Terrible/Perfect

Pride and Pancakes

I can make good pancakes now. Basic ones, mind, but good. My strategy involves mixing a bit of yogurt into the milk to approximate actual buttermilk, which was, at one point (I am led to understand), naturally cultured.

I am proud of my pancakes. That's alright. Here's why.

I had a weird moment recently talking to another homeschooling mum about homeschoolishthings. One of her kids is working several grades above level in a couple of subjects, and this parent is really not shy about it. I've had a few exchanges that have gone like this, only I have paraphrased us to sound like two robots:

Me: Something about books.

Her: We cannot check out enough books from the library. My child is compelled to read 200 pages a day.

Me: Something math.

Her: My child is working several levels above grade. My child is exceptional in this regard and many others.

Now, here's the thing: I've been this mum. I have a weird little girl that had a fixation with opera at five years old. I'd be lying if I said I haven't been proud of her special weirdness, and, frankly, boastful. But I'd like to think that having birthed a second child who, despite being possibly weirder than her sister, so far displays NO advanced intellectual capabilities, I have mellowed out considerably. I have eaten that crow, if you will.

What I was trying to figure out, though, is what it is about being proud of one's kid's smartness that is so offensive. I mean, we're parents. We're proud of our kids. That's natural, right? Am I being jealous? Competitive? What the hell?

I turned this around in my brain pan for a while, and what occured to me at last is this:

We all have the right to be proud of those achievements for which we put forth sincere effort, but no right whatsoever to be proud of intrinsic traits. For those, the proper feeling is gratitude.

I am not a subscriber to the notion that if everyone is super, no one is (that is dumb, Brad Bird) but I do hesitate to say there is no such thing as innate intelligence. There is no less innate intelligence than there is innate athletic ability, or innate height potential. No amount of sit-ups is going to land me a place as a prima ballerina at the Kirov, for heaven's sake. We'd be fooling ourselves if we insisted that everyone is capable of cutting edge physics.

BUT, and here is one big but...

This is where the pride goeth before the people rolling their eyes at you for bragging.

The thing is, none of us has any control over the toolbox we get kicked out of the womb with. Being proud of being "smart" (whatever that even means) is like being proud of having a kick-ass toolbox full of every conceivable instrument for every conceivable job from fine watchmaking to surfboard manufacture when most folks are running around with a decent rack of Craftsman tools that get the job done. Well...good for you. 

The reality is that the tools you have matter a WHOLE lot less than what you make with them. Being proud of the toolbox is hubris. Being grateful for the tools you were given is heading the right way to humility. Doing hard work with those tools, maybe even making the world a better place with them...well. That is something to be proud of. 

I never, ever want one of my kids to announce to anyone that she or he is smart, or advanced, or somehow or other intrinsically talented. I have instinctively kept virtually all of my boasting outside of my children's earshot, which was uncharacteristically wise of me. I want them to understand when they come into an awareness of their gifts (those things that they were given, that they did not earn) that the proper attitude to take is one of humble gratitude, and an awareness that those gifts are there to be put to use through work, should they choose to undertake it.

It seems safe to say that hard work, honestly done, whether it be making a watch or a delightful pancake, is something we are all free to take pride in.

The captain has turned on the Fasten Seat Belt sign

Oh myyyyy. After an emotionally and physically grueling three months, I'm pleased to consider that Things are much better. But still, you know...turbulence. I really, really like this new cheesy metaphor. Sometimes you get to get up, stretch, empty your bladder, enjoy the fluffy clouds, take a look at the Grand Canyon, get overly excited about a little plastic cup of Coke. Sometimes you have to plant yourself in your seat and breathe through the bumps. Possibly check that you know exactly where the airsick bag is. I can roll with that. It's so impermanent: maybe this leg of the flight is rough, but we're not going down. I think it might actually do me a LOT of good to think of that cheerful little "bong" sound that they play when the light comes on. For instance, when, oh, I don't know...my first born is relentlessly harassing my second born and taking sadistic pleasure in her tears of frustration. Just in case that sort of thing happens.

So.

Schooling and parenting has been a bit bumpy.

After a waaaaaay long break from doing schoolwork, we're slipping back into the stream. Big Kid was really not having it, but she's adjusting now and I expect that in a very short while, it will be as smooth a process as it can be with this particular child. We're getting back into the swing with math. We use Math-U-See, which I like for both its insistence on mastery and the trouble it goes to to help the parent-teacher help the child achieve it.

We, both the kid and I, needed some mnemonics and structure to grease the process of learning and memorizing the early math facts. She totally groks the manipulative blocks this program uses (and the program USES the blocks in a very systematic, intentional way; they are the primary teaching tool), which are cementing everything for her beautifully.

We've had the program for a bit over one week, and so far she's been doing one lesson a day, just reviewing the material and testing out of that lesson. The lesson she did today had a bit of algebraic thinking, which was cool. It took a split second of explanation and she absolutely got it, and gets how to use the blocks to express relationships between numbers. She seemed to find number bonds (from her last curriculum) confusing, even though it's absolutely the same concept. Kids are different. Go figure.

Having Little Kid around when we're trying to do all of this is super frustrating. The child who will quietly play with Play Doh or count some beans she is not. C'est la vie.

On and on we roll. I'm looking forward to summer. My rapidly growing little tomato plants are making me giddy.

A little craze

About a month ago, life sat back thoughtfully for a moment, then leaned forward and said, "You know what I think I'm going to do for a bit? I'm going to KICK YOUR ASS."

I've been around the block enough times now to know that 1)This is not a true ass-kicking-by-life. This is ass-kicking-by-life lite. Maybe a medium. Just not the sort of down-to-business threshing that life can really dole out when it wants to. Everyone's safe, and everyone's healthy. In a manner of speaking. 2)Really the only effective thing to do when life starts whooping your ass is manage the hell out of your stress.

I could get into the specifics of what is wiping the floor with me right now, but I've tried sort of expressing that lately and it seems to bore and/or annoy people. That's fine. I won't bore or annoy you, mostly because I finally figured out that what I need to do more than seek support from friends is not, as I always seem to think it is, to come up with a magical way to change everyone around me, but to buckle down and focus on how I'm coping.  

Well-being is a comfy fireside chair that rests on four legs: diet, exercise, sleep and stress management. I suck at taking care of all four of those, which is bad under any circumstances, but sets the stage for some kind of true psychological break when life becomes extra juggly and spiky and tetchy.

I really, really need to be at my best right now, so I'm tackling one leg at a time, starting with sleep. I am going to be a filthy sleep hog for a bit. I'm going down for the count as soon as the kids are in bed. If I need to, I'm putting on a video for them in the afternoon and having a siesta. Awesome. I also got a stress reduction book from the library as well as some guided meditation, because new agey or not that stuff is the business. If it puts me to sleep, so be it. Diet and exercise will probably have to wait. Fixing beautiful fresh food and getting up for a long walk every day isn't really where I'm at right now, as much as both would help. Maybe I'll get in a little stretching. Maybe I'll eat more apples.

I need to keep in mind that all any of us can really do when circumstances aren't so hot and other people are melting down is take good care of ourselves so we can think of good solutions for those problems that can be solved, and be patient with the other people in our lives, little and big. We can always offer guidance and support to children, but just like adults, unless they're suffering with true illness, they pretty much need to get through their own crap. I'm not going to make my children stop fighting, or pull my older child out of the weird angry screaming place she's in, or get my little one all growed up overnight, or give my partner the temperament of Mr. Rogers, but I can most definitely ratchet down the thermostat of my own stress response. I can be a safe, well person. I can be a calm presence. If my insides are cool and steady, all of that crazy can kind of roll off rather than stick and stick and stick and make me sick.

Oh, you're screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" as loudly as you possibly can because your sister's singing? And you're sobbing because I left the room to use the bathroom? And you're stomping around the house with murder in your eyes?

Alright. Y'all let me know when you're done.

Lone Star

I haven't been thrift shopping at all lately. We're overloaded with stuff, mostly the girls' things. But we're headed to Arizona for a bit and neither of the girls have any shorts, so I spent some time looking for those. I found this old Lone Star quilt for one of the beds in the girls' room. It's vintage, hand-pieced and hand-quilted. A bit stained and yellowed but basically sound. Beautiful. A lucky find.

Better angels

Hello! I've been muscling through a bout of sick that made it's way through everyone in the nuclear family (almost everybody...I WON'T SAY WHO DIDN'T GET SICK BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW HOW THAT WORKS OUT), but things are on the uptick. I'm reading The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker, which is fantastic. Mind-blowing, really. It makes me want to go back and do my college history over again with fresh eyes. I wish I could write a more thorough review, but I've not finished yet, and the thing is nearly 700 densely cited pages long. At this point in my life I'm simply not up to the task. I mean...we're watching a lot of Community right now. My critical faculties and ability to organize my ideas and express them coherently are not what they once were. Perhaps back in my college days, before I had kids and my brains deliquesced. But not now. Now, I just take the remaining brains for a slow turn about the nearest part of the grounds for some fresh air twice a day and then tuck them back into their chair next to the fire with a blanket around their legs and a cup of weak tea close at hand. They do a lot of napping. With their chin on their chest and their mouth hanging open.

The Grammar of Our Civility

I'm mulling a classical education for the big kid. It wasn't something I ever thought would appeal, but the more I consider it the more I feel that a rigorous liberal arts and sciences education is an excellent fit for her. She has a supernatural sort of intellectual patience. It's unusual, I don't know that I can very well relate to it, but there it is. I'm extremely interested in reading The Grammar of Our Civility. Still not sure about teaching her Latin. We have time to figure it out. I think.

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine

If you can picture Ralphie opening his mailbox every day for weeks, you know the kind of anticipation and excitement that this (actually quite large and special) patch inspired in the big kid. It arrived in the mail today, with a really nice letter, even, on United States Department of the Interior letterhead. Some of the activities were simple, but some were surprisingly involved and difficult. It took her several weeks of significant effort to do, but she pushed forward, earned the patch, and made herself proud...which makes me proud, too. And if they want to essentially advertise national parks and the preservation of wild spaces and historically significant sites to my kid, by all means. We will drink that Ovaltine.

Weird pictures

I know I shouldn't try to take pictures of, say, astronomical events since I don't have a tripod, but on this occasion it made the clouds look like smoke and the streetlight look like fire. Which is kind of cool. Venus, Jupiter, and the moon or...alien invasion! Ahh! Ahh! Pshhhhhhhkchhhhhhh PEW! PEW! PEW-PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW! That's what it would sound like. Obviously.

I did it all for the cookie

I was certain that I had been doing a good job these last almost 14 years of adulthood presenting myself as moderately incapable, but I somehow ended up with a handful of volunteer jobs with words like "manager" and "leader" and "adviser" in the title. It's either my undeniable aura of sharp intelligence and inborn leadership presence, or I'm the only one without a paying day job and I can't come up with a good excuse to say no.

 

Troop Cookie Manager. I want a badge. And to un-do all the cookie eating that's been done this last week. Bleh.

Borrowed Lent

This is what homeschooling has been looking like. Molting teenage eagle, very cold, very rainy bird watching, reading, wonderfully nerdy educational websites. We've been busy, too, but at home, when we're alone, it's simple and quiet. Winter stuff.

A friend of mine is observing Lent right now, so I decided to give up using the internet as entertainment. Ash Wednesday served as a fine start date, but I'm not giving it up for 40 days. I'm hoping it will be the new normal by then. I don't mean that I will NOT EVER EVER AGAIN look at a silly website or read the news or whatever, but I have a strict policy all written up. Web journaling is one of the small concessions to non-utilitarian interneting, something creative (between the writing and the photographing) that I can do for a bit, of an evening, after the kids are in bed. End of day two, and I feel very much checked into my life. My kitchen is tidy. There's actually far more time in a day than I realized. I think I might start reading poetry, or something indulgent like that.

I'm doing this Seinfeld thing to try and deal with my procrastination problem, too, which I find humorous and exciting. It needs to work because I'm suddenly rather seriously committed to a few volunteering gigs and I can't let people down.

This is good. Time is mine. My world is mine. The children grow and grow and grow, I don't wish to miss it.

Poetry suggestions welcome.