RIP

Henry, the Uromastyx lizard we have known and loved for only a few short weeks, has DIED!

I am done. I am completely drained by the experience of little pets keeling over dead. Today I will go so far as to say I hate all little pets, and the gripping fear that each time I look into their cage they will just be shockingly, suddenly, dead.

Go on ahead, think we have too much on our plates, think we probably shouldnt have gotten so many animals, imagine that we didnt take care of him. I have been told this before and I dont know what to think. Of course we cleaned him of course we fed and watered him of course we played with him and bought him little vitamins and a 20 dollar heatlamp and lava stones and special greens. just like all the other animals.

I like children and dogs and cats and bunnies, too. They seem very likely to be alive in the morning.

As far as fish tanks, little rodents, exotic reptiles and amphibians, praying mantises, pet worms, my pal the pillbug, and even precious, precious birds---my most beloved animal on Earth---I just cant flipping take it anymore.

I harden my heart to all of it.

I also will not be saying yes to anymore animals. I will be that mom who scruches up her face in the big pet store and says, "yeah, he's really cute, honey but noooooo way are we doing all that again",

and the child will think I am mean

and they will swear it wont happen again

and i will still say no

and they child wont understand

and we will leave with no new pet

and i wont have to have the fear and horror that is peering into the little cages to say goodmorning and seeing, you know, death.

Rest In Peace, cool Henry that was suppossed to live 15 to 20 years. I can't shake the feeling that we suck and did something very bad. But I really really don't know what. He was alive and silly last night.

Rude and lame

A friend of mine, who is an awesome and cool Mom to an awesome and cool homeschooled 12 year old friend of Greta's told me this story the other day:

The 2 of them were shopping at Costco, and the checkout lady said, "why aren't you in school today?" to the girl.

The girl proudly and cheerfully said "I'm homeschooled!" to which the cashier responded, "Oh. Well, do you, like, have friends, or anything?"

The mom said, "Well, we let her out of her closet a couple times a week to get some sunshine--and to come to your store."

!!!!

Do you love it?

(If this story is causing you to scratch your head, you may have not personally experienced the phenomenon that is the scandalous and audacious appearing in public during the daytime hours, between September and June, with a child who is old enough to be out of the grocery cart)

Makes me wanna reprioritize the buying of this T Shirt

Bindi

Greta loves to watch Bindi, the Jungle Girl on Animal Planet. This is the late Steve Irwin's (the crocodile hunter) 8 year old daughter's show.

She gets out Henry, her Uromastyx and they watch it together.

It is a great show, and we love that she is a girl who loves getting all scientific and dirty, and supposedly, according to the show, she sleeps in a tree house! Hee hee.

Its shows like this that make me feel all conflicted about wanting to get rid of TV! (But I still want to.)

The very subjective word, "weird".

Homeschooled kids, I am here to officially announce, are NOT WEIRD! Not bad-weird.





You heard it here, first, folks.





I have been to so many events and organizations with kids from backgrounds quite different from ours. All races, all classes, many religions, spanning the political spectrum from farrr left to farr right. Babies, tots, littles, mediums, teens and I know a few adults now who were homeschooled or unschooled. They really aren't weird!





What is weird? Is it good, like being a free-thinker, someone of strong personal beliefs, not afraid to stand out? Is it a geek, a nerd, a smart person? A lonely loner?





Well, I am writing this post in response to someone who is starting to homeschool her children and has had her mother in law tell her that "all homeschooled kids she ever met were weird", and she said this as a deterrent to undertaking homeschooling. So lets assume, for the sake of this post, that WEIRD means somehow socially messed up, or somehow appearing to be really really odd in a bad way. Its so stupid, even as I type it!





If this is to be the description of WEIRD, then, again, I stand by my proclamation that homeschooled kids are NOT WEIRD. Or, more specifically, the homeschooled kids I have spent significant amounts of time with, and it is in the hundreds of children now, and hundreds if not thousands of hours, have a lower WEIRD ratio than the public at large.





They sure seem much more likely to be able to carry on a conversation with adults, to be open to playing new games, to be polite, to be cheerful and to seem just-nice! Happy! Busy! Curious! 100% less sullen!





