then transition to him doing more of the work on his own, culminating in him eventually doing the work independently without tears and without my blood pressure rising. I'm realizing this may be further away than I think.

I'm finding myself swinging back toward my longstanding approach to our schooling, which is to have a moderate agenda of my own but to primarily allow the children to direct their own learning and their time in it. One of the primary factors driving this approach for me is the fact that no matter how much I might want to do something like read (or do!) history with Walter, if it isn't sinking in, it isn't sinking in. And if he doesn't want to listen, he doesn't want to listen and is going to be distracting. Trying to force him into the box that I want him in, no matter how attractive the box and how much of a case I can make for him needing to be in it, isn't making any of us happy and isn't making him learn what I'm attempting to force-feed him. He is learning what is important to him, and I'm going to remain by his side and make sure that he receives what he needs to follow what inspires him, and this is enough for now. Will he ever grow up? I don't know. I really don't know at this point. But I can't re-engineer him, and that's a good thing. He's fine being himself.

Nine

Nine years old. Obviously, one bundle of a couple hundred days before double digits. And halfway to 18. And more than halfway to driving. And nearly ten years since I was pregnant with them. Nine years ago I had just come home from the hospital and was overwhelmed with two adorable little burrito bundles of screaming joy. One 4.5 pound loaf of bread of a guy, and one 5.5 pound jaundiced "Moose" who seemed so enormous next to his tiny brother. No preemie clothes. Just big, long onesies, my favorite two at the time being the rather small-sized newborn Babar onesies from France. Even newborn socks just hung off their feet like huge shoes. Now they're still tiny little things, but nonetheless tall enough to go on roller coasters, outgrowing their pants from last year.

Tonight was the smallish birthday party we had. Three families and one friend from down the street who is probably moving back to Connecticut. It was just enough and no more. We had a dual almost theme of Harry Potter and gnomes. I made a Voldemort pinata that I never did get a picture of before it was smashed to pieces with a baseball bat, and we had wizard hat cupcakes and a gnome party cake. Somehow, between cleaning and decorating cakes. it took me all day to prepare. I need a break now!

Walter is at Lego Machines and Robots camp in the mornings this week and geology camp in the afternoons. I don't hear much about what he does while he is there. It is at the Mathematics and Science Center, which is operated by a consortium of school districts in the area and takes place in an actual school. It's a cell-block sort of school with five wings, labeled A-E, and there are no interior doors--everything opens to the outside. Walter especially enjoys going to the bathrooms, lunchtime, the vending machines in the cafeteria, and fire drills. Sounds like school to me! For me, having him ready to go in the morning and with a lunch and two snacks packed is a lesson in how much of a challenge it would be to do this every day for most of the year. I have resorted to tiny bagged snacks so that there is minimal prep for me.

As I've noted in the past, he is very open to learning in a new environment. The first day he came home talking about metamorphic rocks, where at home he often is paying so little attention that he doesn't even know what continent he lives on. But then again, I really hear much, much more about who is working with whom, what mistakes other people made in their projects, the very exciting bathroom, and what other people had for lunch.

My summer started out looking so blank, so boring. Now here it is August already, and I feel like I've been continuously busy. We've gone nowhere--I mean, I've gone to the beach twice for a few hours and then come home, and we've been to Busch Gardens about 10 times, but other than that, no trips, no overnights, no vacations. I've spent every single night in my own bed. It's kind of interesting, and yet making me feel rather itchy to travel somewhere, anywhere. We do have a two day trip to Philadelphia planned for the second week of September, and then later that week we are going to South Carolina for five days for a family reunion (although except for my Dad, I've barely ever met anyone else who will be there), so there is something to look forward to. I guess I'm just looking for a break from the relentlessness of the daily life-with-a-toddler, which is so draining. I have been wondering, am I just coping especially poorly, but I've realized that this is the longest extended period, at least for quite a long time, when I've been the sole person in charge of just about everything having to do with keeping life going with all four kids. No relief when I have an appointment of some kind, an outing that isn't compatible with Rutledge, or need to run an errand that is going to be ten times harder and longer if I have to take everyone. I think the cumulative total of all of these things is wearing me out. I'm finding that I have to sit down some, especially after 5, and I kind of hit a wall more days than I used to. With more opportunities for a break, especially a break that allows me to accomplish something other than playing tennis, I'd probably be a little more patient with everyone and have a little more energy in general. But it looks like I'm just going to have to buck up and embrace the new reality and realize that Rutledge won't be this age forever and that the others certainly can't go on crying or screeching for hours. I'm going to have to figure out some way to stamp out the unattractive behaviors so that we can all coexist more peacefully.

We have listened to some good books in the car this week while spending so much time going to Mechanicsville to camp. We finished Wolf Brother, listened to Bridge to Terabithia, then another book about a dog by the same author, the 21 Balloons, and Anastasia Krupnik, which I found to be a very perceptive little book about children around the age of mine. It was quite a pleasant listen. Now we are listening to Tuck Everlasting, and I'm not sure how long this is going to last for us. Ollie didn't seem too into it, but we've only listened to about 1/3 of the first tape. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we're not getting any further along in Harry Potter. And here I am writing here instead of reading there. At this rate, I'll never be done. Oh well.

Summer seems like it is slipping right away from me, and no matter how hard I try to "do nothing" these days, the days get full from morning until night. This morning was a tennis round robin, which meant barreling out the door with half-dressed, half-fed children at 8:45 to drop them off at Water Works and the nursery (which was shut down for part of last week with a staph infection and disinfection). I was fairly on this morning--great serving, funky second serve with unexpected spin, and good reflexes at the net. As soon as it was over, we hurried home so I could check my email to see if I needed to change my clothes and rush to a meeting at the Homeschool Place for the Advisory Committee. The meeting was postponed until this afternoon, so I gave the signal for the kids to vacate the car, and the next thing I knew, Rebecca was on the phone with worry in her voice because her period is perhaps several weeks late. Well, duh...take a test!!! Since she was hemming and hawing, I took the liberty of piling the kids back into the car to go buy her a test and take it to her, then stood by while she peed into a cup because she couldn't produce a stream for 5 seconds (it was negative...). Since I was there, I took the tour of her rearranged rooms, checked out her reorganized basement, and suddenly Frances was inviting herself to spend the night. What luck! Given that Frances has been having a rough time lately, it was nice for her to have something that was all about her all day long today. And an evening with one fewer child for me, not that it really slows down the pace any.

Finally I made it home, where Ollie and Walter and I cheated our way through a 500 piece puzzle. How do you cheat? You allow the vast chunks that were already together in the box to stay together. And hence you finish a puzzle in an hour. Then we set out to pick up Frances' bike, which was being repaired at Agee's, popped into gymnastics to give a list of dates she would be missing this summer so August could be prorated, and went to the meeting at the Homeschool Place. All through this, I had a barely controlled migraine, which only now is in remission thanks to an Imitrex sample I picked up from the doctor last week. Amazing, amazing stuff.

Tomorrow we don't have much on the docket. Perhaps going to the pool with some friends. Picking up Frances. Looking at a science book. And of course gymnastics. In the evening I have another tennis round robin. So I suppose tomorrow is full, isn't it?

