I know it's only Thursday, and Mindy at Grateful for Grace does her link-up on Fridays, but I'm popping in with mine now because, well, I'm ready and trying not to procrastinate.
So here's a little "what we're learning" update and a general update as well.
We are learning....
...that karate does, in fact, involve a little bit of (very) light contact, and that we don't appreciate that, at all.
...that plans can change, and twice a week karate lessons can be stopped before they get started if one has a good enough reason. Unexpected contact sport is, we think, a good enough reason. Even if some of us realized there might be contact, we are not willing to force the sport on the unsuspecting among us who didn't have a clue.
...that not having to leave my house those other two nights a week is a beautiful, beautiful thing. I am insanely grateful that I won't be needing quite as many "quick & easy meals" as I thought.
...piano continues at a startling rate. Since I last posted, The Artist has learned London Bridge and his instructor has introduced the bass clef, so he's now practicing with both left & right hands. He's working on Frere Jacques with both hands. He is able to read music, follow sheet music, or listen and repeat.
...that buying just the right fabric when making a gift for someone, following your own design, is a bit nerve wracking. I did a wide poll of all my friends on whether to go with the original color scheme I wanted for the baby gift I'm making, or to go with the color scheme that the new mom chose for the baby's bedding. Votes were roughly 50/50, but The Chemist cast the deciding vote and suggested I match it to the baby's room just to be on the safe side. This was tough, folks. I had already seen and picked out (but not bought) the absolutely perfect fabrics -- for my color scheme. Finding stuff that I loved as much, worked as well together, still felt feminine and soft, and that sang to me the way the originals did....it was tough. Really, really tough. In fact, I'm still doubting one of the fabrics and will be emailing photos to a select few (two) so they can tell me which one to use. Hopefully they agree with each other, because The Chemist and I disagree. I really need a no-tie vote on this. Ooh, just thought of a third person to guarantee I don't get tie results.
...how to serve well in tennis. "We" are not learning this, but The Writer is learning this and doing really well at it. The Chemist and he have played a few games together and all reports are that The Writer is doing great.
That's the bulk of what we're learning this week. I've got a few posts coming up that should be interesting; a spotlight on The Writer, a preview of the baby quilt (the recipient does not read my blog, I don't think), a photo of the memorial "quilt" (tiny) that The Artist designed for Kitty Socks, and some more catch-up on the Diary Quilt. I'll get those posts going in the next week or two....come back and check it out!
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
What We're Learning, 2nd Edition
I won't be doing this every week, but only those weeks I have something to share. This week is one of those weeks! Hooray!
We're learning some fun stuff this week....
The Artist, age 11, is finally riding his bike w/o the aid of training wheels! woot!!!
Now, before you get all "only now???? he's ELEVEN!!" on me, keep in mind that he was only 6 when we moved to Brazil. To an apartment where he had no place to ride a bike. And then to a house where the only streets were steep hills not conducive to a just-learning bike rider. And so now, in this house, with flat streets and no traffic he has had his first opportunity to learn to ride a bike. With that in mind, I'm very proud of how quickly he caught on. Yay, Artist!!!
The Writer, age 14, continues in his tennis lessons. At his last lesson the instructor taught him how to block the ball, by extending his arm fully and placing the racket in the path of the ball, but not swing, in order to give a soft return. As The Writer's biggest struggle in tennis is controlling his arm strength (he tends to send balls flying over the 15' or 18' fences, bouncing off tree limbs....), this is a skill he needs and also a signal that his general play is improving to a point that his coach is comfortable introducing new skills. Yay!!! So proud of him!!
The Adventurer, age 7, made the connection last night at dinner that the names of the letters (of the alphabet) almost always tell him the sound that the letter makes. This is HUGE news for him and I am so proud that he has never given up on trying to learn, even when he begs out of school since he thinks he'll just forget. He's remembering, and learning, and things are starting to click, and I'm excited to see where we go from here. Again, so very proud of my boy!
The Boys are all learning a little about poetry, and that it can be fun & funny, not just dry and boring. I read them two poems at dinner last night -- one titled "Arithmetic" by Carl Sandburg, and the other called "Block City" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Everyone enjoyed it, but the witty replies of The Writer cracked me up. He joked with me about "Arithmetic," decided that "Block City" (about building with blocks) reminded him of Minecraft, an on-line game where you....build with blocks, and then when I said, "See, isn't poetry fun sometimes??" he quoted back to me the first line of "Arithmetic":
In other news, we're signing up the two younger boys for Karate, which means we'll now be out of the house (or parts of us will be) three nights a week. This means I am re-learning fast & easy dinners to make and serve before various ones of us are out the door. I haven't had a busy evening schedule in over four years; I hope I remember how to do this!