Heck yeah these are generalizations, and I am not going to write that all schooled kids are evil and angry and defiant and precocious and messed up. The kids we know personally who go to school are not like this. But the ones we meet on the playgrounds and the restaurants and the beach and the mall and at birthday parties sure seem to be noticably WEIRD to me. You know, bad weird.





Any grandma or grandpa or anyone else who thinks homeschooled kids are weird, should definately take the time to respond to the rebuttal: when is the last time they ACTUALLY hung out with some homeschooled kids? When is the last time they hung out with any kids? (In 2007, not some twisted memory of the 1940's that my own dear gran has in her mind, bless her heart.)

What exactly is coming to their minds, some freakshow thing they saw on TV once? Do these people not get the powers of edited television to paint any picture they want?


Some random family they once met? Could they possibly judge all of the kids who go to school by one family they once met? Of course not.





Go on in peace, everyone-seriously-- and raise your kids, homeschool them if you can or want to. But if you could, any chance you get, please help to get the word out that these kids are really really just kids whose families happen to want to play a major part in their education, and to give them the real oportunity to grow up how they would/could/should as themselves.

Maybe that is weird. But is it bad?

Some recent pix

Greta loves her bunnies

Playing checkers with nuts and sticks at homeschool park day.

Digging for stag beetles at homeschool parkday.


More beetle hunting.



Casey works on all the possible combinations of patterns with tangrams.


Greta up late reading the NEW HARRY POTTER BOOK! (Yippee!)

Mickey is a serious finger-knitter and has this enormous chain made.

Popsicles...the ONLY time Charlie sits still anymore. (We bought a case of them.)

Somebody tell the toddler our motto, please

Our littlest homeschooler, Charlie, is showing some tell tale signs that he is going to be 2 in a few months, I am afraid to say!

Here are some of the angel's new favorite tricks:
Ripping off his diaper if it is accessible in anyway.
Ripping off all of his clothes in seconds, literally if you dare to turn away.
Hitting people.
Biting people.
Throwing foods, especially wet or sticky ones.
Devouring crayons and markers. He JUST started this, when I was proclaiming he "doesnt eat crayons"
Running AWAY when you call his name.
Shutting the book when you are reading it.
Coming up to me if I am on the computer and beating on the keyboard and trying to push my hand away.
Body slamming himself into you when you say "No" and then headbutting you in the stomach while crying.

Why oh why do the most gentle of 1 year olds have to go through this? I know they are angry that they can't communicate what they think as well as they need to, and I know they want me to let the entire household shut down so I can sit on the floor and eat candy, but sheesh! The violence! The rage! The purposeful hurting wrecking AND wasting!
Well, I had better stop typing this. Charlie just pressed open on the CD player, and when the little door slowly came out, he pulled it hard and the whole boombox just fell on the floor. He didnt cry or look sad or regretful in any way. He just walked away, looking to spread his love to another small appliance that we never had to put out of reach for him because he was such a chilled out baby.
I think those days are behind us now!
Gulp!
Wish me luck..............

perfection

I am always in awe of how wisely and well this unschooling mother of four blogger sums up so many things:

http://fourlittlebirds.blogspot.com/2005/04/i-like-our-life.html

All I can say is YES.

good times, gym dreams

All of the work I have been doing this summer is all really starting to feel like it is all going to work out....oh boy oh boy oh boy I am excited! I have a couple of math books I am going to be ordering online this year with the kids, something caled Singapore math, and I still need to order the 5th grade level of FiveInArow, but if for some reason I dont/cant order it by September we still have lots in the "regular" FiveInARow book that is not too "young" for Greta to do with Mickey.

Casey has decided he wants to learn how to read, so that would be awesome---although I do not have any real experience in "teaching" somehow how to read, I think it would be great. If nothing, we will be spending lots of time learning the letters and what sounds they make, and how to write. So far he knows his name is "C-A-S-E-Y" and he knows "O" and "X" and a few others. Should be interesting....

