Discipline

I just got back from a trip to the west coast. An unexpected benefit was being able to work for a day at a client's office. I have been working for this company for over a decade, but had never met them in person. It reminded me that there are many reasons that I have loved the consulting work I've done for the past 16 years: Sometimes you run into wonderful people and can make a real difference in their business, and it's enormously satisfying. Plus, it's a lot easier to make money at consulting on site than almost anything else I've done recently. So, this trip has almost made me regret my decision to move out of the mailorder technology industry. Of course, I decided to move out of the industry 10 years ago, but it keeps sucking me back.

Anyway, my clients are a husband-and-wife team who are originally from Hong Kong. They're great. They have two kids, one of whom just started at Berkeley and the other who is a freshman in high school. They were very interested to discover that I home school, how we do it, and why. As parents, they push their kids very hard -- like lots of other immigrant families I know. They are big proponents of discipline, and bemoan how their kids and their friends lack it.

Over lunch, we had interesting conversations about discipline and the fact that it's necessary to teach kids to have it. But it occurred to me on the plane ride home that we never discussed *why* it's necessary. So I started thinking about it.

By "discipline," I mean the ability to buckle down and focus on stuff even when it may not strike one's fancy at that very moment. Kids, as a rule, aren't born with a sense of discipline. So in order for them to accomplish what they need to accomplish in life, we have to teach it to them.

But HOW do we frame the idea of discipline to kids?

Often the idea of teaching kids to be disciplined is presented simply as "Make them do it even though they don't want to" because it will teach them that sometimes there are things that they have to knuckle down and do things that they aren't inclined to do at that moment. Things that aren't fun.

This is true, but there is more to it. I have a different sense of why we should teach kids to be disciplined.

See, I think we all should be in the habit of questioning why we do... well... everything. There always SHOULD be an answer to the "why." And the answer should be something better than simply, "It's good for you." The answer should be, "Because it's in the service of this specific wider goal."

With every endeavor, no matter how small, we should always know WHY we're doing what we're doing. That's the only way to assess all of our available options and spend our time doing stuff that is necessary and valuable rather than a waste. But more important, having our "eyes on the prize" means that along the way, we don't let the fact of having to do some unpleasant, dirty work drag us down.

Life is full of little quagmires, and they pop up so much that it's sometimes easier or more convenient to pretend that they're not there or procrastinate working on them. But people who are disciplined just put their heads down and push, however unpleasant, knowing that at some point it will give way and you'll be much closer to your goal.

The problem with kids is that they have a short-term focus by their very nature. They can't project ahead to a fulfillment far down the road, so it's extremely difficult for them to do difficult things NOW that have no payoff for a long time.

Adults who haven't grasped long-term self-interest at a gut level are at a disadvantage, too. Sometimes, long-term interest and short-term interest seem to conflict, and it's much easier to head in the direction of short-term payoff. Diet and exercise are the obvious examples. I regard myself as extremely hard-working and quite disciplined, but I fail at these all the time. These issues can be subtle: I shouldn't exercise if I'm really tired and it would be better for me to go to sleep...or if I'm behind on an important project and that hour would really make a difference. But I can't be using that as an excuse *every* time.

There are two things that I use to get myself out of the house to exercise is to find ways for it to be a short-term pleasure (running with Madison in the morning is FAR superior to exercising alone), and to constantly imagine two futures, one in which I'm sickly and overweight and feel really old, and the other in which I'm healthy and strong and energetic.

So I think that the key is to help kids envision the future, constantly. I try to help my kids imagine themselves succeeding at something in the future, which helps teach them to OWN themselves at that future date. Gradually, they should be able to adopt the attitude on their own that if they want a certain outcome, then they need to push through all of the steps that need to be done in order to attain it.

For example, Ella doesn't know all of the words to all of the Christmas songs they're singing in choir. She needs to know them. So today, her homeschooling list consists of just a few basics, plus learn her chorus music. She is having a really, really hard time pushing through. It's hard. There are at least five or six songs that need polishing. It feels overwhelming to her, even though I encouraged her to develop a plan of attack and she did. She keeps trying to come downstairs and argue with me about why she shouldn't have to do this today.

Well, she agreed early on that it would be a good idea to get the music done, and at the time she leaped at the opportunity not avoid all the "real work" and instead focus on chorus. But now that she's in the middle of it all, every 15 minutes she comes down and sobs at me all of the reasons why she can't be doing it now. (Her latest reason is "because I'm crying and I can't sing when I'm crying.") Sigh.

The thing that works best -- and it really does work -- is to take her on my lap and paint that picture for her of the future... of Mrs. Krogstad testing her and her passing the test without problems... singing in all of the different concerts they have lined up for December... looking out in the audience and seeing me so happy that not only is she up there creating something beautiful, but we both know that it's so much more satisfying because the work was hard.

So keeping Ella's eyes on the prize is MY job for now. That, and sympathizing with how hard it is but telling her I know she can succeed. She's only 9, and I think this will be my job for a long time... until at least mid-teens. I'm pretty confident that she'll gradually take the reins as time goes on.

French horn

Ella recently decided to take up the French horn. I am happy about this, despite the noise. She's working with Madison's new flute teacher.

Madison loves the flute, but her instructor last year, though an excellent teacher who started her off with brilliant tone and form, had an attitude that rubbed Madison the wrong way. That teacher was naturally suspicious of how much her students actually practice versus how much they *claim* to practice, and notified Madison that "I know every trick in the book." She required that parents date and sign every practice, and kept intimating that perhaps Madison would be inclined not to do the right amount if she could get away with it. This, of course, generated a sense of insult and anxiety in my baby who takes pride in never lying, and I decided to switch teachers.

I informed the first instructor very graciously, with compliments for the way she'd started Madison off, because she really is excellent; I told her that it was likely that Madison would return when she had matured a bit. (And that's true. Madison wants to be excellent. Her former teacher would make sure she's excellent.) The teacher understood, and in fact Madison saw her at a concert on Friday night at the Rochester Flute Association, and the meeting was good.

Anyway, this new teacher, Mrs. Borden, is sweet and gentle and loving and kind and provides good explanations, and has enabled Madison to let go of her anxiety over flute lessons and progress.

Ella noticed how nice Mrs. Borden is, and after hearing the teacher talk with me about two weeks ago about how she also teaches all of the brass and woodwind instruments, Ella told me that she would like to try the French horn, and take lessons from Mrs. Borden.

I love the French horn. Ella may have heard me saying this, but otherwise I don't know what drew her to the French horn. We don't know any French hornists.

David was skeptical, pointing out (to me) that Ella had been interested in guitar last year but expressly refused lessons. I could tell, though, that Ella knew what was involved and wanted to do it; this isn't some fly-by-night idea. And, she's older and more mature... what you aren't ready for at 8 you're often ready for at 9.

She started last week. We got her a French horn, which we have in a rent-to-own program at one of the local music stores. She is ecstatic. She practices every day for a half hour, without constantly running back to look at the clock and see how much longer she must go.

I posted to my Facebook page that Ella was going to start the French horn, and my friend Meredith, whose daughter plays, wishes me her speedy progress, because "Beginning French horn sounds like a dying elephant."

It doesn't really sound like a dying elephant, but it does possibly sound like a baby elephant. So when Ella is practicing, I call her my "baby Ella-phant." She loves it.

She loves the whole thing, really. Doesn't she look good?

Yesterday, David's cell phone mistakenly called mine while it was in his pocket. We were at home, and the girls got a big kick out of shouting into the phone to try to alert him that he had called us. It didn't work. Then Ella got out the French horn, and that was what finally did it. Very Horton-like. He heard this little tooting coming from his pocket and pulled it out... and there we were.

Feels like a turning point

Is it a turning point when your 11-year-old doesn't want you in the bathroom while she's throwing up?

It feels like one.

I'm glad she decided to let me in, and then fell asleep on me in her bed. But still.

She may have a migraine... this would be the fourth such episode in a year. That, or a stomach virus.

I don't know which to hope for.

And... it hit her on Halloween at 5:30pm, just before trick-or-treating. But so far she's too ill to care about Halloween.

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I'll do better at blogging. Life has been much too busy.

Madison's 11th birthday

What happens on the 11th birthday? For witches and wizards, an owl from Hogwarts should deliver an invitation. Madison got hers, though unfortunately she was too wired to appreciate it until later that day.

The party. Madison's first slumber party was on Thursday night, a "Because We Can" party on a school night with all home-schooled girls. It was a big success, though by Friday morning Madison was far too cranky and wired to realize it. I'd thought they'd go to bed around midnight and so might still be sleeping when I got home from the radio station Friday morning. Ha! I hadn't reckoned on preteen girls (it's only been 30 years since I was one, but you'd think I'd remember this) and the fact that they were sleeping in an east-facing room without curtains. So they were up and bouncy at 6:30 in the morning, watching Full House on Nickelodeon. All seemed to get along great and have a good time overall.

