Ordinary Time

In my homeschooling, I have a somewhat long history with Jules Verne. When W. was five or six, we participated in a biography fair, so we learned about Nellie Bly. (If you haven't ever heard of Nellie Bly, look her up. She was pretty darn amazing.) When Verne's Around the World in 80 Days came out, she was a newspaper reporter and decided to try to recreate his fictional trip. If memory serves, she managed to travel around the world in slightly less than 80 days. Since we were learning about Nellie Bly, I decided to read Verne's Around the World.  At this point in life, I read at lunch time. I figured if I gave everyone lunch, I then had a captive audience. It also helped that W. was an extremely precocious listener and the rest just came along for the ride. We had read Peter Pan a year before, and good golly that was a slog. I figured if we could all survive that then I could pretty much safely read anything. So I did.  We actually liked Around the World. We mapped out Phi

Today, I finished all the coursework required to earn my diploma in Equine Facilitated Learning through the Athena Herd Foundation . We still have one more class together, but I'm going to miss meeting with all of these people. They are such a fantastic group and it has been a joy to learn alongside them. The fact that this coursework was delivered virtually, was one of the pluses of the pandemic. I had classmates from all over... England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and New Zealand. Maybe someday I will get to meet some of them in person.  Listening to everyone's case study presentations today also confirmed that this is valuable work. Horses have an unique ability to create awareness in ourselves. It is that awareness that allows us to make positive changes in our lives. Plus, horses are just calming to be around, and who doesn't need periods of calm in their lives?  In a sense, doing the coursework and supervision and reading and practice sessions and case studies was th

For math this year, I have four children working through some of the Key to ___________ series . The blank can be filled in with fractions or decimals or percents or algebra. Y. is working on decimals and K., G., and L. are working on fractions. It's pretty much what I do for middle school math. Usually everyone had covered basic arithmetic by this point but they aren't quite ready for algebra. Fractions, decimals, and percents always seem to get short shrift in text books, yet they are concepts which I find children are still fuzzy about. (Okay, maybe I'm projecting here. I was certainly fuzzy about them when I hit algebra.) It has always seems well worth our time to spend these two years really shoring up understanding about how these concepts work.  There are several things I love about these series of books. First, they're inexpensive. They are little booklets printed on newsprint. There is nothing fancy about them, but there is nothing intimidating about them, eith

Ten thousand words later, I have all of my case studies written up and turned in. After all that writing, there was nothing left for the blog yesterday. That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about things, though.  In particular, I have been thinking about R. and her development. When she first came home five and a half years ago, her behavior was totally disorganized. We couldn't tell what was causing any of her behaviors and she couldn't tell us. She spent most of her time either disassociated or in a total reactionary state. There were times of pleasant engagement with her world, but they were fleeting. Everything seemed to be a trigger. When there is no cause and effect, it is extremely difficult to figure out what mitigation is needed.  Over time, as she eventually began to feel safe and to trust us, her behavior began to organize slightly. There were the beginnings of some rhyme or reason why she acted as she did, but often they were just glimmerings. It defini

Here is the newly completed climbing wall.  The holds we had in a box back in the Big Ugly House. J. had wanted to put them up somewhere on the third floor, but that never happened, so they moved along with us. L., not surprisingly, can climb right to the top. J. wants to fine tune the holds a bit, but other than that it is all set.  Another fun backyard activity to add to the zip line, the slack line, and the trampoline. I'm pretty sure that we do not fall into the over-protective parent category at this point. 

It's Friday and it's been six whole days since I have had to drive into the city. It's amazing how much time you seem to have when you aren't spending hours in the car. I am now looking forward to an entire weekend of not driving into the city. It's the little things. We have finished week two of school, and we are still on schedule. This feels like an accomplishment, given the hecticness of the last three weeks. We are enjoying Journey to the Center of the Earth, though every so often someone will ask a fact-checking question based on what we learned in our geology study, so we will pause and discuss it. It is sort of becoming a game of how many ways can my children catch Jules Verne out, but it does keep them listening. L. is working on becoming a survivalist... or something of that sort. She found a book on our shelves which tells all about making fires, braiding your own rope, foraging for foods, etc. She has created her own fire ring out by the burn pile and ha

