Fly on the Wall

Primo and Secondo were playing a video game when I heard Secondo ask, "Can we please play a game I don't always win? This is getting irritating!"

Oh, to have her problems. *grin*

Flexibility

This is a cross-post from my other blog 11:36. (When you have problems keeping one blog updated, it is perfectly logical to begin a second one, right?) Enjoy!


My plan today was to be at the local Maker's Market selling. Then I found out that Primo had a rifle shoot scheduled, Secundo had a fencing lesson, and Terzo and Frodo had a camping trip scheduled... all when I was supposed to be at the market.

Sooooo...

I told Primo she couldn't go to the shoot (she has two others scheduled this month), Secundo could go to fencing, and Frodo would take Terzo camping, and I would hold-down the fort at home and go for a walk at the walking park.

Thennnnn...

Primo and Secundo were invited to a sleepover. Their friends are moving out of state this summer, so I want them to spend as much time as possible together. This didn't change my plans too much, though. My house just became the kid-exchange rendezvous point for Saturday morning.

Sooooo...

I get a call Saturday morning from sleepover mom that Secundo has a fever, so she is going to give her meds and let her rest until it's time to drop the girls off. This is quickly followed by a text from The Man's mom asking if Quarto is going to storytime with them today. (Quarto loves going to storytime with The Man, and The Man is moving this summer, too, so I follow the "hanging out with friends who are moving" philosophy and say he'll be ready to go in 20 minutes.)

Thennnnn...

I get another call from sleepover mom that they are on their way, but can Primo go to friend's little brother's soccer game with friend. I say yes. (See "Thennnnn...." #1) So she goes to the game (so I think... see below) and Secundo gets dropped-off and promptly falls asleep on the sofa. This results in my sending an email to the fencing instructor (can't find her phone number anywhere) letting her know that Secundo is sick and won't be at class. Quarto gets picked up for storytime. All is quiet.

Until...

Primo is dropped off by sleepover dad. She discovers new SpongeBob DVDs and disappears into my room (Secundo is still asleep in the living room) to watch them. (I got a call from sleepover mom about 20 minutes after Primo gets home apologizing for the miscommunication. Sleepover dad brought Primo straight home rather than to the soccer game. I thought that was a rather short game.) Then Quarto gets dropped off and quickly joins her.

Thus...

I am not at the park walking (although I guess I could go now that Primo is home and Secundo is asleep and Quarto is fixated on the TV), and I am not at the Maker's Market as a browser (the seller ship has passed). I am instead listening to Saturday NPR (one of my favorite things to do) and folding laundry and getting ready to plant some seeds then head to the grocery store. Not the day I planned, but a good day. I like good days. And it can only get better when Frodo and Terzo come home... I miss them.

Getting Past The Gag Reflex

The internet went out at our house again, so this afternoon I packed-up my stuff and set out for the coffee house... reliable internet and chai, who could ask for more?

As I drove up the driveway, however, I spotted Secondo standing at the end of the driveway with a pair of binoculars peering into the ditch on the side of the road.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" I inquired.

"The dead possum," she casually replied. "Do you think its back end was taken off by the car that hit it or do you think a vulture was eating it?"

Frodo had mentioned that there was a dead opossum in the road last night when he came home, and Zen Baby and The Man's mom mentioned that it was on the side of the road this morning. I had been wondering how long it would take for Secondo to make her way out there and investigate.

I couldn't quite see the opossum from where I stopped. I could smell it, however, so I backed the car up a bit, put on the emergency brake, and got out of the car.

"Well, Dad said it was in the road last night, so I am guessing that a vulture or something got a hold of it and dragged it into the ditch where it could eat without fear of being hit by a car and becoming some other creature's supper," I speculated.

"Look at all the flies on it! What else eats dead animals... carrion?"

This launched us into a 10-minute discussion on the decomposition process and the determination of time of death using insect life-stages. (I knew that Master's Degree would come in handy!) I told her that since Frodo saw the opossum on his way home but not on his way out and since we know that opossums are nocturnal, we could pretty confidently state that the opossum expired the night before.

"How long will it take to decompose?"

"Well, that depends on a few things... what creatures come along to feast on it, chemical breakdown now that the carcass was opened to the elements, the weather, and some other things."

"If I take a picture of it every day, I could record how long it takes to decompose and how it decomposed, couldn't I?"

