Disney World is Still in Florida

We went to Disney World for a week with Dan's family. Here are some pictures, taken by my brother-in-law with his enviable camera, to tell the tale:

Sadie and Sydney's bed:



Benny and Jack's bed:



Riding Kraken at Sea World. Front Row: Terri, Benny, Ashley, Andy. Second Row: Dan, Lydia. Yes, I rode Kraken.



Sadie in the play area:



How did Benny get so wet?:



Hollywood Studios. Benny battles Darth Vader:



Sydney and Sadie:



Belle and the children:



Aladdin's Carpets:



Sadie and Mom, going to Magic Kingdom on the ferry:



Expedition Everest. Front row: Benny, Ashley. Middle row: Dan, Andy. Back row: Terri, Lydia.



Did I take pictures? I *think* I did. They were just so violently inferior to Kevin's that I despair. But here's a link to my Flickr set for the Disney trip. There are many amusing photos there.

Drowning Worms

Let me tell you that I have never been one for fishing. I have actually made brutal, relentless fun of fishing. I have scorned it, I would say, as much as I have scorned camping, maybe even as much as I have scorned coasters. But my little boy loves to fish, so I fish with him, because he loves it, and because he says things like, "Patience, Mother, you must have patience to catch a fish." He says this because the very first time we went fishing, out in the Chesapeake, he caught one. I was thinking in those days, those beautiful halcyon days, that just hanging a worm twelve inches down into sixty feet of water wouldn't yield any kind of result. Was I wrong.

So today was another boating day and therefore another fishing day. We purchased our little green styrofoam container of worms. We motored our little boater out onto Broad Bay. We got out our poles, dusted off our optimism, and I installed my "supportive mommy" expression. We skewered our little wormlets, dropped them in, and waited. Nothing. Even though the wretched fish were jumping, actually jumping out of the water all around the boat. Now I don't pretend to be an expert on what lure or what hook or liner or tickler or whatever is needed to pry which breed of fish out of its ocean home. But I do feel that when fish are actually trying to get out of the water, all around me, I should be able to get one on a hook that's loaded with fish lunch.

But no. For an hour, we sat there with these bratty little fish leaping through the air over the boat, waving their little fins, winking their little googly eyes, and tittering amongst themselves.

Until Team Husband got out his casting net, threw it out, and immediately brought in a whole pile of fish. The same little fishes who had been taunting us with vile taunts. So, charmingly, the children got to pet the fish, examine the fish, identify them with their little fish-identifying manual, and release (of course) them back into the bay to torture other boaters.

Okay, the fish we welcomed into the boat were a lot smaller than they had looked when they were frothing and foaming in the waves all around us. But they had markings, and slime, and fins. Which is all we really require. So, we drowned a bunch of worms with no result, but it's nice when Dad gets to be a hero, right? To my girl sensibilities, it actually seems fairly glorious to get the radiant smile without having to deal with the fish hook and worms.

Am I truly a reformed wuss when it comes to stabbing worms? Or am I going to look back on these experiences and say, "I can't believe what I did for this child!" How about you -- worms or no worms?

Family Day at the Opera

"Pirates of Penzance" is a funny show, but a lot of the humor is wrapped up in complicated wordplay, and a lot of the plot twists require a mature understanding to follow and unravel.

Yes, it's in English, and no it's not Fidelio, but it's not the Doodlebops either. Nevertheless, throngs of children and their optimistic parents packed the Harrison Opera House last Saturday to see a family-friendly production (that is to say, an abridged version) of the GIlbert and Sullivan classic. Did they understand every double entendre and every complicated rhyme? No. But they did have a good time.

The last time we were at the opera house was when we took Benny to see Agrippina. I assure you, the mood was very different on that night. Tired, angry elderly people shushing each other, and then falling asleep on their armrests. Serious citizens paying dire close attention to the stage. A hush. A lot of furrowed brows. Saturday was more like the mood you hear about when attending theater was a more popular pursuit. Rowdy.



If it bothers you when a silent moment on stage is interrupted by at least five kids asking to go to the bathroom, commenting on the state of someone's boogers, or complaining that their sister is touching them, then Family Day is not for you. But if you like looking around the audience during a big scene and seeing herds of children actually enraptured by what they're seeing -- leaning forward, clutching their programs, laughing out loud, urgently pointing and explaining things to their little brothers, then Familiy Day at the Opera is an experience you should enjoy. I have to say I totally loved it.