Madison got about 4 1/2 hours of sleep, which is less than half what she needs. That girl NEEDS sleep. She is sick, and awful, and snotty, and way over-reactive without it. She mostly kept it together for the sake of the other girls there, mostly. It's a good thing we didn't have to go on a car trip the next day, or she'd have thrown up for sure. As it was, a good 2 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon brought her back to human. Ella manages much better on low sleep.

Ella had done a bunch of extra work for me around the house to be able to buy Madison this small dollhouse kit -- one that you put together yourself. It was the first time Ella had bought Madison something with her own money, $30. She still needs to work off some of it, but it was definitely Madison's favorite gift from the family. David got her a model of the Starship Enterprise, and four more Xanth novels. We got her a gift certificate to Dan's Crafts and Things so she can get stuff for her new dollhouse, and also a gift card to Barnes & Noble. I got her a lovely red-flower-painted ceramic mug, with a top so the tea stays hot and doesn't spill. Also, I got her a craft model of a water-and-trees diorama to put together and paint; she had pointed it out to me in Michael's.

And, I got her a magnet. Now, I never get magnets or cards with "sayings" because I prefer putting things in my own words and usually getting such things seems hokey to me. One exception is this beautiful heavy rock paperweight that I love, which my friend Patrick gave me many years ago, into which is carved the word "Create." This is probably what led me to give Madison a magnet that caught my eye the other day, which says simply, "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." I want her to set out with this attitude, and, let's face it, she probably would anyway, she's my kid. But it can't hurt to have a little reminder on one's 11th birthday.

Madison was really most excited about that wooden dollhouse kit. Unfortunately, it's still complicated enough that an 11-year-old can't manage it on her own, not exactly. Well, she could, but not if she wanted it to look beautiful. She might have been able to follow the directions and punch out the wooden things and match prong to slot and get it looking okay, but because Madison cares equally about end results as about doing something "herself," I decided that she'd ultimately be happier if I managed the project. She was totally on board with this... plus she loves having me do crafts with them, especially dollhouse things, which I do all-too-rarely these days because I can't really justify the time away from work.

I know, because Madison's my kid and a normal human, that she would want to Just Do It Now. Sometimes that's fine. Who doesn't want a little instant gratification? But even a bright girl like Madison lacks the kind of experience and foresight to know the difference between doing something quick and half-assed and taking your time and doing it right; in some ways, I still have to fight against this impulse. On the one hand, that's a lesson she can learn herself, and there is certainly value in kids starting and completing a project like this on their own, even if it doesn't look great at the end. But I've done these kinds of projects before, and I knew that it was likely that the whole thing would collapse in a pile of unattractive rubble that she'd never want to use, if it wasn't done right. So I decided to use this as an important lesson: Even before it occurred to her to dive in and try to get it all done in a day, we had a long talk about how well I understand the impulse for short cuts -- why NOT put it all together and THEN paint it? Why bother with primer at all? It would go so much faster if we just dove in and whammed it together, right? Don't you know that feeling? Kids have it worse than we do.

I got her on board with the theory of doing it carefully, so she wouldn't be too disappointed with not getting it all done today. She's a theory person and it wonderfully able to stick with something after she is convinced by its rightness. Plus, she's got a great imagination, so imagining the finished project is keeping her going -- it's going to be a "little red schoolhouse" with white gingerbread trim a la the little Victorian bungalows at the Methodist camp on Martha's Vineyard. All we did today was punch out the first part of the project, prime, and paint--because it's much easier to prepare each piece before putting it together. She spent quite a bit of time mixing the exact right shade of brick-red after we primed. I did put a second coat of the red paint on when they were upstairs and done with the project for the day, so it would look good.

Will post photos when it's done.

First week of school

Madison is technically in the sixth grade.
Ella is technically in the fourth grade.

Madison asked for greater structure this year in schoolwork. I don't find this in the least unreasonable, but it does require a bit more preparation for me.

The fact that we're using Time4Learning for the background math, "Language Arts," and science (and history and art if they feel like doing it in T4L) doesn't actually absolve me of the lion's share of preparation. But I've made a commitment to myself to do that on the weekend before -- actually to prepare and print out their daily sheets on Sunday, so that they can work ahead or catch up as they like, and so that they can pace themselves. The trouble, of course, is knowing exactly how to plan. Some things take a predictable amount of time, like listening to an Ancient History lecture or doing a Spanish lesson. But I don't know how difficult they may find a given logic problem, or the writing assignment, or what have you. So things could take 2 hours or they could take all day, and I can't exactly plan for that up front.

Madison is doing 14 subjects -- 8th-grade Time4Learning math, extra move-head math (current topic is probability), English, handwriting, nonfiction/essay writing, fiction writing, logic, Spanish, science, history, memorization, computer programming, art, household/life skills. Not everything is every day, of course. She has 7 extracurriculars: Karate, viola, flute, orchestra, choir, piano, Shakespeare, Odyssey of the Mind prep class, writing, and chess. She'll do some shows, too, plays or musical theater, and a few other odds and ends. Notice only three of those subjects are Time4Learning, so it's not like it really saves me THAT much prep time. Fortunately, almost all of it is done on her own nowadays, I just have to check it out and talk about it and keep track. She wants to do a special year-long project on ancient architecture to go with our Ancient History focus, and who am I to say no. Ambitious, yes, but she's an ambitious kid. And I don't have to do anything except buy supplies when she needs them.

Ella has about the same number of subjects, but not flute or viola or writing, and she's taking two different dance classes. She'll stop karate when she reaches Brown Belt, probably in October. Good thing, too, as karate is getting expensive and I only want them to do it if they love it, which Madison does.

I finished the week's preparation on Monday (Labor Day), which worked well. It was easy, as they only had three days of school this week due to Madison's birthday on Friday, when we took them and their four slumber party friends to the RMSC in the morning. The first day (Tuesday), work took them until 3:30, but they didn't complain; Wednesday they were done by about 1 and Thursday they were done by 12 or so. (I'd given them a light load, as the party started at 4pm and they needed to prepare.)

Today I finally finished organizing all of their papers from last year into the 2009-2010 binders. That felt good.

I still need to submit the IHIPs (Individual Home Instruction Plan) to the school district, but that's almost done and it's just me procrastinating deliberately, my small way of sticking it to The Man. A low-risk proposition, since I know I won't get in trouble for it, the school district knows darned well that I'm educating my kids thoroughly, the administrator is even on my KOA list and so is well aware of the multitude of ways I'm getting my kids educated and out and about in the community.

And I do need to keep myself in the habit of finishing the preparation for the week on Sunday night. If I can keep this up, I can maintain maximum productivity this year. Go, Deb!

Productivity

I got a lot done this summer. I had so much to do that I pretty much lived off my lists of priorities and scheduled trip times, and did very little else. Including blogging. That may change... I may blog a bit more, because it does help me to organize my thoughts and put down markers for where we are and where we need to be, but these posts won't necessarily be profound.

My three trips this summer were all combinations of business and pleasure: The trip to the Rocky Mountains with Madison in late June, then the 4-day-trip to PA-NYC-Albany that was meant to be 6 days but was cut off by Madison getting sick, and then two days this past weekend to Malone, NY to see the Almanzo Wilder Homestead. (Full KOA review here.)

On Thursday night, David and I launched the trip to Malone with the Rush concert in Syracuse at the New York State Fair, leaving the girls in a nearby hotel room (a first!) while we were at the concert.

The concert was so profoundly good that it kicked me into thinking seriously about excellence: specifically, about how pretty much everyone (except for you, of course) lacks standards of excellence, and how very much the world sucks as a result. It didn't help that the Wilder Homestead and Malone NY in general, which we visited the next day, were both characterized by having a lot of potential but falling far short of the mark. Damn it, just a bit of extra thought and effort by a couple of interested people would have made all the difference. But no.

It has been about 16 years since I last saw Rush, and I was staggered at how good they were. I was also staggered at how old I am, and how it's all flown past. One of the songs they played was "Time Stand Still," which they released in 1987, right when I started listening to them...when they were (gasp) in their mid-30s. I was hard-pressed not to burst into tears right there in the middle of the concert.

And there those three nice, smart, regular guys are now, 23 years later, more at the top of their game than ever. It's as though they've been practicing for all those years rather than resting on their laurels. I was really happy for them. They seem to be mostly living the life they deserve to live; they've navigated the vicissitudes of life and stardom very successfully. I want to be as good as they are, at something. I know I won't be. I can try, though. I can work like hell.