She then ran inside to get my camera. I promised I would buy a new battery for the kid camera while I was out tonight. (And maybe new binoculars since toy military binoculars really aren't that helpful for serious scientific study... they magnified nothing and were amazingly blurry.) We then discussed the importance of taking pictures of reference before taking close-up shots (with the zoom, of course... that thing stank!). I encouraged her to take note of whether the body is moved and what state it is in each day. 

When I left, she was still taking pictures (one handed, so she could hold her nose) and had a HUGE grin on her face. 

She's probably not ready to peruse my copy of Spitz & Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation of Death but maybe I can pull out the old textbooks and throw together a few forensic pathology lessons for her... or at least brush-up so I can answer her questions. That kid keeps me on my toes!

Hmmm. maybe I need to work on a Forensic Pathology for Kids. (I don't think the world is ready for that... I'm not!)

Wordless Wednesday

A Gap in Their Education

The kiddos are trying to fit in as much TV as possible before we cancel the satellite service at the end of the month. Primo's favorite channel is the Bomerang Network. They show classic cartoons from the 60's and 70's with a few earlier ones thrown in for good measure. I think Primo is just amazed that they had cartoons when Frodo and I were kids... heck, she's amazed that television existed when Frodo and I were kids! Anyway, tonight she was absorbed in an episode of Scooby Doo. When I walked into the room, she turned to me and said, "Mom, that's Cast Elliott," indicating a character in the show. "Dad knows who she is. Do you know her? Cast Elliott?"

"Do you mean Cass Elliott? Yeah, that's Mama Cass."

"Yeah, that's it! Cass Elliott. Who's Mama Cass?"

"Mama Cass. She's a singer. From The Mamas & The Papas."

"Yeah, she's a singer on here, too. Who are The Mamas & The Papas?"

"You don't know who The Mamas & The Papas are?! Are you sure you're my child?"

At this point, I open up YouTube. (What would I do without YouTube and Google? I mean, seriously?)

"This is The Mamas & The Papas..."



"And this..."





"And this is Mama Cass. Cass Elliott."



"Oh."

Oh?

Sigh. I can see we have to have a more formal study of "American Folk Music of the 50's, 60's and 70's", aka "stuff Mom listened to when she was a kid" and these kids better learn it if they are going to have a good grounding in American Culture Studies (and be able to get half of the jokes in The Simpsons... when they are old enough to watch The Simpsons, that is). They obviously aren't picking it up properly through casual exposure and are seriously lacking in appreciation of the classics of American music.

Johnny Cash does seem to be sticking with Secondo. She has recently declared him her favorite. So, here is a little Johnny Cash to help diversify your own folk music studies. Here is Secondo's favorite:



And here is mine:






(Hey, I'm impressed I was able to hold myself to two.)

Little Serendipities Go A Long Way

I am a planner by nature. If I find out that we are traveling somewhere (and it doesn't have to be far; if we are going to be away from home for more than a couple of hours, that's enough) or having company, out come the paper and pencil, I pull up MapQuest and Google on the computer, and the research and planning begin. And although I get great pleasure out of planning little (and big) excursions, it is often those little serendipities that provide the most pleasure and the greatest memories. We recently experienced one of these little serendipities, and I know it is something I will always remember.

My parents came to visit a few weeks ago. They had never been to our new place here in Dixie, and since our new home is over 1,000 miles from their place, we haven't seen each other in almost a year. With the price of gas soaring as it is, who knows when we'll get together again, so I decided to try and plan some short trips that would give them a good taste of the area in their short trip plus include some places our family hadn't had a chance to explore yet. One of the places we went was the University Museum. Our family had been there before, but it is quite an impressive little museum. They have a wonderful antiquities collection that includes pottery, coins, mosaics, and busts as well as a doll collection, a Civil War (or should I say "War Between the States" or "War of Northern Aggression") collection, a small but broadly representational art collection, and a collection of historical scientific instruments that my children always find fascinating and wish they could touch. Tucked off on the side is a small room that usually houses a temporary exhibit. Terzo was very disappointed when he investigated back there this time and found that the Art of the Faulkners exhibit that we had seen on our last trip was gone. "Now it's just some old books," he lamented to me. Not connecting his statement with some information Frodo had given me earlier in the semester, I took my time moseying back to the exhibit and stood only feet from it is a I re-examined a sketch created and autographed by Kurt Vonnegut that is part of the museum's regular collection. Frodo was just behind me as I finally made my way to the "old books" and I could hear him gasp as we entered, "These are the Remnant Trust books. Remember, Hon, I told you about these? Cool."

