Fortunately, Unfortunately

  In a little bit, we'll be leaving for Presentation Day with a local homeschooling support group. Many of the kids will have been working hard on their reports and art projects, or practicing their music performances. My son and I have signed up the demonstrate the game "Fortunately, Unfortunately." This means we haven't prepared a thing.
  Fortunately, Unfortunately in an improvisation game. Two people take turns telling a story. One person makes something good happen with each turn; the other person makes something bad happen.
  We have a lot of fun playing this at home. I see it teaching the kids good storytelling, as sometimes we paint ourselves into a corner with the story, and can trace it back to a specific turn. It also helps with creative thinking. For example, my son once killed me in a story, thinking that would be the end, but I made myself rise from the dead and become a zombie. The stories don't have to be like that, of course, but stories with him usually are.
  Here's an example, which I'll invent right now.
  One Friday morning, a woman took her three kids for a car ride.
  Unfortunately, the road was slippery and she drove off the road.
  Fortunately, no one was hurt.
  Unfortunately, the car caught on fire.
  Fortunately, the extreme danger the family faced caused hidden super-power abilities to be activated in her son, and he broke out of his seatbelt, tore the doors off the car and saved everyone.
  Unfortunately, he got in trouble for damaging the car and had to spend the rest of the day in his room. The end.
  We tend to get a good sense of when the end of the story will be, but sometimes, participants will protest. "That can't be the end!" "Wait, I need one more turn!"
  We'll see today if the other moms think our unprepared presentation is a well thought-out exercise or another excuse not to work.

'Mom, can I take off my shoes?'

  Today was homeschool folk-dance lessons, and my 6-year-old girl picked out a gingham, red-checked dress with lace around the collar and nice, clean, white tights. It was the perfect outfit for the occasion.
  After three hours, two of dancing and one of running around playing, I got a look at her tights. They reminded me of those posters you see of ballet slippers that are all beat up. The message is supposed to be that there's beauty in the ugliness. Or that beauty comes at a price. Or that if you look close enough, everything is ugly. OK, I don't know what the posters are supposed to mean, but that's what I thought about when I saw my daughter's tights.

"Ballet Feet" found on LeeModleski.com
And yes, my daughter said it's OK for me to post a picture of her tights.

A weather report is always interesting

  We reached single-digit temperatures today, and it was a bit windy, so it felt too cold to play outside. But we went anyway, until the 3-year-old disappeared and we quickly realized she had gone back in by herself.
  It's funny that here in northern Minnesota, it gets cold every winter but people still act surprised about it. "Wow, it sure is cold." "Can you believe how cold it is?" "Man, it's cold!"
  I would have taken more pictures of us sledding in the yard, but I couldn't use the camera with my gloves on, and so the cold, dry air was cracking my skin right before my eyes.

Alone with the new Disney Princess

  I took my oldest two kids to the new Disney movie, Enchanted. We loved the movie, but even better, we were the only ones in the theater! I love not being bothered by other people's comments, phone calls and candy wrappers, and not needing to get up to let people by. I don't worry about my kids kicking the seat in front of them or asking me questions. Plus, I can take pictures. There's no real need to take pictures, but I did because I could. We were at the 1 o'clock show on a Monday. I love homeschooling!
  This is not a movie review except to say that the movie was funny, and my boy, girl and I all liked it. I don't want to give anything else away, because it would be fun to see if you didn't know anything about it. Good luck with that, considering all the advertising.
  After the movie, my 6-year-old daughter said she had to talk to me about something. We found a quiet, serious moment alone and she said: "I want to start wearing real clothes. I'm getting too big for princess dresses."
  This is coming from my little girl who wears a costume almost every day. What she means by "real clothes" is princess-style dresses from a dress store instead of princess-style dresses from a costume catalog. That sounds expensive.
  It's good timing, though. By coincidence, my rough-and-tumble 3-year-old told me yesterday, "No pant. Dess." She pulled out one of her big sister's princess costumes to wear to church. It's the circle of life.

Pictured: Giselle, the movie's heroine.