On that note -- any tips for me? I do have my crock pot here but haven't used it much; electricity is expensive here. I also have a pressure cooker that I've used for rice. Anyone have a good site for learning how to use it for more things?? Other fast & easy meal tips??? June, how can I do this without sacrificing taste???
If you want to read more, pop over to Grateful for Grace and follow the links....
We're learning some fun stuff this week....
The Artist, age 11, is finally riding his bike w/o the aid of training wheels! woot!!!
Now, before you get all "only now???? he's ELEVEN!!" on me, keep in mind that he was only 6 when we moved to Brazil. To an apartment where he had no place to ride a bike. And then to a house where the only streets were steep hills not conducive to a just-learning bike rider. And so now, in this house, with flat streets and no traffic he has had his first opportunity to learn to ride a bike. With that in mind, I'm very proud of how quickly he caught on. Yay, Artist!!!
The Writer, age 14, continues in his tennis lessons. At his last lesson the instructor taught him how to block the ball, by extending his arm fully and placing the racket in the path of the ball, but not swing, in order to give a soft return. As The Writer's biggest struggle in tennis is controlling his arm strength (he tends to send balls flying over the 15' or 18' fences, bouncing off tree limbs....), this is a skill he needs and also a signal that his general play is improving to a point that his coach is comfortable introducing new skills. Yay!!! So proud of him!!
The Adventurer, age 7, made the connection last night at dinner that the names of the letters (of the alphabet) almost always tell him the sound that the letter makes. This is HUGE news for him and I am so proud that he has never given up on trying to learn, even when he begs out of school since he thinks he'll just forget. He's remembering, and learning, and things are starting to click, and I'm excited to see where we go from here. Again, so very proud of my boy!
The Boys are all learning a little about poetry, and that it can be fun & funny, not just dry and boring. I read them two poems at dinner last night -- one titled "Arithmetic" by Carl Sandburg, and the other called "Block City" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Everyone enjoyed it, but the witty replies of The Writer cracked me up. He joked with me about "Arithmetic," decided that "Block City" (about building with blocks) reminded him of Minecraft, an on-line game where you....build with blocks, and then when I said, "See, isn't poetry fun sometimes??" he quoted back to me the first line of "Arithmetic":
"Well, actually, 'they flew in and out of my head like pigeons...."I love seeing his sense of humor and wit come to life! (and I'm sad that "building with blocks" now resonates as a computer game! Ack!)
In other news, we're signing up the two younger boys for Karate, which means we'll now be out of the house (or parts of us will be) three nights a week. This means I am re-learning fast & easy dinners to make and serve before various ones of us are out the door. I haven't had a busy evening schedule in over four years; I hope I remember how to do this!
On that note -- any tips for me? I do have my crock pot here but haven't used it much; electricity is expensive here. I also have a pressure cooker that I've used for rice. Anyone have a good site for learning how to use it for more things?? Other fast & easy meal tips??? June, how can I do this without sacrificing taste???
If you want to read more, pop over to Grateful for Grace and follow the links....
Thursday, March 22, 2012
What We're Learning, 1st Edition...
My friend over at Grateful for Grace is starting a new link-up called "What We're Learning." It's fun to read her list, which has both silly & serious, and then to go and read the stuff people have blogged and linked up with. (clearly, grammar is not on my WWL list today!) Being a good friend, I can't resist joining the party.
We're learning lots of things at our house this week.....
....algebra. Solving for x and all that. Side-by-side white boards on the couch, student and teacher, working through the problems in the book. Together. We've turned math from something that used to involve shouting and crying and fussing and frustration (from both the teacher and the student, sadly) to something that we collaborate on, our mutual enemy and together we team up and conquer this stuff. It's amazing, really.
....the alphabet. Yes, The Adventurer is still learning the basics. That each little scribble has a name and makes a particular sound (or two or three....). That if you string enough scribbles (letters) together, they make words. His penmanship is fantastic, and he can perfectly print every single letter. We're working on recall, and I'm confident he'll get it. Soon. I hope. And, no, the irony of teaching & learning both algebra & the alphabet is not lost on me.
....context clues. The Artist is reading a free version of Sherlock Holmes mysteries on the Kindle, and the formatting is sometimes off just a bit, so that some words show up as nothing but upside down question marks and fractions and dots. He asked me about it the first time he encountered this oddity, and I helped him decipher what that word was meant to be, and then he mentioned that this funny mix of symbols shows up here & there and what should he do? I explained to him about poor editing jobs and told him he'd just have to guess based on what word he thinks best fits in the empty space. He hasn't asked again, so I guess he's getting it.
