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October 31, 2005
My Life Right Now
Sunday: Ate Oreos. Still alive.
Monday: Ate at Burger King. Still alive.
Stay tuned ...
Posted by lynx at 4:25 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Citizenship Test
| You Passed the US Citizenship Test |
 |
Posted by lynx at 4:13 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
October 29, 2005
Sheriff Woody, Nudist
Here is the conversation I had with my 3 year old as I tried to dress him for a Halloween carnival this evening. Please note that at the beginning of the conversation, he is in his natural state.
Me: Let's get your costume on, so we can go!
Lachlan: Okay! Here's my vest! (He puts on the Woody vest.)
Me: Um ... I know! Let's put a shirt on first.
Lachlan: Woody doesn't wear shirts.
Me: Oh, yes he does. He wears a Sheriff Woody shirt, see? Good. Now we need underwear ...
Lachlan: Woody doesn't wear underwear.
Me: Oh yes, he does. Trust me. Now we need pants ...
Lachlan: Woody doesn't wear pants.
Apparently Sheriff Woody wears nothing but a vest, a badge, a gun and a hat. I think that's a whole different kind of carnival ... Exactly what version of Toy Story have my kids been watching?
Posted by lynx at 11:11 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
October 28, 2005
Best. Paperweight. Ever.
Posted by lynx at 10:37 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Our Own, Special Brand of Hell
Have y'all noticed that since we've been back in Texas, we've been sick all the time?
It's insane.
And here we are again, coughing, hacking, dripping various substances. Not to mention paying our life savings to the docs and the drug companies. (For my Canadian friends, I'd like to mention that we took a gamble by choosing a high-deductible health policy; we didn't have to, it was a choice. Sometimes gambles pay off, sometimes they don't.)
Just for fun, just to spice up the mix, I decided to develop a life-threatening allergy. Now I, too, can experience the excitement of grilling restaurant managers about their cooking practices. From what I've been reading, it's safer if I just never eat in a restaurant again, ever.
Off to take some child or other to the doctor appointment du jour.
Posted by lynx at 9:48 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
October 18, 2005
Procrastination
Sick kid here. The doctor kindly gave him a note excusing him from school tomorrow. He appeared to be dying when we took him in. He appears fine now.
My parents arrive on Wednesday. I'm almost done cleaning. I think.
I made 4 or 6 dinners tonight, depending on how you divide them up. I've developed this weird need to fill the freezer with meals. Counting what I already had, the freezer is stocked with chicken enchiladas, chicken enchilada casserole, lasagne, spaghetti sauce, meatballs, Thai beef and barbecued chicken, plus two uncooked pork loins waiting to be brined, and a beef roast. In 10 days, I'll pick up 50 pounds of local beef.
My 7 year old made cookies yesterday, all by himself. I wasn't even in the kitchen, until it came time to cook them. They were good.
That is all.
Posted by lynx at 12:50 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
October 16, 2005
Now, THIS is a Quilt
Posted by lynx at 10:38 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 15, 2005
Creative Phys Ed
Whyever was I worried about the boys getting enough exercise? It struck me today that in reality, they probably walk several miles a day.
You see, most of the toys live in bins in the garage. We simply don't have room to keep them in the house.
Part of the older boys' day always includes cleaning a room. Which takes a remarkably. Long. Time. It takes a remarkably. Long. Time. because they employ the most labor-intensive practices known to man.
They pick up a toy.
They take it, across the entire house, to the garage.
They return, across the house, to the room.
They pick up a toy.
Repeat.
All. Day. Long.
I figure they're logging a couple of miles a day. What do you think?
Posted by lynx at 10:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
These are the cutest things I've ever seen!
Posted by lynx at 9:43 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Paging Uncle Brian
Said by the youngest one tonight, with a very sad face:
"I have a grandma, and a grandpa, and a Brian. But he goned away."
