Wacky Washington Weather

Today we had a friend and her toddler over for lunch. (after I hid from her of course, in the bathroom. I'm shy.) We were happy when the weather cleared a bit and the sun broke through, as her son hadn't seen our back yard before and was literally jumping at the chance to play out there. We finished out the playdate with some yummy coffee and then they made their way home.

My kids decompressed, ~D~ with a nap and the big ones with some game time. Then the big ones went outside to ride bikes. I was chatting online with Niki when ~N~ came pounding in, "It's snowing!!!!!!" It had been 44 degrees and sunny (and is again as I write this), but when I glanced outside it was SNOWING. We're talking grey-air, huge flakes of driving, wind-blown blizzard SNOW. Not a bit of it stuck to anything. I got COLD just standing out there, despite wearing boots and a leather jacket so I went inside to get gear for the kids, who had been in light sweaters.

Instantaneously, toddler-D woke up so I bundled him and ran outside to document it. It was already subsiding, but on the video you might be able to see G's wet hair, plastered to her head by how hard it had been coming down. The sidewalks were wet, and it hadn't rained today. When I checked inside, it had dropped to 36-- you can hear on the video how hard the wind was blowing. ~D~decided abruptly that he no longer wanted to be outside and you can see that as well.....

No I don't liiiiiiiike it!!!!!

N's new treads

Canvas clogs from Darling Shoes. I'd ordered one pair for each othe the big kids for just this purpose, but they hosed us and only sent G's. G never liked them so now they fit N, who does like them.

We are Four. We must have flame-breathing dragons adorn our shoes.

Reading to D-baby

While it is an established Montessori task to polish one's shoes, I am not sure it is supposed to include the bottom of the boot.....




And for preface to this sweet little video, click here:

Home and Garden Day

Today P-daddy stayed home with the kidlets while I roamed into Tacoma. I desperately needed some alone, productive alone time. I did the Costco run, drove down to Pacific and had some fantastic lunch in a place I'd never take the children, and picked up some homeschool supplies on stupid sale at The Learning Sprout. Alone. And I even drank wine. No one whined, pulled on me, screeched or otherwise behaved inhumanely. I always found a parking place and it was just .....nice. Lunch was divine.

With our pitiful (compared to cheffin' years past) rebate from Costco, I bought a pressure cooker there that is just like the Brazilian Goddess' . I was totally sold on it the day we had dinner at her house.... beans and rice... and thebeans took 40 minutes, dried to cooked. FORTY MINUTES. Meet our new baby:
Did I mention bag to table in 40 minutes? Yes. 40 minutes.


Anyway, while he stayed home, P-daddy baked three loaves of bread:


And when I got home, G threw some pottery on her new wheel. I love how her hands are shaped in these pictures:




Nice homey day. I even took Paul's black car through the car wash... turns out it's WHITE!

Beautiful Picture

from an Oregon midwife's page..... (see link)

Cookie Mistress

I have it on excellent authority that I am the bestest cookie maker in the world.

Ahem.

And that I make the house smell good with my perfume.

Stick that in your cookie-makin' bonnet!

My kids are winning

They're far ahead of me. While I have only planted two fruit trees, they have cultivated their individual garden plots, planted some vegetables AND planted ornamental pansies around them. They have nice, neat little garden areas around their play house-- which they have used all year only to store their gardening tools-- and now G wants more land to plant MORE STUFF!

I

love

this.


G even paid for her own starts. She had some money burning a hole in her pocket. I was quite leary of giving into her dipping into her piggy bank, but she said "MOM! You KNOW how much I love to garden. I neeeeeeeeed a plant!" When we went to home depot and told her what the pansies cost, she brought home six of them. Hog. Heaven.

My Mountain Pic

memed from Jubilant Tulip



What does your drawing say about YOU?

The results of my analysis say:

Your friends and associates should generally find you a dependable and trustworthy person.
You are a thoughtful and cautious person. You like to think about your method, seeking to pursue your goal in the most effective way.
You are creative, mentally active and industrious.
You have a sunny, cheerful disposition

Costcolina Regained

Costco has Annie's! I am so happy. I had the misfortune of discovering how delicious Annie's actually is when we moved to Washington and discovered that the disgusting Kraft mac n cheese my dh subjected my happily obliging children to was no longer "inexpensive." I am deep-fried Southern, and macaroni and cheese is a melty, oozing casserole you slather on your teeming plates every Sunday. NOT the crap in the box. Kraft offended me on many levels. With Annie's, P-daddy had boxed convenience, the kids had "bunny butts" and I had fast food that didn't make me want to hurl. Win-win-win.

