One of the hallmarks of the IEW writing program is that it requires students to consciously use all 6 of the "dress-ups" that it introduces in every single paragraph until they have internalized the process and can then be less conscious about it and still have varied sentence openings and structures. So in that spirit, here's a little composition of mine.

Amazingly, I jogged a level two miles with the novice group of runners from our church who are training for the upcoming Monument Avenue 10k race in March. While I typically consider myself to be a mediocre, if not incompetent runner, today I shocked myself by not becoming excessively winded or throwing up. Because I was able to complete the entire run without walking, I am now looking forward to the training I will do for the next six days and promise myself that I will not slack off like I did last week.

See? There's a:

--who/which clause
--"ly" adverb
--because clause
--quality adjective
--strong verb
--adverbial clause (www.asia: when, while, where, as, if, since, although)

I am doing my best to help my boys and my students in class to produce work with these kinds of stylistic elements, and especially for them to do it naturally. The writing that results is often varied, interesting, complex, and helps them create better cohesion because the required adverbial clauses tend to make them logically link ideas together, which can create a better flow for the reader. I am so very pleased. I have seen a complete transformation, especially in Ollie, who used to be phobic about writing. He still is a very, um, challenged speller, and he seems to have an on-again, off-again relationship with punctuation and capitals. But that aside, he has allowed himself to become much more creative in his written work, and he can now face a blank sheet of paper without panic or seizure. Here is part of a recent piece of writing he did, and I'm shocked to say that it only took him about 45 minutes to produce a 3 page story, something I would never have believed possible even 3 months ago. I have edited for punctuation and spelling here, but here is the middle of his fable about the Lion and the Shepherd (a version of Androcles and the Lion)

"As he was hobbling by, a shepherd who was named Carlos heard the anguished screams of the lion. Carlos cogitated ,"What a poor creature! I must help him!" So he nonchalantly walked up to the lion and pulled out the sharp, glistening barb from the sole of the lion's foot. As soon as it was out, the lion did a backflip and rode a unicycle to show his utmost appreciation and then shimmied down the rocks into the darkness."

I could not be more pleased! And he handwrote his first draft, which I know is difficult for him. We have been practicing this week with some other stories, though I've only had them discussing them orally with our Story Sequence Chart or I've been writing down an outline with their help. Breaking down the process into smaller parts is really helping them get a handle on a concept that is new and more involved than what they've done in writing so far. Now they must ask questions, consider the elements of a story and how it develops, analyze for theme or moral (is the moral of "Where the Wild Things Are" to not sass your mother or that running off on your own is not as satisfying as it sounds when you are angry and hurt or that being a benign dictator isn't a fair tradeoff for being away from the love of your family?), and then put that into words using a specific set of stylistic techniques. I'm ready to start Frances with the program, too, after seeing how well it both promotes creativity and gives comforting boundaries. She is not a reluctant writer, but she could use some strategies to help her stories have a greater sense of plot and development, rather than many episodes and excessive, if very creative details. I love really finding something that is a good fit for us and not wondering whether I should be using something else!

Last night was a banner tennis night. Not to brag, but I played the absolute best tennis of my life. I was aggressive, not at all afraid of the net, I was running around like a madwoman and sweating buckets, and I was getting to balls that I normally would have considered a lost cause. It was an amazing feeling to know that I had played my hardest and best and that we won (6-2, 6-2), but also deserved the win because we had worked for it. Sometimes I don't feel completely in sync with my partner, and because Hilary and I don't play together very often (only at this particular tournament, actually, which is only once a year), it can be awkward because we do not always read each other's needs and movements. Last night we were simply on. As a result, we won the A Flight of the 6.5 and under division, which was exciting. And if that wasn't enough, I won a raffle item, a free one-hour lesson with one of the pros at her club. I love private lessons, but since they tend to run around $50/hr, I don't get to do them as often as I'd like, so this was a super prize for me. Plus, now that I am on fire for tennis, I'm motivated to up my game and throw my whole self into it (okay, not the whole self, but as much as I can spare from my teaching roles and obsession with iPod Skeeball). I think I did win a "loser's bracket" before at Woodlake at a tournament (though I never did get that Woodlake dri-fit tank top I was supposed to have been given as a prize!), but normally I end up out in a semi-final round. This is hopefully the beginning of something big.