Posted by lynx at 12:06 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 13, 2005
A Day in the Life
8:15 am - stumble out of bed, late. We're recovering from colds, plus I was up late reading about pandemic preparedness. The older boys are up watching a show. Then some of them dress, and both eat breakfast. I have coffee. Lots of coffee.
9:10 am - we start school a mere 10 minutes late. Not bad! The boys pull out their Singapore books while I print off and copy things I should have printed off and copied last night.
Their lessons are easy review today, so I decide to read Roman history while they do math. Normally I would have read it during breakfast, but that didn't work out today. The discussion on Roman history wanders from Junius Brutus and Tarquin to the moons of Jupiter, and the definition of a planet. Daddy wanders by and joins in the discussion. He asks if he can make snarky comments. He doesn't use the term "snarky."
9:30 am - Daddy realizes our Roman history reading involves Tarquin, and begins to make jokes about star systems slipping through his fingers. Youngest child begins climbing all over Mommy.
9:35 am - we realize that the name "Grand Moff Tarkin" rings no bells with our kids. Obviously we need to watch "A New Hope" again, and soon.
9:40 am - how come the math isn't done? Oh. The discussion ranges to the difference between evidence and proof. Mommy gives in and agrees to make popcorn for the youngest for breakfast.
10:00 am - anyone not finished can finish later. I go through lesson 1 of Right Start Level C with Aidan, and give both boys 2-minute fact drills. Yes, that's three math programs. So sue us.
10:10 am - popcorn is done (stovetop, not microwave, with olive oil and sea salt) so we take a short break.
10:20 am - Latin. I review Connor's vocabulary. He doesn't do very well today, which is unusual. I give him his activity sheets for the day and review Aidan's vocabulary. I explain today's grammar exercise to Aidan. He gets frustrated and angry because he doesn't understand and swears that I've never taught him this before, despite the fact that we've been working on this concept for weeks. I persevere, until he is frustrated and angry because he knows it all and why am I telling him 500 times over?
10:45 am - I take a computer break, and find a recipe for Turkish Delight.
Other things happened. Somewhere in here I talk to each of the older boys about "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which they are both reading. Aidan likes Edmund best, because he has the most action. Hmmm. Connor thinks Edmund is completely under the spell of the White Witch, and had no free will. Hmmm.
We don't have all the ingredients for Turkish Delight. Darling Husband volunteers to go to the store, taking the little ones along. The older boys and I review and edit their first drafts of this week's Classical Writing assignment. No analysis today - we did that yesterday, and skipped the spelling word analysis.
11:45 am - I start lunch, letting the little boys help.
After lunch, at another computer break, I stumble across a four-acre piece of land for sale, northeast of Dallas, at an affordable price. We decide it's worth looking at.
The kids and I make Turkish Delight. We don't have enough cornstarch, it turns out, but we hope for the best. Connor tells me Edmund covets Turkish Delight. I kiss him and praise him for knowing the word "covet," and using it correctly. He tells me he heard it on Winnie the Pooh. Ah, well.
The older boys have not finished their morning's work, so I make them a checklist for the rest of the day (practice piano, read, finish Latin and math). I encourage them to play outside, and then I take the little boys for a walk around the block.
It's hot. Why is it hot?!
I come back and read to Griffin. He's become enamored of an excerpt from Tom Sawyer. Go figure. Lachlan is not interested. The big boys play, practice piano. Aidan completes his checklist. They clean their room. I read them a chapter of "On the Banks of Plum Creek," the one in which the grasshoppers walk away. Later I read Lachlan a book about the letter K, which involves getting lots of sweet 3-year-old kisses.
This is normally our science day, but in trying to get everything else done by 3:30 I forgot. At 3:30 we jump in the car to go check out the land. On the way we discuss being at the edge of the galaxy, black holes, and again, the difference between evidence, theory and proof. It takes two hours to get there, and it is not the right property for us - or for anyone who doesn't want a large drainage ditch running across their land. Oh, well. It was fun to go. Two hours back home, plus a stop at Macaroni Grill.
