New year, new me. Or something like that.
Today ended up with a lot of special events. And I like to say that "every day is special" when it comes to scheduling and routines. There's almost always something that's a wrench in the normal routine. We don't remember routines so much as what departed from that; that's what makes a day or week or year noteworthy. And today was full of departures.
Starting with me meeting some new friends at 7 a.m. for coffee. It's an understatement to say I'm not a morning person. In fact, I'm so much not one that I more than occasionally do things like I did yesterday: oversleeping until 10 a.m. when I needed to be somewhere at 10:30. I turned over, opened my eyes, looked at the alarm clock, and oh shit! But today, I was up before 6:30, showered, and out the door. It was really lovely being able to talk without worrying about the kids. And I have a sense of possibility and optimism about the day when I'm up early that just gets off to a rusty start when I don't face the day until after 9. So I'm going to see what I can do about shifting my days downward. Oh, who am I fooling! But it's worth a try.
Then it was off to Virginia Eye Institute, with the total hottie opthalmologist, because my eyelid has been blowing up to three times its normal size and sprouting an odd white pimple on the underside. Turns out that it's nothing big--an inflamed oil duct--and it has probably already taken care of itself when it exploded and left an icky flap of skin having over my eyeball yesterday. But it's good to know that I'm not going to have to keep wasting my precious disposable contacts and that I'm get back to wearing them in a few days. I hate wearing my glasses because they fit poorly and I am not fond of the way they look. My glasses are for nighttime use at home while watching TV before falling asleep, not for greeting the public.
No sooner did I set foot in the house than we had to pile in the car for Latin class. Tests came back today, and Walter is the most improved in the class, essentially going from a 33% to a 79% since the last test. Woohoo! He's finally getting it! Ollie got a 91%, which is also a vast, vast improvement. I don't care if they've been "failing" the tests in the past, because what matters to me is that they come to understand the material and master it, and we're making huge, huge strides in that direction. The past is the past--we know it now. I'm proud, and they're proud of themselves.
And then I moved on to my hair appointment. I haven't had my hair cut in several months, which is a big deal when you have short hair. I haven't had it highlighted since last spring. Which is also a big deal when you are getting closer to 40 and used to be a blond and now your hair is a flat, lifeless, very unspectacular used-to-be-blond-but-now-is-mushroom-brown. I always find myself in a quandary with hair appointments because the place I like to go costs too much, especially for services beyond the basic haircut, and so it's hard to commit to always going there with my frequent short-hair haircut needs. But the bargain places are so hit or miss on quality--one time it feels like the best value out there, and the next time I think, "Gee, I could hae gone to 13 Barbers if I wanted to look like this."
Today I went to the good place, and I went for the whole shebang--full highlights, toning, and a cut. Next thing I knew I had added in an eyebrow shaping (something I had planned anyway, but still, new person, new tip), and then I was sucked in by the makeup lady offering the free makeup. Only of course it's not free to get the mini-makeover, and it definitely wasn't free for me! I walked always with toner, moisturizer, and cleanser, foundation, eye shadow, eye liner, concealer, lip color, and blush. And probably even more than I'm forgetting. My wallet is a lot lighter!
I did sort of intend to replace my makeup soon, and I had been planning to perhaps go to Ulta, a store I've never set foot in and find intimidating because I know absolutely nothing about makeup and care even less. It's not a body of knowledge I'm dying to delve into, and I'm awful at making decisions. So today was pretty easy for me. Let someone choose stuff, put it on me, I like the way I look, and then I purchase the whole set of whatever she put on me. Done. I have to say, I've never worn purple eyeliner before, so this is a new comfort zone for me, but I really loved the way it brought out the color of my eyes. I just hope I can replicate at home what she did so adeptly. I was missing from class the day they taught How To Draw With Pencils Around Your Eyes and Finding Your Cheekbones and Coloring Inside the Lines with Lipstick.
I barely had any time at home when I had to head out for an evening with the author Lois Lowry. Awesome, awesome talk. We just read Number the Stars for co-op this week, so her work is fresh in our heads. And she spoke about her experiences growing up during World War II, with a father in the Army Dental Corps and her mother concerned and alone with three children. It fit so incredibly well with what we have been studying and talking about lately. Then her anecdotes about writing, sources for stories, her family experiences, what life was like in the 40s and 50s--priceless. I could not have asked for better. The boys sat with rapt attention for an hour and a half, which is really saying something about how captivating a speaker can be, even when you have lousy seats. And even more, I'm dying to read many of her books now that I hadn't heard of before. And I can see that her newest little series would be perfect for Frances. I cannot wait to get hold of them.
