Sometimes its a Bitch

Fall Session of St. Brigid's

2009-10-25T22:34:00.003-05:00

Well, it's been a while since I blogged.

This fall session of school, we are studying Nature Study for science, and working on the Cub Scout Wildlife badge and the Wisconsin Junior Ranger badge.

Other classes include:
Math (addition and subtraction review)
Geography: Maps and Rivers (working on Geography requirements for Cub Scouts)
Spelling
Reading
Grammar and writing (working on Communications requirements for Cub Scouts)
World Literature Greek myths, Irish Myths
Bible Study
Piano
Art

We are big on field trips ever since we got the new car. Here are some of the things we have done this year so far:

3 trips to Brookfield zoo (and another one tomorrow)
Thorn Creek Forest Preserve Cleanup
Fair Oaks Farm (dairy farm) tour, including seeing a calf being born
Goodenow Grove Forest Preserve Fall Festival
Pinhook Bog (Indiana Dunes national lake shore)
Fungus Hunt in Goodenow Grove
Dissecting Owl Pellets
Olld-fashioned fall festival at Spring HIll nature center in Schamburg.

In addition, Kiddo belongs to Cub Scouts, 4-H, Modern Woodmen of America, a homeschool club, and a model train club. He is going to go back to hockey as soon as I can afford it.

4-H is studying Ireland for the International Fair. Ted also signed him up for about 11 projects. I hope he plans to help---a LOT!

Comet Lulin!

2009-02-26T01:41:00.001-06:00

We got to see Comet Lulin tonight. It was very dim but definitely observable with the naked eye. Mostly it was just a blur between Saturn and Regulus, but still very cool. I have never seen a comet before at all. And I am so proud of myself for finding it, because I have been to a dozen planetarium shows where they show you how to find all the stars and so forth, and I NEVER see anything once I get out on my own.

Ivan Carlos

2009-01-29T00:44:00.000-06:00

Yesterday a baby died in Chicago. His name was Ivan Carlos and he was only 2 ½ months old. His tiny little life was lived out in a cramped filthy apartment with as many as 18 other people, many of them children. He lived surrounded by dirty clothes, rotting food, and cockroaches.

What must that baby’s life have been? Two and one-half months of filth, likely accompanied by hunger and neglect. Two and one-half months, frightened and alone, maybe hurt and abused. I used to know the kind of people who live crammed into dirty apartments. They are not the kind of people who make loving parents. They scream at hungry infants, rather than comfort or feed them. They sell their food stamps for drug money. They are the kind of people who don’t care about themselves, much less the creature they happened to conceive and by some accident deliver.

I wonder about the pro-life people, and whether they listen to the news. Don’t they hear things like this? How could anybody, anybody, in their right mind imagine that allowing that child to live for 10 weeks in a squalid hell is in some way a good thing? How can they think that forcing women who don’t want children to have children will have a good result? Forcing every woman who happens to get pregnant to bear out the pregnancy will only result in more horror stories like little Ivan Carlos.

Where are the pro-life people when things like this are happening? Once the unwanted babies are born, who takes care of them? If these people were really pro-life, why are they not working toward improving the quality of life for babies everywhere? Why don’t they see to it that the egg-donors of babies like Ivan Carlos have access to decent birth control? Why don’t they take adoption counseling into the inner city, where it can help babies like Ivan Carlos get a new start with loving families? Why oh why don’t they make any effort to help all the thousands of unwanted babies being born every day all over the world?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to help the unwanted babies already living in the world to improve their lot in life? Wouldn’t that be a greater good to the world, or a greater testament to the glory of God, if that’s how you roll? Why should they track down all those women who at least have the sense to know they are not ready for motherhood, and force them to shoulder a burden they don’t want? How on earth does that help anybody?

It sure does not help all the Ivan Carloses in the world.

May he find peace at last.

Proud of my Son

2008-04-03T02:21:00.002-05:00

Today we went to homeschool group and then stopped at a forest preserve to take a short hike and visit the nature center. Kiddo wanted to make a craft, so the nature center people kindly told us to help ourselves to the supplies. We had noticed some taxidermied animals in the nature center, and Kiddo asked if they had been shot. I told him I didn't think so; the animals had likely been found dead from natural causes. But he was very adamant and concerned that nobody shoot animals in the forest preserve. So for his craft, he made a diamond-shaped sign with a picture of a gun with the red circle-slash over it, and the words NO SHOOTING written on. He got permission to tape it up in the window of the nature center.

As he was taping up his sign, he told the nature-center lady, "Nobody should shoot at the animals, because they are defenseless." He said it in such a cute, matter-of-fact way.

I love it that he cares so much for animals, and even bugs. This evening he made a temporary cage for a lady bug so that it would not fly up in the ceiling fan and get hurt. What a sweetheart. I have heard it said that the true character of a man shows in the way he treats animals. That says a lot for my son.

My little boy is not so little any more.

2008-03-25T11:16:00.002-05:00

Kiddo turned 7 Saturday. We had a wonderful ice-skating party at the local rink, where he takes hockey lessons. All his cousins were there and his coach even dropped in for cake and gave him a hat with the ice-rink logo on it. A wonderful time was had by all.

My mom, in her sneaky way, told his cousins to ask him if he wanted to sleep over that night. Well, hey, it's his birthday, so why not? Only after they left did I realize, the next day was Easter, and I would not be there for the Easter baskets. I missed getting the Easter Bunny picture this year, through my own stupidity and the fact that someone broke my car window and it took it all week to get repaired. And now I missed seeing him get his Easter Bunny basket, too.

Ted reminded me that it's not that big a deal, after all, it's not Christmas. Of course he's right, but still . . . . Kiddo is growing up so fast. Who knows if next year he will even believe in the Easter Bunny? Or Santa Claus, for that matter. It's only a matter of time. I felt as if I had something stolen from me.

Of course, it's not just this one incident that has got me all bent out of shape. A year ago, I would have been fine with this arrangement, because I would have felt that there were plenty more Bunny-enriched Easter mornings left for future years. Kiddo has matured so much in the past year of so. He is much less a little boy, and much more a young man. He thinks differently now, and he questions everything, and it is only a matter of time until he works out that the world is not quite as magical as we have let him believe.

Only a matter of time.

Sometimes I feel like I have started this long, slow countdown clock, ticking away the moments until the magic ends. Only, I don't know where the stopping point is. Unlike a kitchen timer, which will tell you the exact number of minutes or even seconds until your casserole is done, this timer never reveals its end point. I only know that, every time I make it though a major event like Christmas or Easter or a Lost Tooth, and it seems like Santa or the Bunny or the Tooth Fairies have survived, I breathe a sigh of relief and figure I still have time until the next event. Whenever I field a question like, "How exactly do reindeer fly?" I notice that the clock is ticking, and am reminded that it will one day run out.

That's one more reason to home school. It helps me maximize the childhood time, this magic time.

PS: My friend Heather at My Supernatural Life has a little girl who shares a birthday with my boy. Heather wrote the most lovely post in honor of her daughter Riley turning 5. Be sure to check her out.

Jessica Junior

2008-02-19T02:27:00.002-06:00

We got the box of new Jessicas the other day. Ted took one with him this morning, and then brought it home, telling Kiddo that the Mexican Restaurant had called and said they had found her.

Oh, the joy! I wish we had videotaped it. First he cradled her in his hands, and said, "Jessica???" as if he really couldn't believe it. Then his whole face lit up as he clutched her to his chest. He danced around the house with her. He made up little songs for her. He was unbelievably ecstatic. He held her in his hands while we were reading, and of course he took her (and her dog) off to bed with him.

The new Jessica is cleaner and a brighter green than the last one, which he attributes alternately to someone at the restaurant cleaning her up, and her having a good bath at her home on the Forbidden Planet (like in the movie.) The new one also has a few beans in the stuffing, which he says are there because she ate them at the Mexican restaurant.

Thank God for the resilience of young imaginations!

A day in the life

2008-02-12T01:39:00.000-06:00

Here is a bunch of unrelated news:
Ted has been having secret meetings with the children's librarian. She thinks her daughter has a duplicate Jessica at home. If all else fails, she will help us order a sack of 50 of them from the wholesaler.

Kiddo is dealing with the loss very quietly. When it became apparent that we were not going to find her, Ted had the presence of mind to say, "Wow. She must have found a space ship and flew away." And I picked up on it right away, saying, "Yeah, but I wish she could have said goodbye first." Kiddo cried a little bit for her, but he comforts himself by imagining her fabulous life on the Forbidden Planet. I suggested he get re-acquainted with some of his other furry "friends," so now he has half a dozen other stuffed critters he is dragging all around the house. We have talked a little about grief and loss, but nothing too heavy duty. I hope to God we can find a new Jessica soon.

Kiddo had his first hockey lesson at the local ice arena. No more saturday trips to Orland Park! Yea! The new coach is very nice and suggested we put kiddo in the Saturday morning class, so he can have more one-on-one instruction.

My brother-whatever Mike called today to tell me my mom had called HIM to say she was having some kind of fluid-retention issue in her leg, and had been to the doctor. I called her to ask what was happening and why she had called Mike but not me, and she refused to answer. She is still pissed at me for something from last November of December. I don't know specifically why she has her knickers in a twist, but that was about the time I started laying down boundaries.

Kiddo wants to spend Saturday night at her house. He is ASKING to go. That just happens to be my birthday. Ted and I will discuss it later.

We have been discussing what we want to do about managing Kiddo's relationship with my mom. This is so hard because it is impossible for me to be objective where she is concerned. Ted's big issue was with the bathing and her puerile interest in seeing Kiddo in the buff. I think we have that under control. Mom really does not like that I have forbidden her to bathe my son, but I think she also understands that if she wants to see him, she will have to play by my rules.

My huge issue with my mom is that I don't want my kid to come home with his self esteem torn to shreds, with no greater sense of himself than as an object for other people to use. But I had an epiphany the other day--MY kid won't ever feel like that, because I am raising him. Every single day, I treat my child like the loved and adored kid he is--and I also make the effort to discipline him, to teach him right from wrong, to correct him when he messes up, and so forth. A few hours with a slightly batty old lady isn't going to change that. Not ever.

Many of my friends have told me that he should spend absolutely no time alone with her, but for some reason that just does not ring true with me. (Those same friends also tell me to trust my gut, which I am). The thing is, Kiddo is very open and honest. I have talked to him a few times about the odd ways his grandmother acts and why she sometimes says the things she does. He seems comfortable with "That's just Grandma." I think he gets, as far as he is able, that Grandma and I have very different opinions. I have taught him that he should respect other people's right to have their own opinion, without actually accepting that opinion himself.

I think I'll go ponder that while I drift off to sleep.

Ta-da! The cake!

2008-02-11T10:12:00.000-06:00

Goodbye, Jessica

2008-02-09T21:59:00.000-06:00

We really did it this time. Kiddo took Jessica into a Mexican Restaurant, and when it was time to go, she was gone. It was a fast-food kind of place, where you order you food at the counter and then take a tray to your table. We searched everywhere, even pulling out the trash cans and poking around. We left a sketch of her and my phone number with the staff, but I don't have much hope. It's a sad night here in central Illinois.

How could we let this happen?

I want this as a poster . . .

2008-02-09T14:48:00.000-06:00

To put on my front door:

I love Doonesbury. It's the only comic strip I read. And this just so suits me.

Talking to strawberries

2008-02-09T12:32:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow is the Cub Scout Banquet, and there is a father-son cake decorating contest. the guys are making a 14-inch round cake, with a Chinese checker board for decoration. The cake is French Vanilla, with fresh strawberries in between the layers, and M&Ms for checkers. I am NOT allowed to help, only to supervise. So I am hanging out in the office, fooling around on the computer and trying to stay out of the way.

Here are some of the conversations:

Ted: Oh, shit! Help! Help! Oh, oh man! ERIN! Help! HELP! Erin, really, come out here! HELP ME NOW!
Me: What's wrong, honey?
Ted: Oh, man! There's a big f'ing hole in this cake!
Me: Where?
Ted: Oh, never mind, I'll just stuff some strawberries in it. And frosting! Look! Frosting fixes everything!
Me: Yeah, frosting is just like Spackle.

Ted: Fuck! Fuck! You little shit, you fucking piece of shit!
Me: Ted! Cut that out!
Ted: It's OK, I bet everybody swears at their cake.

Ted: Stupid strawberry! I'll fix you! (apparently he eats the strawberry.)
Kiddo: What happened to the strawberry?
Ted: It's being punished, in my stomach. That's what it gets for not co-operating.

The fun part is figuring out how to make the Chinese checker board. It's 2 overlapping equilateral triangles, like a star of David. So how do you make the equilateral triangles? Well, here's what does not work:

You can't draw them freehand.
You can't use the steel yardstick you have been using on your train layout.
You can't stand there and cuss at them, hoping they will get their shit together and become a star.

What do you do? You turn to Mom, who understands how to apply A^2 + b^2 = c^2.

Then you decide Mom's paper pattern doesn't work, scrap everything, break out the steel yardstick, and try to draw the damn things freehand, while attempting to cuss the cake into submission.

Oh, this is jsut too weird . . . .

2008-02-05T09:29:00.000-06:00

I absolutely adore Paris Love, Ex-Stripper. I read her blog all the time. I happen to know her form a professional stripper web site (yes, we have those) and I think she is one of the smartest, most beautiful women ever to get naked for money.

Anyway, I found this on her blog. It is a list of the top 100 weird bizarre things people have posted on Fundamentalist chat rooms. I know some of my friends from The Denim Jumper have issues with the fundies. I don't ever go there myself, (why go where my sluttish, wanton, sinful way of putting food on my table is not welcome?) so I was completely ignorant of the depth of ignorance, stupidity, and hatred people can spew. Here are some examples:

For hypocrisy:

[One Christian speaking to another]

You are banned. You are not a Christian for Christians don't accuse brothers and sisters in Christ of being non-Christian.

For just plain stupidity:

I can sum it all up in three words: Evolution is a lie.

For completely missing the point of Christianity:

I honestly don't care about your rights. If it were up to me, all Atheists would be burnt at the stake and or cast into a river with weights tied to their ankles and or placed before the firing squad, etc etc etc.

For just plain meanness:

[about a girl being born with mental disabilities]

This girl is like a leper so what she needs to do is try and find god

if she really believes she can be healed from this state, she will be healed from this state

Most afflictions like this are caused by sins committed while still inside the womb. If she can repent for what she does god will embrace her and make her as human as you or me but if she chooses not to she'll always be like this

god tests every one of us [emphasis added at the FSTDT site]

For tragic intolerance:

Just recently my son Bobby came out to me. I had been worried for awhile. His teachers said most of his grades were slipping and he seemed depressed and withdrawn.

Bobby said he'd been hiding it for awhile because he was afraid I would reject him. I sat him down and told him that I loved him and that God loved him, but that his salvation was in danger if he did not resist his unnatural tempations. I told him how being gay would mean he would live a shorter life, and that if he couldnt change his orientation he could be celibate like most the ex-gays are. He started crying saying something along the lines of "I knew you wouldnt understand! You're just like everyone else!" before running to his room and slamming the door.

What did I do wrong? I dont want to lose my son, but I fear I already have. I talked it over with his therapist, who had the ludicrous idea that homosexuality was unchangable and that trying to repress could lead to lots of psychological damage (I've dropped him and will try to be finding another therapist with more moral beliefs). I wouldnt be surprised if he's the one who's feeding my son all the homosexual propaganda about how its 'ok' to be gay. That, or how homosexuality has engulfed the media, making it seem 'cool' and 'hip' and how they were just another oppressed minority. You didnt have to worry about seeing two men making out on tv at my age! I dont want to sound like a fanatic, but Im worried what other effects will come out of this increasingly secular, immoral society obsessed with filth.

