There Goes Summer!

We are so overextended financially right now. It just kind of...happened. One minute we were getting back on track with Kerry's second job, and the next minute, baseball signups and swim team signups seemed to take the last of our money for food. On top of this, I need to pay for my USTA team today, too.

This is one of our crazy weekends. Most aren't like this, but this one had so many things converging. Frances is dancing in the four performances of the Latin Ballet's Mujeres. She has four costume changes and appears in four scenes--as a dead girl during the ghost walk, as a Catholic schoolgirl, as a poor Argentine girl in Evita, and in a more formal dress in the Evita finale when Santa Evita dies into the arms of her husband. Today, Saturday, is the most challenging day. Frances did not get home until 11 p.m. last night, and today she has a performance at 3 and at 7:30; it will be another long night. Then get up, rinse, and repeat tomorrow.

This morning we had swim and dive team tryouts, and all three kids made the team. Frances is too small for even the smallest size of a team suit, so we are trying to figure out what happens next in this case--the supplier is looking into a, um, fitting alternative for her. Frances was pretty amazing swimming her laps of freestyle and backstroke. Walter was the most flailing, but I feel sure he'll come around. He is a fabulous diver off both the low and high dive. And even Ollie, who was more fearful, is now diving from the high dive, although he has a tendency to over-rotate. But there went another nearly $400, which is all we had for the rest of the week until Kerry gets paid next Friday :(

Oliver has a baseball game, his first of the season, this afternoon at 5:30. He is more excited about baseball than I've ever seen him excited about anything else he's ever done. But there goes more cash--the team fee, the new bat because everyone else's is too heavy for him because he's smaller than they are, the new glove, a stash of practice balls, a cup (!). And of course the fundraising responsibility--10 Braves tickets, 5 cases of Coke.

And if this wasn't enough, today is the Lego Expo at RES. All year the boys have been doing a Junior First Lego League, and although they did not exactly do the team challenge put out by Lego this year, which is always a vague and less interesting venture, there is going to be a group expo where they show what they have done this year, show how they have responded to this year's energy challenge (they built a power plant with generators, turbines, transmission lines, etc.) and their posters on alternative energy sources. I'm not thrilled to be going, I have to say. Saturday belongs to us, not to weekday school events, and this would have worked much better for us on a Wednesday or Friday afternoon. But here it is. Walter is also exhibiting some of his projects from home--a mega-plane, a K-Nex creation, his Lego skyride he designed.

In the midst of all of the activity, we also got the news yesterday that the Beagle whose puppies we were hoping to get only has two in this litter. It's a disappointment for everyone. So now I am having to put together a Plan B. Researching breeders again, accepting that they aren't in Virginia, trying to find someone with a litter coming who doesn't have an endless waiting list. We have two prospects, but I'm back having to convince people that we are worthy, that we are going to be good enough owners and that our children aren't a liability. Breeders are an interesting lot--they have some exacting standards for who they will release their dogs to, and it's hard to measure up to their perfection. The ideal owner, from what I can tell, would probably be someone young, athletic (takes five mile-long walks a day totalling up to 3 or more hours of exercise), has no children and never plans to have any, has a 12 foot high wooden privacy fence with a backup fence underneath, and is independently wealthy without working so that they are home 24 hours a day with time to prepare a raw diet for the dog or purchase ultra-premium fresh dog food for hundreds a month. But I digress. We have two prospects. One is a puppy who is already on hold for someone else, but the situation might fall through. That breeder also has another litter coming in a little over a month, and I'm not sure if I met her standards. The other is a breeder in NC who has a puppy available now, according to the website (when did beagles start costing $1000?!), and who also has another young litter with puppies available. Unfortunately, they aren't answering the phone or emails, so I don't know what kind of progress I can expect.

Meanwhile, I need to start thinking about testing for the schoolyear. We can't afford to do it right now--$100 for the cognitive abilities testing I'd like to do and then the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. But I have just been approved as a test provider for these, so my only obstacle now is actually getting the tests. I'm optimistic about these, though still coming to terms with Walter's ongoing "on the spectrum" reality.

Kerry's parents were up for a day. Came Thursday afternoon but didn't come over. Kerry and all of the boys met them at Ruby Tuesday and they misbehaved, which is unfortunate because his parents have no good opinion of our parenting in the first place, so this was a pretty harsh blow and may not portend much good for their future visits. Friday his parents were here most of the day, but little happened. They did take the older kids to the park across the street while Kerry got Rutledge down for a nap. I picked up some books--okay, more like 40 books--at Goodwill yesterday. Lots of Great Illustrated Classics, which Walter loves, lots of Oprah's Book Club picks because I need some diverting matter to read, and lots of Newbery Winners. Kerry and his parents went to see Frances' show last night while I stayed with the boys. Notably, I won Monopoly for the first time against Ollie; he was none too happy, but I wouldn't let him quit when he was begging. This builds character.

