Whew! I suppose all weeks and weekends are like this one, and I wonder sometimes if I'm just losing my ability to multi-task, but what a lot of stuff to keep track of!
Last week: dropping off and picking up the broken computer. Ballet and flamenco and co-op. Managing my books at both library systems on Tuesday. Shopping for birthday presents for Rutledge. Celebration of his birthday. Homeschool group meeting for one whole evening. Jazz dance class. The first piano lesson. Game day and trumpet and flute lessons and Cub Scout Meeting. Lots of work on Cub Scout Activity pins, did the wrong ones, missed getting the main badge for the year. Writing seminar on Thursday, Kerry had oral surgery and we were the drop off and pick up party. Picking up of prescriptions and recovery food. Big dive meet--Ollie wins first place! Dance company practice for upcoming show. Night out at the opera. 7 hour writing seminar on Saturday. Dinner out for Rutledge's birthday. Reading book for co-op. Trying out a new church. Regular dive clinic across town. Blue and Gold Banquet and Mad Science performance for Cub Scouts. Trying to stay on track without the gluten.
How is the gluten-free lifestyle going? Not as earth-shatteringly as I had hoped. I need to confront a pretty serious question: Am I not being meticulous enough (I'm not) and do I need to watch for hidden or cross-contaminated sources of gluten? And my answer now is yes, I definitely do, before I make a decision about whether to continue for a longer term or not. So far, I feel like I've seen some changes, maybe, but I can't say that there's a difference like night and day or that there's no question that life is definitively better without the offending grain. Tonight I ate at a potluck, something that someone with food allergies should probably never do, at least not without lots and lots of research. Presumably safe things were corn, a bean salad with green peppers, and a plain salad with lettuce and carrots. I can't be sure, though--they just appeared clean. More questionable was the barbecue that I ate generously ate. Safe was the mashed potatoes I brought. I was really hungry. That's no excuse for not eating safely--poison is poison is poison, whether it's cross-contaminated or not researched thorougly or downed with full awareness. If anaphalaxis was my response to gluten, then I was downright negligent. And I have to admit, though I haven't intentionally eaten gluten except for the very intentional cookies before my repeat celiac test, I have made some newbie mistakes, including what can only be called brain farts--ordering that chicken noodle soup at Panera because I was pretty sure that the Broccoli Cheese was not on an okay list so I had to pick something else. And I've also done some less than utterly conservative things like eating french fries at McDonalds because I had read one or two places that they were safe because they are cooked in a dedicated fryer and then later read that they in fact cannot be presumed safe and eating fruit snacks that are produced in a facility that also processes wheat products. I think I need to either bite the bullet or jump ship. For the next week, if I'm going to stay the course, I need to prepare, prepare, prepare. Quit eating in restaurants when I don't have full and complete details. Don't end up relying on food on the fly or snack foods because I didn't make time to make or freeze legitimate meals.
I really had hoped that it would not only erase my GI issues, but also eliminate my migraines. Instead, I've had a ton of migraines this month and lots of headaches that eventually responded to non-prescription means. The GI issues--maybe better, but not perfect. Maybe I'm expecting too much. But what I read from other people who have gone gluten-free, whether as a result of getting positive results on a celiac test or because of a sensitivity, is that their life suddenly is totally turned around. They are bursting with energy, they feel amazing all the time, their chronic illnesses are all gone, and they find themselve beautiful, rich, and famous. They're in a great mood and burst with time to spend exploring the glories of their kitchen. Maybe my health wasn't all that screwed up to start with. It happened again tonight, but a conversation turned to people saying they wish they had half my energy. So maybe I was already at an energy threshold of some kind. I feel like I could have more. I'm tired in the mornings when I first get up. I get seized with moments of 'fatigue of death' when I come out of the shower or around 4:30 many days. But still, being gluten free is not ridiculously difficult, but it does require a bit more advance planning than just blundering headlong through life eating food at the random potluck, catching lunch on the run between three appointments, and following the crowd to lunch or dinner at a restaurant or simply showing up for dinner at a friend's house and planning to graciously eat whatever is put in front of me. If I don't have to eat this way for the rest of my life, then I probably won't. I really do love homemade bread quite a lot. This reminds me that my personal challenge for this week is to use my bread machine for gluten free bread. Again, there's a possibility of cross contamination--this machine has made 4 loaves of wheat bread in its short lifetime, so even with a thorough cleaning, I can't assume cleanliness. But it's a risk I will simply have to take.
What is coming up this week? Lots of stuff!
* Co-op, where we still have to finish reading our books in the morning. Ballet and Flamenco class and my Spanish class (oops--didn't do the homework yet! I hate procrastinating when it comes to this type of thing!).
* Speech evaluation. Field trip to see Tuskegee Airmen. Piano lesson. Modern Dance class. Pancake Dinner.
* Orienteering With a Map and Compass class. Trumpet and flute lessons. Small Group. Cub Scouts.
* Latin Class, evening presentation by author Lois Lowry.
The weekend is looking rather clean. Exciting.
I feel like I'm kind of caught up in how much there is to do. And my recent extra attention to this is that I am working on revamping how I juggle things, how I leave notes for myself, and how I keep track of multiple people in multiple places. I'm pretty sure most other multiple-child mothers do a better job than I do, and I'm pretty sure I used to do a better job myself. My goal is to gently and with baby steps up my responsibility level by simplifying my house, cracking the whip a little harder about help and personal responsibility from children (a time-investment proposition when it first starts), and making broader use of specific to-do lists. We shall see how this goes....
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sorry folks, no pictures today, either. It's Prose Girl again.
I had a great talk about prose vs. poetry and about the rise of the novel with Ollie, while Walter was in his trumpet lessons. We talked about what genres were around before the novel, how Daniel Defoe was a trailblazer, about how most stories fall into a few general plot themes, about the similarities between _Call it Courage_, which is what we were reading, and _Robinson Crusoe_, Walter's pick for book club this month, and Gordon Korman's _Island_ series. Then about post-colonialism, epics, the fine lines between novel, novella, and short story. About perspective in narration, factual information in works of fiction, and Native Americans and losing their names. Then Ollie went in for his flute lesson, and Walter and I talked about various science topics we've been covering in the past few weeks. We went over his perfect-score test on vertebrates and invertebrates and their means of reproduction and their life cycles. We talked about atypical mollusks and then I shared the stories of all of the cats I've ever owned, what happened to all of them (four of the six were relocated to new homes because, truth be told, I'm just not a cat person and my household isn't entirely a cat household). It all started because the picture of the "adult" cat in his science book made it look like the cat had a big hole in his neck. So I had to tell all about how we rescued a starving, dehydrated feral kitten that had a warbel in its neck. And then that kitten proceeded to die on the exam table twice...and was revived twice. It was nice to have some extended time to be with each one of them alone and talk about just what they wanted to talk about.
I just gave Ollie his standard 1/4" cut, and I feel like every day I have to face the fact that he just looks like he was born to be a Marine. It's probably not very patriotic, but I kind of hate this fact. I love my boy, and I don't want him returned to me in a body bag. But I also think he would make a brilliant Marine. Even now I'm watching the Military Channel and there is a mini-segment narrated by a Marine who had to shoot a dog in front of someone's door in Afghanistan and how terrifying the firefight was. And I totally saw Ollie sitting there telling a story like that (probably rife with lies...), thrilled by that kind of action and fear and drama. Since he was four he has wanted to be a Marine, and I keep thinking that the whole front line thing is going to go away, but he likes to lead in that way, he likes physical challenges, he likes to feel like he's doing the hardest, most, scariest, edgiest whatever it is. He wants to fire a really big gun. I want him to do whatever he wants to do and what he will do best. I just want him to come out of it alive in the end. Really, it's not too much to ask.
Today I made reservations for Walter, Ollie, and I to see Lois Lowry at Collegiate School next week. We are going to reread _Number the Stars_ for our co-op this Monday, since we haven't really spent time with our group talking about the Holocaust or concentration camps. It is a good corollary to _Hitler's Canary_, which is also about the Danish resistance and moving people to Sweden. We also made plans to go see the Tuskegee Airmen on Tuesday morning at the Virginia Aviation Museum. I really have been so pleased with our whole WWII study this month--lots of good experiences both in and out of co-op, with writing opportunities, chances to generation questions to ask other people, guest speakers, fiction to flesh things out, and oral reports.
Tomorrow the boys are going to an Institute for Excellence in Writing seminar. I have mixed feelings about this approach and curriculum, but I think it will be a good opportunity to have some information we've already covered to be reiterated by someone else. I'm then going to an all day workshop on Saturday about teaching writing using this program. I figure I can't totally knock it if I don't know as much as I can about it. And I don't think it's evil...just perhaps not the best way to go about doing things. But in the homeschool world, it's kind of gospel to think this is the best, so having more experience with it to perhaps teach in the future isn't a bad idea.
I've wondered for the past few weeks if we shouldn't be doing something a little more or different with the book part of our "school." Things are getting done really quickly, and I feel like maybe there's just not enough challenge or interesting stuff. The reason it started to matter is that Walter was crying and saying he hates "school," and that's totally not the outcome I was looking for. It's hard to listen to someone weeping and gnashing his teeth about the woes of school when he's only doing anything even remotely looking like "school" for 45 minutes a day; my sympathy wasn't totally aroused. But it does seem a sign to me to look at what we're doing and determine whether it's really working for them. There's nothing forcing us to keep doing what we're doing if it's making everyone miserable. So I've been sitting down with them and getting their input about what they like and what they don't. For now, I'm pulling in some new resources, especially the bunch of Critical Thinking Company books I picked up last spring and this fall. I can't say that they've entirely embraced the new stuff, but I'm liking the group learning aspect of them so far. We have done some of the _Editor in Chief_ passages, where you have to look for various errors in a paragraph, including errors in factual information as well as the grammar/punctuation/capitalization issues. And this morning we did some of the Reading Detective pre-tests, and they produced great discussion and it was actually fun, and the dog story ended up getting referred to several times later in the day. I was also happy that Walter truly enjoys the science books we've been using, which I originally had some doubts about. I chose them with him in mind, and sure enough, they're just the kind of thing he likes and just his level and scope.