Close call

  In just a second, I'm going to tell you how today I almost killed a stranger's 10-year-old boy. But first: How does that relate to my blog's topic? For starters, I had to explain to the kids why I was almost crying. I had to decide whether to describe how gory the scene could have gotten. I had to choose how much fear I want to pump into my kids to make sure they stay safe.
  These are the decisions I'm left with after the near car accident this afternoon. The event happened quickly but lingers in my memory. I hope the other driver was the boy's stupid teenage sister and not his mom, because here's what happened:
  I was driving down a steep hill in town that is a main thoroughfare. I took an exit ramp to head downtown. The car in front of me stopped. If she had driven about 40 more feet, there would have been two lanes and a place to pull over. But she stopped in the single-lane exit ramp, where no one would ever stop, ever, except that she saw a boy I assume she knows. She opened her car door and yelled for him to get in.
  I first noticed her car slowing down. I broke hard, but immediately realized that I was still bearing down on them and, Oh geez, they aren't moving at all! I broke even harder, swerving back and forth, kids, crayons and coloring books rocking in the back of my minivan. I honked but was ignored. They sat there while the boy got in.
  If I hadn't stopped, I would have smashed into her car at 30 mph and probably run over the boy, too, before he'd gotten into the car. Thank God there wasn't anyone behind me, because they would have smashed into my two little girls in the back.
  From my kids' point of view, their seatbelts tightened and they had to hold tight to their books and juice boxes. From my point of view, I came this close to killing a little boy and having my children witness the whole thing: dead child, police questioning Mom, Mom screaming and crying, other driver screaming and crying.
  So what did I tell the kids? Not much of the above. I said something like, "That really scared me! That lady just stopped, and we almost crashed into her car. You can't just stop in the middle of the road like that!"
  I'm pretty sure I called her stupid. We usually don't talk about people like that.

We got a new couch today

  We got a new couch and two chairs delivered today, and you really don't need any more than that to keep busy. There's a kid-argument brewing about whether they should play with the cushions on or off. There's a lot of jumping, couch-chair-chair, chair-chair-couch, couch-chair-chair.
  We have wanted a new couch for a long time but have been waiting for the kids to get bigger. Now we've decided that's a silly thing to wait for, and so here it is, new for a day.
  I expect it to get messed up. I expect it to get drawn on, spilled on, peed on. If I expect this, it won't be so bad when it happens.
  I'm leaving for work soon. We'll see what shape it's in when I get home.

Holiday time machine

  Today we got out a box of Christmas stuff, and the kids started playing with a Little People nativity set. That's when I remembered that I had bought them a Thanksgiving toy and forgot to give it to them yesterday.
  Not a problem. I gave it to them, and the Pilgrims and Indians feasted on turkey with the Three Wise Men.
  The scene made me think of the Sharks and the Jets from West Side Story. I imagined the Christmas gang telling the Thanksgiving gang they gotta get outta 'ere, and singing the Jet Song. I couldn't remember the words and looked them up.

When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.

I knew that part, but later, it gets funner:

Oh, when the Jets fall in at the cornball dance,
We'll be the sweetest dressin' gang in pants!
And when the chicks dig us in our Jet black ties,
They're gonna flip, gonna flop, gonna drop like flies!

  But back to the toy. The nativity set is cute, but I took a Sharpie pen and colored Baby Jesus' hair black. It came blond, and I don't think it's likely his hair was blond. Things like that bother me. I was just reading an amazon.com review of an electronic Diego toy that pictures a macaw but says it's a grey parrot. I can't have that in my house.

When you're a Jet,
You're the swingin'est thing:
Little boy, you're a man;
Little man, you're a king!

That's why the Christmas guys get to be the Jets.

What I'm thankful for

  1. Clean water
  2. Clean air
  3. A warm, dry house
  4. A soft, warm bed
  5. Hot, varied, nutritous food
  6. My health and access to health care
  7. My kind husband
  8. My entertaining children
  9. My money, enough to pay the bills plus a little more
  10. Friends, supporters, coconspirators

  Some thoughts on above:
  Even though I can live longer without water than without air, I'm putting water at number one. I think dirty water would kill you faster and meaner than dirty air. I'm thinking, malaria vs. lung cancer. But I suppose it's a matter of degrees.
  And even though I need food more than a warm bed, it's the quality of the food and bed I'm thinking about today. I guess I'd rather live with cold, bland food than with a hard, cold bed.
  And now I see that I put my house and bed above my husband and children. I would hate to try raising children without a good house or bed for everyone, so I'll stand by my ranking.
  Anyone who thinks money doesn't belong on a list like this hasn't spent time without money. It's no fun.

