Archive for May, 2007
May 14, 2007 @ 3:45 pm | Filed under:
Family Our eyes met across a crowded room, and he wondered why there was a middle-schooler at a college party.
And here I thought I looked so sophisticated in my awesome blue cowboy boots.
Ah, well. He upgraded his opinion of me soon enough, after we’d been cast opposite one another in the spring play, and he discovered I was smart enough to get all his jokes.
I’m pretty sure that’s what hooked him. Or it might have been the fact that I had a car, and it was a loooong walk to the comic book store in town.
Or the fact that I was as big a Lord of the Rings geek as he was.
Or my excellent crock-pot chili.
Whatever it was, I’m grateful for it.
Eighteen years later (thirteen since the wedding day), he’s still making me laugh. I drive a minivan now with two carseats and three boosters in the back, and he’s the guy putting the comic books in the stores. I still make a mean chili, although now it’s vegetarian because Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes gave up eating beef.
Last night we watched part of The Lord of the Rings, and he didn’t even mind when I got all goosebumpy over Aragorn.
Our eyes are still meeting across crowded rooms. Only now they’re crowded with our own offspring (who, let’s face it, make as much noise as a bunch of drunken college kids). I still haven’t managed to pull off "sophisticated," boots or no boots. He doesn’t seem to mind. There’s a look in his eyes that says he’d live it all over again, even the hard parts. Talk about goosebumps.
Man, can I pick ’em.
Jane wrote:
I love your approach, Lissa. Why stick to one way of teaching and learning?
You know, I can see an argument in favor of adopting one consistent methodology and sticking to it. Actually, Charlotte Mason herself makes that argument in my beloved Volume 6:
“The reader will say with truth,—’I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles’; and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering, not ‘more or less,’ but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated. I suppose the difficulties are of the sort that Lister had to contend with; every surgeon knew that his instruments and appurtenances should be kept clean, but the saving of millions of lives has resulted from the adoption of the great surgeon’s antiseptic treatment; that is, from the substitution of exact principles scrupulously applied, for the rather casual ‘more or less’ methods of earlier days.”
I admit to having sometimes read these words with a wince, feeling a pang of guilt over not having scrupulously applied any one set of principles. I am an adapter, a tweaker, a “take what works and leave the rest” sort. And here we see Miss Mason herself tsk-tsking the “casual” manner in which I have applied her ideas to my children’s education.
(It isn’t really “casual.” I’m just not going 100% by her book.)
After the wince I always remember that I am working with real people here, and real circumstances quite unlike any Miss Mason might have envisioned when designing her curriculum. She can’t have imagined a mother trying to hear narrations while a hard-of-hearing toddler chatters loudly in the background, like an old man with an ear trumpet unaware that he’s shouting, and a winsome baby steals the pupils’ attention by threatening to take her first walk across the carpet when (gasp, not permitted!) Daddy isn’t home. I doubt she envisioned her method being put to work in homes in which the bulk of the day consists of one adult having full responsibility for the care and education of multiple children, AND meal preparation, AND basic housekeeping. And our “ands” could go on, couldn’t they? AND having paid work to do, AND having to spend a lot of time traveling to doctors’ appointments, AND etc etc etc.
Which is not to say one CAN’T home-educate in complete accordance with Charlotte Mason’s principles. Many people do (check out the Ambleside webring), beautifully, happily, and with great success.
I’m just saying that for me, my family, our tastes and circumstances, CM-inspired works better than full-on CM.
Sometimes I think all my real parenting successes have to do with hitting upon just the right metaphor to illustrate a concept. Patience, example, levelheadedness—forget it. All I’ve really got going for me is a knack for figurative language. But hey, if it works…
One image that has worked wonders here lately is the tipping cup. Years ago, I noticed something about toddlers. If a two-year-old is holding a cup of water, and it tips and begins to spill, the child—rather than righting the cup—will nearly always turn that cup right upside down and dump out the rest of the water. Which is why you only gave the child water, and not juice.
It struck me a certain type of temperament is prone to similar behavior when it comes to anger. I have a hot-tempered child whose natural tendency is to react to any slight upset with a full-fledged outpouring of wrath. If her cup of emotion tips, so to speak, her inclination is to just pour it all out.
So one day I talked to her about toddlers and tipping cups, and how our feelings can be like the water in the cup. She seized hold of the metaphor immediately. We talked about how part of growing up is learning how to straighten your cup back up after you’ve been jostled. You don’t have to let every little splash turn into a big flood.
This image has become a bit of code between us. I’ll see her beginning to lose her temper after something annoying happens. "Straighten your cup," I’ll murmur, and more and more often, she takes a breath, presses her lips together in grim determination—and keeps her temper in check. I’ve come to know the expression on her face that means she is struggling to hold her cup upright. She likes to cuddle up with me in the afternoons and talk about her triumphs.
"I didn’t tip my cup, Mommy," she’ll whisper. "I wanted to pour it all out, right on [insert sister’s name] head." A pause, a wicked chuckle, as she savors the image perhaps a bit too much. She knows there is acid in that cup. "But I didn’t."
