Loot and lockdown (Week 9)

Yeah, they got loot. They did more houses this year, and discovered the traditional pillow case carryall sack, which they lugged about. It was a great night, the air crisp and cool, so many folks out in our neighbourhood, I wish we had such events more often. The rest of the year we are all cloistered in our respective houses, hardly a Hello to each other. I long for a more neighbourly-like neighbourhood. Not that I want to leave mine, I just want to revamp our whole culture.

I didn't get fab pics of Ivy, but I got some. Oh man was she cute, she looked like a bank robber more than a cat. She tricked with her good buddy Cohen, who was a puppy. Her tail was a big hit.






Later on we sorted out the loot (crap we toss and the chocolate we keep) and they dug in. By the next morning they were ready for more, though I insisted on breakfast first. I uphold an eat-it-and-get-it-gone policy, rather than encourage saving it for months. The sugar dose is so hard on the immune system why drag it out? They are always happy with this point of view.




And of course now they all have a cold. I love it when what I preach is reinforced as fact.

We skipped gymnastics this week, but did hit up the always fun aikido. Here is Leif working on his rolls.







And neither pouring rain nor darkness will keep Hannah from her soccer class, which is so great. She is developing a love for being keeper, but also has a mean kick that nets her many a goal on the other team. She looks really grown-up here doesn't she? Yeah, she is growing up, no matter how hard we try to stop her.






Skating started this week! They have been really looking forward to it. For me, it was fun to watch, they were very cautious and did EXACTLY what their instructor told them to. It was like watching baby birds learn to fly.



She's plowing through book three of Harry Potter, carrying it around with her and asking us to read it all day. She should have more time now that we're in a no-screen-time lockdown. Yeah, it happened. I confiscated the gameboy, vetoed the laptop time and gave the DVD's back to their owner. It just got so crazy, they'd watch all day and not notice the passing of time (as tv does for all of us). And yet, once I shut down the scene, they adapted just fine. Now they wake up and read, draw, do puzzles, play the piano. A balance of sorts. Tv is fun and has it's place, we just need to find that place and not let it take over.

We chatted this week about Gordon Campbell, who the children know pisses me off to no end. This week our talk was about his legislating the EMTs back to work, and ffering a 6 cent pay raise. I find it hard when we talk about things our gov't does that we disagree with, because I've also taught them that our gov't works for us, that we choose them, and that they are supposed to represent our voices. The kids will ask Why are they doing such nasty stuff? And I have nothing positive to say. That sucks. I don't want to give them rose-coloured glasses, for sure, but it'd be nice to not be so frustrated with our province so often.

On the flip side we ran into a friend of mine who is an MLA. I've told them his story, that I knew him when we worked together, and how he has worked so hard to move up the ranks of politics, that he believes he can make positive changes (and has!) and that he is someone we can trust and believe in. I just wish we lived in his riding.


Always one to follow her siblings lead, Ivy can be found in bed reading her Lego catalogue often. And falling asleep looks like this:



The rain has begun in earnest now, and with the colds and the weather, we'll be playing a lot of card games this weekend.

Kisses

C

Did I forget about this pic? (Week 8)

You know which one. The missing teeth pic!



She is so cute with this gap. I immediately showed her how she can fire bathwater through it. :)

With Hallowe'en a mere week away, a trip to the patch was necessary. They sought out the biggest and wierdest-shaped ones, and now our front steps look like the bargain bin rejects of Martha Stewart.



Hannah is back to spelling stuff at mealtime on the magnet board behind the table.
VNL is vanilla, and OLVR is Oliver. Indeed it is honey!

As if things were not going crazy with the computer scene already, the kids found kIt's old gameboy in the boxes of crap we were cleaning out of the basement. Now it's Super Mario brothers all day. I'm still leaving them on their own about it, but it ain't gonna last.

We've talked alot about our immune systems this week. I've been reading a lot about the swine flu and listening to the news on CBC about it, and of course they're curous. So we revisited what we know, about how our immune system is a huge group of knights wholl fight germs for us. But if we eat sugar we make our knights sick so they can't fight (hence why we avoid juice and other things that give us unnecessary sugars) and then we risk getting sick. I added the new info of how we have different levels of defense, just like in a castle. Castles have moats, drawbridges, etc. And we have our skin, our spit and snot, then our stomachs and digestive systems, and finally our blood. How germs seek to get into us and how they can do this (mouth/eyes/nose) and how we have knights right at that level (spit/snot)and so on through the layers of the immune system. And so washing our hands, not touching our faces/picking our noses, can help keep the germs away. We talked about the supplements we take and how each one helps the knights in a different way. We talked about seasonal flu vs. swine flu, and how I see the data and misinformation proliferating in the media. About the boy who died this week in Ontario, and how sad that is. they really listened, and incorporated that little bit more informaton into what they already know about how their bodies work.