At the beginning of the spring semester, Frodo mentioned that the University was going to host a tour by the Remnant Trust. The tour consisted of books considered significant because of their age, rarity, or influence on the world, but even cooler, you not only got to see the books, but you also got to touch them. When I went to the University Museum's website to see if I could take the kids over to leek at the books, I came across this notice:

These books are available for professors to use in their classes under supervision in the museum. The books cannot be removed from the museum. We can accommodate groups up to 70 in our [gallery], up to 40 in our classroom and up to 10 in our board room. For larger classes special arrangements may be possible. We need two weeks notice to arrange to host your class at the museum. Our regular hours are 9:30-4:30 Tues.-Sat. We will try to accommodate classes that meet outside of those hours when ever possible but we cannot guarantee that. Call... to book a class.

Drat. We weren't going to be able to go. Frodo was hoping to arrange a time for his university students to go to the exhibit, but he wasn't able to get a hold of the correct person to arrange an appointment. With the end of the semester, we figured his chance to view the exhibit had gone.

Fast forward to my parents' visit two weeks after the semester ended. The RT was late in picking up the collection, so the University Museum still had it on display! As we were oohing and aahing over the books in the display cases, a museum employee approached us and asked if we wanted the curator to open the cases for us and give us a closer look at the books. Minutes later, we were getting a personal lesson on the books on display.



This is the curator showing us a handwritten, illuminated manuscript (on parchment, I might add) of the Magna Carta from 1350. 1350!

Then, it got even better:

That's Frodo and Primo holding and casually thumbing through a handwritten, illuminated manuscript of the Magna Carta from 1350. How cool is that?!

Here is a closer view. (Handwritten! 1350! Did I mention that it was handwritten and illuminated on parchment in 1350?)

The curator shared the books in all the display cases then left them open for us to go back and pick up and leaf through the ones we wanted and to ask questions.

What other books were there? Well...

Secondo's favorite was the illuminated copy of St. Augustine's City of God c. 1494 (two short years after "in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.")



I tried to take a picture of her flipping through it, but every time she suspected she was being watched, she took her hands off the book. See, here she is doing the "Me? I wasn't touching the book. I was just standing here rubbing my eye" move. I think she had "don't touch the exhibits" going through her head no matter how many times we were told to feel free to pick up and examine the books.

A first edition of Thomas Paine's Common Sense... printed in England in 1776.


If you ask Primo which book was her favorite, she will tell you it was this one, Summa Theologica Pars Secunda c. 1497. From the accompanying plaque:

"One of only three known copies in the world. One in the British Museum in London and the other in the Newbury in Chicago. This is the most perfect of the three."

See the large blanks in the copy? This copy was supposed to be illuminated, but apparently no one got around to it.


Although she says Aquinas' book was her favorite, Primo spent most of her time paging through this 1862 copy of William the Conqueror's Doomsday Book.


Terzo's favorite was this print of the Boston Massacre made from the plate created by Paul Revere and his silversmiths. (The curator was impressed that Primo knew that the Boston Massacre was instigated by the children of Patriots, and some Patriots, throwing snowballs at the British soldiers... although something was bound to happen sooner or later after months of military occupation in Boston.)

Frodo had a hard time nailing down a favorite. Besides City of God, the Magna Carta, and Summa Theologica which I have already shared, he probably would list the two works by Frederick Douglass that were included in the display.


Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1945)



My Bondage & My Freedom (1855) signed by Frederick Douglass

On the top of a list of Frodo's favorites, if he had been forced to rank them, would have been the copy of John Calvin's Institutes printed in 1578. William Shakespeare was apprenticing at the print shop where this edition was printed and probably set some of the type for the volume. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the book. I got a picture of the plaque, but not the book. (Mom, do you have a picture of Calvin's Institutes?) Not sure how that happened. I was probably distracted by my favorites in the collection.


William Penn's The Great Case of Liberty of Conscience c. 1670.


I was also amazed to see the Minutes of the Second Continental Congress from 1778 and the Illinois broadside of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln. (Each president signed all broadsides sent to his home state.) I couldn't get a good picture of the broadside because it was framed under glass, and I have no idea why I don't have a picture of the minutes. (Mom? Did you get one?)


Other books in the collection were William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law, 1771 (above), Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication on the Rights of Women, Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Document (1787), and Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733) by Voltaire.

What a great day!

Church Membership

In order to become members of the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), as we are, you must affirm five vows:

1. Do you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving his displeasure, and without hope, except through his sovereign mercy?

2. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and savior of sinners, and do you receive and trust him alone for salvation as he is offered in the gospel?

3. Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes a follower of Christ?

4. Do you promise to support the church in it's worship and work to the best of your ability?

5. Do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the church, and promise to strive for its purity and peace?

Primo and Secondo took these vows at our church's Maundy Thursday service. They are the girls in the hats. The pastor with the dark hair is our head pastor. The pastor who looks like Santa Claus is our youth pastor. We love them. The other gentlemen are church elders. (We love them, too.) I think it's funny that when each man hugs Secondo, they act as if they are afraid to break her. *grin*

I apologize in advance for the incompleteness of the videos. This was my second attempt to use the video feature on our camera. (You can imagine how sad the first attempt came out.)








After the service, we enjoyed a delicious ham dinner. The kids loved eating at the Passover Seder table. You can see the girls in their hats in the background. Terzo is the one in the black coat in the foreground. (The coat was new, and he refused to take it off.)



Here are Terzo and Quarto enjoying their supper.



This church really knows how to host a supper!



This is the Seder Plate containing chazeret (bitter herbs representing the bitterness of slavery), charoset (sweet, brown, grainy mixture representing the mortar used by the Hebrew slaves in Egypt), karpas (a simple food dipped into salt water, representing tears, to remind us of the plain foods the Hebrews ate while in captivity), z'roa (roasted lamb shank bone representing the Pesach sacrifice now fulfilled by Christ, the Lamb of God), and beitzah (representing the festival sacrifice, or chagigah, and symbolizing mourning).



And lastly, Elijah's place.

Fly on the Wall

Yesterday at Secondo's standardized testing:
Secondo emerged from the testing room, and I asked her how she thought she did. She said she thought that she did okay but that the math was hard. "You know the minusing with the two dots? Well, I figured that since minusing without dots is the opposite of adding, then minusing with dots must be opposite of multiplying, so I think I got that one right. It was six minus with two dots two. That's three, right?"

(Like I mentioned yesterday, we changed her math curriculum half-way through the year, so there are some topics that she had had multiple times and a few she hasn't had at all yet... like division. LOL!)


This morning while getting dressed:
Terzo- "Hey! It's St. Fool's Day!"


This morning during the sermon:
Quarto was sitting on Frodo's lap during the service this morning. In his sermon, our pastor was preaching on John 12; more specifically on Mary anointing Jesus' feet with perfume. The pastor was explaining that at the time, expensive perfumes were kept in alabaster boxes that would be broken open then could not be resealed. Quarto was listening and asked Frodo, "Boxes?" Frodo explained that Mary opened a box and a beautiful scent came out. Quarto responded with a contented sigh, "Mmmm, pepperoni pizza."

Warning. Shameless Mommy Brag.

Alright, there is one good thing about living in the most oppressive homeschooling state in the Union. We are required to give our kids standardized tests in third, fifth and eighth grades, and thus I have government-sanctioned bragging rights.

Secondo is finishing third grade this year, so this was her first year for testing. We use the Wide-Range Achievement Test (WRAT) which gives a grade + month ability level for the subjects of reading, spelling and math. Consider yourself warned. Mommy bragging commencing in....


Three...




Two...




One...



Math - Third grade, fifth month (Right on target. We were very happy with this considering we had her change curriculum half-way through the year.)

Spelling - Fourth grade, ninth month (Have I mentioned that we really like Spelling Workout?)

Reading - Ninth grade, 0 months (The tester had Secondo skim through the word list and pick out words she thought she could read, and she was able to read a smattering of words through college level! She is so proud of herself!)

Way to go, Secondo!

Now I need to comb through the bookshelves and find more difficult books for her to read. *grin*

Fly on the Wall

Conversation between Secondo and Terzo:

Secondo: "What sports are you going to play when you're seven?"

Terzo: "I'm going to play football and sports."

Secondo: "You're going to play all the sports? Well, not ballet, but all the others?"

Terzo: "Yeah. And hockey."

***************

Primo: (while watching a small woodpecker pecking at a branch he was perched on) "I hope he doesn't peck to his death."

What's in a name?

