That Dress

Two weeks before Christmas Eve, I went to the fabric store for Little Black Dress material. The Monkeys' Christmas dresses were done, and I thought I'd try to make myself a "Uniform Project" number (see past blog entry). Could I do it in two weeks?

I sifted through the $2.99/yard fabric at the back of the store, finally settling on a black with threads of silver lightly through it. Festive, right?

Wrong fabric! I knew this as soon as I washed it. Wrinkle heaven! I can iron, but clothing that requires ironing gets worn once, washed, hung up, and gradually shuffled to the back of the closet. Only a dire clothing crisis will push me to iron something for myself. But this was an experimental piece of clothing, so I continued on.

I cut out the pattern. I happened to do this one afternoon at my mother-in-law's house, while Monkey1 was entranced by the History Channel and Monkey2 pushed an antique doll in an antique pram around the house and accidentally into every piece of furniture. As I cut out my pattern, I listened to my mother-in-law tell about the seasonal pattern books she used to get with one large sheet and all the patterns printed every which way on top of each other. She would use tissue paper to trace out all the pieces, deciphering the maze of lines, hopefully following the right ones. Tissue paper? I should save some from presents this year and keep so I don't have to cut up the patterns for the Monkeys' when I need to use the the smallest size.

The next morning that Monkey1 and Monkey2 were off at school, I ironed the material and laid out my pattern, making some changes. When the pattern had finally arrived in the mail, the reality of "double plaquet with hidden buttons" struck me. I am working on a vintage sewing machine, meaning no button holer attachment. I thought about this for several weeks and decided to put in a zipper instead. I had to change the front of the dress, not needing the double plaquet, and lengthen the dress to accommodate the 36-inch zipper I had found at the fabric store.

Lengthening proved perplexing. The hem was not straight, and neither were the side seams, of which there were many because of the "princess seams" silhouette. At first I added five inches straight down (and I literally added a piece of paper, measured and cut, to the bottom of each piece of the pattern), but that looked ridiculous, so I used my eyes and my straight edge to continue angles and curves, and then pinned and cut everything.

I ran two bobbins of black thread to start with and then had a fight with my sewing machine which ended after adjusting the tension of the top thread.

This Little Black Dress, which can be worn frontwards or backwards, closed like a dress or open like a jacket, with deep hidden pockets, fitted at the top and looser at the bottom, was easily the most difficult dress I have sewn. Yes, harder than the princess costumes for Halloween.

When I finished the dress on the eve of Christmas Eve, I hung it up and thought, "It looks like a bag." I promptly decided to ignore this unflattering response to all my hard work because it was late and I had no back-up plan.

I wore the dress three days in a row: church and family gathering Christmas Eve (family as in all of my husband's aunts, uncles, cousins, spouses, and kids), dinner Christmas Day (with about half the folks seen Christmas Eve), and church on Sunday. I was impressed that frontwards or backwards, the dress really was interchangeable, and the pockets were awesome, and even with my limited accessory options, I felt I was able to change up the dress enough that I didn't feel like I was the same as the day before. However, "the bag" notion reappeared whenever I hung up the dress or took it down. Part of this was due to how I lengthened it; I should have gone with straight down and not continued the slight inward curve of the pattern right at the hemline. Five inches of extension made a pear-shaped bottom of the dress' silhouette. Ugh! The other part of the impression is that this dress is a bag, a carrier of me, and a canvass for creativity, meant to be reshaped at the wearing, and not a stand-alone finished perfect dress on the hanger.

I've washed it. I've hung it up to dry. It's wrinkled. And I'm itching to get back to the fabric store and find a different material and try again.

BHEETMHLE

"Mommy, how do you spell Bethlehem?" Monkey2 shouts from the other room.

I spelled it out, and then mystified that she had not yelled, "I can't do that letter!" at any point, I went to check on her progress.

She was sprawled on her belly with a giant drawing pad on the floor. I stared at her work. Every letter was recognizable -- who taught her to write her letters? Monkey1 must be playing teacher -- although not exactly in the order I had dictated them. She had started writing the letters with large spaces between them, then run out of room at the edge of the paper, so had apparently gone back and put the remaining letters in the spaces.

Hump Day

It's hump day, and so far this week:

3 doctors appointments and one eye glasses fitting
2 Christmas concerts
1 milestone for the VW Golf: 100,000 miles.

Pending:
1 replacement of the driver's side rear-view mirror
2 dentist appointments
3 Christmas packages to be mailed.

Hat Hair

Me: Monkey2, do you get cold at recess?

Monkey2: Yes.

Me: Do you need a hat?

Monkey2: No. It would mess my hair.

Christmas Treasures

Today we brought home a little Christmas tree. Not as little as some years, but not ceiling height either. It had to fit in the Golf after all. I was able to light it respectably with two strings of lights. Then, the ornaments.

I brought a couple of shoe boxes up from the basement, and the girls unwrapped everything and spread the pieces out on the table. Too late I discovered that one box I thought was ornaments, there had been one right on top when I peeked in the box, was knick-knacks from my childhood. I had had a closed display case to keep all the dust collectors safe. How had these all arrived in my basement? There were tiny corn husk dolls, a china cat, an olive wood bell from Bethlehem, a plastic Garfield, a tiger made out the flat wooden ice cream spoons, an ocarina shaped like a frog, a handpainted plastic cowboy and Indian pair on horseback memorializing The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks, two Star Wars action figures, ...

My girls were delighted. They abandoned the tree decorating in favor of playing with all these new toys. One of the corn husk dolls was named "Mother Nature" because she had a floppy brim hat and a garden rake. The Stormtrooper was made a servant because he was a bad guy. The cowboy and Indian became dads when the girls' Polly Pocket dolls joined the scene.

I hung ornaments, a choir of pegs in colorful robes painted by my mother decades ago, bead and pipe cleaner shapes made by me during my elementary years, plaster angels from my grandfather's tree, soft sculpture memorializing my nephew's first Christmas, cutesy figures from college friends, a clothespin angel made by a former coworker, a laminated doily from my oldest daughter during her preschool year, ...

Just an afternoon of making Christmas now and revisiting so many pleasantries of Christmas past.

Learning New Tricks

My Uniform Project dress pattern arrived recently, the pattern paper all neatly folded in a little cloth bag with a sheet of directions. The instructions were minimal, so I turned to the U.P. blog for more details. I was in for some surprises. I'm not a professional seamstress, but I have been sewing and watching my mother sew for a long time.

First up: "First, choose your size, or the closest size to what you need ... cut out all your pattern pieces..."

Cut out the pattern to my size? This sounded close to the material sin of cutting a small piece from the center of a large piece of fabric. My mother always folded over the too-big sizes of a pattern when using a small size of a pattern's range. However, she was also sewing for growing girls; she would need those larger sizes -- cutting them off and using them to start the wood stove would have been wasteful!

This pattern is for me, a grown woman. Grown, as in "stopped growing"? Am I really going to stay close to my size? Yikes! I don't worry about this when I buy clothes, but if I am going to go through the trouble of making something, well, that makes me think harder.

Second surprise: "It's best to cut one layer of fabric at a time to keep the cuts accurate."

One layer? No folding over and two-for-one cuts? That's twice as much work! Especially since the laying out, pinning, and cutting is my least favorite part of sewing. Well, running a tie with any parts in the middle of the project that require ironing.

I still haven't decided on a fabric for my U.P. dress, and in the meantime I have two Christmas dresses to finish by December 14 & 15 -- the dates of the Monkeys' school Christmas concerts.

Today I put the extra leaf in the dining table and laid out the fabric for Monkey1's dress. She had requested a pink fleece dress. Yes, pink for Christmas. Everyone else will doubtless be red and green, or maybe gold, and she'll be pink, just like last year. The pattern I selected is simple, only nine pieces to sew together, but she needs the smallest size in the nested tracings of the pattern paper. I started to fold the edges and soon wondered how on earth my mother did this, especially on the curves for the arm holes and sleeves.

I took a deep breath, and I cut the pattern down to its smallest size. But I carefully saved all the pieces, so if necessary I can tape the pattern back together for a larger size!

Spreading out the fleece material, I saw the merit in cutting one layer of fabric at a time. With this thick fuzzy material, one layer was plenty to deal with! So I pinned the pattern, cut, unpinned, repinned, and cut again. Nine pieces. Whew!

Monkey2's dress is a lot more involved. She had requested purple, red, green, and white, with the main color purple. Since these were all the colors she was wearing when I questioned her, I took some liberties with this once I was in the fabric store. The main color is actually green with strings of colored balls in yellow, red, and purple (the fabric print is meant to resemble Christmas ornaments on a green tree). I found matching red and purple material for some accents. Her dress is many pieces; I haven't finished the pinning and cutting, so I don't have a count yet. But with a simple cotton blend fabric, I am definitely folding and cutting once for two pieces! Since her size is the largest size of the pattern, I did not need to agonize over cutting it down. Though this dress looks so involved, I doubt I will want to make it again in a hurry.

Time to put a pink bobbin in the sewing machine.

Starting a Personal Library

What was the first book you bought? How old were you? How did you have the money?

The day after Halloween, Monkey2 participated in a "candy buy-back" event sponsored by a local dentist. She managed a pound of candy, yielding $3, and she chose a book from the Scholastic book order flier that had just come home in her backpack. Her book arrived today, "Ten Fat Turkeys," featuring ten silly turkeys balancing on a fence and falling off one by one as they show off to each other.

