Shangri La and strawberries

The kids and I went to Port Neches to visit the grandparents for a few days last week because the husband had to be out of town. My mom suggested we take a little day trip to Shangri La, some botanical gardens founded by Southeast Texas philanthropist Lutcher Stark. I admit I was skeptical. Because Southeast Texas is known more for its swamps and vast vistas of refinery spires (and the faint smell of sulfur in the air) than it is for its lush gardens. Then we got there and I was pleasantly surprised. There were beautifully manicured gardens with thousands of blooming azaleas. There were multitudes of egrets nesting in the mesquite knees, with a special viewing blind to observe them. The kids' favorite part was the vegetable gardens, which were being tended by wonderful volunteer gardeners who encouraged the kids to dig and take as many samples as they liked. We tried spinach, celery, swiss chard, parsley, and, the favorite by far, sugar snap peas. Harper wondered why vegetables don't taste this good when we buy them at the grocery store. Hudson ruminated on his swiss chard for around 30 minutes, finally swallowing it on the car ride home. There was even a special plot, deemed "Mr. McGregor's Garden" which had lettuce, french beans, radishes, parsley, cucumbers, celery, cabbages, potatoes, AND, of course, chamomile, and, right in the middle hung a tiny blue jacket and some tiny brown shoes. To scare away the birds, of course. VERY adorable.

Harper and Hudson used a mortar and pestle to grind up some egg shells, then they dug holes and buried them. It helps enrich the soil, apparently.

Hudson was really hoping for an alligator sighting, and was well prepared with a weapon:

Helena stayed mostly in the stroller because there was lots and lots of water and I did not fancy a repeat of the muddy baptism at the Japanese gardens. She did get out to do a little digging in a sandbox in the vegetable garden:

Yesterday we went to Froberg's Farm for some strawberry picking. We got 10 pounds of strawberries for just under $20 and had a tremendous time. I don't think these are as sweet as the ones we picked last year. Perhaps it's a little early yet.

Because of all the activity of late, I had deemed today and stay-at-home-and-tackle-the-mess day. I turned on "Sesame Street" and got a few things accomplished, then decided that we might as well take a little walk. Hudson's chain came off his bike after two blocks and I managed to get grease all over my hands and still not fix it, which meant we had to drag the bike back home. At which point Harper tripped and skinned her hands and knees. And it was very dramatic. So we got home, washed our hands, nursed her wounds, switched out the bike for a scooter, listened to Sasha howl her indignation at not being included, and intrepidly set forth again. About 2 blocks from the park, Hudson fell and scraped his knee. He didn't cry because, "I am rough and tumble, Mommy," but then about a half block later, he fell AGAIN and scraped the same knee AGAIN, and this time the rough and tumble crumbled and he started wailing and of course I didn't have my first aid supplies so I did my best with some water and a wipe I found in the stroller (clean? only time will tell). The good news is my pedometer tells me I earned 6,492 steps for my effort.

Thoughts on homeschooling, Part 1

I was reading a little snippet on the first family's trip to Latin American and the first lady was quoted thus:

"It is a very rare opportunity that we get to travel together. Usually when the president and I travel, these two are in school where they need to be," the first lady said, gesturing to Sasha and Malia. "But they're on break now, so they get to come and they've been very excited." (italics mine)

I got a bee in my bonnet when I read that. Know why? I can't imagine that the First Lady really thinks that Malia and Sasha are learning more sitting in a classroom (even if it is a classroom at the tres elite Sidwell Friends, where the first daughters attend) than they will traveling the world with the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD, who also happens to be their Daddy. I mean I understand that Mrs. Obama wants to set an example for good school attendance. I understand that she wants her kids to have as normal an upbringing as they can possibly have given the very abnormal situation in which they find themselves. But would anyone really begrudge parents who've been handed this extraordinary opportunity wanting to bring their kids along? Are Sasha and Malia really going to miss something earth-shattering if they miss a couple of weeks with the Sidwell Friends in lieu of a trip to India??

