emerging

Slowly.
Slowly emerging.
We had some lovely visitors. Stand Firm Family, as it were. All the lovely pictures are on Matt's computer. And you know how it is. You have to go to that computer and sit down and turn it on and go to the Internet and laboriously send the pictures on email and then open them and so on and so forth...so I don't have pictures, yet...
And then we were all sick. Horribly and wretchedly sick. The tummy thing. The head, nose and throat thing. The Maybe I'm Actually Going To Die Thing. The Anne Has To Go Grocery Shopping Alone Thing.

But in spite of everyone still not really breathing, there is an imperceptible feeling that Things Are Looking Up. Elphine and Alouicious have plugged out two full days of school cheerfully and industriously. Upon examining everyone's school work I discovered that if we work really really really hard for the next ten weeks we might really finish all our work on the day I imagined we would. Praise be.

I've endured the dentist visit that worried me the most--the one wherein I expected to be told I needed a root canal. After a great deal of suffering and pain I was told that I still have a thin but real amount of tooth before the root and so, for today, I am spared. Tomorrow I go back to have the big gaping hole in a tooth coped with. Turns out there is a real and true reason for me to be in such pain I have to take no less than 9 ibuprofen over the course of 24 hours. And then one more visit after that and I will be in the category of Normal, Basically.

My little tiny tomato and pepper seedlings are coming up and have not yet been destroyed by the 'babies'. They're actually large little girls who go around chattering and holding hands. They play with dollies and dress up and color and have their hair brushed. And if they would sleep all the way through the night we would probably like them.

As for Gladys and Romulus, they do a generous amount of whining and tattling.
On the whole a good measure, shaken tighter, pressed down, flowing over...

And then today we watched the white smoke appear and rejoiced with so many who welcomed the new Pope. Well, I won't lie, Elphine and Alouicious were horribly sarcastic about the news coverage...and wanted to snarkily debate theology. But I finally told them to go away so I could watch it all in peace. And now I'm listening to them all clean the kitchen and bicker gently. So I think I'll have another glass of something, just to be sure. Pip pip.

work, it won't save you but it's still a good idea

I've been mulling over the Christian concept of Work over the past many weeks, not least because we do so much of it around here, but more really because of our Sunday School program, Catechesis of the Good Sheperd.

My own children have all come through Catechesis, Elphine, as in everything, paving the way. Way back then, I didn't have any expectations and didn't have time for anything either and was just really grateful for her to meet Jesus, the Good Shepherd, in a special and beautiful space and to 'work' with so many materials made particularly for her and the other children. I count her current love of Jesus as the fruit of that time in the 3 to 6 year old Atrium and I am so so grateful for it. So also with all who have followed her. The teachers and the space and the time have been such a huge gift to their spiritual lives.

And then at the beginning of this year by the strange and seemingly incomphensible organization of God, I landed in the 3-6 year or Atrium myself, not as student, you will be relieved to know, but as Catechist. And so I have over this past year, finally, seen the "work" of the youngest child, so often read about but never observed first hand (by me).

So, knowing academically what was supposed to happen, I rigorously followed the steps laid out, establishing a culture and method of common life in the space--walking quietly, talking quietly, rolling and unrolling mats, working on something and then returning it to its place before the next thing, watering the plant, carpet sweeping the floor, and so on.

 Having Marigold, who was cumbered in her speech at the beginning if the year, flower in contentment and joy particularly through the Work has been so interesting. She is 'at home'. She is restful. She gets out her folder and her mat and  pastes and colors and then she puts it away and pours beans and then she might arrange flowers and then she takes all the little switch on 'candles' and lines them up and turns them on.

That she is not this restful at 'home' is also very interesting to me. Here, she beats and shouts her way into doing things she wants to do, many of them destructive. It's a clutter and a jumble here and even when there is 'work' for her that she wants to do, usually someone else is coming in and trying to ruin it for her. I don't feel particularly bad or guilty about this. We are a lot of people doing all our own things and the little ones, as far as I am concerned, are welcome to beat their way into everyone's attention, as long as they don't literally beat each other. I'm making it sound worse than it is. Right  now, for example, Marigold is industriously coloring in her school book while everyone else also works. But still, there's a definite edge to her chin as she goes about it.

Unfortunately for all of us, this is just going to have to be Part One because I myself also have actual work to do and I haven't completed my own thought. But do not despair, I'll probably back to this subject sometime again before we all die.

a novel idea i had that i thought i'd share

Every year, the instant I've clicked the last 'purchase' button or 'pay now' or whatever, and laboriously entered all my payment information into all the little lines, and double checked everything and basically and finally committed to all my curricuculum choices for the year
that very moment
without fail
it seems my inbox is suddenly flooded with new and amazing materials I'd never thought nor heard of before. And then morning by morning, week by week, I continue to get new curriculum updates, or happen to read of wonders on other people's blogs.

