We have moths!

All of our silk worms have now gone into cocoon. Yesterday our first moth broke through. Three more came out at dawn today. We have 30 more to go.

The moths secrete an enzyme that eats a hole through the cocoon, creating the escape hatch. Unfortunately, that damages the silk. We're debating whether or not to bake a couple of the cocoons; that would kill the larvae, so that we can unwind the silk. That might reduce the number of eggs we end up with, too (a factor to consider, since each female could lay up to 300 eggs!) But we all think we'd feel bad about killing off our pals.

If you're in the neighborhood and want to adopt some silkworm eggs, let me know. You can probably get a full cycle in before the mulberry trees drop their leaves this fall. For inspiration, check this great site with silkworm info and lots of photos. They're not smelly or messy, they don't need to be walked, and they stay in one place.

Priorities

Yesterday while proofing something I discovered that the person who'd collated the information had made some major mistakes. We're only days from going to print, so there was no way to hand it back to be re-done.

As I headed out the door to fix the problem (a process that involved a 90-minute walk), I found to my surprise that I wasn't irritated. It was a Saturday, Andrew was home to mind the kids, and there was nothing else on my agenda. I didn't have to figure out how to handle competing demands on my time. Amazing.

Like most people, I'm rarely at my best when priorities collide. If I'm on a business call and my offspring have a meltdown -- ugh. If I'm trying to focus on the Sunday sermon and one of my kids has a sudden, inexplicable need for attention -- ugh. If I'm having a heart-to-heart with a distraught child and another child walks in repeatedly -- ugh. It's true that mothers are natural multi-taskers (hey, we can even grow another human being inside ourselves while living our own lives!), but there are certain things that can't be done well simultaneously. Learning to prioritize is as basic a survival skill for a mom as learning to say no.

A few years back I figured that one way to lower the combustibility factor in my life was to be very clear about my priorities. Here are my top three:
1. Faith
2. Family
3. Community
To me these seemed pretty obvious, and not particularly original. However, once I began to check regularly to see how my life aligned with what I said was important, I found I wasn't doing as good a job as I'd thought. It's easy to let #2 overwhelm #1, or #3 overwhelm #2. It's okay if there are occasions when that happens, but a systemic mismatch is a major problem.

I don't try to prioritize beyond the top three. Where's work? Probably a subset of family, since the main reason I work these days is to make ends meet. I like what I do, but I have less interest in building a career than in building lives.

"Is that a toy?"

This is one of my most-used lines with my five year old. Today it's been used with:

• the bathroom plunger
• the extension tube of the vacuum cleaner
• a sticky note pad
• packing peanuts
• the colander
• a knitting needle
• a box of envelopes

From a child's perspective everything is a toy. I appreciate inventiveness (a good thing, if you know Little GUy!), and given a choice between self-entertained kids and mess, I'll opt for creative chaos every time. However, I do like to know where the measuring spoons are. We're working on it.

The news

Our next-door neighbors are away this week, so we've been picking up their copy of the newspaper. We don't get the paper ourselves, nor do we watch the news on TV. Call me pathetic, but I find it hard to stay focused on what's important in life even without the distraction of knowing about every crisis on the planet. My brain (and maybe my heart) isn't big enough to absorb all the news that's out there. Hence my current events strategy is to scan the front page of the NY Times web site each morning.

Still, it's kind of nice to have a one-week interlude of reading the paper. One reads things differently on the printed page. It's a savoring, absorbing activity. (When was the last time you savored anything online?) Ask me what Tuesday's headlines were, though, and I don't have a clue. Is that my weakness? Or is that simply because most of what passes for news is unmemorable?

Taking responsibility for your learning, part 2

I took Eldest out to dinner at a French bistro-style restaurant last night. She had steak au poivre, I had skate. It was good! We rarely eat out, and never eat out in anything approximating style, but she'd earned this.

My musings in the prior post about taking responsibility for what you need or want to learn had precedent. Last year Eldest took AP French. Before school started I looked up her school's AP score distribution on language exams, and compared them to the national scores. Then I told Eldest that if she wanted to do well on the exam, she'd have to do some work independently.

