momtourage

home-schooling 2

I was just going to write a comment to Woolypear, but home-schooling is something I have pondered a lot. Personally, I don't think I'd be able to do it well. I wouldn't be organized enough in my own home where there is always laundry to be done and a meal to be cooked. (And knitting projects just waiting to be picked up...)

But the fact is, next year I may be doing just that in spite of my hesitations. If Hank doesn't get into pre-school via the lottery I do plan to make plans - to have organized days in which we 'learn stuff.' I am thinking that it would be helpful to utilize the local library as a learning site and to take advantage of wonderful nearby resources like the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Botanic Garden. But thus far, while I wait and hope, the only thing I have signed him up for next year is Tae Kwan Do.

I have had two encounters with home schooling. One is that a good friend home-schooled her 8 children for a considerable amount of time before enrolling them in regular school. She was coming from an Evangelical background, and I know there is more support for home schooling as well as available resources in that community (plus peer social networking). Unfortunately, many times the learning resources take the form of video tapes. But not always and I don't know if they did in this case. All of the children fared just fine when they made the switch to a regular school with a few blips along the way. I remember her saying that one has trouble sitting still and that another was over-chatty in class. One stayed back a year but then continued on without incident. But does this not describe many children who have attended traditional schools all of their lives anyway? The oldest is now in college with a scholarship for academic and athletic achievement. So this is one case - a rural case.

The second is when I was subbing at a middle school in Brooklyn. Two children had been home-schooled through their elementary years and were now thrown into a typical urban mix of students. They were sweet kids but were floundering heavily in the social arena. Maybe it was just those kids, or maybe it was the relative isolation of the home-schooling experience - I don't know.

So in meandering response to woolypear, I feel like there does have to be some personality 'control' aspect  in the parent who home schools. After all, we both know how scary it is to let your child out 'into the wild' where they are exposed to many things you think they should wait for. (superheroes and other questionable media figures are my bane). There are also kids who have more challenges in the social arena and it would be nice to shield them from bullies etc. I have thought about that often with Sam. He is so out of the normal swing of things with other kids. The other day he insisted on bringing a Mayan architecture book to a block pot luck and was surprised when the other boys were not into discussing it. But for me, this is why I think he needs to go to a public school because he just needs to learn how to deal with these kids on their level.

Maybe today, maybe tomorrow - soon I will know if I will be home-schooling Hank next year. Suggestions for effective home-schooling of a 4 year old are appreciated!

home-schooling?

I am skeptical about homeschooling.

I struck up a conversation with another mom at a playground...She told me how she was homeschooling her 6 year-old daughter, and that she is a genius...that she can read Harry Potter...that she took her out of public school kindergarten because she was beyond the reading and maturity level of the other kids...and yet, she wasn't accepted into this elite academic private school (apparently she didn't score high enough on the admission test, but they wouldn't reveal what the minimum passing score was). I found myself "mommy" listening, nodding, and politely saying, "Really?", or "Is that so?"

She went on to say that she believed that it's a misconception that kids need to socialized with their peers. She claimed that her daughter learned more about how to develop relationships with others from her, and that the most important relationship is the friendship between the mother and the child.

I think she talked about the environmental pressures that kids have today...something about 3 high schoolers hanging themselves...girls that are "hoochy"...

Then she mentioned how there was another mom who home-schooled 5 children and how advanced they were. How they treated each other with loving respect—"something out of Little House on the Prairie" she said. She was obviously impressed. I was definitely skeptical. Nothing could be that ideal or perfect, could it?

I'm not against the idea of homeschooling...but I don't see myself doing it...

It's Making Me Nervous

It was just too expensive. I love the preschool that Hank and Sam attend, but the double whammy on tuition this past year was just too much. Frankly, I don't know how we managed it - though I do vaguely remember my husband's entire (and now obsolete due to a job change) bonus check going straight to Key Bank for tuition. Whoa.

So we came to a decision, or rather I did, my spouse being more optimistic about scrounging up the money (a whopping $13,000) from "somewhere." I decided to enter Hank in the lottery for our local public school (PS 321) for the 2008-09 year and cross my fingers.

See, Hank likes school a lot. He has made real friends and he just thrives there, bringing home new and interesting paintings, devising pirate-related stories, making Hs and Xs (his favorite letters) on everything, toying with his lunch - all of the good things. So I was really, REALLY hoping that we would have the best of both worlds - him in pre-K at the same school as Sam AND for free. I thought I had a fool-proof plan, really, since I put the afternoon session as my first choice. Historically, these are the least competative spots to get. But I still have no acceptance letter and as they are due by the end of May, my hopes are diminishing. And then my neighbor stopped by with his child's rejection letter. They too had put afternoon as their first choice. He tried to be supportive (Hank has a sibling in the school, maybe the rejections went out first...) but actually it doesn't even count that Sam will be in K there next year (siblings get preference) because he won't be given his student number until August.

So I wait and wait. I peer down the street, squinting, trying to spy the mailman on the next block. I lift the flap of my mailbox and shake out the magazines. That letter just has to be on its way. I hope it arrives before I develop a nervous tic.

A Big Hit

Pardon the very bad pun, but everyone loved the baseball game. In fact, I loved it so much that I momentarily wished we had oodles of money so we could purchase season tickets. And this was after I had already paid $9.50 for a beer and $6.50 for a hot dog! I guess I got caught up in baseball fever. And it helped that the 8th inning was extra exciting - the Yankees pulling ahead all of a sudden in a series of dramatic moves.

I called my dad from the game so he could try to see us in the stands, but he is firmly in Red Sox country and it wasn't on.

The next day the kids and I went to Prospect Park and ran around a baseball diamond and did some pretend pitching and batting. I am thinking that I should invest in some real equipment and soon, before the excitement has died down. And good gloves too! My cheap-o one from the local Mammoth Mart never broke in although I saddle soaped it incessantly and slept with it under my pillow with a baseball tied in it. Boy was it frustrating when the ball bounced out, though to blame the glove for my inept catching is somewhat suspect. Tempting but suspect.

Here are some pictures from a big photo session Sam did during the 7th and 8th innings.

                                                               
                                                                   

                                                                    My favorite

                You can almost hear the murmur/roar of the crowd.

Baseball Game

Mind you, no one in our family is particularly proclined towards the sport. Well maybe no one except my dad who played on the army team when he was drafted in the 50s. But my dad played every sport well, so I'm not counting him. I'm just saying that one day my husband came up with the idea that we should all go to Yankee Stadium before it is ripped down and I probably shrugged or something. Then he probably thought I was really into seeing a baseball game so he pursued the idea on craigslist.

Suffice to say, after an intense argument during which I had to come up with a maximum price per seat (some of these tickets were being offered at $100 each!!!) we found a happy medium and are set to see the game tomorrow afternoon.  (I think it is against Seattle.) Of course he has to take Metro-North to Connecticut to pick up the tickets but he has a good book and I can only hope that the boys appreciate the fanfare and spectacle of the event. I only managed to see a major league game in St. Louis in my early 30s because my sports loving co-worker pointed out at that by the 7th inning they were unlikely to be checking tickets so why not. And it was pretty amazing. Very surreal with us high up and the players like tiny dolls on the infield. It was good for about 2 innings.

I played baseball when I was young (pee wee, not little league) and proved to be poor at the sport. Really bad. Like the only time I actually hit the ball I was too shocked and confused to make a run to first base. So somewhere in the miasma of justifying the expense and the long subway ride out to the Bronx i am hoping that a little bit of baseball love rubs off on the guys. Go Yankees.

Wrangler

A neighbor walked our son to daycare this morning.

Upon dropping him off, she called us.

"Cakie almost caught a squirrel." 

"He what?"

"And as he was chasing it, he was yelling 'MY CHINCHILLA!'"

2 Reasons Why My Honey is Very Very Smart

#1 When my son developed a neurosis about bubbles in his drinks... and let me tell you, when one drinks from a sippy cup, one always has bubbles in one's drink.  We struggled with it for a while.  We tried to use cups through which he could not see, for example.  Then the other day, she simply said, "Taste it and see if it tastes the same."  He looked at the cup and said, "Ok."  Then he proceeded to chug the entire cup of milk mixed with yogurt smoothie.  He exclaimed in a very excited two-year-old way, "It tastes the same!"  Problem solved.

#2 As I was poised to throw away all of our plastic sippy cups, especially the beloved and cheap disposable ones, my honey took a look at the bottom of our one over-priced Born Free sippy and declared, "Uh, this is number five plastic and so are the disposable ones."  Hmmm.  Oh look, the Platex ones that don't leak are also number five.   I wikied it online and it turns out that only #7 and #3 are troublesome. Money saved.

Smart and clever.  That's my honey.

Clean Plate Club

There was an article in the Sunday Times that I kept thinking about today. No, not the frivolous and overworked 'why everybody hates Park Slope' piece. (Note to self: stop reading the Style section.) It was the excellent 'One Country's Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal' by Andrew Martin that gave me pause. To over-summarize, we throw out a lot of perfectly good food, approximately 122 pounds of food per month for a family of four.  And families with young children are particularly culpable, which made me think about our family's particular food habits. Which of course led to a visualization of the contents of our trash can.

I realized that I am guilty of an astounding amount of waste. I don't quite know how or when it happened, but along the line I switched from being a guilt ridden member of the clean plate club to a haphazard waster of food. Don't feel like finishing up that stew? Toss it out and make something else. Pushed that yogurt too far back in the fridge and now it's past its expiration date? Into the trash!

When I was growing up we were STRONGLY encouraged to clean our plates. We were constantly reminded of starving children who would be overjoyed to finish up those fish sticks, apple slices etc. It is an overworked sentiment perhaps, but you know what? I was constantly made aware of how lucky we are to have a bounty of food available to us and I did live with the knowledge that people were starving, year after year, not only 'in Africa' (as my mom often added) but in the United States as well. I guess I thought I was beyond exhorting my kids to eat more of the food on their plates, but now I don't know. There's got to be a happy medium out there somewhere.

The article helpfully mentioned a blog that specifically addresses the wasted food issue and the author makes some excellent points as well as offers practical food saving tips. Some of these I already follow, others I am eager to start trying.

A couple of things I already do:
1) Make bread crumbs from stale bread. I often keep these in the freezer if there is a large enough quantity. I also use milk that has 'gone off' to make pancakes, biscuits etc.
2) Plan meals ahead. Of course I'm not always correct on the quantity and we end up with more leftovers then we want.

A couple of things I need to do:
1) Freeze leftovers more often. That beef tajine will taste even yummier for lunch a couple of weeks later.
2) Start composting again. I used to have a worm bin under my coffee table but when the kids came along I ditched it.

If I start with a few changes now, it will make a difference then I can keep adding more along the way.

I can't resist a little plug for the food coop though - when my husband and I were talking about the article he said, "Yeah, you must see a lot of that because you work in a grocery store." (I do all of the shifts - but that's another story.) But the Coop has a close working relationship with a soup kitchen a few blocks away. Everyday 'imperfect' produce is delivered there and transformed into healthy meals. And for the produce that is beyond eating? It is composted in a nearby community garden. There are things that I don't always love about the place, but I feel great about that.

Pink Pictures for a Gray Day

It's raining again! Which I guess is extra good news since I just discovered that the DEP can draw water from the Hudson River to replenish NYC's water supplies if the reservoir gets too low. I know that water (even waste water) can be recycled and purified enough to be safely drinkable, but still.

Anyhow, here are some nice pink pictures to brighten up this gray day.

Sam and the azaleas, yesterday at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I kept him out of school again as the
class was going on an all-day farm field trip and I didn't think he was up to it. We have a follow-up appointment with his surgeon on Tuesday so I am just trying to keep activities to the minimum until then.

This is a baseball shirt and hat that I knit for my stepsister's baby. She is due in June. It's a great pattern from Knit 2 Together but I adapted it a bit to use up some Rowan All Season cotton I had on hand. I love how the entire raglan shoulder opens up so there's no head squishing anxiety when putting it on. There's supposed to be a kangaroo pocket but I was afraid I'd run out of yarn, so I skipped it and ended up having enough left over for a simple roll-brim hat. I guess I'm not that great at eyeing quantities. I never even peeked under the cover of this book until about a month ago as I found the concept (a celebrity comedienne knitter?) and cover photo (a sweater knit for 2) to be off-putting. Finally I spied a deeply discounted copy on Amazon (new for $5.50) and snapped it up. Turns out it is a great book with lots of patterns I will love to knit. Who knew?

the storm

I'm reporting from the home of a friend who kindly let me use her power. We had an exciting hail storm last night. First there was lightning and thunder, sending a crying toddler to my office. Then it sounded like it was raining rocks, and I looked out the window to see hail stones the size of golf balls. Seconds later while hubby was wondering whether to throw a blanket over the car to protect it, the lights went out, and the house was pitch black. I found some lanterns that I had bought for the kids in the closet, and somehow we all went back to sleep.

This morning and afternoon, I kept hoping that we'd have power back, but still nothing. Some neighbors have power across the street. I saw that some trees were broken and the landscapers were very busy today. Some people had their windows broken too. We are lucky to have weathered the storm without damage...