Time alone

Twice a week, on Thursday and Friday mornings, both kids are in school and I am alone for about three hours a pop. This morning was the first time in weeks that I had some of this time (school vacations). At first, I felt a little anxious, there was so much that I wanted to do, and so much that I needed to do. I decided to go with what I wanted to do.

I ended up coming home first and prepping what ended up being dinner (I thought it could have been lunch or dinner), chicken in a simple teriyaki marinade and white rice in the rice cooker, set for lunch time. I should give Jamie the teriyaki recipe, she likes chicken teriyaki.

Then I hopped on the computer to see if I could find a store that sells Miquon Math materials so that I could preview them before buying. I found a homeschooling supply store in Citrus Heights (A Brighter Child). They didn't open until 10:00 and I decided not to wait to call, but to just go check the store out.

I stopped at the food co-op first for some fruit and veggies. Kinder (it occurred to me to change First to Kinder since that's his school age right now) has been going crazy for bananas lately, eating at least one a day and sometimes two. Both boys are eating more and we're running out of staples mid-week. Of course, I didn't have a list in hand and forgot the one thing that got me to thinking about going to the co-op in the first place---more potatoes for the latkes I have planned for tomorrow night's dinner. My dad is driving up from the Bay area for a visit and if he's staying for dinner, I know we'll need more potatoes---it would be sad to run out of latkes.

A Brighter Child was a trip. The store was chock full of resources, very organized, and very peruser-friendly. They did have the Miquon Math stuff and I ended up getting the first two "lab" books (collections of worksheets printed in different colors, a touch that I liked), the lab manual, the source book, and the first grade diary---a day-to-day journal which gives a picture of what the teaching/learning could look like. All for $40 including tax, not a bad deal. The first two lab books should take us through first grade. Between this and the book, Family Math (which I found used, in good condition at Beers Books), I think I'm all set for Math curriculum planning resources. We'll need to get some materials like Cuisinaire rods and base ten blocks. My ideal is to find some old, wooden ones from the 70's, but those are probably few and far between.

I ate a snack in the car (mmm, hummus and grape leaves wrap) and realized that I didn't have enough time to stop at the Rudolf Steiner College Bookstore. I was bummed, especially with the rising cost of gas (I am rarely in this part of town), but let it go easily.

After I picked the kids up, we stopped at Capital Nursery on Freeport for gardening stuff. Kinder, in particular, was very excited and happy. Pre (as in Preschool) was very intent on riding the funky cart with extra wide and open compartments. I had done a bit of reading online and in a book I bought myself for Mother's Day last year, but it all pretty much went out the window. As did my idea to build a wooden garden box. The weather has changed this week and suddenly it is 80º and dry and visions of 100º are dancing around the edges of my brain. We picked up two plastic green pots for the kids, the largest size they had, garden gloves for me, potting soil, a big, plastic, lime green watering can, and some seeds. Echinacea and chamomile for Kinder, yellow sunflower and yellow corn for Pre (I had to gently break it to him that I didn't think a watermelon or pumpkin would fit in his pot once it started growing), and Mikado poppy and lavender for me. Honestly, who knows what will have grown by the time we move in mid-July. But, doing things with the kids has a powerful way of getting me active, in a time-waits-for-no-one sort of way.

After lunch we went to the library where Starhawk's Circle Round was waiting for me. I also pulled Mary Griffith's Homeschooling Handbook off the shelf. A memoir about raising a son with autism and disc 4 of Veronica Mars were also in for me.

It's 8:30 pm and the kids are both awake, playing at my feet. Today is night three of falling asleep in separate rooms for them. It may have lost its allure. Or it may be the heat. Before the time change, they were usually asleep around 7:00 pm. Lately, they are usually asleep by 8:00. Time to nudge them up to bed.

Dull head ache

I have a way of becoming single minded and single acting.