Eldest nodded, and designed her own supplemental curriculum. Most of it consisted of reading the Harry Potter books in French. The known advantage to this was that she was already familiar with the stories, so she could figure out the vocab by context. The hidden advantage (which she only realized later) was that the books contain a lot of colloquial conversation. All the other books she read in French were written in the literary tense, which didn't teach her the colloquialisms she needed for the exam.

We also had a good time watching French movies together, like Au Revoir les Enfants, Manon of the Spring, and Jules et Jim. Eldest used the DVD programming options to dub Star Wars and other movies she knew into French, too. It was all very low-stress and fun. Eldest ended up doing well on the AP exam.

I can say croissant and chardonnay, but am otherwise ignorant of French. This is proof that I'm not a teacher, just an educational facilitator. Prior to going to high school, Eldest used French in Action from Yale as her curriculum. I highly recommend it: it's phenomenally thorough, and uses enjoyable videos (free online at the Annenberg site) and expensive listening CDs (yes, you really do need to buy them), along with texts and workbooks (get the books used).

Writing, school, and developing the mind

Eldest and I had a conversation last night about writing. She was concerned about not knowing how to write college essays, which are different from school essays. After some thought, Eldest decided that college essays require tone. I agree with this: school essays are descriptive, college essays need to be evocative, drawing the reader into the story. My husband the editor would say it's the difference between writing, "She cried," and making the reader cry.

Eldest wondered why her school doesn't teach students how to develop tone. Perhaps because the skills needed to succeed in school are generally not the same as the skills needed to be a writer. I've had a couple of interns this summer; most of them have good basic skills, but they write as if they are producing term papers. I realize that they've spent years honing this particular skill, but now they have to unlearn it and focus on writing for an audience.

As my conversation with my daughter morphed into a general discussion of schooling, I opined that while schools are good at divulging information, what very few do well is nurture passion. Passion is left up to the individual. Eldest immediately protested, "But why don't they tell you that up front?!" Good question. It might not be a bad thing for a teacher to begin the year with a talk something like this:

"This year we'll be learning about [topic X]. I can promise you that you will learn a lot, and you will work hard. I can promise you that I will prepare you for [whatever], and that if you do all of the assignments, you will grow in knowledge and understanding. However, I also know that along the way there are likely to be topics you find particularly interesting, or questions we won't be addressing in class. These are the seeds of intellectual passion, and whether they grow or not is ultimately your responsibility. If you come to me and say, "Ms. X, I really like this topic. Can you suggest other materials?" I will bend over backward to help you find resources to feed your curiosity. There is nothing I like better than a hungry mind. But there's a difference between giving someone food and teaching him to grow his own. In the long run, you're the one who needs to be able to nourish your intellectual passions. Take responsibility for it now."

Although Eldest is generally self-motivated, I think this kind of prelude would have given her permission to think bigger, take more initiative. It would have sent the message that wanting to know more is normal. And it would have acknowledged that even in the best schools, it's not all up to the teacher.

Values

Many years ago, during the first Bush administration (George, not GW), there was a lot of press about the importance of 'family values'.

A good friend who grew up in a large family responded to the rhetoric by saying, "When I was a kid we could never find any Scotch tape in the house. So one of our family values was Scotch tape."

By that standard, the family values around here are sharp pencils, missing shoes, hair holders, and computer time.

However, we also value honest and generous hearts, cooperation, intellectual curiosity, effort in the face of difficulty, kindness, initiative, and the ability to find alternative solutions if Plan A doesn't work. Housekeeping is way down the list; thoughtfulness is near the top.

Thoughtfulness is my love language. Which is why I am absolutely bowled over by this:
Yes, an entire gallon of real maple syrup! My dear friend Liz was away on vacation, saw the sweet stuff, and remembered that I love (and generally can't afford) real maple syrup. She promptly bought more than I ever dreamed of having.

How delicious to have a good and thoughtful friend!