I haven't had a chance to say much about the conference this past weekend. There were parts of the day that were energizing, even paradigm changing (the session on right-brained learners was especially good, even though I had in the past gone through checklists of traits of right-brained learners and determined that Walter fit all of the 'negatives' and none of the positives). But overall, it felt sparser than in past years and just lacked a certain energy and excitement. It kind of went through the motions. I felt a lack of connection with the other participants, of which I think there were fewer anyway than I'm used to. I'm not sure if the budget there is just stretched too thin to add more opportunities for networking and a larger vendor hall, or if there's just a certain anti-curricula bent that keeps tings at a kind of low level. At any rate, I didn't even get a chance to spend time among the vendors or at the used curriculum sale downstairs because I was either volunteering or attending a few sessions, and the next thing i knew I had bailed to go get margaritas with some friends, and it was over. I realize that I need to register my needs with the organizers as feedback and to let the organization know what I'd like to see next year; they claim to be member run, and I can't complain if I'm not giving them input in the first place.

Ollie and I are making steady progress on Harry Potter. The book has only been out three days, and while it makes me an adult failure to have not read it all by now, considering that we are reading aloud 100 or more pages a day, we're rather ambitious in our own way. Yeah, I want to know what happens, but at the same time, I'm getting to really savor the experience of the book in a way that I might not if I was just reading for information. I'm reading for inflection, expression, and performance! In good time, we'll also be among the initiated. All I have to do is avoid the other people in the world until such a time comes.

This evening I also seem to have volunteered to lead another class at the homeschool place. Hilary and I are going to do Story of the World together, starting in Volume 2, the Medieval World. I'm really excited about this. I realized tonight that I really do wish that I was doing more than was checking some things off our list for next year, things that I'd want to cover anyway and that aren't just extras. This fits the bill quite well, since we spend a lot of time either listening to or reading the books, but never seem to get around to the activities. This will be lots of fun, I'm sure.

I'm headed to bed, hoping for a halfway decent night's sleep. Last night was actually pretty good, for once. There were some wakings, but by and large they weren't memorable. And that's a good thing.

It feels like we live at Busch Gardens sometimes. I think this was our 8th or 9th visit this summer. And at least our second this week. Frances was decidedly wimpy today, even with the peer pressure of friends there. She rode nothing. I was too busy with Rutledge to give her no choice and deal with the fallout of that. So she rode her little kiddie rides and that was that. One day she will come into her own, I hope. But today was not one of her more mature days. She began with wetting her bed, proceeded with whining and crying throughout, and primarily rode rides designed for Rutledge. And we missed both tennis and gymnastics today, which is something that I will not be doing again any time soon (though with as sticky, nasty hot as it was today, I'm glad that I wasn't putting her in Richmond Olympiad for two hours). Overall, though, we had a very fun day without too much incident beyond not finding my car in the parking lot at the end of our visit.

My goal for tomorrow is to stay home. The pace of our schedule and my inability to say no to anything does not bode well for the school year. I'm not very good at marshaling the troops to get us out the door in the morning with all equipment, clothing, and food for an all-day marathon of disparate events. For days now, even a few weeks, it feels like I set out at 9 a.m. or before and don't return home until nearly 9 p.m., with half a dozen stops along the way. Exhausting. So even though we have opportunities tomorrow, we're going to hang out here.

I picked up a few new books at the library tonight, so I am off to do a bit of reading before my eyes roll back in my head.

I'm watching Bob Marley on Youtube, and I was remarking that it has to be hard to do a whole show when you're that high. I mean, I can't even go to Busch Gardens sober, or worse yet, have two sips of beer and not feel like I'm going to pass out and throw up during More Pet Shenanigans. And that's when it hit me what my problem is. I'm not going to Busch Gardens high. That's got to be up there with the oh so controversial three martini playdate that you read about in those goody goody mainstream parenting magazines. Four kids in a theme park alone with me; I'd call that an irresponsible venture under any circumstances.

Tonight was a dinner and dessert discussion with some people I know who are homeschooling older kids--middle and high school. Very, very enlightening. One of the most interesting things was that there was no mention of needing a solid support group, or even a support group at all. Most of their children are plenty plugged in with whatever it is they do--playing the harp, Boy Scouts, choirs, etc. And like with anything else, do you really need more than a couple of good friends? Do you really need a crowd. And even more energizing is the reiteration that we homeschool, that's what we do. Just as with school, or anything else in life, for that matter, there may be good years and less good years, years when math goes well and years when it isn't so great. But you keep moving along. There are no guarantees anywhere. I brought up the question of why so many people seem to send their children to school once they hit middle school or so. There were a couple of responses, including one I hadn't really thought of, which is that maybe after 12 or 13 years, many people are just ready for a break. Or the typical stresses of middle schoolers and teenagers may leave parents wanting to feel less solely responsible or wanting time out from some of the autonomy struggles. Since this still seems in the distant future to me, it hadn't crossed my mind to think about the challenges of extra power struggles...and trying to get in math and science.

I could spend all day watching Discovery and the History Channel. Imhotep is on right now. They are excavating a foot. The other night it was Loch Ness. Isn't it always Loch Ness?

I wish I had positive energy to write interesting posts these days. It's all I can do to stay awake. Perhaps tomorrow, another day, will bring fresh material.

So much for my uncluttered summer. This week is VBS for two children, tennis lessons for one, swim fun team for two, a birthday party, a spelling bee, a tennis clinic, and a double shot of gymnastics. I can barely keep my eyes open with exhaustion from having to often be in two or three places at one time.

Someone just described me as having an exciting life. How true is that? I mean really, I'm a stay at home Mom with a tennis addiction and an uneasy juxtaposition of not enough and too much time on my hands. I do some combination of teaching my children at home and watching them learn in the world while I sit back and ferry their bodies where they want to go to do this. And I retrieve my dogs from the woods across from us several times a day. I suppose it's all in how you describe what you do.

And when it all comes down, it is a pretty exciting life. There was the breath-holding, sweat-inducing, ice dripping down my bra and neck singles match yesterday. There was the grand challenge of taking two five year old girls to Wal-Mart tonight and having them babbling to each other, me, and the other shoppers in their made-up language while I ran over their feet an undisclosed number of times because they wouldn't stop darting in front of me. There's tomorrow, when we're planning to drive up to Wintergreen to watch an Eddie from Ohio concert and see some fireworks. There was the non-child-friendly Thai hot chili stir-fry on the rice noodles tonight that we served to seven children, at least three of whom practically turned inside out. There are the 18 semi-melted orangesicles in the garage freezer because I had to take a friend home and then stop at Blockbuster instead of going straight home after I had been grocery shopping. The book group with 8 7-10 year old boys in it. And the used mattress I'm supposed to pick up from a friend tomorrow so that the twins will finally have something on their top bunk. I guess you can't really argue that it's not dull.

I'm in love with our screened porch. I read out here. I type out here. I blog out here. I spend time with the kids out here. I escape the freezing cold air-conditioned house out here. It's a place that positively reeks of my dogs (and features them as a visual element, since they love it more than I do) and gathers clutter like you wouldn't believe (yard stuff, nature table stuff, candles, sand toys, dirty dishes). But it's warm, cozy, and feels set apart from the rest of life.

