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"?

**********************

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.