Am I too late? Or is it possible to save my son

[Note: the boy eventually took his own life.]

And for complete lack of irony:

[Am I in discussion with a human who has a functioning brain?]

What does a functioning brain have to do with the Bible?

In a backwards sort of way, these guys are really a pretty good endorsement for Christianity. What other organization, peopled with morons such as these, could continue to function for 2000 years, unless God actually was on their side?

A blogging meme

2008-02-04T09:56:00.000-06:00

I invited myself into this meme over on Like I Have Time For This. It looked like fun, so here goes:

How long have you been blogging?

I started keeping a work-related blog a couple of years ago as part of a work website. This is my first actually personal blog. I stared it in May, 2007.

What inspired you to start your blog, and who are your mentors?

I wanted a place where I could talk about both my work and personal life. For obvious reasons, I don't tell about my dieting, my Mom, my lesson plans, or other stuff like that on my work site. And I freak out on home school boards and lists and so on because I think that if people knew I am a stripper, they would never want to talk to me. So this is my little space on the web, where I can let me be me.

I don't know that I had any mentors as such. I liked My Supernatural World the first time I read it, and then started reading more and more. But really, I just jumped in on my own.

Are you trying to make money online, or are you doing this just for fun?

I wish my blog was interesting enough to generate money. But, no, this is just for me.

What 3 things do you love about being online?

1. There is an unlimited amount of information and stuff to read.
2. You can find out the answer to anything you want to, in just a few minutes.
3. I meet some of the most awesome people.

So there it is. I tag Fourmother, Heather at My Supernatural World, and Holly at And so it Goes.

I hope nobody tagged them already.

One more bit of magic gone

2008-01-30T11:03:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, Kiddo announced to me that Thomas the Tank Engine is not a real engine; he's just a story somebody made up. So much for our yearly pilgrimage to Day Out with Thomas, and seeing Kiddo's eyes light up at the sight of the life-sized blue engine. So much for the Island of Sodor, where the engines are alive, and where engines and people work, play, argue, act childishly, get over themselves, and make up, all as a matter of course. So much for James, Percy, Gordon, and Edward.

All that magic gone in just one puff of logic.

Jessica come home.

2008-01-27T20:30:00.000-06:00

This is Jessica:

She may look like a happy meal toy, but . . . this is no ordinary toy. This is my son's daughter.

Kiddo never, ever got so attached to a toy as he did to this one. When he was at that age where most kids glom onto one toy and cherish it above all things, we tried to find that one special toy for him to love. We was just not interested. Then, last summer, Jessica came into our lives via the library reading club. She arrived in a paper-plate-and-tin-foil space ship, a week or so before the Vacation from Hell. And she stole our hearts.

Connal adores his Jessica. He takes her every where. She sits on his desk during lessons and on the table at diner time. She rides in his pocket to hockey practice and Sunday school. He takes her to Cub scouts and Museums, and he holds her up so she can see things. He bought her a dog and made her a bed out of a mushroom box. We video taped Jessica putting her first ornament on the Christmas tree. The first thing he says every morning is, "Where's Jessica?"

Where, indeed?

Today, she slipped out of Ted's pocket. He told Kiddo to let him carry Jessica, to keep her safe. We didn't realize until we got home.

Tomorrow, of course, we will return to the restaurant and the forest preserve where we went today. Ted already called off work. We will search every inch of where we went today.

For now, there is nothing to do. The restaurant is closed, the forest is dark. Ted is pacing around, guilt-ridden and sad. He is feeling the pain of having betrayed his son's trust. For me, I am in tears and working on a very large glass of wine. I have a toy that I loved that much. I know how I would have felt to think my Leo was lost and alone somewhere, perhaps never to be found. Kiddo wandered off to mess with the new train layout. He is being very quiet.

For now, I will say a special prayer tonight and keep my fingers crossed.

Jessica, please come home.

----------------

Edited to add:

Just as I was about to post this, Ted had a flash of inspiration and searched Kiddo's coat pockets. All of a sudden I heard him say, "Oh my God!" Guess what he found.

Kiddo raced up the stairs when we called him, gave the found Jessica a big hug, and whisked her off to play trains with him. Ted collapsed into a chair. I am completely speechless. Wow. Just, wow.

In with the new

2008-01-26T03:31:00.000-06:00

January is always a weird time for me. I don't really make resolutions, as such. But with the days growing longer and sunnier, I begin feeling more hopeful. I start thinking I may have some chance of reversing the complete muddle I have made of my life in the past year. And I get to thinking about what I did well and what I want to improve upon.

This process usually takes the whole month of January. First I have to recover form the holidays, which can take some time. Then I have to go back to work and get back in the swing of it. Then I have to re-engage my poor brain and start actually thinking again (ouch!).

All in all, 2007 was pretty good. Financially, it was a bit dicey, but we learned from that and have things better under control now. Otherwise, I did some amazing things. I turned big corners with my husband and my mother. I took my son out of school and brought him home where he belongs. We passed the first full year in our new house. I lost 20 pounds. and here are the things I want to better in 2008:

*I want to resume my workout program and also include PE in our school subjects. And Yes, I do consider Pole dancing a fit activity for PE, thank you.

*I made big progress on my kitchen this week. Now if only I can keep the trend going through the rest of the house.

* I really need to take better care of my hair and skin if I want to keep dancing for 5 more years. (Every year I say 5 more years. I've been saying it for 4 years already.) I also need to get serious about losing those last 15 or so pounds.

* I am working on changing up my work schedule so I have more time for school, and changing our school schedule so we can do more of the things we love.

*I am going to start saving money at the beginning of the week, instead of waiting until the end to see if there is any thing left over.

That is enough change for now. I'll let you know how it goes.

A sad and beautiful post on another blog

2008-01-26T01:51:00.000-06:00

I have been weirdly busy lately. You might have seen on my Twitter that I had Car Drama, a Cold, a Kitchen Issue, some Homeschool Issues, and so on. I have started 3 or 4 entries lately, but not had time to finish any on them. But I did find this on The Organizing Junkie. It caught my eye because the floor of this room looks exactly like my son's room would look if he were into pirates instead of trains. Maybe I'm still a little bit sick, but this almost made me cry.

At any rate, I just subscribed to this girl's blog. I hope she writes more like this.

What are you doing after work?

2008-01-05T03:54:00.000-06:00

That's one of my favoirtie things guys ask me. I know they are secretly wishing I would say, "Nothing more important that going over to your place . . . ."

Well. Today was supposed to be my "early" night. I was scheduled to get off at 8. At 7:40, a good friend and former extremely good regular customer dropped in to see me. Why do people like that always show up at the end of the shift? Where are they at 4:15, when there is nobody in the bar and I am dying for someone to talk to? Well, anyway, I had to sit and chat for a few minutes and then had to have a chat in the dressing room, too, and so didn't get out until almost 8:30.

Then I had errands to run. Yep. I do some of my best errand running after work. First I dropped by the discount liquor store to stock up on wine. Then I ran down to the grocery store to grab some groceries. I don't know that store well, ands the self-checkout thingie was freaked out by my reusable grocery bags, so that took almost 2 hours. Then I ran through a drive-through for coffee and a rather lousy facsimile of dinner (diet resumes Monday--I swear!) and dropped off what little remained of my earnings at the bank. Then when I finally got home at almost midnight (did I mention the snow all over the roads on the way home?) I found my house looked like an explosion in a Goodwill shop. SO I cleaned my kitchen, ran the dishwasher, left a message for the dishwasher repair guy, put away my groceries, and started a loaf of bread. Took out the compost and the trash. Fed the critters.

After that I took a break and read some of my friends' blogs.

Then I did 2 loads of laundry, folded some backed-up laundry that had been waiting for me to take care of it, hauled some stuff down to the freezer, and put a deep-cleansing oil treatment on my face. It is now 4:12 a.m. The only reason I am here at the computer is because I need to kill a little time and let the oil soak in before I go take a shower.

I have only been back to work 2 days, and I already remember why I needed a vacation!

Talent Show

2007-12-20T09:07:00.000-06:00

I won't comment on what I thought were sub-standard performances from the other kids, but MY little darling was wonderful. We told jokes for his talent. I had to be his straight man. He was sooooo cute. And he stood still and looked at the audience and spoke into the microphone. These were the jokes:

Me: We have been studying really hard at home, and we learned a lot of interesting things. We wanted to share some of them with you. We have been learning a lot about animals. Kiddo, tell me,

What do sheep say to each other at Christmastime?
Merry Christmas to ewe!

What do sheep say to shepherds at Christmastime?
Season's Bleatings!

How do sheep say Merry Christmas in Mexico?
Fleece Navidad!

We have also been studying literature.What do you call an elf who steals gift wrap from the rich and gives it to the poor?
Ribbon Hood!

And just one geography question: Where was king Solomon’s temple?

On his forehead!

Dear Mom . . .

2007-12-19T19:00:00.000-06:00

Dear Mom,

This is to let you know that you no longer need concern yourself with my son's education. I will never again ask you to attend any function of his homeschool group or any other group. I know your extreme self-absorption probably makes you incapable of understanding why I am angry, so I will explain it to you.

I asked you over a month ago whether you wanted to attend C's talent show with his homeschool group. First you said yes, and C was very happy to hear it. Then you decided you could not drive to the location of the homeschool group, so I would have to drive an hour out of my way each way to go pick you up and drop you off. I really should not have agreed to that, but I did. In spite of the fact that I worked extremely lat last night and did not get to bed until almost 5 a.m., I was still up at 8:30. I could have gotten at least an hour and a half more of precious sleep, had I not had to go get you. I also could have had breakfast.

Of course I was late meeting you, so I got the cold shoulder for that. I would have called and let you know I was running late, only I already know you refuse to turn on your cell phone unless you want to make a call. So even if I had tried to call you, I would not have been able to, and I still would have gotten punished for something unavoidable.

By the time we got to the McDonald's drive-thru, I was already tired, highly caffeinated, and actually trembling from the need to eat. I admit I yelled at C when he repeatedly kept me from hearing what the server was saying to me. However, it is not your place to question my discipline in front of my son.

Your displeasure at the homeschool group meeting was actually palpable. Although Ted and I made repeated efforts to engage you in conversation, you stayed hunched in your chair, arms and legs crossed, and resisted all our attempts at being pleasant. You stared around at the other home school families as if we were all a colony of child pornographers, committing the most heinous crimes against our children by opting not to send them to traditional school. And the rude way you responded to Ted, when he asked how you liked the talent show, was absolutely indefensible.

Actually, you hit it right on the head when you said "[Your wife] already knows how I feel about home schooling." I do know. I had hoped you would behave as a grown up and put C's needs and feelings first. I have asked and even begged for your help and support in many small things. I have tried to include you in field trips and activities. I have offered to design a unit for you to teach him. I have even just asked you to help him finish a simple assignment or review a poem he is memorizing. But time and again, you have subtly attempted to undermine me. This was totally the last straw. Rest assured, I will never again ask you to so much as supervise C finishing a worksheet, or to read him a story.

As long as we are on the subject, don't think I didn't notice your attempts to manipulate us into spending the rest of the day with you, and the childish way you calmmed up when we refused your offer of lunch, but only if we drove all the way to Plainfield to get it. Ditto on your insistence that C needs a new winter coat, and he needs it now. There is absolutely nothing wrong with his old one. I'd rather have that money for his college fund, if you want to know the truth. He certainly can wait until after Christmas.

I want you to know, I will no longer be tolerating this behavior. I have attempted to be polite in declining your Trojan horses, but I'm afraid I have to resort to being more direct. I have some new rules, and I intend to apply them.

1. Our visits will have an definite ending time. Whatever can't get done by the time I need to leave, won't get done. If it didn't get done first, it must not have been all that important.

2. My first loyalty is to my husband. We see little enough of each other. I will no longer be spending long Sundays with you while Ted is sitting home waiting for me. See rule # 1. And while we are at it, I will no longer be listening to your veiled criticism of Ted. He is a good man and treats me well, and that is all you need to know.

3. My son is my and Ted's responsibility. I will no longer tolerate you questioning my parenting, discipline, or judgment in front of him. I am raising my son to my own standards, not yours. I can choose whatever standards of behavior I deem appropriate. Because I am the mother, that's why.

I'm sorry it has come to this. If you continue to disregard my boundaries, my time, and my rules for my son, then I will be forced to see you less and less often.

Sincerely,
Your daughter

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2007-12-18T06:53:00.000-06:00

Still thinking about the environmental and consumerism issues that go along with modern Christmas celebrations. This is leading me to think about New Year's Resolutions and how I can reduce waste all year round.

I have to admit, I am pretty good at that already. I produce only 1-2 bags of trash a week. The rest goes for recycling or re-use and the food crap of course goes for compost. These are some things I do:

I save electricity and propane wherever I can. E. g., turn out lights, unplug appliances, etc.
I use the clothes line as soon as it gets warm enough in the spring up until it gets too cold and rainy in the fall.
Everybody in my family has a sweater or sweatshirt to put on when they are cold.
We have ceiling fans instead of an air conditioner (although I do want to get a small window unit for the bedroom, just to use when we are in there.)
I don't buy anything disposable if I can avoid it. I use rags instead of paper towels, cloth napkins, plastic freezer containers instead of bags, and so on.
I donate old things to a local thrift store, instead of throwing them out. If clothes are too far gone to donate, I try to cut them up for rags.
I hardly ever buy anything new. I shop at thrift stores and consignment shops. I love garage sales and I especially love "junking," which really means picking up stuff at the side of the road, out of other people's trash. I get some great stuff that way.
I avoid using the plastic bags from stores as much as possible. I try to remember to carry in my own bags, or if I am buying just one or two small items, I refuse a bag altogether. When I do forget my bags, I opt for paper ones, which have other uses. If I do get stuck with a plastic bag, I try to find a way to re-use it.
Uses for paper bags and newspapers: Of course they're good for craft projects (like my holiday wrapping paper), or for putting under craft projects to protect the floor. But then what? I have found that you can put them in the garden around the plants, cover them with grass clippings or other mulch, and ta-da! no more weeds. You can also flatten out cardboard boxes and hide them with mulch. I did this to kill a creeping-Charley problem in my garden.
I use old plastic trays and non-recyclable carry-out containers for paint pallets.
The plastic boxes that tofu comes in make great organizers. They are just the right size for crayons and other small objects.
I save glass jars and their lids for storing dried foods from the dehydrator, teas, dry beans, and all the other stuff the mice like to eat out of my cupboards.
I re-use the plastic bags that bread, apples, and so on come in from the store, to keep my own bread.
Uses for the plastic containers that come with a pound of yogurt or cottage cheese: Start plants in them, freeze food in them (put them inside a plastic freezer bag. The bag can be re-used indefinitely.), store things in them.
Uses for coffee cans: Line them with the inevitable plastic bags and make a small waste-paper basket (the size to keep by your desk or bedside to catch used tissues and candy-bar wrappers), store plastic bags in them for future use, plant things in them, melt candle wax or soap in them, let small children make them into drums, punch holes in the lid of one and string a shoe lace through it to practice knot tying.
I have two plastic coffee cans that I use for counter-top compost buckets. I fill them as I am cooking, then run them outside to the compost pile during clean up. They wash up very nicely, too.