Meanwhile, in this most busy of weeks with many extra morning activities that we don't normally have, we have had lots of difficulty with our regularly daily routines and activities. Tuesday was the Aviation Museum, Wednesday was orienteering at Pocahontas, today was my eye appointment and then Latin. It all converged in one week to make us have little time at home. We need to take a breather! I miss our leisurely "normal."
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Our highlight of the day was a trip to the Virginia Aviation Museum to see the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the first black military aviators who trained and served during WWII. I suppose I've always taken for granted that WWII veterans are all around us, that they're just kind of, well, there. But the fact is, every day leaves us with fewer and fewer of them, and our opportunity to speak with them and thank them for their service and hear their stories is a fleeting one. This made me feel all the more eager to seize this chance to see representatives of such a groundbreaking group of men.
The presentation itself did not particularly hold the interest of my children. And that's okay. What is valuable to me about a day like today is that they will likely still not forget it--that we read about the Tuskegee Airmen, that they were the first all black aviation corps in the U.S. military, that they faced much discrimination and obstacles during their training and service, and that no planes were lost on the missions in Europe during which they served as escorts. They have an autograph in our reproduction WWI Spotter's Guide book from one of the comparatively few living Tuskegee Airmen. And the people that they see in pictures from that time period are actual, living people.
Their favorite part of the museum trip was piloting the flight simulator that did barrel rolls and complete flips. Hopefully one of the other meaningful experiences was seeing a display about World War II that included items we have been talking about for the past few weeks in co-op: ration books, War Bonds, original posters encouraging citizens to support the war effort by buying bonds to buy bombs, support aggressive military action (my favorite featured a man with a machine gun dripping ammo saying something like, "This is what the effort for peace looks like to me."), and encouraging enlistment (a particularly terrifying looking old man/Uncle Sammish soldier that you could hardly imagine saying "no" to!), and of course posters and references to Rosie the Riveter--even a "Riveting Handbook" explaining how to do the job. This display really brought our American Girl books and oral report topics to life.
The biggest news for the family today is that Rutledge does, indeed, qualify for speech therapy at our elementary school. It's no surprise. The sounds he most needs to work on are /k/, /g/, and all blends. He also uses his tongue on his /s/'s. I'm wondering when and how we'll fit this in with our already busy schedule! I took everyone with me, since I wasn't comfortable leaving them home alone and Kerry had meetings all morning, and it was interesting to have a bunch of non-schooled kids sitting in a school, working on their math. Frances was not so studious--she was playing with her virtual Littlest Pet Shop pet. She wanted to go out and sit in the hallway, as we were told we could do, but I insisted that she stay with us. I didn't want her to be captured and subsumed by a 1st grade class. Or more likely, have to answer questions from half a dozen passers-by about what she was doing there and where she belonged. To Frances, these were hardly issues. "I'll just say I'm homeschooled!" she said. To which Ollie scowled and snidely said, "She can hardly call herself a homeschooler. She's barely homeschooled. She never does any work!"
And here's a Frances-ism that she confided to me, as a retort: "I'm going to start doing schoolwork just like the boys when I turn 8."
Frances had another piano lesson today and is progressing nicely. I think as soon as the weather gets better I'm going to have her start riding her bike there, since it is only about 5-7 minutes away by bike across the school playing fields. Tonight was also her modern dance class, which is always a blast. She has a new friend in the class, and the size of the class seems to be growing by the week. I see a budding choreographer, too. She kept making suggestions to the instructor about how awkward elements could be resolved or recast ("We could go off in different directions instead of all in the same one," which the instructor decided to go with after listening). In their dance for the final performance, Frances's role has her rushing off and weeping into her hands, then the other girls coming over to comfort her and give her a flower. Next they all crouch down in child's pose and then one by one rise and raise arms with a flower growing high, then move their arms down incrementally and start turning off in a spin (Frances is finally slowing down and spotting more, which means less craziness and falling). It's really neat to watch how complex this dance is and how well the girls work together.
