On the fly

I let them set the pace today.

I set the kids' books on the table  and printed a new "Chore Chart" for the fridge. They know what to do.

Madelyn needs to be nudged into action now and then ("Whatcha doin' Babe?"), but when she announced she would rather "work on her room" (a cleaning process that takes weeks and basically tidies one area while she plays in another), I shrugged, said, "OK."

Then I rolled out my yoga mat and minded my own business.

When Nathan spent more time pacing the kitchen than tackling math, I said nothing. I put out foam yoga blocks for him to use as stepping stones while he paced.

When he took his writing to the gym; when she asked to type up her story on Word, when he hauled out two weeks worth of laundry wrapped in blankets, I just nodded: Yes yes yes. Today was about trust. Trusting it will get done. Trusting in their timing.

Using a stool to hold down the paper in late winter sunshine.

I didn't let up on the load, just how it happened. They are drawing and labeling bones on a life size tracing of their own bodies. Nathan grumbled. I ignored it.

Madelyn asked for some room on the hard floor, too. I suggested she go outside. Her eyes widened: "Yeah!"

Just as long as it gets done, do it in your 'jamas, do it on the patio, put it off until 3:19 PM. If you want to do two hours worth of work in six hours, so be it. It's about disciplining oneself, which for me--today--meant disciplining myself enough to let them go.

Flexing and extending his phalanges on the kitchen floor.

Happy Japan Song

Madelyn's fascination with Japan spilled over onto her birthday.

We went to a Japanese Grill -- the four of us plus Aunt Becca and Uncle Andy. Good thing for reservations as the place was packed, turning away people at the door. We sat at the edge of a round grill while a chef clanged and slapped his way through appetizers, vegetables, fried rice, and meats. He wasn't Japanese, but Korean-born ("South Korea, so you know I'm not crazy" he added).

He doused the food in oil and lit it on fire, earning Nathan's unbroken gaze and admiration.

Madelyn was  prim, eyes wide and glistening with her internal smile.

There was no cake, but she was presented with a candle-holding ceramic Buddha and two pineapple chunks sliced to look like gondolas, shaded on the end by  paper and toothpick umbrellas. Beside each was a blood red cherry hugged by an orange slice, skewered onto a plastic sword. The staff sang "Happy Birthday" and then the "Happy Japan Song." We only know how to count to ten and the words for "left" and "right" in Japanese, so it could have been about anything. (You stupid Americans paid five dollars for this song...).

Madelyn later told Gramma the dinner "was magical." Maybe it was all that fire or maybe it was the delectable yolk sauce on the shrimp, but I think she's onto something. Now--how to work in a round grill on a future kitchen remodel...

All that school socialization? Not so great.

The kids got two compliments within the last two days. Yesterday, while waiting outside my yoga class for five minutes, they sat and read/doodled on their DSi games. When I came out, a woman who had been sitting across from them told me how "wonderful" my children are: they sat quietly and spoke to her politely when she inquired whether school was out for the day. She told us homeschooling "is the best," and she beamed at them.

Then at Meijer, the kids returned bottles and got to keep the money. We stood at the end of the checkout, cart full and paid for. They eyed the toy and candy machines, weighing their choice of saving versus spending. When I gave a last call to "either spend some money or save it so we can go home," they both said "Save!" A woman sitting on a bench about six feet away exclaimed: "Good for you!"

Maybe it's all this being-in-the-adult world that got them going with this next topic. I'm not sure. On the drive home and in the car wash, they talked at length about how "mean" and "bratty" this-and-that kid had been in school. Nate said there were even kids who seemed glad he would be going; Madelyn talked about how she wouldn't miss this one ordering her around, that one putting her down. When I was at the dentist yesterday, the hygenist asked about our "socializing." It is assumed that being in school is the optimal place to learn how to interact with other people. Except, according it my kids, it's not. It's a place to be called names; it's a place to be isolated in a crowd; it's a place where the kid to adult ratio is such that small disagreements get ignored for the sake of moving a class along--and small disagreements turn into silent wars when left unattended.

My kids have to work on their manners and self-control--but so does every person alive. At a time when those habits are forming, they were left on their own more than not at school, a situation that doesn't exist now that's we are one on one every day. Those minor irritations are managed and smoothed over, laying groundwork for the big irritations bound to come.