We look like homeschoolers now

  Today we went to the laundromat. It's how I treat myself. We had six full hampers, and I wanted to get the laundry done all at once.
  I got the kids settled and went back to the van to get our stuff. As I was taking load after load into the building, I saw the kids from afar.
  My son got a short-short haircut yesterday, his first in probably a year. He was hunched over his math homework. My daughter is trying hairdos from her new American Girl book, so she had a half-ponytail poofed up over her head and the rest hanging long. She wore a long holiday-season dress that a friend gave us. She was spinning around practicing ballet. The 3-year-old was under a table, pretending it was her house. Her hair was wild, and she still wore the pajama shirt she refused to take off this morning.
  "We look like such a bunch of homeschoolers," I thought to myself. I should have had my camera.
  I remember that before I had kids, I sometimes would see a mom with her many children who seemed a little different. I never wondered whether it was a school day; what did I care? But something about how the kids would listen to her, and how they acted with each other gave the impression that they spent a lot of time together.
  I realize now that those probably were homeschoolers I was seeing. And now I am one. It makes me wonder, "How did this happen?"

A tragic childhood art story

  My family moved twice the year I was in kindergarten, so I had three teachers at three schools in two states. This story is about the middle teacher, Mrs. Wilson.
  She was mean. She was unpredictable. She was probably suffering from a mental ailment; I see that now. Among the things she criticized me for was the width of my flower stems.
  I drew tulips, round at the bottom, three points on top, and was then putting stems beneath them. She came up behind me, put her shaking, agitated hand over my hand that held the crayon and said something like, "Your stems are too fat. They need to be thin and graceful, like this."
  Then she forced my hand to draw a thin, shaky stem under one of my flowers. I was annoyed and upset, my eyes burning with tears because I thought she had ruined my drawing. You're not supposed to draw on someone else's drawing! I as 5 years old, but I knew that!
  My daughter who just turned 6 likes to draw flowers. When she shows me her pictures, I have a strong emotional reaction: excitement, joy, triumph, maybe a little fear. It combines within me to be that thing you feel when you're Sticking It To The Man, because all on her own, my daughter has decided that flowers need really fat stems. It's as if the 5-year-old me has taught her how.
  I'll say, "That's beautiful, honey. I love it!" Inside, I'm thinking, "Take that, Mrs. Wilson!"

This beautiful art is by my daughter. I don't have any of my own fat flower pictures from childhood, but maybe I'll draw some new ones soon.

Happy Birthday, Princess

When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five, I was just alive.
But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

-- "Now We Are Six" by A. A. Milne

Hardworking kids in fish hats

  We just got back from marching with the Sons of Norway in the local Christmas parade. It's not close to Christmas, but the parade marks the start of the holiday season, or at least the shopping season. I wish the parade were later in the year because this early, you never know whether it will rain. That's what everyone is afraid of. You can deal with any amount of cold, but if it's raining, you all better be dressed as fishermen.
  Some of our parade team were dressed as fishermen, but I and the kids were cod. That's the kind of fish that gets turned into lutefisk, a Norwegian dish that people either love or hate. Along with the cod and fisherman was the Queen of Lutefisk on a throne.
  Getting ready at home.

  Hat close-up. Nice glitter!

  Standing beside the float, which included a fish drying rack.

  The girls on the float. When they asked for volunteers to sit on the float instead of march, I signed up the 3-year-old I was carrying right away.

  We're still in a good mood after the parade.

  My son said being in the parade was more fun than watching it. I think we'll try to do that more often. I'm too uptight as a parade watcher. If we get there early and get a good spot, I can't stand it when people come stand in front of us. Then there's the cigarettes dangled by my kids' faces and the swear-mouths we always seem to sit by. Being in the parade was more work but less stress. And now the kids are tired and asleep. Early Christmas present for me.

Hopscotch in the house

  The weather has gotten cold and there's no snow to play in. Once again, it's hopscotch time. We never plan it, but every year about now, someone will get the idea to put masking tape down on the floor of the living room. For hours, we'll jump, jump, jump.
  I've read that jumping games help build bone mass, so that's good. What's also good is that the kids keep active and I don't have to take them out in the cold (lazy mom).
  The hopscotch will stay until springtime, I imagine. By then, the tape will be broken into little bits. We'll make our fingers sore picking them out of the carpet, but they don't leave any mess. In fact, the areas with the tape will be cleaner. For awhile, there will be a ghostly image of hopscotch a few shades lighter than the rest of the carpet.

