Mocking the Millers

Most Christian homeschooling families are familiar with the "Miller" books. These storybooks, written from a Mennonite perspective, aim to teach Biblical lessons via stories. We have a few of them; I've read the stories to the kids and from time to time my girl brings them out to read.

The kids in the Miller family rarely fight or disobey. But when they do, Mom Miller never yells or scolds loudly, but corrects them in a soft, gentle voice. And Dad Miller is stern but not mean; "sober" is the usual description of his manner when disciplining the children. Just about every story ends with the family at evening devotions, and the Bible verse of the night always, always fits whatever bad thing happened during the day, whether one child wrongly accused another of stealing stickers, or someone ate too much candy, or was lazy, or...

(Some stories do deal with more serious matters, such as the death of a young girl. But we're not talking about those now.)

So the other day we were having a Bad Morning and all was chaos. Naturally, my girl brings out a Miller book and starts talking about how nice and calm and soft-spoken Mom Miller is, all the while glancing at me out of the corner of her eye meaningfully. Right, Mom Miller I am not.

The boy, always eager to mess up a cultural reference, starts in on Dad Miller. "Yeah, and Dad Miller must have ESPN to always know what verse to read at devotions!" No, I assure him, the Millers would never pay for premium cable, nor would they appreciate being linked with extra sensory perception. He slaps himself on the forehead in that "I coulda had a V8" way and joins his sister in mimicking the younger kids of the family. They agree that if the Millers ever visited our house "they'd be horrified!"

Yeah, well. I bet the Miller kids make their own breakfasts and help take down the Christmas decorations, too. Before January 9.

The season of celebrations

The Christmas season just ended yesterday, did you know that? Epiphany, traditionally celebrated as the day the three kings or wise men brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Jesus. We celebrated in a small way: a rousing chorus of The Twelve Days of Christmas and a cake with a bean baked into it. The person who gets beans either has good luck through the year (of course we don't believe in luck) or is the king/queen of the celebration, depending on what tradition we follow. We just like cake. No one got the bean and the rest of the cake is going into the freezer for reasons that will be clear momentarily.

Actually, some Orthodox Christians are celebrating Christmas today. But we close Christmas on January 6, for two reasons: we're not Orthodox Christians, and because today we celebrate another birthday, my little girlie's, who is 10 today. Yes, we will be making another cake.

When I was pregnant with her I prayed that she would not be born during the Christmas season. Well, that prayer was answered; she is out of it by one day.

But it sure makes for a long season of celebration.

I like having the Christmas tree up through Epiphany. But my girl has told me that it's too depressing to take the decorations down on her birthday. So, I'll start tonight after she goes to bed and finish tomorrow. This was to be the year I really organized the Christmas stuff, but I think once again I'll be so sick of dealing with it I'll just get it all in the boxes as fast as I can with no thought to organization. Next year, right?

No, they aren't ALL MVPs...

Today was the last soccer game, played under clear skies on a windy 30-degree day. Our team won. They've won most of the games.

Afterwards we met at the coach's house for pizza lunch and trophy awards. As he was passing them out, one of the girls asked who the MVP was. Of course the adults all chimed in that "you're all MVPs!" Ugh. The girls were having none of that. They all knew who the MVP was and named her. One of the girls also named mine as the one who "got most better." "Most improved player" would be the award she'd get, if awards were allowed anymore.

It's so dumb. The girls know who is good, who is best, who has gotten better, who just isn't so great. They are all kind to each other; whenever the opposing team made a goal, everyone consoled the goalie, no matter what. Even if she was standing there checking her fingernails as the ball whizzed by. No one was nasty or snotty or acted superior. But they still know who the MVP is, and the adults don't do them any good by pretending they don't. What's that line from The Incredibles? "When everyone's special... nobody is."

My girl had a great first soccer season and is anxious for next year.

UPDATE: Oh, it gets worse! I just looked at the trophy! It says "Most Valuable Player." On the trophy! On everyone's trophy!

At least she agrees it's stupid.

Another good thing about having children...

among many others: Despair can't hang around too long. Life goes on! And so we have to go on, joyfully living the lives we have been given, in the circumstances we have been given. When we think of what others have endured, our lives look pretty easy.

