I think -- I hope -- I have the schedule set

Extracurricular schedule:

Mondays: Homeschool Gym and Swim at the Y 1-3, Madison cooking 4:30-5:30, horseback riding 6:30-8. Monday is busy!

Tuesdays: Drama for Madison 4-5, karate 6-6:45.

Wednesdays: Piano lessons at our house 11-12.

Thursdays: Drama for Madison 4-5, karate 6:30-7:15.

Fridays: Irish Dancing (hs class) 10-11.

Saturdays: Bach Children's Chorus for Madison, Mozart Children's Chorus for Ella

Brownies are every other Tuesday evening at 6:30 (those weeks they'll do the 3:45 Wed karate class). Cooking, drama, and horseback riding are 5-week programs ending the last week of October. When that ends, we'll switch to Monday & Wednesday karate instead of Tuesday-Thursday, which will leave Tuesdays and Thursdays completely free.

Am I ever glad they have similar interests, and that everything is on the East side of Rochester. Otherwise I'd be running all over creation.

I've been using Airset.com to manage my schedule, since spring. That has worked out extremely well. I truly recommend it.

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Daily Schedule:

We're going to try not to linger over breakfast (the earlier David gets out, the more we get done...the school day never seems to begin while he's still there). We'll end breakfast with the Birthday of the Day and getting the Birthday's photo up on the timeline downstairs.

Each morning after breakfast, we'll start with a 15-minute karate practice. That was an effective invention of mine this spring; it gets their blood running and also focuses them, plus gives them what they need to get their red stripes (every 3 practices, a red stripe) on their karate belt.

Then, one will practice piano while the other does work that needs to be done focused, with me. For Ella, this will be reading.

Three subjects will be done every day: Handwriting, spelling, and math. For Ella, also reading.

Man, Madison needs help on handwriting. I've decided to have her use graph paper for her math this year to help her keep things neater and in columns -- it was so hard for her to do multiple-digit multiplication and long division because she couldn't keep numbers the same size and in columns. We'll be using Handwriting Without Tears and also a handwriting book Laura gave us. For spelling, Madison will use AVKO and Ella will use...some other first-grade spelling book I have, I forget the name.

I'm seriously considering (and I think Laura will really cheer me on here) using Writing Road to Reading with both of them, even though Madison just already reads. She's bad at spelling and writing, though, and I think that this will really help, and I'm going to want something for Ella if reading doesn't just click in naturally soon. The unschoolers would tell me just to leave it be and read, read, read to her. I'll read, read, read...but leaving things be just isn't in my nature, when if she works at it, it's something she could get. The child can read, she just needs practice so that she reads automatically, and damn it, the more practice she gets, the sooner she'll be able to experience the joy that is reading.

For math, Ella will use Math-U-See Beta level and Madison will use the Deb Ross curriculum. Among the goals for Madison are to have her absolutely rock-solid in the mechanics of multiplication, long division, fractions by year's end. We'll do as much "really interesting" math as she can handle this year (applications in geometry, among them), and sail on with that next year. Among the goals for Ella will be to have her rock-solid in multiple-digit addition and subtraction, and much of the multiplication tables memorized, by next spring.

We're using History Odyssey as a general history curriculum this year, which includes a book that the girls have come to love this summer, the Usborne Internet-linked Book of World History. I got some great supplemental project books on ancient history: Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Chinese, and Romans.

For science, I got the R.E.A.L. science curriculum in May, and this still looks pretty good. But for September (the weeks we'll be there, anyway), we'll be focusing on the human body because the RMSC is starting a whole exhibit on it, plus the planetarium will be showing a big-screen movie on it. And this summer I got one of those models where you can take out the organs and put them back in again. Madison had gotten a chemistry set at her birthday party that she used with David all last week, and she wants to keep on with chemistry. So right after the human body, I'll do atomic and molecular structure with them, and then a chemistry unit, before going into REAL science. They both really love science.

I got a really interesting grammar book from Jessie Wise, one of the ladies who brought us The Well-Trained Mind, First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind. It will do for both of them, as it's level 1 and 2. We'll start Madison on level 1, though, and let her move ahead if she goes fast.

We'll keep on with logic, of course. Probably not every day.

I will also review Spanish words with them a few times per week, which I didn't do last year (I just let their little Spanish group with Monica take care of that), and on the days we don't do Spanish words, we'll do sign language. This will be only a little 10-minute exercise each day.

I plan to have Poetry Friday on Friday mornings before Irish dancing, which is at 10am so there's not much time for something beforehand. I figure that reading a poem, talking about it, and then either making artwork to go along with it or creating a short poem of one's own would be a good, time-limited, thing to do before dancing.

For writing, we are definitely going to pick up where we left off with the Frontier Team book with Madison. And Ella and I are going to start writing, as well...we have a book plot scoped out. We'll start off low-key with this; I think we'll do it while the other child has piano lessons, and we'll see where it takes us.

I've abandoned my desire to start Latin this year. We have too much going, and I think maybe I'll start next year, after Ella has mastered reading.

I am going to organize as much of this into lessons ahead of time as I can, so that the subjects can have the lists of lessons spelled out, each on their own sheet. Then we'll put a sticker and date of when each was completed, and every so often we'll celebrate the completion of a set or milestone in spelling, history, science, reading, etc. My girls are definitely motivated by stickers. I plan to do the same for each day their rooms are organized.

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Obviously, we'll weave in nature hikes, maps (I realized last week that the girls are NOT good at knowing where they live in the country, in the world, etc), general cultural literacy in with all of this. We'll be filling in the timeline in our basement (Western culture, 1450-present) with the Birthday of the Day and also with some invention history and art history.

Stepping back and looking at this, I'm pretty satisfied. We're heavy on music (piano, choir, dance) and phys ed (gym & swim, karate, dance, horseback riding). It seems we have a gap in arts-and-crafts, but History Odyssey includes a number of projects, so it's not so bad.

My own work: There will be some mornings I'll need to work while they're working, but I'm going to do my best to reserve this for afternoons.

Timeline link

I have been using the time while Tatiana is teaching and I have Madison, Ella, and Dario with me to coordinate our curriculum for the fall. Of course, I keep getting led down lovely pathways of investigation, and here is one: A user-created timeline called Timeline Index.

Off to Doylestown PA

The girls and I are driving to Doylestown, PA (near Philadelphia) to stay with los Americanos for five days. Dario's school doesn't start until next week while Tatiana starts this week (she's teaching at Villanova and two community colleges while also taking classes toward her Masters degree at Villanova), so we're going to fill in some child care gaps. Also, I'll be able to do some business in DC Monday evening and Tuesday while Tatiana has the girls. We'll speak a lot of Spanish. I'll get a bunch of homeschool planning done while the kids play. We'll miss David.

Philosophy for kids

I checked out John Enright's philosophy suggestions (actually, the White book, Philosophy for Kids, wasn't a suggestion, just a pointer) and have been talking the matter over with David.

There really isn't much out there. I guess I was looking for a history of philosophy for kids. White's book approaches it by organizing the subject around these kinds of open-ended questions that contemporary philosophers seem to love, with the goal of helping kids think about these "big questions" so that they get interested in philosophy. David took a more detailed look at the book and really hated it.

David's point is: When we teach science or math, we don't teach kids the bad, wrong ideas that people have come up with over the ages, except occasionally (e.g., Lamarck) as a means to show what the right answers are. But philosophy, which should be approached this way as well, never is; it's always questions like "When a tree falls in the forest and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?" "Can computers think?" These questions make kids think that somehow everyone's answer is valid...it's just philosophy. He thinks we need to actually teach the right ideas, and then when they're older start exposing them to the wrong formulations, as a means of solidifying the right ideas.

I think I disagree, slightly. I mean, we're already actively teaching logic. Whenever we're presented with an idea, we analyze it from a rational perspective, and discuss it in a way that Madison can understand and participate in. She has already really enjoyed some of the history of philosophy that I've presented her with (i.e., Aristotle and Plato...we did a little overview of The School of Athens). I'm thinking that it would be possible to present her with a kids' version of a history of philosophy that would be appropriate and interesting.

