More holiday spirit

Man, I am so full of holiday spirit this year... could it be because I'm (drumroll, in case you don't know) pregnant?!

Whatever the reason, I've been totally in the mood for Christmas since even before my birthday, in early December, which never happens. (It usually dawns on me that Christmas is coming less than a week before it arrives, when I'm finally done with my semester.) You might think this means that my decorations have all been put up and my presents are bought, wrapped, and sent out, along with my holiday cards... but you'd probably only really think that if you didn't know me.

In spite of all that spirit, I think I've decided not to get a real tree this year. Our plan was to get a fake tree for the man cave, on which we would put all of my husband's ornaments, and the customary real one downstairs, near the front door, for all of mine. But once we decked out the man cave and set up the fake tree it just looked so awesome that we've pretty much decided to move Christmas up there this year. Besides, we can't find the box with my husband's ornaments, and although we're hoping it will surface sooner or later, I thought I might just as well hang all of mine up there. So, there will be no stockings hung on the mantle downstairs (but they look so great hanging on the shelf near the tree upstairs), and no tree when I walk in the front door (ok, I'm thinking of getting a little potted plant for the spot). But ever since we made the man cave, in early 2009, we've spent most of our free time there anyway--I can't remember the last time we hung out in the living room--so it kind of seems right.

I've also been really into holiday activities with the homeschoolers this year, the latest of which was making gingerbread houses today:

Danny, one of the younger ones, was stuffing candy in his pockets; when it started to fall out he did the logical thing and transferred it to his boot:

This house ended up being a joint effort by George and me, because he got bored with it after awhile:

Gingerbread (ok, Graham Cracker) Row:

Voila, our Christmas table centerpiece for this year. Who knows: it may end up being the only decoration downstairs....

Cookies and Carols, Pictures and Part 2

Pictures from the Cookies and Carols party last week... Doesn't the man cave look awesome with a Christmas tree?

We didn't get a shot of all the kids together, since several were on the other side of the pool (/cookie) table. But we actually had a great turnout.

Somehow this photo did not capture George's boundless enthusiasm for the afternoon. (He really did love it!)

Serious homeschool socializing :-)

And then, yesterday, we got together to do it again, at a local nursing home.... The audience members who managed to stay awake seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, and several of them even sang along.

Maria Von Trapp would've been proud, right?!

George and pal Christopher.

The whole thing was so much fun--we're planning a Beatles sing-and-play-along for sometime in the spring.

Cookies and Carols

Every December for the past several years I have brought my guitar into George's classroom (last December he was still attending the Montessori school part time) and have played/sung Christmas carols with him and his classmates. When the holiday season rolled around again this year and I thought about that, at first I was a tiny bit disappointed not to have a classroom to visit for this activity, but it pretty quickly dawned on me that we hardly needed a classroom to do it! So I invited the homeschool group over to our house for an afternoon of cookies and carols.

We haven't been going to playgroup this fall because of my teaching schedule, so I haven't been socializing as much with the group in recent months, and a little part of me was worried that I might feel kind of awkward. I needn't have worried. Right off the bat I was having so much fun! At first we all just hung out (in our attic-turned-awesome-man cave/family room, created almost a year ago when my husband moved in), eating cookies and snacks and chatting, while the kids were running around the house (note to self: the next time we're having so many kids over, remember to prep George on not getting everyone riled up into a chasing game!). When I announced that it was time for carols, several of the kids (most of all George) were clearly a little disappointed, and didn't look like they'd actually come over and join us for it, but I went ahead anyway. By the time we were halfway through the opening chorus of the first song, Jingle Bells, all the kids were happily sitting and enthusiastically joining in.

It went so well that we decided to take the show on the road and sing at a local nursing home next week. Plus, several of the moms suggested we get together for sing-alongs (and have any kids who play instruments bring them and join in) several times a year.

It was so much fun, and it made me so very happy. And it was a great reminder that we don't need no stinkin' school to do pretty much all of the things we want to do :-)

TSS. What hurts the most...

That's The Susquehanna School, not Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Just found out that the building of our beloved, erstwhile school (blog post about it here) was recently sold. At a bargain basement price, of course, so as predicted parents like me who prepaid thousands of dollars of tuition are &#*+ out of luck. Not that I ever expected to see a red cent. Still, now that it's official, it does not feel good. But that's not what hurts the most.

To add insult to injury... When the school closed one month into the 2007 school year, in a very sudden and dramatic and awful way, leaving students and teachers completely high and dry, some of us were going to try to start a new school; we asked if we could take some of the books and supplies with us. We were told by the Board that we were not to remove ANYTHING from the building--not one crayon--because the contents were part of the school's assets and would be auctioned off to help pay its debts once the school was sold. It felt like a cruel proclamation at the time; we already felt so screwed over by the Board (who by then we figured out had blatantly lied to us about the state of things at a meeting only a few weeks before, and also had encouraged us to pay our tuition in advance for the year--they were not trying to defraud us, but we were furious at all the secrets and lies).

It seemed like the least they could do was to let us have part of what we were owed in the form of supplies that could have been tremendously useful to us as we embarked on starting a new school that we hoped would rise from the ashes of this complete and utter disaster. Nonetheless, as we tried to forge ahead through all the shock and devastation, we tried to look forward to the day the things would be auctioned off, figuring we'd probably bid on at least some of the things that we could use for our awesome new school that we were going to build. Well, if you've read my blog or if you know me, you know that the new school thing didn't really work out, but that's (sort of) another story. What is kind of burning me up right now is that I just heard that the new owners of the building didn't want any of the stuff in there and it was all going to be hauled off to the land fill. WHAT??

Granted, I am not involved in any school now, so a lot of the things inside the school (chairs, tables, chalk boards) are no longer of any interest to me, though of course as a homeschooler there are plenty of things in there that I could put to great use (globes, books, supplies, etc.). But in any case, wow, it's the principle of the thing.

You'd think (at least, I'd think) I'd be done being hurt by the undoing of that school--so very many principles were grossly violated, in my view; what's one more? And yet, it does hurt. UGH.

Fortunately, some of the stuff was salvaged by a parent who rented a van and hauled off whatever she could to her garage. She has invited former TSS parents to come help themselves to it next weekend. I'm grateful to her (and her husband, who was actually on the dastardly board but was a brand new member and did not seem to have had anything to do with the shenanigans). But boy, has it stirred up hurt and anger in me that I thought I had let go of already. I guess letting go is a process, and I should know that, and shouldn't be surprised.

But honestly, when you get down to it, while it's partly about the money I'll never get, and it's partly about the possessions of the school that might have been of some value to unpaid creditors (parents; me), it's probably more that I'm just still mourning the loss of a school I loved so much, of a school that finally felt like home for my son. And it does still burn me up when I think that there were so very many mistakes made along the way that led to that loss. Of course we can never know if the school could have been saved had things been handled differently. But it can still torment me a bit to ponder it.

So, I'm taking deep breaths. I'm reminding myself how well the homeschooling is going, how much I love getting to spend so much time with my amazing, kind, loving, funny, brilliant child. How I'm becoming more and more at home in the homeschool community, building friendships that are beginning to be quite important to me. How some of the homeschool activities (I'm thinking in particular of the Shakespeare class last spring, but there have been other things as well) have been extraordinary, definitely as good as anything he would have done at TSS. How I'm really quite happy with my life and hardly ever look back, even though balancing everything can be crazy hard sometimes. But when something like this comes up, it feels like it's all right there again, slamming right into me head on. The anger and the hurt are right back. All the hopes... the incredible relief I felt to have found this place for George that fit him like a glove... Ok, deep breaths. Homeschooling is also fitting him like a glove, and he's thriving. He truly is. And that's what it really has to come down to.

Deep breaths. Letting go. Again.

F-bombs and 9-year-olds

I'm trying to figure out exactly how I feel about 9-year-olds swearing. Ok, I'm certainly not all for it. But how strongly against it am I? And what if it's written down instead of said out loud? Does that make any difference? Or not?

Last night I had some friends over for my birthday, and George's 2 best pals came (along with their parents). Let me say that these are really good kids. They're both 9, as is George. J is the son of colleagues/friends of mine; I've known them for years but they just recently moved here, and George and J (who had met several times before) have become very fast friends. E is the daughter of very close friends of mine, and she and George have practically been raised together. All of that to say that these are kids I like, respect, and trust.

Anyway, we parents were busy doing our things (mostly chatting, but also playing pool and other games) and were happy to see the kids behaving well and enjoying themselves. They each had a Nintendo DS and were using the Pictochat feature, whereby they were sending each other messages across the room. They would also stop sometimes and interact with us (joining us for some snacks or whatever). They were clearly having fun, and I remember thinking to myself that I was relieved it was going so well, since sometimes when there's an odd number of kids someone can end up being left out, but that wasn't happening at all.

Then today, I get an e-mail from E's dad, to all of the parents, letting us know that E had mentioned that the kids were dropping f-bombs and writing the word "sex" back and forth to each other. How do I feel about this? And how do I feel about George swearing in general?

George hears me swear sometimes. I don't speak like a sailor or anything, but I probably swear several times a week. For one thing, I tend to be a little bit of a klutz and I hurt myself on a regular basis by bumping into things or catching a table leg with my toe, etc. etc. I have made it clear to him that there are times when it would be inappropriate for me to swear (at work or in front of people I don't know very well, etc.), and he actually understands that very well.

So, should the standard be the same for him, or not? I am not totally fond of double standards in general, though of course there are some things that it's ok for adults but not kids to do. Driving a car, starting a fire in the fireplace, drinking alcohol, etc. I guess I'm just wondering if swearing is indeed one of those things. Honestly, if he swears to himself, or even in front of me, every once in awhile, and it does not become a habit, it doesn't really bother me. But I know that it's something that does bother a lot of people, which for something like this (where the activity in question is easy enough to do without) is probably a good enough reason not to do it. He understands this reasoning; in fact, he has actually complained to me on occasion about kids who swear too much, that he does not like it.

I think he and these friends will likely back off of the swearing for awhile anyway, since I know all the parents talked to the kids about this case. I will probably just stick with telling George that since swearing does make some people very uncomfortable, especially when it's done by kids, that it's just better to avoid it. Yet part of me does feel that it's ok for him to be experimenting with language in this way with his closest friends in the safety of our home. This is a kid who loves language in general, and really enjoys exploring words and different ways of speaking, and is sensitive to contexts and audiences, and is quite keenly aware of many subtleties of ways of communicating. So I am at least partly reluctant to tell him that all swearing is strictly forbidden.

As I said, I'm trying to figure it out....

Not a bad problem...

But still a bit of a problem. Or at least a minor dilemma.

You see, George has gotten so efficient at doing his work that yesterday he was done by about 9:30 (he's definitely a morning person). Our deal has been that when he completes all his work for the day, he can play computer or DS games pretty much until his heart's content.

In the past, a very good day would mean he'd be done by about noon, but usually it was more like 1:30 or even later. It used to be that when he first woke up he liked to read and/or play in his room before getting started on his work. This was fine by me. I have never had to make reading part of his work in a formal way, as I'm sure I've mentioned, as he does it very often and very willingly anyway. All kinds of books, on all kinds of topics. And playing in his room with his toys for a couple of hours or so is, I think, a perfectly fine use of his time. He has some really nice toys and he always plays with them in such imaginative ways. I do think that that sort of activity can be not merely fun but also an important and constructive part of growing up.

So, he'd read and/or play for awhile, then do some work, then maybe read some more, or perhaps ask to watch a documentary (usually history or science), then get some more work done, and, well, you get the idea. He's been very good about getting all of his work done pretty much every day, and most days has ended up with 1-2 hours of time to play on his DS or the computer, which I think is reasonable. Every afternoon at what would be more or less the end of a traditional school day, either he has Tae Kwon Do or he plays with his friends in the neighborhood, so there has always been a sort of natural end to his electronic game time. (I don't let him play them after dinner--too much stimulation too close to bedtime.) It's all been going perfectly smoothly.

Until now, when it seems to be going too smoothly! He has figured out that if he starts working from the second he wakes up, and doesn't take a break, he can be on his DS before I've even made breakfast. Somehow, that just doesn't seem quite right to me.

It's not that he doesn't have enough work to do; he does. My husband, who teaches 4th grade, was a little surprised that George is able to get everything done so quickly, and was wondering if his load was too light. But I asked him to imagine that he had only one student, and it was his best one, and he had two hours to teach her everything he would normally cover in the course of a day--did he think he could? For sure. There is so much time spent in a day on explaining things more at length to the students who don't pick it up right away, and then doing lots of practice to make sure they really have it, to say nothing of recess and lunch and time spent going to a different classroom for music or library or whatever.... When you do away with all of that, it's not so hard to see how a full day's worth of work could, especially for someone who is super bright and right on task, be accomplished in a couple of hours or so.

So, what to do? I don't really think it's fair to create more work for him (well, maybe I could add just a teeny bit...). He knows what it is that he's supposed to be doing, and giving him more work would be like punishing him for being efficient, and I don't think that's a good approach. Besides, when I think about what to make him do--should I make him do twice the chores? Should I make him do two online math sessions a day instead of one? (He started back up with math again; yay! It did take a very gentle push from me, but he did say that he was actually starting to miss it. But maybe that's a topic for another post!) Should I make him write more? All of these things seem kind of punitive to me, and I think they would to him, too. I certainly don't want him to get discouraged and then slack off. He is working hard and learning plenty, so that's not really the problem. I guess the problem is just too much DS/computer game time.

So maybe I just need to set limits on that. I preferred the natural limits imposed by his daily work on one end and his afternoon schedule on the other, but if that's not going to work anymore I guess I will just need to come up with some sort of system/limit that I'm comfortable with and that he doesn't find too discouraging. Because, again, I like that the game-time is such a strong motivator for him to get his work done. I may have to remind him to practice his recorder or to clean the cat box, but I never have to hound him or argue with him about it. And while he actually enjoys most of his learning activities (the chores, not so much!), I know that at least part of what gets him going on all of these things is that he knows they're what's standing between him and his games. I think it's kind of a delicate balance and it's working fantastically well, really. I don't want to blow it. But neither do I want my son on a computer game for five hours straight.

As problems go, it's a pretty good one to have, I guess! Suggestions would be most welcome...