I'm reading the Memory Keeper's Daughter, and right now I can barely put it down. I just started it this afternoon, and it's noteworthy that I am even able to start a book at this point in my life. Ollie and I finished Harry Potter 5 yesterday and started on the sixth book, but between reading aloud to him and cleaning up at the end of the day and general exhaustion from getting up too early to play tennis almost every day, I don't find a lot of leftover time for my own pursuits. I need to change that somehow. It's back to the old question of what you *don't* do in order to enable yourself to have time to accomplish the things that you *do* do.

I had a conversation with several different people today about what is different about next year from previous years that it just feels so...complicated and necessary to be planning right now for the fall. And my response is that it's because (a) there are more people to plan for--Frances is a real entity who is a full participant in many of the activities and (b) there really are more offerings for homeschoolers these days. There's the Homeschool Place, for one. But there are also just more organized activities and ones that are asking for a commitment or a reserved space...NOW. It went from art class being a drop-in with potential times on M, W, F. Then last year we sort of asked if the teacher would do a class just for our five families at a regular time each week. And now it feels like we have to reserve the spot and the time now to be insured it's going to be there for us and that it fits in our schedule, which of course means that we have to figure out what our schedule is in the first place, which leads back to the realization that IT IS JUNE!! Not August, not September, not even a full month from when the last "school" year ended, but early summer, when we're theoretically supposed to be on break. The best I can say is, it cannot be helped. Here we are, so we have to go with it.

I am going to sign off and return to my reading before the sleepover erupts again or I find myself being awoken by the crying of another person's child at 2 a.m.

My Toke

That's Rutledge's big line these days: "No, my Toke!" Yeah, he's Coke obsessed just like the others. His other major cutie is saying, in response to, "What's your name," something like "I'm me. I'm Rut!"

We spent too much time outside today, considering that it was 95 degrees and deathly humid. The bad thing about my "match of a lifetime" tennis games is that they go on forever, and this one today was a replay of last week, but with a different result. I lost the first set 6-1, which didn't reflect the level of play going on, just, apparently, my inability to wrap it up. The second set I won 1-6. And then I won in the tiebreaker 5-10. It was amazing and exhausting. I kept putting ice into my bra and into my hat, but in the final five minutes, absolutely nothing was helping.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the sitter was locked out of the house in the heat with four kids she had taken to a tennis lesson, and they were all huddled in the garage next to the cat door, where it was cool because of the air conditioning. I felt horrible! Two neighbors have keys, but neither was home, although one arrived fairly soon after I heard the bad news, saving the melting folks at home. Poor, poor Heather, who will probably never set foot at our house again!

Wimbledon is on, Sharapova, my favorite Canon-snapping player, just won in a landslide. And I am remembering, as I always will, that this is the week that I spent in the hospital back when I was pregnant with the twins. I had a lot of time on my hands to watch a lot of tennis. A lot of everything, actually. A lot of crossword puzzles were done. Logic puzzles. All kinds of puzzles. Every day. All day.

Tomorrow is the first book group, and Ollie has a selection of books he might like to read, but Walter is stuck on My Father's Dragon, which is probably a little slower than the speed of this particular group. And a little too innocent. Ollie and I finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix tonight, and it was very, very intense for him. Although I've taken some grief that they haven't read the books before, I feel like it makes sense to wait, since the themes, many of them, are rather mature for them even still. It's a lot to take in and process. If we play our cards right and prioritize our reading the way we have been (read: no reading for me, no free time without a child right next to me), we'll be through the sixth book in about five days.

The topic of overprotective parents came up today at the park. I probably fall into the most permissive category. My kids go online and play games almost every day. They're pretty innocuous ones, IMO, things like Nickelodeon cartoon tie-ins, Webkinz, and Lego.com. And they play console video games, including my recent major step out in letting Ollie get Call of Duty 2. We haven't, however, succumbed to World of Warcraft or any other multi-player role-playing games (thank goodness! I know nothing about that subculture and am happy to remain in the dark!). I do let them go out in the cul de sac across the street without me to play with their friends, though this is a pretty recent development. Unfortunately, it has included letting Frances go. I just can't stay over and outside by myself with a pile of 4-8 year olds and not go crazy after an hour. More and more, though, I'm finding that the group ends up here playing, which is fine with me. I have thought a lot lately about letting Ollie go out on his own to take himself to tennis on the trails behind the school playing fields, but I think he's not quite ready yet to take that step, especially if we haven't all walked the path several times with him before. But I do look forward to the time when the boys will be able to be at the pool on their own while I do other things--while I am at the fitness center or playing tennis, especially. It will simplify things to a huge degree. Of course, having Rutledge be 4 will also simplify life in some ways.

I'm feeling like I'm not spending enough time with Franny lately. I'm in the house with her, but I'm so focused on reading to Ollie or keeping Rutledge from hitting us with a big stick or helping Walter with math that I'm not giving her a lot of undivided attention. We probably need a date together this weekend, though preferably one that doesn't include Build-A-Bear. I tend not to stick around during her activities because they are not Rutledge-friendly, and that means that I feel a bit more out of touch with her these days. She loves to be read to, but she isn't going to sit through a 900 page Harry Potter book. She loves to do her own math work, but it requires so much concentration and intervention from me that we don't do it as often as I'd like to be doing it.

I need to get to bed. My most memorable dream last night involved me sleeping in until 9:30 when I had to be at Fox Hall in the West End to play tennis at 9:00. I had missed the babysitter ringing the doorbell, and on top of this, I was wearing about 8 layers of too-tight clothes that I couldn't peel off so that I could get dressed. I knew that by the time I got myself together and drove where I needed to be that it would be 10:15, and it was too late. There was nothing I could do, and given my childcare gaffe week a copule of weeks ago, I knew this would be the end of my time on the USTA team. It was just so vivid!

I was mistaken last week--this week, tomorrow, is my final USTA match. I think I've only had one win this season, which is disappointing. I don't know why I'm so fearful of hitting the ball, but I just give away points. I'm going to try not to think about this and just play as hard as I can. After last week's match, I'm on a high and ready to redeem myself at #1 singles tomorrow. I have a sitter coming, which has taken a good deal of prep; I can't stand strangers coming to stay in my house and feeling like it looks like a pigsty. Right now it's more like a cleanish pigsty, but it's the best I can do. And Ollie will make it to his own tennis lesson, which is a good thing.

If we can find the time tomorrow, we are only a day or so away from finishing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We have averaged 120+ pages a day for the past four days, so if we work at slightly above that pace tomorrow, we'll have it all wrapped up and be able to move on to the 6th book and be done well before the 7th comes out in three weeks or so. It is taking all of my spare minutes and my time to myself after children's bedtimes to get to this point, but I'm looking forward to reading some different books once we finish this series. There are so many on our list that I'm eager to get started.

Friday is the first meeting of the boys' book group. I hope that they will be cooperative. I hope that Ollie will find some books that he wants to read. I hope that Walter will listen as we read so that he can participate. But it is exciting for them. Today I took Ollie to B&N to look at possible selections, and I think he has a few. We didn't buy all of them because that was going to get expensive, but he is ready to say what he wants to see happen and what he has liked in the past. More on that to come.

