Time to catch up

Where do I even start?


Summer came and went too fast. Our big trip to the island was postponed due to an unexpected family emergency. July disappeared before our eyes, but we still managed to plant some little seeds for zucchini, cucumbers, carrots and sunflowers. The zucchini plants grew HUGE only to be eaten by the local bunny population, the carrots and sunflowers were non-existent, but we are happy to report we had a crop of 13 lovely cucumbers this summer. It is better than nothing, and boy, were they tasty! I think we broke even with the cost of seeds :)










Daddy Hawksbill celebrated his 40th birthday so we had to have an Indiana Jones cake....it was between that and Hello Kitty, so we went for the manly cake ... it was tasty...no, of course, I did not make it myself...that would take effort.

I was bummed that we missed out on camping so on the spur-of-the-moment one weekend in September we decided to go to Lakeport...it was only for two days, but it made up for how sad I was about not having a vacation this summer. I found at least 30 petosky stones for my garden, and the kids had a blast, even though it was a bit colder than we had hoped...but the whole summer seemed cool except one week in July perhaps....I was just glad to get away from home for a couple of days and enjoy the water and the rock hunting...

Gwen enjoyed riding her bike around this summer. She's still 4-wheeling it, but, may I add, she is still totally potty trained--which will bring me to one funny story for today, but I will bring that one up later...

My youngest sister, K, was married in Vegas so Hawksbill and I for the first time ever left our kids with relatives overnight and went out of town. Vegas was fun, we lost our limit of $100, but unless I am going to see some type of show, I don't think I need to go there again. Maybe because we had only 1.5 days there and it seemed like we spent more time on the plane than anything else, but I think we just get bored too easily with gambling (I think that is probably a good thing). The quarter poker games were fun, but that was all we really did other than the delightful wedding. I am not posting a photo of K since I didn't ask, but I will post a picture of Hawksbill and me and some cool tree thingy inside the hotel where we stayed....













Next came work work and more work. I held a conference at work -- and even though I reminded these lovely people for 1 full year that I have never planned anything -- not even a potluck, I somehow still managed to plan, organize and hold the entire conference by myself. No really. I am not bragging--I am stating a fact and you can ask Hawksbill and my boss. I had no help. It was crazy...I am glad it was small, but at least I know what NOT to do next time (although I hope I never have to do this again). Mistake number 1 was having a 3 day conference at 3 different locations, but that is all I will say. It was my number one thing that made me the most nervous for the last 3 months of my life, and I am glad it is finished. The people who needed to be made happy appeared to be happy, and that is all that matters.

The day after my conference was over was Halloween....

As you can see, Simon and Gwen went as Cinderella and
Jengo Phet or something like that...he gets mad when I screw up the Star Wars character names...he was a bounty hunter...I think I can spell that. We ended up taking the kids to my sister, A's, house to trick-o-treat with her kids and they all had fun. The candy is pretty much gone, but you know, I had to make sure all the snickers bars were safe...so I think I ate them all....

Then came November. Man, this week has been one heck of a week. On Sunday, my mother called to tell me my Godfather, S, had passed away but she didn't have any details. I saw him at my parents' 50th anniversary last year, and we are pictured below:

S will be missed. Before this picture, I don't think I had even seen him since my wedding almost 14 years earlier, and he was very young. Just a shock to his family. He never married, had no children, but played Santa Claus during the holidays...he will be missed. Today was his funeral mass (and my little sister's wedding reception) so it was a busy day today.

In addition to this loss, my brother, B, lost his Father-in-law suddenly on Wednesday to an asthma attack; my mother lost her cousin; my mother-in-law lost a close friend; and my sister's neighbor lost her mother. This has been the most shocking week in a long time...too many people passing so quickly. I am thankful the rest of us here are healthy and doing well. I really would rather not go to any more funerals anytime soon.

Homeschooling has been progressing for Simon and Gwen--mostly Simon still, since Gwen is only 4 and is mostly interested in drawing pictures and changing her clothes over and over again and pretending she is some princess in distress who has to ninja kick herself out of a dungeon, if that makes any sense...Hawksbill has been doing most of the work, but I am helping with Math, Science and Arts and Crafts...Simon does most of his work with me on his own, and for that I feel guilty, but now that most of the chaos (at least I hope) is over this year, I can spend more time reading and looking things up with him. He is still obsessed with planets, starting to get into dinosaurs, history, definitely more interested in Geography than I ever was...so, I am looking forward to learning with him.

My one little, I guess funny-to-me story, happened in the restroom at my sister's wedding reception today. A friend who is 8 months pregnant was talking to another friend who is apparently having trouble potting training her son. I made the mistake of butting into the conversation with, "Oh, I have a book...." to which the frustrated mom looked at me and said, "If you say m & m's and sticker charts, I am going to punch you!" to which my pregnant friend said, "No, really--it is ok, she had lots of trouble potty training her kids"

I pointed to Gwen, who, although is 4 years old, looks like she is 6, and said, "see her, she's only been potty trained for about 6 months now." Now the flustered mom looked at me and said, "Oh, thank God--I CAN talk to you--if I hear one more story about how someone potty trained their kid in 2 weeks, or they were only 2 years old, etc. so forth, I was going to shoot myself. " So we all stood in the ladies room talking about trying to potty train stubborn 3.5 year old children, to which I told her my kids hit 4 before they were trained, so don't feel bad and we all had a good old time...except maybe my 8 month pregnant friend who has yet to experience this joy. I hope we didn't scare her...but it was fun discussing how certain we were our kids would be wearing Depends and how we hate when other moms come up and say, "Have you tried candy?" when you just want to scream, "IF IT WERE THAT EASY, IT WOULD BE DONE BY NOW!!!..." So, needless to say, I have a new found friend in the potty training hell world that I will be passing a book to soon via my sister. M&M's and sticker charts my a$$ :) No offense to anyone who was successful with sticker charts and M&M's but it was nice to share my pain with someone going through the same thing we dealt with for what seemed like forever--nice to know other people have "willful" children. Of course, this mom had the best story of trying to pay her kid for using the potty, except he decided to EAT the money she gave him which resulted in a trip to the ER. Oh, these darn kids.