Finally home, we send the kids off to various rooms, and watch Lost. Connor finishes the work on his checklist.
The Turkish Delight never sets, but is yummy anyway.
Posted by lynx at 12:13 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
October 10, 2005
It's Sort Of Fall
Thanks, all of you, for your fantastic comments. I'm printing them out to address them properly. And that should happen tomorrow, when the blinding headache subsides.
Nice day today. Fall is here, which means that daytime highs are only in the 80s. Still, that's mild enough to go outdoors while the sun is out.
The big boys had their first Boy Scout camp over the weekend, and loved it. Meanwhile I stayed home with the little boys, and realized how much more attention they need. Poor guys, they get lost in the shuffle. Of course I don't mean that to happen, but it does. So this afternoon I took them out for a walk, just the three of us. We wandered around the neighborhood, and ended up, of course, at the park. We hunt dinosaurs while we walk. Did you know that Texas is crawling with dinosaurs? It's true. Mostly T-rexes and allosaurs. Be careful where you walk.
Posted by lynx at 11:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 8, 2005
Organized Religion and Bible Stories
Another quote from Nock, from his autobiography:
The history of organised Christianity is the most depressing study I ever undertook, and also one of the most interesting. I came away from it with the firm conviction that the prodigious evils which spot this record can all be traced to the attempt to organise and institutionalise something which is in its nature incapable of beling successfully either organised or institutionalised. I can find no respectable evidence that Jesus ever contemplated either; the sort of things commonly alleged as evidence would not be substantial enough to send a pickpocket to gaol. By all that is known of Jesus, He appears to have been as sound and simon-pure an individualist as Lao-Tsze. His teaching seems to have been purely individualistic in its intent. One would say He had no idea whatever of its being formulated into an institutional charter, or a doctrinal hurdle to be go over by those desirous of being called by His Name.
I'm not a Biblical scholar by any means, so feel free to toss points of scripture at me to show me where this idea might be wrong. One of the biggest problems I have with Christianity is that it doesn't seem to be what Jesus intended. From what I have read of the Bible, I always got the impression that Jesus himself would be very surprised to head back to our planet and find that the religion was centered on him.
In following with my commitment to teaching classical studies, I've been reading Bible stories to the kids. Or rather, trying to. I was hesitant to start in the first place, but several friends advised me to just do it, and treat it as I would a Greek myth. Good advice, I thought. Why be afraid? Let's just do it.
Ah, but Bible stories are not written like Greek myths. Greek myths name the gods. They are treated as characters in a story. In Bible stories, God is not named. He's "God," and that's the end of it. Or "Our Lord." I know that many Christians do not refer to God by any name, but I never before realized just how powerful the act of not naming him is. It is extremely difficult to read these stories to the kids, without feeling that I need to stop, explain, reword, and in some places, vent. The Garden of Eden? That was rough. Cain and Abel? We haven't read any Bible stories since that one. Mom had to take time to recuperate.
The venting is not good. The kids don't need this from Mom, not at their ages. I want them to know the Bible, because it is such an important, foundational work. I want them to understand it through my teaching, but not through my baggage. This is a tough one.
I often run across Christians who worry about reading Greek myths to their kids, because they don't want them exposed to, and perhaps become enamored of, false gods before knowing their true god. I've been reading Greek myths to my little Pagan kids for months now, and their reactions have been very interesting. They are not becoming enamored of the Greek gods; they see them as capricious, vengeful, sometimes outright mean. They see clearly that in these stories the gods are playing with humans, directing them for their own aims. I didn't teach them that, they understood it on their own.
Pretty smart, these kids are. And pretty unnerving, when, to be honest, Mom doesn't have this whole god thing worked out herself.
If you're wondering, we're not raising them to a specific religion. We're raising them with our values of right and wrong, and with our basic Pagan outlook, but beyond that we want them to use their brains and their hearts and decide for themselves. (We are, however, deliberately raising them to a specific political philosophy. Heh.)