I mean, I thought I'd carefully researched and planned my year, down to each week's plan, and even (gasp) prayed a bit about what the Lord would have me do (I know, prayer, sometimes we get desperate enough for it), but then some helpful nut on email shows me, without a shadow of doubting or wondering, that I, I and I alone, made the wrong choice.

So then yesterday, when it seemed we'd finally fallen, after a mere six or eight weeks, into a reasonable groove and rhythm--as in, I finally got my technology to let us make use of the Latin I happened to have picked, and Elphine stopped speaking English during our twenty minutes of Mandarin, and Alouicious figured out that he had to open the book in order to do geography, and I switched a few things around so they would work a little better--it occurred to me that I might delete all those emails, without worrying about what wonders I would be missing. And that when I happen upon someone else's glorious review, I might just say to myself 'how nice for them' and then not send myself into a panic of indecision and woe about my stupidity of not having known about that material sooner nor having not had the wisdom to buy it.

Perhaps this might carry over to other realms of life. I can't imagine, just at the moment, how it could, but maybe all of you can.

a little learning

So what are we doing this year, for school?
Some of you asked, perhaps foolishly, but maybe you know best.
Hmmm....well.....

For poetry Elphine and Alouicious will be memorizing a couple of Tennyson poems--"The Eagle" and "The Flower in the Crannied Wall" even though I think its been identified as one of the worst poems ever written (where did I read that?)--and working through the new Roman Roads Media Grammar of Poetry, the first three lessons of which have been fun and interesting. Romulus and Gladys will go memorizing poems we happen to come along that we like. Right now those are "The Owl and the Pussycat", "The Puffin" and "Custard the Dragon".

For Grammar and Writing we're using Classical Writing again. The two oldest are doing the Aesop books. Romulus will be working through Memoria Press' Story Time Treasures if he could just.... remember... the..stupid....alphabet. We're already behind because its either been fall behind or run screaming around the yard from frustration. I jest, but only a little. Romulus reads just fine when he chooses to remember the letters. His intelligence is matched almost perfectly by his indolence.

For literature/vocab we're using Memoria Press Lit. Guides. Elphine is starting out with Heidi. Alouicious is finishing King Arthur from last year because it's really a fifth grade guide and he needs a lot of help. After those we'll do The Trojan War by Olivia Coolidge and then they can pick what they'd like to do next.

For history we're listening to The Story of the World volumes one and two, carrying on with the Veritas Press history cards in chronological order and doing both Memoria Press' Famous Men of Rome and D'Aulaire's Greek Myths.

Are you bored yet? WE AREN'T. We are mesmerized by the beauty of all these books and the chance to read and read and read and read and read and write and write and write some more.

For geography we're doing Memoria Press' Middle East, North Africa and Europe with a constant soundtrack of Geography Songs to pep it up.

Math, what can I say, we ditched Singapore Math and jumped into the Life of Fred boat. And what a marvelous boat it is. The constant squabbling over who gets the book when is charming.

But we didn't totally drop Singapore, we're using them for Science, overlaid with Lyrical Science songs.

As for foreign languages, Marigold, Gladys and I are dabbling in Pimsleur Mandarin, Elphine and Alouicious are whining their way through Visual Latin and all of us together are doing French with the Memoria Press Student Guide as a base but that's just so we'll do it.

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays we say Morning Prayer (rite two, 1979, and believe me, I feel guilty every other day) with The Shorter Catechism for Young Children (not the Heidelberg, yet, sorry Matt) and John 3 plunked in instead of lessons and singing instead of the psalm (things like "O the deep deep love of Jesus", "New every morning", old ICA songs, and "Jesus loves me") . Don't worry, we read the bible in the evenings...sometimes...when we don't have to be somewhere.

On Fridays we'll do art and music, even if it kills us.
And that's about it.
(OH! Elphine and Alouicious are having proper piano lessons as well.)
As if that wasn't enough.

a new school year, all fresh and shiny

 The children swimming in that beautiful lake.

So we've been back to school for two weeks. The weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth has been within bound and reason. It's hard for everyone to switch over from waking up and playing to waking up and whining about having to work. Phew. Me chief of all. Add to the insanity that I decided I ought to wake up half an hour earlier this year and you have a less than placid kick off. The first week I wandered around in a drowsed stupor and the second week I skipped waking up early because of our little unplanned holiday. So this week will be just like the first week.

But I gain an awful lot in that half hour. First of all, I actually get out of bed, work out and do laundry. And then while the kids are waking up and asking stupid questions ("Are we doing school? Should I get dressed? Can I go buy a toy at the store?")  I get breakfast made and the house picked up. By pushing heartily through the early morning, when the children finish up school in the afternoon, I am not facing another mountain of house work. Instead I lie back in my new chair and think about blogging. Except that so far I haven't actually had the mental energy to do it. But I'm really hoping that will change as we acclimatize ourselves to structure and work again.

