Sometimes I feel like every other homeschooling family on the planet is more organized and effective than we are. There are the days when it feels like we cover so much and are taking advantage of whatever it is that is the current biggest advantage of homeschooling (time, freedom, opportunity for depth, flexibility, tailoring to each child's needs and strengths). And then there are the days when it feels like we should have gotten more done than we did.

The past few days have been very wide open, much more so than an average week. But it still feels like time is so short and there isnt' enough "free" time for hanging out and plain old puttering around. I have this nagging sense that if only my house was arranged perfectly, if only our rooms were bigger or we had less clutter or we were neater and tidier people in general that time would explode along with our creativity. Who knows?

Today was our traditional "Starbucks Thursday," which is an occasion we have instated for the final day of the week when Rutledge is in preschool. Today our Starbucks Thursday was rather short because I had a Freecycle person coming for a desk and a Best Buy delivery at noon. But we still get a good amount done in this altered circumstance, and I was proud of myself for restricting our food choices more today and not making it a $26 outing like last week's. I've broken down again and have the boys doing their grammar right in their book instead of writing it on the computer. This is based on the theory that it is better to do something consistently in a "less" kind of way than to do something intermittently and make it more difficult. We got a whole day's grammar work done in about 10 minutes in the focus of our caffeine-infused atmosphere. It's also a great place to do some of those mildly discussion-intensive things like vocabulary and word building. I have two curricula that I am using this year, kind of in a weaving type of way, for working with words--Megawords and this Morphics Literacy System thing I bought at a conference. Their favorite in the vocabulary/word realm is Wordly Wise, since it is bite-sized and generally fun. Walter, who used to hate this type of thing, now asks if it's possible for someone to major in vocabulary in college. Um, not exactly, but you can kind of make a field of study out of words, depending on what aspect of them interests you most. Ollie find the current grade level too easy, but when I tried bumping up to Vocabulary From Classical Roots and a book aimed more at high schoolers, he got a bit overwhelmed. Not only are the vocabulary words more challenging and less familiar, but the words to select from as synonyms and antonyms in the exercises can be very unfamiliar--"assiduous" and the like.

One of the hardest things for me about having responsibility for educating my kids is that I constantly feel the pull to push further, often quite a bit further than they would be pushed if they were in school. I'm struggling some with this with regard to Latin lately. Should they be doing a 1st year high school Latin program at 6th/modified 5th grade? Should I be taking them through what we have faster than we are going? As I write this, I wonder where I get my ideas. I mean, I guess the obvious question is, "Why?" But I feel like since what we're using can ostensibly be used as early as 3rd grade (not by most 3rd graders I know or have been...) that being on book 2 of it now is somehow not far enough alone. I suppose I need to keep my eyes on the prize of mastery and understanding, rather than the clock. Why is it so much easier to tell a new mother to "watch the baby, not the clock," and yet when it comes to older kids, that advice goes right out the window with me. Maybe it's normal to always have a nagging suspicion that somehow time is fleeting and every moment must be one of supreme challenge.

The best decision of the past week has been starting Rutledge in a dance class. He's the fourth kid, and that seems to be an explanation, excuse, and reason behind all kinds of things. In so many ways, he acts like and is treated as a really big baby, and yet he's going to be five in a very short time. At his age, Frances was already in a pre-team gymnastics program and had been dancing for almost two years. Rutledge has never really done any organized anything except for his private swim lessons this summer. I think I wrote about how Swim Lessons Changed Our Life--they tapped into abilities we didn't recognize and created a confidence in him and in us that he's ready for more than we give him credit for. But this dance class has been just what he needed. There are at least two other little boys around his age in the class, though other participants are as old as ten or twelve. He works so very hard to watch the instructor's steps and to be part of the group; he is capable of incredible concentration when he wants it. All week this and last week he has asked every single day whether this is his capoeira day. As I watched him tonight, I realized that I haven't been entirely fair to him by not giving him more opportunities to shine somewhere in an area beyond the letters and numbers academics that he doesn't give a rat's ass about most of the time. His preschool is pretty academic, and on my more stressful days, I compare him to the other kids, even though I know better. I can objectively stand back and say that this is, in some ways, not the best fit for him in terms of whether it plays to his strengths, but then my emotions and competitiveness will rear up and get the better of me. So the new interest in dance and the attention his is giving it is helping me to get back into the paradigm where I think children thrive best--where you put the emphasis on what they are doing well, on what excites them, on where they can be a star, rather than trying to fit some box that our culture says they should be in. Frances certainly wasn't doing any more (and probably much less) academic or traditional preschool/kindergarten work at his age, but because she was so obviously excelling in her physical pursuits, I didn't think of it so much; she felt successful, and I felt she was successful. I'm glad that I'm getting a chance to build up that feeling with Rutledge now. Parenting is just so darn hard, isn't it?! Doesn't it seem like you'd kind of get it by the time you get to the 4th?