....the necessity of giving things a fair shake. This one's me. I was all set to boycott the movie The Hunger Games, as I hadn't read the book and had no desire at all to read or see anything that involves kids sent into an arena to fight to the death. None. It just seemed too horrific. But The Chemist looked me in the eye with that gaze that means, "I'm having trouble recognizing you right now..." and asked me what was my biggest criticism of those who blindly boycotted Harry Potter. Silence. He waited. I said I'd download the book and he grinned. Because my biggest complaint is that people would boycott a book they'd not even done the courtesy of reading.
Read it. Decide for yourself if it is okay for you & yours. But do not just judge it based on what someone else tells you to believe about it; do not just latch onto one aspect of a book, any book, and declare it inappropriate until you've read the whole of it and can decide for yourself.
So I borrowed book one from the library, finished it in one gulp and immediately bought a 3-in-1 version for the Kindle so I could keep going, and just this morning I finished the epilogue. I'm still sorting out whether the horrors in the series are the sort of thing I need to shield my boys from, or throw the light on full force. I've already acknowledged that mostly my boys won't be terribly undone, like their mom, at the scenes of psychological warfare; the scenes that twist a knife in my gut as I ache for Katniss will, I think, ricochet around my boys without inflicting any damage. I'm still deciding for sure, though.
....to let them grow up. This ties in with that last one, as I search my heart and soul and the hearts of my boys, or what they let me see of them, to decide when to offer them The Hunger Games. It comes in small doses, as I convince The Chemist that our oldest son, 14.5 yrs old, is old enough to walk to tennis lessons alone. Even if we both see the same small boy who never wanted to leave our sides, reality stares back at me, at us, in a teenager thrilled to be granted this tiny freedom. It's hard to pretend he's still a little boy when I have to look up into his eyes.
....to cook. Okay, I know how to cook, more or less. But we're doing a group class with some friends of ours, here at my house, once a week. Every week I go onto Jamie Oliver's Home Cooking website and print off a recipe and matching skill sheets. Each week my kitchen fills with 4 kids learning to chop and slice and peel and muddle & bang their way around a kitchen, learning to cook. Then they eat and laugh and goof off and I smile to know we're giving them skills that will last them through life. More of that growing up bit.
Not much on the silly side from me this week, but I'm sure my friend over at GfG won't mind. Someone has to be serious sometimes. Not sure I'll manage to link up every week, but I'll try. Go and read her stories and the rest; they're much funnier than mine.
We've got learning to get back to.
We're learning lots of things at our house this week.....
....algebra. Solving for x and all that. Side-by-side white boards on the couch, student and teacher, working through the problems in the book. Together. We've turned math from something that used to involve shouting and crying and fussing and frustration (from both the teacher and the student, sadly) to something that we collaborate on, our mutual enemy and together we team up and conquer this stuff. It's amazing, really.
....the alphabet. Yes, The Adventurer is still learning the basics. That each little scribble has a name and makes a particular sound (or two or three....). That if you string enough scribbles (letters) together, they make words. His penmanship is fantastic, and he can perfectly print every single letter. We're working on recall, and I'm confident he'll get it. Soon. I hope. And, no, the irony of teaching & learning both algebra & the alphabet is not lost on me.
....context clues. The Artist is reading a free version of Sherlock Holmes mysteries on the Kindle, and the formatting is sometimes off just a bit, so that some words show up as nothing but upside down question marks and fractions and dots. He asked me about it the first time he encountered this oddity, and I helped him decipher what that word was meant to be, and then he mentioned that this funny mix of symbols shows up here & there and what should he do? I explained to him about poor editing jobs and told him he'd just have to guess based on what word he thinks best fits in the empty space. He hasn't asked again, so I guess he's getting it.
....the necessity of giving things a fair shake. This one's me. I was all set to boycott the movie The Hunger Games, as I hadn't read the book and had no desire at all to read or see anything that involves kids sent into an arena to fight to the death. None. It just seemed too horrific. But The Chemist looked me in the eye with that gaze that means, "I'm having trouble recognizing you right now..." and asked me what was my biggest criticism of those who blindly boycotted Harry Potter. Silence. He waited. I said I'd download the book and he grinned. Because my biggest complaint is that people would boycott a book they'd not even done the courtesy of reading.
Read it. Decide for yourself if it is okay for you & yours. But do not just judge it based on what someone else tells you to believe about it; do not just latch onto one aspect of a book, any book, and declare it inappropriate until you've read the whole of it and can decide for yourself.