So here we are. It is November 7th already, and the holidays are just a couple week away. I could care less. I am too freaking tired from the last 4-5 months of my crazy life to even think about Turkey or Christmas presents. The only thing I want this winter is a healthy, happy family, and to be thankful for what we have. We still have jobs even though we are in Detroit that has the highest (or close to the highest) unemployment rate in the nation, we have a roof over our heads, we have food, and we have our health. So, thank you if there is anyone out there watching over us. I am so thankful for my family right now, now if I could just get back into a normal routine...I think I might feel normal again. And I want to say goodbye to all of our losses this week. May you all rest in peace and feel no pain....you will all be missed.

Salon Homeschooling Article

An article from Salon today.

Here's my favorite quote:

"We're not ready to surrender our kids, and ourselves, to a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution whose primary goal, at least at this age, seems to be teaching kids how to function within a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution."

The comments to the article are especially interesting. Lots of angry tirades. But a few sensible ones also. I especially liked the one at the bottom of this page, which I will reprint below.

Not home schooling, home educating

Last year, we started "home" schooling our daughter in the 8th grade. To say this was a controversial decision with our family and friends, would be an understatement.

Someone joked that we were doing it in the wrong order, as people usually start home schooling their kids in the early grades, not the higher grades. They thought our daughter was going to turn out to be an un-socialized misfit, weirdo. Despite the protests, we decided to plow ahead anyway.

So, why did we leave the system? The answer is specific to her circumstances; but I want to highlight two reasons that people don't seem to appreciate.

First, most people are focused only on their school and how wonderful it is. The truth is, the best schools in America seriously suck at offering math or science. "Oh, it is different in my school. We have AP courses and advanced flim-flams," you might say. Okay, then try your 10th grader on these exams:

http://www.2mminutes.com/pressblog8.asp

(WARNING: the math and history tests are pretty hard).

Your kids would need to pass these exams to continue onto 11th grade in India. I can give more examples from Europe to South America, where your kids would flunk spectacularly, especially in science and math.

You may have great teachers, supportive schools, but what you don't have is parents that want their kids challenged. Send home a problem that Johnny can't answer... well, there's a problem with the teacher. Ask a question on the exam that was not covered in class... well, the teacher must be bad.

So, even if the schools could offer the children a wonderful challenging environment, the parents would be "up in arms." They would complain their kids are not being spoon fed anymore. If the kids don't get it right away, and actually have to struggle, then it's too hard. We have to dumb-down the material so no one is left behind.

The second problem is that schools don't encourage risk taking anymore. This is driven by an irrational fear of vocal parents, who want to protect their children from ALL risks. Bring a knife to school -- get expelled. Bring a prescription drug to school -- get suspended. Act up -- get placed on Ritalin. Get one bad grade -- forget about going to Harvard.

Zero tolerance. What a moronic idea. If people are to make mistakes, is it not better for them to make them when they are growing up. When do we want them to make mistakes... when they are the President?

Between the colleges, the parents, and the schools, we have screwed a generation of kids. They have learned not to rock the boat. Like a sponge, they attempt to absorb hour after hour of monotonous drivel, repeated ad nauseam. And at the end of the semester they wring out the contents out of their brain, forgetting the useless facts that they've learned, ready to waste another semester on more useless facts.

I have seen far too many children of boomer parents come home to live with mom and dad. Not because they want to, but because they have to. They drift through life underemployed, desperately searching for some meaning in life. Rather than blame these kids, I blame the parents and the schooling system that the parents demanded.

Given these perceived problems, this is what are we attempting to achieve with our home schooling experiment. We want our daughter to grow, by taking risks. We want her to pursue ideas that she is interested in. What we would like to have, when she leaves our home, is a young woman who has a good sense of who she is, what she wants to do, and a plan on how to get there. And we want her to know it's okay if she changes her path. The point is, we want her to live her life to her fullest potential.

We feel strongly that the current schooling system wants nothing to do with our goals. It wants conformity. It wants obedience. It wants children to respond to arbitrary rewards. In short, it is perfect at creating workers for the throw away jobs that America seems to create by the thousands.

New School Year

As we enter our third year of homeschooling I have come to really look forward to our late summer planning sessions. Around the middle of each August Barb and I sit down to try to figure out exactly how our homeschooling year will take shape; what it will look like and how it will be structured.

One of the things I've come to expect is that we will plan more structure than will actually happen. By nature I am a planner and an organizer. I enjoy trying to figure out optimum strategies. I also enjoy feeling like I can accurately predict the future, even if reality always proves me wrong. I'm perfectly happy with the illusion of control, even if I have to admit that it is only an illusion.

The truth is that we have a very rigorous daily schedule. In order to live comfortably we both have to work. But, in order to homeschool our children one of us has to be with our kids at all times. So far we've been able to manage it all, but not without some sacrifice. Barb gets up ungodly early and works until around 2pm. She comes home and I go off to work at one job where I am a therapist for troubled teens from 3-6pm and then to another job where I write case histories and treatment plans for a local community mental health agency. Then I come home around 9pm and we enjoy some sort of family time until we all pass out from exhaustion.

And that's the biggest sacrifice we've made in our determination to both live comfortably and homeschool: we're very tired. That's what always interrupts our careful homeschool planning. We plan for a certain level of educational structure, but we're always too tired to maintain it exactly as planned. But that doesn't really bother me anymore. I've come to terms with it because, even if we don't follow through with all my plans for a given year, I have yet to be disappointed with the progress the kids are making.

That being said, this year I've tried to find a balance with the planning. I keep trying to find the sweet spot that satisfies my need to plan and predict the future while being realistic enough to complete on a daily basis.

So, with that in mind I thought I'd outline our plans for this current homeschooling year in which Simon is entering "2nd grade" and Gwen is in her last year of preschool before "Kindergarten" (they are 7 and 4 years old respectively). This year Barb wanted to be more involved so she gets her own afternoon time slot dedicated to the subjects she excels at. Note that these formal lessons are designed for Simon. Gwen definitely likes to get involved with school time, but she does more age appropriate activities while Simon is tackling his assignments.