The production was raucous but not racy. The acting was hilarious, the and the props and sets were ingeniously made. Yes, it was a tiny bit disappointing when the Pirate King was a Jack Sparrow clone, but my kids loved that. All in all, brilliantly done. And we loved the little "commercial" for the Virginia Opera that was inserted into "I am the very model of a modern Major-General." Cute!



As a bonus, the lawn of the opera house had a carnival feel, with boucy rides and Radio Disney on hand to MC. Don't miss this event next year -- it's a great chance to expose your kids to the opera without exposing yourself to the haughty glares of the typical opera crowd.

Luray Caverns

In 1976, my parents took me to Luray Caverns on the way to Williamsburg. Last week, we visited again. I'm pleased to report that all the stalactites were still in place.

Could it possibly be 30 years since I was four years old, tip-toeing down those stairs into the drippy darkness, clutching my mother's hand, peering at the rock formations? It was strange walking through those caves, where nothing has changed in 30 years, seeing the same things I'd seen when I was younger than Benny is now. I doubt that the tour guide prattle has even changed. No new buildings or roads, or signs, or technology, just the same brick pathway between this and that, and the same metal railing. Interesting.

I can't say I remember the giant pillars or the huge caverns. All I remembered was the "fried eggs" -- little bumps left when stalacmites are broken off. Maybe they were small and immediate enough for my pint-sized brain to comprehend. Benny's favorite was the "Great Stalactite Organ" which is a musical instrument that is played with hammers striking the stalactites, microphones picking up the sounds. Here's a video of it playing -- if you turn up the volume you can hear "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." Benny and Dan were hoping to hear "Toccata and Fugue" -- at least we got a tune by the same composer. If you look closely you can see Sadie trying to get under the railing to "get a rock" (and she succeeded in picking up some cave gravel, unbeknownst to us) and then Benny dancing.



Benny instantly joined forces with another kid, Hannah, who was *almost* as chatty as he is, and they made the tour guide's experiencing more rich and fulfilling by asking a LOT of questions.





They made their parents' experiences rich and fulfilling by dangling over precipices, leaping forward ahead of the guide into dark areas, and in general getting a lot of enjoyment out of the tour. I liked the cave more than I thought I might. I get a little skreetchy in tunnels and closed spaces, but I kept a lid on my heebie jeebies enough to enjoy the founding fathers' favorite subterranean hangout. It is creepy to imagine all those thousands of years of darkness with just a drip, drip, dripping down there, growing those formations with no human to observe. It is pretty cool, however, to look at those dripping rocks and realize you're looking at the same thing Thomas Jefferson was looking at, maybe one inch bigger now than it was then. And in thirty years, Benny can go back and remember that he walked on those same bricks, looked at those same fried eggs, when he was just a little squirrel.

Massanutten Water Park

An exercise in letting go, and proof that the only time I can actually bring myself to "let go" is when I'm physically incapable of hanging on like a limpet.

While we were in Massanutten, we visited the Massanutten Waterpark. It is a child's dream come true. There are three parts to the park. First, there are the exciting chutes you can streak down. Several require that you ride in tube, and others just fling you down on your own with your arms folded and your legs crossed. These big rides are reached by climbing up about forty flights of stairs. Then the main area is a huge climb and slide, all completely water-ized, with other big slides ranging from giant three-story flumes to regular playground-sized slides that are just all foaming with water. The marginal areas include two hot tubs, a swimming pool, a baby pool, a surf simulator, and a "river" with a current that you can float around in a tube while water gets dropped on your head.



Of course when I walked in and saw all this madness, my first plan was to keep a sharp eye on Benny at all times. After all, he could slip. He could fall. He could disobey a lifeguard! So when he wanted to go down the big chutes, I climbed the eighty-seven flights of stairs, watched while he got into one called "Avalanche" and then climbed down. By the time I got all the way back down to where the chutes end, he had long since shot out of the output, and disappeared. Panicked, I located him, and we went back up the hundred and eight flights of stairs. This time, I knew I had to go into Avalanche behind him, or I would lose him again. So I did. That was an awful 45 seconds. A 45 seconds I did not want to repeat. So as I sat at the bottom of "Avalanche," realizing that Benny had disappeared *again,* I knew I had to make a choice.

