Whoever Invented Afternoon Naps Should Be Sainted

Blogged on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Blog365, Family, Homeschooling, Randomness.

WOW.

I took a nap this afternoon/evening, and even though it was difficult (the people that live here keep needing things from me! ARG!), it was SO SO NICE.

I actually have… what is this?! My brain works! My mind is present. Oh sweet cognition, where have you been these past five months? Ha.

So on Friday, things officially change hands and my Papow will own our new house - and on Saturday, we all get to go over there and measure walls and pick bedrooms and exclaim over whatever is awesome (or awful, as the case may be). I can’t wait!

Of course the packing has neared a standstill this week, due to our new schedule which includes several hours of learning stuff. Which, holy heck, I forgot HOW MUCH I love learning things. And I didn’t realize that teaching my kids history and language skills would be so very, very satisfying. Now I know why so many fantastic men and women become teachers - this is addicting!

Yesterday wasn’t nearly as good a day as the first day (but really, how can you top FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL anyway, right?), but today was back on track again. We even had time to run a few errands before Troy went to work, which is part of the reason I love homeschooling. It’s as flexible as it needs to be, which any of you with full-to-bursting days can surely appreciate. Homeschooling is a sacrifice and a time-consuming priority, but the good things that come with it are amazingly great.

I think we have found a name for our little girl…

*Drumroll please……..*

Serenity April Acklin.

Serenity: for several reasons. Yeah, sure, I’m a Whedon fan, but that’s not the whole of it. I’ve always loved the word serenity because of its connotation of peace and quiet and calm. Of course it would be all kinds of ironic hilarity if Serenity turns out to be more of a Freakout McDramapants.

April: Troy and I met in April. We got married a year later in April. And we conceived her in April (sorry, TMI, HAHA); and it’s a lovely flowery feminine name that seems to balance out the formal first name. And it’s pretty and I like it.

What do you think? I won’t get mad or cry, I promise. How about you give me your favorite girl name (real person or favorite madeup imagined name, or anything in between)?

(Almost forgot this 20-week photo of me. Heh.)

Homeschooling Day One: WIN.

Blogged on Monday, September 8th, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Blog365, Family, Homeschooling, Philosophical.

Wow, you guys.  I am TIRED!

Even though Troy told me last week that if I wanted to wait to start school for the kids until AFTER we move, it just felt right.  It was the right thing to do.  So we armed ourselves with our books and our notes and our printed-out schedules (and our last-minute changes), and started school today.

Of course, first we woke up and ate breakfast and all that jazz.  We have just the one table for eating and schoolwork, so a lot more planning and precision is going into doing things around here than normal.  I’m not saying we’re slobs normally, it’s just… I let things slide.  Because I can.  Heh.

However, when I take the time to plan things out (nearly to the nth degree of specificity) and then take time to make sure the planning is realistic - as in, can I really wake up at that hour?  Yes or no?  Will I likely eat breakfast in that amount of time and have the table cleared off again? - then things go quite well, really.

The kids (it’s just the oldest two this week, so Ian’s preschooling will begin when he’s back home) were excited, but relaxed about it.  Nervous, but not overly so.  They did SO well.  They paid attention, they followed all our normal politeness rules (no interrupting, wait your turn to speak, don’t stare at your sibling’s work), and they did their absolute best.  Joey, who was so very often frustrated every single day after school last year, did fantastically well with asking for help and not freaking out in the slightest.

One of the most basic tenets of classical education, as I understand it, is to teach children LOGIC.  Logical ways of doing things.  Logical ways of solving problems.  And this doesn’t mean you have to give them a step-by-step of every little thing and make sure they follow it perfectly; this means that you teach them the kinds of things that shape their minds into things that are capable of solving new and complex problems in their own unique way.

They had a very poor foundation in language and grammar last year, so I’m taking them back to the beginning, to make sure they understand all the fundamentals first (like nouns and verbs and how they work), as well as how to spell words and what they MEAN, which is so much more than just sounding it out and spelling it perfectly.  I am assigning them different types of writing throughout the week, like journaling and letter-writing, and each month they will be doing a simple book report and an essay on something that caught their interest from history or science.

I’m really glad we had such a great first day.  It’s like when you have your first child and happily, they’re calm and quiet and easy to please; and thereafter having other children doesn’t seem quite as daunting as it would if your first one had been colicky and fussy and overly tiring.  Or your first day of work at a new job and you discover that you have great new coworkers, and you learn your new responsibilities without breaking a sweat, and everyone gets to clock out a half hour early if they like.  (That last bit was probably just wishful thinking, ha!)

We were even able to prepare a healthy dinner and eat together at the table (cleared off from school! We are so organized! JINX) before Troy went to work. So now I’m tired, of course, haha.  Because I had a great productive day and it’s not even over.  I just hope I can stay awake for all of it.  :)

Ask Me a Question

On my last post, NyraCat asked me, “…how the heck do you even begin to be a teacher to your own kids? What does it take? How do you register with the state? Where do you get textbooks? How do you even decide on what textbooks to use? How do you set up your curriculum…”

The short answer is this: in my state (Michigan), there is no need to register with the state. Not every state is this way, and if you’re unsure, this site is a great place to start looking around and getting advice from a legal standpoint (so you make sure you do it the right way).  Other than that, Google homeschool groups in your area, to find a person (or people) to talk to, to help you find out what style you want to use, and where to find the best deals on curriculum or other books.  We’re using a sort of relaxed classical approach with plenty of structured worksheets, within a scheduled time period each day of the week.  I was homeschooled, so I know what to expect and what worked when I was the student, which helps me immensely.

Annnnd… that’s it for now. I ate the leftover salad from dinner already, and a bagel, so now I have to scrounge something ELSE to feed this growing BABY GIRL that I’m carrying. (What?! I didn’t already tell you?! WHOOPS.)

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Blogged on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Blog365, Contradictory, Homeschooling, Philosophical.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.  

- last stanza of Robert Frost’s poem ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening‘

I would have looked that poem up in my own complete works of Robert Frost, rather than having to find its full text on Wikipedia, but unfortunately, I have packed it already. Of all the things I need to pack up, I decided to start with my books - most probably because they are the most accessible and the easiest for me to properly categorize whilst packing.

Yes, I said WHILST, I’m getting ready to teach English next week, you know! And math, and spelling, and history, science, art, writing, typing… you get the picture. The kids are excited but a little nervous, and understandably so. They’re not quite sure what to expect. I am, after all, a new teacher - because it has been several years since I taught them myself, and that was not at all the experience I am hoping (and planning) to have with them this year.

(And also, yes, I said I was categorizing what I’m packing. I realize this might be just slightly obsessive.)

There is so much to do here, packing up and waiting for news on how long we have before moving (still the same timeframe, I believe), helping clean up and fix up the new place, keeping the dishes washed and clothes clean and towels folded, planning meals and trying not to run out of milk AGAIN; and the thing that is more on my mind than anything else: SCHOOL.

I don’t want to screw this up. I want this for them more than I want anything for myself. I want knowledge to be theirs, and I want the sheer joy of discovery and learning to be what colors these years for them. I want to learn how to be a better parent, a better mother, by seeing who they are and how they do things. And I want to know when to let go, here and there, and let them try their wings.

I expect an awful lot out of myself. Troy talked me through a gigantic I’m-a-failure crying jag this afternoon; I don’t blame anyone for the load of things I want to accomplish, and I blame myself all too often for not being as perfect as I expect. I really need to learn how to let up and just breathe, far more than I do. If I take a day off, I feel guilty over it for days. I already never think I do enough.

If there is one thing I learn from all this chaos of being a grownup, I hope I learn to sometimes veer off the path into the lovely, dark, deep woods… and get lost in them for a while.

Poor Lonely Mustard

Blogged on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Blog365, Complaint, Contradictory, Randomness, pregnant!.

So anyway, I’m moving in a few months.  You know what that means, right?!  PACKING!!!

AIEEEE!  I don’t even have BOXES yet.  Or packing tape!  Or room to stack boxes of packed stuff!  *pant, pant*

When I’m not plotting my packing strategies, or hyperventilating about the lack of packing supplies available to me when said strategies occur to me, I’m lamenting my constant need to eat.

I’m sure some of you think this is a silly ridiculous thing to be complaining about - eating!  What’s easier than eating?  I’ll tell you what.  NOT eating.

I can’t just ignore it when my stomach suddenly screams at me EAT OR DIE!!!  Because that’s what it truly feels like - if I don’t eat, I will quite suddenly and with finality, waste away to absolutely nothing more than a pile of comfy clothes.  I can be in the middle of work, and like clockwork, BLAM.  I have to eat. RIGHT. NOW.

Sigh.  I thought I’d be above the whining over eating this time, but frankly I’m too overall whiny lately to care.  I like the taste of food, I enjoy eating like most people do, but I hate HAVING to eat.  I hate that I have no choice.  And I need to just get over it already, I know, I’m being completely silly.

So then when I do manage to motivate myself into the kitchen and think up something to eat - which seems to be impossible even though I go out of my way to grocery shop for things that will be easy to prepare and also to remember to eat - it’s all so tiring.  I’ll get out maybe only two or three ingredients for a sandwich, rather than the four or five (or more) that I usually pile on there.  And then I’ll leave out the mustard and the mayo and maybe even the bread, telling myself I’m just going to eat and then put them away, and guess what?

I get distracted and an hour and a half later I wander into the kitchen again and HAHAHA I’M STUPID, there is the mustard, sitting there, getting warm, and I wonder to myself about just how lazy WAS I that I can’t even put away the mustard?  The fridge is, what, two feet away?  For crying out loud.

At least I ate, right?

So I drove to the house today and took pictures, and I was going to post them here, and the computer and the camera are either having a fight or neither of them want to talk to ME, so there is nothing for you yet.  I am sorry.  I tried.  Really!