Another big chat this week was spawned from them noticing how already stores and ads are all about Christmas. I told them how some people depend on things outside of themselves to feel happy. And so for those people, how they look, how much stuff they own and the act of buying more stuff brings them hapiness. That the holiday dinner must be perfect and they must get lots of gifts and give just the right gifts and have all the right decoratons and music and blah blah blah. Whereas other people depend on what is inside themselves for hapiness, and what is inside those around them. So when all the hype of the holidays comes, they do not get caught up, and when it is all over, they do not feel empty and sad. That it is not about what gifts you give and get, or what you wear, or how fancy or not your dinner is. It is about being with fun people, having fun times and sharing the good feelings with others. This is a concept they really get I think. How great if they can start life with this perspective, not struggle with all the must-haves crap that our culture lives on.

Happy Hauntings!


C

Paper route schmaper route (Week 7)

Who needs it? Apparently no one in this household. Leif has suddenly decided (perhaps now that he's decimated his cache) that he wants out of this form of child labour. Hannah too. So I called them up and gave them our 2 weeks notice. I'm dong my best not to cheer out loud, as I've found this past year of paper routes to be SO inconvenient. Yipeeeeeee!

So, what can I tell you? Soccer continues, aikido continues. The kids are rocking out at both. This week we went to a Hallowe'en event at our library and got a chance to test out their costumes. I say pretty awesome huh?



We went to Goldstream Park to check out the salmon run this week. We saw the salmon. Unlike last year, we saw them alive, yay! No dead, rotting carcasses being pecked at by birds. We watched them struggling upstream, me explaining to the kids the life cycle of this fish, and managing to sneak in a sigh at the plight of the parenting sacrifices involved. :)

We snapped some pics in the woods:



Leif took this one:





We saw this CRAZY spider on the fence and had to snap it's portrait. It reared up in attack position and tried to fight the camera. Note the weird spiky points on it's back, one on each side. I'd love to know what it is, but ID'ing spiders, like caterpillars, is an endless and often pointless endeavour.




For my birthday Hannah drew me a fantastic Haunted House scene (we'd been drawing together earlier in the week). See the witch up on the right? You can see her best because of her striped tights and huge shoes. Isn't it fabulous? That pile of sticks on the front steps is her creepy rocking chair.




Hannah is attacking math again. She asked me in bed how come 5+5=10, 7+7=14 and 6+6=10 also. I said let's work this out together. Her problem? She'd forgotten all about 13 she exclaimed. I love seeing her brain work. Often when she gets math stuff wrong I can tell exactly where she's missed something, and I just walk her through it, letting her figure it out for herself, and she gets it.

Hannah's swimming lessons ended this week, and she did not pass her level. She's not bummed, I told her it's a hard one and thus requires two kicks at the can to pass it. But what a simple example of how group teaching is a total waste of time. She didn't pass because of 2 things (her front and back crawl)things she would have spent an entire private lesson on with Nelly and passed no problem. But in a group the teacher simply cannot give ech child 30 minutes of her attention to really master a skill. It blows. So she's signed up for another 8 Sundays, and I'll try working with her in between to help her get it.

Hannah's spending lots of time playing Creative Machines on the computer. It's a very cool game. You have all these supplies (cannons, bows and arrows, weights, matches, hot air balloons, kites, string, see-saws, magnifying glasses, solar lights, you name it) and you use them to create machines. So the magnifying glass focuses the sun which ignites the string which lights the cannon that fires the cannonball onto the see-saw which bumps the other ball down and hits the weight which knocks the scissors which cut the string that holds the hot air balloon and it flies away. Yeah, it's way cool.

Leif's computer time is spent playing pinball or Monopoly. When he's not on the computer, Leif's reading Harry Potter, or comparing stats in his hockey magazines, or practicing his aikido rolls (no it's not sushi).