OK, I DO work like hell, let me not be over-dramatic.

I came home from the trip pretty cranky at the rest of the world for not caring about productivity, about creativity, about getting as close to perfection as possible. I'm different, I think to myself. I must be different, because I'm cranky about the lazy people who should be making the world a better place but aren't. But just because I'm working like hell doesn't mean I'm getting done what I need to, or what is best to. This feeling is reinforced by days like yesterday, wherein I accomplished nothing of what I meant to, except fretting and fussing for five hours over the damned KOA Wilder House review. Was I achieving excellence? No. I achieved a so-so review of a so-so place, and six loads of laundry. I know when I count the actual loads of laundry as an accomplishment, that's really scraping for something positive to say.

So, okay, I tell myself. Get a grip. One can't be constantly in achievement mode every minute of every day.

Yeah, but what if the next 16 years blows by in the blink of an eye like the last 16...as I know they will. What then? What if I don't spend my 40s in constant production mode? What if I'm 57, and the kids have already graduated college, and I look back at...not much?

Huh. The first sentence of this blog post talks about how I did indeed get a lot done this summer, and here I wind it up worrying about lack of accomplishment.

Maybe what I'm worrying about is lack of *important* accomplishment. Sure, lots of the stuff I am trying to do is about making a difference in the culture in some small or large positive way. And, I want to make money, of course. But I can't stand the idea of looking back on another 16 years and experiencing regret over how I spent my time.

At least, the girls are with me instead of in school, and are happy and thriving. I can't say I have a single regret there. I get an extra 14,400 hours with them, apiece, over the course of their school years. Knowing that, how can I possibly look back with regret? Right? Do I hear an Amen? Or at least a "go to bed, Deb, school starts tomorrow and you're up way past your bedtime"?

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UPDATE: After writing this rambling, not-very-coherent and self-indulgent post (sorry for that), I went to bed and had bad dreams about missing out on important things (like forgetting to give water to a dog I was supposed to be taking care of) because of being caught up in details. And, worst, I was equally concerned with getting away with it (not being sent to jail) as in helping the poor dehydrated dog get the medical attention it needed. Yikes.

Wired and wireless

I'm currently in a hotel room in Peekskill, NY. So nice to have free wireless internet that works just dandily.

I've been on the road with the girls since Friday. We visited friends in Pennsylvania until this morning, stopping by the Bethlehem, PA MusikFest yesterday to see the kids rock band StarFish. An old high school friend plays in this band, and it was wonderful to be able to be so sincerely complimentary to him. Great to see that he's doing well.

Today we visited with my friend Anne; tomorrow we'll go to NYC. First, and most important from my perspective, I'll get my hair cut by Maria at Zoran's at 46th and Lex; she's the only stylist I've ever known whose haircuts I have consistently loved, and they tend to last 3 whole months. I try to have her cut my hair whenever I'm down here, about twice per year.

Then, and more important from the kids' perspective, I'll take them down to the Statue of Liberty. They're really looking forward to this.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and part of Thursday we'll spend in Albany, as I'll be opening a KidsOutAndAbout.com there in the fall and need to get the lay of the land. I'll also meet with the folks from Albany Broadcasting to see how we might work together.

Ella is having a good time.

Madison is WIRED. She has been, ever since Thursday, when we went to the Yo-Yo Ma concert (which was so fantabulously awesome that I can't possibly do justice to it with mere words). Not that there is any connection, exactly; it wasn't Yo-Yo that caused her to be so tightly wound. (Pun not exactly intentional but not exactly unintentional either.) She started being hyped up as soon as David's student arrived to accompany us, and she has been up and down (hee hee) ever since. Frankly, it's been driving me a little nuts.

I've been noticing that as Madison enters the preteen years, she has if anything become *more* oblivious to her external presentation in social situations, and even less go-with-the-flow-be-a-good-sport-when-in-Rome kind of person than ever before. I think she can overcome this eventually, with brains and theory, but it's hard not to compare her with Ella, who naturally seems to know what is called for, and does it easily, without even thinking about it, as long as it doesn't seem unreasonable to her.

As an example: When one goes to a concert as an audience member, the feedback that one gives the performers is part of the payment. (Even, or perhaps especially, at a free concert like the StarFish concert yesterday.) So we clap, we cheer, and at a kids concert, we do what they ask like wave our hands in the air or stomp our feet, because we are good sports. We laugh at their corny jokes. We get into it, in any way we can. And when they ask for a volunteer mom from the audience to go up and play air guitar and our kids point-point-point at us, and when the lead singer urges us forward, we stifle any inward groans and put on a big enthusiastic smile and jump up on stage and do whatever they tell us to do. Because we are good sports.

Ella likes to dance. Ella goes along with basically whatever positive flow there is around her. So when they invite the kids up in front of the stage, she goes and dances and bounces the beach ball around or chases bubbles. She sings with the music. She claps. She gets into it. Ella is the ultimate good sport.

Not Madison, or at least not Madison YET. Although later she said the concert was great, during it, she was a big old blank. She did go up to bounce that beach ball around, but then afterward she stood stock-still in the dead center of the little kids dancing and just gazed at the stage with this NOTHING expression on her face. Even though I beckoned her over to the side and I whispered to her a bit about feedback and "if you can't go up there and get into the spirit then you just should politely sit back...when in Rome do as the Romans do or gracefully extricate yourself from Rome..." It was as though she had no idea what I was talking about. She looked bored for the entire concert, and I didn't really want the band to look down and see some bored kid. That's no good, especially when they were working really hard for a crowd of maybe 30 kids max. And, when one of those band members is a friend of mine.

So since yesterday, I've been thinking about Madison. She isn't "self-absorbed" in the sense we usually mean when we say that phrase, as in egotistical, but -- especially when she is in a wired phase as she seems to be this week -- she has a really hard time stepping outside herself and evaluating her own responses to people. Which is weird, because that's not to say she lacks consideration; she'd never be mean or rude to a friend one-on-one, or even be really oblivious. The idea of hurting someone's feelings fills her with horror, but maybe that only applies to kids, not adults, maybe she doesn't realize adults have feelings or think she can affect them, or something. I can't tell. It's as though the stuff she does right, she does it deliberately, sort of rehearsedly. We've gotten her to shake people's hand, say clearly, "Hi, I'm Madison" and look people in the eye. She does this like a good student, not like it's at all natural.

I know that I was awkward as a kid. Was I as awkward as she is? I vaguely doubt it, but I can't be certain. I'd love to think that I was as bad about this as she is, because then I could relax in the confidence that she'll outgrow this. In certain things, Madison gets by on brains, and I suspect that this is one of those things. I hope it happens soon, but I kind of don't think it will; she's got this big gawky new body that is poised to grow even more and in weird new ways, and I think she feels less comfortable in her own skin than ever. It may take a while.

Time4Learning

The Time4Learning program continues! This will be the second week, and the girls seem to like it so far. Madison is doing 8th grade math and she says it's about a perfect level; Ella is doing 5th grade math and *I'm* loving that, while she is not, not so much. Here's the reason: It's not the conceptual issues that present impediments, but the requirement for PRECISION. There are word problems in this that end up being addition or subtraction problems, but with the words spelled out in the hundred-billion range. ("There are seven hundred sixty-seven billion, four hundred thirty million and two grains of sand on this part of the beach, and three hundred four million... etc.") She doesn't get the problem right unless she gets it ALL right, and those sorts of problems present endless opportunities for tiny mistakes. If *I* were to be giving her the problems to help her practice precision, she would rebel, but the fact that the program gives them to her, and the fact that the computer-based reward is so cute when she gets them right, is really working for... well, it's really working for me.

The "Language Arts" (I must put "Language Arts" in scare quotes not because it's teaching illegitimate concepts but because it's such a silly way to refer to an English curriculum) section seems equally appropriate for each. I have Ella doing 4th grade and Madison doing 7th grade, and that seems to be working out. They're both liking the science part, and I have told them that if they want to do history for fun they may, but we're going to be doing Ancient History this year via two audio programs, so they needn't.

So, call it the lazy way of home schooling if you like, but as I'm going to be really REALLY busy this fall, I think it will work.

Math: Time4Learning supplemented by David's conceptual work with them
English: Time4Learning plus lots of reading as usual
Science: Time4Learning, plus U of R monthly classes, plus lots of discussion as usual
History: Ancient, two audio programs (Gretchen Riley and Scott Powell). We'll also do architecture units on ancient history.
Spanish: Visual Link Spanish
Writing: Madison's class will continue Wednesday afternoons
Karate: For both through December, then Ella will drop
Logic: Chess class at Rochester Chess Center
Acting: Probably a Shakespeare class at Spotlight Theatre Arts
Dance (for Ella): Musical Theater dancing at Spotlight Theatre Arts
Singing: Bach Children's Chorus
Music: Piano for both, Flute for Madison in Honeoye Falls, Viola for Madison at Hochstein
Computers: Programming here and there as usual, video editing, audio editing

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but it's time to start the day.

Quick hits from Deb

I have a mammogram this morning. My first. Man, I feel old.

I caught that cough the kids started with three weeks ago and can't shake it. I'm coming up from laryngitis, though not fast enough to suit me. I'd hate to be croaky on the radio tomorrow morning. Plus, I have a big meeting with the station manager afterward about logistics for me working on a kids music show they want to syndicate around the country. Can't be croaky for that! And, I have a 10:30 meeting with a local TV station that is interested in my involvement in something called "Parenting Pointers" that they want to start. Must come off as TV-photogenic and sparkly, and it's hard to do that when one sounds like one has been smoking for 40 years. Tea with lemon and honey, here I come.

I'm finished with 12 of the 15 chapters in my book. Chapter 12 needs work, though I'm going to wait to do it until the end. Man, I love my evil tabloid reporter character. She made her appearance at the end of Chapter 12 and boy, she's a sticky-sweet-on-the-outside manipulative bitch. I'm going-going-going on the rest of it through this weekend.

Two weekends ago, my friend Candace came up to visit from Pennsylvania with her three kids. Ella had her first experience with a wonderful innocent crush she and the 10-year-old boy had for each other--particularly, I think, on his side. He's a great kid, and he just thinks Ella is the bee's knees. They went around holding hands, totally sweet. Madison has her Max, and now Ella has her Elliott. So great that it wasn't something stupid at school where kids would make fun of them.

The girls' new musical theater camp is Alice in Wonderland, and it's for the older-kids set...Ella is among the youngest, this time, and Madison is far from the oldest as she was in the last camp. They are enjoying it quite a bit less than they liked the last camp, although I think it's worthwhile nevertheless. For one thing, it's a lot more tiring: 9-5 as opposed to 9-12. And, they're not the stars of this camp... I think they got used to all of the littler kids liking them, and cheerfully hanging out with them. And now, they're in with older kids, some of whom are typical-preteen-and-early-teen snotty and competitive and cliquey. Mine are a bit innocent, remember, partly as a result of being homeschooled, and they just got on better with the younger kids who haven't become jaded yet. Anyway, there were no "issues" in the last camp, and now there are a few "issues" in this camp, which I think diminishes the experience. Next week starts a month of doing nothing.

Well, for them, anyway. And it's not exactly doing nothing. One thing they are doing is investigating Time4learning.com. It's a homeschool curriculum that is primarily online. They both love learning on the computer, and I told them that if they're interested in following that curriculum, they can do it in August as a test. If they like it enough to keep it up through August, then when the school year starts properly in September we can continue (and count ourselves as having started in August, which will let us off earlier next year), otherwise we'd go back to my normal curriculum, which I plan eclectically on my own.

I'm not sure which to hope for, although I mildly would like it if they liked Time4Learning because that would leave me with more time to work on my own stuff. The program covers all subjects, and you could choose your grade level per subject (I think). This would put Madison in the 7th or 8th grade instead of the 6th, and Ella probably in the 5th instead of the 4th. (I can never keep track of what grade Ella is in. She's made such a leap the last 4 months or so that it seems amazing to me that I was technically reporting her for 3rd grade this past year.)

Which reminds me, I must turn in their 3rd quarter, 4th quarter, and year-end evaluations to the school district. That is, I must write them and then turn them in, and submit a curriculum plan for next year and turn THAT in. My nice school district doesn't nag me, especially since the administrators of the home school folks get my newsletter; they know that one thing they don't have to worry about is MY kids' education.

Off to the mammogram. Yuck.

In which one of my children tries to kill the other

Sleeping Beauty
Stages - Performance in Rochester July 17, 2010

Madison is Maleficent
Ella is Princess Aurora a.k.a. Briar Rose a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty

Fitness, from a whole 'nother perspective

This afternoon, I received a note about a fundraiser for a local child who has just been diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. He's the son of one of the main teachers at Writers and Books, an independent writing organization / school here in Rochester where Madison takes those wonderful writing classes.

Sally, the mom, is fabulous. I've loved working with her on projects during the past year, and have been grateful for her combination of formality and familiarity when introducing the kids in Madison's writing class at a special reading event this past spring.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy means something to me: My freshman year roommate, Marni, had it. It's a genetic disorder of the large skeletal muscles; Marni could type and scoot her hands from side to side, but she couldn't lift her arms, and was in a wheelchair. The condition is usually degenerative, even though for some reason Marni's deterioration had slowed or stopped by the time she arrived at Penn. So I felt terrible when I heard about Sally's son Oscar.

It's so often the case when one hears about a friend's tragedy that there is nothing one can really do to help. But in this case, I could. The fundraiser to pay for altering their house to make it wheelchair-accessible is tomorrow at a local art gallery, and there are activities for kids at the event. So at least I could help get the word out with a special KidsOutAndAbout.com notice to 9000 people.

I called Sally directly at the office, and we talked for a little while. We talked about the event, and also about SMA and how the science has progressed in the 20 years since I last really paid attention. I told her all about Marni and her double major at Penn and her PhD from Berkeley and her professorship at Stanford and her cool equipped van that she drove herself starting at age 18.

I could hear the story giving Sally hope. I could hear the eagerness in her voice as I talked with her about all of Marni's achievements. She asked lots of questions. She asked for Marni's name. I had the feeling that she was going to go look her up and see if she could learn about what Marni's been up to, to get some hope from the accomplishments of an adult with the same condition.

So that's what I did after writing my special newsletter: I googled Marni. And, damn it, I found out she died in 2007, of respiratory failure, while on vacation with her parents in Costa Rica. So what Sally is mostly going to find when she looks up Marni Goldman is all of this memorial stuff, scholarships and whatnot, in Marni's name. Damn it all.

And so of course for the rest of the day, I couldn't stop looking at my own babies, particularly Madison, especially today, Day 3 of Project Run. It was another successful morning of running with her in the Glen. As we were jogging along, she was telling me how strong and healthy and athletic she's going to be someday. I'm glad she has goals. But of course, this afternoon and evening, all I can see is how beautiful she is NOW: her beautiful strong legs, and her beautiful strong arms, and her beautiful strong lungs.

Morning update

Madison was up *before 7* this morning, wanting to go running.

She had to drag ME away from the computer this time.

We went for a short one so she'd have time to shower and eat before camp.

"I LOVE this, Mom," she said to me as we were walking back up the hill toward home. "If we do this all the time, it's going to be so good for me."

"And for me," I said.

(Short pause.)

"Well, yeah. It will be good for you, too. But right now I'm thinking mostly about me. Okay?"

Madison and fitness

I was extremely proud of Madison this morning.

I've been doing a bit of running for the past month, mostly to try to get my legs used to it so they don't freeze up on Monday nights during softball games (which continue through August). It's worked, for the most part. During the last couple of games, I've had no problems.

It had occurred to me that this would be a great opportunity to get Madison to do a bit more exercise than she's doing. Madison is growing at a great clip... between January 2009 and April 2010, she grew four-and-a-half inches. I can barely keep her in pants that are long enough.

Throughout Madison's childhood, when she's grown, it's been first out, then up. She's never been what you call slim, but recently the "out" part has continued and hasn't slimmed down with the "up." Madison definitely inherited my body type rather than the long-and-lean Ross genes, and while I'm no skinny minnie I've never had an actual problem, so I wasn't worried about Madison.

But the girl loves the computer, and hanging around reading, and she's never met an ice cream cone she didn't love. This just-before-teen year time seems to me to be the time when habits are going to get established into the teen years and beyond, so I thought that this summer is could be the perfect time to get her actively exercising. I invited her to start running with me as soon as we got back from our big trip out west. She wasn't enthusiastic, but she wasn't really disinclined, either. I gave her the establish-the-routine-now-so-you-can-be-strong-and-healthy-for life talk, and if there's anything the child understands, it's theory. So she thought it would be a good thing to do.

You know what interfered? The child actually lost her sneakers last weekend after the 4th-of-July parade, and didn't find them until yesterday. So she didn't come out with me this past week. I didn't make a big deal of it, only let it seem like something that she'd like to do, when she found her sneakers.

Well, last night, she agreed to go out with me this morning. I found her at her computer this morning about half an hour after she got up. At which point, as you can imagine, she was NOT inclined to put on clothes and go exercise. She tried her best to argue me out of it, but I was persuasive, and off we went to Corbett's Glen, which is a nature trail a block away from our house, before David was even awake.

