Before Ender

… or what the psychic said

The cards were laid out on the picnic table, and the psychic was looking at them pensively. “Interesting,” she said. “Well, I’d say you’re definitely going to have another child. A boy—but not at all like Cinder. Very artistic, very creative—I see him as an artist, a musician? And I see him as… well, this is an intrusive question, but did you lose a baby? Because I see him as someone who’s tried to be born to you before and it didn’t happen, and he’s trying again.”

Well. You know me. Smart-ass cynic, and psychic predications and tarot cards are a fun amusement, and nothing more. But I was a little shaken. It was the summer of 2008, and Janine Morigeau, neighbour, friend and Tarot card reader extraordinaire, was giving us short readings in the sunshine of the Common. I asked the question that had been pressing on me for some time, “Would Sean and I have more children?”

I’ve always wanted more—he not so much—but after our experience with the pregnancy that gave us Flora, we were loath to do it again. And ever since we lost our little baby that would have been born sometime in July 2004, we’ve intermittently talked about adoption. In the months immediately following the miscarriage, I was so shaken and broken and empty, I didn’t think I could face the risk of that again. And when Flora started to grow in me, the first months of the pregnancy were marred by an overwhelming fear that I would lose her… to be replaced, in the second half by the scary—fortunately, as it turned out, utterly erroneous—results of the ultrasound that I would lose her after she was born.

Throughout 2008, we talked and pondered and weighed. By the time Janine read my cards that summer, we had made a decision: no pregnancy, but more babies. Adoption. And for various reasons, we made the decision to adopt from “the system”—i.e., Alberta Children’s Services. We filled out the paperwork (there was a lot of it), took the pre-screening tests, and, in October and November 2008, took the intensive Adoptive Parents Preparation Course.

The first parts of the course had us—well, me anyway, I think Sean was more cautious from the start—fantasizing about our new, bigger family. We wouldn’t adopt just one child, but two. Why not? We had so much to give: so much love, a wonderful family-and-friends support system, a lifestyle absolutely suited to help children “with issues” thrive.

And then we got to the final day, a session focused entirely on FASD. Now, even going into the process, we were not nearly selfless enough to plan for an FASD child. We knew that even a very young child from the System would come with issues, with trauma, and would require extra love, work and effort… but we did not think we were equipped to deal with an FASD child. The seminar on FASD cemented that. To their credit, the Alberta Children’s Services people did not try to soft pedal the issue. “Strategies, Not Solutions” was the title and theme of the presentation. They discussed environments and structures that help FASD children and their families cope… but that was the language. “Cope.” “Manage.” “Support.” It was god-awful.

And then there was the statistic. 30 per cent of the children in the system are already diagnosed with FASD. 90 per cent come from homes in which maternal drinking is/was a factor. I couldn’t get passed those numbers. We wanted a young child—preferably a baby. But where FASD is involved, early intervention just doesn’t mean what you’d think it ought to mean.

I was shattered. It was funny, because entering the process, I was much more enthused about adoption than Sean—he had his two perfect babies and all was fine with his reproductive world. At the end of the seminars, he was more comfortable than I. We would be excellent adoptive parents, so good for one of these troubled children. He saw the FASD risk—but it didn’t paralyze him as it did me. It paralyzed me completely. The couple who led the seminar had three biological children and one adopted FASD daughter, the youngest child. They were in their 60s now, and she an adult—and they were still actively parenting her. And when they died, her siblings would have to parent her.

I couldn’t do that, and I couldn’t bequeath that to Cinder and Flora.

A part of me still regrets this decision: wishes I could have been more selfless, more giving. But, but. So it was, the decision was made.

But I very, very badly still wanted more children, and Sean very, very badly loved me and wanted to make me happy even if the idea of me pregnant again terrified him, and by January 2009, a little Ender was growing. Best as we can tell, he got made in beautiful Mazatlan, which would account for his sunny disposition.

The pregnancy was awful. I spent the first two months of it flat on my back or crawling on all fours as my ligaments loosened and my joints left their proper spots, and the last two months, between the slipped SI joints, dislocated pelvis, and pinched sciatic nerve—that left most of my right leg with no feeling in it—barely able to walk. The last five weeks of it, sleepless, exhausted, in prodromal labour. And in one incredible, amazing moment, it was all over, all forgotten, none of it mattered, and I’d do it again, again, again, if the end result was anything like this: my beautiful, beautiful, perfect Ender, my third most miraculous of miracles.

This is the story of his first year. This post was originally written as the introduction to The Story of E, our 2010 Family Christmas Book. To read about how Ender joined us, go to The Last Three Minutes.

2011 In Brief

It’s November 29, 2011, and I’m putting the finishing touches on this year’s family book—our collection of the year’s posts, stories and photographs into an old school, hard copy yearbook that goes out to family as a Christmas present (via www.blurb.com) and, per force, reflecting on the year. What was 2011 like in our little micro-world? It’s hard to pin down: in many ways, it was a year of change and adaptation, of a search for rhythms and routines and passions. It was the year Ender turned two with all that entails—the transformation of baby into full-fledged toddler with an iron will was complete, and while the parents, going through this change for the third time, were prepared, the siblings were occasionally caught off-guard! It was the year Flora turned six… and catapulted toward seven at a frenetic speed, losing teeth, gaining wisdom, enchanting and challenging the world all the while. It was the year Austen turned nine and started searching, in earnest for the meaning of life and his place in the world.

It was the year we added Maggie, our Boston Terrier puppy to the mix, and found out that raising a puppy when she’s your only child versus raising a puppy when she’s your fourth and the last on the totem pole is a whole different kettle of fish. The year we ran away from winter for five glorious Mexico weeks… the year we embraced Calgary in the summer and rediscovered cycling and the beauty of our parks and pathways… the year Flora learned to swim with her face underwater, the year Austen discovered Minecraft, and the year Ender almost lost his thumb (also the year Austen didn’t het a Swiss army knife for Christmas).

Through it all, it was, as it always should be, a year of family. There’s a funky Erma Bombeck quote that captures the mood well: “We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.”

