Summer Wrap

Whew!  It's been a busy summer, y'all!

It was all-Godspell-all-the-time for awhile there.  Here's a video of my solo.  (That's Nature Boy in the polka dots!)




I can't believe it's already Back to School time for the neighborhood kids.  Why, back in my day, we didn't start school until after Labor Day.

Long live summer!

That said, I'm totally being a follower and starting our homeschool year now too.  Our homeschooling style has shifted a lot over the 7 years we've been doing this.  We started out doing unit studies, switched to a 3Rs, Ruth Beechick-y approach, got all hippie and unschooled for a few years, and now we've settled into plain ol' "relaxed homeschooling".

Which I define as:  not enough formal school work to look or feel like actual school, but enough formal school work so I don't have panic attacks and go prematurely grey.

Finding your groove in homeschooling is like getting past that annoying period in your 20s when you're all, Who am I?  What am I supposed to be doing with my life?  It's a relief, really.  I'm fairly certain that I spent more time agonizing over learning styles, teaching methods, and what other people might think about our choices than I did actually homeschooling for the first 5 years or so.  For real.

Now that that's over (knock on wood), I can confidently say that I am:

Woohoo.

In other news, I'm still fat.

BUT, I've gone to a couple PiYo classes (pilates and yoga combo), and I really enjoyed them.  Even though I sweat like a man and I'm too arthritic for a yoga mat, so I use our gel mat from the kitchen.  (Yeah, all the young skinny girls wanna be like me!)  Usually I work out at home, alone, after everyone else has gone to bed.  Not because I'm ashamed or anything.  It's just, that's my time to Netflix binge, and exercising without being entertained by TV is just weird.

As we wrap up summertime, I'm going to take a minute to review the highlights.

Ren Faire!

We got a pet mouse.  (Read: the snake didn't want him.) 

He's actually a really friendly little guy.  Hand-tame and everthang.

Berry pickin'!

Ripley's Believe It or Not Odditorium!

Did some more crafty stuff.

Nature Boy grew an awesome garden.

And he started a wire wrapped jewelry business!
If you'd like to buy one of his necklaces, send me an email at yeahisaiditblog{at}gmail.com.  You can choose your stone from several options, and the price is $15 shipped. 
(The pendants below have already sold.)
We're considering a family Etsy shop, but for now, we're set up to take Paypal.

That's all I got!  I hope you've enjoyed your summer.  Please leave a comment sharing one of your favorite activities of the summer, or tell me something you're looking forward to this fall.

Spanked by the Bible Belt

This is our 7th year of homeschooling.  It's also our 7th year as members of a non-denominational Christian homeschool support group.  And by Christian, I mean Protestant.  And by Protestant, I mean evangelical.

I've learned a lot as a member of this group.  A lot of good things, about homeschooling and parenting and praying for others.  Several members of the group were a big support while I was taking care of my grandma.

There is another--not so warm and fuzzy--thing I learned as a result of joining my homeschool group.  It is that many evangelical Christians don't consider Catholics to be Christians.

You might be thinking, duh!  But it was news to me.

I've lived in 5 states.  Attended non-denominational Christian churches as a kid.  Went to Baptist church as a teen.  Attended college away from home.  And have lived in the very buckle of the Bible Belt for 15 years. But I never heard that there are fellow Christians who deny the Christianity of Catholics until I joined this homeschool group.

Worse, my 12 year old son has only had to deal with religious intolerance because we are members of this group.  He's never come up against it anywhere else.

So we've decided to leave the group.

I probably should have left the first few times I heard other moms make anti-Catholic comments.  They did it craftily though ("but I know YOU'RE a Christian!"), and each time, I assumed they were just ignorant and didn't represent the group as a whole.

But the comments kept coming.  Little remarks here and there.  Totally different moms.  And then Nature Boy's homeschool co-op friends said some things to him.  It was increasingly getting on my nerves.  Then last month I talked to another Catholic member of the group at a party.  I found out she had experienced the same thing I had, and that she and two other Catholic members had already left the homeschool group for that reason.  

My eyes were opened.

I have always considered my group to be the best one in town, certainly the best Christian homeschool group.  I didn't want to leave the group in an angry huff, so I asked a long-time friend and leader in the group for her perspective.

I was shocked to discover that she felt the same way the other moms did.

I'm grateful that she was honest with me, because now I know why I never fit in.  Why I always felt like an outsider in the group.  Part of it is just that I am more liberal than most of the group members are--but another part of it is that this is a Christian-only group, and several members don't believe Catholics are Christians.

Making the decision to leave the group was a process.  I was pissed at first.  Especially on my son's behalf. I worked through that anger, forgave the haters, and moved on.

Now I feel a peace about it.  It's the right decision.

There are some Christians who seem to have judgment and prejudice as religious doctrines.  As if castigating others somehow makes themselves more holy.  I choose not to hang out with people like that. It's the opposite of my experience of Christianity.  And if I, a Catholic Christian, feel that way, imagine how non-Christians are experiencing these people's attempts to show them Jesus.  

As Tobuscus says, "Fail!" 

