All Things Hold Together

Day Two of the TV-Free experiment went pretty well.

I noticed that the kids, especially Bid E and Big D, played together much better than usual. (They both usually play well with Little E, anyway.)

I also noticed that my house was much, much messier than usual because they got into bigger projects than they normally do. I admit that is a good thing, as far as their minds go, but I am going to have to work on the cleaning side of it. I was getting a little irritated at the mess. And believe me, I always have a mess somewhere in this place, so that’s saying something.

Overall, I can already see that this is going to be great for us.

On a side note: here is a picture of a Monarch butterfly that Big E took today.

This morning, Big D got up and went to turn on the TV, like he normally does. But this was not like any ordinary morning.

The picture suddenly broke into horizontal lines with black lines between them. Slowly, the lines of picture got thinner and the lines of black got thicker. And then, the unthinkable…the picture went totally black.

He turned it off and on, but the picture was gone.

Our TV is dead.

It was a good TV. It was 32 inches. It even had AV jacks in the front for convenience. It served us well for about ten years. We spent time with it every day. It was a reliable and fun companion to us all.

We mourn the loss.

For the most part, Not-So-Crafty Daddy and I will not miss it. He only watches “Smallville,” which we watch together, and I watch “Desperate Housewives” on Sundays, but anything else we watch is sporadic. Besides, we have a 13-incher in our room we can use. I already said I would start watching DH in there, so he can play Jedi Academy on the computer out in the family room, while I watch it. (I can’t watch TV with the mouse and keyboard noise in the background.)

The kids, however, have been walking around in circles today trying to figure out what to do. And they are driving us nuts. If it wasn’t for the fact that we had church and they had a soccer game, I think I would have lost it by now.

Not-So-Crafty Daddy said he read in a John Rosemond book that after a week or so of no TV, they will find their imaginations again. We both have felt like they watch way too much TV lately, anyway. And the fact that I was willing to watch “Wife Swap” last week because “7th Heaven” wasn’t on (it moved to Sundays) is a bad sign.

So, we decided not to buy a new TV and see how that works out for a while.

It promises to be an interesting experiment.

Yesterday, I wanted to make soft pretzels with the kids. I went to Family Fun Magazine’s website because they have kid-friendly recipes. I found this recipe and we tried it. The pretzels were delicious. I have no pictures because we ate them as soon as they came out!

Then last night, I went and got the mail. A new issue of Family Fun Magazine had arrived and in it was the pretzel recipe we had just made!

We are going to try it again following the pictures in the magazine and see how they turn out. Theirs were slightly thinner than ours were.

In other kids cooking news, today I made Rice Krispie Treats with Little E. We sprinkled Halloween sprinkles on top to make them more special, although cooking with Little E is special enough on its own.

It was a fun and easy cooking project to do with a little one, but I’m sure big kids would like doing it, too.

Okay, that picture is just too artsy.

The other day, someone visiting my political blog asked me about socialization. To be more exact, he said,

I do have a burning question that I have been meaning to ask. When it comes to homeschooling your kids; how do you ensure they get the social interaction with peers that they would not get in a traditional school system? The reason I ask is I have met kids who are homeschooled and get tremendous educations, but they have the social skills of a houseplant.

I answered by rattling off the list of things they do with other children and pointing out that socializing with mixed ages of children (and even adults), as homeschoolers do, is arguably more beneficial than being sequestered with only a group of same-aged peers all day.

What I didn’t get into is why I do not want my kids socialized by the public school system.

Look, I don’t want to get caught up in railing against the public school system. For the most part, it is counter-productive to foster an us/them mentality, but - and this is a big but - there is much to criticize with the public school system and when it is being held as the standard-bearer against which we must measure our success, then, well, criticize I will.

I had an experience the other day that really drove home for me the major draw-back to public school socialization.

I don’t want to get into it in detail, but basically there are two kids in our neighborhood who have very little supervision. They come over by our apartment and cause trouble with my sons and when I try to talk to them about it, they are very mouthy and disrespectful.

