Feeling My Age

So I was chatting with one of the workers we have here fixing up our water damage. He was telling me about how his little girl was a big surprise, a "gee, the doctor told me I couldn't have children" kind of surprise. He went into great detail about how hard it was on his wife who was really too old to be having a baby and who found it hard to spring back at her age, etc. How old was this elderly woman when she had this baby? Yep, one year older than me.

Did This Ever Happen To Charlotte Mason?

School has gone straight to hell in a hand basket since we lost the kitchen/school room to the flood. But I thought it would be a good opportunity to try a little Charlotte Mason, as I have been meaning to do. I have a book that purports to work on narration and picture study for those of us too obtuse to figure it out on our own.

So, as per the instructions, I explain to Mia that we will be looking at the picture and talking about what we see. She looks me in the eye and says ernestly "But I already know how to look at pictures." Sigh.

She humored me, but it was clear she thought it was lame. And you know what? It was lame. I'm beginning to acquire quite a little pile of resources that must have worked well for someone, because they came highly recommended, but didn't work for us.

Homeschooling often reminds me of that Moltke quote "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

Picked A Bad Day To Start Blogging

So I just started blogging again when Mia woke us up one morning saying "You forgot to turn the water off." Well, not exactly. A connection to the water filter under the kitchen sink had broken some time in the night and flooded the kitchen. They tried to save the floor with these nifty rescue mats that force air into the floor:

They failed:

Of course, much of the water ran into the basement:

So we're getting a new kitchen floor and Mia is getting to observe carpenters, plumbers, painters and other assorted tradespeople in lieu of actual schoolwork while I deal with all this.

Borders Home Educator Card

If you are a teacher or a homeschooler, you can get a card which gives you a 20% discount on items purchased for educational purposes. I brought the advertisement Borders had placed in The Old Schoolhouse magazine, but no one asked to see it or asked for any proof that I am a homeschooler.

Education Savings Days: April 2-8, Borders will be offering educators 25% off most items. personal or professional.

However, I must note that after I left Borders, I went to Costco where I found the same book I just bought for $11.99 (including discount) for $8.49. I snapped it up again at the lower price and will exchange the Borders' copy for something else.

My First Push Poll

Thanks to caller ID, I don't answer the phone very much, but finally, out of curiosity, I picked up for a call-bot that had left several messages indicating it was conducting a poll. And thus I was able to experience that venerable American political tradition: the push poll. Of course, I'd heard of them, but couldn't quite imagine how they worked.

First, the call-bot asks you several questions of a general nature, such as "Do you consider yourself a Democrat?" and "Are you voting in the Feburary 9th caucus?"

Then it begins to narrow it down: "Would an endorsement from the Machinists Union influence your vote?" No. "Is illegal immigration an important issue to you?" Yes.

Ah ha! Yes, well, then: "John McCain led the charge on amnesty and Mitt Romney signed sanctuary laws. Does this information make you more likely to support Mike Huckabee who's tough on immigration?"

"Do you consider yourself pro-life?" Yes. "Mitt Romney is a shifty SOB and John McCain eats live babies? Does this information make you more likely to support God's representitive on earth, Mike Huckabee?"

Well, there was something about McCain and live babies.

Update: Besides the push poll, Huckabee called, John and Cindy McCain have called and someone just called asking if I'm voting in the Kansas caucus tomorrow. But (true confessions) I'm not a registered Republican. I'm not eligible to vote in the caucus. Why are they calling me?

Here She Is

...the reason I have abandoned my blog for so long:

I really respect those ladies who blog through pregnancies and newborns. And this one is a good baby, already sleeping through the night at 2 months.

One Month of Homeschooling: What's Working, What's Not

Working:

My Body: This is a huge hit. We traced Mia's body on butcher paper. The book provides organs to copy, color, cut out and place on the body. We do one organ each day, which provides great motivation to get to the school room and get started. I don't know what I'll do when we're finished (which will be tomorrow). The book contains blurbs about each organ, but we're using different library books, such as Usborne First Encyclopedia of the Human Body, to add more depth. Since the book is reproducible, I'm sure we will revisit this project in a year or two.

Horizons Math: So far, we both like this even though it's largely been review to this point. We're 24 lessons in and haven't run up against much that is new. But they are beginning to introduce money, time, and addition, so we'll see how that goes.

Graded readers: Mia can read about any word you put in front of her, but needs lots of practice with reading fluency. After wasting $18 on the sweetest little set of hard cover phonics readers that she absolutely refused to read, I discovered that the Step Into Reading and All Aboard Readers that we already had (or that the library has by the hundreds) were the way to go. All that repetition in the phonics readers is just coma-inducing boring. Apparently lots of kids like it, but not mine.

Not Working:

History for Little Pilgrims: I was looking for a simple overview of history, since Mia has no interest in the various historical periods like pioneers or ancient Egyptians that seem to interest so many other kids. This book seemed to fit the bill, but it is way too religious for us. Mia's been traumatized by the continual mention of "your history, which will end when your time on earth ends..." Seriously, do we need to dwell on death with a kindergartner? It's a strange combination of too old for her (heavy theological concepts), and too young (not enough detail). Written for the four-year-old future divinity student.

Update: Body project complete:

I Should Be So Lucky

From the BBC: Woman Has Baby In 8 Minutes.

Well, maybe I don't want to be quite that lucky. I think my poor hubby would stroke out if he actually had to deliver the baby. But I'd settle for 8 minutes after I got to the maternity ward.

High School Bans America Flag

Not to turn this into the 1001 reasons to homeschool blog, but...

On the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, students at one high school were not allowed to wear clothes with an American flag.

And from the moral midget who runs this school district:

The superintendent of schools in Sampson County calls the situation unfortunate, but says educators didn’t want to be forced to pick and choose which flags should be permissible.

Gee, how about the flag of the country whose citizens pay your salary.

Via Weasel Zippers

The Two America's of John Edwards

Apparently, there are two Americas: The America that would give John Edwards a standing ovation and the America that would laugh him out of the room. I belong to the latter.

Here's what happened after Edwards said he would tell Americans to give up their SUV's:

Edwards was asked during his appearance how he explained the contradiction of asking Americans to sacrifice while he’s living in a 28,000-square-foot mansion.

He said he came from nothing, worked hard all his life, has always supported workers and fought big corporations as a lawyer.

“I have no apologies whatsoever for what I’ve done with my life,” he said to loud cheers.

Well, la de da. Edwards always pulls out this "I worked hard and can do whatever I like with the fruits of my labor" argument. Great. I agree. But apparently he is the only American who came from nothing and gets to do whatever he wants with no apologies. It's the rest of us that owe him an apology for only being successful enough to buy one or two cars, not successful enough to have a car for every occasion, or, as I'm sure Edwards does, hire out all hauling and landscaping and moving that needs to be done.

We use our truck all the time and have a hard time seeing how people get by without one. I have my tiny, fuel efficient Jetta, but once the new baby arrives, it will no longer qualify as a family car since, with the rear-facing car seat, there will not be enough room for an adult in the front passenger seat. But when you let the servants deal with the children, I guess you don't have to take such things into consideration.

Update: Allah's got more, including this lovely quote:

Campaign spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield said the Edwardses, who have two small
children, use the Pacifica when they need more than two seat belts in the back, and the truck when they need to move furniture or haul something.

Edwards has good reasons. You? All you've got are lame excuses.

First Day of School

Technically, today was the first day of school for us. Actually, we started yesterday, because Mia demanded to "do school. Right now". Who am I to object? But today we did all the subjects I had planned, including this: The Body Project.
This is a tracing of Mia's body. Each day, we will read about another organ and she will color and cut it out and glue it to the body. This was a big hit. We also did penmenship, math and reading. Then we read and acted out The Three Billy Goats Gruff (Mia's idea). All that took less than 1.5 hours. I want to add in some grammar and history on alternate days once we settle in.

I've Been Fired

My midwives let me go. :( Seems this latest complication is more than they can handle. Now I have to see the doctors. There's pretty much no chance of meeting them all before the big day. I can't tell you how excited I am about some random (knife-wielding) stranger delivering my baby. Also, my chances of getting a C-section just doubled and my chances of being induced... well, pretty much 100%. I was sort of looking forward to actually going into labor with this one.

School Started Last Week

and Mia didn't go. I've decided to homeschool her indefinitely. That went over big with the in-laws. My own fault, I guess. I knew the decision wouldn't be popular, so I never said a word about it until they asked. Of course, I obsessed over the decision and spent crazy amounts of time planning everything, but they don't know that. I think I left the impression that I just forgot to enroll her.

Anyway, we've had our first happy result and we haven't even started school yet. Last week we drove to Chicago for a family reunion. Mia met a bunch of cousins I didn't even know she had. I saw family I haven't seen in 10 years. Since school started here last week, if she'd been enrolled, we wouldn't have been able to go. Ah, sweet freedom.

Life's not fair, part 234

When I was a kid on a family road trip, my parents made me listen to Country Gold on the AM radio. Not much else was available. On our latest road trip, did Mia have to listen to my choice of radio stations? No. I had to listen to hours of Rock and Learn DVDs. It almost made me wish for the good old days of AM radio.

Criminals Are Many

Cops are few.
Criminals have guns,
Why can't you?

--Sign in a cornfield in central Illinois

Baby Pics

Here she is: the little person who has put a complete stop to my blogging. The top one is a profile, the bottom one, a little leg. I have a low lying placenta, so I should get at least one more round of pics, maybe more. I planned my life around having the same complications I had with Mia. Turns out I'm experiencing a whole new set of complications with this one. Who knew?

Special Edition Barbie: KC Area

I just got an e-mail pictures of Barbie's representing various areas around Kansas City. Here's mine:

The caption reads:

Overland Park Barbie: Yuppie Barbie comes with your choice of BMW convertible or Hummer H2. Included are her own Starbucks cup, American Express card and country club membership. Also available for this set are Shallow Ken and Private School Skipper. You won't be able to afford any of them.

I wish.

I my neighborhood, it's more like this:

Leawood Barbie: Modern Day Homemaker Barbie is available with Ford WindStar Minivan and matching gym outfit. Gets lost easily and has no full-time occupation. Traffic jamming cell phone sold separately.

Oddly enough, we tried to move to Leawood, but couldn't quite afford it. Now I find out I'm supposed to have a Hummer. Well, I must admit, when I drive around in my wee Jetta here in OP, I'm in danger of becoming road kill beneath the wheels of a full-size something or other.

What I Love About The Health Food Store

Besides the Back To Nature Mint Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, the best thing about the Wild Oats is that when you roll out of bed in the morning and decide to throw on some sweats, a headband and no makeup to run out for some milk, all the other women there look like they did the same thing.

That Christian Jihad Thing

Bryan Preston really stirred the pot yesterday with his post taking Glenn Reynolds to task for suggesting that fundamentalist Christians will eventually follow the Muslim example of using violence and intimidation as a way to get their demands met. The thread currently has 277 comments.

I had some instinctive feeling that Bryan was right to be annoyed, but couldn't quite put my finger on why until I read Glenn Reynolds' rebuttal:

Bryan Preston says I'm wrong, and that Christians won't do such things. I tend to think that conduct that's rewarded gets engaged in more. We'll find out which one of us is right, soon enough.

I'm surprised Glenn is trying this lame excuse. Palestinians get rewarded every time they take out a pizza parlor or a busload of old people and children. "Oh, look how aggrieved they are. Let's give the poor things more money and concessions." But have the Israelis started imitating them? Of course not, and for the same reasons that Christians will not.

This behavior will never be widespread in the Christian community precisely because Christians know they will not be rewarded for it in the manner that Muslims are. Of course self-detonating Christians wouldn't get sympathy from the media since they aren't an approved minority with an approved grievance. But it is so much more than that.

Terrorist Christians would not get sympathy from other Christians. Unlike Muslim terrorists, Christian terrorists would not benefit from world-wide excuse making, fund raising, and network forming. Can Christians produce one-off nut jobs who do terrible things? Of course. But that's all it will ever be. To paraphrase Mao, there's no sea for the Christian terrorist fish to swim in.

Timothy McVeigh, far from proving Reynold's point, is the perfect example of what I'm taking about. McVeigh pretty much single-handedly destroyed the militia movement. After Oklahoma City, moderates (normal people who liked target shooting and playing paint ball in the woods) were so horrified that they left in droves, leaving behind only the compound-dwelling freaks. Outside of those (famously anti-Christian) compounds, no one defended McVeigh. No one said "Well, the ATF blah blah blah." The most I saw was, "Well, I hate the ATF as much as the next guy, BUT NO WAY is murder acceptable." The rejection was unequivocal.

I'm sure Glenn was just making a joke and doesn't want to get into an existential debate, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist (or a law professor) to see that there's just no pay-off for terrorism among Christians.

So I Did Learn Something in Jr. High

All these years, I thought it was a total loss:

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

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Via Bookworm.