Homeschool 2013-14

Eldest began her senior year of college last week, and Dancer started her sophomore year of high school.

Tomorrow is the first day of Big Guy's senior year of high school. We finally decided -- late last week -- that we'll homeschool Snuggler for 7th grade. We'd already planned on having Little Guy at home, so tomorrow will be the first day of school for them as well. I may be up late tonight figuring out exactly what that means.

Snuggler will be doing Medieval British Lit, starting with Beowulf. It will be a stretch, but for her it's better to go deep, slowing down to whatever pace works, than to trot along reading books without layers. In theory it's a semester-long course; if it takes a year, that's okay.

She's already started her Thinkwell for math, and she and Little Guy will both do the One Year Adventure Novel. (Yeah, I know: neither of them is in high school. But if I can get Little Guy to write anything, it will be progress. And one of the oddities of teaching kids is that sometimes -- not always, but sometimes -- setting the bar high gets them over smaller hurdles they think they can't jump. More on that another time.)

I've signed her up for Caveman Chemistry at the homeschool co-op, which we'll supplement with Conceptual Chemistry at home (because we already own the book). We'll also be working through Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking with the help of the MIT Open Courseware syllabus.

She'll also do a class at the historical society that teaches American history through musicals. First up: 1776, along with artifacts and actual documents of the time. Add soccer, a big role in the children's theater musical, being a mother's helper twice a week, and a regular service project, and that's about it for now.

Little Guy will be doing Singapore Math 5, although I realized today that I don't have the workbook. He's going to be on a FIRST Lego League team (robotics), play soccer, and he scored the lead in the children's theater musical (he's Ugly -- the duckling -- in Honk, Jr.) Science will be cells, writing will be endless, though I'm hoping the OT will help with graphomotor skills. We'll split apart the conceptual side (via dictation and, if needed, Dragon Naturally Speaking) from the physical process of composition.

We're doing British history, thanks to Little Guy's obsession with Horrible Histories (you can see samples on YouTube; it's kind of Monty Python meets history). He thinks we should take a field trip to England this spring. I told him I'm up for it, as long as he pays.

It's a plan. Or, as I explained to someone the other day, it's the plan we're starting with. It will be revised as we go along. A lot. Frequently. Because, you know, we're learning. And that requires change, and flexibility, and searching out opportunities for growth.




 

Updates and such

We're still trying to find a school for Snuggler for the fall. Yes, this fall. That means two weeks from now. It's not an easy process; New York is notorious for being difficult about school placements, and we're looking at a complicated array of needs. I went to visit one school a couple of weeks back, about which I had many questions and for which I only began to find out answers yesterday.

After talking with the school social worker I spoke with the "educational consultant" who is helping us, to de-brief. "I think that woman doesn't like me," I told her, "But she'll get over it!"

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My mother gave Snuggler a Nook for her birthday. I have mixed feelings about it; I'm beginning to hate what screens do to the family dynamic. But there are benefits, too.

The other night Snuggler downloaded an app called Songify, which turns whatever you say into a pop song. My kids are big Jane Austen fans, so they recorded oddities like "Mr. Darcy eating cheesecake in a bathtub outside", and had them altered into some sort of rap song. It was quite clever. And then all five of them (Eldest is home for an end-of-summer visit) sat around doing preschool karaoke and laughing endlessly.

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When you have several children, there is an enhancement to the one-thing-always-leads-to-another rule, so one thing leads to two or three things. I dunno what's with that; somebody must think that moms of many have an inner need to stay busy. On Tuesday I took Big Guy for a routine checkup and now I need to set up appointments for allergy shots, an ENT visit, and possibly a sleep study. Yesterday I went for a routine checkup and now I have to schedule a bone density test (thanks to my broken jaw), a dermatology visit, a mammogram, colonoscopy, GYN appointment and, er... something I can't remember. I go back to the dentist in ten days.

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Nonetheless, things are looking a bit better around here. I know that sounds ridiculous, because the odds that they could get worse (or even continue in the same vein) are pretty small. Snuggler is feeling more like herself. Andrew's depression is lifting. The boys are less anxious. My jaw is healing. I've had work coming in steadily, and even -- gasp! -- had time to do it.

I've been getting plenty of walking in, usually between two and four miles a day. This is easy in the city, because a) we have lots of sidewalks, and b) the alternative is paying for public transportation. At $2.50 per person per trip, it makes sense to walk if at all feasible. I also get in an extra quarter mile walking to the grocery store after discovering someone ate the last butter/milk/bread. And you know how often that happens!

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Tomorrow I'm off to Big Guy's school for his "senior meeting". Yes, it's his last year in high school. It will also be Eldest's last year in college. Andrew will officially become a senior, too, in October. Me, all I get are senior moments. I think that's okay, don't you?

And on my other blog...

Praying through our tears.

It has been a very rough week. Please keep Snuggler in your prayers.

