We’re Home!

We’re Going Camping!

Guitar is tuned…

…tent is ready…

Let the Folk Festival begin!

my project by jay. . .

Mom and I started a water and temperature project we meausure the water and air we put it in a chart to see if theres a patern. In these picture mom is holding a stick with a string atached to a thermometer so we can meausure the water temp.

How ignonimous it is to be a child. To be so small that you can be picked up, to be moved about at the whim of others. To be fed or not to be fed. To be cleaned or left dirty. Made happy or left to cry. It’s surely so ultimate an indignity that it’s not surprising that some of us never really recover from it. For it is surely one of the basic fears of personkind that we should be treated as things and not as persons. Manipulated, pushed around by impersonal forces, treated as of no account by the powerful and more superior. Each one of us may be a tiny atom in an enormous universe, but we need the illusion that we count-that our individuality demands attention. To be able to be totally disregarded as a person is a kind of death in life that we are compelled to fight with all of our strength.

~Anthony Storr (from The World of Children)

Memories of Homeschooling

Jay’s been all fired up about collecting data. Today’s scientific venture was recording the water temperature at various locations along the river. Everything was documented….time of day, air temperature, depth of sample, and prevailing weather conditions. I was recruited as Official Assistant, which meant that I was there to hold the notepad and pen, and fish out the thermometer when it accidentally slipped out of her grasp.

The Long and The Short Of It

These two decided to get their hair cut today.

Matching chin length bobs. Very exciting.

Especially exciting for Jay, because she’s never had her hair cut in a salon before.

After losing on the rock-paper-scissors decision…

she waited patiently for her turn…

And then, there she was, getting her hair cut!

It was all a little surprising to me, because this was the girl who ran shrieking from me all of last year when I even mentioned the idea of trimming her split ends. She was never, never, ever going to get her hair cut, nobody could make her do it, she looooved her long hair, and how dare I even suggest a new style. I had accepted the fact that she would be the little wild child that walked around with uncombed, unwashed, tangled, disheveled, stringy hair, and had given up hoping that I could ever convince her to cut it.

Which she must have sensed.

She woke up this morning and announced that she wanted her hair cut. Immediately. After a phone call to her friend, she called the salon, and arranged to be squeezed in that afternoon. All I had to do was walk them down there.

Looking at how pleased she is in the After picture, my guess is that I did the right thing by yet again letting this little one call her own shots. She likes to do things when she’s ready to do them, and not a minute sooner. If I had insisted on a cut even last week, it would have been a very different face looking up at my camera. I’m liking the pride I see in this one.

Not Exactly Two Peas In A Pod

Rocket Man and the Little Hipster can endure a van ride together as long as we’re going somewhere worthwhile, but it better not be a very long trip. No agreements allowed. If one wants to stop at the Dollar Store to pick up a thermometer for an experiment she wants to work on, the other insists that he wants to go straight home. If one is having fun and wants to keep playing at the park, the other definitely feels “a little chilly” in the blazing sun and needs to get right back to the van. He’s making fun of meeeee!! and She did that on purpose!!!! and Mommmm!

Bah.

Planting Taters

Ahhh….summer.

First a week at the lake with dad, swimming, kayaking, sailing, fishing and tubing.

Then a week in town with me.

Cutting the grass.

Brain Freeze!

Eight and Ten

These two.

I think it’s the age that they’re each at, the age in which they’re trying to sort out how much personal power they have, compounded by a developmentally appropriate obsession with rules.

It all adds up to a whole lot of fighting.

They can’t seem to get through an entire board game or even a simple game of crazy eights without one of them stomping off in a fury of tears. Then, while the hurt and angry one is wailing in his/her respective room, the other one comes to me in smug and conspiratorial tones to tell me how ridiculous and immature and unreasonable the upset was. I’ve told them that I’ve noticed that competitive games seem to end this way with them right now, and have suggested that they stick to more cooperative ventures, but even games of imagination inevitably fizzle out in struggles over who gets to be this character or that character. One of them invents a cool new way of hopping on the hopscotch carpet, and immediately, the other one tries to do one better, or points out how the other one’s foot crossed the line, and the fun devolves into squabbling. They seem bent on winning points in the eyes of some unseen judge. Who’s faster, who’s smarter, who’s idea is better, who gets to have their way.

I’ve tried sitting down with them and having each of them say what their perspective is on a particular issue, in the hopes of allowing them to air their grievances and helping them find a solution to the crisis-of-the-minute, but they resist coming up with solutions. Crazy as it sounds, it seems as if maybe they need to do this right now, as if it’s serving a purpose for each of them in developing their senses of self.

How to get my way, maybe. Or how far can I push another person and still get my way. Or, on a more fundamental level, can I get what I need in this family?

It feels like they’re pushing me to take sides all of the time, something I refuse to do.

It’s taking a lot of patience to be witness to all of this struggle without just stepping in and dictating solutions, but my gut sense is that what they need is the opportunity to go through it and still have me steady and calm and non-reactive. I think that they need to keep on testing out what they need to test out, until they’ve satisfied whatever deep internal questions they have about themselves and each other, and that my job is just to keep on loving both of them.

Without rising to the bait, and without getting so annoyed with the nasally shrieking and over-the-top dramatics that I get all heavy handed.

