Me: Go put some clean underwear on.
Owen: There aren't any in my drawer.
Me (knowing full well there are at least 10 pairs in there): Oh well, I guess you can't wear underwear today.
Owen (disappointed): You mean everyone will have to see my cute little bum-bum?
I've hardly blogged about all the food we've put up for winter, except to lament that there aren't more hours in a day, so I thought I'd share (read: brag) about a few favorite little goodies that we'll be cracking open come January or so.
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| From summer 09 |
First up, we've got the quadruple-batch peach salsa. I spent one lovely August day chopping peaches, onions, and peppers into tiny pieces, which took a really long time. But I was left with eleven lovely, lovely pint jars of peach salsa:
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| From summer 09 |
Nearly one a month until the peaches come around again! Also, although you probably cannot see it, the jar on the left in front reads 'Canadian Mason' - it's one of a few pint jars I have that my Mom used to use for her canning. When I was a kid, that jar probably held canned cherries, one of the best desserts ever invented. I just love using the same jars that my Mom used, I don't know why. Maybe because it gives me a sense of history, of preparing for winter in the same way that my mother, and hers before, did. I know, what kind of weirdo gets all mushy over a glass jar? ... But I still do.
I think I am kind of weird for the souvenirs I choose as well. Most people going through wine country, as my family and I did this past weekend, might get a bottle of wine, right? Or, perhaps, a t-shirt from Niagara Falls? Nope, not me.
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| From fall 2009 |
I got grapes! Ben and I actually came this close to an argument, because I insisted on stopping for grapes and, as we were barely into a ten-hour drive, hubby thought that our time could be used more wisely. Y'know, like to drive the heck home? But fortunately, we found a farm stand at a rest area, which ground the spousal sniping to a standstill. And, I got to make real, yummy, amazing grape jelly:
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| From fall 2009 |
It is so darned good. Also, I found that grape juice that is prepared to become grape jelly (as in, the mashed grapes are mixed with a small amount of water, simmered for ten minutes, then put into cheesecloth and hung up over a pot to drain) makes excellent grape juice concentrate. I mixed the half-cup or so that I had left over with some sugar and about three cups of water, and it was all gone by dinnertime. The kids love drinking juice from 'wine grapes,' and eating the few leftover grapes was the icing on their cake.
Why yes, Owen, there is!
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
Some weeks ago, Owen popped that question out of nowhere and I found it so funny that I had to tell my brother and his fiancee. They thought it was so cute that they passed the story on, and when their photographer, a black belt in tae kwon do, heard about it she just had to give Owen, his brother, and his cousins a lesson. So, squeezed in between the ceremony and the reception, there actually was a special part of this wedding reserved for karate. We are still smiling about this, days later.
The wedding - the whole weekend, really - went off without a hitch. We saw lots of family, laughed, cried, got to know our new sister-in-law... here are some pics which will of course tell much more than I could in words:
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
The venue is this amazing castle-type building on the campus of their university, where the bride and groom met and where they both work today. It looked just like Hogwarts, as Luke and Owen pointed out any time they got the chance.
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
Ben took half a dozen pics of Owen that, in my completely unbiased opinion, are the cutest pics of any kid, ever (except those of Luke, of course).
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
The boys and their adorable cousins, getting silly with the bride. Isn't she beautiful?
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
I have such a thing about little boys all dressed up, they just look so darn cute!
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
My new sister-in-law and I.
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
This instrument, the theorbo, sounds like a cross between a harp and a guitar. It suited the ceremony perfectly.
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
Here they are, during the toast by our brother, the best man. They are totally crying, as am I. And this wasn't even 'the big speech!' That came later, at the huge party that the bride and groom threw for friends and not-so-immediate family; it was a corker, let me tell you.
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
I think this might be our holiday-card picture this year, I just love the silliness of it.
And, because no trip across the Canadian border is complete without a trip to Niagara Falls:
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
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| From A Fabulous Wedding |
I have not really found a way to sum up this amazing weekend in a phrase or two, so much of it was so sweet, and wonderful, and profound. Luke stood up and read a blessing during the ceremony that simply blew us all away; as the groom later said, 'he nailed it.' The best man's speech deserves special mention because, well, he nailed it too - it struck exactly the right notes. At the big party, we got to meet the bride and groom's buddies, mostly people they have known since college fifteen or so years ago; they are all amazing people who clearly love my brother and his wife like family. Also, they knew all about us; as my Uncle Robert (who is called 'Bob' by most people outside of our family) put it, "everyone here knows me as Uncle Robert!" Very cool to walk into a room filled with strangers and realize that they are really not strangers at all.
