There's a cup of coffee for you...

This week our internet was out. Let's just say it was a gardening accident, and leave it at that, shall we?  We have also been without our filtered water for two weeks, due to a problem with the filling station at the grocery store. No water. No internet.

Eliza declared it "apocalyptic" - with great glee. Then it became tragic. No internet or water? First world problems. (I mean, yes, water is super important, but while we obsessively check to see if we might be under a boil order, we technically have water.)

WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THE STORE WHERE YOU WORK
SELLS *GLUTEN FREE* STROOPWAFELS?!?!?!?!?

It quickly became clear though that there was a layer of communication we were missing, even just within our house.  Eliza can't text without wifi, so there were no delightful BTS GIFs showing up on my phone. And I couldn't send her photos from the kitchen, or the store, or from wherever I was. We're just short of obsessed with practicing making poached eggs, and UGH, I couldn't send her a photo of my nearly perfect breakfast!!!

!!!!

 She got more exercise, walking uptown to the university library to check on email and texts and do her language study, but a teenager without a way to communicate easily with friends is rather tragic. Thankfully we have a brilliant friend who thought nothing of stopping by and fixing our troubles in 15 minutes flat. Still no water, but we're back up and running and texting and blogging...

I am eating a nectarine. Duh.
Translation: OMG, THERE ARE NECTARINES!!!

September Doings

Pawpaw mainstage, 2018

Today was ablaze with a searing blue sky and perfect wisps of cloud. A fabulous - and hot, sticky, messy - curtain call of summer. It was the annual Pawpaw Festival here, in pawpaw country, and we just about didn't go. E and I dipped our toes in - our hot, sticky toes - for a few glimpses of friends and a plate of jerk chicken and plantains, but were happy to hop back in the car for home. 

The artwork around the festival was gorgeous!

It made me think though of pawpaw festivals years ago, when she would happily dance with strangers during the called contra dances, or a little later, when she was independent enough to roam without me stuck to her side, but dependent enough that I tried to stay within view for the inevitable big drink of water or snack, avoiding a dramatic collapse. Some years we'd camp and the kids would wander in a tangled gaggle of happy awkwardness. It was a perfect place for young people to roam in safety, and for us parents to get a little break, confident that our community was also keeping a loose eye on our kids.  Today I felt like we'd outgrown the fun of it, but I can also recognize that in a different year, with different weather (but oh please the same jerk chicken and plantains!!) and a different life rhythm, it might feel just right again. And friends of all ages are having young ones, and so there will be a new focus and delight in that gathering again...

neighborhood pawpaws

The girls roll their eyes when I hashtag something, 

so Ani thought it would be funny to edit this photo

 of some of our very authentic physics tools.

September feels like a new year to me. Thought I do not feel a spaciousness with lots of holes in my schedule that are begging me to write on the blog!, I think this page might be helpful to me, in gaining some perspective on what happens here in our days. The boxes are really off-kilter, and I'm good with that until I start trying to put things in the boxes, and then it all falls to pieces, and my sanity and positivity with it.

So. This week was about:

Voter registration - Dan and I worked with our local Indivisible chapter to register new voters (yes, I find this thrilling. I LOVE to vote!) and update student addresses at our wonderful farmer's market. Very satisfying!!

Starting the new season of Calliope - I am the new director of a 25-year old feminist choir in town. It is an honor and a total pleasure, and a lot of work, so it was really fun to get to the singing part on Monday! We started our season learning "Refugee" by Moira Smiley, whose workshop I attended this summer as a part of Sister Singers Network Festival.

Yoga - Dan and I have committed to making as many Sunday yoga classes as we can together. It's crowded and I have holes in my pants that I get to display with every downward-facing dog, but it's the best yoga class I've taken in years. Just when I think I'm going to have to lie down and pretend like I'm really into child's pose to deepen my practice, she shifts us into something new and I am able to carry on!  Eliza is taking a weekly yoga class with a former dance teacher who she loves.  She also went to try out a women's jiu jitsu class and was a part of setting a record for the studio of 20 women on the mat! She LOVED it and still is having a hard time walking up the stairs.

photo from Relson-Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy

For Ani the week's highlights were a frustrating morning spent trying to trouble-shoot a remote snap circuit car; making handmade books with a friend during a sleepover; reading, reading, reading (she is trying a new series called "Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians", reading a biography of Isaac Newton, partially aloud to me if I'm anywhere in the vicinity, and has just started Sherlock Holmes, which is slow-going and challenging and she is totally up for it! Her comment was that it might be helpful to read with "maybe seven dictionaries" nearby, looking up words like "ascetic", "commonplace book" and "dour").  

Lite brite!!