This actually started as a New Years resolution when my son was little. One of the naturalists who taught his nature class mentioned that she had stopped using paper towels. She had twin toddler boys at the time, and I figured if she could do it, so could I. That was 5 or 6 years ago. I haven't bought paper towels since. When I saw how much the trash was reduced by that one action, I started searching for more.

I love how a lot of the things we do ostensibly to help the environment actually save us money, too. For example, I don't spend anything on paper towels and napkins, mulch or fertilizer. I save money on my utility bills by conserving electricity and propane. And think of all the money I save by shopping used instead of new!

Next year I want to plant a big garden, so much that I can get almost all my produce out of it in season, and preserve a lot too. I saved and dried all the seeds from all my squash and pumpkins. Free squash from free seeds! Wooo-hoo!

As for a Resolution, I think I know what mine is going to be. Besides losing that last 15 pounds, I am going to start eliminating my use of Styrofoam coffee cups. I will have to invest in several more reusable " go-cups", enough so that no matter how many are floating around in my car waiting to come in, there are still clean ones to take with me. Then I will have to actually GET OUT OF MY CAR to go inside somewhere and give them the cup or fill it myself, rather than going to the drive-through. OK, that's gonna suck in the winter and n the rain. But consider that I bought 3 cups of coffee on the road yesterday. I reused one cup ( when you are a regular on the night shift at the Circle K, you get privileges like that) and saved myself a buck. But if I had my own cup, I could have saved about a buck and a half, and two disposable cups. That comes to maybe $5 and ten cups a week.

Some fancy road mugs from Starbucks would pay for themselves pretty quickly at that rate. Especially if I get them at a thrift store.

My anti-wrapping paper campaign

2007-12-17T10:04:00.001-06:00

This started as a diatribe against wrapping paper. I hate the stuff. It is the biggest waste of time, money, and natural resources around. It seems to me to represent all that is wrong with current holiday thinking. How on earth did the celebration of a saviors' birth turn from a religious holiday to all-out consumerism carnage? How did spreading a little holiday cheer become an excuse to destroy the earth?

Well, anyway, I refuse to buy any more wrapping paper. Several years ago I started collecting gift bags after everyone was done digging through them. At least they get a few more runs before they ultimately wind up in the land fill. This year I found a large container of very nice fabric literally by the side of the road. (It turns out a woman was emptying out her mother's house in preparation for selling it, and I found several useful if not beautiful objects in that stash.) Some of the fabric has a holiday pattern to it. Guess what I will be wrapping gifts in this year! There were also quite a few large white pieces of pretty good quality. These turned out to be some very nice paint-stamp art projects. (see pictures) What a nice way to have re-usable gift wrap material!

We have also done paint-stamp paper made from paper bags, and finger paint paper from paper bags. Now I am wrapping presents in the paper and using, instead of bows, all those bazilion Christmas cards that get sent to me every year in the hopes of securing a donation for something or other. The cards make very nice decorations/gift tags/greeting cards all-in-one. I will save the bag paper after the presents are opened. If it's not fit to re-use, it can go in the garden to keep weeds at bay.

I'm trying to save a little wear & tear on the earth by the presents I choose, too. We are doing some home-made and some kitchen gifts. I snagged a gift for my Mom at a garage sale this summer, and a few for my kiddo, too. One of kiddo's main gifts is going to come from e-bay. I have my eye on it right now.

Christmas Stuff

2007-12-17T08:43:00.002-06:00

I am alone in the house today 'cuz Super Ted is at work, and Kiddo spent the night at Grandma's. We went to Ted's company Christmas party yesterday and meant to go out and do some Karaoke afterward, but in a fit of largess I bought a round of drinks that used up most of our cash, and we didn't know where to go singing anyway. The party was kinda fun, but it was not as much fun as previous years, and would have been much less fun without the benefit of copious amounts of wine. The after party was really boring, so we came home and took advantage of the empty house.

I am going to get motivated to take inventory of all our gifts and start wrapping soon. It's a good day for it, since Kiddo is not here to get underfoot.

All this gift giving and materialism at Christmas really irritates the shit out of me. If you read accounts of Christmas 100 years ago or even 50 or 60 years ago, it was nothing like it is now. People gave each other a couple of things that they had bought or made or even--horrors--something that had once been their own, that they were now passing of to someone else. People decorated a little, had a nice dinner, and maybe visited with some friends or relatives. Santa Claus dropped off some fruit and nuts and maybe a little candy. And that was it.

Oh yeah--people thought about Jesus, whose birth is ostensibly the reason for the celebration.

I wonder how things got to be the way they are today, with this insane drive to spend more money, give better gifts, light more lights, spend more money, decorate more garishly, go to more parties, do more activities, and SPEND MORE MONEY every year. I hate it. I can't afford it. I get sick to my stomach every year when I think about it.

And this year, I quit. Contrary to Super Ted's reasoning, I don't really believe my in-laws will hate me if I can't afford to do a lavish Christmas Eve dinner AND give amazing gifts in the month when work is the most difficult and tips are the lowest. I don't think anyone will resent that I chose to buy propane and make my house payment instead of spending an extra 30% on gifts. This is a lean year, and that's that. I may have to once again resort to gifts from the kitchen, and you know what? It's OK by me.

This year, I am also trying to teach my kiddo something abut the true spirit of giving. He wants to make Squid kites for his cousins. A candle for his auntie. A birdhouse for Grandma. Another birdhouse for Daddy. I really really believe that this sort of giving is far superior to the semi-random distribution of store-bought gifts.

I am also trying to reduce the amount of trash that goes along with gift-giving. I have been saving and re-using gift bags for years. Eventually they do fall apart, but what the heck. Better to get 5 or 6 uses out of them than one. And better to get them for free than to pay for them, too! ;) *wink*

Faith and the Bible (and laziness and Bible-thumping)

2007-12-10T07:11:00.000-06:00

I grew up Catholic and went to a Catholic school for the first eight years. I can't say I learned much about religion, God, or prayer, even though those things were forced on me every day. The only part of religious instruction I found interesting was the Lives of the Saints, because I liked learning about how other people lived.

In the Lives of the Saints, at least in the versions I have read over the years, equal emphasis is placed of the prayer and spiritual lives of the Saints, and on their public lives of good works. In fact, it is often easer to place more emphasis on their works, simply because the lists can be so long. My family's patron saint, for example, St. Brigid, is known for founding a huge double monastery (male and female dormitories) in Kildare, Ireland; for her kindness to the sick and poor, and for influencing many of the missionaries who spread out over Europe during the dark ages. Few details are known about her prayer life or her spirituality.

I only learned a few Bible verses in school, and Bible reading was not encouraged. IN eight years of Catholic school the only things I took away were this:

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'
"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.' (Matthew 25 34-40)

And this:

"The most important [Commandment]," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'There is no commandment greater than these." (Matthew 22:37-39)

Call me crazy, but these two verses, which made the most impact on my religious life, sound to me like a call to action. We are meant to do something. I myself am not a shining paragon of virtuous action, but I do what I can. Most of the time. I don't do stuff because I want something in return, and I don't do it because I am trying to work my way into heaven. I do it because, as near as I can tell, it's the right thing to do.

I have always been perplexed by people who claim you don't have to actually do anything in order to be a good Christian. I think everybody knows a few hypocrites like this. They have convinced themselves that all they have to do is proclaim to themselves and whomever will listen that they believe in Jesus--usually in the loudest, corniest, or most obnoxious way possible--and then all their sins will be forgiven and, without further effort or exertion on their part, they will be taken bodily up to Heaven at the time of the Rapture (the end of the world). People like this creep me out for a number of reasons, but mostly because I find this view to be a poor excuse for laziness and hatefulness and a perversion of what is really a very simple faith.

People like to quote bits of scripture, taken out of context, to justify the most atrocious things. If you take any bit of text out of context, you can make it mean almost anything. Here is a good example, that lots of people like to use:

So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief;^{[or little faith, or lack of faith]} for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.(Matthew 17: 20)

So people say, "I have faith. My faith is much bigger than a mustard seed, really. It's so big that I can't even contain it. I have to tell it to everyone I meet. I believe in Jesus Christ as my own personal savior. I need do nothing else. " All too often, this line of reasoning runs on like this: "My only Christian duty is to now try to force everyone else around to this same way of thinking!" which sometimes leads to "Jesus wants me to force everyone else to believe in him and his way of thinking, and I will be richly rewarded with the spoils of my crusades!" Which sometimes leads to TV evangelism, and sometimes leads to wars.

People of this ilk are overlooking a few things. In the first place, Jesus preached and lived a life of love, kindness, and forgiveness. He taught; he did not force. Furthermore, an entire Chapter of Matthew (Matthew 6) is devoted to the idea that people should pray and do good works in secret; indeed, those who blow their own horns about their own righteousness have already gotten enough fun out of being seen and heard. They will get nothing else from God.

And the most important part of all:

A mustard seed is a living thing. If you have faith like a mustard seed, that is a living faith. It may seem small from the outside. (In fact, many modern translations of the Bible focus on the size, putting in Jesus' mouth the words "If you had faith only as big as a mustard seed. . . ." which seems to me like a self-serving bend of the truth.) But the thing to remember is, it grows. It makes a mustard plant which in turn makes more seeds. A living faith, like a child (another often mis-used quotation (Matthew 19:14)) will grow and change and eventually go out into the world and do things.

People who have faith like a mustard seed, get it. They get that a living faith means acting as Jesus did when he was among the living. They get that we are called to help each other. To be good to each other. To tolerate each other. To act with love.

People who have mustard-seed faith, even a tiny little bit of it, get it. They get that believers are called to do more than just believe. A person who truly believes in Jesus and the Bible, understands that believers are compelled to do good works, because the Bible tells them so.

But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? (James 2:20)

Cooking up some Christmas Cheer

2007-12-09T21:55:00.000-06:00

There was a big huge ice storm this morning, so we couldn't go to church. The 4-H Christmas party also got canceled, so I had a whole long day which did not involve running around. What a treat. What did I do with my whole long day? Why, I baked, of course!

I do a big formal Christmas Eve dinner for Ted's family every year. I have to start early because it is a lot of work, and I hate trying to do it all in the last few days before Christmas. So today I leaped on the opportunity to get ahead. I made:

Cookie dough for 5 dozen cookies (to be rolled out and baked tomorrow)
Home-made applesauce from 3 lbs of apples (Made slightly more than a quart)
Butternut Squash bread from Holly's recipe
Pumpkin Butter
Honey-Wheat bread.

Then I made Spaghetti Squash and Tofu for dinner.

My Holiday menu will also include:

Maple-brined turkey (This is Ted's thing. I try not to look)
Cranberry sauce made from real cranberries (Already made and in the freezer)
Pumpkin bread (Already made and in the freezer)
Marbled mashed potatoes (White and sweet potatoes prepared separately and swirled together)
Some kind of vegetables
Apple cider and peppermint sticks for the kids
Wine and coffee for the grownups.

Coffee and cookies and the chocolates my kid had to sell for 4-H for dessert.

Am I missing anything?

Santa letter

2007-12-07T08:35:00.000-06:00

Here is my Kiddo's Santa letter. He is asking for a Geo-Trax train for his little doll, Jessica, whom he says is his daughter. And he is asking for passenger cars for his own train set. We are going to e-mail a Publish Post letter to Santa. Later: Kiddo is on the Nice list, of course.

Snow Day

2007-12-04T08:10:00.000-06:00

So, I blew off out homeschool group today, even though we have are supposed to turn in our orders for the fund raiser, and even though it is Scholastic Book Order Day, because it snowed today.

It wasn't a big snow, only a few inches. The plows were going all night, and by morning all they had to do was scrape the new slush off the roads. But when we woke up this morning, the whole yard and the field behind us and everything we could see was covered with a blanket of fresh white snow. It was beautiful. Kiddo wanted to run outside in his jammies and play in it. As it is, he went out in a rugby shirt and his cub scout uniform pants, and snow boots with no socks, before I noticed he was gone.

I bundled up more carefully, but went out and joined him. We played Frisbee in the snow. Had a snowball fight. Loaded his sled with snow only to move it across the yard and dump it again. I also put up some Christmas decorations, brought the lawn chairs in to the garage, filled the bird feeders, and stacked bricks around the base of the chimney. (The previous owners finished the outside of the chimney with particle board and plaster, and of course it has not held up to the winters. The bricks are not a complete solution, but they are better than a gaping hole at the base of the chimney.) I decorated my front porch for Christmas and put away all the autumn things. I never thought I would have a house with a front porch, and I never ever thought I would be able to decorate it seasonally. But it looks lovely out there.

A Novermber (Not) to Remember

2007-11-30T09:17:00.001-06:00

I am quite proud of myself because this month I knocked myself out and paid $2000 worth of one-time only and unexpected bills that HAD to be paid this month or else. Can I also say I am exhausted! The last bills are due today and I am about to go out and make the calls to get them taken care of. HOORAY! I feel so much better today, in spite of the fact I have been going on 4 or 5 hours of sleep all week.

And, I never thought I'd say this:

I am soooo sick of coffee!

This week at St. Brigid's

2007-11-30T09:01:00.000-06:00

So we went back to a normal (for us) routine at the beginning of the week. This involves morning quiet time, morning play time, reading Alice in Wonderland at the breakfast table (a tradition we started in pre-school and both have always loved) and then on to lessons. This weeks lessons included:

The Bible story of Samuel
Grammar & Handwriting (nouns and proper names.)
Memory work (From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson and a bit of Shakespeare)
Math (addition facts)
Story Time (Greek Myths and Legends)

They made an Advent Calender out of Reece's Peanut Butter cups for Library Reading Club.

Super Ted says at Cub Scouts they did some bullshit repetition of stuff Kiddo already did at Day Camp.

We skipped ice skating this week because kiddo has a horrible cough.

Our art project was making cloth "wrapping paper" for Christmas. We also baked some yummy pumpkin bread. Service Learning was helping out at the local Main Street committee.

No lessons yesterday or today because kiddo's cough medicine knocks him out. He is going to Grandma's today to have dinner with her and her friends, and hopefully his cough will be sufficiently under control for him to go to hockey tomorrow.

I am resigning myself to not getting a bunch of actual lessons done this coming month, because we will be doing a lot of crafts and kitchen gifts for the holidays. Super Ted and Kiddo will be doing a bunch of decorating. Of course, I will need to start preparing the Christmas Eve dinner, and there will be a bunch of parties to go to. It's all good.

Where did my son learn to talk like this?

2007-11-30T08:40:00.000-06:00

Wednesday in Service Learning Day here at St. Brigid's. We help out with the Main Strerrt program in our town. This week, the lady who is in charge of it took Kiddo with her to help sell some raffle tickets. Kiddo was a bit confused about the concept of a raffle. He wanted so hard to understand it.

Kiddo: How much is the raffle?
Me: Tickets cost $25 each.
Kiddo: But how much is the raffle?
Me: Twenty-five dollars. That's how much it costs to buy a ticket.
Kiddo: No, no, no. I'm not asking about the tickets, I'm asking about the actual price of the raffle, itself.

Where does such a little kid learn to use such grown-up words, in such long and complete sentences? Maybe he hangs out with me too much?

This week at St. Brigid's

2007-11-23T17:36:00.001-06:00

I am starting a new feature here on my blog. Every week or so, I will be writing what we did this week. It will make a nice record of stuff I can't keep in a portfolio.

This week was a little weird because it was a short week.