I love days when we don't have a lot of stuff to do, and today and tomorrow are among them. We are watching movies (the boys are watching "9" right now, but it's not my type of flick), I took Frances out to buy some craft supplies (she wants to sell shell animals and friendship bracelets as well as regular and gluten-free baked goods at a farmer's market this spring), and we went to the library to get some origami books. Kerry and I were able to go out to lunch sans children after the run/walk this morning. And tonight I'm going to take as many people as I can cajole to go to see Thoroughly Modern Millie at the local high school. Tomorrow I'll need to prep for my classes and inventory our ski supplies. Walter and Ollie are going on Monday morning bright and early, so they will miss their Monday classes. I'm jealous, since I want to chaperone and can't because I have to teach. Doesn't being responsible suck sometimes?!

I am a happy tennis girl! Okay, so I keep losing, but I'm a winner anyway :). I am playing in a member-guest tournament with a friend, and we won our first match, lost our second, and lost our third in a tie-breaker...but we actually won. How does this happen? Well, as soon as we got off the court and reported our score (1-6, 7-5, and a 7-1 tiebreaker), we were told that we still won because one of the players on the other team was a substitute, since the original partner was sick. That is a huge bummer for them, and I felt really bad. On the plus side, however, we advance to the finals in the A flight (the top of the "loser" bracket). Plus except for that first set, where I was really dizzy and felt faint and vaguely like I was going to barf, I was totally on in the second set, and I felt like I played well and aggressively. Considering I haven't been on a court for almost 3 months and am relatively out of shape and, ahem, didn't get bumped up to 3.5 like I think I should have been based on my record for the past two years, I'm rather pleased with how well I'm doing. Overall, I have had a great time and felt pretty on this week. Tomorrow night we face our final match of this tournament, and I think we honestly have a good chance of doing well. These ladies were defeated in a tiebreaker tonight by the ladies we played our first night of the tournament. Not that this necessarily means anything, but hopefully we have a shot at it. I have won my flight one other time in a club tournament, but usually I only make it to the semi-finals; this is the boost I need to get off to a good start once the real season starts for me in two months.

I am really rather very excited to throw myself wholeheartedly into tennis again. Surburban starts the last week of March, which I'm sure will be cold. I was not very engaged this fall and I didn't play in many matches. My goal this time is to play as often as I can, hopefully with some help from Kerry getting Frances and the boys to drama and math class. This summer I hope to play 3-6 times a week. I was a slacker last summer because we were busy and I was stressed and could barely fit one more thing into my schedule, but this year should be back to obsession again.

And I made my decision about next year. We are signing up for Classical Conversations. I'm hoping that this will be a good move for us and will give us the structure and academic community we need. The pluses of it are that it is relatively affordable, it is close to our house (15 minutes or so), it is complete (6 subjects, covering all core areas), it is rigorous (the expectations sheet clearly sets up many hours of work at home each week), and it uses all of the kinds of curricula that we either are already using or would like to use. They use Saxon for math, which is what we have been using for about 3 years now. They study Latin, which is what we have been doing for the past 2 years, and they use IEW, which is what we use for writing. I'm so extremely excited that I wish it would just happen right now and we could get started right away! A huge bonus is that all four kids can attend. Walter, Ollie, and Frances will probably all be there from 8:30-3:00, and Rutledge will go from 9-1. I love it when I feel really confident about a choice I've made and can feel at peace with it; I am the world's worst decision maker because I see nothing but shades of gray in everything and waste way too much energy on second guessing and buyer's remorse. I'm not feeling that at the moment, and I'm not feeling torn any more. Yay!

There is an incredible smell wafting from my downstairs. I thought it was the bowl of Pad Thai that someone left on my dresser (yes, we do have a rule that food must be eaten in the kitchen!), but now I'm realizing that there must be a Crockpot set to go all night with a roast or turkey in it. It smells like beef, but I know that we have a turkey thawing in our refrigerator that needed to be cooked today or tomorrow, so I'm guessing that that is it. I sure hope so, since that would make a most scrumptious breakfast.

Choices, choices. It's always a matter of figuring out a priority. And it seems like every single day has too many choices to make because a body can't be in two places at once.