I've read the book to her about a dozen times since she walked out of school at 11:45 a.m. The first time was in the car, before we even left the parking lot! The book was still glued to Monkey2's hand as she played on the playground at pick-up of her older sister, three and a half hours later. And yes, she had it again at bedtime, twice, because she had to have Dad read it to her when he got home, and then Mom had to read it again after she brushed her teeth.

I won't be surprised if I find it in her bed tomorrow morning.

More Postcards

My husband and I have been married for eight and a half years. On Thursday, a school day and a federal holiday, we discovered that both Monkeys were in school for the morning while he had the day off and I had no plans. After the initial shock and long hug, we asked each other, "What can we do that we can't do when the kids are around?"

We cleared the front garden patch of all the dead flower stalks and grass.

--

Our VW Golf's days are numbered. I don't know the number, but I'm guessing it is less than 365.

Friday afternoon I dropped the car off for an oil change, and then got a phone call that the tie rods were frayed and that "it wouldn't pass inspection." Since the tie rods are part of the steering, this was vital to fix even though the annual inspection is some months away. However, the total bill put the car's maintenance for the year over its Blue Book value. When the cost to maintain the car goes above its hypothetical sale value, it is time to find another set of wheels. My husband agrees, and whenever we are in the car together, we discuss the merits and demerits of any vehicle we see. Since we are a one-car family, the vehicle has to be the RIGHT one, or at least one we can both agree to drive.

--

Lately whenever the Monkeys see me at my sewing machine, they have been clamoring to learn to sew. So I let them pick some snippets of material out of my scraps and pieces box, I thread some needles and knot the ends, and I let them poke away. Monkey2 ends up with oddly shaped knobs of material, which I call flowers, while Monkey1 does fairly neat straight stitches.

So this past weekend I moved Monkey1 up to an actual project. She wanted to make a dress for the rag doll we made following instructions in a Civil War story book. So I helped her measure the doll, she wrote down the numbers, and I drew the pattern on the material and cut it out. We discussed whether she wanted frayed or finished sleeve and hem ends, and then she started sewing. Project underway, not done yet.

--

My "Uniform Project" pattern showed up. I get to make a dress for myself!

A Week of Postcards

Some bloggers have weekly entries such as "7 Quick Takes Friday" or "Wordless Wednesdays." Since I'm erratic, but last week was full, here are some postcards from my life:

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Monkey1 refused to get out of the car in the drop-off line. The principal had to extricate her from the car.

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Monkey2 was an elephant for Halloween. I added a gusset to the $10 size 3T costume we found at the grocery store, and a tail, and I expect it will fit her for about week. Monkey2 loved it and kept talking about the crocodile and how the elephant got his long nose. Unfortunately no one else has heard of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories.

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Monkey1 loves being with her friends at school, but she is missing the content of Classical Conversations. She wants to know when we do the next Timeline cards.

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As Monkey1 and I cracked open her next evening chapter book, I read the entire front cover of the book to her:
The Story of the World
History for the Classical Child, volume two
The Middle Ages
From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of the Renaissance
She started to sing one of the Classical Conversations history sentences: "During the Renaissance Period, from 1350 to 1600, da Vinci was a famous inventor..."

-
White milk was the straw that broke the camel's back. Monkey1 threw a fit at school and screamed at the teacher. I'm not backing down on my "no chocolate milk" line and since she won't drink the white, she's getting water with lunch.

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Marine Corps Marathon weekend. It's been five years since we left Long Island.

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Monkey1 lost trick-or-treating privileges due to not listening and throwing fits all day. This is not the first year.

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Monkey2 couldn't wait for the trick-or-treaters to come to the door. In her elephant costume, she waited for them on the front step and then fell off the step each time in her haste to meet the groups coming up the sidewalk.

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Monkey1 complained of sickness and the volume level at school in an effort to stay home.

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Monkey2 is excited to participate in one area dentist's Halloween candy buy-back program. With the money ($3 per pound) she will buy a book from this month's Scholastic book order form.

Monday

Breakfast included tea for the new porcelain tea set, a gift to Monkey1 from my mother-in-law to celebrate starting school.

Drove to school. Used the car drop-off line to deliver Monkey1. Drove around the building and read books in the parking lot for twenty-five minutes before walking Monkey2 into the preschool.

Drove home. Worked on Monkey1's Snow White costume for Halloween; finished the dark blue bodice, made from a satin material left over from a set curtain I made for one of my tv programs in 2001.

Drove back to school. Monkey2 greeted me joyfully, "I get to go home!" Her former once-a-week extended day stay at school, while Monkey1 and I finished Classical Conversations, made a big impression on her, and every day now she's always delighted "not to stay for a whole week."

Drove home. Lunch. More tea in the new tea set. Read more books.

Drove back to school. Walked through the gym to pick up Monkey1. Let the Monkeys play on the playground, which their daddy helped build at the end of August.

Drove home. More tea in the new tea set. Supper. Bath for Monkey1. Books for both of them. Dad had to put both of them back to bed a few times. I read more of Real Food, threw in a load of laundry, sewed more of the Snow White costume, packed Monkey1's lunch, and measured out the dry ingredients for tomorrow's banana bread.

Tomorrow I drive to school again...

Empty Nest, or Learning to Fill a Plate

My 5-year-old goes to school seven hours a day, five days a week, and my 3-year-old goes to preschool three hours a day, three days a week, and I have empty nest syndrome.

(I had never heard of "empty nest" as a syndrome, but when I googled it, sure enough, Wikipedia delivered a definition. However the definition seems to refer to the time when a child leaves home as in no longer lives at home, not day school leaving home.)

I suppose it comes of falling into Attachment Parenting, not through any particular belief in that theory, but because of economic factors and geographic distance from extended family. I wore my babies in Bjorns, slings, mei tais, and backpacks. I breastfed them past their first birthdays. They co-slept with us. We hung out with homeschoolers, and even officially tried it for seven weeks. I was always with my children!

Well, not always always. I participate in occasional Moms' Night Out events, preferring the ones where we all meet with a project to do or with items to swap rather than at a restaurant. My husband regularly takes the kids for a half-day to his parents' house so I can be home doing whatever gives me mental peace.

But this big change hits me as the sunlight diminishes, as the half-birth-year crazies hit, and my estrogen level plummets, mimicking menopause with sweats and a whole list of other symptoms. While my doctor prescribes pills, increasing the dosage each month, one of my natural lifestyle friends prescribed me a book: Real Foods: What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck. It's not a book of menus or recipes or lists, but a chatty philosophy of food. It certainly has me thinking about food, and I hate thinking about food or spending time dealing with food! Of course, reading a book is so much better... it kind of bridges the gap. Until dinner time anyway.

...

What a mess is this entry! I start out with empty nest, get waylaid by a book, and meanwhile I have four baskets of clean laundry to fold and a Snow White costume to sew. I think I'd better go eat supper and pack tomorrow's school snacks and lunches.

What Went Down in a Week

Monday: Monkey2 had preschool in the morning. Monkey2 had a classroom visit in the afternoon.

Tuesday: Monkey1 went to kindergarten all day. Monkey2 had me all to herself all day.

Wednesday: Monkey1 went to kindergarten all day. Monkey2 had preschool in the morning. Mommy was able to rejoin a Catholic women's bible study.

Thursday: Monkey2 had preschool in the morning. Monkey1 went to kindergarten, with a school-wide noon dismissal. I used my solitary three hours to lay out and cut the fabric for Monkey1's Halloween costume; she wants to be Snow White. We met most of our friends -- homeschooled and Catholic schooled -- at a playground for lunch.

Friday: No school. Monkey1 had a fever. Monkey2 bounced around.

Saturday: Monkey1 was borderline fever/no fever. Did not attend swimming lessons and canceled plans for a pumpkin farm excursion with a friend. Went to the library to return books, and impressed the librarian at check-out that I exactly filled our canvas bag with books. Just before getting in the car, Monkey1 pulled out her loose tooth.

I'm tired.

We went from homeschooling to traditional schooling in less than a week, and it was a marathon to get all the physical items in place (uniform and classroom supplies), plus make up a schedule to guide me through the number of snacks and lunches to pack each evening for the next day. I like having some breather time, but I miss Monkey1. When I was homeschooling, I had a job, and now I don't have one. That's the only way I can explain it; I feel unemployed. I've been through that before, and it wasn't pleasant.

First Day of Kindergarten

Last night we laid out the uniform: white shirt, plaid jumper, white socks, white sneakers, and dark blue undershorts (because she will climb all over the new playground). I packed her lunch and two snacks.

Monkey1 awoke to find that her beloved yellow blanket had mysteriously reappeared. About a month ago she had been playing laundry, so she told me, and it fell out the window onto the shed roof. I refused to rescue it because we don't have a ladder. The unreachable blanket was brought to Dad's attention upon his arrival home from work in the near-dark. He reminded her that she had already dropped a pillow out the window and he had told her not to do that again. The next morning the blanket was nowhere in sight. She was happy to have her blanket back again. (This evening she told me that it had been off visiting its mother in Alaska.)

Over breakfast I discussed the morning drop-off procedure for school, for kindergarten. "It's different from preschool," I began, then described how the big kids, the fifth and sixth graders, help the students out of their cars and walk with them to their classrooms. Mom does not get out of the car.

