Imitation of life

Has anyone noticed I've been blogging more frequently? I feel like Roo when he accidentally fell in the stream, "Look at me swimming! That's called swimming, what I was doing!"

Look at me blogging!

Incidentally, when we were reading that story this week, Harper stopped and demanded to know if Roo was actually swimming, and, if so, how old he was. She has gotten a little insecure about her lack of swimming ability. A few weeks ago, we went swimming at the B's house and their neighbor, who is only 4, came over, and she immediately began offering him a noodle or a floaty because he was, after all, ONLY four. She then realized, much to her dismay, that he was already a very accomplished swimmer who needed neither floaty nor noodle, and who could actually leap into the water with abandon and get himself quite proficiently to the side.

Well, I've tried to practice a little with the new camera. My main goal is The Fuzzy Background, so I read in my manual (thanks Robin) and realized The Fuzzy Background has something to do with Aperture, so I fooled around with that a little and accidentally took this one, of A Creepy Cicada Shell (Empty) on Leaf:

and then I got this one of Helena on the swing:

One of my complaints about the old camera was that I would see something and try to replicate what I was seeing and the result would be very disappointing. With this camera I'm already finding that I can better reproduce what I actually see.. Jamie would be glad to hear that all of the kids are very impatient with all of the photography, and that, in fact, just as I took the above photo of Helena, she said to me, and not very politely, "Camera go INSIDE! Right now!"

Something else funny that Helena started saying this week: When I ask her to do something, for example, "Helena, can you wipe your nose?" She answers, "I can't! I can't wipe my nose. I'm busy!" She also, if one of the other two asks her to do something she'd rather not, for example, go play in her room so they can do cannonballs on to the couch cushions on the floor, will say, "Because Mommy said NO!"

Here's all I got of the other two:
Surly face. Blurry background!



Slightly blurry Harper. Blurry background!

Room for improvement, definitely. But closer to the real thing.

Thoughts on homeschooling, Part 2

Part 1 is here. I'll summarize: We like homeschooling because it means we are not busy and frantic, and someday when we are able, we can take trips off-season.

We started attending a homeschool co-op last week (Classical Conversations) that meets once a week. I realized that the kids were going to need new backpacks because the only ones they had are for camping and, nifty as they are, they aren't wide enough to accommodate their brand new ring binders. So, we set off on a backpack quest. Side note: many are the cheap, garish, licensed-character backpacks, few are the plain, good-quality ones. We ended up at the Gap because, hallelujah, a rain storm! and the Gap is inside of the Galleria where we could rejoice in the rain without having to be out IN it. We found some decent (and on sale) backpacks there and, as we were checking out, this conversation took place: (my actual words in plain font, my thoughts in italics)

Salesgirl: They aren't in school yet?
me: No, not yet!
Salesgirl: Why??
me: (This is when the husband has told me to just say "They are privately educated" and move on. However I feel compelled to really explain.) Actually, I homeschool them, so our schedule is pretty flexible. We are getting the backpacks for a co-op we are doing once a week.
Salesgirl: You mean you teach them at home? YOU are their teacher??
me: Yes!
Salesgirl: Do they listen to you? How do you get them to listen to you?
me: (See, that is precisely why so many public schools have gotten a reputation for being free, all-day babysitting. Because people like this think they have no authority over their own children, so they send them off to school where, it is assumed, their kids will magically obey another adult.)
Well, most of the time. You know, I think the reason lots of parents think their kids won't obey them is that they only see their kids in the mornings when everyone is sleepy and rushed, and then at the end of the day when everyone is exhausted after being at work or school all day. One of the good things about homeschooling is that I'm the one who gets to enjoy my kids when they are at their best.
Salesgirl: (looking so skeptical) Hm. So, how many hours does it take to teach them everything?
me: Well, they are only 2,4, and 6, so we can get everything done in an hour or two. Sometimes much less.
Salesgirl: (looks appalled) Wow, that's all?
me: (See, this is another fallacy. We think just because kids are in school 7-8 hours a day that they are, of course, learning, learning, learning the whole time, and that this is somehow virtuous or noble. Being busy does NOT equal being truly productive. It's much easier getting things done when it's just 3 kids as opposed to 20 or 30.
Salesgirl: Okay, well, have a good day.