Except one doesn't seem to exist.

What I think I really need is an Objectivist approach to a history of philosophy, for kids.

Maybe one could be created. Takers?

Girl Scouts baseball campout

We've had a lot of fun this summer, but one event Madison and Ella had been looking forward to since May or so was last night's Girl Scout Baseball Campout at Frontier Field. The idea is to watch the Red Wings (our local AAA team, minor league team for the Minnesota Twins) play a night game, then watch the weekly Friday night fireworks display, then vacate the field while they clean, then come back onto the field and pitch tents in the outfield, watch a movie on the big screen, eat snacks, and go to sleep (and get kicked out at 7am). I mentioned in my weekly email to my Rochester KOA list (now about 6000 parents) that we were going to do this and whoever else was going to be there should stop by and say hi. I got responses to the effect that I should "take a nap, because it's going to be a late night!"

We already owned a 2-man tent; Ella and I went to Gander Mountain on Thursday to gear up with another 2-man tent (looks like a bright yellow sarcophagus), sleeping bags for David and me, and some foam pads. Yesterday, we baked brownies (of course, we couldn't actually bake Brownies) and cookies, and packed up grapes and cheese balls.

We got to the game with the back of the car all packed. Unfortunately, the game didn't start until 7:40 because of some AAA Hall of Fame ceremony, then got over at 11pm. And at the moment it got over (Red Wings beat the Scranton-Wilkes Barre PA team 6-2), the sky opened up. It was a brief shower and didn't impede the fireworks, but the announcer said that there was an air mass that was at that point over Buffalo, heading our way, with lightning and hail...so the campout would have to be postponed.

I thought I was the only one relieved, because all of the parents put on appropriate disappointed faces, but David murmured to me that he was just as happy to be going home. A nice cool house, a soft bed, a good night's sleep in advance of a 9:30am belt-testing ceremony at the girls' karate dojo...vs. a 2am humid, hot night with a bunch of giggling preteens, cranky 6-year-olds, and sugary snacks...I'd say we lucked out. Plus Ella was already wilting in my arms and it was going to be another hour before we could even set up.

Of course, I'm feeling like an old fogey for even thinking this. What kind of wet blanket am I going to be in 10 years?

Golden Age

Ella is 6 and Madison is almost 8. And I feel, this summer, as though we've entered a Golden Age.


Madison seems to have left behind the edgy, hair-trigger, hyper-sensitive, perfectionistic, prickly phase that started at 4 and had its peak from 5-6. (One wonders if it had not a little to do with being in school.) She is still somewhat more sensitive than the average child, but overall she is relaxed, warm, and go-with-the-flow. She's so incredibly willing to be intimate without reservations, now. She has confidence in herself and her abilities, and accepts her limitations (and things she needs to work on, like spelling and handwriting) with good humor.

She told me yesterday (out of the blue) that at 12 she envisions herself confident, well-spoken, and able to cook a full-course meal easily. Yesterday when I was making blueberry scones from my Cook's Illustrated magazine, Madison started reading the article and analysis that always accompanies the recipe. She loved reading all about the various ways the author had varied the recipe to see what the effect would be, and the author's impression of what caused the various effects. I mentioned that this is why Cook's Illustrated is the only cooking magazine I'd ever want to read. "I love the theory," I said.

And she replied, "Yes! The THEORY! That's why I like about it, too. Can I just sit down and read your Cook's Illustrated any time? I want to find some good meat recipes. You know, just plain meat. But fancy."

"Plain, but fancy? At the same time? Can something be plain and fancy at the same time?" I asked.

After a short pause, she replied, "Well, sure. Like, take the furniture that you like. You like plain lines, not fancy with curlicues or gargoyles carved into it or wild colors. You like beautiful wood, nice leather, something comfortable and plain and clean. But that's fancy furniture, see?"

Who knew she was paying such close attention to our arts-and-crafts style?

Last night after Ella went to bed a little early, Madison wanted to talk with me and David about philosophy. So we talked about the different schools of thought regarding the concept "soul" -- how the various religions regard it, and how nonreligious folks can define it validly. She said that she wanted to use it to mean the "unconsious ideas and habits that a person has." David talked about how he sees it as the aspect of the person that values, and I offered that it's the aspect of the person that encompasses his likes and dislikes. I ended up privately agreeing with David, but didn't talk about it because I wanted her to see that each person must define her own concepts herself, and I didn't want to muddy that up with switching my definition to be closer to David's, right then.

If anyone knows of a good intro to philosophy, or intro to the history of philosophy book, either specifically for children or one that Madison could read, PLEASE let me know.

And Ella, well, Ella is even more of the eager, active, good-natured person that she has always been. She's a bit more eager to have a good time than to work at getting better at things she needs to work at, and she's still apt to put up a little bit of a fuss when she's made so much of a mess that cleaning it up seems overwhelming. But that's not different from any other 6-year-old. She's so happy to see the good in everything, the fun in everything. She's definitely a glass-half-full kind of person. She has always liked the Magic School Bus series and other science kind of nonfiction, but she's really getting into that with zeal lately. She loved the nature camp, and noticing lots of small details about things and filing them away. She loves beautiful things, she'd fill the house with flowers if she could. She'd cook all day. She learned really well to ride a bike this summer, and there's just no stopping her. She'll keep her hair in curlers for hours just to look like Shirley Temple for her dad when he gets home. She's enthustiastic and precise in karate class. There is no problem getting her to practice piano. She'll put on the iPod and listen and listen to the Bach Children's Chorus recording that Madison has been practicing to in preparation for participating this fall -- good thing they also have a Mozart Children's Chorus preparatory program for ages 5-8 so Ella can be in it as well.

I never, ever want this to end. Relaxed, peaceful, enthusiastic, healthy, happy. I try not to think about some future teenaged angst where I'm mourning this time. We're mostly just snuggling in and enjoying it.

Ella reading update

I'd had intentions of having this summer be reading-intensive for Ella -- not necessarily reading herself, but being read to -- in the hopes that there would be a sudden "click" and she'd just be reading on her own.

Well, life was quite busy this summer, what with camps so I could work, and trip to Tamra and William's, and having Dario over for a week and the Maughlins over for a week. So we didn't get to spend hours and hours sitting around reading.

I had Ella read some for me yesterday. I wanted to see whether The Click had happened.

No, in fact she's regressed. Sigh. And her enthusiasm hasn't increased.

But it's not that far of a regression, and I'm sure she'll catch up quickly once we get going again.

I'd really believed in The Click. Damn.

E.T.

We watched E.T. as a family last night. Funny, it didn't hold up quite as well as I thought it would, despite all of the "remastering" or whatever techie stuff Spielberg was able to do to the DVD that wasn't available in the early 80s.

But this line was certainly worth it:

"Did you tell him [E.T.] about school?"

"How would you explain school to higher intelligence?"

The party went great!

The Harry Potter Party for Madison yesterday went great. (Unfortunately, although I had the video camera in my hand, I forgot to record the "surprise" moment.) She was stunned, and happy. She liked "Hagrid's Dinosaur Egg Hunt" the best. She particularly liked an idea that popped into my head literally 5 minutes before the guests arrived: I took a big piece of cardboard and painted "Forbidden Forest" on it in big red letters, and nailed it to a tree at the edge of the forest part of our backyard.

The Pumpkin Potion Punch was a big hit...It was V8 Splash, orange soda, pineapple juice, and ginger ale. I went and got a square chunk of dry ice from a dry ice company (don't you love capitalism?) and put it in a roasting pan in some hot water so that it bubbled and spilled cold steam all over the place, and then set the punch bowl on top of it. Really neat!

One thing I love about my little HP fan is that, unlike me as a kid, she doesn't get all hyped up about presents (and neither does Ella). We don't open presents at our parties, because we want them to be about having fun and not everyone comparing what they gave with what other people gave. But Madison was actually perfectly happy to sit around and talk about the party for a while, and have a bath, before going over to open her presents. When I was her age, it would have been unbearable to wait, and then it would have been a gift-wrap-tearing frenzy.