My celiac tests came back today, and they are, as expected, very negative. I feel a bit like a fool for having so many questions, or even caring at all about the answers to them. But I wonder things like whether the values would have been so low if I had not been gluten free, if they might have been elevated if I had had the blood drawn when I was still eating gluten and if 5 weeks would be enough time to make a response that low. In the end, it doesn't really matter. I'm staying GF no matter what through Lent. I don't normally give up anything for Lent--that's not a big Protestant thing in the demoninations I've been in--but it's a pretty convenient next timeframe, just like waiting for my birthday was. And I am redoubling my efforts to find the places where I am slipping up. My makeup, for one. Not that I wear it all that often, maybe once a week or so, but I discovered mine has oats in it (it's a mineral makeup, too, so I don't think an oat belongs in there). My shampoo is suspect. I don't see anything obvious on my own bottle, but other shampoos of this brand do have problems. I'm going to switch to something else. My toothpaste is safe--I had already checked that because it was going in my mouth. I now have seen my favorite homeopathic remedy, aconitum napellus, on a suspect list, and I'm not sure why. I took it when I had a cold, and I believed that homeopathic remedies are pretty much GF. I have eaten McDonald's french fries after hearing other GFCF people say they are safe because McD's uses separate fryers for their fries. But now I've read all about the big blowup over the questionable flavor additive in the oil and the potential deception, so that's out now. I also am committed to not cross-contaminating my kitchen any more. I'm going to dispose of my wheat flour and stop using it to bake for other people because I don't want to touch it or breathe it in. I am going to start operating a fully GF household for everyone, even though I don't expect them to eat GF when they are out or at someone else's house. Ideally everyone would go GF for Lent, but I don't think I can pull that off well without tons of fallout and cheating, primarily because they don't see themselves as having problems that might need alleviating. But it's starting to sound a little attractive...hmmm...Lent might be just the marketing ticket I need! I doubt it, though.
And last but not least, there's my eyeball. Or my eyelid, to be more exact. I've been having trouble for about 3 weeks, maybe longer, with a stye or some little pimply something on my left eyelid. I threw away my contact and got a new one, thinking that there was something wrong with my disposable contact. I replace mine monthly, so I got a new one. Things got bad again within two days, so I decided to get rid of that one, give my eyes a two week rest, and wait until the situation resolved. It doesn't look or feel like pinkeye. And the swelling and bump were gone within a day or so. I stayed with glasses for two weeks anyway. Then about four days ago I got a new contact, which is starting to use up my supply of contacts for the next 18 months. Today my eye started swelling and feeling worse and worse. It's not bothering me in a contact lenses kind of way, but I know I need to get a doctor involved now. Sigh.... I have so little free time at the moment to give to this!
The presentation itself did not particularly hold the interest of my children. And that's okay. What is valuable to me about a day like today is that they will likely still not forget it--that we read about the Tuskegee Airmen, that they were the first all black aviation corps in the U.S. military, that they faced much discrimination and obstacles during their training and service, and that no planes were lost on the missions in Europe during which they served as escorts. They have an autograph in our reproduction WWI Spotter's Guide book from one of the comparatively few living Tuskegee Airmen. And the people that they see in pictures from that time period are actual, living people.
Their favorite part of the museum trip was piloting the flight simulator that did barrel rolls and complete flips. Hopefully one of the other meaningful experiences was seeing a display about World War II that included items we have been talking about for the past few weeks in co-op: ration books, War Bonds, original posters encouraging citizens to support the war effort by buying bonds to buy bombs, support aggressive military action (my favorite featured a man with a machine gun dripping ammo saying something like, "This is what the effort for peace looks like to me."), and encouraging enlistment (a particularly terrifying looking old man/Uncle Sammish soldier that you could hardly imagine saying "no" to!), and of course posters and references to Rosie the Riveter--even a "Riveting Handbook" explaining how to do the job. This display really brought our American Girl books and oral report topics to life.
The biggest news for the family today is that Rutledge does, indeed, qualify for speech therapy at our elementary school. It's no surprise. The sounds he most needs to work on are /k/, /g/, and all blends. He also uses his tongue on his /s/'s. I'm wondering when and how we'll fit this in with our already busy schedule! I took everyone with me, since I wasn't comfortable leaving them home alone and Kerry had meetings all morning, and it was interesting to have a bunch of non-schooled kids sitting in a school, working on their math. Frances was not so studious--she was playing with her virtual Littlest Pet Shop pet. She wanted to go out and sit in the hallway, as we were told we could do, but I insisted that she stay with us. I didn't want her to be captured and subsumed by a 1st grade class. Or more likely, have to answer questions from half a dozen passers-by about what she was doing there and where she belonged. To Frances, these were hardly issues. "I'll just say I'm homeschooled!" she said. To which Ollie scowled and snidely said, "She can hardly call herself a homeschooler. She's barely homeschooled. She never does any work!"
And here's a Frances-ism that she confided to me, as a retort: "I'm going to start doing schoolwork just like the boys when I turn 8."
