Swimming Upstream

I was in the grocery store yesterday, walking through frozen foods, and, as usual contemplated buying Pizza Pops, which I know several of the kids, particularly the boys, love. As usual, I almost bought them, and then didn’t. I thought about their orangey faux-tomato filling, and the saturated fats in the crust, and as much [...]

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Pretty/ Ugly

Ever so slowly, the seasons are changing. Yesterday, out with T on the toboggan hill, I smelled the wet ground. There’s a patch of bare pavement on the sidewalk in front of the house, and the kids have dragged out their scooters so that they can use that bit of ground. The snow looks sunken [...]

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On Being Cool

I’ve been trying for what feels like hours now to articulate my thoughts on a recent post by bluemilk which commented on the fact that parenting, by it’s very nature, is not cool, or hip. I read it, and it coalesced with something else that has been brewing in my head for a while, but every [...]

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Good Parenting

This is a  sample I took from one of the numerous journals, note pads, and stray pieces of paper that constitute Jay’s preoccupation with writing. She’s been “writing” since she was about 2. Scribbling, copying words from books, and begging me to dictate stuff that she can write down. I’ve not once asked her to [...]

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Taking Responsibility

Still thinking about this. Now in year 6 of homeschooling, I don’t have any doubts at all about the quality of education my kids are “receiving” compared to what they would get at school. What this article did crystallize for me, though, is my growing awareness of an intangible benefit of homeschooling’s individualized learning. The [...]

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Don’t You Have To Be a Teacher?

“How can you possibly think you can give your children an education to match what the local schools give them, when you’re not as educated as the teachers at these schools?” (from a post titled On Gaining a Quality Education at Home, written by Timothy Power.) Well, harrumph, I would have to say that I [...]

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Who Matters?

Okay, so here’s another tricky one. The group versus the individual. When the kids were all small, say, 7, 5, 3, and 1, we did almost everything as a group. Most of the things we did were driven by the interests of kid #1. Number 2 was usually pretty happy to go along with whatever [...]

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I Hate Halloween

Sometimes, it’s hard to know what’s right. Halloween is a good example for me. As an anti-consumer, and a fairly firm wall against the social pressure to stock candy/pop/chips in this house, it’s a little unsettling to watch the children unloading their overflowing bags of junk all over the living room rug. Right now, they’re [...]

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Adult Women Only

The kids and I went to our local pool for our usual once-weekly swim this afternoon. We love this pool, because the facility is tiny, the water is much warmer than at the bigger pools, it has a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the water with sunshine, and the staff is friendly. We’ve been [...]

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Unschooling Update

Back to this old chestnut again. I’m clearly neurotic. The constant internal battle I have with allowing learning to occur naturally versus scripting it for my own sense of security. An organized, goal oriented, list-making kind of mom faced with homeschooling a free-thinker. So how’s it going, you ask? Well, week one of “unschooling” is [...]

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“Whatever”

One of my friends insisted I go to a lecture given by the guy that wrote this book. The lecture was a whole year ago, but I remembered it a few days ago because of something I’ve been noticing. What I’ve noticed, and been quite startled by, actually, is the lack of defensiveness shown by [...]

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World Food Day….

is today, Tuesday October 16th. Thought up by the United Nations as “an opportunity to reflect on how we can change the current system so that the world’s abundance is shared more fairly with those who are less fortunate.” I’m going to take the kids to the mall this week to see the food banks’ “CANstruction” [...]

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Back on Track

All I needed was a good night’s sleep. Well, two in row, actually, plus a day off school. The kids did no school work this morning, and spent the bulk of their time outside, where their shrieking couldn’t reach me. After lunch we went to the pool, and they spent 2 hours splashing around with 5 [...]

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More Ups and Downs

A little dip in general morale around here. It’s periodic. First, we’re all enthusiastic and trying hard. Then there’s a slow but perceptible waning of enthusiasm from you know who. Which I notice, and try to fix by making things better, more exciting, more…..I don’t know. I ramp it up, and start taking the responsibility [...]

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Some Days….

….are harder than others. Today was one of the harder ones. No real reason, nothing dramatic happened, but I found myself riding the edge of irritability all day long. Parenting 24 hours a day is a real challenge for me. I think what happens is that all of the little things add up, and every [...]

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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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When It Rains, It Pours

Literally I woke up at 4 this morning to the sound of what I thought was my neighbor rolling out her garbage cans. Turned out to be the sound of thunder. Then pouring rain. All over the three loads of dry laundry on my line. Which I know I should have taken down yesterday evening, but [...]

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Togetherness

How did someone as anti-social as me end up with four such gregarious children? I woke up this morning to the sound of my phone ringing. A call for my 6 year old. From her best friend M. They spent a good 20 minutes discussing the organizational details of today’s “club meeting”. Seems that they [...]

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Homeschool Musings

“We’re so much alike” said Tee. “We both like tea.” He sat down at the kitchen table and started the conversation while I cleaned up after lunch. I waited for him to go on. “What else do you like?” he asked. I listed off some of my interests. Reading, gardening, baking, crosswords, being outside. He [...]

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Homeschool Reservations

I definitely go through major ups and downs when it comes to my feelings about teaching at home. When I pay attention, I notice that those feelings follow a pattern. These past two weeks are a compressed version of the bigger picture.   I started out full of optimism, full of ideas, and most importantly, full [...]

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