Quirks

One thing I love about having four children is being able to compare and contrast their personalities. It was an enormous relief to me when my second baby was born being completely different than her older brother. He had been such a difficult, attention-needing, intense baby that I had seriously begun to wonder whether he [...]

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Score!

The second trip to the Big Library in 3 days, and this time I found a totally unexpected surprise….the new David Sedaris book When You Are  Engulfed in Flames. It was one of three Recent Bestsellers (which can only be taken out for a week and can’t be renewed and cost two dollars a day [...]

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Determination Is Her Middle Name

One Folk Festival, so many stories to tell. This one is about Jay and the tightrope. In this picture, she’s being helped across the rope by the kindly volunteer. I took the photo, thinking she’d go across a few times and then move on to any one of the other fun circus activities that were [...]

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Danger Moves

The week before she left for her diving trip L didn’t seem interested in playing with friends. She hung around the house, reading, packing, and making up crazy games for the little kids. Her parting gift to Jay was a trip to the playground, and a lesson on back flips off the swing set. She [...]

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Computers to Gunpowder

Tee’s been using his half hour of computer time lately to play Civilization III, a strategy game that he bought with some hard-saved allowance. Trouble is, when he’s not playing it he’s thinking about it, talking about it, or daydreaming about it, which leaves very little brain space for anything else. He tends to get [...]

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More on Quirks

I wish that our world honored differences. Many of us struggle our whole lives to fit in. What an incredible waste of our precious individuality. I feel this sentiment acutely now that I am a mother, now that I have four interesting people growing up in my house. I want them to be able to [...]

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See Saw

I’ve spent a lot of time and energy this school year trying to figure out my second son. After many false starts, lots of second guessing, and moments of intense frustration, he and I seem to have reached consensus. Looking back, I’d have to say that a big part of the problem was that I [...]

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Cracking the Nut

When Tee was ready to begin baking his birthday cake, he asked me which of the pans was 9×13. I showed him, and asked if he knew what the names of those dimensions were. He did, so I asked if he knew how to find the area of that rectangle. He did, so I began [...]

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School So Far

How are things going?   Pretty okay, I’d have to say. I had some trepidation going into this homeschool year, with young Tee back from his brief foray into public school. I wasn’t quite sure whether he and I could make it work, to be honest. He’s a difficult kid to “teach”. He doesn’t take [...]

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