How are their social skills? Getting better, now that they're not bombarded with group-think or mob-rule. 

In public

The most noteworthy event of last week was going to see Papa in the hospital, where he is rehabilitating from a stroke. We drove up with Gramma (my mom). Nate volunteered to push her in the wheelchair since long hallways and breathing difficulty (COPD) do not mesh. He leaned into it, all fifty-five pounds of him. Then those two kids of mine did something that near-astonished me. They sat in a small hospital room and occupied themselves for over an hour with one small McDonald's toy (Madelyn) and tinkering with the wheelchair (Nate).

When the boredom finally overcame them, Papa turned on the TV and treated them to half an hour of cartoons we don't get at home. Then we loaded up the wheelchair with Gramma and Papa's laundry, and Nate insisted on making the return trip, pushing all the way back to the entrance.

When we parked the chair, the security guard greeted us, then asked, "Shouldn't they be in school?" This was the first time anyone had made this remark to me. It took a beat for me to respond with "No. We homeschool."

"Really?" he replied. "You do it?"

"Yep. We do the basics of reading and math and all, but when the kids get interested in something, we can check it out. Rather than doing a unit and hoping it's interesting, we use what they like already."

He nodded, seeming to approve. I felt compelled to elaborate.

I gestured: "This one (Madelyn) knows about Vikings and Japan because those are what interest her."

Madelyn complied by echoing, "I like Viking and Japan."

Then we waved off and boarded the elevator for the parking garage. The kids had never been in a hospital until this day and it was my first experience "defending" our apparent truancy. How fitting that it was a security guard--a man of enforcement--who had to be put right about where my kids "should" be.

Temporary Neverland

In the previous post, we seemed to cram two weeks into one. Between the blizzard and the flu, now it's like we skipped a week  My work obligations dried up with the increasing snow starting Tuesday. Rob came home ill Tuesday night and set up residence on the couch. We took a snow day on Wednesday, resumed our routine on Thursday, but cancelled Thursday evening obligations as Rob was still sick. On Friday, our school and errands came to a clammy halt when I woke up with the flu. Rob went back to work; I took his spot on the couch.

I have rarely been so miserable. My kids have rarely been so happy and free. Too weak to do much, I lay around and watched that my kids have become better friends. We sat around Friday and Saturday doing little-to-nothing. Rather, they sat; I propped and slid, shivered, and draped over. Left to entertain and occupy themselves, the kids became allies, poring over their DSIs like generals over a war zone; they consulted YouTube Pokemon experts and haggled over superior nicknames for their characters. They took turns watching each others favorite cartoons. Nate helped create and play Madelyn's stuffed animal warfare game. Madelyn let Nate "beat Pokemon" on the DS for her. They offered snacks to each other.  They still bickered with the vitriol of political opponents, but then they turned and made like best chums. Ah, how common interests make fast friends: yielding to all this Pokemon nonsense gave me more hours of peace than any amount of pleading, nagging, or threatening.

They took turns nursing us, too: filling hot water bottles, making tepid tea, resisting minimally when I called out chores that had to be done. They worked together folding laundry, putting away dishes, and wiping bathroom surfaces while chattering away continually in Pokemon vernacular.

Madelyn told me last night that she wishes it were Saturday again. I narrowed my eyes, automatically flashing through that day of passing out (literally) from low blood pressure, that day of no appetite, those times of blooming aches in my joints.

That's not what she's thinking. She wants to have the run of the house again. She and Nate held dominion over that day, with Rob at work and me laid out. It was a day fit for a kid.

Late January--getting into our stride

Last week was so full, it felt like two weeks in one. Despite the extras of more-- doing a yoga demo for Constantine Middle School girls' group, bowling with friends, going out to lunch with another friend on another day, working around my doing Thai bodywork one afternoon, picking up our vacuum in Kalamazoo-- the kids got their work done.

Madelyn learned how to do reporting and composed a family newsletter. Nate had to contend with doing neat, correctly-spelled writing because I wouldn't give him a pass on the erratically-paged, semi-decipherable essay he wrote at first. He resisted; I put my head down and kept vacuuming (that's how I stay strong--by cleaning something). When a fifth grade neighbor saw Madelyn's writing project, he pronounced it, "Cool." She beamed.

