Update, of Sorts

 I haven't blogged in quite a while -- I was keeping up with people on Facebook. But now I've de-activated my Facebook account to see if I can do without it, so maybe I'll start blogging again. We'll see.

Scaling Back

To make a long story really short - at our last local CM meeting, we discussed pressuring kids to read and keep up with math before they're really ready, and the later problems that can cause, and the fact that some people (including The Trivium/The Bluedorns) feel like math shouldn't be started until age 10. So I re-assessed what I'm doing with Miss M (just turned 8 years old, doing AO Year 1), and I decided to cut down on her math.

We're doing Math-U-See, and since we do a CM co-op Fridays, we have a four-day week of "lessons." I've been trying to squeeze a lesson per week into four days (and a week of a scheduled Bible reading). I decided to just stop doing that. It might take us closer to two years to finish the math-U-See book, but that's okay. In fact, I think Steven Demme says he planned for each book to take a couple of years. So now we can do the concept presentation one day (which, for us, means watching the video together), and then start on work sheets the next day, and go ahead and and take a day or two to do the word problems from the teacher's manual 9which I had been skipping!) Yesterday, I let her play with measuring cups to learn how many pints are in a quart. I feel more relaxed, and I think that's appropriate for her, where she is. She has in no way reached a developmental point where fighting over "getting school done" would be a good idea.

The Bible thing is taking some getting used to. The Bible we're using has the readings all laid out and labeled "Monday" "Tuesday," etc., and it's unsettling to see the "Wednesday" label on Monday's reading. (But I suppose I can learn to be flexible!)

Children are Born Persons, Revisited

As my kids are getting older, and my friends' kids are getting older, Charlotte Mason's "Children are born persons" is meaning something more to me. Or maybe it's just hitting home more.

For years, I've heard that if you "train up your child in the way he should go, when he's old he will not depart from it," and various interpretations of that -- if you train them to be good, they'll always be good, if you teach them right, they might stray, but they'll always come back.

At a recent gathering of moms, one of the moms said that "raise up your children in the way they should go" means that we guide them in the unique direction/career God has planned for them -- as if we could be presumptuous enough to know what God has planned for them. I'm not sure I'd even want to arrange a marriage for my child, much less their entire life.

I think of all the things I've attempted to do with/for my kids, like instilling values, presenting opinions, and nurturing tastes for reading and music -- when they grow up, they choose for themselves, and it might be very different than what I wanted, or even from what I thought from observation was "the way they should go." One of my little boys used to build things. Friends would even comment that he was very good at building things and would someday be an engineer. But, nope, as he's gotten older, I see his interests going somewhere else, and his brother being the one to show an interest in building things as a possible career, and I'm glad I didn't lock the wrong child into that path.

The first time "Children are born persons" really hit home for me was when my oldest son was in maybe fifth grade and showing some talent in his school lessons. I remembered reading about a child back in history who was extremely gifted, and spoke multiple languages. No doubt his parents threw everything they had into his gift and harbored hopes of what was in store for this child. And then he died at age nine of some childhood disease. I don't know what kind of childhood he had -- whether he had been allowed to play, daydream, enjoy nature, and seek out his own interests, or whether he had been pressured to make the most of his time by studying for hours on end because of what he would be someday. But his "someday" never came. In the end, what mattered for him wasn't the hopes for his future, but his childhood. It was all he had. It occurred to me at the time that each child is a born person and may only have a few years to live their life, and withholding any life from them in the hopes of their useful, prosperous future may rob them of what life they have. That was the first time I thought I understood what CM meant.

Now, watching the kids around me -- my own as well as my friends' children -- becoming adults, it's hitting me again. These children we thought we were raising are complete people, very different from us, very much their own people, and they always were. I look around at my adult friends and their opinions and ways of life, and wonder if they're even an inkling like what their parents thought they were raising them to be. The children we've collectively raised represent our contribution of a few full-grown adults thrown into the general population with their own opinions and ways of life, and, in many cases, they are very different as adults than what we saw in them as children. They have gifts we totally missed, or interests it never occurred to us to introduce them to in their childhood, or information gleaned from sources we never heard of.

Sometimes I think that the best we can do as parents is to watch them grow up into adult people, and hope we don't do anything to damage them along the way. I don't say that to sound helpless or despairing, but raising a child is more awe-inspiring and bigger than I thought, and I as a parent have less influence and control than I imagined. We attempt to set their feet in a large, broad room, without really considering the large, broad room we're in ourselves as their parents.

Back

I took a little break from blogging - I guess it's been 8 months since I last posted. I've been busy on Facebook, which has been fun, but it's not really the same thing. It's also a different thing to be part of a group blog, with someone else providing substance and just doing whatever strikes me in between for light relief, and being pretty much a sole blogger. But my blog partner is moving on in life, and has limited time with his college and other stuff. And, for a long time, I haven't felt like I had anything to say. So Facebook has been good enough.