Actually, I'm not positive why opening presents and getting stuff isn't that important or exciting to Madison and Ella. And the stuff they have is important to them; they never want me to get rid of anything. They pretty much have what they need. They rarely pester me for anything new, not really, and they know if they really want something they can save up for it. But I guess we mostly do rather than buy (thank you, Cindy's Porch!). So they tend to have a good time without excess baggage. I don't know, really, it's hard to say. But I was happy that it was the case.

I think the most creative present she was given was a kids' cookbook, plus measuring spoons and a big stirring spoon and a spatula, with a bunch (like 7!) of boxes of mixes: cookies, brownies, muffins, etc. I'm definitely going to copy that for someone else. I emailed the mom to thank her specially and she told me that you can find all except the cookbook at the Dollar Store.

Photos of the party are coming soon. Today is house cleaning day, after a week of house guests and a party with 11 kids. (David has taken the girls for a bike ride on the Erie Canal for a couple of hours.) And laundry! Lots and lots of laundry in my new laundry room that Alan built this week to my specs and with me hanging by as the Lovely Assistant. I learned a lot, too. I feel great about the new vent system we put in for the dryer, and the insulation around it. Photos of my New Favorite Room coming soon, too.

I'd say this is pretty blatant racism

Apropos of nothing in particular except that I was posting it to the KidsOutAndAbout.com online calendar, the New York State Fair, which runs from Aug 23 - Sept 3, has, on August 31, free admission for Native Americans.

Don't believe me? It's here.

I wonder if that's actually legal. Imagine replacing "Native Americans" with "Whites."

I am feeling so smart

This has nothing to do with the girls' education per se, but I am feeling so smart for signing up for the Windy Meadow Farms weekly produce delivery. Not only is it fun to pick up my produce on Friday afternoons at Mona's house in Brighton, but the deal is unbelievable. And it's like my birthday, to open up these three full grocery bags and see what I got. Today, $10 bought me a LARGE head of romaine lettuce, EIGHT beefsteak tomatoes (six ripe and two green, to ripen), eleven Roma tomatoes for sauce, a bag of 30 cherry tomatoes, six ears of corn, about 2.5 pounds of potatoes, a big eggplant, a summer squash, three cucumbers, four green peppers, a red pepper, and three sweet peppers. Better than a partridge in a pear tree!

I have to figure out how to cook eggplant.

She has no idea

The Harry Potter surprise birthday party is tomorrow, and Madison has no clue!

She'll be going with Mateo, Maria, Ella, and Alan and David to a picnic for their karate dojo from 10-1:30, then she'll arrive back here at 1:45 and if all goes well, the kids will jump up on the deck (not off the deck) and yell Surprise! I will put a Harry Potter Gryffindor robe on Madison, hand her a wand and the glasses, and get the party started.

Then they will all:

Make HP wizard hats out of construction paper and put sticky stars on them

Make HP wands

Hunt for Hagrid's dinosaur eggs (Easter eggs, some with baby dinosaurs in them -- couldn't get dragons but I figured that Hagrid would like dinosaurs equally well) in the backyard

Play pin the tail on the unicorn if I get my act together and draw a big unicorn

Whack at a wizard hat pinata

Drink potion punch (orange soda, V8 splash, pineapple juice, and gingerale with a big ol' chunk of dry ice bubbling in the middle)

Eat an HP cake

And then, if weather permits, put on swim suits to play on the slip-n-slide which is on sale for $85 at Toys-backwards-R-Us, or at least WAS last week when I saw it there. If weather does not permit, they'll just play.

Think that can use up 2 hours?

Giving the girls these experiences

Yesterday, with our friends from Virginia who are up for the week, we went to the Strong Museum. Of course, we'd bring them to Strong -- there are so few experiences for a 4-year-old and an 8-year-old that are like going to Strong, it's one of those things you show off about Rochester, along with Wegmans and the lack of traffic.

But yesterday, we went for a special reason: SteveSongs was there for two concerts. Steve is out of the Boston area, and he is TERRIFIC. One of these nice side benefits of publishing KidsOutAndAbout.com is that I get sent stuff for review in the hopes that I'll publish something about it. About two weeks ago, the SteveSongs publicist sent me his latest album as a means of getting the concert publicized. I was happy to oblige with an enthusiastic review in our newsletter, and in the middle of last week, the publicist offered a special experience for Madison and Ella: If the girls wanted to, Steve would have them up on stage to sing the last song, On A Flying Guitar. That was on an album we didn't have, so she emailed me the iTunes file, and we got it just fine. Madison and Ella learned it in a couple of days, and indeed, they were invited up on stage:



They sang on a Flying Guitar with Steve and the Sillies, Linnea and Mariel Ross (no relation!) who are 9 and 12 years old. Mariel Ross is incredible; I spent some time talking with their mom, Diane, and found out that Mariel is a very minor singing celebrity in Boston, singing the National Anthem for the Celtics once, in a lot of productions, that kind of thing:


Madison and Ella's respective personalities totally were evident when they were on stage. Madison took the whole thing seriously, had that Focused Ross look on her face and made sure she sang the right words at the right time. Ella knew the words, and just had a great time up on stage, smiling and singing and dancing and glancing up at the Sillies to see if they were doing hand motions she could copy.

I would not be surprised if SteveSongs makes it fairly big some day soon. Right now they're mostly doing East Coast places because that's where they can drive to.

So the thing I've been thinking is: I feel as though my job as a parent is to engineer the girls to have a childhood that they look back on like this: I want them to remember working hard and learning in a relaxed and interesting environment, to have this as a routine, interspersed with moments on their own where they're devising their own entertainment (you know, plenty of time for playing outside or getting lost in a book), and punctuated by these special experiences that I can arrange. I want them to think, "Hey, wow, Mom arranged for us to get up on stage for SteveSongs"...or "We went on a homeschool learning cruise to Bermuda"...or "We visited our forest land in Mississippi"...or "The whole family danced up on stage in this community theater production in Charlottesville."

David and I realized the other day that even just one of the girls has done more cool stuff, been to more cultural events, been "out and about" more than either of us was for our entire childhood.

Summer dreams

We've been away for a while, visiting friends. The girls had their first fishing-with-Uncle-William experience last week, and I got the greatest photo of all:



They each caught fish. They loved it. (No worm-touching for them, though, not even for Madison.)

Harry Potter update

Madison finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at 3:30pm Sunday.

I had read a fair amount over her shoulder during the weekend, and after she was done I grabbed the book and read the last 250 pages. I read the last hundred pages twice, actually. It was terrific.

I don't know that I've read faster-paced action, ever.

My favorite passage (not a spoiler):

"It was not, after all, so easy to die. Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second." (page 699)

I would probably punctuate the passage somewhat differently, but that's just the editor in me looking at what I just typed.

Also...am I alone in possibly seeing Rand here?

Page 638... "Harry's mind was in free fall, spinning out of control, unable to grasp the impossibility...the evidence of all of his senses must be lying --"

The sheer heroism and scope is reminiscent of Rand, too.

Harry Potter and the Midnight Madness

(Photo updates below.)

Last year, I reviewed a lovely children's book called Pieces of Another World in which a father wakes up his young daughter in the middle of the night to take her to see the Perseid meteor shower. The sheer loveliness of that idea always struck me.

This morning at 12:01 was the official release time of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We've had our copy ordered since forever, from Overstock.com. But all of the bookstores around had Harry Potter parties with the unveiling at the precise time. Madison knew about these parties because we have been following the news this week about the reported leaks, and some of the articles mentioned the parties. Madison was upset but resigned that she was too young to go. So, at 11:30 last night, I woke Madison up.

"I've got a special surprise for you, baby," I said. "Let's get you dressed. It's almost midnight, and you're going to the Harry Potter party with Daddy."