Tomorrow after tennis we are going to Sunday Park for a picnic. It sounds hot. Today was horrendous in terms of heat. The rain that is supposed to arrive Friday cannot come soon enough. It was so hot at the pool today, even in the water. And all three older kids have red faces from me not protecting them well enough. Their bodies are looking rather white, but their heads, no matter what I do, seem to be in trouble. I hope that we don't melt in the heat. And I need not even think about Richmond Olympiad in the afternoon. I'll need to remember to pack plenty of water. Even then, it's rather unbearable there. The weekend promises a much better forecast, with lower temperatures and lower humidity.

I need to get pictures on here again. I have them. I've been taking quite a few at the pool and when we have been out, it's just a matter of uploading them to the computer and then putting them on here. I haven't done it much yet, so I'm less familiar with the process, and for me, if it's not automatic, it doesn't happen.

Kerry accused me of making bad decisions tonight. With a blinding headache with the air pressure today, I took BC powder, which is full of caffeine, at dinnertime. Now here I am, still with a headache, but likely to be awake all night. We shall see.

Speechless

That's what I should be after reading 150 pages of Harry Potter aloud today. This is one of those rare days when I never left Woodlake. Didn't really interact with any other people, which is always questionable, but much like our existence when we first moved here. I played tennis...with myself this morning. Kate had an errand to run for the junior tournament that was going on this morning, so since I already had child care, I went ahead and spent some quality time with my favorite green-clad player, the ball machine. I did two rounds of forehand balls, working on topspin, backspin, and just getting it over the net, and then I served the entire basket of balls. I'm rather sore now! There wasn't quite enough time to accomplish much of anything, since so much time gets taken up wheeling the machine and the basket of balls from the shed to the far hard court, then threading the plug through the fence, then loading in all the balls, and finally picking them up when they've all come shooting out at you. But it was a great use of my time and gave me the sheer number of balls I've needed to it lately.

The kids were at Water Works, which is a program at our swim club where they are supervised by teenagers and don't have to go to the nursery while I do something. I let the older three dive for about 30 minutes before we had to pick up Rutledge. Most of the rest of the day was spent reading aloud. Lovely. Really.

Tomorrow morning, Ollie starts his tennis lessons. I realized I haven't seen or even talked to Rebecca in practically two weeks, which feels just plain wrong to me. So my goal for tomorrow is to go bother her no matter what she says or where she is. How's that for friendly?!

Summer is always an interesting time. Walter's friend Jared has left for the summer, and we don't know when or if he is coming back. We don't have any vacation plans. We don't have plans of any kind to really speak of except for the week of day camp in August for Walter. I'm regretting not forcing them all to do swim team this year, so that's one of my goals for next year. I didn't want to be tied down (or pay another $200), but I'm thinking now, tied down to what??

Deuce

Finally, I've hit my stride in tennis. After the smokin' match on Thursday (even if I didn't win), I've been on the ball, literally, since then. My serve is finally in most of the time--I have been paying attention to nothing more than throwing the ball high enough, and sure enough, I've got my first serve under control and my second serve less pathetic now. My groundstrokes are also more reliable, and I'm getting more overheads and playing more aggressively at the net. This morning I played singles and won 6-4, 6-2, 6-1. Tonight Kerry and I played doubles in a well-matched pairing, and we also won three sets, though I'm blanking on the score. And I am dreadfully tired. Maybe I'll get that racket tattoo after all....

Speaking of smokin' talents, Walter is learning to play the piano, and he is such a natural at it. Right now he is playing Jolly Old St. Nicholas, and he is doing it smoothly and with feeling. I've just been casually teaching them and having them practice 3 or 4 days a week, and this is pretty good for just being three or so weeks into the deal.

Tomorrow I teach Sunday School in the morning. I feel so unprepared, even though there's not that much to prepare for it. The activities in the book we teach from are...interesting. Tomorrow's lesson plan calls for a lot of tearing up foam pieces and throwing them at things--throwing them at plastic ants, of all things. Last week there was a lot of throwing things, too. We threw a styrofoam raven at our prayer requests. Hmmm. And we picked up plastic ants. I can't remember why we did it, but there it was. After tomorrow, we don't have Sunday School again until the middle of August.

Here is my current thinking about what seems to be a key to homeschooling success past the critical zone of late elementary, the point at which many people I've known have chosen to send their children to school. I was listening to a friend who now has 15 and 16 year olds, and while it sounds like sometimes her boys may have wanted to go to school, they accept that this is what their family does. I see her boys all the time around the neighborhood, and they seem very "normal" to me--out with friends, riding their skateboards, they seem to have girlfriends, almost always in a pack of other kids. The three biggies that I see as setting one up for long-term success are (1) Consistent activities--doing the same thing year after year. For her it seems to be Boy Scouts, church show choir and youth activities, and at one point, Lego robotics. (2) Doing a few things and doing them with gusto. (3) Keeping as much as possible local. Some of her boys' major activities happen within walking distance of her house. They haven't lost touch with the other people their age living right around them.

Now I'm on to wondering how I'll put that together for myself. Easier said than done, right?

You Might Be a Redneck

Crass as they are, variations on this theme are some of my favorite little jokes. As anyone who knows me knows, it doesn't actually take much to set me off laughing about something that is amusing to no one else who is older than a third grader. But anyway, tonight you could say I might have had too much to drink when :

* I've poured a whiskey sour into one of my best friend's shoes
* I try to log onto my blog to post and I keep typing in sss.blogger.com and aaa.blogger.com
* I repeat (and type the word "prepeat") the same phrase over and over for effect while I'm trying to convince my sleeping husband that I'm not a lightweight and I can handle my alcohol

So there you are. Make your own decisions, readers. Whoever you are.

I just bot gack (got back) from a pontoon boat cruise with a group of homeschooling friends. We actually didn't talk shop all that much. A few anecdotes here and there, but none of this talk about the new homeschool center that is going to be opening or about plans for next years or about the dreaded C topic or educational clubs or what have you. It was old boat stories, food, talk about dreams, and chat about local restaurants. What a lovely change of pace from nothing but shop talk. I live shop. I love shop. But I don't always have to talk shop. It was a gorgeous night, beyond what one could order from a catalog, if such a thing were possible. Clear skies full of stars, falling ones, even. Ripply water with hopping fish. Other pontoons with swimmers leaping joyously (and drunkily?) off their decks. Children swinging off ropes into the water from their shoreside yards. A popular neighborhood nightspot with a full deck of weekend folks relaxing. A wedding reception going on up the hill. Simply lovely.