And here's the totally unexpected thing: The child was GOOD. So, so, so much better than I'd expected. Much better than ME, that's for sure -- I always get side cramps half a mile in and have to walk. But that kid let me set a fairly slow pace, and then kept going when I had to stop and walk a little...altogether going a bit more than a mile before stopping herself and letting me catch up. Boy, was she proud, as well she should have been.

"I can't believe it, but it looks like you've got Daddy's running genes," I told her down by the creek when we were skipping stones, before turning around and running home.

She repeated that like five times today to whoever would listen.

She wants to go out tomorrow, for a short run, before camp. She wants me to wake her at -- get this -- 7:15.

You know what's really got her? Madison is REALLY competitive. She absolutely adores the fact of beating the pants off me this morning. If that's what it takes to keep her going, that's fine by me.

Speaking of pants, she literally WAS wearing my running shorts. That was partly what got her out the door -- she didn't have anything approximating comfortable running shorts, so I tried her on an old pair of mine. Yes, they'd shrunk over the years, so they don't really fit me any more. But she was delighted that she was big enough to wear my old clothes. So, it was a day of a couple of firsts for her.

My job: to keep it all going. I will.

19 pages last week

So, I'm currently one quarter of the time into my month-wherein-the-girls-have-camp-and-so-I-have-silence, and I have one-quarter of the remaining work on Food Fights completely done. In short, I'm on track.

I think I'll be collapsing two of the remaining chapters into one, which this means I have completed 10 out of the 16 chapters. And, I've worked out a good deal of bits and pieces of the rest. Chapter 12 is a totally cool chapter, just too tempting not to work on...a chapter in which all of these seeds I sewed earlier on burst into bloom. Phrases kept blossoming in my mind, too, perfect dialogue for Chapter 12. So, I cheated and wrote some of it before knuckling down and working on Chapter 11. It was like dessert before dinner.

I'm right now in the middle of Chapter 11. It's going much faster than those always-dreaded middle chapters 8, 9, and 10. Chapter 11 has my main characters doing some very clever internet public relations to get their video to go viral, and boy, do I know about P.R. and the internet. So even though it's no Chapter 12, Chapter 11 is proving fun to write. And as soon as I finish it (Tuesday? Wednesday?) I'll really be in the end game.

Three pages

Three pages was enough for me to do today, instead of four, because I stopped at the end of a scene. I barely got these pages in under the wire, too much to do for work today, couldn't get focused on fiction. Ah, well, moderate success anyway. I'll try to keep up the pace tomorrow!

My will be done

Madison and Ella started Sleeping Beauty camp today and loved it. Yay! Never have I been so happy with a camp. For the first two weeks, it's 9am-12pm, and for the second two weeks (Alice in Wonderland) it's 9am-5pm.

I have two main goals for July:

1) KidsOutAndAbout.com stuff includes preliminary work to get the new Albany KidsOutAndAbout.com site up and running, several reviews to write for the current KOA site, and more meetings and contacts here in Rochester to make some immediate cash.

2) But in addition to that, I will be able to dedicate actual, uninterrupted attention on:

Food Fights

Because come the end of July, it WILL be done. I swear.

I have 20 days plus weekends, minus one weekend in the middle where my friend Candace is bringing her three kids from Pennsylvania to visit. My requirement is four pages per day to finish it, then a solid week at the end to revise, before starting agent queries in August.

I can do it. Despite having a dentist appointment this morning, I got my four pages in today. And, I admit, I do love this book. My four reviewers from the conference gave me three enthusiastic thumbs-up and one lukewarm this-isn't-my-genre-so-I-don't-know-how-to-respond, so I'm fired up to finish it and get it published. I can see it, damn it. (I can also see the made-for-TV movie based on it, but I guess there's no need to get ahead of ourselves. On the other hand, as I always say, if I can take a little pleasure NOW from dreaming, why not do it? It's free. It's either have the pleasure now, or don't. I think I'll choose to have it.)

Leading ladies

Madison and Ella got the two leads in the first musical theater camp they're in at Stages this summer. The show is Sleeping Beauty. Ella is Princess Aurora (a.k.a. Briar Rose, a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) and Madison is the evil sorceress Malificent. Wouldn't you know that for the first musical the girls are in together, one of them is trying to kill the other.

They're among the older members of the group (ages 6-10), and this is the same director Madison had for Schoolhouse Rock. The camp is Monday though Friday for two weeks starting this coming Monday, and they'll have performances on the second Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. It will be mostly parents and friends in the audience; this is no hifallutin production, though Stages does a MUCH better job than other production companies about nurturing the kids into doing as professional a performance as possible, even in a 2-week summer camp context. One nice thing is that an old high school friend of mine is coming up to visit with her three kids that weekend, so they'll get to see the show.

I wasn't in the least surprised that Madison got the part of Malificent. Misty, her director, practically had her typecast. They had auditions this past Tuesday night, and from the first aggressive "ARRRRGH!" Madison let out when she started reading for the part, she had the four adults in the audience in stitches.

That's right, only four adults in the audience. The director, the choreographer, the assistant directors, and...me. The rest of the parents were in the parent meeting, but to my surprise, Misty asked me to be one of the judges, along with herself, the choreographer, and the assistant director. "You're sensible, and I trust your judgment." Gee! She handed me a sheet and had me rank each kid from 1 to 5 on singing, dancing, and role reading. It was interesting, although it took me a bit to get the hang of quickly reading each child's name tag and grading him or her. Most of the kids didn't sing above a whisper, and only half in tune, so you can guess what kind of a show it's going to be. I think only Ella and Madison had actual singing/acting experience.

Which is why Ella got the part of the princess. She isn't a very *strong* singer (fortunately, she'll be miked), but she stays in tune very well and she was the only girl besides Madison (who was beautifully witchy and over the top) who read with expression when they were reading for roles. If there had been a stronger or clearer singer than Ella, she would have gotten it, but Ella will do fine. She has two solo songs.

A small wave of relief washed over me when I watched Ella read for the princess: I realized that Ella's reading has finally "arrived." A year ago, she would have faltered; she would have been too busy concentrating on sounding out the words to have had any expression in her voice. This year, she is fine. And she is reading The Secret Garden for book club, all on her own, without complaining. So there.

And Madison...my goodness, Madison will be GREAT as Malificent. I think she knows all of her lines already. She has three solo songs, and is delightfully cackly in each. She was relieved at not having to dance (she's wise enough to know that she's no dancer), and her stomp-around overbearing dramatic in-your-face loud kind of presence that so gets under my skin at times is perfect for Malificent. And at the end, she gets to have a sword fight with Prince Phillip, and die dramatically. The child is in her glory.

It's going to be a fun couple of weeks. And I get to get a lot DONE!

Preteens are a trip

Madison and I are in the Rocky Mountains together, in Jackson Hole, WY for the Jackson Hole Writers Conference.

It has been a fascinating trip, for the most part an absolute joy. We love this area. Madison especially loves the area, and has said repeatedly how much she wishes she could live here.

First, we flew to Bozeman, Montana on Monday. The traveling was perfect, an easy connection in Minneapolis. We got to Bozeman within 6 hours of leaving home. We stayed with my colleague Patrick and his family, which consists of 13- and just-10-year-old girls, and 8-year-old and 3-year-old boys. They live at the base of a mountain. They have a birch tree you (that is, the kids) can climb and get up on the roof.

My colleague and his wife have a more laid-back approach than I do to parenting, but they're in a rural area where they can afford to let the kids run wild and explore. Also, both of them work from home, so it's been necessary to train the kids not to bother them while they're working. When they're working, it's close to benevolent neglect, but when they are engaged with the kids, they're really engaged. So it has resulted in a lovely independent family of rugged outdoors-ish kids who are extremely outgoing, polite, and very happily well-behaved. The parents are people who assume that the kids will entertain themselves and be common-sensical about things like putting on sunscreen and eating enough and looking out for one another, and they generally do. Madison is much shyer than they are, but they soon kind of enveloped her in their camaraderie. She spent two days on their roof and up the mountain, getting a bit sunburned, not eating quite enough because they're healthfoodies and we are not, and not sleeping near enough because it stayed light until 10pm Mountain time. I got to work with Patrick...good work, solid work, planning-for-KOA-expansion kind of work (Albany's next! Get ready, Albany!) that solidified our plans for the immediate future.

One thing that David and I noticed independently -- by Monday night or Tuesday morning -- is that when Madison and Ella are apart from each other and getting solid one-on-one time with us, life is radically different. More relaxed. More cheerful. More independent. In fact, they seem much more mature, more... well... themselves.