We end the year with, and in, gratitude. It had its downs as well as ups, tumultuous moments and scary ones. But overall, 2011 was a year of necessary lessons, positive changes, and in most areas, a step in the right direction.

Interested in getting your hands on a 2011 Yearbook? I’m working on making that possible on-line.

Being Ender

This is an essay written specifically for the 2011 Family Christmas Book: As I’m putting 2011 to bed and doing a late-night proof of the book―a sloppy light night proof, as I know you’re mostly looking at the pictures―I’m struck by how Ender-light the text of the book is. And slightly shocked, because the days and the hours are extremely Ender-heavy. Ender and Ender’s life stage dominates everything right now: how little I work, how early I go to bed, how early I rise. How diligent Cinder (also known as Austen) has to be about hiding his Lego projects―how on top of putting away her markers and paints Flora needs to be if she doesn’t want to find them in the fish tank, the garbage or the toilet. Ender’s absence from most of the text of 2011, however, reflects the reality of what I’ve been writing in 2011: not an awful lot for love and pleasure. Most of the stories about Cinder and Flora come from the need to document their homeschooling; if it weren’t for the progress reports, learning plans and other tidbits for the portfolio, there wouldn’t be nearly as much Cinder and Flora content either.

 But before we end 2011, we need to give Mr. E his own story. We can’t have the third child feeling any more neglected than he is bound to feel…

Meet Ender. Little brother of Flora and Cinder. Son of Jane and Sean. Big brother of Maggie. Charmer of the entire world. Proof that gorgeous, grinning children never get disciplined, even when they’re doing things that make you want to sell them to the gypsies. Or, in the modern parlance, to put them up on Kijiji. “Free, to a good home: a two-year-old with attitude…”

Actually, Ender doesn’t have attitude―at least not in the way most people define it when they use it with reference to a child. Really, what passes for a cranky Ender or a distraught Ender is still an incredibly happy, easy Ender. It’s quite amazing. We sometimes engage in the the not-very-productive nurture versus nature debate. Is Ender the way he is because, well, that’s just the way he is? Or is he the way he is because he’s the third child, the one who has had to accommodate to everyone else’s set patterns and quirks, the one who got the already trained, relaxed parents?

We’ll never know. We just have to enjoy him. Adore him. And make more of an effort to document him, so he doesn’t totally resent us when he grows up and asks for where all the Ender stories are.

So, some Ender stories from 2011, as remembered by Cinder and Flora and his parents.

The most disgusting thing Ender has done to date: sucked on the toilet brush. And not on the end you hold. Think of that next time you kiss him.

The most embarrassing thing Ender has ever said: Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock! Rock! At the top of his lungs in the Glenbow Museum. Except it didn’t sound like rock. The r sounded like an f and the o like the short u. Yeah.

“Look what I taught the baby to do, Mom,” Part I: Ender, running down the hall naked after Maggie, swinging a hot pink Lego foam sword, yelling, “Die, puppy, die!”

“Look what I taught the baby to do, Mom,” Part II: R: “Ender, show Mommy the moon. The moon, Ender. Remember?” (Yes, the next frame is Ender taking off his diaper.)

The most adorable thing Ender does after pummelling Flora in the head with something hard: “Awie, Flora? Awie, Flora? En-duh kiss.”

The most adorable thing Ender does for no reason at all: Go up and down the stairs, singing, “En-duh-en-en-en-duh. En-en-en-duh. En-duh!”

How to get Ender to eat pretty much anything: Indicate that you would like to eat it.

How to get Ender to play with this trains, cars, or pretty much anything else: Decide you need to put them away.

The price of getting supper on the table with an Ender underfoot if Flora and Cinder are away: A flooded kitchen. He loves to play in the sink.

The price of washing the kitchen floor with an Ender helping: A flooded kitchen.

The price of five minutes of peace on the telephone: A flooded kitchen.

The thing I never thought I’d say before Ender: “For God’s sake, stop biting the dog!”

The day Ender discovered dinosaurs: November 23, 2011.

Most memorable quote Ender elicited from Cinder: “Mom, are you putting that pink diaper on him again? He’s a baby―he’s not colour-blind or stupid!”

Most memorable quote Ender elicited from Flora: “Now’s my chance to turn Ender into my slave!”

Ender’s word for penguins: “Fish birdies!”

Ender’s word for turtles: “Rock puppies!”

Flora’s favourite thing to do with Ender: Colour his face with Sharpies.

Flora’s least favourite thing to do with Ender: Change his diaper.

Best conversation Ender caused between his parents: S: “Hurry! I need to pee and the baby is grabbing the camera, the box of nails and my beer!” J: “Where are you?” S: “In the bathroom! Hurry!” J: “Your camera, box of nails, and beer are in the bathroom?” S: “Now is not the time to discuss the inappropriateness of me putting all these things in the bathroom sink. Just save my beer… and the camera. He can have the box of nails.”

Most frequent Facebook comment Ender has elicited from his mother: “Sunrises are over-rated.”

Best Greek myth analogy: From August 16: “Today, Flora is Hermes, messenger of the gods. Cinder is Hades. And we are all agreed Ender is Chaos personified.”

But the bestest Chaos personified you could ever ask for.

Ender Says Rock

Language warning for the sensitive of eye and ear.

Ender learned a new word today. His fourth or fifth I suppose. I’m so proud. I only wish his pronunciation was a mite better…

We’re at the Glenbow Museum. A perfect day. Cinder and Flora do their crafts in the Discovery Room, and then decide that they want to show Ender the rocks and minerals collection. We go up. They all pet the geode. And Cinder says, “See, Ender? You know what that is? A rock. That’s a rock.”

And Ender, adulation in his eyes, looks at his big brother and says… “Fuck?”

Flora’s eyes get big as saucers. Cinder howls and howls. “Yes, Ender, that’s a fuck. A great big fuck.” Sideways glance at me. “What? He said it first.”

J: “Doesn’t mean you have to say it.”

C: “You say it’s ok for us to swear when it’s appropriate.”

J: “I’d say right now is not appropriate.”

C: “Fine. Ender? Come with Bubba. Look here. What’s this?”

E: “Fuck!”