Anyway, back to Washington state, where the Costco in Federal Way was always so packed that I well, gave up on Costco altogether. For those who knew me in Charleston, it was a blow to hear me say "Costco sucks," because I clearly meant it. In Charleston, I was a personal chef with an executive membership, and I never paid for a membership renewal until 2006. When Costco launched Charleston, they gave everyone a free year's membership. I paid for the upgrade, but given the nature of my business, the Costco reward I received every year paid for the next year's membership. Sweet!

It was Christmastime and I was heavily pregnant, in a dark Washington winter for the first three weeks we lived in WA state. We needed food. We needed to restock everything we'd left behind to move across country. For me, that meant Costco. Every day, all day, the Federal Way Costco is a quagmire of rude, mentally stunted people who don't know how to park or yield. The parking lot itself was a steep hill, so the grade made it difficult-to-dangerous for a pregnant woman and two toddlers to navigate with an atomic-butt-ton of food and supplies for an empty house. It was like the Charleston Costco on Saturday noon, but here it was every hour of every day. On a steep grade.

After a few of these escapades, I forsook Costco. I found delicious specialty stores and a warehouse called Winco, which basically is run like a groceries-only Costco. Between the two of these, life regained some rhthym, just without including Costco.

Move forward again to moving into the house we purchased. Here, we get our milk, eggs, honey, vegetables and meat from farms and butchers, but I still need staples like coffee, pasta, rice, canned items and cleaning supplies. Now, I am 45 minutes away from the closest Winco, but only 25 minutes from the two closest Costcos, 30 from the Business Costco we discovered in Fife. I have had to retrain my eye to my Costco love, but at least these are normal stores. Still busy, but nothing cracked out like the Federal Way store. While I miss my specialty cheese, and Costco doesn't really give me that, it does afford me the luxury of avoiding grocery stores altogether, which is worthwhile.

Removed from Winco, one of the only things I have been crabbing about (and this is in my head mostly because it is embarassing) has been missing Annie's. I prefer my own casserole dish, but the kids liek the boxed stuff and I simply won't buy the Kraft. Can't do it. But now I pay something like 1.79 for a box, IF I find it on sale. At Winco, it's regularly .99 to 1.29 depending on the variety. I felt sort of bad buying the giant Costco box, because at .58 there would be NO competition for the specialty grocers who carry Annie's. I proactively regretted the lack of the delicious varieties the company offers, because surely no one would buy them now that this was available.

Holy Hell.

Annie's is good. Real good.

The "blue box," they're calling it, as a direct competitor to Kraft. It is organic, but it tastes just like Kraft. Oh spelunk-yuck. I mean, really. Foulness. The kids, of course, love it, but I of course, think it is foul.

So in a stroke of marketing genius, Annie's has reached for the palate of and successfully sold to the masses with their blue box: organic on the cheap. Meanwhile, they have protected their specialty market labels and ensured that people like me will continue to pay the 1.79 per box. Unless it's not on sale.

Speaking of new digs

Dalicious finally updated!

Like the new digs?

:)

Niki's Voice

Niki has the coolest, most grown-up voice.

She could be a radio newscaster or read books on tape.

She needs to make tapes for her babymakin' clients.

Raising a Reader

My dd will tell you -- any random you-- that she can't read. It's embarassing, if I want to be honest about it, because she's whipsmart in every other way. Her spoken vocabulary is amazing and certainly, she's adept at conversation on a very mature level. So when she says to someone "I can't read or write," which she sometimes does, it mortifies me.

In my opinion, she can read and write. Most of the blog readers have seen her writing, both forming the letters on the page and generating stories. She does read as well, but she does not have a good written vocabulary. Explaining this to her in kiddie terms is becoming increasingly more frustrating, because it is a distinction she seems to wholly reject..

"You can read, you just need to learn more words," I tell her.

"I can't read. Bailee can read books, I can't read books, because I don't know what those words are." she replies, agitated and stubborn in her fear that maybe she can't get it.

'Honey," I say, writing a note, "What does this say?"

Giggle. "Candy is yummy!"

"That's right. What did you write here?"

