A Best Friend

I had a best friend as a child. His name was Bo. This was his nickname which I loved and frankly, I still do. What a wonderful southern nickname with such character. Bo was an adorable and clever boy whose impish mischievousness identically matched mine and whose mother beat him so badly with a belt that his legs would be covered with black and blue. We did all those things you read about in the cute little clips about, “I grew up in the age of no helmets, drinking water out of the hose”, etc. We also played really fun games like pretending my baby doll was dead and we were having a funeral. We especially loved humming a funeral dirge as loudly as we could while running up and down the street with my doll which really did look dead after having been dragged around the neighborhood for god knows how long. We had her on a makeshift stretcher. It seemed like a perfectly good game to play and we loved it.

In our time adult neighbors were allowed to interact with kids, including to tell them they would “jerk a knot” in them if they did such and such again, our parents did the same so we did not question authority. We had a neighbor who lived a couple of streets over and we would go knock on her door periodically to ask if she might just have any candy. I remember feeling like we  hit the mother lode when she gave us each a tootsie pop. What could have been better. Even though she had been kind and given us the candy and we smiled and thanked her grandly we hunkered together to whisper and giggle that her last name sounded like witch.

Peanut butter and jelly was a fine lunch to be made by us and dragged into the woods WITHOUT washing our hands or using hand sanitizer which hadn’t even been invented. I don’t think we got any sicker than kids today, in fact if I hadn’t grown up with two smoking parents which caused me endless allergies and ear aches, I don’t think I would have gotten sick at all. Picnics were adventures in the woods where our imaginations truly ran wild. We ran around like feral children with no adults to supervise us other than to call us in for dinner at night. We got filthy on a regular basis and when we skinned our knees we would just stay out if it wasn’t too bad. Going home might mean being asked to fold laundry or for Bo much worse.

We grew up just after Beatlemania but we were crazy about The Monkees and Herman’s Hermits, of “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughtah” fame. Bo and I would regularly do fake British accents which must have sounded pretty bad combined with the intense Tennessee twang we had mixed in but we would giggle and I am still surprised to this day that there were some folks, adults included, who actually believed we were British. Pretend was our best playtime and Bo would don his cub scout uniform and I would come up with some get up and Bo’s older sister would play the wedding march on the little plastic organ they got for Christmas one year. We felt rather solemn about this and I was  afraid that maybe this was a little too serious, in the end it only added to the excitement of the event.

Bo had a G.I. Joe and I had a Barbie. Needless to say we joined the two and what fun we would have. I loved all the cool accessories G.I. Joe had as much as the Barbie stuff and anyway I really only had a Barbie with NO accessories. Let’s face it, G.I. Joe was a real man compared to Ken so off Barbie would happily go in the US Army Jeep. I was occasionally jealous of my other friends who had all the extras, like the houses, pink cars, clothes and the Kens but none of them had a friend like Bo with all the cool boy stuff so I was content.

When I was eleven Bo’s family moved away and I was heartbroken. There was no Internet then, no Facebook, long distance phone calls were expensive and I wasn’t much of a letter writer, though we did try really hard to stay in touch. I finally lost contact with him by about age 13. I did have the chance to reconnect finally after after almost 40 years and have had the opportunity to hear how lonely and difficult his life has been. Bo’s mother drank herself to death when he was a young teenager and his father put him out for things many parents of teens routinely deal with. Being the gifted young man he was he did get to college to study Spanish and Art but his life has been a lonely one, disconnected to his family who I don’t think really ever could connect with his free and yes unusual spirit. Fortunately he has a better memory than I do and any story I can recall he can add to with colorful details. It is wonderful to have a best friend as a child.

In the photo I am the one with the cool sailor hat with inset sunglasses, I did love that hat, and Bo is the boy in the middle next to me with his lovely impish grin, and yes we were probably drinking out of the hose!

What Does Homeschooling Look Like Right Now?