I’m thinking that this might be the summer of good, long runs.

darn that mom… by jay

Me, tee and, mom went to get tee a hair cut . when we left the house it was drisling I tried to tell mom that we should’nt bike because it would start pouring but she didn’t listen. when we got to magic cuts it was a little worse by the time we left there were puttels on the edge of the road cars splashed the shop windows and rain was like a river running out of the sky I said darn mom I wish we had brought an umbrella when we got to the intersaction we were soaking wet we crossed then we warmed up with hot chocolate from tim hortons.

Siblings

At the coffee shop.

Tee says something funny.

Sooooo close to spewing a mouthful of scalding liquid all over the table.

Cracking up.

Still laughing…and now having trouble catching her breath.

Phew! THAT was a funny one….gotta wipe the tears from my eyes.

I can make her laugh like that just by looking at her sideways. It’s so easy. And riling her up? Even easier.

According to Tee, he’s a street person. A street person who is smiling because he had a good day. The box on the ground beside him contains all of his possessions.

Significant Others

This morning I was thinking about my friend G, who inspires me with her very direct and honest approach towards life.

Then I read Kel’s latest post at Taurus Rising, about her plan to import fair trade, organic, reusable shopping bags, and I felt tremendous admiration for the way she took her idea and made it real.

Which got me to thinking of other friends who each have qualities that I admire, and of all of the people I’ve met in the past whose way of living are inspirational to me. One such person was a mother I knew briefly about 14 years ago, older than me, in a blended family, who spoke to her children in the quiet, respectful manner that I’ve tried to emulate ever since.

Once my mind started down this track, I could list off so many individuals I know who each have qualities I wish I had, and I started to feel a tremendous sense of gratitude for having known them, for knowing them still, for their gifts to the world, and for all of the people out there who live their lives in ways that make a difference to the people around them.

It was a nice antidote to the cynicism and sense of gloom that the stories in the morning paper left me with, that’s for sure!

Child’s Play

Now this was more like it (see post below for sad contrast).

The entire mixed grade 1/2/3 classroom put on a very last minute play for the parents, and it was fabulous. I loved it because it was clearly the students’ production. They each acted out an animal of their choice in a verrrry loosely scripted story about animals in the woods. They had on costumes that they’d made themselves from whatever they had at home, they banged on musical intruments made from recycled trash, and in general acted like 6,  7 and 8 year olds without much direction. Chaotic, noisy, and probably painful for anyone who wasn’t biologically related to at least one of the performers, but truly a cooperative child-led production, and as such, brilliant.

Putting On A Show

Curmudgeon alert!

I spent half the day at a volunteer reception at the kids’ school, and as always, left feeling like I was escaping torture.

Is is really just me, or are the other parents in the tiny chairs feeling equally bored and/or irritated by the displays of forced cuteness?

It would be one thing if the kids were allowed to think up their own productions, script them, and act them out. Then it would at least be something they had ownership of. Instead, it’s a group of somewhat embarassed kids singing songs that the teacher thought would be cute. I particularly hate it when teachers get the kids to wiggle their bottoms in imitations of booty shaking. I felt degraded just watching. It’s like the students are little puppets in the school puppet production put on by the adults.

But did I say something? Make a stand? Suggest something different?

No. Not me. I just sat there sipping on my punch, nibbling on my slice of pound cake, and clapped along with the rest.

Spasms of Uncertainty

Today was just one of those days.
I felt overwhelmed.
The garden, the yard, the to-do list, the messy house, the dirty fridge, the worries about the future. Not knowing how it’s all going to turn out. Not knowing if I’m doing it right.
Four growing children.
What the HELL was I thinking having all of these kids?

Today was no different than any other day, really.
Except for my attitude.
Same house, same car, same kids.
And yet, there I was, sick with a sense of fear that I wasn’t really up for the job.

Maybe it comes from being a solo parent.

Maybe if I get the inside of the car cleaned out I’ll feel better.

Or maybe I should just go to bed and hope that when I wake up tomorrow, it’ll be a better day.

Summer Solstisce Baby Turns 13!

We had a Double Chocolate Mocha Trifle for birthday breakfast, opened presents, then off to the beach!

We played baseball in the water, played baseball in the sand dunes, and made sand castles. The water was really cold, but I suppose that’s to be expected, given that there was probably still ice floating in it a month ago. The sand castle turned out so well that we made another one on L.

She’s always loved being buried in the sand at the beach, so we all chipped in and gave her a super spa treatment with a LOT of sand.

She looked like a stegasaurus.

The downside was coming out all covered in sand and having to go into the water. When she dove under I stayed close by, in case she needed resucitation. I have no idea what the water temperature was, but when I went in as far as my ankles, my feet started aching from the cold. From the sounds of the shrieking and squealing she made when she took the plunge, I’m guessing it didn’t feel much warmer farther out.

Vegan Morning Glory Muffins

Great recipe!! Healthy, healthy, healthy and yummy. I found it here.
I added my *magic vegan “eggs” because I was worried that they would be flat and lumpy without them.

Here are the ingredients. Mix the dry and the wet separately, then add the two together. Bake at 350.

1 1/3 C Whole Wheat Flour
3/4 C Brown Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Salt
1 Whole Banana, mashed
1/3 C oil
1 Apple, skinned, cored, and diced
1/2 C Raisins
3 Medium sized carrots, grated
1/2 C Walnuts or nuts of your choice
* 2 “eggs” = 2 TBS ground flax mixed with 6 TBS water, left to sit for 10 mins.