Oct. 8

Today is Sarah's Gotcha Day.  We got her 7 years ago.  She was a huge baby with very little personality.  She has grown into a slender girl with a huge personality!  She wanted to celebrate her big day by going to KFC for lunch.  Then we went to Noah's last baseball game of the season (his team was 0 for 8) and DQ.  We bought Sarah a new bike (actually an old one from a garage sale), and we all went for a bike ride.  We watched a movie and ate cantaloupe, all at her request.  She had a good day.  We're glad we got her.

Patience test

We're at Naturally Yours.  It's been a long day.  The kids are getting impatient, and I'm tired.  This is our last stop.  We're in the checkout line with our few items and looking forward to going home.  Then the oldest-looking man I've ever seen comes shuffling up to me and says, "Do you mind if I get in front of you?  I can't stand for very long."  There are two people ahead of me, so I don't know why he chooses me, but of course I step back and let him cut in front of me. 

There are only two checkers working, and the lines are both fairly long, and things always move slowly there.  The old man has plenty of time to tell me all about every ailment he's ever had, and there are lots of them.  My kids are trying to talk to me too, but I'm giving them the sideways evil eye that says "Don't interrupt".  There's no break in the litany of ailments, and the kids are getting very annoyed that I'm not acknowledging them.  (By the way, this situation happens all the time.  I'm trying to teach the children that it's rude to interrupt, but isn't it just as rude for the person who's monopolizing my time to completely ignore my children?).

Finally, the guy gets up to the cashier.   He very slowly pulls out a big stack of gift cards and says, "I just had my 98th birthday, and I asked everyone to get me gift cards for Naturally Yours."  Each card must have had five or ten bucks on it, because he went through the whole stack.   I stood in that line for over 20 minutes.  I hope it was a character building experience, but I haven't seen any evidence of it yet.

School days

The day started off way too early today, since the kids had a sleepover last night.  They decided they wanted to play a game of Brainopoly.  They had a great time, and they have no idea how much they learned.  I was cooking and eavesdropping, so I know they learned a lot.

Another sneaky way I get them to use their brains is to leave a puzzle out on the desk.  Sometimes I'll start putting a few pieces together to get them inspired.  Sarah is a real sucker for the puzzle station.  Here she is, putting together a puzzle map of the United States.  She's having fun, but she's learning a lot of geography.  (By the way, as she was putting on her gray pants and shirt, she said, "I'm dressing up as a cloud today!")

Then we went to one of our favorite places: the Children's Discovery Museum.  They're working together to lift the earth!

My new favorite picture.  She just watched her ball get sucked down into the whirling vortex, and she thought it was amazing!

He spent almost an hour building a water transportation system that channeled the water where he wanted it to go.

Working together at the pizza place.  They can do this for as long as I keep ordering pizzas.

The pizza place ran out of ingredients, so Noah had to go to the local market for more supplies.  Sarah moonlighted as the cashier.  They did some math, but of course, they weren't aware of it.

 Then we had music...

physical education....

and of course art.

In drama class, Sarah made up a song and dance about a cat, while Noah was in charge of backdrops, lighting, sound, and curtains.

There was only one other kid in the whole museum, so the poor thing had to be subjected to Sarah's interview.

They also recruited her for a puppet show.  Noah was very much into the puppetry, because he could hide behind the stage and make the puppets talk.  Sarah didn't like as much, because she wasn't onstage herself.

They had some architecture and geology classes where they made houses out of marshmallows and toothpicks and then tested their structural soundness on the shaking earthquake board.

I'm constantly debating with myself about how structured their education needs to be.  In my heart, I'm a proponent of unschooling (letting them discover things on their own, based on their interests and motivation, instead of forcing it on them).  I believe it's the best way to learn.  But in my head, I'm not convinced they'll pick up math on their own without huge gaps in the foundation.  So I use a curriculum for math, and they don't like it (neither do I).  It's important to me to teach them how to spell too, so we use a different curriculum for that, and we don't like it either.  I think they need to learn diligence, self-control, discipline, focus, and routine, so I make them do math and spelling every day (ok, almost every day).  We also do Bible and reading every day, but there's a lot of time where they're just free.

 I don't care if they learn to write in cursive or not.  Sarah said she wanted to learn, so I got her a book, and she works on it for fun.  It's just another form of art for her.

That's the most important thing I want them to learn!

She must dance!

I was playing some loud music today, and Sarah was dancing her heart out.  Noah was sitting in a chair.  Sarah yelled over to him, "How can you just SIT there and not dance?!"

Asbestos

Noah likes to watch Holmes Inspection on the Home & Garden channel.  He's learned a lot about the problems that come with home ownership.  Several days ago, he was telling Sarah about an episode where the house had asbestos.  Today, the kids were peeling potatoes, and Sarah suddenly yelled, "Noah!  There's asbestos in this potato!"

The sacrificial altar

There's a rug in our garage where Jason leaves all his sacrifices.  We call it the altar.  I've seen him carry his prey from far away, just to lay it at the altar and eat it.  I'm not sure if he does it so we'll notice and be proud of his hunting prowess, or if he just feels safer eating there, but it makes a nasty mess.  The rug is often covered in feathers, fur, blood, and various body parts.  He's left all kinds of animals at the altar: bunnies, birds of all kinds, cicadas, frogs, toads, chipmunks, etc.  One morning last week, I was up early and it was still dark in the garage.  I glanced out there as I went by and saw a strange hump on the altar.  I thought, "What has the cat killed this time???"  Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Sarah's socks, which she leaves everywhere.  By the time I took this picture, it was light out, so imagine it in the shadows:

Chocolate pudding?

I think avocados are interesting, and I wish I liked to eat them, because I love to prepare them.  I like the big, smooth pit, and I'm trying to think of something crafty to do with it.  I like the skins too after the flesh is all scooped out.  It seems like they should be useful for something.  Today I decided to try to make the taste of an avocado more to my liking.  I didn't have a clear plan of where I was going, but I started by putting the avocado meat in a food processor and whirring it up with some honey.  It was ugly, like baby diarrhea, so I put in some cocoa powder and whirred it up again.  It looked delicious, like creamy chocolate.  I took a taste.  Bitter.  Maybe a step above disgusting.  I added some agave nectar and a little salt.  Better, but still needed something...I glanced around the kitchen and saw half of an overripe banana sitting on the counter. Bananas are good with chocolate, right?  The color turned less appealing, but the taste was ok.  Just then, a friend stopped by and hesitantly tried it. She pronounced, "Tastes like chocolate pudding!"  So I passed it off on the children as chocolate pudding, and they gobbled it right down.