Usually, when I wake Madison up, we have a full 5-minute interval between the first parted slits of her eyes and the first toe reluctantly sticking over the side of the bed. But last night, my words penetrated immediately. Her eyes looked like shining blue stars as I threaded her arms through her brown sweater and guided her downstairs. "I'm going? I'm really going?"

I promptly went to bed, of course, so I don't know when they got in. I just peeked into her room (it's 7:30). Her little lamp was on, and her right hand is resting on the book. Clearly David let her cap off the night with permission to read as much as she wanted. I hope she sleeps for hours, yet.

Update: It's 8:15am. She's up.

"Yes, I had a great time. Can I go read now? Dad can take it from there."

Update: It's 9am. She's at the breakfast table, on page 185.


Update: It was a beautiful day, a good day for going out and about. But we let her cart the book around to read...

...in the car:



...in the planetarium (before the lights went out, of course):



...at lunch at Hogan's restaurant:



...on the streets of East Ave in Rochester:



...in the George Eastman House garden:



...and in the George Eastman House galleries, where she was far more interested in Harry than in the Ansel Adams exhibit.



Update: 5:50 pm July 21 and she is on page 420.

Pondering the Big Questions

At the breakfast table this morning, Ella told me that she sometimes thinks about what things would be like if she didn't exist. And then, she tries to imagine what it would be like if nothing existed, if the universe hadn't existed, if the Big Bang had never happened.

"Sometimes I just imagine it all black," she said. "But, really, when I imagine it, it's all white. It's easier for me to imagine nothing as white."

How did she start thinking about this? I was wondering if it was because of having listened to some conversations with one of David's graduate students, a born-again Christian, who was over for dinner.

But she says it's because of when she plays with her friend Lara. Lara tends to make a big mess, flinging everything about, which I don't allow when they play here...Ella has had to be on Lara's case to make sure she doesn't do it, and she has to clean up after them if there's anything left after Lara leaves. "I sometimes think about what it would be like if I wasn't here...I wouldn't have to clean anything up, then," she said. "But I really do like playing with Lara."

Harry Potter movie #5: The Order of the Phoenix

I took a deep breath and took both girls to see the fifth Harry Potter movie, The Order of the Phoenix. It was, I think, the first PG-13 movie they'd seen. I'd heard all of the hype about it being darker, scarier, and for more mature audiences than the first four. But even though I usually wait until someone who knows me sees the movie and says whether they think the girls could handle it, we decided to go. I wasn't going to get away with them not seeing it, for one thing. They've both loved the first four movies, and Madison has Book Five practically memorized. (She kept up a whispered running commentary throughout the movie about book scenes the movie left out or treated somewhat differently, although overall she says the movie was true to the book.)

All of us really liked the movie, and quite honestly I wasn't sure why it was rated PG-13. The "scary" bits were, yes, a bit more violent than we'd seen in previous movies vis-a-vis harm that was done to humans, but the Chamber of Secrets killing of the basilisk (HP #2) was definitely more gory and aroused more anxiety in viewers, at least in my kids. For those of us who understood more of the psychology -- i.e., Madison, who knows the book, and I, who am more aware -- we could tell that this was more grim and ended less on a note of triumph and more on a note of "good we got the bastards this time, but there's a lot worse to come." For me, the experience was very much like I was visiting with these old friends, the kids and adults at Hogwarts, and I felt a warm sense of familiarity that I wouldn't have felt had they not been able to retain the same actors (save for Dumbledore, as Richard Harris died, but his replacement, Michael Gambon, was perfectly serviceable and my kids can't tell the difference).

The best actress, in my opinion, was the creepy-creepy-creepy Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge. And I think the reason that she was so creepy is that we all have seen school administrators who have an Umbridge soul, so the fact that the kids mounted a very effective rebellion was immensely satisfying to the audience. Evanna Lynch was awesome as Luna Lovegood, and I read somewhere that she beat over 15,000 girls for the role.

When I asked the girls if they'd found it particularly scary, the response was a resounding "No!" I find this so interesting. "Well, what kinds of things DO you find scary?" I asked. Monsters lunging for the kill are pretty scary, Ella thinks, if you don't know whether they're going to succeed. But by far what both kids find most "scary" is when a protagonist they like is about to do the wrong thing, to get in trouble. When Harry ran away from the Dursleys at the beginning of #3, THAT was scary because he had just done magic in front of a Muggle and it could get him expelled from Hogwarts. So really, for my lovely little odd kids, many sitcoms are scarier than these kinds of movies. To be honest, I do get dreadfully embarrassed when that kind of thing happens in sitcoms, when you're shouting in your mind at the screen, "No! Don't do it! This is a sitcom and you know you're going to get your comeuppance! It will be embarrassing!" But I am almost positive that I've never expressed anything like this in front of the kids...we certainly don't watch much TV together, other than their shows and, say, the odd episode of "Trading Spaces" or "Mission Organization" or the Food Network.

Anyway, six mostly-enthusiastic thumbs-up for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We'll probably see it again with Dario when he comes in a couple of weeks.

Chickadee in the summer rain

Mama, this is the warmest, best rain EVER!




And it cooled off Rochester pretty darned well, too.

We created lemon-and-grapefruit sorbet in our new ice cream maker today, which turned out awesome.

And it's taken me three days, but the schoolroom/playroom/basement is almost completely reorganized and decluttered. Plus I got the dehumidifier to work down there and it's vastly more comfortable.

Chef Chickadee

Everything delights a chickadee.
--E.B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan


While Madison is swishing through the heat in her 19th-century outfit this week in her Learning & Leisure camp at Genesee Country Village (photo coming later this week), Ella is spending the week at home with me. She is loving this so intensely, so passionately, that I wonder if I should try to find some more Ella-and-mom-alone-time during the year. (And maybe I should carve out some more Madison-and-mom-alone-time too.)

"After we drop Madison off, we're going to Wegman's and BJ's."

"YAY!"

"We'll go to the Wegman's up in Webster that has those "shopper in training" grocery carts you like."

"REALLY? Ohmygosh, THANK YOU, Mama, I love those, I really love those.

And indeed, the child is practically wiggling with delight as we get out of the car.

Then, yesterday, we spent the whole day cooking, while I got no work done. We made vanilla ice cream and strawberry ice cream and mango salsa and we tried to make lemon sorbet but it didn't work. She wore her apron and chef's cap. She picked mint from the garden. She tried everything, and really liked the raw red pepper that was in the salsa. She washed the dishes, splashing around happily and being mostly successful. And at various points, the most adorable child in the world would fling her arms around my waist and try to squeeze the bejesus out of me (there is no more left) and cry out, "I LOVE this, Mama. I LOVE spending the day with you. I LOVE cooking with you."

Wait till she finds out we're going to Strong Museum later in the week.

Cherry- and strawberry-picking on the 4th

Madison, Dario, and Ella in their traditional Fourth-of-July pose in the wagon at Brown's Berry Patch:



Tatiana, Madison, and David on the way out to the strawberry patch:

Some Madison photos for good measure

Spanish dress for Ella

Tatiana has been here this week, and has made a Spanish dress for Ella, much to Ella's delight.

First place for patriotism!

Some members of the girls' Brownie troop participated in Penfield's June-30-Fourth-of-July Parade this morning. We all brought our own decorations and decorated one family's truck. The seven girls sat in the back of the truck and threw candy to kids watching the parade, while David and I, and another mom and dad, walked behind.

The girls were thrilled that we won First Prize for Most Patriotic Float.

You might be able to tell that our contributions to the decoration were posterboards with phrases from the Declaration of Independence. We (ok, I) cut out all of the letters, pasted them on white posters, and painted them with coffee and tea to make them look like old documents.

Most patriotic, you'd better believe it!





WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT...

CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS

LIFE, LIBERTY

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

LET FACTS BE SUBMITTED TO A CANDID WORLD

Quote from the director of the girls' drama camp

Yesterday evening, the girls had their performance after a week of PUSH Pins drama camp. They thought the camp was terrific (there were about 50 kids, some of them actually quite talented), and had a marvelous time.

I introduced David to the director, Miss Heather. She shook David's hand and told him how much they'll all enjoyed having Madison and Ella in camp.