For history, we watched a video about the human origins (National Geographic: The Human Family Tree). Madelyn said, "We have a HUGE family!" Some of it is a little dry and beyond their comprehension, but it's laying ground for big ideas. This is the stuff I had to wait until high school to see--if there was time and a reason to view it.

The kids are learning Judo; it  is teaching them self control and physical confidence, as well as some Japanese.  Madelyn can tick off 1 - 10 in Japanese, but still gets our address confused with our phone number (!?!?!?!?!?!)

The best --and sometimes worst-- part is being with them through every phase of every day. There are gems in the monotony, though, like when Nathan cautioned against my being anything "like a 20-ish mom who's concerned about fashion" because that's not "the kind of mom [he] wants to have." He would prefer I let him worry about what's cool.

What a relief.

Between strict and free

It seems to bite me back when I give the kids too much freedom. It goes from "freedom" to "anarchy" in one short walk in the snow.

They have a list on the fridge of what they are to do every day. I have stepped back to see how motivated they are to get through the "must-do" things. There's a lot of walking around the house, a lot of free-form conversation about whatever's interesting to them at the moment (all things Japanese and Pokemon are the phases of now).   When I rustle them up for a walk at ten a.m., only math has been done. 

Nate free associates about his friends and the ranking of these various friends in his esteem. When he arrives at the pinnacle friend, he suggests we "walk to his house"--as in TODAY. My weeks are so varied that I need to check a calendar to see what's up for each day, work-and appointment-wise. Visiting this most esteemed friend can't happen for, oh...several days. Maybe not until Saturday. This refusal puts him in a snit. 

When we get home, the snit has become a semi-rage and he's turning irrational. Then a thought dawns: he hasn't eaten yet, has he? 

I ask, and he snarls "NO!". Then he stomps to his room, shouting that he refuses to eat (!). 

This is where freedom turns sour. I mix a soy shake--lots of protein included, demand he remove the barricades, and proclaim that "I'm in charge" and that he will eat .

He is quiet. He drinks the shake, big eyes looking up at me over the blue glass rim. Within ten minutes, he's a rational person again. I explain about our calendar, reminding him that I offered over the last weekend to have over ANY friend he wanted--but he declined. 

"You can't do anything at anytime you want, Nate. That's not how the world works." You have to take your opportunities when you get them, and do your work whether you feel like it or not. 

So: one strike against unschooling and one point for domineering parenting. I heard a bit on NPR about  successful parents in limiting alcohol abuse:

"The parenting style that led to the lowest levels of problem drinking borrowed something from each of the extremes. From the strict parents: accountability and consequences for bad behavior. From the indulgent parents: warmth and support

Bahr says these parents tend to be more balanced.

"They recognize their kids when they do good things and praise them, but they offer direction and correction when they get off a little bit," he says."

In other words: tyranny leads to rebellion and laissez faire parenting leads to bad choices. You set the rules, and when they don't comply, you stick it to them. So perhaps this was a better day than it seemed.

MLK Day

Since every other kid was off on MLK Jr. Day, we took off the usual subjects, too. However, we watched a BrainPop movie about MLK and were to look for some way to serve another on this day since Dr. King said: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'" 

Nate tidied the living room in anticipation of my seeing a Thai Yoga client in the afternoon. He stacked books, cleared dishes, toys, and socks, folded blankets, and arranged the pillows symmetrically on the couch. 

On our morning mile walk/jog, the neighborhood dog ran out to meet us. He is a raggety, bug-eyed Shih Tzu named Samson who runs loose a lot, I've been told. (We first met him two weeks ago and thought him to be lost. We brought him home, fed him, and called a few people to inquire where he belonged. I found his owner--someone who seemed to consider a dog running loose as common as the wind blowing--and we returned him.) Samson followed us home, so we let him in again, fed and watered him, and let him stay an hour until we had to leave. When we pulled out of the garage, he emerged from the side yard and followed our car down the street, like: "Where we going?"


After my yoga class at the gym, Madelyn bought a fruit bar for herself and for her brother. 