Big smile. "Happy Birthday Daddy!"

"What is reading?" I ask her then, feigning utmost confusion about the matter.

"Well," she explains, "It's where you see words and know what they mean."

"So did you read my note?"

"Yes! But I can't read"

and on and on.....


So yesterday, we did a word building exercise, South Sound style. Together, G and I cut up two issues of a magazine featuring the lifestyle of our area, so that the images we retrieved were sure to include icons the kids know intimately. We made cards with the pictures (a la Montessori) and the printed name for the item in the picture. Some were straightforward: Mt. Rainier, Apples, Grapes. Some were funny to her: Panties, Messy Room. It was fun for both of us to work together on a little project like that.




Then we took those cards and made silly sentences with them, using our existing word building cards from k12. G liked this exercise for a while but burned out when she'd get to k12 cards she didn't know; it had been about an hour and a half on the whole project by that point. When she's no longer willing to sound words out, I know it's time to stop.

I feel like I am no longer teaching her how to read, so much as I am teaching her to accept that she can. She's by no means proficient at it, but she does know many words by sight and can usually sound out the rest of them. The next leap of faith on her part-- the synthesis of sounds into actual words, and then the comprehension -- that is all that is required.

May 14th Revisited

I am so happy my friend could

come visit us and inhabit our lives
for a little while.

OOO OOO OOO A new one!

This blog entry is just for ~A~, whose face I immediately imagined, twisting into "WTF?" as I read this page (linked above.)

Seattle's new tagline is metronatural. MWHAHAHAHAHAHA.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I wish I had thought to call her first just to read it to her. I am surprised she hasn't blogged it yet. Unless the convention bureau is hiding its new slogan from her.





I have a sentence! "The residents of pugetopolis enjoy the metronatural lifestyle it affords....."

I am glad for the first time she fears the bridge, or she might actually cross it to kick my ass over this one! I swear to God, ~A~, I am not making these things up. They're just OUT THERE! (but I promise I won't embrace this one because I too, think it's a little weird.)

Where we're going this morning

http://kitsapart.com/

Both N and G will be involved in this one, so we'll see how they like it!

Musings on dh

Ever since the storms and some personal house-clearing, I've been focussed on our house. Whatever lazy-blocks have been there are gone now, and it's been cool. The dishes get done, the laundry gets cycled, and it doesn't always feel like such a chore. I know this is how other people live-- just do it!-- but it's new to me.

So anyway, P-Daddy has been out of town a lot because of a special assignment with his job. Even though he comes home at night most of the time, he commutes 2 hours each way when he is in Aberdeen and he's fairly useless when he is home--snappy, fatigued, cranky as hell with me especially. It's put a strain on the family in a pretty noticeable way, as it has been going on now since October. The neighbors are getting divorced, and now our kids have asked us if we are getting divorced too, since Daddy doesn't really live with us anymore. That kind of strain. Beautifully, only D-meister seems oblivious. Friday when P-Daddy came home, D stretched up
pudgy arms and screeched "Daddy!!!!! Happy now!"

This weekend P-Daddy made a concerted effort to be present and with us, in mind as well as body. We started our pilates-together program (I have never worked out with P-daddy before) . We worked together (gasp! together?) to steam clean the carpet in the entire house and did some more clearing out. When we returned the machine we went for a family drive, exploring Fox Island. There's not all that much to explore frankly, but it is lovely, with beautiful, expansive vistas. We saw a new-to-us totem pole and a nice carved troll, blah blah blah. Lots of family joviality and the like.

As we were heading off the island, it happened. The kids were sucking down Smoothies Daddy had just purchased for them, when N decided he wanted to go to the SuperMall. We said "no way Jose!"

"Why?"

"Because you'd have to drop me off home first, " answered P-daddy. This was agreeable to the children, of course.

"I want to spend time with Daddy while he's home," I told them.

"But why?" N answered, "The kids are the nice ones!"

YOWCH.

I guffawed at first, as did P-daddy, but then he stopped, his face pinching a bit with hurt. I held his hand for a while, a promise to wait out this unfortunate assignment of his.

That afternoon, he played kickball with the kids for a long time and made them a special supper. Today he's back in Aberdeen and will be gone again for two days.







I hate GWB.

Social Graces

I love having friends with whom I can relax.

Of all the bounties in my life, this is one of the most important. We finally have a circle of friends again, and they are kind and trustworthy and loving. I am so grateful for this blessing.

Danny is coming! Danny is coming!! She's been the one to bridge the arc of old and new.

Compulsory schooling is anathema to the American Way

Speaking of a society mainstreamed together by compulsory schooling and the devices (including press, radio, television) that facilitate the formulaic principles of obedience, blind loyalty and the regimentation of time and emotions that we're taught in those schools, John Taylor Gatto wrote:

We cannot grow or mature, like plants in too little flowerpots. We are addicted to dependency; in the current national crisis of maturity we seem to be waiting for the teacher to tell us what to do, but the teacher never comes to do that. Bridges collapse, men and women sleep on the streets, bankers cheat, good will decays, families betray each other, the government lies as a matter of policy--corruption, shame sickness and sensationalism are everywhere. No school has a curriculum to provide the quick fix.

The old Congregationalists would have been able to put their finger at once on the reason pyramidical societies, such as the one our monopoly form of schooling sustains, must always end in apathy and disorganization. At the root they are based on the lie that there is "one right way" in human affairs and the experts can be awarded the permanent direction of the enterprise of education. It is a lie because the changing dynamics of time and situation and locality render expertise irrelevant and obsolote shortly after it is anointed.

Monopoly schooling is the major cause of our loss of national and individual identity. Having institutionalized the division of social classes and acted as an agent of caste, it is repugnant to our founding myths and to the reality of our founding period. It's strength arises from many quartes, the antichild, antifamily stream of history being one-- but it draws it's greatest power from being a natural adjunct to the kind of commercial economy we have that requires permanently dissatisfied customers.

--pp 90-91

I had just written my entry on self sufficiency when I finished Dumbing Us Down. This passage really resonates with me because it captures nicely how I perceive modern day-to-day life. Americans in particular are just so confused about what goals they should be pursuing. Now in the greater scheme of things, I realize it is not up to me to determine what goals a human should set for himself, but I can stand honestly and say that those goals should not culminate in how much of the Target fall line resides in his closet. We're all so distracted by the accumulation and the "bling"--whatever bling means for you, be it fast cars, diamonds, wool yarn or artisan cheese-- that we get lost. The energy for true self-expression, not self expression using the latest fashions and toys, is gone or at best, waylaid.

What happens when the lights go out? The teacher is not coming.

I am proud to be among (and from, by the way) people who look past schooling as a means to education. You can obtain both simultaneously, yes; but more often than not school is perceived as something to be endured. Education is a lifelong process to those who truly value knowledge. A card-carrying Libertarian activist, I am out to protect our civil liberties, but as a well-schooled woman, never before recently would I have ever thought school was out to curtail them. Teachers may encourage you to think, but schools certainly don't want you to think too much. I started homeschooling my children for very different reasons than the ones now sustaining this effort. I hope it's enough.

I need to clarify: I don't think schools are evil. I love schools. I am a nerd. It is compulsory, generalized, rank and file public education that makes me want to implode. The children who don't fit into the boring, sit-down-and-regurgitate-what-I-said-to-you schoolrooms are summarily labeled with ADD or autism. If they don't pony up and trot when they "should," they must have a developmental disorder. It's not the child that's broken! Even the testers will tell you that the intelligence is there, apparent in the child. But those children don't fit in...to the school environment. They certainly find their way among their family, with their friends.... but the school is rigid. The assumption is now that the child must be repaired. I think not.

Gatto suggests the complete privatization of the school system. Give the money being funneled into this gargantuan set of industries -- the schools themselves, the textbook companies, the supplies manufacturers-- into schools that actually service the communities in which they exist. Waldorf, Montessori, Sudbury. Technical, Carpenters-- there are enormous varieties in schools that exist now that could have every child thrive. It can be done, but it's a scary process. And not one I have the leisure to wait for with my own children.

Painting Day

I haven't painted images in a loooooong time.
G's favorite activity for girl's day is to go paint pottery with Mom at Java and Clay. She spent her Christmas money from Gramma Rose on the expedition this time, so of course I had to join in the fun.

This is a 45 dollar plate on sale for 15.00... then all pottery sold in January was 30% off. My cheapskates are very happy indeed.

G's horse made me happy. Check out the shading she has going on here. I love watching her think her way through her art. She's so sure of herself.

The colors, once these pieces are fired, will be much darker and a high gloss. I will post pictures when they come back to us.