Flute and trumpet are going well. This was Ollie's third week of flute lessons, and not only is he getting out sound now, which is a big deal, but he knows three notes and is playing "Hot Cross Buns" with Walter. He has made remarkable progress in a short time. I had second thoughts about whether flute was the best choice, but obviously it was a perfectly wonderful one. Ollie is eager to catch up so he can be in the intermediate band with Walter.
Less lovely was Cub Scouts, where I feel like the worst Scouting parent ever. I have totally dropped the ball. I need _Cub Scouts: The Missing Manual_ to get myself back up to speed on the when and wherefore of everything. My poor kids aren't going to get their Webelos badges on time with the rest of their den because I dropped the ball so badly. I didn't realize that they wouldn't get their badge (or that anyone even was getting a badge this Sunday...or even entirely that there was a badge coming at all...) if they didn't do the faith portion of materials. I don't even have the book yet, and they have to meet with a religious leader of some sort to talk about material. We were the only ones who weren't able to make it to the three-Sunday series to help them work through the material; you had to attend all three if you were going to attend any, and Ollie was also booked with a diving clinic one Sunday and then the other two the boys had birthday parties for good friends that we had already RSVP'ed to. Sigh. Anyway, I would have taken the bull by the horns and done the work with them before now if I knew that it stood between them and a badge. Meanwhile, Ollie has only completed one of the three requirements they need otherwise for the badge, and I confused the Athletics sequence with the Fitness one, so we did the wrong thing, and we can't do both at the same time for this Webelos badge becasue they are both in the same category or some such. Like I said...I need the missing manual. I'm lost. We spent a long time today working on requirements, but alas, we didn't entirely finish the right ones, if any of them. Walter has done a lot of scattered work on his own, but when I was on the spot having to tell what they had finished so they could get pins tonight, I was a stammering fool. They're very close on several, but not a lot of cigars, I'm sad to say.
What was good is that we had a lot of fun doing the requirements for athletics. They did pull-ups and competed with Frances, which is a bad idea for anyone. Ollie did 8, more or less correctly. Walter could barely do one and had to try three different grips. And Frances stopped at 10 perfect ones and made it look effortless. Then they all did standing broad jumps, and Ollie was our leader. All of them worked at it for a long time, figuring out better techniques. The goal is to improve over 30 days. I think it has lit a small fitness fire under everyone.
Tonight we talked about a lot of the Family badge topics. Who knows, maybe they will actually end up doing some of the money-saving ideas they came up with and some of the chores they put on the chart. I believe. I really do.
My throat is really scratchy and miserable now. I'm glad it's not the flu, but still, I'm about ready for this to either progress on to a fullblown cold or back off and go away. It has left me irritible and is making it hard to sleep because of the post-nasal drip. Winter is getting old very fast.
I had a great talk about prose vs. poetry and about the rise of the novel with Ollie, while Walter was in his trumpet lessons. We talked about what genres were around before the novel, how Daniel Defoe was a trailblazer, about how most stories fall into a few general plot themes, about the similarities between _Call it Courage_, which is what we were reading, and _Robinson Crusoe_, Walter's pick for book club this month, and Gordon Korman's _Island_ series. Then about post-colonialism, epics, the fine lines between novel, novella, and short story. About perspective in narration, factual information in works of fiction, and Native Americans and losing their names. Then Ollie went in for his flute lesson, and Walter and I talked about various science topics we've been covering in the past few weeks. We went over his perfect-score test on vertebrates and invertebrates and their means of reproduction and their life cycles. We talked about atypical mollusks and then I shared the stories of all of the cats I've ever owned, what happened to all of them (four of the six were relocated to new homes because, truth be told, I'm just not a cat person and my household isn't entirely a cat household). It all started because the picture of the "adult" cat in his science book made it look like the cat had a big hole in his neck. So I had to tell all about how we rescued a starving, dehydrated feral kitten that had a warbel in its neck. And then that kitten proceeded to die on the exam table twice...and was revived twice. It was nice to have some extended time to be with each one of them alone and talk about just what they wanted to talk about.
I just gave Ollie his standard 1/4" cut, and I feel like every day I have to face the fact that he just looks like he was born to be a Marine. It's probably not very patriotic, but I kind of hate this fact. I love my boy, and I don't want him returned to me in a body bag. But I also think he would make a brilliant Marine. Even now I'm watching the Military Channel and there is a mini-segment narrated by a Marine who had to shoot a dog in front of someone's door in Afghanistan and how terrifying the firefight was. And I totally saw Ollie sitting there telling a story like that (probably rife with lies...), thrilled by that kind of action and fear and drama. Since he was four he has wanted to be a Marine, and I keep thinking that the whole front line thing is going to go away, but he likes to lead in that way, he likes physical challenges, he likes to feel like he's doing the hardest, most, scariest, edgiest whatever it is. He wants to fire a really big gun. I want him to do whatever he wants to do and what he will do best. I just want him to come out of it alive in the end. Really, it's not too much to ask.
Today I made reservations for Walter, Ollie, and I to see Lois Lowry at Collegiate School next week. We are going to reread _Number the Stars_ for our co-op this Monday, since we haven't really spent time with our group talking about the Holocaust or concentration camps. It is a good corollary to _Hitler's Canary_, which is also about the Danish resistance and moving people to Sweden. We also made plans to go see the Tuskegee Airmen on Tuesday morning at the Virginia Aviation Museum. I really have been so pleased with our whole WWII study this month--lots of good experiences both in and out of co-op, with writing opportunities, chances to generation questions to ask other people, guest speakers, fiction to flesh things out, and oral reports.
Tomorrow the boys are going to an Institute for Excellence in Writing seminar. I have mixed feelings about this approach and curriculum, but I think it will be a good opportunity to have some information we've already covered to be reiterated by someone else. I'm then going to an all day workshop on Saturday about teaching writing using this program. I figure I can't totally knock it if I don't know as much as I can about it. And I don't think it's evil...just perhaps not the best way to go about doing things. But in the homeschool world, it's kind of gospel to think this is the best, so having more experience with it to perhaps teach in the future isn't a bad idea.
I've wondered for the past few weeks if we shouldn't be doing something a little more or different with the book part of our "school." Things are getting done really quickly, and I feel like maybe there's just not enough challenge or interesting stuff. The reason it started to matter is that Walter was crying and saying he hates "school," and that's totally not the outcome I was looking for. It's hard to listen to someone weeping and gnashing his teeth about the woes of school when he's only doing anything even remotely looking like "school" for 45 minutes a day; my sympathy wasn't totally aroused. But it does seem a sign to me to look at what we're doing and determine whether it's really working for them. There's nothing forcing us to keep doing what we're doing if it's making everyone miserable. So I've been sitting down with them and getting their input about what they like and what they don't. For now, I'm pulling in some new resources, especially the bunch of Critical Thinking Company books I picked up last spring and this fall. I can't say that they've entirely embraced the new stuff, but I'm liking the group learning aspect of them so far. We have done some of the _Editor in Chief_ passages, where you have to look for various errors in a paragraph, including errors in factual information as well as the grammar/punctuation/capitalization issues. And this morning we did some of the Reading Detective pre-tests, and they produced great discussion and it was actually fun, and the dog story ended up getting referred to several times later in the day. I was also happy that Walter truly enjoys the science books we've been using, which I originally had some doubts about. I chose them with him in mind, and sure enough, they're just the kind of thing he likes and just his level and scope.
Flute and trumpet are going well. This was Ollie's third week of flute lessons, and not only is he getting out sound now, which is a big deal, but he knows three notes and is playing "Hot Cross Buns" with Walter. He has made remarkable progress in a short time. I had second thoughts about whether flute was the best choice, but obviously it was a perfectly wonderful one. Ollie is eager to catch up so he can be in the intermediate band with Walter.
Less lovely was Cub Scouts, where I feel like the worst Scouting parent ever. I have totally dropped the ball. I need _Cub Scouts: The Missing Manual_ to get myself back up to speed on the when and wherefore of everything. My poor kids aren't going to get their Webelos badges on time with the rest of their den because I dropped the ball so badly. I didn't realize that they wouldn't get their badge (or that anyone even was getting a badge this Sunday...or even entirely that there was a badge coming at all...) if they didn't do the faith portion of materials. I don't even have the book yet, and they have to meet with a religious leader of some sort to talk about material. We were the only ones who weren't able to make it to the three-Sunday series to help them work through the material; you had to attend all three if you were going to attend any, and Ollie was also booked with a diving clinic one Sunday and then the other two the boys had birthday parties for good friends that we had already RSVP'ed to. Sigh. Anyway, I would have taken the bull by the horns and done the work with them before now if I knew that it stood between them and a badge. Meanwhile, Ollie has only completed one of the three requirements they need otherwise for the badge, and I confused the Athletics sequence with the Fitness one, so we did the wrong thing, and we can't do both at the same time for this Webelos badge becasue they are both in the same category or some such. Like I said...I need the missing manual. I'm lost. We spent a long time today working on requirements, but alas, we didn't entirely finish the right ones, if any of them. Walter has done a lot of scattered work on his own, but when I was on the spot having to tell what they had finished so they could get pins tonight, I was a stammering fool. They're very close on several, but not a lot of cigars, I'm sad to say.