Plus, there was the family factor; I don't see my extended family all that often, and this weekend was a sort of five-day family party, reminiscent of my mother's family gatherings we used to go to when I was a kid. I loved it, and so did Ben and the boys (who spent much of the weekend being entertained by my teenaged cousins, trading Yu-Gi-Oh cards and staging mock battles).
This was truly a golden weekend; it has left me feeling blessed to have such people in my life.
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| From fall 2009 |
He gave me that car up there, a Red Barchetta (as in the 80's song by Rush, a song that can still transport me back in time even though I know it is totally cheesy). Inside the car are the Playmobil bride and groom that topped my wedding cake; somehow this seems fitting as a symbol of my brother's upcoming nuptials.
I remember when he was born. I used to push him in his little wind-up swing.
One summer when he was five or so, he coaxed a wild bird to land on his hand, repeatedly; he named the bird Pepper.
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| From fall 2009 |
He used to have a giant stuffed monkey who went everywhere with him, named Max. See him, in that pic up there?
He slept with a baseball cap instead of a blankie.
He's always marched to his own beat - he used to translate English papers into other languages (using computer software), just for a joke, and I know of no one else who had a 'room-cleaning outfit' that included a car hood ornament on a chain. I know of no one else who had a room-cleaning outfit, period!
He remains my musical guru, exposing me to some of my absolute favorite bands, like Belle and Sebastian, Moxy Fruvous, Dan Bern...
He gave possibly the best 'best man' speech I have ever heard, as a young man of eighteen, when our brother got married nearly thirteen years ago to a girl whom we love - I think of her as my sister, not just sister-in-law. The speech was funny, tender, and from the heart; now, our brother gets the chance to return the favor, something I am so looking forward to.
We three formed a pretty tight unit, despite a big-ish age difference; I count myself extremely lucky to have these two brothers in my life.
Anyway, the baby brother grew up into a funny, amazing guy - and he has found his perfect girl. Actually, they found each other about twelve years before they fell in love, so they got to be best friends first, giving them a pretty good chance at happiness, I think.
Go ahead, raise a glass of something celebratory this Saturday afternoon - cheers to Dave and Lena!
Since I first came across Lenore Skenazy's excellent anti-helicopter-parenting blog, Free-Range Kids, I've been a more confident and happier mom. In a recent post, she asked readers to give suggestions for any quick one-liners they use to refute anti-free-rangers. What do you say to someone who makes you feel guilty for allowing your nine-year-old to stay home alone while you run an errand, for example, or ride his bike around the neighborhood - gasp - without you?
Some of the responses are great, short and sweet, like “My, what a scary world you live in!” or, “Forty-five people a year die in Thanksgiving turkey-related accidents. Clearly, we need to ban Thanksgiving.”
But I decided to post about this tonight after reading one specific comment, from a psychologist named Megan who sees daily the results of helicopter parenting:
I have not been a mother all that long, my children are 5 and 2, but I am a clinical psychologist who has the regular opportunity to see the devestating (the only word that really fits) impact that highly regulated parenting is having on our children. I sit everyday with teens and twenty somethings who have no sense of who they are. I am not exaggerating-no sense. They don’t understand their emotions. They don’t know how to entertain themselves. They cannot comment on their likes or dislikes. They do not display any sign of awe or wonderment or questioning of anything. And what I am seeing, more and more, is not the same as the flatness that accompanies depression. This is as if somebody stole their soul. I feel somedays like I am in a science fiction movie. This is what I see as the most dangerous outcome to the kind of parenting you are encouraging us to move away from. Forget how stressed out (I have seen more anxiety than ever before), disconnected (think 5 teenagers standing around together, but all either talking to or texting someone else rather than interacting with each other) and branded (if I see one more pair of sweatpants with JUICY across the butt I am going to throw up) this generation is, lets worry most that they have been robbed of the opportunity to develop. Period. How about that for a media headline “Parents beware: 1 in 2 children will have the essence of their being crushed to nothingness by the age of 12″. Okay, maybe a little extreme, but you get my point. Fear of stranger abduction? Maybe we need to take a closer look at who is really doing the abducting all under the guise of loving, devoted parenting.