C: “And this?”

E: “Fuck!”

C: “How about these over here?”

E: “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

I may never be able to return to the Glenbow again.

Of Daddies and Grandpas

Flora: Did you know that when my daddy was a little boy, my grandpa was *his* daddy?

And so it begins…

Flora: Want to go upstairs and play pets?

Friend: No, I want to watch your brother play video games.

I knew it would come. Just not when they are 7 and 9!

Darwin Loves You

Darwin loves you : natural selection and the re-enchantment of the world, by George Lewis Levin. File under Best Book Title Ever.

One day soon, I will actually read the book and perhaps entertain you with a review…

Art of War: The Lego Contest

Cinder entered his first Lego contest on November 5, 2011. He’s psyched up for two more, on November 26 and December 3. Here’s the story of his first one. Cinder? Who the hell is Cinder? Ah, yes. Cinder is Austen. A temporary name change. He’s looking over my shoulder. “Did you change it to Cinder?” Indeed, darling, I did.

 I’ve raised Lego contests as a possibility with the Lego dude for a couple of years, but he’s been uninterested. This year, while Flora has her music class, he hangs with me in the anteroom―with all the other big brothers (and one little brother) dragged to the class. The boys have been bringing Lego creations, and talking and building together. For those of you who’ve known Cinder for a while, you will extra-appreciate how thrilled I was that he was participating in their play―he relentlessly ignored them all of last year. Anyway, the other boys told him about Lego contests and he got pretty fired up to go to one.

I was both pleased and a little worried―he hasn’t been in a lot of competitive situations (bar those he and Flora create to torment each other) and when he has, he hasn’t really handled them super-well. And he gets anxious. And… well, this Lego contest thing had the potential to be a really fun cool thing―or a really traumatizing thing.

Apparently Cinder thought this too. He asked me to sign him up for the contest―and then went and whipped up a little space ship robot thingie in about 10 minutes. “This is what I’m going to enter,” he told me. “You’ve got weeks before the contest,” I said. “Don’t you want to build something bigger and more complicated?”

The answer? “No. This is my first contest, and I’m probably not going to win―I just need to see what it’s like, and I don’t want to enter it with something that I think is really great, because then I would be disappointed if I lost.”

Interesting. “So you’re… what? Testing the waters, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Day of the contest came during my crazy-busy no-brain-cells0for-anything-not-related-to-Top 10 Deals-time. At 12:30 p.m.―the contest starts at 1 p.m.―we were sitting on a rock on the hill outside SHC reading a book. Cinder asked me what our plans for the day were and I answered with, “Not much. I’ve got some work to do this afternoon when Daddy finishes his, but other than that…” “But isn’t today the 5th?” “The 5th what?” “The fifth day of November! My Lego contest! What time is it?”

Miraculously, we managed to get all three kids and the Lego ship and snacks into the car in 7 minutes, and get down to Village Square in 13. And there I had a Halloween miracle. And you won’t appreciate it if you don’t know Cinder or if you’ve just met him in the past few months or year. But if you’ve ever met us at the Science Centre when he was five, and would retreat to Flora’s stroller and pull a blanket over his head to ensure he didn’t have to interact with any of you ― well, read on.

Carrying his ship thingie in a bin, he outpaced me to the library, following a bunch of strangers (also carrying Lego) to the sign in table. He checked himself in. He told the total stranger librarian his name and age. He followed her instructions and set up his thing at the 8/9 year old table without a backward glance for me. Then he checked in to see where we were―requested that we stay within eyeshot, and turned his attention back to his ship. A bunch of pieces fell off during transport―I swear I felt myself preparing for a meltdown―nothing. He reassembled it. Checked out the other pieces. I got distracted by the Ender for a

bit and when I next peeked over, there was a Cinder, with a bunch of kids he had never met before, participating in Lego conversation.

The judges came around. They asked each child to tell them about their creation. Again, not sure how this was going to go… and it went fine. He was excited and animated. He made eye contact. He was not just coherent, but articulate. And he was patient and polite when the other children at his table had the spotlight.

Then came the long wait during which the judges went away to tally the result. He started getting bored towards the end of it, but he was waiting. I even suggested we could leave early (I was really worried about the not winning reaction). “No, I need to see what wins,” he told me. “I think that dinorobot there is probably the best one.”

And he did, It was a long 45 minutes and he got restive―as did all the boys―leading us all to agree that next time, we were going to bail right after the talk with the judges and come back half an hour later for the announcement of results (there was going to be a next time, he had no doubts about that). He paid attention and applauded during the handing out of the prizes.

He didn’t win―and he was fine. He was silent on the way to the car and in the car―but not petulant or angry, just processing. And as soon as we got home, he started building a project for the next Lego contest.

It’s a pretty awesome dragon. “I’ll be disappointed if this one doesn’t win,” he told me a few days later when he was yet again tweaking it. “But I think it’s got a pretty good chance.”

“It’s pretty cool, and you worked very had on it,” I said… wondering if I should add, it still might not win? Was I focusing too much on the negative because I still had in my mind’s eye the 4 y o who would get thrown off kilter by the smallest thing?

“Mmmm,” he said. “I don’t know if that matters. But it’s got a good chance at winning. It’s not a war toy.”

“What?” I asked.

“Oh, didn’t you notice?” he said. “None of the planes, ships, guns, towers and stuff won. All the prizes went to houses, animals and things like that. And when I was talking with the guy at my table who won―you know, the guy with the Lego base, with all the little guys in it? He told me he had built a ship a lot like mine for a Lego contest before, but he noticed that the ships never seem to win.”

So I leave him to his building and tweaking, and retreat feeling a little… I don’t know. Amazed, I guess. On about a hundred levels. Amazed that this kid who until a year or two ago growled at strangers sailed through this experience in such a positive way―and with a self-designed coping strategy. Not one I would have come up with―but one that clearly worked for him. Amazed that he got out of his reconnaissance experience way more than I did. I, honestly, did not notice that no war toys won. And amazed that he was approaching the next contest with, well, both excitement and detachment: wanting to participate without having his whole being wrapped up in getting the certificate that said he won.