A friend recently asked "How do you do it all!" with a generous measure of admiration and possible disbelief in her voice. I've thought about this often since she asked, nearly every day in fact, and I think I have an answer. First of all, I don't do it All. I do a lot, but I don't do it All. I do a lot more than when I had one and then two and then three and then even four children. With each child comes a greater capacity to work. You discover that getting up one more time with a vomiting child isn't going to kill you, its just going to make you very very angry and tired. And along with the capacity to work comes the ability to discover what you really care about. So, over the last few years, I've discovered that I have to have a clean house (I know, my mother finds this hard to believe). I don't have to be on top of the laundry, I don't have to read books, I don't have to cut everyone's fingernails, but I do have to have the house picked up in order to be able to think.

Second, the babies stop being babies. I wish someone had told me this a long time ago, although I may not have been in a position to hear it so never mind. When you have a couple of babies to haul around, or even one, then why on earth are you trying to DO anything but make dinner and occasionally go to the mall? Babies don't need enrichment or school. They just need regular food and regular attitude checks. Bigger kids need enrichment and school, but babies, so help me, need to spend more time napping.
Third, big kids can do a lot of work. And work is so good, so life giving for everyone. School itself is interesting and fun. Cleaning the kitchen and having it look gleaming and pretty is satisfying. Making your bed and having your room picked up makes it possible to think AND to have friends over to play.

Elphine really loves to tick things off a list. Alouicious doesn't care so much, but its helpful to know what to do every day. He likes to wake up very early and do everything he can before other people wake up to distract him. Romulus, on the other hand, is learning about timing.
"Are you ready to do some work?" I asked the other day.
"Nah," he said, "I need to finish this game."
"Okay" I said cheerfully because I didn't want stop sweeping the floor. But three minutes later when I had started to make bread and he came in and announced imperiously, "Now I will do math."
I said, "Oh no you won't. I just waited for you, now you'll wait for me. And don't talk to me that way."

Maybe another time I'll write about what kind of curriculum we're using, unless it sounds boring to all you Gentle Readers. I am extremely interested in the subject but am told by Matt that it can be tiresome to hear too much about it. Well, he didn't say it quite like that but his eyes glazed over and I heard a gentle snoring after a few minutes of telling him about how many Literature Guides I thought we could do in one half of a year. More interesting to me is this cake--Nigella's Baby Bundt cake--which I made for my birthday. It has a hint of lime and needed a hint of brandy or something but that addition seemed a touch extravagant at the time. After eating it with fruit, a drizzle of golden syrup and full fat cream, you can eat it again three days later lathered in jam. And when your child says, "I like syrup more than jam," you can say, "how can you like bought syrup more than my gorgeous home made jam, you little twit" and then he can say, "well, I do really like your jam" very sheepishly. And now I'm going to remove a large marker from the baby and put her to bed because, remember, Babies Need More Naps.

poetry

There once were six children all whining
In spite of their mother's insane crying
That they should all stop
Before she went pop
Dissolving into a vague gray shadow of herself...........

I've had this stupid non limerick stuck in my head for two years and I can't finish it or make it into anything. It just rattles around there in the back of my mind. But its a little bit better than Elphine's terrible mother's day poem.

Poppies are red.
Marigolds are orange.
Mothers are sweet.
And so are you.

"Nothing rhymes with 'orange'" I shouted, after laughing for a while. "Also, Marigolds can be yellow. Try"

Poppies are red.
Marigolds are yellow.
Mothers are sweet.
I'm wishing I had jello....
I'm feeling kind of mellow....
My voice is a kind of bellow....
I knew of a little fellow....

 Me embarrassed that I can't write a limerick. Baby Lady Elaine not surprised about it at all.

No use. I'm going to go fold laundry.
Pip Pip!

In praise of classical writing

I don't usually get into the minutia of curriculum here (but why not! It is listed on the side as topics I might discuss). For one thing, I don't want to bore everyone. And for another, in many ways, it doesn't entirely matter at this level of the game. As long as you do everything every day, one set of materials is probably as good as another. However, I just want to sing the praises of Classical Writing for a minute.

The very first thing is that their materials are really well made and lovely to work with. Alouicious' primer books are well laid out and easy to follow. They encompass reading good and worthy short stories to narrate and draw, beautiful art to copy and write about, nature study, copy work, and a little bit of light grammar and spelling (to supplement what we're already doing). There are three primers for the year and we are happily moving into the second one with joy and delight. Alouicious, who wines about everything, saves it for last because he likes it best.

Elphine is under the mistaken impression, right now, that she hates writing. But that is just because she is trying to be a diva and will soon, I hope, leave that ridiculousness behind. She is in the Aesop book and does about two thirds of the work in each week. The other third we abandon for other kinds of writing, mainly science and geography research and writing. Her book is also laid out well and there is plenty of room to analyze and pull apart the text at hand, write it, and then write it again.

I particularly like that both books are laid out by day and week. You can open it up to the day you're on and start working. It is helped us to keep on track and remember to do it.
And now, once more, into the breach!