Priorities, the hard way

Big Guy has been doing well for some time. We have not had to even think of calling 911 for over six months. And then on Thursday we had to make a call.

Four large policemen arrived. We discussed the situation, and agreed that based on the incident that triggered the call, Big Guy needed to be evaluated by a professional. So they summoned the EMTs, and off Big Guy went to the ER. Andrew went with him.

I've BTDT so many times that the first thought in my head was, "Okay, so for now everyone is safe."

That is how parents of kids like mine think. But not at first. The last time I was at the psych ER I spoke to a mom whose daughter was being admitted and said, "I know you feel like the biggest failure in the world right now, but you are awesome. You have done the very best thing you could do for your child, because right now she is SAFE. And whatever anyone thinks or anyone says, what you need to tell yourself over and over again is, my child is safe."

Despite the positive framing, there are things that are so not okay. While Big Guy was blowing up, Snuggler curled on the sofa, tears running down her face as she moaned, "Not again! Oh, no, not again!"

Little Guy screamed and ran into the bedroom and hid himself under the blankets. "No! No'! No!" he cried, "I don't want anyone to die!"

And I couldn't help them, because I had to focus entirely on managing Big Guy. Safety. Safety. Safety. There is a point where the whole world, the whole list of priorities in life reduces to safety.

I was very proud of Snuggler, who after a few minutes pulled herself together and, of her own accord, went in to solace Little Guy. Later she said, "It helped me, too, Mama. When you have to calm someone else you need to calm yourself first." That takes a degree of courage and insight that's unusual in an 11 year old.

After the police arrived and we were on safe ground again I packed up my two youngest and took them off to Dancer's dress rehearsal. I'm sure that sounds weird, but after a crisis my #1 priority shifts from safety to security, security, security. Oh how, oh how, oh how do you give a sense of security to children who have to live in an erratic and sometimes dangerous situation? How can kids grow up healthy when things can shift from safe to scary in a moment? One gives snuggles and hugs and love, and tries to keep life feeling as normal as possible. We make time and space in which to remember that this one event doesn't constitute the whole of our lives.

A delayed stress reaction hit Snuggler as we arrived at the theater. We had a bit of waiting time, so we hung out in a corner as she whimpered that she was scared. We played hangman, talked about school, waited in line. We watched -- and greatly enjoyed -- the performance. Dancer was stunning. When we got home at about 10pm, I emailed Snuggler's teachers to say they shouldn't expect to see any homework the next day.

Then Andrew called to say Big Guy had been deemed safe and was being sent home. Getting the others to bed, and more importantly to sleep, shot to the top of my priority list. Because, you see, it's hard to get to get a scared kid to sleep. Now my mantra was calm, calm, calm.

I washed dishes, talked to kids, got them to bed. Little Guy slept in the girls' room on the top bunk, "Because my brother won't find me up there." Snuggler opted to drift off in the living room, listening to an audio book.

Big Guy and Andrew arrived at midnight. Big Guy was exhausted and went straight to bed. The day was over. The next day (and perhaps for the next week or month) we'd most certainly see fallout, but it would be a new day. That wasn't today. I said my prayers, and went to sleep.

One of my favorite quotes is from Winston Churchill, who said, "When you're going through hell... keep going."

It's easier to keep going if I have my priorities in order. Be safe. Stay calm. Find the things that help you feel secure. Remember not to let the bad things become everything. Pray. And keep moving forward, at whatever tiny pace you can muster.  

Blue day for the blue chair

Nearly two decades ago, when Andrew's father came to live with us, we purchased a blue recliner. It was not my favorite piece of furniture, but Dad was housebound and watched TV most of the day, and he needed a comfortable place to sit.

When Dad died, mere days after Eldest was born, the recliner became part of the general pool of furniture. And when we moved to our present apartment sixteen years ago, the "blue chair" took up residence in our bedroom near the window overlooking the river. In the evenings the kids would snuggle in to hear bedtime stories. Sometimes, when a child was sick, he or she would set up camp and sleep there.

Our friend Ms. Dober reading to Eldest (6),
Big Guy (4) and Dancer (2) in the blue chair

It was pretty ratty. There were holes in the arms, and the arms kind of slid around. I suspect that somewhere in the chair's innards are the half-digested remains of Andrew's missing house keys, not to mention a goodly amount of spare change. If we had a furniture budget, the recliner would have been replaced five years ago. But we don't, so it stayed.

In the past 18 months, Andrew has practically lived in that chair. He worked from it, job-hunted from it, and surfed the internet in it. And slowly the blue chair completely and totally collapsed. It was awful. Ugly. Broken. Dead. Not to mention that the hardwood floor under it was scratched badly, and the radiator beside it unredeemably dinged.