Dear Charlie is immersed in the atmosphere of all this talk and already goes up to any letters or numbers in his life such as toys and puzzles and macaroni boxes and says "a-o-a-o-a" and so who knows, maybe he will be the youngest of them all, he even colors quite purposefully and stuff which at this age my others kids were mostly using crayons as delicious snacks and/or wall decorating devices :)

We have a sunroom/playroom thing in our house which we have enjoyed as a recreation room so far during the (almost one whole!)year that we have lived here. We have TV, video games, stereo, piano, some toys and some rugs in there. But we have a new plan for this room which I am ecstatic about: We are going to be turning it into a GYMNASIUM!

We are going to take out everything electronic, all the carpeting, and fill it somehow with teeter totters, Nerf sports equipment, baskets and balls and little slides and hopefully, it will be a wild and wonderful indoor park of sorts for us to enjoy no matter the weather! My dream is that the kids (especially the 3 little boys, lets be honest) will have a place to go get crazy in when I am doing school one on one with someone else, when it is cold, rainy, or anytime really when it is not possible for us ALL to go to a park. I would like to look into the price of covering the floor with a rubbery industrial floor mat type of substance.

Here are some of the kinds of things I would love to fill the room with:

price of living outside the (soap)box

I touched upon this today on one of my homeschool lists I belong to, and now I want to write a bit more:

I graduated high school in 1992. The further away I get from 1992, the more confident I feel in making decisions that are outside of the box, against the grain, best for me and my family.

I was thinking about what a huge enormous deal it was for us to even contemplate some of the things that are no-biggies now: Becoming vegetarians, Homeschool, Homebirth. Why did it seem SO scary to do these things that we knew we were going to do, what were our fears based on, how much of all of that fear came from 16 years of schooling, of authority figures telling me what's what?

What are we afraid of? Rejection? Responsibilty? What others will think, what Mom will think, what the neighbors will think, how will we "handle" questions at holiday time, are we willing to shoulder the responsibility that comes with taking more control of our lives and our childrens' lives than we have to, than is curretly in vogue?

It is so common for schooled kids to have problems that we don't even bat an eye, but what about when homeschooled kids have problems? Yikes yikes yikes, right?

It is incredibly common for people who eat a Standard American Diet to have health issues, but what if vegetarians have health issues? Yikes yikes yikes, right?

It is more common even still for hospital birthing mothers and babies to have calvalcades of unwarranted invasive unnecessary and frequently dangerous interventions, avoidable infections, surgical procedures, being bullied and cajoled into strange and unwise practices with very questionable outcomes, but what about when a homebirth ends up less than perfect? I'm not talking life and death here, I'm talking about a little aspirated mucus, a slight fever, a touch of jaundice, or maybe transferring to hospital during or after the birth---Yikes yikes yikes! You almost died! Sheesh.

Are we actually ashamed of our choices, or is being shy or reticent or false-modest just a part of our ingrained upbringing? Are we so afraid of "offending others who live a different lifestyle" that we sell our own happiness short? Can it really be offensive to others for me to proclaim I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING AND AM SO DAMN ECSTATIC THAT MY KIDS DONT GO TO SCHOOL THAT I CAN SCARCELY CONTAIN MYSELF! Can it really be offensive to others for me to proclaim I WOULD RATHER EAT A TURD SANDWHICH THAN GET WITHIN A 1/2 MILE RADIUS OF ANY OBSTETRICIAN WHEN I AM GIVING BIRTH!

What if we do offend someone? Does the Earth cease to rotate? Is it really our problem? Why and when did it become part of doing things outside of the status quo to be quiet about it, also?

Did you know that at family gatherings, especailly on my husband's side, no one EVER, and I mean EVER asks how my kids are doing in school? They never ever mention homeschool, they carefully avoid discussing their own kids' schooling, and they have to be fake surprised everytime we mention the activities we are involved in, and mumble "Oh, thats good, thats good at least."

???????????????????

Did you know that no one ever, and I mean EVER discussed Casey's homebirth, ever? Even when he was a newborn baby, not a word! I have had to sit through many meal-time discussions of so-and-so got induced, and so-and-so had a c-section, and so-and-so's epidural didnt take, but me, nothing. Its wierd. They think "we took a horrible bizarre risk and got real damn lucky." End of story.

