November 11

Ah, first we had building with blocks while Mama took Trixie to the vet for her "snipping"...then there was reading through the pile of books we brought home last night from the library (oooh, some good ones - I'll have to share in another post). Then there was painting...

while Mama made soup for some friends who were coming at the end of their busy Wednesday for some supper before heading home to tend to goats, chickens and cats.

While Ani was helping Mama build a makeshift litterbox for Trixie to use during her convalescence in the "kitty suite" (aka: the study), the vet called to say, um...."Surprise!!! Trixie is a boy!" Oops. We had had our suspicions, but weren't positive. I did get to rib my friend when she arrived for dinner - she's working on sexing chickens, and I asked if she was better at chickens than she was at cats, as she's the one who gave her to us. Yes, we are still calling her "she". We are thinking her as our little transgendered kitty.

Then outside. The compromise yesterday was biking on the bike path when Mama wanted to hike. Today the compromise was the beach to make fairy houses. Hmmm - not much exercise for me, but the girls were so convincing with their explanations of how much exercise they were going to get streeeetching their arms to place the shells and stones, and Ani very seriously showed my how they would have to twist their bodies to reach the leaves and sticks that would go into the construction...and it was so beautiful, how could I mind being at the beach?

The little nest of a fairy house

While waiting for feet to dry and sand to fall off (yes, of course their feet got wet - we were at the beach right? Never mind that it's November...), I pulled out some MadLibs that I'd gotten for our car trip this summer but never opened up. They found them hilarious and we spent quite a bit of time giggling over our silly stories...we're gonna have fun with these.

The day is ending with a visit from friends, good supper, making cootie catchers, new hand-me-down clothes, and best of all, a visit from Papa, who is mostly sequestered in the library this week, plowing through three papers (is that all, honey???) before the quarter is over. The evening holds some making for me - I keep attempting new-to-me crafts and not all of them have panned out the way I had hoped. I'm hoping one of my attempts will turn into something I can do during the day without too much trouble, so I don't have to wait until kiddos are in bed before I get down to it! Wish I could share some of the goings-on, but holidays are approaching, dontcha know...

November 10

Yup, back on the bikes...after a day of projects inside, and before an evening trip to the library, a bike ride...in very large white t-shirts....the latest fashion around here.

A little impromptu music-making with found railroad spikes.

Heart rocks

Doing Maths

We do not have a lot of structure around here. This does not seem to be a big problem for my kids, but it starts to make me uncomfortable after a while. I have a need to see where things are going, a need to plan, a need for the bigger picture, and a need for a vision for those smaller steps. When we are involved in a lot of outside classes - choir, soccer, dance, coop, swimming, reading - the structure finds us; we only have a couple of "home" days and we neatly fit those projects and reading time into their spots (ha! I am laughing that I used the word "neatly" to describe anything that happens at this house!!). This fall, however, we have chosen to spend a lot more time at home. I think this has been really good for us: there are more days of harmony, and we spend much less time decompressing after spending too much time with other people (and by people, I generally mean large groups of kids, though I need a certain amount of decompressing after being with the adults as well.) We have become more selective about who we spend our time with and what we spend our time doing.

With all this home-time, it is becoming more and more important to me that we have some structure to our week. We are definitely still figuring it out, but one thing that has emerged is something I call "doing maths". During our homeschool evaluation in August one suggestion or comment that the teacher had was that even in "unschooled" families, there tended to be more structure around math, and that in her family she had not done this with child number one, but was finding it very helpful to have this foundation with child number two. In September I ordered the primer level of MathUSee (though I am suspicious of anything that uses "cute" spelling, I had heard good things about this program from people I think highly of). I sat on it until October when, during a morning of Peter Pan play, the Darling children (think Wendy and Michael) requested some lessons. Perfect!! Out came the blocks and the lessons I had drawn up ahead of time. Because we were in London, we of course called it "Maths" and proceeded to zip through 4 of the lessons that morning, all of us with a strong British accent.

We have continued to "do maths" once or twice a week, each time moving through several lessons at once. I chose the first level knowing it would be easy, but thinking it would be a good training ground for both Eliza and myself, and would leave her wanting more, feeling confident and giving us both the vocabulary we would need later in the program. Anika is the one I thought would take quickly to the program, but she has no interest in practicing any of the problems, so she listens (and absorbs!!) and plays with the blocks or the geo-board or builds around us on the floor. I notice the girls finding math in their days, not shying away from figuring things out, presenting math-type problems to me as we ride in the car. I was never a math person, so this makes me feel more grounded and confident about how we are proceeding.

I use to feel sheepish about the fact that we usually do this in our accents. I mean, we're playing, right? You'd be amazed at how much further I can get in leading them into a project or what I'd loosely call a lesson, if I bring out an accent. They are immediately engaged in play-acting as schoolchildren, and we are off!

Jane's Diary - 1975

I mentioned a few days ago that my grandma Jane was the writer of a diary for many years. These are not emotional out-pourings, but rather the details of her days with my grampa, Chet. After her death, my dad let me borrow a couple of them to read through, and I thought I might share an entry here and there - there are a few of you who knew them and I think those of you who didn't might still enjoy reading a few notes about her days! I'll start with November 1975. I was six, and I think she was almost 58, living on Crandall Street, in Madison, Wisconsin.