So I borrowed book one from the library, finished it in one gulp and immediately bought a 3-in-1 version for the Kindle so I could keep going, and just this morning I finished the epilogue. I'm still sorting out whether the horrors in the series are the sort of thing I need to shield my boys from, or throw the light on full force. I've already acknowledged that mostly my boys won't be terribly undone, like their mom, at the scenes of psychological warfare; the scenes that twist a knife in my gut as I ache for Katniss will, I think, ricochet around my boys without inflicting any damage. I'm still deciding for sure, though.
....to let them grow up. This ties in with that last one, as I search my heart and soul and the hearts of my boys, or what they let me see of them, to decide when to offer them The Hunger Games. It comes in small doses, as I convince The Chemist that our oldest son, 14.5 yrs old, is old enough to walk to tennis lessons alone. Even if we both see the same small boy who never wanted to leave our sides, reality stares back at me, at us, in a teenager thrilled to be granted this tiny freedom. It's hard to pretend he's still a little boy when I have to look up into his eyes.
....to cook. Okay, I know how to cook, more or less. But we're doing a group class with some friends of ours, here at my house, once a week. Every week I go onto Jamie Oliver's Home Cooking website and print off a recipe and matching skill sheets. Each week my kitchen fills with 4 kids learning to chop and slice and peel and muddle & bang their way around a kitchen, learning to cook. Then they eat and laugh and goof off and I smile to know we're giving them skills that will last them through life. More of that growing up bit.
Not much on the silly side from me this week, but I'm sure my friend over at GfG won't mind. Someone has to be serious sometimes. Not sure I'll manage to link up every week, but I'll try. Go and read her stories and the rest; they're much funnier than mine.
We've got learning to get back to.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Some Changes, And Some Vacation Pics
I realize I've been absent more than present lately, but I've been battling some serious writer's block these days. I feel less and less like I have anything worth saying, or rather, anything that I haven't already said. For a time there I blogged 6 days a week, and while I didn't maintain that pace the entire 5 years I've been blogging that's still an awful lot that I've already covered here.
I no longer see Brazil through the eyes of a newly arrived small town Texas girl, and so the things that would likely still be interesting to my readers simply don't jump out and grab my attention the way they once did. For me, it's old news that I can't flush toilet paper down the toilet. That I can buy pineapple that already has the shell (skin? husk?) removed, and it's still cheaper than pineapple in the US.
Our lives have settled into normal, and posting pictures of the boys in the swimming pool is only cute the first 100 times, ya know? Yet that is how we spend our days -- school work, swimming, Legos & video games. Not a lot of stuff to talk about there.
I don't cook with recipes, so I can't post any great food ideas for you. The Mendon Foodie would laugh her head off if I tried, anyway, even if my food doesn't contain nasty cream-of- soups. Plus I only cook about 5 things really, I just mix & match. My kitchen routine is like those travel ensembles you used to be able to buy. You know the ones, the two or three bottoms + two or three tops and the idea was you mixed & matched what piece you wore together so that you could pack light but still not wear the same three outfits over & over again. My food is like that. A handful of main dishes, a handful of veggies/sides, and I mix them up so my family doesn't realize they're eating only 5 meals over and over and over again. So, a food blog is out.
I am starting to quilt and sew. But I'm only starting and while I'm sure I'll share here about my projects as I go, I don't have nearly enough talent to do tutorials or anything like that. Plus I don't want to limit myself to any one thing like that, really. Heck, just look at this post -- I titled it "changes & vacation pics" and so far I've talked about everything but. Time to get on topic....
Changes. The Writer finishes up 8th grade in a few months and the high school years loom ahead of us. I have always thought I'd home school all the way through; The Chemist has always wanted the boys to go to public school for high school. Being still in Brazil, neither of us gets what we want and instead we'll be using an on-line program for supplemental course work for 9th grade and then eventually switching to their full diploma program. This will allow The Writer to graduate from a Texas high school, with a class rank and everything, which may or may not help us as we try to convince colleges that our time in Brazil really was "temporary absence with intent to return to Texas" even though it's lasted, or will have by then, longer than the "usually 5 years or less." The thought of our Texan boys not being able to have in-state tuition when they attend Texas universities just sort of makes me sick and seems entirely unfair, so we're doing what we can to establish that we really do have every intent, and always have, of returning to Texas when our time in Brazil is over.