Frances had another piano lesson today and is progressing nicely. I think as soon as the weather gets better I'm going to have her start riding her bike there, since it is only about 5-7 minutes away by bike across the school playing fields. Tonight was also her modern dance class, which is always a blast. She has a new friend in the class, and the size of the class seems to be growing by the week. I see a budding choreographer, too. She kept making suggestions to the instructor about how awkward elements could be resolved or recast ("We could go off in different directions instead of all in the same one," which the instructor decided to go with after listening). In their dance for the final performance, Frances's role has her rushing off and weeping into her hands, then the other girls coming over to comfort her and give her a flower. Next they all crouch down in child's pose and then one by one rise and raise arms with a flower growing high, then move their arms down incrementally and start turning off in a spin (Frances is finally slowing down and spotting more, which means less craziness and falling). It's really neat to watch how complex this dance is and how well the girls work together.
My celiac tests came back today, and they are, as expected, very negative. I feel a bit like a fool for having so many questions, or even caring at all about the answers to them. But I wonder things like whether the values would have been so low if I had not been gluten free, if they might have been elevated if I had had the blood drawn when I was still eating gluten and if 5 weeks would be enough time to make a response that low. In the end, it doesn't really matter. I'm staying GF no matter what through Lent. I don't normally give up anything for Lent--that's not a big Protestant thing in the demoninations I've been in--but it's a pretty convenient next timeframe, just like waiting for my birthday was. And I am redoubling my efforts to find the places where I am slipping up. My makeup, for one. Not that I wear it all that often, maybe once a week or so, but I discovered mine has oats in it (it's a mineral makeup, too, so I don't think an oat belongs in there). My shampoo is suspect. I don't see anything obvious on my own bottle, but other shampoos of this brand do have problems. I'm going to switch to something else. My toothpaste is safe--I had already checked that because it was going in my mouth. I now have seen my favorite homeopathic remedy, aconitum napellus, on a suspect list, and I'm not sure why. I took it when I had a cold, and I believed that homeopathic remedies are pretty much GF. I have eaten McDonald's french fries after hearing other GFCF people say they are safe because McD's uses separate fryers for their fries. But now I've read all about the big blowup over the questionable flavor additive in the oil and the potential deception, so that's out now. I also am committed to not cross-contaminating my kitchen any more. I'm going to dispose of my wheat flour and stop using it to bake for other people because I don't want to touch it or breathe it in. I am going to start operating a fully GF household for everyone, even though I don't expect them to eat GF when they are out or at someone else's house. Ideally everyone would go GF for Lent, but I don't think I can pull that off well without tons of fallout and cheating, primarily because they don't see themselves as having problems that might need alleviating. But it's starting to sound a little attractive...hmmm...Lent might be just the marketing ticket I need! I doubt it, though.
And last but not least, there's my eyeball. Or my eyelid, to be more exact. I've been having trouble for about 3 weeks, maybe longer, with a stye or some little pimply something on my left eyelid. I threw away my contact and got a new one, thinking that there was something wrong with my disposable contact. I replace mine monthly, so I got a new one. Things got bad again within two days, so I decided to get rid of that one, give my eyes a two week rest, and wait until the situation resolved. It doesn't look or feel like pinkeye. And the swelling and bump were gone within a day or so. I stayed with glasses for two weeks anyway. Then about four days ago I got a new contact, which is starting to use up my supply of contacts for the next 18 months. Today my eye started swelling and feeling worse and worse. It's not bothering me in a contact lenses kind of way, but I know I need to get a doctor involved now. Sigh.... I have so little free time at the moment to give to this!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Don't let the photo fool you. I'm not really a cat person. Thank goodness Crash, our cat, doesn't know that about me.
We just finished reading a book about the Tuskegee Airmen so that we'll be prepared for tomorrow morning. And Rutledge has his speech evaluation early, so it's a tight schedule pretty much all day: 8:30 speech, 11:00 Aviation Museum for 2 hour program, 3:00 piano, 5:00 modern dance. Great stuff, just a lot of it, and a fair amount of driving up. Thankfully, two of these things are walking distance from home, which is a goal of mine these days.
The piano practice is going quite well. Things can get sort of frustratingly interesting because I hadn't quite realized that I was going to have to play along with her and be right on top of her practice, but now I feel like a fool for not knowing this beforehand. Duh--of course I have to! If I didn't, she would be practicing all week on the wrong notes and with the wrong hands. She is still super happy with what she can do and has been working ahead, which is probably not a good idea. We'll see how the lesson goes tomorrow. Her favorite part, go figure, is the theory book, which she called "Piano Math."