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how today, a lovely day mostly at home, was heavy on the life skills education. With our broken dishwasher (and I'll spare the horrible story of today and why we still don't have a dishwasher even though one was delivered), we have had to revert to that chore of yesteryear--washing dishes by hand. Walter and Ollie were more than eager to do this, for a price, of course. I had to slow them way down so that I could clean up the sink and counters enough for them to have a safe and hygeinic setup for dishwashing. I am a strong believer that you can't just tell someone who is 8 or 11 to just perform a task; you must stop and give explicit training and ongoing instruction if you want them to do it correctly, and a task isn't worth doing if it isn't done correctly. And let me tell you, I'm meticulous about my dishes! I don't want to put my mouth on the lip of a glass that someone with a cold or other illness has been drinking out of until I know that it has been thoroughly scoured. Then we moved on to the leaves in the yard. It wasn't the ideal day for raking or bagging. There has been rain for far too long, including this morning, and the leaves were pretty damp, which is both a recipe for problems with leaf mold (I get pounding headaches and nauseous when I deal with leaves) and problems actually getting things up. But again, some working together, some cash incentive, and some instruction moved things along. We have five massive, oversize bags of leaves finished, which took care of about 3/5 of the back yard. I appreciated Frances's suggestion that we start in the front, since that would improve our image, but the back yard was absolutely carpeted with a layer of leaves, so it was a natural spot to tackle. Our deadline that has lit the fire under us is a free dump of leaves at the shopping center in our neighborhood on Saturday and Sunday. Too bad the weather is cooperating so poorly (it's pouring right now!). But I felt like we accomplished a good deal and they got a sense of how much work it can be to be an adult, which is something I haven't gotten across to them as well as I should have in the past.

So we're mostly plodding along, trying to stay on track before holidays get into the middle of our plans. Lots of dancing (Frances is at 4 days a week now). Lots of diving (3+ hours a week). Lots of trying to finish up those math lessons. We're reading a couple of things together this week--Squanto and the Pilgrims and the Odyssey. The older ones are still working through Oliver Twist. It's kind of a good place to be--settling into the late fall, when the days get dark more quickly and there seems to be more time for the games, the music playing, and the reading that make our life feel more harmonious and together.

Greetings from runny nose land. I'm getting tired of this cold or whatever it is. It's not all that annoying, actually--it has comparatively few symptoms, and most of those not severe. But it's getting old. My throat has been hurting off and on for five days. My nose is running tonight, despite Benadryl, and I have a headache for part of every day, including now. I have a 4 year old who is still coughing and must be drugged so he can sleep without undue interruption. Our life has been on hold, it feels, in some ways. But in others, it just keeps moving right along. I'd like one or the other. Actually, the little break has been somewhat welcome.

Our little dance issues are, for the moment, resolved. I attended the new dance class today with Frances, and I felt like I wasn't such an awful dancer after all. Okay, so I haven't taken a dance class in 31 years, and my previous dance experience spans all of three months, but I did my best to keep up, and I was really sweating. Frances has gotten the role of one of two Little Princes in a production that will happen in February. We read the Little Prince at home, but in typical Frances style, she already knew the story and most of its details and many of the themes of the book from just the audition. I think everyone has enjoyed getting to know this story--it's good for discussing deeper meanings and for analysis, yet still very accessible to younger readers. I'm always on the lookout for good, classic books whose themes aren't excessively beyond the experience of the reader.