Today I took all four children to Busch Gardens by myself. This was a first. It went okay. It was a learning experience for all of us, one where I had to lay down the law on a few lessons. You can't be throwing things or licking your siblings while I am driving on I-64. I will pull over onto the shoulder and talk to you. You can't throw straws out the window or I will pull you out of gymnastics and ballet faster than a speeding cylinder of plastic on I-95. Don't even wander off in a big crowded theme park where your mother can't see you. But overall, we had a lovely day. My plan was to use today to see all of those shows that we never manage to catch when we are running amok and slamming in as many rides in 6 hours as we can. It sort of worked. We saw a very energetic 4-D pirate show with Leslie Nielson, a high on the special effects (how did this guy change costumes so magically quickly?) one-man show about a castle on Ireland, and most of a children's song and dance show. But the fact is, we rode a lot of rides. Not our usual ones. Well, okay, the boys did go on the Loch Ness Monster twice. Frances and Rutledge rode the mini clydesdales ride and walked through the stables and petted and had their picture taken with McGhee (Wednesday when we went, it was with Marty). They all rode all of the rides in Land of the Dragons, which is the little children's area. The water jets were on, although Rutledge was a bit too cautious. They climbed in the treehouse and rode all of the tiny rides. My favorite lines from Rutledge today: "I want to ride dem bopes." "I want to ride dem bugs." And my ultimate favorite line these days, although I am tired of saying no and witnessing the resulting tantrum: "No, my Toke!" (No, my Coke!) We had a very nutritious lunch of 7-11 hot dogs and slurpees (I dropped my Toke all over the ground, and I promise I had not had any alcohol at 11 a.m.!). And I spent too much on Jelly Bellys and big lollipops and frozen lemonade. On the whole, today was a pretty good day out that was neither too long nor too short. My only complaint was that I took a wrong turn getting home because I was zoned out talking to Hilary on my phone, and the next thing I knew I was in Colonial Heights, then Petersburg, then at Fort Lee. I've never been down there before, don't foresee a lot of going down there again any time soon, and it ended up taking me about 45 minutes longer to get home than it should have. Anyone who knows me know that these driving zone-outs happen all too often to me. I hope we'll find a time to get back to Busch Gardens next week, even if i do need to figure out how to spend less on food. I'll get a system down one of these days. Probably a day or so before our season pass expires.

This is old news, but yesterday I played the tennis game of my life. It may not have been the best I ever played (and I lost), but it was my best match ever. Close, close, close. I lost the first set 6-4, won the second 3-6, and then lost in the tie-breaker 12-10. But the points were amazing, my opponent and I had a lot of fun, and we rallied and rallied and got in some incredible shots. My placement was on, my serve was mostly on, and my consistency was such as it has never been before. I had a lot of spectators, primarily because the match was just so darn long--about 45 minutes past the time when everyone else on my team was finished. Hilary showed up after her away match. I wish I could have wrapped things up a little better, but I was so pleased with how this went and, well, just had a ton of fun. This was my second time playing #1 singles, and I am so eager to play more singles now that I've had this experience. I think I'm going to meet a friend to play tomorrow morning, just for more practice. Our final match of the USTA season is next week, but then I'll be starting a 3.0/3.5 combo league on Saturdays when this ends. Just when I'm ready to throw in the towel on something, it seems to turn itself right around and become infused with a new energy, so maybe I just will consider that tennis racket tattoo I joke about.

Here's a question in the air these days. Should you continue to school during the summer? Well, I guess that depends on what you call schooling. Though I still aspire, in some ways, to be completely child-led, in which summer, winter, fall, you name it, we'd just be living life, the fact is that right now, in order to feel okay about whether we are at least sort of on track with our perceived grade level. So for now, I'm trying to hit at least four days a week with math, handwriting (we're now on to copywork, where I'm having them copy short poems on lined paper, using correct form for letters), spelling, and grammar. Everyone hates grammar, and I have this feeling that though the work isn't hard, if they found themselves asked questions about subjects and predicates in six months that they would be glaring blankly at a test booklet. Though I will say, I was rather pleased to hear Walter declare that "diagramming sentences is fun." I love those compound subjects and their triangulating lines, too.

What I'm reading right now: The endless Harry Potter 5 (did I mention that Rutledge unwound and/or ripped 13 cassettes the other day?). The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Writer Mama. And some magazines. Ollie and I have been reading about World War II, the Holocaust, and the causes of the Vietnam War. And the perennial scary stories. We are finding that the back porch is now our favorite place to be. Yes, it smells like dog on a bad day, but usually it is a welcome respite from the cold temperatures of inside the house and is a haven set apart from the noise of indoors. I feel like we are finally bonding with this area that was the original selling point of our house. If only we could reclaim it from the animals and decorate it more comfortably, I think it really would be our favorite room.

Equal

I now have as many posts on this blog as I did on my long past one from a few years ago--24. Not that this matters. But I noticed this fact, and I decided it was blogworthy. So there it is.

Oh my, summer is here. Today was a gorgeous day. Okay, fine, this morning was a little cruddy looking, but it was the perfect day to go to Busch Gardens, which we did. Not too hot, but warm enough that you weren't a total ice cube after getting soaked on a ride. Which I did. I was heartily happy that I was wearing a navy blue shirt instead of a white one, and that my underwear roughly matched the tone of my light-colored shorts, which were clinging to me for hours after I got completely dumped on by the Roman Rapids. I've never seen Walter exuding such sheer joy as when probably 40 gallons of water went straight onto his head and decimated the map he was holding into a pulp (which, this being Walter, he scrunched up and sculpted into a chili pepper). The poor strangers we were riding with! Walter just talked their ear right off with his exuberant excitement in being soaked to the bone. Other notable moments: Rutledge cackling and shouting "Whee!" with his little chunky arms held high in the air on the Battering Ram (otherwise known as "The Bope" to Rutledge), Rutledge on the log flume, and Frances traumatized for the rest of the day by a ride that was too fast.

I've determined that I am spending too much mental energy in thinking about next school year and what we are doing, so I have decided to put some limits on it. I'm not being super-anal about it right now: I have 30 minutes at 4:00 to devote to this and then no more. But I am going to just give is what I can and leave the rest behind for now. I'm kind of off the trumpet thing at the moment. It's not working in our schedule, it may be the one thing too many (you know how that one goes...), and it will still be there next year, and the year after. I could take that trumpet time and money and put it toward a piano lesson three minutes away.

I think I already said that we decided to go ahead with gymnastics for Frances. Big time commitment. There go two nights a week. Ollie wants to try soccer. Walter might like to do that, too, so hey, why not? So that's something to look into. Like we need another sport, but they're only young once, and maybe now they are excited about it and willing to give it some more effort and a new try.

I'm exhausted, and I have a tennis game at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow all the way across town. Ack! It's my final one of the USTA season, and I'm glad for that. I'm over finding the child care, which is a scramble each week. I'm in a combo league starting in July, where players with different ratings are paired together, but that happens on Saturdays, when someone to watch the kids is less of a mystery. I will be playing probably #1 singles, which is always interesting, but I'm happy I'm getting the opportunity to do the more strenuous running game more often now. My legs are feeling much more toned because of it, and I have found that now when we do our evening walks to the Pavilion or the park, I'm not huffing and puffing at all or feeling the pain for days afterward.

I had all of these things to write about tonight, and suddenly they have all slipped my mind. Hmmm. Rutledge is now climbing out of his crib, so enter a whole new era in our lives. I'm way behind on staying in touch with people I need to talk to, partly because my phone time is limited by my nearly-defunct cell phone. I am a chronic multi-tasker, and without my phone with me when I'm out and about, I'm seriously limited in how much time I can spend at home taking care of adult business, either personal or volunteer. I learned my lesson well yesterday about what can happen if you let your attention slip for even a moment: Rutledge unwound 13 Harry Potter cassettes from the library, precipitating an entire afternoon of pencils spinning on tape gears and splicing with Scotch tape. Sigh.... And I thought I was *cleaning* when I was over vacuuming and making our lives look somewhat together!