This week went so much more smoothly. It is a huge relief. As you might remember, last week, being the good mom I am, I completely forgot R.'s after lunch medicine which helps with her anxiety. With the anxiety at bay, life is pretty calm. When the anxiety takes over, all bets are off, and the seizure train rolls into town. Which is exactly what happened last week. We made a very quick exit with me doing my best to keep R. upright so we could get to the car. Once we got home, I then proceeded to spend the next three hours sitting next to her on the couch to help her stay regulated. This worked as long as I was sitting next to her. The night was dreadful.  Today, we remember the medicine. I had multiple children remind me to grab the medicine which showed how much all of us did not want a repeat of last week. Also last week, on the spur of the moment, thought R. might like a third movement class so added her in. This was too much on top of not having her medicine, and it was in the

For someone who dismisses wholeheartedly the idea of worrying about a child's reading level, I seem to have a somewhat bizarre fixation with lexile scores. Perhaps it's because I still find it a bit unbelievable that they are even a thing. Perhaps it's because my pretty free range children chose an extremely wide assortment of reading material on their own, everything from picture books to graphic novels to comic books to novels aimed at adults. If we actually ate cereal and had it in the house, they would read cereal boxes, too. (Which caused me to wonder what the lexile score of a cereal box is. Yes, I googled it. No, you can't find it.)  Every so often, on a whim, I look up the lexile scores of books I have either read to them or a book they have read themselves. This is probably when my imposter syndrome tendencies take over and I need a little outside validation. When you are surrounded by people who make school so much more complicated than you do... more hours, m

Today is the full moon, which also means it is the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival. I've known the date for quite a while now, but that didn't stop me from scrambling at the last minute to pull something together. I rearranged the week's menu, so that we had an cabbage and sausage stir-fry for dinner along with Vietnamese cucumber salad. That was the easy part. This afternoon, after my riding lesson and shower, R., Y. and I headed to the Chinese market in hopes of finding moon cakes. (I knew from past experience that H-Mart was not the place to look at the last minute. This seems to be a habit with me.) Last year I had bought some moon cake molds with the grand idea that I would learn to make moon cakes myself. Since this afternoon was the day of the festival, clearly that didn't happen. The store was my last resort.  We did find some, though the options were very limited. They were lotus root flavored (I think). There were no black bean paste moon cakes or date moon cakes or

It was a late night because we were having a lovely time visiting with the H-S family who came over for dinner before heading back home. Consequently, this will be short. But I remembered there was something I was going to share yesterday about the previous week, but couldn't remember what it was until today.  I may have inadvertently taught my children that cats inhabit the center of the earth. Now, they, of course, do not really think cats are in the center of the earth, but the cats are what they are going to remember. It was all because of reading that in the magma layer, the molten layer acts like a liquid but under pressure becomes more solid. After I read that, I likened it to the non-Newtonian fluids that they have played with. Instead of thinking about playing with Oobleck, many of them announced, "Like cats!"  This is because my children believe cats to be a non-Newtonian fluid... hard under pressure (and often pointy), but liquidy when moving. Just like the ce

In the past three weeks, I have driven into Chicago/Evanston six times. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography, that little trek can take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half depending on exactly where one is going and what the traffic is like. It was a lot. And now, I think I'm home for a while, only doing my normal errands and getting to stay home. I am very excited. So, let'e briefly pretend it's Friday. The reason for this weekend's trips were because of a wedding (of a H-S family child) and because our friends, the H-S family were in town. The wedding was lovely. It's hard to beat a setting like this. If you look at the picture closely, you'll see the Chicago skyline through the arch. But despite all the driving, we have been getting school done as well. Our project on Friday was for everyone to paint the different parts of the interior of the earth. My children did point out the irony of using Styrofoam, which is definitely not earth friendl

Instead of moaning about how R. fell completely off the cliff at the end of co-op today, how we beat a hasty retreat the second my last class was done, and how I spent the next four hours helping her regulate on the couch only to have her fall off the cliff again at dinnertime, I'm going to moan about something different for a change... Dress clothes for the 12, 14, and 15 year old set.  I'm pretty sure that those of you with children in that age group are thinking they would much rather deal with extreme disregulation than go shopping for dress clothes with your child. I think I may be right there with you. We are going to a wedding tomorrow. The whole family. My children have really not gone very many places, and certainly nothing requiring anything more than jeans, in a year and a half. Plus, those children have grown many inches, so any appropriate clothing they do own (and at one point they all did), does not fit anymore. It's not even close. To avoid taking the childr