Speaking of computers, I feel a problem brewing. I've been reading about self-control and totally understand how I'm keeping the kids from realising when anything's 'enough' because I decide for them what is enough. Fine. So I've been just letting the control over screen time go for awhile, to see what happens. And you know what? they're on the computers more and more everyday. I'm not saying anything yet, but I feel I'll go against what I 'think' and end up cutting them off in the near future.




Nothing like being the warden of your house. I wear the role well. :)

C

It's not really letting go . . . (Week 6)

. . . if you expect them to 'happen' to choose what YOU want them to. :) Ah yes, a lesson I am thankfully learning again and again with these kids.

Leif has been doing his paper route for a year now, and accrued a decent wad of hard-earned cash. He once remarked that his friend is given money from relatives for birthdays, whereas he has to earn all of his. But I think the lessons he is learning are so so important. And he's learning them well before his must-fit-in-and-spend-far-too-much-on-crap teen years. So I think it's a great situation. Anyway, up until recently he pretty much never spent his money. The odd time, sure.
Then he had his eBay experience and bought Lego there. Then we were at the toy store buying a Lego set for a friend's birthday party and after picking one out Leif asked if he could choose one for himself, to buy with his own money. You know what I said right? "Of course, it's YOUR money". Hannah then asked could she spend some of her money too? (Her's has been acquired through a recent birthday gift of hard cash). So they picked out their stuff, and at home they paid me what they owed me. Fine. A week later we're headed to another Lego-lovers birthday party, and are again choosing a set for him. Once more, Leif asks to buy a set, fine, it's your money.So he picked out a set and I remarked on it's price ($150) and he said yes, that's what he wanted. Hannah then asks can she get something too? I remind her she is down to about $10 and there's nothing there for that that is worthwhile. She sulks. On our way out of the store, I (stupidly) notice the price on these cheapo Star Wars figurine sets, and remark (stupidly) to Hannah that she could afford those. She grins, studies them, and grabs one. So now she's broke, and he is down to his last $130. My father's visit and the hockey talk sparked a desire in Leif to buy goalie gear. Not the really pricey pro stuff, but the simple street hockey gear his buddy Taro has. So we head down to Sports Traders (I swear they have it all!) and we cannot find anything like his buddy's set (a simple $40 set that will get worn out fairly quickly). Leif does find a higher quality, more complete set for $140. I have big chats with him about this, about how long it took him to earn that money, who will he play all this hockey with, we talk about taxes, about how he does not have enough in his bank account, and if I loan him money I'll charge him interest, and that debt is evil business. He asks me the date, and remarks that his paper route money gets deposited on such and such date, which in this case would be one day prior. So he likely *does* have enough.

And so I let go, and let HIM decide what to do with HIS own money. What a novel concept woman! Get your hands off the steering wheel of that boy's life for goodness sake. Both kids had money, and both chose to spend all of it. This is wrong because???

It is not wrong, it is as fantastic a learning lesson as it was for him to earn it in the first place. I made all my arguments and he held his ground within that discussion. He reasoned with me on all my points, and did not let my intentions cloud his own judgement. Awesome!

And here is the fruit of his labours:



Pretty wicked huh?

And now Hannah wants her own paper route. We've agreed she needs a smaller one, and so we got on the waiting list for Leif's older route, which is nearby and half the size of Leif's current one. For now Hannah has offered to help Leif with his, for a share of the pie, but on their first day out together Hannah spent her time rooting through the FREE boxes on people's lawns and collecting acorns and chestnuts. She swears next time she'll *really* help. I'm worried when that second route does come though. :)


Speaking of Hannah, she's lost her first tooth! I will have a picture soon, but for now, man, are her teeth ever tiny, and really really close together! I'm anxious for when that huge new tooth comes in, it will look like the German Shepperd puppies with the big floppy feet.

Hannah's working on this whole learning-via-referring-to-other-things thing. I made up a calendar for her to see what day we do which activity. Then above that there is a new weekly menu thing (I loathe charts, but after this many years of being laid-back, it appears I need to try running the house like a military ship). So she'll get up and look a the dinner from the night before to figure out what day today is, and then she can look at what activity is on for today. Then she'll look at the clock to figure out how much time she has for cartons before said activity starts. And debate whether she likes what's on tonight's menu. I love watching her sort all this out for herself.