In the evening we attended the MLK Jr. Service at Center Park Methodist--the church where Rob plays drums. It was our turn to host this annual event, and the speaker was a district something-or-other for the SW Michigan Methodist area. He was Southern-born Afri-American man, and he preached with cadences that echoes MLK Jr.'s style. The service lasted two hours, included about eight songs, and entailed a lot of high energy preaching and response. The kids held out better than usual--probably because the speaker paced and gestured and amplified his voice to emphasize his points. When he mentioned Jesus saying "What you do to the least of these, you do to me, " I nudged Nathan and whispered "Samson."

He talked about how the "black and white thing" is old news, how the challenge now is to integrate with Hispanics, Muslims, and the homosexual communities. This impressed me as it brings MLK's message into present times rather than lingering over the 50s and 60s Civil Rights, as if we're all fine now.

There was a lot of hand-shaking and hugging afterward, and we ate a light snack. If we ever stop going to Center Park--if Lyne is transferred, say-- I'll go to a black church just for the energy and warmth. 








 

The TP of time rolls on.

I have CD-ROMs for the kids' history and science; however, the history one is lacking in visual aids thus far. It wants us to "talk about" the importance of the past and what a historian does. I love history, but YAWN. So to illustrate the abstraction of The Past, I took a roll of toilet paper and, with a marker, drew a 12-piece "pie" on the end. Each piece of the pie was a month.

"This is the year, and it goes around. You will often see time stretched out like this [pull end of roll and extend a flat piece of TP here], but it can also be thought of as going around, making layers as it goes. The Vikings were around about a thousand turns ago. Madelyn's has been with us almost eight turns."

"What's the hole in the middle?" Madelyn asks.

"The Big Bang," (Other answers could include "God" or "The Void".)

We talked about "bias," how each person remembers differently. Each of us was here last year for Madelyn's birthday, but my version of that day is not her version nor is it like Nate's version. To illustrate bias, I found a link to the Chicago Fire of 1871. The CD-ROM prompted this example, but it was all wordy, so I found another site with crackling fire sound effects and a changing map that shows how the fire had spread.

Sensational destruction aside, our lesson for the day was how the fire started. Apparently, no one knows for certain, but Mrs. O'Leary and her cow get the popular credit. One site said the reporter who got the by-line made up the cow part  to make his account interesting. There are several theories about the fire's origin--party-goers, flaming debris from space, Mrs. O'Leary herself (not the cow). Despite not knowing the facts, the *truth*  is that some people's claims are taken as fact. Mind your assumptions; watch your opinionated tongue. It could make history and destroy a reputation.

What was the "true" story of Madelyn's birthday party? Mine? Nate's? Hers? We all saw a different side of it--that's what. Same for history.

The coincidences that count

In December, I wrote how Madelyn had found a new favorite movie. The characters in "How to Train Your Dragon" are Vikings, so I have made a few attempts to learn/teach about this culture while the student has something to relate it to (versus when you learn stuff helter-skelter without interest or connection).

Let me give props to interlibrary loan. I love it; I use it; and if any institution were to inherit my estate, it would be the library. I found and borrowed a BBC video about the Vikings--at a reasonable 60+ minutes running time. It was in one of our history lessons for this week--and for Madelyn's sake.

Last week, for our winter break, we watched the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Today, I was looking up what inspired Tolkien and found references to Finnish poetry. He learned Finnish just to read these old myths/epic poems.

While we sat in dim light watching the Viking movie, the narrator spoke of the "giants, dwarves and dragons" of Viking lore. The Vikings were all about their stories--telling them for generations and then finally writing them down (the sagas). BTW, a "saga" means "it was said" or "what was said." The Vikings come from the same Northern countries that generated the stories Tolkien read that inspired his own stories.

Nathan turned to me as the actors rushed the screen with their swords, wearing their helmets and tunics, and said, "Mom, this could be out of Lord of the Rings." When the camera spanned Iceland and Greenland from a bird's view (more a helicopter, but not as poetic), I thought--that's Middle Earth come true: waterfalls, green rolling plains, volcanoes and icebergs.

The coincidence of our pursuing Vikings and having watched LOTR--and that they intersect-- is why I wanted to homeschool. We can make and observe and pursue these connections. This is where it counts.

So it begins.