... no "sign of awe or wonderment"
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| From fall 2009 |
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| From fall 2009 |
... "robbed of their opportunity to develop"
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| From fall 2009 |
.jpg) |
| From fall 2009 |
... "as if somebody stole their soul"
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| From fall 2009 |
This is scary stuff, and helps me realize how crucial it is that kids be free-range. This post, my first of the 'school' year, was going to just be a fun, check-out-all-the-great-stuff-we've-been-doing kind of post, but I couldn't help myself when I read this psychologist's words.
Whether you homeschool or not, whether you are rich or poor, old or young, please encourage the kids in your life to be free-range. Let them take chances, let them explore, let them be independent as much as possible! It's okay because, to sum up with another great one-liner from Lenore's post, "kids bounce."
We watched President Obama address the nation's children today, and, though Owen played more with his blocks than watched and listened, the speech hit home with Luke, especially this part:
Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same... That's why today, I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education - and to do everything you can to meet them. Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
Luke's life goal is to be a paleontologist - at nine, he is researching universities that specialize in his chosen subject, and deciding where he'd like to do some field work; right now it's kind of a tie between The Burgess Shale in western Canada, and the Dinosaur Highway in the western USA. But he seems to think that the fossils will find him rather than the other way around, he doesn't understand that paleontologists work for years without any glory whatsoever. And, while Ben and I wholeheartedly want Luke to pursue his dream, we'd like him to remove the rose-colored glasses, to realize that there is physical work involved in paleontology (not Luke's forte, physical work).
Anyway, he took President Obama's words to heart, and spent the latter half of the day figuring out how to see what the physical side of paleontology involves. He and Owen found a bunch of odds and ends to bury outside:
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| From summer 09 |
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| From summer 09 |
One of my favorite overheard conversations during the burying-and-digging-up phase of the day was about paleontology vs. archaeology. Owen, it turns out, wants to be an archaeologist, and 'dig up royal things,' so the pipe cleaners, feathers, and popsicle sticks which he buried and dug up weren't dinosaurs at all - much to Luke's chagrin. I think a truce was called around 2PM, when they started setting up for a more long-term dig:
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| From summer 09 |
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| From summer 09 |
And then, questions began regarding 'food supply.' I guess that whatever kind of dig you happen to be on, archaeological or paleontological, you still need a parent around to feed you!
They begged to sleep in the tent, to achieve a good idea of what roughing it on a dig would be like (minus, one presumes, the cocoa puffs and roasted marshmallows that were tonight's dinner). I fretted about skunks, and also about the truly awful night's sleep that would await Ben and I if the kids really slept out in the yard - so fortunately, we reached a compromise: they are now in the tent, on the screen porch, as much 'in' as 'out.' And, they look so cute!
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| From summer 09 |
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| From summer 09 |
I don't know if the dreams Luke and Owen have today will become reality for them, but I do know this: giving children the power of that simple idea - that we each set our own goals for our own education - that is what it's all about.
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| From summer 09 |
This is us, looking not-quite-our-best, after three days of camping. But I put the pic in here anyway, because the trip was so much fun! We camped about two minutes from a south-facing beach in Rhode Island, and our trip was enhanced by Hurricane Bill, which stayed far out to sea and allowed us lovely weather combined with the wildest, most beautiful surf I've ever seen.
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| From summer 09 |
No, we're not crazy - on the Friday of our trip, the surf was high but still safe to swim. It was on Saturday afternoon, when the tide was going out (we heard sad stories when we got home about people washed out to sea further up the coast because they were on the beach with the tide coming in) that the show got really spectacular:
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| From summer 09 |
Here's a teenaged kid near the surf for perspective:
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| From summer 09 |
He looks so small, with the ocean churning all around him! We let the boys get their toes wet, but that was about it - and we were happy that Owen chose sand-castle building well behind the line of fire instead of checking out the water.
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| From summer 09 |
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| From summer 09 |
I know that these waves are probably no big deal to those of you who live on the Pacific coast - but barrel-roll waves here are big news!
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| From summer 09 |
The ocean made a great weekend, with lots of my oldest friends and their families, even better. It made me remember how amazing the natural world can be, and how thankful I am that I occasionally get to glimpse its power and beauty.
To do:
Friday - Make giant batch of granola and then eat some for breakfast. Go with relatives and friends to best blueberry place ever, hands down. Pick 3 pounds blueberries. Swim with kiddos in pool. Finish drying 1/2-bushel of peaches purchased earlier in week. Stay up way too late, unable to put down Harry Potter #4 (third reading in as many years).