Right now homeschooling looks like a 12 year old spending about four hours a day on a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle, the last three days that is. Well, it is of King Tut, does that count for history or something? I suppose I could mention Ancient Egypt to make it seem more scholarly but I did not. We did visit a mummy exhibit and see King Tutty type stuff stuff about two weeks ago. That *was definitely* scholarly.

Homeschooling also looks like kids doing math lessons on their own that I have to “catch up” to when I get a chance, and I will I promise, even if it I have to miss Zumba to do it. It also looks like kids spending hours playing guitars and violins. I am not exaggerating about the hours either. I’m OK with that, we’ll call it advanced music class and they are really good too. Why I can’t get them to play together though, I wish they would play a duo but they don’t even like to be in the car together so I guess no duo for now.

Vocabulary??, does scrabble count? Our family is in a scrabble craze lately. I don’t remember what started this but we play just about every chance we get and the adults in this house do not always win either. I do remember getting creamed by a 12 year old but I console myself with the fact that there is also a bit of luck involved.

Homeschooling can look like an overly enthusiastic mom with a set of amazing blue ray DVDs on history that her children are only watching because they were forced to. At least mom is really in to them and maybe the kids will remember something from them, this is history right?

Homeschooling also looks like a bunch of science junk all over the dining room table such that we squeeze in the kitchen to eat because nobody wants to clean the bio hazard. It also looks like an experiment that can not be completed because I CAN NOT find the damn plastic tubing required. I HATE that it, makes me want to tear my hair out and I can ill afford that right now.

Homeschooling looks like kids actually enjoying reading Frankenstein, hey its a fantastic read so who can blame them. Homeschooling looks like NO P.E., no “dressing out”, what a waste that all is anyway. Running with the dog is so much more fun and hey the dog gets exercise too. Homeschooling looks like cranky teens staying up way too late and sleeping in way too late and wanting to start their day on Facebook.

Homeschooling looks like pajama day every day. Although, one child also wears stiletto heels with pajamas, she says she needs to practice. I make it a point not to wear shoes that I have to practice walking in. I learned how to walk over 50 years ago and I think I’m pretty good at it. Right now homeschooling around here does look like a huge mess and plenty of  noise and a mother who worries daily that her children are never going to get educated.

Nesperennub, a temple priest who lived 3,000 years ago

We take our studies very seriously.

Reading The Classics

Let me first start by saying that I was a super de-dooper, mediocre student as a child. I did have a grand imagination though. Hey we needed our imaginations back in the 60′s and 70′s, with our little black and white TV with three channels which came on only at night after dinner. No internet, no computers, no ipod, definitely no cell phones, one old black dial up phone is all we had. We played outside, ran free, swam for hours in the summer, used no sunscreen, wore no bike helmets. My mother had a whistle she would blow when she wanted us home. Sometimes we heard it and sometimes we were too far away. We came home when we were hungry. However, we had fun and as I remember, lots of it.

Back to the education part, I did not read, or I read very little and as the last child of five with a growing dysfunction taking over our family, nobody read to me either. And yet…I loved books. After having my own kids and reading to them from their infancy, My husband and I ended up being those people who decided not to send their kids to school, for better and worse, we have educated ourselves. On many days/years I have scratched my head and wondered what the heck I was doing but mostly we had so much fun and did so many cool things I have never regretted it. Fortunately, all but one of my  four children have inherited my love of books.

I have read much recently about the lack of a good grounding in critical thinking. Liberal Arts Colleges are closing their doors perhaps because students feel pushed to study fields that will provide a high return in the job market. They are skills driven, not seeking to spend time thinking and contemplating.  What is a Liberal Arts degree worth anyway, and what about critical thinking? University, in my opinion, is too late for this, it should start in elementary school. Why aren’t children taught logic, rhetoric, and made to read classic literature? I am not talking about fancy prep. schools but public schools.  I suppose the reasons are many, probably the first of which is that many teachers aren’t familiar with classics themselves AND more importantly, they are forced to “teach to the test” with little if any choice of curriculum.