Frankly, he was handling the whole situation better than his mother!

Get Less Today

“Less doesn’t need any batteries? That’s great!” Read this: http://getlesstoday.com/ Live this.

End of lecture.

Slowing Down

Two things I needed to read today: http://simplekids.net/slowing-down-2/ and this http://www.steadymom.com/2011/10/peace.html

You might not know this about me but I have, um, how shall I put it… overachiever tendencies. My broken down spine is forcing me to slow down, but my natural tendency is to fight against even the most blatant messages from the body and just keep on going. So a “do less, slow down, choose peace” message is a needed one, for me, right now.

Too many of the writing around this topic is a “Slow down so you actually do more.” I don’t want or need to do. I need to do less. And sometimes, being who I am–I need permission from–what? The Universe? My mother? Some higher entity, I guess–to do less.

Today it came from http://www.simplemedia.net. Thanks!

All Work and No Play Sucks (Duh!)

Here is a piece from this month’s Atlantic subtitled “why your kids are more anxious and depressed.” I found this stat kind of appalling: “The researchers found that compared to 1981, children in 1997 spent less time in play and had less free time. They spent 18 percent more time at school, 145 percent more time doing school work, and 168 percent more time shopping with parents.” The last part in particular. Because I bet they’re not shopping for groceries and life’s essentials…

My friend RK counters that the shopping for groceries and life’s essentials does indeed take up more time now than it did a generation ago–because most parents now have to take their children grocery shopping with them, instead of being able to let them play outside. Good point. I’m just so grateful that our lifestyle allows our children to spend most of their time in play, and outside.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/all-work-and-no-play-why-your-kids-are-more-anxious-depressed/246422/#.Tqi_gZ8Eb0g.facebook

Cinder and Flora Become Hellenic Pagans

It started in the Spring of 2011, and is still here. Ancient Greece. Now Ancient Rome. Cinder and Flora getting as thorough a grounding in Greek mythology and the foundation of Western civilization as the average first-year university Classics student. Here’s how it happened. Read the boring paragraph, please. You need it as a straw man to enjoy the rest of the piece.

D’Aulaires Greek Myths Study Guide (grade 3-6)

“This program explores this classic of Greek mythology following the same in-depth approach used in other Memoria Press guides. Designed to be used for one year (although you may choose to go faster by combining days), each of the 30 lessons is broken down into five days. Students read the selected pages from D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths on the first day. On the second day, students familiarize themselves with the “Facts to Know”―key people, places, and objects. The goal is for students to memorize these items and retain them through the end of the year, although there is no final test in this program. The third section holds vocabulary words for students to discuss and define with their teacher and may also be used as spelling words. The fourth day holds comprehensive questions, written to capture the essence of the characters and the main idea of each story, which encourages students to think about the reading and provide meaningful answers. The final section uses the fantastic illustrations found in D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths as a springboard for further discussion questions. Review lessons appear after every fifth lesson; all vocabulary and facts from the preceding lessons are tested and recurring activities encourage children to draw a picture of their favourite god or story and work on a list of things from today which borrow the names or symbols of Greek gods and goddesses. A pronunciation guide in the back breaks down al the tricky Greek names for smoother reading. The teacher’s guide is identical to the student book except the answers are filled in.”

The above summary/review―titillating, was it? Enjoy reading it? Or did you stifle a yawn or two?―comes from the Rainbow Resource Center’s Homeschool Catalogue, and you can buy the D’Aulaires book, student and teacher guide for $40.50.

D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths is a beautiful book. I have it on our bookshelf, in fact―a gift from my good friend Lisa, who passed it on to us after her kids were done grooving with the Greeks and mine were in full Greco mode. I was thrilled: we had just maxed the number of renewals on our library copy. Flora loved sitting down with the book and looking at the pictures, and we spent many evenings with it as our bedtime reading… or morning reading… or mid-day reading.

But we never did get the study guide. Because Cinder and Flora never studied Greek mythology―and I never taught it.

This is what we did instead.

It all started in the Texas Panhandle. That’s where Hank the Cowdog hails from. Hank the Cowdog is a wonderful series of books by John Ericsson about―who else―Hank the cowdog, his sidekick Drover, his enemy Pete the barn cat and an assortment of very fallible human characters. There are 50-plus books in the Hank series, and while extremely amusing and well-written, they do tend to be just a bit… repetitive. Formulaic. After months and months of reading and listening to Hank (the author’s produced a series of audio books as well, which accompanied us on every car ride and serenaded us pretty much anytime we were in the kitchen), I was very actively looking for another obsession with which to replace Hank. Harry Potter did it for a while―we read the first four books and watched (most of) the first four movies, but he didn’t have the repeatability of Hank: the kids didn’t want to read him again and again. Once―twice for book one―was enough. (They are pretty thick books for a six year old to listen to!)

Enter Percy Jackson. He was mentioned by another homeschooling family when we were swapping favourite book stories. I filed the name away to look into―and a few days later, Cinder and his friend K watched Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief on Netflix.

Usually, I’d have us read the book before watching the movie―but here, the Fates intervened. There’s nothing wrong with The Lightening Thief as a movie―it’s a perfectly good kids’ movie. “That guy playing Percy Jackson, he’s the best actor I’ve ever seen,” said a star-struck Flora. “Luke is an awesome villain!” said Cinder. But if we had come to the movie after the books, it would have sucked. As it was, the kids enjoyed it, and were eager to

read the Percy Jackson books.

There are five of them, written by author Rick Riordan, whose first career was an an adult thriller writer, and who―like most great children’s writers seem to―invented Percy Jackson as a character about whom he spun bedtime stories for his sons. As The Lightening Thief opens, Percy is a 12 year old kid with ADHD and dyslexia―a really good kid who somehow or other keeps on getting into trouble in school after school. Weird things happen to him and around him, and not an awful lot in his life makes sense, until one day, his substitute teacher turns into a Fury and tries to kill him, his best friend turns into a satyr and tries to save him, his Latin teacher turns into a Centaur, a Minotaur appears out of nowhere and kidnaps his mother… and Percy finds out he’s the son of Poseidon.