Monday: We did our normal lessons. This means that we read our chapter book (Alice in Wonderland) during breakfast, then we did some grammar, memory work, math, and I think reading of ancient myths. Kiddo wanted to make hand turkeys, so that was art. Super Ted took Kiddo to the library reading club, where they read a story together and finished their cookbooks that they started last time. Each kid told a recipe for a thanksgiving food and drew a picture, and the library lady had them all made into a little book. So cute!

Tuesday: Kiddo wanted Play-Doh for morning playtime. He played with it for over an hour and was still having a good time with it, so I just let him keep playing. He played with it all morning and I actually had to force him to put it away so we could leave for our field trip. There was supposed to be a special exhibit on animal habitats at the Children's Museum, but it was junky. So we just hung out at the museum and goofed off. I meant to take him on a short nature walk after the museum closed, but I didn't take into account how early it gets dark. Oh, well. We came home and had supper, then I took him to 4-H. He's in the Cloverbuds, which is like a little-kid version of 4-H. I got to taking to the leader, and it turns out that she has no idea what she is meant to be doing. She just has the kids color or make a little craft each time they meet. Shoot. I can have him color at home. They are meant to be doing projects that build character and so forth. So I am going to volunteer to be his Cloverbud leader.

Wednesday: Wednedsay was service-learning day. Our little town is part of the Main Street program, which is meant to help re-vitalize little towns that are having problems. I volunteer with them and serve on the Economic Revitalization Committee. Wednesday we did a mailing, sending 300 fliers to people who live out of town and have expressed an interest in our town, to tell them about the Christmas program. Kiddo worked with focused attention (more or less) for 3 hours. I am so incredibly proud of him.

Friday: Today we had another learning-by-living experience. Kiddo has been planning a "Train Festival" for a couple of months. It was supposed to be a day for him to get all his friends over here to play trains all day. Unfortunately, most of the people he invited couldn't make it, but it turned out to be a fun day anyway. His 3 cousins came over and they had a wonderful time playing all afternoon. This was Kiddo's first experience in planning a party. He had to help with cleaning the house and getting ready. Then he had to greet his guests when they got here, entertain them, and be sure to say goodbye appropriately and thank everyone for coming. We had a little issue because I had told him before the party that the kids were to remain in his two rooms, and not to go into my exercise room or the bedroom. Well, the first time I heard noises coming form the exercise room, I went upstairs and found the kids swinging on my stripper pole. I had told Kiddo earlier that I did not want them using the pole because it is dangerous. So I had to chase the kids out of there. Later on, I could hear them up there again and found they had been in my exercise room AND the bedroom, and Kiddo was JUMPING ON MY BED. They had gotten out all my exercise DVDs and tossed them all over the floor, without the cases. They all got a stern talking-to. I made certain to impress upon Kiddo that we have boundaries, and as the host of his party, he is responsible for making sure that his guests follow the rules of the house. All in all, he was a fairly gracious host, and the party went well overall.

So that is our week in home schooling. Next week we will return to a more regular schedule.

My blog is R-rated!

2007-11-23T09:01:00.000-06:00

Check this out:

I found this little jem here: http://www.justsayhi.com/bb/blog_rating. Another little piece if internet nitwit silliness.

Also got this:

$4715.00

and there are some more stupid things on that same site.

I am wasting time this way cuz I am also participating in Buy Nothing Day. Actaully, I just don't have any money cuz it was a hellish week at work, otherwise Super Ted would be racing through Target with a shopping cart. But now I can make it sound noble. I will, however, be ordering a pizza cuz my kid is having his cousins over for a "Train Festival" in which he will display every train he wons, and the kids will play with all of them. So we will be ordering some pizza. . . . oh well.

Happy Turkey Day!

2007-11-20T09:41:00.000-06:00

Hand turkeys inspired by "Setting the Turkeys Free."

Why do I do this to myself?

2007-11-20T06:42:00.000-06:00

Anybody ever hear of a stripper with a weight problem?

Probably not. We save all that griping and whining for our super-secret stripper website. We want you, the "outside world" to believe we are all perfect, beautiful, adorable Barbies (OK, in my case, Midge) every single second of our lives. It's part of the "stripper mystique." I mean, I have customers who KNOW I home school, who KNOW we do weekly nature hikes in all weather, who KNOW digging in the garden is a regular pastime for me, and who probably still THINK I do all this in full make-up and 6-inch Lucite heels.

That is why I don't give my customers this URL. It that is what they like to think, then that is what I want them to think. Give the people what they want, yanno?

But check this out . . . . I DO have a weight problem. Not just a few baby pounds that won't go away. Not just a little flab that won't tone up. I mean, I have a real, life-long issue with my weight. It goes back to grade school and having to buy dresses and uniforms in "chubbies" sizes. I was teased incessantly about my weight. No doubt, I was kind of a rotund kid, but I was NOT as grotesque as my peers made me out to be.

Anyway, fast forward 30 or so years. I was tiny and slender in the Army and afterward. I was a lingerie model (Not the Victoria's secret kind, just a girl in a bar selling lingerie and raffle tickets, but still) I was even kind of famous, for about 15 minutes. (See picture, right.) But I got in the habit of just not eating (who has the time?) and when, and age 29, I decided to get out of the entertainment biz, I really just let myself go. I ate all the stuff I had been denying myself, and as much of it as I wanted. Having ruined my metabolism by subsisting on bagels and Diet Coke, I gained at least 40 lbs in 2 years. I gained another 60 during my pregnancy. (Whoa! I just realized what I said. 100 lbs in 3 years! Yikes!)

Well, I got back into the sex-entertainment biz in August when my son was 3. Nursing him and walking around with him in a sling had helped me a lot with my weight. Also, I had just done a half-marathon for Team in Training (To raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) so I was feeling pretty good about myself. But, I gained weight that winter and this begins the current chapter in my battle with myself.

First I spent more than two years trying to figure out how to loose 20 pounds. I am not kidding. I tried everything I could think of. I finally hit on the south Beach diet last January (Courtesy of my stripper friends) and lost 15 lbs. Then I gained back 8 of that on the vacation from hell last summer. I struggled and floundered until I went to the same doctor who did my stop-smoking hypnosis 2 years ago, and had the weight-loss hypnosis. Then I lost 10 more pounds.

Now here comes the hard part. These last 10 lbs really show. You may know from your own experiences, when you have a lot of weight to loose, at first it seems like nothing is happening. Then you feel a little bit lighter, and then--ta-da! --there is an actual difference.

Well, these last 10 pounds made that difference. Now when I look in the mirror, I see a different person. I have lost 2 pants sizes. I have a waist and hips and ribs, where I once had just an expanse of torso. Of course my boobs have shrunk, but then so has the band of fat that used to go from them to a point under my arm. My clothes fit better. My face features more cheekbone and less jowl. I feel better and fitter and I feel like a normal-sized person now. Life is better.

I am not where I want to be yet. I want to be at my Army weight (150) but my friends have half-convinced me that, if 150 was a good weight for me 15 years ago and pre-baby, then 155 might be more appropriate for me now. So I still have either 13 or 18 lbs left to loose, depending on where I want it to end. But here is the sick part: I have stopped trying.

I don't know exactly why I stopped trying, which is the bitch of it. I wake up every morning with good intentions. I know what I have to do. It's not hard, or complicated. I just don't do it. I no longer tell the bartender to mix me virgin drinks. I don't pass up the ubiquitous bits of fudge on the gas-station shelves. I don't opt for black coffee. Little by little, I have given up almost every new, good habit that helped me lose the weight wanted to lose, and gone back to the antithesis of those habits, the poor habits that packed on 40 extra pounds to begin with.

I know when I am doing the wrong things, but I don't really care. I rationalize. I tell myself,"I'll have this piece of fudge, and then I will be back on the wagon." or "I'll have one or two drinks, then I'll tell the bartender to cut me off." Or I tell myself I need the chocolate, like its some kind of medicine.

Right now, I should be working out. Am I?

I have noticed something else abut me, too. (One of the gifts of having had a dissociative disorder is, I am actually a pretty fair observer of myself. I can look at myself as if I am looking at another person.) When I started losing the "weight that matters", I stopped caring about other aspects of my appearance. I stopped caring for my hair, for instance, and I stopped taking care of my skin. I mean, I still showered daily and removed my makeup, but that is about it. I have been doing the bare minimum. I stared sneaking bites of my kiddo's baked goods, like cookies and donuts, even though I know for a fact that even a few bites of such things gives me serious acne lesions. I quit bothering with night cream, acne meds, and even sunscreen. It's been 5 weeks since I had my nails done.

The very feakish thing about all this, is that when I look in the mirror, at first I see a very pretty woman. Then I look again and I start saying things like this: "Well, you'd be pretty IF you'd quit eating things that make you break out, and IF you'd drink more tea and less coffee, and IF you'd lose those last few pounds, and IF you'd get your hair permed and your nails done . . . My God, girl, at LEAST get a haircut . . . . " and on and on.

It's as if I just can't stand to see myself looking good. I criticize myself and sabotage myself.

What is UP with that?

Wonder

2007-11-15T06:51:00.000-06:00

Fourmother tagged me with this meme. I feel honored to get it, as I have not gotten an award in a long time, and never one for my blog! Kisses to you, Fourmother.

I had to think a bit about this before I could write about it. Today was the first day in a week I actually managed to get up at 6 so I could write, and ta-da! the ideas for this entry were already in my head. I can't make any references to the TV show at all, because I don't believe I was allowed to watch it. I had to look on Wikipedia to find out about the golden bracelets and the lasso of truth and so on.

But what I can do is talk about the sense of wonder I try to cultivate in myself and my kiddo. Super Ted has caught the spirit of this, too, which is wonderful. (Oops! no pun intended!) We love looking at little things in nature and discovering how amazing they are. The endless variety of ways the sky can look with clouds of various types, shapes and number. . . . the way ladybugs know they are safe in our house . . . an aging, one-eyes mouse in the park district green house that was patient enough to let my son watch him nose around among the plants . . . These are all sources of wonder for us.

Along with wonder comes gratitude. I am so thankful for the home I have, my husband and son, and the life we live. I am thankful for my job and my husband's job (not glamorous, but hey, they are better than some). I am also thankful for all the millions of veterans who gave thiner time, their health, their liberty, and their lives so we can live in a nation that supports our rights of free expression and our right to educate our children as we see fit.

Time to pass it on. Here are my personal wonder women:

Heather at Supernatural World, whose blog got me hooked on reading and writing blogs. somehow following a link of hers lead me to The Denim Jumper, an awesome site for secular home schoolers.

Lana at HoboStripper. Lana is an amazing woman, who follows her own unique path. She dances naked, lives in her van, travels everywhere, and lives a life I would like to have in an alternate reality. When I die, I hope I can come back as Lana.

Paris Love, ex-stripper at Stripped Bare. I love that Paris is so honest and well-informed. Actually, I read her blog to keep up on the news.

TRIMAXION. I know her as Maxine from another web site. This is another neato, amazing woman who has had an amazing life. One of my ambitions has been to tour the mid western clubs in the hope of "accidentally" meeting her someday.

Ree at Pioneer Woman. This is another woman whose life I would love to have. She is a serious photographer (serious enough to have had at least one gallery show) and a real life cowgirl living on a cattle ranch. When I get done being Lana,I would like to be Ree.

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

2007-10-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

I found this on one of my dancer-friend's blogs. It saddens and frightens me.

American citizens have been setting themselves up for a fall like this for years and years. I believe the public schools' attitude of "sit down, shut up, and do it like everybody else" plays a key part in the erosion of democracy in our society. Now nobody can think for themselves.

Thank God I am contrary enough to want my kid out of that mental meat-grinder. Thank God I live in a country where I still have the chance to make that decision for him.

Here is the beginning of the article

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody. more here

The (haunted) house where I used to live

2007-10-23T08:27:00.000-05:00

The first house I shared with my husband was full of spirits. That house was also newly built, but it had been built under contract for somebody who had reneged on the deal at the last minute. That house was built on land that was once a farm. The original farm house was next door to ours, and it had even more problems. The house behind that one and the house next door to ours on the other side all seemed to be affected. In the 8 years my husband lived in that house, those 4 houses saw 3 divorces, the demise of one good friendship between 3 room mates, the financial ruin of one couple, actual psychological illness, spouse abuse, and dozens of knock-down, drag-out fights that frequently spilled out into the yards.

The five years I lived there were the most difficult of my life.

Though I had stayed with Ted on weekends before I was pregnant, I had never noticed anything weird or unusual. I would attribute that to the constant activity—(Besides Ted and me, there was also Ted’s roommate, the roommate’s 12 year old son, all their rowdy friends, and several cats) and my continual state of drunkenness, hung-over-ness, and/or post-coital bliss. Hell, I was lucky if I noticed whether my shoes were on the right feet. When I got preggers, though, we kicked the roommate and her entourage out and started fixing up the house That was the year natural gas prices were so outrageous, so we stayed in my condo and only went down to the house to work on cleaning and decorating it. That was when I began to notice things.

The house was a split-level ranch, with a short stairway in the living room that lead up to a hallway that was open on the living room side. Frequently, when I came around the corner from the kitchen or the bathroom, I would see someone standing there. It was a man, rather short, in a tan jacket and pants, and a wide-brimmed hat. He usually stood with his hand on the newel post, looking down into the living room. He would always fade away as soon as I saw him.

One time, when it was bitter cold, Ted and I went into the house to do a few things. We had to turn up the furnace while we worked (we usually left it set at 50) and left it on when we went for supper. We had planned to do more when we came back, but for some reason we stayed out several hours and decided not to do any more in the house. When we went back to turn down the thermostat, we found it had already been turned down.

When we brought the cats down to live in the house, they went crazy. One stayed under the couch for days and growled. The other ran right to the top of the stares, where the figure of the man always stood, and started to cry. (Not really crying—it’s this desperate-sounding noise she makes when she wants something and we don’t know what it is.) We put the litter box in the basement bathroom, and the older cat would sit on the steps and cry many times when she didn’t want to go down to the litter box. She would stare down the stairs with her ears pointed forward as if she could see something, and meow like somebody was killing her.

When we brought he baby home, things got worse instead of better. When I sat up nights with the baby, I could hear another baby crying. Having worked in an emergency room, I know a baby’s fever cry. Sometimes it was that, and sometimes uncontrollable bawling. I heard cats meowing. Kiddo’s electronic music toys would begin to play spontaneously. Musical instruments, like bells and tambourines, would play. Things got moved to improbably places. Things disappeared all together—especially shoes. Over the years, I threw out several single shoes and slippers, after despairing of ever finding the mates. I sort of expected to find all that stuff when we moved, but no luck.

The sprits got bolder. One time I came home and opened the front door, the find the tan-suited man standing in my living room. As the door swung open, he stared at me in surprise for a moment before fading away.

I began seeing a female form, too. She had a long pink dress. One time, I had taken Kiddo out for a walk in his stroller, and he had fallen asleep there. I simply wheeled the stroller inside and parked it in the kitchen, letting kiddo sleep. I got busy doing some dishes. When I turned away form the sink to check on Kiddo, the woman was bending over him in the stroller. It wasn’t a threatening gesture, just an interested one; the way people usually look at babies in strollers. As I opened my mouth to speak, she disappeared.

As kiddo got old enough to stand and walk, he developed the charming habit of lifting his arms and smiling at whomever he wanted to pick him up. Sometimes he would turn to what seemed to us an empty space, make faces that showed obvious pleasure and recognition, and then lift his arms to be held. He would also babble and wave to people we could not see.