Monkey1 was quite calm about this, which surprised me, while Monkey2 was extremely upset. "I want to go in Monkey1's classroom!!!!" I had worried all night about the wrong kid!

As Monkey1 got dressed, I brought out the necklace that her Godmother had given to her at her baptism. The school uniform code states that "one necklace with a single religious pendant may be worn." Monkey1 was delighted to wear the gold cross from the mysterious Godmother she hears about (a coworker from my Catholic television days), but has yet to meet.

Drop-off went perfectly smoothly. Monkey1 got out of the car, shouldered her backpack, and followed her Safety Patrol student without a backward glance. Monkey2 had gotten over her tears and was looking forward to seeing friends at the Mothers' Rosary Group later that morning. For me, it was a day a bit like last year, when Monkey1 was off at preschool and Monkey2 had all my attention. And just like last year, when it was time to go get big sister, she announced she did not want to go.

At pick-up, parents park their cars and walk into the gym to collect their students. Today we stayed for some playground energy-out time.

But when we got home, it was crunch time, getting supper and unpacking from the day and discovering homework and getting Monkey2 to bed, who for the last several weeks has been needing and getting a 6:30 p.m. bedtime. Thank goodness my husband came home in the middle of it! I was able to read to Monkey1 for half an hour before putting her to bed, looking forward to tomorrow.

I did get some feedback on the day. She was excited they are learning French. They wrote their numbers today. Her friend sitting next to her helped her with writing letters. (Uh-oh.) She got milk at lunch and was upset that she didn't get chocolate. They are not allowed to share snacks or lunch, which she thinks is ridiculous. The apple for snack was hard to eat because of her loose tooth.

The gym uniform is laid out for tomorrow, and both Monkeys will be at the same school tomorrow. Both girls will be at the same school tomorrow. Wait, no, ... yes, time does go by.

Beginning the Transition

Monkey1 had her classroom visit today.

We arranged to meet the teacher and see the classroom during a spell when the students would be out of the room (off at Art, in fact). A little quiet look-around and time for questions. This was very near the end of the school day, so we all agreed Monkey1 could stay for the end of the day dismissal routine.

Then the Kindergartners all came back in the classroom. The third one in the door was one of her preschool classmates, who came right over and gave Monkey1 a BIG hug. All the others crowded around us, greeting Monkey1 and introducing themselves and their classmates. We probably know half the class, between church, preschool, and the mothers' prayer group. It was a bit overwhelming, and the teacher was quickly calling the class to sit down and let Monkey1 breathe. Her seat is right next to one of her buddies, which may change if there is too much whispering but is great for jumping in at the end of the first quarter.

I left Monkey1 in the classroom, taking Monkey2 out to the playground on which my husband had spent four days working in a community barn-raising style effort that put up the playground in time for the new school year.

When the dismissal bell rang, I followed the other parents into the gym, collected Monkey1 from the group of Kindergartners, and exited by the designated doors. Monkey1 wanted to play on the playground, but I reminded her that we had to get her sneakers (plain white for the uniform) but we would stay and play on other nice days. She quietly got in the car, and then she burst into tears. "It was crowded! It was too noisy!"

After supper and laying out her uniform for tomorrow, Monkey1 told me that she was excited about going to school.

And so the transition has begun.

Changing Direction Again

"Mommy, I have too enough of first-day-of-school dresses. I don't think I need another one," Monkey1 told me.

That's lucky because I don't think I could make one in less than a week, and she's supposed to wear a uniform on her first day of school.

Uniform? First day of school? But homeschooling...? See how fast life can change with a single phone call!

I was driving from Classical Conversations with Monkey1 to the preschool to pick up Monkey2, and my cell phone started ringing. It was the school. Fearing that my littlest monkey was sick or having hysterics, I fearfully answered the phone. The secretary first assured me that Monkey2 was fine, and then offered Monkey1 a spot in the Kindergarten.

"OH!" I said. Then I secured time to think about it overnight with my husband.

The call we had been waiting for!

"Who was that?" Monkey1 demanded from the backseat.

I drew a breath. "Remember how I told you that the teachers at Blessed Sacrament were trying to figure out how to get all the desks into the classroom? Well, yours fits now..."

"YEAH!" she screamed.

I called my husband.

"What does Monkey1 think?" he asked.

"YEAH!" she shouted again, for his benefit.

Just recently I had uncluttered the fridge and found two letters dated March 25. One had admitted Monkey2 to the preschool while the other had placed Monkey1 on the wait list, "somewhere in the top ten," for the elementary school. Now, nearly seven months later, her name had reached the top of the list.

By the time I had driven over to the school to claim Monkey2, our decision was made. (I think this counts as distracted driving.) Monkey1 would go to school.

Within twenty-four hours I had a bundle of papers to complete our registration, a check to write, a class supply list to purchase, a pile of used uniforms -- dress uniform and gym uniform -- to launder, and a class visit scheduled.

I'm a little sad to leave behind homeschooling. This week there were several incidents that pointed how much Classical Conversations and our own homeschooling books have enriched us. A calendar arrived from the National Zoo, and some captions identified different animals as carnivores or herbivores; the science fact in CC a few weeks ago involved carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores. Then at a display of football mascots, we identified a Spartan; last week reading Story of the World we had learning about Sparta and Athens. In kindergarten!

When I talked to one of the Kindergarten moms this week, to get a measure of what was going on in the classroom, I heard so much wistfulness in her tone and words; she really felt left out and left behind as her daughter went into the classroom each day. What really goes on? We will never know because sometimes our children don't have the words for it yet.

I'm really glad that we were able to start this year homeschooling. It is not something to be afraid of!

Family Bike Ride

"Let's go for a bike ride!" said Dad.

"Yeah!" said all members of his girl parade.

"Where should we go?" he asked.

"The bike highway!" said Monkey1, referring to the walking, running, and biking path not far from our house that connects to all sorts of places.

"Yes, but where do we go once we get to the bike highway?" he persisted.

He just got a new bike. It's white, I can lift it with one hand, and please don't ask me anything else about it. It has two wheels; it's a bicycle!

"I think you'll go somewhere, turn around and meet me, and I'll follow you home," I remarked. I couldn't keep pace with him when he was on his old mountain bike, so I knew I'd never keep up with his new wheels.

Last summer when we went for family bike rides, Dad had Monkey1 on a trail-a-bike third wheel attached behind him, and I had Monkey2 in a child seat behind me. However, mid-summer this year we put training wheels on Monkey2's little bike, so now she refuses to have anything to do with the child seat. A family bike ride means someone has to walk beside Monkey2 on her bike.

...

Just got a call from Dad. Monkey1 is tired of biking, so I have to go rescue her with the car. He assures me that he wants to ride his bike home.

I wonder what next summer will bring.

Homeschooling Away from Home

A few weeks into the school year I decided to take advantage of our homeschool flexibility, so we turned the three-day Columbus Day weekend into a six-day visit up north. I do mean north: we were less than twenty miles this side of the Canadian line.

The days were sunny and windy with temperatures in the 50's more or less, I think. Monkey1 refused to wear a jacket, "I have long sleeves!" while Monkey2 bundled up in a fleece and a raincoat and winter boots and would tromp back into the house asking for hot chocolate after about ten minutes.

There was a table in the woods for tea parties, and rocks to throw into the lake, and frogs and toads and wooly bears to catch, and pumpkins to decorate, and yes, lessons to do. The trip was Thursday-Tuesday, so our Wednesday Classical Conversations day had just given us our memorization work to be ready upon our return!

The first thing I realized was that our usual review time was missing; at home, every time we get in the car, I pop in the audio CD and we sing our History sentence, Latin verb conjugation, and Math skipping counting sets, and repeat the English grammar, Science fact, and Geography elements. Ten or fifteen minutes in the car to get somewhere and then another ten or fifteen minutes back to home, once or twice a day really adds up! So I had to remember to play the CD daily.

I also struggled to give Monkey1 quiet with my attention/help for reading practice. Having Monkey2 out of the house a few mornings a week at preschool while I work with Monkey1 has made homeschooling very easy! Now, Chatterina, um, Monkey2, was really living up her to nickname! She never stopped talking! Once I squeezed in a lesson while she was investigating what the bearded dragon in residence was having for breakfast, and another time a lesson was after little sister went to bed and fell asleep at 6:30 p.m. Fortunately I had brought the McGuffey Primer with us for the phonics/reading practice, and Monkey1 really liked the layout of one page is one lesson, with a picture and sentences, so she was motivated to work on the reading despite Monkey2's commotion.

Handwriting, printing, practice was the same as at home. I made a sheet of letters for each Monkey to practice. Monkey1 worked on lower case letters, while Monkey2 liked to trace her name. I still find it amusing that she really does trace the letters, just as she would put her hand on a piece of paper and trace around it, she carefully works around the outside of each letter of her name. At first I had no idea what she was doing, and then I realized how we've used the word "trace" with her.

Of course, we read books. I brought The Story of the World with us, and then there were books in the house. Monkey2 favored Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman and Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood, while Monkey1 was fascinated by Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling.

It worked out, homeschooling away from home.

That Little Monkey

I was had by the three-year old.

Yesterday, Monday, she woke up, coughed a couple of lung barks that had me expecting a green monster to leap out of her mouth next, and then she cried, "I can't go school! I SICK!"