"And Madison makes us all feel undereducated," she added with a smile.

Getting fit and saving money this summer

Hey, here's some fun news which has also saved me money. There is a farm near Rochester (there are several like this, from what I understand, but this one is Windy Meadow Farms in Walworth) that will deliver 12-17lbs of fresh produce right to your door for $15/week, or to a close-by pickup location for $10/week, through November 23. What is in it varies each week...here is this week's as an example: http://www.windymeadowfarms.com/weekly%20selection.html.

Anyway, I thought this was a great deal and so I signed up for it last week. We got lots of great stuff, I cooked and made salads, etc. There is so much in your shipment that you can freeze it, too, so I froze the strawberries to use in smoothies. Anyway, you get amounts off for referring people...and so what I did was mention them in my e-newsletter last week, which goes out to 6000 parents. Well, the woman emailed me tonight and told me that the newsletter made such an impact, so many people signed up, that I get the whole 23 weeks of this year's season for FREE. I understand that if you act as a drop-off point, you get free produce, too...so maybe this is a national trend and there is a farm in your neck of the woods. Just an idea.

Cool, eh? How's that for saving money and eating healthful food all in one fell swoop.

And speaking of swoop, no, make that SCOOP:

A client who sells kitchen appliances sent me an ice cream maker. It arrived yesterday. It's a nice one that requires no rock salt or ice, all you do is freeze the main cannister overnight, mix up your ingredients, stick the cold canister on the turning mechanism, add the ingredients, and watch it mix and thicken for half an hour. We made ice cream today: 2 cups heavy cream, 1 cup milk, 3/4 cup sugar, and some vanilla. And MY GOD there is nothing like how delicious and fresh this was. Better than regular ice cream, and much cheaper, too. On the other hand, not so healthful. I can console myself on one dimension, but not the other. I have a recipe book with lower-cal recipes, though, so we'll probably try some of the fresh sorbets. Maybe with the strawberries I get from this Friday's delivery...

Confession: The guilty pleasure of summer camp

Camp time! Madison and Ella are at the PUSH Pins drama camp this week, which is sponsored by PUSH physical theater, which has an emphasis on, well, physical theater. Mostly mime and dance, but also drums, arts and crafts, etc. They really liked it today.

Oh, the guilty, guilty pleasure I feel. Six blessed hours all to myself each day this week. SIX! I bought a smallish magenta notebook last night, which is to be my 2007 Summer Accomplishments notebook. In the front, I labeled the front-and-back of a page with each room in our house, and for a little while this morning, I wandered around, blissfully uninterrupted, writing down what needed to be done in each room, plus the garage, storage room, and outside. In the back, I started a to-do list, with all of my stuff (Axton Enterprises, KidsOutAndAbout.com, book writing, painting--which I vow to get back to this summer--academic planning for the girls, exercising at the gym, home organizing, financial organizing etc.) kind of intertwined as it occurred to me...and a LOT occurred to me all day. There are two-and-a-half solid pages of to-do. Then, I made a separate page of General Summer Goals, categories that encompass my to-do list, and tucked that into the front pocket so that it's handy (and revisable). I then took a separate sheet that represented this week, and made a sort of daily schedule. It's kind of nice, actually, that David is away through Wednesday, in that I can schedule in an extra hour of stuff to get done before the girls go to bed, and an hour after they go to bed.

There I was, working today, all the while alert for the inevitable "Mom!" that would call from any corner of the house. I even heard it occasionally, and would start up to find out what was needed as usual, when I'd realize THEY'RE NOT IN THE HOUSE, they're in Pittsford in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church. Then, in quick succession: Relief that I wasn't needed by someone, delight at being free to focus exclusively on what I was doing, guilt at my delight, a little rational work to override my guilt, and the plunge back into industry.

AAAAAAHHHHH summer.

P.S. And it's even cool because of the air conditioning.

Central air conditioning coming Friday!

I'm deliriously happy.

Pathetic, huh.

Let's pretend...

From Madison, at this morning's breakfast table:

Let's pretend that Domino's powdered sugar is a special kind that lets dogs read hieroglyphics.

And I'm the dog.

Two great questions

At dinner tonight, these were two of Madison's questions.

1) Have you ever had a theory that someone convinced you was wrong, so you changed your mind, but which then you reworked later and realized that your first theory was right?

2) In response to a discussion about numbers that repeat infinitely in mathematics, like 1/3, she wanted to know if David had ever encountered an example of a number that had an infinitely repeating part, but completely by coincidence, without a mathematical cause.

So, friends, how about #1? Any examples?

As for #2, David says that he has seen some examples, and that he's going to try to work one up for her.

Home Schooling (and Rosses) in the news

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, June 15, 2007

In my neverending quest to get the word out about the viability and desirability of home schooling...

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070615/NEWS01/706150375

Update: When you read the article, check out the comments, too. Some of them are amusing...especially the one that took one of my comments -- that I'd be jealous if someone else educated my kids -- out of context and decided that I needed therapy.

Space school

I've been able to keep the kids in focus this week at school (when all of us really want to stop) by using a space theme. We spend a good (and fun) hour reading about space stuff from the books I brought home from KSC and also from the library. We have done space-themed spelling, which worked great. The girls are at different white boards, not able to see each other. We do the spelling words together (Ella's started that now). Moon, earth, sun, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Then, Madison erases, and Ella *reads* the spelling words to her and Madison spells them.

We've also been working on a difficult solar system puzzle for two days. We're in the difficult portion now, and frankly it has such tiny pictures that it's giving me a headache. We only do that for about a half hour until the girls' patience runs out. While we've been working on that, we listen to the CD for the Bach Children's Chorus. Madison got her official acceptance letter last week, and she's got to memorize the following three songs in the CD by the end of the summer.

With "space" as the focus this week, the girls have been able to get going at their schoolwork at such a good clip that I'm able to have them do regular math (non-space) without any trouble. Ella is doing 4-digit by 4-digit addition with carrying (and I'm not exaggerating: she always gets every single problem right, for the last two weeks). Madison is starting long division. I had started long division with her back in the winter, and realized she wasn't quite ready. After 3 days, she's starting to get the hang of it. But it's difficult, and she gets frustrated when she works on something that you can't just snap your fingers and know. That's ok, some things are like that.

So I guess I've got a end-of-kindergartner doing addition with carrying, and an end-of-second-grader doing long division. I'm satisfied!

The new Charlie Bone book (Book 6, Charlie Bone and the Beast) arrived on Monday afternoon. Madison started it at about 4:30. She had finished it by 10am the next morning. She started reading it again yesterday afternoon.

We've been listening to Book 3 in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. We finished that yesterday. We were weeding out the front rose garden yesterday afternoon, and fortunately that's right next to the driveway. So we had the CDs in the car, opened the car door so the speaker was nearer us, and listened to the 3rd and 4th CDs of Prince Caspian while finishing the weeding. It really helped us continue the weeding, because we didn't want to stop listening. David arrived home while we were still thus engaged (OK, while *I* was still weeding, and the girls were sprawled around with juice boxes listening), and he got out some pistachios and sat down and listened to the end of the book with us.

I had been skeptical of C.S. Lewis, given all of the apologia nonsense he also produced. (According to David, in Mere Christianity he actually states that if you have any underlying motive for your good actions that benefit yourself, it doesn't count as good, only self-abnegation counts. Rand said that if you want to see the worst of Christian apologetics, just read Mere Christianity. I haven't been able to bring myself to think that it's worth my time, maybe someday.) But Lewis is a fabulous storyteller, it's all beautifully written, and what is in there are Biblical referents that the culturally literate adult can appreciate, rather than admonitions from a Christian ethical perspective. That is, the first few books are the retelling of Bible stories: The Magician's Nephew is a retelling of Genesis, and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is a retelling of the crucifixion and the resurrection. I can't figure out what Prince Caspian is supposed to be retelling, unless it's Jesus's gathering of the 12 disciples, roughly. I wonder if he does The Flood in one of the other books. The girls are enjoying them enough that we'll continue, and I tell all who are interested (primarily Madison) about the parallel Bible stories.