To go to flute lesson that was rescheduled or game day because I needed to get out? Hey, why not both?! Now it's to go to the free play at Henley Street Theatre tonight or to small group. I'm going to go to the play because the kids will really benefit from it, and I don't know much about commedia dell arte and probably should. We've been to one other performance at Henley Street (All's Well that Ends Well, I believe), and it was interesting and provocatively done (though admittedly hard for 9 or 10 year olds to get into with a lack of sets and a more modern setting). Tonight's show was advertised as for all ages, though it's 8:00 start time is rather late.

And then there's the big decision: Westminster or Classical Conversations. I'm leaning CC right now, but the pressure is on to choose very quickly. We shall see...

Tennis is a very lovely sport when you are winning. So tonight I really like tennis. Considering how little I've played this fall and winter, I think we did fairly well at this member-guest event. Tomorrow night is likely to not look quite so lovely, but that's okay. One day of happy tennis is better than none. And it's always nice to see familiar faces of players that I see during the regular seasons as well as at this event. My plan for the spring and summer is to throw myself whole hog back into tennis, though I suppose I'll still have to have some tennis boundaries when it comes to morning school times. Or maybe not. It will all depend on how self-sufficient everyone seems to be when the time comes.

You have to be a homeschooler with kids you worry about to appreciate this next momentous announcement: Walter took notes today. Beautiful, properly spelled notes in readable handwriting, with detail and thoroughness. And apparently without threats or bribes of any kind. He is taking a 16 week life science class right now, and they are studying cells. It looks like there was a lecture/discussion today about the parts of a cell, and he came out with two pages of information, including well-drawn diagrams and a lengthy metaphor about the cell as a productive city.

The other exciting thing that happened today is that Ollie wrote a whole little report (only two paragraphs and several pictures put into Powerpoint) in less than an hour. It wasn't a big deal. I wasn't involved at all. We remembered it at 8:30 last night, he went off and looked up information online about Death Valley, he made himself a keyword outline without input from me, and he wrote two paragraphs while I was upstairs. The only help he really needed was with formatting it in Powerpoint so that things fit neatly on a single frame. A year ago this would have sounded like a miracle. This fall it would have taken three hours and intensive direction and help from me. There is hope. And I really do feel like IEW works, especially in taking the fear and mystery out of writing for people like boys, who often think they can't write or go into a panic at an assignment. There was no panic here, no anxiety. He just did it. Way cool.

Frances brought home a gigantic "castle" made from cardboard boxes today from her Story of the World class. In my disaster of an upstairs in the house where I'm always moving furniture, this is really quite the last thing that I needed, and if this 4x4 foot castle wasn't big enough, it has spawned a trash-building spree that will probably last for days. I applaud her creativity, but I am going to have to be forceful about my need to be able to walk safely through a room.

Mondays always exhaust me. I love Tuesdays because they ask so little. I can sleep comparatively late (Rutledge has to get to preschool), we have all morning to do our work, and the boys don't have any activities until Ollie's dive practice at 7. I don't have to prepare anything for anybody except people in my own family. The only trouble I see right now is that I doubt we can find any of our schoolbooks in this hellhole of a house. The downstairs is pretty decent, but the upstairs, where the work gets done, is anything but conducive to good study habits or concentration. Perhaps I should burn the midnight oil and get some organization going before the gang wakes up.

Our new read-aloud is "The Christopher Killer," which is a very graphic young adult novel about a 17 year old girl who wants to be a forensic pathologist and helps her coroner father investigate a gruesome body scene. It's off to a great, if late start. Frances is reading Kit, the American Girl's first story to herself, and I'm reading "Skylark" with her. We're also reading some James Herriot dog stories. I'm amazed at how much Walter has changed in the past few months, going from never listening to books to being totally engrossed and noticing when his vocabulary words go by (which is very often) or when derivatives of their Latin words appear.