Ollie and I are reading lately about inventions, which has been fascinating. He's even reading the book on his own when we're not doing it together. And we have been reading and talking about World War II, the Cold War, and terrorism. We're finally finding more friendly resources that are doing a better job of explaining the difference between politics and economics and more succinctly describing rival forms of government and rival forms of economic systems, which is helping him answer his own questions about why the U.S. might have involved itself with North Vietnam. Ollie is the man of a million questions, but no deep interests. I keep thinking that if we just read enough, finally something will get into him to a point where he wants to go past the surface and keep taking himself further.

Walter is Walter. Building traps for the chipmunk that is still in our house. Planting dead trees in holes in our backyard. Creating a display of his most challenging Bionicle figures. Having a war with tennis balls in the playroom. He keeps himself very busy.

In order to keep myself functioning, I absolutely must sign off and go to bed. Midnight. Again.

Walter and Ollie are gone for the weekend. It's kind of a beautiful thing, for them as well as for us. I dealt with the loss by taking Frances to Build-A-Bear, since she was upset at not just staying here with me, but having to go to a dr's appointment on top of that. Turns out that we didn't really need to go in the first place and the doctor could just fill out the physical form for gymnastics and update some info with a current height and weight (42.5 inches, 37 pounds). It's worth noting here that after the flurry of emails about the "creepy guy" who seemed to be using a fluffy dog to lure children away from the pop-jet fountain there, there was mega-high and very obvious security in the fountain area, so much so that it would be a brave little soul who would feel confident playing with an enormous uniformed and armed man standing so menacingly three feet away. I even found myself ruminating on what I might be doing at the moment that would warrant being carried off in shackles by this man. At any rate, it was too cold for anyone with a shred of sanity to be dancing around in what is always freezing cold water anyway. We picked up a Cub Scout styled bear shirt for the ubiquitous Husky and called it a wrap (okay, I just called it a warp before I corrected my spelling, but that's just me..).

I'm thinking seriously again about how I'm going to start writing seriously for money. Maybe I don't need to write seriously, but I do need to write for money. I also started looking into what I'd need to do to apply as an adjunct faculty member at one of the community colleges. Most daunting is getting 3 letters of recommendation; it's been 10 long years since I've taught at all, and I'm a long way from that era of my life and the people who were in it then. Having never finished my degree and kind of gone AWOL numerous times, I'm not in what I view as the best position to be grovelling, but this may be a moment to swallow my pride. I've talked a lot in my blog in the past about whether it is possible to be too poor to homeschool, but it's very clear as I'm planning next year that yes, it is possible, depending on your particular chosen route. And even more so if you are the parent of a miniscule Mary Lou Retton, whose kindergarten gymnastics career actually makes loud slurping noises as it sucks away your paycheck.

Am I nervous about adding in more to my is-my-head-above-water? life? You betcha. It would be the supreme irony if I started working part time to support my homescholing lifestyle and found that it made me so frazzled that I had to put my children in school so I could continue to work. But a little something has to be done. To that end, I have been reading the _Writer Mama_ book I picked up a few weeks ago at B&N, and it makes me both feel like I can do this (or at least an arrogant, hey, if these other people can do it, I can), but it is also scaring the pants off me. I just don't want to write for a newspaper. I don't want to be running around interviewing people on assignments all the time; I hate that kind of stuff. I'm a loner, a recluse, a misanthrope with awful social skills. That's why I want to sit home with my computer by myself and write and never have to actually make actual contact with a human being. I'm thinking about a lot of ideas I have for articles, some of which I'll include here totally unedited.

My old standard is that I haven't ever read anything about breastfeeding after infertility, specifically the angle of mothers who want to maintain their attachment parenting lifestyle and pursue further treatment for a next child. Others are the gritty reality of homeschooling with toddlers in the house, homeschooling twins, ping-pong homeschoolers (unschooling this week, collapsing under the weight of books from the used curriculum sale the next). If it wasn't so late, I'd probably be pulling up a bunch of my others from my list, but my eyes are glazing over yet again. I'm having a problem with this lately.

I need to set firm goals for myself--no more procrastinating. Something along the lines of I need an article written with a real plan for it by the end of this month, which I guess means about two weeks. I'm going to take advantage of the fact that I have two fewer children this weekend to spend some time in the bookstores perusing the magazine racks and narrowing down a loftier goal while also making some plans for a local publication.

At home, I'm pushing for a more clear delineation of budget items. I am drawing up a proposal that I believe will offer the kind of flexibility and generosity we need for activities next year while maintaining accountability with other budgetary areas. Translated, this means that I need a way to put my money where my mouth is and prove that I've tasted those filthy little dollar bills when I say that such-and-such means so much to me that I'm willing to stop eating to have it. Kerry is still pulling his sorry old, "Rules are made to be broken" as a reason why we shouldn't have some envelope system or vague mental plan for how to divide our resources. Frustrating.

Speaking of frustrating, the new cell phone that we won on eBay came yesterday, and it refuses to work. So it has to go back. Meanwhile, my lame, limping phone also refuses to be reactivated. What I'm left with is no working phone, and it is driving me positively crazy. I had not realized how much I depend on the thing to multitask while I'm waiting for children somewhere or driving in the car, and today I ended up spending the majority of my day at home, tethered to the phone, trying to sort out a variety of things going on in the many arenas of my life. I felt like there were fewer hours in the day. What's worth sayng, though, is that obviously four years ago, I was living a perfectly fulfilling life without one of these little devices, and now it is a crisis that I have to go 72 hours without it (actually, we're talking more like 2 weeks, but still...).

Tomorrow hopefully I will have pictures to post of a way improved new haircut.

Backyard Wildlife Habitat

Go ahead and give us a sign for our yard. Wait, you might as well just give us a sign for indoors, too. Today was the day of the wild animals. It started this morning with something bounding across the kitchen. My first thought: "Oh no! The cat finally got the hamster!" But no. It was no hamster. It was a chipmunk, and it was heading upstairs. Eventually he got painted into a corner in the laundry room and found himself a hiding place and, hopefully, eventually a way out of our house. I don't really want to see him inside again. This was not typical for us--in fact, I've never had a live, furry wild animal in my house before.

Imagine my surprise when I was out just a hour or two later picking up the messy stuff that was in our backyard and I lifted the plastic climbing wall that had fallen on the ground and I found a leafy nest with a juvenile opossum in it! Ack! The kids were so very excited. So were the dogs. The poor opossum wasn't. He or she is probably 8-10 inches long, so most likely is a young juvenile living on his own, rather than an orphaned baby (who would be in a pouch with his mother unless she had died or he had been somehow separated from her). This was a healthy-looking, self-sufficient fellow. But he does need a new home. Walter wanted to build it a large cage with pieces of an old dog crate and a papasan chair frame. We had to have the discussion yet again that wild animals are not and will not be pets. It isn't legal to make them pets, it isn't safe to make them pets, and it isn't fair to them to make them pets. And this opossum is best suited to where he is, and he's likely to move along in a day or two at any rate.

