Olly Olly Oxen Free

I find it fascinating that my little blog, which my own siblings have freely admitted they totally forget about, routinely attracts readers from outside the US.  In the past week, folks from Canada, Germany, France, Poland, Australia, the UK, Indonesia and Romania stopped by here.  Why?  How did they find me?  I have no idea.  Most weeks I have a reader from China and one from Iran as well.  All these exotic internationals seem to stop by whether I post new material or not.  If I had an extensive following, that would be one thing, but I'm guessing that my regular readers number in the dozens.

I'm calling Olly Olly Oxen Free.  I included the link explaining the phrase since that may be a strictly American idiom. I would love for the international readers to drop me a comment and let me know how they found this, why they like or hate this blog and what compels them to return.

Or maybe I don't want to know as I've developed some elaborate theories of my own.  The China reader, I'm convinced, is some government employee who purpose is to keep track of worldwide subversives.  The Iranian is amazed at our homeschooling freedoms.  The newly cultish following I have in the Netherlands stems from one trend setting family.  My German fans are US military stationed there.  The UK followers, it goes without saying, are Wills and Kate.  They have sensed my keen interest in them and are repaying the favor.  The Romanian found out about me through a Christian conference.  Australia is my cousin, but that is more educated guess than fantastical musings.  Interestingly, I never have readers from Italy where I do have extended family.

Where ever you are, I appreciate you taking the time to come share my corner of the world!

Blessings,
Holly

The Thangs We Don't Do

"Nuts" seems to be the most common assessment of our fall schedule, judging from the emails my friends sent.  I wholeheartedly agree.  Yet it's certainly not unique; most of my 40-something mom friends keep a similar calendar.

I strive for margin.  Those who know me know I'm an Owl-ish type at best with strong Eeyore tendencies on a bad day and Piglet-ish leanings during insecure times.  Stress makes me even more cantankerous than usual.  I want to be a Kanga, but so far the generous pouch up front is the closest I come most days.

My mom-to-many friends won't be surprised to learn that our schedule actually does represent what feels like a severe pruning to me.  If yesterday's post was The Thangs We Do, here is an incomplete summary of what we've chosen, not without some anguish, to forego.  These are only the activities that I actually gave serious thought to attending, not the 3 or 4 that come across my email every day that I dismiss out of hand:

Wonderful Beth Moore Bible Study led by our campus pastor's wife.

Small group involvement designed to further fellowship within the church.

Volunteering just "one hour, once a month" in the Sunday church kid's program.

Outstanding Community Bible Study with homeschool classes allowing all of us to be studying the same book of the Bible at the same time, each at their own level.

National Award Winning Homeschool Speech and Debate Team.

Additional Homeschool Co-op offering a Great Books curriculum.

Monday academic classes at yet another co-op.

No doubt excellent Critical Thinking club for high schoolers.

Homeschool Band.

Homeschool Skate, at least most weeks.  We strive to make it once a month or so.

Lark in the Park homeschool outings.

Talking on the phone.  There are two people I will regularly clear time for extended conversations with, but otherwise it is a luxury I've had to give up.  The beauty of email is that you can write it very early or very late.

This is why I have to laugh when my niece, who is young and teaches in the public schools, advocates that homeschooling must come under the authority of the public schools so that the community can have eyes on these home schooled kids.  I am quite certain my kids interact with at least as many adults in at least as varied settings on a weekly basis as public schooled kids.  While my evidence is anecdotal, I find this true of the vast majority of home educators I've met and it's been true over the decade plus and across the three states I've home educated in.

Things we forego without much anguish:

Made beds, at least mine, many days of the week.  If I can muster it, I tidy it up just before Mr. Wonderful returns from work.

Really clean bathrooms.  Clean enough has to be clean enough most of the time.  And when it's not clean enough, we call it a science experiment.

Dinners with more than five ingredients or taking more than 20 minutes to make.  Frankly, that would be the case no matter how clear our schedule.

Checking messages.  Can't get 'em on my cell phone and I forget to get 'em on the home phone.