Our first day of actual-schooling was a success. The kids have checklists on the fridge of their morning chores, their subjects, and a "housework" box, too. They can select a chore for the day from another list. (Is it not obvious that I like lists?)

We did writing, reading, math, and science. We took a mile walk, too. Once their lists were all checked, they had free time. Nate lost his temper and broke a pencil, so he had to repay the pencil by doing another housework job. A website I have found useful is the Charlotte Mason blog. The free e-books about "How to Start Homeschooling," "Smooth and Easy Days", and "Masterly Inactivity" are readable in one sitting. Look to the right margin for those titles.

In summary, the kids learned how to write a detailed letter, how to hyphenate on the syllable, what "awe" and "awesome" mean and how they are over the top in describing everyday objects, how to solve for an unknown (yes, algebra on Day 1), that there are three kinds of muscles in the body, and that losing one's temper has consequences; also, arguing takes up more of your free time than cooperating.

It has been good.

Tangentially, having good toys comes in handy when the kids act out. A few days ago, Nate lost his Macbook  when he swatted his sister. Being a boy driven by gadgetry, he dug out his hand held gamer, the DS. For Christmas he received a Scrabble-type game: Bookworm. This game not only kept  his attention, but it taught him new words. He typed in the letters "S O U" and it told him a "sou" is a type of French coin worth a small amount. There's learning happening, here! There's spelling (!) and vocabulary (!) and hand-eye coordination as he tries to build words before the time expires. Homeschooling sure is swell when it works without my even trying.

Writing in real life

Nathan wrote a thank you note on Sunday, and I am contemplating my own Christmas letter/thank you's. Serendipity awaits! Here is an article on NPR this morning:

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/26/132263637/perfect-thank-you-notes-heartfelt-and-handwritten

I told Nate this type of writing is used in "real life" and is something he needs to practice. Also, getting the envelope properly addressed took two tries (controlling handwriting to make it fit was the issue).

The very lows and the highs of Xmas

It's not Christmas if there's not a meltdown, and yesterday's was mine. Nate woke up griping about going to church. We are not a religious family, but once Rob started drumming for St. John's Lutheran and Center Park Methodist, we went along with him as a show of support. The pastor at Center Park is a kindred spirit, despite her designation of "Christian," so I enjoy going to listen to her talk, to make conversation with other people, and to generally be a part of something that is not work.

Nate resists because he's not a morning person nor does he willingly do anything other than what he-alone loves (like watching Dragon BallZKai or playing his DSi or building a snowfort).So when he woke up too late, complaining, and apparently out of pants, I gave up going to stay home and put him to work. In the process, I had a fit--a bona fide, three year-old, out of control fit. I broke a plate. I threw shoes. I swore. It was ugly. Then I retreated to my room and began to come out of it, rather like a drunk who sobers up and realizes the damage she has done.

I called Nate into the room and repented: "This is completely the wrong way to act...this was a temper tantrum as any little kid would have...this is not how someone with my experience and training is supposed to act." It seemed to relieve him of his own resistance, and we spent the next hour working around the house non-stop. He did everything I asked, and he even offered to help me do my Sunday office cleaning job.

The lesson for this morning was that a family does a lot for one another, and it is a rare thing when that activity is what EVERYONE wants to do. The kids come to yoga class at the gym for my sake. Dad got involved in coaching soccer for Nate's sake. I took Madelyn to horseback riding--and led the horse around a sandy, mucky corral--for her sake. We go to church so that Dad isn't going alone. Etc.The lesson for me to was in being humbled by my own anger. I should have done a handstand rather than throwing shoes. I have a lot of practice ahead of me. Being an adult is not a guarantee against losing one's temper; nor, apparently, is being a yoga teacher.

Just when the afternoon settled down and all left for the day was an evening's Christmas program, the kids ran in screaming. This was panicked screaming, not fighting-screaming or play-screaming. Our most recent adopted cat, Big Orange, was lying dead on the far side of Lover's Lane. Nathan threw himself to the floor, screaming and sobbing; Madelyn stood and wept, shaking, eyes pinched shut.