Walter and Ollie just checked out a new book group tonight at our local library. I wasn't there, but it sounds like it went fairly well. They absolutely loved the book, which we might not have stumbled upon on our own--_Life As We Knew It_. It deals with the challenges faced by a middle class family after the moon is hit by an asteroid and unexpectedly knocked closer to earth, unleashing a series of natural disasters (volcano eruptions, tsunamis, out of control tides, excessive seasons, earthquakes) that turn life completely upside down. I would have loved to be in on the discussion, but I was at a LLL Leaders' meeting at the North Side Grille. And I guess you were supposed to be a middle schooler to go to the book group, which would be a wee problem for me. They are part of another book club in our homeschool group, but have had increasing difficulty maintaining enough enthusiasm to finish some of these fantasy series books that are often chosen. It's just not a genre that they (or me) really enjoy, so I can't say I blame them for not wanting to invest the time in something that isn't keeping their interest. I'm not willing to spend my own time on a book that I'm just not into. So this was a bit of an experiment tonight. It sounds like there were only two other participants, but maybe it will grow over time. And we couldn't beat the convenient location.

Tomorrow our new dishwasher comes. I feel so guilty. I am an appliance murderer. Or at least I think I am. We have replaced every single major appliance in our house at least once, and some of them twice in the past 5.5 years. We have had two washing machines, a new dryer, a new range, a new refrigerator, a new freezer for the garage, new microwave, new hot water heater, and this will be our second new dishwasher. I don't know if we're just hard on things, if appliances aren't made the way they used to be, or if we're doing something unintentionally that is harming them. Our current dishwasher, a mere 4 years old, has been doing a poor job of washing dishes for at least two years. The kids are disgusted by the stuff left in the bottom of glasses or on bowls, and this is after pre-washing most things that go in. For well over a year, we haven't been able to change the cycle that it is on--and we're not even sure what cycle it's on. So hopefully this new one, which has a nifty steam feature that is supposed to both sanitize and get off nasty food. All I can say is that it can't happen too soon.

My days are truly packed now. It is a full time job to homeschool four children and to attend to their needs. All of them require so much from me--I'd like to think that we are moving toward more independent learning, but the fact is, everyone needs me to teach, to explain, to tutor, and to keep them on task as much as ever. The boys are doing very well in math, but their work is becoming more complex and they need to ask more questions and be helped to organize their work and answers so that they are both readable and free of careless errors. We play a lot of games lately--games I've made for Frances or that she has helped me make for math, Uno, Rummy Roots, games with the Latin flashcards. This also requires me to be right in there with them. I'm finding we barely have time to cover all subjects in the course of a week, much less daily. So once again I'm finding myself having to determine where to make cuts in our activities or the time we spend out of the house. I don't want their life to be nothing but work, but at the same time, we have to use our time smarter if we don't want longer. It's a good year, but it is requiring ever so much more organization from me to keep everyone on track.


Penguins are a big deal at our house, and judging by what I see on clothing, at the mall (I can't believe I set foot in a mall this past weekend while we were looking at dishwashers...), and just about everywhere, they're a big deal for a lot of people. Art class on Tuesdays is one of the indispensable parts of our week--it's the day most looked forward to, and I have to say, I love it because I don't need to be involved in any way whatsoever. It asks nothing of me except that I provide transportation to and from. And it's a good thing, since I never could have painted a penguin like that.


Some other animals are not so satisfying. This is one of our two fish in our Tank From Hell. I am no longer enamored with my saltwater tank. It's a den of doom, a veritable death chamber, and this is dragging me down. A hobby is no fun when it sucks away all your money and forces you to watch innocent animals suffering and then being mercilessly torn apart by hermit crabs. We have very slowly added some new stock over the past 2.5 months--this pseudochromis and a burgundy clown with a bubble tip anemone. In about 3 weeks, this gorgeous anemone went from huge and bubbled out to squished into the size of a quarter, wedged against the power head and the wall, and eventually dead. And he was expensive. Our previous anemone, who behaved as though he was less than thrilled at the interloper, is once again thriving--I've never seen him so expansive and front and center. And unfortunately, just when I was making peace with the recent loss, Walter informed me that the sea urchin, affectionately named Mr. Halloween because he looks exactly like a Halloween spider decoration, has started losing spines. Lots of them. And the spines are being carried around by the shrimp and hermit crabs. This is not a normal, healthy molting, so I'm expecting another big, icky, half-eaten carcass to remove any time. This leaves us with just our two fish, the anemone, the cleaner shrimp (our peppermint shrimp seems to have disappeared...), a xenia, and some button polyps. It's a rather paltry showing for a 60 gallon tank, but who wants to throw a bunch of cash at more living things to get attached to that are just going to kick the bucket at the first chance they get?