So, today at the park, as almost always happens when we go to the park by ourselves, I ended up having to answer the "Why have you chosen homeschooling?" query. I feel like I don't have a very concise answer, so I want to work on that. There are lots of reasons and I need to constantly remind myself of them when I am feeling faint-hearted (which is often), as well as being able to give a reasonable answer to those who really want to know. So, one of my reasons today--FLEXIBILITY. We love the thought that when we are more able to travel, we can. We are not bound by any schedule. We do not have to worry about the scolding we might receive from an attendance clerk (as my friend Sandra received when she had the audacity to want to stay in her home country of South Africa a few extra days after school had begun, instead of rushing back to adhere to the Houston school district calendar. Her daughter is in kindergarten. Kindergarten, mind you, where everyone knows that if you miss 5 days you will definitely surrender all hope of ever winning the Nobel Prize). I love that if the weather is beautiful, we can be outside in it, and, conversely, when the weather is dreadful (July, August) we can focus more on the sort of academics that require being inside.

So, the critics might say, how are your kids ever going to learn that The Real World requires them to adhere to a schedule? That being on time is important? That they can't always make their own hours? Well, I would say that if my kids do end up doing something that requires a fairly rigid schedule, I will hope they'll adjust fine. Maybe it won't be laborious to them, since they haven't had to do it since they were four or five. Maybe it will be laborious to them and they will be entrepreneurial enough to come up with an option that allows them more independence. Maybe they'll adhere to a rigid schedule of their own choosing (Dear Hudson, please be a farmer so I can come over and pet the baby calves. Love, your mother.) Maybe I'll still be taking them to the park on a Monday morning when they are 25 (fingers crossed!!)

That will be all for now. More episodes to come as I am inspired. Tomorrow (hopefully) I will bring you a post on Shangri La, which you did not know is actually located in Orange, Texas. Yes, indeed.

con carne

I think I've mentioned before that we are three types of eaters here at our house: I am the sole omnivore, the husband is a vegetarian, and the kids, with the exception of the aforementioned cow's milk yogurt, are vegans. Which, for the uninitiated, means that along with the not eating of The Meat, they also don't eat eggs or dairy or any other product that comes from animals. I think this sounds more interesting than it really is, and I started a post a few months ago about how ironic it is that the kids do not really enjoy vegetables. We do eat lots of grains (oatmeal, pasta, sprouted grain bread, cous cous) which they love, and fruit (at least 50% of their daily calories, I'd guess) and they do eat vegetables, but almost always grudgingly. As in "how many bites of my sweet potatoes do I have to eat? (Hudson) or "Do I have to eat ALL of this broccoli to be finished?" (Harper) or "I think I'll just toss these peas on the floor for Sasha" (Helena). Anyway, we decided to add a little cheese to the mix a few weeks ago and I slaved over a lasagna which I and the husband thought tasted pretty good, but which each kid proceeded to take approximately two tiny bites of and then declare themselves so full that they couldn't possibly eat ever again, EVER. So, that was a trifle debilitating for me. Because, really, it is CHEESE, which is beloved by kids everywhere and always, right?? Apparently, no. I was especially aggravated because I used organic mozzarella AND parmesan AND ricotta which cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a new Vespa scooter for just the one lasagna.

So, in the spirit of More New Experiences, and because he is on spring break this week, the husband came home from Whole Foods with fish for the whole family on Monday night. The fish was received with great joy by Hudson, who was fresh off watching an episode of "Man vs. Wild" with Daddy, in which Bear Grylls had consumed, in order, a raw frog, a bat, and a rat. I, for one, was more than ready to embrace vegetarianism full-scale after watching the frog consumption. Hudson thought that every bite he took of his breaded halibut made him very Bear-like. Harper was not a fan, but she is going through a phase where new stuff is scary and possibly toxic. She is also washing her hands more than Lady Macbeth and we've had to institute some very unpopular Lotion Accords which have been received with great angst.