Ted had his experiences, too. He likes to soak in the bath tub with a good book. Frequently while he was doing this, the bathroom door would open and shut, as if someone had passed through. A couple times, the bathroom door flew open forcefully and banged against the wall. Sometimes it didn’t open, but there was still a banging sound, as if somebody were knocking desperately to get in. When in the basement, he could hear footsteps in the empty house above.

The creepiest thing that ever happened to me there was once, while I was standing in the hall, a huge black shape flew from the bedroom at the front of the house, straight down the hall, and out the bathroom window at the back of the house. It was not a bird or a bat—this thing was huge. It was probably about as big as a person, but it seemed shapeless. It passed just inches from me in the narrow hallway and blocked out the light from the bathroom window before it made its escape. Although it was a hot summer day, I felt cold.

The oddest thing was the way the house or its spirits seemed to affect our relationship. Although our relationship was rocky in those days, we would be fine as long as we were outside the house. As soon as we came home, a fight would start. I’m not joking—sometimes as soon as we were in the door, Ted would say something, and I would take it the wrong way, and off we’d go! They really seemed to thrive on this—the worse the argument, the more activity we’d see for the next few days. Strangely, sex seemed to have a similar effect on them. Many women state in a figurative way that they herd bells and music after hot sex—we really did!

The activity seemed to calm somewhat as Kiddo grew older, but I still hated being in the house. I never felt comfortable there, and I never felt like I was alone. And we still tended to fight whenever we were together in the house.

Thank God Cook County raised their property taxes; because that was the only way I could convince Ted to move. Our new house, a restored school, is super quiet. In almost a year and a half, there has been not one single incident. The nights here are peaceful and quiet. When I sit up at night to read or work, I can relax, instead of always listening for unexplained noises and watching for God-knows-what.

The (haunted) house where I grew up

2007-10-23T08:11:00.000-05:00

Ok, Halloween is coming, so let’s talk haunted houses. Not the kind somebody sets up in an old barn or whatever, but real houses people live in that have ghosts.

I have had lots and lots of experiences, from the tine I was a little kid. My Mom’s house is full of spirits, although she refuses to believe it. My Mom and Dad had that house built form scratch, so all the spirits there are somehow related to my family.

My brother died in 1967 at the age of 18. I was born in 1969. The house was full of his presence. I had an area in the basement where I worked on my model horses, which had also been his area for working on civil war soldiers and stuff. He was always flickering the lights and messing with the stereo and banging the pipes when I was down there. At first it scared me, but I began to get used to it. I would talk to him sometimes, and that seemed to calm the noise and lights and so on.

My Dad died when I was 13, after a lengthy illness. The last few months before he died, I could hear someone pacing the hallway between the bedrooms. The pacing would stop when my Dad would get up for any reason, and then resume when he went back to bed. I used to lie awake nights and listen to it. I became convinced that that was my brother, waiting for my Dad to come join him. I may have been right, because after my Dad passed, I never heard that sound in the hallway again.

My anniversary . . . . more mushy stuff.

2007-10-22T05:15:00.000-05:00

I had to work Friday, unfortunately. Suck. I dropped Kiddo off at Mom's house, and she took us out to lunch to celebrate the anniversary of "the day we all married together," in Kiddo's words. (Remember, he was 19 months old when we got married.) Then I got my nails done, and had to fight traffic, all of which made me terribly late. To make matters worse, the police had set up a roadblock just half a block north from the bar. Roadblocks are so not good for business!

Well, that was a waste of time. On an impulse, I kept my work dress on under my jeans and sweater when I left. I walked up the street, around the roadblock, and to the discount liquor store, where I spent a quarter of my meager earnings om wine. Then I grabbed a baked potato at Wendy's and raced home. Including the stop at Wendy's, I made it in one hour and 29 minutes, which is a land speed record coming out of Stone Park on Friday night.

When I hit the driveway, I saw that the house was mostly dark, with only a light in the bedroom window. Well, shit. I bet he fell asleep. That would be understandable, really, since Ted gets up at 3 am to get ready for work. But even if his intentions are good, once he nods off, he's never quite the same. Even after he wakes up, he is in this weird disoriented state. So, I resigned myself to a little computer time and looking forward to the morning, when we would both be rested and refreshed.

I grabbed my wine and carried it into the house. The night light in the hall lit up the usual assortment of shoes, backpacks, and hats . . . and a trail of rose petals leading up the stairs. Hmmmm . . . . I dropped off my wine in the wine cooler ( I always wanted to be the kind of person who would have a wine cooler, and I don't mean a fruity little drink in a bottle!) and went to investigate. I followed the trail of petals up the stairs, through the playroom, over several wooden train tracks, past my pole in the exercise room, and into the bedroom. There I found the bedroom cleaned, candles burning, and rose petals strewn over and around the bed. In the middle of the bed were a dozen red roses. My dressing table chair had become a makeshift stand for a bottle of blackberry merlot and two bottles of champagne chilling on ice. In the sitting area, Ted was waiting for me, grinning, surrounded by rose petals and pink-wrapped chocolate pieces that he had scattered over the table also placed in dainty dessert glasses. He stood when I came in and took me in his arms. . . . .

The first thing that happened tome in the morning was that someone dropped a lovely decadent piece of dark chocolate in my mouth.

Along about noon we had to emerge form the bedroom, if only to raid the wine cooler. I made brunch--fried-egg sandwiches on home-made whole grain bread, with sauteed candy onions and green peppers from the garden, sliced garden tomatoes, smoked cheese, soy sausage, mustard and mayo. We washed 'em down with more wine (hey, it's not like we do this every week!) while we watched Showgirls, which Ted had brought home for me the week before. The picture of the girl with the pole on the front of it had caught his eye, and this was a particularly lovely gift set which included the DVD, shot glasses (I collect shot glasses) party games, etc.

Oh, my gawd! what a horrible movie. I had heard it was bad, but I wanted to see it for the dancing and the costumes. It didn't have enough of either, in my opinion. The main character was just . . . . awful. Completely despicable. After the first few minutes, Ted kept wishing more and more horrible fates on her--"I hope she gets hit by that truck!" he would say. "I hope she falls off the stage and breaks her neck!" "I hope Jason gets her!" The movie's only saving grace was, not only was the plot simple enough to follow even when intoxicated, but the more we drank, the more fun we had ripping on it! Hence the shot glasses included in the package.

Only, the more we drank, the more we had to take breaks to go to the bathroom, and the more my attention span wandered and then I'd come in the office and fuck with the Internet, so that the movie, which was too long to begin with, stretched out and devoured our whole day. I had had it in the back of my head to do something outdoors, since it was so nice out. Oh well. We drank some coffee and watched the sunset form our back porch, then got cleaned up and went out for dinner.

Dinner was a big flop. Ted had wanted to go to a Chinese buffet, and he had one in mind that we had never tried before. Won't be trying it again, either. The food was greasy and bland. As a vegetarian, I had a real problem because crab meat was hidden in everything. It wasn't enough crab meat to actually make anything taste like crab, because I took a few bites before I realized something was not quite right. Apparently the only reason they put it there was pure perversity. Oh, well. Live 'n' learn, right?

Last stop of the night was Carlo's in Cedar Lake for karaoke fun. I love it when we go out singing. I have had voice lessons, but I used to be too shy to ever sing in front of other people. Back in the days when we were just buddies, Ted convinced me to do the female part in Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." Singing is easy after you've had a few beers. Anyway, karaoke had been a huge part of our dating life and life as a couple. It is one of the things we most enjoy doing together. So, a bucket o' beers at Carlo's, and we had our entertainment for the rest of the night.

I first sang, "The Search is Over", from Survivor. I adore that song because, not only was it released about the time I met Ted (maybe a couple of years before, I'm not quite sure) but, when I sing it to him, it is absolutely the story of our relationship.

SURVIVOR lyrics

Ted sang Chicago's "Make Me Smile" and Seger's "You'll Accompany Me." Together we did "Sgt. Petter's Lonely Hears Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends," and "Getting Better All the Time," both of which we perfected as duets 20 years ago or more, singing with a cassette tape in a boom box in Ted's 1966 Mustang convertible.

The DJ packed up his stuff at 1 am, but we were still singing when we left the bar.

The evil bastards at Ted's work scheduled him to work (yet another) Sunday, so that was then end of our fun. Oh well. I still have the roses.

My 5th Wedding anniversary

2007-10-19T10:19:00.000-05:00

Here we are 5 years ago yesterday. Wow! Hard to believe that's us!

BTW, I still have the dress, I can still wear the dress, I do still wear the dress, and 2 years ago, I had the dress taken in!

Getting Better All the Time

2007-10-18T07:01:00.001-05:00

BEATLES, THE lyrics

Today is my 5th wedding anniversary. Amazing. A-fucking-mazing.

That we made it this far is really tenement to Ted's amazing strength and patience. Or maybe pig-headed-ness and not knowing when to quit. Whatever, I am profoundly grateful.

We tried to have our wedding before Kiddo was born, but it was too much of a rush. I was also taking some classes (I was pre-med at the time) and working full time. The extra strain of planning a wedding was just too much, and so we gave it up.

The combination of unresolved grief and raging pregnancy hormones, combined with uncertainty in my relationship with Ted and my general emotional baggage, made me a horrible person. There is no other way to say that. I was selfish, emotional, whiny, bitchy, childish, and hateful. I blamed Ted for everything--how miserable I felt physically and emotionally, how I couldn't go on with school, somehow I even managed to blame him for Rick's death. Everything was all his fault.

That Ted didn't leave me during my pregnancy or the year or so after Kiddo was born, is testimony to his patience and steadfastness. He forgave me time and again, until I knew he would never leave me. For some reason, he even still wanted to marry me.

But sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees, and besides sticking around, Ted did little else to hold up his end of the relationship. He was as childish and spoiled as I was, and still wanted to live like a bachelor, in spite of the fact that he had a baby-momma and a child at home. For reasons of his own, Ted replayed some of the worst from my childhood--he objectified me, ignored me, didn't know how to cope with my emotional storms, and escaped into work or hobbies. For the longest time, it seemed like his only interest in me was "What can you do for me? In what way are you of any use? How does whatever happens to you affect me?" (Re-reading this, I recall that Ted's mom passed away when our son was about 6 weeks old. So only now, 6 1/2 years later, have I pulled my head out of my ass enough to see that Ted was grieving. How insensitive have I been? )

Each of us was desperate to get our needs met, and unable to ask like civilized people. We were both so miserable.

For those first few years, I conducted myself like a spoiled child, resorting to tantrums to try and get the attention I needed. I blew things completely out of proportion, for example throwing a screaming and bawling fit because Ted had spilled coffee on my clean floor. Ted would withdraw, or worse, resort to hurling hurtful insults that always seemed to get right to the heart of me. This escalated for a few rounds, until I would resort to hitting to make him stop. Then he would yell some more, and withdraw again.

The last time I hit Ted, I also broke his finger when he tried to restrain me. I turned around and saw Kiddo had seen the whole thing. That was one of many ah-ha moments that brought things around for us.

We've had a lot of those moments in the last 5 years.

Fortunately, we are both stubborn loners. Neither of us was willing to admit failure, and we both knew we had no one else. We were committed to creating a stable, two-parent home for kiddo, even though we disagreed violently about what that meant. So, somehow, we knew we had to hang on to each other. We didn't know how, or even where to start. Several months of marriage counseling didn't seem to have any effect until months after we had given up on it. Now bits and pieces of it still come back to us from time to time.

Love, apparently, can conquer all. Neither of us believed it at the time, but here we are. With the momentum of a speeding glacier, we have changed.

Ted believes the pivotal moment was when we moved out of our old house. To say that the old place had a bad vibe, is like saying The Amityville Horror was a somewhat creepy movie. We both firmly believe the place was haunted. It is an undisputed fact that in the 10 years Ted lived there, in that house and the 3 lots touching it, there were 3 divorces, a ruined friendship between 3 roommates, 2 couples who regularly had knock-down, drag-out fights, and 2 cases of near financial ruin--that we know of. And I can certainly say that moving out to the quiet, low stress, low traffic country has made both of us happier. So yeah, maybe there is something to that.

I like to give us more credit, though. I think, mostly, we simply grew the f* up. I think we both struggled for a long time and finally something gave, and we pulled ourselves together. Ted claims I somehow taught him how to think, which means to question logically the assumptions he grew up with. This means he thinks things through logically and with empathy, rather than just being contrary for the hell of it. He is breaking his bad habit of saying hateful things in arguments. He is more willing to work with me as a team and to accept my leadership when appropriate. He shows he loves me in ways I understand, instead of expecting me to intuitively know it.

For me, trust is the essential issue. Back in high school, Ted was really the only person I trusted. I felt he was the only one who understood me. Through the years, through our separation and all the changes in our lives, I stopped trusting even him. I tested Ted to inhuman limits. He forgave the unforgivable in me, time and again. He sometimes screamed and yelled and threated to leave me, but he never did. After a while, I became able to ask him to promise he's never leave. He had to say the actual words to me, many times over, promising he's always be there for me. And gradually, I started to believe him. I stopped trying so hard to make him go away. Sometimes when I am feeling bad about myself, I will still push him a little bit, but it's not exactly the same. Now I push because I really want him to say, "I love you. Let's make things better."--but I don't always know that is what I need, or I don't know how to ask.

I have had to learn trust in other things, too. I have always had a difficult time trusting anybody with any kind of personal (emotional) information. My instinct has always been, don't tell people anything they can come back at you with later. Never give anybody a weapon to use against you. This made an impossible situation in our marriage because there was no way Ted could avoid hurting me if he didn't know what was going on with me. But I could not tell him for fear he would use the information to hurt me.

About a year ago, I felt or herd a stirring from the un-integrated core personality, the original child who was so damaged. It was in the middle of an argument with Ted. Like so many of our arguments, it started because he had unknowingly stepped on one of my many emotional land mines. In the aftermath of resulting explosion, Ted asked me in exasperation, "How am I supposed to know what hurts you? You won't tell me!" I realized in that moment that he was right. I opened my mouth to speak, then clamped it shut again. A voice inside me screamed, "NO! NO! DON'T TELL! DON'T GIVE ANYTHING AWAY!" And I whispered, " I can't tell you. It's against the rules."

Lately I have had to tell. The pain of constantly getting my feelings trampled on by a good, well-meaning, man who was stumbling in the dark, got the better of me. I saw that the things I had done and the secrets I had kept to protect myself were now more cumbersome than helpful, and that they hurt Ted and Kiddo because I can't be a wife and mother to them when I am wallowing in my emotional pig pen full of shit. I decided that, if I wanted Ted to love, honor, and cherish me for myself, then he had to see my "self" as it really was. I used to accuse him of loving not me, Erin, but one of the alter personalities who had been his buddy in high school. But what I was doing, holding up an idealized, sanitized Erin, put me in essentially the same position. (Like The Wizard of Oz: Pay no mind to the woman behind the curtain!) And look, I can't do that for the rest of my life.

Now it's all out there. Or at least, all of it that I remember and understand. Ted now sees who he has in front of him. He sees the holes in me, and the places where I didn't grow properly, and the scars that are still so full of filth and shit that they will probably never heal right. And it's OK. He still wants me. Amazingly, he understands me. He gave me a beautiful gift the other day--he was angry at my mother for the things she did to me. Nobody has ever been angry on my behalf before.