Last week, when I felt as though I had barely time to turn around, somehow I found myself cleaning out the toy closet in the loft. It was definitely one of those "If you give a mouse a cookie" moments. K. mentioned that he really wanted to get out the fall books, since we hadn't changed the picture books in a while. This caused to me to actually look inside the toy closet where the books are stored as well as toys. (Well, this would have happened regardless because I needed to collect some toy horse stable items for my Mom and Tot horse class the next day. K. just got me there a little sooner than I had planned.) There are some moments that you look at a drawer or room or closet and realize that you cannot do another thing until you deal with the disaster before you. This was one of those times. We emptied out the closet, did a little rearranging, got rid of toys that no one plays with anymore, and put it all back to rights so that the items inside could actually be acces

Two days.  Not three days, but two days. Let me explain why this is a big deal. For the past 5 1/2 years, anytime R. has descended into a disregulated emotional state that brings on seizures and psychosis, it would last for three full days before sanity returned. At the beginning, this would happen at least once a month if not more. Then it stretched out to once every couple of months. At the beginning of this year, it was once every four or five months. The stretching out of occurrences was positive, but the duration was always three full days. By day three all of us were pretty done in.  Today would have been day three for this latest occurrence. Today, while there were blips, R. participated in school, she ate all her meals, and I was able to safely leave for my riding lesson. This is an absolute first for her.  We've been doing a lot work naming feelings and then working on navigating those feelings. We talk about why she feels the need to run away from us when she is upset ins

Yesterday felt like an eventful day in more ways than one. It was also the first time in weeks that I felt as though I had a tiny bit of free time, even with R. going off the rails a bit. One thing I got to was to pick all of the jalapeno peppers that were in the garden so I could do something with them before they went bad. Last year I made cowboy candy with some of our peppers, which is a sweet-hot jelly that is extremely good served over cream cheese or goat cheese on crackers. I knew that I did not have the time or energy to do something that ambitious, so decided to just freeze all of them. (There was a pretty substantial amount given my complete abdication for gardening this year. J., W., and B. receive full credit for the fact we have anything we can use.) We really enjoy jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon, and it has become a New Year's Eve tradition for us to have them. They're a big pain to make, though, which is why we only have them once a year

P. turned 21 on Friday, though we didn't celebrate until tonight. I don't have pictures of the blowing out  candles because P. prefers to not be sung to and not have candles. I can't believe this child is 21 already, but it also feels as though she has been 21 for a while because of her maturity. P. is currently working as a riding instructor at the stable where I take lessons and is doing well. Her goal is to be able to afford to move out and into an apartment; she would prefer sooner rather than later.  As much as I know this is the right next step for her, when it happens I will miss her. She is funny and smart and I value her opinions on things. P. has also been hugely helpful in the care of R. Take yesterday, for instance. J. and I (and A.) drove into Evanston (my third trek into the Evanston/Chicago area in two weeks) because we needed to attend a memorial service. I truly did think that we would be home in time for dinner, and this is what we told everyone at home...

I am so glad it is Friday.  I have felt swamped all week with very little down time. The start of school was supposed to be the beginning of a calm and orderly schedule with a little room to breathe. So far, that hasn't been the case. I'm trying to figure out why because I cannot keep this up. As I write about the week, it might give me a clue as to what is going on. We all enjoyed our trip to the Shedd Aquarium. It was the most engaged I've ever seen R. on a field trip. so that was a plus. But being gone all day does make me feel a little behind because I haven't done all the little things I usually do as I go about my day. I am also incredibly happy to have gotten through so much fruit on Monday. My next project is to make a big batch of apple butter and can it. This is fairly easy as it cooks in the crockpot. I just have to plan two consecutive days to do it. One to get the apples ready to go into the crockpot, then the next, twenty-four hours later, to process all t

If you happen to work with families who are raising challenging children, either because of medical needs or emotional needs or both, here are some things to keep in mind.  1. Pretty much every parent in this population is doing the best they can. I don't know a single one who is sitting around eating bonbons and binge-watching TV shows instead of parenting their child. (Note I said instead of. I realize that these are perfectly viable coping mechanisms if you have succeeded in putting said child to bed.) Please do not imply that by not completely your paperwork that we are neglecting our children. There is a very good chance we are neglecting your paperwork because we are NOT neglecting our children. 2. If something on that paperwork seems to be in error, please for goodness' sake, recheck your own numbers first. This population, even if we do neglect paperwork when we can, has pretty much a doctorate in paperwork. We do not want to do any paperwork again. We are meticulous wh