When my kids got up yesterday and I told them who was elected, they both almost cried. But already I am not finding it so hard to take, and my kids will grow up respecting the Office of the President of the United States, and the person who holds it. Romans 13:1-7:

1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

People are going on and on about this historic time, of an African-American as POTUS. My kids understand this, but don't see why it is remarkable. Of course they have been taught about slavery and discrimination. The idea of separate restaurants, for example, is very weird to them. Some of our best "lessons" on this came from discussing early rock and roll, and the fact that sometimes a performer did two concerts in a city - one for the whites, and one for the blacks, and how people like Elvis and Ray Charles helped break down some of those barriers. But anyway, they haven't been raised to see black people as really different from white people. A different history, maybe, but not different now.

I hope that before too long, no accomplishment by a black person is considered historic. Maybe we've passed that now, and if that's the case, I will rejoice in this Obama Presidency. But I don't hold out much hope that we have; there are too many people who want to hold on to that victim status. But it's time to let that go, isn't it? Maybe that's easy for me to say. But, I see accomplished black people all the time: high-ranking generals, Secretary of State, etc. How long will we have to keep making such a big deal out of it?

More election talk

Monday is piano lesson day; during each half-hour lesson I sit on the lovely front porch of the piano teacher with one child and read or do some kind of schoolwork while the other has a lesson. Then, we swap.

Today I wanted to go over some math stuff with my boy but when we were trying to dash out of the house we couldn't find the book; funny how that is, in particular since when we got home I found the book immediately, in the exact place it is supposed to be, and where I swear I looked twice before we left.

So we talked about the election. He wanted some history; who had run in the last election, and how Senator Obama came to be known well enough to be running for President. We just talked about how all that worked out, and somehow came to talking about Obama as the first black man to be a candidate and how this would be a historic election. He went on to comment that either way it would be, because McCain would be the oldest (surely not a feature for most people) and of course there's Palin.

We talked a bit about the fact that it was historic for a black man to reach this point. This boy does not really get that. Surely he notices that most people around him are white; he also notices that when we drive through the really rundown part of town to the orthodontist, most people are black. But he doesn't really get why that is or why it should be that way. He doesn't see any real difference between black, white, Asian... isn't that the way it's supposed to be? I don't get into a lot of discussion of race except to say that some people might not vote for Obama because they don't want a black President, and some will vote for him simply because he is black, but that people should vote based on what a person has done in the past and how that compares with what they say they will do in the future.

We talked about other parties and he asked if the Communists had a candidate in this election. He is fascinated with the Soviet Union and the Cold War; the idea of communism really disgusts him. We talked a bit more about taxes and what taxpayer money (I try not to use the term "government money") should be used for. Of course the first thing he brought up was the military. As always we got on the topic of "poor people" and welfare and how some people do need help; he said something about "also needing to help people who don't want to work" - whoa, where did that come from? No, I said, we should not help people who don't want to work.

He always seems vaguely dissatisfied with these discussions, as if there is more to talk about but he doesn't know what it is. In a few days or weeks some unanswered question that has been percolating in his brain will come out, and we'll start all over again.

He is taking a series of standardizes tests this week; unfortunately none of the topics of this discussion will be covered. Still, I guess the way we spent our time was at least as useful as going over fractions, and much less frustrating than working on finding the lowest common denominator.

Sorry, Coach, my dog ate my cap.

2 games left in the little league season. The boy, normally careful with his cap, leaves it within reach of the dog while we are out. For a long time. Long enough for the dog to get lonely. And bored.

Now I am not going to pay for a new Dodgers hat with 2 games to go. Some of you may remember my dismay at my boy's assignment to the Dodgers at all. It has been a tough season for all of us. So, no cash for a new cap.

We ripped out some of the stitching and folded back the blue fabric, then cut out some of the bill and glued the fabric down over it. It looks a little odd. But it's workable for the remaining games.

Hey! Maybe our dog is a Giants fan!

Stupid CPS tricks

This should make you sick.

A guy at a ballgame orders a lemonade for his little kid. He doesn't notice that it's a "Mike's Hard Lemonade" which in case you don't know - the Dad didn't - contains alcohol. The boy drank some. He is sent to the hospital in which he is declared to be fine and alcohol-free, but in the blink of an eye the 7 year old boy is crying himself to sleep on his way to foster care. It takes a few days before he gets to go home; another before Dad is allowed back in his own house.

And all the while, police and CPS workers are saying this shouldn't be happening, but there's this protocol to follow...