Saturday - Return to blueberry field and pick another 7 pounds berries. At favorite farm stand, put in order for another 1/2-bushel of peaches; while there, ask about 1/2-bushel of tomato seconds. Take home said 1/2-bushel of tomatoes. Cook down into tomato sauce. Swim with kiddos and hubby. After kiddos are in bed, can tomato sauce, interspersed with reading HP#5. Stay up way to late again reading HP#5. Swear that tomorrow night will be different.
Sunday - Wash large load of laundry and hang on line. Pick up peaches ordered yesterday. While there, notice a lonely-looking 1/2-bushel of tomato seconds; take home. Take laundry off line and put away. Prepare for and host afternoon pool party. Drink beer and eat cheez doodles and Adele's awesome blueberry pie. Swim, talk, laugh. Make sauce while hubby puts kiddos to bed and then slices peaches for the dehydrator - thanks hubby!. Make yummy fruit roll-ups for dehydrator. Stay up way too late reading HP#5.
Monday - Wash first load of laundry hang out to dry. Continue cooking down last night's sauce and prepare canner and jars for processing. Teach yoga class. Take down first load of laundry and hang second load on line. Can tomato sauce. Swim with kiddos. Get some dinner on the table. Take down second load of laundry and put into dryer, because clothes are not dry due to excessive mugginess. Forget about them until tomorrow. Read HP#5 well into night. At 1AM, smack forehead and SWEAR that tomorrow night will be different.
Tuesday - wash and hang laundry. Make giant batch of waffles with Owen. Grow crystal experiment with Owen. Read The Indian in the Cupboard with Owen. Notice that Owen is attached to right hip today. Swim with kiddos. Take down first load of laundry and put up second to dry. Swim with kiddos and hubby. Make dinner - Spaghetti Bolognese made with extra tomato sauce, love the leftovers! While hubby cleans up from dinner and takes care of chickens, slice peaches for the dehydrator. Read more Indian in the Cupboard to Owen before bed. Make more yummy fruit roll-up for dehydrator, this time in a pleasing peach-and-blueberry stripe. Write blog post. Finish HP#5? (Probably... will most likely stay up way too late :-)
Some of our favorite homeschooling friends live right next door to the neighborhood elementary school - ironic considering the kids have not set foot inside all their lives!
Recently Gary, the stay-at-home dad of the family, did an interview with a local paper, Bay State Parent. I love how the article showcases the best aspects of homeschooling, like 'learning in your jammies' (as Gary's son points out) and studying what you want to study, as well as addressing the ins and outs of being the parent at home. Here's the full text of the article.
As we gear up for another year, it seems like a good time to reflect on this crazy, fun lifestyle. I LOVE just about everything about homeschooling, but I think most especially, I love that when one of the boys asks a question, we can follow up on getting an answer pretty well immediately. I also love how creative they can be about solving problems and just about playing; Owen does more with a funny-shaped piece of foam than I would have thought possible. As for pet peeves about homeschooling, I have none; sometimes, it is true, I do need a mommy break but that has more to do with family life than homeschooling per se. I mean, who doesn't need a break every now and then?
So, what about you? Do you have a favorite and/or least favorite part of homeschooling?
I am so proud to be a part of my friend Susan's newest endeavor, The Carnival of Unschooling. It's a monthly carnival, and if you have a post about your family's experiences that you would like to be included in the September Carnival, then you should submit it by August 30th.
But whether you do or you don't, go and check out the carnival for August, up at her blog, The Expanding Life. It's a great start to what I'm sure is going to be a great resource for those who are unschooling, and those who are thinking about it. Thanks Susan!
Well, I wish I could say that, during this recent little bloggy break, I'd been off ending world hunger or even doing productive work, like Topsy-Techie. But the truth is, Ben and I have been watching Battlestar Galactica, whose final season came out on DVD last Tuesday, and even when we weren't watching it, we were analyzing recent developments or endlessly predicting what was going to happen next. It's been difficult to remember that we have children to care for, jobs to get to, and vegetables to put up for winter, what with our obsession about this amazing show. Fortunately, we have watched the whole thing now and can get back to real life!
Even with all our watching of Battlestar, other things have been going on recently too. First, each boy spent a week being totally spoiled by their Grandma, going to favorite museums, eating dessert every night, and staying up late. Isn't that neat? (Thanks, Grandma!) It was kind of cool to have the other one at home with us all by himself, too, it gave us some rare one-on-one time. During Luke's visit to Camp Grandma (as we called it), Owen and I did little-boy stuff, like going to the zoo:
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| From summer 09 |
And during Owen's visit to Camp Grandma, Luke and I did bigger-boy - and more sedentary - things together, like reading:
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| From summer 09 |
Notice the tea-mug on the chair; I guess I've passed on my love for the combination of books and tea.