The hardest decision I'm trying to make now is what to do with next year. On the one hand, I like doing our own thing, and I like choosing my own curricula and being free to change when things aren't working out as planned. On the other, I appreciate having direction from outside, having some structure imposed upon us by obligation, and having other adults involved in my children's lives, especially as motivators to urge them to build up their strengths. Some positive peer pressure is also not something I'm afraid of--the motivation of wanting to share something good with the class or to feel like they are competitive and competent pushes them to do really nice work and that makes them proud. Originally these are not things that I thought I needed or wanted for them, but at this point in our lives, I'm seeing more value in this. What I need to mull over is whether we should stay doing the bulk or our out of the house stuff with the homeschool center where we go now, if we should look toward attending one of the several homeschool "academies" that run much like schools that meet two days a week, or if we should do something like Classical Conversations, which provides a structured day for middle and high schoolers. It's a lot to think about. Thank goodness we actually do seem to have options, including the option to just keep piecing together what works for us in the here and now.

The worst part of playing tennis in the winter: it makes your nose run terribly.

If I devoted as much time to my blog as I do to flicking my finger across my iPod screen playing Skeeball, I would already be at post #200 for this particular blog. It seems right now I'm at 182, which feels like a lot of posts, but considering what a long amount of time they have been over, it's not super for regular writing.

We're in a heavy reading mode lately. Yesterday Frances finished "Sarah, Plain and Tall," which she was reading to discuss with her friend Lainey. Now we are reading "Skylark," the sequel, though we're alternating who is reading. We also read Ursula LeGuin's "Catwings" today. It's a book that doesn't really float my boat; to tell the truth, I feel like nothing happens in the book. But whatever. It's a funny little concept. I have been reading Cynthia Lord's "Rules" with all three kids, and Ollie and I both finished it this afternoon. Walter and Frances have lower reading thresholds than we do, so they have about 40 more pages to go. I loved this book, as did Ollie. Walter, alas, is missing some of the point, which is sort of ironic since he himself is closest to being on the spectrum, but of course, he doesn't recognize any of himself in the character with autism. He just sees someone who is different. Walter, Ollie, and I also just finished reading A Midsummer Night's Dream together, and we are planning to see a filmed version of it tomorrow. Our next play will be Romeo and Juliet. I realizing that we need to allot about 2 weeks per play, and we'll probably do four this year. I have in mind The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth. We tend to do these simultaneously with novels, and next up is "The Pearl." We wrapped up "Caddie Woodlawn" yesterday, and though this is often typed as a "girl book," both of them loved it and begged for more. I had never read it, so it was a special event for me as well.

Sunday is always the hardest day of the week for me. I have to prepare for my classes, so I always spend hours making monotonous photocopies and breathing in the fumes of toner. I think I have it under control now, so I hope that it won't take as long as usual, and I have an easy week because I don't have to grade papers because there was no assignment over the break. I am excited about the move we've made into Unit III of the IEW program. This is getting us closer to the kind of analytical writing that I'd like the kids to get to soon. They now must ask their own questions and find their own answers before they begin writing, and then they put that into written words using the various stylistic elements they have learned. I had Walter and Ollie do a few keyword outlines this week, and the task is definitely getting much easier. Lucky me, I have a whole stack of Time for Kids magazines, and I think those are going to be a treasure trove of material for short writing assignments. Poor kids.

I am back on the Saving Dinner program for the week. It has been over a year since I've tried this, but I feel like we need to start saving some money on food. Saving Dinner is a cookbook with weekly menus and shopping lists, an offshoot of a popular website to which one can subscribe and get weekly menus. Almost everything in it is naturally gluten free, and if it isn't, it can usually easily be made so. And speaking of gluten free, in the past few days I've found a number of very exciting products. I am in love with the square chocolate cookies made by Jo-Sef. I also made a loaf of white bread that I think would be very good if I didn't make it in my bread machine. I don't know what went wrong, but the bread came out thick, doughy feeling, and with a powdery white floury residue all over it. I ate a lot of it anyway, and it tasted good, but it would be better if it was more breadlike and had a more appetizing appearance. This was a Schar brand mix, and while the price is a bit high ($6), if it makes something that gives us sandwiches back, I'm open to it. Tomorrow I plan to make buttermilk biscuits, and hopefully those will be more beautiful and will taste fairly normal. I have five other new kinds of cookies to try as well. I know that we don't always eat well or smart while we are GF, but I'm determined we're going to do a better job.