Last Friday we went to the Japanese gardens in Hermann Park and Helena walked into a very muddy stream and I had to step in to fish her out. I was wearing my red Frye boots, so you can see that there was some sacrifice involved on my part. She, and the boots, have recovered nicely, though the ride home was highly unpleasant and smelly. That same day she also decided that a half-eaten apple she found in the trash right on top of the coffee grinds was a terrific snack. AND possibly climbed up on to her changing table. At least she is cute. In fact, after I put her to bed tonight I was folding clothes just outside her door and she was singing a song about all of the friends she saw at the park today. It was to the tune of the Veggie Tales song "Busy, Busy!" and she sang "Izzy, Izzy! la-la-la Izzy!" and "Abby, Abby, la-la-la ABBY!" and "Aiken-dum, Aiken-dum, la-la, la Aiken-dum!" and "Ah-boo, Ah-boo, la-la-la AH-boo!" and "Hutsen, Hutsen, la-la-la Hutsen!" and "Dyoon, Dyoon, la-la-la Dyoon!" and "Ah-yaid, Ah-yaid, la-la-la, Ah-yaid!" and "Twan-yule, Twan-yule, la-la-la Twan-yule!" and then Mommy and Daddy and Sasha also got a verse and I thought my heart would burst with the sweetness.

The husband and I got gussied up again. Blurry, but recorded for posterity anyway. We went to a wedding, then a movie, because the reception didn't begin until 6 hours later, and my mom was here with the kids. We went to see "The Adjustment Bureau" at the Studio Movie Grill. I actually surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying the movie AND the fact that I could, and did, eat a cheeseburger while enjoying the movie. It's a mainstream movie that does a pretty good job of pondering free will versus sovereignty, which is not typical Hollywood fare.

Speaking of the fair, yesterday we went back to the Livestock Show and Rodeo so the kids could ride some super fun carnival rides with Daddy. We could have purchased another Vespa with the money we spent, but look what Harper got to do:

This lady lifted Harper right up on Doc and then she and her sweet son gave us all sorts of Useful Horse Information. Mostly that you can either keep horses or you can have a nice normal life with a house and clothes and groceries, but not both.

The other day I was trying to explain to Harper that I had talked to my friend Tara, who didn't get her first horse until 8th grade and how that was a great idea, mostly because it means I don't have to deal with it for another 8 years, and she said something quietly under her breath. "What?" I asked and leaned down, and she said, with a scary, quiet confidence, two words.

"Tooth. Fairy."


So.

one small step

Helena just banged around on my keyboard and managed to make everything on the screen look stretched out wide. It's driving me pretty crazy and I have no idea how to fix it but rest assured that the husband will get home, touch the mouse pad in some magical way, and what is horizontal will again be properly vertical.

It was his birthday yesterday, that man of mine. He is, at 35, a half decade younger than his wife. The kids and I went to REI and they chose a Bear Grylls knife for him and he was pleased. He will use it for camping and other assorted survival scenarios that he encounters on a daily basis here in the wilds of Houston. We had dinner at Escalante's and we all were pleased.

We took the kids and toured a school yesterday morning. It's a university-model classical school, which means two days a week of group instruction from a teacher who is not me, and the other three days at home working to practice and cement the trivium. We all liked what we saw, especially Harper, who said, "I want to go to this school because there are monkey bars." So, grammar, logic, rhetoric, monkey bars--got it. We don't know if we are actually considering the school seriously or not, but it was useful and inspirational to see how it works.