The Reluctant Unschooler

This is a post I wrote about a year ago for Christian Unschooling.  I didn't publish it to my own blog at that time.  I'm doing so now--with an update in the next two paragraphs.

Our homeschool is always changing.  My education philosophy can be reduced to two words: whatever works.  I believe that's different for every child and every family.  I'm learning that it's also different for an individual child and an individual family over time.  Our homeschool looks different now than it did a year ago when I wrote the post below.  We're still unschooly, in that there's a lot of flexibility and freedom (and fun!) built into our homeschool.  But we're not purists.  We just do whatever works for whatever we're working on at that particular time.  We discuss our options.  Try a few things.  Discard a few things that don't work.  And basically muddle our way through until something clicks.  (Or until we give up in frustration and go to the zoo instead...)

I love our life.  But it has its anxieties.  I'm forever freaking out about math, Nature Boy's nemesis.  I worry that some family members think that my son's struggles with writing and math are caused by homeschooling.  That if I were a real teacher, he wouldn't still be struggling.  In my heart I know that learning disabilities are real.  Being at school wouldn't magically solve the challenges that come with them. But I'm also aware that I don't know everything.  (Just most things...)  And that's where tutors come in!  We had great results with a spelling tutor last year and currently, with a math tutor.  He's awesome!  He's an engineer, but in a very unengineery way, he is able to get all creative with introducing mathematical concepts.  He gets how my son learns.  It's not formulaic or traditional (duh!), but conceptual and real worldy.  (The technical term.)  He is excited to work with Nature Boy because we don't follow a traditional curriculum for math.  He's not limited to only offering homework help or to one certain way to do math problems, according to what a teacher wants.  I think they are both learning from each other.        

And now for the original post.

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We didn't intend to homeschool.

Our son attended pre-k and kindergarten in public school. I had the typical my baby's going to school all day pangs, but that was the norm, so I dealt with it. Pre-k was fairly smooth, but things started getting bumpy in kindergarten.

One day my little guy came home from school and said, “Mom, would you please homeschool me? School is chaos!” Tears became part of our bedtime routine, crowding out our stories and prayers. I was at a loss. I'd loved school as a child. I couldn't understand what was causing our son so much anxiety.

I started researching homeschooling and began husband negotiations. (He took a little convincing at first.) We agreed to try homeschooling for first grade and then reevaluate. We've never looked back.

Our early homeschooling style was influenced by some of Ruth Beechick's writings. I really liked her simple approach: a relaxed focus on the 3Rs with lots of free time and read-alouds. I followed her guidelines for 1st-3^rdgrade (except for the copy work, as my son has dysgraphia). During this time, I noticed how naturally learning was occurring in other areas.

I also noticed that as time went on, my boy wasn't enjoying learning as much. The more we relied on structured curriculum and worksheets, the more frustrated and learning-averse he became. Once again I was confused. The textbook/workbook method of learning worked for me in school, so why wasn't it working for him? (Apparently I considered myself the Standard of Normal.) :D

I learned about unschooling when my son was in 3rd grade. To be honest, the idea freaked me out! My son experienced public school as chaos, but that's what unschooling sounded like to me. Even so, by this time we'd tried everything else. We'd discovered other learning differences (dyslexia and dyscalculia) and I realized that I was going to have to step outside of my comfort zone and be the homeschool mom my son needed--even if it made me go prematurely gray!

It has taken me a few years to really get comfortable with our nontraditional path. The best advice I've ever been given about homeschooling (and parenting!) is this:

God knows the plans He has for our children. He created them to be perfectly suited for what He is calling them to do in their lives. Our job is to help our kids discover what God's purpose for them is, and to aid them in acquiring the knowledge and skills they need to follow their calling.

If we spend all of our time trying to remediate our children's academic "weaknesses", we won't be helping them to develop their strengths. And their strengths are what God is going to use.

Grammar Rap!

I know, I know.  I'm supposed to be on a summer hiatus, but the summer sun is triggering a mini bipolar bonanza o' creativity, and I figure I'd better capitalize on it while it lasts.

Nature Boy's a creative, unconventional learner.  And I am, well, just unconventional in general. 

As part of our homeschooling, he and I have been working on a grammar rap video.  It took a million takes (blooper montage forthcoming!), but we got it.  And two of his homeschool buddies provided backup!

For the record, I know I suck at rapping.  I just do it for the laughs.  For the sheer lunacy.  For the total irony that I'm a middle-aged white homeschooling mom living in the suburbs smackdab in the middle of the Bible Belt, and I'm rapping. 

And I am fully aware that my alter ego looks more like Bozo the Clown's crazy cousin than a sista with a 'fro.

But that just adds spice to the crazy stew.

So, without further ado, I present GRAMMAR RAP!

Of conventions and crap I don't wanna hear

Are y'all tiring of my homeschool-related musings?  Are you all, "Enough already with the namby pamby kumbayah crap! Get back to making fun of people and writing songs and poems about poop and idiots!"?

Well, too bad.  'Cause I'm finna break it down again, homeschool-style. 