7 Quick Takes--School Stuff

One
We're on track to finish Alice in Wonderland today. We've spent ages talking through all the terrible puns and watching youtube clips of things like Quadrille Dancing ("that's disgusting" said Alouicious,  "I never ever ever want to dance like that."). So far the favoritist joke of all is that "Lessons" are so called because they lessen every day until they don't exist. Once she got it, Elphine laughed so hard she started crying. Over the month we've relearned "Jabberwocky" from last year and started "The Walrus and the Carpenter". I LOVE the wary look in all their big eyes as they say the words, considering that they are ridiculous and trying to measure how ridiculous, like enough to laugh out loud? or just to groan inwardly?
Two
Elphine is working desperately hard to finish her math book by the end of this week so that she can 1. invite a friend and 2. go out to lunch. These are both her ideas. "I've worked so hard to finish early," she said, "shouldn't I have a friend over and go out to lunch?"
I mean, I guess, but I've been working really hard get on top of the laundry and nobody has said anything to me about lunch out. I'm afraid Elphine's motivation will eventually run me into money.
Three
She gets up early and writes our schedule out on the board, dividing everything into 'things to do together' and 'things to do alone' and then making boxes for everyone to mark off what they've accomplished.
She and Gladys then plough through the day doggedly and intensely, marking off box after box while the boys whine and cry and beg to do things together. "I don't want to do math alone," cries Alouicious.
"I don't want to do math at all," moans Romulus.
Meanwhile Gladys eats buckets of candy for winning the work race every day, face and dress smeared with chocolate, singing, "I finished first. I finished first."
 
Four
On the Bible front we've memorized John 15:1-9 and the first 15 verses from our little Desiring God foundation verses ring. We've started back at the Catechism for Young Children and are up to question 20. We're all praying for Gladys to be saved soon since she's more and more like a little totalitarian dictator every day.
Five
We've also, besides piano, been working on the Tin whistle. I know, I'm probably certifiably insane. Anyway, Romulus and Gladys just try to put their wretched tiny fingers on the holes and blow screamingly in my ears. Elphine, Alouicious and I, on the other hand, are trying to learn a little Irish tune from youtube and "The King of Love my Shepherd Is", which is surprisingly hard. I really have to be completely in the right frame of mind for this or I just cry with frustration and rage. Still, maybe in 30 years we'll all be able to play a song together.
Six
We do a lot of other stuff too, like writing and grammar and geography blah bah blah. It doesn't even really merit a whole quick take, much less a blog post. I like it all but none of its funny, well, a lot of it is in the moment but then it disappears in the cloud of reality.
Seven
I figured out this week that Alouicious is, in his heart, an information seeking American, and I, in my soul, am an information withholding French person. I need to develop some methods of indirect communication (like posting signs on the fridge or something) that satisfy his hunger for knowledge (what are we having for breakfast? when will I get to play? how long do I have to read? while I ever play again?) in such a way that doesn't make me irritated with having to speak all the time (I don't know, leave me alone!) Maybe all of this would go away if I just taught him to speak French. That sounds like a fun afternoon activity.

Have a great weekend and go check out Jen!

The Rain was Raining all Around

And now the river is rising and rising. Two families came about 1am to spend the night in the church, having been told to evacuate to higher ground. I didn't even hear Matt get up to let them in. Two days of school have wiped me out. (Rolling on the floor laughing hysterically.)

Anyway, we have to dry out our own basement, and I need to step up my pace because my big enormous five year old turns out to be a touch brighter and more motivated than I bargained for. I won't lie, because he is so so so very lazy--as in lying-on-the-floor-weeping-about-being-tired-when-you-ask-him-to-do-anything lazy--I didn't think we would get much kindergarten kinds of stuff done and therefore set my sights fairly low. But he, and his little sister, decided not to take any break yesterday morning, working through page after wretched page of letters and numbers. So I am going to spend some time this week planning more stuff so that everything flows more smoothly.

And I'm also going to drop everything, when the moment arises, to pet the poor wretched miracle cat who has finally been forced to come up to escape the water.

A Spot of Learning

 To celebrate the first day of school, we're all sleeping past 7. And then we're going to eat bacon and toast and fried eggs and put on fancy new school clothes. Well, Elphine is, because, would you believe it, when she discovered she could wear anything she wanted for this whole year of school, she made a beeline for the uniform department and picked out a blue scooter, a white blouse with a rounded collar (what are those called) and a blue sweater, announcing, authoritatively, that this is what Lucy wore in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader and that she, therefore, would be wearing it every day.

 And then, after we've done our morning chores, we'll do some memory work together. Elphine, blast her, insisted we call it "Rug Time" and that we will all have to sit on the rug. Bleh.

 And then the rest of the day we'll spend decorating notebooks, finding out what we'll be doing in every subject, what our various work boxes look like and when and how we're allowed to use them (as in YOU MAY NOT LEAVE THIS ON THE FLOOR SO THAT MARIGOLD TAKES EVERYTHING OUT AND DESTROYS IT DO I MAKE MYSELF PERFECTLY CLEAR).