What that means for me.....a supervisory role, more of school counselor/advisor than teacher. Strange. Different. I'm not sure yet if it will be a comfortable role or not. But already we are looking ahead to adding The Artist to the on-line program as well, sometime in his middle school years. He finishes 5th grade this year and I'd not consider giving up teaching him but the program we've found seems like a really good one, the changing legal scene here in Brazil kind of worries me sometimes, and The Adventurer requires loads & loads & loads of one-on-one attention as I sort out the best way to get information into his head so that it stays there. Delegating the older boys instruction seems a logical way to address all of those issues and so starting in August or September we'll be doing something I never envisioned...using on-line school and text books for everything instead of the fun real books we've always used.
This coincides with some changes that our heretofore favorite curriculum company is making; changes I don't agree with, can't support, and wish to have no part of. It makes the parting easier, though it's not easy to leave behind a community that has supported me through many ups & downs in my life.
Moving on to the more fun topic of vacation pictures (and thank you for bearing with me as I ramble my way through this post....). We just returned from a few days back in Paraty, one of our favorite spots because it encompasses all the beauty of Brazil in one tiny little city. My dad & his family were here visiting; it was my dad's third visit but the first for his wife & their boys. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, I hope.
Here are some of the pictures they took -- in typical "this could only happen to me" fashion I managed to take a camera w/o batteries and had to spend the first while charging batteries, so took no photos of my own.
I leave you with this, and promise to get back in the saddle and start writing regularly again now that I have apparently found my voice once more.
I no longer see Brazil through the eyes of a newly arrived small town Texas girl, and so the things that would likely still be interesting to my readers simply don't jump out and grab my attention the way they once did. For me, it's old news that I can't flush toilet paper down the toilet. That I can buy pineapple that already has the shell (skin? husk?) removed, and it's still cheaper than pineapple in the US.
Our lives have settled into normal, and posting pictures of the boys in the swimming pool is only cute the first 100 times, ya know? Yet that is how we spend our days -- school work, swimming, Legos & video games. Not a lot of stuff to talk about there.
I don't cook with recipes, so I can't post any great food ideas for you. The Mendon Foodie would laugh her head off if I tried, anyway, even if my food doesn't contain nasty cream-of- soups. Plus I only cook about 5 things really, I just mix & match. My kitchen routine is like those travel ensembles you used to be able to buy. You know the ones, the two or three bottoms + two or three tops and the idea was you mixed & matched what piece you wore together so that you could pack light but still not wear the same three outfits over & over again. My food is like that. A handful of main dishes, a handful of veggies/sides, and I mix them up so my family doesn't realize they're eating only 5 meals over and over and over again. So, a food blog is out.
I am starting to quilt and sew. But I'm only starting and while I'm sure I'll share here about my projects as I go, I don't have nearly enough talent to do tutorials or anything like that. Plus I don't want to limit myself to any one thing like that, really. Heck, just look at this post -- I titled it "changes & vacation pics" and so far I've talked about everything but. Time to get on topic....
Changes. The Writer finishes up 8th grade in a few months and the high school years loom ahead of us. I have always thought I'd home school all the way through; The Chemist has always wanted the boys to go to public school for high school. Being still in Brazil, neither of us gets what we want and instead we'll be using an on-line program for supplemental course work for 9th grade and then eventually switching to their full diploma program. This will allow The Writer to graduate from a Texas high school, with a class rank and everything, which may or may not help us as we try to convince colleges that our time in Brazil really was "temporary absence with intent to return to Texas" even though it's lasted, or will have by then, longer than the "usually 5 years or less." The thought of our Texan boys not being able to have in-state tuition when they attend Texas universities just sort of makes me sick and seems entirely unfair, so we're doing what we can to establish that we really do have every intent, and always have, of returning to Texas when our time in Brazil is over.
What that means for me.....a supervisory role, more of school counselor/advisor than teacher. Strange. Different. I'm not sure yet if it will be a comfortable role or not. But already we are looking ahead to adding The Artist to the on-line program as well, sometime in his middle school years. He finishes 5th grade this year and I'd not consider giving up teaching him but the program we've found seems like a really good one, the changing legal scene here in Brazil kind of worries me sometimes, and The Adventurer requires loads & loads & loads of one-on-one attention as I sort out the best way to get information into his head so that it stays there. Delegating the older boys instruction seems a logical way to address all of those issues and so starting in August or September we'll be doing something I never envisioned...using on-line school and text books for everything instead of the fun real books we've always used.
This coincides with some changes that our heretofore favorite curriculum company is making; changes I don't agree with, can't support, and wish to have no part of. It makes the parting easier, though it's not easy to leave behind a community that has supported me through many ups & downs in my life.
Moving on to the more fun topic of vacation pictures (and thank you for bearing with me as I ramble my way through this post....). We just returned from a few days back in Paraty, one of our favorite spots because it encompasses all the beauty of Brazil in one tiny little city. My dad & his family were here visiting; it was my dad's third visit but the first for his wife & their boys. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, I hope.
