Parenting

Josie has her own room again, after nearly 7 years of sharing one with LouLou. Lou kept the old room upstairs with us, and Josie got the guest room downstairs off the dining room.

My mom said, "But where will I sleep when I come?" Josie will move upstairs to her sister's daybed, and guests will use her bed as they always had in the past.

It took us nearly two days of work to get the guest room ready, Josie's stuff downstairs and put away, and Lou's room mucked out. And I mean mucked out.

I don't know how they managed, but we've mucked out their room three times this month, and each time it's as bad as the last. It's one of the reasons we gave Jo her own room, so that they're responsible for their own messes now.

Josie has kept her room fairly tidy so far--and is living in there, I never see her it seems like--and Lou has actually made a few strides toward tidiness herself. I got her out of bed last night (she wasn't asleep yet) to put away her books and toys, and this morning when I went into her room I could actually see the carpet. So there may be hope yet for this family.

Hi everyone,
I was hoping that i would be able to get some answers to why you choose to stay at home rather then put your children in daycare. --read more

If you enjoy a little humor and the camraderie of other mothers who drop the ball or lose their cool, too, go, go now, to this site: http://worstmamaever.blogspot.com/.

I always said that the day Josie gave up her bosom companion Snow Bear would be a very sad day, and here it is. Lou came into bed this morning with me, holding Snow Bear. "Oh yeah," she said, "Josie gave him to me."

Snow Bear has been Jo's best stuffed buddy since about age three. He has gone everywhere with us in that time, even to church. I've had long conversations with him, with Jo supplying his sweet, gruff voice, and most nights when I said good night, I'd always add "Good night, Snow Bear," and get a low "good night!" in return. Knowing that I won't hear that ever again saddens me greatly, but children grow up.

I asked Josie about it, and she said she just didn't need him any more so it was time for him to go to Lou. It's true. About six months ago she stopped taking him outside the house, and then she stopped worrying about if he'd be okay by himself in the house about three months ago. (She used to settle him on the couch and say goodbye before we'd leave.) So I knew this was coming.

Still. To think I will no longer have conversations with Snow Bear makes my eyes sting a little. More than a little.

Why it was just the other day that I posted for you all about how heartbroken I was that my youngest child had started pre-k when the next morning..BAM!--read more

Hello, all and thankyou for having me as a new member!--read more

When Louisa was born six and a half years ago, I essentially forgot about poor Jo for two years. I remember going to sleep the night before Lou's birth, watching beautiful little Josie sleep next to me, and thinking, poor baby Louisa, I can never love you as much as I do Josie. And the next day it was, Josie who?

Such is the power of hormones. When the hormones wore off about two years later, it was like waking up and going, oh hi, Jo! Where ya been?

As Josie has gotten older, she's come to be a lot more like me than I ever expected. We don't like ALL of the same things, but I wasn't exaggerating when I said that if I were ten she'd be my best friend. (I never try to forget that I'm her mom, not her friend, and that she'll have lots of friends in her life but only one mom. She needs me to be her mom, not her friend. There's a big and important difference.)

And then there's Lou. --read more

This is Josie. She turns ten today. She is the greatest gift God ever gave me--she and her sister. Jo made me a mother, and every year I am more and more glad that she ended up my daughter.

She is funny, and tall, and beautiful, and tall, and sweet, and tall, and tender-hearted, and did I mention tall? She's past my shoulder already. She's going to be physically looking down on me in two or three years. Which, considering I'm only 5'5", isn't hard, but I was hoping to hang on to some shreds of authority and dignity for a little while longer.--read more

I'm jealous of my kid's cellphone, and I don't even like cellphones. Today Josie got a phone from Kajeet, a new service for kids. (FULL DISCLOSURE: You may have seen Kajeet advertise here, and we got the phone and $20 of service to review for free.)

So far, we like it, and Josie of course is tickled to death to have her own phone even though she doesn't go anywhere without me. She's been using it as a camera primarily, snapping pictures of her sister and the cats.--read more

Help!

DD is almost 7.

She has only made it through the night dry once in her life, and she is getting very sensitive and sad about it.--read more

It's been a while since we had a Storytime here. Josie and I have been reading Louisa May Alcott lately, and in doing a little research on her I found a great number of things of hers that I myself had not read.

And so I'm presenting to you, in serialized fashion, Flower Fables, her first book. I'm thinking maybe a story a week. If we come across serious Victorianisms, I'll provide annotations.