Andie, over at and the mama, gave the background behind her kids' names and asked her invisible friends to do the same, so here we go:

Primo - means "first" in Italian
Secondo - means "second" in Italian
Terzo - means "third" in Italian
Quarto - means "fourth" in Italian

And while I'm at it:
Tutor - means "a person charged with the instruction and guidance of another; a private teacher" in both English and Latin (cool, huh?)
Frodo - means that my dear husband has many of the physical characteristics of the main character/ ring-bearer in C.S. Lewis' Lord of the Rings trilogy... namely, hairy feet. (Also, my dear friend, Angel at Aduladi' & Co., and I have dh's with the same first name, and we were frequently getting confused as to who we were talking about when using first names, so we decided the menfolk needed nicknames. My dh became 'Frodo' and hers became 'Mr. Clean'. )

Okay, joking aside (mostly), since I don't use our Christian names online for a reason, I won't share them here, but I will give some background as to where our kids' Christian names come from:

Primo - named after a murder mystery movie... just like I was. Her middle name is a cool-sounding name that was uncommon, sounded good with the first name, and was picked by Frodo. (Btw, this started our "baby naming protocol". Since I have known what I wanted to name my first daughter ever since I can remember, when Primo turned out to be a girl, it was a given that I got to pick the first name and Frodo would pick her middle name. With Secondo we swapped and Frodo picked her first name and I picked her middle name. With Terzo, we swapped again, and so on.)

Secondo - Was named after the main character in a popular piece of English literature. Her middle name comes from a combination of an attribute of God and the name of my Great Aunt's best friend. Sadly, we thought we were picking a very unique name at the time, and have since met many little girls with the same combo of first and middle name. Sigh. At least our little pixie is a trend-setter.

Terzo - Was originally named after a main character in a popular piece of American literature, but we were undecided whether to use the full version or the shortened version. We ended up using the full version after I had emergency surgery while 5 months pregnant with him and decided we wanted to maintain the full meaning of his name to celebrate his coming through the surgery unharmed... and glorifying the One who brought him through. Of course, we had to use the transliterated spelling... i.e. the unusual one. His middle name comes from the Christian name of a man integral to the Reformation.

Quarto - Frodo was undecided between three different first names for Quarto, so he let the other kids choose from the three. They ended up choosing a name that Frodo liked because it was the name of a student he taught who he thought was a neat kid. Quarto's middle name comes from a New Testament figure who is mentioned because of a special place he holds in the ancestral development of the Church. It is a rather unusual name, but people don't think it is that unusual after they find out that my first choice for his middle name was "Chingachgook"... aka "the last of the Mohicans".

Well, that's who our kids are and why. What about yours? Or share why you chose the virtual names that you did. Inquiring mind want to know.

Fly on the Wall

If you were a fly on the wall of our house this morning, you would have heard the following conversation between me and Secondo:

Me: Secondo, don't forget to brush your hair.

Secondo: I did.

Me: You did? Well, I think you missed a spot. Get me the brush, and I'll show you.

(Secondo leaves and returns momentarily with requested brush.)

Me: Remember how I told you that if you comb your hair straight back like this (I run the brush from the center of her forehead to the nape of her neck) your hair will fall into a straight part and then you just have to...

Secondo: Ow! You're hurting my scallop!

Our Budding Environmentalist

Today we had an impromptu field trip to a semi-local little zoo. (aka: the kids earned free tickets to said zoo in the library's summer reading program, and the tickets were only good during the month of September, but since we received them in July, I forgot about them until last night and today was the only day this week we could go before the tickets expired, so... we went.) The zoo's brochures read "picnics welcome", so I packed up a stunning picnic of peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread, individual bottles of 100% apple juice, pretzles, and chocolate chip cookies for us to enjoy while at the zoo. The zoo had these great little picnic areas set up throughout the park so that you could eat while overlooking various paddocks throughout the park. The kids decided that they wanted to eat the first portion of thier lunches (i.e. PBJs and apple juice) while keeping an eye out for the black bear... who seemed to be in nap time like 90% of the other animals.

When we finished eating, I asked the kids to put thier trash in the trash can. Everyone dutifully gathered up thier sandwich wrappers, napkins, and juice bottles and placed them in the trash. Secondo was the last one at the trash can and distractedly (she was afraid to take her eyes off of the bear paddock for fear of missing the bear) placed her trash in the can... or so I thought.

After I heard the trash door close, I noticed that Secondo was slowly spinning around and looking confused. She still had her juice bottle in her hand.

"Where's the recycling bin?"

"I don't think they have them, munchkin. Just put your bottle in the trash can and we'll go see if we can see the bear from the other side." (Bad granola mommy, I know.)

"But this is a zoo. They take care of animals. They should have recycling bins."

"You're right. They should. But they don't, so just..."

"I'm going to hold on to my bottle and put it in the recycling bin when we get home."