Just for the record, I don't have a single friend who has chosen public or private school who thinks the way the Gap girl does. I'm certain that all of my friends who school differently than we do have come to their decisions after deep deliberation and extensive research. The truth is, I have yet to feel that homeschooling is 100% the right choice for us and our kids. (Does anyone EVER feel this certain about parenting choices??) I do believe that right now, it is our only logical choice. Our neighborhood public school is not great (definitely a large percentage of kids getting free, all-day babysitting). Quality private schools are too expensive. I'm so black-and-white that I berate myself about this. I feel like the only way my intentions towards homeschooling could be totally pure is if we were within walking distance of a fantastic public school, could also afford private, and yet STILL we chose to homeschool. The only thing I feel certain about (it's not teaching methodology or curriculum) is that at this age, 35-40 hours a week is a tremendous amount of time to allow adults I do not know, and children I do not know, to influence my kids. If I went back to work, we could probably afford private school. But, that just seems silly to me. I would be getting paid to teach other kids, while I paid someone else to teach mine. Counter-intuitive, right?? And, NO, I do not think that just because someone went to college and got a degree in teaching means they have some Magical Expertise that I can't possible acquire. You know how I can know this? I AM someone who went to college and got certified to teach. And that is NOT why I feel qualified to teach my kids at home.

So, to conclude, dear Gap girl: No, my kids do not always mind me, and when they do not, I try to make the consequence swift and meaningful. Yes, we only "do school" a little portion of each day, but we are, hopefully, always learning. I am, most of the time, grateful for the opportunity to be with them all day, every day. In such a quick time, it will not be so, and it is my earnest prayer that I will have few regrets.

Playing possum

I was pushing Helena in the swing late yesterday afternoon (while sweating) and the dog started barking herself into an absolute frenzy in the back corner of the yard. I ignored her for a few minutes, assuming she and the neighbors' dog were having one of their yappy "chats," but then I realized there was no other dog. I walked over to investigate and there, huddled in the corner and so well-camouflaged that I had to stare intently to see it, was a baby possum. It looked quite dead until Sasha got in its face and yip-yapped, at which point it opened its tiny mouth, bared its tiny teeth, and made a teeny hissing sound. I took the dog inside and when I came back out, it looked really dead again. Like eyes wide open, no visible breathing DEAD. Right around that time the husband got home, and while he accumulated various defense mechanisms to take outside with him to investigate (including a can of Bear Attack Spray) just in case a rabid possum mother decided to come save her joey (they are marsupials!)I called a local wildlife rehabilitation place I remembered reading about in the paper a year or so ago. The lady was very helpful and invited me to throw a towel over him (joey not husband) tape him in a box and drive him across town where they would be glad to take him. I was really hoping they had some sort of on-call possum wrangler who would come to my house and do that for me. Alas, they did not. And while I have a soft, warm spot for All Creatures of Our God and King (except roaches) I am not Francis of Assisi. I had three hungry human children and a meeting to get to. So, what finally ended up happening is that the husband took a spray bottle with water and sprayed it on the REALLY dead looking baby possum and he came to life and went running the entire length of our fence and into the next door neighbors' yard. I felt a pang of remorse, especially when I googled 'baby possum in my back yard' and saw all these people who make their own baby possum formula and nurse them back to health and then lovingly release them into the wild where they have a rather tragic life expectancy of one year.

A few days ago Hudson scored a free comic book at Williams-Sonoma (a promotion for the new superhero-shaped cupcake pans), and he has spent quite a bit of time poring over it, making up names for the superheroes he doesn't recognize (which includes all superheroes except Spiderman, Batman, Superman, and I-Ron Man, as he pronounces it). He named one guy Giant Man (I think it was the Hulk) and another one Ursus Major, which I thought was a pretty good superhero name. At one point he asked me, "Do you think I-Ron Man would say P.U. if he smelled my feet?" and I said "Undoubtedly" and he thought that was great news. What was not such great news was when, a little while later, he was not helping Harper pick up in a manner that she found acceptable, and she said, "Hudson! You may not say 'Reginald Von Hoobie Doobie' until you have picked up the books!"