And the adventures begin. Percy finds himself in a world where the Greek gods are real and still peopling the earth with godlings―or half-bloods or demigods in the Riordan vernacular. Percy finds a sanctuary of sorts at Camp Half-Blood―the place where demigods go for combat training―then a quest… and in the end, of course, saves the world, and Olympus. And, in the last book, when he’s 16, gets the girl.

Cinder and Flora were swept away by the story. We read the hefty Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief in three nights, and then read it again while we waited for the library to deliver the second book in the series, Sea of Monsters. They couldn’t get enough of Sea of Monsters―I took out the audio book of it as well, and when I wasn’t reading it to them, they were listening to the audio book in the kitchen, in the car―not wanting to get out of the car because they wanted to keep on listening. Battle of the Labyrinth, The Titan’s Curse and finally, The Last Olympian followed. They fell in love with the heroes of the books―Percy, the son of Poseidon, Annabeth, the daughter of Athena, Niko, son of Hades. They met Zeus, Poseidon and Hades―the “Big Three”―as well as Hephasteus, Aphrodite, Hermes, Artemis, Hera and, of course, Dionysus―the god of wine who for his transgressions (he ticked off Zeus by going after the wrong nymph) was the cranky and totally inappropriate headmaster of Camp Half-blood. (“Maybe if you go on this quest, you’ll die and I’ll never have to deal with you again,” he tells Percy Jackson once.) They got to know all about the “real”

Perseus, Percy Jackson’s namesake, and Theseus, and Herakles, and Dadealus, and so many more.

When we’d go to the library for the new Percy book, we’d also come back with handfuls of other books on Greek myths. D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths was a quick first favourite, as was Atticus the Storytellers 100 Greek Myths. So was Michael Townsend’s amazing Greek myths of wonder and blunders : welcome to the wonderful world of Greek mythology, a pun-filled, blood-filled comic book introduction to the world of “Greek gods, dumb sheep and people who hated pants.” George O’Connor’s amazing graphic novel series retelling first the story of Zeus, then Athena―we’re still on hold for Hera!―offered different, modern reinterpretations of the myths. The kids learned about source material and the fluidity of oral tradition. We read Homer for Children, and they got to know the heroes of Troy and the Odyssey. Flora adored the story of Persephone, so I found her all the versions of the story, including one in which Demeter is an over-bearing mother who won’t let her daughter marry and move on with life! Cinder really liked Odysseus and the dangerous sea voyages: we watched Kirk Douglas’ Ulysseus, and talked about what happened to the Greek gods―and the world―when the power of Rome rose. We watched the History Channel/A&E documentary Clash of the Gods―and we watched a few episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess. I found them audio books of the various myths, including a BBC radio production of The Odyssey.

And we went back to the Percy Jackson books and read and re-read them, and re-listened to them.

Over… how long? Complete immersion lasted about two months―May and June of 2011 had them scorning anything and everything that didn’t have the taste of ancient Greece. It continued into the summer, capping with me organizing a Percy Jackson book club meeting, in which Cinder and Flora hosted a get-together for three other families also currently obsessed with Percy Jackson. They prepared a list of questions they wanted the kids to talk about (“If you were a demigod, who would you want your godly parent to be? What sort of weapon would you want? What monster would you most want to slay―and which one are you most afraid of?”). The kids all brought weapons to the meeting―and after the discussion, went out on our Common to sword fight. (“You know it’s a good book club if there’s a sword fight afterwards.”)

And then the obsession started to wane―just in time, because we were number 89 on the wait list at the library for Rick Riordan’s next book, Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero, and we had read pretty much every good book on Greek myths and Ancient Greece in the library by then―several times over. “I need something to get the Greek gods out of my mind,” Flora told me. But Percy Jackson set the bar high. For several weeks, everything I offered them was a dud. Chronicles of Narnia? Boring. Treasure Island? Nah. The Mysterious Benedict Society? All the other kids in our Percy Jackson book club had read it and loved? Boooooring. This really cool book about samurai? Warrior cats? Killer owls?

They were mythed-out… and it took me a while to figure out, also fictioned out. We went back to Horrible Science as bedtime reading. I got The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child out of the library as an audio book for in-car listening. Ancient Greece retreated into the background.

Until… last week, we finally got The Lost Hero. And devoured the 550 page book in about a week. The library doesn’t have a copy of the next one, Son of Neptune, in yet… but Costco did. We’re reading it now. We can’t stop. Something weird’s happening: Gaea’s waking up and preparing to make war on her Olympian children again. And her Olympian children are shifting between their Greek and Roman aspects. Zeus is Zeus one minute and then he’s Jupiter. Hera’s becoming Juno… and they’re not precisely the same in those two aspects. Because Greece and Rome, well, each as a culture valued and focused on different things…

By the most fortuitous of coincidences―or was it the Fates intervening again?―The Story of the World volume we just finished covers the rise and fall of Greece and Rome. I need to check in with the library to see what they have in stock―on DVD, I think―covering the transition period. And next time we’re at the grandparents’ house, I should pull out our photo albums from Italy―standing in front of the Coliseum.

So… have Cinder and Flora explored Greek myths in depth? Hell―sorry, Hades―yeah. But they didn’t read a myth a week. They didn’t memorize “Facts to Know” with the goal of demonstrating that memorization at a test. They didn’t review vocabulary words nor endure spelling tests of the Greek gods’ names. Comprehensive questions “written to capture the essence of the characters and the main idea of each story, which encourages students to think about the reading and provide meaningful answers”? Well―they talked at length about all the stories. They asked us questions, and of each other. We asked them. They offered interpretations and impressions to interested adults, and inflicted them on completely uninterested playmates. At one point Flora wanted to learn to speak Ancient Greek―so I got out a couple of books, and they looked at the Greek alphabet, and listened to the names of the letters―and memorized what Omega and Theta look like. Poseidon’s trident led to the triangle to geometry to Archimedes (“Hey, I know him―that’s from Mythbusters! The Archimedes’ Death Ray? Remember?”) to the Greek roots of English mathematical, and other, words. There was a brief segue into the planets even before Riordan started phasing the Greek gods into their Roman aspects (“I know why Pluto’s named Pluto! Because it’s dark and rocky and barren and kind of depressing, just like Hades!”).

Could I have asked for a more thorough exploration of Greek myths, as a teacher or as a learning facilitator? No way. Could I have designed this program? Nope, no way again. I’m willing to bet cold hard cash that if we had come to the Greek myths through the D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths study guide, brought to the children by me because I thought we should study Greek myths now, our experience would have been, well, vastly different. They probably would have enjoyed the stories: it’s hard not to. But would we have managed to work our way through the entire 30-week study guide before they thought the project mostly drudgery? Would they have been inspired to delve as deeply into them as they did because they loved the Percy Jackson books and wanted to experience them as fully as possible?

Maybe. The Greek myths are powerful; they resonate. But having watched Cinder and Flora immerse themselves fully in the world of the Greeks―and now discover Ancient Roman with the same joy―I’m again ridiculously grateful that we’re able to let them do this. Take six months to read and re-read Percy Jackson. Take three years to obsess about dinosaurs. Play with baking soda and vinegar every day for 40 weeks, and then spend three weeks obsessing about nothing but the periodic table. Take a break from everything that looks like “work” because there’s important internal digestion happening and just colour and listen to books on tape and play video games for a while.

Gotta go. Cinder just came downstairs holding Son of Neptune. Percy, Frank and Hazel are on this quest to Alaska, because the giant Alcyoneus has imprisoned Thanatos, the god of death… Read the book. Come to our book club meeting. There’ll be a sword fight after.

Emergency Pig’s Ear

Jane: What did you just give Maggie?
Flora: My emergency pig’s ear.
J: Your wha…?
F: My emergency pig’s ear. I keep it here on my bunk, and when I’ve got friends over or need to to something and I need to keep Maggie from annoying me or chewing my toys, I give it to her.

That girl’s prepared for everything.

Settling Into Fall

I’m in bit of shock that it’s not just the second half of October, it’s the last third of October.

We’ve ended up with pretty minimalist external demands—Orff music for Flora once a week, Tang Soo Do for Cinder twice a week, and they both have just started drama for 8 weeks at Evergreen. And it’s been my deadline lax time of year—about to turn into deadline hell, but I have another week of grace, I think—and still, I don’t think I’ve ever felt time pass so quickly.

Perhaps it’s the gorgeous weather? We’ve been able to be outside so much of September and October.

Our Learning Plan, in which I for the first time ever dared to make some more solid predictions, was out the window
the day I sent it off to the School Board. We briefly left Ancient Greece for Venice with The Thief Lord, but are now back into the realm of the Greek gods—as they morph into Roman ones—courtesy of Rick Riordan’s The Lost Hero. Bunnicula‘s made a brief reappearance, primarily in early reader form—if there are other fans of the vampire bunny out there, there’s a new series of mini-chapter books James Howe has been writing called Tales from the House of Bunnicula. They’re both fun read alouds and manageable read alones for a Flora (not a Cinder), so we’ve been enjoying those. And back to the Horrible Science mags. Another new thing: Life of Fred the elementary series—this very oddball approach to math through story. Flora loves it; she devoured the first volume, Apples, in a handful of days, and now we’re more slowly reading through Butterflies. (Cinder’s a passive participant; the math is way easy for him, but I think he enjoys some of the silliness.)

I’ve mostly been focusing on creating good morning and meal routines—with various levels of success. We’ve been getting out to walk the dog en mass first thing in the morning (our definition of first thing in the morning: at the crack of anywhere between 9:30 and 11 a.m.), and I’ve been doing the Taco Tuesday/Pizza Friday meal schedule thing pretty consistently. I think I need to do the same thing to lunch. 🙂 Them kids, they just won’t stop eating!

What’s your fall looking like so far? [originally a yahoo group post]

Skin Falls Off

Sean: Dear god, Flora, what have you done to your brother’s face?
Flora: Whaaat–look, he likes it.
S: Is that permanent marker?
F: Don’t worry, Dad–you know skin falls off, don’t you?

Good to know: Cheap sunscreen will take off permanent marker. True.

Living In Small Spaces

Welcome to our house. Five people live, work and play here. Enough said. You want me to elaborate?That means that at its most tidy and minimalistic, there are five pairs of shoes—and this is Calgary, so let’s face it, probably 15, because there is no all-purpose pair of shoes for this whacky climate, and at least one set is guaranteed to be wet/muddy/slimy at least half of the time—five coats (or, really, 10-15, because everyone has a fleecy, a rain jacket, and at least one more warmer coat that one might put in the back wardrobe for the six weeks that it’s guaranteed not to snow, but really, why bother?), five hats (well—10, a sun hat each and a winter hat each), 5 pairs of rain pants or snow pants (or both simultaneously), and then there are the frackin’ mitts…

Pause. Rewind. All these things need to hang out somewhere near the front door, in an area in which one person can move about comfortably but two are a huge crowd and three start to step on each others toes, and four—well, can one of you please wait outside? I know it’s -30, but for God’s sake—ok, just step over there, wait in the laundry room. (The fifth, meanwhile, hangs out on the landing or stands on the stairs. Five people cannot stand in our entry way at the same time, even if one of them is not quite three feet tall.)

The entry way sets the tone for the rest of our house. We five live in 1000 square feet, plus 300 or so square feet of basement. The unlivable basement (it’s colder than Antarctica) is comprised of the miniscule entry way, laundry room, and a hard-to-navigate space that’s home to the freezer, pantry, gym equipment, film production equipment, and boxes and shelves of miscellaneous crap against which I wage an unending war.

After you navigate through our entry way, you’ve got to head up the stairs—try not to knock any of the coats and things off the hooks on the landing, ok?—to the main living floor. Designed by an architect who liked walls, corners and hallways, and thus turned what could have been 500 square feet of beautiful open space into two separate rooms—kitchen and living room—separated by a hallway and a furnace room (seriously). Another flight of stairs—stuck smack in the middle of it, of course—takes you up to the bedrooms, one large, two tiny, and a bathroom about the size of our entry way. And that is the rough lay-out of our house. It’s hot in the summer, leaking heat like mad in the winter, designed for people who neither cook nor entertain much (and don’t need to store more than one towel in the bathroom), and lived in by two work-at-home adults and three homeschooled children.