Homeschooling outside the home today

  A local nature center has homeschool classes once a month, and they're quite popular. We were there this morning to drop off my oldest two kids.
  You don't need to do things like this to homeschool, but I think it's nice if you can. In one class, they made a cloud using a large glass jar, water vapor, a match and an air pump. The other class played a group game about natural disasters. These kinds of things can be hard to do at home, either for lack of equipment or kids.
  One time in art class, the teacher gave each student a square with a segment of the Mona Lisa on it. After the kids drew the designs on their squares, they put all of them on the wall to make the complete picture. At the zoo, they paired off as partners and went on a treasure hunt. These are the fun kinds of things that schools can offer, and I'm glad we don't have to miss out. It is weird for me, though, when I pick them up and have to ask, "What did you do in your class?"
  My 5-year-old drew a picture of a tiger the other day and told her dad, "You know, it's not just the fur that's striped; it's the skin, too." She must have learned that in one of her classes at the zoo. It's funny how these factoids will bubble up throughout the year.
  Beside the academic, the kids also learn "classroom skills" such as waiting in line and raising your hand. And it's nice for them to get a chance to hear from someone other than me. I think some homeschooling critics would say we miss out on these kinds of skills, but really, once a month covers it. There's no need to have them in school every day to learn how to behave in a group setting.
  I'm grateful to families in my area that were homeschooling 10 and 15 years ago. They encouraged places in town to offer classes just for homeschoolers, including the nature center, zoo, art institute, bowling and YMCA, to name a few. How did they do it? With money, of course. "You know if you offer a class, we'll pay you," they explained. It's a win-win situation, since most of these places can be empty on school days.

You might notice my subtle "100th Post" ribbon that I gave myself. Nice, eh? My dashboard says it's No. 100; my archive says it's No. 99. I'm not going to count them.

These light bulbs are burning my brain

  I don't like compact fluorescent light bulbs. Some of them take several seconds to blink on, the light seems weird, and they contain mercury and have to be taken to the toxic-garbage place. But you know what they say:
  "If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars."
  That's off some website.
  Maybe I should have replaced just one bulb, as the website suggested, because these bulbs are so bright, they're giving me a migraine. Half the room is filled with blue light, like a police helicopter search light, and the other half is shadows. I bought the kind called "daylight," which have a picture on the package of a happy woman throwing out her arms in celebration of a well lit world.
  But I'm not sure I can stand this. These bulbs might have to go out in the garage, or maybe in the stairway -- not where I work, not where I live.

  Seriously, am I supposed to use only one?

The deer in our yard, the deer on our plates

  Deer are thought of as nice creatures by people who don't live near them. The rest of us see them as potential car accidents and garden eaters.
  When I was a kid, my dad totaled a car when he hit a deer. It jumped up from the ditch right in front of him. He got to keep it, and it filled our freezer. I imagine that would be a culture shock for some people, eating roadkill. It's fresh, remember.
  My husband built a tall, dome-shaped fence over are vegetable garden to keep out the deer. A few years back, they ate all my peas in one night after jumping right over our fence. When the city council was considering an in-city bowhunt two years ago, I wrote them all letters to express my support. The deer living in this town are doing so with no predators. We'd have a herd of nine of them run through our yard twice a day.
  Last year, I got in touch with the bowhunters, and one of them gave me a deer. There are plenty of places to get the meat processed, but I decided to do it myself. I didn't have the kids watch me, but I did have them come out to see the deer as it lay there skinned like a side of beef.
  I know some people are opposed to hunting, but I think it's a more natural way to eat meat, if you're going to eat it. That deer lived its life running in the forest until one day it was killed by a predator and eaten. That seems better to me than, for example, cows living on a crowded feed lot until the day they're led to slaughter.
  We kept the hide from the deer and had it tanned. I was planning to do this myself, too, but decided enough was enough. The hide is usually on my daughter's bed. She says she feels like a winter princess sleeping on it.
  I live in a liberal state with a lot of hunters. It makes topics like this contentious. But if our family is going to eat meat, and we do, I think it's really important for the kids to understand that Bambi out there eating the grass is the same kind of creature that we had in the stew last night. The animals should be treated well while they're alive, and should be given thanks when they're killed.