Big Orange (or, "Big O" or "Bo Cat") had come around occasionally in the summer and fall. He was big...and orange. We speculated that he was May's kittens' father as he was definitely in the area a lot and an un-neutered male. He was wild, too, not letting us get near him. About a month ago, we began to see him almost daily, eating out of May's dish. One day, he emerged from May's plastic bin shelter--the "Hidey Hole." He was settling in. I rustled up two more bins from the basement and made another "hidey hole" for May. Big Orange moved into this new shelter and came out every morning, squeezing his winter fluff and belly fat girth from the narrow circle. After many days, he stopped running away when we opened the door. Then he began to stand nearer and nearer to the person feeding him. The day before he died, his cheek touched my hand as I scooped wet food into his dish. It was either a nudge or a rub, but it was significant. May was put-off at having to defer to this big male, but we enjoyed winning his trust. I had fantasies of being able to stroke his back by spring.

Then the kids ran in, screaming. Rob and I walked across the street scooped him up. Rob carried him with a snow shovel and remarked thrice how "heavy" Big Orange was. We walked past the patio as the kids looked out. I dug a hole in the former garden (unused now as it's in too much shade). Rob laid him in, but still the hole was too short! This was a big cat. I dug out the hole another six inches and covered him in coffee-ground colored soil. Our yard is becoming a pet cemetery.

Finally, the high. We performed in the Center Park Christmas play. Rob played drums and the kids and I all had speaking parts. We sang a lot of Christmas songs and had a light meal afterward, complete with three kinds of jello--requisite eating at most any church dinner. Many people commented on how well Nathan acted his part (he was the grumpy kid who hates Christmas). Madelyn sang out better than I could have as a seven year old or as a seventeen year old. I got to dress up in a flowing skirt, ballet slippers, and  lots of make-up for my gypsy role. Considering that Halloween is my favorite holiday for approximately the same reason, it was the most fun I've had preparing for a Christmas event.

We came home to more knitting, one empty hidey-hole, and for our individual parts, a dose of humility or self-confidence.

Art for its own sake

This week, Madelyn and I did some watercolor painting at the table. Nate complimented my work and put Madelyn out because he did not comment on her work. This lead to a talk about looking to others for validation rather than doing something for the love of doing it.

Then Nate was recruited for the Christmas play at Center Park Methodist, despite his insistence that he doesn't want to be in front of people for any reason, at any time. We talked about giving back in ways OTHER than money, and that his being this character is giving back for all the snacks he consumes every Sunday morning.

Madelyn and I are learning to knit. Once I got the casting on and basic knit stitch, I just want to sit and do it. It's hypnotic. Madelyn is feeling a bit competitive about it, and she doesn't like starting over, but start over we must: we don't know enough about fixing our mistakes. We shopped for yarn this week and Nate even made a remark about wanting to try it. (I won't press it because his interests are fragile; the moment it becomes a "must do" he backs away like a wild animal from a trap.)

Patience and hard truths

Sunday was a lot of sitting. During early service at Center Park Methodist, Pastor Lyne's lesson for the children was about waiting. She demonstrated by having them gather around her and then saying nothing for several seconds. The room began to feel heavy with expectation; people began to shift and giggle, wondering what she was up to. Finally she spoke, and she talked about how when one has joy, then even waiting (like waiting for Christmas) can be pleasant.

Madelyn's ballet recital was in Kalamazoo. We drove slooowly through the coming snow. It was a tough day for Nate as all the sitting goes against his urge toward continual motion. During the long wait before Madelyn's recital (we got there early, as required, and sat for an hour before the show), he squirmed and poked at his sister and generally lashed out as only one can while confined to a chair.
Looking for the "lesson" in this trial, I said, "You need to sit and wait."
"I'm booooored." he groaned. His face twisted like someone with a cramp.
"So be bored. Enjoy boredom. Think of your breath, how it feels going in and out."
My kids don't always cooperate with my yoga instructions. He whined again.
"Listen. Sometimes we have to do things that are not fun. Show your respect for this event and for the people here. This is your homeschooling today. This is your practice."

After a long drive home--me driving between 30 and 45 mph--we arrived home at dusk.

Our Friday night movie had been bumped by a Friday night yoga class, so we watched our movie Sunday: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. It's not a violent movie, but it's disturbing because it is based on the historical fact of concentration camps and what they were like. The characters are fictional, though. It's about a German boy who befriends a Jewish boy who lives behind the fence of a "work camp." The German boy, Bruno, thinks it's a farm and doesn't understand what "those people" are doing over there.