November 7, 1975
Partly sunny - rain early - rain after supper
Washed my hair - made chili and put it in basement oven at 225 all day - Good
Made 4 apple dumplings - finished the cleaning
Wrote to Mike (note: my dad - we were living in Russia) - mailed it
Chet home at 5:30 - ate in front of the fireplace.
Watched TV - took a short walk at 11.

November 8, 1975

Partly cloudy - Chet worked on eavestroughs - measured the yard for building permit - Letters from both boys!! I ironed - washed - weeded some of the plants - Drove to Orfordville for Lutefisk supper - Lutheran Church - $4.50 - Very very good! Home at 8 - Took a long hot bath - Called Mom.

As an extra bonus (!!), I'll also include a few one-line entries from a 1937 diary she compiled in 1971 to share with family. She was nineteen and living at home in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

Nov. 1...Well, now I am laid off --went to the dentist - had one filling $1.00
Nov. 3...Applied at Dorflingers again
Nov. 4...Went to the employment office
Nov. 5...Mom went to Madison with Aunt Marie. I took care of the house--made cupcakes.
Nov. 12...Alice Jean and I went around to all the stores but they wouldn't even take applications.

My family has always joked about Jane and her details - especially about the food - but I love reading these little entries, written in Insurance Agency daybooks and riddled with paperclips holding church bulletins, birth announcements, newspaper clippings, death announcements...It's all there.

Who has seen the wind?

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you;
but when the leaves hang trembling, the wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I;
but when the trees bow down their heads, the wind is passing by.

Christina Rossetti

Scarecrows and Felted Balls

Eliza got a bee in her bonnet about doing a play this week, and decided it was to be The Wizard of Oz and she wanted to involve two sister friends as well as her sister. She, of course, would be Dorothy, as well as the Director, while she divvied up the other roles amongst the other three actors. She put a lot of thought into this and called the sisters ahead of their playdate over here to prep them on the plans...alas, they never got the message and her plans were dashed when they showed up, unprepared and unenthusiastic. While the project may get another opportunity in the near future, I actually think the making of the props was probably the best part anyway...

Ani, holding Dorothy's bedroom window

Ani, cast as all the munchkins, Toto and the Wizard,
practicing her fourth part, as the Scarecrow

Demonstrating one of the puppet effects of the
cardboard witch flying by the window,
during the twister
*********************************

On Friday we decided to spend the afternoon trying a craft I've been wanted to jump into for a while - since getting a brief tutorial from my brother-in-law this summer: felting. This post was the final push towards the perfect starter project for us - little jingle balls for the kitties. Friday was a beautiful fall day, so we decided to set up in the backyard.

This project was a little harder to do with the girls than I had anticipated. It could have been my patience level, it could have been the many trips back and forth from the kitchen that I took with heavy pans, to refill them with hot water...I think it will be easier next time, as by the time we were finishing they seemed to be finding it easier, but I did a lot of rolling on each of their balls for them. The funny part is that we set them out to dry on the table in our kitchen, on a towel, and the next morning they were nowhere to be found. Guess who must have known they were for them...? Two have shown up, but the other three...maybe under the fridge?! (The girls panicked that the cats might have eaten them and told me to listen to them as they walked to see if their bellies jingled...)

Ani stories

I am loving four more. Four was not easy with Eliza (was it moving? a new home, city, state? having a year-old sibling? having me for a mama?!), and has been challenging with Ani in different ways...but I am still loving four. She is whole, unselfconscious, grounded in her-ness. I found myself looking at her today, and wishing she would stay just like this, wondering if she would ever again be really this whole-y her.

I was talking recently with a friend about Ani's vocabulary. She is "normal" to us, as we breed, ah, shall we say, chatty children? But she has been talking at this rate and level of articulate for a long time now. At two she silenced a couple of moms who were sharing her picnic table at the park and having a discussion about food choices in their families with her statement, "I prefer my cheese local."

Here she is holding what appears to be an orange pencil, covered at one end in scotch tape.

Ha ha! Don't be fooled! This utensil is in reality her "special deoderant", to be applied on an as-needed basis to the underarm regions, known as her "zoo-zai's" - and it doubles as a magic wand. I need me one of those.

Shortly after the local cheese incident, the girls were in the bathroom, first thing in the morning, keeping each other company while Dan and I were trying to rouse ourselves from bed. I could hear them, and when Eliza reminded Ani that she needed to wash her hands, Ani replied, "That is inceptible to me." I heard Eliza say "Um, Ani, what does "inceptible" mean?" She calmly answered, "Inceptible means I do NOT WANT TO WASH MY HANDS!"

I was thinking about these stories because this morning, before my eyes were open, I could hear Ani greeting the day on the other side of Dan (who is getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night right now). It took me a minute to figure out what she was whispering to him, but then I worked out it was this:

"Papa....Papa....Papa, could you show me your technique for making the popping sound by putting your finger in your mouth? Papa? Could you show me your technique? Your technique for doing that?"

Unbelievably, the next sound I heard was the sound of Dan's index finger neatly popping out of the side of his mouth. I am quite certain his eyes were still glued shut. What a good Papa.