The biggest highlight was probably when we were watching our little toddler buddy for a second day this week.  Ani had already taken care of potty times and diaper changes herself, and then I asked if P wanted Ani to sing her to sleep? She did, of course, and so Ani lay down with her and sang her to sleep! It was heart-squeezingly adorable to listen to through the monitor. 

sleepover popovers

Tuesday there was a sleepover at our house. I invited the girls ahead of time to come to the Interfaith Peace Walk that evening; the Justice Choir had been asked to lead a couple of songs in front of the Islamic Center on campus, after a walk through town. Dan's rehearsal was cancelled, so suddenly we were all there, walking, visiting with neighbors, holding candles, and singing "we're gonna keep on moving forward..." I was grateful to be all together, to be a part of our community who makes this effort every year to pull us all together in the spirit of peace and justice.

Last week we took a trip to the Kennedy Art Museum on campus, to see an exhibit of Haitian art.

My agenda was to not have an agenda;) We just wandered and observed and thought and talked and wandered. Ani took the photos above, with my phone, and I loved seeing what drew her attention.  This week I wanted to see an exhibit on campus, called What Were You Wearing? , which addressed sexual assault, rape culture, and victim-blaming.  I knew Eliza would be interested, but while the subject is something Ani will talk about, she was not interested in going through the gallery show. She walked there with us, though, and enjoyed riding the escalators and hanging out, reading, while in the bustle of the student center. The exhibit was powerful and alarming, simple in its execution (outfits hanging on the wall, fitting the descriptions written out on plaques, of clothing and the ensuing assault) and brutal in its simplicity.

Ani's view of sky

photographing the photographer

We have our daily goals of reading for an hour (for Ani, that means reading something out of her "normal" repertoire; the request is some non-fiction a few times a week), language study, math games/puzzles, music study - and we are trying to anchor our week with a couple of activities together. Right now we are looking at Newton's laws of motion, through experiments, reading, and video.  Eliza is reading Angie Thomas's "The Hate U Give" and listened to a podcast on race with Ijeoma Oluo, who wrote "So You Want To Talk About Race".  We also have various conversations on racism, segregation, taking a knee, rape culture, conversion therapy...sometimes initiated by me, and sometimes by a thought train one of them is riding. Ani was sitting and being thoughtful the other day, thinking about "Hidden Figures", which is one of her favorite books and movies right now. It prompted her to talk about segregation, imagining a library that was not open to absolutely everyone, and wondering where things stand now (a conversation topic that comes round on a regular basis). I try to stop what I am doing and sink into where she is when this happens, because she is a deep thinker and I want to go there with her when she is ready!

What else...Eliza has a weekly game night she goes to with young adults who all homeschooled in some fashion, and she had a movie date with her best friend in Maine on Friday, watching and chatting simultaneously.  It reminded me of watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers on the TV while sitting on the phone with my friend, Tammy Bridges, who lived kitty-corner from me in fifth grade.

And then there was this encounter with a bobcat baby named Luke, at Wild Ohio Ranch...

SWOON!!!!

Spring starts

bloodroot

I hardly know where to begin, but I've been feeling a pull. This blog was an adult space for me for many years, the adult space, and now that I have other real-time adult spaces (maybe too many of them?), this has faded into the background. Back yard. Other side of town. But there have been moments in the past month or two where I've thought, huh, I should write about that. So I thought I'd give it a whirl.

buckeye baby

How about I entertain you with the ephemeral aliens of southeastern Ohio's woods, while I ramble on a bit about homeschooling teenagers? An annual homage to spring, in one of the weirdest springs on record. To point, it was 80 degrees yesterday, maybe a bit more than that the day before, and they're suggesting it might snow tomorrow. Blargh.  (update: it snowed, sleeted, and snowed some more)

 A little like homeschooling teenagers, where you think you know the season, but it keeps throwing you curveballs. Some curveballs are good - like the timing of a trip to Spain that fits your child perfectly. E's learning world has been crafted almost entirely around planning and preparing for a six week trip with Unschool Adventures. We've had this organization on our radar for years, and the possibility of going always seemed years away until "Mom! MOM!! They have room in their trip to SPAIN!!!"  

This was on the heels of retrieving her from Maine, where she had been for a month, living with her best friend and picking blueberries, and eating huge amounts of gelato.  We pretty much immediately went into the soft no, like, yeah wouldn't that be cool, but ha ha...no.

That night I lay in bed thinking about everything I've read about these trips over the years, building confidence in young people, encouraging "self-directed exploration". If there was a kid who was ready for this stage of freedom, it is E. She wants what most of us want - to engage with her life in a meaningful way. So much of what we do as teens can feel like treading water, waiting, waiting, waiting...This is not what I want for her. I remember feeling like I was just waiting for my real life to start. Why do our kids need to wait?