Yes, it’s a tight fit. We live here for the world outside: the big balcony that looks over a large Commonn area on which dozens of children play, from which we can see the expanse of McHugh’s Bluff and the towers of downtown Calgary. We can walk or bike to most of our work commitments and many of our homeschool adventures. We have excellent neighbours, and considering our stellar location, we don’t spend very much on our housing cost.

But yes, it’s a tight fit. Especially in the winter, when we have to mostly live inside and don’t walk or bike as much. That’s when I start browsing MLS listings looking for 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom—extra family room!—houses in the ‘burbs. That phases passes when I engage in the accompanying math, to be replaced by trips to the library for books on living in small spaces, organization, and decluttering. Then comes the purging: making our small space seem bigger by carting out bags upon bags upon boxes upon boxes of stuff out of our house.

It helps, briefly—and then another wave of stuff comes in—or comes tumbling off the newly purged shells.

And I sit in the middle of our living space, surrounded by stuff—which includes a pile of books from the library urging me to get rid of stuff—and ponder on how to achieve my peace with it. Because I am very aware, that even after a massive, ruthless purge, we have more stuff than any human beings need. And because of the world we live in, more stuff will come. If not today, then tomorrow. And some of it is neat, and lots of it we use, but pretty much all of it is unnecessary.

No pithy answers. It’s an ongoing project, a journey, a struggle.

The Great Scrabble Battle

I asked for it.

Cinder, you see, likes to win. Even when he’s playing a game for the first time―or against a clearly superior player. So as we were pulling out the Scrabble board, I very firmly and seriously told him―twice―that this was a game I was going to win. I was absolutely going to help him―I wasn’t going to be ruthless―but this was a game I was extremely good at, and he was just learning to read and spell. I was going to win, and he couldn’t be upset when I won.

Sean chimed in, “You can play Carcassone later and whoop Mom at that.”

Cinder shrugged. “I’ve watched Mom and Richard play lots. I know the strategy.”

And we played.

Cinder’s path to literacy has been slow. If forced to label him, I’d call him an emergent reader or a developing reader. (Labels suck.) He can work his way, when he pays attention, through phonetic three letter words and the handfuls of sight words he’s memorized (one of them is Cthulu). Four letter words, even perfectly phonetic ones, require a lot of concentration, some prodding. Over the last few months, we’ve been intermittently working on finding tools and strategies to help him. He’s come a long way, but it’s hard work for him―pieces are still missing―that “aha!” moment that came for Flora when she was four or five still hasn’t come for him. He plugs away at it… then takes a long break.

We’ve been on a long break most of the summer from the spelling program that gave him his last big leap forward and confidence boost―then slammed him into a wall he couldn’t get past. But after a summer of watching me, our neighbour Richard, and other Co-op firepitters play Scrabble on most fine Saturdays, he wanted to play the game.

He rattled off a dozen words he knew how to spell. “It’s a good start,” he said. I was very proud of him for wanting to play. So long as he was able to cope with losing.

We played. I played to open up the board―to create opportunities for building more words. I played long words, so there would be plenty of E’s and S’s and T’s and the like for him to use. He’d get stuck, and he’d ask me or Sean for help. A few times, we traded letters―he’d offer me an E for a U, a P for a G. It was a great game. He spelled Dog and If and Am and Bum. Also Hire and Fire, and, with help, Tear. And attempted to spell Dense―and came damn close. Figured out adding “s” “ed” or “er” to a word often got you more points than the original word was worth. Spelled Zoos with a triple letter word score for the Z. Quit―with help from me and a trade for a T―for a double word score. I accepted Ed was a word so that he could spell DOG somewhere in the vicinity of Yeti. Yeah, I gave him some slack―but he did great.

Flora kept score for us, writing down each score individually, so we didn’t have a final tally. He went out first, sticking me with -11 points. And we sat down to add up the numbers.

He did the math in his head and I checked it on paper. 276 for Cinder. “That’s a great score,” he announced. It was. In our Co-op games, we hardly ever break 300. We started adding up my score. Half-way through, I realized I was beaten. And not just by a little bit.

He beat me 276 to 171.

Now, yes, I helped him―and I wasn’t playing to score big. But how on earth, with all those three and two letter words, did he whoop me so badly? Well, before we even started, he studied the letter distribution chart on the board. He knew how many Os, Es, Ts, Hs etc. there were in play. He paid hyper-attention to the position of all the triple-letter, double-letter, double-word and triple-word scores. When he had gotten all the letters for Zoos, for example, he trolled the board carefully to see where he could stake out the position that would give him a triple hit for the Z. (He changed Nude to Nudes to make that play, getting points for that word as well.)

He was only mildly boastful, running up with the score sheet to his Dadda. “I might not beat you by quite so much next time,” he told me graciously afterwards. But he was very proud. And mentioned he was almost ready to start the “spelling programme that I hate” again. I nodded, didn’t push. Let him savour the victory.

He’s nine and a quarter―a third almost. My emergent reader. Who can look at a page in a book and tell you, with incredible accuracy, which letters and letter combinations occur on it with the most and the least frequency (also whether there are more curvy or “sticky” letters there. And who can whoop me at Scrabble with spelling mastery over a few dozen―a hundred if we stretch it―words, because he’s got the strategic aspect of the game down pat.

This is why I never worry that he will blossom into a competent reader, when he’s ready, in his own way. Why I don’t push. Why I don’t torment him with drills that, right now, won’t help and will only serve to discourage and frustrate. Why I can have the patience, and suffer from very little doubt, that his unique path to literacy will bear the required fruit, in time. Things like this Scrabble game―they happen all the time.