For about a week or so, I have been plowing through books I've gotten into my hands for free (public library, lending library, friends) and taking crazy notes or photocopying (our printer is a copier). At first it was kind of exhilarating because it was FREE! But, soon, I realized that printer ink is not cheap (the paper is being reused, much of it hard copies of student work that I printed out in order to read and grade), and, that there was a freneticism that didn't feel so good after awhile.

Tonight, I am going out with Judy to see Friends with Money and have a bite to eat.

Tomorrow, I am swearing off the computer/printer while my kids are awake.

This morning, they woke up and decided they wanted their own rooms. There has been a lot of cooperation and they have started bringing in toys and books to their respective new rooms---setting up camp. I've alerted Cap via phone, but am not sure exactly how things will pan out tonight.

Checked off today:

The Children's Year

Spindrift

Gateways

The Book of Waldorf Table Graces

More homeschooling resources

Checked off:

One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four 165 Chants for Children

Kinder Dolls

Anna Banana 101 Jump Rope Rhymes

Earth, Water, Fire and Air Playful Explorations in the Four Elements

On Deck:

Raising Cain Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys

Storytelling with Children

Miss Mary Mack and Other Children's Street Rhymes

The Complete Hans Christian Anderson

First's teacher is loaning me the storytelling book and may have other Waldorf titles she can lend out. I need to make a list to e-mail to her.

Convergence

Yesterday, I tried to post an entry, but to no avail. It was about pop culture and mass media and me and the kids and being a parent and I kept getting interrupted by First whining in ever a new register about when he could watch the Backyardigans dvd he spent his own money on to rent. The issue I was trying to write about was completely the issue at hand. I may post that one eventually, but today is a new day with a different vibe.

Things that are converging:

• I had a massage yesterday and didn't drink enough water afterwards, not enough flushing out of toxins was the result and I'm still feeling a little sluggish. (I started getting regular massages while First was in utero. I've been the devoted client to two body workers in the last six years, both wonderful women from whom I have learned a lot. I have not been able to give up what I am sure most people I know would consider a crazy luxury: a 90 minute massage every 4-5 weeks.)

• Cap and I decided last weekend that he's "in charge" of the move. We are moving from northern California to northern NJ this summer. It's a big deal for me and I was finding it stressful to co-manage organizing our stuff and beginning to pack. He cleared out the kids' reading "nook" in the big bedroom last night. He needed the bookshelves to store stuff in the garage which is pretty officially now move "central". The books have been redistributed to available shelf space in the living room and home office. I felt pangs of sadness that the cozy reading space was gone. First was shocked when he saw the space this morning, but the kids enjoyed sorting the books to reorganize them.

• Cap and I enjoy eating out/getting take out. I often want a break from preparing food/eating the same food, we also like to mark little celebrations. Friday night we celebrated the re-opening of a local Nepalese restaurant. They had been closed for months due to a fire. In fact, we called for take-out the night they had the fire. This morning, I had the urge to go out to breakfast, so First made himself a fruit salad (he's GFCF so his options at restaurants tend to be limited, plus, he's discriminating---he knew he could make his own fruit salad more to his liking), I tossed some brown rice from the cooker into a thermos, and off we went. I enjoyed watching Kinder put away a side of 2 scrambled eggs and 3 big pieces of bacon. First enjoyed his fruit salad and downed his large oj (didn't touch the brown rice).

• Cap and I switched over household finance management a couple of weeks ago. He's done it for the whole of our time together (16 years) and now it's my turn. I've been feeling empowered, getting my hands dirty with online banking, budgeting, figuring things out and dreaming dreams. He's been feeling the opposite, guilty about the state of our fiscal health and like there isn't much he can do about it. I'm convinced that this isn't inherently heavy stuff. But, I have been reminded of the sensitive triggers that abound when there's money worries around.

• I've started watching Season 1 of Veronica Mars. Picture the angel and devil perched on either of my shoulders. I love watching tv: Oz, Homicide, Buffy, X-Files, Alias, Lost, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos.... But watching these shows on dvd (mostly free from the library, sometimes from Netflix), I sometimes watch too many episodes in one sitting. Four episodes on Friday night, four on Saturday night. Not good for the brain or the back.

• I feel like things between Cap and I are shifting. We were kind of in "pause" mode for years with the arrivals of First and Kinder, Cap's finishing graduate school, sharply curtailing my professional career, moving in with relatives, learning to live with First's allergies and Celiac diagnosis, and then, two years ago, moving to CA for Cap's first post-doctorate job after 10 plus years in MA. Well, the tides are turning. I turned 40 in January, my hormones are reverting back to "normal" (Kinder and I nursed until he was 3 and stopped in December of 2004), and the kids are needing me and a certain intense, bonded energy, less and less (ie. they "graduated" from the family bed in the last year---though they snuggle back in most mornings at dawn). With a new clarity humming in my web of systems, I am more aware of how different Cap and I are in our ways. We came together quickly, a jumble of attraction, humor, and familiar goals and values. Almost 20 years later, we're navigating a new set of scenarios as Cap starts his career as an academic and we/I start homeschooling. We are having challenging discussions about homeschooling, money, and moving, but instead of hitting "pause" to end a fight (or those ineffectual though impressively loud bangs on the side of the set in an attempt to forcibly dislodge the problem), we've been able to realign the tracking and move along past the interference of those zig zaggy lines that come across the screen sometimes---I have to say it, you get the picture! Yikes, unintentional and severe tying back to the theme of tv, but this is getting so long, and I, giddy,that I'm just going to leave it.

• Last week I gave my students a break (I teach a course online about Autism Spectrum Disorders). Today I went online and set up the discussion board for the coming week. I'm done with the lectures for the semester, we're workshopping final projects this week. I will be deluged with fifteen final projects to read and grade in about two weeks.

• A bunch of homeschooling resources came into the library and I picked them up on Friday (our library day). I've flipped through A Child's Garden of Verses, Peace Tales, and Sharing Nature with Children, xeroxing poems, stories and activities that I may end up using next year. I also listened to José Luis Orozco's cd, De Colores. In Waldorf First Grade, two foreign languages are introduced orally through songs, games, etc. I was considering Spanish as our second (Japanese will be the first), but Cap is thinking two may be too much. Purely from a planning angle, doing one is easier. I think I'm going to put Spanish on a back burner for now. It would make sense to do Finnish as the second in terms of personal family meaning. I wonder if Cap would be up for providing the Finnish language piece.

So, this was my weekend. A convergence of much.

Seasonal stuff addendum

The books I referred to in my last post were:

Earthways by Carol Petrash

Rumpus of Rhymes by Bobbi Katz (thank you Wendy)

The Kingfisher Book of Children's Poetry selected by Michael Rosen (thank you Eleanor)

This Same Sky selected by Naomi Shihab Nye (thank you Eleanor)

A Family of Poems selected by Caroline Kennedy

Festivals Together by Sue Fitzjohn, Minda Weston, Judy Large

All Year Round by Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton, Marije Rowling

Festivals, Family and Food by Diana Carey and Judy Large

Although I didn't necessarily find something specific to use in each book, I was tickled by the possibilities that I started to see in the learning that will be happening down the road---will I be homeschooling when they are 13 and 14?

Seasonal stuff

Äiti means "mother" in Finnish and it is what my children call me. I've been trying to log in as "aiti" for a few days now unsuccessfully. After a little digging today, I discovered that it's not my login name. I guess there are other "aitis" in the world. (Of course.) As it turns out, only Lauri would recognize my blogger handle.

Two nights ago, I pored over the Rudolf Steiner College Bookstore catalogue (and discovered when I was done, on one of the last pages, that they have a catalogue just for homeschoolers) and made big blue outlines around the books that looked interesting or useful. I wasn't really sure where I was going to go with it since I knew we don't have the funds for me to go spend a few hundred dollars on books. Then, someone on one of my Yahoo groups mentioned one of the books I had circled, and that she had gotten it from her local library's inter-library loan system. Perfect. It's been almost a year since I used our library's sytem to look for homeschooling resources---I had nearly forgotten.

Yesterday, I spent chunks of the day and evening flipping through some books of poetry and seasonal activities. I made space in my notebook (a nice spiral bound one with sturdy purple covers back from the days when I would treat myself to wonderful stationery store items)---two facing pages each for "fall", "winter", "spring", and "summer". It was fun. I collected verses/poems, songs, dances, recipes, art projects, nature projects, etc. At a time when expenses need to be kept at a minimum, it felt good to see what a wealth of material I already have at my fingertips.

The emphasis on the seasons, to truly see them, sense them, and celebrate them, is one of the things I love about Waldorf education. I have an appreciation for seasons in nature from watching my mother with flowers, my grandfather with birds, and being dragged on hours-long mountain hikes by my father. I have good memories of time spent by the seaside, as well as, atop mountains in winter. But, as an adult, my contact with nature has become fleeting and very much from the outside. I would really like to give First and Kinder opportunities to be one with nature, the seasons, the earth, to embed in them an unmistakable rhythm which will sustain and nuture them throughout their lives.

The most significant inspiration I had yesterday was that I will try with all my might to construct a garden with them. No small feat for someone who refers to herself as a "black thumb".

Where I am

I've been thinking about homeschooling for about a year now, maybe a bit longer. Sacramento is a hotbed of things Waldorf and I have been learning about Waldorf education, as well. Soon-to-be First is in a Kindergarten at a magnet school that uses Waldorf methods, Kinder is in a private Waldorf preschool program.

I've been a member of two Waldorf homeschooling Yahoo groups and have had some contact with WISH, a Sacramento area Waldorf inspired homeschooling group. I've also attended the Waldorf in the Home conferences held in Fair Oaks, CA, three times in the last two years.

And, I've been buying books. Lots of books.

So, now that I've entered the official, "we're doing this!" period, I've run into my first road block, no, fork in the road. (It did feel like a road block, believe me, but it has since made itself apparent to be more fork in the road...) Capricorn (partner-in-life, father-of-my-children, I'll call him, Cap, for short) balked at the Waldorfian-heavy nature of my initial plans.

A problem with Waldorf, for Cap, is that they wait to introduce "academics" until a child has turned seven. So, a typical Waldorf first grader is already seven when they start their school year.

Since First will be six and a quarter when we start, I was thinking we'd ease into things and basically do a Waldorf Kinder schedule of activities until the end of 2006 and then begin a Waldorf First Grade schedule in January, 2007, when First is six and a half. Cap was very resistant.

A challenging, but very rewarding aspect of this process already has been learning to face potential or actual conflict---to be with it and empathize, sympathize and communicate my way through it. Recognizing where standing up for what I think and believe ends and being defensive starts, and vice versa. To listen without interrupting. To not transform a fearful or hurt feeling into an argument about semantics, or one of those spirals where after 15 minutes you can't remember where it all started or what it's all about.

So, the last few weeks I have been filling my binders and brains with NJ curriculum standards, and catalogues and websites looking for other, not Waldorf-specific materials. We haven't abandoned Waldorf completely, but are going for more of an eclectic approach. The homeschooling is my baby, but I am completely committed to it working for both Cap and myself. When it comes to the kids, we are, truly, as one.

Begin the begin

I am starting this blog in an attempt to document the comings and goings of life, primarily, the planned homeschooling of soon-to-be First and Kinder (cyber shoutout to Lucie from whom I am lifting this naming technique to maintain the privacy of my children---the names refer to their schooling grade levels).

We're moving, mi familia and I, from currently rain-sodden Sacramento, to the wildly unknown New Jersey, sometime this summer. We'll be setting up a new homestead and starting up a new life. But, there's so much to do here and now.

The bread machine beckons, the aroma of a lovely GF loaf entices. First is GFCF (Gluten-free, Casein-free)---the kids hate this loaf, I love it, I think they will come around eventually. I have seen the wonders of offering a food 20 plus times (the Satter way) and the eventual capitulation of my children's palettes.