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.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, June 15, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
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?!
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?!
Monday, June 11, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
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!
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!
Thursday, June 7, 2007
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.
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.
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