To make matters worse, the other day, I told the boy to stop coming over and causing trouble with my son and the girl started yelling at me, with that head-swiveling attitude that is all the rage these days. As it turned out, her mother had pulled up in her SUV, which emboldened her. The mother immediately started yelling at me that my kids are not so perfect. I agreed and said that’s why I watch them.

I told the mother that she needs to watch her children. She argued that it is my responsibility to come over to her building and get her when there is a problem and I am not to address her brats kids. We went back and forth about whether she should be watching them or I should drop what I am doing and go to her house every time her kids are causing trouble, but she just yelled and swore. I learned that you cannot reason with people like that, especially when she jumped out of her vehicle and threatened to beat me up.

The kids and I went in. I sat them down and talked about what just happened. I apologized for not walking away sooner. I never should have gotten into it with her. I did conduct myself more maturely than she did - I didn’t swear or yell, or make threats - but I did call her a name, in the context of pointing out how low-class it is to swear like that. It was like throwing gasoline on a fire (and it was why she threatened to beat me up, which was a funny way to respond to my charges of being low-class, which needless to say is not the word I used).

I told them that it is important to have experiences with people who act like that because there are people in the world who act like that. I was caught off guard because I thought people like that only existed in high-school, or on the Jerry Springer Show, which I am now convinced is not just acting. I forgot how I should respond - by walking away and not antagonizing - because I have spent the better part of my adult life avoiding situations like that.

That might sound like an endorsement of the public school socialization. The public schools are full of kids who have role models like that woman. In fact, my son was in the same class as her daughter when he was in public school. It is definitely a place where they can gain experience dealing with people like that, but that is not what I recommend

According to Wikipedia, socialization is the process by which human beings or animals learn to adopt the behavior patterns of the community in which they live.

The question then is, where do I want my kids to learn to adopt behavior patterns?

At home, with me guiding them and teaching them how to appropriately handle a bad situation? Or at school, where they are exposed daily to children that are learning their behavior from parents who swear and use violence to solve problems (and in many cases, create the problems) and where they will often have little-to-no adult guidance to help them learn to work through those situations?

I know my answer.

There is a new blog out there called “The Single Guy Cook.”

The blogger, Jeff, is a single guy with lots of questions about cooking and food. He posts the questions and he needs you to post the answers.

This is a chance for all of us cooking mama’s (and daddy’s) to share our knowledge with a hungry man in need.

PHAT Mommy put out the call in this post for homeschoolers to post a day in their lives. Here is a somewhat typical day here at Crafty Mama’s Homeschool.

Monday, October 9, 2006

6:30 a.m. - Alarm goes off. Not-So-Crafty Daddy hits snooze. We go back to sleep.

6:39 a.m. - Repeat.

6:48 a.m. - Alarm goes off, again, but this time we talk for a few minutes. Big D shuts our door, so he can turn on the TV in the living room.

6:59 a.m. - I get up. Go turn on the computer and my cell phone. Look for a notebook to jot down notes today for this post.

7:06 a.m. - Go check on Little E, who slept in underwear last night. The night before was his first time and successful, but this morning he is sleeping later than normal. Big E, who sleeps in the same room, wakes up and comes out to watch TV.

7:24 a.m. - Little E wakes up and is dry!

7:26 a.m. - I go into the bathroom to do a Swish and Swipe (that’s a bathroom cleaning thing) and take a shower.

7:44 a.m. - Put on tea water and go to get dressed.

7:51 a.m. - Make tea and toast and putter around the kitchen while I wait for it.

8:01 a.m. - Log-in to the computer and read the news, while the kids watch PBS.

8:20 a.m. - We say good-bye to Not-So-Crafty-Daddy. I go back to the computer and the kids to the TV.

8:30 a.m. - Begrudgingly shut down the computer and remind the kids that the TV goes off now. Tidy the house and get the kids ready.

8:45 a.m. - Leave to go to our community garden plot across town. Stop for gas along the way and pay $2.22/gallon!

9:08 a.m. - Arrive at the garden. We need to get the site ready for the fall rototilling. We take down the fence that the peas were growing on. We pull up the sunflowers, which are huge. I harvest some carrots, a couple of peppers, and some sage. I also dig up a sage plant to pot at home. The boys and I examine the seeds of the different plants. They think it is funny that the peas we eat are actually the seeds of the pea plant. We decide that we are going to try to grow peas next year from all the seeds we gathered. We also find one whole sunflower head that has all of the seeds intact. We decide to bring it home to try and eat the seeds. We also explore some of the surrounding area when we bring wheel barrows full of plant matter to the compost pile. We discover lots of milk weed, so next year we are going to look for Monarch caterpillars. One of Big E’s friends caught some and they formed chrysalises in the box they were keeping them in. We were checking them out this weekend.

10:10 a.m. - We leave the garden site.

10:34 a.m. - We arrive home, wash up, and change.

10:41 a.m. - Grandma comes over on her way through town. (She lives an hour away from us.)

11:40 a.m. - I make lunch.

12:10 p.m. - Grandma leaves. I read about Christopher Columbus from the Usborne Book of World History while the kids color a Columbus Day picture from About: Homeschooling. Then I get down the globe to show them where Spain, China, and India are and the trade root people used to take. Then I show them where the US is and why Columbus thought that he could travel west to China. We measure how far his route was on his first journey and use the scale on the globe to calculate how many kilometers that is. Then we find an on-line conversion tool to see how many miles that is. Then we look up how many miles it is to my parents-in-law’s house in Massachusetts and to Florida to try and get some perspective on how far Columbus’ journey was.

12:39 p.m. - I have to take a little break to go help Little E poop.

12:47 p.m. - Go on-line to find out what to do with the sunflower head. It measures 9 inches in diameter! We learn that we need to hang it to dry for two weeks or so and the seeds will fall out as it dries. Then we can soak them in salt water over night and toast them in the oven to eat.

12:57 p.m. - Not-So-Crafty Daddy calls on his lunch break. I send the kids to go play.

1:17 p.m. - I get off the phone and decide I needed some quiet time. I tell the kids to go into their separate rooms for quiet time until 2:00. I watch the second half of “Days of Our Lives.” (I do that once a week or so. Usually, I blog during this time, but I need to veg out.)

2:00 p.m. - Big E does math (Switched-on Schoolhouse) on the computer. Big D has to stay in his room for some extra time for being sassy when I told them it was quiet time.

2:24 p.m. - Big E and I start doing “Learning Language Arts through Literature” together. Big D comes out to do math.

2:38 p.m. - I get down on the floor to play with Little E, while Big E finishes Language Arts and D finishes math.

2:45 p.m. - Little E decides that he would rather play alone for now and with Daddy when he gets home. Apparently, I do not play action figures well. I help D with his math and Big E goes into his room to do educational games on his computer. (Not-So-Crafty Daddy got some old computers from work when they upgraded and he threw Linux and a bunch of open source software on them for the boys to have in their rooms. I think they are too young for their own computers, but he wants them to be computer nerds like he is )

2:55 p.m. - I hang the Columbus pictures up in the entrance way. Then I help Big D with his Learning Language Arts through Literature.

3:11 p.m. - Put on more tea. D goes to use his computer, so I take the opportunity to check my e-mail.

3:14 p.m. - Not-So-Crafty Daddy calls again. Yes, we talk on the phone to each other a lot.

3:33 p.m. - Get a snack for Little E and help him set up his Ready Bed. For some reason he wants to use it.

3:46 p.m. - Coach the kids through their chores - picking up and vacuuming the living room and dining room.

4:01 p.m. - Bring the kids out to play and bring the peppers, sage, and some of the carrots over to my neighbor, who was doing the garden with us. She is pleasantly surprised that we cleaned out the site and she didn’t have to. (That was my plan.)

5:04 p.m. - Come in (late) to make dinner. Chicken; roasted carrots (from the garden), potatoes, onions, and garlic cloves; and re-heated left over homemade French bread from the night before.

5:11 p.m. - Go out to get the older boys because I can hear them fighting. (Little E was already in.)

5:36 p.m. - Not-So-Crafty Daddy gets home.

5:40 p.m. - I sneak a check of my e-mail.

5:45 p.m. - Go check on dinner, then lay on the couch and watch Daddy and Little E play on the floor.

5:57 p.m. - The kids bring Daddy into their rooms to show him what they were doing on their computers. I try to steal 2 minutes on the computer.

5:59 p.m. - Yes, literally two minutes later, D comes in to ask me something. I answer and send him away.

6:01 p.m. - Finally, I can read some blogs for a few minutes, in between checking on dinner.

6:15 p.m. - We eat dinner and have a really good conversation about compromising and what that means.

6:50 p.m. - Not-So-Crafty Daddy leaves for Bible Study. (He does this every Monday. Every other night of the week, he is home in the evening and usually plays with the kids after dinner, or before dinner and we eat a little later.)

7:02 p.m. - The boys do some Bible worksheets that I got from church on Sunday. Big E has a question about a scripture, so I get out my Bible and we read it together. Then, I zone out reading blogs and the kids end up wrestling.

7:54 p.m. - I have the older kids brush their teeth and go do quiet activities in bed.

8:04 p.m. - Brush Little E’s teeth. Bring him to his bed to do some drawing with glitter glue. (Not my first choice of bedtime activities.)

8:16 p.m. - Try to catch a few minutes of Seventh Heaven, but instead see Whoopi Goldberg. I look it up online and it turns out to be an episode of “Everybody Hates Chris.” No “Seventh Heaven” tonight. I channel surf for a minute and land on Wife Swap. (What can I say, we only get broadcast networks.)

8:29 p.m. - Go tuck the kids in. Little E is not ready. I give them 10 more minutes.

8:41 p.m. - Go shut off Big D’s light and tuck in Big E. Little E wants water. Big E does, too.

8:46 p.m. - I shut out Big E’s light and bring Little E out with me. He is not feeling well and wants mama. We hang out on the couch and watch the end of Wife Swap. (This is why I usually do not watch TV. It is addictive.)

8:59 p.m. - Shut off the TV and snuggle with Little E. He misses Daddy. I tell him that he will be home in a minute.

9:02 p.m. - Little E shuts his eyes.

9:03 p.m. - Daddy walks in. I tell him what just happened and we are both a little sad the he just missed saying “Good Night” to Little E, but he is out like a light. Daddy puts him into his own bed.

9:20 p.m. - Not-So-Crafty Daddy cleans up the kitchen and I tidy up the dining room.

9:30 p.m. - I go on the computer to look at the news, while he finishes the kitchen.

9:56 p.m. - I shut down the computer so we can talk.

10:37 p.m. - We get ready for bed. We finally get to bed at 11:00. We talk for a few minutes and then go to sleep.

It’s Tuesday. You know what that means. The 41st Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Nerd Family.

Speaking of nerds, the other night at dinner, Big E was talking about how he was not going to be a nerd like we are and I pointed out that he is a third-grader who is in fourth grade math - and it is his favorite subject. Not-so-crafty daddy pointed out that he has a computer running Linux in his bedroom. We both laughed. There is nothing funnier than a nerd in denial. (Well, maybe it’s only funny if you are a nerd who was once in denial.)

This week we have been doing our fall cleaning. This is when we put away all of the summer stuff and dig out the winter stuff. This year we are also getting rid of as much clutter as we can. Today I did the entry-way. I wish I had before and after pictures. I brought out four bags of garbage. None of it was reusable or recyclable!

We spent all day Saturday cleaning, too. My husband did the kitchen and I did the bathroom. I got a whole garbage bag full of old non-usable bathroom products. That is not counting the load of old cleaning products my DH took to the hazardous waste depot the week before!

It is so much brighter and happier-feeling in our home now. I would highly recommend this to everyone, if you don’t already do it, especially if you live in a state like Vermont that gets below zero in the winter.

This is a little late in the week, but I thought I would put up a link to the Carnival of Homeschooling. This is week 40! Homeschool Buzz did a clever 1940 retro theme. Check it out.