She's recently started 'doing math' as she calls it. This involves getting out her old workbook, just a lined paper book, and writing out the math equations she knows from memory. 8+8=16. 5+5=10 It's great, because it gets her writing more, and working on her numbers. She still has some backwards, and I have shown her how they resemble certain shapes and such to remind her of the correct way. But I know from Leif's similar penchant for writing certain numbers backwards at this age, it will be a long time before it sorts itself out in her head. She has also started asking for Farmer Brown questions again, so I threw some tricky ones at her this week. For example: if Farmer Brown's 2 hens lay one egg a day, how many will they have laid in a week? That is hard stuff for a little kid, but she gets it if you give her enough quiet time to think it through.

She's on the last chapter in the 2nd Harry Potter book, and is very excited to watch the movie next week for my birthday. Leif has just finished the 4th book and is happy to crack the 5th one, which I've told him involves a lot of quidditch.

I bought Leif the new Hockey news magazines and he's now deep in the stats of the teams. Which arenas hold the most, who's attendance was the highest. Who might be on the Olympic teams, why things would be different if you weren't allowed to leave your home state/province to join another team. How hockey players and pro athletes in general are paid more than people who save lives or run our country. Yes, I have to sneak my own agenda in there whenever I can. :) It is great to watch his interest fuel his learning. I think this fall we'll add internet and time zone knowledge to his bag of tricks.

I don't really want to talk about Ivy right now. She thinks not listening and instead running and hiding is funny, as is pulling on our clothes and grabbing our skin, or head-butting you in the face. We're struggling with her right now, but yes, she is still as cute as ever.

We had a big milestone this week. I left the kids. I left the kids overnight. I left them overnight AND I left the island, with no way home in an emergency (I just realised that last part right now!). I did this for the FIRST TIME EVER! 8.5 years people. And you know what?

We were all okay. I think if I dwelled on it I'd have gotten freaked out and upset, but I kept busy as did they, and we were all okay in the morning. How did I keep busy? I visited my dear friends Shona and Ryan, and I grabbed some much-needed time with far-away friends Katie and Jared, who I see very rarely. I sat on the upper ferry deck and just watched the islands go by. I browsed the gift shop. I sat in my fave coffee shop on Main Street and read my latest mystery novel. It was such a bizarre experience. I think it will continue to be weird until they are old enough for it to become normal, to be so un-interrupted so often. But I know by then I will wish they were little. Motherhood, such a mind-fuck huh?

And while I was in Vancouver I found vintage Hallowe'en reproductions. Yeah baby.




Kisses

C

There's nothing as nice . . . (Week 5)

. . . as Women's Hockey on ice.


Okay, well, it doesn't exactly sound right, but the sentiment is 100%. This week I took the kids to see the Canadian Olympic Women's Hockey team play the USA team. It was the kids first hockey game ever, and I purposely chose women's hockey a)because they are good and b)they are also about skill not fighting. And as they grow up, they'll see how shamefully little is ever mentioned of women's success in this male-dominated sport (heck all sports are dominated by men, as is their coverage and financial backing) so it seems fitting to start them off with some knowledge of how women's physical skills are equally awesome. And it was indeed awesome! Our goalie Ms. St. Pierre was incredible. Leif was in awe of how well the defended the net, one goal out of 49 shots on goal. Hannah had a harder time focusing on the game itself, and instead worked her way through a box of cookies, a tub of popcorn and some licorice, and then took pictures of her surroundings. Way to be, sister!



Speaking of hockey, this week we had our own little celebrity visit. My Dad came over for the day, and I've told the kids often of his former role as their Uncle Ashley's hockey coach. I even have pictures. So when they heard he was arriving, they suited up for some street hockey and got some pointers from the Man himself.

First a little one-on-one . . .



then some help for Ivy . . .



and finally, some shots on goal for Mr. Khabibulin . .



Although Hannah did not take a shot to the teeth, she does have her first loose tooth. Woohoooo! A great milestone is approaching (and how about that segway?). She is having a hard time with it, because the tooth is indeed loose, but it is nowhere near ready to fall out yet. So it really hurts and bleeds when she forgets and eats with it. This prompted a discussion of how much we actually use those front teeth, and how hard it is to function without them. Then I challenged her to try doing things without her thumbs, and we discussed how our bodies are made up of so many function-specific parts, and without them it can be a real struggle to learn to work without them. But it can be done young Jedi.