I had read the book and in my research found a movie based on it (2008). Madelyn watched it all; Nathan paced around until he was given the ultimatum to either "sit down or go to your room." He missed about a quarter of the movie and came in at the end.

The ending is sad. Rob was wary about having them watch it all--he could see where it was going--but I insisted we finish. They needed to know the rest of the story. To withhold the truth it was pointing to would have been as misguided as the parents in the movie who denied telling Bruno what that "boy in the striped pajamas" was doing behind the fence. Nate reacted in anger; Madelyn was sad. But we talked about how easy it is to be cruel to other living things when you rank them as "less" than you. A lot of sitting on this Sunday, but a lot of practice and learning, too.

Madelyn and the magic of training dragons

Madelyn is on a binge. We borrowed How to Train Your Dragon (DVD) from the library and she has watched it daily. Yesterday, she watched it three times. 

I started to nag her about getting off the TV and stopped myself. Who of us has never binged? It's not great for a body, but a warning about over-doing it doesn't work that well. It's something you have to experience. I did playfully tease her about looking pale when she emerged from the basement.

What is the appeal of this movie? It's cute, certainly.  When I ask her "What's your favorite part?" she replies: "All of it." She likes the accents.  The animated characters are supposed to be Vikings and have Scottish accents. I, too, am a pushover for British Isles accents: Irish,Scottish, British. Can't blame her there. Half of Ralph Fiennes good looks come from how he speaks.

 She loves how the main dragon is more like a cat in appearance and behavior than like a reptile. "Mom, that's a May-May look," she says of the dragon's pouncing stance, referring to our outside cat, May. She's quoting lines out of context as she skips around the house, doing them over and over to get the cadence right.

It reminds me of when my sister and I hypnotized ourselves with TV after school (lots of Disney channel and Scooby Doo) and on weekends. We repeatedly watched our Dad's movies because it was something to do. It created a language between us; it set a tone for our childhoods. It wasn't a great way to spend an afternoon, but I turned out to be semi-literate after all. My sister is a gadget hound, and I think all that movie watching was the beginning of her love for technology. If the VCR or disc player didn't work, we called Becca.

The urge to nag Madelyn loosens. This is our holiday, after all. Binge away.

Q-word

Nate decided Monday morning that he doesn't want to play guitar anymore. As an experiment in letting him meander, I had ceased all nagging about practicing guitar. He wanted to start it; he wanted to continue it after soccer, so I let him be.

He did not practice all week; hence, he was lousy at his songs. After much ado (yelling, unfortunately, on both sides), he announced he did not want to play guitar as it was not his "thing." It was too much sitting.

The hard part for me? Letting him quit.When you let people choose their pursuits, your own expectations come rocketing to the surface. I want him to have success, so we talked about how something worth doing is hard and requires you coming back to it again and again.

Still -- he wanted to be done.

Fine, then. He had to be the one to talk to his teacher--a man who Nate adores. That brought up another round of resistance. He didn't want to "hurt [the teacher's] feelings." I held firm. It you want to steer your life, buddy, you have to take the wheel. Call him and tell him. After an hour's deliberation, Nate called.

I am disappointed. I don't want Nate to be a quitter.

But I was a quitter. I quit piano --twice--because I hated practicing. I started gymnastics as a tall and plump thirteen year old and quit after a couple weeks because it felt humiliating to be so much bigger than my teachers. I have quit jobs that were no longer in line with my interests or convenient (most I quit tactfully; one--I just called in and never went back). To quit is to say, "This is not my path."

Some things I quit and regret, like when I gave up my dream of massage therapy school in favor of going to university because it seemed more scholarly, more the thing to do. I spent three years and 25K to "appear" smart. That's pretty stupid.