Posted by lynx at 9:39 AM | Comments (23) | TrackBack
October 7, 2005
Laughing Out Loud
Our preparatory monologue would include "And if they ask you about religion, don't say we're not Christian, and don't say 'Pagan,' just say 'Unitarian.'"
HT to Mungo.
Posted by lynx at 9:09 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 5, 2005
Library Day
It's hard to homeschool when your sinuses are threatening to explode.
Wednesdays are library days. Our library day morphed into an entire afternoon out, as I had to go to two different libraries to pay fines. And I still managed to not pay the fine at one of them, which means we will have to go back.
I know that as a homeschooling mom, I am supposed to love and cherish library trips. And I do, when I can go alone. Going with the kids is an entirely different matter. No matter how often I remind them, my kids have no real conception of the library as a place to get books. No, the library is a place that has different computer games than we have at home. Mom finds the books, Mom conducts the business. The kids stare at the screens until it's time to leave, at which point the three-year old throws a fit because he wants to stay and play longer.
Whose idea was it to put computers with games in libraries?
Last week I did convince Griffin to pick out a book. He looked - I swear - at every book in the children's section before he found the book.
Would you like to know what the book was?
Did you know that Dean Koontz has written a children's book? The cover sports a picture of an evil-looking Santa Claus. That's what he picked.
That's Griffin. Let the boy go, and he ends up with Dean Koontz. Me, I'm just happy that he picked a book.
We also went to the local homeschooling store to pick up some new math books: Singapore 2B for Aidan, and 4A for Connor. We're zipping right along in math, yes we are. This is nice, because besides math, Latin, piano, and a little writing and reading, we're not doing much this week. Jeff's been out of town, and as I said, my sinuses have been exploding. Next week we'll be cleaning, and the week after that my parents will be visiting. Then it will be Halloween/Samhain. And of course after that, the holiday train just keeps on chugging.
I'll just keep repeating my mantra: Math, Latin, reading and writing, and everything will be just fine ...
Posted by lynx at 11:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Hey all you homeschooling types ...
Our ever-creative Poppins has launched The Denim Jumper, a secular place to play where you will not be expected to be EITHER Christian and structured OR secular (or Pagan) and unschooling. Irreverence, snarkiness and civil debate will be welcomed and encouraged.
It's also the only place you can buy an official Denim Jumper thong to complete your homeschooling wardrobe ensemble. Check it out!
Posted by lynx at 11:21 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 4, 2005
INXS
Today INXS released "Live At Barker Hangar" (available at the Apple Music Store). If you were a fan you remember the tours the band did in '93, in which they played unusual venues: airplane hangars, convention halls. I saw them twice that year, once in a convention hall at the Amon Carter in Ft. Worth, once at the Bomb Factory in Dallas.
I paid $100 a ticket to get into the Bomb Factory show. It was worth every penny. And the Amon Carter show was even better.
How I miss that band.
I'm afraid I'll miss them even more, now that "Rock Star: INXS" is over. Instead of picking a singer who could carry the band into a new era, they played it safe by picking J. D. Fortune as their new frontman. (Even after that epileptic fit he had in the middle of "What You Need." What was that?) J.D.'s not bad, but check out the video for "Time" included in the Barker Hangar CD: He's not bad, but he can't do that. I'd have been happy to buy a ticket to see them with Marty Casey, or Suzie McNeil, but J.D.? I'm still not convinced enough to plop down the money.
At least I have my new live CD. And it has a video. Mmmmmmm.
Update: What was I thinking? Of course I'll go see them. The Lovehammers will be opening.
Posted by lynx at 9:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
October 3, 2005
The Secret ...
Thanks for the kudos. All right, I'll spill my secret. It's familyfun.com. Cool cake ideas with almost foolproof instructions. And of course, if you mess it up anyway, there's always frosting.
My older kids prefer the crappy Kroger cakes. Silly boys.
Posted by lynx at 11:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
The Cake
You may applaud now.
Posted by lynx at 9:55 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack