My amazing husband just came upstairs as I was yawning at the computer, trying to finish up one or two more things, and said, "None of that. We're twenty, we don't get tired and we only think about sex and eating." I snorted and then remembered a few days (weeks, years, decades) ago when we were those people and that's all we did think about. It seems as if that was so long ago and far away and as if it were just yesterday. I don't know how it can be both but it can.
I spent a large part of this afternoon with my two teenage daughters looking for dresses. Our newest daughter (a foreign exchange student from Turkey) was looking for a prom dress. Our eldest daughter was looking for a dress for Spring Fling. Both found the PERFECT dress. Whew!
It turned out to be a relatively painless experience and I was so thankful that my negotiating skills were up to the task. We steered clear of a few inappropriate and not as attractive choices and managed to find the exact dress in the exact size to wear with the ideal shoes.
All the time we are in the store and dressing rooms I kept flashing back to the tiny little girl who fell in love with the ruby red sparkly slippers. The same girl who loved her dresses above all else. The same girl that sat on my lap and had me ready the same book over and over and over. The same girl who rarely wears anything but jeans and zip up sweat jackets these days. The same girl who looked drop dead gorgeous in every dress she tried on, even if mom wasn't ready to turn her loose in public in said dresses. The same girl who has a smile that can light up any room. The same girl that stamps her foot and yells when she is thwarted in her plans. The same girl that wraps her arms around me and kisses me on the cheek and barely has to stand on her tip toes.
It seems like time has gone so quickly. Just yesterday, last week, last year, my husband and I were that 20 year old couple. Then we had one tiny little girl, then two, then a boy, then another girl. Then we blinked and here we are.
What experiences make you realize how time has gone?
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The Maple Syrup Festival 2010
We had a wonderful time at Leane and Michael's Sugarbush participating in the 19th Annual Maple Syrup Festival. We've been blessed to participate in the Maple Syrup Festival for the last three years and we hope to keep coming back.
For the first year I got to take the maple syrup tour and learned so much about how the syrup is made. It makes my gallon jug of syrup even more precious.
Here are some pictures of the fun we had this year.
If you live within a few hours, a visit to the Maple Syrup Festival is definitely worth the trip.
For the first year I got to take the maple syrup tour and learned so much about how the syrup is made. It makes my gallon jug of syrup even more precious.
Here are some pictures of the fun we had this year.
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If you live within a few hours, a visit to the Maple Syrup Festival is definitely worth the trip.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Weekly Recap 3/1-3/5
This week has been a busier than usual week. We had several orthodontist and dentist appointments to add to our regular schedule. We got a lot done, but not everything that we'd intended.
Wednesday we spent a good part of the afternoon at our library. Normally, I reserve our books online and then we just go and pick them up. This trip was special because each dc had their own project to research. We spent time exploring the layout of the library and the organization of the books. Everyone successfully located their books and we came home with more than we'd returned.
This is what we returned.
This is the living room after the library exploded in it.
Friday brought more dentist appointments and a field trip to the airport to pick up DH! We were all ready for him to come home for awhile.
This was also a wonderful week on our three strike system. No one had a BAD day! Even me ;-)
We have an extra weekend field trip this week. Our local maple syrup farm is having their annual Maple Syrup Festival. The kids wouldn't miss the pancakes breakfast for anything. This year everyone is even old enough to take the syrup tour. I'm excited about learning more about how our favorite breakfast sweet is made. Check back later for pictures of that!
K13: Writing Strands 4 - polishing selected pieces of writing
R&S Grammar 8 - #86-90
Spelling Power
Lial BCM - Ch 9 Basic Algebra
Fallacy Detective - Ch 21-24
History - Julius Caesar
Biology - Mammals
H10: Writing Strands 3 - polishing selected pieces of writing
Handwriting/Copywork - Draw and Write Through History (Creation through Jonah)
R&S Grammar 5 - #86-90
Spelling Power
Life of Fred Fractions - Lessons 11-15
Fallacy Detective - Ch 21-24
History - Julius Caesar
Biology - Mammals
S7:
Handwriting/Copywork - Draw and Write Through History (Creation through Jonah)
R&S Grammar 2 - Unit 4 Review 1- Unit 5 #4
Spelling Power
Math on the Level - Multiplication facts
History - Julius Caesar
Biology - Mammals
M5:
Phonics Pathways
First Language Lessons
Math on the Level
History - Julius Caesar
Biology - Mammals
Three Strikes
In the past few months, too many of our days had been marked with yelling, temper tantrums, nasty words and hurt feelings. School began to feel like a battle zone, not the creative and emotional supportive center for learning that I'd imagined. Things were spinning out of control on an almost daily basis and nothing I did seemed to help. In fact, I seemed to be part of the problem. How could I fix our school and bring us back into good relationships with each other?
