I hate my computer. I hate all things with batteries. I hate all things that are electronic and purport to have online or live help but really don't help you all all.

I recently got a card for Henrico County Public Library, which is a sort of neighboring county, because I knew that they had Joy Hakim's _History of US_ available to download. Hours later, I still haven't heard a darn thing. The download won't play on my computer. The Microsoft free download of Windows Media Player is giving me some kind of error and refusing to download onto my Mac. Without WMP, I can't play the file at all. And the format isn't compatible with the iPod, which is a pain. If your Macbook is like mine, you can barely hear audio on it, even at the highest level. And I don't want to drag around what probably amounts to 40 hours of audio on my computer to listen to it. And you can't burn it to CD because it expires and probably isn't compatible with however you transfer it. What good is an eAudiobook if you can't hear it anywhere??? And what good is hours lost with nothing to show for them?? I'd gladly pay $100 for a CD set of this book, but I don't think one is made. At least not that I've seen. I'm frustrated.

{Whenever I want to hurl some thing with a battery cover that requires a screwdriver to get off or anything involving the words "Windows," "download," "Error," or "You Must Enable...," I just have to look at this sweet face that was in my kitchen tonight, wearing his "Army Man Pants and Folk Festival Shirt" and I feel calm again...}

It's late already tonight, but tonight's other thought is about choosing the best books for your children. Someone told me tonight that I should write a book or a guide or something to choosing right books at the right time for your children based on their age. We're all guilty at times of choosing the right book at the wrong time, or the wrong book period, or pushing ahead of where our children are or even, at times, ruining the experience of an amazing book by having our children read it too early, because they can fully appreciate and enjoy it the way they might have been able to if it had come along a bit later. And homeschoolers can be sort of paradoxically guilty of both pushing ahead (because as we all know, All Homeschoolers Are Brilliant) and of also embracing delayed academics, acknowledging that we have some children who are "later readers" than what the mainstream academic society would like. So while we're simultaneously pushing them beyond what is recommended by whatever sources might be recommending appropriate material and at the same time letting them develop at their own pace, which sometimes includes not decoding on their own at all, they often are not getting quite what they need, what will be most mind-blowing, most engaging, most-able-to-relate-to, most life-changing, most makes-me-want-to-find-even-more-books-like-this. And that's kind of a shame.

We've been discovering a lot of books in our family now that seem, well, perhaps not all that challenging to some. They're not super-thick. They won't always amaze you with their SAT vocabulary. They aren't always written very recently. They don't all have very trendy themes. Their "reading level" is below where my children test, and often even below their grade or age chronologically. And yet the kids are eating them up, or, at the least, not complaining when I assign some of them as something I'd like them to do as part of "school."

I have had a tough time myself coming up with my own personal stance about assigned reading. We have the freedom to not have forced reading, to not be reading things that bore us to death, that we hate, or that someone else thinks we should be reading for some reason or another (it's on an Accelerated Reader list; there's a prize for it; it's a "Battle of the Books" selection; questions about it will appear on a standardized test, etc.). And I'm of the belief that the way to raise a child who loves to read because the act itself is pleasurable--and the material being read does not need to be lengthy, chaptered fiction to count--is not to require a timer or an adult signature to say it was done. Nonetheless, as part of what we do as schoolwork, which admittedly is determined by my own whims at times, reading a book of fiction or non-fiction is part of what I'd like us to cover or discuss. So while my kids do spend time every day reading, time that I don't measure by a clock, that I don't supervise, that I don't sign off on, that I don't even know happens all the time, I'm careful not to make reading into an "academic" subject handed from another person but something that is done at times for information, as a means of expanding our knowledge about another subject (not reading for the sake of reading), or at many times, as a special time when we can just be together doing something that we all enjoy together.