Instead of going to bed tonight, we had a lengthy practicum on probability and statistics...also called strategizing with Yahtzee. I shared my own strategies (and take it with a grain of salt, I'm not mathematician, but I have beaten the entire adventure game now), and lots of math operations were performed--judging risk, comparing numbers and benefits of going for multiples of a kind over taking a scratch on some things to leave open the possibility of higher rolls in the future, and simple addition as we edged up toward that magic 63 upper bonus. For a while, I felt like I should be reading to them instead--that this would constitute a better use of our time (okay, if the truth be told, a good use of everyone's time is probably going right to bed at a reasonable hour!). In the end, though, this was time well spent and will at the least probably improve their enjoyment of this particular dice game.
It is so freaking cold here, and I'm getting to be one of those stodgy folks who gripe about not handling the weather well. But it makes me miserable, especially when we're not getting the pleasure of a snow day! It probably doesn't help that we've gotten a bit lazy about even wearing a coat lately because we're all so tired of unproductive winter weather. I'm still trying to fit in a ski trip, and it just hasn't worked out so far. Maybe next week. Gotta check that schedule. I am getting nervous that it simply won't happen and our tickets will be for naught. I sure hope not.
Last night I was online until way too late, reading about improving my compliance with being gluten free. I wanted to know more about the healing process and about the range of possibilities for detoxification and how long it might take and what the symptoms might be. I'm heading fast for my original "reconsideration" deadline, and though in many ways things aren't exactly better and in some they might actually be worse after going gluten free, my gut, and not my literal one, is saying loud and clear that I want to keep going. Since dropping gluten, I feel like I've had *more* headaches than I typically do. My stomach has hurt a lot. Before it used to be upset more often, crampy more often, but now it simply feels dull pain quite a bit, something it never really used to do. The rational or logical response would probably be to say (1) too bad, the diet didn't work; gluten must not be your problem or (2) Hmmm. Maybe you weren't broken to begin with, so there was really nothing to fix. Your GI issues are nothing but stress. (3) You didn't eradicate all those pesky little hidden sources of gluten, so you weren't truly gluten free, so no wonder you didn't experience miraculous, vibrant health. The truth is, maybe all of these are true. Or maybe two out of three. I have no doubt that I've been a victim of the steep learning curve of this lifestyle. I feel like I've been pretty careful, but early on I had some high-profile spaceout moments I've already mentioned, I intentionally ate gluten twice in order to try to make myself have something to react to with the blood test, and I'm positive I've eaten some cross-contaminated items, sometimes unintentionally, and once or twice taking my chances because I was really, really hungry and it was a while until I could get to my own food. Then there's that whole matter of the pounds of lipstick women supposedly eat each year. I am truly not sure that I've worn lipstick more than once in the past 6 weeks, but I'm not sure about the other makeup I might have worn from time to time (works out to probably once a week, if that, but still...little bits, little bits, that's what makes us fail). My shampoo could be glutening me. My children's shampoo could be glutening me (can't help but kiss Rutty's sweet little head). I still make gluten items in my kitchen while I try to purge my pantry. So I have more to aspire to with complicity. But from what I've read, my stomachaches, headaches, and less than earth-shattering response seem kind of typical for people who are undergoing the healing process. It's not cool of me to feel this, but the whole concept of healing crises is really irritating to me. I get it--that's not the problem--it's just that it leaves open this constant Big Uncertainty. If you take a remedy and you don't get better, then maybe your body hasn't fully processed it yet, maybe it's the die-off of this or that, maybe it's the toxicity leaving your body. If you get worse, then maybe you're really getting better, even if it looks like the opposite. Call me a simple gal, but I really love it when improvement looks like, well...improvement.
At any rate, I'm going to keep going. I'm hoping that what is going on is that my intestinal villi are growing and not feeling especially tolerant of things like lactose and soy. Or that all the nasty poison in my life is working its way out of wherever it is. And maybe I wasn't such a mess that there's really a lot to create drama in the healing. A lot of gluten happiness stories I hear seem to involve people so debilitated by something that they can barely move from bed or were so ill they were having a hard time imagining living the rest of their lives. Nearly instantly they had amazing energy and lost all kinds of diagnoses that were frightening. I don't have any frightening diagnoses. I'm not particularly debilitated. I have things in my health that are mildly annoying, but not exactly life-disrupting. So things are likely to be subtle for me, especially if it legitimately can take years to fully recover; people with the unmistakable early health miracles probably still have some little things that could be better. Still, for me, it's upward, onward. Conquering that bread tomorrow night. Got my Zojirushi custom settings for the bread I'm going to make, and I'm ready to try again.
Man oh man am I hungry right now, though. My stomach is shouting out through the night for someone to feed it. I still don't do things like eat at midnight if I want to sleep soundly, so I'm going to keep telling the darn thing to shut up.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
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....
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....
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....
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