I can't help it.  I'm fresh from a homeschool convention.  Nah, not a hippie unschooling convention.  Much as I'd like to go!  I've been drooling over a certain unschooling conference for 3 years now.  But alas, I'm too broke to attend.  The Rethinking Everything conference is all about freedom.  Only it costs $150 a person to go, including children. 

Which proves the point that freedom is, in fact, not free.

So Nature Boy and I attended a more affordable convention for the bargain price of $49.  (Tree Guy couldn't go because he has to work to bankroll us freeloaders.)  We both had a good time.  A lot of moms go to homeschool conventions for the curriculum booths.  They get discounts on next year's curriculum if they buy at a convention. 

I go for the beer.

(Just kidding.  Beer is gross.)

(Now, if they offered Lambrusco....)

On a serious tip, the real reason I go to homeschool conventions is the sessions.  Attending those classes takes me back to my nerdy 4.0-having school days.  I LEARN new stuff, and I get to TAKE NOTES!  (Wheeee!)  Sometimes a speaker really, er--speaks to me.  There were two women at this year's convention who opened my eyes/mind/heart.  I'll share about one of them today, and the other in a separate post.

One messenger I felt like shooting spoke about being the mother of teen boys.  She said there's a change a-coming, and we have to roll with it or get left in the dust.  When moms of adolescent boys cling to their itty bitty cutie-poos, what often happens is the opposite of what they intended. 

She said, "We can choose to try to hold on to what we cannot keep (the little boy), or we can embrace that which has to come (the man he is becoming)."  And she said that if we don't let go, we will either end up with a grown up little boy who forever needs his mommy, or a son with a hardened heart who continues to push us away.

And I was like, DANG!  I don't want to give up kisses and hugs and spontaneous hand-holding and hair-smoothing and snuggling on the couch and deep conversations.  I love that stuff.  I live for that stuff.  It makes me tear up just to type it.  To think that in a few short years, my boy will be pulling away.  To think that that's exactly what he is supposed to do! 

How do moms survive the heartbreak of the teenage boy?  Of snubs.  Of avoiding kisses and hugs.  Of suddenly being embarrassed to be seen with mom.  You know, the woman who gave you life and changed your poopy diapers and let you in her bed when you had a nightmare and stayed up with you all night when you were sick and wipes all your tears away and is your biggest fan and would die for you!  (Ugh, tears again.)

Yet, according to this speaker, letting go is necessary.  It's essential to let our adolescent boys take the lead in determining the amount of closeness and affection and sharing.  If we desire a close and loving relationship with our grown sons, we have to accept (endure!) the inevitable separation from us that is part of becoming a man.   

And that sucks!

But it's probably true.

Which does not make it suck any less. 

Have you gone through the teen years with your son and lived to tell the tale?  If so, please share!

 

At what age does real life start?

This month at Christian Unschooling, we're sharing our initial concerns about jumping off the Tradition Train and embracing a relaxed learning lifestyle for our kids.  As you know, I'm prone to all manner of neuroses, so this month's topic was right up my alley.

Check it out.
 

Big girl friendships - part deux

I've written before about the difficulties of making new friends when you're a grownup.  It can be hard to break into an existing group, especially if that group formed back in Ms. Childers' 3rd grade classroom.  Trying to join a group of old friends can feel like a particularly painful game of Red Rover.  You start out standing tall, but end up on your ass.

I had a lot of friends during my school years.  When Tree Guy and I moved to another state for a job after college, I assumed the friend procurement process would continue to flow smoothly.  Nope.

I remember that feeling of loneliness and near-desperation.  Just one!  Just one friend and I'd be happy, I thought.  Someone to chat with, to share a cup of coffee with, to see a chick flick with, to talk books with.  How hard can it be to find one new friend?

Once I made one friend, more came along.  That's a curious thing.  No one wants to be friends with a singleton, but add one friend and suddenly she's got the Girl Seal of Approval for Potential Friendship.  If there were friendship reviews, I imagine mine from that period would be something like the following:

5/2/1999 subrbanhippee08
Danielle is a little desperate for get-togethers, but otherwise she seems okay.  A little crazy maybe.  Keeps mentioning something called OCD and that she still loves watching Beverly Hills, 90210.  That's weird, but she makes really good cake.

6/14/1999 acctntchick$$$
Just met Danielle today through a mutual friend.  She told me Danielle would be a goofball, and she was right.  I wish she could be a little more serious.  Does she not realize that she is a white person?  Don't think I've ever met a rapping white woman in person before.

7/26/1999 frmrsdaughter#1
Met Danielle at a baby shower today.  She knows nothing about gardening or homesteading, but she does like a good book.  Maybe we'll have more in common.  She said she's an animal lover.  I wonder if she likes rabbit stew? 

Because I remember well my former friendless state, I make a point of welcoming new folks to the fold.  I'm the person who notices and chats with the new girl.  And it's not just some act of charity either.  A lot of the time, I don't feel like I fully fit in with whatever group I'm with, so it's actually a relief to take a break and meet someone new.  I know that it's harder to introduce yourself to strangers than it is to be introduced by a mutual friend, so I try to spread the love.  And that's not exactly selfless either--I like the convenience of having all my friends together in one place!  I'm all for efficiency, yo.