Virginia bluebells

Rock House trail, Turtle Head cave. With Baby.

So we started talking about how we could possibly make it happen. What we finally came up with was asking her to split the cost of the tuition with us, which she has and then some, through a job at a health food store, working as a transcriber for a friend of ours, doing odd jobs here at home, selling sets of original cards and crowdfunding. She dove into learning Spanish, online and working weekly with a university student. She's been hiking every week, breaking in her new boots, for the two weeks of hiking along the Camino del Norte. This girl is motivated and inspired and ready. 

I've been referring to teenagers, plural, but actually, I only have one.  Ani will turn thirteen next month, and I celebrate where she is, but she is not anxious to turn a year older. She loves childhood. 

There is a striped salamander in here somewhere.

She is striving for independence though in her own way.  She pushes for unschooling, and we are striking a compromise with most of our days. She reads, sculpts, listens to music, and we do Life of Fred stories, logic puzzles, and riddles for math, and study French. We talk a lot, when she isn't immersed in a book or memorizing lyrics to her favorite song from Hairspray, about deep ocean creatures and applying the Bechdel test to Shakespeare's comedies.

blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides,)

bloodroot

I tend to get hung up on the details. It can be difficult to maintain perspective when you spend so much time with your kids. I would like to feel better equipped to help A open doors where she is, to feel some flow with her that sparks some new fires (so many metaphors...).  I'm having a harder time with the trusting and following for some reason, but when E asks what she was like at this age, I honestly have a hard time remembering because she was always older. Fifteen at thirteen. Understanding things about the world, somehow. So in some ways, this is our first cusp of thirteen. 

flying down the path

I miss the days when all we did was run through the woods and read so many books and narrate endless stories. But I love the humor and the energy and the intelligence of this time. The compassion and the insights and the curiosity.  It is really really wonderful.  

Childhood

Anchors

reading on the roof

We've been into a rhythm for about a month now - a skeleton of a schedule which we are filling with American prehistory and Van Gogh and astronomy and french and fractions - but I've been away for a couple of weekends, we've had a beloved visitor, and every activity we are involved with is up and running full steam. Dance classes, film class, choir, and activism, it is all fulfilling and overwhelming, at the same time. 

Monday morning dawned and I thought: shoot, we've got to Slow Down.  Our learning time works best with some spaciousness, a relaxed pace and some time to compost. We have really been missing that. So I met the girls on the couch after morning chores and we picked out a book to read aloud.  

Mathing at the kitchen table

Yes, at twelve and fifteen my girls can read to themselves, and do so insatiably, but they still love to be read to. A year and a half ago we read my childhood copy of Ellen Raskin's The Westing Game, and it was a blast! So funny and smart. They wanted to read it again, but I told them there was another Ellen Raskin, so now we are several chapters into The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues.

Mormor came to visit

Last year our morning was anchored by time we spent at the kitchen table after the dishes were cleared away. We would watch CNN Student News to follow current events, which often lead us down one path or another.  We would follow that with the New York Times What's Going On In This Picture? , a great jumping-off point for conversation, together and online.  Sometimes it was to Khan Academy to watch an art history video, or it was to look at a map or more photos.  This year Ani requested that we not start every day with current events. It has felt really overwhelming and depressing (don't you think???)  and to be honest, she cringes every time she hears 45's name. She has always been clear on what she can handle, so for now we are staying away from the news and having simpler conversations when there is something to know.

Mask-making for a rally

I am not always as successful limiting my own media intake these days, and it can quickly throw me off balance. I'm going to follow Ani's lead on this one, and have one-on-one conversations with Eliza, who wants to be in the know.  It also feels good to start our days with a book in hand, not with a screen.

Math on the bed, with cat.

So we're gathering on the couch, with magnetic mosaics and drawing pads, pompom makers and paints, to listen to a story.  It is exactly the right thing for Now. It takes precious time out of our mornings, but it is the heart of our days and puts us in a place where we can move into the work we find more challenging.  Tattooed Potato is an odd enough book that we are making connections all over the place: impressionism, the old song Oranges and Lemons, Humphrey Bogart...we're learning all kinds of interesting things.

Mapping the Netherlands

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Our other anchor of the week is our time with this little bean.  She's signing, talking, climbing, asking, showing...so busy!  

(I'm not sure if this is Ani's favorite way of doing math, but she's very patient with her curiosity!)

trusting the cloud

This is a test to see if I can truly dump all the bazillion photos from my phone because they are safe in a cloud.  Yes, I know it's The Cloud, but it resides in this part of reality steeped in science fiction, and I only just in the past year allowed my brilliant and tech-savvy brother in law to even talk about The Cloud in my presence. Really. It freaked me out in a deep way. But I've crossed over and it might be because I have exactly 9,562 photos and 206 videos on my amazing little phone.