The other day I thought of a way to re-arrange our bedroom that would allow us to remove and dispose of the blue chair. It was actually a workable idea, and so Andrew and Big Guy hauled the broken remains of the recliner out of the apartment. At which point Little Guy broke down in hysterical tears. That evening when Snuggler came home from school she discovered the loss and was a wreck, too.

Oh, dear. I grew up moving just often enough that I thought of home as the place my family was, rather than as a specific house. I did have favorite pieces of furniture; there was a wingback chair where I read a lot, and I liked the ladderback dining room chairs. But I'm not a person who forms particular attachments to things. Rearranging the house or tossing something that's in tatters has never bothered me. I can look at the blue chair and say, "Well done!" and feel no qualms about the fact that the poor thing's days are over.

But my children are not me, and their emotional landscape is different than mine. They have a genetic tendency toward being packrats, inherited primarily from their father (though I think my own father still owns the leather jacket he wore in high school). They do not want to discard anything.

I held Little Guy (and later Snuggler) for a long time, trying my best to provide comfort. Snuggler wailed, "You don't understand what it's like!" She is right, of course. And then again, she isn't. I do understand what loss is. I also understand that we all have to learn to let go and move on, treasuring people and experiences and even a few things in our hearts.

I am sure that, with time, my children will adapt to having Mom and Dad's room look different. And I am sure that, with time, I will adapt to having offspring whose way of looking at the world is different than mine. And maybe next time I will plan ahead, so the change won't seem quite so sudden.

First week of school jitters

Walking down the street this morning at 8am I wondered how many children in this city were starting school today, and what the anxiety quotient of the day would be. Figure a million kids, minimum, all beginning something new under the aegis of someone new. Then factor in all the anxious parents. And I suppose there are teachers and administrators who have a bit of agita, too.

It's all mixed, of course, with excitement and hope. But still, I wondered if there's any other day in the year -- terrorist and natural crises excluded -- with a higher cumulative anxiety level.

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I went to the school across the street this afternoon to pick up a friend of Little Guy's, whose mom was picking up the older sister elsewhere. As I walked into the yard the middle school-age kids were being released. One boy I know was glowering; clearly Day One had not gone well at all. I thought of the mom, and of the evening ahead for her. I know what it's like to sense ominous clouds forming, and the groan that goes through a parent's heart when the outlook is not good. That's a hard thing. It could make a parent anxious, you know. With reason.

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Snuggler arrived home from her first academic day exhausted and hungry, with a mere half-hour to relax before heading off to play rehearsal. She finished her homework at 10pm. It probably could have been 9:15, but she lost some time in panic. I counseled that the big lesson this year may very well be learning to talk herself down when she starts to freak out. If you can keep a clear head, a whole lot of things are possible. Figuring out how to stay calm is a life skill you'll need every day of your existence.

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One of the odder things people say to me when they find out that I have five kids is, "But you're so calm!" Well, uh, yes -- I guess so. It's not innate, it's kind of do or die. I mean, who can survive in a constant state of emotional upheaval? At some point there's a T-intersection: either you figure out how to stay calm or you go insane. It's cheaper to stay calm.

Of course I don't feel calm all the time. But I do practice projecting it. Serenity is one of those things like smiling: the more you act happy, the more likely you are to feel that way. (This really is true: if you're feeling stressed you can put a pencil in your mouth sideways to force a smile, and you actually do feel more optimistic.) Appearing unruffled makes a difference. At the very least you don't trigger anxiety in others with your own. And sometimes having just your own domino fall is an excellent thing.

Harbor memories

Periodically the city invites people who volunteer a lot to attend special events. A friend who has done heroic work in the parks was invited on a Circle Line cruise, and invited me as her guest last night. It was a low-key and extremely wonderful event. And one of my favorite ladies in the world was there:

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As the boat passed Ellis Island, I related to my friend the story of Snuggler's four-year old passion for immigration. Some kids are fascinated with dinosaurs, and others with princesses: my girl just loved immigration. We borrowed dozens of picture books from the library -- When Jessie Came Across the Sea, The Memory Coat, Grandfather's Journey, The Keeping Quilt, Long Way to a New Land -- and rode the Staten Island Ferry past Ellis Island many times. We visited the Tenement Museum, and read All of a Kind Family aloud. (We finally made the trek to Ellis Island when Snuggler was six.)

Then for her seventh birthday, Snuggler announced she wanted an immigration-themed party. Right. No prob. (What?!?) I figured it out. When the guests arrived they each were given a cardboard cut-out of a suitcase, which they got to "pack" by cutting out pictures of clothes and household goods from magazines. Then they all crammed onto the boat (the sofa), and I narrated us across the choppy sea. When we arrived at Ellis Island, they each had to go through the process of getting approved: mental and physical checks, questions, etc.

Then the doorbell rang, and lo and behold there was an Irish immigrant selling potatoes! She came in and talked to the girls in a thick brogue for half an hour about her family (who'd just gotten off the boat last week), and how her four brothers were looking for work, and how her mother was a wee bit sick. She told how scared she was at Ellis Island, and how crowded her tenement was. The guests were enchanted. And after "Mara" left, we had cake and opened gifts. The party favor was, of course, a copy of If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island.