Living like pigs.  Aforementioned foibles aside, it takes more time and energy to live like a pig because it's so hard to clean it up.  We have assigned daily chores and I would let school slide before I would let the kids' chores go.  While I won't agree with my beautiful niece that everything is relative, I do believe that is the case when it comes to housekeeping.  My "not a pigsty" standard, with five home educated kids here much of the time probably differs from the "not a pigsty" standard of homes without many kids or ones without folks in them much of the day.

I'd love to hear what others have chosen to set aside in order to accommodate the craziness of their own making!

Blessings,
Holly

The Thangs We Do

Summer proved busy and satisfying with our three oldest boys putting on the full armor of God and of self defense.  All three olders are now black belts and baptized.  

Looking forward to our fall, I begin to understand why I am often up nights.  I am sure your schedules look similar.  How do you all keep it all together?  Our round-up, minus any mention of any actual homeschooling:

J will continue to take math classes at the local four year college and he will also be a preceptor (that's like a TA, I don't know why they call it that) for a precalc/calc class there.  He'll have his own office hours every week, which I find cute.  He's got feelers out to be a paid tutor and sounds like one neighbor may take him up on it.  He and his brother will be fall soccer refs  and he'll continue to be at the church at 6am sharp every Sunday to help his dad and brother do set-up.  Every other week he works tech during the worship service--he really likes the headset microphones the tech people get to wear.  He'll continue, along with his brother, to volunteer at AWANA every week.  His extras, again shared by his next oldest brother, include Science Olympiad  (and me as the club coach--eek!), math club, a gym class, an advanced art class, a lit group (Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, A Tale of Two Cities, Jane Eyre, & Alas, Babylon are the fall readings) and youth group. 

N has all that jazz with J and he also takes a wood carving class and teaches an art class.  After sporadic classes this summer, always maxxed out because he only charged $5 each, a mom approached him about doing semi-private classes once a month or once every three weeks for her two sons for $20.  So, I think he'll do that provided he can squeeze it in.  

B has the karate and AWANA already mentioned.  I've also signed him up for piano lessons, the soccer, and a homeschool weekly swim and gym at our local Y.  He probably needs more, but I don't feel like I can swing it right now.  He is a bold guy.  As usual, even at the first soccer practice, I heard him calling out to other boys on the field, directing them.  Never mind the fact that he is the youngest kid on the two-year combined team.  

C will continue AWANA and I've formed a Fancy Nancy club that will meet at my house every other week.  After a decade and a half of Legos and guns, I am super excited about this.  Today, we are doing Fancy Nancy and the Fabulous Fashion Boutique.  We will play dress up, have a store to "sell" baubles, walk with bananas on our heads (as the girls do to achieve proper posture in the book), make a paper chain held up by fancy helium balloons.  YAY! for girl stuff.  I've capped that group at five girls total.  C will also take swim lessons, followed by gymnastics and ballet--in succession, not concurrently.

Baby M creates chaos out of order and danger out of safety.  He gives us delight and an almost equal amount of exhaustion.  

I'm continuing to moderate the local homeschool group.  We're up over 300 members and folks seem to like it as an information source, so that's gratifying.  I'm also continuing to make calls for the church, scheduling appts. for people who want to find a volunteer role.  It's easy for me to do from home because I have access to the church data base from my computer.  I'm heading up AWANA registration again.  I'm slowly learning a bit more computer stuff in that regard so I can run my own registration reports.  Thankfully, we have paid data people to do the hard stuff.  If I can scare up a middle school math club coach, I will continue to be the administrator for that club and now I am adding in the Science Olympiad coach duties.  Which is laughable, but I plan to put everything back on the parents and lure my friends who are engineers to come to one meeting each to help out.   

Mr. Wonderful is enduring through a very difficult job situation.  He has a new boss, the old one having been fired.  This comes after the boss above that boss got fired.  Another manager at Jack's level was fired on Monday.  New boss seems to be restoring resources that have been deprived to the state for years.  This should make it easier for Mr. Wonderful to do his job well.  He volunteers with the middle school/high school group at our campus of our church and seems well-suited for it.  Interestingly, Mr. Wonderful struck up a friendship with a homeless guy in Chicago (James, pray for him); an outgrowth of the work God has been doing in his heart toward the homeless as a result of the past two summer's weeklong missions trips.  Anyway, James asked Mr. Wonderful to be his legal guardian.  We're not going to do that, but I do think Jack will take on health care power of attorney for the man.  James is 62, has AIDS and his greatest fear is dying alone in a flea bag motel.  He's a former gang member, now just an old frail guy with no one in the world.  Very sad, but I'm glad Jack takes the time to talk with him on the days he works in Chicago.

That's my newsy update.  You all should consider it your Christmas card since I probably won't get around to issuing another one anytime soon.  

I'd love to hear what you all are gearing up to for the new school year though!

Blessings,
Holly

I Think I Like This One

Having a bunch of kids, I've been around more than my fair share of rec league sports coaches.  They've ranged from the brilliant positive one who shouted, "Way to be open for the pass!" to my timid little soccer player who, as I'm sure the coach knew, was merely trying to hide from the surging horde on the field to the awful one who had a two hour first practice in a cold wind for 8 year old baseball players and abandoned my son in right field for 119 of the 120 minute torture.  In the remaining minute, he got beaned by the pitcher.  We didn't return.

With some curiosity and no small amount of trepidation, I opened the email from the latest coach.  Even before opening, I was a bit put off by the fact that it was sent as urgent, showing up with a red exclamation mark denoting its importance.  Whatever 5th grade soccer is, it's not urgent.

Color coded charts of practices and games filled the inside.  The coach had taken the liberty of assigning our snack and beverage duties.  Practice would be twice a week--I thought this was rec league?--with an optional third practice this week since the opening game is just 10 days away!  I'm a bit of a control freak myself and while it just makes good sense when I do it, I find it quite annoying in others.  Was this another win at all costs coach trying to find the athletic glory that escaped him as a youth?

Nonetheless, I complied with the request to reply to let the coach know I had received the email.  When a second email arrived with a google maps insert and our practice field circled within it, I wondered what I was thinking in even signing the kid up for soccer.  I have five kids.  Count 'em, FIVE.  I can barely reply to my own thoughts acknowledging my own plans, let alone have the wherewithal to keep up with a coach who already wrote he has a tendency to "over-communicate."

Within four minutes of arriving at the field, I did a 180 in my assessment.  The coach and his assistant coach were both there, a few minutes early.  They started on time.  Can I get an amen chorus for the leaders who start on time?  We train others how to behave and the message here was unambiguous.  Latecomers were integrated into the drill with friendliness and ease.  I'd put money on the likelihood of fewer tardy players next practice.

Within 10 minutes, I began to think this coach might work out fine.  Even from the playground where I was entertaining my youngers, I could easily see that the drills were well-planned, purposeful and fun.

At the half way point, when he gathered the kids to talk to them during a water break, I began to admire him.  Of course it makes sense to run the boys ragged for a while and then sit them down to explain things while they are good and tired.  You'd be surprised how many coaches take a gaggle of wiggly little boys raring to run on a field and sit them down for an introductory talk.

At the parent meeting after practice, my buddy Coach Dan sealed the deal in my mind.  I am an official fan.  First off, he said that while it's rec league, the kids keep score and are happier when they win.  I deplore the everyone receives a trophy mentality, so I appreciated his realism.  He wants them to win too, but not at any cost.  Kids would get the same amount of playing time regardless of skill level.  I like the balance he expressed.  Secondly, he reminded the kids to think of a team name.  Team name?  We'd always been Team 2 or Team 4 in previous sessions.  Finally, he pointed out that at this age, the kids sometimes get adult refs and sometimes get teen refs.  He explained that these teens are taking on refereeing as their first job, that they are learning to ref just like the kids on the team are learning to play.  He said he's come to expect that there will be at least one totally wrong, game changing call per game and that's the way it is, so be kind to the teen refs.  He sent all the kids on their way with a rousing team yell.

Remember my five, count 'em, FIVE kids?  Two of them are first year refs in this league.  I love Coach Dan.

'Comprehensive Education'

"The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience." NEA Resolution B 75 (2006-07)

My nephew, who co-founded technology company KSplice after he graduated from MIT, sold that company to Oracle this month for an undisclosed sum.

His younger brother made Law Review this week at Washington & Lee University.  It is the family's opinion, though, that his greater achievement lies in having found a wonderful woman and possessing the good sense to make her his wife.

Not bad for a couple of home educated kids.  But pity, isn't it, to think of the heights to which they might have soared if only they had had the benefit of an NEA approved 'comprehensive educational experience'?

The Lowered Bar

The pastor at our church campus is a young guy.  He and his lovely wife, who snapped back into pre-pregnancy shape in something like 10 minutes (I like her anyway.  I do.  I do.  I like her anyway.), are new parents to an adorably chubby-cheeked baby girl.  I love it when our pastor carries her around and sometimes he brings the baby up on stage for one reason or another.  Today being Father's Day, he had her with him.

He described their night time routine to us.  He prays for his daughter's eternal life in the Lord every night and for God to help him and his wife be godly and good parents.  This larger point was not lost on me nor on Mr. Wonderful.  We were both teary as our pastor had all the dads stand and led them in a prayer and left them with a charge toward their children.

Mr. Wonderful's dad role is what gives him the capital in Wonderful.  The guy is a great, great dad.  This is indisputable.

Please don't take it as any slight to my pastor that his admonition toward prayer and his charge to the dads was not was caused my husband and I to have whispered conversation in the middle of church.  No, it was our pastor mentioning that bath time began the nightly routine for his daughter.  My normally reticent husband turned to me with wide eyes:

"Every night????"

"First born," I whispered back to him.

I guess we probably bathed our first little baby every night.  Honestly, I can't remember, but it seems like the type of thing a good first-time parent would do.  Or at least should do.  So I hope we did.

What I can tell you with absolute certainty is that that did not happen with our fifth baby.  Not because we love him any less, but along the way, one's sense of what is important or essential or--let's face it--logistically possible changes as a family gets larger.

Parenting is an evolution.  I guess it's an open question whether we're on an upward path in matters of hygiene, but Mr. Wonderful gets all the big stuff right.  Happy Father's Day, honey!

Awesome and Intense

These are the words my 13 year old used repeatedly last night when I had a few minutes to chat with him.  He'd just finished taking his first shower of our church's mission/service trip week.  It's Day 4.  Their last shower opportunity will be today (Wednesday) and then it is a long, rank haul til they arrive home on Saturday.

That fact alone makes me fervently praise God that I got the "easy" job of single parenting a 19 month old determined to leap off tall tables in a single bound, a five year old and a nine year old all week while my husband chaperones our two teens and 38 of their BFFs in Nashville.  I'd already heard from Mr. Wonderful how the boys' sleeping quarters smelled so body odorific, sweaty-teen foul that they taped my two sons' bars of Irish Spring soap to the AC unit to waft that chemically fresh scent into the room.  A friend and I joked that next year, along with having memorized the assigned Bible portion, possessing deodorant should be a non-negotiable requirement in order to board the bus.

My thankfulness continued to overflow when I heard how the van broke down an hour and fifteen minutes outside of their destination and how the adults had to form shuttles with the remaining vans to get the kids there.  I kissed my queen size bed's pillow when I was informed that another group's housing had fallen through so now there were double the number of kids sleeping at the church in Nashville with our kids.  I debated which of the double sinks in our bathroom to use in the morning while thinking of how the kids at the church were sharing two toilets amongst 30 boys.

I wondered how I had the incredible good sense to know within two months twenty one years ago that I wanted to hitch my wagon to the man who would report all these facts with a laconic, "It's fine.  We just need to be very flexible in our plans."

From my teen, I heard none of this.  His excitement leaped through the phone as he told me about all the homeless people they'd encountered as they went on prayer walks in the city, passing out toothpaste and new socks.  The woman who overflowed with joy in the Lord even though she had nothing. "I mean, NO-THING, Mom."  The newspaper written by the homeless and then sold by them as an alternative to outright begging.  The surly man who'd seen lots of Christians come through and didn't want to hear it, didn't want to hear it, just wanted the toothpaste.  "But I guess we can pray for him."  The homeless amputee who lived under a bridge and shared that he really was contemplating jumping off the bridge because his 'friends' had stolen everything he had from him while he slept.  "That was really intense, Mom.  But Mr. W (another chaperone) went to his van and gave the man his own under armour soccer shirt.  And now I hope that man might know that other people really care about him and it might change the way he thinks."

"Oh, and Mom, I just had the BEST shower ever."

Amen.