Don't you think Ella looks better in my new sun hat than I do?




Now, that's a loaded question, isn't it?

Blasting off into the summer

I took a short trip to Florida with some colleagues -- no kids -- and saw the shuttle launch on Friday evening. It was wonderful, marvelous inspiring, so much so that I have so much to say, too much for the brief time I have right now.

I can't wait to find some time to take the kids. Soon, it will have to be.



Hey, didn't my camera do a good job? If you look at the photo in its original context, Atlantis is only a small spec in the middle, as we're 6 miles away from the launch pad.


But my camera is a 7.1 megapixel, and so I was able to crop it and look at it, and hey presto, pretty cool.

I couldn't resist the books in the bookstore there at Kennedy Space Center. We're going really heavy on space, and the shuttle, this week at Mariposario. The books I got weren't enough, we had to go and load up on some more at the library this morning.

Winding up for the year - rambling post

I've discovered myself infected by the same end-of-the-school-year lassitude that always affected me when I was at school. Who wants to do lessons now that winter's over, our brief spring is waning, and summer is upon us? On the other hand, now we can move back into the basement, because it's no longer too cold down there to work (have to get a portable heater for next year), in fact it's downright wonderful when the rest of the house is steaming. (Speaking of which, I'm getting quotes today and tomorrow for central air installation...David is fairly determined to go a summer without it, we'll see.)

I've taken some of this wanting-to-be-out-of-doors restlessness and channeled it into school: I decided we should build a map of the neighborhood, so most mornings for the past two weeks we start the day with a walk. Sometimes we put on landmarks, sometimes we count steps with our pedometer, sometimes we time how long it is from here to there with our stopwatch, sometimes we put the houses with numbers on and color them in to match the color of the house.

We also are volunteering at the Nature Center in Mumford, once per week in June. Last week we (ok, mostly I) pulled garlic mustard, that invasive weed, that was cluttering up the main yard at the Nature Center. Today is our second day, we'll see what that brings.

On my birthday (May 5) we had gone for a walk down in Penn Yan, and along the trail Madison found a large bone, very old, quite clean. We decided to bring it with us. Madison dubbed it a Mammoth Bone and she persists in calling it that, although I thought it was horse. We brought it to the Nature Center last week for a diagnosis, and Liz thinks it's a cow bone -- either the tibia or the fibrula, whichever is the one that goes from the hip socket to the knee (note to self: for pity's sake, look this up!). We donated it to the Nature Center for their Touch Table. Surprisingly, Ella was a lot more reluctant than Madison to leave it there, couldn't figure out why, usually it's Madison who panics at the idea of being separated from something that's hers.

The other thing getting in the way of getting work done is MY work, which seems to have picked up lately. I keep having to talk with clients, or do actual work, or whatnot. Let me confess that school goes MUCH better when I forget about work and give the girls my full, planned attention for a couple of hours, rather than have them work and me intermittently check it while I'm doing my own.

So I long for the last week of June, when they start camp, and when I can REALLY get things done. They're going to drama camp the first week, off the second week when Tatiana and Dario will be here, then morning ballet (Ella)/ history (Madison), then history (both, though Ella only in the afternoons), then horseback riding (morning), then nature, then off to Chicago, then YMCA camp with the Maughlins, then down to Tata's for a few days so that I can look after the kids while she gets ready for the school year, then a couple weeks off, then off to the 5-day Homeschooling Cruise to the Bahamas over Madison's birthday, which is Sept 10. And the summer is over.

Have I officially signed them up for any of this? Of course not. Have to light a fire under me own arse.

I keep realizing how miserable Madison is at spelling, so we're focusing on that more lately. God, she's clueless. She does, though, remember some of the rules, so I'm seizing on that. Yesterday I did spelling for a long time with both her and Ella. We chose words from Harry Potter. Would you believe that this kid, who has been obsessed with Harry Potter for at least nine months, who can discuss the most intricate little logical details from the books, initially spelled his name HAARE POTTR yesterday morning? I find this absolutely fascinating. We spent a lot of time yesterday, after school at various times, discussing words that are like "POTTER" and "MUGGLE." We'll keep plugging away at it.

It's actually good for her to have things she's not good at. There's no pretending that she's good at spelling right now, and by not mincing words about this, it lets her know that when she's good at something, she REALLY IS, there is no artificial praise going on, she can take genuine pride in it. There's no shame in her not being good at spelling right now. She'll get better. She's getting better at handwriting, she really is, although she's still not good at that, either. (I think getting better at spelling will help her get better at handwriting, she hates writing things that are so badly spelled she can't read her own thoughts.)

Chirp and Peep

The girls and I have been playing "baby birdie" ever since Madison was not yet two years old, so we've been playing this for six years. I've blogged about it before; it's a simple game where the only thing fixed is that I'm a mama bird and the girls are baby birds. When we're playing it in earnest, it's usually on a bed, with the blankets swirled around us to form the nest.

Somehow, early on (I think courtesy of an early Dora the Explorer episode, the one where she helps the lost baby blue bird find its nest) it was decided that the baby birds would say "peep" and the mama bird would say "chirp" -- "chirp" being more sophisticated and difficult to say than "peep." (Plus, the baby blue bird said "peep-peep-peep.") Daddy bird joins in sometimes, with a deep "CHIRP" that resonates from somewhere inside his chest.

Well, "chirp" and "peep" have been extended outside the game, recently. I found that a sweet, caring "chirp" is often enough to penetrate Madison's consciousness when she's upset. "Chirp?" I'll ask gently, and it's a measure of her state of mind how, or whether, she answers. The chirp says to her, "Remember, this particular thing isn't really important, what's really important is that I'm your mommy and you're my baby and I'll always love you and take care of you." It works, it really does, it usually touches her heart even when she decides to continue being intractible for a while longer.

I've taken to using it at all kinds of times, and the tone of my voice varies depending on the situation. When I'm proud of her, or we're all feeling affectionate, I'll sometimes say, moved, "Oh, chirp!" and she'll respond cheerfully "Peep!" Sometimes, when we're out among others, I'll whisper "chirp" in her ear, and she'll look at me and whisper "peep" back if she's feeling connected, or smile enigmatically and say nothing. Sometimes, when she's feeling disconnected, she'll outright refuse to answer "peep," and that's usually a measure of something stirred up inside her, but the fact that I've chirped at her often helps her settle down. Sometimes she teasingly refuses to answer, and often she'll say, frowning (a bit self-mockingly), "I'm not going to say 'peep' now." But usually, these days, she's happy to peep back at me.

Ella, on the other hand, has no subtlety with her peeps. It's almost always an immediate, smiling, "Peep!" that says, simply, isn't it wonderful to be alive and together? Whereas Madison's peeps can be imbued with all kinds of various meanings, Ella's peeps are almost always prompt, and cheerful. The "chirp-peep" game doesn't mean nearly as much to Ella as to Madison...it's just another expression of affection, one in a neverending chain of them.

Madison and I have discussed the possibility of chirp and peep extending a long time into our relationship as mother and daughter. She's decided that there should be some end to chirp and peep, that she would never say it, say, as an adult. I, on the other hand, can picture myself calling her up some day after she's taken her post as Supreme Court Justice Ross. "Chirp!" I'll say as she picks up the phone. "Peep!" she'll respond.

Because the previous post reminds me I haven't posted photos lately...

Lilac Festival 2007

Ella Addition Breakthrough

From needing to be carried...



...To carrying!

Completely unrelated to home schooling

There will be a new Dick Francis book coming out on September 17.

It's called Dead Heat.

Yee-ha!

I mean this literally, from the bottom of my heart.

Although I'm sure he'll never top To The Hilt.

Hard work pays off

I mentioned in my post on May 4 that Madison was practicing to audition for the Bach Children's Chorus, which is an amateur-but-professional-quality classical children's chorus here in Rochester which sings in many languages. It's for 8-to-17-year-olds, with the average age of about 12, I'd estimate. Madison will be 8 in September, so she's on the young side.