In Defence of Routines

I wrote this essay in response to a long and heated thread called “Discipline for Young Children” on one of the yahoo groups I belong to. I’m not as active a participant in those discussions as I was when Cinder and Flora were little―partly because I no longer have napping kids, partly because I’ve become much more reluctant to offer advice, even when nominally asked for (because I’ve learnt most people don’t want advice and solutions: they just want to whinge, and get unconditional support for their whinging… but that’s food for another post), but mostly because I work and write for money so much more now than I did in those first years… and I’m kind of written out at the end of the day. But every once in a while, against my better judgement, I just can’t resist…

…I would like to offer a defence of―or the case for―rhythms and routines in an unschooled life, with young children and older ones too. [Another poster] wrote in one of her earlier posts “Whenever someone reaches for some additional form of external or arbitrary ‘structure’ I wonder, usually in my head, what is making them feel insecure this week and why they feel that will solve the problem…”

And I would like to answer that with, yes, actually, it can.

The stuff that you have a predictable routine/rhythm for―so long as it works for you in a positive way―is stuff you don’t have to expand energy thinking about and reacting to. (I’m reminded of The Big Bang Theory episode in which Sheldon uses gaming dice to make all non-essential decisions to leave his precious brain cells free to do the important work of “the mind.”)

My partner and I are both self-employed, random-deadline driven people engaged in creative, chaotic work. That injects a great deal of surprise, unpredictability and “must make this decision Now!” and “must upset any and all plans made to date and respond to this Crisis Now!” into our professional―and because we are self-employed and work from home and see our lives as intertwined etc.―personal lives.

The counterbalance or anchor if you prefer that word to that chaos is predictability and simplicity wherever it makes sense. And we didn’t arrive at that conclusion/practice overnight: it slowly evolved as we kept on adding children and responsibilities to the chaos.

So we have a morning routine, for example, that I stick to even when there’s a deadline fire burning under me and what I want to do the second I wake up is start pounding away at the keyboard. It’s a routine that honours the fact that 3/5 of the members of this family suck at mornings, and 2/5 are ridiculous early birds, and it includes things like me sitting on the couch with a book ignoring the kids while I drink my first―and hopefully second―cup of coffee and my eldest not speaking or looking at anyone for 45 minutes or so after he wakes up and playing his X-box or just lying on the couch with a blanket over his head. (A routine, see, doesn’t have to be about “doing” stuff. It can also be about safeguarding time to just “be.”) It also includes things like getting dressed, brushing hair, recorder practice, tossing a load of laundry in, making the big bed, and culminates with a morning walk with the dog. But its most important thing is―the time for three of us to just wake up and hang for a bit. (Two of us starting playing and doing stuff as soon as they wake up. The bums.)

This is what we do 9 out of 10 mornings. And it’s not something that anyone complains about as rigid, boring, limiting―it’s a guarded part of our day that, on that 1 out of 10 mornings where we have to miss it―where we have to get into the car first thing in the morning for example―makes us appreciate it all the more on the morrow when we return to it.

There are other anchors like that throughout the day and the week―I’m pretty protective of the last part of our evenings and bedtime, for example, so even though there’s no magic time by which everyone’s in bed or sleep, there sure is a rhythm to the last part of each evening. I have a built-in 3 p.m. tea break for me―that’s the magic time when I run out of steam and get cranky, so I plan for it: tea for me, snack for the kids, something to do (if just flopping on the couch to watch a DVD) so that I don’t become Evil Exhausted Mom (it took me six years to realize I consistently lost it at 3 p.m. Super-observant, I am.) We go swimming each Monday and Thursday―unless something else comes up, but that’s the “default” setting on each week, just as our girl’s music class mid-week is. But there was a time―when my eldest was four to six in particular―when the routines had to be perfectly predictable and inviolate, because that was what he needed at that time.

This last year, I’ve outsourced dinner to routines, a la Taco Tuesday, Slow Cooker Wednesday, Pizza Friday. (Also “What the Fuck’s for Dinner Thursday,” the day that reminds me to stick to the boring predictability of the rest of the week.) This is not my default setting: my default setting is―I’m getting hungry, what should we make for dinner, oh no, the fridge is empty, let’s go out―but this Taco Tuesday setting, although it makes me sound like the most boring person in the world, is better. It means we eat even when I’m on deadline, when my default setting is to not eat at all until the project is done―oh, crap, you mean you kids need to eat?

There are personalities, families, life cycles and individuals who don’t need any of this and don’t thrive on it. For sure. But there are very unschooled families who do. And hyper-organized people who need strict routines to have something to deviate from. And hyper-unorganized people who need some kind of even aspirational guideline to be fly-by-the-seat of-their-pants with.

I’m not sure which one I am, or my family is: we’re five individuals with very different personalities. But I do know that routines/rhythms/anchors―whatever you want to call them if the word schedule gives you the willies―make our family life more peaceful, our work life possible. Most of our days have plenty of spontaneity, go with the flow, live in the moment kinda stuff―too much, I would argue, on the days when work throws me a really unexpected curveball.

Does Slow Cooker Wednesday and 3 p.m. tea mean the baby getting sick, the washing machine flooding the basement, the 9 y o breaking an arm doesn’t throw us into chaos? Of course it doesn’t. But Slow Cooker Wednesday does mean we eat a good supper on Wednesday even if we spent most of the day at the ER (unless of course the broken arm happened before the chicken went into the slow cooker) or mopping up the basement and calling plumbers (see previous caveat).

Making my and my eldest’s morning incapacitation part of our morning routine respects our biological clocks and sets the stage for a good day―and it keeps me from unproductive feelings of guilt over being unproductive in the mornings. And that 3 p.m. tea break I give myself? I don’t like being Evil Exhausted Mommy. And it takes such a small act and such a small amount of planning to keep that from happening.

End of pro-routine pontification.

Whose Blood?

Cinder: Dad will come to the phone in a minute, Mom. He’s just washing his hands–he was cleaning up the blood in the bathroom.

A Place For Everything

S: Hurry! I need to pee and the baby is grabbing the camera, the box of nails and my beer!
J: Where are you?
S: In the bathroom! Hurry!
J: Your camera, box of nails, and beer are in the bathroom?
S: Now is not the time to discuss the inappropriateness of me putting all these things in the bathroom sink. Just save my beer… and the camera. He can have the box of nails.