Which is why I'm super excited about a new group I'm starting with a few friends.  We call it the Homeskool Mafia, but it actually has little to do with homeschooling.  (And approximately nothing to do with the mafia.)  We just wanna hang out together during the day when all the suckas normal folk are at work and school.  I spent a ridiculous amount of time last night cartooning all the inaugural members.  For fun, and for the eventual t-shirts I hope we have made.

Check it out.

Confessions of a Homeskool Mafia Queen

I'm just gonna say it:  I don't think I'm a very good homeschool mom.

For real.

(P.S.  This is a self-flagellation instrument.)
(P.S.S. Don't ever try to look for self-flagellation images on Google.  Just don't.) 

I don't homeschool because I think I can do a better job than people who have trained for years.  I don't operate under the delusion that under my superior tutelage, my son's learning disabilities will magically disappear.  I don't think that homeschooling is for everyone.  Or that it is a panacea for society's ills.  Or that it produces high-achieving super children who will one day rule the world.  Or that people who don't homeschool are subpar, half-assed parents.

I homeschool because that's what my child needs. 

And (most of the time) it's fun.

And (some of the time) it's satisfying.

I don't think I'm alone in occasionally wondering, Am I really the kind of person I want my kid to be around all day?!

Sometimes the answer is a straight-up NO.  I'm moody and sarcastic and tired a lot, and I have an irreverent sense of humor.  And I suck at consistency.

This lack of consistency is at the heart of my assertion that I'm not a good homeschool mom.

My son likes my zaniness, my we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-rules approach to life.  He's grateful that I don't force him to try to be someone he's not.  That I'm more than OK with quirks and goofball antics and controversial statements.  That I value humor and creativity.  He admires that I stand up for what is right (as long as I don't embarrass him in the process!).  He likes having a fun mom.

But does Fun Mom get things done?  Does Fun Mom cover all the stuff that her kid is going to need to get into (and stay in) college if he decides to go?  Is Fun Mom the ideal homeschooling parent?

The Magic 8 Ball says, "Reply hazy; try again."

The truth is, I don't think I'm the ideal anything.  I just don't know that I can be different than I am.  I don't think I can be that person who sits at a table for 4 or 6 hours reading through textbooks and going over workbook pages. 

My son is not that person either.  He needs to be interested in what he's learning.  He needs to move around and change course and interrupt.  He needs to create and laugh and roam.  Sometimes he needs to have his head on the floor and his feet in the chair.  None of these traits are conducive to a good classroom experience.

Even though I know this, I still worry.  (Oh, the ANXIETY!)  I so wish I could be a confident homeschooling mom.  I don't know how they do it.

Can an imperfect, moody, inconsistent mom be a good homeschool mom? 

If homeschooling was a competition, I certainly don't think I'd win any awards.

I can only hope that I am a good enough homeschool mom.  That my imperfect way of teaching and raising my boy is the right way for him.  I have to endeavor to be the mom and teacher that he needs--even if it means I don't measure up to the professionals.

I can only trust that God knew what He was doing when He gave us each other.

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This post is linked up at:

Kicking and screaming: an unschooling story

Hey peeps!  Have I mentioned that I'm one of the writers at the newly relaunched Christian Unschooling website? 

If you'd like to find out how we stumbled into this thing we call unschooling, click the button below.  (Yes, there will be cartoons!)

Can't blame this on the public schools

Nature Boy loves him some meat.  So he wrote a haiku about it.  Like to hear it?  Here it go.


Meat*

Bacon, steak, and ham.
Juicy, succulent meat - yum.
Poor little cow.  Aww.


He also loves him some dairy.  It is an unrequited love.


Dairy

Oh, dairy.  Why me?
Making my butt erupt.  (Groan.)
Dairy sucks a lot.


Which brings us to the final haiku of the day.


Farts
Volcano butt.  (Pfft.)
Smelly gas comes out my BLEEP.
Boy, do I like farts.

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*I helpfully pointed out to Nature Boy that bacon and ham do not come from cows.  He sensically replied that "animal" has 3 syllables and haikus require a certain sparsity of sound.  Ergo, the cow remains.

My shy, retiring boy would also like me to share this picture with you.  You're welcome.

Motherhood: an adventure in idiocy

What fun would parenthood be if not for all our ineptitude and foibles?  I don't know about you, but I make mistakes all the time. 

Some of them were garden variety new parent gaffes: 

1.  not realizing that boy babies kamikaze pee when their diapers are removed (read: my newborn peed on his own head) 
2.  the abrupt formula change to "Good" Start  (read: a black and grey storm of poo all over my lap)
3.  nipping Nature Toddler's ear while giving him a home haircut (read: haircut avoidance forevermore)

Some of them were no-excuses plain stupidity on my part:

1.  letting my 6-year-old be a Big Boy and hold the gas pump (read: gas in the eye = an ER visit)
2.  searching for a roly-poly sippy cup in the car while driving--in a construction zone (read: the road crew had one less orange and white construction sign and my car had one less side mirror)
3.  checking out the evenness of my eyebrows whilst driving with my preschooler in the backseat (read: street sweepers are like TANKS, y'all)   

My parenting mistakes are varied, but they share one thing.  They all happened because I have no idea what I'm doing. 