We've been guided a lot by the Sonlight reading lists this year. I'm not a Follow The Schedule type person, so even though I have the big binders of Sonlight materials, I only look at them to get a general sense of their time frame and sometimes to try to get a clue as to why a particular book was chosen as part of the program. Right now we're reading Mother West Wind's Children, a book that I still can't figure out quite why they chose it. It's a fine book--not exactly my type of story or set of stories, but still, it has its good points. And interestingly, Ollie is the one enjoying it most, since he finds the humor in the ways that the animals act toward each other, in their anthropomorphism, in their foolishness; he gets it. But most of the other books chosen for the "read-alone" list are, I've determined, pretty short and not very challenging as reading material. And yet they've turned out to be kind of perfect for me to expect of the kids.

Here are some of the titles we've done in the past 3 months:

A whole passel by Clyde Robert Bulla: Pocahontas and the Strangers, A Lion to Guard Us, Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims, and these led us on to read a number of other titles by him

All of those Jean Fritz books with titles like, "And Then What Happened, Paul Revere." These are books we get through in 30 minutes, including talking about them, but they're not entirely without substance. And combined with the other reading and videos and history work we do, they give the kids just enough work on their own so that they're having to actively participate in what we're doing, but no one is going to feel overwhelmed or like we're perseverating on the same thing for weeks.

Very short novels, like _Stone Fox_--about a race, about two cultures, about debt, about love of the land, about kindness, about determination, about the effects of stress. Not the most challenging book to decode and "read," but a book of substance with real issues that a 10 year old boy might relate to or think about.

These have led us on to bumping into other books in the library of about this length--50-100 pages, some full page pictures to look forward to, chapters that move quickly so they give a sense of accomplishment (I'm 36 and still need this to be happy while I read!). Books about Christmas on the Mayflower, what George Washington ate for breakfast, Lewis and Clark, Eli Whitney. All short, one-night reads, but with enough of a story to keep everyone focused.

That's what has been on my mind tonight.

And not what I was thinking about while I was rock climbing. Tonight I got a little bit further along in my ability here. Up until now, I don't think I've made it to the top of a 5.8 wall, but tonight I conquered one of my first try. I did have to do a 5.7, which I thought shouldn't have been a 5.7, twice to hit the top without cheating (using a wrong color), and I felt pretty good about that, too. At best, rock climbing gives me the same high as giving birth, as silly as that sounds. That same sense of, "My body rocks! I did something amazing that I didn't think I could do!" Some nights aren't quite so satisfying, but when you're hanging on the side of a wall, looking at the next steps and seeing no way possible for you to get there using only your body, it's a tremendous sense of accomplishment when you overcome the fear of heights and the seemingly impossible to solve a problem that only you and your body can get through. I probably will never be a 5.10 climber, but every little bit of improvement amazes me.

Fall used to be my favorite season, and it still is, in its purest form. What has knocked fall down a notch for me since having children is that is the launching point for Illness Season, which is definitely *not* my favorite time of year. Now I find myself looking forward to spring as the reprieve from sniffles and the threat of vomit. But it's hard not to have your heart simply ache at the beauty of the leaves covering the ground and the vibrancy of the trees against a perfect blue sky.

It's been a while since we've been there, so we trekked down to Maymont Park today with some friends. The Nature Center was closed, since it's Monday (who knew?), but that was a blessing in disguise, since today was absolutely gorgeous. We're a bit past the peak of leaf beauty, but being a tad past peak doesn't mean that the beauty is over--the colors of the trees were amazing, and the clarity of the blueness of the sky could take your breath away in the way that it only can in the late fall. The kids climbed trees, scaled cliffs of rock, got lost in a bamboo forest, jumped off tall rocks into dry waterfalls, "fished" in a pool in a grotto, collected pond water to look at under the microscope (there better be a euglena in there!), rolled down a grassy hill, got hurt (what's a day out if you don't bleed a little!), got sticky little fuzzy flower parts stuck all over their clothes, and harassed some animals. This is what our free time should be all about!




It's a good thing you can't smell Rutledge's diaper from a picture. Whew, it was a bad one! Kerry came and rescued Rutledge and took Frances to gymnastics right after this picture was taken, but the boys stayed on for a while longer and climbed on the rocks. I try to be calm about this kind of thing, but I'll admit, my blood pressure went up a bit as I saw them fooling around next to what seemed like a big dropoff. This picture below is really sweet, though, of Ollie and a friend with their backs to us.