The audition pieces were rigorous -- one song was in German -- and they sing very high -- she had to be able to sustain a high G in one place, and get to it from a B-flat.

They give you a one-to-one pre-audition workshop which was last Saturday, and at it, my baby crashed and burned out of a sudden case of nerves. I felt so terrible for her, but she did not get very upset about it, especially when I assured her that this happens to many and that she's really on the young side to be trying out for the choir anyway. I was very proud of her for keeping her composure. I also felt really guilty for not having given her much more guidance than I had, I had basically left her on her own to listen to the practice CD. She knew the German no problem, but vocally she just couldn't hit the high notes.

The audition-proper was yesterday, and so, in the spirit of "if Mom doesn't know the tips to give you, she'll find someone who does," on Sunday I had a friend who sings classically work with her, and on Monday and Tuesday I got her two lessons at a conservatory near here. And yesterday, she rallied incredibly, and did VERY well at the audition (it helped that the director, who had been very pressed for time on Saturday and had basically dismissed her at the time after Madison had said "I CAN'T sing those high notes," had seen so many children in the last week that she didn't really remember Madison, so she didn't remember how badly she had done the first time).

You might get the impression that I was pushing her to be in the choir, but that isn't the case at all -- the kid loves to sing, and wanted so badly to be in the choir that she worked like heck, all from her own impetus, for the last three weeks. I did want her to get in because it's exactly the kind of musical experience that will focus her, she'll love it, they sing BEAUTIFUL music (when I was a child playing cello in the NJ Region II orchestra, it would move me that I was part of making beautiful music, and that stayed with me forever), and she'll become friends with good kids who are like her. But I really only wanted her to get in because SHE wanted to get in...I certainly didn't push her at all. She didn't have the sense that I wanted her to get in for any reason other than that I wanted to help her get what she wanted.

Part of the reason the director was impressed yesterday, I think, is that Madison was very willing to work there with her to do what the director wanted...she took Madison through various exercises to see her range, to help her envision the various notes, to correct a bit of the pronunciation. There was no fidgeting, no resistance, just focus on the director and willingness to follow the directions. Part of that was that she had gotten used to that from the various lessons she'd had this week. I was just about bursting with pride.

Even Madison could see the difference after the pros helped her out in the last several days. "Mom," she said in the car after the audition, "I couldn't have gotten in if it hadn't been for you helping me practice and getting me the lessons." I was stunned that at 7 she could step back and see that, but of course I downplayed it. "That's my job, to get you the tools you need to do what you want to do," I replied.

I was actually more stressed out than Madison was between Saturday and today, although she of course didn't know it. It's possible that the hives I broke out in on Saturday afternoon were the main manifestation of my internal strife. The night before the audition, I woke up at 4am with the music playing loudly in my head, and couldn't get back to sleep for 2 hours. This morning, even after Madison's success yesterday, I also woke up at 4am with the music playing loudly in my head, and because I couldn't get back to sleep, here I am at the computer at 5:30.

I was so worried that Madison would be devastated if she didn't get in, that this would reinforce her tendency to hedge-the-bet and denigrate herself and predict doom rather than success, to prevent that kind of disappointment in future endeavors. She really would do that, too, she's so passionate about things. I know that if she didn't get in after working so hard, that this in itself would have been a valuable lesson, that sometimes you work hard and it doesn't work out, but I want her to learn THAT lesson a little later in life than 7! Madison takes things too seriously so often, so I had so carefully to harness her drive and use it to motivate her to practice, but also to balance it with the reassurance that if she didn't get in this year, she's really on the young side ("sometimes I do take third graders," the director commented, "but not often."), that there are other choruses she could sing in if she didn't get in.

But it looks very much like she got in. Comments like, "she has a beautiful voice," and "I think this program will be exactly what she needs" and "I'm very suspicious of voice lessons around here because they tend to emphasize chest voice over head voice, and the kids lose the ability to sing in the head voice...she might be better off just in the chorus with no lessons at all" and "we can't let people OFFICIALLY know until after June 4" tell me that the director will let her in.

What a relief.

And, as I've been telling her the last couple of weeks, simply the fact that she has worked SO HARD at this makes me so confident for her in the future, that she'll be able to achieve exactly what she wants to achieve in life. I'm so proud.

Ella's dreaming

Ella woke up from a dream about...baseball. She dreamed that the Rochester Red Wings had hit three home runs, among other more elaborate details of the game.

This delights me, believe it or not, for two reasons. First is that she's dreaming at all, and recounting the dreams in detail. Madison has always had, like me, these elaborate dreams that she loved talking about when she awoke (I used to annoy people with the elaborateness of my dreams and my insistence on talking about them). Ella, though, almost NEVER recounted dreams. I couldn't tell if it meant something about her imagination, or intelligence...or if the fact of the elaborate dreams were linked to MADISON's imagination or intelligence, of which the kid certainly had plenty. Now, almost at about the same time she's gotten engaged and immersed in these fantasy chapter books on CD, she's dreaming like heck.

The other reason I'm happy she's dreaming about baseball in particular is that it must mean something to her. She understands the rules of the game, now, is happy to sit through a 3-hour game with all of us, and she has integrated it enough into her personality for it to emerge in a cool dream. I love baseball. It's another connection that I have with both my girls. How fun.

Just as an update: We've finished the final available book in the Children of the Red King series, #5, Charlie Bone and the Hidden King. The other day, I found a great web site that will be very enjoyable for those who have read this series: Charlie-Bone.com.

Camporee

Madison has been a Brownie since we moved here, and Ella has just joined, too, although she won't be an "official" Brownie until the next school year starts in September. Madison always wanted to be a Brownie, and loves being a Brownie. Ella likes the meetings even more than Madison.

Yesterday, we went to Camporee, an event that is held every three years, a big gathering of about 300 Girl Scouts from Brownies all the way up through seniors. It was the Camporee event for the "Millwheel" branch of the Girl Scouts of the Genesee Valley, which I think was mostly from Penfield.

Anyway, it's an event for the seniors to design events for the younger ones, under the supervision of the adult directors. David (I think one of only 3 men there, and certainly the only dad) and I were bus monitors, and patrol leaders of the patrol Ella was in. All the kids were nice enough, but it really gave us a sense of perspective about our own kids: No matter how much we think that they're not "snapping-to-it" quickly enough when we ask them to pay attention, they're better than most of the kids. It amazed me how most of them are pretty quick to ignore you, how you have to go to lengths to corral them and get their attention.

Madison and Ella did four activities: A Sports hour, a "dinosaur dig," crafts, and a nature hike. Except for the sports, which was run by the guy who ran the camp, the rest were designed and run by the older kids. You can't go too far wrong with crafts, and they chose to have the girls paint a tote bag. But most of the rest of what we saw there was really hokey, especially the dinosaur dig. Because each activity mostly took less than the full hour, the girls had down time, which was mostly taken with tetherball and informal tag.

The opening and closing ceremonies were mostly nice, around the flagpole, but they took too long because it was hard to get the girls' attention and they let the time be taken up with lengthy announcements and a little bit of silliness.

When I find people who are able to give my kids great experiences that I can't, I get so grateful, sometimes, that I actually get a lump in my throat. But this wasn't like that at all. Although my kids weren't bored, and had a good time, I didn't feel as though they were necessarily in the hands of something great. And, weirdly enough, I found that the whole thing brought up strange emotions that must have had their genesis in my childhood, but I don't remember what. I remember hating Girl Scout camp. Maybe that was it. But I guess the truth is, and I must whisper this: I don't really like the whole Brownie thing. Any of it. This is one activity that I do just because they wanted to. I don't like bringing them to meetings, I don't like doing activities with the other "Brownie moms," I volunteer for my share of stuff because that's what you do when your kids are in Brownies, but I don't really like it. I really don't like it.. Shhhhhh now don't tell.