 And we'll definitely do reading and math and a little tiny bit of piano.

And at the end of the day, the room will not look like this but will probably be a disaster area and I'll be freaking out about two babies on a mission to seek and destroy. Nevertheless, I'm practically euphoric about this year and all the interesting things we'll be learning and doing together. And, by the grace of God, I broke my phone, so there's no way you can get a hold of me unless you leave a message at the church :).

Uninteresting Thursday

We're all camped out on my bed today doing school and ignoring everything else. I'm not feeling particularly steady on my feet. In fact, every time I stand up I feel like I'm going to whamp over. So, we're going to settle in here and pound home the new memory work, do some tedious reading and math, and maybe read a little history or something. Maybe later I'll drag my deck chair in the back and we'll do our work in the shade, if its not too humid.
In other words, BORING. Nothing interesting going on here today.
Oh, and the house will be being painted. I'm sure four little kids and lots of paint going on in the other room won't be distracting At All. I don't see how it could be.

A Day of Wonder and Excitement

Its chilly this morning and I can't convince Gladys and Romulus to go play elsewhere. They are rolling around my bed letting cold air in. Boy I'm glad we're all still in bed while the rest of the world scrambles towards the first day of school, or maybe that's tomorrow. Nothing wrong with school. Its just that we all stayed up till 9pm eating cake and talking politics so its really nice to sleep in. The kiddos really want to watch the speech but I read it last night and it seems pretty boring. AND, we have So Much to do today as far as school goes. My mind is not made up. Also, I have to go buy a new toothbrush. I'm willing to take all four children on such an errand, however fraught. Gladys got a hold of mine and chewed it to smithereens and I cannot cope. Its these small eventualities that make the day so interesting.

That little item of Mr. Obama speaking to all our children

Hee heeeee heeee
Further chaos reigns in the current administration.

The White House revised the plans Wednesday to say students could "write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals."
"That was inartfully worded, and we corrected it," Higginbottom said.
In the Dallas suburb of Plano, Texas, the 54,000-student school district is not showing the 15- to 20-minute address but will make the video available later.

I love the cut and thrust of domestic politics. This has gotten to be so interesting I might see if I can't go borrow someone's tv so we can watch it as part of our school day. After our CC review, of course, which not only includes some fascinating ancient geography, but also the 10 commandments. Maybe we will even write ourselves letters of how we can achieve our long and short term educational goals. I've already planned that we'll write letters this term. Better yet, lets send the letters to Mr. Obama! Heeeeheeeeeeeeeee
(And really, is that poor man's name really Mr. Higginbottom? Surely this is some kind of joke?)

maybe this is helpful or.....

We're memorizing Psalm 139 in the group time of our CC mornings. Here's the tune we worked on yesterday. Its only half the psalm, and I am NOT an amazing singer, especially since at the top of my blog this morning I read, 'Your baby is almost 17 inches long and weighs 4 lbs. Only 60 days to go!' which means that my lung capacity is seriously diminished. The child on my lap is for you to look at while I sing, instead of looking at me. I don't know why she is pouting.

A number of unconnected somethings

It appears, although I'm not really awake enough to be sure, that the babies slept through the night, finally. (I've really got to stop calling them babies as we have a real one momentarily down our throats.) I'm pretty sure this is the case because I'm REALLY tired, like I got more sleep than I'm used to, tired.

Sooooo, I was thinking maybe I'd try to get up and sit in a chair and make the children learn something. I intend to make yogurt today, and bread, because on my little calendar I fussed around making for hours and hours instead of actually doing real work, it says 'Kitchen Day: Make bread and yogurt'. I read that somewhere. You should have a kitchen day and a laundry day and some other housekeeping stuff that I can't remember right now.

On a completely unrelated note, a very nice commenter wanted to know 10 reasons, or something, why we home school, and how we intend to prepare our children to deal in a pluralistic relativistic society. I'm not sure I can think of Ten Whole Reasons, maybe one or two. But it occurs to me that the answer depends on what you want to prepare your children for--in what manner do you want a child to engage with said pluralistic society? Do you agree with the basic pluralistic underpinnings and want your child to be comfortable and happy in such a society? Or do you disagree and want your child to combat pluralism or relativism?

It won't be any surprise to anyone that Matt and I want our children to be intellectually equipped to combat relativism. And so we're crafting our brief time with them as children in such a way that they have the tools to think through and engage with a world we hope they won't entirely agree with. We would be really sorry, I think, after all this work, if they decided they weren't interested in the fight. As Matt pointed out, this season of training is so important, and it is necessarily removed from the frey and heat of battle, but that's so they have the space to become equipped, not so they will never enter it.