The husband's work gave him a pedometer for his birthday and I have been wearing it around. It's fascinating, and rather obsessive business, counting one's daily steps. I walked over a thousand steps getting dinner and baths night before last. And we went on a quick zoo jaunt today (and got there and realized that all of Houston had the same idea) and I walked 4,601 steps. I'm hoping I will be inspired to move a bit more. I gained around 4 pounds in a week after partaking of the SIX Crave cupcakes the husband brought home (I asked for a single one--he is exponentially generous when it comes to most things) on Valentine's Day. It was a slippery slope to Raisinettes and then Milk Duds and then quite a load of bagels and cream cheese and then, for the grand finale, an entire jumbo box of Junior Mints followed by an entire pint of Haagen Daaz on Fat Tuesday. I try not to weigh myself every day (and especially not after the aforementioned Junkfest 2011) but I find a step onto the scale every few days is a good reminder to return to healthy habits. And, from past experience I know that 4 pounds very quickly turns into 14, then 40, then 400 and then you might find yourself standing on a floor scale in bike shorts getting weighed on national television. Okay, that last one never happened to me, but I feel pretty capable of it, if we're honest. So, this calls for a time of abstention, dovetailing nicely with the liturgical calendar.

I realized (somewhere around step 1,762) today that Hudson has learned to skip. I can't recall if it is early or late or right on time, but I do know that I did not teach him. Good for you, little skipper! He wanted to see the new baby giraffe and he admired her and said, "She is so tyoot!" which is very tyoot in and of itself. He's been going through a not-so-tyoot phase of getting frustrated and threatening to throw the object of his frustration "IN THE TRASH!" For example, "Harper got the red and blue spoon! I'm going to frwow ALL the spoons IN THE TRASH!" I wonder if anyone else's kids squibble and squabble over ridiculous things like spoon and cup color and whether or not there is a picture of a baby on their yogurt container?

All the pretty little horses

Harper's Fascination With All Things Equine continues, so what a happy coincidence that yesterday was kids get in free day at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Of course "kids get in free" becomes something of a moot point when you have to pay $7 for parking, and $6 for a 4 minute pony ride. But the weather was beautiful, we were with our dear friends, and no one stopped us from wandering around inside the horse arena, where we saw blacks and bays, dapples and grays. We watched some cowboys (and girls) in a cutting competition, in which they, and their horses (Quarter horses, we learned) separate a calf from the herd. Poor little calf does not want to be separated from its herd, so cutting is pretty tricky. Hudson was very concerned when he heard the term 'cutting' and then the term 'herd,' because he thought I was saying 'hurt.' WHY are they hurting the calves, Mommy??
Llama llama liked Helena:


I would have taken more pictures in the petting zoo but I had to keep Helena from putting her hand inside of a goat's mouth while simultaneously evading a baby deer who wanted nothing more than to eat my chambray dress.

Harper came home and drew a picture of her beloved:

dust devils

Today is stay-at-home-and-clean day, so I decided to tackle Hudson's floor in his room because I could not remember the last time I had, and I realized last night that perhaps that might explain the spasmodic sneezing episode I had every time I walked in there AND the fact that he has a spasmodic coughing episode each night when he gets in bed. Since we don't have a garage, Hudson's room, by virtue of being the biggest bedroom, has become the parking spot for all of our wheeled toys. So I had the kids wheel out the two bikes, two tricycles, two scooters, schoolbus pushtoy, two shopping carts, one baby stroller, AND a large fleet of trucks. And I can barely speak of the filth that I encountered once I could actually see the floor. It was appalling and made me think of an article I read a few weeks ago about some study that showed that kids whose moms don't work outside the home are healthier, in part, because their mothers have more time to clean the house. HAH. So I hung my head in shame, sneezed 6 or 7 times, opened a window, turned on an episode of "Little Bear," and got to work. After 3 Swiffer pads I decided the floors looked much better and debated taking the rugs out to pound them. I opted for leaving them there and just running the vacuum over them because "Little Bear" was over and there were snacks to dole out. Then I decided to be finished and we rode bikes to the park, because it is sunny and in the upper 70's here in Houston.

I got two new floppy sunhats for myself. I know I look ridiculous in them and I just don't care.