This phenomenon was so palpable it was startling, and David and I both commented on it on the phone. It continued for me all the way through Wednesday morning. Madison and I left Montana and drove down through Yellowstone (which is about 2 hours from Bozeman, a beautiful drive through Gallatin National Forest).

Almost just as soon as we'd left my colleague's house, Madison CRASHED. It was so weird... she collapsed back into her regular, cranky-ish preteen self. I knew what it was, mostly... it was a sleep issue, and an excitement issue, and the fact that she'd been attentively on best behavior for several days. She was low on sleep -- still is, in fact. It's hard to sleep in unfamiliar beds, in exciting surroundings. But boy, did she crash, so much so that I had to fight to keep the disappointment from manifesting itself in me.

After a beautiful day in Yellowstone (that was punctuated a bit by her deciding that the thermals unnerved her) that involved lots of water, wildlife, gorgeous views, and even a grizzly bear as seen from afar, we wound up south of Yellowstone in the Grand Teton mountains. We stayed in a "resort" on Wednesday night that is really a motel masquerading as a resort. That's a story unto itself, actually. The room looked pretty nice and new, but I found the mouse glue trap in the room disconcerting, to say the least. I woke up at 5am seriously convinced that there was a mouse in our room, but the scratching and snuffling may have been something else, maybe the air conditioning system or pipes. The "resort" didn't really take me seriously about a mouse, as nothing was in the trap. I was kind of hoping for a refund. They won't get a good review when I write them up.

But Thursday morning, we went for a horseback trail ride, just the two of us, a lovely young guide named Sammi, and an eager dog named Tuff. Even though on the way there, she was apprehensive and filled to the brim with negativity (deliberately talking herself into anxiety), Madison loved the ride. Her horse was named Sweetheart and mine was Shilo. We splashed through creeks in Grand Teton National Forest, we saw wonderful views of snow-covered 13-ers, we smelled majestic pine forests, and we were mostly reverently silent.

And then...we rolled into Jackson Hole, got ourselves signed in to the conference, and started chatting with the organizer. I had told Madison that people would take her seriously here; they'd ask her what she liked to write. We talked about what she would say. And sure enough, that's the first thing that the lovely young lady organizer did. And Madison, who was admittedly low on sleep and in need of a solid lunch, got totally tongue-tied. She didn't look Nicole in the eye, she mumbled, she said "like" in the one paragraph she did say more times than I cared to count, and basically came off like an awkward little disengaged kid. She even argued somewhat scowlingly with me in front of Nicole when I said that she'd been writing some great essays ("only one, Mom, and it wasn't great").

Yikeroo.

Anyway, some food cheered her up, and she has generally enjoyed the day-and-a-half we've had in the conference so far. She's glad we're here, she understands the talks for the most part, she thoroughly enjoyed the panel that had some literary agents discussing what they did and the publishing process, and she was FANTASTIC in a small group workshop about finding voice in writing for young adults. (Seriously, her insights were valuable, totally in the same class as the rest of the participants. I was really proud.) But she definitely feels like a fish out of water, and though her disposition has improved, she's just not able to relax in front of other people. And she's oddly silent, even at meals, which are just with me.

Madison has never been great at physical coordination, but it's gone out the window. She wants to hold my hand while she walks along or stands next to me, but it's not simply a friendly thing, it's a draggy thing, as though she can't quite use her own body to keep upright or move along. It's a bit weird, I tell you, and I am hard-pressed not to be annoyed. I know it's because there is so much going on in her head that she's not paying attention to her body. But the fact is, she's got to pay attention to her body, because that's part of being an autonomous human. And also because when she doesn't, she's got almost an autistic-like affect going...and she's definitely not autistic.

Sorry, you're seeing my struggle here. It's unfair for me to be impatient with my lovely child, of whom I'm expecting perhaps more than is in her power to give under the circumstances, and I guess I'm working it through on the page.

Anyway, the writing conference is definitely the right thing to have done. It has stretched her in ways nothing else could, and for the most part she has met the challenge happily. It's the first of what I'm sure will be many conferences, and I'm sure she'll get much more relaxed as she practices and as time takes its natural course.

"Oh, yeah, I've been doing this a long time," she'll say, casually, when she's a famous author in 15 years or so. "My mom started taking me to writing conferences when I was just 10, so it's kind of bred in me. That Jackson Hole trip, that was just the start. Once she won Newbery Medal in 2011, then we really started traveling together. That mother of mine, she showed me the world."

Taking time out from working for the important task of old-age injury

Who blogs when there's work to be done? Oh, right, that would be me. On the other hand, I've been over-the-top busy the last four weeks with the launch of the new KOA site.

But tonight, I blog. Why? I can do nothing else but muse over the following absurd facts:

1) I am 41, and someone ought to have informed me of this important fact because

2) I was utterly unprepared for it this evening when

3) I attempted to play competitive softball on the radio station's team.

I played 2nd base. I love 2nd base. I am good at 2nd base. So there we were, at the TOP of the FREAKING FIRST INNING of the first game of the season, and WARM 101.3 was out in the field. Grounder between first and second. Naturally, I launched myself to the left toward the ball, like any normal person who hasn't played on a baseball team in 18 years. I did not trip. I did not fall. I did not slide. No, I simply went for the ball, and got the ball. Quickly. Calmly. All business-like. The way softball amongst 30- 40- and 50-year-olds is meant to be played.

Now, I told everyone that I had pulled my left quad muscle. This is true, but not the whole truth. The truth is that this normal, everyday launch to the left had sent my left quad, my left gluteal, AND my right quad all simultaneously into spasm. The left quad was the worst, so that's the only one I reported. I literally didn't know where to limp. So I kind of limped left. Now, they needed 5 girls to play on the team for the game to count, and I was the 5th girl. There was no wimping out. So I spent the rest of the 7 innings alternately trying to stretch and pound my various extremities back from the brink, keeping a cheerful face while they (the extremities, not the DJs) screamed at me. But hey, I walked three times and hit a single my last time up, so I didn't do a bad job after all.

There is no crying in baseball, so I saved it for when I got home. David walked in on me. "My god, what's the matter?" he asked, really worried. "I'm F-f-f-forty-one years old," I said, between sobs. He gave me a lot more sympathy than I deserved, considering he's 52.

Four ibuprofens and a hot bath later, I'm feeling better. I crave a single-malt scotch but don't dare try to leave the bed to make its acquaintance personally. I'm not asleep yet because I've convinced myself that if I stay awake, it puts off what tomorrow will feel like. Ya think?

This week in Rochester

I:

Launched the new KidsOutAndAbout.com

Dealt with fallout as KidsOutAndAbout.com crashed due to four times the expected stress on the server

Turned 41

Barely kept up with feeding and clothing the new baby (found lots of niggly little problems with the web site, helped organizations get their listings up and running, sold a couple of upgrades)

Accepted congratulations

Got rejected from a publisher for The Frontier Team

Couldn't sleep

Let the house go to hell temporarily

Let the kids do lots of independent work

Went on the radio twice

Picked up my cello from the shop where it was being repaired

Took a heavenly half-hour with Madison and played cello with her as she practiced viola

Realized that playing cello really is like riding a bicycle, except now I understand what music is about much better than I did 25 years ago.

Breathed sometimes, ate sporadically

----------------------------------------------
It's all in the service of a new and improved work life, but I could never keep up this pace forever.

This week in the Ross house

Ella had two birthday parties. I will try to find some time to write up a review for each of them. Someday. I have lovely photos, I think. At some point I'll download them from the camera.

Ella got reading glasses. She is very happy with them, so much so that she likes to walk around wearing them. Just looking at her doing that makes me dizzy. We'll see if they have some kind of beneficial impact on her desire to read. I'd settle for a psychological impact.

The new KidsOutAndAbout.com (here's a sneak peek of the test site for the five of you who read this blog) has really been coming together. It is a thing of utter beauty. We launch this coming Wednesday, I hope hope hope. I'm pretty sure we will.

I started to sell the web site upgrade space this week. We're accepting "advertising" in the sense that we give everyone a free organization listing, which they can upgrade to 1) Give themselves a lovely web page within the new KOA site and 2) Increase their standing in the search results when they appear. So far, with little effort, I now have $2000 in hand and about $3000 more on the immediate way, including a big contract that I sold to the YMCA. Can't wait really to start selling this thing.

Last night, we went to see the Ying Quartet. We brought the girls. They're our favorite string quartet. It was a lovely concert.