So since we are traveling to Maine this weekend to retrieve this beautiful girl and - oh yes! attend the annual Silver Baby Cup golf tournament - I thought I might need some room for more photos. It seems that it's all true what they said. It's in the cloud. Whatever that is.

September learning notes

It's almost assessment time here in Ohio: the public school across the street has their last day tomorrow, and we're being catapulted into summer with 88 degree temperatures. I don't stop keeping track of what we're doing over the summer, but I don't shape our time quite like I do the rest of the year, mostly because we stay so darn busy! I always think life will slow down with the ending of dance classes and choir, but something else always comes to take its place. This year it's Midsummer Night's Dream, in which Eliza is Cobweb, the fairy - and which Dan is directing in his second year as Tantrum Theater's Artistic Director. 

This was also a paltry blogging year for me. I'm still figuring out why. Some of it is that we are spending more time independent from one another, and more of that time looks like reading and writing on the computer - none of which quite captures the camera like a nature walk or making mudpies (those were the days...)! But we're still here, and this is a nice way to keep track of life whirling by, so I'm launching a major catch up in the next couple of weeks, mostly for me, but maybe there is someone out there still checking in once in a while (yes - Hi, Mom!). There will be many many photos, and then some narrative and lists, not exhaustive, just keeping track of some of the ways we spent our time, including links to resources. I'll use these posts as part of our annual assessment - so they may not hold your interest all the way through! Just look at the photos and carry on!

(We finally got to see a touring production of Wicked, in the old Ohio Theater in Columbus, and it was so overwhelmingly fancy that Eliza started to cry when we sat down. This is in spite of the fact that none of us were sitting together, and Ani had just come down with a fever...)

Ani's photo

(The fever turned into a week of feeling poorly; lots of listening to stories and putting together puzzles, while Dan and Eliza traveled to Tennessee for the annual Silver Baby Golf Tournament.)

(Early work on a Halloween costume. Super cool horns)

pen and ink drawing by Eliza

In September we took on the care of a friend's almost four-month old, and it quickly became clear that Ani would be a primary caregiver during our time.  Eight months later, that still bears out, and she has competently bottle-fed, changed diapers, swaddled, and worn that baby! Now of course it's more about putting the baby down so she can run, so the skill set is changing, but Ani remains attentive, doting, and fascinated by infant and child development.

Z, Ari, Ani and an Ent. Of course.

Enjoying the Pawpaw Festival!

 

graphing the volcanoes that make up the ring of fire

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

September was the start or resumption of many things: the picking up of a friendship that had been long-distance for a year; fiddle, dance classes, Silver Baby Golf Tournament.  We eased into math with a book called Math and Magic in Wonderland, reading it aloud. Ani declared "I want to do science that is interesting, interactive and delicious". Well, we managed the first couple of criteria when I found Mystery Science, which creates inquiry-based units for educators. Unfortunately, most of them are for younger children, but we did a couple of the units geared towards the oldest, starting with The Birth of Rocks, focusing on volcanoes, and supplemented with Crash Course and other videos about Earth Science.  We also started most days with CNN student news - which often lead to long conversations and research - and participated weekly in the New York Times "What's Going On In This Picture?" conversation.

A highlight from the month for Ani was the decision to study other countries through their food, starting with Italy. She also ended with Italy.  Turns out she just wanted to make a lot of pasta and pizza, biscotti and caprese salad! No one complained...She also read Italian folk stories, and daily mapped out a trip my dad was taking around the Mediterranean, looking up information on some of the locations. We looked at a virtual tour of Rome, she read Roman Diary: The Journal of Iliona, Starry Messenger, about Galileo, Leonardo's Horse, about Leonardo Da Vinci, and worked on learning the countries of Europe.

Other things that happened: 

Read about Amelia Earhart (This Broad Ocean and Adventure in the Sky)

Read The Half-Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows

Read The Lost Colony of Roanoke

Worked on writing and cursive

Conversation about time zones, looking at maps

Eliza started her fall in Italy too; she learned about history through Dr. Who during the fall, starting with the episode on Pompeii.  She and Dan took advantage of the fabulous National Theater Live showings at our local cinema: One Man Two Guvnors, View from the Bridge, The Audience, and Three Penny Opera.  She also attended a University production of The Library.  We attended a showing of Another Kind of Girl Collective, short films by and about young Syrian refugees, with a talk-back by the filmmaker and teacher who lead the project.  

Other things that happened:

Read short stories: Fresh, All Summer in a Day, Magic for Beginners

Wrote a CD review for Earwig, a local band, published online

Learned French on Duolingo

Worked on her novel

Hip Hop, African Dance, Dance Composition

Fiddle lessons with Liz Shaw