Guess What I Got For My Birthday?!

Blogged on Monday, August 25th, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Blog365, Family, Philosophical.

Really, it’s not just for me, it’s for all of us.  But it made my birthday the best one I’ve ever had, hands down.

A few weeks ago when my Mamow asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I thought I’d be funny and say ‘A HOUSE!’ because c’mon, that’s just as silly as telling someone you’d like to them to purchase you a brand new Maserati as a birthday gift.  Unless you’re Paris Hilton, I guess, but around here we give each other significantly smaller gifts than cars and houses, which I think is pretty normal.

We really do want to move, this trailer park is getting more and more frustrating to live in.  It’s not the rent - we can afford it.  It’s not really even the trailer - it’s livable, and we have learned to compensate for not having as much room.  It’s the neighbors and the area.  I never feel like I can go for a walk without being accompanied by Troy, simply because the teenagers (AND the adults) who live here think it’s really funny to yell insults or throw things.  Better people than me could handle this, but I really can’t.  I can’t even let the kids play outside with them being either stared at (in a creepy way) by neighbors, or being hollered at by my crazy-cat-lady neighbor who often forgets that screeching the f-word at small children is SO not socially acceptable.

We looked for other places to rent.  I looked through the newspaper listings, craigslist postings, and called on signs I saw at roadsides.  All the places I found were either too small, too expensive, or in a worse neighborhood than this one.

My Mamow and Papow have been upset over our living situation for a while, even though, while we kind of dislike it ourselves, we’ve done our best NOT to be cranky over it.  It does absolutely no good to hate where you’re living, because it’s that much more difficult to be thankful or content.  I’ve been thankful for the air conditioning, the working heater, the hot water to take showers and wash dishes.  I’ve been thankful for the very fact that we’ve had a roof over our heads and places to sleep comfortably.

Last week, there was a house up for auction south of here, in a much better area, and my grandparents went to see it.  Mamow was so excited about it she tripped all over herself telling me about it - four bedrooms, hardwood floors! A yard! A living room AND a family room!  Papow told me not to get my hopes up, which I already knew not to do, and said he was going to bid on it at auction the next day.

He won the bid, the bank accepted his bid (which is important, because the bank can always turn their nose up if they don’t like how much you offered), and they’ll be closing on it in a few weeks.  And we’ll be moving.  To a new house in Grand Blanc.  To a house with enough room for everyone PLUS room for a schoolroom/office.  To a neighborhood where the kids can ride their bikes safely, and the little ones can play outside.  I can hardly absorb this, this infinite kindness, this opportunity to live somewhere better, a place we can dig in and stay for a good long while.

I stole that photo off the auctioneer’s website - I’ll post photos of my own once I take them. SQUEE!!

My grandparents love me, and my family, SO MUCH, that they gave me what I wanted most for my birthday. A house. Sure, we’ll be paying for it - we like to do things the right way, and we’ll be paying a fair rent - but that’s not hardly the point, is it? The point is that I am loved more than I can ever really understand, and good things happen to me that I don’t even know how to pay back in kind.

My hope is that as the years go by, I will find people to help and to love just as I have been helped and loved, with no strings attached, for no other reason than that it was the right thing to do.

Happy Birthday To Meeeee

Blogged on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Blog365, Contradictory, Holidays, Philosophical.

Hey guess what!  I just turned 30!!

Annnnd…. it’s kind of anti-climactic. I thought turning another decade old was supposed to be large and possibly upsetting, and at the very least somewhat change-ful. Is that a word?

I have all these Facebook wall posts and messages wishing me a happy birthday, and I’ve gotten a card in the mail already too. Actually I have kind of a neurosis about my birthday leftover from childhood, although (thankfully!) it doesn’t really bother me any more.

See, my brother and sister have birthdays during the summer also, but before mine. My brother’s is first, then two weeks later is my sister’s, then two weeks and two days later is mine. Usually grandparents would come visiting for one of their birthdays, but never mine, simply because it was the last one and that’s a lot of traveling for older relatives. I always felt weirdly left out, even though nobody treated me any differently, and I never received fewer gifts or cards or any less attention. Chalk it up to being ridiculously sensitive? It was only one set of grandparents, so in retrospect it seems REALLY silly.

Then, when I was a bit older (read: in my late teens and early twenties), I saw birthdays as a chance to have some extra attention, and to be able to ask for things I couldn’t have otherwise. Like money. Haha. Then I grew up a little and simultaneously realized that I could buy MY OWN stuff now, and also that extra birthday attention is actually kind of meaningless. I mean, it’s one day a year, right? If I need that much social interaction, then I can get it pretty much every day.

So now, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point to having a birthday any more.  Or maybe I haven’t figured out how to have a grownup birthday (I almost said ADULT BIRTHDAY but that sounds naughty, haha). Or MAYBE, it doesn’t actually matter.

In conclusion, it’s my birthday and I feel ambivalent about it! How do you feel on your birthdays? Is it different than you felt when you were a kid?