The Other reasons I'm homeschooling (right now) is because
1. I really like my children
2. Its interesting and fun to be involved in what they're learning.
3. Its more stressful to put them on a bus (because I'm not a morning person) than to organize their entire education.
4. I Really Believe in Classical Education and there's not a school in Binghamton that provides this opportunity
5. I'd rather homeschool and make bread than be the church secretary and go to vestry.
6. We're going to try and build a pyramid this week and it would be really lame for me to have to do something like that by myself while my kids were at school and my husband looked on and assumed I'd lost my mind.
7. My children are learning to integrate learning with every day life.
8. Their primary relationships, right now, are with each other and not with a lot of other people I don't know very well, which is important because their brothers and sisters will be there always, but friends come and go.
9. We can take off and go to Nairobi at a moments notice and not worry about making up piles of work because we took it all with us.
10. Their social lives are more interesting and varied. Frankly, I find it very weird the way this culture divides everyone up by age. All the children have to be corralled by age, and when you get old enough, you either have to move to Florida (didn't Jerry Seinfeld say that?) or into a retirement community. Matt and I are already preparing our children for the fact that we intend to live with them. Unless they all turn out to be awful, in which case we'll have to revise our plans. (Honestly, I jest. I haven't made any plans for my retirement yet. I just want to keep all my options open.)

And now, I think I might be just slightly awake enough to remove myself from my pillow and see what Gladys has done to all the math blocks. I've been informed that she was 'building something'. Hopefully a pyramid.

A Little Encouragement for the First Day of School

As Matt and the children were chauffeuring me around on my endless list of errands yesterday, we passed this amazing thought posted on the local elementary school sign.

The highest result of education is tolerance.

Matt shouted in my ear, 'Reason number 5,556 why we're not sending our children to public school.' Besides agreeing wholeheartedly with him, I thought to myself, 'what a miserable reason to get up in the morning. I couldn't possibly motivate myself to educate my children, to get out of bed, to do any work at all if the reason for that work was to be more 'tolerant' myself and produce it in my children. Honestly, I can't think of a more boring reason to learn anything.

Apart from pursuing knowledge of God, which is really the goal of all education, as far as I see it, what about Truth, Beauty, the fact that there are so many interesting things to learn? What about being educated for its own sake because otherwise you can't do anything interesting in life? What about wisdom and understanding? What about being able to read books because they're Wonderful books and it would be heartbreaking to go through life Not having read them? But 'tolerance'? Of what? sin? mediocrity? What are we to be tolerant of?

Oh I know, I know, its each other. But not really. The local elementary school isn't really interested in total tolerance of everyone. They want the children filling those rooms to be 'tolerant' of some things, maybe I even agree with some of them. I don't want my children to be 'tolerant'. I want them to be respectful and honoring. When they meet other people they don't agree with or understand, I want them to make good eye contact, listen carefully and take that person seriously, not just 'tolerate' them. How unloving! How boring! How miserable a reason to engage in so important a task as learning something.

Things I've got to do today because I didn't do them sooner

Today, after I stop lying here, I HAVE to do the following things.

-PHOTOCOPY STUFF
-Go scavenging for prizes for CC on Wednesday
-Organizing my maps and geo notebooks for CC on Wednesday
-seek out and find science notebooks for Elphine and Alouicious for CC on Wednesday
-have Elphine and Alouicious practice their presentations for CC on Wednesday
-Keep practicing our family presentation for CC on Wednesday
-Buy a thermos so I can take mid morning tea with me to CC on Wednesday
(are you noticing a pattern yet?)
-Go look at the baby undergarment section with Romulus and Gladys and dig out the plastic pants because they CAN use the potty and they ought to all the time
-Finish writing Thank You Notes for the whole of this year and actually send them
-Have a family picnic right now because its not raining for 15 seconds

I think this list is achievable because my house is clean. And instead of running around messing it up, the children, for some inexplicable reason, are all trying to work out with their dad. I think probably one of the most satisfying things in life is lying in bed watching Other people work up a sweat.

Its that time of year again

My kiddos have been hassling me for the last three weeks to start school. In my peaceful objective evenings, I am delighted by this nagging. In the moment I am usually totally impatient. 'Do I look like I am ready for us to start school? Look at the state of this room! Nothing is organized!' They gaze at me compassionately.
'That's ok,' says Elphine, 'I just want to do some math'.
'Well,ok,' I gave in last week, 'here's a worksheet from last year. Knock yourself out.'

I can't blame them, as I've been putting the house slowly in order, the school/sun room has come to be more and more inviting and its hard not to drop everything and start wildly doing crafts and copy work. BUT, after so much reading, and a little tiny bit of experience, I REALLY don't want to get started until I'm organized and have at least a vague idea of what I want to accomplish every day.

I am a little startled, to be perfectly honest, about this nagging desire on the part of my children to learn stuff. I don't remember having any such inclination. In fact, I remember fighting my mother every step of the way through my fourth grade year (I'm really really sorry, Mommy, what an irritating child I must have been) and being bored out of my mind over the study of Rune Stones and Fjords (part of the year as a trip through Norway). And I'm pretty sure I was no more interested in fifth grade when I went to boarding school. My only thought, concerning my own children, is that they don't know any better. At some point they will wake up in the morning and think, 'wait a minute! Our mother is making us learn!' and begin to revolt.