Speaking of Hannah and food, we did a cool little activity this week. I've been thinking about her struggle with not liking what we're having for dinner, and eating the same few things again and again. While I do not want to frame food and nourishment in terms of proteins and veg/fruit, I did need a way to convey the importance of variety and balance. Things like food pyramids are, in my opinion, useless and unrelated to real life. A pyramid? Come on. Now a rainbow, that I can get into. I've always taught them that everything needs the Sun. Our weather, the plants, and our bodies. We set our rhythms by the Sun, and just like the plants and animals, we need to eat the Sun. Plants and animals grow from the sun, and when we eat them we're eating that life energy that everything needs. So we drew a rainbow together and discussed how some parts are bigger than others. That the red is bigger than the blue, for example. And that symbolises how much we need of one thing versus another. Red=veggies, orange=fruits, yellow=protein, green=grains, blue=treats and violet=love. She drew herself in the middle, and the love others feel for her was the big violet arc around her body. Then she listed off foods she liked and I wrote them in the appropriate colour. After awhile she remarked that she seemed to have lots of things in some areas (blue and orange) and not so much in others (red and yellow). So we decided to work on those, to try new foods and things that might fit in those areas that are lacking. I think it was a pretty cool learning tool.



Do you know what happens when you blast the K'Naan around here? Things get loud and crazy.








We worked on a great fall craft this week. Chestnut spiders and webs. Here are pictures of mine and Hannah's. Leif was trying out different ways of doing his and it's still 'in production'. They look really neat and were very meditative to create. I just may make some more.





xoxo

C

"Boys and girls of every age . . . (Week 4)

. . would you like to see something strange? Come with us and you will see, in our town of Hallowe'en!"

Yes, it is here, the most wonderful time of the year (and we don't mean Christmas.) For me, it is fall and winter in it's entirety (though mosty fall). For the kids, it's Hallowe'en.

First, some context. Leif saw Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas when he was 4.5 (yes, we kept him away from any tv for all those years only to then show him the scariest stuff we could fine. Nice.) He loved it. He asked me to sing him the main song every day. I finaly had to print out the lyrics and teach it to him. Here is how the original goes.

And here is my dear boy, at 4.5, by his request making a movie of this song, with some help from the always sweet baby Hannah, then just-turned 2. Oh man, seeing it 4 years later is a heart-breaker.



Now they are both trying to teach Ivy. And so, we get pretty excited about Hallowe'en around here. Observe the clan in their new pj's on Sept 30th:



On Oct 1 the decorations went up, stage 1.



Stage 2, the outside, consisting of skeletons, tombstones and cobwebs, will be set in motion next week, if I can stall them that long. I managed to keep the nature table in a more fall-like theme, though even Ivy's plastic owl got a black-bat garland around his neck.



And talk about timing!! Guess what spooky lego parcel arrived in the mail this week? Leif's long-awaited eBay win, the Harry Potter's Sirius Black's Escape from Azkaban set.



True, capturing the essence of Gary Oldman as Sirius black is a real tough one when using the flat round head of a lego guy. But still, when I look at the silly yellow lego guy with long black hair, I see this in my mind. Works for me.

As promised, here are some shots of their pottery from Japanese Art class. They made these cool boxes with grasses pressed into the clay to make imprints:



They made wide vases with a base they'd turned on the wheel. It has a narrow opening at the top.



And here is a shot of some plates and fantasy animals they made. Imagine four-times this stuff and you get an idea of how much pottery is now all around our house.



Hannah has also been playing with beach finds with her Grandma. Here is her own beach art thing:



This week Leif got in his first game on his new team, a big deal around here. He plays for Gordon Head SC, which is the club headed up by his coach of the past 4 years. He's taken soccer classes from Steph since he was 3.5 and when it was time to move on to a team I wanted that continuity of teaching style, and Gordon Head agreed to let us into their club even though we live out of the catchment. He now has two great coaches who really know their stuff (one is a former National Coach) and he is ready to meet this next challenge in life.

Hannah is also back at soccer, and she too is being taught by Steph. She joined his classes when she was 3.5 and is now enjoying her spot in a class all on her own, as Leif has moved out of this group. It is all hers and she's loving it. She still stretches her bright orange soccer socks right up to her thighs and wears matching orange shorts. Her skill is really improving, she is now in a place where she understands the point of the game, to pass, to control the ball, to aim for the corner of the goal. It is great to watch her begin to master this.