Ollie and I finished reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde last night, and now he is very excited about reading the next Little House on the Prairie book. We need to get the full seasons of the television show once we finish all of the books. I'm so pleased that he is loving them so much. They have fit in well with the Gary Paulsen books we've been reading this winter, especially the Mr. Tucket series, which is a boys' Little House, of sorts. We also watched Shane the other night--and Mr. Tucket really was just a retelling of the Shane story. Even Kerry was taken aback by the depth of the movie, one he has disparaged for many years without ever watching. I confess that I myself had never taken much to Westerns, but now I'm finding a new fascination.

My pondering thought for today: Boy am I glad that I didn't have to qualify this well to have human children!

Whew! Finally a moment to sit down and write something. We had our co-op here today and it seemed to go well, although I am feeling like the Worst MOther on Earth because Rutledge was outside in 20 degree weather for about an hour with no shoes on and it was off my radar. How could this happen??

Tonight was the LLL meeting, and it went really well. I'm energized by the number of people who have been coming and by how talkative they are and how the meetings carry themselves. It was true support going on, which makes me feel strongly that I need to keep doing this, that it's not a lot of commitment from me, but the returns are huge! Sometimes I start to wonder if I shouldn't sort of start to move on in life, but then I reconnect, and I know I'm not ready to let this go.

Tonight on the way home I heard Mary Chapin Carpenter's version of Grow Old With Me. Oh my gosh, how had I missed this song! She is just amazing on it. I was kind of flooded with this sentimentally goofy clarity about musicians I really like and authors I really like (today I was talking with Adena and Hilary about Madeline L'Engle, who is probably my favorite author). Here were some of my favorites:

Singers: Natalie Merchant, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Alison Krauss

Authors: Madeline L'Engle, Annie Dillard (though I'm having some trouble wading through her most recent book, The Maytrees), Jane Austen. These come straight to mind.

I've kind of lost my momentum from earlier this evening. I think it has something to do with coming back into the house where there's all the regular noise and crying and hurt feelings and he gets to do something special and I don't. I managed to go to the Northside without having any inkling of any kind of "panic attack," so I had a bonding moment with the minivan again, or at least with the open road. I found myself wanting to drive around just to enjoy the sound of the music on the radio (even "Sweet Home Alabama" was inspiring tonight), though of course I didn't with gas being near $3 a gallon.

My laptop is still down. $1317 in repairs later, I'm hoping that it will come back to me in some form where I can think about trusting it again. Today we got the news that the geeks at the Mac Pro store who claimed they could work wonders reached the same conclusion it took the Apple Store people 2 minutes to reach--the hard drive is so screwed that no data recovery is possible. I had to take a few moments to grieve this today. Now I just want my computer back...or a new one...a PC. I'm using the boys' laptop, but it's just not the same. It's hard reading my mail from the web, hard not having my own mailbox with its preferences and sub-boxes set.

Here's a topic in my life right now. Age ranges--is it a given that we fudge with them? And is that right? This came up again in relation to a homeschool center here, where I have been "dealing" with having a class with a huge age and ability and attention range of participants. It seems the norm is to skew upward. If the class is for 7-10 year olds, put your 6 year old in it. If it's for 11 and up, put your 10 year old in it. So far, I haven't pulled this card at all, but now I'm thinking, wait, when is it my turn to ask the favor, to ask for my brilliant child to be accommodated? I don't think that my children are brilliant, but I'm struck pretty hard lately that they also aren't 6 or 7, and they're not slow for their age. Why not skew them up every now and then? Why not occasionally have one of them be the member who slows the class down? Why not put them in a position now and then where they aren't the oldest, but where they're the one who is challenged, who has to work a little harder.

I'm also not unaware that when Ollie is motivated by wanting to please another person, he reaches beyond where he is. It scares me. It reminds me of me, and not of the good parts. But I don't know--there's a certain allure that I can't deny. What if he wasn't weak in handwriting, writing, spelling, and whatever else he's weak in. What if he really isn't learning disabled but is just disabled by my lack of motivational power? What if this isn't even my responsibility--to be his motivational power? I do believe that. I want to throw in that disclaimer. But I also feel like, is it part of my responsibility to leave him openings to motivational powers? Hmmm.

I've been reading this book about boundaries, and like with many books, I'm nodding along, going yeah, yeah--this is it! But then I step away from the book and can't even define what is meant by a boundary. But I'm wondering, am I really confused about what is and what is not my responsibility? I have to believe that in some ways I genuinely am.


One thing is true--I don't go to bed early enough. Here it is nearly midnight and I'm still up, and I still think I'm going to play "just one game" on Webkinz, and we know how that goes.

Our semester so far

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* A trip to Chesapeake for a LLL enrichment workshop.

* An etiquette class and dinner this afternoon.

* Testing for Frances at gymnastics.

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, here again

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

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

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