Gettin' on the Potty Train

  I had tried two stores looking for a flip-top plastic storage box with no luck. Then I tried Wal-Mart. We ran in, and I didn't even get a cart. Good news: They had one.
  We stopped to look at toys for a minute. Over the loudspeaker someone announced, "We have a Code Adam for a 3-year-old girl." That means, of course, that someone has reported a child missing. But I thought maybe someone found my 3-year-old. I looked down the aisle and didn't see her. "Is she with you?" I asked the 5-year-old.
  "Yeah, she's right here," she said, pointing to a Thomas the Train foam child-size couch. Then she shouted, "Hey! She just peed in this thing!"
  Another mother nearby heard us; I could tell. She's probably telling her friends right now.
  I got my moist child out of the chair and looked around.
  All the store employees were busy looking for the lost 3-year-old. I was faced with a dilemma. If my child had broken something, I might be tempted to let Wal-Mart absorb the loss. But pee in it? I had to tell somebody. I can't let that thing dry out and have someone buy it to take home with my child's pee smell in it.
  I started to think what I should say to the store manager. I started to feel sweaty. Then I had another idea and looked at the price: $60. Gulp. Pricey, but the sweaty feeling was leaving. We picked it up and bought it.
  She fell asleep on the way home. I don't think she'll remember any of this. I told the older kids, "I'm going to hide that thing and put it under the tree for Christmas." They think that's weird, but I think sixty dollars!
  It's not the kind of thing I would usually buy, but I cleaned it up (it wasn't very wet) and will be on the lookout for a really large bow.

I have written 96 blog posts without mentioning once that I've been potty-training a child this whole time. I deserve some credit for that, I think.

Child discipline: One, two ... three!

  Some people get offended if you compare dog obedience to child obedience. But I'm not talking about dog cages and leashes here, just a couple things that I think all living creatures have in common. I had dogs before I had children, and I think they were like the training wheels of parenting.
  For example, if you tell a dog to get off the couch and they don't, you must go make them get off the couch. Do not tell them again. Otherwise, they learn to get off the couch after you've told them twice, or three times, or four.
  Also, you should tell a dog what to do instead of what not to do. If a guest comes over, don't tell the dog not to jump on him. Instead, teach the dog that when a guest comes over, you go sit right there.
  So with my children, if a guest comes over, I don't tell them "don't be rude." I'll tell them, "When Aunt Linda comes over, look her in the eye and say 'Hello, how are you?' It will make her feel good to be welcomed in such a polite way." It makes it so much easier if they don't have to figure out for themselves how to "not be rude." They're just children, so how will they know if I don't tell them?
  I was in a bookstore with my children when I overheard a father talking to his 4-year-old girl, who was misbehaving. She wasn't doing anything bad, but she was whining and fussing, just as you'd expect a tired kid to do. It seemed to me the only possible solution was to leave the store, go home and take a nap.
  He gave her an ultimatum: Stop acting like that, or you won't get to pick out your book. He said this several times, and her behavior didn't change. Finally, he said: "All right, we have to leave. Hurry up and pick out your book."
  "No!" I thought to myself. "She doesn't get a book. You already said!"
  I didn't say this to the father, but I often find myself quietly judgmental of parents who say things they don't mean.
  Another common example of this is parents who can't count past two. They'll try using the last-straw, I-really-mean-it tactic of counting to three. If you reach the number three and the undesirable behavior hasn't stopped, that's supposed to be it. You pack up and leave the library, or don't get ice cream, or put the toy back on the shelf right now.
  But I never have seen a parent get to the number three. They'll count: "One ... two ..." Pause. "One ... two ..."
  "THREE," I want to cry, "THREE! You have to say THREE or it's not going to work!"
  I shouldn't be speaking about this as if I'm an expert. I never have used the "count to three" technique. I use the "I told you once, and you didn't listen, so now that's it" technique.
  And I shouldn't be speaking about this as if it's something I do frequently. After your naughty 3-year-old has witnessed a few times that Mom really means what she says, the lesson is learned. You don't have to yell and cajole and threaten. Kids are smart; they get it.