I have so enjoyed re-reading Alcott with Jo, and more than once have asked myself, "What would Marmee do?" when confronted with a parenting puzzler.

I got a letter last night, left on the toilet seat cover upstairs, from Josie.She asked for more time "alone," which, when we talked about it this morning, meant more time alone with me. We talked about her sister, and why she was so grumpy and uncooperative lately. All I really had to offer is that six seems to be a hard year; Josie wasn't much fun at six, either.

I am still not used to getting letters from Josie. I signed her up last night for Mathscore, because she really needs some drilling in the basics, and sent her the login info to her email. I got a hilarious email in response titled "are u kidding?!" that included her first ever use of "whatever, mom!" (We worked out her problem with Mathscore.)

Anyway, I'm worried about my girls, as most mamas are. I worry I'm not doing enough, or the right things. Now that I'm feeling better, I'm hoping to spend a lot of time with them this summer going to park days and such. It can only help.--read more

"You CAN NOT lick people's feet!!!"

I'm so thrilled!--read more

Unschooling Life has some really good thoughts on this subject already today, and if I were smart I'd just point to it, but I'm going to forge ahead with my plans anyway.

For us homeschoolers, especially unschoolers, summer is easy. It's just more of the same, floating along and enjoying our days together. But for those of you out there who school, summer is often a long expanse of potential boredom or TV captivity.

The main rule, speaking of TV, is to limit summer TV and computer/game system use. We do this year-round (we don't even have a game system), but if you're not used to having your kids around a lot it's easy to let them just vegetate in front of a tube. God knows I have. But don't succumb! Be strong!

Here are some things we'll be doing that may give you ideas for having fun together with your kids.--read more

"We are unable to roll back time. Most of us wouldn't even want to. Our concern is for our children who are growing up in a rapidly changing world where modern technology can take away their childhood."
--Barbara Patterson, Beyond the Rainbow Bridge

1. Unscheduled time and a long leash: Your child does not need every minute of every day scheduled and supervised. He will not die, either of boredom or "stranger danger."

Alvin Rosenfeld, author of The Over-Scheduled Child, calls it "Hyper-Parenting." Keep extracurricular activity to just one or two at a time. Let your kid be bored. Boredom leads the imagination to great discoveries.

At the same time, don't be afraid to let your older child out of your sight. Teach your children to listen to their intuition, and give them the tools they need to be both safe and free.

2. Outdoors time: There's been much discussion of nature-deficit disorder in the media, but I'm not even talking about the woods. I'm talking about just going outside:

A major study came out [in 2005] that said that the rate of obesity in children is growing faster in rural areas than it is in cities and suburbs. Again, it seems counterintuitive. But it's not so counterintuitive when you think about the fact that the family farm is fairly nonexistent now. Kids in rural areas are playing the same video games, watching the same television, and they're on longer car rides.

The minute the sun comes out here in Oregon I kick those two girls out of the house into the yard. This year we're planting a bean tent for the kids to play in; consider planting a sunflower house with yours.

3. Limited electronics: We watch TV at our house. The girls are limited in what they can watch, we have to approve of it, and they don't have TV in their room (and never shall). They don't have iPods and are not allowed to wear headphones in the company of other people. We don't have a game system, not even the grown-ups, to the complete shock of other men John's age--they almost can't believe it. The computer is for school and a little bit of goofing around. We don't have a DVD system in the van. The girls don't "text." In short, if it comes between you and your children, or your children and the world, it's not a helpful technology. Ditch it.

4. Marketing awareness: Teach your children about advertising and how companies try to sell them things. Branded merchandise is not a good influence. Understand what brands are trying to teach your children. Usually the message is how to be a consumer. Is that what you want for your kids--a passive life as a consumer?

For instance, we don't allow Bratz merchandise in the house because we don't like the relentless shopping and flirting promotion attached to a toy marketed to pre-teens. We also don't like the sexualizing of pre-teens and even babies in these toys.

First you have to get clear about this stuff yourself. What message are you wearing across your chest? And why are you paying to advertise for some company--shouldn't they be paying you?

5. Family first: If you read TNH, you're probably either already putting family first, or longing to. For some families, it means a parent at home full-time. For others, it means that and homeschooling. Just as with electronics, if something comes between you and your family, re-evaluate, whether that thing is a paid job, a volunteer job, a hobby or even an attitude.

Final thought: All of these things are of a piece. Limiting electronics means fighting consumerism, which leads to more time outside which leads to less over-scheduling which leads to more time for families which leads to less reliance on consumerism and electronics both...