DADvocate asks: Quick question: What was more harmful to the kid - drinking the Mike's Hard Lemonade or being separated from his parents for two days, his father nearly a week? If you have to think about this one, go to the back of the class.

This afternoon a police car went by my house, very slowly. I have to admit I wondered if someone had heard the kids playing outside during school hours, or heard the kids fighting, and had called the cops. Paranoia, sure. But...

Oh and by the way, don't think if you don't have minor children, this doesn't really matter to you. This is your tax dollars at work. These people who snatch kids away from their parents are paid by you and me. And in order to justify their existence, they've got to keep snatching.

Useful craft (maybe)

My daughter is a crafty girl. She is always making something and that means there are always little bits of paper, tape, glitter, glitter glue... all over the place. Just now I found her latest: doorknob signs. I picked one up; it said:

If you're a "grown-up" don't yell at the Kid in here Because it's not my fault it's a Jangle! (Maybe it's Jungle with a badly-formed "u".)

I am pleased with her proper spelling of "you're" but continue to be annoyed with her habit of capitalizing random words. I wonder about the quotes around grown-up. Maybe she thinks I don't really qualify as one.

The 8th commandment

Which is the eighth commandment? The eighth commandment is, thou shalt not steal.

How many ways are there to steal? We had an interesting discussion on this today. I love days that start like this:

- It's stealing to not tell the cashier if they give you the wrong change.

- It's stealing to make false alarms to the fire department: the cost to the fire department/taxpayers for the time, fuel, etc., the cost to other citizens because response to a real emergency might be delayed.

- You can steal someone's wife.

- It's stealing not to pay for the donut you ate in the store.

- Being late is stealing someone's time.

- Idol worship is stealing from God. (This was prompted by our Catechism book Training Hearts, Teaching Minds. But the boy is really keyed in on idols and got into this one right away.)

Yes, I love it when our mornings start this way. Because we homeschool we have time to really talk this over. We can really explore the implications of our actions, and the consequences of them. This is why breakfast sometimes takes a really long time in our house.

Signs of good weather

Walking to the post office and then to the local deli for pop. Yeah, I said pop. And candy bars. Too bad they don't sell iced coffee. How come walking is so much more fun with the dog?

Digging out the super soakers.

Fighting over the unbroken super soaker.

Finding the parachute ball.

Watching the parachute ball go really, really high! And then drop into the top of a very tall tree. Just above the homemade parachute (plastic grocery bag, string, Kong dog toy) that's been there for 3 months.













Seeing the magnolia tree start to bloom. I have long wanted a magnolia tree. Now I have one.

Wanting iced coffee but breaking the coffeemaker in the process. (The break was not permanent; user error, but not resolved till the moment was past.)

This is just sad... and lovely too

For some reason I followed a link, and then another, and ended up at The Anchoress, reading Failure to love is killing Europe.

Sad:

Over at the Corner, they’re quoting Bruce Thornton: [Europe is not reproducing because]
“children are expensive. They require you to sacrifice your time and your interests and your own comfort. If your highest good is pleasure, if your highest good is a sophisticated life, then children get in the way. Why would you spend so much money and so much energy on children if your highest good is simply material well-being? That’s sort of the spiritual dimension of the problem.”

And lovely:

I’ve realized over the years that anti-life action, abortion, euthanasia, are all failures of love, and failures to be willing to open yourself up to all the ache and beauty that love brings. People don’t mind the beauty but they don’t want the ache, so they settle for a beauty less vibrant but safer.

"If your highest good is pleasure." Imagine a life like that.

Wherein I swear at my children

It was one of those chaotic days we have around here so often. Nothing was getting done, for no particular reason. The house was badly cluttered. Dinner was haphazard and I was late getting it started. So the kids and I decided to play a game. I didn't want to play the game but in the midst of a crazy day, sometimes that's the best thing to do.

It was a card game about inventions, and I was playing a card with a question about early bicycles. I don't remember which child had the question, but he or she got it wrong. I read the correct answer off the card and J piped up, "That's wrong! The first bicycle was a vockilipsie!"

"A vockilipsie?" I thought to myself. "What the hell is a vockilipsie?" Then I realized I'd said it out loud.

Oh, my kids were delighted! They could not stop laughing. Every now and then one would get enough breath to say "What the bleep is a vockilipsie?" and that would send them both off cracking up again. I apologized, and said that was not an appropriate way to use the word hell. They just kept laughing. And argued over who would get to tell Dad. (I said I would.) Then we had to figure out what a vockilipsie actually is. It is a velocipede. (More about J and phonics another time.)