Steve and I knew that if we chose to homeschool, it would go like this: If the kids turn out great, we got lucky. If the kids turn out badly, its from homeschooling.

We also knew that if chose to have a baby at home, it would go like this: If the birth went well, we got very lucky. (Most folks' adoration of Obstetricians falls even higher than that of Teachers) If the birth did not go perfectly perfectly smoothly, (even though they probably never met a single live woman whose hospital birth did, but they wouldnt recognize a normal birth because it is such an anomaly nowadays) we are the worlds most horrible people and homebirth is to blame.

If the teachers weren't there for your kid, well, hey, they are trying their best, they are over crowded, they are underpaid, they only have $6000 per child to work with (If I had $500 per kid, oh boy dont get me started what we could "do"!) and so on.

If the OB's weren't there for you during pregnancy, if they didn't remember your first name, kept vital information away from you, blew off all of your questions, disregarded your safety, your sanity, your dignity, your rights, your health, well, hey, they are trying their best, they are overcrowded, they are underpaid, they only charged you $19,000 for the birth, what do you want, a midwife? What did you expect, prenatals in your own home that last 2 hours or more, someone to call on the phone and chitty chat with? Someone to rub your back and make you a chocolate ginger molasses cake? Someone to visit you on day 1, 2, 4 and 7? someone to let you borrow videos of real births, someone to answer your questions honestly? Someone who wants the same things that you want for your family and your baby? Someone to order pizza for you and wash your dishes and laundry? Someone who is determined to protect the integrity of your mind and body above all else? Someone to watch your kids if your water breaks so you can go to a movie with your hubby to take your mind off the clock-watching?

I have been so pissed off by this whole "LUCKY" thing, for so long now, but I know that it is just another by-product of the kind of mentality that is bred by the schooling we all endured. Authorities and Institutions have all the answers, their way is the safe way, to go against that is naughty, risky, and wierd. To take responsibility for your own life and to question what you are spoon-fed will only lead to trouble. Repeat. Mindlessly get in line at your local institution and do what they say. If it goes badly, well, its not their fault. They are overcrowded and underpaid. If you wanted personal attention well, then maybe you need to lay off the peace pipe cuz there ain't no such thing.

A tale of getting a baby, who used to sleep through the night, to sleep through the night again

Well, I dont know exactly where to file this one, but the huge news is as huge here as it is on any of my other blogs, and that is:

Charlie is sleeping at night again.

It took 3 nights and we should have done it along time ago. What was going on was he would go to bed around 8ish and proceed to wake crying at 11, 2, 4, 5:30 and by then it was sunny so I was so afraid of him waking Casey that I was taking him out into the front room where I shook and had delerious visions and yes, shed a few tears that my "night" was over again when it never even happened.

Ok so that was not cool. Been doing that for about, oh, 6 months now? So for anyone who ever wondered why I never heal from colds, never remember jack squat, seem confused/ amotivational/moody...

So, starting Wednesday night, when Charlie cried in his crib at 11, he did not get what he wanted, and what he has been accustomed to. He got Daddy. Daddy did not pick him up, did not take him into our room, and did not nurse him :)

Daddy smoothed his hair without even so much as picking him up and said "Its sleeping time, baby. Lay down and go back to sleep. I love you. Shhhhhhhh"

And walked out of the room and closed the door.

BOY was Charlie mad! M-A-D. He screamed and cried and even though this is our 4th baby that has had to have such a treatment, it still is hard on me the first night:

My baby! He thinks we hate him now! His world is turned upside down! What did he do so wrong? He thinks we don't understand what he wants! Hes going to bust his throat crying that hard! this is cruel! Inhumane! this goes against everything else we stand for! Why are we doing this? Do you hear him? He NEEDS us! Oh wait...I think he stopped crying....I guess I'll go to sleep then....what if he died? Im serious! Like from sadness or something? Go check him! No? Ok...

3 am, same scenario. But this time he only cried for like 2 minutes.

6:30 am, he cries and Casey comes in to tell us "Charlie's cryin". I already feel so good from having so much sleep that I bound into their room and say GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE! To baby Charlie, and he seems 100% undamaged whatsoever. Like it didnt even happen. Like nothing happened. But for me, everything has happened. I can think. I can see. I am patient(er) already. I am capable of laughing.