I began searching for a system of reminding my children of the behavior I expect, allowing them to correct their own behavior without my correcting, lecturing or yelling. I struggled with feeling swamped by the demands of discipline on top of the demands of teaching. I felt like my school was inching toward out of control. Granted, my own hormones may have been out of wack but the feeling of unhappiness in my interactions with my children were to pressing to ignore.
After much discussion with my cheerleader and chief idea man and much introspection and prayer, I've implemented the three strike policy. Each day my children have the opportunity to earn a "good day" toward a family dinner at a restaurant. In order to be able to go to the restaurant, all the children must have five good days. So potentially, we could go out to eat weekly. For each negative behavior during a school day I give the offending child/ren an x on their hand. No charts or fancy record keeping, just an x. Three x (xxx) and the offending child loses their "good day" status. It is simple, easy to follow through on and requires no fancy record keeping. Three strikes gets my point across and requires no conversation at all thus no yelling or lecturing. I began the plan with hope.
We have no problem defining negative behavior and my children understand my expectations. We are all very aware of my definition of negative behavior because I have lectured and yelled about negative behaviors until I'm frankly sick of hearing myself. For clarification here though, negative behavior includes but is not limited to arguing, complaining, excessive delays in work, touching siblings in anyway not hugging or kissing or exhibiting offensive attitudes.
The thing I love about the three strike system is that from the start it took the yelling/lecturing out of the day. I don't get worked up and neither do the children. The second thing I like is that it puts the children in charge of their own behavior. It also gives incentive for all to behave well , cooperate and encourage each other in their behavior. Finally, it starts new every morning. We all need that.
We've been working with three strikes for almost a month now and I've seen a dramatic difference in our days together. We rarely have three strike days. We usually manage to hold ourselves at two. I have to admit there was even a day that I got two strikes and I deserved them both. In fact, I believe my children practiced the grace by stopping at two. I know they've seen that grace modeled a time or two by me when they didn't get what they deserved.
Has three strikes fixed all our problems? No, but it's given us room to breathe and a way of rewarding the behavior we want to see and are proud of in a way that everyone wins. For me three strikes is a reminder that taking time to think about what is needed is a lot more productive that doing the same thing over and over again. I suppose it's good that the teacher is still learning and being taught by my students.
What creative systems have you developed for improving your life?
I began searching for a system of reminding my children of the behavior I expect, allowing them to correct their own behavior without my correcting, lecturing or yelling. I struggled with feeling swamped by the demands of discipline on top of the demands of teaching. I felt like my school was inching toward out of control. Granted, my own hormones may have been out of wack but the feeling of unhappiness in my interactions with my children were to pressing to ignore.
After much discussion with my cheerleader and chief idea man and much introspection and prayer, I've implemented the three strike policy. Each day my children have the opportunity to earn a "good day" toward a family dinner at a restaurant. In order to be able to go to the restaurant, all the children must have five good days. So potentially, we could go out to eat weekly. For each negative behavior during a school day I give the offending child/ren an x on their hand. No charts or fancy record keeping, just an x. Three x (xxx) and the offending child loses their "good day" status. It is simple, easy to follow through on and requires no fancy record keeping. Three strikes gets my point across and requires no conversation at all thus no yelling or lecturing. I began the plan with hope.
We have no problem defining negative behavior and my children understand my expectations. We are all very aware of my definition of negative behavior because I have lectured and yelled about negative behaviors until I'm frankly sick of hearing myself. For clarification here though, negative behavior includes but is not limited to arguing, complaining, excessive delays in work, touching siblings in anyway not hugging or kissing or exhibiting offensive attitudes.