Five years ago today, we stood in our back yard in front of our guests and promised to love, honor, and cherish each other. That has always been my fairy tale ending--to be loved, honored, and cherished. Like so many people, I looked to my marriage to make up for what I never got in childhood. Ted is a white knight guy--he really does want to save me and give me what I need. We balance each other that way--I so need to be rescued, and Ted needs someone to save.

Most psychologists would say this is not a perfect marriage. I know it's not. But it's honest, and for us that is a big step. It's strong and well-tested. It nurtures both of us and gives us both space and reason to grow. And it gets better all the time.

Free travel brochures

2007-10-16T11:35:00.000-05:00

Looking for travel brochures to cut up and make a geography scrapbook.

Here are some sites I am finding:

The best one: Guardian Unlimited Catalink--Almost too many choices. Nice search function.

Wimco (some brochures require you to enter credit card info, even though they are free. I skipped these.)

Teen Freeway-Lots of teen-oriented travel stuff and other freebies. Fill out a short survey to get Sherman Travel Magazine for free.

Best Western Hotel Guide and Road Atlases

French Government Tourist Office Maison de la France Online Brochure Request Site.

ETBrochures Australia is a free consumer travel brochure service with information, resources and holiday ideas for unique getaways, including some of the best family tour operators.

Getting Better All the Time

2007-10-11T12:02:00.000-05:00

BEATLES, THE lyrics

Things happened fast again after Rick died. I should mention that, about the time my fiance Rick got sick, my best friend from high school tracked me down. Ted was the only really good thing about high school. We worked at Wendy's together and he sat behind me in one class. After school we were always together. After school he helped me with my paper route, and then we went to work or went out to see my horse or just went for a drive. Ted had a 1966 Mustang Convertible. We always took a "boom box" and plenty of cassette tapes with us--especially the Beatles and Led Zepplin. It was 1986. We had so much fun together.

Ted was also the only stable thing in my life at the time. After horrible fights with my mother or various boyfriends, Ted was the only person who could calm me. I would occasionally call him, crying, and beg him to talk me down. Nobody else could.

Ted stood up in my wedding to my first husband. We remained friends until I went into the Army, and then lost touch. When Ted finally called me, he had gotten married and was now about to get divorced. I had gotten engaged, and my fiance was dying of cancer. Our lives were falling apart, and we leaned on each other.

Ted's divorce became final in July 1999. Rick passed on August 19, 1999. Ted shares my interests in food, alcohol, music, and sex, so we spent the next 11 months dealing with our respective losses. We worked out a terrific formula: work hard, play hard. This involved as much over time as we could each arrange, up to 60 hour weeks, and weekends spent in restaurants, in a karaoke bar, and in bed.

The drunken weekends were fun while they lasted, and they gave me enough of a break from my crushing grief to go out and last another week. On the surface tings were looking better. Ted and I were rarely apart. Truth be known, I hated being separated from him like a shipwreck victim would hate being separated from a life raft. One drunken night he revealed he had been ring shopping and put down a deposit on an emerald for me. We dropped hints that there might be a wedding in the future.

On New Years Eve 1999/2000, we toasted the end of troubles and the beginning of a new life together.

But my grief was still catching up with me. I was still afraid to sleep. Many times, while I was sleeping I would forget that Rick was gone, and when I woke up, I would remember again with shock and surprise. On mornings when I woke up alone, I was still disappointed and disgusted to open my eyes and find I was still breathing. I wanted to be free of the pain. I worked in an Emergency room at the time, and knew some lethal combinations of over-the-counter drugs. As the summer progressed, I started passing the depressing "last time" anniversaries. Third week in June--the last time we had gone on vacation together. July fourth--last picnic at my Mom's. July 11- the day he went into the hospital for the last time. And so on. I began daydreaming about an elaborate suicide gesture: I would put on the wedding gown I had bought, take a lethal combination of drugs, wash it down with a bottle of Jack Daniels, and lie down on his grave to die.

Fortunately I didn't get too far with this line of thinking. Three hundred and thirty-three days after I lost my fiance, I missed my period and found I had gained Ted's baby. July 17, 2000 marked the beginning of the rest of our lives.

Only one question

2007-10-08T02:27:00.000-05:00

I have been reading until my eyes are ready to bleed, and I have only one question. It came to me while I was at church today. I want to keep my mom part of my and more importantly my son's life. Kiddo seems to adore his grandma, which apparently is exactly what she needs. My MIL passed away when he was only 6 weeks old, so he has no other grandmothers left. I really, really, really hate to break up that relationship. I am not entirely convinced I have to break it off completely.

So here is the question:

How can I be kind to my mother, while protecting my son and myself?

Anybody?

My most recent library wish list

2007-08-19T10:53:00.000-05:00

QED : the strange theory of light and matter Feynman, Richard Phillips
	Selling used books online : the complete guide to bookselling at Amazon's marketplace and other online sites Windwalker, Stephen
	The home-based bookstore : start your own business selling used books on Amazon, eBay or your own web site Weber, Steve (Stephen W.)
	Inside Laura's little house : a treasury of recipes, activities, and songs from Little house on the prairie Collins, Carolyn Strom
	My little house crafts book : 18 projects from Laura Ingalls Wilder's little house stories Collins, Carolyn Strom
	The Little house cookbook : frontier foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's classic stories Walker, Barbara M
	The ancient Celtic festivals and how we celebrate them today Leslie, Clare Walker
	Irish fairy tales [sound recording] Cusack, Cyril, 1910-
	Irish fairy tales Smith, Philip, 1967-
	Irish fairy tales [Sound recording] Spoken Arts
	Philip and the Pooka : and other Irish fairy tales Green, Kathleen
	Homeschool your child for free : more than 1,200 smart, effective, and practical resources for home education on the Internet and beyond Gold, LauraMaery
	The unschooling handbook : how to use the whole world as your child's classroom Griffith, Mary, 1953-
	The read-aloud handbook Trelease, Jim

St Brigid of Kildare is now in session

2007-07-30T22:22:00.000-05:00

Today was the first "official" day of classes at lovely St. Brigid of Kildare in Kankakee County.

We started with playtime and then breakfast, then Reading (15 minutes) and Bible Story (Supposed to take 15 minutes but took about 8) . Reading is just Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. Kiddo HATES this book, but we are already up to Lesson 75, so he will just have to live with it for a few more weeks. Bible Story is easy: I read him a story, and then he narrates back what he heard.

Then I let him take a break and watch a video about Caterpillar machines. That was the bribe for finishing his reading lesson. I used that time to do housework.

After the break, I had him read to me. Then we had planned to take a nature hike for PE (his choice--I don't care what we do so long as its active!) but he got side tracked and got in the pool. I used some of that time to put laundry on the line (right next to the pool--don't worry!) and the hopped in with him. Good times! I also did a reasonable amount of ballet exercises so got in a good workout that way. Coming back inside, I showed Kiddo haw we are logging our exercise time to earn a President's Award for Physical Fitness. He's into awards, so he thought that was a cool idea.

Then kiddo goes off to watch another video (I allow 2 per day) and I let him eat lunch in front of the TV because by now I am TIRED. Hubby comes home. There is a period of debate and confusion regarding my broke-ass van which has spent 6 of the last 7 weeks in the transmission shop and still runs exactly the same as it did when I took it in. This is a SERIOUS ISSUE now because Ted's POS Toyota finally gave up the ghost and I got that bit on news today, too. So I had to call the tranny shop, chew some ass, go to the tranny shop with husband and kiddo in tow, practically kidnap the mechanic and force him to go on a diagnostic drive with me. In the end he did tell me there is some sort of pressure in the lines that he did not notice before. I have to take the van back tomorrow so I can drop it off and use his car until he gets my van fixed the right way this time. He knows he needs to fix the tranny right because it's just a matter of time before I start wondering if I really needed the other $2400 worth of work he did.

So then we stopped at the Library. I was there Friday, but forgot my card. I spent awn hour picking out books (including tracking sown books I had selected Friday, but could not check out) only to discover I STILL did not have my card. I just found it, about one second ago, while typing this. (Well, actually I took a break to search around). It was under my desk. Dunno why.

Never mind. Now that I have the card, I can pick up the stack of books I reserved tomorrow, when I drop off the car. Joy.

Anyway, we came home from the Library and had a snack while Ted shopped for used cars on line. I did a quickie Goegraphy lesson with Kiddo. Geography for First Grade consists of Richard Scareys' Busy, Busy World, and a globe. Each story in the book is about characters who live in a different country. There are a lot of pictures, many of which show things that are unique to the location. For example, today's story was about London. It showed several unique London Guards, London Bridge, and Buckingham Palace. We read the story and talked about the pictures, and found England on a map and a globe. We did this for preschool, too, without the globe. It's fun.

Then we went on the long-awaited nature hike, which took MUCH longer than expected. Found some deer bones by the creek. We meant to pick them up on the way back but forgot. Also found a discarded tire to use for a swing. Ted will have to grab that tomorrow on the way home from work.

We got home by 8:30 and I had dinner on the table by 9:00. Kiddo showered and put on jammies before dinner. Grilled cheese sandwiches on home-made bread, roasted veggies, and vegetable soup. Hubby in bed by 10, kiddo watched a video (I'll admit it, I'm weak!) and had a snack, then we read Irish Fairy Tales and A Child's Garden of Verses until he conked out, at 11 pm like clockwork.

So now I have my quiet time, which is running out. I should be in bed my Midnight, and it is now 12:09. Enough for me. Good night.

Vacation From Hell Part 3 (It wasn't all bad) or, How HomeSchoolers Do Vacation

2007-07-25T23:48:00.002-05:00

Ok, so it took me a month, but now I find I can actually look back on that vacation and smile. There were a few completely awesome moments.

Animal Sightings:

We kept a log of all the different animals we saw each day. Among other neat-o things, we saw cormorants, loons, a bald eagle, and several dozen other wild creatures. It was fun searching for new things every day.

Day trip to Washington Island:

This was really a blast. We took the car ferry across and spent the whole day there. One of the favorite things to do is go to the Ostrich Farm, where they have a petting zoo full of amazing creatures: ostriches (don't pet them--they bite!) , miniature horses, alpacas, and even a camel! This picture of the camel is a couple of years old, and the camel is now grown. He is still super-friendly and for some reason, really takes to Ted. We have several years worth of video in which the camel is hanging all over him, chewing on his hat, and giving him "camel kisses." It does not treat every body like that.

We went to the Jacobsen Museum, where one man dedicated his life to building a small vacation-cottage resort and preserving the history of the island. The kids were incredibly well behaved as the looked at the old equipment in the yard. Once inside, the looked a artifacts of Island life, from a map stone made by the Pottawatomie Indians to toys and tools of just a generation or two ago. My kiddo especially liked the old telephone switchboard (the kind where the operator physically moves plugs around) because Nana used to be an operator when she was young.

By far, the best part of the Jacobsen Museum was walking down to Little Lake with Ted, Barb, Jack, and Kiddo. Yes, there really is a lake in the middle of this island. The shores were full of lovely water irises and lotuses and dozens of dragon flies buzzed over the surface of the lake. We got interested in a really big black and powder-blue one. We were all standing on the pier watching it. Then it landed on the pier and all 5 of us got down on our hands and knees to get a closer look. The dragon fly was landing and lifting up and landing again in the same place, so Barb put her hand down where it kept landing and sure enough, it landed right on the back of her hand. She giggled softly and whispered, "It tickles!" The dragon fly flew away and came back with a house fly in its mouth. We all sat there amazed and watched as the dragon fly devoured the house fly. Coolness! As soon as the fly was gone, the spell was broken and the kids went tearing up the path to tell Mike, Sue, and Nana what they saw.

The last stop was Schoolhouse Beach. We had just learned at the museum that Schoolhouse beach is one of only a few in the world to be made up entirely of lovely, round, glacier-polished rocks. We had also seen a few fossils at the museum. Let the fossil hunting commence! I especially got a kick out of this because I suspect that Mike and Sue are creationists. While they have been hoping their kids would be on fire for Jesus Christ, I was setting them on fire for searching out evidence of evolution. (Take THAT, Mike, for spilling the beans about Santa Claus! )

On the way home, I sat on the ferry and chatted with Mom. I was really really trying to be nice. Really. But it got to be too much and I decided to go take a walk and find my husband and kiddo. Guess where I found them? On the bridge of the ferry, with the captain. Guess what my kiddo was doing? Driving the bloody ferry boat!

Now how many more postcard moments can you ask for in one day?

The Evening We Went to Kangaroo Lake:

Kangaroo Lake (info) is a body of water within the peninsula. There is a long causeway through the middle of it. One evening Mike and Sue took their kids to the drive in movie, so Ted, Kiddo, Mom, and I went to see the lake. We spotted little fishes and dragon flies ( I didn't know until later that some of them were the endangered Hine's emerald dragonfly) . Even cooler to Kiddo, the causeway's underpinning incorporates several large culverts where the lake water can flow through. Where the wanter flows in to the tube, there are cool little swirls and eddies. Kiddo spent lots of time dropping bits of grass and sticks into the eddies and watching them get sucked down. Then he ran across the causeway to see them come out the other side, where dozens of little fishes were waiting to catch whatever might come out.

After leaving the lake, we went across the peninsula to watch the sunset in Ephraim and have ice cream at the famous Wilson's. As we walked on the piers to catch a good view of the sunset, we noticed a fire boat belonging to the local department. On the way back, we met the fireman who cares for the boat, and had a chance to talk at length abut the boat and Door County life in general.

A storm rolled in, and we chased it in the car. We didn't get to see much of it because we had to cross the peninsula again and got stuck in the woods, but it was fun. Except for Mom, siting in the back seat and screaming about ax murderers in the woods.

Making Love on the Balcony:

Only one night did Kiddo go to sleep before Ted and I were exhausted. Since we had no place to put him (he outgrew the bathtub as a temporary bed a couple of years ago) we left him in the room and took some blankets out on the balcony. 'Nuff said.

Free will and religion

2007-06-04T00:19:00.000-05:00

The first "religious" thing I remember learning in Catholic school is, we all were created with free will. As I understood it at the time, God didn't want to create humans to be pets or automations, who would do whatever he wanted them to do, just because it was in our instincts to do it. No, God already had animals for that, and they weren't all that exciting. God wanted us, as intellectual beings, to be able to choose to love him or not.

I must have stopped paying attention after that, because I never did accept a lot of the propaganda and brainwashing that so many of my Catholic friends and even my husband has swallowed hook, line, and sinker. I never believed in Original Sin, for example, because it just didn't seem fair to me. (Original sin is the idea that the disobedience that got Adam and Eve kicked out of the Garden of Eden is somehow biologically transmitted to each one of us. Some Christians call this "sin nature," which is a more apt term). Some other ideas I never bought were that our "sins" today somehow increse Christ's suffering on the cross in the past, that whole concept of Purgatory, and that saying a certain number of prayers can ease your sins. It turns out that many of the concepts I considered "suspect" in my youth, were inventions of the Catholic church for reasons that had more to do with politics and money than with religion or the Bible. No wonder the Catholic Church fought the invention of the printing press and universal literacy!

I decided on my own that Free Will means you have to make your own decisions about what is right and wrong, rather than let somebody else tell you. It means there are a whole bunch of different religions out there so people can have a choice. And it also means that we, as individuals, are responsible for making informed decisions as to what we choose to believe and how we choose to live. By my logic, "One True Faith" and "Universal Truth" are impossible ideas. The fact that so many people interpret the Bible in so many different ways, just goes to show, there is no "right" way to do it.

We, fallible humans that we are, just do not have what it takes to know the mind of God. No more than a gold fish knows the mind of the person in whose home it lives.