Walter and Ollie are off at a sleepover (as always, it seems), so it has been a quiet evening at home. We're back in swimming mode lately, though I didn't go in the pool tonight. Frances and Rutledge did a lot of diving and twisting jumps off the diving board, and I'm enjoying the fact that I don't always have to be in with them any more, since both of them can swim somewhere between reasonably and extremely well. Normally we get a bit burned out on the pool by the time fall comes, but after Christmas, we find ourselves swimming more and more often. Frances and Rutledge especially love to go, and I have two new bathing suits that I got for Christmas that I need to start using. Our pool currently has a challenge with prizes for miles that we swim. We can win a cap when we swim 25 miles, goggles for 50, and fins for 100. I think I'm going to go for that, but the first step is getting my shivering, out of shape body into the pool. I know, it's the skinny girl complaining, but I don't have much to keep me warm in the water, so even 83 degrees bothers me. And I'm afraid. And a bad swimmer. But 25 miles isn't the end of the world, and I know I can do it. I know I don't get enough exercise, and this is one thing that I could do with the kids that wouldn't be weather-impacted. I'd also like to get to a yoga class each week, but I'm trying to see which one would fit. It has to be a gentle flow yoga, since I haven't been in such a long time. I doubt I could stand on one leg without falling over.

The most amusing thing about having Frances sleep with me is how many stuffed animals come and crowd my bed. I drew the line at 3, but I'm about to go to bed with a bunny, a cow, and a giant monkey. And one sweet girl who has a long track record of barfing while she has a bed partner. I sure hope this habit is one that she outgrows before she is an adult; I can't imagine the guy who would stay with someone who creates such drama in the night!

The Ear, Part II, Wherein Nancy Finds Not Enough Relief Despite Trying A Half-Dozen Remedies

It has now officially been more than two weeks since this ear business started. Two nights ago I thought the full-fledged infection might be back, so I called my doctor in resignation, thinking that perhaps I had to take yet another antibiotic to ever hear normally again. Ear infections are one thing that I think allopathic medicine deals especially poorly with. Come in with an ear infection and you're going to leave with a prescription for an antibiotic. And chances are, you're going to be back in there in two weeks or so, and you're going to leave with another prescription for a stronger antibiotic. And if the number of children who have ear tubes put in is any indication of the efficacy of this course of treatment, it would appear that the standard route with pharmaceuticals is not exactly working.

I couldn't get an appointment yesterday, so I had one for today. Then I posted to the Birth Circle, which is an email list peopled primarily by families who have given birth using the same midwife I did. One person's husband is a chiropractor and offers a "birth circle discount," so I thought I'd take them up on that offer. I've never been to a chiropractor myself. Actually, I have pretty rarely had a lot of medical or physical problems anyway, at least nothing I've thought to go to a doctor of any kind about much. But I did take Ollie to a chiropractor for chronic ear infections when he was about 18 months old, and between that, homeopathy, and eliminating all dairy and casein from his diet, it was very effective and saved us from any further infections or the dreaded ear tubes, which I could not consent to. The chiropractic visit wasn't an instant success. I left having felt a definite big squinching and popping in my ear, but I still had the fluid feeling. The trouble with the chiropractor is that you have to keep going, and this was even more troublesome since this one is 35 minutes from home, which eats up my whole morning. But I went again. Again, the ear tug felt productive and crackly, but the fluid was still there, or at least much of it was. I think things were a little better, but not "normal."

While I was out, I also went to the Tuckahoe Library, which has a fabulous selection of movies. I came home with 8, which is beyond dangerous for someone like me who attempts to set world records with library fines. Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Streetcar Named Desire, A Man for All Seasons, a National Geographic documentary about the San Francisco Earthquake, The Founding Fathers, and then two for Frances. But I also wanted to go to Good Foods, which I knew had ear candles. I came out with ear candles, some new garlic and mullein oil (I simmered up my own concoction yesterday with fresh garlic, olive oil, and onion, and I've been reeking of garlic continuously since), a combination homeopathic remedy, a single remedy of pulsatilla, and a bottle of colloidal silver (for some reason the one I have at home tastes a little garlicky, which must mean something is wrong with it). You could call this the birdshot approach. One of them is likely to at least sort of hit the target.

I do think I'm doing better, finally. At least I don't feel like I'm heading toward a full-blown infection any more. I think I'm going to get better one day. My favorite attempt was the ear candling. I've never done it before, and it was fascinating. You put this paraffin-coated rolled cheesecloth tube in your ear and put a paper plate around it. Then someone lights the end and you let about 7 inches of the "candle" burn down, hopefully drawing out fluid and anything else in your ear as it goes. I used two of them in my right ear, and there was a lot of stuff in the bottom of the candle when I was done, but it would be hard to say whether some of that was paraffin or other byproduct of the candle itself, rather than grossness taken from my body. But I do feel a lot clearer since then. The garlic and mullein oil is also very soothing. I don't feel the pain I did before. With all of this, I have continued to try the trick suggested by an online friend--take a gulp of water in your mouth, then stick a bulb syringe up one nostril and make a tight seal and blow a syringe-full of air up your nose at the same moment that you swallow. It does make a little explosion in your ear, but so far it hasn't opened things up for good. But I'm an optimist!

We finished Caddie Woodlawn tonight, though it was very late--almost midnight. I couldn't resist having them go through it with the Story Sequence Chart we're learning right now in the IEW class. It has them break a story (no matter what the length, whether it's a one page Aesop fable or a 275 page novel) into a set of three paragraphs, and they answer specific questions for each one. The first paragraph they tell who, where, and when. The second they tell what--what happened, what's the plot, what did the character(s) say, what did they do. And the third tells what the climax was, how it was resolved, and perhaps any moral or message or theme. This book, though largely episodic, lent itself especially well to this. I think I was the one who was having fun with all of that, but any chance to illustrate how to prepare to right is one that I can't bear to pass by. Darnit, they are going to be competent writers soon if it kills me!

Today was Walter and Frances' first dissection class. It was really cool. They are starting with the most basic animals and working their way up. What is especially nice about this is that we own most of these animals. Today they took apart a sea urchin, and I was impressed with how much more complex inside it was than I had assumed. Next they will be dissecting a sponge (we've got two of those, too) and an anemone. Frances was disturbed by how bad her hands smelled afterwards, and she declared that she was going to have nauseating nightmares about the brown gook inside the urchin ("I'm going to throw up in the middle of the night tonight because that thing was so gross."--I sure hope she doesn't because she is sleeping in a tent in Rutledge's bedroom with about 20 stuffed animals all around her). But it was still a huge hit. I wish I could have gotten Ollie to take the class, but he claims he isn't interested in science, is repelled by cutting animals, and I didn't want to pay for him to be somewhere he doesn't want to be. So be it.

And, as always, the aquarium saga drags on. I went back to the old fish store we used to go to, and I was envious of all of the "nice" fish they had there. Sweet fish. Peaceful fish. My fish are assholes. They are pretty, but they're mean, just like a middle school girl. Most of the fish I'd like to get are not compatible with the jerks I have. And we had another 6 gallon pump-turned-siphon incident last week and blew out the timer that runs the lights. But that's not all I came home with. I'm not sure we're going to use it, but I came home with something that came in a big box that just says "THE TRAP." This is a fish trap, and I'm thinking of using it to capture my sailfin tang who is a major bully. He would be banished to the sump, which is a holding container for about 8 gallons of water down in the cabinet underneath the main aquarium. He'd stay there a few weeks and think about how naughty he has been, while meanwhile I would add in another couple of fish up top. By the time he returned from his exile, he would no longer be the dictator of the whole place; he'd have to figure out exactly how he fit into this new community and what his role would be. And hopefully all this figuring would happen in a non-violent sort of way. A new pecking order would be established, and I'd have more fish and my new additions wouldn't die of fright in 48 hours or less like the last two newcomers did.

I feel bad, though. That sounds mean. And what if he didn't survive in the sump? He's really an attractive fish, and the three that I have do manage to get along well and have a lot of personality. I guess I have to decide, do I want to be able to get more fish at some point, or is 3 fish in a 55 gallon tank going to satisfy me. While I was at this store, I also decided that I must have something blue in the tank (and not a fish). I had my eye on a blue clam, but my lighting isn't sufficient for him. I'd need to spend at least $350 on a whole new lighting setup with metal halides (I have two T5s), and I can't do that for a blue clam. So I'm sitting tight for now. I did come home with a special piece of plastic netting that can go over the spot where my sea slug and snails have been escaping so that there will be no more breaks for freedom. For now, that may have to suffice as my cool new acquisition.