I'm making this parenting thing up as I go along.  And that's because the closest thing I can find to a parenting expert whose philosophy meshes with mine is Ms. Frizzle.  And she is a CARTOON.

My particular maternal screw-ups change with each developmental stage.  Which happily means that I am no longer making poor feeding and diapering decisions.  (Yea!)  But it also means that I am now effing up in the areas of tween social skills and Preparing My Child for College and Therefore Life. (Boo!)

And you know, the social skills thing was inevitable.  I mean, what business do I have teaching anybody how to get along with folks?  It's hard to credibly teach your kid proper social etiquette and healthy conflict resolution when your own personal history involves getting the PoPo called on you in a senior living community and participating in a Shout Out at the Golden Corral.   

But I can live with that.  Because fortunately for Nature Boy, he's got his dad to teach him that stuff.  Tree Guy likes people and can handle conflict without getting all red-faced and loud.  He confidently deals with gun-toting rednecks who threaten to shoot him for cutting down their trees on a regular basis!

My particular parenting nemesis at this stage of development is in the education realm.  Homeschool moms have the added blessing of getting to make up the education thing as we go along.  (Huzzah!)  And that's a huge responsibility. 

We're dealing with some learning challenges at my house, and I have been at a loss for years.  While practicing the art of self-flagellation, I ask myself: Will we ever master the math monster? How important is paper and pencil math in the age of calculators anyway?  Are my slackadaisical* ways messing up my kid's chances for college?  Am I even worthy enough to clean the chalkboards of real homeschool moms?  (Okay, I was exaggerating with that last bit.  Kind of.)

Homeschooling the traditional way is as exciting as toilet rings and pap smears to me.  And Nature Boy agrees (with the exception of the whole pap smear thing).  He's a round peg, which is wonderful.  But college is a square hole, and he says he wants to go.  Not for the sake of going to college, but rather because it's the ticket to the type of job he wants to have when he grows up (zookeeper). 

So what's a neurotic homeschool mom to do? 

Feel free to weigh in. 

Unless you're all holier-than-thou and critical, in which case you should be forewarned that I am a sweaty fat chick on the edge.   

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*Hey!  I just made that up!  I am hereby coining the word slackadaisical. 

slackadaisical [ slàkə dáyzik'l ] (adj.)
First known use: 2012
A slang derivative of the words lackadaisical and slacker.
1. without interest or vigor, combined with an overall goal of doing as little as possible
2. lazy; unindustrious and unconcerned about being so
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There.  You are witnessing history here, folks!

You're welcome.

In a homeschool rut

We love the homeschooling lifestyle.  I get to wear denim jumpers with tennies everyday and my guys shower me with gratitude for taking on the responsibility of educating our son.  Nature Boy speaks four languages and is working on a patent for his formula for non-toxic girl repellent. Tree Guy comes home to a clean house and a delicious warm meal every evening.  And one of our dogs is a math whiz.

Even with all of this, I am in a season of low motivation.  Meaning, I don't want to do any school.  Period.  Which would be understandable if we'd been busting our (intellectual) butts all year, but we haven't.  And that means I haven't earned the right, nay the privilege, to be burned out on homeschooling.  And neither has Nature Boy. 

Surely there's only so much burnout to go around, so we must be crashing somebody else's pity party.  Some other homeschool family has been slaving over textbooks and worksheets and book reports all year, while Nature Boy and I have been watching too much TV, playing at the theater, and baking crap that is totally screwing with my Weight Watcher's plan.  And here we are, taking away the only thing left to them--their right to feel burnout.

To them I say:  Sorry, suckers!  Can I have some of your energy and motivation, please?

Zoo day!

Nature Boy and I are all for fun masquerading as education. How awesome is it that homeschoolers can go to the zoo and check it off as a school day?! Wahoo!

I'm one of those weird girls who thinks frogs, toads, and bats are cute.  So I stalk them.  I took this picture after scaring off all the other bats.

My mom, GC Brawler, and I were trying to remember the name of the shade of blue in the picture below.
 
Her:  I really like that color blue.  I can't remember the name of it.
Me:  Is it cobalt blue? 
Her:  No. 
Me:  Cornflower blue? 
Her:  No.
Me:  Teal?
Her:  No.
Me:  That's all I got. 

A week later...

Oh yeah.  It's PEACOCK blue. 

(Duh.  That reminds me of the garbanzo bean/chickpea gaffe.)

Nature Boy's crush.  Ain't she cute?

Sometimes Christians get on my nerves

It’s Plank Pullin’ time! The one day a week that we strongly resolve to ignore the multitude of specks and sawdust around us and pull one bona fide plank from our own eye. Matthew 7:3-5 style.

I'd like to start off by saying that I am a Christian.  Yes, contrary to popular belief here in the Bible Belt, Catholics are Christians.  Yep, all of us.