"Okay, but you have to carry it." (attempting to make up for my reduce - reuse - recycle lapse with a good dose of personal property responsibility training)

"I know." (Pensive pause.) "Mom?"

"Yes?"

"Can I write a letter to the zoo people when we get home? They really should get recycling bins."

"Um... well... sure. That's a good idea." (Said in my best "don't sound shocked, be encouraging" voice)

Apparently that training by example thing really works. (Except that Secondo has me beat. I only recycle when it's convenient, apparently. I was so tempted to make everyone fish their bottles out of the trash can and take them all home to recycle them to save face.)

School Is In Session

To be honest, it was never really out of session, but I can't fit "Sitting At A Table And Doing Workbook Pages, Handwriting Practice, and Other Textbook Learning Has Now Re-Commenced" in the subject line.

Since life occurs year-round, learning occurs year-round here at Apollos Academy. This summer was full of swimming lessons, trips to the local pool, trips to the neighbor's pool, hiking, museum visits, festival fun, family film fests, 4H, reading, watching thunderstorms, working in the garden, baking (both food in the kitchen and ourselves in the heat), church picnics, vacation bible school, and just being. With all that fun and learning, you'd think the kids wouldn't want to settle down with books, would you? Well, that's where you'd be wrong.

I called the girls into the kitchen this afternoon (after 2.5 hours working in the 4H garden) and told them that it was time for math. Both Primo and Secondo said, "Yay! Math!" Yay? Math? After half an hour, I asked them to clean up their Cuisenaire Rods and hand me thier worksheets,

"Now?! I was having fun."

"Just a few more minutes. PLEEEEAAAASSSEEEE!"

I gave in. Who wouldn't? They're begging to do math for goodness sake. A couple minutes later I hear:

Primo - "Mom, come look at my computer bars."

Tutor - "Computer bars?"

P - "Yeah. You know, like the bars on your cell phone or when you're waiting for a thing that you clicked on to come up on the computer."

T - "You mean a download?"

P - "That's what I said."

Secondo - "Mom, look. I can make steps this way (places rods vertically) or this way (stacks rods horizontally) or if I mix them up like this (places rods of random heights in a line vertically) it looks like New York City!"

T - "Very cool!"

I finally convince them to put the rods away after reassuring them that we can play with the rods again tomorrow, and they quickly clean up then scatter. I call them back in mere minutes later. Secondo arrives first and sees me holding books in my hands. "Are we having a spelling quiz?" I confirm that we are, indeed. Secondo enthusiastically screams, "Primo! Come here! Spelling quizes!"

"Spelling quiz?! Woo hoo!" Primo yells as she runs to her spot at the table. " I like spelling."

The rest of this week will be more of the same mix of conventional and unconventional:

Tuesday: Deskwork, housework, and swimming (maybe some car washing)

Wednesday: Deskwork, library trip, and swimming exhibition for grandparents at the local pool

Thursday: field trip to the county fair to see the girls' displays, eat fattening foods, and take in everything the fair has to offer

Friday: deskwork and swimming

And thus begins our re-commencement of "Sitting At A Table And Doing Workbook Pages, Handwriting Practice, and Other Textbook Learning"... and then some.

Beware the Mother's Curse

You know the mother's curse "May you have children exactly like you." (Usually said to a child having a strong-willed, trouble-making period.) Sometimes the curse is restated "Wait until you have a child who (fill in annoying, embarrasing, toilsome, or destructive bahavior here)." Apparently, when I was about 10, my mother uttered this curse because today it was fulfilled.

When I was a kid, we spent a week every summer in a rental cottage in rural North Hero, Vermont on the shore of Lake Champlain. It was a long drive from Central New Jersey where I grew up... especially when sitting in the back of our little, brown Honda Civic with my sister and our fluffy, energetic Chow/ German Shepherd mix. Our visit every year coincided with the Champlain Valley Fair where we would go and ride carnival rides, watch tractor pulls, see farm animals and eat delicious but very unhealthy food. My sister and I often saved up quarters so that we could play the games of chance on the Midway and win cheap treasures that we could haul home to document our ring tossing or number picking prowess. Usually, we walked-away empty handed, but one year we captured the gold medal of the Midway... two live goldfish.

Winning two goldfish wouldn't appear on the surface to be that big of a deal. You take them home, dump them in a bowl, get some fish food and enjoy them until they move on to the big fishbowl in the sky. (Carnival-won goldfish aren't known for their life-expectancy.) However, when you win those goldfish while on vacation 8 hours from home, it becomes more problematic. This is how my mom got her new lettuce crisper. Who knew that Tupperware could be so versatile? Sometime while my sister and I took turns holding the temporary home of our new pets in our laps as we drove through New England or maybe while we were shopping for a tank, gravel, food and other fish paraphenalia, my mom must have muttered the "mother's curse" because today...