While I ignored this for the first hour and a half, putting together breakfast, putting together snack, getting people dressed, after awhile it became decision time. Rather than march a preschooler into school wailing "I SICK!" accompanied by a lusciously mucusy cough, I decided to keep her home. I called the school office to note her absence, and sent her back to bed. And sent her back to bed. And picked her up and put her back in bed. And began to regret keeping her home. And it was only 8:35 a.m.!

I alternated doing school with Monkey1 and reading books to Monkey2, while it rained outside. In the afternoon the sky cleared enough that I bundled up Monkey2 into the stroller while Monkey1 ran/lost her shoe/walked/ran/dragged her feet to the playground.

After supper, Monkey2 started flipping out over the vacuum cleaner, so I brushed her teeth, read her a book, and put her to bed at 6 p.m. For the first time since the morning, she coughed – just enough so that she asked for some medicine.

Yes, I remember, the night cough medicine tastes like grapes and is ever so much nicer than the cherry-flavored daytime cough medicine.

A Few Hours of Reading

I can do it. I can snuggle in my bed, crack open a book, ignore clutter, dirty dishes, vacuuming, written and mental to-do lists, and get some rest in my own house. I just did, for two and a half hours. I surfaced with a headache, which might be from the cold I've been slogging through for the past four days, or it might be from I-should-have-had-lunch-two-hours-ago. But I got some rest.

So what was the page-turner? Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, subtitled "The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation."

Yes, my life with a preschooler and a homeschooling kindergartner is so glamorous and dramatic that I find relief in a book about punctuation. No drama with commas.

Actually, commas can provide quite a bit of drama. According to the author, the editor of New Yorker magazine in the 1930s and '40s, Harold Ross, "seemed to believe that there was no limit to the amount of clarification you could achieve if you just kept adding commas." On staff under Ross was writer James Thurber, who "saw commas as so many upturned office chairs unhelpfully hurled down the wide-open corridor of readability."

I wonder how many chairs did get upturned in the corridor between the editor's office and the writer's desk, as each piece was re-punctuated after its creator considered his piece written and done.

And now I consider my own house. Can I achieve clarification by spacing the dirty dishes across the counter, with silverware neatly placed between them like commas, or do I reach readability by stuffing them all in the dishwasher?

Your Turn...

Yesterday the Monkeys stacked two large boxes for a Barbie doll house.

Today the boxes were separated, one turned with its closed side to face the sofa. Dolls and bears were arranged across the seating space.

From my position in the kitchen, I heard Monkey1 telling a story. Then I heard, "Okay, Monkey2, your turn to be the television!"

Monkey2 obediently crawled into the box and started making various noises, before crawling out and telling Monkey1 it was her turn again.

Before bed, they insisted on drawing buttons on the television, particularly the "OFF" button.

No Thank You, St. Mary's.

The thing I feared happened. We got started homeschooling -- purchased curriculum, joined a Classical Conversations community, worked on lessons, started finding our routine -- and then a Catholic school called with an open spot.

"This is very unexpected," the registrar office told me, "but Monkey1 is the next on the wait list."

That evening, when my husband and I stretched out on the floor to talk, eat, watch TV, and surf the internet, we both felt this was a great chance, but not quite right for our family.

Academically, St. Mary's School has a wonderful reputation. When I visited the school for an orientation and tour, I was happily touched by its similarities to the Catholic school where I spent grades 2 through 8. During the administration's introduction, the church pastor was emphatic that even through the church and the school were separated by four blocks, it was the parish school, not just a private school, not just a Catholic school, but the parish school -- the priests were there frequently, and when the children went to Mass, the seventh and eighth graders took the hands of the kindergartners and first graders, and they all march up to the church together.

But St. Mary's is not our parish, has not been our home. We went there a few times, and I went to the Moms & Tots group a few times, but we did not click there. We found another Catholic parish, also with a school, also with a Moms & Tots group, and we found and made our home there, for a bit over four years now. Monkey2 is going to preschool there. Monkey1 is on the kindergarten wait list. Our friends, both traditional school and homeschool, are there.

"Not our parish" also means we would pay a higher tuition, and making St. Mary's "our parish" would remove any seniority we have gained for admission or wait list rank at our home parish.

Monkey1 is "doing school" by having to sit in a chair and pay attention to a teacher and interact with classmates once a week for three hours at Classical Conversations. The rest of school work/learning we do at home, in the car, walking to the playground, at the Nature Center, or wherever we are. Friday morning she just completed reading her first book, with not too much help. Friday at lunch she counted six items on her plate, and then skipped counted them, 2, 4, 6. (Okay, to be honest, she didn't stop at six; she got carried away with the song and went all the way up to 24.) The rest of socializing we do with close friends, several times a week because both Monkey1 and I like being around people, and without anyone calling out, "No talking! Do your worksheet!"

Give up Classical Conversations? Trade for a school day of 7:55 a.m. to 3:10 p.m. on the opposite side of town from Monkey2's preschool? Not at our home parish? With none of her friends? Nearly a month into the school year? My husband and I thought about our first-born and shook our heads.

So, No Thank You, St. Mary's.

The thing I feared happened. We got started homeschooling and then a Catholic school called with an open spot. And we chose to homeschool!

An Afternoon

At home alone this afternoon! Precious, precious time for Mom. I'm happily doing things without interruption and without an eye and ear pointed in other directions, wary for trouble. I'm folding laundry, sorting through drawers for clothes outgrown, and pondering some human nature.

On Friday I let my network of family and friends know that after choosing to homeschool, three weeks into the school year we are facing the decision all over again. In the hours since then, people have responded with "I'll pray for you," or boldly, "You should send her to school."

I must be some kind of mutant that I have to be told to send my daughter to school! Told? Nay, convinced or converted!

Everyone means well. That's why people give advice or air their opinions. But it's still annoying that some people seem to think that Mom and Dad would deliberately make a bad choice, academically and socially, for their child.

I know the real friends now. They are the homeschoolers that say, "That's great Monkey2 is going to preschool!" They are the traditional schoolers that say, "That's wonderful Monkey1 is homeschooling!" They are the ones closest to my heart.

A New Wrinkle

Just when everything seems to be settled and starting to go smoothly... I received a phone call this morning from one of the Catholic schools. Unexpectedly they have had a spot open up in one of their Kindergarten classes (they have three classes of K), and do we want the spot for Monkey1?

Gulp!

This was not our first choice school for Monkey1 because it is not the Catholic school attached to the church we have been attending for the last four years.

Homeschool or traditional school...

Please pray for us as we think about schooling this weekend. Monday morning at 9 a.m. I need to call back and give an answer.

Nurtured, not Measured

Yesterday Monkey1 had quite the mood. For her, this evidences mostly in communicating with one-word shouts, and I don't mean one-word such as "NO!" but words like "HUNGRY!" "BOOK!" "TOY!" "PENCIL!""SHOE!"and so forth.

If we weren't homeschooling, she would have gone off to school with this mood, inflicting it upon her teacher and 27 classmates. I doubt she would have had a better mood when I picked her up at 3:00.

Perhaps a similar mood of another kindergartner caused one class to spend its first week on Classroom Rules, including "We do not throw chairs," as one of my friends told me in alarm. This was not at the public school by the way, but a "good" school, a "private" school.

It was a day I had to draw on extra patience and repeatedly and hopefully gently sternly remind my daughter how to behave. Fortunately a line from the Classical Conversations Parent Practicum returned to my mind: "Children are souls to be nurtured, not products to be measured." The check list of schooling activities could be taken with a grain of salt. We could do the items again the next day without my whole curriculum schedule being wrecked.

Today was a new and different day. She was excited to read hand, sand, band. "Band" we had just seen on a "Join the Band" poster at Monkey2's school, promoting the musical extracurricular activity. She is looking forward to the tin whistle segment of Classical Conversations' Fine Arts later this year.

I am so thankful for these days to grow with my oldest daughter.

A Taste of Homeschooling

On Friday I had a taste of what homeschooling could be this year, and I liked it. We dropped Monkey2 off at preschool, and Monkey1 and I went home for her lessons.

First I made a list on the chalkboard side of the art easel, so Monkey1 would know what we needed to do. I think she likes to know that the list is finite, and not that Mom keeps making up more things to do. At the bottom I wrote: READ BOOKS, explaining that this would not get crossed off because we would probably read books several times during the day (I would read aloud to her, and later, to both Monkeys). Then I wrote: Math, Letters, Read Blue Hat book, review CC.

I let her chose the first thing. She chose "READ BOOKS" and wanted to hear another chapter of The Story of the World.

Then we worked through the other items, with quick recess breaks in between subjects. We did some matching and memory games for Math, to drill recognition of seeing groups. For Letters we reviewed the "S" sound and some three-letter words and then worked on some four-letter words like PASS, RUST, STOP, ans SPIN. Combining consonant sounds is tricky. Then we sat down with a "We Both Read" book I found in the beginning readers section at the library called The Old Blue Hat. This is laid out so the parent reads the left-hand page, several short paragraphs, and then the child reads the right-hand page, starting with half a sentence and building up to four or five sentences. The book is beyond where Monkey1 is in sounding words out (we haven't worked on the long vowel sounds yet), but there are enough words she can get while I help with the harder ones, so she is willing to work on reading. Then we read another chapter of The Story of the World before going to pick up Monkey2.

Still preschool orientation week, so it was only a two-hour day for Monkey2, but in that time Monkey1 and I had completed the lessons.

The item we hadn't done "review CC," continue drilling the memory work for Classical Conversations, was done by popping the audio CD in the car stereo. Also, Monkey2 likes to be part of this; this week she's enjoying the history sentence song about William the Conqueror in 1066.

Then today, Monday, we did it again. Dropped off Monkey2 at preschool, who said 'bye looking vaguely everywhere but not particularly to me, and then Monkey1 and I went home for lessons again. And it worked out just as well. Actually, better, since she dragged The Old Blue Hat book over to me, "Don't forget this Mommy."

Two in School

Today, the big, BIG day: my two Monkeys in school!

Before 8 a.m., little 3-year-old Monkey2, all decked out in her homemade first-day-of-school pink elephant dress, purple backpack, and Fancy Nancy lavender accented sneakers, (photos here) walked/capered her way up to the city bus stop with Dad. They took two buses to get to her preschool, which was only an hour-long first day. Meanwhile Dad attended a parent information meeting, and then they took the bus to his office, where she stuck post-it notes all over his office and window until he took her to Five Guys for lunch.

About a half hour after Monkey2 and Dad left the house, Monkey1 and I headed out in the Golf in the opposite direction for Classical Conversations. She had her pink backpack bulging with a second pair of shoes. She had decided that her show-and-tell would be her sparkly new Hello Kitty shoes, but I convinced her to bring another pair of shoes in case she wants to run around without Cinderella-ing it with the shoes. (We've already lost one sparkly slipper that way.)

This week at CC we added another seven events to the Timeline, plus added memory work of Math, English Grammar, Latin, Geography, Science Fact, and History Sentence. Art was mirror drawing; the children had a paper with several half shapes, and we showed them how to make dots to help draw the other half/mirror image. Science involved refraction, making a quarter in a glass of water appear where it wasn't. Review of last week's material was randomized by tossing a large cube with the different topics written on each side, rather than the beach ball toss of last week, which was too wild with the 5-year-olds. Monkey1 really surprised me with all her piping out the lists of memory work we had only loosely reviewed at home or in the car during the past seven days. She's just a sponge!

We met Dad and Monkey2 at Five Guys for hamburgers, dropped Dad back at work, and then I took the Monkeys to the library, where we exited with another twenty books. And proceeded to read them for the rest of the afternoon, and more of them after supper before bed.

Lately, I've started reading them Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. I'd head about this from several homeschool perspectives (CC, Well Trained Mind parents, and a create-your-own-curriculum parent) and decided to give it a try. Tonight we hit gold -- excited recognition -- with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by King Narmer... also known as Pharaoh Menes. As both Monkey1 and Monkey2 recalled, this was one of the Timeline events learned at Classical Conversations last week!

School? Well, it's somewhere around here...

Are You Qualified?

While winding down from my evening with four other homeschooling mothers and discussing some points of the conversation with my husband, he said that the question he hears the most is not "What about socialization?" but "You think you can do a better job than the school? What makes you qualified?"

His answer of course brings folks up short: Yes he does think he can do a better job. When trying to register Monkey1 at the public school, the office shredded or lost -- they are not quite sure which -- her paperwork within ten minutes. He CAN do better than that! And since he's qualified to teach at the college level, yes, he can teach kindergarten.

So far no one has questioned my credentials. However, this might need doing, since my own college diploma is completely written in Latin and the only parts I can read are the college name, my name, and the date, which is written in Roman numerals. Fortunately we are participating in Classical Conversations, which started me on Latin this week. First conjugation, present tense. I've got a ways to go. But, it's only kindergarten.

First Week

This week:
I repeatedly had to answer "So when do you start school?"
I finished Monkey1's first day of school dress.
I packed the first day of school lunch the night before, without using peanut butter.
Our first day of Classical Conversations -- Monkey1's first day of kindergarten!
I met with four other homeschooling moms over a pile of curriculum books, passing cheese and crackers and wine.

"So when do you start school?"
Everyone that asked knew we are homeschooling Kindergarten. To my conventional schooling friends I said, "Oh we already did. We started Phonics in July and Math last week." But to my homeschooling friends, who all seemed to plan starting right after Labor Day, I said, "We start Classical Conversations this week."

Really, I find the idea of "starting" homeschooling comical. After all, didn't we start reading when they started recognizing the first letter of their names? Didn't we start math when my husband showed them how to count on their fingers? Didn't we start handwriting when I let them start scribbling and telling me the stories? I definitely was around plenty of unschooler homeschool preschool parents during those beginning years to think so!

The Dress
The first day of school dress was finished and ironed and hung up ready for early morning eyes to light upon. That's probably the only time the dress will be ironed too. (Pictures here.)

Lunch
Classical Conversations meets in the morning, and then everyone stays for lunch and playtime, leaving at 1:00 when the bigger kids go back inside for more class time. Because preschool has not started yet, Monkey2 would be with us for Monkey1's first day of Kindergarten. Three lunches. I already had been warned that one child participating in Classical Conversations had a peanut allergy, so I had to think about how to avoid peanut butter and jelly.
For Monkey1: two mini-bagels, cream cheese, sliced ham, carrots, and an apple.
For Monkey2: one mini-bagel, mini Babybel cheese, sliced ham, carrots, and sweet pickles.
For Mom: chili to warm up in the microwave, and an apple.
I'm glad I packed/wrapped things up the night before because Monkey2 tried to sleep late again. Just getting her up and making sure she ate breakfast and got dressed was enough to keep track of, in addition to the antsy Monkey1.

First Day!
We had already met with our Classical Conversations community, eight families, approximately 14 children (not sure, they don't sit still much), twice for meetings and once for a Pasta Night. So the place and the people were not all strange and intimidating.

We started the day with the Pledge of Allegiance. This was a little tearful for me. Patriotism is so complicated these days. Also, I probably have not said the Pledge of Allegiance since I graduated from school. At the end, I had to bite my mouth closed to keep an "Amen" from escaping. Eleven years of Catholic school, and inevitably half the time someone would put an Amen on the end of the Pledge, either absent-mindedly reverent or on purpose to see if the teacher was paying attention. Meanwhile, my Monkeys were perplexed by the words; they had never heard the Pledge of Allegiance before.

Then, to our classrooms. The eight five-year-olds grouped around a table, eyes on their Tutor, with much squirming. First came the "memory work" that we will be drilling (or simply playing and re-playing our copy of the Memory Work CD in the car) this week: the Timeline events, the history sentence, the Latin conjugation, the science fact, the geography places, the English grammar, and the math work. Remember, Classical Conversations operates on a classical model of education, so at this age filling the little minds up with memorization work is the first item on the agenda. Explaining it can come later (at home or in a few years when the three-year curriculum cycle repeats again).

I won't write this out every week, but here's where we started:
Timeline: Creation, Fall in the Garden, Cain and Able, the Flood, the Tower of Babble, the Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt by Pharaoh Menes, the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the First Intermediate Period in Egypt.
These eight events were presented on individual large cards with illustrations and a short explanation on the back. The Tutor has a lovely lilting southern accent, and already I'm hearing it back from my Monkeys! At home we reviewed the Timeline cards, and then Monkey1 hauled out our Children's Bible, and we read the first stories again.

History Sentence: Tell me about Charlemagne. In 800 A.D., during the medieval period, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor of Europe.
There was tune for this.

Latin, conjugation of the verb amo.
This is sung to some Protestant children's hymn, which I am not familiar with, so I stumble over it. Monkey2 started singing it on the potty the other day, so I know she's got it down already.

Science: What are seven types of biomes? Seven types of biomes are grasslands, dessert , scrub lands, tundra, deciduous forests, coniferous forests, and tropical rain forests.
There were finger/arm motions with this to help us remember. I had never heard the word "biome" until I came across Classical Conversations, and then recently in the library I saw a group of books, looking like a set of encyclopedias, titles Biomes. Mom gets to learn stuff too!

Geography: European waters: North Sea, Baltic Sea, Adriatic Sea, English Channel, Mediterranean Sea.
To introduce this, the Tutor had several maps for each child's lap. The first map was the whole world, the second was Europe. This moved us from the big picture to the more specific area. Monkey1 promptly marked Russia with an X, noting that Anastasia lived there; this daughter of the last czar is the favorite history character of the moment.

English Grammar: The eight parts of speech are nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, prepositions, adjectives.

Math: Count 1 to 12. Skip counting by 2's, 2 through 24.

The Tutor was constantly addressing the wiggle situation by having the kids stand up and do hand/arm motions to the memorization work. She did some kind "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" routine for the English Grammar, which I largely missed because I had to take Monkey2 to the bathroom.
There was a snack time, and "Presentations" or Show-and-Tell. We had our cricket, which we had caught in our yard a few weeks ago. My mother had sent us a cricket cage and cricket food. To my great relief, not one of the other Moms said, "ew, a bug!" and a few were very interested in where to get cricket supplies.
We went outside for science, which was a temperature experiment, setting a thermometer in the sun and another in the shade, and an introduction to "orbit" since this year will largely be astronomy.
Art was paper and pens ("Pens," said the Tutor, "because there are no mistakes. You just make it into art.") and a review of shapes -- dots, straight lines, curvy lines, sharp corners, etc -- and then a little free time to draw something using all of those. Monkey1 drew a remarkable version of Ponyo, a little gold fish (or tadpole?) in a Japanese anime movie we watched a month ago.
Last there was "review time" which covered the memorization work introduced that morning, but in coming weeks will cover previously introduced material. The Tutor had a beach ball the kids tossed to each other, with subject words on it (Timeline, history, Latin, science, geography, English, math). Whatever word a child's left hand was touching was the subject they would review before tossing it again. As could be expected with a group of five-year-olds, this bordered on crazy.

Then lunchtime! And recess! The kids played for an hour outside. While there was a ball to kick around, mostly they passed the time exploring behind the bushes and chasing each other with sticks.

The Tutor asked us mothers how we thought the day went. I think I remember her saying she's been doing Classical Conversations for a year or two, but this is her first year as a Tutor.
"Great! I'm so glad we are doing this for Kindergarten!" I told her, noting that a half day in a classroom was plenty, and complimenting her on keeping the children engaged and focused on the material she was presenting.

Hours later, I asked Monkey1 what her favorite part of the day had been.
"Recess!" she answered.
"Do you want to go again next week?" I asked, though I knew the answer.
Vigorously she nodded yes.

Curriculum, Cheese and Crackers and Wine
On Friday night I sat down at the school work table of a fellow homeschooling mom along with three other women in my parish. The hostess has a ten-year-old, eight-year-old, and a six-year-old; she sent the oldest to one year of school before she started homeschooling. The others have children: 9, 7, 5 and 2 (sent the oldest to kindergarten, and then started homeschooling for first grade; this year to homeschool three); 7, 3, and 1 (skipped the kindergarten experience/experiment and went straight to homeschooling); 5, 4, 2, and 8 months (first year homeschooling). I have ages 5 and 3.
The inevitable "when are you starting?" question went around, and I had to laugh because of the group of us, only I had started, and I was the one who had not planned on homeschooling this year!

The more experienced shared the flow of their days, we examined each other's math materials, talked about history story books, looked at the copy work of the oldest children, and shared our art project attempts and plans. We talked about our responses to the socialization question and discussed extended family opposition to homeschooling. One mother confessed that she was tired of the reactions when she says she homeschools, so from now on she's going to say, "My children have a private tutor. She graduated in the top of her college class with two degrees. She worked in politics for awhile, but she just loves kids... it's working great for us." This describes herself of course!

The evening flew by, and too soon it seemed we were tiptoeing back to our cars, cell phones to ears to check on husbands and sleeping children.

The First Day of School Dress

Someone questioned the fact the I'm sewing a "first day of school" dress for Monkey1 when she's not going to school. As if we are going to homeschool in our pajamas!

First of all, Monkey1 is definitely a get-dressed kind of girl. She gets up in the morning, and she gets dressed, usually in a dress, and then she comes to tug on my arm, "I'M HUNGRY!" By the way, there's no secret I can share on getting your child to do the same. Monkey1 has always been interested in selecting her own clothes. Monkey2, however, could, and does, wear her nightgowns all day.

Secondly, new clothes and special clothes mark important days. Baptismal gowns, First Communion dresses (she's seen some of her older cousins), wedding dresses... and so, school is important and worthy of a special dress. A dress made by Mom.

Thirdly, we're not staying home to school every day. Once a week we will be schooling with a community called Classical Conversations. Tonight our CC group had a Pasta Night for all the families. The kids played, the grown-ups talked, we all ate, more playing and talking, then ice cream before good-night. Sharing a meal and getting to know the other parents, also near the beginnings of their homeschool adventure, I felt so much more at ease than I ever felt last year standing in the parking lot with the other preschool mothers. Truly, I felt like an impostor there. For all my uncertainty on how homeschooling will pan out, I'm glad we have this chance to try it.

So, the first day of school dress.

For some reason Monkey1 got in her head that she wanted a dinosaur print.
At the fabric store I found one bolt of dinosaurs on flannel.
Monkey1 was horrified. "They're green!"
"They're dinosaurs," I pointed out, "They're either going to be green or brown."
She changed her mind in favor of what she called an aquarium print, with colorful dolphins, turtles, and octopuses.
So my treadle Singer is singing away.

The first day of school is September 1st.

(Of course, I am also working on a first day of preschool dress for Monkey2. As she requested, her dress will feature pink elephants.)

Sewing, Fashion, and Shopping

So I'm sewing Monkey1's first day of school dress, and suddenly I run into a bunch of interesting sewing blogs...

The Uniform Project.
I'm a year behind on this fashion statement. A young woman in NYC advertising decided "to wear the same dress for an entire year ... [and] to make it look unique every single day and do so without buying anything new." New meaning off the rack newly produced; items could be new to her from thrift ("vintage") shops or handmade or donated. A friend helped design and sew a little black dress that could be wore backwards or frontwards or open like a long jacket. And every day for a year she reinvented it. The dress turned out to be not so much a uniform as the starting canvas each day. Hats, scarves, collars, jewelery, belts, colorful stockings, overskirts, underskirts, vests, ponchos, capes, you name it, she worked with it. And she made it look cool. No, fashionable. No, above fashion. Chic.
The project was also a charity fundraiser for a school serving the slums in India. (The link: The Uniform Project ) The Uniform Project is now in its second year, proposing that each month someone new will try to reinvent their own little black dress uniform.

I wish I could do this, I thought as I read the blog and looked at the photos. But I'm got a huge problem, starting with my feet. How on earth could I pull something like this off for even a week with one pair of sneakers? I was horrified at my last shoe fitting to find myself back in mens sneakers. Thank goodness Monkey1 found some pink shoelaces for me, restoring a small sense of femininity to my wide wide feet.

The Little Brown Dress
This was several years ago. An artist and mother on the west coast decided to wear the same dress for a year "to reject the economic system that pushes over-consumption, and the bill of goods that has been sold, especially to women, about what makes a person good, attractive and interesting." She designed and sewed herself a brown denim dress, used stuff she had in her closet to layer during colder weather, and only $20 in a thrift store during her year-long challenge. She did not try to dress up the dress because she was confronting consumerism.

As I looked at some of her photos, I nearly choked. One picture showed her sitting beside an little inflatable pool with her son, and she looked just like my mom (minus 20 inches of hair) c.1976. There was just something about the brown button-up sleeveless jumper... (The link: The Little Brown Dress.)

This I would definitely not do, I thought. It is too much like a nun's habit, and I'm not a nun. And I'm trying not to look like my mom, though as the years go by, more and more pictures of me come back looking like her.

New Dress A Day
This one is current! In California a single 30-year-old decided "to be spending the entire year without doing an ounce of traditional clothing shopping... Each day for the entire year, I’m going to introduce a new piece into my existing wardrobe that I’ve found from these places [flea markets and garage sales]. On top of this, I’m giving myself a budget of $1 a day." This girl finds voluminous numbers (what else could you get for a dollar?) and cuts them down to size, into dresses or shirts. She does before and after shots, as well as some during cutting and sewing pictures. (The link: New Dress A Day.)

Her persistence is amazing. However, I do not have the time or inclination or space to add 365 items to my closet and bureau space.

However, I find all these confrontations with spending and clothing fascinating. As summer closes, at least as the "vacation" mentality of summer comes to an end and school looms ahead, preschool for the littlest Monkey and homeschool for the oldest Monkey, I find myself looking for a change too. Will it be a change from my rotation of REI hiking skirts and Tshirts? Or will it be something less outward, like the kinds of books I try reading?

That's not something I'll decide tonight. It's taken me three evenings just to write this post, and now I'll let my subconscious stew about fashion and consumerism. Or maybe I'll just have a dreamless sleep without a restless Monkey sticking her toes in my ear.

NOI

Dear Superintendent,

This letter and the enclosed supporting documents constitute our Notice of Intent to provide home instruction, as provided for by 22.1-254.1 of the Code of Virginia (1950) as amended, for our daughter [Monkey1].

[Monkey1], residing in the school zone for ..., born ..., would enter kindergarten this school year 2010-2011.

We wish to be recognized as eligible to provide home instruction by the following option: we have baccalaureate and higher degrees. Copies are enclosed.

For [Monkey1]’s kindergarten year of home instruction, we will follow a curriculum as follows. Language arts: preparation for reading, introduction to phonics, handwriting skills, listening comprehension, and verbal communication. Math: counting, addition and subtraction with objects and sets of objects, an introduction to measurement, the identification and comparison of geometric shapes, and the identification of patterns using shapes, sounds, and experiences. Science, History, and Fine Arts will be covered with the “Classical Conversations” Foundations curriculum for five-year-olds.

Sincerely,

More CC

I got a bit derailed in the last post due to the hour of writing.

The Parent Practicum was an "equipping event" for families heading into a Classical Conversations school year. I met another mother who will be attending our same local CC group with her two five-year-olds. I listened to veterans, who have been homeschooling for nearly a decade, some brand new to the classical model and some who have been part of Classical Conversations since their family started homeschooling. Everyone has come to it differently, some intending to homeschool from the time their child was in the womb, others having tried conventional schooling and been dissatisfied or disappointed, but there is obviously an explosion in education. Homeschooling is growing, and some veterans noted, colleges are seeking out homeschoolers because they are so well prepared.

The days were not without their bumps.

After the lecture criticizing Darwin and Dewey, that is, evolution, one mother pointed to the sign on the wall that said, "Sunday School... so easy, even a caveman can do it" and wondered in horror what this church (which was providing the space for this large event) was teaching its children.

The answer came from the man running the sound, lights, overhead projection slide shows, and other technical details from a booth the size of my kitchen. Now, I've been in theater and television production long enough to note that there are two kinds of techies: the techie slob, and the techie hunk. This fellow, with a little bit of beard stubble, in jeans and a black T-shirt over his lean frame, was definitely... "and I've been associate pastor here for seven years," he introduced himself.

Oh! Well, the pastor should know how to turn on the lights and the sound system, but I had not yet met one that could also run four computers simultaneously, and look like a movie star on his day off.

The caveman sign was campaign the church was using to start their new Sunday School year, borrowing from the popular insurance ads. The church team had created several little videos with the pastor and the cavemen, "and if you want to see them, come here on Sunday!" he invited us.

I doubt this in any way mollified the original protester, but it did make me wonder about this group with which I was becoming involved. In a small group discussion later, the evolution vs. creation issue came up, and I remarked upon the notion that the two ideas can work together, that "God created" in a day could be 24 hours or it could be millions of years; who knows what a day is for God? Apparently this idea was lost upon my listeners. "But it's God, why couldn't it be 24 hours? He can do that!"

Discussing this later with my husband, he repeated his worry about these "Christian" educators. Plus we are living in the south. Even public school boards have been known to throw out evolution and text books mentioning it.

However, my comfort came the next day, when I met some Catholics.

"I thought I was the only one!" I said, and the other mother laughed, "Oh no, I usually find another Catholic or two at these CC events."

I sat with her for lunch, along with two of her friends, one a graduate of the Franciscan University at Steubenville (another FUS alum who homeschools! Virginia is just overrun with them!) and one from Christendom College, a place I had visited during my college search but had concluded was too far from home. One had been part of Classical Conversations for several years, the other, with younger children, had just started last year. These articulate women helped set my mind at ease, talking about their experiences, that CC teaches in outline while letting the parents fill in the particulars on such topics. One even spoke to me about how evolution without God denies the soul. Souls aren't part of evolution, a being either has one or does not -- it's not something that you get after a certain stage! We had a lovely time, and I look forward to seeking them out at future events.

Decompression

Yes, I'm up at 1 a.m. blogging. But I fell asleep before 9 p.m.!

This week has been unusually filled for us. The Monkeys and I were up, breakfast completed, dressed, and out the door before 7:30 a.m. three mornings in a row in order to drive to Manassas for a Classical Conversations' Parent Practicum. The drive took about an hour and fifteen minutes, plus the inevitable potty break for the three-year-old, always within four miles of our destination. We unpacked from the car, sorted out the toys, and I escorted them to their playcamp classrooms before getting myself into the morning session.

The speakers were wonderful. April Cr... can't remember her name..., a homeschooling mom and Classical Conversations tutor who has schooled in several different states, spoke about "Children are souls to be nurtured, not products to be measured" and the stages of classical education -- grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. Also each morning we listened to an audio lecture from Andrew Kern of the Circe Institute and discussed it. The first morning was filled with C.S.Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, and Tolkien. The second morning criticized Darwin and Dewey. The third morning wrapped it all up, urging the need for the classical method of learning. In the afternoon I attended sessions reviewing English grammar.

I probably need to back up.

Monkey1 is still on the wait list for our parish's school, and her name is not advancing up the list. So we are preparing to homeschool, and I have found a community and educational philosophy called Classical Conversations. It is a national group with chapters all over the U.S. It preaches three stages of learning: grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. In the grammar stage, approximately kindergarten through sixth grade, the basics of language, math, history, etc. are emphasized, and yes there's a lot of rote memorization. The trained tutors (other parents) help introduce the weekly lessons. Around third grade the dialectic, or logical, stage starts coming into play, with more in-depth learning about the lists memorized -- and continually reviewed -- previously. For example, first a child will learn to spout off the definition of a verb. Later, the child will learn to look at a sentence and find the verb and eventually diagram it. Finally, the rhetorical stage, approximately the high school years, will build upon the blocks before it...

dang it, it is 1 a.m., how'm I supposed to remember all this when it is still new to me and some of it is years and years away? If we even get that far. Homeschooling feels temporary right now, "until Monkey1 gets into" our first choice school, my husband keeps saying. But as I read and read and learn about learning, and talk to other people, and observe my nephews and nieces who attend public schools and private schools, and think about my own education, both in school and at home as my mother helped me with my homework, I see I am falling in love with the idea of homeschooling and particularly this classical model of education. Leigh Bortins' "Echo in Celebration" and Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer's "The Well Trained Mind" helped and excited me so much, I wanted to get started right away!

But can we do it? Well, it's kindergarten, not calculus. I'm eager to try. We know so many homeschoolers that the idea is not at all worrisome to Monkey1, whereas the classroom idea is fraught with anxiety, separation, and conforming. These can be addressed in time. After all, homeschoolers do not just stay home; the world is our classroom.

Psychic Paper

How much did I watch "Doctor Who" while pregnant with Monkey2? Apparently enough for her to learn one of his tricks.

While on vacation, Monkey1 brought me a note from my mother, asking if Monkey1 could have lunch with her at "The Hive." I sent her off with a yes.

Monkey2, seeing this, soon appeared at my elbow with a sheet of paper the same size as Monkey1's note. With a beaming smile, Monkey2 asked that she also have lunch with grandma.

The paper was blank.

Driving Test

Recently I borrowed my mother-in-law's car, a 1997 VW Golf, which turned into a driving test pulling from my twenty years behind the wheel. (Yes, I did just have to sit here for a few minutes and do the math.)

Test 1:
Find reverse.
On a VW with a stick, there's a trick to this. Lean down on the stick shift while shoving it to the left of first gear. Reverse out of the driveway.

Test 2:
First gear, second gear, third gear.
The cars I've driven regularly for the past decade have been automatic transmission. Fortunately I learned to drive manual -- after burning out the clutch on the Ford Aerostar van, I was moved to a Toyota Corolla -- and quickly re-recognized the certain noise of the engine as the next gear was needed.

Test 3:
Starting on a hill.
The first stop sign was a hill start, with a left turn onto a plateau of road where the cars crested the hill to my right and left, usually well above the posted 35 mph speed limit. With the emergency brake and playing the clutch and gas, I moved into my lane without stalling.

Test 4:
Fill 'er up.
Which side was the gas tank on? I guessed, the same as my 2002 Golf? I guessed right. But how to open the tank? There was no lever or lock button inside the car. I went outside to investigate. It was simply a push-the-tank-door operation, and the screw cap inside was not attached with a cord. I put it on the roof of the car, mindful of the time when my boyfriend (now husband) sprinted across a highway to retrieve one that had blown off the roof.

Test 5:
What speed?
I headed to the highway, worked my way up to fifth gear by ear, looked down at the dash board, and saw I driving at 0 mph. The speedometer had been working fine until now, so obviously it was a quirk of car age. I'm not a speeder, so generally if I'm going slower than everyone else, I'm going the speed limit. However, on the highway, how slow is too slow? After a few miles, the speedometer needle suddenly rocketed up to 55 mph, though now I was rather distrustful of it. I was glad to get off the highway.

Test 6:
Turn right.
Blinker to the right. It had a fast clicking sound. On VWs, this often means the outside indicator bulb is burned out. But at the next right turn, the blinker clicked at a normal speed. Later, it made no noise at all. When I parked, I left the car running and walked around it to inspect the lights, everything was working.

I whispered to my husband that I'd like to take the car to my favorite auto shop and have them look at the blinker, but I was afraid they'd find fifty other things wrong with the car and not let me have it back. My husband urgently insisted I NOT take the car anywhere near a mechanic. Back to his parents' driveway, ONLY.


Did I pass?
I did not stall out once.
I did not get pulled over and have to explain that the name on the car's registration and my driver's license are the same but the addresses are not the same because the car is actually owned by my mother-in-law, and yes, we share a name.
I returned the car with a fuller tank.

Yes, I passed.

The Letter "S"

As I filled out the paperwork for Classical Conversations, the last page was a "I understand ..." page, numbering several items that the parent needed to be absolutely aware of entering the program -- CC is a supplement to homeschooling, tuition is non-refundable, I will stay on premises during the sessions, etc. -- with a place for my signature.

Then, the student section:

As STUDENTS we recognize the privilege to participate and enjoy the weekly program meetings. We commit ourselves to the following:

1. Appropriately participating in class.

2. Respecting our Tutor/Director in words and actions.

3. Working on weekly program work to the best of my ability.

4. Honoring my peers and other students in the program in words and in actions.

Student’s signature(s)

_______________________________________________________________

Time to tell Monkey1 about school.

So far I had not directly explained to her about the Wait List or our other efforts on behalf of her education for kindergarten. She's probably aware of it because other people ask, and I answer.

Here's how what I said to Monkey1:

In kindergarten you get a lunchbox because you stay at school for lunch.

(Beaming excitement over the lunchbox.)

You also get your own desk.

(Not so excited, but a nod that she is listening.)

Now, there are A LOT of children that want to be in the kindergarten class [at the church we attend], and the teachers are having trouble fitting all the desks in the classroom.

(Nod again, forehead furrowed.)

So while the teachers are trying to figure out how to fit your desk into the classroom, we will do another school called Classical Conversations. You will learn things. We will do homework together. And when your desk fits into the kindergarten classroom, you will know things, just like all the other kids know things.

(Nod.) "Mommy, I'm afraid of kindergarten."

So we talked about the things she would learn.

Kindergarten is different from preschool. There were no individual desks in Monkey1's preschool classroom. There was one table that served for "meetings" with the teacher, when one-on-one work was done, and then there were a few long tables where the children all ate their snacks and did art projects. There were bins of toys. She already knows that kindergartners wear uniforms, sit at desks, stay all day, and have no toys in their classroom.

Seven hours away from Mom and sister, five days a week. That is a lot to swallow. I've hung around too many homeschoolers to simply accept this as a mandatory part of life for a five-year-old. Later on, maybe. Now? Undecided. Not convinced.

I explained that at Classical Conversations, Mom has to come too and learn too, and help with the homework. And whenever she moves into the classroom at the Catholic school, she will be with some of her friends, playmates she has had since we moved to this area four years ago.

So we read over the part she needed to sign. That is, I read it, and I rephrased each line to make sure she understood, and she wanted to sign her name. Her WHOLE NAME. She got frustrated with the S in our last name, writing it as a 3. So we worked on the letter "S" on another sheet of paper for a bit and then completed her name on the form.

See, we doing it already.

Backseat Driver

We drive a VW Golf, which fits the four of us and odd items of Ikea furniture.

In her car seat, Monkey2 sits on the rear passenger side, which gives her window access (a place for all the doctor's office stickers) and a curbside exit whenever we park on a street. In her matching pink throne, Monkey1 has the middle seat position, which gives her more leg room, not having a seat immediately in front of her, as well as an open view of the road and the dashboard.

Monkey1 is figuring out road signs. She'll ask if I am going the speed limit. Sometimes she'll tell me I'm going too fast.

So my husband and I joke about our backseat driver.

One day Monkey1 decided that she needed a steering wheel, so from her play kitchen she brought a pink plastic dish decorated with flowers.

Soon she was telling me that she was driving faster than I was. After a minute of this, I figured out that she equated speed with how much the steering wheel was moving. Since we were on a straight road, my steering wheel was hardly moving, while hers was violently turning every which way. She couldn't see my feet or the pedals, which I then briefly explained to her. Of course she ignored this information and continued to tell me that I was driving too slow. I pointed out the speed limit signs and otherwise ignored the jabber.

At this point Monkey2 jumped into the conversation, telling Monkey1 that she was driving too fast. Telling? No, more like crying out in protest of such flagrant disregard for Mom's safety.

Monkey1 replied by hitting her sister with the steering wheel.

So I confiscated it.

I think we picked Dad up from work that day. "Why is there a pink plate in my seat?"

What I Wrote Late Last Night

From the application to Classical Conversations:

Have you always homeschooled your children? Tell us about your child's schooling experience.

Age 2-4 years: we unschooled with a large group of preschool homeschoolers, visiting many area museums and cultural events. Age 3 years: with four other families from our church we made a homeschool co-op. We met once a week, each mother taking a day to teach a letter of the alphabet and do an art project or physical activity. Lessons were aimed at the five 3-year-olds, surrounded by eight siblings aged infant to five years. Age 4 years: attended preschool at Blessed Sacrament's Early Childhood Center, four mornings a week for three hours in a group of fourteen children.

How long have you homeschooled your children?

We have officially homeschooled, that is filed a Notice of Intent, for zero years. However, as her parents we have been schooling her since she was born five years ago.

Do you plan on homeschooling through high school? Explain.

We have not planned that far in advance. We will consider each child (we have two) and each year as our life unfolds.

Anything else you CC director should know about your schooling experience to better understand your family...

We believe parental involvement in education is extremely important. We also see the need for repetition and memorization as cornerstones in learning. Leigh Bortins' book Echo in Celebration impressed us to seek a classical approach to learning for our kindergarten aged daughter. She really enjoyed the group classroom setting last year at preschool as well as the co-op we were part of the previous year, so we see Classical Conversations as providing a key element in our learning, teaching, and need for community.

Waiting Summer

Friday morning, after a week of anticipation, my Monkeys had their second dental visit. They love going to the dentist. She gives out the best little prizes: a goody bag of toothbrush, floss, stickers, and minute-timer, plus a gold coin. This goes into a candy machine filled with bouncy balls, plastic jewelry, stick-on-tattoos, and choking-hazard-sized little animals. Monkey1 was delighted to extract a white dog that is small enough to sit on my thumb nail. Monkey2 was proud to receive a ring with a purple jewel half the size of her little finger.

Then we headed into the city on the metro, so my orthotics could receive a little adjustment. I bribed the Monkeys into this doctor's trip with the promise of a carousel ride afterwards. This turned into a carousel ride, a visit to the Smithsonian castle, the dinosaurs (Natural History), and ice cream from a street vendor cart before heading home.

In the Natural History Museum, I was surprised to see the giant squid. Wasn't he there the last time we went... a year ago? I recall that trip because we met some homeschool friends for the IMAX Dinosaur movie. Monkey1 freaked out in the first 30 seconds, before the dinosaurs appeared on screen, so I dumped Monkey2 on the other parent's lap and took Monkey1 out. The ticket seller nonchalantly refunded our tickets. By all accounts, Monkey2 enjoyed the show without a worry about mom or big sister.

A year ago... a year ago... before Monkey1 went to preschool, when neither of us were looking forward to it. We had been hanging out with a group of homeschool preschoolers for two years, folks who were not sending their kids to preschool and mostly planning to homeschool. We had a lot of fun with this group and regularly visited many of the Smithsonian museums with them. I miss all that. Monkey1 said she has missed the museums too.

Now, a year later, a successful and much enjoyed preschool year behind us, we stand on the question mark again. Monkey1 remains on the wait list to two Catholic schools, and my husband has declared the public school unacceptable (see A Bad Back-up Plan). I'm cautiously exploring the homeschooling options, afraid that I will fall in love with it and then find a classroom seat-and-desk space has opened up for her.

On Saturday morning two of my Catholic homeschooling friends, whose sons are Monkey1's age and among her favorite playmates, took me along to a Catholic Homeschoolers Expo. We spent an hour or so looking at the different curriculums and vendors. Seton seemed to take up a quarter of the floor space, but I liked some of the other curriculum-in-a-box companies better. I did not buy anything. I'm still looking.

My sister-in-law was quite interested to hear about the conference and looked over all the catalogues and materials I had collected. She's watching the rising tuition at her children's Catholic school with a wary eye.

My mother-in-law had some very interesting remarks on the whole idea of homeschooling. "Well, I guess it's good for kids in rural areas so they don't have to walk."

Walk? What century is she living in? "No, it'd be worse for kids in rural areas," I remarked, thinking of my own childhood, in a rural area and commuting out of town to school, "because everyone else goes to public school and you have no friends. In our metropolitan area, there are a lot of homeschoolers. You can kinda make your own school of friends."

So she tried the classroom tack, "It's important the kids learn to share and work with other kids... supplies and games and things."

I just shook my head and decided to ignore her. Truly, I think my Monkeys have learned to share at home. I have two girls, and they fight over the dress-up clothes, the dolls, the pink dinner plates, the princess coloring books, you name it. And they have to work it out, sometimes with guidance, sometimes with time-out interventions. School does not really teach sharing, as I've seen in families with a single child and in families with one boy and one girl, they don't need to share when they get home.

The Notice of Intent to homeschool deadline is August 15. Even then, the Catholic schools have told me that they will continue to call families on the wait list once the school year has started if space opens up, i.e. students do not attend or withdraw, quite common in this highly mobile government/military job related area. It is going to be a long summer, waiting.

Penny Jobs

In the quest for a clean floor at the end of the day, that is, one devoid of toys underfoot, I'm trying a new angle.

I've tried taking away toys for a week.

This simply put toys on a rotation and did not solve the picking-up problem.

I've tried putting toys in the trash.

I found that some toys are more precious to Mom than to the Monkeys.

I've tried the dessert bribe.

However, if I forget to buy ice cream, I have no leverage. Not to mention the problems that follow when all the toys are picked up, and I open the freezer and find... frozen air.

Now I have decided to make the Monkeys pay for their toys. With real money. From real little jobs.

The night that I told them several times, then yelled several times, about toy pick-up, I finally sent them upstairs and boxed up all the toys strewn on the living room floor. Later I took a picture of each toy (there were 30), assigned each one a value, and posted a catalogue on the fridge. In the morning I explained they would have to buy back their toys with pennies earned from jobs. The jobs are: setting the table, clearing the table, putting away their clean laundry, sorting and matching mom and dad's clean socks, cleaning the bathroom sinks (only allowed once a day), dusting the wood trim along the floor, etc. Each job is worth a penny. Some toys are worth two pennies, and some toys are worth 10 pennies.

Monkey2 looked at the catalogue and decided she wanted her lion costume back, and she worked very hard to earn five pennies that first morning and bought it back. She keeps careful track of it now, to the point that when I announce it is end-of-day pick-up time, she puts on the lion suit right away so it will not get left on the floor.

Now she is working on earning 8 pennies to buy back a doll stroller.

Monkey1 wants her 18-inch dolls back, valued at 10 pennies each, but she likes the immediate gratification of doing two jobs, earning two pennies, and buying back a tw0-penny toy. She has bought back a basket, a rabbit, and a plastic purse.

The jackpot is If the Monkeys can pick up all their toys without Mom telling them, they get five pennies. This is going to take awhile, and some coaching, though Monkey1 really likes the idea -- the payoff -- of this job. Of course the first night they lost a heap more toys, but either they will run out of toys or get busy to buy them all back.

Will this really help with picking up the toys? I'm not sure. It is helping me see what my Monkeys value. And, whenever I need help with housework, I shout, "Who wants a penny job?" Most of the time someone comes scampering. That in itself is nice.