It looks like this:

Morning lessons with Daddy:
3 Lessons:

1. Spelling
2. English / Grammar
3. Writing

Afternoon lessons with Mommy:
Each day choose 2 of these 3:

1. Math
2. Science
3. Arts & Crafts
   

Bedtime lessons:
Daddy reads history stories

This may seem like a lot, but most lessons only take 10-15 minutes at most so we're talking about a half hour to 45 minutes in the morning, about the same amount of time in the afternoon and then just reading to them before bedtime. I've found that short, concise lessons each day (just long enough for a 7 year old's attention span) are perfect. Any more time than that and everyone loses patience.

I'm very pleased that Barb is taking over a big chunk of the homeschooling. Math and science are areas that she excels at (she has a graduate degree in mathematics after all) and this frees me up to focus on the areas I have the greatest passion for which are language skills, literature, history, rhetoric, etc.

It has taken a couple years of research to pick the curriculum material that works best for us in the subject areas we've chosen. Here's how it breaks down:

Spelling
Spelling Workout series. I like these books because Simon works on it autonomously with very little input from me. This frees me up to work on phonics with Gwen while Simon works on this.

English
First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. This is part of Susan Bauer's Classical Education curriculum and was written by her mother. It contains lessons in grammar, memorizing and reciting poetry, narration, writing, etc.

Writing
This year I'm adding Susan Bauer's Writing with Ease program. I will probably stop including the writing requirements from the English lessons above and just use these instead. Her primary focus is to practice the twin arts of putting ideas into words and putting words on paper with the intent of leading a student toward a later study of rhetoric and persuasive writing in the high school years.

Math
Singapore Math. Simon is starting the level 3 books this year. We tried Saxon math a couple of years ago, but they were too expensive and just didn't work for us as well as the Singapore program does.

Science
We've have several different books for a couple of years now and haven't used them as much as we'd hoped. They are: Sandbox Scientist, Backyard Scientist, Mudpies to Magnets: A Preschool Science Curriculum and The Everything Kids Science Experiment Book. I think part of the reason these fell by the wayside is that, as I said before, my main interests are in language arts. Now that Barb is taking this over she'll probably get a lot more done than I did.

Arts & Crafts
This will be pretty ad hoc, I suppose. Whatever Barb can think of, she'll do with the kids.

History
I'm going to start with the Usborne World History Encyclopedia and then work in the Ancient History volume of Susan Bauer's classical history series for kids (aka The Story of the World, Volume 1). After that I plan to use both books together. Simon listened to the audio CD version of this book a couple of years ago, but that fell out vogue with him and I wanted to start over with both kids.

Next year I will probably add a Latin program. I'm waiting for Gwen to get just a little older so that she and Simon can learn it with me together. The same company that makes the Latin curriculum (Memoriapress.com) also makes a formal logic program that I'm considering also, but that probably won't be needed until Simon hits about 7th grade or so.)

That's about it. Hopefully we can keep up with everything, but if we have to sacrifice parts of it to maintain our sanity, so be it.

3 Months Later....

...and still diaper-free. No major accidents to speak of...I just felt like posting about this...so happy to not be investing in Pampers anymore!!

Two weeks ago I was getting a bit discouraged about my found money project and then I found a $20 and the next day I found a book of unused postage stamps...so I guess now I should say I am getting really discouraged about playing the lottery ;)

Not much going on here...Hawksbill is at the retreat until tomorrow, the kids are watching Garfield videos, and I don't feel like doing anything. I wish the weekends were 5 days and the work week only 2. Oh, well...

No new pictures to post, but our cucumber and zucchini plants are quite large now. No veggies on them yet, but maybe that is because some animal (I presume) keeps eating the flowers off the end...maybe someday...

Until next time....

Bullicide?

Great. Teen suicide following bullying in school is now common enough that it has its own name.

Here's another recent case.

So, This is June?

I thought it was supposed to be WARM in June. Not that I am complaining about this 60-ish degree weather, but it is weird wearing a turtleneck to work on June 3rd. AND a light jacket. So very weird.

Gwen has been potty trained for 1 month now. We have had a couple accidents, and a full week of her trying to hold #2, but she got over it. It was actually a little bit amusing this week when Gwen accidentally wet her bed and claimed that she did NOT wet her bed, but was actually just very sweaty. Sure...whatever....I am just so thankful to not be buying diapers, I didn't care that it was 5 a.m. on a work day. We truly thought we would be investing in Depends this summer, so again, a little super early morning accident is nothing...I hope she can handle camping on an island with only outhouses or the great outdoors as her toilet. We shall see....

The last two months at work whipped by while we submitted grant proposal after grant proposal...now to cross our fingers and toes and get them all funded!!! (Or at least SOME of them, but I am aiming high--I want them all funded!!!)

Hawksbill starts another new job next week--so he will have 3 part-time jobs total (gotta love this recession!!) I am thankful to be working only 1 full time job right now rather than 2 or more part-time jobs, but our schedules are still kind of a pain. So, I will just say I am happy neither of us have to work on the weekends!!!

Hawksbill and I have started using our rowing machine again...I love this thing, although I am taking an unplanned day off today due to a major headache.

We planted our flower/vegetable garden in the front yard this year. I don't know how it is going to do with this weather...I do not see anything sprouting up yet after a week of sun and water, but we also live in a land filled with bunnies, so they might be eating anything that may have come up...again, we shall see. We only planted cucumbers, zuccini, and carrots (plus another attempt at sunflowers). I saw a lot of sunflower seeds dug up and split open, so I think the squirrels were eating the garden, too. Oh, well...

I would love to report something more interesting, but dull can be good, too. Until next time...I hope it warms up a little.

Disciplinary Actions

CNN has run some more articles lately about goings on in schools.

This article discusses a US govt. GAO report (Government Accountability Office) which concluded that there is "widespread abuse of techniques use to restrain or discipline special-education students in U.S. schools, with some deaths linked to the practices."