We went to our town's annual street fair. We started the celebration in the traditional fashion. We stopped for doughnuts and drinks to go at the grocery store then went to eat breakfast while waiting in line for the library's book sale to open. After buying two boxfuls of books (not our best haul, but some good buys nonetheless), we parked Buster (our new-to-us, fire engine-red Suburban) and proceeded to the fair. After walking the length of the main strip, getting faces painted and eating lunch, we told the kids that they could each pick two activities (depending on cost). Primo and Terzo opted immediately for the rides. Secondo wanted to play a game and win something. Quarto was content to take everything in from his position in the carrier on Frodo's back (not that he had much choice). Frodo got ride tickets for Primo and Terzo and waited with them while I took Secondo to find a game to play. Upon spying the inflatable clownfish on a booth (the international sign for "win a goldfish"), she made a bee-line for the booth. We paid for our basket of ping-pong balls, and Secondo went to work. After watching a few tosses followed by frustration at their not even reaching the table, I encouraged Secondo to throw underhand. The next few tosses reached the table, but bounced erratically due to the fact that they were amazingly misshapen. As I was pondering whether the deformed balls were purposefully left in the rotation because of their erratic tendencies, I watched as one of Secondo's balls collided with that thrown by a couple next to us. The deformities on the balls complimented each other in such a way that they locked together and dropped directly into the mouth of a markedly small goldfish bowl. "I won a fish!" Secondo screeched in my ear. Secondo carried her new charge, aptly christened "Goldie", with great pride and care as we made our way back to the rides then on to the car. This is why Frodo had to leave for his study time early today. So that he could pick up a fish bowl, food, and other fish paraphenalia.

I have added a new lesson to our summer schedule. A science unit on fish.

And I will not mutter the "mother's curse." I will simply end today's blog entry with this moral:

Be careful what you wish for. Your child might get it.

Wait. They'll tell you when they're ready.

As parents, we give and receive this advice quite frequently.

When should I introduce solid food? When your baby starts reaching for your green beans or chicken, he's ready to try some. He'll tell you when he's ready.

When should I start potty training? When your toddler starts showing interest in the potty, it's time to sit her on it. She'll tell you when she's ready.

When should I teach my child to read? When you child grabs a book and starts pretending to read, he's ready to learn. He'll tell you when he's ready.

When should I teach my child the birds and the bees? When your child starts to ask questions about where babies come from, she's ready to hear an "age appropriate" answer. She'll tell you when she's ready.

"They'll tell you when they're ready. "

What does this mean?

When we give this advice to another parent, we are generally trying to encourage them not to worry. We are encouraging the parent to wait until the child gives some sort of signal... grabbing the fork, sitting on the kiddy potty, pretending to read a book, or asking if he was in Mommy's tummy just like baby sister. But does this advice work for everything? Let's face it, if many of us waited for our children to tell us they were ready for vegetables or ready to learn to clean their rooms, we'd still be waiting for the signal when they left for college! On the other hand, sometimes we get signals we aren't sure what to do with, are intimidated by, or seem to be "age inappropriate." By age inappropriate, I mean that our child is asking questions about things that our culture has decided are above their comprehension for thier age so we have no guideline for discussing these topics with our children. This seems to happen most often with topics of spiritual signifigance. When do you start talking to your children about topics like sin, redemption, death, and sanctification?

I believe in this situation, where a child is asking a question about a topic you feel he is too young to understand, you answer the question... or at least try to. Lest you respond, "That's easy for her to say." Here are some questions that our kids have asked Frodo and I recently (after each question, I have indicated which child asked it and how old he/ she is):

"Why did God create light first?" (Terzo, 5)

"What would happen if lightening hit our car and we all died?" (Terzo, 5)

"Why would someone steal a kid?" (Primo, 9)

"Why did God make butterflies if they only live for 2 weeks?" (Secondo, 7)

"Why did the Stone Table break after Aslan came alive again?" (Primo, 9)

"Why does God let tornados kill people?" (Primo, 9)

"How come there aren't any more dinosaurs?" (Secondo, 7)

"How come different books about dinosaurs say different things about why they died and what they looked like?" (Secondo, 7)

"How come Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil when God told her not to?" (Terzo, age 5)

"Will you die?" (Primo, 9; Secondo, 7; Terzo, 5)

"Will I die?" (Primo, 9; Secondo, 7; Terzo, 5)

We did our best to answer their questions and pray for wisdom in answering those that will inevitably come up in the future.

