Choices

I'm sharing today. Another homeschooling mom, whose blog I try to frequent, recently shared a link that I would in turn like to share here. The article, "giving choices and setting boundaries", could be the written instruction booklet for how we've tried to approach parenting at our house. I was glad to find that we are in good company, and that someone has done the work of writing it down so eloquently. After almost five years (five!) we have found the philosophy of offering choices instead of demands to work very well, not because it leads to good behavior, but because it provides a sense of, and an ability for, independence. In the end that sense of individuality breeds self respect, which is what the rest of the world rather degradingly calls good behavior. It's a matter of perspective, or so my son tells me.

There was no rain today. None! We spent the morning on swimming, library, and a few other chores, but the afternoon we spent in the garden and then in the house with books and Legos, the windows open, the breeze blowing through, bringing the smells and sounds of a beautiful late spring day.

Just like breathing

Last night I wanted to be able to say something special about Mother's Day. I sat down to do that before I went to bed and got started several times only to stop and delete everything. The truth is, I still feel a bit like a phony when I'm being celebrated on Mother's Day. Maybe that's due to my relative newness on the job (I've only been performing those duties for about five years now to my mom's 34), or maybe I'm just still skittish of the job title. If someone asked me about myself I'm not sure "mother" would be the first descriptor out of my mouth. I consider myself so many other things besides, so many other things that require work and dedication, like being a runner, or a reader, or a seamstress (because sewer definitely isn't right), or a cook. Which is not to say that being a mother isn't a matter of dedication and work, but motherhood was a choice I made those five years ago and now it is simply a part of me. It is like breathing. Maybe I feel funny about celebrating my motherhood the way I would feel funny about celebrating my breathing. Each breath is joyous, each day as a mother is joyous. To look at it any other way would be folly.

So that was yesterday. It was a beautiful, warmish, sunny day. We cleaned up and relaxed, we went to the store. My boys gave me a really special present (Proust, third edition uniform 12 volume set, 1949) and some really sweet cards. We had our own mothers over and my aunt and we all celebrated motherhood together. And breathing, too, because the spring air was so fresh and sweet it would be just the day to celebrate something like breathing.

And today I woke up and I was still breathing and I was still a mother, and both were precious. Even as we did laundry and shelved books at the library. Even as we watered new plants and cleaned up the yard. Even as we sat outside in the still vibrant sun reading our own books separately, and then the Aeneid together. Especially as we walked to the mailbox pretending to sidestep the Harpies (robins) and to run from the Cyclops (tall pines) only to be blown to Carthage (the park) in a violent storm summoned by Juno. Yes, especially then it was all precious. See? Just like breathing.

"Giza has three major pyramids"

I try to leave Fridays chore free, heavy cooking free, and errand free, allowing us to stay in and enjoy pajamas, books, or whatever sounds good at the time. I enjoyed my own book, Calvin enjoyed his Playmobil guys for a while, and when we got bored with the quiet we turned on the radio and embarked on more exploration. Pyramids. Yesterday we read about modern Egypt and ancient Egypt and compared them then I gave him his choice of study and this is what he chose. So today we read about them and decided to build one out of Legos. There's definitely some math involved in pyramids, of course.We used some of that, and a good amount of imagination.

And when we'd finished one, he informed me that "Giza has three major pyramids," and we kept going.

And then there had to be camels, too.

And to complete the setup, he says, the Pyramids will each need their copy of The Book of the Dead, so he started making scrolls to roll up and place inside them.

And as I built pyramids, read books out loud, and watched him make his scroll from over the top of my own book, I was lost in thought and some further misgivings about yesterday's death conversation. I am torn here between following the path of his interest, and being concerned about a loss of sensitivity regarding death and loss. I am still mulling this over. And over and over. Am I over-thinking it? I'm sure, but I have a strong desire to stash the pyramids somewhere and turn to discussions of hippos, camels, crocodiles, and cuisine in Egypt, leaving death far behind. To follow, or to gently direct? I cannot decide.

Too soon, too soon

We finally went to Egypt today. After we practiced piano, read some Oz, straightened some things around the house, went to story time, shelved in the library sale room, exercised, had lunch, and made dinner (for the crockpot), we finally entered Egypt. And in so doing talked about the difference between ancient and modern. Then we read some of the myths or stories of Ancient Egypt. Then we talked about the pryamids and about mummies. And you know what? That's actually a lot of talk about death. Mummies are dead, and all those ancient people are dead, and Seth actually murdered Osiris. Sometimes I plan things through very carefully...and then miss the forest for the trees, as I found out later in the day.

It was a good day here, and I don't mind dark and rainy days, but by evening the rain was snow again and the temperatures were falling. I look towards the spring flowers still adorning our table after our weekend party (which failed to actually summon spring) to keep my spirits up, but I miss last night's fog. Fog is mysterious and allows you to believe you are anywhere on earth. Anywhere, because suddenly you have no neighbors. Plus it reminds you that the air is warm enough to hold moisture, and the melting snow is filling it to the gills (ha ha).

Late in the day, after some extra cleaning and finally shrinking our table back to size after the dinner party, I checked on Calvin, who was in the other room after having finished his own chores of emptying the trashes (tomorrow is garbage day) and feeding the pets. He was "writing" a story as part of his "acting out a story" (how he refers to all of his play acting or pretending) about a cat who had been killed. The people who loved the cat very much didn't know what had happened and he was writing a sort of memoir so that they would, and so that the cat could be remembered.

Clearly he is thinking deeply now about death, and his story is reminiscent of one we (very mistakenly) saw on a video about rhinos last week, when three of the rhinos were tragically killed by poachers (and if I had known that was part of the video rated for kids his age I would never in a million years have borrowed it from the library as part of our Africa exploration). We talked about this cat, the circumstances of his death, and about the people who loved him, for quite some time. Calvin was clearly sad, affected. I was horrified.

He is working through some things that definitely bothered him, and now I have to worry that I have erred irreversibly. Would talking about death with regard to Egyptology have been so bad if it was not coming immediately after that oops of a video about rhinos? Would the video about rhinos have been given a second thought if it had not been followed up by talk of mummies? My instinct tells me that regardless this is healthy development—finding a way to work through an upsetting issue by "writing" about it, something he used to do by "interacting" with his imaginary friend, Mouse. But my heart tells me it is broken. Is he not too young to have to work through such misfortunes? I cannot protect him forever, but wouldn't it have been okay at least until he was five?

Halloween only comes three times a year

(find instructions here)

We spent an inordinate amount of time creating Calvin's costume this year, and he'd been so excited about being a train that I decided to make this once annual event last a bit longer. Dexter had their annual downtown costume parade and trick-or-treat on Friday so we traipsed through town collecting candy from our favorite local businesses and workers.

On Saturday Kerrytown had trick-or-treating at the Farmers market, along with free donuts and cider, so Calvin got a second chance to done his beloved train costume. My favorite part of the event was hearing him describe the costume to all the questioning onlookers (of which there were many). The second best part of the event was the occasional booth that was handing out real goodies—apples, dried corn, or gourds instead of candy.

And of course, then there was Halloween. Jon's parents and sister came to enjoy the evening with us, his mother sporting pumpkin orange and Ann the good witch in white, and we all took turns carting the railroad crossing signs on our forays into the neighborhood. The longer that we've been in this house the more we get to know our neighbors, and that makes Halloween exponentially more fun—we know them, they know Calvin, it's a good time.

 With all that Halloween one might be concerned about a major sugar high. What exactly will this do to our healthy diets? Like last year we offered Calvin the opportunity to trade in any of the candy he collected for a quarter per piece—money that he could use to buy any item he chose. On Thursday, after his trip through Dexter, he decided to eat one piece of candy after lunch and traded the rest in for money. I wondered if after that first taste the decision might be a tougher one, but actually the one piece of Kit Kat he had was apparently enough—he traded in all the rest of the candy which we handed back out to our neighbors. At a price of $25 (the total he accrued) it was probably the most expensive Halloween candy we've ever bought, but I figure we paid a premium to keep the household sugar intake down, and to give Calvin a chance to make good choices with lasting outcomes.