In the meantime, I am enjoying fussing around arranging all our new books, making clean crisp photocopies, making lists of websites and you tube clips on my calendar days, learning the new CC history songs, and rearranging my desk every so often. And, its a relief not to be out fighting the crowds of school supply buyers, as well as being able to assure my oldest child that if she would like to dress like an old lady for school, purse in hand and hat on her head, she may.

teaching a child in the way he should go

Thank you all for interesting and encouraging comments of last week. As is so often the case, I didn't set out to write anything in particular on Friday, other than Something more interesting than, we all ate breakfast and worked and worked all day until we fell into bed.

One comment in particular from an entirely different thread I thought I would pick up in a whole post. Otherwise today would just be Another weekend in review (like the fact that Gladys got into my very precious tin of Nivea cream and rubbed it all over her face and through her hair, using the Entire tin. She smells so pretty. And that we discovered a bat in the kitchen, the second one in the church in two weeks, and carefully deposited him outside, half the congregation making frequent trips outside over the course of the morning to see how he was getting on. And that we were reminded that our wedding anniversary is this week, so we unearthed and watched out wedding video again which was just as wonderful as when I saw it 7 years ago.)

Anyway, I'm grateful to this commenter's invitation to express more of an opinion, just want the internet needs.

“But meanwhile I'm glorying in the satisfaction of having so many useful and obedient children. “
I usually love reading your blog, Anne, but I was struck by the above words. I just hope your children have time to be, well, children.

This was a very helpful thought because I have been worried, of late, that All We Do Is Play. Its like a carnival circus around here most of the time, as far as I can make out. Of course, we haven't officially started school yet, but even then, as hard as I try to make us all serious, Everything seems to turn into a game. This is unfortunate for me, as their mother because I've always really disliked playing games of any kind. I'm getting over it, slowly. Particularly, I've discovered that cleaning should always be in a race against each other. We each get a room, whoever finishes first wins, except that I always have two or three rooms and so its Not Fair, heh, and I never win. Which is why I hate playing games.

The commenter goes on.

I think, when I was growing up, my chores were age appropriate. I did not start doing laundry until I was in high school, and I certainly did not feed everyone breakfast, empty the dishwasher, or clean the kitty box at such a young age. I just wonder if you truly know how odd it is to see written 'useful' and 'obedient' used when describing one's children. It's not the first words I would want to use to describe my children, or how I think of them. However, I may be interpreting your words in the wrong way. But I might use those ajdectives to describe my housekeeper (if I had one), but I'm not so sure I'd use them when it comes to my children.

My thought on this matter is guided by three different sources.
First, my parents would never have bought into this idea. I grew up with the understanding that I had been born to do dishes. That was the purpose of my existence. Naturally all this dishwashing developed into being able to cook really very well by the time I was in high school and college. I can't tell you how many people have appreciated this gift and skill over the years, not least of all my husband and children.

Second, as I've said before, Matt and I read very early on Standing on the Promises by Doug Wilson which has revolutionized our home life. Basic principles that we have incorporated from this book include 'delayed obedience is disobedience' and that really we have One main household rule. That rule is 'Honor and obey your Momma!'. If this wasn't firmly fixed in place, we would not be able to homeschool and I would be tired all the time. Respectful obedient children are happy children. They don't have to organize your life and their days and so they have time to play and think and learn without worrying about who is in charge and what should happen next. This is really the opposite of what we learned in seminary (why there was any parenting advice in an Episcopal Seminary, I don't remember). There we learned that 'the child's word to you is no'. HAHAHAHA. Au contraire. The child's word to me is 'Yes Momma, Right away Momma'.

And third, on the matter of work and school, we have been guided by a wonderful website called Trivium Pursuits. Here is what they say about the work of the child. I've bolded my favorite bits, but the whole long quote is really critical to the way we organize our house.

Develop in your child a love for work and service. From the time a child is able to walk and talk he should be given regular chores to perform. We do not mean simply feeding the dog and making his bed. A five year old is quite capable of putting the dishes away and folding the laundry. A ten year old can prepare simple meals from start to finish. Children of all ages can clean and straighten the house. The mother should not be picking up things from off of the floor. Your goal should be that by the time a child is in his teens, he is able to take over the work of the household, from cooking to cleaning to caring for his younger brothers and sisters. This not only teaches them to appreciate work while removing some of the burden from the parents, but it is good training for when they have their own households.Do not do for your child what he can do for himself. We need to reject all of this popular "self-esteem" stuff. The world’s problems can be summarized in one simple expression: too much self-esteem. Too many people think they are too good for what they get in life. They think they deserve better. And among the things which foster such notions is parents fawning over their little children. For the first year of his life, you pretty much need to do everything for him. But after that, the situation should begin to change rapidly. He can learn to do many things for himself in the next couple of years. He can clean up his own messes. An important corollary to this is: Do not do for yourself what your child can do for you. Your child needs to esteem himself lower than others, beginning with his parents. He can gather the clothes for laundry, and he can fold the laundry. Then he can do the laundry. He can set the table and wash the dishes. Then he can help fix the meals. He can vacuum the floor and dust the furniture. Then he can wash the windows. If you do all of this for him, then he will get a notion of self-esteem: "I am so important everyone ought to do things for me." But if he learns to do it for himself, then he will get a notion of self-confidence: "I can do it myself." And if he learns to do it for you, then he will get a notion of self-usefulness: "I can be helpful and I am needed around here."