If I hear, "Well, SOME Catholics are Christians..." again (seriously, that is so offensive), I'm going to hog-tie the offender with some rosary beads.  We believe in the Holy Trinity, that Jesus is the messiah prophesied in the Bible, that He died for the forgiveness of sins, and that He will come again.  We believe the basic tenets of Christianity.  That faith makes us Christians.         

I wasn't raised Catholic.  I spent most of my early years in uncomplicated non-denominational Christian bliss.  I joined the Catholic Church 15 years ago for family unity with my cradle-Catholic husband.  Making the Protestant-to-Catholic switch isn't so difficult when you come from a non-denom background.  I don't believe that Jesus cares about denomination. 

I have no interest in sitting in judgment of my fellow Christians--deeming this person fit for Heaven and that one fit for that other place.  But it seems to be a popular pastime among Christians today.  It's like that joke that has cycled through each religious group.

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A man dies and enters Heaven.  On his tour, he is taken by several rooms.  As he and his angelic guide pass the first room, loud laughter erupts and delicious smells waft from the door.  The man asks the angel, "Who's that in there?"  The angel replies, "Oh, those are the Methodists.  They love their fellowship!"  They move onto the next room, where the man again hears laughter and also detects the distinct smell of alcohol.  He remarks, "Beer?  In Heaven???"  The angel replies, "Those are the Catholics.  They like to party."  At the door to the next room, the angel whispers, "Be very quiet.  These are the Baptists (or Presbyterians, or Lutherans, or Pentecostals, etc).  They think they're the only ones here."
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If someone tells me she is a Christian, I am inclined to believe her.  That's between her and God.  Is it too much to ask to expect the same in return?

Nature Boy has been experiencing some of this Christian bigotry himself.  In our area, belief in a young earth is seen as the only way a true Christian CAN believe.  If you believe in old earth creationism (as in the day-age theory), your faith is suspect.  (I think it's okay to say, "I don't really know."  It's possible to have faith without having all the answers.)  The word "evolution" is a cuss word here. It no longer means, "a gradual change over time." Forget discussions about adaptation or changes within species. If you say "evolution", people assume you're talking about the origin of man. It's just better all around not to utter the word lest you be proclaimed a heretic. 

Today a boy in our Christian homeschool group told my son that Pokemon cards are of the devil, as God doesn't create monsters.  When Nature Boy said, "Do you really think Pikachu is evil?!", the boy said, "Don't even say their names!  They're demonic!"  He then stated that Yu-Gi-Oh! cards have a demon attached to each card!  Whah?!  This boy, long a friend of Nature Boy's, told my son that his mom doesn't think Nature Boy is good for him, and that in fact, she really doesn't like him very much at all.

All that Pokemon playing makes him a bad influence, apparently.

So where is this plank you're supposed to be pullin', you ask?

I'm just so angry.  I'm tired of having my Christianity questioned, and I'm beyond tired of the religious prejudice that my son has to deal with at our homeschool group of all places.  Do we not even fit in there?!  (Catholics may like to party, but it sure doesn't start in childhood.  The Catholic homeschool group in town is boring.)

But even if my anger is justified, I don't think God wants me to hold onto it.  And I do.  I keep that flame at a slow burn so that it's ready to flare up when needed.  As a result, when someone invariably makes a comment that I find offensive, I respond defensively.  And that doesn't help anything.  I don't want to create a new Catholic stereotype:  the angry, ranting Catholic Convert.

Because I don't drink, so I wouldn't be able to blame it on the booze.

Learning about learning (wait, what?)

My wonderful husband (who probably doesn’t remember his offhanded comment, but I do because I’m a woman and we remember EVERYTHING) once helpfully pointed out to me that I spend a lot of time reading about teaching and learning, but I don’t seem to actually DO much with what I learn. His observation wasn’t limited to homeschooling. No, apparently I while away my days greedily sucking up all manner of knowledge which I then jealously hoard. (Or perhaps I’m reading too much into his remark…)

And to be honest, I do love knowledge for its own sake. No action required. But some knowledge just begs to be put to good use.

If I hadn’t spent months, nay years, wading through stacks of books on education theory, learning styles, learning differences/disabilities, homeschooling styles, how the brain works, etc., I wouldn’t have tried and discarded the 5,478,309 different ways to homeschool before discovering that unschooling is our golden ticket. I would’ve simply ordered school-in-a-box for my son’s grade level and insisted he read all the textbooks and fill out all the workbooks according to the curriculum’s schedule. Because everyone knows that that’s the way it’s done.

When he struggled with the traditional methods (and he would have, because he learns differently than the “average” kid), I would’ve accused him of being lazy or not trying hard enough, and our relationship would have suffered. His sense of self would have been damaged. He would have decided that there is something wrong with him, and that learning is always hard and unrewarding.

And we chose homeschooling to avoid that.

Kids are more than little walking brains for us to fill with information. I want to speak to my son’s spirit–the essence of who he is–in addition to feeding his mind. That requires that I one, know who he is, and two, reach him where he is. When I’m able to let go of my own worries and expectations and follow his lead, I am reassured that he IS learning (all the time!), and his accomplishments are even more satisfying to him because they are truly his own.