Still, Facebook has its limitations. For one thing, you can only post short quips and links. For another, once something moves down to the bottom of your "wall," it's pretty much gone for good. It's a hassle to back up to older things that were posted, and I'm not sure how far back you're even allowed to go.

So, I'm dusting off this old blog and I'm going to try and bring it back to life.

E.M. Forster: The Machine Stops

I'm at the beginning of this short story, which was written in 1909. It's about a world in which people live in a safe, enclosed bubble and communicate, listen to music, do whatever they want - at the touch of a button.

The CPSIA bill made me wonder aloud with Tim how far the government intends to go in creating a safe environment for children - will it end by children being raised in hermetically sealed padded rooms? (Of course, the padding would need to be phthalate-free . . .) After all, even the world itself is made of dirt, and who knows how much lead might be in dirt.

And Tim said it reminded him of a short story he had to read for AO. It's here; I've only just started it. But I'm finding it eerily possible of the direction we could be going in:

"Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk - that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh - a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs . . . she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere - buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world. "

"Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury? Why return to Shrewsbury when it would all be like Peking?"

I wonder what, in 1909, could have given anyone the idea that this kind of thing could ever be possible, even in the imagination?

The New Book Banning

From an article by Walter Olson (thanks to Katie for posting this)

Here are a couple of paragraphs from the article:

"It’s hard to believe, but true: under a law Congress passed last year aimed at regulating hazards in children’s products, the federal government has now advised that children’s books published before 1985 should not be considered safe and may in many cases be unlawful to sell or distribute. Merchants, thrift stores, and booksellers may be at risk if they sell older volumes, or even give them away, without first subjecting them to testing—at prohibitive expense. Many used-book sellers, consignment stores, Goodwill outlets, and the like have accordingly begun to refuse new donations of pre-1985 volumes, yank existing ones off their shelves, and in some cases discard them en masse."

"Whatever the future of new media may hold, ours will be a poorer world if we begin to lose (or “sequester” from children) the millions of books published before our own era. They serve as a path into history, literature, and imagination for kids everywhere. They link the generations by enabling parents to pass on the stories and discoveries in which they delighted as children. Their illustrations open up worlds far removed from what kids are likely to see on the video or TV screen. Could we really be on the verge of losing all of this? And if this is what government protection of our kids means, shouldn’t we be thinking instead about protecting our kids from the government?"

You Can't Buy These Books Anymore

Thanks to the CPSIA ruling that went into effect today, any and all products marketed for children age 12 and must go through an expensive test to be certified as being under specific limits for lead. This includes books printed before 1985, even though no child has ever been harmed by lead from a book. Thanks to our government, these books are now considered hazardous substances, and, since they haven't been republished after 1985, they are no longer legal to sell anywhere, at any price. One thrift store was seen boxing up their inventory of used books and throwing them away. It's no longer legal to distribute or sell them. They can't even give them away without risking a hefty fine.

What is your local thrift store doing to comply with this law? Do you know what your library plans to do with their children's section?

____________________________________

I Went to the Animal Fair; a book of animal poems, some classic, some contemporary. This book hasn't been reprinted since the 1960's; used copies will no longer be allowed to be sold.

Richard Halliburton's classic book of fascinating places; for many, a cherished childhood favorite that inspired a life-long desire to travel and see the places he wrote about. Children will no longer thrill to his description of the Golden Gate Bridge or Hoover Dam because this book hasn't gone through the certification process now mandated by law. Existing copies are now considered hazardous substances--illegal to distribute.

A book that explains scientific heroes of discovery through history and basic scientific laws for pre-teen boys. Since it doesn't comply with CPSIA's post-1985 rule, this book can no longer be purchased.

The third book in the series about a charming, mischievous Chinese boy. The first two books have been reprinted in paperback, but this one hasn't been reprinted - and any existing copies are now illegal to sell.

A page from The Tasha Tudor Sampler - it includes three books in one little volume. All the pictures are just as sweet as this one - but this book can't legally be sold anymore.

We're All Sick

It started with Miss M, then we all started coughing, and now it's developed into full-blown colds. So, we're watching a lot of movies and Lassie re-runs. I started back on my healthy diet plan a couple weeks ago - two green smoothies without fruit, and a healthy diet with no gluten/dairy/sugar besides that. And, in spite of the cold, I've done very well with that, and have even been on the elliptical for twenty minutes a day. It doesn't seem to be helping the cold. I hoped that eating this well would mean I would never be sick again. Vain dreams, I guess.

I'm spending the down time by looking through etexts at mainlesson.com, looking for books I might use with Miss M this year, and maybe even find some to add to AO. I found one about Abraham Lincoln, and I'm looking at a biography of scientists.