Apparently it is not rare that special needs children with autism or Down syndrome are treated in ways not dissimilar to those forced upon prison inmates. One of the more common disciplinary techniques is to lock children as young as six years old in a small room completely alone for up to hours at a time.

Here's another article about these seclusion rooms (which are also, my wife tells me, called "responsibility rooms"). This article discusses the particular case of a 13 year old boy in Georgia who killed himself in one of these rooms. The teachers locked him in and gave him a rope to help keep his pants up. He used the rope to hang himself. This picture is of the door to that exact room (front and back of the door, I assume).

Thank God in Michigan, where we live, state law prohibits using these rooms for more than 15 minutes at a time and the child must be "supervised" during that time. Good thing my state is especially enlightened.

Since this has been publicized it is unlikely that this particular sort of discipline will continue to be used (at least for a while). But apparently when it was used the parents were seldom if ever notified. And, if parents did become aware of a child being forced into solitary confinement, the parents were not allowed to see these rooms if they requested to do so.

Taken from the second article, here are some examples of other specific instances of disciplinary actions used against American students:

• A Tennessee mother alleged in a federal suit against the Learn Center in Clinton that her 51-pound 9-year-old autistic son was bruised when school instructors used their body weight on his legs and torso to hold him down before putting him in a "quiet room" for four hours. Principal Gary Houck of the Learn Center, which serves disabled children, said lawyers have advised him not to discuss the case.

• Eight-year-old Isabel Loeffler, who has autism, was held down by her teachers and confined in a storage closet where she pulled out her hair and wet her pants at her Dallas County, Iowa, elementary school. Last year, a judge found that the school had violated the girl's rights. "What we're talking about is trauma," said her father, Doug Loeffler. "She spent hours in wet clothes, crying to be let out." Waukee school district attorney Matt Novak told CNN that the school has denied any wrongdoing.

• A mentally retarded 14-year-old in Killeen, Texas, died from his teachers pressing on his chest in an effort to restrain him in 2001. Texas passed a law to limit both restraint and seclusion in schools because the two methods are often used together.

This also reminds me of a case in the news a few weeks ago in which a 13 year old girl was strip searched by staff at an Arizona school because another student had ratted her out for having contraband Ibuprofen. Here's another CNN article on that case. Apparently the school staff didn't find the drugs when they searched the girl's purse and school bag so they assumed that she must have hidden it in her bra or panties. So they searched there also.

The girl was an honor student. The drug was a headache medicine. No "drugs" were found in her underwear either.

The US supreme court agreed to hear the case, but a decision has not yet been made. If history is any guide they will probably rule in the school's favor.

Over all these and other cases over the past few decades have pretty much established that students in US public schools shed their constitutional rights when they walk onto school property. Specifically, they no longer have their 1st, 4th or 8th amendment rights (to free speech, to privacy or against cruel and unusual punishment).

But, I guess we can all take comfort that these shedding of rights is done in the name of safety. After all, we can't keep kids safe unless we strip search them and lock them in "responsibility rooms" can we?

Dry Girls Get Pop

Only read ahead if you REALLY care to hear the story of potty training Gwen this weekend, and if you are not easily offended by language, and sarcasm. Otherwise, skip this, and I'll post about something else another day.

I hope I am not jumping the gun here, but feeding off Hawksbill's nice comment below, GWEN IS FINALLY POTTY TRAINED!! (At least, I hope she is) Woo hoo!!!

I took Wednesday through Friday off last week and on Friday Hawksbill and Simon went off for a "boy's weekend" and Gwen and I were going to have a "girl's weekend" where my goal was to yet again, attempt to potty train her. I promised her pop. I promised her that stinking doll my sister bought last August that has been collecting dust until she just peed on the stupid toilet one freaking time (JUST ONCE!!!) Finally, I bought another book (Toilet Training in Less than a Day by Nathan H. Azrin and Richard M. Foxx) a DVD (which I forgot about and is still shrink wrapped), a potty chair that you can remove the seat from the top rather than the bottom, and a doll that wets herself.

Yes, I read another stinking book on how to get my kid to do something she would eventually do, but I couldn't stand waiting any longer since she is now 4 years and 3 months old and size 6 diapers weren't cutting it anymore. This book "claimed" to have an average child trained in 3-4 hours...HOURS??? Ha ha ha....yes, right....hah ahahahahahhhahahahhahhahahha...but so goes it.

Friday we said we were going to teach the doll to pee on the potty because she was a big girl now and big girls stay dry. Well, step one, I SHOULD have tested the damn doll before I used it--I assumed a doll that wet itself had a little compartment to hold the water before it came spewing out the bottom, but no...the instant water hit "Melissa's" lips, water came out the other end...not exactly the effect I wanted, but we put the doll on the froggy potty chair (yes, I wasted another $10 on yet ANOTHER potty chair--1 of 5 now) and showed Melissa how to go. I explained to Gwen that she had to wear underwear now (am I the only person on the planet who hates the word "panties"?) and she had to stay dry....this all the while stuffing her with Pringles, candy, pop, juice boxes, and any other unhealthy thing I could manage to stuff in her that day. If I never see another Nestle crunch bar, it will be too soon.

Friday went ok....Gwen had 3 accidents, never went on the potty, but managed, at one point, to hold it for about 7.5 hours. I never asked her if she had to go potty, just asked her if she was dry, because dry girls get pop and candy...so, she was willing to hold it as long as possible for these rewards...not for peeing, but for staying DRY.

Saturday was interesting...she immediately put on underwear in the morning, and sometime around 3 pm, demanded I put her in a diaper because she didn't want to pee on the floor...so, in my gentle motherly way, dragged her butt kicking and screaming to the bathroom and told her (very sweetly--no seriously, I was speaking very softly whilst I dragged the devil child to her the place of her own personal hell) she couldn't leave the bathroom until she peed on the potty (please note this part deviates from the book). She cried, screamed, punched me, scratched me, I waited for CPS to show up, and I held that naked butt over the toilet and smiled a huge crazy grin and said how proud I was that today she was going to be a big girl and I just knew she could do this.