I'm ready for my close-up

  I tried the Wrapped Emotions project this week. The instructions are to take an arm's-length picture of yourself, turn it black-and-white, and then draw on the lines of your face. My scanner isn't working, so I drew on my face directly in Photoshop.
  Now I'm supposed to discuss the emotions I felt while doing this. My vanity rose to the occasion, because this is about the seventh picture I took before I got one that I was willing to post. Also, I noticed how few lines I have on my face. I am expressionless, which has something to do with that. I'm feeling self-conscious about the task at hand, and am trying not to make a weird face. The flash was close to my face, emphasizing how pale I am. I see that my face is quite lopsided, with one eye and one nostril bigger than the other. My nose isn't placed straight on my face, like a Mrs. Potato Head gone askew.
  But none of this means much to me. I'm happy with my face. I've never suffered a horrible injury or sickness. I'm not in pain. I can see with both eyes and hear well. I imagine myself to look better than I actually do, to tell the truth. I tend to think that how I'm feeling is how I look. But after taking some close-up pictures, I see that my friendly smile merely looks unbalanced, in all its definitions.
  Maybe I should stick with this Posh Spice vacant stare. No wrinkles, no emotion: Trés chic!

Child No. 3

  We got our first measurable snowfall today, and the 3-year-old was up early and woke me, shouting "No! No! No!" I asked her what was the matter, and she ran to the window, pulled back the curtain and yelled, "See? No!"
  Ah, snow.
  I should have prepared for this; I knew it was coming. But there we were again, the first snowfall of the year, a kid ready to jump outside in her pajamas, and I'm trying to figure out which of our large collection of boots, snowsuits, jackets, snowpants and hats will fit the kid this year.
  We got it figured out, and she ran outside by herself. I remembered how my first two children would have been more meek, would have wanted me to go, too. Next thing I knew, she was sliding down the backyard past the window. She had gone in the shed by herself and gotten a sled.
  Later, when we all went outside, my 9-year-old son went down the hill on our snowboard. It was the first time he was able to do it without falling. Then the 3-year-old wanted to try. She stuck her boots in the straps and held my hand as I ran alongside her. She picked up the snowboard, carried it up the hill by herself and stood on it again. This time she shook off my help, waving her hand at me.
  Then she went down the hill by herself. She plopped over in the snow at the bottom, but I wouldn't call that falling, really.
  This same child could run around kicking a soccer ball with her siblings before she was 1 year old. She has somehow gotten things off the top of the refrigerator. She'll stand on the arm of the La-Z-Boy chair, rocking it back and forth like she's surfing. And yet this child is 3 years, 4 months old and just starting to put more than two words together when she talks.
  I worry about her when I think about the areas where she's developing slowly. But when I consider the other things, I think she's a superstar.

The photo in the yard is kind of dark because we were outside in snowsuits at a time earlier than I'm usually awake. Later that day, she fell asleep in the car.

You can't force learning

  My worst subject in elementary school was spelling. Today, I work as a copy editor. My only explanation for this would be that I enjoy looking up things in the dictionary. I enjoy continuing to learn and getting better.
  I can't spell everything. I don't know every grammar rule. When the need arises for me to know something, I look it up. That might sound like I'm no good at it, but I don't think that's true.
  I'm thinking of "subject mastery" today after spending an evening with other homeschooling moms at a support group. Several of the women were expressing how stressful it is to get schoolwork done on schedule. They were worried that their children wouldn't keep up. They were worried that they're not doing a good enough job of teaching if there's anything their children don't do well.
  I wonder: How good do we need to be at schoolwork to succeed in life? Does getting good grades mean we're doing well? I would say the first answer is "not very," and the second answer is "no." It is far more important to keep children interested in learning new things and excited about finding a profession they love.
  The day after the meeting, at homeschool bowling, one of the moms and I continued the discussion. The topic of multiplication tables came up. I said that I stopped trying to get my son to memorize it. We worked at it for a long time, chanting math in the van as we drove around town. It's just not sticking. But this year, we bought a math workbook for him because he said he wants to be a computer programmer. "Computer programmers have to be really good at math," I told him. He understands this, and does an exercise in his math book every day.
  The other mom said, "But that would take a really long time, if you had to count it out instead of multiplying." I said I'm sure he's going to figure that out on his own. After he does his third-grade book for awhile, counting out seven fours or eight nines, he'll really understand why people prefer to memorize the multiplication table. I think this will end up being another example of how if you just wait until they're ready, a kid will learn something in a few days. If you try to teach them on an arbitrary schedule, you're banging your head against a wall.
  Someone told me about a woman who was a math major who never did learn the multiplication table in the traditional, memorizing way. But over years of doing math, she got to know numbers well enough to know how they related to each other. She saw the numbers in a different way.
  Subject mastery: It's not something I can force my kids to do. They're going to have to do it themselves.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

  Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is such a popular book that numerous used copies are for sale on amazon.com for one penny.
  This book by Betty Edwards truly teaches you how to change the way you see things in order to draw them better. It discusses brain function, child development and other reasons some people have a hard time drawing what they see. It also discusses how children, at about age 10 or 11, start to worry about their drawings looking realistic. At this age, a lot of children stop drawing because they stop thinking their drawings are good.
  I cannot stand the so-called art books that claim to teach how to draw by showing a step-by-step diagram. For example, a circle, then add circles to the sides, draw a couple eyes, and BAM, in the last illustration, it's a turtle. This book is very different. Since it is so well known, I'm surprised how many people I mention it to who have never heard of it.
  Edwards spends the first half of the book talking about your brain. She writes that drawing is a very relaxing exercise, and anyone can learn to do it. The second half of the book is full of art lessons. But instead of a lame step-by-step, this book teaches negative space, perspective, proportion and more. The cover of my edition says it's "A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence." It goes well beyond drawing.

This illustration is one I found on the Internet, a typical "Right Brain class" example of before-and-after drawings by a student. Below, a new version of the book, and the great deals on used ones.

Lap cat

  Cats are nocturnal, and so am I. This can be a problem if I'm trying to work. We have two cats in our family, and one of them sits on me too much. My son says we must be opposite magnets. "You have the opposite charges," he says. I've told the kids there are two reasons she sits on me: I have a big lap, and I sit still. Easy prey.

Paper snowflakes are a holiday tradition

  I have signed up for a holiday exchange activity, and one of the requirements is to describe one of my family's holiday traditions.
  This is hard for me. We don't do a lot of things that I would think of as traditional. The first thing I thought of was also the first thing my husband said when I asked him: We stay home on Christmas morning and play with our new toys. We seem to have developed a pattern, too, of having a special treat for breakfast: Lucky Charms.
  I don't think this is what the holiday-exchange people are looking for. So now I have an idea that I think qualifies as a holiday tradition. It's something I take for granted, but it could be seen as a traditional activity that not everyone does. We make anatomically correct paper snowflakes.
  Snowflakes actually do come in different shapes, but the most common, and the most iconic, is the six-sided snowflake. To make one, start with a square piece of paper, fold it in half, then fold it into thirds, then in half again.
  I made a worksheet to illustrate this. If you have square origami paper, you can use that. If not, the top picture shows how to bend over the corner of a letter-sized piece of paper to make it square.


Steps for making a six-sided snowflake
1. Fold a square piece of paper in half.
2. This step takes practice. Fold one corner over, making the flap about one-third the size of the whole thing.
3. Fold over the flap on the other side. You can adjust both folds if it doesn't line up nicely.
4. Fold the whole thing in half.
5. Cut off the uneven end.
6. Cut your design, taking care not to cut too far so as to accidentally cut it in half. Note: "Center" marks the center of the snowflake. It's tempting to cut it off, but a real snowflake doesn't have a hole in the middle. Real snowflakes start as a tiny bit of water vapor that freezes around a dust particle. Ice crystals form off this tiny center. That's why I always leave the center in my paper snowflakes.

Fighting "the man" in the ballet class waiting room

  I was causing trouble at my daughters' dance class this morning. As we were getting dressed to leave, families were coming in for the next class. One mother pointed to the practice schedule for The Nutcracker, which most of the students ages 8 and older are performing in.
  "Look at that," she said. "[My daughter's] practice starts at four, and her school doesn't get out until a quarter till. We live way up in [whatever town], so I asked if she could be let out 15 minutes early, but the teacher won't let her go."
  At this point, why can't I hold my tongue? It's just not in my nature.
  "What do you mean, 'She won't let her go'?" I ask.
  "The teacher won't let her go," she answered.
  "You're her mom," I said. "You can just go take her out."
  "Nope," she said. "She won't let her go."
  "What is she, kidnapped?" I asked.
  This is where I suddenly felt bad because I embarrassed her. That's bad manners, and I never mean to be uncouth.
  Then she explained that it's actually her daughter's father who is picking her up, and that yes, she would just go in and get her. OK.
  Let's not mistake school for the armed forces. If your child joins the Army, for example, then seriously, you can't go get them. If you child commits a crime and is put into a juvenile detention facility, you can't go get them. But school? Go get them.
  Taking part in a professional dance production is educational. For some, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be a part of something really great. It teaches teamwork and discipline, and boosts self-esteem. There's no way the last 15 minutes of school can compare.