It's all of a piece, my dears.

Hey kids! It's another MotherTalk blog tour!* With special guest bloggers Los Bros. Underwood!

Right about now I can already hear the groaning beginning from moms across the country: "Summer's almost here! What am I going to do with these kids?" Don't abandon them to the TV, for starters, and don't overschedule them. Instead, give them a summer with nothing to do, and the tools to do it with.

Around our house, we often joke that we're raising 19th century kids. A lot of the souce materials we use in homeschool are from that era--for instance, the McGuffey readers and speller.

Among our very favorite books are the "Handy Books" of Dan Beard and his sisters, proto-scouting manuals for the late 19th century kid looking for cool things to do that still work splendidly for 21st century kids looking for something to do. Even so, many of the activities in those books don't work for today, not least of which because we're not as rural as we used to be.

Enter "The Dangerous Book for Boys," a bestseller in the UK that's just being published here in the States. Brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden have put together a handsome volume of which Dan Beard would approve.

To put it to the test, I gave a copy to two actual boys, Simon and Jonah Underwood, the closest things I have to nearby nephews. (I have to say their mother was not thrilled with the book's title, especially considering these two often mistake themselves for elven archers.)--read more

LouLou was successfully feted on Sunday afternoon, with her friends and their families in attendance. A good time appeared to have been had by all, though I had to take a two-hour nap afterwards. I still can't believe she's six, though she's gotten so tall it really isn't too hard to believe.

I made a white spelt flour cake that turned out astonishingly well. Though it wasn't as poofy as a wheat cake, it wasn't at all gummy or thick. I altered a recipe from Joy of Cooking and I'm going to post it here in a sec and will come back and put the link in this entry. Basically it's a yellow cake I doctored up a little with some spices, orange rind and molasses. We frosted it with whipped cream and it really was pretty tasty. White spelt flour is the deal, I tell you. (Update: Here's the cake recipe.)

Lou cleaned up in the present department, as usual, the big hit being a musical jewelry box. There's always one present that makes you go "eeek!" and this year it was a pogo stick. Oh well, she has a bike helmet and we're insured...

I cannot believe it, but my little stinker is six years old today. She is tall and gorgeous and funny and frustrating and altogether a gift. I'll try to put a picture up when I can get her to hold still long enough.

We're having the big hoohah party on Sunday. Today is knitting circle day, and we're having a small hoohah. Tonight we'll get Lou's favorite dinner--Buh-guh-ville.

Six years. wow.

Hey kids! It's another blog tour!

This time around it's "A Running Start: How Play, Physical Activity and Free Time Create a Successful Child" by Rae Pica. She's the founder of Moving and Learning, and an advocate for children's physical activity for its own sake--not for the sake of awards.

My own relationship with exercise and movement has been long and problematic. I've been sharing with you my struggles with cardiac rehab these last months (by the way, I graduate next Wednesday), and if I've gotten anything out of it, it's in a much greater awareness of my body and what it needs and wants. I wish I'd gotten that from physical education in my girlhood, and I hope Josie and Lou learn it now instead of when they're old and gray like me.

And that's why I'm happy they sent me this book on the blog tour! Because I know zip about this stuff--or I think I do. I'm finding out that I know more than I thought I did.

For instance, one of the reasons we homeschool is that school culture today over-emphasize early academics and doesn't give kids enough downtime--time to just stare at the ceiling--or time to run and play. Guess what! Rae agrees, and while she doesn't endorse homeschooling, she's got plenty of criticism for the way we have schools set up:

[W]ith the implementation of No Child Left Behind, seatwork and high-stakes testing became the norm. As a result, recess and physical education--play and physical activity in the schools--are in danger of disappearing.

At the same time...[c]hildren were being enrolled in more and more organized activities, and childhood itself became an exercise in goal attainment. Achievement came to supersede play...

My hope is that "A Running Start" will prompt a shift back in the other direction toward play and the recognition that:

• especially in childhood, the process is more important than the product
• having fun is more beneficial to a child than winning
• trying one's best *because* it's fun prompts children to stick with it and motivates them to improve their skills
• enjoying learning is more important than learning to regurgitate what a teacher feeds in.

I think I love you, Rae Pica.

This is a book for anyone who wants to give their children a real head start on a healthy life--not to create superkids, but happy and healthy kids. She gives advice on picking team sports and reassurance that letting a kid "do nothing" is just as important if not more important than running them back and forth to endless activities. I'm so happy to see this message out there.