It is uncommonly cold in my bedroom tonight. I don't know if there is a heat problem or what, but it has been progressively getting colder night by night. Normally, since heat rises, our upstairs is much more comfortable than the downstairs, but that definitely it not the case right now. I love cold weather, I love warm sweaters and soft pants and blazing fires and things getting cancelled. In many ways, I have no beef with coldness. That said, I don't really want to be out in it, either. I want to be home in front of the fire, sipping tea and reading a good book. This year I'm getting my fill of cold weather, though I sure could use a little more snow. Our reservoir is partially frozen just about the whole way across. You wouldn't want to walk on it or anything (even Rutledge commented that you can't step on it or you will get wet), but to see it like this day after day is noteworthy.

We've been having a great two weeks here. The dance show is over, and it was fabulous. It seems to improve each year, and the junior company was really polished; I was impressed. Frances adored every aspect of this past week--the many late rehearsals, the camaraderie with the girls backstage, the gossip and intrigue, the makeup and hair braiding, the opportunity to be on stage, the growing knowledge of how a theatre works. Now we're getting heavier into rehearsals for her next show. It's a lot of fun to watch, and it makes the inevitable driving and missed dinners so much easier when there's so much enthusiasm.

I'm giving up on the idea of a schoolroom and am working on getting desks set up in the boys' bedrooms. This morning I didn't supervise well enough, and the quality of the schoolwork showed it. You know how you get these key phrases, almost metaphors that enter your life and take on a life of their own? The new one is, "Is it anything a pink lamp might solve?" I was talking with Hilary about some challenges with Frances and doing the very tiny bit of work I ask of her, and she had mentioned buying a pink lamp for a desk. Might a pink lamp be the little thing that would add a bit of excitement and specialness to Frances's academic life? Could that, perhaps, be the magic bullet? Maybe it isn't all about workboxes or lapbooks or unschooling or experiential learning. Maybe everything could really be solved with nothing more than a trip to Target and a new pink desk lamp. The "pink lamp" for the twins, I think, just might be cushily padded, leatherette executive desk chairs. Wouldn't you just want to get right down to business with your Latin book sitting at an expansive, clear desk in a comfortable chair that made you feel like you owned the place?

The best part of our day is reading. I have a totally new child with Walter. I credit most of it to LearningRx this summer. He had a critical turning point where he became much more open to oral input. Before, he had been the kind of kid who was turning somersaults and playing with Legos or just plain leaving the room when I was reading, and no, he could not tell you, uncannily, everything that had just happened in the book; he was genuinely not paying attention and couldn't even give you the broadest, most sweeping strokes of plot or character. Now he begs for us to read longer, and he sits for hours at night (sometimes with Legos, but sometimes not). I used to pick what I thought would be higher-interest books for him and then would read other books with Ollie, who devours historical fiction and more complicated Newbery type books. But Walter is completely with us now. We just finished two books this week. The Thief Lord was the book for this month's library book club, and thank goodness there were two other girls there this time, since I worry about the viability of this "club." The librarian who facilitates is just awesome--she picks the best books and whether the kids are all alone or have comrades there, they have a great time and come out super-excited about the next pick and with a handful of other books by that author or on the same subject as this month's book. We're really looking forward to seeing the movie of the Thief Lord now. I read a little less than half of it aloud to them because I wanted to read it myself and we were having trouble sharing a single copy (we actually had two copies, but we just found the second tonight; it had fallen behind my headboard). Now we are about to finish Caddie Woodlawn, which is a Newbery winner that I have always heard of and haven't read. What a great book! We were all just smitten. I guess some would call it a "girl" book, but that's the beauty of reading aloud--I can get them to "read" things that they otherwise might not, and we always find that it was worthwhile for everyone. This was everything you want in a book--sweet, thought-provoking, historical, multiple characters that you really care about, clear themes that still have depth.

I'm off to the chiropractor again fairly early tomorrow to try to work on this ear problem. Life is far less pleasant when you're only hearing 2/3 of what anyone is saying.