The next night, we put him to bed around 8 again, and he slept until 2. Right there that was interesting, sleeping 6 hours. Steve went in and did the whole "Its sleeping time, sweetie, lay down, we'll see you in the morning, we love you, lay down" bit again, and he cried a little, less than a minute. I slept like some kind of cement log. He woke at 6 and, for the first time in his life, instead of just wahh wahh he instead called out a very grown- up boy sounding: "Da-da!? Da-da?!"

So cool!

So as not to confuse, Dada went in and got him and brought him in to our room. He was all sunshiney and happy, again. Now it is occuring to me that Charlie was suffering as well as I was from the bad nighttime habits. He was tired, too! Little new babies need to nurse all night, and wake every hour or two, not 20 month olds.

Last night, I am ecstatic to report, he was put to bed around 8:30, and slept till 6:30!

Yes, you heard it folks, all night.

Just more good news on the trail to our super school year 2007-2008.

Charlie gets a gold star! So does Steve! I get sleep! We all get nice mommy! WHooppee!!!!!!

Number one priority, handled.

Awesome.

home alone time

Yesterday the craft at the library was "Flight". the kids could choose between airplane, Pinwheel and/or kite making. I was crabby and hot and exhausted, and Charlie cried almost the whole time we were there, unless he was running away or destroying everyone else's crafts. But despite me being badcrossmommy, I think the older kids had fun.

My mood went downhill in the car, if that is possible, and I was nearly despondent by the time we pulled in to Steve's work to pick him up. Steve, being both a hero and a saint, and a wise man, decided that perhaps dropping me off at home and he and the children continuing on in the car would be best. What a perfect idea! I have only been home alone here a handful of times, and it is bliss. So sad how I try to "go out" find somewhere to use a quiet computer, have a little sandwhich, relax, read, think. Why not at home? Well, usually, because there are 4 kids here and by the time they are in bed, I am mentally done done done and can only perform physical labor such as scrubbing and washing, never brainstorming, writing, planning.

I was not sure where they were going, and I only hoped they stayed gone a while :) I made myself a quesadilla, drank about a gallon of water, took a B vitamin, and read one of my books from the library. It was dumb, and I knew I had a choice: get to work on redoing the dining room, like I have wanted to for weeks now, or rest and watch TV and most likely regret it.

In about 60 minutes I did the following:

Moved an 8 person table into the kitchen

Took apart a big table to get it into the dining room

Emptied and moved 4 bookshelves

Moved a love seat from the playroom into the dining room

Took a big rug outside, shook it and beat it and moved it into the dining room

Set up lights and music

Cleaned the room

Hung a mirror

Put up a wall map

Then they came in with a big surprise for me! Wal-Mart already is doing their insane school supplies sale that I have been talking about looking forward to, and they bought TONS of crayons, markers, glue and glue sticks! The glue was 20 cents, the crayons were 20 cents, and the markers were 88 cents. LOVE IT!!!! I was so happy. They couldn't believe the room, and then it was bedtime for them! Too, too cool.

We are having horrible times with Charlie at night again, and Steve helped me deal with him last night alot as we re-train him to not wake up every 3 hours (or less!) and I feel somewhat less evil and dizzy and tired today, but it will take time. I don't want to be so exhausted, it is torture.

Mickey snapped this picture today of me eating a muffin and Charlie picking his nose. But get beyond that and HOLY CRIPEs, is it just me, or is he HUGE? I am just so used to him, he is my little 1 and a half year old baby, but this picture for some reason made me do a double take!

Maybe he won't sleep because he is having a growth spurt--hahaha

Mottos

Years ago, in an attempt to clarify what was expected of little Greta, I came up with a simple concept. It was an answer to various question such as What are our hands for? and What should we do with our days? and What must we strive to be doing?

Making,

Helping,

and

Working.

We have little hand gestures for making, helping, and working as well.

Some time after, we came up with a constrasting list of 3 things we must not do:

No Hurting,

Wrecking,

or

Wasting.