I'm also watching the latest news about the CPSIA lead ruling, mostly by keeping up with The Common Room's blog.

Christian Prayer Group Assaulted Over Prop 8

A mob of homosexuals . . . assaulted a group of Christians praying together in the city's Castro District last week, in apparent retaliation for the recent defeat of homosexual marriage in California.

The Christians, a group of Evangelical Protestants who regularly go to the predominantly homosexual Castro District to sing songs and pray with passers-by, say they were holding hands and singing "Amazing Grace" when a angry mob began to shove and kick them, steal their belongings, pour hot coffee on their faces, and . . . assault them.

"We'd been there for a couple of nights just singing worship songs, people would come up and stand with us and join us, we got to pray for some people," said one participant in an account filmed at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City (YouTube interview), "but on Friday night it just was different."

The rest of the article can be read here. Parental discretion is advised with both the article and, presumably, the YouTube video of the incident, which I haven't watched.

The incident is eerily reminiscent of Genesis 9.

Taking a Blogging Break

I'll be in Hawaii for a few days . . . :)

A Hobbit Birthday

We're going to be having a cake to celebrate Bilbo's and Frodo's birthday, as we've done the last few years.

Miss M is very excited, and very chatty about the whole thing. She asked if they would be coming over here to blow out the candles, or if we're going to their house. When we explained that they're creatures with furry feet ("like horses?") and that they lived in Middle Earth, she was suddenly an expert. "Oh, hobbits. Yes, they're friendly, they're very friendly to people, and they love to shake hands. They especially like girls. They died . . . fifteen weeks ago. They have sharp hands. And they're this big . . ."

Palin Posts

One thing about McCain's running mate - she's made the blog world very interesting this week! I keep waiting to hear more about her before I make up my mind, but so far I'm really pleased with her - I wish I could write her in when I vote instead of voting for McCain or Obama. I haven't decided exactly what I'll do.

I've been following (and agreeing with) posts at The Common Room about the media's double standard regarding Palin and Obama. I won't link to any individual ones, they're all good.

I also liked Katie's post about the criticism of Palin for being a working mother. Her post about the nature of government was good, too. Consent of the Governed also posted about Palin reviving the debate about working mothers.

And then, there's this really funny piece (really, really funny!) at The Free Republic.

History Repeats Itself

About 15 years ago, I had a little cowboy. Well, sometimes he was a cowboy, and sometimes he was Timmy Martin, with his faithful dog Lassie. I'd have to be Ruth Martin and he'd ask me for a sandwich and a glass of milk so he could have a lunch just like Timmy on the TV. But he was sometimes a cowboy, too, with a horse and a bent stick in his homemade holster for a gun.

That little boy grew up and is in college now, but now I have another Timmy Martin asking me to be Ruth Martin and make a sandwich and glass of milk, and I hear yells of, "LASSIE!" ("woof woof!") "LASSIE!"

And now the chaps, boots and cowboy hat are being used again . . . only this time, it's a little girl, and she wants to be Roy Rogers. I like how the smiles are almost identical.


And this is ten years ago, when I had three cowboys:

The Fair

Today we went to our local fair. We met Tim and Giselle and her family, which includes Miss M's best friend, C. Miss M was thrilled to see Tim.



The big kids went off by themselves, so all of my pictures are of Miss M and C on the kiddie rides. Miss M was a bit of a surprise - she wasn't scared of any of the rides, as I expected from my experience with her brothers (although she was afraid in a wildlife exhibit that looked like the inside of a cave, and she thought the loud rock music blaring in the midway was scary).




And Miss M had some ice cream just before we left.

CM Co-op

Our local area started a CM co-op this year - moms get together with their kids every Friday and do either a field trip, nature day, or full-blown co-op (which includes picture study, a handicraft, folksong, hymn, composer study, art instruction, Spanish lesson, science experiment - each taught by a different mom).

Today was "full-blown co-op day". One of the boys brought an impressive map he'd made of Italy for show and tell, and was able to point out and explain in an animated way which wars were fought where - Punic Wars, battle for Rome, Hannibal crossing the Alps. He knew his history!

For handicrafts, a mom taught basket-weaving. I've wanted to make a basket all my life - and I made one! It's tiny; about the size of my hand.



L made one, too, but didn't take his home.

J won't normally be doing this co-op; his own high school co-op starts next Friday. But he came today to socialize (and to provide support - literally! - for Miss M.)

Emergency Room

Yes, we made an unexpected trip this evening.

Dad dislocated his pinky finger playing basketball with J. He wanted me to look up online whether that's the kind of injury you can just pop back in yourself, and the first site I went to said, "Do NOT attempt to home-treat a dislocated joint." So we all piled into the van, dropped him off at the emergency room, and went to Pizza Hut. After dinner, he was still waiting to be seen, so we shopped - and, finally, four hours later, he was treated and ready to go home. Luckily, the bookstore stays open late, so we had someplace to hang out while we waited.