At Wildkids Camp this week we did a community service project readying the community garden for fall, to create great soil for spring planting. We spread bonemeal and an odd tofu by-product all over a huge series of garden beds, then layered straw and wet cardboard on top. We talked about how much it costs, both in money, gas and pollution, to buy food flown in from other countries. That there is a season to each thing we eat, and buying them out of season is not logical when you look at the damage it causes, even though it can be tasty at times. It's hard, but we're working on it. This month we're going to explore what does grow here in the fall (apples!) and how we can get our vitamins in this colder season without buying things flown in from all over the globe. Those New Zealand Kiwi's beckoned, but we bought a bag of apples from BC instead.

The kids are learning so much at Aikido class. I'll explain it a bit more next time, but it involves showing respect for others, for yourself, your Sensei, the dojo . . . and they look very cool in their white Gis. (that's pronounced Gee. Picture young Jedi's).

My habit of reading before I fall asleep has now transferred to the entire family. We all lie in bed together with our various novels, board books and magazines. This is what I rolled over to see last night, in th bed that Ivy and Leif share:



And then later:




We hope your October began on a spooky note.

Love
C

It's all about Spiders (Week 3)

Fall crept in quietly here for us this year. The weather turned gloriously sunny and warm, with chilly mornings and misty nights. We woke up one morning to find huge spiderwebs across windows (outside!) and wooden structures around the house (again, outside). They were very impressive. We noticed the spiders all looked like the same type. Like this:



Some hid out during the day, while others hung out on their webs in the sun. All this activity called for a library trip to grab spider books. I found some on webspinning, on west coast spiders and the like. I'll let you know what we discover. For now we remain fascinated at the sheer width of some of their webs, one stretching all the way across our (now broken) pond. (More on the broken pond later.)

We've fallen headfirst into a great bunch of classes, ranging from gymnastics and soccer to aikido and wilderness camp. It's very busy, but it's also fabulous to have such great opportunities. Since we're talking about spiders, let's talk about rock climbing at wilderness camp. See the connection people? Climbing . . spiders . .

The Boys and Girls club wilderness camp has created a Wildkids program for us homeschoolers. It is way, WAY awesome, and I am impressed each week at what we get up to with great instructors who's goal is to support you in challenging yourself, without overdoing it and becoming afraid. This week was all about the 4-sided climbing tower. Check out Ms. Hannah:



If you recall from a summer entry, Hannah was not comfortable going higher than about 12 feet. Fine. So here she pushes herself, egged on solely by her own mastery of this wall. Once she got high enough to look down at me, she realised how high she actually was, and decided to stop there. I moved on to help support the next child up, being on the ropes (belay?) while they climbed. Then another parent comes over and says I might want to come check out Hannah. Here's where I found her, the little spider:



Dudes!! Do you see her little face up there in the middle? She's way up on a free-standing tower, that she's scrambled up on her own. She sat up there for about half an hour, as other kids climbed up, or attempted to, to join her.

Meanwhile, the original monkey boy was focused on taking the tower and going right over. His first climb he was playing it safe, testing the feelings, going about 3/4 of the way up and coming down again. Then before I knew it I found him up here:



From there, he tried it all. The free-standing tower:



And the tricky 'caterpillar' climb. It swings and twists people!



Pretty cool huh?

You know what else is cool? Notes written by little kids. Oh, wait, The pottery. Okay, so we finally picked up the amazing pottery the kids made at Japanese Art class. I brought 5 loads of it out to the car at pick-up time. I'll post more pics soon. Hannah made a gorgeous green tray/plate thing. I tod her how much I liked it and she replied that I could have it as green was her least favorite colour right now. (Pssst! Her birthday cake was her chosen colour, green!). So she put this down while I was brushing my teeth, with a note:



That IS exactly how my name sounds, right? Now note-writing is our new thing. I ask her regularily, "Can you write that down for me? It'll help me remember". We recently re-organised our bedroom, so their beds were on either side of ours, and I worried that late-night Kit would bang his foot in the dark, being unaware of the changes. So I employed our young scribe to pen him a wee memo.



Her current frustration is that she keeps running out of room to finish her statements, so I've begun drawing lines on big sheets of paper, telling her to write right on them, so she has enough space. Her latest note is an epic hung in the yard out back reminding people not to step on her bulbs she plans to plant with Kit soon.