After a 45 minute tantrum, it finally happened...she couldn't hold it any longer, and whoosh...her first time peeing on the potty in about 9 months...

I jumped up and down, shouted, smiled, told her how proud I was, called Daddy, called Grandpa, called Auntie, told the neighbors, gave her the new doll from Auntie K (that has been waiting for her) and then continued to praise her for staying DRY.

So, the rest of the day, she told me when she had to go, and just did it by herself. This made me suspicious, but we went with it. I had just about enough cupcakes to kill a small horse, but anything she want, she got because she stayed dry. The only thing I would ask her from time to time was, "Are you dry?" and "If you have to pee, what do you do?" to which she would tell me, "Pee on the potty!!!"

Saturday night I was a little too optimistic and let her wear underwear to bed and sleep in MY bed (whoops--hey, it was my side, not Hawksbill's) so I put the diapers on that night and the next day, she threw out her diaper, put on a new pair of underwear, and would do everything herself...except #2 which she had been holding for 2 days now....

I will admit, I deviated from the book again around 9 pm Sunday night when I KNEW she had to do #2, and held her butt over the toilet for about 2.5 hours this time, but by 11:30 pm, we were tired and gave up....but...miracles do happen, and on Monday, after I got home from work, she let us know she had to do #2, went by herself...and that was that...

Gwen was home with Daddy Monday and Tuesday during the day, and took care of business herself all day long. She did have one accident this evening, but to be fair, she was outside, splashing in water in her bathing suit, knew she had to go, but just couldn't make it...but after she dried off and came back inside, she continued to do everything on her own, and let us know she was still dry.

So, I am sick of potato chips, juice boxes, cupcakes, twizzlers, you name it, if it is junk food, I don't want to see it. Gwen is wearing underwear now AND sitting on the couch without a towel under her or anything. I think she has finally got it. That diaper genie is TRASH.

This whole potty training ordeal has been especially stressful because of all the advice that EVERYONE seemed obligated to give us to tell us why we were doing it wrong.

So, let me end this with the only piece of parental advice I am willing to spew out to anyone anymore. Don't listen to anyone's unsolicited parental advice on ANYTHING. Just go with your freaking instincts. If you want to buy the wet wipe warmer, have at it. If you don't want to buy a diaper genie, don't buy one. If you want to feed your kid formula instead of breast milk--guess what, they won't die!!! If you think training girls are easier than training boys, you had a girl who happened to be easy to train. If you want to have 27 kids, have 27 kids. If you want to name your son "Qn8" (Pronounced, "Nate" the "Q" is silent)--have at it. If you only want your child to wear purple with yellow polka dots--What the f*ck ever.

Seriously. Everything everyone will tell you will either help or not help, so just do what works for you and screw everyone and everything else. If it works for you, don't doubt yourself...just DO IT and say to those with the unsolicited advice, "Thanks for the great advice! I'll have to try that!" while inside you are really rolling your eyes and thinking, "F*CK YOU and your stupid f*cking 'advice'!!!!"

The End.

:) Barbnocity

PS--Oh, did I mention Gwen just peed on the freaking potty again? Thank the Lord!!!

Best. Wife. Ever.

I don't want to steal Barb's thunder. I'm sure she'll post on this topic soon on her own, but she's being super mom this weekend and I just want her to know I think she's amazing!

You rock, Baby. I love you like the wind!

Bullied boy commits suicide

Here's an article CNN put out this week about an 11 year old Georgia boy who committed suicide because he was being bullied at school. Very troubling. The boy was originally from the Virgin Islands and other school children were using that fact to taunt him with sexually related language. The article also alludes to a similar case only a month ago in Massachusetts where a boy killed himself after being harassed in school and being called "gay".

The boy in the story had complained about the situation to his mother, who in turn complained about the situation to the school. And what did the school do? They hired a "specially trained liaison" and asked students to sign a "no-bullying pledge".

A "no-bullying pledge???" That's just about one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of. It is as if the school is saying: "Well, the kids signed a contract vowing not to bully. I don't see how they can possibly bully after signed a contract like that. What else can we do?"

So, after a long time of this the boy concluded that nobody could or would help him. One day he came home from school happier than normal and went up to his room where he hung himself. I've heard of that before. That depressed people, once they actually decide to kill themselves, will appear happy and content just before doing so. I've never heard of that happening with children, though. In the end the boy must have decided that he had no other choice.

On warm days I take the kids to the park. We do this all summer long. You know what we see? All around us are parents and kids. The kids are playing. The parents are either playing with the kids, standing around talking with each other or reading magazines or whatnot. But, each parent is always keeping one eye on their child. When we see a child misbehaving we jump in, reprimand them, correct the behavior and then send them back into the social fray to try again. Then we keep doing that until the situation is resolved. If it doesn't get resolved we take our kid home and get them out of there.

I've even had other parents come to me and say: "sorry to bother you, but your kid is playing a bit rough." Then I thank them for letting me know and I go correct the problem. Yesterday I did the same thing when another little boy was playing too rough with Simon.

The other day at the mall a boy was playing to rough with Gwen and she complained to me. I didn't know who's kid it was so I just said loudly: "Gwen if that boy in the yellow shirt is being mean you should just stay away from him." 3 seconds later another dad ran over to have a serious talk with his son.

The point is, none of us are holding "sensitivity training" or asking our kids to sign a "pledge" not to behave poorly. What we're doing is monitoring our children's behavior. When they misbehave we jump in to reprimand and correct the behavior before things get out of hand and remove them if it does.

It seems to me that schools are unable to do this. In schools it is nobody's job to teach children how to behave in social situations. Perhaps this is because, in schools, students so outnumber teachers and other staff that it is impossible to provide the kind of one on one attention I described above.

In any case, students are largely left on their own to create their own social dynamics with their own rules and their own power struggles. And, if social problems arise, kids learn that adults are powerless to help them. Adults are not part of the reality of a student's social life. Instead they are observers who stand outside the social arena, ignorant of its dynamics and impotent to affect it.