Do you have a motto for your home? Perhaps you could make one up, or adopt ours. It was rather difficult to narrow down all of the world's goodness and badness and come up with a list of 3 things, but I thought, and still do, that 3 words were enough. Now I see that there is a clear idea of creation versus destruction in the 2 lists, and I am way cool with that.

Summer so far

Its been a while, because we have been BUSY!

We had a three kid birthday party, which went wonderfully, and we have just been working really hard on our new lifestyle changes in preparation for fall. We are streamlining and getting really honest and serious about what we want for our selves, our home, our educational plans, our daily habits and routines, how much it costs to live our life, what we need to do as a family each and everyday to keep this whole ship afloat, etc etc and so on. when I set out to start this on June 2nd I had no idea how far we would have come in one month. I am very excited and optimisitic.

One of the lovely things that has changed our lives this summer is our NEW POOL! The children got this from my mom and stepdad for their birthday present, and it is great. Day one had me almost reaching for the tranqulizers, I was so uptight and stressed about how much we had to re-learn how to live and be in our backyard now, how to keep the baby out of it, how and when we can swim, who can be out there un supervised, who cannot, etc, but it only took 2 days to really get into the swing of Backyard Livin' with the big pool!





I had a pool growing up, and lived in that thing. I would come out for "lunch", to choke down a sandwhich and then I was back in till bedtime, literally. I want my kids to feel that comfortabkle in the water, and even though we have talked about it for years, I have never been able to get them into some kind of swim lesson program, its just the logistics with me, always, no babysitters, no way I am sitting on the deck of a pool with three little ones waiting for so-and-so's lesson. I cant do it! Same goes for all those Mommy-and-me type things, and Swim-with-your-baby...um ok so who watches your other kids?




So, like homeschooling itself, we are having natural, self-taught "swim lessons" right here at home. Not by 60 dollars for 20 minutes with some hungover teeny bopper who forces you to make scoopys, make scoopys, make scoopys with your hands, but by hours and hours in water itself.

We have joined one of those summer reading programs at a local library with our best homeschooling friends. This is a thing where you chart how much you read, in 15 minute increments, and when you have 2 hours read, you may go and get a prize. Once a week there is a craft or an activity, and there is also a weekly drawing for prizes which Mickey and Casey won! this win puts them into the big drawing which I think is some huge prize like a dirtbike or something crazy! Phew!

So we go once a week to the library to do the craft and to get our prizes and to see our friends. It is nice. Although years ago when I thought I knew everything, and of course, I knew nothing, I probably would have had some witty little thing to say along the lines of "You shouldnt give children gold stars for doing what should come naturally, the love of literature, blablablabla and so on"



Ummm...



Hopefully it is clear that we all use motivational techniques to do good things, to make sound choices, to help us sort through the thousands of choices that we have each day as to what we can do with our time, and if we as adults want to pretend that we don't, then we are lying. This little book club has made my kids read more. Period. Plus it has shown us a new library that I probably never would have gone to, and it gets us out every week to see our friends!



We have also been going once a week to Homeschool Park Day, which meets at a park less than a mile from my house! This is the highlight of the week, for sure. Most of these kids are from Campfire Scouts, but there are some new faces as well. I would like to sit on my blanket and shoot the breeze with the other moms, but right now since I am in the world of having a one and a half year old, and so you can mostly find me at the bottom of slides, at the top of slides, running across the fields, or, when I am lucky, behind the baby swings, grateful to have a minute or two of pushing.

The blanket moms either have older kids who can maintain, or maybe little babies and older kids who can go off and play.

We have a zillion pets now, and the kids are taking good care of them, with my guidance. they have really added a new dimension to our lives, and I think it is all going well. We feel a bit like farm children, with our morning chores of feeding and washing and refreshing and visiting all the critters. Its really cool!

We now share our lives with:
1 Cat

2 Tadpole/frogs

2 Fire Bellied Toads

1 White's Tree Frog

1 Uromastyx

1 Minnow

3 Bunnies

2 Society Finches

Crickets, which are feeders, but which we still have to feed and care for!



So this is our summer, The Pool, The Book Club, The Pets and ParkDay. Its nice.