This afternoon we went to the grocery store and the lady bagging our groceries was asking Harper lots of questions and she asked her if she and Hudson were twins (which I think rather horrified Harper) then she asked if they were best friends (having watched them giggling and playing and generally enjoying one another) and Harper was quick to answer "No!" but she is wrong. They are best friends and they delight in one another about 90% of the time, and, even though it is much louder and rowdier than those days when Harper couldn't seem to enjoy him, I am so thankful for the way it is now. When I was putting her to bed just now, Harper said, "I am going to wake Hudson up in the morning and we are going to continue our hullabaloo!" We welcome you, sweet hullabaloo.

You say cicada, I say buh-tay-duh

Helena has discovered the cicadas and their songs. "I hear buh-tay-duhs!" she says. We found a couple of empty shells or hollow nightmarish husks or whatever they are called (creepy, creepy disturbing) on the side of the house and we all looked at them today. Better than roaches, but not by much.

I took some pictures today with the great natural light in the front room, with the new camera set on 'automatic,' because I've yet to read the manual. I think I see some improvement nonetheless:

The above angelic vision is really experimenting with the being two business. She has begun to raise her voice whilst simultaneously proclaiming desires counter to my own. She has also discovered the ability to make herself boneless when I am trying to pick her up in the midst of said disagreement, which is super enchanting.

The husband just got home from his first day of classes, which he celebrated with a lunchtime visit to a gun range with Mr. S. He laid out his bullet-riddled human-shaped silhouette targets and had me admire them, as proud as a second grader with an A+ on his first day of school.

Unrequited love

I saw a movie many years ago and I remember nothing else about it, including the title, plot, or major characters, but there is a scene where one character says "I love you" for the first time to the person he/she (the details are extremely fuzzy)loves, and the other party says, with visible squirming, "And I am FOND of you." I've decided this sums up my relationship with Sasha the dog. She loves, I am fond. But it is an improvement over the ambivalence and/or thinly veiled resentment I used to feel
.

We listened to Travels With Charley on the husband's ipod on the way home from Dallas and it reminded me of why it's one of my favorite books, and it also made me think about how well Steinbeck brings Charley to life. Charley is much more interesting than Sasha. I think standard poodles are somewhere near the top on Dog IQ charts. I don't know where Chihuahuas are, but I'm guessing it's pretty low. Sasha isn't stupid, she just doesn't have many character traits except blind adoration, which is generally focused on me. Her favorite time of day is when she sees me getting everyone getting ready for bed. She goes and sits in the chair in Helena's room and waits for Helena's story time. Only once Helena and I are in the chair, there is no longer room for Sasha, a fact which she is steadfast in ignoring. She tries to curl up on top behind our heads, which is precarious because Helena will rock the chair rather forcefully if the story is exciting enough. Usually Sasha ends up on the ottoman in front of us, and she sits and stares at me with a bereft expression and sometimes her eyes close as if she is escaping to a dream world where she is curled up in my lap 24 hours a day.

Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct

A few weeks ago, I picked up a kids' book by a guy named Mo Willems. I'd seen his pigeon books but had never checked them out. The book that caught my eye was Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, because at our zoo in one of the indoor exhibits, there is a thriving, writhing (slightly disturbing, if I'm honest) community of naked mole rats, and I thought the kids would enjoy a story about them. The conflict in the story is provided by a particular mole rat who enjoys getting dressed, and the other mole rats WILL NOT HAVE IT. Because, well, they are eponymously Naked. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Willems' wit and simple drawings, so we, on the advice of Mrs. B (I actually have two Mrs. B's--this is Mrs. MB, or CB, if we are being traditional)we checked out the Knuffle Bunny trilogy, which is about a little girl and her stuffed bunny. The third one has a little epilogue which made ME cry, but I think we've established that this happens with disturbing regularity, and that most adults will manage tear-free. We have enjoyed the pigeon books too, and then on our last library jaunt we picked up Edwina: The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, which is about Edwina, a dinosaur who lives in this town and bakes cookies and helps little ladies across the street and everyone loves her, until one day, this kid, Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie decides he is AFFRONTED by the fact that everyone in the town is so nonchalant about a Dinosaur who is SUPPOSED to be EXTINCT just baking the cookies and wearing hats and generally not acknowledging REALITY. It's clever and hysterical and the kids love it, but mostly, they are ENAMORED of the name Reginald Von Hoobie Doobie. Can't stop saying it, singing it, yelling it. Even Helena got in on it, yelling "HOOBIE DOOBIE!!" on the way home from Harper's gymnastics class today.