When Leif surfaces from his Harry Potter reading, he draws pictures about, you guessed it, Harry Potter. Here's a quidditch match:



He's plowing through the first 'big' book, book number 4. It's real thick folks. He carries it with him everywhere, in case a chance to read comes up. I enjoyed the series as an adult, and think it'd be so cool to be reading it as a kid. We've talked about how Harry is ageing in each book, so the things he thinks about will be more mature than where Leif is necessarily at, as he's not ageing at such a fast rate. (He kisses Ginny in book 6 people!). And yet, while I feared this exposure at first, I've thought on it some more. In terms of material, this is fairly safe stuff, given the context (the viewpoint of the 'good guy'). Further, he knows about people loving each other because he lives with his parents. He sees us kiss and hug all the time, and it gives him context, again. Reading about love won't suddenly catapult him into a state of pre-teen fervor over girls. And it may actually be a good thing to learn about it in this way. So I'm happy now.

Hannah is still plowing away at Book 2. The plan has been agreed upon that for my birthday we'll watch the second HP movie, so Hannah has approx 4 weeks to catch up on this one. Nothing like a good chalenge with a great reward at the end. We may even manage to talk the grandparents into having us over to watch it on the big screen (wink wink nudge nudge). Woohooo!

And how is Ivy you ask? She's had a busy week. She was rescued from the mouth of a giant salmon: (or is it a trout?)



And then came home to rock out on the drums with hair like a spent dandelion. Be still my heart.



Kisses

C

Sunrises and spells (Week 2)

I am very familiar with sunrises this week. I’ve seen one every day. Here’s the story. I’ve been struggling with sleep and mood issues these past many months, and the past month I’ve been waking up at 4:30 am for no reason, and can never get back to sleep. I’ve been reading lots of books and websites to learn more (who knew there was a deep limbic system?) and create my own plan to get better. It’s a combo of daily exercise plus specific supplements and some dietary changes. This all happened at the same time as a friend told me about a fun contest she and others are doing. It’s called Commit To Get Fit. You do a series of fitness tests (push-ups, sit-ups) go home and work out, and then three months later you do them again, and compare the numbers to see how ‘fit’ you got. I love a physical challenge, as you know, and it fits in with my need for daily exertion. So I joined and worked out how I’d do this. My plan was to get up at 6:30, do weights and then walk for an hour. As it turns out, since I can never sleep past 4:30, I don’t need my alarm. My weights are done by 5:30 and I head out in the dark. By the time I reach the top of the hill 25 minutes later, the sky is a glorious orange, the Olympic Peninsula in silhouette across the water. It is beautiful. I get home while the house is still asleep with a smile on my face. I dream of more sleep.

A friend of a friend had a slightly busted and very scratched iPod to pass on, and since I’ve yet to dive into this side of technology, it ended up in my hands. It is exactly what I’ve needed! I don’t listen to music on it, I listen to podcasts from CBC and unschooling radio shows. I take it on my morning walks and listen to The House (politics), Quirks and Quarks, Wire Tap, Q, comedy stuff, Vinyl Cafe and Humans Being. It is the perfect thing for a solo moment, when I can connect to my own interests on my own schedule. Yay for the generosity of strangers.

I also found something to bring some more balance into my life. I signed up for piano lessons. I've fiddled with it ever since I was a kid, but I’ve never been able to find lessons that were geared towards a by-ear-player like myself, but through a series of coincidences I found one just last week. I have homework and am being challenged by the practicing. It is a perfect me-time activity, because it’s not too long a commitment (1 hour a week for 8 weeks) and it’s something I can work on with the kids around. Things are looking up.

Alright already, on to the kids.

Hannah searched our weed-ridden front yard for a 4-leaf clover. She found one.



We’ve always told the kids that (besides Star Wars) any great movie started out as an even better book. And they’d need to read said book before they could see the movies. Yes, we dropped the ball there on the Narnia series. They were so not into the books, and then the movie came out and it was so good! But, we held firm with our next challenge, Harry Potter, and we have success! We read the first book out loud together and then got the movie. They loved it. They watched it 6 times in one weekend. Then they asked about the next movie, and I pointed to the next book. Leif had finished his Geronimo Stilton series by then (he read all 32 books this summer!) and started to read the second Harry Potter on his own. He has now moved on to the third book, waiting while we read it out loud to Hannah so they can watch the movie together. This new storyline has spawned many a wand-making session, choosing fallen branches and painting them, gluing shells to them, duct-taping them back together after a particularly harsh magic session. Leif has created the perfect dementor costume and hannah has discovered a pair of glasses that complete her Harry Potter look. She wears Kit’s old cub scout belt with the little leather pouch, where she carries her crystals. A backpack with flashlight, notebook, pencil, gold coins and her wand, she runs through the house yelling “Expecto Petronum!”. Here is Leif as Professor Quirrel:





I took Leif on eBay.ca to search for old Harry Potter Lego. We found a set in the 2nd hand shop years back and now he wants more. We had lots of chats about how eBay and auctions work, about factoring in shipping, and my own sure-fire tactics for winning something. Early one morning he found a set he hadn’t seen before, we discussed what he was willing to pay for it, how much it would cost to get here. When the auction was in its final minutes, we threw down our bid and won. He ran through the house waking everyone up with his news. Now he asks me every day “When will it get here?”.

The kids have been doing experiments in the freezer. They fill cups or containers with water, and try to catch them when they’ve started to freeze, but are not yet solid in the middle. Then they sink Lego guys into the centre, let it freeze, and then add more water to seal them in. The freezer is now full of little Lego skeletons and storm troopers looking out at me from their icy graves. It’s cool and creepy, and certainly adds some flair to an otherwise blah freezer decor.

We took in a few relaxing days in Tofino this week (pics to follow). Kit’s parents have found a nice house to rent on the beach that can fit all of us. We did puzzles, Kit tried his hand surfing and Leif and Hannah spent hour racing back and forth in a big tide pool on their boogie boards. They dug canals and built sandcastles. It was great. Leif and I had to leave early to get back for a class he had the next day. As we headed out along the winding hwy road, we talked about how he’d gotten so carsick on the trip up, because the last 2+ hours are nothing but winding roads. It’s rough for him. As we drove along the dark and deserted hwy he asked why was the road so wind-y? Why did they not just put it in straight? And why are all these mountains so pointy? So we talked about geological shift and how the earth’s surface is made up of plates. He’s heard this before, but now it has a practical application. That when the plates come together and buckle, you get mountains. How you can see long mountain chains on a map, and roads need to find the flat valleys between the mountains to travel along. So the earth’s shifting makes you carsick.

And a black bear walked across the road in front of our car, which was way cool.

Here’s the jellyfish I mentioned earlier. We saw lots in Tofino as well. I’ve found a great site called The JellieZone (love it!) but I can’t find this guy:



But from the little I read online, Jellyfish are amazing creatures! Hopefully we'll find time to learn more about them.


Hannah loves watching tv. We don’t have cable, but she gets a regular supply of dvd’s from the library. At first I picked stuff for them, because I’m a snob about good movies for kids. There’s so much crap out there. But once we exhausted my choices, and she still wanted to watch, I realised I had to let go. And now she’s discovering not every dvd is a good dvd. But she still wants to watch it. She’s a champion zone-out-er, and if I don’t pull her off it she’ll watch all day. After a marathon morning of tv, she was sad, hungry and bored. We talked about how tv does this to you, that too much can just mush your brain, and make you frustrated with life when it’s turned off. It’s just the first step, but then we can refer to that concept the next time she’s on tv overload. She’s more receptive to shutting it off now.


Hannah has discovered a style of book she likes to look at. We’ve been watching the fabulous movies of Hiyao Miyazaki for the past few weeks. They are amazing stories, some way violent, some not, all about the spirit and the soul, with strong male and female heroines. We’ve since discovered that his books are at our library. They are comic-style, and since Hannah’s seen the movie she can tell what’s happening in the story. They read right to left, which Hannah is proud to explain to others.


Leif stayed up with Kit and I to watch a great film by Michael Franti, “I Know I’m Not Alone”.
The kids are familiar with his music and his band Spearhead. We play his albums a lot and have been to many of his shows with them. Leif was interested in why he travelled to Baghdad and Gaza, and asked the obvious questions as he listened to Michael talk to the soldiers and the people. “Why are the soldiers still in Iraq if they’ve done what the people wanted? How can they not have electricity? Why don’t they stop building that wall? Why do they think Palestinians are bad? Why does Canada side with Isreal when they are being so mean to the Palestinians?”. Yeah, we had to get into suicide bombers and Allah. I think coming from an atheist family it is hard to grasp the idea of faith in a God, especially to such extremes. A big topic for a little dude.


And here's something you don't see on your front steps every day:



Yes, when we have so much on the go, we've started project #200, ripping up the front walk to fix a crack in the foundation. Man was it loud. That's Kit in the machine. He bought a Bobcat in the spring, as his jobs are getting that big. He does beautiful work, although it's loud and makes a huge mess at first. If you come by, use the back door.

C