This afternoon was the annual Imagine RIT community event, during which the Rochester Institute of Technology opens its doors to kids and families with hundreds of free things to do that are oriented toward science, technology, math, and culture. A terrific festival, my favorite, I think. I found myself wishing our young friends Max and Henry had been in town, they would have loved it. Though there was so much, and so crowded, that it was absolutely impossible to do more than 1/4 of the festival in an afternoon. Like Epcot Center, only free.

Tomorrow, KidsOutAndAbout.com has a table at Healthy Hero Day at the Rochester Red Wings game; we were invited to participate by the YMCA. Then we zip over mid-afternoon to the girls' concert in which the Bach Children's Chorus sings with the Greece (NY) Choral Society in the the GCS's 40th anniversary concert.

I wonder how long it's been since I actually cooked a real dinner. It's been at least 10 days. Now I know how the Other Half lives -- the half in which both parents work and everyone is running around. I'm glad that for the most part I've been able to keep the girls doing normal schoolwork. Soon, soon, this will be over and we can settle back into a normal pace.

Another agent full MS request

I just hit the Send button on an email to an agent in New York City who requested the full manuscript of The Frontier Team. I found myself wishing there was an atheist equivalent of prayer.

This agent requested not only the manuscript, but also a synopsis, a bio, and a marketing statement. I had the synopsis already, but it took a couple of days for me to whip up and polish a bio and a marketing statement.

I was introduced to this agent by one of her current clients, whose work is also middle-grade (ages 8-12) and whose protagonists are also home schooled. His stuff hasn't sold in the 18 months in which she has been his agent... but it also sounds as though he has laid off on the writing a bit, so it's hard to tell. I like his stuff, though I think my work is marginally better than his. (Of course, who doesn't think that about his or her own book?) More important, I'm a marketing and P.R. goddess, and he's just an insurance agent or something. ;-) In any case, I am a lot more plugged-in and serious about the whole deal than he is, so I think there is a better-than-average chance she will accept me. This is my most solid lead yet.

The other agent who has my manuscript hasn't gotten back to me yet. (This is the guy who graduated from Penn in 1990, the year before I did.) It's been 6 weeks out of the 8 weeks he gave himself, so I hope it's soon. This most recent agent asked for exclusivity if possible, and it felt good to tell her that I regretted that I couldn't offer her exclusivity because another agent was reading the manuscript, but that I would notify her immediately if he offered representation so she could read it and make a decision. Wouldn't it be awesome if I got *two* offers, now?

I went out on a limb a little bit in my cover letter to this second one... I gave her a sense of my other works-in-progress, with a detailed hook for Food Fights:

Fed up with her father’s obsessive control of her diet as he hops from food fad to food fad, 11-year-old Georgia launches her own personal War for Dietary Independence. As she marshals the army of evidence and experts to support her, Georgia realizes that she is fighting not just her father, but a well-armed food culture. As media hype spirals the war out of control and deepens the rift in Georgia’s family, she realizes that most people believe what they want to believe instead of thinking carefully before forming an opinion. Can she focus her father on the facts, or will his food fixations keep them apart forever?

I realize that this agent hadn't requested any of that information; I hope that rather than distracting her from The Frontier Team, it shows that I'm serious about churning out work that will allow her to make money. We'll see if it pays off.

Pre-teen music

Madison has started writing pre-teen love songs about breakup.

There are no boys in the picture, yet, she's only 10, but she's already picturing the angst.

Sample line:

"You're dead, you're gone, you ain't comin' back to me..."

She says she's going to write a whole musical. Oy.

20 years my own me

Twenty years ago this month, I found out I'd received a $3000 grant from the Institute for Humane Studies to be applied toward my senior year of college.

Twenty years ago today, I picked up the phone and told my father that he needn't bother with me again.

Now, I don't advocate just simply, on a whim, telling your parent to take a hike for the rest of his life. But, let's face it, some people are crummy. It is sometimes clear that one's life will be objectively better if one eliminates the poisonous people from it, and that was the case for me. My family were just not the kind of people you'd want to know. They weren't rampantly destructive people, they weren't dramatically evil, no one beat me or anything. But all of them -- father, sister, mother -- were people who just sucked the joy out of life and the energy out of you.

When was just shy of 21, I figured that I had about 80 years left to create good stuff, to make the world a better place while I experience all of the wonderfulness that is possible here on earth. And then I'd die. I realized back then that a life spent bending to other people's negativity is precious, precious time and energy wasted. Did I want to sacrifice that to people who were just, you know, ICKY? Did I want to spend time with them instead of with people who were smart, warm, generous, productive and good? No. I'd had enough of that for the first 20 years.

Fortunately, we live in a free and mobile society where it's possible to have nothing to do with bad people. Nevertheless, it can be a very difficult thing to do if the people are your family. You can KNOW that you shouldn't have anything to do with a person, but lack the strength to unseat yourself.

It wasn't hard to do with my father, as he didn't have actual positive qualities to balance out the negative ones. It was a harder thing to give my sister The Choice 5 years later, to treat me well or not to treat me at all. (Mind you, it wasn't harder in one way: The actual experience of interacting with her was quite miserable. But it was very hard psychologically to accept that there was what Madeline L'Engle called a Might-Have-Been in A Swiftly Tilting Planet: There was a time before my sister got twisted as a result of the worst qualities of my parents and society, a time when she might have grown into a nice and smart person. I mourned that it hadn't happened, and I still do. I'd have liked to have had a sister as an adult.) But my sister chose "Not At All," and my mother did the same thing 5 years after that.

My parents and sister were hostile to the very idea of talking about our problems and the need for them to be addressed. (I really did try with my mother and my sister. My father was too far removed for engagement.) If instead they had been people dedicated to reason, it would have been a different story. Even if I disagreed with them (and goodness knows I disagreed with almost everything those people held near and dear), in that case shunning instead of engaging would have been the wrong move.

So it's an odd set of anniversaries this month, 20 years without my father, 10 years without my mother. It was important to make the breaks before anyone got old or sick -- it had to be a clear choice they were making when they were healthy and vigorous, because obviously I'm not going to abandon someone suddenly in an hour of need. But as a culture, we just don't have a blueprint for doing this. Almost no one does. It's not accepted. It's generated some odd looks when medical professionals have asked, "Are your parents still alive?" and I reply, "I assume so." (Of course, I don't do this with casual acquaintances because I don't want to put them in an awkward position. I just say "yes" because I expect I'd have heard through the family grapevine if my mother had died...one cousin is still in touch with her.)

Anyway, the important thing is that as hard as it was at the time, it was indubitably the RIGHT THING TO DO. I'm pretty good at imagining alternative universes; I can imagine, almost visually and certainly viscerally, the drag on my life and happiness if I were to have had to have these people in my life, and my kids' lives. UGH.

One of the greatest benefits of my having done this, I think, is that Madison and Ella will know, forever and ever in no uncertain terms, that what we do with crappy people is we TURN OUR BACK ON THEM and life gets better. I'm a living example of just how good life can be when we do this. There will be no ambiguity for them about the desirability of doing so, and they'll know they will always have my support when they do. Unfortunately, as we all know, there will be plenty of opportunities for them to practice this principle. We've got their backs.

Those Scholastic people do it right

This week, we visited New York City for a special author book signing. Madison is nuts about the 39 Clues series published by Scholastic, and I heard about a special event at Bank Street Books, a kids' bookstore at Columbia: Three of the authors of this 10-book series (each of these three has written two books in the series) were there: Jude Watson, Peter Lerangis, and Gordon Korman. They each gave about a 10-minute talk that was very engaging for both kids and adults, and then they signed the books.

Also there was Japanese Public Television (apparently there is a big 39 Clues fan base in Japan), and they interviewed Madison, who of course was her articulate self. Everyone there (the authors, the BSB people, and the Scholastic people) was very impressed that we were there all the way from Rochester. Here is a little video clip I took of Gordon Korman:



Here is Jude Watson, author of Book 4 (Beyond the Grave) and Book 6 (In Too Deep), describing the secret meeting where the Scholastic editors first presented her with the proposal to write for the series:




And here are some photos:

Waiting on the floor before the event, Madison made a little friend, Melba, who lives on Long Island:


Madison and Melba each won backpacks in a drawing:


The authors (left to right: Jude Watson, Peter Lerangis, and Gordon Korman) sign Madison's books. Madison talked with Gordon Korman about possibly doing a podcast interview with him.

Everyone experiences this at some point. I guess it was our turn.

We had our first incident today with Madison receiving disgusting email. I knew it was going to happen eventually. Fortunately, she was perfectly calm about it.

Her writing partner friend is a nice 13-year-old homeschooled girl who has a 12-year-old brother who is also a friend of my girls. Both of mine take several classes with both of them.