It was so nice to do things with each of them that we might not get to do with both of them.
Also, summer means birthdays in our house - first, Owen turned FIVE years old this year! How is it possible that my baby was born five years ago already?
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| From summer 09 |
At our favorite thrift shop, I found a Wilton kit for making super-hero birthday cakes, a boon in a year where Owen can't get enough super-hero play. Luke's obsession with dinosaurs endures, even into his ninth year:
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| From summer 09 |
Also, Ben got rolling (so to speak) on the chicken tractor:
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| From summer 09 |
So now our girls have a way to get out and see the world - our little corner of it, anyway.
Now, if you can imagine doing all these things in the real world, but never quite leaving the Battlestar Galactica universe, either, you will have my mindset over these last few weeks. It is such a great show, but I have to say: it's also nice to resume normal life again.
My brother and his family went to the New Bedford Whaling Museum last summer, and often speak of how amazing it was, and how much my nephews loved it. So, recently we decided that we'd better go, too, and find out if it really is amazing... let me tell you, it definitely is.
Because I just took picture after picture, I think I'm going let my photos do the talking:
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| From whaling pics |
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| From whaling pics |
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| From whaling pics |
When you first walk in, these giant skeletons are what you see; some of them, according to my brother, still drip oil once in a while. In that last picture, Luke and Owen are standing close to the skeleton of a mother whale and her fetus. Especially after carrying children, I got shivers looking at their bones, so serenely exhibited in this peaceful place. I was glad that the boys didn't really catch on about the mama-and-baby skeletons.
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| From whaling pics |
The vertebrae of (I think) the northern right whale - half as tall as Owen!
Something we liked very much about this museum: it tells the stories of both prey and predator, in a way that even children can understand. The men on whaling ships did not have it easy, living for often three years on a ship, hanging out in below-decks living quarters that were, at best, dim. In the museum, children are invited to explore a life-size model of a partial ship, where they get to experience the below-decks bunk room:
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| From whaling pics |
Combined with a few sometimes-lit candles, prisms like this one provided all the light in the sailors' living quarters, which is really precious little light. Here is the same prism with my camera flash:
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| From whaling pics |
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| From whaling pics |
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| From whaling pics |
The boys, of course, totally loved the living quarters.
We all loved the view from the open-air deck:
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| From whaling pics |
And then, it was on to a half-size model of a real whaling ship, the New Bedford. Luke and Owen spent lots of their time up in this ship:
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| From whaling pics |
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| From whaling pics |
This next one is a full-size whaling boat, into which the men charged with harpooning the whale out in the ocean would set off to do their job once a whale had been spotted:
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| From whaling pics |
It made me think of one of our favorite songs, by the Limeliters, which describes a whale hunt gone wrong out near Greenland - Twas in eighteen-hundred and sixty-three, of June the thirteenth day/ That our gallant ship her anchor aweighed and for Greenland bore away, brave boys/ For Greenland bore away/
The lookout in the cross-tree stood, with a spy-glass in his hand/ "It's a whale! It's a whale! It's a whalefish!" He cried/ "And she blows at every swell, brave boys/ She blows at every swell!"
Well the boats were lowered with the men on board, and the whalefish well in view/ Very well-prepared were all our gallant ship-mates/ To strike where the whalefish blew, brave boys/ To strike where the whalefish blew/
Well we struck that whale and the line played out - but she made a thunder with her tail/ Well the boat capsized, and we lost five of the crew/ And we never caught that whale, brave boys/ We never caught that whale/
"To lose that whale," our captain said, "well it grieves my heart full soul/ But oh, to lose those five gallant men/ It grieves me ten times more, brave boys/ It grieves me ten times more!"
Greenland is a dreadful place, a land that's never green/ Where there's ice and snow and the whalefishes blow/ And the daylight's seldom seen, brave boys/ The dayight's seldom seen....
I think we all love that song so much because it gives a glimpse into what life was really like for whaling folk, even though it ends badly. Perhaps even because it ends badly - too much of life is sugarcoated, and so maybe the telling of stories without happy endings is necessary. In any case, it is a really good song, and to have it in my head while at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which also was not sugarcoated, felt just right.