I spent a lot of time in my 20's exploring other belief systems. They all had points that resonated with me, and parts that I could not accept. My spirituality incorporates a little bit of all of them, and quite a bit that I came to on my own. My belief system is intensely personal, all my own. It is a product of my own thought and research and prayer and gut feelings. I developed it using all my natural faculties for logic and intuition. And I believe that is the way my God wants it.

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RUSH lyrics

Great quotes form my kid

2007-06-03T10:18:00.000-05:00

Regarding when we used to go to Catholic Church:

I never had any time to play there. I just had to sit and sit and sit and then we walked in the garden and then we went home.

Regarding a sea gull circling over head: (in the most authoritative little voice imaginable:

You see that? That is a White Vulture.

After too much teasing regarding White Vultures (in the same authoritative voice, as if we didn't know):

Actually, that's called a seagull.

Hundreds of stuffed animals

2007-06-02T16:22:00.000-05:00

Hubby and I just got a new king sized bed. Concurrently I am attempting to fix up a small bedroom on our ground floor as a school room. These two things together are unleashing a huge shit-storm of stuff that has to be moved and stuff that has to happen before the next thing can get done.

(There was an episode of M*A*S*H* like that. Hawkeye needed new boots, so he had to get the supply sargent in to see the dentist. The dentist wanted a pass to Tokyo in return for seeing the supply sargent. Radar wanted a date with a nurse before he would prepare the pass paperwork, and the nurse wanted a new hair dryer before she would date Radar. And so on.)

So it goes like this: Our old twin beds we were using while saving for the new king bed got moved into my exercise room, along with Kiddo's toddler bed, which was also in our room, taking up space. One of the beds went into Kiddo's loft today, and half the books in there had to come out to go into the new school room. The toddler bed is one of those lifetime things that goes from a crib to a toddler bed to a big-size bed, and can also be a love seat. So it went into the school room, too. I had to pull out a bunch of junk that was stored in the school room (like boxes of pictures and memorabilia) in order to even have room to move around in the school room. All that crap is now in the office, which is also supposed to turn into a guest room and receive the other twin bed, which is still clogging up my exercise room. And in order to have room to install the new "big boy" bed in the loft, we had to move Kiddo's 782 stuffed animals out of the loft and put them on his train tables in the play room.

So here's what I have now:

The animals need to get off the train table, so the trains can get off the floor. In order to get the animals off the train tables, I need a place to put them. There is a very nice corner which is now occupied by a train and an easel. The easel needs to get into the school room, which at the moment has so many books on the floor nobody can move. So to get my son's room clean, I have to start with the books in the school room.
My exercise room is unusable at the moment because the second spare bed is in there. In order to get the bed out of there, I need to get the office cleared out. Clearing out the office involves sorting through a dozen or so boxes of god-knows-what. Some of these boxes contain framed pictures that need to be hung on the various walls in our house. There are also my doll collection and my model horse collection, which I don't now what I am going to do with. I could store them in the basement except:
There is a closet in the basement where I now store gifts which I pick up when I find good ones, and keep until the appropriate birthday or holiday. I need to clean that one out 'cuz hubby wants to use it to hang his uniforms. He now uses the closet in my exercise room, which I want him to vacate so I can use it for costumes, which are now sharing space with me street clothes in one ill-conceived closet. Storing anything else in the basement is a no-go until 1) I find a place for all the stored gifts and 2) we get a dehumidifier. We have a closet in the office/guest room but--guess what--it is also filled with miscellaneous crap. In order to get my exercise room clean, I need to clean the closet in my office.
As an extension of the above problem, in order to have my closet organized and laundry room neat, I need to clean the storage area at the end of the basement.

Man, just thinking about it is exhausting.

Crative math games

2007-06-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

Uno
Yatzee
War
Monopoly (using "checkbooks" instead of or in addition to cash)

When we were working on pairs that add to 10 I'd remove all the 10s and picture cards and lay the rest face down. We'd take turns turning over 2 cards. If they added to 10 we'd keep them. If not we'd turn them over.

For place value also remove the 10s and picture cards. Decide how many places you want to deal with - we'd start with 2 or 3 and draw that many dashes on your page. Take turns turning over a card and deciding where to place it . We mainly used to aim to make the largest number so the 8s and 9s would go in the hundreds place. Modellling the thought process aloud in a game situation really helped learning I found. Sometimes we'd try and make the smallest number instead.

Rainbow Maths. Draw an arch and divide in into sections number 2-12. You'll need 1 per player and 2 dice. Roll the dice and add the numbers. Now comes the choice. If you have rolled a 3 and a 4 you may choose to colour the 7 section or any sections that add to 7 - the 3+4 that you rolled or 1+6 etc. The winner is the first person with a beautifully coloured rainbow. Stereotypically my girls loved this and my boys couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Give and Take is great for money skills - all you need is a pile of coins and a dice. If you roll 1-4 you take that number of coins from the pile. A 5 means miss a turn/take noting and 6 means take 3 from the pile and 3 from your partner. When all the coins have gone or after a set number of turns count to see who is richest.

Also on money give the kids a oupon book or other junk mail and a pile of real or toy money and see what they can buy. We had heaps of fun furnishinga house with money from Life or Monopoly. Much less of a budget constraint than real life!

The first day of the rest of our lives

2007-06-02T09:43:00.000-05:00

The first thing my kiddo said to me this morning was, "Wake up, Teacher-Mommy! We are in first grade now!"

He is SOOOO excited! Excited to be in first grade, excited to be learning at home, excited to have Ted and me as his teachers.

So this is the first day of our lives as a homeschooling family. To celebrate, I am going to make fresh waffles and strawberries for breakfast. We are not starting classes until July, when we will be all done with vacations and summer camps and so on.

If kiddo really wants to do something academic later in the day, we can start on his Art practicum for the summer, decorating his loft like a tree house. It will probably take a whole bunch of time, and I figured out it would be a slick way to incorporate more art/life skills into our curriculum. Or to look at it another way, it is a way to get credit for a big pain-in-the-ass project that we wanted to do anyway.

It is a beautiful day today. Maybe we will go for a nature hike later on.

Wow. I've been waiting for a year to get my kid back, and the day is finally here. I am pretty much speechless. Just, wow.

Endless Summer Vacaation

2007-06-01T13:24:00.000-05:00

Today I went to my son's school and watched him get his Kindergarten Diploma. Then I got to join him for a picnic outdoors. And now I am waiting--counting the minutes really--until I can go get him from school FOR THE LAST TIME.

I was so excited I could not sleep last night. I could have gone back to bed after he left but . . . Nope! Too excited!

I am done with getting up every morning at 6 am, especially in the winter time. (Although it was kind of nice seeing the sunrise on a daily basis. ) I am done with running out to the convenience store at 3 am because I am out of bread or peanut butter. I am done trying to figure out how to pack things in a lunch that will not spoil by lunch time.

No longer will every morning be a race to get ready before the bus comes. No more threats of "Eat your breakfast or go to school hungry!"

We will relax and take it easy. We will get up when we please. I will once again have my hour of morning quiet time during which I can drink coffee, exercise, blog, or veg out. We will take trips as the whim strikes us, and go to the museums during the week when they are not crowded. We will hit the beach after Labor Day and and go sledding when the snow is fresh.

I still plan to cover all the bases of proper education. We will of course work on reading, penmanship, math, and so on. But we will be doing it our way. We will be reading real books we enjoy, not some processed textbook crap. Science class is going to consist of planting things and making a nature notebook, and it will over lap with drawing. Drawing will over lap with history, which is going to start with prehistoric animals. Which of course over laps with science.

Can I tell you how excited I am right now? When I was a kid, summer vacation meant lots of free time, but it also meant wonderful trips with my family, children's theater, carnivals and circuses and nature hikes and girl scout camp and lots of educational activities. I always joined the summer reading club at the library and spent countless hours up a tree with a book. I devoted God-knows-how-many hours to my hobbies and 4-H projects. When I was 15, I volunteered to help out with my church youth group, and wound up running the office. Summer was not just a time to relax, but a time to indulge all my hobbies and interests.

I am now thinking of this moment as the start of an endless summer vacation.

Let's kick it off with some ice cream.

Things I will not miss

2007-05-17T07:01:00.000-05:00

Only 2 more weeks of school. Then I will bring my little boy home for a good long while. Maybe even for good.

I have been walking around my house singing the tune "One More Day" from Les Miserables. I realize that, in the play, the song is the harbinger of personal disaster and failed revolution, but the spirit of it matches my feelings right now. Part of the song is about hope and courage and conviction on the eve of a rebellion that the young students hope will become a revolution.

One day to a new beginning. . . .
Raise the flag of freedom high! . . .
Every man will be a king . . . .
There's a new world for the winning . . . .
There's a new world to be won!

Tomorrow we'll discover
What our God in Heaven has in store!
One more dawn
One more day
One day more!

Here are some things I absolutely will not miss:

Getting up at 6 am so my son can be in a classroom by 8:30.
Getting up at 6 am no matter how late I worked last night or how horrible I feel. (I am certain this is going to put me in an early grave.)
Breaking my neck to have my kid dressed before the bus comes. I don't even know the bus driver. Why am I letting her run my life?
Starting into the cabinet in the morning trying to figure out what the hell I can pack into a lunch.
Hearing my little boy telling the cats "You are a stinky booty-butt. Kiss my butt" and other gems he learned at school.
Seeing my kid for 20 minutes in the morning, and then not seeing him until the next morning because I have a long work night.
Having my son's teacher send home weekly reports that my son is fidgeting and daydreaming, not learning, when she and I have just heard from a team of experts that he apparently learns BEST when he is fidgeting and daydreaming.

Bring on the revolution!

Book list for grade Levels 1-3 with book levels.

2007-05-08T00:47:00.000-05:00

King School's Accelerated Reader Quiz List - Reading Practice

I found this on line while looking for information about my local library. I think in may be helpful because it lists books according to the reading level.

If you don't know, the reading level is a number that corresponds to the grade and month of the school year that a child should be able to read a book of such-and-such complexity. For example, if the Reading Level is 2.3, he should be able to read this book in his 3rd month of second grade. They get this number by a mathematical formula that considers the variety and difficulty of the words used, the average sentence length, and so on.

The Reading Level as such will be pretty useless to home schoolers, I guess, but it is nice to have a list of kids' books ranked in order of complexity. I will be referring to this frequently as we advance out of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons."

Book Lists Ongoing Post

2007-05-07T10:25:00.000-05:00

Helpful books for home school parents

Prehistoric Book list 1st grade level.

My Ongoing List of Things To Do in My Life

2007-05-07T10:01:00.000-05:00

Travel

Vienna, Austria, to see the Lippazaner Stallions at the famous Spanish Riding School (done, November 1994)
Paris, France (done, may 1992)
Ireland, to see my family's home
The Grand Canyon
The Great Plains to see the wild mustangs
Olympic games, at least once

Reading

Personal Achievements

Dreams

Take my son to Europe for a grand tour when he graduates high school.
Own a cottage in Door County, Wisconsin
Keep a condo in Chicago
Buy a Jaguar

Misc.

Get my motorcycle back on the road and actually ride it somewhere

My Ongoing Gratitude List

2007-05-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

Nice summer weather is coming.
I live in a country that values individualism enough to make home education legal in all 50 states.
School is almost over for the year
Mozilla FIrefox has a spell checker, which works most of the time, and keeps me from revealing the depth of my ignorence of spelling rules and lack of typing ability.

Possible Weekday Schedule

2007-05-04T14:41:00.000-05:00

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
7 am	Erin Wake, Dress, Morning Quiet time
8: am	Connal Wake, dress, morning play time Erin make breakfast and plan day’s work
9 am	Breakfast Read Aloud Bible Story Phonics Connal Reading Time
10 am	Erin Fitness Connal Free Play			Erin Fitness Connal Free Play
11 am	Lunchtime and Read-Aloud
12 pm	Ready to go		Ready to go

Afternoons

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
		Ice Skating		Ice Skating
History	Science	Pioneer Life	History	Manners

2007-05-04T09:36:00.000-05:00

New Free eBook Will Improve Your Reading Habits in Under an Hour

Read my free eBook ROMAN Reading: 5 Practical Skills for Transforming Your Life through Literature , and in less than an hour you'll have learned reading skills that will last a lifetime.

You deserve to read the greatest thinkers of the world, and I can show you how with five simple, practical skills. I've been teaching others for sixteen years, and I can teach you. And I'll do it for free.

Why? Because I have a mission, and I want you to share it with me. The mission? Changing lives one page at a time. I want to make the world a more literate place, a place where people think for themselves, learn about their world, and share their ideas with each other.

A literate world is a world of peace, tolerance and vision. We've got our work cut out for us.

Morning conversations

2007-05-04T07:28:00.000-05:00

Ted was home today and got Kiddo ready for school. I had meant to sleep in, but I just wasn't sleepy. Here are some of the converstions in our house today:

Kiddo: I want to buy a big boat.
Ted: Put your shirt on
Kiddo: a big, big boat!
Ted: Put your shirt on.
Kiddo: A big boat with a water slide on it.
Ted: I don't think they make those.
Kiddo: Yes they do! Mommy and I saw one.
Ted: Oh.
Kiddo: YOU weren't there.
Ted: That must be a really expensive boat.
Kiddo: What makes a boat float?
Ted: Ummm. . . I think it displaces . . . . no, that's not right. It . . . it . . . Hey, Hon! What makes a boat float?
Me: Ummmm . . .Because it's lighter . . . no that's not exactly right . . .I think the shape of it . . . No, it's something about the surface tension of the water.
Ted: Did you hear that, Kiddo? The surface tension of the water.
Kiddo: (Losing interest) Oh . . . .

As soon as he was on the bus it came to me--Buoyancy! Now to find a way to explain that one!

Ted: We watched "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" last night.
Me: And are you?
Ted: I'm not sure. I got all the first grade questions wrong, but I got the 5th grade ones right.

Ted: Too bad Kiddo isn't older. I heard they are auditioning the next group of fifth graders.
Me: If they still have it when he is old enough, he can try out. He'll knock 'em dead.
(pause)
Me: Let's start our own show, "Are You Smarter than a Home Schooler?"

I love the mornings when we are all together.

My personal reasons to homeschool

2007-05-02T23:06:00.000-05:00

So there are probably as many reasons to home school as there are parents and students who are doing it. At this point in time, I am trying to get my head around some of the core issues involved in my decision to educate my son. One of the biggies is why the hell I am doing it.

I think I understand my son better than anybody else. This is being born out by his current school experience. He is bored senseless, and instead of challenging him, the teacher gives him pointless busywork to do. I have been to the school, asking for challenging work for him, and it gets me nowhere. I have become such a thorn in the teachers side, I am no longer invited to volunteer in the classroom.
I care about my son more than anybody else. I love my son more than anything or any one else on this earth. I don't care how much a teacher loves "children" in a collective sense or how committed she is to her work. She doesn't love all those kids like she loves her own kid. Or like I love mine.
I believe education should be rigorous, challenging, interesting, and inspiring. Mine was none of these things. I know I can do better.
I have been to the public schools. I taught as a cadre sub in the Chicago School System for over a year. I tutored Biology 101, Anatomy and Physiology, and some 3rd grade kids for extra credit when I was in college. What I saw was

Nursing students who could not reason deductively

college freshmen who could not do simple fractions or measure with a ruler,
High school sophomores who were reading at a 6th grade level,
6th graders who needed a calculator for 6+4,
3rd graders who could not answer a reading question that began with "why do you think . . ." because all they could do was search for the answer in the reading selection.