Madison and Regan, the girl, have been working very hard on a writing project and have been phoning and emailing each other back and forth several times each day. Regan's brother, though a nice enough little guy, is on the ACTIVE end of the ADD scale...even *I* am happy when he has taken sufficient medication; I can barely keep up with him, otherwise. He's been somewhat disruptive of the girls' trying to work together, in that just-turned-12-year-old-boy kind of energetic way.

This afternoon, when I was not home, Madison began receiving filthy-languaged emails from Regan's account. She had never seen some of these words before..."f***face" being among them, to give you a sense of what was being sent. She was appalled, but not particularly excited about it. She really hates foul language and NEVER uses it, and knew that Regan could not have meant to have sent it.

David was livid. He had that "my-lovely-innocent-baby-has-been-harmed-so-someone-should-die" look on his face. They had known it couldn't be Regan, so they thought it might be her brother. David had never met the family, so it was natural for him to jump to that conclusion. But as soon as I came home and read the emails, I knew it couldn't be the boy... TOTALLY not his style, and if he wanted to offend anyone, he would be a lot more creative than that, he has a very active mind. And I didn't think even he would know those words. Plus, it wasn't addressed TO anyone, not Madison or anyone. My conclusion is that it had to have been hacked, so I called the family and left a message to that effect.

They looked into it and came to their own easy conclusion: Regan had been emailing Madison from the YMCA and remembered she had left the account open by mistake. Some idiot teenager then got his jollies by emailing that stuff to the one person on Regan's email address book.

The kids' dad told me that they have a program on the kids' computer which automatically emails everything they type over to an archive. He checked it to be absolutely certain before they called me, but the computer hadn't even been on this afternoon.

David still wanted to put the perp through the wall, but we were both quite relieved that the problem seems to be over, and that it wasn't what David and Madison had feared it might be.

Several milestones for Madison

This is the week wherein Madison

a) Discovered the telephone. She is working on a writing project with her friend Reagan and has been writing with her while they talk on the phone about the project, several times each day.

Sigh. As if the bra last month weren't enough, now she's in the Phone Phase which I assume will last, oh, all her life.

b) Got new glasses. She had had the same purple wire frames for two years, BJ's frames. She had endlessly fiddled with them to the extent that they became crooked and it made her a little odd to look at -- it wasn't significantly crooked so you'd notice directly that something was amiss, but it would give her a slightly goofy cast to her face, and you'd almost unconsciously wonder whether her expression was a little off. Well, she had been complaining that her visual acuity had decreased, so I finally got her to the eye doctor on Monday. Her left eye has caught up with her right eye in terms of how fast it's declining; she's -2.5 in her left eye and -2.75 in her right eye. Sigh. Anyway, it was a good opportunity to get her new glasses, and you can bet that I steered her to plastic frames that can't be bent instead of wire frames that can. She looks pretty cool.

"Wow, you've got J-Lo frames," said the optometrist's assistant when we picked them up yesterday.

Madison looked at her blankly.

"Jennifer Lopez," the woman tried again. Still nothing from Madison.

"She's a famous singer," the woman explained. "She has a line of eyewear like what she wears."

"Oh," said Madison.

c) Discovered that she's going to come with me to the Rocky Mountain Writer's Conference in Jackson Hole, WY in late June. Madison is thrilled. The conference has a special price for writing teens who accompany their writing parents; I wrote to them explaining that I had a rising 6th-grader who takes her writing seriously and would like to attend. Here was their note back:

We'd be happy to have your 11-year-old come on the Parent/Teen registration. I wish I'd had the opportunity when I was her age. I think she'll have a great time, being treated as an equal and a professional be other writers. It will make our conference better too. We'll have a couple of students below 15. I'm not sure if there will be any others as young as 11. But, if she takes her writing seriously, she'll learn a lot.
Write if you have more questions.

It was a "yippee" moment. I need to visit with my web site designers in Montana at the beginning of the summer anyway, so we'll fly into Montana on Monday June 21, drive down through Yellowstone to Jackson Hole on the 23rd, and be at the conference for Thursday-Sunday and fly back home from Montana on Monday. A week for just the two of us! I can't wait.

Well, I MUST wait, and that's a good thing, because it means that Food Fights must be complete by June 24th. It will be, I swear it. Just let me get this site launched and I can work on it like hell in May and June. It's written in my head already, just need the last 2/3 of it down on paper.

Getting close to LAUNCH

Have you ever worked on a project for more than 2 years, and then seen it come to fruition? There's nothing quite like that feeling. I'm in the middle of that right now with the new KidsOutAndAbout.com site design and platform. It's scheduled to be launched at the end of April, and I think we're going to make the deadline.

The first 19 months of effort on this 28-month effort had to be abandoned. I went down the wrong path, and wasted a couple of tens of thousands of dollars. I bought the wrong software platform, "worked" with people who couldn't care less and didn't really listen to what I needed, outsourced some of the custom work to India because I couldn't afford it here, went to a seminar in New Hampshire... and got nowhere. That system was really meant for people who had an IT staff.

But last summer, the company that hosts my current site was reorganizing at just the time I needed to switch directions, and offered me the opportunity to hire them to build the site from scratch, in an open-source software platform called Drupal. I have worked with these people for about 8 years. I always liked working with them, but it took a little bit of oomph for me to jettison all that I'd invested in the other project. As soon as I made the decision, I felt that warm glow of relief that told me I'd done the right thing.

This definitely ranks among the best business decisions I've ever made. Planning was in the fall, programming started in earnest in December. I worked like heck at my regular consulting business for the second part of last year and the last several months so that I could put all I made back into this software development. And I am working like heck nowadays with what they've already put into the site, making the content ready for launch. I'm thinking April 28.

We're actually farther along than I thought we'd be at this point. The programming team has taken my ideas and my general logic and made it into so much more than I ever envisioned. Not only will I be able to extend KOA to other cities and manage it all here from Rochester, but it will let me make money almost without trying. Organizations that post their activities or resources to KOA will be easily led through how to upgrade their free listings with graphics, logos, mission statements, Facebook and Twitter links... and they'll be able to see these enhanced listings. They can design their enhancements, play around with them, then if they want that to be what everyone sees, they just CLICK to purchase that enhanced listing through PayPal/credit card, for basically pocket change per month.

I've never before worked with a small, dedicated team of brilliant people who all work fabulously together and will put their brains toward creating something that will really succeed, much less something that I designed. I've always worked alone. Since being burned about a decade ago, I've always thought it was best to work alone. But this...this is an amazing experience. For example, last week, one of the programmers suggested a small alteration that will end up saving me tons of time and reduce the amount we'd have to spend on sales efforts. It will make it much more obvious to the organizations how they can enhance their listings, without needing to get the KOA admins involved at all.

I'd almost pay all of the money I'm paying them for this sort of experience alone, even if it doesn't end up making any money. But it will. Look out, America. First Rochester, then (later this year if all seems to be working well) Buffalo and Albany, then moving onward and outward. There are some great folks I've been talking with casually who are interested in serving as editors, and this excites me. It's an entirely new model for web sites... not just a calendar of events, but a richly guided tour that celebrates the great stuff in each community, that promotes cultural literacy, that gives parents easy access to the tools to help their kids learn to think.

And makes me rich? Maybe. That'd be nice. (Anyway for me, "rich" is probably a lot less than what other people would call rich.) More important, it will be a real positive mark on the world. And, it will be a LOT of fun to manage.

The girls think I have the best job in the world. I do. And I think it's only going to get better.

David's WSJ letter to the editor

David has a letter to the editor in today's Wall Street Journal, responding to Chester Finn's op-ed last week advocating Saturday school and a lengthier school year. Finn is a former assistant secretary at the Department of Education.

Here is the original article.

Outlook for Monday: Death and taxes a certainty

My broker was depressed on Friday, called me, and advised me to reduce the percentage I have in the market because he was convinced this travesty would happen.

I drank too much champagne last night so I would have to go to bed early and be unaware of it all.

Now I'm up.

Now I have to finish doing my taxes.

If you have something to the cheer me up, now's the time, bring it on.

Ode to Joy

The piece, planned in advance was "Ode to Joy." It really was.



Henry, Madison, Max, and Ella

Photos

Today, we went and had "photos with the bunnies," which we did five years ago. I wrote an article about it. Because the photographer does this every year and when I link to it I get a fair number of hits, I thought it would be a good idea to update the article and take the kids this year. The kids get to play with live, snuggly bunnies while being photographed.

The photographer was a little late today, so while Madison was getting changed, I took some very-amateur photos of Ella fooling around on the set -- sans live bunnies, of course. Wish I could have gotten some of Madison, but the photographer showed up before she was finished getting dressed.




Here's a nice photo of Madison with me on the couch: