The Learning Umbrella

I bought this fabric and pattern at the beginning of the summer, and this weekend I finally stitched it up.  It’s New Look 6797, and I wasn’t actually impressed with it.  The pattern ended up fitting her around the belly and being way too big around the neckline.  I had to take in two big darts, the largest one taking a huge chunk out of that V in the front.

But the shirt is done, she’s happy with it (she loves anything I make for her, so she’s pretty easy to please) and there might be enough summer left for her to wear it a few times.

Here is a weekend project that I hope works.  We made a “Digester”, inspired by Tara’s solar digester post.  She was, in turn, inspired by this.  And they were inspired by this.  So, I have come at the end of a line of adaptations, and my twist on this is that I want to use it for animal waste.  I’ve made the switch to green kitty litter, so the contents of the litter box are all biodegradable now.  But just dumping it in the yard is gross.  And we also have a dog, and I’m not having success just digging holes to bury all that waste - the stuff doesn’t go anywhere in a shallow grave and I’m running out of places to bury it.  This simple plastic trash can with holes drilled in it, buried in our yard, is basically an outhouse, but it should provide me with a place to put all that animal waste from our pets.  I’m going to try the accelerator powder sold with the green cone composter, and see how it goes.  Wish me luck, since the downside is that I might end up with a big can full of stinky stuff in my back yard!

I am SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder that is.  Every year I get depressed right around this time, which also happens to be when my birthday falls.  I don’t know if it would be different if I lived somewhere else, but around here it starts to get grey again.  We have a lot of grey weather, with light rain and general coolness.  I love the Northwest, but it’s hard to make the adjustment from the short summer season to the fall.

I’ve been pretty depressed the last few weeks, and it’s so hard to sort the genuine from the SAD.  How much am I genuinely frustrated with the housework and the house and how much is it just that it feels dark and gloomy as the sun goes away? My house is pretty dark, with small windows and not enough overhead lighting.  Every year I feel unhappy with how dark the house is, but I haven’t found any good solutions to the problem.

This weekend, DH presented me with a big bouquet of sunflowers, because I needed a bit of sunshine around here.  They are very nice to look at, and it was very sweet.  What else can I do to cope with the SAD?  I’m thinking I need to get some knitting on some needles, and do some more sewing projects.  Nesting, and indoor activities, usually help.  Also, and I know this is irritating to many, I tend to jump on the holidays pretty hard to help me get through this time.  So, I’m going to do a bit of Harvest decorating.  The kids want a big scarecrow, so that’s going on the list.

I’m also just not going to let the fall and winter slow me down on getting outdoors.  That’s what raingear is for, right?  I’ve decided to buy an electric bike, as that is the solution to my commute that I’ve finally decided on.  And I put one Saturday a month down for a hike on my calendar, and emailed that list of dates to all my family and friends that might join me on those hikes.  I really wish DH could still hike, but I have to find other hiking partners since his knee just won’t hold up to it anymore.  I’m sure someone will want to hike with me.

But one thing I must avoid is shopping to try and make myself feel better.  Well, I already did that.  But I will avoid it from now on.  It’s not the best remedy, and it’s too expensive and shallow.  So, other than the shoes I just ordered (I couldn’t resist these Fluevogs), I will hold strong against retail therapy.

When You Were Small by Sarah O’Leary and Julie Morstad tells what happened in the life of a boy “when you were small”.  It’s a pretty typical request from children, to tell about “when I was little” or “when I was young”, and this would be the tall tale answer to those questions.  The boy is shown shrunk down to the size of an ant, having silly adventures.  Hypatia giggled a lot when we read this.

Someday When My Cat Can Talk by Caroline Lazo and Krysten Brooker is another somewhat silly book.  In fact, silly books appeal to Hypatia, so we are reading a lot of them right now.  Cat owners/caretakers know that a cat can seem like it has a history to tell.  If only they could talk to us, and tell us about their amazing adventures before they came to live here!

Sally and the Purple Socks by Lisze Bechtold was another of Hypatia’s silly books.  Here, a duck orders a pair of new socks, mail order, and they are the best, softest, coolest purple socks.  With one problem - they keep growing!  She has them as a scarf, a blanket, a rug, and finally they block traffic.  Luckily, they are wool and they shrink in the rain.

Ancient Egyptian Jobs by John Malam is a dense non-fiction that I like because of its focus on how people lived their lives, and the entire spectrum of society, rather than on the royals and the tombs and all that “exciting” stuff.  Here, we learned about bakers, and farmers, and scribes.

Muti’s Necklace, the Oldest Story in the World by Louise Hawes and Rebecca Guay. This book states that it is based upon a very old set of stories written in ancient Egypt, hence the “oldest story in the world”.  The author has given it a bit of feminist twist, with the heroine stubbornly standing down both the pharoah and a magician, and then turning down the chance to marry the pharaoh in favor of returning to her beloved family.  We read it as part of our Egypt study, but Carbon wasn’t super interested in it.  I think it would appeal to kids who like fairy tales, and the illustration style is like the lush paintings so many good fairy tale books boast.

The Boy Who Was Raised by Librarians  is great for all the homeschooled kids out there who count the library as their second home.  And these librarians are as cool as the ones I know in real life - not like the silly librarian stereotype.

Planting the Trees of Kenya: the Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire Nivola.  Here is the story of the inspiring Nobel Prize winner, and her project to reforest and look at resource distribution.  The book could be a sequel to the Lorax, but it’s a true story, and it’s the true story of what can happen when someone cares and has a good idea.  I want to use this book later for Earth Scouts.

We’re still trying to figure out how to keep up with household chores now that I’m not in the house all the time.  Yesterday we sat down and wrote down every chore we could think of, and then divided them up.  I won’t bother listing my chores, as they are by far the longest list still, but here’s what the boys took.

DH:

take turns with me doing dinner dishes

help pick up living room every night

fold his own laundry

help clean our room and change our bedsheets

take out the trash and recycling

clean the cat litterboxes

clean the laundry room

take turns with me on mopping the kitchen floor

vacuum once a week

take turns with me mowing and weed whipping the yard

turn the compost bins

put the compost in the worm bin

feed the snake

clean the snake tank

clean the fish tank

help with garage and porch clean ups as needed

Carbon:

Clean his own room

Change his own sheets

Fold his own laundry

Wash the windows

Dust and polish furniture

vacuum once a week

Clean trash out of car

Help with garage and porch clean ups as needed

You can imagine that there are still many, many things that are left as my chores.  But, I was previously in charge of everything and no one else had any chores that I didn’t just assign them in the moment.  DH is worried that he won’t follow through on his commitment to do these chores, but I can remind him if I need to.  The huge one for me is the idea of taking turns washing the dishes!  I can say “it’s your turn”, and it won’t mean “I’ve done it the last three weeks and I’m tired and you must give me a one night break from this unending drudgery”.  Instead, it will really mean “I did it last night”.  I hope this helps.

Carbon watched the Democratic convention with me last night, and he was very interested in what it was all about.  He could tell that it was a party, a celebration, so he made the logical assumption that Obama had won the election.  He asked me “what percent did he get?”, which just sounded so grown up, I had to laugh.

You see, Carbon’s grandmother is running for county commisioner right now, and last week was the primary for her race.  We have done small campaign things for her, and we attended her election night party.  She came in with the highest percentage, which her campaign manager read out and then everyone cheered and was overjoyed.  Carbon and Hypatia were very struck by this, of course.

So, I was thinking that Carbon had become very politically sophisticated.  He quickly disabused me of that idea - he asked “did Obama get more votes than grandma?”  I said he had, because this was an election for the whole USA to vote on, while grandma’s was just our county.  He looked at me, all wide-eyed “so grandma isn’t going to be President?”

No, sweetie, although she’ll get a kick out of that I’m sure.

I am a nerd - the kind of nerd that loves to have sticky notes, pens in as many colors as possible, “the perfect notebook”, “the perfect calendar”, and other such things.  This week, I’ve been enjoying the chance to dig into a big giant pile of church school supplies, and get them all organized.  This is the kind of work that my nerdy side thrives on.

I’ve got all the art supplies in tubs, all of it typed up in an (alphabetical, of course!) inventory, and that paper taped up inside each cabinet so people can consult it to see where things are stored around the church.

We do a curriculum called Spiritplay, which has sets of story manipulatives for each lesson.  They are a lot of work to create, and we’ve done this long enough we’re starting to build up a pretty big inventory.  So this week I got to pack each one up in bag with an inventory sheet, and organize them all in alphabetical order with a typed inventory list.

This is not work that will change the world or even promote the growth of our children all that much.  But it feels good to start the year this way, and it was fun work for nerdy me.

Rifles for Watie, by Harold Keith

My sister is going to be studying the civil war this Fall, so I read this book to see if it would be good for her unit study.  The book is very good, and seems to be historically accurate.  It is a very nice balance for younger readers, with bits that show the unfairness and horror of war, but no really disturbing events.  The young hero spends extended time behind enemy lines as a scout, actually fighting for the Confederates and learning that they are also good people, also fighting for something they believe in.  The events unfold in the Western front (Kansas and Oklahoma), so the fight isn’t as much about slavery as it is about land rights and issues with the Native Americans.  Watie, of the title, is a Cherokee chief fighting for the rebel cause, while others in the Cherokee nation were fighting for the Union. 

The book is longer and denser than many YA novels are now adays, but it shoud still be doable for kids 13 and older.  This will be a good addition to our Civil War unit study, and it brings to light a less examined front in the war.

I went out for a Mom’s Night Out last night (my first ever - what a great concept!), and left DH with the kids.  I usually have time to fix them dinner, but this time I did not, so he would have to feed them himself.

Apparently, both kids told him they were not hungry, so he didn’t cook dinner.  Then, right before bedtime, suddenly Carbon is starving.  I think this is totally predictable - that’s why I make people eat dinner when I put it on the table whether or not they feel hungry.  But DH just said “No” to food and let Carbon cry and have a “fit” and sent him to bed.  So this morning the first thing Carbon told me was that “Daddy didn’t feed me at all and I was soooo hungry without you Mommy!”

But then he still hasn’t eaten all of his oatmeal I made him, so he can’t be that hungry.

It’s very frustrating to me, but my five-year-old boy still can’t remember the whole alphabet sequence.  He’s still guessing at some letters and sounds, he will not memorize sight words, and we are making what feels like zero progress toward reading.  His number sequencing is gradually progressing, but some days it seems like we have just taken a giant step backward there too.

Our daily school work is just the same stuff over and over and over again - ad nauseum to me.  And I get a bad case of the kid-comparisons when I see other 5 years olds already reading and adding.

If it was someone else’s kid, I would counsel patience.  I would tell another mom that brains are growing just like bodies, and there’s about as much point to comparing brain development between kids as there is in obsessing over their changing shoe sizes.  Are they growing?  Are they being exposed to a learning-rich environment?  They’re going to be fine, then.

It’s easy to dispense this advice to others, and see some of the tension in their shoulders relax.  It’s much harder to live my own advice, and just let my son be.  He does his work, and he’s terribly excited to learn about the things he’s always loved: geography, science, nature, and now history too.  He has never liked memorization-type things, even when it was just memorizing nursery songs and dances.  He frequently seems to be thinking big thoughts and living at a very abstract level.  He has recently begun drawing recognizable things, and his drawings are mostly like blue prints and maps. 

If he was someone else’s son, I’d tell them to give him room to explore his gifts and regular practice on improving his weaknesses, but never stress or make him feel bad about how he’s doing.  So easy to say, but I hate to admit I actually get mad when we repeat the same stuff over and over and he still doesn’t have it down!  I want to say, “how can you not remember what sound the letter W makes!”, instead of just patiently repeating it.  Argh.

Plateaus are hard.  It can look like they will go on forever.  And all we can do is just take it one step, one day, one lesson, at a time.