Textbooks are being progressively "dumbed down" and this is no lie. The difference between the book I had for Bio 101 and a later addition of the same book was just . . . astounding.
I can't afford the peer pressure. My mom was the only one I knew who didn't work, and I wished she did. All my friends had cool stuff and designer clothes. I felt horribly self-conscious about not having all that same stuff, and envious of my friends, to boot. They say it's different for boys, but I'm not so sure. Kiddo wore my runners singlet to school for purple day (the first week of school when they were learning their colors) and got teased for wearing a dress. How is it going to get any better? I work, but I choose to spend my money on things we can all benefit from: books, travel, and family activities and outings. I don't want to choose between the things I love doing with my guys, and designer duds for my kid. Besides, it is going to be a cold day in hell when my son dresses better than I do.
I wish I had had a classical education. And now we are BOTH going to get one, by George.
I love learning new things and I want to pass that on to my son. What better way to do it that to give him hands on, everyday experience of his mother having a blast learning new things?
Kids are only young once and this is likely the only one I will ever have. I want to enjoy every minute I can with him.
Morals and values are very hard to teach. It will probably take me all day . . . every day.
My work schedule puts me at odds with any school schedule. As it is, I have to work half shifts or else not see my son at night. Money for dancers is always tight in the winter months, so I had to work 4-5 days a week (as opposed to 3 during the good months) and as a result got to see my son awake only one hour a day--from 6:30 to 7:30 a. m. That is arguably the WORST part of the day, since we were rushed and neither one of us is really a morning person. Every day before he goes to school my son wants to know if I am working that night,and if I will be home for bedtime. Before he started kindergarten, I got to see my son EVERY morning and spend a lot of time with him before I left for work.
I am just a do-it-yourself kind of person. I am usually convinced that there is no job I can't do, if only I have a book and the right tools.

And my number one, best reason for wanting to home-educate my child:

A customized, personal curriculum in a private setting just has to trump a noisy, crowded classroom with 30 kids to one teacher. It just has to. Anyone could do the math . . . I would hope.

Helpful books for home school parents

2007-05-02T11:25:00.000-05:00

Helpful books for home school parents

The Well-Trained Mind by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
•Teach Your Own by John Holt
•How Children Learn by John Holt
•How Children Fail by John Holt
•Dumbing us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education by
John Taylor Gotto
•The First Year of Homeschooling by Linda Dobson
•The Homeschooling Book of Answers by Linda Dobson
•The Art of Education by Linda Dobson
•The Homeschooling Book of Answers: The 88 Most Important Questions
Answered by Homeschooling's Most Respected Voices by Linda Dobson
•Fundamentals of Homeschooling, Notes on Successful Family Living by
Ann Lahrson-Fisher
•The Complete Homeschooling Resource Book by Rebecca Rupp
•Homeschooling and the Voyage of Self-Discovery: A Journal of Original
Seeking by David Albert
•The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real
Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn
•What about College? : How Homeschooling Leads to Admissions to the
Best Colleges & Universities by Cafi Cohen
•The Dan Riley School for a Girl: An Adventure in Home Schooling by
Dan Riley
•Homeschooling for Excellence by David Colfax and Micki Colfax
•And the Skylark Sings with Me – Adventures In Homeschooling and
Community-Based Education by David H. Albert
•Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma
•Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason
•The Unschooling Handbook, How to Use the Whole World as Your Child's
Classroom by Mary Griffith
•When Children Love to Learn: A Practical Application of Charlotte
Mason's Philosophy for Today by Anderson, Macaulay, Beckman and Scott
•For the Love of Learning: Information and Resources for Combining
Charlotte Mason and Classical Education by Jenny Sockey
•The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook by Dorothy and Raymond Moore
•A Sense of Self: Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls by
Susannah Sheffer
•What Your 1st Grader Should Know by E.D. Hirsch [entire series
recommended]
•Family Matters by David Gutterson
•The Latin-Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell
•Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn
•Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky Bailey
•Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves by Naomi Aldort
•Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen
•There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith
•Teach Like Your Hair Is on Fire by Rafe Esquith
•Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery
of Greek Wisdom by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath
•Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin by Tracy Lee
Simmons and William F. Buckley
•100 Top Curriculum Picks by Cathy Duffy
•How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and on to Learning by
Carol Barnier

"The Complete Home Learning Sourcebook" (by Rupp)

"Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers"

by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate

Upside-Down Brilliance by Linda Kreger Silverman
Raising Topsy-Turvy Kids by Alexandra Shires Golon.

'Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful
Parenting' by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

Genius Denied by Jan and Bob Davidson

My mother, My homeschool, My self

2007-05-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

(Before I get started, let me make this clear: I love my mom. I do not hate her. I am not bitter (much) about the way she raised me. I know she truly thought she was doing everything right and making all the right choices, even though they are not choices I would make for myself or my own child. This is a result of our differing personalities, not because I believe she was WRONG. Sure she made some mistakes, but so have I. )

I love my mom, I really do. But I do not like her very much. It's not personal, I just don't like the kind of person she is. She is a Conformist.

Now, of course some level of conformity is good and helpful. People should all conform to traffic laws, for example, or we would have chaos on the roads. And I by no means intend to say that I myself, am above that heard instinct. I feel just as stupid as the next person when I realize I have dresses inappropriately at some event.

But my mom is a super-conformist. She would have made a good Nazi. Not that she is a mean, cruel, or heartless person. But she would have done mean, cruel, and heartless things because some authority told her to. She would have done whatever was required of her, and not asked why. She seems to have an almost pathological fear of being in any way different, of standing out from the pack.

I don't know why she is like that.

Compared to my mom, I am just about as different as they get. I strive to excel at things that are important to me. I question everything, including my reasons for questioning. I take nothing on faith, except what I choose to take. I weigh my decisions. I am suspect of authority and its hidden agendas. In any discussion, I expect people to have opinions based on facts and defensible by logical arguments. I am disgusted with people who, lemming-like, follow the crowd (which seems to be most people I meet these days.) In short, I march to my own individual drum.

I don't know why I am like that. I only know that I am extremely uncomfortable when I get out of step with my own drum and try to fall in and match my thinking with that of the crowd.

Well, you can probably guess where I am going with this. Every parenting decision I have made for my son, has been informed by the opinions of experts and veteran parents, and censored by my gut instinct. I must be doing something right. My son is turning out to be a nice, thoughtful little boy who is kind to animals, caries on involved conversations with adults, and was reading before kindergarten. He is extremely sensitive, deeply concerned with the fate of ants and worms, and moved to tears by the story of the Crucifixion. He is curious, bright, energetic, and absolutely lovable. Perfect.

But according to my mother, every decision I make for him is WRONG. Breastfeeding, vegetarian living, limiting junk food, the way I discipline . . . all of it. WRONG. I'm sometimes surprised she has not called DCFS on me. All of her objections to everything I do seem to have one of two themes. Either 1) I don't know what I am doing, or 2) I am denying my son the chance to be absolutely, stunningly average.

I expected some resistance to the idea of home schooling. Her father was, after all, a history teacher, although he retired sometime in the 1960's. She herself claims to have loved school. And of course, public school is what all the average kids do. But boy was I not prepared for all I heard.

My mom told me that I can't possibly know how to teach my own child (after I taught him to read), that unless I go to teachers' college and get a certificate I will not have the necessary knowledge to teach a child. She told me he will never be normal if I insist on keeping him locked in the house all day, that he will never have any friends, and that this foolish experiment of mine will ruin my son's life forever. He will not be able to get into college and in fact, at the end of 12 years, will probably not have an education sufficient to even get a GED. The truant officer will come get me. I will not be able to judge his progress because there will be no standardized tests. And perhaps my favorite part: Hanging around is a classroom full of 6 year olds with inadequate adult supervision and doing boring repetitive work is preferable to a customized, one-on-one education with the people who love him most.

Now, most homeschool parents know most of this is silly. Of course we are not going to stay locked up all day, for example. Of course he will go to college, if he wants. It's easy to dismiss most of the above tirade as fear and ignorance. What hurt me was her complete lack of trust in me as a parent, and as a teacher. I do have experience in the classroom, just not a certificate. I have 2 college degrees. I have taught my kid to read and do basic math already, without any help except a couple of books and websites. And yet in spite of all that, I'm not good enough, in her eyes, to teach my own kid.

Of course, she wouldn't see it that way. To her, its just that home school is so . . . different. Outside the norm. Beyond the Pale.

And that's just WRONG.

What is Classical Education?

2007-05-02T10:52:00.000-05:00

This is a "classic" view of classical education. The woman who wrote it was home schooled by her mother, and is now teaching her 4 kids. She and her mother wrote one of the most fameous lbooks in the classical ed world, in fact probably in the homeschool world, called The Well-Trained Mind. Next to Les Miserables, it is probably me favorite book ever. At least, it is one of the few I have read more than twice. I consider TWTM my home-school Bible.

What is Classical Education?

by Susan Wise Bauer

Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This classical pattern is called the trivium.

To resd the rest of Susan's excellent article, click here.

Lost tools of Learning, By Dorothy Sayers

2007-05-02T09:48:00.000-05:00

This is an oldie, but a goody. It explains/justifies the classical learning model. I love it. It was part of my inspiration when I decided to home school and specifically when I settled on classical education.
.

The Lost Tools of Learning

by Dorothy Sayers

That I, whose experience of teaching is extremely limited, should presume to discuss education is a matter, surely, that calls for no apology. It is a kind of behavior to which the present climate of opinion is wholly favorable. Bishops air their opinions about economics; biologists, about metaphysics; inorganic chemists, about theology; the most irrelevant people are appointed to highly technical ministries; and plain, blunt men write to the papers to say that Epstein and Picasso do not know how to draw. Up to a certain point, and provided that the criticisms are made with a reasonable modesty, these activities are commendable. Too much specialization is not a good thing. There is also one excellent reason why the veriest amateur may feel entitled to have an opinion about education. For if we are not all professional teachers, we have all, at some time or another, been taught. Even if we learned nothing—perhaps in particular if we learned nothing—our contribution to the discussion may have a potential value.

However, it is in the highest degree improbable that the reforms I propose will ever be carried into effect. Neither the parents, nor the training colleges, nor the examination boards, nor the boards of governors, nor the ministries of education, would countenance them for a moment. For they amount to this: that if we are to produce a society of educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures of our modern society, we must turn back the wheel of progress some four or five hundred years, to the point at which education began to lose sight of its true object, towards the end of the Middle Ages.

Before you dismiss me with the appropriate phrase—reactionary, romantic, mediaevalist, laudatory temporis acti (praiser of times past), or whatever tag comes first to hand—I will ask you to consider one or two miscellaneous questions that hang about at the back, perhaps, of all our minds, and occasionally pop out to worry us.

.
To read the rest of this article, click here.

John Taylor Gotto Essay

2007-05-02T09:39:00.000-05:00

How public education cripples
our kids, and why
By John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the
Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American
Education. He was a participant in the Harper's Magazine forum "School on a Hill,"
which appeared in the September 2003 issue.


I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?

To read more of this article, click here.

Awesome article by Linda Dobson

2007-05-02T08:57:00.000-05:00

The Road Less Traveled - Linda Dobson

I Can Read This, So I Thank My Mother

Today I waited at a red light behind a car with a bumper sticker proclaiming the owner's child was a local school's student of the month. Yesterday, I was behind another vehicle whose owner's child is an honor student. The day before, yet another bumper sticker told me that if I could read it, I should thank a teacher.

After all these years, such stickers still irritate me. Many years ago, they bothered me so badly that, being the good homeschooling advocate that I am, I decided to fight back. I created my own bumper sticker. I gave them away at homeschooling conferences, and with book purchases. (And all of the homeschoolers within my local support group, I now believe, in retrospect, were afraid not to put theirs on their cars.)

To read the rest of this article, click here.

Prehistoric Book list 1st grade level.

2007-05-02T08:55:00.000-05:00

Reference

Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World
Parragon Encyclopedia of World History
Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History
DK Eyewitness
Leap through time
Children's History of the World (I liked the secular nature of History Odyssey and having all the books organized for me).

Fiction

The First Dog- Jan Brett *This one was really neet to read
Ugh- Author Yorunks
Your Mother Was A Neanderthal- Jon Scieszka (And other Time Warp Trio books)
Little Grunt and The Big Egg- Tomie dePaola **I really like this book***
Mik's Mammoth- Roy Gerrard
Stanley- Syd Hoff ( I have a comment about Stanley by Syd Hoff. I got this book from thelibrary when we were doing pre-history last fall and although it is a nicelittle first reader my five year old pointed out several inconsistencies.The one I remember were the cartoon illustrations show the cave men running around with dinosaurs, which of course was not possible)..
Sunset of the Sabertooth- Mary Pope Osborne
Quennu and the Cave Bear- Marie Day
The Cave Painter of Lascauz- Roberta Angeletti
A is for Aarrgh!- William J. Brooke
First Painter- Kathryn Lasky
The Kin (series)-Peter Dickinson
In The Ice Age- J.C. Greenburg
Great Big Guinea Pigs- Susan L. Roth
Good Times Travel Agency Series by Linda Baily. (You can also find them by searching under "Adventures in xxxx" They have an Ice Age one, Ancient Greece, Ancient China and more. We love those. They are kind of comic book style but do have good information in them.)
One Small Blue Bead" by Baylor
Right Here on this Spot" by Addy
"Maroo of the Winter Caves" by Turnbull (read aloud -- middle grade
fiction and not for sensitive kids)
"A Cartoon History of the Earth" by Bailey and Lilly (four slim volumes, not to be confused with Gonick's "Cartoon History of the Universe," which is another excellent resource, but not appropriate for younger kids)
"Life Story" written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton
The Stone Age Sentinel. (It's one of that series of psuedo newspapers/tabloids. It might be a bit over the head of a 6 or 7 year old, but they're fun.)

Activites

“Lift the Lid” kits
Making a footprint
“Cave Painting” on Rocks (grind pigment and mix own paint)
Dinosaur excavation kit

2007-05-02T08:37:00.000-05:00

This is an old post I wrote for my MySpace blog. It's relevant here, so I decided to put it up.

Every morning when I put my son on the bus, a little piece of my heart breaks off and tries to follow him. But of course it can't, so before the bus has even passed my property line, the little heart-piece comes crashing down by the roadside, where it shatters into tiny shards, which get pounded into dust by the huge semi-trailers that were lined up behind the bus waiting for my son to get on.

I doesn't help that he tells me every day how much he hates school and makes up excuses to stay home. I don't think he really hates it as much as he says he does; he always has something exciting to tell me and he treasures every worksheet he brings home as if it is an original copy of the Magna Carta.

Every morning we go through the same routine. He doesn't want to get up. (Neither do I!) Then ts breakfast, getting dressed, checking homework, and I give him a reading lesson. Brush teeth, read from a science book until the bus comes.

Then the bus driver honks, I get a kiss, and my little guy races out the door. I wave to the bus driver as my son takes his seat—always the same seat, on the side facing our house, where he can see me. For one short moment, the entire word has come to a halt so my child can board his bus safely. As the bus pulls away, I can see that tiny little hand waving goodbye to me. I stand on the front porch in my bathrobe and watch until the bus goes around the curve, even though it is about 10 degrees outside. The long line of trucks that has stopped slowly grinds back into action. I think of that country song, "There goes my life; there goes my everything."

I turn around slowly and walk back into the house.