"Yeah, it's nice today, but it won't last"

  I have been having fun with various websites that allow me to create a cartoon version of myself, and I have posted mine on the side column of this blog. One of my cartoon ladies was standing in a pumpkin patch wearing a witch hat, so I thought I'd update it.
  Although it's fun, I don't want to be doing this too frequently, so I thought about the near future, what kind of clothes she should be wearing and what the background should be. The weather lately has been warm and sunny, unusual for this time of year. But being a true Minnesotan, I thought to myself, "This isn't going to last long."
  So there's my little cartoon, shivering in the snow. We saw a few flakes for about five minutes on Halloween, and I had to scrape my windshield one morning, but other than that, you'd think it was September.
  But I know winter is coming. And where I live, the pessimism is pervasive.
  When it gets closer to Christmas, I'll make her stop shivering.

Religion can't be ignored

  True to my word, after my son's funny Hanukkah-Halloween comment, we went to the library and checked out three books about comparative religion. I was happy to see there's such a nice assortment written for kids.
  We got two Dorling Kindersley books, A Faith Like Mine and Eyewitness Books: Religion. We also got Mary Pope Osborne's One World, Many Religions: The Way We Worship. We haven't read them straight through, but we did cuddle up in the La-Z-Boy chair for more than an hour reading and looking at pictures as we paged through. The DK books are best suited for this kind of reading and discussion. They're filled with photos and tidbits of information. The Pope Osborne book is better suited for an older child to read, or for an adult to read out loud, rather than the kind of point-and-discuss interaction of the other two.
  A Faith Like Mine appealed to the kids the most because it features children who talk about their own religions. Among them are Aman from India talking about Hinduism, Jang-chub from Tibet talking about Buddhism (the head-shaving really got my kids' attention), Vijayant from Australia talking about Sikhism, Yael from Israel talking about Judaism, Eva from Greece talking about Christianity, and Leena from Jordan talking about Islam.
  I was happy to find the Eyewitness book because previously, I had only seen the similar publications on each of the major religions. Shortening the content and including many religions in one book makes it more appropriate for my needs, with three young children.
  These books are not written from a Christian world view, which would make them undesirable to some Christian homeschoolers. Whatever your religion is, though, I think it's good to teach critical reading skills to kids for whatever it is they're reading. I wonder what they teach in school nowadays. Can they teach religion at all? It's a driving force for almost everything that happens in history, and in politics and society. Is it ignored?

Here are links to the books we read. I couldn't get the little photos to show up for two of them, but I found all three at amazon. Our copies are from the library. Chances are your library would have them, too.

One World, Many Religions
Eyewitness Books: Religion

How I fixed the vacuum cleaner

  Electronics and small appliances are so inexpensive these days that it's a hard decision whether to get something fixed or just buy a new one. There's talk in Minnesota of adding a disposal fee to the purchase price of certain products that contain lead and other pollutants so that people will dispose of them properly. It's hoped that because they've already paid the disposal fee, they'll be more likely to take the old TV, VCR or other device to waste management.
  But the greater environmental and political considerations were not my first thoughts when my vacuum cleaner stopped sucking. "Arg," I thought, like a pirate. "Am I going to have to buy a new one? Where would I even go to get it fixed? How much would that cost?"
  Not to worry. I got the screwdriver, took off the back and pulled out the hose. Then I pulled out something so gross, I thought I'd share a picture with you.
  It's working like new again.

Update on the library card, and a Halloween post-mortem

  My 5-year-old daughter got her library card today. She has been practicing her handwriting, and now she's a card-carrying library patron. I wrote before about how disappointing it was when my son wasn't required to sign his name. Surprise! This time, there was a place for the child to sign. I'm still not sure what the library's rule is, but whether the library requires it or not, I think getting a library card is a nice reward for learning how to sign your name. (She looks rather smoky-eyed in this picture because her Halloween make-up is still showing.)


  When we got home from the library, we saw that an animal had eaten part of the jack-o'-lantern that my daughter had carved. Rather than ruining it, though, the animal ate around the mouth and made it bigger. We had a good laugh and I took a picture.