Our first day of school went well. But then, I admit to setting us all up for success by actually not doing much at all. Children sorted through the school supplies, getting rid of what we didn't need for the year. I passed out new books, explained the year's schedule, and gave them their only assignment which was to decorate their notebooks for geology and Ancient Rome as they saw fit. It's hard to go too wrong with a morning like that. Oh, and they also started the Draw the World book which we are doing instead of cursive this year. They were pretty amused because to begin to learn to draw the continent of South America, it involved just two little squiggles on the page. Yes, the total sum of their learning for the day was to draw two little squiggles.  Oh, we also did a little bit more I guess. I also spent a little time with each child as we went over how they were going to each approach their individual learning projects for the fall. We looked at their main books they

Today was our annual not back to school day field trip. This year I decided we would go to the Shedd Aquarium. I knew it had been a while since we had visited the aquarium, but hadn't realized quite how long. During the day, Y. was 100% sure that she had never visited, so I figured that it had been six years or so. Nope, I just looked back at blog entries, and the last time we visited was in 2012 , the year H. came home. It has been nine years since we have gone! I'm not sure how that happened. Since I had many years there where I had a one-woman boycott against the Shedd due to their membership policies, it felt as though it was time to make this year's museum membership to be the Shedd because it had been a while since they had fixed their membership issue , and I should show my support by buying one.  We drove into the city this morning to meet our friends, the P Family . I drove not in the giant van, but J. and switched cars so I could take the newer, smaller one. Thi

It was Labor Day, so we labored. Labored processing bushels of fruit so that it didn't rot. J. and I did the bulk of the work, but children pitched in here and there. The total for the day?  18 cups of sliced peaches for pie (in the freezer) 16 cups of sliced apples for pie (in the freezer) 7 pints of caramel apple pie filling (canned) 21 quarts of applesauce (in the freezer) That used up about a half bushel of peaches and cleaned off the peach trees. (Those poor trees. They are so old and barely alive, but they managed to produce a significant amount of fruit this year. Children have been able to eat as many peaches as their hearts' desire, and how often does one get to do that? It feels like a last hurrah for the trees, though. I'm not counting on them making it through the winter.) We processed probably close to two bushels of apples, and we had probably used another bushel before today. You wouldn't know that we had picked any, though, because the trees are still lo

J. has stated a little project in the back yard that is as much for him as for the children. He is constructing a climbing wall that will go up the side of the playhouse.  The plywood and boards that are waiting in preparation. The cost of lumber has gone down a bit, making this all possible. L., who climbs everything she can, is the most excited and helped out a bit today painting the plywood.  Tomorrow is the day we have set aside to see how many of the apples and peaches we can preserve. We are completely inundated and hate to see any of it go to waste. 

I have five books that I am in the middle of. They are interesting books and mostly well-written, but I am just not getting through them. I'll read a few pages in one before I go to sleep, but that's more because I'm not sure I can fall asleep without reading a few pages first. Most of the spring and summer I have been on a non-fiction jag, doing a lot of reading about the brain, the mind, and emotions. But I think it is now time to take a break and let it all simmer in the background. We took everyone to the library today (because they didn't have enough books to read... this happens every couple of days), and I went and browsed the shelves and brought home some non-serious fiction. I want to not work at reading a book and just enjoy it. I'm hoping these books will do the trick.  What will also help, I think, is that all of my lesson planning for everything is done. That would be three co-op classes, two unit studies, and a new horse class. It was a lot. I will be

There are so many things that I just assume people realize, which, as J. is often pointing out to me aren't necessarily as obvious as I think they are. For my own sanity, here are some of the ones I've bumped up against recently. In no particular order, and actually no particular theme. This is a total brain dump. It is also somewhat harsh as I get it out of my system. If you are feeling tender at the moment, you might want to skip this post. Something a child has learned on their own is just as valid something that was taught to them. Possibly even more so. It is traumatic... actually extremely traumatic... for a child to change families, cultures, and languages all in one fell swoop. Three year old (or 18 month olds or two year olds) are not reasonable creatures.  If you are homeschooling, the parent will actually have to pitch-in and do some teaching. There is really no such thing as behind in terms of learning. A child can only do what they are capable of at that moment in