Please put your hands together and give a big TNH welcome to our newest community member, Josephine. Why? Because she's my daughter, Josie (the user name was already taken)! She's been busy writing book reviews and is going to blog too. *sniff* I'm so proud.

How involved is your partner in child care?--read more

My ongoing, oldest work in progress. The younger work in progress hasn't sat still long enough today to have her picture taken.

Josie has been working on crafts a lot lately. She's taking her knitting everywhere, and she's been bugging the heck out of me for sewing lessons. She's reading her Mary Frances books and can't understand how Mary Frances is so much further ahead than she is. I explained that sewing isn't as fast as reading about sewing, which seemed to startle her.

Here is the apron she's working on, by hand. It's a scrap of striped cotton that I made a pair of Turkish pants for bellydancing a loooong time ago. I like yarn-dyed stripes like this. Her hem is uneven and some of her stitching leaves a bit to be desired, but she's doing very well and should be done with the last bit tomorrow. Once we get back on our feet financially we'll finally be able to take her sewing machine to get tuned up.

In the last couple of days I've finally felt well enough to spin. I really haven't had it in me lately, even though I've got lots of lovely wool here to get through. This is a colorway called Missouri Breaks from Butternut Woolens and I cannot for the life of me remember what kind of wool it is. It's soft, It might be merino. I got it at Oregon Flock and Fiber in 2005 and I'm finally getting around to spinning it. I'm driving myself crazy spinning it very fine and then Navajo-plying it--crazy because I neglected to put on the bobbin with the higher spinning ratio and have been treadling like mad to get the laceweight. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this when it's done.

Not socks. It's going to be far too fine for socks. Besides, I'm still working on these. This is a different Butternut colorway called Aspen. This is my standard toe-up short row heel and toe pattern just knit off the top of my head. One sock is done but I'm not happy with its fit and will probably frog it. My feet and ankles are so weird now that I'm finding I have to do several sets of increases starting about halfway through the foot. But then, that's the joy of handmade socks: A custom fit. Which is good since I can't find any commercial socks that feel good now. (Shoes are a similar issue. I'm having to work out in my gardening clogs.)

Finally, here's Josie's sweater. I'm at the underarm and can't find my #8 double points to do the sleeves. Because I'm lame. But do enjoy the lovely color. Handspun worsted weight Romney in two colorways of pencil roving from Crown Mountain Farms, except they don't use Romney any more, they use Corriedale. The colorway are Forget Me Not and Blue River. I've got like 2 pounds of it spun up; it took me so long that one of my girlfriends made me spin something else in the middle of it because she was sick of looking at it.

So, pretending this is my diary, I'm gonna spill. Feel free to make me feel better--or correct me, if I seem to be assuming things incorrectly.
First: mommyhood. Oh, there are days I LOVE it. But sometimes...OK, I promised myself that I would always use gentle discipline, always be calm-count to ten, ask them what they are doing (you know, get their point of view, since they may not realize that what they are doing might upset you), etc. I found myself giving DS3 a swat on the bottom. Shocked the heck out of him and me, we were both in tears afterwards. Some parents I know use spanking regularly, I feel it is wrong, and now I've broken my vow to myself, and I feel horrible. I feel even worse that I really think I broke DS heart more than hurting him (I don't swat hard).--read more

When we first started going to our little church (which is uncomfortable about being called a church but coming up with a different term is hard), the other parents told me how important the "archway" ceremony was to the kids. We make an archway across the aisle with our arms and sing, and the children walk underneath and down the stairs to religious education. It must be true, because LouLou is in the other room making little toilet paper ghosts and singing to herself:

Go now in peace, go now in peace
May the spirit of love surround you
Everywhere, everywhere you may go!

It's making me smile.

I will be SO glad when Halloween is over. The kids are driving us, well, bats! Josie found out this year that traditionally people made their costumes, rather than buying them. Well! then we had to make costumes this year, too. I think I gave birth to a traditionalist. She assembled both her and Lou's costumes out of our extensive dress-up collection. The only thing we bought was make-up.

LouLou is going as the Halloween Fairy, dolled up in every fairy-like item we have, and Josie is going as a ghost. She's wearing a white shirt, the white pinafore from her pioneer dress, and a white veil over her head. Someone asked her if she was a particular ghost; she looked down at her pinafore, looked up with that "bright idea" look she gets, and said "yeah! I must be the ghost of Laura Ingalls Wilder!" (That's for you, Phelan. )