Our children will let us know when they are ready to face some of life's hard questions. But I have learned some things through my children's questions... I don't know all of the answers, I probably never will, and I don't ask enough questions myself but it is important that I ask. Asking questions and searching for answers (sometimes receiving them and sometimes not) matures us. If I stop questioning, I stop growing.

Have I stopped asking?

Have you stopped asking?

Does this mean we are not ready for the answers?

Or does it just mean that we are hiding from the responsibility required of us when our questions are answered?

It's Spring!

Stop and smell the dandelions!

Definition of Confidence and Contentment

Secondo was playing with Primo, Terzo, and our neighbor (who I shall call "M") on M's trampoline the other day. That evening when we sat down to dinner, we asked the kids what they had been playing at M's house. Secondo answers, "I don't know what Primo, Terzo, and M were playing, but I was playing astronaut!"

Book Club Woes

Last year, the girls participated in a homeschool book club at our local library. The group had about 10 kids on a regular basis, and they read some really good books and enjoyed the company of their friends. This year, the girls couldn't wait for the book club to start again, so as soon as I could, I signed them up.

The club started out fairly strong but has quickly dwindled to 2 children... Primo and Secondo. Mrs. B, the librarian in charge, asked me to put the word out about the club or she would have to discontinue it... it's a lot of work for only 2 kids who are in the same homeschool. I did... and now we have 3. But I am not sure how long that will last.

The last book the kids were required to read was any book in the Mrs. Piggle- Wiggle series. Not terribly difficult books, but funny stories that were good for kids of various reading levels (the book club is for grades 1-3). In order to attract more kids, Mrs. B decided to choose easier, faster reads. This month's book is A Ghost Named Fred. Unfortunately, the library only has 4 copies of this book, and all of them were checked out. The girls put 2 on hold and hoped they would come in in time to read them for next month's meeting. They needn't have worried.

The girls are required to read for at least 30 minutes per day on their own. They get to choose their own book and often read their book club books at this time. As soon as the books came in, the girls set aside their other reading (Primo - Charlotte's Web, Secondo - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) and opened their book club books. Ten minutes later, Primo calls out, "I'm done!" then Secondo follows, "Me too!" I can't believe it, so I ask Primo for her copy of the book so I can skim it and quiz them. I read the entire book in about 2 minutes... this was the first page. I ask them a few questions, then Secondo asks, "Can I read Harry Potter now?" "Absolutely!"

I appreciate everything Mrs. B has done for the girls and the club. The girls adore her. However, I think we will settle for the summer reading club and letting the girls select their own books next year.

"Conversation" with a 7 year old...

This is a "conversation" I had with Secondo yesterday. I was going to include my half, but why bother?

"Mom, why is there a letter under where it says 'Triceratops' and 'Made in China'?"

"Right there by my finger."

"So it tells me where it was made or when it was made?"

"But this one says '1998', so it can't be when it was made. Was I born in 1998 or was Primo?"

"But why would they have to know *where* it was made?"

"Oh yeah, remember when I told you that there was water in my T-rex? Well, the hole wasn't in the mouth like you said, it was right here under his arm. Why did you tell me it was in his mouth?"

"I hear water in my Utahraptor, too, but there is no hole under the Utahraptor's arm or in his mouth. How did the water get in?"

"How can I get it out?"

"Yes, I’m supposed to be on the sofa for Quiet Time."

"No, talking isn't being quiet. I'll go sit down."

"Mom, this dinosaur has a 'D' on it's belly. You know under the 'Made in China' sign, but this one has a 'P1'. They must 'uv been made in different places, huh?"

"This one has a 'P1', too!"

"I’m gonna put them all in groups. I’ll put the ‘P1's there and the ‘D’s there and the ‘P’s there. Hey! How come there are ‘P1's and ‘P’s but not ‘D1's just ‘D’s?"

"Maybe they used the first letter of where they were made!"

"Does that mean that there were two places that started with ‘P’?"

"No, I’m not sleepy."

"Okay, goodnight, Mom."

"Yeah, I’ll stay on the sofa."

"What time can I get up?"

"That’s four-three-zero, right?"

"I’ll show you my dinosaur piles when you get up, okay? And the ‘C’s go over here..."