In the past several years a cornerstone of my homeschooling my own kids has been a requirement that they read classic books, one a month to be exact. These kids of mine are just like many kids in most ways, wanting to spend too much time on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and moaning over their math. How did I get them to read classics? I took them to groups of other kids like themselves who read classic books. They sit around and discuss these books with cups of coffee, or hot cocoa and they really discuss them, in great detail, pick them apart and digest them. They love to do this, hey what’s not to love, book clubs are fun. I respect their opinions and work to create an atmosphere of trust so they all speak up. What we have found which should be no surprise to many is that classic literature can be good. It can also teach things that can not be found in text books or god forbid the dreaded anthologies which I detest. Excuse me for saying, but what a cop out. OK, I suppose if you want to study *about* literature use them, but if you want to study literature, read books for heavens sake!

We have read all kinds of books, in all genres, and not surprisingly have extrapolated, all kinds of  book information to real life situations. Books have taught us spelling, history, language, and greatly increased our vocabulary, in fact, my 12 year old whipped me in Scrabble recently and I was trying. Books have stretched our minds and opinions, caused us to argue, confounded us, made us laugh and made us cry and yes occasionally bored us.

In the midst of working on a double major at university my eldest daughter has repeatedly told me the thing that most prepared her for her work there was reading the classics, forming an opinion on what she read, analyzing it,  and then sharing her observations in public. This is what she spends much of her time doing  at school and one reason she is doing very well.  I’m with Thomas Jefferson, I do not want to live in a world without books and I feel bad for the millions who have divorced themselves from challenging reading.

A Very Merry Christmas from Our House to Yours.

I just spent the last hour trying to create the perfect Christmas card and had nothing but technical difficulties so I just decided to write a Christmas photo blog. So here goes…this year was eventful as is our entire life. Tony and I became foster parents in January which brought our household numbers up to 6 kids and 2 adults. It was crazy but so are we so it all worked out. Our foster daughters went on to greener pastures in a new foster home with their brother in June and we keep in touch.  We also endured “snowmageddon” last year. It just never seemed to be done snowing. We cranked up the wood stove, baked cookies, drank tea and gained weight.

Before we knew it spring was springing along and though the ground hog did not see his shadow the snow did eventually melt. Honestly it did seem like the winter and early spring flew by, or maybe we really were just stuck in the house and couldn’t do that much. Anna was finishing up at community college, working as a life guard and applying to University and Mia had decided to follow her older sisters lead and begin at community college in the  fall instead of returning to public high school.

In April we had the good fortune to have Tony’s nephew James for a visit due to the fallout from the Volcano blowing ash all around the globe. He was in DC for a conference and got stuck, so he came to stay with us for a few days before traveling on to visit in New York City. It was fun seeing him and having him stay with us.

In June we joined our extended family and had a much needed vacation to our favorite humble but wonderful location, First Landing State Park.

Sadly, Anna did not get to go on vacation with us this year because she did her first archeology field school at Stratford Landing with University of Mary Washington and though she got very dirty, burned and cut she definitely decided this is what she wants to do for a living. I knew giving her that spoon years ago to dig in the back yard was a good idea. Also in May, Anna was accepted to University of Virginia where she has just finished her first semester. She is very excited about studying anthropology and if you’re not careful she will analyze all your behavior and compare you to Cro-Magnon.

dig site from above

Mia went off and became a life guard, opened her first bank account and bounced her first check all in one summer. In August, Mia also became a college student at the ripe old age of 15. She had had enough of public school and decided to give community college a try. She just finished up Drawing 1 and History of Western Civilization. She is still learning how to manage her time but is doing spectacularly well. Mia accompanied me and my good friend in early October to Kiptopeke State Park where we camped and got to see a bird banding as well as all the many birds that funnel through that area at that time of the year. We had a blast.

Mia also dug out a large box of old cameras that belonged to my dad and has a new passion, film photography. Many of the cameras still work and she has gotten some fantastic shots. It is rather expensive but she is earning her own money now so I am delighted she is using them.

Back in August I started a Master Naturalist course which met weekly. It was great fun for me and I learned tons about nature which is very helpful for my job.

It is hard for me to believe Jenna just celebrated her 14th birthday, it just seems like yesterday that she was an itty bitty girl. She is often my companion when I go canoeing or hiking and we’ve had some great times outdoors together.

We were very happy to welcome Tony’s niece Kate and her husband John to our fair city as well. John was in DC on business and Kate joined him and they spent a couple of days with us. We really enjoyed their visit certainly hope they decide to return again someday.

Last but definitely not least Sara who is 11 is full of life and energy at all times. She seems to never stop, except when she falls asleep. Sara got a guitar for her 11th birthday and has learned several songs already. She is happy to be homeschooling again and is diligent about getting her work done each day so she can hang out with her BFF, Rebecca.

In December Tony celebrated his 53rd birthday. I reminded him about the good news that in only two more years he can get a senior discount. He was not amused. We did have a nice party.  He continues to slave away unselfishly and make a horrible and ungodly commute day in and out, so the rest of us can enjoy our fantastic life. He is my hero.

I know I surely have missed the most important details as they are the tiny things that happen each day but at least I’ve covered some info to keep anyone who is interested up to date. I hope you all are well and will contact us and come for a visit if you are able.

God bless you all and do have a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Happy 53rd!

Dear Tony,

This is a photo tribute for your 53rd birthday. Words of love seem cheap and yet I have always appreciated that you have told me so many times with your words that you love me. I’m sorry if I haven’t said I love you enough but I do love you more than words can describe. If there is such a thing as a soul mate, you are definitely mine. You are my best friend in the world.

One of my greatest blessings is knowing that you love me exactly as I am, not as I should be. You even appreciate my quirkiness and embrace it. Thank you for that.  You have been an amazing lover, husband, father and friend to me for over twenty years and I am truly looking forward to the next 20. Here are just a few photos I picked out not in any particular order or importance, from the last five or so years. Happy Birthday!!

always serious

helping Anna set up her room

enduring the biting flies but did manage that cup of tea

Who is having more fun?

great parents make great kids

much practiced at holding babies

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

Tonight I was searching around for the perfect photo to put as a header on my blog. I like to make seasonal changes and I like to use my own photos. It was challenging because it has to be able to fit in a very narrow frame. As I was meandering through the last 40 years in photos, and I am NOT making this up, I was struck with how blessed I am. It was sort of like watching my life go before me, only I wasn’t scared I was going to die. With the birth of each of my children I experienced a surge of love that goes beyond explaining.  Here is one of my favorite photos. For me, it captures a very special time in my life when my children were all still little and needed me. It was one of the few where I could manage to get them to wear matching outfits without them rolling their eyes. In fact, this photo was entirely before anyone had rolled theirs eyes in this house and that is exactly my point.

Back Home Again

We began this school year with one child at University, one child dually enrolled in homeschool and community college and two children at our local public middle school.  Things seemed to be going somewhat smoothly with no major complaints from anybody, until one child started to struggle in math. I suggested she stay after school to get some tutoring and she got really upset. We talked about it and she said she really wanted to homeschool again. We discussed the reason and she said she could not pay attention in class. She had 31 kids in her class the last period of the day and her teacher was doing a fair amount of screaming. A number of the kids in her class were constantly in trouble and would not stop talking. I had struggled to send them again this year but the two youngest really wanted to go, especially my 11 year old who would get to experience middle school for the first time. I thought my youngest would want to stay as she seemed to have lots of friends, did her homework and always got up with a good attitude and had a near 100 average in every single class.  As soon as she heard mention of homeschooling she told me immediately she was ready to come back home. I was honestly surprised.  In the end I figured why wait, they left school at the end of the week, about five weeks into the year.

I gave them this week to relax, though one of them was dying to get to some work so she has done several math lessons. I had been reading Hamlet with their older sister to discuss with a couple of friends and the two younger girls read it in a graphic novel form. I wondered how close to the story line it was so we talked about it, and they nailed it, and to think it wasn’t even assigned.  We’ve been to the library one of our very favorite places and we’ve been on a variety of trips from the Mariner’s Museum to Kiptopeke State Park to Charlottesville. One is learning to play the guitar and now has lots of time to continue on her callouses. One of them accompanied me and helped me teach my nature scavenger hunt for pre-schoolers. One daughter spent three hours making cinnamon rolls from scratch, they were unbelievable and most likely part of the reason I’m on the upswing on the weight again. It made me laugh that her home economics teacher admitted to me she really did not know how to cook with yeast. Jenna could have taught that class, no joke, the girl can cook and now she’ll have time to do it and not be making boxed macaroni and cheese with misbehaving boys. Kind of amazing for one week which was supposed to be an “off” week. I think we should just continue our “off” weeks.

 

Time to play with frogs

 

 

Kiptopeke State Park

 

I hadn’t realized the stress we were all under until it was all over. We had homeschooled our entire lives before our abrupt change of paths last year.I feel like I am starting all over again, only this time I am going to do things more relaxed than before. I really believe learning is not just memorizing a string of facts to then repeat them on a test. It should be purposeful and useful and even enjoyable. Isn’t it amazing how long someone will spend on a hobby or a cherished pastime. This does not mean they will not learn Algebra or Physics or other challenging subjects, it just means they will be invested in them because they will see the purpose and reason behind it.  I strongly believe we are not teaching kids how to think, how to reason and how to contemplate. Kids have no time to sit and think anymore. I hope my kids will have lots of time for this.

One of my children commented the other day how cool it was to be able to go to the bathroom whenever she wanted. How sad but very true. Her sister was not allowed to go to the bathroom in two of her classes which added up to almost three hours a day. Can you imagine a place of employment doing this, they would be sued royally. No more PE but swimming and biking and playing for exercise and running through the woods. We’ll have to pick off ticks again, darn, but not a bad price to pay. No more putting up with kids who can not control themselves for hours at a time. Sara won’t have to wear her mp3 player on the bus to “block out the F word”. Just when they are starting to need more sleep they will get more sleep. When we study about the US Constitution, which we will, we’ll go into the actual Capitol of the United States. We are eager to try and save some money to do another road trip. Mostly we are happy to be back together again, to laugh and cry together, and yes to fight sometimes too, something sisters two years apart seem to do quite naturally. In the end what I really want is to live each day as the blessing it is and to spend it with the people God has put the closest to me, my precious children.

 

Up close and personal with a Coopers Hawk at Kiptopeke

 

Mia releasing a black throated blue warbler after its banding.

 

So Proud of My Sara

Sara was chosen by her teacher from her classmates to receive the role model award.

“This student has demonstrated a good work ethic and has shown a willingness to put in the time necessary in order to match and exceed expectations. The student works independently with great creativity but also works well with groups of students. She will complete her share of the work with a good attitude and willingness to compromise. I think she will be an outstanding asset anywhere she goes in life…” Wow, I am so proud of my Sara.

On Fostering

I have lots of ideas rolling around in my head at the moment. What I mainly wanted to write about for therapeutic reasons was taking in my foster kids. On January 22, 2010 my husband and I became foster parents to two sisters, ages 10 and 15. We had originally met the girls through our own children, back in October.  There is much I can not or will not say, but suffice it to say, the girls did not have the basic necessities and much beyond that.  I found myself thinking of them regularly and wondering if they were okay and knowing they were not.  I was even having trouble sleeping at night. I am a praying person. I prayed. I prayed hard. I asked other people to pray. For weeks it seemed like nothing would ever change for these kids. I didn’t lose faith, I just kept praying. I prayed that God would keep this family together too, because they are a family and in my mind that is sacred.  I prayed that if that wasn’t possible that the kids would be placed where they could get the basic needs met and be safe.  Finally, and this definitely should have been my first step, I surrendered.  I went happily, merrily along my daily path of being a mom to four busy girls and a helper mom to three other kids.

Out of the blue I received a call from social services asking if we would consider being foster parents to the kids. In life, there are some decisions that are really hard to make, this was a no brainer. Tony and had already decided we would if the opportunity arose. Now although decisions are easy to make does not make them easy to do and that is where we are now. Never have I felt as incompetent as I have in the last weeks of my life. I seem to be faced with a hundred decisions before I even get dressed each day. Just getting all these kids to school each day, even though they ride the bus, is a task and almost every day one or the other of them will ask for a ride.  The energy that six girls can produce in a smallish house is phenomenal. Four teenage girls can be really loud. Come to think of it two ten-year old girls can be rather loud themselves. Put the two groups  together and well… this is one rockin household. Back to the decisions, it’s one thing to make decisions for your own flesh and blood but quite another to make them for a non family member who is living as a family member. It can be tough and I must answer to social services also. Added to the decision making, is the planning and organizing of eight people and all their activities. I also have a part time job. Needless to say, I don’t get much time to sit around. I do still take time for myself, but not much.

By the grace of God, and I do mean this quite literally, I am doing well. I just wish I knew how to manage my time more efficiently. I constantly am having to figure out how to be in two places at once. Managing the schedule of eight people is a real challenge. Beyond that, I wish I had the wisdom of Solomon to make the decisions I have to make without having to worry so much about it, but then I guess that is what parenting really is all about, a lot of fumbling around to do your best. One thing useful I did learn from my mandatory foster parenting classes is to listen more and lecture less. A simple strategy which seems to be very effective so far. Hopefully I can continue to drop the lecturing and be a better listener and hugger as well.

From Home to School

A few months ago I wrote this blog and when I hit publish I didn’t realize that our internet connection had gone down and it zipped out into a black hole.  It was pretty maddening as I had worked hard on expressing myself but alas.. here I go again.

I did something this year that I never thought I would.  I put my kids in public school for the first time.  For some people this might not seem like a big deal but for me a  it was a huge decision and and a big change. I spent a number of sleepless nights before making the decision.  The girls had done well homeschooling but we all needed a change. I still think homeschooling is amazing and my eldest graduated last year from homeschool high school at age 17 and is full time in college and doing spectacularly well. She will transfer to a four year program at age 18 with almost enough credits to go in as a junior.

Our transition has gone much more smoothly than I thought it would. Everyone immediately adjusted, in fact, I think the kids did better than I did. The hardest part for me has been that I can not leave the house until my youngest is on the bus and that means no more early morning work outs. My day starts much later and ends earlier too because I come home before they do. I used to be home from the gym before they got started with their day. Now with one in high school, one in middle school and one in elementary school my morning routine is lengthy. With the occasional kid needing a ride, mornings are hectic. No more doing school work in our jammies.

All the girls are doing very well academically and the issues we are facing with behavior and concentration are the same ones we faced when they were homeschooling, so no surprise there. It would be nice if my distracted daughter could miraculously get organized but somehow she is managing to get good grades and do well. Hopefully she can learn some organization skills as she goes along.

Here are some things I never expected. First of all we do tend to have more family time in the evenings. Each of the girls has homework to do and often we end up together in the evenings preparing for the next day whereas when we were homeschooling we did our own things more and seemed to spend less time together. Now, I am more focused on doing fun field trips. For example, recently the girls had two days off school and we did two amazing field trips, one to the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art and another our fossil hunting. I am reading aloud as much as I did before and help with school work, I hate to admit this, almost more than I did when they were homeschooling.

I have no idea what next year in our house will bring, but then nobody really does as the future can not be predicted by anyone with exact clarity, but I have a feeling the girls will continue with the path they have chosen. If not, we’ll take up homeschooling again.

The other thing is that all the girls chose to go to school, I would not have made them. The door is open too, they may come home if they wish. The only thing I said was baring a major catastrophe, they had to stay in at least until Christmas and I really wanted them to accomplish at least one year. So far they plan to go back.