Wonderfully, this understanding of the child is very like that articulated by Maria Montessori and Sophia Cavaletti. In Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, the work of the child and the work of the hands is the center of atrium life. The children don't 'play' with the beautiful materials, they work with them. The work is the critical element in internalizing the gospel. Likewise in the home. We were created by God to work and that is where we will find personal satisfaction, where we best glorify God, and are best made into the image and likeness of his Son.

And finally, the commenter writes

I'm just wondering if Father Matt might help out with some of those chores, or maybe he does???

I've said this many times on this blog, but Matt bears an incredible burden of household work. He does half the cooking, all the vacuuming, all the laundry, and up to this point, all the kitty litter. He takes the garbage out (a HUGE job) and keeps the household finances, as well as pastoring a growing church in the midst of a storm. My personal goal is to have him do as little around the house as possible which I fail at every day. That is why the two oldest are learning to do some of his work, as well as mine. At this age, amazingly, they love it. Every morning there is a fight over who gets to do the kitty litter and who gets to do the dishwasher. I know this attitude will not always persist, but I'm enjoying it for now, and looking forward to the day when they can manage this house as well, or better, than we their parents do.

A Little Friday Opinion Mongering

Between reading the comments on the Stand Firm Homeschool thread (the lectures by RC Sproul, by the way, are really excellent), the very funny idea that all the men in the Anglican Communion should remain silent for a year, and watching all the amazing clips of people being shut out of Town Hall Meetings (and this one of the AARP people leaving in the middle of the meeting), I've been considering to myself quietly all week the immense cultural divide between conservative and liberal. It doesn't seem, at this point, to be just groups of people leaning slightly further to the right or to the left. There is a profound and every day more bitter divide.

Take this comment on the homeschool thread. The commenter asks, "One question I would like to kick around which has yet to come up—what about the career aspirations of moms who homeschool? Are there any who have managed to maintain their own careers which homeschooling? "

My initial reaction, which I didn't post because I couldn't log in by the grace of God, was, 'What! Being home with your children isn't enough?!!!' and then, 'I have an extra career and ask anyone, I'm always trying to shove my work off on other people because I'd rather be home with my kids' and then, 'well, here I am, I haven't had to choose so I shouldn't be judgmental'. But as I banged my way around my kitchen, reacting and muttering to myself, I discovered that I do not share the fundamental assumption that women are owed an extra career, or that being in anyway 'fulfilled' is a reason to do the job at hand. In fact, my baseline most important priority is to do the will of God. And the will of God, seen most plainly in scripture and then in a lot of other places, almost always involves sacrificing oneself for the sake of others, first Jesus, because he died for me, then for my husband, because he's so wonderful, then for my children because God gave them to me, then for the church because apparently that's my job (hehehe). But there is a real danger to this world view of mine. It puts me on a profound collision course with So Many People.

For example, the Episcopal Church. Every lifestyle is a right. The greatest sin is not living up to be the person you and "God" think you should be rather than, say, offending an all Holy God through blatant and unsorrowful disobedience. This is why dear Ms. Kaeton and I will probably never be good friends, though doubtless we pray for each other occasionally. I don't think she has a right to her way of life. I don't think she should be the rector of a church. I don't think God is waiting out there to affirm her for who she is, any more than he's sitting around waiting to affirm me for who I am. I think he's waiting for both of us to confess our sins and be really sorry and then he will forgive us, and let us do his work for his glory. And if that work involves a fundamental denial of the self, well, that ought to be no surprise to anyone. He laid the model down himself.

Second, the Obama administration on two points. Callous as it seems, I don't think health-care is a right to be dispensed by the government. It ought to be a matter of compassion and mercy dispensed by the church and other charitable organizations (read Non Profit) for those who can't afford it (I realize, as I write this, that this is practically a utopia and is never going to happen) and then paid for by those who can. Anyway, I'm not here to argue about health-care. The other point is that of education. I think its my responsibility to educate my children, not the state's and I'd like as little interference as possible.

And ultimately, I'm on a collision course with all feminists everywhere. Its no surprise to me that the top tier of the Episcopal Church is occupied by a gaggle of women, with a bunch of cowering male bishops underneath, unwilling to stand up and say anything, like 'Stop It'. So far from having all the men be quiet for a whole year, I vote that all the women take a vow of silence and then see what happens. Of course, then I'd probably have to shut down this blog, but my stuff's not that interesting anyway.