And that’s what counts.
May 8, 2007 @ 10:56 pm | Filed under:
History In honor of the the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the Jamestown settlement (which, coincidentally, is also my 13th wedding anniversary), author Kris Bordessa is offering a sneak peek inside her book, Great Colonial Projects You Can Build Yourself.
Unfortunately for stumped anniversary-present shoppers, a colonial pump drill is not on my wish list this year.
May 8, 2007 @ 9:42 am | Filed under:
Math Hey, did you know there’s a Math-U-See blog now?
Those pictures of the kids hugging their MUS books and cheering? Totally believable. No joke, my kids feel the exact same enthusiasm for Math-U-See. I finally broke down and ordered Rose a new Gamma workbook last week. I had planned on having her use the empty pages in Jane’s old one…there are six pages per lesson, and Jane usually only does two. I KNOW I unpacked that book after we moved in, but I can’t find it anywhere. How much do you want to bet it turns up sometime this week?
Anyway, when the UPS guy rang our bell yesterday, Rose went running to greet him, on the off chance the delivery was for her. She didn’t know her book was on the way; she just has high hopes for every package that arrives.
"Rats," she said gloomily, carrying in the package. "It’s not for me. It’s for YOU." Her tone was accusing and despondent, full of subtext: YOU, dear mother, get too many packages. YOU get all the good stuff.
"I think you are mistaken," I singsonged, after a glance at the return address. Rose stared at me blankly for a moment, then lit up. Gasped. Clasped her hands.
"Is it my Gamma book????" she shrieked. You could hear the multiple question marks. Also half a dozen exclamation points. She fairly snatched the package out of my hands and began struggling with the tape. Shoved it back my way, asked me to help rip it open. Snatched again the moment the first box flap broke free.
"IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!! MY GAMMA!!!!!!!!!!" Exclamation points were zinging around the room. I narrowly escaped being bashed in the face by one. Another one landed right beside the baby and I am pretty sure she ate it. She has been interjecting little excited yelps ever since.
This passion for MUS is the reason math studies have never been an issue around here. It’s a method and presentation that Jane and Rose really click with. Beanie is hounding me to "do Alpha." I’ll be interested to see, four or five years from now, what Wonderboy thinks of it. Assuming I can remember where I’ve put the darn books.
The six-year-old, overheard: "Smushilo, smushilari, smushilavi, smushilatum! I smush, to smush, I smushed, smushed!"
(Funny, I don’t recall that track on the Latin for Children chants CD.)
May 7, 2007 @ 2:18 pm | Filed under:
Books Jennifer (hostess of today’s simply smashing The Loveliness of Gardens fair, for which, drat it, I forgot to write something) commented on my previous post:
I must laugh because your children are adorable, but I found myself
peering intently at the bookshelves behind them to see what gems you
have stashed there.
I too must laugh, because I almost cropped the bookcases out of that photo and then I thought, wait, I LOVE to peek at what books are on other people’s shelves, I should leave them there.
If you REALLY want to browse our shelves, Jane and I have been working on entering all our books at Library Thing. She reads off the titles and I type them in. This is a slow process. She may well be in college by the time I finish, and it’ll be Rilla calling out the books.
I’m tempted to buy one of those scanner doohickeys you can hook up to your computer. LibraryThing sells them for $15, I believe. Then again, it’s sort of fun talking over all the books with Jane.
Margaret Mary tagged me for a book meme the other day: "What books are you reading right now?" I’m almost embarrassed to answer…my books-in-progress pile is ridiculously large right now. Out of control. I won’t even try to explain it; it just is what it is.
Fiction:
To Serve Them All My Days by R.F. Delderfield. Someone, and I heartily wish I could remember who, added this book to that list of 100 Books to Read Before You Die that was making the rounds a month or two ago. I’d never heard of it before and that this blogger thought so highly of it that she had to append it to the meme list piqued my interest and I tracked down a copy. It’s the story of a post-WWI young Englishman who takes a job teaching at a rural boys’ school. I am loving it. It’s like if James Herriot had been a teacher instead of a country vet.
Strangers and Sojourners by Michael D. O’Brien. I don’t know why I picked this one up now, when I’m in the middle of the meaty tome above. One night last week, I was just in the mood to revisit this lovely, thoughtful, deeply affecting epic. Now I find myself in agonies of indecision when a sliver of reading time comes my way. Which novel to pick up?
Gone-Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright, at Jane’s request. This is one of those books much beloved by her which I somehow missed reading.
Oh, wait, I forgot to tag people! Let’s see. How about Linda Fay, Christine, the other Christine, Faith, and Gregory K.
May 6, 2007 @ 10:14 pm | Filed under:
Photos 
May 3, 2007 @ 3:01 pm | Filed under:
Bloggity In conjunction with the discussion group (come on, join us!), here’s a collaborative blog on blogging for sharing the tips and tricks we’ve learned (usually the hard way). Got hacks to share? We’d love to hear them!