So I don’t regret the time I spent learning about learning. It has borne fruit in what I have decided not to do. And I’m not done yet! To put it in teacher-speak, it’s my continuing education.
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This post can also be found at christianunschooling.com.

Unschooling: finding your inner hippie

Do you ever find yourself thinking, What the heck is unschooling?  And who are these crazy hippies who practice it?  And don't they know they are involved in a social experiment that will probably cause their children to be illiterate/on welfare their whole lives/never bathe/talk to themselves in public places/not know how to socialize with other people/never get married and have children of their own/end up in jail/or living in a cardboard box by the library which is ironic since they won't be able to read?

Or are you of the renegade variety yourself, so you find yourself thinking, What the heck is unschooling?  And who are these marvelous trend-setters who practice it?  And where do they get the chutzpah to buck tradition and follow an uncharted path?  And don't they know that it's their duty as Superheroes of Awesomeness to tell us all about this social experiment that is producing these wonderfully creative/self-guided learners/with amazing social skills/who spend their days exploring their passions and interacting with other people?

(As a card-carrying "bipole", I'm certain that it's only possible to feel one of these two extremes.)

Silly Nature Boy, dissected sheep hearts are friends, not food!

Wanna know how we do it?  I recently guest posted over at ChristianUnschooling.com.  Check it out.

Flashback Friday: No place like home

Have I mentioned that I'm really digging this Flashback Friday thing?  It's a total slacker tool.  I heart it.

This post was written about a year ago. 

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No Place Like Home

I am feeling so grateful tonight.

I met the leader of my homeschool group tonight for coffee and conversation about her experiences homeschooling her six children, several of whom have learning differences. She has dyslexia herself, so I was really excited to hear her perspective. I sipped my caramel latte and listened to her calming words. What she said made so much sense.

One thing that stood out was the idea that the popular method of educating children is backwards. The elementary years are spent focusing on mechanics or skills, such as handwriting, spelling, and calculation. By the time kids are teenagers and can finally use their creative gifts (such as in projects and creative writing and daily arts classes), they've lost a lot of that spark and inherent love of learning. They've been so bogged down in basics that they've forgotten how joyful and rewarding learning can be.

Young kids are naturally creative and eager to do what they're good at. They don't get a lot of time and space to excel in their unique strengths in today's elementary schools. What if things were reversed and kids focused on creativity and content in elementary school while saving the skill study for the teen years? Perhaps this would preserve their love of learning.

Perhaps learning "disabilities" would be much less common. The late bloomers would have those extra years to develop readiness for serious study. There are no science or history learning disabilities. There aren't physical education learning disabilities either--and we all know that kids (and adults) vary widely in physical skill. Might learning problems be a timing issue?

I'm grateful for this mentoring. I needed it! I feel like I have some direction now.

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I am also thankful that my family and I are safe from the tornado that went over our town this evening! My husband and son were at home when the tornado sirens went off. My friend and I were at the coffee shop and didn't hear the sirens. We kept chatting, oblivious to all but the torrential rains (in the weatherman's words) that started as we were arriving. Suddenly Panera Bread's baristas ushered us into the walk-in fridge. Sardined in and freezing with 15 of my closest strangers. There were a couple of aging hippies, a 8 1/2 months pregnant woman who'd been contracting for 2 weeks, a shaking, weepy teenage girl, and a partridge in a pear tree. I was cracking jokes to lighten the mood (and heat the air?) when we got the news that the tornado warning was over.

I must need an ear candle because I didn't hear my cell phone ring either. Yes, to make matters worse, J was freaking out because he and his dad (carrying our anxious 40 pound dog) were heading over to the neighbors' storm shelter (in the aforementioned torrential rain) and he wasn't sure I'd be safe. My husband and my mom each called several times, but I didn't hear a thing. Which freaked J out even more. By the time I noticed my missed calls and called home, J was almost hysterical with worry. Poor little guy. I came home and got a big, relieved hug from my boy and a dog water-shake from Raven. I think my husband might have collapsed on the bed in exhaustion.

Ahhh. There's no place like home.

The battle of the sexes

Or as kids call it today, The Boy/Girl War.

It started back when Eve passive-aggressively gave Adam fruit from the forbidden tree.  (I think she must have resented her secondary role.)  Perhaps it went something like this.

Until my son went to kindergarten, most of his friends were girls.  And that's because most of my friends have daughters.  He didn't wear tutus or play with Polly Pocket, but early on, he didn't discriminate when it came to friends.

Then he went to public school.  And I started hearing about The Boy/Girl War.  Apparently, this is a very serious activity, one that requires strategy and military precision.  The Boy/Girl War involved groups of boys and girls sabotaging each other's projects at recess.  The girls would "bake cookies" in a hollowed out tree, and the boys would raid the tree-oven and stomp on the cookies.  The boys would build a fort out of sticks and limbs, and the girls would kick it all down.  Then the boys would chase the girls, and vice versa.  It was probably the only thing my son liked about kindergarten.

I thought it was a public school thing.  I was all, "School is like Lord of the Flies!  Homeschooled kids don't act like that!"

Yeah they do.