We did some reading about opossums to refresh our knowledge. Back last year at Roots and Shoots the Area Rehabbers Klub, ARK, came and did a presentation for our group, complete with miniature baby opossums who had been orphaned. I remembered quite a bit about them from this, so unless something changes, I think our best course of action is to encourage this little guy to move along and make a nest somewhere else where he will be safe from US. The hardest part about knowing he is there now is that, well, we know he is there, and it is more temptation than Walter can handle not to be checking in on it. I'm hoping that nightfall and the memory of the big human dangers today will encourage the baby to find a new place to nap in the daytime. Meanwhile, we need to make the yard a little less hospitable for our own safety.

We had nothing on our schedule today, so we stayed at home for all but about 20 minutes, when we went out for ice cream and an iced latte and to put Rut to bed. Walter's best friend in the neighborhood, Jared, is going away this weekend and will be gone for the entire summer, and it is not clear whether he will be returning when summer is over. Walter doesn't know this yet, and I already ache for the pain I know he will feel when the reality of this hits him. Walter can have a hard time relating to other kids, and Jared was an extraordinary find for him; they are inseparable. Right now he is with Jared from about 3:30 every day until we finally force him to come in at 8:00. And things are so easy when Jared is around because the two of them go off and build things with Legos or make forts in the woods. It will be hard to fill Jared's shoes, even if only for the short term.

Today Times Tales came in the mail. I opened it and read the instruction book right away, and the boys and I read the book (7 times!) and then went through the various steps to memorize and be able to retell the goofy stories about Mrs. Snowman, Mrs. Week, the First Grade Class, and the Treehouse. But darnit, Ollie knows those upper multiplication facts now. I think what "works" about the program isn't the mnemonic devices to help them recall the products, but the motivation to prove they can answer these questions so that they never have to hear about how many Christmas lights the First Grade Class put on the Treehouse ever again! Walter, not surprisingly, has trouble remembering the stories themselves and gets the numbers in them all mixed u. I anticipate much more need for reinforcement with him. It's sort of an ingenious program, though. I wonder if we keep doing this if when they are my age they will still have a part of their mind that has that glimmer of nostalgia whenever they encounter 8x7-56 and there's a fleeting memory of Mrs. Snowman and Mrs. Week getting a speeding ticket.

I am still proceeding with a fairly full school agenda for much of the summer. We're adapting as well as we can to Saxon math, which is stressing us all out because the boys can't seem to figure out what it is looking for. Walter, especially,will blurt out the answer (a correct one), but often that's not even the major point for Saxon. It wants them to show their work, and Walter has done the problem some way other than what they have in mind. But I'll stick with it in the name of better standardized test scores. We'll do better this coming year, I'm sure.

I am just exhausted. Poor sleeping for the past two nights, lots of interruptions, lots of coughing children. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?!

Late Night With...

I don't know how I always manage to stay up late, even when I've had essentially NO sleep the night before. This no sleep thing--gotta go. It's just gotta go. Last night it was the coughing again, and then some protracted tangle with my alarm clock getting set on snooze repeatedly. Ugly. And once the sun is up, Rutledge is ready to start getting up, so sleep is very broken after 6:00. I don't quite know how I got through the whole day.

Today's big news: Ollie is reading a full-length book to himself silently willingly for the first time. He read 90 pages of what Walter describes as "an inappropriate book," while he was with Rebecca this morning, and he was still reading in the car on the way home. It's hard to fully express how big this is for him, because reading novels is not something he has been interested in doing in the past. He'll do Captain Underpants, but this is longer and doesn't have the generous illustrations. I hope this is the first of many happy hours reading for him.

We have this dog problem. Okay, it's a child problem. They're letting out the dogs because they are going in and out the doors so often. I was saying that maybe we need to think about a barrier of some kind. And Kerry replied that we do have a barrier--it's called a door, and it's being left open. Yeah. That's it. My decision on a logical consequence is that they will lose time playing with their friends if they leave open the door and a dog gets out. Everyone is old enough to remember to take the time to fasten gates, shut doors, and watch for escaping things.

We were in the right place at the right time tonight, and one of the Order of the Phoenix tape sets came in while we were at the library tonight. This is such good news because my voice can't seem to handle reading more than 40 or so pages at a sitting, and at the rate we're going, I'll be old and gray before we finish the book with me at the helm. So the tapes will take some burden off of me and allow us to combine actual flesh and blood here and now human interaction reading and the tape and finally make some tracks with this thing.

Other notable finds: complete Land of the Lost seasons.

I'm realizing as I'm typing that my brain is getting increasingly fuzzy. Things are coming out of my fingers that I didn't intend to have happen, and I'm powerless to stop them. I keep having to erase things that make no sense. This is probably my big sign that I should have been in bed an hour ago.

Week End

Thank goodness last week is over and this is a new one! Tomorrow morning I play tennis early at a club that has a reputation for being very rule-bound, but any day that includes tennis is a good one. Some very screwed up version of child dispersement seems to be in the works. I'm just going to sit back and let it happen, rather than trying to talk sense into Rebecca and Hilary.

I seem to have managed to alienate myself completely from my homeschool group and piss the hell right out of everyone. All just more evidence, not that I need any more, that you can't lose friends you never had in the first place. No one is speaking to me. They're speaking to everyone else...and that was kind of the problem to begin with. I have the impression that the root of the problem is that whether anyone wants to be with me or my children or not in the first place, my presence in the co-op is vital because there just has to be a co-op so that the Consolidation of Activity needs of people who live outside of town will be met. I hate to sound callous, but I can't make this my problem. I can't do something that isn't going to bring us pleasure and where I feel uncomfortable just because it makes life more convenient for other people. This was not a situation where my children or me were going to be successful, and the stress it would cause me on so many levels just was not worthwhile. I have to go with my convictions and with what I feel is right, both Right right and right for my famly as it is right now (how's that for a lot of rights?).

I actually feel this tremendous sense of relief. And finally a lot of optimism about next year. I hadn't realized what a weight this co-op was on me and how it was dragging down my whole enthusiasm for homeschooling until the real issues for me bubbled up to the surface the other night. The nagging discomfort that we were excluding some people I knew would be interested and that they would find out about the co-op and I would be implicated in the exclusion. The undercurrent of knowing but not articulating that there are people in the co-op who just don't particularly like my family. We're not talking 20 families and having a conflict with 1 or 2, we're talking about 6 families and having trouble with 20-40%. The uneasiness in having heard or interpreted that my children aren't really challenging enough academically. There were just a lot of uncomfortable things. When you start out at the planning stages with discomfort, it's hard to see how things could possibly be going swimmingly when November rolls around and we're still locked into the thing. I'm homeschooling so we can do things that work for us, and while I can handle a commitment to something as well as anyone else most of the time once I'm in, it just makes no sense at all to initiate something that you know already isn't right. What really pissed everyone off was not just me saying that, to put it most bluntly, I felt like people were being mean, but that when I left, Hilary left and now maybe another family is going to leave. Hilary was going to leave anyway, so my leaving wasn't the final straw, and if I hadn't sent an email first, she would have beat me to it. I'm still kind of in confusion as to how anyone can be upset that I "wrecked their co-op by pulling out" when some of them didn't particularly want to work with me and my children in the first place!