For the rest of the time we were there, Dan and I played with Sadie and trusted Benny to look after himself. He climbed the stairs. He shot the chutes. He played on the playground, and rode the surf simulator and all the rest of it. He made friends. He gambolled about. He did not die and he did not even crush his skull or lose a finger. He did not disobey any of the multitude of lifeguards, and he did not get kidnapped -- we kept an half an eye on the one exit just in case. It was all FINE.



Six hours later, Benny had neither eaten anything nor had anything to drink, having refused to take a break for any reason. He was still going strong, but the rest of us were ready to be dry! A glorious day for two children who love the water, even if it was a trying time for two parents who have trouble saying, "Go run and play" in any place more threatening than the living room.





Later, Benny asked me why there were so many pictures of Sadie and almost no pictures of him. The truth was that while we had made a point to lay eyes on him every ten minutes or so, and exchange words with him every half hour, we hadn't seen much of him all day! Who would have thought I could have survived this "letting go" experience -- maybe I am growing up at last. ;D

Here's a video of Benny trying to ride the surf simulator -- all it wanted to do was remove his trunks!

Skiing at Massanutten

I am not a skiier. Turns out my son is, though. So throw another log on the fireplace, because it's time for our ski week at Massanutten, VA.

Benny is seven and his favorite Playstation game is SSX3. The SSX stands for "Completely Insane Death-Defying Snowboarding Game That Thumbs Its Nose at Physics." It is, I have to say, a really great game. But it gives the child a false sense of power over gravity, knee joints, and mountains. When we got a chance to go to Massanutten VA for a week, we knew that Benny would be eager to hit the slopes. We just weren't sure the reality would measure up to the fantasy, as he was determined to be sliding down rails, spinning 360s, flipping, ripping, and raging down the hill on his first day.

He was not, however, at all disappointed.



On the first day, Dan and Benny skiied for six hours. Benny took a couple of little classes, and then he and Dan just went up and down the beginner slope. He fell, and fell, and fell. And by the end of the day, he could stop, and kind of navigate around a little bit. It was absolutely fantastic to watch him persevering without complaint through all that hard work, all that trial and error. He never asked for a break, wouldn't eat, wouldn't rest, just wanted to ski, ski, ski. He did drink a Powerade. What's a hovering mother to do?

Here's a video of his first day:



Then it got really warm and they couldn't ski for a couple days, so we went to the waterpark and the caverns and whatnot -- more on that in another post. They got back to the slopes at the end of the week. Benny couldn't wait. They skiied like maniacs and had a great time. Here's a video of him at the end of his final day, when he was able to turn:



Was I completely panicked the entire time he had skiis strapped to his feet? Absolutely. I had all kinds of paranoid scenarios running around in my head. He would crash into a tree. A giant snowboarding teenager would smack into him and annhilate him. He'd be decapitated by the lift. He'd fall off the lift and roll down the mountain. Etc. I wasn't raised around skiing -- I kind of viewed it as an extreme activity engaged in by Olympic athletes and rich people with a death wish. I can see now that skiing is a skill that kids need, like riding a horse or swimming or playing chess.

Here's the first thing I saw when I arrived at the slopes after dropping them off and going swimming with the baby:



Yes, there are Benny and Dan, floating along on the chair lift, miles above the ground, with no seatbelt, no lap bar, nothing between them and certain snowy death. It did rather take my breath away. However, watching the total rapture and joy on his bright little face made all the panic manageable.

Basketball for Short People

I haven't thrown a basketball around since I was in high school gym class, which I violently hated. So what is Benny in love with? Basketball.

Here's one to file under "What POSSIBLE qualification do you have to teach your child THAT?"



Several times in the last few months, when we go to the playground, Benny has gotten very interested in the basketball games going on, and has even gotten himself invited to join in a few. Of course, he is hopeless at it. He's tall enough to ride on Space Mountain, but not tall enough to get a basketball up and through a hoop.

So, he needs to practice dribbling and shooting, I assume. I'm about as skilled in basketball moves as I am in ballet. That is to say, not at all skilled. And our resident tall man in the family isn't exactly the team sport type either. I cannot pretend and I cannot lie. We are hopeless at basketball.

Here's what I know, from high school gym class:

1. You have to dribble.
2. You can't grab the other guy.
3. When shooting, bend your knees.

And that's about it. I know there are positions on the team like right wing and forward ho and quarterback, except probably not those. I know that points can be made by persuading the ball to go through the net. Free throws? Three pointers? Everything else is filtering in from vague memories of watching the Detroit Pistons win the World Series when I was a kid. What? Not the World Series? The Stanley Cup then? No?