I'm sure there's some deep Freudian reason for this eternal conflict, but I have no idea what it is.  I only know that it's pretty entertaining to watch.

My best friend Shrinky Dink and I met at childbirth class.  Her eldest daughter (Thing 1) and Nature Boy are only a few days apart in age.  We didn't keep in touch after the classes were over, but when our babies were 6 months old, we ran into each other at our church's young mothers group.  We discovered we'd had the same OB/GYN, had delivered at the same hospital, went to the same church, both had degrees in the social service field, and were both born in Illinois, where our dads (but not our moms) still live.  We became instant friends. 

Since our kids were born in the same week, their birthday parties often happen on the same weekend.  Our respective parties went smoothly (except for that time Shrinky Dink unwittingly preheated her oven with a box of Krispy Kremes inside) until last year.

Below is a picture from last year in which Shrinky Dink brought a horde of female Rambo-impersonators to prank Nature Boy and the clueless group of boys we had over for an overnight birthday camp out.  They forked our yard (prompting a threat from our cranky next door neighbor to call the police), sprinkled glitter everywhere, flushed the boys out of their tent with air horns, and then went after them with Silly String.  It was an expert tactical maneuver. 

Yeah, they got us good.  They were very proud of themselves.  I think Shrinky Dink was prouder than the girls were.  The boys, however, could think of nothing but revenge.  They immediately began planning how to get the girls back. 

We played it cool, you know.  Hoping the girls would forget that we owed them one.  We waited A YEAR to return the favor.  On the day of this year's birthday sleepover, I pretended to be all cranky and fibromyalgia-y so Shrinky Dink would be scared of me kindly refrain from girl antics during the party.  (Yeah, I played the disability card.)  It worked.  Shrinky Dink made the mistake of going out to dinner, concerned about how my health would hold up to a crowd of rowdy boys, I'm sure.  I supplied the boys with prank rations and Tree Guy led the mission.  They did the toilet paper thing, the Silly String thing, and they wrote boy-promoting messages all over Shrinky Dink's driveway and house.

I'm woman enough to admit that their prank was better than ours.  But the girls should be aware that teenage boys are much better at pranking than pre-teen boys are.  We've got years to make it up to them.

All he ever wanted

Discovering musical theater has been a blessing for Nature Boy.  Life is hard for kids with dyslexia because so much of a kid's day is spent in school.  (Thank God for homeschooling!)  I think it's super duper important for kids to be able to spend even more time on their gifts and areas of strength than they do on their areas of weakness.  That's not what the schools say.  They're all, "You're messed up, kid.  And we're here to fix you."  Pshaw.  "Remediation" has its place for sure, but we can't let our kids' gifts and joys get shoved to the back of the closet.

The best homeschooling (and parenting)(and life) advice I ever received was that God knows what our purpose is, what our calling in life will be.  And we are created perfectly to suit that calling.  We are equipped/hardwired for the job we're meant for.  To me that means (you know, just off the top of my head) that a child whose tears are mixed with pencil lead while doing math problems, and who writes notes such as this one, isn't meant to be a mathematician.  And that's okay.

   
Every kid (and grownup!) needs to find his or her niche.  A place to shine.  Music and performing (and nature) are my son's.  Here's a video of Nature Boy performing a solo in his most recent musical.  (Note: If you have an email subscription, the video might not appear in the email.  Not sure why.)

Author stalkin'

Nature Boy and I went to a homeschool convention this past weekend.  Homeschool conventions consist of workshops on topics relevant to homeschoolers (how to sew denim jumpers, the joys of copywork, Social Skills Are for Sissies--stuff like that).  Just kidding, y'all.  The topics of the workshops are actually pretty interesting.  One of my favorite workshops of the weekend was "Rediscovering the Lost Art of Adventure for Boys".

In addition to workshops, there are curriculum booths with tons of textbooks to stock up on in case Armageddon comes and you need toilet paper or kindling.  I don't use a lot of packaged curriculum or textbooks (we're more the relaxed, real books type of homeschoolers), so I go to the conventions for the workshops.

Nature Boy and I were totally starstruck all weekend because our favorite children's book author was there!   

John R. Erickson is the author of the popular Hank the Cowdog series.  Each of the 57 books in the series is also available in audio book format.  In Nature Boy's opinion, the audio books are the way to go.  The author does all the voices on the audio books, and he writes and performs two songs per book.  "Hank" even has two greatest hits CDs.

Here's a little sample from Mr. Erickson's concert at the convention this weekend.  It's a song Hank the Cowdog sings as he ponders his options regarding the hen house.

***Crazy Fan Alert***

I have to confess, y'all.  We might possibly have made ourselves a little bit of a nuisance to poor Mr. Erickson this weekend.  We got not one, not two, but three books autographed; I unashamedly videotaped part of Mr. Erickson's concert from the second row; we asked him a million questions about where he got his inspiration for writing; we asked to take a picture with him; I volunteered to be the workshop hostess during his concert; AND I bought him lunch at Chick-fil-a.  As he was preparing to leave, I even offered to help him carry his stuff out.  He was all, "No, that's okay.  I'm good." 

What can we say?  We love books.

Click to enlarge.