Several months later Snuggler told me, "At first I couldn't figure out how Mara came to our house. Then I realized that probably she was just going around to all the little-girl immigrant-theme birthday parties!" Yes, of course -- that's it!

It's the only time I ever hired entertainment for a birthday party. But it was worth it.

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When you take the boat out to the Statue of Liberty or to Ellis Island, you stand in a long line. Eventually, when you reach the front, you go through a metal detector. The day we went, I beeped. I'd forgotten about the pocket knife in my backpack, which in those days I kept for cutting up apples, slicing cheese for crackers, etc.

I asked the National Parks Service person if there was somewhere I could store the pocketknife until we returned. She said, "You could go hide it in Battery Park!"

Right. Because it's safer to keep knives in public parks than to bring them on the boat.

Weekend update

Thursday was Snuggler's birthday. I had written a long post, but lacked a photo to go with it. I still didn't take the picture, but the important thing I wanted to way was this: I love you, Miss Eleven!

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Yesterday I took the train up to Albany and met Jenny, who graciously hosted me overnight so that I could see Dancer in her performance this morning. We had a conversation that left me with many nuggets to chew on. After the show Jenny dropped us at the bus station, and now we are home.

My girl is back!

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You may have figured out that this means we now have a full house once again. The quiet was nice while it lasted, and the laundry was delightfully minimal for a while there, but I'm glad we're all in one place. We've never had such an active summer before. Most of the kids and I are heading to Vermont on Thursday for a family reunion. 

The night before she leaves for camp

Snuggler:  Mom, I know I should be having family time tonight, but I'm feeling introverted.

Little Guy (holding out two dollar bills):  Dollar Italian ices?

Snuggler (touched):  Awww.

Little Guy:  Well, I might want to bring my Greek alphabet and do some writing.

Snuggler:  Then I'd bring a book.  [suddenly excited] Hey! Want to do that?!? We could have an introvert picnic!

Huh. Really?

Oh, I am SO in over my head! As a favor to a friend I agreed to coordinate a political debate. Yeah. Me.

What?

And, uh, these are candidates for Congress. Of the United States. And they're all from a party I rarely vote for.

You may ask... well, you may ask whatever you want, but don't expect me to know the answer. I am so far outside my comfort zone I can barely wave to it. But this is how we grow, yes? This is how we learn new things. Oy.

Okay, so at least I'm not moderating the debate. (I was asked, but refused.) Someone from the League of Women Voters will wrangle the candidates. Me, I'm just the shmo who makes the intro speech and runs the stopwatch. That's not hard, right? Unless I hit the wrong button on the stopwatch.

Today I had reporters calling me. Really. Reporters?!? 

But despite all that (the event is tonight at 7pm), I  sat down here to write about something completely different. Something good. Something happy.

Snuggler got mail today, and she is IN to her first-choice selective middle school! Oh, we are doing the happy dance here! She was so certain she'd bombed the entrance exam... and she didn't!

Plus, Eldest completed her last exam of sophomore year today, and we'll pick her up this weekend.

Provided, of course, that I make it through tonight's debate. Which I will. Because that's what we do when faced with new and challenging things, right? We make it through.

Really.

What you find when you clean house

Yes, that's a hole in the top. And those gray stripes
aren't ribs, but grime.

In the process of cleaning up today, I asked Snuggler if we could throw away her Kitty Cotta Sonata umbrella. This is the umbrella, once pink, which she loved so dearly when she was little.


Snuggler looked at me with mock horror and clasped the tattered thing to her. "But it's part of my childhood!" she protested.

I pointed to the ripped fabric, the gray streaks of dirt, the bent ribs and replied subtly, "C'mon -- it's a piece of junk! Take a picture of it and then throw it away!"

But Snuggler switched moods and said softly, "But I've already lost three things that are precious from my childhood!"

Stop. Pay attention here, Mom. Something's up. I stared at her and said, "Huh. What three things?"

She said shyly, "I can't bump down the stairs any more. My legs are too long."

I nodded. I'd liked bumping down the steps when I was a kid, too. There was a long pause.

She said, "I'm too big to pick up."

I nodded. I remembered realizing I wasn't little-girl cute any more, and how no one wanted to pick me up. I was seven then.

She said, "And you remember how we always used to clear off the coffee table and light candles and say evening prayers together? I really liked that!"

I thought back to that "always", the two or three times we had evening devotions around a candle, until erratic preschoolers and girls with flyaway hair near the candle flame made it clear that that was a lovely -- and disastrous -- idea.

I pulled up an "always" memory of my brother and sister and I piling into my parents' bed one Saturday morning, and laughing and tickling and joking around. I thought about how some things in childhood feel so right and wonderful that even if they happen once it feels like always. And how as parents we try to give our kids those memories, and they end up choosing their own.