So, you get that our family is a little sports-retarded. But we are, in our defense, willing to flump around on the basketball court and try.



In other news, the 57th Carnival of Homeschooling is live, and my post about the opera was included. It is always an interesting collection of homeschooling blogs, and this week is no exception.

Rainbow Over Chicago

In which I use a rainbow as a metaphor. Revolutionary! I'm sure this has never been done before!

At Christmas time, we drove for two days to get to Marshfield, Wisconsin. My husband's family lives there. It is a long, long trip, let me tell you. The length of this trip that we make to Wisconsin was the reason I changed my mind about the whole TV-in-the-vehicle idea. When Benny was a toddler, I went from haughtily saying "Is there no place that children are safe from the degrading influence of television??" to peevishly saying "Isn't there some way we can hang the screen closer to his face?" It's a long drive.

On our way to Wisconsin, we go through Chicago. Depending on what time of day it is, we often take a side trip down Lake Shore Drive, and wind our way up Sheridan, through the old neighborhood. Sometimes we even drive past our old apartment and reminisce about when we had to identify our vehicle by the antenna because the rest was buried under six feet of snow. When we get done with Chicago, and the northern suburbs are floating past us, we know we are almost there. At that point in the trip, this time, we saw this:



A double rainbow, right across the freeway, starting over there and ending right over here:



Completely amazing. Maybe the pictures don't do it justice, or maybe they do, I can't really tell because I remember it so clearly. It was without a doubt the best rainbow I have ever seen. Both of the children were delighted. I was delighted. It was delightful.

It led to a brief discussion of what makes rainbows, and how light is refracted, and what colors are in sunlight. The conversation was brief because A) my child is seven and B) I don't really know PRECISELY what makes rainbows take that shape, but it will for sure lead to a book from the library, and a deeper investigation. Now that they've seen a really spectacular, clear, strong rainbow with their own eyes, the book will make sense.

That may be the best rainbow I ever see in my life. It occurred to me, as I was driving, that the only way Dan and I would have seen this rainbow, and the only way the kids would have seen it, is if we made this trip. This is a trip that I obviously dread, not because of the visit, but because of the trip itself. But, the only way to see that particular rainbow was to get out the door and take the trip.

THIS IS WHERE I USE THE RAINBOW AS A METAPHOR! PREPARE YOURSELF! :D

The rainbow was a catalyst for a teaching moment, about light and refraction and whatnot. Moreover, seeing the rainbow was also like running into other teaching moments, randomly throughout our lives. We encounter them without planning to, without organizing it. One of the major things I've learned about homeschooling in the last couple of years is that I can really trust the learning to happen, at random times, when there is a perfect illustration in front of them, if I get out into the world with the kids.

Here's an example: During Sadie's swimming lesson at the YMCA, Benny and I were sitting in the hot tub, watching. We had been swimming in the pool, and then we sat in the hot tub for about 20 minutes, and then we got back in the pool. When we got back into the pool, it was REALLY cold, and Benny noticed this. We discussed the reasons why the water felt colder, the idiom "Everything is relative" and we looked at the temperature of the pool and hot tub (on the wall) and using what we knew about the temperature of the human body, we speculated what temperature would feel too cold or too hot, etc.

This could have been learned from a book. But it was better to teach it right there, at that very moment, when we were freezing after sitting in the hot tub. Like it was easier to talk about the refraction of white light when we were standing, open-mouthed, gaping at a beautiful rainbow. And what I am learning, as I keep doing this, is that I have to first make sure that we're out in the world, where rainbows occur, and that I'm paying attention, so I can annoy my children with educational information just as soon as the rainbow fades.

Sadie is Three

She's been three for five whole days. In that time, she started ballet lessons, acquired a penchant for wearing her Cinderella dress around the house, and learned how to correct me for not saying "bless you" promptly when she sneezes. Charming.

Here she is:



How am I supposed to cope with this person GETTING OLDER? Possibly even someday hollering at me, "MOM I HATE YOU - YOU NEVER UNDERSTAND ME" before she slams the bedroom door and throws herself on her bed? Maybe even leaving the house without me? Going to college? Getting married? Changing diapers on her own kid?

*thud*

That was me dying inside.

In better news, the birthday was fantastic. We drove to the balloon store and got a dozen balloons, drove to the cake store and got her Ballerina Pink Princess Magic Sparkle Glamor Barbie cake, and then had a small party with our closest friends and family, right at our house. It was so nice. Everyone ate cake and sang and Sadie blew out candles, and then she played outside with her brother and her two best friends, and it was very very sweet and calm and charming. Maybe next year we'll do the serious birthday party situation, but I'm glad we got one more year in where the action happens in the living room and the kid can just relax at her party. Benny wants to have his at the YMCA this year. I guarantee that will not be relaxing for anyone.

Here she is, the birthday girl. I think she looks just awesome in a tiara. ;D

Fall is Here! Yay Fall!

Ah, the glories of homeschooling in the fall. It's like regular homeschooling, but with leaves! Fall leaves! Come in for movies, and watch the homeschoolers dance! Watch 'em dance!



What's so cool about homeschooling? I'll tell you. When you're a homeschooler you can slam through your math in your pajamas, and then yank on some sweatpants and bundle yourself outside to jump in the leaves like a maniac with your little sister. Did I mention that your little sister is still wearing her Halloween costume, days later?



I guess it also means you can wear "surprised troll doll" as a hairstyle without comment from anyone but your mother, whose comment is, "Awww, you're cute."

Here's another thing that's cool about homeschooling in the fall: You can go to Homeschool Park Day and play outside as hard as you can all afternoon and not get hot!



Look, Sadie can hang now. She also did her first ride on a "big girl" swing, and had her first trip down the too-high slide, which was followed by many more trips down the too-high slide. Yes, the kids are still fascinated with roller coasters:



Homeschool Park Day was *fantastic* on Thursday. All the moms, apparently, knit. So we all sat there yakking and knitting and occasionally peeling our toddlers off the too-high slide or pushing them on swings. The kids built fairy houses and bird houses out of sticks and pine needles and whatnot, and had a fantastic time. It sounds lame to sit on a park bench knitting, but we make it work. Really.

Look Ma! No Jellyfish!

The jellyfish are gone from Broad Bay!!! WHY!?!? Not that I miss them, no, no, not a bit. But... where did they go? I know where we went -- SWIMMING.

Saturday was not so great. Saturday ended with us in the ER at CHKD getting a stitch in Benny's lip, because our 10 month old Boston Terrier puppy, Leroy, didn't appreciate being simultaneously sat on and peeled off of the pig ear he was gnawing. Well, I guess I wouldn't either -- eat a pig ear that is. But, Saturday is neither here nor there.

What's important is *SUNDAY*.

We woke up late and missed church, what with the late night in the ER and everything, and this is the *second* time Leroy has left a mark on Benny, and I really didn't relish telling the ladies at church that, yes, again, our completely innocuous puppy had marred our completely innocuous child, yes, and this time with stitches, how inexplicable, how droll.

We had a leisurely morning, stuffed Benny full of antibiotics, ate a substantive lunch, and then did what all parents do whose children are wounded -- we went tubing on Broad Bay! The water on the Chesapeake and in the ocean was rough, I guess from the influence of Florence, who is brewing out there in the Atlantic. So, we pointed the boat toward Broad Bay, kind of disappointed. Broad Bay is always our second choice. We prefer scouting for dolphins around the light house.



But this time it was really different! For two reasons:

First, the air show. Now, I'm not a big fan of air shows. I don't like crowds, don't like airplanes, don't like loud noises, don't like... really... any element of an air show at all. My two year old daughter, however, is in love with airplanes, my husband is so geeked about airplanes he's about to get his pilot's license, and my six year old son is reasonably infatuated with them too, so we went last year. I did not like it. This year, I pretended it did not exist. However, it DID exist, and as we pulled into the end of Linkhorn Bay, we realized a bunch of boats had put out anchors to watch -- THE BLUE ANGELS!!!

Watching the show from the boat was great, because it wasn't in the middle of a crowd of people and I wasn't standing on concrete. We got to see most, if not all, of the maneuvers, and the kids loved it. My husband's eyebrow twitched in an appreciative way, so you know he was really enjoying himself. And I didn't have too terrible of a time. What bothers me is the fact that the noise is so close to the threshold of "too loud" that it seems like it could just pop over the border at any moment, become *too loud*, and shatter my skull. But, that didn't happen.



The second wonderful thing that happened is this: as we were scooting around on the boat I was noticing that there weren't any jellyfish. Even when we threw Benny in the tube and hauled him around for a while -- no jellyfish. It seemed almost like there were *no jellyfish* in the Bay! This would mean that a person could actually swim or waterski or whatever without constantly getting electrocuted by the little floating deathglops. So we DID. We swam over to the beach in the narrows, which is part of First Landing Park, and the kids had a great time. It was soooo nice to actually SWIM in Broad Bay!

Obviously, the air show was a scheduled event, and not a mysterious happening, engineered by the universe to provide us with entertainment. But the total lack of jellyfish really did seem like a magical occurence -- I feel like we were in the water this time last year and there were just *buckets* of them. They are *always* there, ruining our swimming, getting in our pants, causing us distress. But yesterday they weren't. And it was great. Because Benny had such a miserable time on Saturday evening, getting that one awful stitch in the ER -- yesterday's perfect afternoon was just what the doctor ordered.

Then to make it supereducationalized, when they got home, Dan and Benny and Sadie sat down with Microsoft Flight Simulator and the joystick and actually got to simulate flying the same jet the Blue Angels fly! Sadie crashed repeatedly but Benny was pretty good. No, son. No jet pilot future for you! Mommy needs peace! Be an architect!

Beachschooling

What can you learn from a day at the beach and the pool? You can learn to wear your sunscreen, and remember to bring your *real* shovel!

We've been at the beach in South Carolina for almost a month now. It's been completely fabulous for me and for the kids. Mostly we just fooled around in the water, lounged, cavorted, caroused, and leapt about. However, since my children are like all children, whose brains engage even while officially taking time off, I saw them learning all the time, even on a beach vacation. Here's what I mean:

When we left home we were working on a unit on the human body. Here you can see Benny's giant diagram that he made on the beach. He made several of these -- this one I photographed with Sadie standing next to it, for scale. It was pretty huge! He included the respiratory system, circulatory system, digestive system, and a lot of bones:



Every time the tide came up, his slate was washed clean, and he created lots of drawings, both educational and whimsical, on this excellent and huge slate. Drawing on the sand is great for doing math problems too. Try scratching some problems in the sand with a stick -- especially fun if the waves threaten to wipe out the problem before the kids can get to the answer.

Counting the pelicans as they cruised by in long lines became a good way for my two-year-old daughter to practice her numbers. We also counted shells, gulls, sand dollars, and waves. After a month of counting everything on the beach, I can report that she now knows to start with ONE instead of TWO. :D And she can count to twenty, pretty much.



Ahno made sand sculptures on the beach when the tide was low -- a dog, a cat, an alligator. The kids helped with these and made sculptures of their own. Sadie particularly was interested in digging and filling little buckets -- learning her little physics lessons with plastic pails and cups.



Speaking of Sadie, she had loads of fun running from the waves, meeting people, and making up crazy little dance routines. Here she is being a cheerleader. How did she come up with these moves? It wasn't from me -- must have been some kind of collective female consciousness she tapped into. She and Benny talked to everyone on the beach, meeting new people every day. Sadie's vocabulary and confidence in her speech has skyrocketed, and Benny, well, he didn't need help in the confidence department but he did very much enjoy all that quality socialization.

Both the kids took enormous strides in the pool. Benny learned to dive in headfirst and Sadie learned to jump in with the noodle and paddle herself around.





Indoors, Benny discovered the beauty of the captive audience, as he played daily afternoon concerts for the people playing in the pool. He would stand on the back porch, make his announcements, and then run through his whole Suzuki repertoire. This lead to all kinds of good academic stuff, including copying out programs for everyone, writing a letter about it to his violin teacher, and scripting his shows (including his dancing two-year-old sister/monkey).



Possibly the most exciting academic progress that we made this month was Benny's discovery of the Captain Underpants series, and his subsequent excitement about reading aloud to himself (or to his many stuffed dogs) late into the night. I'm sure the homeschooling community will now perforate my head with their hobnailed boots because not only did I let my child read Captain Underpants, but I also let him stay up until *after 10 pm* doing it. Forgive me -- it is too precious to hear him in there reading with such elaborate expression, all about the talking toilets and Professor Poopypants and the rest of it. He loves Captain Underpants. And this is the first chapter book series that has caught his attention. I don't care if it's crude. This is a six-year-old boy who thinks armpit farts are the height of comedy. Captain Underpants for everyone!

Colonial Place Community Bike Ride

Benny was so excited to do this, and he loved it more than I can describe. If Sheila Janes would organize a community bike ride once a month for crime prevention or any other reason, I'll bring the water! A whole gang of people on bikes set off from beside the dog park on Deleware and Llewellyn, and meandered all through Colonial Place and Riverview. Benny (and his Dad) rode along for over four miles of it, then when the ride passed the dog park again, Benny and Dad peeled off, Benny to come and drink water and go home to bed, and Dad to go off on his regular 30 mile ride.

Can I just say that I cannot believe I allowed my child, even under the watchful eye of his very efficient father, to go out on the STREET and ride his bike WITHOUT TRAINING WHEELS for four miles?!!? I'm not only learning to let go, I'm starting to go insane. Okay, he wasn't the only kid on the ride, but... I wouldn't have thought myself capable. I didn't even run after the pack screaming, "DON'T KILL MY BABY!" I barely even thought about doing it.



Nothing bad happened. Benny came back triumphant, having crowed the whole way about riding his two-wheeler and how great it was to be riding "in traffic" (help me) and doing the Tour de Colonial Place with Dad. Benny sure loves his bike. I hope a lot of people registered their bikes with the police last night and that raising awareness of bike theft will keep other kids from losing their favorite toys.

Summer in the Country

We recently spent some time at my family's farm in Pennsylvania. We haven't been there since Benny was three. This tim around, I found myself letting go of a lot of things that would have had me screaming my head off, three years ago.

When I was a child we went to "The Farm" every summer. My parents were school teachers, and they'd hung on to this property in Pennsylvania, where they used to live full time, as a summer home. I climbed trees, rode horses, hiked in the woods, and in general stepped outside my narrow urban experience for a few months of the year.



Now, I am a parent. Tree climbing no longer means escaping to a staggering height to stay there with a book all through the afternoon while your mother wonders where you are. Tree climbing now means hysterically imagining trips to the emergency room, with broken arms, legs, and heads, and that type of thing. Riding a pony no longer means feeling the animal move under you, and the wind in your hair, and civilization at your back. Now it means believing with certainty that the pony is most likely crazy, and only wants to scrape your precious baby off on the nearest tree, and then trample him/her into the moss as it neighs in evil triumph. What a difference twenty years and two pregnancies makes.



The last time we were at "The Farm," Benny was three years old. I hovered over him like a swarm of bees, guiding him away from anything sharp, high, cold, or made out of poison. This time around, he was six, and I had little Sadie to hover over. The question on everyone's mind, as we made plans for our trip, was this: Will Lydia be able to release her deathgrip on Benny's safety at all? Or will she hover over BOTH of them, relentlessly, forcing them into a small, resentful unit that marches before her in only the safest of safety?

Let me tell you.

There are trees in the front yard, at the farm. They are tall. They are taller than the house. Benny, naturally, being a six-year-old boy, was attracted to these trees as a duck is attracted to water. Or, as a duck is attracted to a whistling precipice where he probably plummets to his certain death.



Benny: HI MOM DO YOU SEE ME I AM VERY HIGH!

Me (pulse racing): Aren't you ready to come down, now, Benny?

Benny: I AM NOT AT MY HIGHEST POINT!

Me (eyes popping): Okay, but be careful, okay? Okay? Because if youf all, it will not be good. You will get hurt! Hurt I tell you!!!

Benny: MOM DO YOU SEE HOW HIGH I AM IN THIS TREE I CAN SEE THE ***ROOF***!

Me (blood draining from extremities to hide cowering in heart): Okay, but are you at your highest point yet? Mommy's not feeling okay about you going so high!

Benny: MOM GO IN THE BACK YARD! I CAN SEE YOUR BLUE CHAIR OVER THE HOUSE! I CAN SEE YOU IF YOU SIT IN IT! GO SIT IN THE BLUE CHAIR!

Me: *thud*

Did I let him climb the tree, all the way up to the top, all the way past the roof? Did I let her ride the pony? I did, repeatedly. By the end of our time there, I even said things like, "Go play outside for a while Benny. It's going to be bathtime soon." Then I would open the door, bustle him out, and continue feeding the dog or pulling the baby in the wagon, or whatever. I did relax. It was, at times, not at all relaxing, but I did manage to do it.

He also learned to ride his bicycle without training wheels, and I learned not to hold onto the back of his seat. He read himself to sleep at night, after our reading time together was over. And he got to be in charge of the dog.

The country was good for us. You never realize you can let go and allow your child to expand in these ways until you're in the situation, and you see yourself doing it. I'm assuming, though I can't imagine it right now, that this will be the case when he wants to drive, go to college, get married -- those other dangerous projects. One breathless conversation with him climbing, climbing inexorably up, and then he will be there, alive, and I will have survived it too.

Geocaching on the Fourth

If you've never heard of geocaching, you're probably normal. But if you're a certified geek in every other way, you need this sport in your life.

For educational merit, Geocaching is awesome. This time of year, it's pretty high on mosquito content too. Bugs notwithstanding, it's fun for the whole family, and all you need is a GPS thingy, and a willingness to get off the beaten path.

Geocaching is a worldwide game based on the old practice of explorers, cowboys, woodsmen, and other outdoors types -- leaving "caches" in secret places, so they could come back and get stuff they couldn't carry. Players hide caches in public places (or with permission on private property) and post the latitude and longitude coordinates on the internet so other players can go find them. Caches can be as small as a film canister and contain nothing but a log to sign and replace, or they can be a big waterproof container, where players can trade items. Lots of people leave Happy Meal toys, for example, for kids who are joining their parents on a treasure hunt. Caches can be hidden deep in the wilderness, or right on a downtown street corner.



You need a GPS unit, so you can wander around in the woods, walking this way and that, staring at the radio in your hand which tells you you're 15 feet away, then 400 feet away, then that you're standing on it, then that you're a mile away, all between two adjacent trees. You need a free account at the Geocaching web site, so you can look up caches to find. And you need BUG SPRAY!!! Don't forget the bug spray. And boots. Today I was ankle deep in mud.

Geocaching is fun for the kids because they like to find treasures, and leave treasures for other kids to find. My six-year-old loves signing the log books. For homeschoolers, this is a deep mine... which I haven't even really begun to think about properly. For example, you can put a "Travel Bug" in a cache, and send it around the world, tracking its progress on the internet, as other cachers transfer it from place to place. You can hide your own caches too. Some are puzzle caches, math-based caches, and of course you learn about the compass, the lat and long, and finding your way in the woods.

Today we went out "caching" and found four of the four we were seeking. A good day! They say days like that can make the game addictive. Tomorrow we're going to Ohio to visit grandparents. I'm *trying* not to look up geocaches to visit along the way.

We're Normal. Thanks, Memorial Day.

Ever since we bought the grill, we feel different. Cleaner, better, more capable of heating meat.

We live next to some very serious PETA employees. Maybe this is why we haven't bought a grill, lo these many long years. Buying a grill and then using it to cook anything but, you know, peppers or something, would seem like a political statement. We're really not prepared to be political about something so incidental as dinner. So, we haven't bought one. Even though the neighbors on the other side have one. Even though our little deck seems empty and lonely without one. We exercised restraint. We're decent folk, and not prone to the aggressive and public preparation of food that might offend. After all, PETA people are good people, and why cause a fuss?

This year, however, the PETA people next door have been really bossy about our cat, who sometimes escapes into the world when I'm trying to get a basket of laundry out to the mud room. He always comes back in, having eaten a bird or engaged in some other atrocity, and he's been living cheerfully like this, with maybe a weekly walkabout, for 12 years. The vet says he's in perfect health, but the neighbors went so far as to promise (threaten) to take him to a shelter "where he can live indoors." While I understand about cats outside and whatnot, this seemed a bit thick.

So, we wondered, as Memorial Day dawned, and my husband felt the old familiar itch to spray liquid fuel all over a pile of rocks and then set them on fire, why are we being so sensitive?

Here's Dan opening the flammable rocks, after spending quite a long time putting the grill together:



And here are Dan and Benny standing over the grill, with a satisfactory little fire raging away inside:



Later, around the dinner table, we felt surprisingly little guilt. Benny, who is mostly a vegetarian anyway, by his own choice, preferred to eat a hamburger "without meat." As he lovingly chewed up his sesame seed bun, he said very encouragingly, "DAD! I love what you grilled!!! Except for the meat." And he's never even read a PETA flier. Imagine. :)

memorial+day PETA grilling meat vegetarianism