Books: Hazardous to Your Health

Miss M got a paper cut on her thumb this morning while flipping through a picture book. This evening, she was looking at a poetry book and got another paper cut, this one on her finger.

She said, "Mommy, I don't think I should read until I'm a big girl." She liked her Hello Kitty band-aid, though.

Haven't You Been Wondering How to Do This?

Just when it seemed like it couldn't be done, this came across my RSS feed:

How To Describe a Smell

Six Quirky Things

Kim tagged me with this Six Quirky Things about Yourself meme.

Here are the rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged me.
2) Mention the rules.
3) Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about myself.
4) Tag 6 other blogger's by linking to them.
5) Go to each person's blog and leave a comment that lets them know they've been tagged.

So 6 uninteresting quirky facts about myself are . . .

1. I don't like to talk on the phone. If I have to make a phone call (except for a quick call to a close friend), I have to psyche myself up for it, sometimes with many cups of tea.

2. I don't like drinks either really cold, or really hot. I make tea by the half-cup so I can add cold water to bring it to lukewarm, and I add tap water to cold drinks to make them less cold. When I'm out, I never get drinks with ice, although, if I order hot tea, I'll add ice cubes with a spoon to make it lukewarm. I found out a few years ago out that my sisters do this, too.

3. I never learned to type, so I've become a pretty fast two-finger typist. I always look at the keyboard when I type. I have small fingers, so I use a small keyboard - it's actually made for a PlayStation.

4. I never took a driving test. I learned to drive late and had an out-of-state ID, and I went to to take the driving test to get my license, but the lady behind the counter insisted that my out-of-state ID card was a drivers license and wouldn't listen when I insisted that it was only an ID. So she issued me a drivers license and I never took a test: government incompetence in my favor.

5. I rarely leave home without a jacket no matter how hot it is because I get cold easily, and many places over-compensate with the air conditioning. I never order cold drinks in restaurants for the same reason.

6. I like to sleep with the radio on. My tastes in music have changed over the years, from rock to Christian pop, to classical - but I've always had a radio playing all night.

Here's who I'm tagging:
1. Roxie
2. Mrs. Sensibility
3. Mama Squirrel
4. Dogwood Mama
5. Dawn ;)
6. Phyllis

Offline

This will be short - I'm posting from a friend's house because, after some bad storms on Thursday, our internet went out and is still out two days later. I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever have internet again.

In the meantime, this week I read the first three books of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, about unextraordinary Bella, who goes to Forks, Oregon and is suddenly every guy's dream, including the unearthly gorgeous vampire, Edward, who she falls in love with, and one of the local werewolves. Werewolves happen to be the mortal enemies of vampires.

There are so many questions left unanswered . . . What will happen to Bella? Will she end up a vampire and love Edward forever? Will Edward put up with her whining, stubbornness and selfishness that long? Will she stay human and pretend to be his grandmother when she's eighty and he's still seventeen because vampires don't age? Or, in a bizarre twist, will she ditch Edward altogether and decide to run away with the werewolf? Would this series seem less self-absorbed if it hadn't been written in the first person, from Bella's point of view? Was it really necessary for this series to be so steamy that I'd blush to think of my preteen daughter reading it (if I wanted her reading about vampires and werewolves, that is)? Why is it that every time I think of Bella and Edward, I can't get the song "Muskrat Love" out of my head?

This quote from the first book pretty much sums it up (it may not be exact; the book is loaned out and I typed it from memory): "There were threre things I knew for certain. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was some part of him--I didn't know how large a part--that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."

Everything seems to hinge on the Big Question of whether vampires have souls. There's a new fourth book in the series. I might just read reviews (spoilers) to see what happens. But I have my own theory. I think it will go something like this: "But if the Volturi could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, they would have read there a different incantation. They would have known that when a willing vegetarian vampire who had committed no treachery was willing to suffer eternal destruction in a human's stead, the Table would crack and Transformation itself would start working backward . . . "

Here's my favorite quote from the series--Good Vampire Edward can read most peoples' minds; Good Vampire Alice has a limited ability to see into the future. "Edward and Alice playing chess was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. They'd sat there nearly motionless, staring at the board, while Alice foresaw the moves he would make and he picked the moves she would make in return out of her head. They played most of the game in their minds; I think they'd each moved two pawns when Alice suddenly flicked her king over and surrendered. It took all of three minutes."

I've also started Ruth Beechick's You Can Teach Your Child Successfully. And I'm changing over Parents' Review article files on the amblesideonline website - merely a cosmetic change, just so they look better. The last 150 are done; the rest are in progress. Then, during the next couple of years, I'll read through them one a day, proofreading as I go.