Harper has decided she loves horses this week. She has been dragging this Radio Flyer horse around the entire house, sometimes stopping for a quick ride. She grooms it and talks to it in a low, sweet voice. She feeds it carrots and apples and popsicles. We have had the horse since the Christmas she was 2 and it has been largely ignored up until now. I went through a horse phase at some point too, which culminated, much to my delight, in my getting to choose our summer vacation to a dude ranch.

Hudson got some new Keens ($45 marked down to $16 at Nordstrom Rack!! Where all of our shoes dreams come true, apparently) and he claims they make him jump higher and run faster and that he can now do a backflip off a rocky precipice into the ocean, just like Bear Grylls.
He does insist on wearing them with socks and, really, who am to call fashion faux pas. Have you SEEN my floppy sun hats?

We were listening to a Veggie Tales cd in the car a couple of days ago and I realized how annoyed I am by songs that mention Satan. I mean, WHY? Satan, for example, is not strolling around blowing out This Little Light of Mine. Nor is he sitting on a tack and then yelling, "Ouch!" because he doesn't like that we've got the joy, joy, joy joy, down in our hearts. I guess the kids are a bit young for The Screwtape Letters, but come on.

Cute girl in toile dress. Hiding it under a bushel? NO!

indoor plumbing and grasshoppers

I read the Little House series when I was young (I was 8? 9?) so as Harper and I are reading them aloud I am remembering. I had a vague unease at the beginning of On the Banks of Plum Creek that something sad happened, and I began to recognize the foreshadowing. I had a deep feeling of dread when Pa bought all the materials for the house on credit because the land was so rich and the wheat crop that he labored over was sure to be plentiful. Then his boots are falling apart so he takes $3 from his fiddle case to buy new ones, only he runs into Reverend Alden who just happens to need $3 more to put a bell in the belfry (and here is where I wanted to give Harper a lecture about, "you know, 'church' actually has nothing to do with a building, and as far as Jesus was concerned, the money would have been better spent on Pa's boots than a stupid bell for the belfry" but I refrained and reminded her that the "being mindful of the needs of others" that is part of the prayer we say before meals probably applies here) and so he gives him the money and tries to patch his pitiful boots once more and then the next day the swarm of the millions of grasshoppers descends and eats the wheat and the garden and everything. And Pa can't get his new boots and he can't pay for the house and WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO??? If this is the book in which Jack the dog dies I'm going to have to stop reading, because there are only so many plagues I am ready to explain to a 5 year old.

In other happier, but completely unrelated news, Helena has learned to snap! I think she is a snapping prodigy because Harper just learned a few months ago and Hudson still can't. So, yay for you, little snapper!! She is saying more words now but some of them sound really weird. The word 'spoon' sounds really guttural and she keeps her lips mashed together when she says it: "uuummmnnn" is about as close as I can get to transcribing it. Today I got her to make the 's' sound and then I said "SSSS-poon!" and she parroted back, "Sss. ummmmnnnn." It's cute and hopefully not a sign of some speech disorder.

The toilet in the kids' bathroom is extremely temperamental and insists on getting clogged up at very inopportune times. Though I suppose there is never a good time for plunging. I spent 20 minutes getting it unclogged yesterday and then headed straight for my computer to look for "new construction" houses on har.com in our price range. There are plenty. The only drawback is they are approximately 45 minutes outside of Houston. So, the question is, would I rather have a toilet that flushes when it is supposed to (and sinks that drain properly, and refrigerators that don't require me to mop them out with an entire roll of toilet paper every 3-4 days, and blinds that are not disgusting..) OR would I rather be 14 minutes from the zoo and museum district. Then I think of Ma Ingalls and I'm just glad I'm not crunching on grasshoppers on my way to milk the cow. Grasshoppers that mean my husband will have to walk 300 miles in his broken down boots to get a job. BUT, I don't think I mentioned that I sustained an injury from the plumbing. I can't really move the right side of my torso or neck right now and typing is actually quite painful. I think Ma would consider this fellowship in suffering, right?