What was good is that we had a lot of fun doing the requirements for athletics. They did pull-ups and competed with Frances, which is a bad idea for anyone. Ollie did 8, more or less correctly. Walter could barely do one and had to try three different grips. And Frances stopped at 10 perfect ones and made it look effortless. Then they all did standing broad jumps, and Ollie was our leader. All of them worked at it for a long time, figuring out better techniques. The goal is to improve over 30 days. I think it has lit a small fitness fire under everyone.
Tonight we talked about a lot of the Family badge topics. Who knows, maybe they will actually end up doing some of the money-saving ideas they came up with and some of the chores they put on the chart. I believe. I really do.
My throat is really scratchy and miserable now. I'm glad it's not the flu, but still, I'm about ready for this to either progress on to a fullblown cold or back off and go away. It has left me irritible and is making it hard to sleep because of the post-nasal drip. Winter is getting old very fast.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
I have been even more lousy than ever at taking my camera places, taking pictures, and downloading them. So still no pics. Add in that yes, my Mac was in the shop again this week, and I'm just plain behind.
So the brief recap:
My baby turns 4 tomorrow. Seems like just yesterday that he was the wet baby in the tub in my living room, getting put into the hanging bag scale and filling up the little bag. I still need to go out and buy his zoo pass so he will have another wrapped gift. It's not a great zoo day, either in terms of time or weather, so I'm not sure if we'll actually visit the animals or not. It depends on whether we get schoolwork done early.
My doctor's office wrote the right code, but not what the lab was expecting for my test for celiac disease. Long story short--they didn't perform the test, even though they took my blood, and they didn't bother to tell me it didn't happen. So...it meant that while I've been gluten free for five weeks now, I had to repeat the test this morning, and I ate some gluten containing cookies so I'd be sure to have something for my immune system to react to. I only ended up with a slight headache from the challenge, but still...it's really irresponsible for a professional office to take blood, then not make sure the test happens, especially when it's for a chronic condition that might affect the rest of my life and especially when the test is dependent upon one consuming the offending entity. I was pretty livid. I'm not expecting the test to come back positive, but I do still intend to not eat gluten for the forseeable future regardless.
We made some video game changes. The plan is to revert to only playing on Saturdays, which was our former plan. And to have Kerry change his gaming habits so that he is not playing games rated M while young children are present. Rutledge needs to have the cache cleared on the computer so that he only gets to certain websites and not ones that involve snowmen shooting each other with machine guns and bleeding. Not that he's really exactly learning letters from playing Word World or Martha Speaks games on pbskids, but his limited time is going to be spent on slightly more wholesome entertainment than what he had been doing with some of his time.
Yesterday our co-op had some special guests. The Dunstons, who are in their 80s, came to share their experiences during World War II. Mr. Dunston served in the Army after being drafted during his second year of college at the University of Pittsburg. Mrs. Dunston was still in high school and living at home in rural Mississippi. Mr. Dunston's War experience seemed very quick--drafted, quickly sent to a few weeks of training, then a swift boat trip to Italy (?), and then to the front to assist at the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes forest. He told our group about staying in farm houses and barns, many of them abandoned, while moving from place to place helping to load cannons. When the battle was over, he was sent back to the States and then went on to serve in the Army for about two more years. It was fascinating to find out more about what was in his backpack, how he ended up in the Army instead of another branch of the military (he wore glasses, so he was not accepted by the Navy or Air Force or Coast Guard), what he ate while he was in France and Germany, what he did while on furlough (leaving a day early, for example, and thinking no one would miss him!), about his girlfriends during the war and how one of them broke up with him as soon as he returned from Europe. Mrs. Dunston answered our many questions about rationing (she wasn't terribly affected, especially when it came to food, since she lived on a farm that raised chickens for sale, produce for sale, and cattle), interactions with men in the military at canteens and dances, and whether she knew the blow by blow of what was going on in Europe and in the Pacific. It's sad that we have lost and are continuing to rapidly lose so many WWII veterans, so we feel fortunate to have had an opportunity to spend time chatting with people who could give us their firsthand experiences. Once again, I regret not asking my Mom and my grandparents more about what life was like for them. I wonder if their life just seemed "normal" because it was all they knew, but there's just so much that I would ask them given a chance.
We've been continuing the WWII theme at home in our own reading. We just finished _Hitler's Canary_, and excellent book about the Danish resistance during the Nazi occupation and about taking Danish Jews to freedom in Sweden. And on a not quite related topic, but within the same time period, we watched a show on PBS about the polio vaccine and the largest epidemic in 1952. Interestingly, the worst hit area in the country was Wytheville, Virginia, which is very close to where my Dad now lives and is just down the road from where I went to college and where we lived for many years, and this documentary contained a lot of footage from that town. My mother had polio in 1953, so she was just about a day late and definitely a dollar short, as the Salk vaccine was widely distributed just a bit after that. I'm thinking that I should perhaps look up some of her friends and ask them for some of the information that I wish I could get from my mother. Maybe they know if she was in an iron lung, what her physical therapy was like, how it affected her parents, whether they feared polio. And perhaps they'd be willing to share their war memories as well. Most of them would have been in their later elementary years or early teens, and they would have lived in Norfolk, a big Navy town.
We've had a big turn in our Latin endeavours lately, and finally things seem to be coming together. We are doing a bit of review each day and it has definitely paid off. Now I'm sure that we're going to continue with Latin II next year.
Frances returned yesterday from Annie and Tim's house. Friday night she went to see a hobo band and fell asleep right on the table because it was late at night. Saturday she went shopping for a new dress and jacket to wear to see Beauty and the Beast at E.C. Glass High School that evening. Sunday she went to watch Tim in a bike race. She came home Monday, just in time for ballet and flamenco class. She is really doing well in dance now, and the extra time and classes are, I hope, going to be a big help for her. My Spanish is also coming along. I had a private lesson this past week because the other person who is learning with the teacher was not there. My assignment, in addition to writing another paragraph about a crazy little series of pictures where two teenagers, Paco and Paula, find a big stack of money in the street and go shopping at the tienda de ropa, is to watch the Spanish Channel so that I can practice trying to hear some words that I understand. I'm getting really proficient at reading, but I can still barely understand a darn thing, and I'm working hard not to butcher pronunciation myself when I speak or read aloud. I have a zillion grammatical questions, which probably drive the teacher crazy. She probably doesn't encounter too many people who are eager to plumb the depths of the rules about participles and infinitives and so forth. I'm a total Latin nerd!
Today was Frances's first piano lesson. I gather that it went well. I made a big mistake, though. Poor Walter got left home alone, and I knew it was happening, but I guess he didn't. I was only gone 10 minutes, but in that time, he managed to get himself into a panic, lock himself out of the house, and sob in my neighbor's yard. Ugh! The boys had asked if they could stay home while I dropped off Frances (the piano teacher is in the neighborhood and about 3 minutes away by car). I said yes. Then I turned around and Ollie was back in the car. He thought Walter had come out. He hadn't. I decided to go ahead and just go to the lesson and then come back to Walter, thinking that he might realize Ollie was gone, but he wouldn't care. Boy was I wrong! And that was the wrong thing to do. He cared a lot, and he thought we had abandoned him. Then he went outside, pulled the door shut, it locked, and he couldn't get back in. It took a long time to console him. I felt awful! Frances practiced not just once, but twice today. If only it could always be this good!
Friday Ollie has a dive meet, just for fun. He hasn't had a competitive situation since the summer, so this should be good experience for him. We're all looking forward to swim team season, which will be here before we know it.
So the brief recap:
My baby turns 4 tomorrow. Seems like just yesterday that he was the wet baby in the tub in my living room, getting put into the hanging bag scale and filling up the little bag. I still need to go out and buy his zoo pass so he will have another wrapped gift. It's not a great zoo day, either in terms of time or weather, so I'm not sure if we'll actually visit the animals or not. It depends on whether we get schoolwork done early.
My doctor's office wrote the right code, but not what the lab was expecting for my test for celiac disease. Long story short--they didn't perform the test, even though they took my blood, and they didn't bother to tell me it didn't happen. So...it meant that while I've been gluten free for five weeks now, I had to repeat the test this morning, and I ate some gluten containing cookies so I'd be sure to have something for my immune system to react to. I only ended up with a slight headache from the challenge, but still...it's really irresponsible for a professional office to take blood, then not make sure the test happens, especially when it's for a chronic condition that might affect the rest of my life and especially when the test is dependent upon one consuming the offending entity. I was pretty livid. I'm not expecting the test to come back positive, but I do still intend to not eat gluten for the forseeable future regardless.
We made some video game changes. The plan is to revert to only playing on Saturdays, which was our former plan. And to have Kerry change his gaming habits so that he is not playing games rated M while young children are present. Rutledge needs to have the cache cleared on the computer so that he only gets to certain websites and not ones that involve snowmen shooting each other with machine guns and bleeding. Not that he's really exactly learning letters from playing Word World or Martha Speaks games on pbskids, but his limited time is going to be spent on slightly more wholesome entertainment than what he had been doing with some of his time.