I really need to better organize our reading list and create some categories and a more accurate ranking system. We obviously trend heavily toward books about animals, but I think I can come up with some sub-categories. Examples:

1.Books About Little Girls and Their Beloved Stuffed Bunnies: Emma Bean by Jean Van Leuwen and the Knuffle Bunny trilogy.

2.Books About Dogs Who Run Away (humorous): Harry the Dirty Dog (Graham), Angus Lost! (Flack), The Great Gracie Chase (Rylant), The Stray Dog (Simont), Ivan the Terrier (Catalanotto).

3.Books About Animals Who Are Getting a New Sibling and Feel Some Ambivalence: What's in the Egg, Little Pip? (Wilson) A Baby Sister for Frances (Hoban), It's Quacking Time (Waddell)

4. How about Seemingly Simple Stories That Actually Introduce Big Ideas Like The Origin of Man and the Sanctity of All Life In a Way That is Winsome and Does Not Involve Placards? : Yellow and Pink (Steig), and Horton Hears a Who (Seuss)

5. Books About Bears and/or Rabbits Who Think They Want to Be Alone But Who Are Actually Made for Community: Bear Snores On (Wilson), A Visitor for Bear (Becker), Too Many Frogs! (Asher)

It's actually fun! I have a really good book that's basically an annotated bibliography of quality children's literature (Honey for a Child's Heart by Gladys Hunt) that has really helped guide our reading choices. I rarely just grab books from the shelf anymore, though that is how I found Mo Willems, so I don't discount it entirely.

Harper is brand new today. She winced but was very brave when the nurse swabbed her throat for strep (negative!) at the doctor's office. We left with a hug and a diagnosis of "probable virus, no treatment necessary." This morning she woke up ravenous and has not complained of any more headaches. I took Winnie-the Pooh with us to read while we waited, and she is understanding and appreciating the humor in a new way. "Pooh Bear," she confided on the way home, "is not very smart. HE WAS the WOOZLE! And Piglet was the WIZZLE!" and today, she laughed uproariously over Owl's spelling of "Happy Birthday" on Eyeore's present from Pooh. She made me read the "HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY" part three different times. Fuzzy and cute, like Pooh.

Maybe every other day is more realistic

We've been a little busy, which is not our natural state. And, as if to physiologically rebel, Harper is sick. So sick that at our dear Izzy's swimming party this morning, she asked to leave the swimming pool to go inside to LIE DOWN. Also she was not at all interested in the adorable cupcakes. This has NEVER EVER happened. She is currently napping and when she wakes up, we are off to see the pediatrician, who, when I called, actually had no record for her because I realized she hasn't been sick enough to go to the doctor since she was 2.

We went to Dallas for a few days last week to see our teeny, beautiful new niece. Harper and Hudson loved the cousin time with the big sisters, and I got to do this for a very long time:
I love newborns. Tiny little warm loaf of bread.

We checked out some Maisy books from the library a few weeks ago, and this kid named Avner had written his name really big in the front of two of them. Yesterday, out of the blue, Harper said, "I wonder what Avner's mommy was doing when he was writing his name in the library books?" which made me laugh. Also, she and Hudson have started playing a game they call "Baby". This is how it works: Hudson sits on the arm of the big red chair and starts crying about something. Then Harper will go over and pick him up and carry him a couple of feet and say something kind. A couple of days ago when they were playing, he started crying and saying "I'm hurt MAMA!" in this baby voice, but instead of picking him up, Harper walked away and announced, rather callously over her shoulder, "I'm going to go exercise" and went into the other room. Lovely. And, for the record, the words, "I'm going to go exercise" have not crossed my lips in MONTHS.