So now I'm on to being part of the advisory committee on this new homeschool enrichment center that is opening. I want to have positive energy to put into that. I'm nearly giddy with the idea that I have an opportunity now to really think about what I'd like to do with other families should other families be interested in doing things with me. I tend to not be that much of a rock the boat kind of person. I err on the side of sticking around just a little too long most of the time, long past the point when I should have bailed for my own sanity and self-preservation. My typical M.O. is to just kind of fade off into the background when I have a problem, and eventually I evaporate and move on to something else. I don't tend to make these clean (or unclean) cuts. But what better time than when this new Homeschool Place is right on the horizon to have released myself into becoming a free agent? And the sense that my weeks belong to me now is very thrilling.

I'm working on getting us into a different co-op that isn't really a co-op. It's more of a schoolish offering, but still sounds fun. Although tonight i noticed that they are using a writing program that I think has a great deal wrong with it in its basic philosophy, so this has made me waver just a little bit. I don't remember hearing much about them doing writing, so I'm not sure what this exactly means in terms of this year. I'd have a lot to 'unteach' if they were taught by this method, because I have strong feelings about teaching forms and teaching style, particularly to younger students who don't have enough filters and critical thinking skills to swerve away from this on their own. Right now there is no room in this group, though, so it's not exactly a sure thing at the moment. If I had this Classical Conversations thing on Tuesday, though, and was able to get together for another group learning time on Thursdays with some friends, then my week would feel pretty complete. Mondays I'd probably teach a class or two at the Homeschool Center, and Wednesdays and Fridays would be free. I'm still on the fence about trumpet for Walter (far away, bisects day, takes a time that used to be park day, but more on that in a minute). I'd really rather keep teaching the kids piano, and eventually move toward finding a Woodlake piano teacher for them later in the year. Frances would have her gymnastics on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, whoever chose to would have wrestling in the winter, and we'd have open space in our schedule for playdates and impromptu things. It sounds pretty good. And it really makes me take back nearly every thought I've had about putting them in school. Finally, I can look forward to the fall!

So that's where I am now. Spoke bluntly and made people dislike me. Probably am leaving the homeschool group I've been with for at least 2 years, and 3 if you want to get technical. And yet I feel a massive surge of potential and confidence. I feel better about my children, energized about what we will do at home over the summer and next year, and I'm back experiencing the freedom that made me choose to homeschool in the first place!

Flew the Coop?

I've been posting quite a bit about co-op lately because we both have this meeting looming and because it has been such an uneasy thought to me in many ways. Tonight I decided that this really isn't going to work for us with the direction it is going. The meeting was also another installment in my master lesson of the year about how you have to look out for yourself, because no one else is. I typically have trouble cutting my losses when the writing is on the wall, and as I was talking to Kerry and describing the big mess that was the planning of this meeting, I realized that I don't need to stick around when things are overly sticky; I can just remove myself from the entire situation. This was a hard lesson back in LLL before we moved--meeting after meeting, elephant in the room after elephant in the room, obfuscated references after obfuscated references, constantly wondering, "Is it me?" Kerry, who listened to me go on for hours, usually in the middle of the night, about my conjectures on this or that, would look at me and frankly ask, "If it's so much grief for you, why don't you just drop out? Why volunteer to do something that is nothing but trouble." And I'd answer with all of these "Well..." responses. Mostly I fear that if I pull out of something, I'll lose contact with everyone I know and be cast adrift in the vast sea of loneliness out there. But you know what, sometimes that's better than having a false sense that you even know what's going on.

So I have a lot of reasons for pulling out of the co-op that is being planned. The general feeling of tension in discussing the who, what, where, when, why, and how of it. Most importantly, I'm over the mucked up communication and feeling like too much is happening behind the scenes, and that I'm out of the loop and that there is much exclusivity. And maybe more than that, the negative emotions it evokes for me about my own children--the sense that they aren't good enough behaviorally, intellectually, and academically--well, these are not healthy. When it really comes down, I homeschool so that I can make them have a positive experience living and learning, so that they can play to their strengths and not be constantly indicted for their weaknesses, and so that they feel confident that they are competent, interesting people. Why intentionally place yourself in settings where you and they come away feeling that they are not good enough, that others are talking about them and you behind your back (and to your face...), and where you know that you all piss off and irritate people? Duh. If you have a choice, especially seeming infinite choice, why not unplug and try to find a place where you do fit in...or at least the next landing spot until you wear out your welcome there?

That said, I'll admit that I am tossing around the idea of school, even though I've always seen myself as a committed homeschooler. There are a couple of facts I can't dispute: They were very successful in preschool. They were beloved by their teachers, they were popular among their peers, and until the last few weeks each year, they loved to go. No matter how problematic they seemed at home, whether in behavior or other skills, I always had reassurance from the preschool teachers and director that they were exceptional, personable, bright, and well-liked. Whenever they are in a setting where they are with current elementary school teachers, they have unanimously been loved and encouraged. I've even...hold your breath here, numerous times had Frances, the one I had given up as forever blonde, called "really smart" by people who actually have spent time with large groups of five year olds. I wonder sometimes if I am denying my children an opportunity to be where they can really be appreciated for who they are and have opportunities to shine. Particularly with Frances, I wonder if she wasn't seen and treated as "behind" or "not smart" if she would totally rise to the occasion. For this year I have had her in kindergarten classes in places like Sunday School and wherever else I have needed to declare a grade. She has worked hard in a mixed-age art class. She has thrived beyond my expectations. I haven't "done school" with her this year, but now we're starting on a first grade math book and she is so excited for herself. She is a hard worker, a bit of a perfectionist. But she has a lot of energy. And she doesn't read yet and doesn't care. An she definitely does not come across as nerdy; quite the opposite, she comes across as brainless and hyperactive. But this year I want to see as her year, the time when she is most definitely not the hanger-on, the sibling that came with, but someone who can hold her own. Homeschooling doesn't always give her that opportunity because she doesn't *look* like someone you'd want in your class with your "smart" kids, but I have this inkling that if I found myself a brand new venue and placed her in a same-age peer class that she might just surprise me and other people. And the thing about school is, they'll do that for her because they have to.

Walter and Ollie...whoa, are they the same old story or what?! Bad to the bone, energy without bounds, mouths that know no tact or decency. But what if they were in an environment where there has been and will be worse than they are? What if they weren't the resident trouble makers? What if they didn't have to spend all day with me! What if they, too, turned out to be more competent than they appear? Oh, how the world loves the child who is studious, quiet, and self-controlled. What if this is how they turned out to be if they were in a setting that valued this and motivated them? Would I be in a close personal relationship with the principal? Or would I find that they were actually children teachers wanted to have in their class?

Right now I think I'm just nervous that I may be losing what I had considered my support network, but it was so clear as I was talking to Kerry tonight that it's not really supporting you if, well, to put it really bluntly, you and your children are disliked. When things like this happen, I tend to jump to the conclusion that if we can't fit one place, we can't fit anywhere (and believe me, we've burned plenty of bridges in our time...who could have prepared me for how being a parent would put me in positions I never dreamed I'd be in!). But I'm doing my best to see this like dating: keep at it, there's probably someone for everyone out there. Dumped once doesn't mean forever alone. I will fill my head with positive thoughts that we can find a niche before resorting to dropping this amazing freedom we have altogether.