Our highlight of the day was a trip to the Virginia Aviation Museum to see the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the first black military aviators who trained and served during WWII. I suppose I've always taken for granted that WWII veterans are all around us, that they're just kind of, well, there. But the fact is, every day leaves us with fewer and fewer of them, and our opportunity to speak with them and thank them for their service and hear their stories is a fleeting one. This made me feel all the more eager to seize this chance to see representatives of such a groundbreaking group of men.

The presentation itself did not particularly hold the interest of my children. And that's okay. What is valuable to me about a day like today is that they will likely still not forget it--that we read about the Tuskegee Airmen, that they were the first all black aviation corps in the U.S. military, that they faced much discrimination and obstacles during their training and service, and that no planes were lost on the missions in Europe during which they served as escorts. They have an autograph in our reproduction WWI Spotter's Guide book from one of the comparatively few living Tuskegee Airmen. And the people that they see in pictures from that time period are actual, living people.

Their favorite part of the museum trip was piloting the flight simulator that did barrel rolls and complete flips. Hopefully one of the other meaningful experiences was seeing a display about World War II that included items we have been talking about for the past few weeks in co-op: ration books, War Bonds, original posters encouraging citizens to support the war effort by buying bonds to buy bombs, support aggressive military action (my favorite featured a man with a machine gun dripping ammo saying something like, "This is what the effort for peace looks like to me."), and encouraging enlistment (a particularly terrifying looking old man/Uncle Sammish soldier that you could hardly imagine saying "no" to!), and of course posters and references to Rosie the Riveter--even a "Riveting Handbook" explaining how to do the job. This display really brought our American Girl books and oral report topics to life.

The biggest news for the family today is that Rutledge does, indeed, qualify for speech therapy at our elementary school. It's no surprise. The sounds he most needs to work on are /k/, /g/, and all blends. He also uses his tongue on his /s/'s. I'm wondering when and how we'll fit this in with our already busy schedule! I took everyone with me, since I wasn't comfortable leaving them home alone and Kerry had meetings all morning, and it was interesting to have a bunch of non-schooled kids sitting in a school, working on their math. Frances was not so studious--she was playing with her virtual Littlest Pet Shop pet. She wanted to go out and sit in the hallway, as we were told we could do, but I insisted that she stay with us. I didn't want her to be captured and subsumed by a 1st grade class. Or more likely, have to answer questions from half a dozen passers-by about what she was doing there and where she belonged. To Frances, these were hardly issues. "I'll just say I'm homeschooled!" she said. To which Ollie scowled and snidely said, "She can hardly call herself a homeschooler. She's barely homeschooled. She never does any work!"

And here's a Frances-ism that she confided to me, as a retort: "I'm going to start doing schoolwork just like the boys when I turn 8."

Frances had another piano lesson today and is progressing nicely. I think as soon as the weather gets better I'm going to have her start riding her bike there, since it is only about 5-7 minutes away by bike across the school playing fields. Tonight was also her modern dance class, which is always a blast. She has a new friend in the class, and the size of the class seems to be growing by the week. I see a budding choreographer, too. She kept making suggestions to the instructor about how awkward elements could be resolved or recast ("We could go off in different directions instead of all in the same one," which the instructor decided to go with after listening). In their dance for the final performance, Frances's role has her rushing off and weeping into her hands, then the other girls coming over to comfort her and give her a flower. Next they all crouch down in child's pose and then one by one rise and raise arms with a flower growing high, then move their arms down incrementally and start turning off in a spin (Frances is finally slowing down and spotting more, which means less craziness and falling). It's really neat to watch how complex this dance is and how well the girls work together.

My celiac tests came back today, and they are, as expected, very negative. I feel a bit like a fool for having so many questions, or even caring at all about the answers to them. But I wonder things like whether the values would have been so low if I had not been gluten free, if they might have been elevated if I had had the blood drawn when I was still eating gluten and if 5 weeks would be enough time to make a response that low. In the end, it doesn't really matter. I'm staying GF no matter what through Lent. I don't normally give up anything for Lent--that's not a big Protestant thing in the demoninations I've been in--but it's a pretty convenient next timeframe, just like waiting for my birthday was. And I am redoubling my efforts to find the places where I am slipping up. My makeup, for one. Not that I wear it all that often, maybe once a week or so, but I discovered mine has oats in it (it's a mineral makeup, too, so I don't think an oat belongs in there). My shampoo is suspect. I don't see anything obvious on my own bottle, but other shampoos of this brand do have problems. I'm going to switch to something else. My toothpaste is safe--I had already checked that because it was going in my mouth. I now have seen my favorite homeopathic remedy, aconitum napellus, on a suspect list, and I'm not sure why. I took it when I had a cold, and I believed that homeopathic remedies are pretty much GF. I have eaten McDonald's french fries after hearing other GFCF people say they are safe because McD's uses separate fryers for their fries. But now I've read all about the big blowup over the questionable flavor additive in the oil and the potential deception, so that's out now. I also am committed to not cross-contaminating my kitchen any more. I'm going to dispose of my wheat flour and stop using it to bake for other people because I don't want to touch it or breathe it in. I am going to start operating a fully GF household for everyone, even though I don't expect them to eat GF when they are out or at someone else's house. Ideally everyone would go GF for Lent, but I don't think I can pull that off well without tons of fallout and cheating, primarily because they don't see themselves as having problems that might need alleviating. But it's starting to sound a little attractive...hmmm...Lent might be just the marketing ticket I need! I doubt it, though.

And last but not least, there's my eyeball. Or my eyelid, to be more exact. I've been having trouble for about 3 weeks, maybe longer, with a stye or some little pimply something on my left eyelid. I threw away my contact and got a new one, thinking that there was something wrong with my disposable contact. I replace mine monthly, so I got a new one. Things got bad again within two days, so I decided to get rid of that one, give my eyes a two week rest, and wait until the situation resolved. It doesn't look or feel like pinkeye. And the swelling and bump were gone within a day or so. I stayed with glasses for two weeks anyway. Then about four days ago I got a new contact, which is starting to use up my supply of contacts for the next 18 months. Today my eye started swelling and feeling worse and worse. It's not bothering me in a contact lenses kind of way, but I know I need to get a doctor involved now. Sigh.... I have so little free time at the moment to give to this!