Other things I have quit:

• My senior class trip to Florida --something we had fund raised for since sixth grade--in favor of going on a late winter backpacking trip in the Porcupine Mountains of the Upper Peninsula.   My classmates couldn't understand it: I chose snowshoes over flip flops. It was one of the top experiences of my life; I came home a different person.
• Working at a college as a library aide and a composition teacher, on the cusp of starting graduate school. After staying home with my kids for the month of June, I realized how much I was missing by chasing a career. What was my hurry? I quit the job and backed out of grad school (saving another 25K, no doubt). This opened up time and money for six months later when yoga training became available--a path I would not have followed if immersed in work and grad school.
• Competing with people:  their money, their status, their bodies, their talents. Competition can propel people forward, but it drives me into anxiety. I'm a working-class nobody. I rather like it. I have not lived up *nearly* to my potential. The rent is too high there.

 So even if I have to sit on my tongue and bite my hands, I am going to let go of this Q-word judgment and see what happens.

Resuming where we left off when he was 3...

When Nate turned two, he began having tantrums that frightened me. They lasted for 15, 30, 60, 90 minutes, and he was destructive. He detested being made to do what he did not want to do, and he rebelled in every way he could as a small boy of two, three, and four-- screaming, wrecking his room, etc.

I enrolled him in preschool to get a rest from this drama and to determine whether these outbursts were home-driven or just Pure Nathan. Apparently he coped well enough in school (his first teacher became a family friend and assured us he was normal). Further, I had a therapist at the St. Joseph County ISD evaluate him (he was not ADD or ADHD) and he went for several sessions with an Occupational Therapist for being so wiggly in 2nd grade. (The result? This kid needs to move to be able to think. That'll be 1500.00 dollars after insurance).

So we had experts tell us what we already knew. Nathan is a "spirited child" (There's a book, Raising Your Spirited Child that cost me two dollars at the library sale and did more to quiet my concerns than anything).

Now that he's home again, it seems we have picked up where we left off. He's armed with a better vocabulary and emerging abstract reasoning, though. I'm in for it.

Nathan and I  have argued every day this week. For instance, on the day that I had to clean a house, he was too rowdy per indoor etiquette. So, I put him to work scrubbing out a tub. He purposely did it all wrong, flinging water about, and was banned to the car. This brought up an argument on his being trustworthy-enough to follow directions as a prerequisite for staying home alone. That made him FURIOUS because he wants to stay home alone for short periods. Without all the tedious back and forth of our conversation, we eventually made up. The next day, he and his sister wouldn't keep their hands off each other, so I said they must "earn" their Friday soda pop. When I drank one of "his" sodas, he claimed insult. I claimed that having bought them, they are, in fact, my sodas. Outrage. Argument. Resolution.

It's obvious that his defiance

a. Was inherited from his mother, and

b.Was not eradicated in years of preschool and public school.

As a way to break us into this situation--being together a lot more than usual--we are not "schooling" until after New Year's. There will be housework, yes, and learning as we go, but the parent-lead pillars of math and writing will wait, as will the science and history.

I'm not sure how to teach the necessities without raising his ire at being "bossed around." Nor am I sure how well we'll get along in the process. However, better he and I learn to get along and accommodate one another than to drop him off at school and let a stranger try to manage all that piss and vinegar. If anyone's going to teach him how to cope, I trust myself  more than I trust a state-sponsored staff. It will be harder this way,  but perhaps in the long run, we'll both be better friends for it.

Both kids home - 1st day

Today was the first with both kids at home and the first day to test my patience. I found a math game site for a modest subscription fee (ixl.com), so Madelyn spent some time on it. In order to "pass" a level, she had to answer a number of questions correctly. She was in her grade level, but once the questions became less obvious, she wanted to quit. Her modus operandi for quitting is to whine and squirm until the patience of the overseeing parent is destroyed. I had to leave the room a few times to keep from caving. I gave her the option to "continue and pass the level" or have to "do it all over again another day--losing all the progress" she had made.

She worked at it for an hour -- whining the whole way. She passed the section, though, learning as much about persistence as about number patterns.

Nate cleaned his room for a fresh start to a new life. We visited the bookstore, the library, Pizza Hut, and Meijer. Madelyn used her own money to buy a stuffed toy. We stood in the aisle and figured out the tax by counting by 6s -- precisely the skill she had been practicing on the website.

We all did ten minutes of free writing in the afternoon --write whatever you want, just don't stop and don't read over your work until the time is done. Madelyn continued in her writing curriculum, learning to add details to describe a noun (in this case, her "wand").