Think of it like this: if you had a puppy you wanted to train to be a mature, gentle, responsible adult dog, the last thing you would do is to lock it in a room with other untrained puppies. In that situation you would never expect the puppy to learn the skills you wanted it to learn. And, if the puppy left the room and had bite marks all over it, what would you do? Wring your hangs and ask why these puppies can't learn to get along better?

But, that's essentially what we do with kids in school. We expect other immature kids to teach our kid "socialization." After all, who in a public school is responsible for the social maturity of your child? Nobody. There is no adult in any school who is responsible for the mature social growth of children. And yet we expect them to become "socialized" by sending them to school.

And then, when schools do not do this properly and also fail to properly educate the children, some even suggest sending children to schools for longer each day, more days per week and more weeks per year. The end result is that children spend less and less time with those who are responsible for their social development (their family) and more time with their peers until the peer group replaces the family as the group the student really identifies as "belonging" to.

The only solution I can think of to solve problems like this is to have much smaller schools, with much greater teacher to student ratios. And, it would seem like a good idea to have a bunch of volunteer parents stationed around the cafeteria and playground to monitor and correct social problems as they arise. But, realistically, this is very unlikely. Such changes would be both prohibitively expensive and would take parents away from work.

But, if the best you can think of is to hire a "liaison" or have the kids sign an anti-bullying "pledge", then all you're really doing is reinforcing the lesson that these kids are learning while being bulled: that adults are incapable of helping them when they are in trouble, and if they are unable to solve the problem themselves then they are totally screwed.

In fact, if your school's plan to battle bullying is similar to that described above (sensitivity training and written contracts), isn't that really a sign that the schools are just covering their own asses and they really have no idea how to solve the problem? And if that's the case, then it is true that children really do have no one to turn to if they are being terrorized by other children in school.

In this environment suicide, while horribly tragic, seems almost rational.

A night at the park with our new telescope

Slowly but surely my telescope kit is taking shape. Last night we walked to a local park to do some star gazing and took the whole thing along in a wagon. Here's what it looks like all packed up.

I bought the case a month or so ago. It was designed for Orion's 110ED scope, but it turns out that my 120ST fits in it quite nicely.
Here's a closeup of the case innards. It has slots for the diagonal, two 2" eyepieces and three 1.25" eyepieces.
And here's what it looks like fully assembled.
The wooden legs are also fairly new. It is an Oberwerk surveyor tripod that I found on sale for 50% off. The legs are longer and more stable than the stock aluminum legs that come with the Voyager mount. I played around with the height for a while before settling on where it is. I raised the legs about 4 inches which allows me to see almost the whole sky from a seated position. Objects too near the horizon still require a standing position, but for the most part I can sit leisurely while stargazing. The only drawback is that I have to squat down close to the ground in order to find objects with the EZFinder.

The park last night was a bit disappointing, though. We set up the scope near second base on one of the local ball fields. This gave us a nice wide swath of sky to view and we got to look at Saturn again. However, there were people playing tennis nearby and the court flood lights were so bright I could read by them a couple of hundred yards away. Very annoying. It turns out that my backyard it a better viewing spot due to the lack of gigantic stadium sized flood lights.

Oh well. We're starting to plan our summer vacations which will be at various dark sky spots around northern Michigan and away from big city lights. I can't wait to see some really wide field views of the summer Milky Way from a very dark site. I'm getting very excited about it. I'm hoping to see some galaxies, which are very elusive in the light polluted skies of Detroit.

School: 7 days a week, 11 months a year!

Here's an article from Denver's Channel 9 news team.

On a recent visit to area schools US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced his plan to improve national education: by lengthening the school day, the school week and the school year. Duncan says he thinks "schools should be open six, seven days a week; 11, 12 months a year."

Personally, I think it's laughable to assume that kids will suddenly to better in school if you just make them endure more of it. One of the things that we've discovered here in our home school is that teaching the kids does not take that much time. We deal with each subject in our daily lessons for about 15 minutes at a time, which is enough time (at their current ages) for the subject to be interesting without becoming boring or too frustrating. We spend less than an hour a day on formal "lessons". This is our 3rd year of doing it this way with Simon and he is at least a year ahead in math, spelling, reading, etc.

Duncan does have an idea I do find laudable, though. In the article he calls for more "autonomous" schools. He doesn't describe exactly what this means, but it fits in with changes I have in mind for public education.

In short, I would be very much in favor of eliminating large administrative boards of education. Instead I would have each individual school run by a board composed of parents and teachers who would have autonomous authority to choose curriculum and establish school policy and spend their own budget. This would give teachers and parents, rather than state and national administrators, considerably more influence and control over the schools in their neighborhoods. Along with this, of course, I would prefer that schools were much smaller with considerably smaller class sizes.

I think it is a big mistake to have schools run by gigantic state bureaucracies and a national department of education that sets rigid curricula for all children everywhere and which, by nature of the size of the bureaucracy, is highly resistant to change and flexibility.

So, I like the idea of "autonomous" schools, but I think the all day, all week, all year school idea really sucks.

New Haircut

Hawksbill said it was time to update the blog, and what could be better than a tale from the kiddos this weekend.

I am home sick today fighting some bug I have had for almost 3 weeks now, and Simon has it, too. Friday I was totally miserable, and my mom-radar did not kick in properly when Simon came downstairs to say, "Gwen and I need some privacy."

"Why?" I asked, too sick to budge from the couch.
"Just 'cause," answered Simon.
"Are you doing anything bad? Are you making a mess?"
"No!" Simon answered, and although I could tell he was lying, I was still too tired and sick to get up from the couch...until Super Model Gwen came down to show off her brand new haircut...

Here are some before and after shots...and some pics of what it looks like after a trip to Borics to see if there was anything they could do to fix it...sigh...

The evidence

What Gwen looked like a week ago

The new haircut, a la Simon (ok--Gwen actually cut her own hair here, but Simon stood watch so I wouldn't catch them in the act)


She's so proud!!

The mullet....



Trying to avoid the camera, but look how long it WAS -- almost down the middle of her back :(

Here is what the outcome was after the trip to get it fixed...Gwen loves it...she said she looks just like Simon now...it's just hair...it will grow back....at least it is easier to brush.`

Winter Break

Since Simon's right arm has been broken for the past 3 weeks we've put a hold on school lessons. We're calling it a month long Winter Break. No math, no spelling, no handwriting. Aside from the broken arm thing it's been a pleasant reprieve for all of us.

The kids have still been doing a lot of things. At Simon's suggestion I made up several signs that said: "What shall we do today? Games? Activities? Music? Stories?"

Then, when they get bored we go to the sign and pick one. We went to Target and bought a bunch of games like Bingo, Operation, Let's Go Fishing and a Curious George dice tower game the kids like. Out of all of these the favorite is Bingo, for some reason. They really like spinning the hopper and watching the ball fall out.

Gwen's also been doing a ton of coloring and drawing. We've given her free access to the printer paper and she goes through about 20 pages a day of just drawing pictures. She's also taken up playing with the word processor. It turns out she really likes typing the words she's been learning how to spell. So far it's just "Mommy" "Daddy" "Simon" "Gwen" "Cat" and "Dog", but it's a start.

While he's waiting to get out of his cast Simon has been playing with a lot of Legos. Here's some pictures of the new set he bought with his allowance today. He no longer wants or needs my help putting legos together. Kind of a bummer for me, but I like watching him be so absorbed.



Not much else to report. Next Monday he gets his cast off and we'll start back with our formal lessons on Tuesday.

First week of non-potty training....

So we have completed one week of non-potty training. No bringing up the bathroom, the toilet, peeing or pooping, nothing. Hawksbill did invest in some cheap diapers in the hopes that Gwen would be uncomfortable and want to use the bathroom, but no...she is fine soaking through to her pants...whatever.

At the beginning of last week, when we started this, Gwen mentioned the potty a couple of times, in terms such as, "If I pee on the potty, I'll start to get my allowance again, right?" To which all we replied was, "yes" and that was that. No other interest in taking control over this bodily function...

So, we are no closer than we were a week ago, however, there is no crying, screaming, fighting, arguing, begging, pleading regarding the bathroom. I like that part, at least. And the next parent who tells me she is too old to be in diapers...again, I offer you $200 cash...show me the way!!!

Not much else is going on that is fun to report. We are all just chugging along. So tired, but what else is new. :)

Happy Birthday, Simon!!!

Simon is 7 years old today!! Just a lazy family weekend watching videos, bad tv, and eating cake and ice cream! Simon opened his presents today and received more legos (shocking!), a transformer toy, some videos and a video game, some books...

I have to post pictures again sometime soon, but JD's broken arm post summed it up with how the kids look right now :) Gwen's hair has been brushed, however....so she doesn't look quite so feral.

On an unrelated note. No.Gwen.Is.NOT.Potty.Trained.Yet. I offer $200 cash to the first person who can train her -- even if it takes 6 more months. I can't take this anymore. I have yet to hear an idea that we haven't tried yet (except paper training her like a dog or duct taping her to the toilet...I just can't bring myself to do that.) Yes, we have bribed, threatened, taken things away, tried to reason with her,tried being stern with her, tried putting her hand in warm water as she sat there, stickers, charts, potty boot camp, treats (m&m's, twizzlers, pop, etc), money for her bank, take away her allowance, potty videos, potty books, take treats away, beg, pleaded, cried, picked out cool undies, had her wear undies and pee in them, have her wear undies under diapers and let her pee in them, keep her in wet undies, make her wear wet pants, pullups, let her run around with a n*ked butt, blah blah blah blah blah....I give up...seriously...if you have an idea that does not involve duct tape or beating the child, I am all ears. Somebody call Nanny 911--I don't even care if she calls me a bad parent--if SHE can potty train Gwen, I'll take all the verbal abuse that she can throw my way...and I don't even watch that bloody show.

The Boy Got Broke

Well, after many years of jumping, bouncing and leaping through the air, Simon finally broke his arm. It happened like this:

We have a large dog crate in our basement, which we use periodically to keep Liesl (a Husky mix) in when we have big parties. The crate is about 3 feet tall. A few weeks ago I brought it upstairs for the kids to use as a fort. They love it. We also have some large rubber balls the kids love to play with. The balls are about 1.5 feet in diameter.

Well, the other night we were watching The Simpsons and I was researching telescope eyepieces online. Barb was upstairs. When I wasn't looking Simon apparently took one of the big rubber balls, put it on top of the dog crate and started bouncing on it. I didn't see it happen, but I very definitely heard a "CRASH" followed by a prolonged "SCREAM".

In and of itself this is not unusual. As I mentioned, Simon is a natural born jumping, leaping, bouncing machine. He is always banging himself up and he often screams like crazy when he does it. What was unusual is how long he screamed and how long it seems to hurt him. He usually forgets about a minor injury after about 3 minutes. Not so this time. He was still crying and moaning after 15 minutes so we figured something was really wrong.

So, I took him to the ER. Fortunately, we were their only customers that night and they got us in and out pretty quickly. Well, we were there for about an hour and a half, but it felt pretty quick to us. I had the forthought to bring along some of Simon's Garfield books so we spent the time reading those to each other. It took that long to get the X-Rays read and to find out that he really did break it, but after that we got to come home. It was after midnight at this point, but we were both wide awake so I got us some McDonald's fries and we came home to watch some Star Trek before heading off to bed.

They did give us a CD with his X-Rays on it, though, so we could bring it to his doctor. Of course we made copies of our own. Here they are:


As you can see, it isn't the most serious break in the world. But it was apparently quite painful.

Here's a picture of Simon and Gwen today:
Broken Boy and Princess Girl!

Hmm, between her messed up hair and the crazed look on her face, Gwen looks more like "Feral Princess Girl". (Actually, Gwen's personality seems perfectly consistent with the image of a cheerleader raised by wolves, but that's another story. :)

So, because he busted up his writing arm we've declared an early "Spring Break" here at Shady Tree Academy. No more lessons for a couple of weeks. At least the boy isn't hampered from reading his Garfield books. He's totally obsessed lately. He stays up hours later than everyone else just reading Garfield. I wonder where he gets that from?