Yesterday our co-op had some special guests. The Dunstons, who are in their 80s, came to share their experiences during World War II. Mr. Dunston served in the Army after being drafted during his second year of college at the University of Pittsburg. Mrs. Dunston was still in high school and living at home in rural Mississippi. Mr. Dunston's War experience seemed very quick--drafted, quickly sent to a few weeks of training, then a swift boat trip to Italy (?), and then to the front to assist at the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes forest. He told our group about staying in farm houses and barns, many of them abandoned, while moving from place to place helping to load cannons. When the battle was over, he was sent back to the States and then went on to serve in the Army for about two more years. It was fascinating to find out more about what was in his backpack, how he ended up in the Army instead of another branch of the military (he wore glasses, so he was not accepted by the Navy or Air Force or Coast Guard), what he ate while he was in France and Germany, what he did while on furlough (leaving a day early, for example, and thinking no one would miss him!), about his girlfriends during the war and how one of them broke up with him as soon as he returned from Europe. Mrs. Dunston answered our many questions about rationing (she wasn't terribly affected, especially when it came to food, since she lived on a farm that raised chickens for sale, produce for sale, and cattle), interactions with men in the military at canteens and dances, and whether she knew the blow by blow of what was going on in Europe and in the Pacific. It's sad that we have lost and are continuing to rapidly lose so many WWII veterans, so we feel fortunate to have had an opportunity to spend time chatting with people who could give us their firsthand experiences. Once again, I regret not asking my Mom and my grandparents more about what life was like for them. I wonder if their life just seemed "normal" because it was all they knew, but there's just so much that I would ask them given a chance.
We've been continuing the WWII theme at home in our own reading. We just finished _Hitler's Canary_, and excellent book about the Danish resistance during the Nazi occupation and about taking Danish Jews to freedom in Sweden. And on a not quite related topic, but within the same time period, we watched a show on PBS about the polio vaccine and the largest epidemic in 1952. Interestingly, the worst hit area in the country was Wytheville, Virginia, which is very close to where my Dad now lives and is just down the road from where I went to college and where we lived for many years, and this documentary contained a lot of footage from that town. My mother had polio in 1953, so she was just about a day late and definitely a dollar short, as the Salk vaccine was widely distributed just a bit after that. I'm thinking that I should perhaps look up some of her friends and ask them for some of the information that I wish I could get from my mother. Maybe they know if she was in an iron lung, what her physical therapy was like, how it affected her parents, whether they feared polio. And perhaps they'd be willing to share their war memories as well. Most of them would have been in their later elementary years or early teens, and they would have lived in Norfolk, a big Navy town.
We've had a big turn in our Latin endeavours lately, and finally things seem to be coming together. We are doing a bit of review each day and it has definitely paid off. Now I'm sure that we're going to continue with Latin II next year.
Frances returned yesterday from Annie and Tim's house. Friday night she went to see a hobo band and fell asleep right on the table because it was late at night. Saturday she went shopping for a new dress and jacket to wear to see Beauty and the Beast at E.C. Glass High School that evening. Sunday she went to watch Tim in a bike race. She came home Monday, just in time for ballet and flamenco class. She is really doing well in dance now, and the extra time and classes are, I hope, going to be a big help for her. My Spanish is also coming along. I had a private lesson this past week because the other person who is learning with the teacher was not there. My assignment, in addition to writing another paragraph about a crazy little series of pictures where two teenagers, Paco and Paula, find a big stack of money in the street and go shopping at the tienda de ropa, is to watch the Spanish Channel so that I can practice trying to hear some words that I understand. I'm getting really proficient at reading, but I can still barely understand a darn thing, and I'm working hard not to butcher pronunciation myself when I speak or read aloud. I have a zillion grammatical questions, which probably drive the teacher crazy. She probably doesn't encounter too many people who are eager to plumb the depths of the rules about participles and infinitives and so forth. I'm a total Latin nerd!
Today was Frances's first piano lesson. I gather that it went well. I made a big mistake, though. Poor Walter got left home alone, and I knew it was happening, but I guess he didn't. I was only gone 10 minutes, but in that time, he managed to get himself into a panic, lock himself out of the house, and sob in my neighbor's yard. Ugh! The boys had asked if they could stay home while I dropped off Frances (the piano teacher is in the neighborhood and about 3 minutes away by car). I said yes. Then I turned around and Ollie was back in the car. He thought Walter had come out. He hadn't. I decided to go ahead and just go to the lesson and then come back to Walter, thinking that he might realize Ollie was gone, but he wouldn't care. Boy was I wrong! And that was the wrong thing to do. He cared a lot, and he thought we had abandoned him. Then he went outside, pulled the door shut, it locked, and he couldn't get back in. It took a long time to console him. I felt awful! Frances practiced not just once, but twice today. If only it could always be this good!
Friday Ollie has a dive meet, just for fun. He hasn't had a competitive situation since the summer, so this should be good experience for him. We're all looking forward to swim team season, which will be here before we know it.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Come on Baby Light My Fire
Hilary and I have this co-op idea. It would be three weeks of fire. Consisting chiefly of continuous activities making use of, well, fire. There's no fun quite like children playing with matches.
We experienced this particular joy again today at our co-op, rather reduced in size from its already small numbers. Today's official topic was life on the home front in World War II. The boys all prepared a short report on one of the following topics: the USO; the American Red Cross; blackouts and air raid drills; Rosie the Riveter; Victory Gardens; Japanese relocation. Walter's topic was blackouts and air raid drills. We found all sorts of exciting resources online, including a variety of videos of various air raid sirens from across the Axis and Allies, an interactive activity where you choose which items would be helpful to have in your Morrison Shelter in your garden in London during an air raid, and a rationing game, where you go to a grocer and try to assemble items for a meal that you had planned and see whether you have enough ration points to purchase needed ingredients or whether things are out of season or simply out of stock. There were also tons of resources on clothing styles of the time, including clothing from feed sacks. And of course letters from children who had been evacuated from London and who had not. There was a lot less information about the American Red Cross and its activity during WWII. I suppose it wasn't quite as exciting as the nursing Nightingales during WWI. But we did find out quite a bit about the Donut Dollies who sold donuts at the Canteens. I wish we had brought doughnuts today!
The girls and I read part of another American Girl book, this one about Molly's aunt, who applies to become a Women's Airforce Service Pilot. So we followed up with some historical information about the WASPs and cut out some wings and patches for ourselves with Fifinella, the Disney-designed mascot.
Then we looked at some pictures of women working in aircraft and other factories during the war. But the highlight was extinguishing and disposing of our own incendiary bomb. The procedure was such: Take a potato and pretend it is an incendiary bomb that is now burning in your attic after being dropped on your roof. Take a hose and put out the fire on the potato and any surrounding area that might be burning (many people would have used buckets of water or a pump siphon in a bucket of water, since most people don't have garden hoses hooked up in their houses and going up to their attics...). Then use the bucket of sand that your family has in its emergency kit to smother the now-wet potato. Take a broom and sweep the extinguished bomb into a shovel. Dump the bomb into a bucket. Carry it far away from your house.
That's all fine and good. Lainey got a little wet when Frances waved the hose wildly at her instead of at the spud. Then the boys came out. And that's when the real fun began. I'm not sure they ever really got through the entire procedure cleanly. See, they wanted their incendiary spuds to be on fire. Which led to a box of matches. Which led to a potato with a flaming stick coming out of it, which led to a potato with eight flaming sticks coming out of it. And who really wants or needs water when you have a fiery potato in your driveway?! Then Frances wanted a chance to strike a match, since she's never done it. But a flaring match can be scary, so she dropped it, thank goodness onto cement where it immediately went out. All in all, I think it was an effective exercise, and they probably will be well prepared if a tuber every falls from the sky and suddenly sprouts lit matches.
I think the adults were all pretty taken aback by just how pervasive the War would have been in everyone's lives, even in America where active fighting and bombing wasn't taking place. Parents would be gone--overseas and in factories or in volunteer jobs, there was so much to worry about as far as personal safety went, food was rationed and favorite recipes might be out the window for a while, signs were up everywhere to remind you that there's a war going on and scary enemies were out there and everyone had to do their part to protect us, and you had to wonder whether your neighbors might be spies or if U-boats were off the coast. I'm surprised that our parents or grandparents who were children or young adults during that era aren't still talking about it constantly. Well, at least mine weren't.... But scary stuff for even everyday life.
We ended by making our own Victory Gardens. Our have radishes, peas, and tomatoes. I would post a picture, but right now it looks like any garden variety pot of dirt. If and when seeds do sprout and grow into plants, I'll provide visual evidence, then. I just thank my lucky stars that neither our country's defense nor my family's nutrition currently depend on how well my garden grows.
Frances happily attended both ballet and flamenco today after a rocky emotional morning. And I was able to go to my private Spanish tutoring session that happens during this time. What an incredible opportunity there is there! Today we practiced asking and answering questions and working on subject verb agreement, all the while concentrating on correct conversational pronunciation, which is a rough spot for me. I picked up a Conversational Spanish for Dummies mini-book tonight in the dollar bin at Target to help me (I already have the full size Spanish for Dummies, and I guess I'm still dumb because I haven't looked at it for about 10 months). I'd like to get the boys back doing Spanish, but I think it might confuse them with all the Latin vocabulary and grammar forms they are having to memorize. They are doing so much better in the class, and with continued studying and review, they should do well on their test Thursday. Meanwhile, I have my own homework to do in writing a little story about two people taking a trip to "la tienda de ropa."
It was a busy glutinous and gluten-free cooking day. I made a rather large breakfast for us this morning, most of which I couldn't eat. Pancakes from scratch, not from my usual mix. Sausage, hash browns, and more pancakes. Then I baked a basic vanilla cake, which I didn't get time to frost. We were going to make a ration recipe that called for stale cake, and I think I'll have some tomorrow, since I forgot to cover the thing after we cut off chunks. Then for lunch I made two versions of baked ziti--the gluten and the gluten-free version, both of which, so I hear, were pretty good. I had my safe one, but then Kerry accidentally finished the rest up for dinner. I don't normally make lunches that involve much prep, so clearly this dietary change is pushing me into more adventurous territory in the kitchen. I'm not a person who particularly relishes cooking for meals. I'm more into baking for special occasions and snacking (the latest 'special occasion' was when I promised Walter that I'd make him a cake if he reached level 70 on Runescape...is that bad mothering or what?!). Tonight I shook together my flour blend that I keep on hand for basic baking and cooking. It involved a trip to Target for a new canister to hold it, since my other one has a crack in it now, and I was able to get a new teapot as well. I burned the hell out of my last teapot and the enamel on it, probably some awful lead-based something, ended up all over the ceramic top of the stove. This one is stainless steel, matches our kitchen better, and hopefully won't cause steam burns every time I have to pull the plug out. Tomorrow's big task is going to be replenishing my supply of chocolate chip cookies. The last ones lasted more than a week, which is a record for me. I'd also like to make snickerdoodles, which are my other favorite cookie.