Here are some of the pictures they took -- in typical "this could only happen to me" fashion I managed to take a camera w/o batteries and had to spend the first while charging batteries, so took no photos of my own.
 |
| Dad & Me He's not mad, he just doesn't smile for the camera. At least, I hope that's it. Also, The Adventurer nearly went over that ledge later, the one in the right on the photo. One can never relax when he's around! |
 |
| The Artist, doing what he does. Every beach trip I end up with him in the sand building sand castles. I so love this boy. |
 |
| The Adventurer, jumping into his father's arms. Yes, that rock is shoulder high to The Chemist. Yes, that water is waist deep. Yes, it really is more than an arm's reach away. The boy has no fear. Like I said, one can never relax. |
 |
| The Boys. Left to Right: Artist, Writer, C1, C2 and Adventurer. |
 |
| typical beach scene in Brazil. I think the yellow chairs with Skol emblem (a beer) will forever represent the beach to me. |
 |
| Big waves at Praia Meio, at Trindad, a fishing village just south of Paraty. That's The Writer in the foam; the big boys enjoyed jumping, body surfing & otherwise being swamped by the huge waves out there. |
 |
| the four big boys -- The Writer, The Artist, C1 & C2. I haven't checked with Dad yet for nicknames for their boys, so.... |
 |
| and us. |
Friday, November 18, 2011
Teenager in the House: the part that's not talked about....
My oldest son, fondly referred to as The Writer, recently turned fourteen. A year into this "mom of a teenager" gig, I've got some new reflections or musings and wanted to share them with you, because some parts of teenager-hood just aren't talked about enough.
We hear plenty of how sullen and moody they are. How they push the boundaries and test the limits and talk back and suddenly develop Attitude. We hear all the horror stories and funny tales about surviving the teen years, and how teen boys have appetites big enough for whole countries. We hear about all of those things, often.
But we don't hear very much about the cool things, the good things, the bits and pieces of watching a teenager unfold, a boy merge into a man, before your very eyes. The mystery and joy of seeing a child grow into an adult, the personality traits that frustrated you in the toddler now making you proud in the teen. "Stubborn" at four really does look like "determined" at fourteen. The baby who thought line drawings of molecules seemed interesting now looks at those same drawings and begins to understand them. The child who recognized his letters, could name them on sight, before he was two is now reading Poe.
Yes, folks; Poe. He's reading Poe. For fun. And mostly understanding it.
In a moment of boredom yesterday he asked if he had anything available to read. I oh so kindly pointed out shelf after shelf of books that live in this house and then realized I had a golden opportunity here to suggest something he might enjoy. My suggestion surprised us both. Well, not really; he didn't know enough about Poe to be surprised. But it surprised me.
I glanced over the shelves, searching for something to capture my boy's interest, yet something that said "I know you aren't a kid anymore and don't like reading the same books as your younger brother these days...." That's when I saw it, the Complete Collection of Stories & Poems by Edgar Allen Poe. Picked up for a song at a library book fair several years ago. Tucked on the shelf for random reading. Moved to the back of a closet in recent times, and then to a bin of "to donate" books that were taking up room I didn't have to spare. The Poe, along with several other books, was rescued from the bin when we moved into the new house and suddenly did have room to spare. And so there it was. Sitting. Waiting. Ready for my boy to pick it up and begin reading.
Even if I wasn't quite. Ready, that is. I mean, sure, I suggested it. I offered it to him and found The Tell-Tale Heart in the contents and turned him to that page. I commented that The Raven was another famous poem if he finished the first one. And I left him to it, not really sure he'd like it, not really sure he'd keep reading past the first page.
But he did. He read The Tell-Tale Heart sitting on the couch while his brothers played. He flipped over to The Raven sitting at the patio table while his brothers debated a dip in the pool. He kept reading random selections while they (very briefly) swam. This morning he had it out again, reading another short story. He was intrigued, I was surprised & mystified. My little boy is reading Poe???
I'm not sure when it happened, but it did. Sure, he admits to not understanding all that he's read (heck, it's Poe. Of course he doesn't understand every single one he reads....), but he's reading grown-up stuff. No more Seuss over and over and over again. No more books chosen for size of text, number of pictures, number of pages between chapter breaks.
It's truly an amazing, wonderful, marvelous, crazy, strange, mystifying, glorious thing. A teenager in the house. Not a scary, frightening, doomed to be miserable thing at all. A chance to watch, to listen, to learn, to grow. To discuss literature. Or politics. Or philosophy.
We've lately included The Writer in our movie-watching, complete with the post-movie discussion period. A movie about lies leading up to the war in Iraq* becomes a chance to discuss how people bend the truth, distort the facts, and why that's a dangerous thing for leaders to do and something to be aware of in every news article you read.
A movie about a strange group of people whose job is to keep your life on track**, making sure you don't veer off The Plan, becomes a discussion of free will, choices, destiny, and if it's good or bad to have total freedom.
And handing a bored teenager a book of Poe's short stories leads to discussions about guilt, the conscience, death, and how to read & understand literature when at first it doesn't make sense.
But what's really going on is a parent, bonding with a child.
A discussion about these things teaches the boy that it's okay to ask questions, that his parents will answer as best they can and not judge him when he asks. A discussion about these things says to a boy "You are becoming our equal in some ways" and gives him the confidence to step tentatively forward into manhood, knowing his mom & dad respect him, value his opinions enough to ask about them, listen to them, hear him out as he speaks his mind. Even when the opinions are still being shaped, molded, tried on & tested --- these discussions let him test & try them on a safe audience.
And so a movie or two, a book of Poe, the discussions that follow....key ingredients in the transition from boy to man. Magic, happening right before my eyes. I say "what do you think about that?" and he hears "I value you, I respect you, what you say matters to me." Magic words. More powerful than any old please or thank-you ever was.
And this magic, this mystery.....this is the side of teenager that should be talked about. Not the grumpies, not the bottomless pit of a stomach, not the big bad attitude. The magic. The growing, not in stature but in maturity. The change, the shift, the subtle differences from one day to the next, the "blink and you'll miss it" growing up, from boy to man, before your very eyes.
Magic. Absolute magic. I would not trade this for anything else in the world.
for those who will ask, the movies were *Fair Game and **Adjustment Bureau. He understood, and intelligently discussed, both. Magic, I tell you. Absolute magic.
We hear plenty of how sullen and moody they are. How they push the boundaries and test the limits and talk back and suddenly develop Attitude. We hear all the horror stories and funny tales about surviving the teen years, and how teen boys have appetites big enough for whole countries. We hear about all of those things, often.
But we don't hear very much about the cool things, the good things, the bits and pieces of watching a teenager unfold, a boy merge into a man, before your very eyes. The mystery and joy of seeing a child grow into an adult, the personality traits that frustrated you in the toddler now making you proud in the teen. "Stubborn" at four really does look like "determined" at fourteen. The baby who thought line drawings of molecules seemed interesting now looks at those same drawings and begins to understand them. The child who recognized his letters, could name them on sight, before he was two is now reading Poe.
Yes, folks; Poe. He's reading Poe. For fun. And mostly understanding it.
In a moment of boredom yesterday he asked if he had anything available to read. I oh so kindly pointed out shelf after shelf of books that live in this house and then realized I had a golden opportunity here to suggest something he might enjoy. My suggestion surprised us both. Well, not really; he didn't know enough about Poe to be surprised. But it surprised me.
I glanced over the shelves, searching for something to capture my boy's interest, yet something that said "I know you aren't a kid anymore and don't like reading the same books as your younger brother these days...." That's when I saw it, the Complete Collection of Stories & Poems by Edgar Allen Poe. Picked up for a song at a library book fair several years ago. Tucked on the shelf for random reading. Moved to the back of a closet in recent times, and then to a bin of "to donate" books that were taking up room I didn't have to spare. The Poe, along with several other books, was rescued from the bin when we moved into the new house and suddenly did have room to spare. And so there it was. Sitting. Waiting. Ready for my boy to pick it up and begin reading.
Even if I wasn't quite. Ready, that is. I mean, sure, I suggested it. I offered it to him and found The Tell-Tale Heart in the contents and turned him to that page. I commented that The Raven was another famous poem if he finished the first one. And I left him to it, not really sure he'd like it, not really sure he'd keep reading past the first page.
But he did. He read The Tell-Tale Heart sitting on the couch while his brothers played. He flipped over to The Raven sitting at the patio table while his brothers debated a dip in the pool. He kept reading random selections while they (very briefly) swam. This morning he had it out again, reading another short story. He was intrigued, I was surprised & mystified. My little boy is reading Poe???
I'm not sure when it happened, but it did. Sure, he admits to not understanding all that he's read (heck, it's Poe. Of course he doesn't understand every single one he reads....), but he's reading grown-up stuff. No more Seuss over and over and over again. No more books chosen for size of text, number of pictures, number of pages between chapter breaks.
It's truly an amazing, wonderful, marvelous, crazy, strange, mystifying, glorious thing. A teenager in the house. Not a scary, frightening, doomed to be miserable thing at all. A chance to watch, to listen, to learn, to grow. To discuss literature. Or politics. Or philosophy.
We've lately included The Writer in our movie-watching, complete with the post-movie discussion period. A movie about lies leading up to the war in Iraq* becomes a chance to discuss how people bend the truth, distort the facts, and why that's a dangerous thing for leaders to do and something to be aware of in every news article you read.
A movie about a strange group of people whose job is to keep your life on track**, making sure you don't veer off The Plan, becomes a discussion of free will, choices, destiny, and if it's good or bad to have total freedom.
And handing a bored teenager a book of Poe's short stories leads to discussions about guilt, the conscience, death, and how to read & understand literature when at first it doesn't make sense.
But what's really going on is a parent, bonding with a child.
A discussion about these things teaches the boy that it's okay to ask questions, that his parents will answer as best they can and not judge him when he asks. A discussion about these things says to a boy "You are becoming our equal in some ways" and gives him the confidence to step tentatively forward into manhood, knowing his mom & dad respect him, value his opinions enough to ask about them, listen to them, hear him out as he speaks his mind. Even when the opinions are still being shaped, molded, tried on & tested --- these discussions let him test & try them on a safe audience.
And so a movie or two, a book of Poe, the discussions that follow....key ingredients in the transition from boy to man. Magic, happening right before my eyes. I say "what do you think about that?" and he hears "I value you, I respect you, what you say matters to me." Magic words. More powerful than any old please or thank-you ever was.
And this magic, this mystery.....this is the side of teenager that should be talked about. Not the grumpies, not the bottomless pit of a stomach, not the big bad attitude. The magic. The growing, not in stature but in maturity. The change, the shift, the subtle differences from one day to the next, the "blink and you'll miss it" growing up, from boy to man, before your very eyes.
Magic. Absolute magic. I would not trade this for anything else in the world.
for those who will ask, the movies were *Fair Game and **Adjustment Bureau. He understood, and intelligently discussed, both. Magic, I tell you. Absolute magic.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Good Citizenship Thoughts from a 10 Year Old....
I want to thank each of you who commented on Son #1's thoughts about being a good citizen, and assure you that I'll address your comments when I write this from my point of view later this week.
Today has been our Independence Day celebration and we've mostly been lazing around not doing much, but I'm finally coming back to share the things that Son #2 thinks are key points of being a good citizen. Please keep in mind, he's 10 years old.
What does The Artist think makes a good citizen?
I think for a ten year old boy he's got a decent beginning, wouldn't you agree?
Today has been our Independence Day celebration and we've mostly been lazing around not doing much, but I'm finally coming back to share the things that Son #2 thinks are key points of being a good citizen. Please keep in mind, he's 10 years old.
What does The Artist think makes a good citizen?
Recycling. Not making a racket when your neighbors are trying to sleep. Playing with little kids. Respecting the dead.Short list, simple things, nothing to in depth but again he strikes right to the heart of the matter -- being a good citizen is kind of like being a good neighbor and treating others as you'd wish to be treated.
I think for a ten year old boy he's got a decent beginning, wouldn't you agree?
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Being a Good Citizen, from Son #1
My boys have daily creative writing for school. I print a calendar of writing prompts from Lakeshore Learning's Teacher's Corner & their Printables page, and the boys write. Easy for me, they enjoy it, and I love learning about my boys through what they put on paper.
A recent topic surprised me with their insight -- "Tell what you think it means to be a good citizen."
As this week marks Brazil's Independence Day I thought it a good time to share on this topic, and will follow up with my own thoughts later this week. For today, what The Writer (almost 14) thinks it means to be a Good Citizen (shared with his permission).
Simple. Basic. Focused on being kind and helpful to our fellow man, with no prejudice or criteria for who deserves our kindness or help.
I think he covered the important parts, don't you?
*look for The Artist's thoughts tomorrow and my thoughts later this week.....
A recent topic surprised me with their insight -- "Tell what you think it means to be a good citizen."
As this week marks Brazil's Independence Day I thought it a good time to share on this topic, and will follow up with my own thoughts later this week. For today, what The Writer (almost 14) thinks it means to be a Good Citizen (shared with his permission).
To be a good citizen is....
To be polite to our neighbors and to follow the law for sure, but it would also be pretty good to recycle and not waste things. Not arguing with your friends or brothers/sisters would also be nice. And also, helping others in need.
Simple. Basic. Focused on being kind and helpful to our fellow man, with no prejudice or criteria for who deserves our kindness or help.
I think he covered the important parts, don't you?
*look for The Artist's thoughts tomorrow and my thoughts later this week.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)