Oh, and I moved the dog crate back down in the basement. I know he'll find other things to bounce on and leap from, but at least I'll get rid of the obvious candidates.

Math Lessons

Simon has been getting a bit tired of doing his math lessons lately so I've been looking for other alternatives.

Yesterday we were playing with Cuisenaire rods. Just playing around. He took it on himself to figure out the total length in centimeters of all of our rods. So, without my input he counted up all the 1cm rods and multiplied by 1. Then he counted up all the 2cm rods and multiplied by 2. This went on for all 10 different lengths and colors of the rods, until he was multiplying the size 10 rods by 10. Each time he did this I wrote down the answer. When he was done I gave him the 10 numbers I'd written down and he added them all up. The answer: 577cm in Cuisenaire rods.

We didn't discuss it ahead of time, but after that I told him he could skip his math lessons for the day.

This morning he said he wanted me to find multiplication problems on the computer. After a bit of searching I found this cool multiplication problem generator. I printed a page out for him and he's working on it now, as happy as can be. These are the same sorts of problems as in his regular Singapore Math workbook, but somehow this is different and more entertaining. Besides, he loves multiplication and hates subtraction. This way he gets to pick the kind of math he does.

In truth I like the Singapore math workbooks because they methodically take him through the steps to learning increasing levels of difficulty. But, I also like the unschooling approach now and again. I can't really argue if he wants to find new, fun ways to do math. But, since he's almost done with the 2nd grade Singapore math book anyway, it's probably time to find other things to do.

Telescopery

After months of research and saving up money I finally broke down and bought us a new telescope. Here are some pictures with Gwen, who was kind enough to play spokes model for me.


The telescope is an Orion 120ST mounted on an Astro-Tech Voyager Alt-Az mount/tripod. I chose this scope for its portability and versatility.

Anyone who is interested in all the details can read my summary of everything I've learned about telescopes and astronomy over on my new, re-branded, hobby blog: Hawksbill's Hobbies. I've decided to use that space for all my ranting about astronomy, board games, miniature painting, etc. and reserve this blog for discussions about the family and homeschooling and whatnot.

Happy 4th Birthday, Gwen

Gwen is 4 today!! Woo hoo!!! She just opened her presents and now we are eating cake. Very exciting :)

Happy Birthday my sweet sweet girl!!!

XOXOXOXOXO Mama

Jedi Training

We went to Greenfield Village yesterday--braving the nice winter storm we had...but as soon as we found out that they would be having "Intergalactic Saturday" where you are supposed to dress up as your favorite Star Wars character, well, we just HAD to go. They had Jedi Training, lots of different types of storm troopers (don't ask me which is which--Simon knows them all--ask him.)

It was a pretty fun day hanging out with a couple of my siblings, their spouses, and our kids (except Hawksbill had to work yesterday). Simon was the only one in our group who dressed up (he's Han Solo, if you couldn't tell what his costume was). Gwen's Princess Leia costume from 2 Halloweens ago was not big enough (I couldn't find the hair anyway) so she went in her regular street clothes.

I would write more, but it was just a long day of standing in line to have the kids pictures taken with various Star Wars characters. I thought it would be more of a "geek fest" with grown ups all dressed up, but for the most part it was just younger children in Halloween costumes. We had a lot of fun, long lines and all. I would definitely do this again--but next time I will remember to have MY photo taken with Darth Vader. I can't believe I forgot to do that!!! Here is a small sampling of the photos we took yesterday...


R2D2 is THE coolest...


Simon taken prisoner...


Hanging out with the dark side...


Storm troopers just keep getting younger and younger...


Hanging out with the bad guys again...


Simon hanging out with the good guys...this is "Obi Quiett" Hey, I didn't make it up so don't groan at me!

Kids say the darnedest things!

The kids and I went up to my parents' house today, as Hawksbill was hanging out with a friend. We saw the movie, Bolt, went out to dinner, nothing out of the ordinary.

My sister and her children came over, too, so Gwen and cousin S decided to draw some pictures for Grandma to put on her fridge. Gwen proudly presented her 3 pictures to Grandma, and when she was asked what she drew, she responded, "This picture is a bunny. This picture is a kitty. Oh, and this picture is the bloody head fairy!"

Ah, yes...my darling Gwen :) I am just glad Grandma didn't bust out the holy water.

Until next time...thanks, Ren and Stimpy.

Happy New Year!!

Hi, all and Happy 2009!!

Just a quick post to wish all a Happy New Year and wish the best for everyone this year!

I also need to reset our "found money" counter. Last year we found $44.46 US, $4.20 CAD, $0.10 EUR and $0.10 KYD. A much better year than the previous when we only found $9.11 total -- but we didn't start until March of 2007 for that project. I also never separated the US dollars from Canadian. Most of our found money that we found was in coin form, however we did find 1-$5 bill and 1-$1 bill. I also found 1/2 of a $1 bill, but I didn't count it since what do you do with a dollar ripped in half??

This year I am resetting our counter, but since we found $0.11 at Denny's yesterday, we start above $0.00 already!! Woo hoo!! We shall see if we can beat last year's record. We have yet to beat Hawksbill's record of $50, but no fair since he found a $50 bill on the floor of a bar!! OK--so it counts...but this year, we will beat that record-I know we will!!

As a reminder of our "found money" rules: 1) You cannot keep money that you physically see someone drop--you have to give it back (my kids don't like that rule). 2) Money found in your own car, your own house, or in your own couch cushions does not count. 3) Money found someone else's house, car, etc. also doesn't count because you know it belongs to whoever owns that house, car, etc. Finally, 4) you are not required to pick up money that you find in gross places (public bathrooms, in puddles of gross mud or oil, money that generally looks disgusting for some reason or another.) At the end of the year, you can do whatever you want with your found money--invest it, spend it, donate it to your favorite charity...it is all up to you.

Have a wonderful New Year everyone!!!