And tonight I am being beaten at Risk by Walter and Ollie. Ollie always wants to play, and the game requires at least four hours, which I never have to give to it, especially because we live with the human wrecking ball, which makes precarious game boards with tiny, intricately placed pieces a bad idea in his waking hours. We played for about 2 hours tonight, maybe more, and it's just now getting toward the turning point of the war. I think we need to explore some of the Mission Risk and other shorter game options for the future. In my fantasy world, I'd have endless time for engaging in long strategy games...maybe my kids need to make more gaming friends with patience or something. Unfortunately, our experience has been that most other 10 year olds just aren't quite there yet, especially unsupervised. I cringe to think of what would happen if someone authoritative wasn't keeping an eye on Ollie....
We experienced this particular joy again today at our co-op, rather reduced in size from its already small numbers. Today's official topic was life on the home front in World War II. The boys all prepared a short report on one of the following topics: the USO; the American Red Cross; blackouts and air raid drills; Rosie the Riveter; Victory Gardens; Japanese relocation. Walter's topic was blackouts and air raid drills. We found all sorts of exciting resources online, including a variety of videos of various air raid sirens from across the Axis and Allies, an interactive activity where you choose which items would be helpful to have in your Morrison Shelter in your garden in London during an air raid, and a rationing game, where you go to a grocer and try to assemble items for a meal that you had planned and see whether you have enough ration points to purchase needed ingredients or whether things are out of season or simply out of stock. There were also tons of resources on clothing styles of the time, including clothing from feed sacks. And of course letters from children who had been evacuated from London and who had not. There was a lot less information about the American Red Cross and its activity during WWII. I suppose it wasn't quite as exciting as the nursing Nightingales during WWI. But we did find out quite a bit about the Donut Dollies who sold donuts at the Canteens. I wish we had brought doughnuts today!
The girls and I read part of another American Girl book, this one about Molly's aunt, who applies to become a Women's Airforce Service Pilot. So we followed up with some historical information about the WASPs and cut out some wings and patches for ourselves with Fifinella, the Disney-designed mascot.
Then we looked at some pictures of women working in aircraft and other factories during the war. But the highlight was extinguishing and disposing of our own incendiary bomb. The procedure was such: Take a potato and pretend it is an incendiary bomb that is now burning in your attic after being dropped on your roof. Take a hose and put out the fire on the potato and any surrounding area that might be burning (many people would have used buckets of water or a pump siphon in a bucket of water, since most people don't have garden hoses hooked up in their houses and going up to their attics...). Then use the bucket of sand that your family has in its emergency kit to smother the now-wet potato. Take a broom and sweep the extinguished bomb into a shovel. Dump the bomb into a bucket. Carry it far away from your house.
That's all fine and good. Lainey got a little wet when Frances waved the hose wildly at her instead of at the spud. Then the boys came out. And that's when the real fun began. I'm not sure they ever really got through the entire procedure cleanly. See, they wanted their incendiary spuds to be on fire. Which led to a box of matches. Which led to a potato with a flaming stick coming out of it, which led to a potato with eight flaming sticks coming out of it. And who really wants or needs water when you have a fiery potato in your driveway?! Then Frances wanted a chance to strike a match, since she's never done it. But a flaring match can be scary, so she dropped it, thank goodness onto cement where it immediately went out. All in all, I think it was an effective exercise, and they probably will be well prepared if a tuber every falls from the sky and suddenly sprouts lit matches.
I think the adults were all pretty taken aback by just how pervasive the War would have been in everyone's lives, even in America where active fighting and bombing wasn't taking place. Parents would be gone--overseas and in factories or in volunteer jobs, there was so much to worry about as far as personal safety went, food was rationed and favorite recipes might be out the window for a while, signs were up everywhere to remind you that there's a war going on and scary enemies were out there and everyone had to do their part to protect us, and you had to wonder whether your neighbors might be spies or if U-boats were off the coast. I'm surprised that our parents or grandparents who were children or young adults during that era aren't still talking about it constantly. Well, at least mine weren't.... But scary stuff for even everyday life.
We ended by making our own Victory Gardens. Our have radishes, peas, and tomatoes. I would post a picture, but right now it looks like any garden variety pot of dirt. If and when seeds do sprout and grow into plants, I'll provide visual evidence, then. I just thank my lucky stars that neither our country's defense nor my family's nutrition currently depend on how well my garden grows.
Frances happily attended both ballet and flamenco today after a rocky emotional morning. And I was able to go to my private Spanish tutoring session that happens during this time. What an incredible opportunity there is there! Today we practiced asking and answering questions and working on subject verb agreement, all the while concentrating on correct conversational pronunciation, which is a rough spot for me. I picked up a Conversational Spanish for Dummies mini-book tonight in the dollar bin at Target to help me (I already have the full size Spanish for Dummies, and I guess I'm still dumb because I haven't looked at it for about 10 months). I'd like to get the boys back doing Spanish, but I think it might confuse them with all the Latin vocabulary and grammar forms they are having to memorize. They are doing so much better in the class, and with continued studying and review, they should do well on their test Thursday. Meanwhile, I have my own homework to do in writing a little story about two people taking a trip to "la tienda de ropa."
It was a busy glutinous and gluten-free cooking day. I made a rather large breakfast for us this morning, most of which I couldn't eat. Pancakes from scratch, not from my usual mix. Sausage, hash browns, and more pancakes. Then I baked a basic vanilla cake, which I didn't get time to frost. We were going to make a ration recipe that called for stale cake, and I think I'll have some tomorrow, since I forgot to cover the thing after we cut off chunks. Then for lunch I made two versions of baked ziti--the gluten and the gluten-free version, both of which, so I hear, were pretty good. I had my safe one, but then Kerry accidentally finished the rest up for dinner. I don't normally make lunches that involve much prep, so clearly this dietary change is pushing me into more adventurous territory in the kitchen. I'm not a person who particularly relishes cooking for meals. I'm more into baking for special occasions and snacking (the latest 'special occasion' was when I promised Walter that I'd make him a cake if he reached level 70 on Runescape...is that bad mothering or what?!). Tonight I shook together my flour blend that I keep on hand for basic baking and cooking. It involved a trip to Target for a new canister to hold it, since my other one has a crack in it now, and I was able to get a new teapot as well. I burned the hell out of my last teapot and the enamel on it, probably some awful lead-based something, ended up all over the ceramic top of the stove. This one is stainless steel, matches our kitchen better, and hopefully won't cause steam burns every time I have to pull the plug out. Tomorrow's big task is going to be replenishing my supply of chocolate chip cookies. The last ones lasted more than a week, which is a record for me. I'd also like to make snickerdoodles, which are my other favorite cookie.
And tonight I am being beaten at Risk by Walter and Ollie. Ollie always wants to play, and the game requires at least four hours, which I never have to give to it, especially because we live with the human wrecking ball, which makes precarious game boards with tiny, intricately placed pieces a bad idea in his waking hours. We played for about 2 hours tonight, maybe more, and it's just now getting toward the turning point of the war. I think we need to explore some of the Mission Risk and other shorter game options for the future. In my fantasy world, I'd have endless time for engaging in long strategy games...maybe my kids need to make more gaming friends with patience or something. Unfortunately, our experience has been that most other 10 year olds just aren't quite there yet, especially unsupervised. I cringe to think of what would happen if someone authoritative wasn't keeping an eye on Ollie....
Sunday, February 8, 2009
25 Random Things
Earlier this week, Frances was pestering me about putting hot pink streaks in her hair. I'm no hairdresser, and I don't play one on TV (though most people know I do play one in the privacy of my own home, where I give little boys crewcuts and slice off parts of their ears). We had a bit of the hair dye left from when our hairdresser 3rd cousin did our hair at our family reunion, and I had 6 foils left, so here are our results. Pretty darn good, I think!
Unfortunately, just two days later, she got a round brush stuck in her hair, all tangled right up to her scalp. It was horrible! I was sure she was going to look like G.I. Frances before I got it out, so I rushed her up to Pigtails and Crewcuts, our little kids' salon, and they had it out with a pick and some spray-in conditioner in just a few minutes. What is life, though, without a little extra excitement?
Life proceeds apace without gymnastics. I'm more bummed as the days go on. I hope soccer feels satisfying. I'm worried about giving up our Saturdays. I suppose baseball for Ollie is going to take them soon enough, though.I generally hate doing these things, but I did it anyway. This was what I posted on Facebook, something I find precious little time to attend to in general. I wish I could say I cared..but I don't!
Anyway...
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish. And if you don't want to do this, just remove your tag).
1. I have lived my entire life in Virginia. My body has left the state, but never for the purpose of permanent or semi-permanent residence elsewhere. The opportunity hasn't presented itself, and I haven't gone actively looking for it.
2. I prefer children’s books to big girl books almost all the time. And I still read aloud for several hours a day with my 10 year olds. Mostly because I want someone to share all these great books with!
3. I will freely call myself a misanthrope. Even though I have quite a few friends and lots of acquaintances. But much of the time, people freak me out. I'm also a terrible snob--I would be Libertarian, but I don't think the political philosophy would work in the real world because I think too many people are just too dumb and don't care.
4. I have only been on an airplane four times in my life. Once in a privately chartered plane when my parents weren’t allowed on a commercial airline when I was 6 months old, once in 8th grade, once in 9th, and for my honeymoon…almost 14 years ago. Mostly I’ve been too poor to be able to afford to go anywhere.
5. I am emetophobic. I fear vomit, especially me doing it, like it’s going to immediately send me to my grave and bury me six feet under. I’m better now than I used to be, and I don’t go sprinting out the door any more when one of my children is sick, but I’m not going to be snuggling them on my lap, either. I once had to call a friend to follow me as I drove home after my daughter barfed on her shirt after a physical therapy appointment because I was too terrified to drive her myself.
6. Despite this, I really had always wanted 6 or 8 children. My dh wanted 2. We compromised with 4, but if I had my way and a miracle occurred, I’d not very secretly love to have a couple more.
7. I have had a home birth. With a 9.5 pound baby. And even though it’s a lousy reason to get pregnant again, having another would be one of my motivations for having another baby. I’m really lousy at being pregnant though; just good at the birthing part.
8. I went to two different multi-week residential Shakespeare camps when I was in high school and college. And several writing camps and workshops.
9. My purchasing of office supplies borders on compulsive.
10. I have a minor in Latin. It came in handy when I read The Penderwicks and it’s coming in handy now that my boys are learning Latin. I hate the way their program pronounces things, though.
11. I noticed some white hairs on my head today. White. Not gray, but white like my grandmother’s. I am freaking out.
12. I generally cannot bear to read sci-fi or fantasy books, even award-winning ones, even pop culture ones. I’ve tried about five times to read Lord of the Rings, even one book of the trilogy, and I never get more than 30 or so pages into it before my eyes glaze over. The words "...save the universe" on the cover of a book is an instant turn-off.
13. Even though the only place out of the U.S. I’ve ever been is England, and even though I desperately want to travel more, if I could have a ticket to any single destination in the world, it would be to England again. If I won the lottery, I also would figure out some way to move to England.
14. If it wasn’t a really huge lottery, though, but we were not tied down by having to earn a paycheck in a specific place and were going to stay in the U.S., I’m not quite sure where I would go. My leading contenders are Sullivan’s Island, SC, a farmhouse in the Hudson River Valley or in the Berkshires, or on 40 acres in Roanoke County with an incredible view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
15. Some of my favorite days of each year are the ones we spend camping at Camp Bethel in Fincastle, Virginia. It’s so peaceful and beautiful and the kids can run around wherever they want.
16. I got my nose pierced because I wanted a piece of jewelry that I could always wear that would remind me of how powerful I felt on the day that Rutledge was born. Something to help me not forget that my body is amazing and works especially well when it really needs to. It's not broken!
17. I've never broken a bone. Never had an overnight hospital stay.
18. I homeschool for a large variety of reasons, including wanting to spend lots of time with my children while they are still young, being a control freak who likes to choose curricula and resources and approaches that will best fit their current needs, being concerned about how non-traditional learners fare in a traditional classroom and on the timeframes it imposes, not always believing in the various labels that describe children as 'ahead' or 'behind' because i think that mostly children are where they themselves need to be at that time, loving all the cool trips and activities and opportunities that are open to us, not wanting to have our schedules determined by someone else, not being a morning person and liking to sleep late, knowing that my very active children need plenty of time outdoors and in the woods, wanting to leave plenty of time for subjects which may get shortchanged in the rush to meet state standards: art, music, P.E., even history, liking the people I've met since we haven't been at a school, being able to book vacations in the off season, and generally just being free to determine our own course.
19. But I also lie awake some nights with anxiety about this, that, or the other thing. Are they on track for college? What if Ollie's handwriting never improves? Should we be spending more time at home or more time taking classes or going on trips outside the house? Is it really okay that Frances isn't reading fluently at 7 and will it all come together for her later? How much do we really need a homeschool group? Is their math challenging enough?
20. I have a very addictive personality when it comes to video games, and i become obsessed with conquering certain things like Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo DS, Scrabble and Yahtzee on the iPod, and the vocabulary game on freerice.com
21. I have always wanted to be a writer, but I feel like a total loser because I haven't really done a ton about it. I make lots of excuses...like four kids and things like that. I like to write for myself, though. I just feel that I lack professional credentials that would make anyone else take me seriously.
22. I'm a very insecure person when it comes to feeling qualified to do things for other people. This is probably a side effect of not working--you know, that part when you first start working somewhere and you think, "Oh my God, someone is actually paying me to do this! Me!" At home, I can feel pretty confident, even cocky, but when I get with other people, I feel like even an ant is probably more qualified than me to do just about anything. I know how many mistakes I make!
23. It is really, really bothering me that Frances quit gymnastics. I feel really, really guilty that I feel this way. It's her life, not mine. Maybe I wish I could have been a gymnast when I was her age.
24. The master lesson I've had to learn about being a mother can be summed up thus: "They are not me."
25. I have little to no attention span for television shows with a plot; I like to have little invested and an easy exit plan. So I tend to primarily watch things on Discovery, History Channel, Military Channel, Science Channel, and things like that. This will make me sound like a mutant, but I have never been interested in cooking shows and fail to see the appeal.
So, now it's all out there for everyone to see: I've had a really boring life in general by most people's standards. I've traveled about as much as a backwoods mountain trapper who never goes more than 20 miles from his home his whole life. My life has generally lacked glamour and intrigue. I'm rather insecure. But it's a good life nonetheless. And it would be logistically difficult to change much about it at this particular time. So I'm going to have to just get on with it.
Friday, February 6, 2009
This Week at the Clendenons'
So normal, and yet so not. What's normal anyway?
Frances has officially quit gymnastics. Our official written notice was given, as well as our verbal notice to her coach and the gym owner. Everyone is sad to see her leave. We heard again what we've heard all along about her: she is a very gifted gymnast who naturally does what other girls take a great amount of work to learn. Both gyms have said that she has the most potential coming through the door that they've seen in years. Alas, she's a burnt out gymnast.
Her first and last meet. She's the very short one at the far right, the shortest person in a short-people sport. Tonight was to be her second meet, but she's not there. Waaah!
So today she was signed up for soccer, which won't start for another month or so, which gives her a nice break from too many activities. I'm not sure I'm ready for soccer--all those weekends, all those freezing practices in March and early April, the kind of boring games to watch and keep Rutledge out of trouble at. She'll be playing with the Chesterfield United club, which is one of two clubs close to our house, but not the one that Walter played for a few years ago.
She also is adding into the ballet and flamenco classes she needs in order to be up to snuff as part of the Little Company at her ballet company. She hates flamenco, so it's going to be a little battle, but flamenco is to Latin ballet what tap is to classical ballet--you generally are kind of sort of expected to be able to do at least some of it, and it's part of the basics that make up a well-rounded dancer. Plus it runs back to back with ballet, which is convenient. To top it all off, there's a woman teaching conversational Spanish to the other parents waiting, and I want to be in on it. I can passably read Spanish, but I can't speak it to save my life and can barely understand a word of it when other people speak it. This woman has a child in the class and also teaches high school Spanish, so I hope that Frances will be a flamenco girl for at least a few weeks so I can get some benefit myself.
Right now, Frances is at the river with her friend Lainey. Her goal for the weekend is to see another dolphin. She saw dolphins mating the last time she was there. Unfortunately, last time she was there she also sprouted a 104 degree fever and had to come home early. We're hoping to avoid a replay of that one.
Next weekend Frances goes with Annie and Tim for three days to see a theater production and visit with some friends she has made in Lynchburg. Busy, busy girl.
We are making our own plans for upcoming adventures. I am signed up for a tennis trip to Hilton Head at the beginning of next month, and I have been excited since the summer to go somewhere where we aren't weighed down with the stress of a huge tournament and where it's all about the clinics and the party. Then I might be going on a beach trip with some friends at the end of next month. And I'm working on setting up a long weekend in April at a friend's cabin in Southwest Virginia near Mount Rogers. In May we have booked a beach house in Hatteras, NC for a week. I can't remember correctly now, but I think we chose a different house than the one we had last time, and it might not even be quite as far down as Hatteras. I feel so fortunate that we are available pre-season, when rates are super low. We are also working on fitting in a weekend trip to Washington, DC for Kerry to do some things with his business and when I can see the Postal Museum and the Spy Museum and the various memorials, something we frequently miss on our museum trips. Then we have a lull for most of the summer--things tend to grind to a halt when swim team season begins.
I am into my 4th week now of being gluten free. So far, I'm not ready to throw in the towel, though a lovely delivered pizza does make my resolve weaken, and I'd just about kill for a really awesome sandwich. But I think it's mostly the allure of the forbidden. I have been eating fairly well, probably even better than I did before this experiment. We are having more things like chicken or hamburgers or pasta dishes for lunch. I've made some really good chocolate chip cookies--good even in comparison to regular old gluten cookies--and some pumpkin bread and muffins which don't taste gluten free to me. But mostly I've steered free of baked goods as a whole and concentrated on things naturally without gluten, and there are tons of them: fruits, vegetables, cheeses, salads, corn puffy things, meats that I make myself, Chinese foods. I made spring rolls last night, something I probably never would have attempted if I wasn't spurred on by my new diet. They were so good! And I felt rather accomplished working with the rice skins and getting a pretty and tasty result. I took the kids on a little impromptu field trip to Tan-A, the largest of the Asian markets here, and they were so enthralled by all of the stinky fish sitting out and the non-American products, like canned squid and dried jellyfish and all kinds of parts of animals that we get grossed out by. They all got candy, and Walter has nearly built a shrine to Pocky now. And I was able to stock up on many staple items for my pantry much more cheaply than if I buy them at Ukrop's or at the natural foods stores: white rice flour, sweet rice flour, tapioca starch, and rice noodles and bean threads. I know it's hard to get into the excitement that is $.90 a pound sweet rice flour, but it really is cause for gluten-free celebration! There were also a lot of little snacky things that were inexpensive that I can actually eat. Cool.
This Monday, our little learning group did another Zoom/Think! challenge. This one involved 100 pennies and stacking them into a structure that had four pennies on the bottom layer touching the ground and was at least 5 inches wide and 2 inches high. Most of the kids had some trouble with this, so I'm not sure we totally had any who achieved the original challenge, but above is one of the attempts. I'm seeing more than 4 on the bottom...
Previously we have done other challenges, including this one where teams of two had to build a "box" that would insulate an ice cube and keep it from melting at the same rate that the control cube did. The materials they had were a shoe box, newspaper, aluminum foil, tape, rubber bands, and waxed paper.
That same day we also designed these "Puff-Mobiles." The materials given were one sheet of paper, four Life-Savers, three straws, paper clips, and Scotch tape. The goal was to make a vehicle that could move 6 feet in fewer "puffs" of air than the competitors' vehicles and to make a vehicle that could move further than the competition. We did numerous heats to find winners, but all of the creations were fun to see and performed well.
Our several family history group is heavy into World War II right now. Last week the boys wrote about the Battle of the Atlantic and the Battle of Okinawa, and this week they will be talking about home front matters. I would love to see them write a little bit more, so I might slip some small assignment in on a related topic. Then next week we will have a couple come in to talk about their war experiences. A friend of one of the participants in our group was in the Battle of the Bulge, and he is going to come in to tell about his experience and answer our questions, and his wife is going to tell us what it was like at home in America while the war was going on. I think this is going to be a fabulous opportunity and am so pleased at their generosity in spending time with us. Frances and the girls will continue with an American Girl club of sorts, and I think we're going to concentrate on the roles of women in the war--women pilots, women in administrative positions, women in the military, and women working at home. We'll also probably do something related to the use of dogs in the war, the qualifications for dogs who would serve in the Army, and how the dogs were trained. Knitting went over pretty well, so if we have extra time, we might knit some more, and maybe we'll try one more ration recipe.
Tonight, in preparation for next week, we read a book about the Battle of the Bulge and came up with some questions to ask our guests. Ollie and I also read about 70 pages of a book about the Nazi occupation of Denmark called _Hitler's Canary_. It's a great book so far, though I think that there's just a lot for Ollie to grasp. Ollie, Walter, and I are also reading _Big Red_ together, and we all love it. Earlier this week, Ollie and I read the second book of the _Island_ series and the first of the _Dive_ series by Gordon Korman. Huge, huge hit. And before that, we read _Nory Ryan's Song_ and _Maggie's Door_, both fabulous books about the immigrant experience in the 19th century and the Irish potato blight and English occupation of the 1840s. It was a very productive reading week, probably because it was freezing, crazy cold this week and there was little else to take our time. I would have been happy to just sit in bed all day reading and never leave the house.
And finally, today we went rock climbing with one other friend. It was our regular homeschool group climbing day, but other obligations and probably climbing interest were taking their effect. While I would definitely say it was kind of nice to have the gym pretty much to ourselves for most of the time, it also meant a non-stop belay fest for the two adults. There was not a minute of break in there! Both boys climbed about 11 or 12 walls, so my shoulders and neck are definitely going to be feeling it tomorrow. Not a help in a week when I had to regain my bowling pro status on the Wii, which has left my back and arms less than happy.
You know how when you download your pictures from the camera onto the computer there are often some, well, unexpected ones that you know you didn't take? This one showed up on mine.
"What is this?" I exclaimed. And guess who claimed the photo? That's right. Walter. "That's Cheese Wax Man!" Cheese Wax Man. With buttons all over him and googly eyeballs. On my bedroom window.
Frances has officially quit gymnastics. Our official written notice was given, as well as our verbal notice to her coach and the gym owner. Everyone is sad to see her leave. We heard again what we've heard all along about her: she is a very gifted gymnast who naturally does what other girls take a great amount of work to learn. Both gyms have said that she has the most potential coming through the door that they've seen in years. Alas, she's a burnt out gymnast.
Her first and last meet. She's the very short one at the far right, the shortest person in a short-people sport. Tonight was to be her second meet, but she's not there. Waaah!So today she was signed up for soccer, which won't start for another month or so, which gives her a nice break from too many activities. I'm not sure I'm ready for soccer--all those weekends, all those freezing practices in March and early April, the kind of boring games to watch and keep Rutledge out of trouble at. She'll be playing with the Chesterfield United club, which is one of two clubs close to our house, but not the one that Walter played for a few years ago.
She also is adding into the ballet and flamenco classes she needs in order to be up to snuff as part of the Little Company at her ballet company. She hates flamenco, so it's going to be a little battle, but flamenco is to Latin ballet what tap is to classical ballet--you generally are kind of sort of expected to be able to do at least some of it, and it's part of the basics that make up a well-rounded dancer. Plus it runs back to back with ballet, which is convenient. To top it all off, there's a woman teaching conversational Spanish to the other parents waiting, and I want to be in on it. I can passably read Spanish, but I can't speak it to save my life and can barely understand a word of it when other people speak it. This woman has a child in the class and also teaches high school Spanish, so I hope that Frances will be a flamenco girl for at least a few weeks so I can get some benefit myself.
Right now, Frances is at the river with her friend Lainey. Her goal for the weekend is to see another dolphin. She saw dolphins mating the last time she was there. Unfortunately, last time she was there she also sprouted a 104 degree fever and had to come home early. We're hoping to avoid a replay of that one.
Next weekend Frances goes with Annie and Tim for three days to see a theater production and visit with some friends she has made in Lynchburg. Busy, busy girl.
We are making our own plans for upcoming adventures. I am signed up for a tennis trip to Hilton Head at the beginning of next month, and I have been excited since the summer to go somewhere where we aren't weighed down with the stress of a huge tournament and where it's all about the clinics and the party. Then I might be going on a beach trip with some friends at the end of next month. And I'm working on setting up a long weekend in April at a friend's cabin in Southwest Virginia near Mount Rogers. In May we have booked a beach house in Hatteras, NC for a week. I can't remember correctly now, but I think we chose a different house than the one we had last time, and it might not even be quite as far down as Hatteras. I feel so fortunate that we are available pre-season, when rates are super low. We are also working on fitting in a weekend trip to Washington, DC for Kerry to do some things with his business and when I can see the Postal Museum and the Spy Museum and the various memorials, something we frequently miss on our museum trips. Then we have a lull for most of the summer--things tend to grind to a halt when swim team season begins.
I am into my 4th week now of being gluten free. So far, I'm not ready to throw in the towel, though a lovely delivered pizza does make my resolve weaken, and I'd just about kill for a really awesome sandwich. But I think it's mostly the allure of the forbidden. I have been eating fairly well, probably even better than I did before this experiment. We are having more things like chicken or hamburgers or pasta dishes for lunch. I've made some really good chocolate chip cookies--good even in comparison to regular old gluten cookies--and some pumpkin bread and muffins which don't taste gluten free to me. But mostly I've steered free of baked goods as a whole and concentrated on things naturally without gluten, and there are tons of them: fruits, vegetables, cheeses, salads, corn puffy things, meats that I make myself, Chinese foods. I made spring rolls last night, something I probably never would have attempted if I wasn't spurred on by my new diet. They were so good! And I felt rather accomplished working with the rice skins and getting a pretty and tasty result. I took the kids on a little impromptu field trip to Tan-A, the largest of the Asian markets here, and they were so enthralled by all of the stinky fish sitting out and the non-American products, like canned squid and dried jellyfish and all kinds of parts of animals that we get grossed out by. They all got candy, and Walter has nearly built a shrine to Pocky now. And I was able to stock up on many staple items for my pantry much more cheaply than if I buy them at Ukrop's or at the natural foods stores: white rice flour, sweet rice flour, tapioca starch, and rice noodles and bean threads. I know it's hard to get into the excitement that is $.90 a pound sweet rice flour, but it really is cause for gluten-free celebration! There were also a lot of little snacky things that were inexpensive that I can actually eat. Cool.
This Monday, our little learning group did another Zoom/Think! challenge. This one involved 100 pennies and stacking them into a structure that had four pennies on the bottom layer touching the ground and was at least 5 inches wide and 2 inches high. Most of the kids had some trouble with this, so I'm not sure we totally had any who achieved the original challenge, but above is one of the attempts. I'm seeing more than 4 on the bottom...
Previously we have done other challenges, including this one where teams of two had to build a "box" that would insulate an ice cube and keep it from melting at the same rate that the control cube did. The materials they had were a shoe box, newspaper, aluminum foil, tape, rubber bands, and waxed paper.
That same day we also designed these "Puff-Mobiles." The materials given were one sheet of paper, four Life-Savers, three straws, paper clips, and Scotch tape. The goal was to make a vehicle that could move 6 feet in fewer "puffs" of air than the competitors' vehicles and to make a vehicle that could move further than the competition. We did numerous heats to find winners, but all of the creations were fun to see and performed well.
Our several family history group is heavy into World War II right now. Last week the boys wrote about the Battle of the Atlantic and the Battle of Okinawa, and this week they will be talking about home front matters. I would love to see them write a little bit more, so I might slip some small assignment in on a related topic. Then next week we will have a couple come in to talk about their war experiences. A friend of one of the participants in our group was in the Battle of the Bulge, and he is going to come in to tell about his experience and answer our questions, and his wife is going to tell us what it was like at home in America while the war was going on. I think this is going to be a fabulous opportunity and am so pleased at their generosity in spending time with us. Frances and the girls will continue with an American Girl club of sorts, and I think we're going to concentrate on the roles of women in the war--women pilots, women in administrative positions, women in the military, and women working at home. We'll also probably do something related to the use of dogs in the war, the qualifications for dogs who would serve in the Army, and how the dogs were trained. Knitting went over pretty well, so if we have extra time, we might knit some more, and maybe we'll try one more ration recipe.
Tonight, in preparation for next week, we read a book about the Battle of the Bulge and came up with some questions to ask our guests. Ollie and I also read about 70 pages of a book about the Nazi occupation of Denmark called _Hitler's Canary_. It's a great book so far, though I think that there's just a lot for Ollie to grasp. Ollie, Walter, and I are also reading _Big Red_ together, and we all love it. Earlier this week, Ollie and I read the second book of the _Island_ series and the first of the _Dive_ series by Gordon Korman. Huge, huge hit. And before that, we read _Nory Ryan's Song_ and _Maggie's Door_, both fabulous books about the immigrant experience in the 19th century and the Irish potato blight and English occupation of the 1840s. It was a very productive reading week, probably because it was freezing, crazy cold this week and there was little else to take our time. I would have been happy to just sit in bed all day reading and never leave the house.
And finally, today we went rock climbing with one other friend. It was our regular homeschool group climbing day, but other obligations and probably climbing interest were taking their effect. While I would definitely say it was kind of nice to have the gym pretty much to ourselves for most of the time, it also meant a non-stop belay fest for the two adults. There was not a minute of break in there! Both boys climbed about 11 or 12 walls, so my shoulders and neck are definitely going to be feeling it tomorrow. Not a help in a week when I had to regain my bowling pro status on the Wii, which has left my back and arms less than happy.
You know how when you download your pictures from the camera onto the computer there are often some, well, unexpected ones that you know you didn't take? This one showed up on mine.
"What is this?" I exclaimed. And guess who claimed the photo? That's right. Walter. "That's Cheese Wax Man!" Cheese Wax Man. With buttons all over him and googly eyeballs. On my bedroom window.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
My addled brain is at it again. This time it was this Women's Getaway Weekend with women from our new church. It's not a matter of not writing it on my calendar. My new trend is to put things on my calendar, directly from emails detailing specifics of an event, and to put it on the wrong date. I did it to this major event, and I did it to an all-day Institute for Excellence in Writing seminar and a kids' writing workshop. Thankfully I caught that one, since every time I looked a month ahead at my weekends on February, I would think, Hmm, I don't remember it being on Valentine's Day. Because, well, it isn't.
So I just returned today. It was great. I was so incredibly nervous and most definitely wondering what I had been thinking when I signed up for this thing. I was sharing a hotel room with three other women whose names I didn't even know, and I am a person who is a bit squeamish about sharing a space like that even with people in my own family or who are close friends. So this was stepping out for sure. My fears were unfounded. While I still don't feel like I'm the most inside track person there, I did get to know several people much better than I did before, and I think I learned some things about myself, uncovered some things in my life that are more worrisome or provoking than I had believed they were. The topic of the weekend was "change," and the group sessions, which were a smallish part of the weekend, were especially helpful for talking through areas that we'd like to change in our lives and the obstacles keeping us from doing so and what we might have to lose if we did open ourselves to changing. The bulk of our time, though, was spent doing things like shopping at the outlets, dancing to goofy group dance songs (that Cuban shuffle or whatever it's called, various line dances, and other annoying stomping things), and playing that game where everyone sits in a chair in a circle and one person stands in the middle and says something like, "I've had sex in my kitchen" and then everyone else that the statement applies to has to run and switch seats, and the person left standing is the one who has to come up with the next "I wear contacts" statement. It was loads of fun, and the statements got very goofy after a while. I spent way too much money on way too many clothes for everyone except Kerry. I had no idea there was a Hanna Andersson outlet there, which was just plain dangerous. I picked up a sweater and a pair of pants for myself, both $5, but I wiped the place out for the kids. Most of the stuff there is pretty basic, and most of what I got is rather bland--solid color polos, solid color t-shirts, both short and long sleeved, two pairs or shorts for Rutledge, those adorable striped short johns for Rutledge, khaki pants, some leggings for a dress Frances already had. I also bought some red corduroy pants, a sweater to match (not corduroy!), a couple of shirts, and socks. I realized on Saturday that I was wearing unmatching socks, and that kind of thing has to change....
I'm still reading Twilight, and I feel like there's something wrong with me. Intelligent people who are savvy and thoughtful readers abhor these books, and I can't get enough. It doesn't even bother me that they never have sex...in fact, it makes it all the more alluring and tense. I'm not a vampire person, not a fantasy person, so this is already out of my comfort zone by a long shot, so I'm not looking for one of those erotic vampire novels; in fact, I do my best to try to forget that he's a unnaturally quick moving, mind-reading vampire because...I hate vampire books. And the werewolf thing, well, that's just over the top. But here I still am, edgy and waiting for more.
Tomorrow is our co-op, where we are doing a WWII class for the first part and some Think! activities for the second part. I need to firm up what we're going to do. I am with the girls, and they are reading American Girl books about Molly, the girl on the home front. I roll my eyes at the commercialism and triteness of the whole AG enterprise, but it is awfully convenient, and the books are not poorly written. They do a much better job of covering material than those darn Magic Treehouse books, which obviously are written for a slightly younger audience, but could certainly weave in more facts and topical information than they do. What I especially like about the AG books are the photos at the end and the historical notes that flesh out some of the material mentioned in the narrative story. So tomorrow I think we're going to read the first Molly book, do a little more knitting, which is what we did last week after reading about the Lend-A-Hand Contest where the girls in the class knit squares to sew into a quilt, and we'll make a blue star flag. After that, we'll perhaps make another ration recipe and listen to some more 40s music. Can I say again how much I love XM? It's my understanding that the whole group is going to make miniature Victory Gardens.
I am off to read a bit more before crashing. I've been up until 2 or 2:30 two nights in a row, added on top of sleeping poorly in a hotel room.
So I just returned today. It was great. I was so incredibly nervous and most definitely wondering what I had been thinking when I signed up for this thing. I was sharing a hotel room with three other women whose names I didn't even know, and I am a person who is a bit squeamish about sharing a space like that even with people in my own family or who are close friends. So this was stepping out for sure. My fears were unfounded. While I still don't feel like I'm the most inside track person there, I did get to know several people much better than I did before, and I think I learned some things about myself, uncovered some things in my life that are more worrisome or provoking than I had believed they were. The topic of the weekend was "change," and the group sessions, which were a smallish part of the weekend, were especially helpful for talking through areas that we'd like to change in our lives and the obstacles keeping us from doing so and what we might have to lose if we did open ourselves to changing. The bulk of our time, though, was spent doing things like shopping at the outlets, dancing to goofy group dance songs (that Cuban shuffle or whatever it's called, various line dances, and other annoying stomping things), and playing that game where everyone sits in a chair in a circle and one person stands in the middle and says something like, "I've had sex in my kitchen" and then everyone else that the statement applies to has to run and switch seats, and the person left standing is the one who has to come up with the next "I wear contacts" statement. It was loads of fun, and the statements got very goofy after a while. I spent way too much money on way too many clothes for everyone except Kerry. I had no idea there was a Hanna Andersson outlet there, which was just plain dangerous. I picked up a sweater and a pair of pants for myself, both $5, but I wiped the place out for the kids. Most of the stuff there is pretty basic, and most of what I got is rather bland--solid color polos, solid color t-shirts, both short and long sleeved, two pairs or shorts for Rutledge, those adorable striped short johns for Rutledge, khaki pants, some leggings for a dress Frances already had. I also bought some red corduroy pants, a sweater to match (not corduroy!), a couple of shirts, and socks. I realized on Saturday that I was wearing unmatching socks, and that kind of thing has to change....
I'm still reading Twilight, and I feel like there's something wrong with me. Intelligent people who are savvy and thoughtful readers abhor these books, and I can't get enough. It doesn't even bother me that they never have sex...in fact, it makes it all the more alluring and tense. I'm not a vampire person, not a fantasy person, so this is already out of my comfort zone by a long shot, so I'm not looking for one of those erotic vampire novels; in fact, I do my best to try to forget that he's a unnaturally quick moving, mind-reading vampire because...I hate vampire books. And the werewolf thing, well, that's just over the top. But here I still am, edgy and waiting for more.
Tomorrow is our co-op, where we are doing a WWII class for the first part and some Think! activities for the second part. I need to firm up what we're going to do. I am with the girls, and they are reading American Girl books about Molly, the girl on the home front. I roll my eyes at the commercialism and triteness of the whole AG enterprise, but it is awfully convenient, and the books are not poorly written. They do a much better job of covering material than those darn Magic Treehouse books, which obviously are written for a slightly younger audience, but could certainly weave in more facts and topical information than they do. What I especially like about the AG books are the photos at the end and the historical notes that flesh out some of the material mentioned in the narrative story. So tomorrow I think we're going to read the first Molly book, do a little more knitting, which is what we did last week after reading about the Lend-A-Hand Contest where the girls in the class knit squares to sew into a quilt, and we'll make a blue star flag. After that, we'll perhaps make another ration recipe and listen to some more 40s music. Can I say again how much I love XM? It's my understanding that the whole group is going to make miniature Victory Gardens.
I am off to read a bit more before crashing. I've been up until 2 or 2:30 two nights in a row, added on top of sleeping poorly in a hotel room.
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