Snuggler interrupted my reverie to ask, "If I find somewhere to keep the umbrella in my room where you can't see it, can I keep it?"

I nodded absently, adding a grumbled warning of, "But if I find it..."

She scooted off, with the ratty but beloved umbrella in tow. Even I, the toss-aholic, haven't the heart to make her toss it.

Trash, spam and life

I was cleaning out the Trash folder in my Gmail account, and got to musing about that "Delete forever" button. Wouldn't you like to have a personal, portable one for dealing with aggravating situations? Wouldn't it be nice to just tap your index finger and click! make frustrating people vanish?

Click! You are spam!
Click! I have the power to color you puce!
Click! Off you go into your own folder (which maybe I'll open next month)!

Ahhh, yes.

But my inner moralist protested, and I grudgingly halted the daydream. People aren't trash (yes, yes -- I know). And we shouldn't label them (yes, yes). And... and can I make  a subtle index-finger motion anyway when I run into someone who's particularly exasperating? Yes. Because here's the thing: turning the aggravation into something silly makes me smile, which pacifies my heart, which makes it easier for frustration to slide on by instead of getting stuck.

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In the course of my life (and thus, I assume, in the course of everyone else's, though of course that could be a flagrant and patently untrue extrapolation) I've realized that many of the big shifts in my thinking have come from little things others have said -- usually in passing -- that have burrowed into my heart. Like this:

It's hard to allow other people to change.

I'm guessing this was said to me two decades ago, and I'm still chewing on it. Sometimes I'm slow to change, myself.

But I think this statement is true. Once we intentionally file someone in Spam, we rarely go back and click Not Spam. When we decide someone is a jerk or a slob or incompetent, it's as if we've put on special jerk/slob/incompetence-finding spectacles, and we're guaranteed to see every possible manifestation of jerkiness, sloppiness and incompetence there is. After a while that's all we see or remember. The label we've applied dismisses the person's positive facets as automatically as Gmail swishes suspected spam out of our Inbox.

And then, if and when we notice that the person has been a little less jerky or sloppy or incompetent, we assume it's an aberration instead of a trend. We think That's more like it!, and don't take the time to comment upon it.

But if someone (like me) is working hard to overcome a flaw, it helps when others notice. It helps to hear a kind word of encouragement.

And if someone (like me) accidentally does the right thing for a change, hearing how pleased people are makes me far more likely to try to do that good thing again.

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For two years Snuggler came home from co-op complaining that Tom (not his real name) was annoying. She couldn't stand him. This is a kid you've met, even if you haven't: loud, poor sense of boundaries, easily distracted, makes bad jokes. He interrupted class, was disruptive at play rehearsal, was constantly in trouble. I once sat next to his mom at an event where the kids had to pair up, and Tom was the only one without a partner. The mom grieved aloud, "No one likes my kid!" My heart ached for her: I've been the mom of the problem kid in the room, and it's a really rotten role.

Early this year Tom was getting on Snuggler's nerves so badly that I suggested she pray for him and try to make him into a friend. When her lengthy moan of, "Moooooooooooom!" ended, she actually set about doing what I suggested. Miracles happen.

And y'know, miracles really did happen. Snuggler started noticing good things about Tom -- and mentioned them to him. She complimented his writing when it was good. She stuck up for him during free time at play rehearsal, and the two of them got to talking. Snuggler started to see that Tom was quick to admit when he'd been wrong, and quick to apologize. And not all kids are like that. She realized that when she said calmly, "That's really annoying; would you stop?" he did stop. Not all boys do. She began to recognize that the way in which Tom saw the world had color and shape and shadow that was unusual and interesting. And she began to like him.

Tom is no longer in the Spam or Trash folder of Snuggler's life. The transfer to her Inbox wasn't because he changed. It happened because Snuggler took off her annoyance-finding spectacles, and started to see and appreciate different things about him.

That's hard to do. I hope I grow up to be like my kid.

Stimulating creativity

Snuggler's been asking to watch TED talks with me in the evenings. It's a nice cozy thing to do: sit on the sofa with my girl and learn new stuff. We've seen my favorite Brene Brown talk, a humorous piece on book-cover design, and a talk on creativity. We listened to Abigail Washburn sing hillbilly Chinese on the banjo and heard Itay Talgam discuss leadership styles of conductors. The other night I clicked on How Do We Heal Medicine? by Atul Gawande. Snuggler was skeptical of the title, but once it got going she was absorbed -- and impressed.

I love anything that makes my kids' brains -- and mine -- stretch in new ways. Because while it's fun to know factoids and useful to absorb information, it's the thinking part of learning that is exciting. I want to raise thinking kids. More than that, I want to raise a thinking me.

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No matter what my primary interests may be, tangental and seemingly unrelated ideas are often surprisingly helpful thought-fodder. Last year when I read Gawande's book about checklists, it seemed to have a ton of implications for parenting. Reading up on how we make choices has affected my faith and everyday life.

Like everyone else, I trend in the direction of my tastes. I am oh-too-capable of living in a world of my preferences, of stuffing my brain with marginally interesting input. But filling my mental databases doesn't necessarily spur me on to anything new or take me anywhere different.

The times I grow are usually correlated to when I'm given a jolt from an unexpected direction. Which is why I've tried to develop the habit of reading books on topics I know nothing about, watching lectures by people I've never heard of, and occasionally even opening -- and reading and thinking about -- links supplied by my other-end-of-the-political-spectrum Facebook friends. 

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One day I had to go down to the ballet studio, and while I was there I read Twyla Tharp's fabulous book, The Creative Habit. A couple of moms wandered over -- one is a pediatrician, the other a professor -- and asked about it. I raved about what good ideas it has about how to be consistently creative. They looked at me blankly. 

It took a while to dawn on me that these moms don't think of themselves as creative people. I was shocked. I mean, what's the alternative? To simply consume? To exist? To plod? We're all creative. We have to come up with solutions to problems, no? We're all part of creating a better community, creating ourselves into better people, creating lives of worth and meaning. Which means it behooves us to think about what we can do to become more adept at all those things. Maybe TED talks aren't the entire answer. But I daresay they help.

Family update

Little Guy has been taking a robotics class this semester. It's outstanding. What better activity can you imagine than to build something, program it, push buttons to make it move automatically, and then put your masterpiece into a ring with someone else's invention and let the two objects destroy each other? This is boy heaven. (Perhaps girl heaven, too, but no girls signed up.)

Thursday was the last session, and my parents arrived in town just in time to attend the observation session. Little Guy and his partner had built a robot whose arm flipped over its head, scorpion-like, to grab at the opposition. But what all the boys were in awe of was the rattlesnake robot someone else had built, which zapped out and bit at whatever came near it. Very cool.

At home we have an almost-complete Lego Mindstorms kit, passed down from my now-college-age nephew, and most of another kit passed on to us by my friend Kate. Little Guy had tried using Mindstorms a few times, but the projects were so complex he gave up after an hour or two. The software's also considerably older, and not as easy to use. But yesterday he pulled out the boxes anyway and started fishing around; he'd decided to make a robot, the one he said was hardest robot in the guide book. "I figure I can do one section a day, Mom," he said.

And he's succeeding. Whatever else they built in robotics class, they built up my boy's confidence. So far his new robot can rotate, and it has one arm that's supposed to claw at things. The arm isn't working yet; Little Guy has matter-of-factly analyzed it and has some theories on what needs to be changed.

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Snuggler has had a good time with Kiss Me, Kate. She's been hanging out with the 12- and 13-year olds, who tend to chatter less in the wings. Having funny, engaging older kids who've adopted her as one of their own has been a delightful solution to the impulse to shush kids her own age.

Thursday night Snuggler had her MRI. This was the last step in ruling out neurofibromatosis. I stayed in the room with her. She's always been sensitive to loud noises, and certain types of clanks and noises were clearly more stressful to her than others. There was one beeping sound that shot her heart rate up from 93 to 104 in a matter of seconds. I watched as she took deep breaths and closed her eyes to calm herself, and within another ten seconds her heart rate had dropped back to about 96. It was an impressive display of mind over matter. I exhaled, too: she has learned to cope.

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Big Guy started a class at the historical society last Saturday. It's free (a prerequisite, since he often can't manage activities even when he wants to go), seven weeks long (a manageable length), and there's no homework (which makes participation more likely). I am trying not to get too excited that he's trying this, because I don't want to be frustrated again if/when he stops going. Last semester he made it to four classes in a course on U.S. protest music. This class is on American revolutions that didn't succeed.

History used to be Big Guy's passion.When he was five he once opened a conversation with my mother by saying, "So who's your favorite Civil War general, Maman?" Later, when he was hospitalized at age seven, he went to the day room and drew pictures of the Monitor, of ironclad fame. A social worker asked him perkily, "Which TV show is that from?"

We don't see much of his history passion any more. I am grateful that we see it at all.

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Dancer goes into tech week next week. I remind myself that at least her tech didn't overlap with Snuggler's tech, and that it didn't even conflict with performances. She is excited to be dancing in three separate pieces for her spring performance, including an excerpt from Balanchine's Stars and Stripes, and the four cygnets piece from the end of Swan Lake. She's also in a new piece being choreographed by Brian Reeder.

If you're in the city and are interested in coming, drop me a line and I'll send you the link for buying tickets.

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And guess who's coming to visit? Eldest's spring break starts at the end of this week. We are sooooo missing her, and are beyond eager to have her home.

10-year old angst

Snuggler was having a rough day yesterday. It wasn't clear if it was physical or emotional in origin, or simply one of those didn't-get-enough-sleep difficulties, but she stayed home from co-op and busied herself on little projects all day. I mean, all day. The child has an abundance of imagination.

So I get up this morning and find a small packet on top of a piece of paper. And the paper reads:

ALL YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT LIFE
In this neat packet, the secrets of meaning are uncovered. Existential crises begone! No more doubt! Moving, breathing, speaking, LIVING at its core meaning. 
$3.99 ONLY at M-Mart
M-Mart, shop smart

Need I add that my 10yo has been going through waves of doubt and angst? This is the one who asks questions like, "How can you be happy in heaven if someone you love is in hell?" and "How do we know that what we believe is true?" (She's not going to be content with "Because the Bible says it is" -- nor should she be. Anyone can claim any book holds the truth.) 

Naturally the questions only surface at 10pm, when I have zero brain resources remaining. So we're trying to shift the discussions to a more reasonable hour. I mean, you can't do justice to a question like "Why does it seem like in the Old Testament God zapped you for doing something wrong, and then in the New Testament he's all lovey-dovey?" when it's already half an hour past bedtime.

Personally, I believe doubt is a good and healthy thing. I want my kids to think for themselves, and to think things through. It's no crime (and certainly no sin) to wonder about things, and to ask hard questions, and to demand solid answers. I would rather teach my kids how to explore a doubt than to gloss over it because it's uncomfortable or I don't immediately know the answer. Healthy faith requires healthy curiosity. And patience. And love. 

Oh... and what was inside the packet? A colorful array of broken toothpicks. Heaven knows what that means. I don't!

Scouting Kiss Me Kate

Snuggler's production of "Kiss Me, Kate" opens on Friday. I'm looking forward to it. Well, except I won't be here. Bad mom. A while back I promised to take Little Guy to the Cub Scout campout, which was supposed to be last weekend but then got rescheduled. I didn't figure out we had a conflict until last Tuesday.

We told Snuggler, and she gave us the green light to go camping. I am sure hoping my generous-hearted girl doesn't regret that! We should be back in time for Sunday's matinee, and there are four more performances next weekend, so we'll definitely get to see her do her thing.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering: What was I thinking to say I'd go camping in March? At least it's in cabins (unheated). Which reminds me: I need to borrow a sleeping bag. I'll probably remember that on Thursday night when I'm working backstage at dress rehearsal for "Kate" (to assuage my guilt over not being here for the show) and it's too late to do anything about it.

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Little Guy sold his entire box of 50 chocolate bars in three days. It's a fundraiser for the Scouts. I took him down to the lobby one night around 6pm, and he nabbed all the dads on their way home from work. We also went to selected neighbors in the building.

That got rid of half of the candy. The other half sold in 20 minutes when Little Guy and Snuggler went out to the schoolyard after school let out. They were mobbed by 6th graders, who apparently have cash on hand. Demand was so strong that Little Guy promised to come back this week with more chocolate. He did that today, and sold 46 candy bars. It's not that he's a salesman. But he does recognize a market when he sees it.

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Snuggler has enjoyed being in this musical. She is the youngest age permitted for the 'big kids' production, and being low on the totem pole has its advantages: at least she doesn't have to wrangle first graders. She also gets to sing in harmony. That is helpful because she has a low voice for a girl, and always feels strangled by soprano parts.

The rehearsal schedule is a beast, though. She was at the theater on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday for a minimum of four hours. She had today off, and dress rehearsal is tomorrow from 5-9:30. I'm in awe of the high school kids -- some of whom attend extremely rigorous schools -- who have three hours of homework after rehearsal is done, and have to be at school each morning at 8am.  

UPDATE: Thanks to Rebecca, we have a sleeping bag! Rah!

The most comfortable shoes in the world

Conceived and painted by Snuggler

Chemistry

A homeschooling friend who knows herself well asked us to participate in a series of homemade science 'camps', two or three days of marathon exploration. She said that if she didn't approach science this way, she'd never get around to it at all. We did bio a couple of months back, and today was the first day of chemistry.

The mom who did the teaching clearly had her act together: in addition to learning the Tom Lehrer "Elements" song and learning about the chemistry of hamburgers, the 10- and 11-year olds made the periodic table out of sugar cookies:

Little Guy wasn't in the class, but using a copy of the periodic table he worked hard to spell each family member's name out of elements, then calculated the total atomic number and atomic weight in the name. His atomic number was 101, and his atomic weight was 229.5197.

I'm on the hook to teach for 3.5 hours on Monday.

Convenience junkie

For Lent my computer has given up all my Microsoft Office products. They freeze. I can't do things the way I normally do. I have to find other ways to function. That has advantages, though most of the time I don't appreciate them. I want it all to be easy.

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Last week I took Snuggler to the pediatric neurology clinic for an evaluation. We waited and waited, and 90 minutes after our appointment time had passed I went to the desk and asked, with as much good cheer as I could muster, how long the wait might be. "Oh," said the man, smiling, "It's usually two to three hours. But the appointment itself takes 45-50 minutes. They're very thorough." I thanked him, sat down, and reframed my perspective.

Going to a public health clinic is a different experience than going to a private doctor. If you bring along a middle-class attitude that time is money, you will be annoyed that your time is (and by inference, you personally are) worth so little. An alternative view is that you're getting something valuable for next-to-free, and you are paying for it in units of inconvenience. A third perspective is that this top-name hospital is donating three excellent neurologists to serve the public good one day a week, and they're doing the best they can with the limited resources they can give.

Whether you are thankful that you get called after two hours is a matter of how you look at it, and where your heart is. You'd think a steady diet of convenience would nourish one's sense of gratitude, but often it just feeds a sense of entitlement to smooth sailing.

At a minimum, I am grateful that the doctor -- who turned out to be personable and, indeed, very thorough -- did not think Snuggler has neurofibromatosis.

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Many years ago, when we first started having major medical bills for Big Guy, we cut back on eating out and entertainment. Later we belt-tightened and stopped buying books; we delayed repairs and I got better at economy cooking. We developed a pipeline for hand-me-downs, and did away with a clothing budget. I took on more freelance work. We fine-tuned the concept of the staycation long before the word came into use. In short, we found ways to cope.

One downside of convenience is that it doesn't tend to build coping skills. Nor does it hone one's ability to be resourceful and creative. It's only when we face limits that we need to figure out how to get over or under or around barriers. That suggests to me that the people who will invent the next generation of life-changing technology are unlikely to come from the ranks of those who had everything handed to them on a silver platter.It's hard to identify what people need if your only experience with need is at the margin.

Which isn't to say that a life full of barriers is desirable, but the skills we develop when we have to overcome difficulties do have a place.

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I once read a book on the history of fear, which pointed out in years gone by the thing people feared most was an early demise. The author claimed that since this danger has largely been eliminated through modern medicine, we have replaced it with a visceral fear of failure. I suspect this is true; when I was pregnant with Eldest, I wasn't nearly as afraid of dying as I was that my 'birth plan' wouldn't go smoothly. It's a little weird.

Convenience -- or the lack of real difficulty -- can do funky stuff to your perspective. Once, after receiving notice that our housing costs would increase (again), I despaired that there was no fat left in our budget to trim. As I wailed and railed the thought popped up, What on earth are you crying about? You're still eating three meals a day! In its own bizarre way that was a comfort. For there's a difference between not being able to make ends meet in a way that allows me to lead my comfortable middle-class American life and being unable to feed my family.

Sometimes we get so accustomed to convenience that we panic that we'll starve, before we've ever gone hungry a single day.

Smart but scattered

Since we're thinking about sending Snuggler to school next year, my to-do list this winter includes getting a good handle on the ADHD. At home we can work around (and with) it, structuring the day in bursts of work that map well to attention span. While that is a functional approach here, it's not going to help Snuggler stay on task for six hours a day in a classroom.

I picked up a book from the library recently called Smart But Scattered. This title is my child in a nutshell. Bright as can be, creative, interesting, insightful... but her mind jumps from idea to idea. I have seen her walk across the room with wooden blocks in her hand, think of something else, drop the blocks and not notice the clatter because her brain is focused elsewhere. It's mindboggling. Forget being able to follow two or three-part commands; we're still in the touch-and-make-eye-contact stage for simple requests.

But on some things Snuggler can focus for long periods of time; she can read four books in a day or spend an hour or more on an art project. Last night she used wooden blocks and little figurines to create LaGuardia High School for the Animals. She can write complex stories and is a natural team player, managing group work with ease. She's a curious mix of attention and inattention, highly inconsistent.

Or maybe not. I opened Smart But Scattered and did the assessment quiz for Snuggler (there are different versions for various age groups), which breaks out executive function issues into sub-groups: response inhibition, working memory, emotional control, sustained attention, and seven other categories. This is fantastic. For it turns out that executive function isn't an all-or-nothing issue. My child has strengths as well as weaknesses. Afterwards I did the same kind of quiz for myself, to see where my strengths match or complement my child's, and where our weaknesses overlap. It's a start.

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I was setting up a neurologist appointment recently for Snuggler (we need to explore the possibility of neurofibromatosis), and got to talking with my pediatrician's office person. Her son is Snuggler's age and has ADHD, or what sounded like ADHHHHHHHHHD. We don't have the hyperactivity at our house, just the inattention. Same brain region, different issues.

As this woman and I talked about how to get an IEP and she said, "I don't want him getting a label!" I smiled and said, as gently as possible, "But you just said everyone at school has already given him one: 'the annoying kid'! Better to have a label that gets him the accommodations he needs."

I've written about labels before. Sometimes they help.