The thing I love about the three strike system is that from the start it took the yelling/lecturing out of the day. I don't get worked up and neither do the children. The second thing I like is that it puts the children in charge of their own behavior. It also gives incentive for all to behave well , cooperate and encourage each other in their behavior. Finally, it starts new every morning. We all need that.
We've been working with three strikes for almost a month now and I've seen a dramatic difference in our days together. We rarely have three strike days. We usually manage to hold ourselves at two. I have to admit there was even a day that I got two strikes and I deserved them both. In fact, I believe my children practiced the grace by stopping at two. I know they've seen that grace modeled a time or two by me when they didn't get what they deserved.
Has three strikes fixed all our problems? No, but it's given us room to breathe and a way of rewarding the behavior we want to see and are proud of in a way that everyone wins. For me three strikes is a reminder that taking time to think about what is needed is a lot more productive that doing the same thing over and over again. I suppose it's good that the teacher is still learning and being taught by my students.
What creative systems have you developed for improving your life?
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
In Which I Think About the Lessons of Home School
This year has been a year of growth for all of us. Our first year of homeschool. Our first year of everyone home together, all the time. Our first year of getting to know each other. Our first year of finding our way together. Our first year.
The thing that I know most assuredly of all the lessons I've learned is that my children are amazing creatures. They are bright, funny and entertaining. They are frustrating, irritating and enraging. They are interesting. They bore me to tears. They can take a topic and run with it in directions that I never would have imagined. They can take a topic and sink it so deep in the muck and mire that no one would ever recognize it. They love each other deeply. They fight each other with passion and conviction. They do what I ask without argument or delay. They turn their ears off and only hear me when I yell. They are all these things and so much more depending on the day and the hour. Really, depending on the minute!
There are days that I have to remind myself why we are a homeschool family. There are days that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is truly the right place and the right choice for us. If I'm able to waffle so drastically, I can't expect my children to always be consistent.
I'm thankful for the lessons homeschooling is teaching me. Lessons about resourcefulness and compromise. Lessons about loving and letting go. Lessons about perserverance and surrender. Lessons about smoothing the way and getting out of the way. Lessons about working myself out of a job. In each one of these lessons my children have been the primary instructors.
I only hope that I can make as great an impact on these amazing creatures as they make on me.
The thing that I know most assuredly of all the lessons I've learned is that my children are amazing creatures. They are bright, funny and entertaining. They are frustrating, irritating and enraging. They are interesting. They bore me to tears. They can take a topic and run with it in directions that I never would have imagined. They can take a topic and sink it so deep in the muck and mire that no one would ever recognize it. They love each other deeply. They fight each other with passion and conviction. They do what I ask without argument or delay. They turn their ears off and only hear me when I yell. They are all these things and so much more depending on the day and the hour. Really, depending on the minute!
There are days that I have to remind myself why we are a homeschool family. There are days that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is truly the right place and the right choice for us. If I'm able to waffle so drastically, I can't expect my children to always be consistent.
I'm thankful for the lessons homeschooling is teaching me. Lessons about resourcefulness and compromise. Lessons about loving and letting go. Lessons about perserverance and surrender. Lessons about smoothing the way and getting out of the way. Lessons about working myself out of a job. In each one of these lessons my children have been the primary instructors.
I only hope that I can make as great an impact on these amazing creatures as they make on me.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Book Review: Day After Night by Anita Diamant
Day After Night is the story of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. It focuses on four women, girls really, who have managed to escape from Europe to Palestine only to find themselves, once again, imprisoned. This time their jail is Atlit, a British internment camp. The story tells the heartbreaking past and present of the four girls as they come back to life.
I was entranced by the characters, their courage and their faults. Each of the girls spoke to me in a way only well formed characters can. The story, much of it based on fact, was riveting. Because of my attachment to the characters, the entire reading of this novel felt very personal, as if I were listening to stories told by my grandmother.
Anita Diamant explored a very sensitive period with tenderness and courage and each of her character reflect both those attributes.
I was entranced by the characters, their courage and their faults. Each of the girls spoke to me in a way only well formed characters can. The story, much of it based on fact, was riveting. Because of my attachment to the characters, the entire reading of this novel felt very personal, as if I were listening to stories told by my grandmother.
Anita Diamant explored a very sensitive period with tenderness and courage and each of her character reflect both those attributes.
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