When Dad got home I told him. He laughed too, of course. We both knew it could have been worse. Later, J sidled up to me and whispered, "did you tell Dad about the incident?" I assured him that I had and all was well. I think he was disappointed that I didn't get computer time taken away from me as punishment. (He would have.) But he recovered quickly and went off cackling and chanting "what the bleep is a vockilipsie?"

You thought this was going to be more exciting, didn't you?

News flash: imaginative play is good for kids

My nephew sent me a link to an interesting article about kids and the importance of imaginative play. (Which is really cool because I would not have thought he'd ever read my little mommy-blog.) This wasn't news to me, or to most mothers I know. Kids should be allowed to be kids, and have opportunities for "open-ended play" which really just means messing around. I did learn about "executive function" which is the ability to self-regulate, and one of the benefits of imaginative play, but I probably could have guessed that it seems to be on the decline as kids do not have as much time to "just play" anymore. And then there's this:

...good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, "Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain."

So all that academic work preschoolers and kindergarteners are doing may be more harmful than beneficial, after all. Again, something a lot of mothers already know.

My kids have always played imagination games. Even at 9 and almost 11, they run around in the yard playing pirates, or set up elaborate fantasy-lands with their Playmobil figures and Legos. They have a lot of fun (till they disagree and start to fight - such is the life of siblings).

But not all kids play that way anymore. We have some friends who get itchy when they're here because we don't have a gaming system. Some think imaginative play is too babyish. But often they'll get into it if there's no other choice, and then end up having a really good time.

One day my boy and a friend were outside with string setting up snares in the yard. They weren't serious about it (they knew the snares would not actually trap anything), but they attended to the project with an air of seriousness. I think the snares were for the little sisters, but they said rabbits. It doesn't matter; they were involved, having a good time. But a neighbor kid came over - he's a year or so older - and told them their project was stupid. He wanted to talk about his cell phone, and the cell phone he hopes to get someday. My kid could not care less about a cell phone, but his friend got a little into it - he' s much more culturally savvy than my boy. My kid was frustrated but could not tell the boy to take his cell phone and get out of our yard. I went back in the house - best to let the boys work stuff like this out on their own. I wasn't paying close attention but the next time I looked out, the neighbor boy was coming over the fence with some rope. Guess he got into it after all.

Hand cultivating

A few weeks ago when I was at the hardware store for some mundane item, I picked up a lovely new cultivator. It was a cheap luxury - not more than $3 - but the wood handle fit so nicely and the sharp tines seemed so ... sharp.

Today I was working in a badly-neglected flower bed, trying to dig out weeds without disturbing the few remaining plants in the bed. Working with my little cultivator is slow work, but very satisfying. So is pulling out roots and stems of "field grass" (my term for the thick weed grass so prevalent in my yard) and clover. I know it would go much quicker with the tiller - I could just fire it up and plow through all those weeds! (Well, if I knew how to fire it up, that is).

But then I wouldn't be able to rescue a little patch of thyme, or a struggling little rose bush, or an earthworm. I wouldn't see the bees working on the clover - sorry about that, guys; there'll be something better soon. I wouldn't be able to talk to my daughter about the bees, and the worms, and the flowers we are going to plant for the people who will be living in our house for the next few years. The tiller's pretty loud.

As I worked I realized that working with hand tools is a little like homeschooling. I'd probably save a lot of time if I sent my kids to school. I bet my yard would look a lot better if I had 8 hours alone all day. But then I'd miss so many things, wouldn't I? Things more important than a nice-looking yard.

The head gets it; the heart's not there yet.

My J is getting really anxious about our upcoming move. We are planning to leave in about 4 weeks. Every night we have to talk about why we are moving, and go through all his worries: that he won't meet any friends, that he won't like the weather, that our new house will be too small. He asks why we have to move. We go over it again; Daddy and I know that Dad should go to seminary. We just know it's right. J knows it too, in his head. He gets it. But his heart isn't there yet.

E is a little quieter about it now; she had her sad times and maybe is already feeling better about it. Or maybe she's just not talking right now. She likes feeling superior to her older brother so maybe she's enjoying looking like the mature child... hard to tell with that girl!

Yesterday was really hard; it was our last visit with some really good friends. New friends, but still. These are kids both J and E clicked with the minute they met. There was none of that awkwardness that can come with meeting a new kid. They met and immediately started having fun. Those are hard friends to say goodbye to.

There are also some friends they've known all their lives. Literally - we met one family when our oldest kids were 18 months old, and the next oldest were newborns. That family went on to have 2 more kids; we stopped. We still see them often. My kids don't know what it's like not to see them several times a month.

There are old friends who don't live so close anymore, but close enough we can visit on a day trip or a quick overnight.

There are friends we knew we would enjoy but didn't have time to get to know well.

And all the other friends too!

J did show some wisdom in our latest talk. Our current house is not in a neighborhood, so my kids don't have spontaneous play opportunities with kids on the block. So they don't deal much with mean kids, or kids they just don't get along with. Our new house will be in an old-fashioned American suburb. Potential for lots of kids (or, maybe not; we visited the house on a school day so didn't see anyone, but it looks like a kid neighborhood). He is nervous about that, about meeting a bully. He said "here's my tactic for meeting new kids in the neighborhood. I'll keep an eye on everyone to see how they treat the other kids. If they aren't nice to the other kids, I'll steer clear." We talked about being kind to everyone but not making a close friendship with any one person right away - about discernment and how to develop that when it comes to people.

Of course I'm a little nervous about the whole neighborhood thing too. I've never lived, as a mom, in a "regular" neighborhood. I've always been able to pick and choose the people we come in contact with. I've never experienced some of the things my friends have: kids stopping by, asking to come in and play, even though the parents don't know each other. Neighbors who expect the stay-home mom to watch over the neighborhood while they're at work. People who are loud or vulgar or have the tv blasting some kind of garbage I'd rather my kids didn't sit around to watch. These are the experiences of people I know! Of course they have nice neighbors too, but it's always so much easier to focus on the scary parts of moving.

I've been reading Moving With Kids by Lori Collins Burgan. Nothing I didn't already know, but good reminders. She goes over the stages of grief, a la Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (who wrote in the context of dying): denial, grief, anger, acceptance. I think I missed one. Anyway, my kids are in the grief stage now. Wonder if we can skip that anger stage?

A study I would like to see

Yesterday we spent some time in a park with some other homeschoolers. The kids spent all their time running, walking, climbing... being very active. Not one of the kids is overweight. I thought about other homeschoolers I know. No overweight kids. My own J is not real slim, but he's muscular and big and solid, not fat. Occasionally I'll notice him getting a little "fluffy" around the middle - and I'll realize that I've been a little too free with the desserts, or he hasn't been active lately. So I cut back on dessert and send him outside to work or play, and the fluff disappears. (If only my fluff would go away so easily.)

Of course we see headlines periodically about the obesity epidemic among kids. As I watched our slender, active children, I wondered if someone would ever do a study on obesity rates of homeschooled vs. schooled children. Maybe even break it down between public and private-schooled kids.

At my church, kids are mostly homeschooled or go to Christian school; a small percentage go to public school. I can't think of an overweight kid at church. Not saying that there is a link between weight and religious affiliation, or that there are no overweight Christians. I am a Christian, and I am overweight. But still - you'd think there'd be some overweight kids in that group.

I'm just relating my experience and observations; this is all anecdotal evidence. Don't tell me I'm wrong!

Today these stats graced the front page of our local paper:

25% of Oregon 8th graders are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight.

11% of Oregon 11th graders are overweight, a 63% increase from 2001 to 2005.

Nationwide, 16% of children ages 12-19 are overweight, three times the rate of 1985.

Schoolkids don't have time to run and play the way homeschooled kids do - at least, the homeschooled kids I know. Even at home, when we're in between schoolish activities, my kids will just get up and jump around the living room. My little E will finish a math lesson and go do some somersaults. I don't guess that's OK to do in a classroom full of kids. Schools cancel recess. Some that have recess don't allow active games like tag. Some schoolteachers take kids on "power walks." (don't remember where I saw that.)

None of the kids in our park group brought handheld electronic games with them. I think some of the kids have games like this. Mine does. But we don't think to bring it to the park. When my J was in Little League, I used to see kids on the playground, sitting around playing electronic games. They were almost always overweight.

Maybe if instead of chatting with the moms while my kids run around the park, I'd run around with them, maybe I wouldn't be overweight. Whadya think?

Anyway, I think that'd be an interesting study. No one will ever do it, but it's worth thinking about.