Children of the Red King

We, meaning the whole family, are absolutely enthralled with listening to the Charlie Bone series of books on tape. This is Jenny Nimmo's Children of the Red King series. We're midway through book #4 (Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors) of five existing books, and a sixth book is coming out next month. Simon Russell Beale reads these books on CD, and he is fabulous, so fabulous that for me and the girls, listening to these CDs beats reading them ourselves. Charlie Bone is really similar to Harry Potter in many respects, in that it's about children with magical powers at a boarding school in England. But Nimmo is a better writer than Rowling, quite a bit darker, with fewer monsters with scales and more monsters in the shape of evil relatives.

Adrienne, make SURE to order the sixth book as soon as it comes out on CD! I hope they're working on it even as we speak. Do you have magical ways of finding out if it's in production?

Cruel Mommy

Ella is in an anti-reading phase lately. She's been reading the Boxcar Children #1, she reads one page with help, and either I or Madison read two pages, then she reads another page, etc. And lately, she's been just bursting into tears instead of focusing and reading the words she knows. It's a ploy, is the thing. She can read the stuff. But she's decided that she doesn't want to, because it's hard. But I'm making her. I'm not unsympathetic, but not particularly sympathetic either because she's just stalling to see if I'll reduce the amount to be read. I put my arm around her, and snuggle her in, and tell her that the extra time she's taking here is time she's taking away from playing later.

The loose unschooler types would castigate me for making a child do something she's not ready to do, that her crying means she's not ready. They'd tell me that it's going to make her against reading for life, that it's not going to be something she wants to do for pleasure as a result of my pressure.

I snort. Her crying means she's a good actress. She'll be fine.

But it's no fun.

To be a bit more serious about it, I have to keep submerging my own desire for her to read exactly on Madison's same timetable. I just want her to have the same kind of pleasure Madison had, as early as Madison has had it.

Also, even though Ella doesn't watch that much TV, it would be nice if she substituted some reading for the TV she does see. Madison watches almost no TV, just isn't interested.

Necessary

Looking at the page, at the actual sentence to be read, is rather necessary for the reading process. Looking around the room tends to slow you down.

Why this escapes children, I have no idea.

Capitalism...We teach it!

The lemonade stand was the biggest hit EVER. Madison and Ella basically ran the whole show, with minimal help from me and even more minimal help from the lovely RIT Math Club reps.


It was a beautiful day, 66 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I hadn't anticipated Ella being so able to help, but she filled up lemonade cups for three hours and added precisely four extra drops of "secret formula" (lemon juice from one of those little yellow squeezy plastic lemons) to each cup. They sold about 7 gallons of lemonade...I had to run in to the math department building to make additional lemonade three times. Good thing I also brought along a smaller extra keg.

In addition to the new "lemonade-yellow" outfit we got her at Target for the occasion, Madison also wore a "Madison Ross Class of 2021" name tag. That got a lot of notice. We did a lot of practicing of "When someone hands you money for a product you ALWAYS say 'Thank you' enthusiastically right then." Madison also decided to add "And have a nice day!" when people left.



The stand made $49.00 profit overall, after subtracting the $7.50 in supplies, which Madison fronted with her own money. You might think that translates into exactly 113 cups sold, but it doesn't...I am not sure how many people said "Keep the change!" but it was at least 15 people.

That's Madison calculating the profit, above. 60% of it ($29.40) went to the RIT Math Club, which left $19.60 for my kids. In turn, Madison split THAT 60-40 (ah, percentages! lots of math was done at this table!) leaving her with $11.64 and Ella with $7.76. "That's almost $4 per hour!" Madison said. "At this rate, I could be rich!"

Here is Madison with Kate, the Math Club rep (and Ella is blowing bubbles in the background):



The Math Club kids tried to ask me to let the girls take all of the profits ("We didn't do anything but sit here some of the time on a nice day!") but both I and David felt strongly that they should have the greater percentage, and Madison agreed with our reasoning. In the car on the way home, Madison and I had a discussion about Public Relations and why it's often more enticing for people to buy products as part of a fundraiser than just from their own needs, which in this case would be thirst (and, as Madison reminded me, because they would want to support cute little kids in their own business).

We also had a discussion of risk, in the context of why Madison should have the greater percentage of profit even though Ella worked for the same amount of time that she did. But as I pointed out, Madison assumed the risk for the endeavor...she fronted the money for the supplies, and if no one had bought lemonade, she'd be out the $7.50. So she deserves a higher percentage. (Right, Steve?)



"What are you going to buy with the money you're making?" the kids from the Math Club asked Madison. "Oh, I'm going to save it," she replied breezily. They were impressed. Turns out she's saving up for...a TV set for her room. HMMMMMM.

Anyway, they LOVED doing this. They would do it every week if they could. We're almost certainly going to do it in September. Big plans were discussed in the car on the way home. What if we sold both fresh-squeezed lemonade AND from a mix, so people could choose? Could we charge more? We'd have to charge more. Do you think people would pay $1 for the fresh-squeezed? Do you think we'd sell more of fresh-squeezed? Do you think we'd make a bigger profit with fresh-squeezed? How much are lemons at BJ's? Maybe we could sell cookies, too.

The only down side of the whole endeavor? When we got home, somehow Ella locked our new cash box with her fingernail, and we can't get it open. So it's sitting there with the girls' money in it, enticingly, on the kitchen table. The keys are locked inside.

Bist du bie mir

Madison is in the audition process for the Bach Children's Chorus, a fantastic classical music singing group here in Rochester.

Right now, she is practicing a hard German song that she has to memorize as part of an audition for the Bach Children's Chorus, which is a very professional difficult children's chorus composed of kids from 8-17. She has to memorize two songs, one a German song called Bist Du Bie Mir, and the other something in English from Handel.

She practices for 3 weeks, she makes an appointment for an individual "checkup," then practices for another week and then auditions. It totally moves me how hard she's working at this. SHE wants to do it, I'm not pushing her at all. Fortunately, she can do it as part of "school." If she gets in, one of the benefits will be that she will be able to sing the beautiful music I did as a member of a chorus. That was a really fulfilling part of school for me, and I had feared they would miss out.

We don't know if she will make it, she'll only be 8 in September and it's not like she has professional voice lessons or anything. But they say that they usually take kids that prove they can work hard and make it through the audition process. Rehearsals are every Saturday morning for 2 hours starting in September. She can always try again next year if she doesn't make it this year. They sing stuff in Latin, German, Russian, Spanish, French, etc. They travel each year, they sing with the Rochester Philharmonic, and always do the Nutcracker and Handel's Messiah at Christmas. This will be very good for her, a good way for her to make good friends who also love music. It will be nice if she has this while Ella has her dancing -- Madison is definitely not a dancer.

I'm kind of glad Bist du bie mir is in German. Because here are the words in English:

(If) you are with me
I go with joy
to death and peace.

Oh, how pleasurable
would be my end!
Your beautiful hands press
my faithful eyes close.

Don't you hate it when THIS happens...

SOMETHING is going on, 10:30-11:30 on Friday. I know this, because I wrote it on a scrap of paper, a statement from Morgan Stanley, TODAY. I wrote it sometime today. "I know I'll remember this," I said to myself. But I think I'll write it HERE, on this paper right next to me, so I can be sure to remember.

10:30-11:30 Friday, I wrote.

I have no blessed idea what this could be. Really, no idea. Whatever it is, it conflicts with what we're doing Friday morning, which is Madison is finally going to have her lemonade stand. She proposed to the RIT Math Club that she have a lemonade stand as a fundraiser for them, as a way to get on campus with plenty of customers. (You can't just plunk yourself down on the main walk and have a lemonade stand, even if you're cute and 7 and the daughter of a professor.) She's going to have the stand from 11:30-2:30, at some picnic that the club is hosting.

We got our sign materials from the Dollar Store today. Have to get a cash box and a keg. Photos forthcoming after the Big Sale!

What the heck could be happening from 10:30-11:30 on a FRIDAY morning?


Update: Turns out this is referring to a call I'm supposed to have with a client on MONDAY morning. Why I'd written Friday I've no idea.