The Homeschooling Adventure

Now that Jane is four and pre-school age, people have started to ask me if she is in school. When I tell people I have chosen to homeschool Jane, I am most often met with, "Good for you!" The second most common reaction is a genuinely curious, "What are you doing for her lessons?"

In asking other homeschooling moms I trust about curricula, I came across an amazing book: The Charlotte Mason Companion. 

Great Guide to Homeschooling

Although I am still not finished with it, from this book, I learned two things immediately: 1) I can teach my child, and 2) more than teach my child, I can help create in her a love of learning and develop her natural curiosity about life. 

As a means of instruction, Charlotte Mason advocates nature walks during which you and your children observe nature, and like a scientist, study, analyze, and report your findings.

Nature Walks

For our first Nature Walk, Jane and I went on a bike ride from the cafe to the horse stable. When Jane wanted to stop at the stable and watch the horses, I groaned inwardly, knowing that the horses were not going to do anything interesting. But we stopped and parked the bike and bike trailer, and sat on the low limb of the tree. I had been past that stable dozens of times, so there was nothing new for me to see. Or so I thought.

In the stillness, sitting on the tree limb, I heard a low hum. Turning around, I saw the source: a beehive in the base of the tree, with bees coming and going. Since I had never stopped there before, and since the beehive is on the back side of the tree, I had never noticed it before.

Beehive at the base of the tree.

Suddenly our standard ride to the stables became a lively discussion about bees, what they were doing, how they got there, why they chose to live there, whether the horses minded them being there, etc. We left the stables looking for more signs of life, and flowers that the bees might fly to. Before heading home, we stopped at the library and looked for a simple story about bees. The unanticipated surprise of the beehive would be the first of many as we began our Nature Walks.

Next year or the year after, we'll visit the bees and return to the library in search of books that tell us how honey is made, what is pollen, how do bees help tomatoes grow, and answers to other questions.

Taking the lessons further, we can easily incorporate math and natural science - count the bees on the page of this book; how many bee legs are there, draw a bee, and ultimately perhaps, if a bumblebee were an aircraft, what would be the minimum forward thrust required to get him off the ground?

Learning Letters

Besides nature walks, I do a letters lesson, à la "Today is brought to you by the letters R and M, and the number 4."

Jane has a wooden alphabet puzzle. I put all the letters in a box and have her draw one or two from the box to be our letters of the day.

 Jane draws a letter from the box.

On this particular day, she drew the letter U. We had construction paper, scissors and markers to draw things that started with the letter U. Jane drew a robot, because she likes robots. I gave him an umbrella and asked Jane what else started with U. She suggested underwear, so the robot got underwear.

U is for robot with Underwear, holding an Umbrella.

A few days later, she drew the letter W. I cut out some construction paper pieces of things that would start with W. I give her as many choices in this as possible (i.e., what color paper, do you want to draw it or cut it out, etc.). 

W is for Walrus, Whiskers, Wreath, and Wolf

Any time we work on academic things like a letters lesson, I let Jane be the time keeper. Usually she's good for ten minutes, and I don't push her to do more past that. We move on to another activity, then possibly return later.

Reading / Listening Comprehension

I try to read her books that are more than just Cat in the Hat. Charlotte Mason says to give a book the "one-page test." Start reading aloud to your children and stop after one or two pages. If you hear, "Read more!" then you know you have a good book.

I picked up a few of the Boxcar Children books, and we read the Bicycle Mystery (#15) over the course of two weeks. The children in the story were taking a bicycle trip from their Grandfather's house to their Aunt Jane's farm. To get an idea of what was happening and to keep track of the action, I drew a map. Any time we would resume reading after a few days pause, I would ask Jane about the story and what had happened. Following the map made this much easier, as we could look at the River Road, see the G on Grandfather's house, and the animals way far away at Aunt Jane's farm. She already shows remarkable listening comprehension!

Map of the route from Grandfather's to Aunt Jane's from Boxcar Children: Bicycle Mystery

There are times when all this gets very tedious, but I know intellectually that the most critical time for building a love of learning, reading, and writing are right now. 

Veteran's Day

Today for Veteran's Day, Jane and I went to the Veteran's Day Parade in downtown San Diego. Any time we salute our veterans or or thank them in any way, I explain to Jane that these men and women all fought with Captain America against the bad guys, and that it's important that we say thank you, and recognize them as heroes.

Only once before had I been to a San Diego Veteran's Day parade, and I forgot how much of a hometown feel there is to it. Everyone is right there close enough to speak to. As we waved at people, we were close enough to tell them "thank you," and hear them respond. 

We were not far from a corner near the end of the parade route, so occasionally the parade would stop in front of us, waiting for a group to turn the corner. At one point, with a number of troops in front of us (vets of different ages), I was somewhat overcome and burst into a decent rendition of God Bless America. 

I FULLY expected everyone to join in with me, as I had envisioned a crowd singing together with voices united in a big Veteran's Day warm fuzzy moment. Of course, I got to the end of the song and realized that the only ones who had joined in were the troops in front of us, who, by the end of the song, had turned the corner and were gone. I was singing solo on the streets of downtown San Diego. No matter, I was in the Veteran's Day groove.

As the parade passed by and some of the older Vets walked alongside the parade shaking hands with kids, I encouraged Jane to go up and shake hands or even give a hug to a veteran. One older man, obviously a VietNam Vet with a big welcoming smile and easy manner was shaking hands with the kids as he passed. I told Jane she should give him a hug. As she walked toward him with her arms outstretched and he realized what was happening, he hugged her back and almost burst into tears. After he passed, I told Jane that she really made his day.

A few minutes later, a Navy unit was passing by, and stopped in front of us. I told Jane to run up and shake the hand of the man standing alongside the rows of men and women. Evidently it was a good choice, because she came back with a gold coin from the commanding officer of ARCO ARDM-5 - Medium Auxiliary Repair Dry Dock. She told me he was like Father Al. If the children ask our priest, Father Al, for a blessing at church (the proper way to greet a priest), he gives the children coins. 

Jane was good for a little over an hour's worth of parade, then she was ready for something else. Since we were both hungry, we rode the bike (I had brought bike and Weehoo trailer so we could park anywhere) down to the Embarcadero and got pizza. While we were eating our pizza, I asked Jane what was her favorite part of the parade. She said, "All those peoples, and I got a flag, and that man, I made him's day." 

Indeed. That was the best part of my day, too.

Mom - thanks for always encouraging us as kids to give a hug and a kiss to the veterans we saw, and to tell them thank you. I'll do my best to pass the torch to the next generation.

Veteran friends - thank you so much for your service, for enduring the bad food and ill-fitting clothing, the blisters, bug bites, the tedium of ill-informed superior officers, and all those things too terrible to mention. We love you so very much!

Explaining 9/11 to My 4-year-old

It was Sunday, September 9, 2012, when I realized it was... Sunday, September 9.

For the past few days, when I would notice a calendar and see that once again it would soon be Tuesday, September 11, my pulse would quicken, my throat would begin to close, and tears would start to well in my eyes before I could push the emotions down, refocus, and move forward. In those micro-seconds of grief, my mind would invariably flood with images of the lat time it was Sunday, September 9... I was running a sprint triathlon on the Jersey Shore, the sun was high, there was a cool breeze in the air, and life was good. 

Lower Manhattan from the Jersey side

For the past few days, I just wanted to go back and see things as they were, the Manhattan skyline like I remembered seeing it from the Jersey side, one more time. I didn't want Tuesday to come, and a part of me dreaded it.

One of the more profound things associated with 9/11 for me, was getting turned away from the blood bank in the days that followed the attack. For someone who is O-negative, a universal donor, who gets phone calls from the blood bank the day I'm legal to donate again, getting turned away was something uncanny. It seemed all the donors had come out to donate, but there were no survivors to donate to. I remember sitting in my car outside the center, weeping.

Now it's eleven years later, and it's again Tuesday, September 11.  My four-year-old daughter Jane and I enter Balboa Park, looking for a hot dog and "free Tuesdays" admission. As we near the fountain at the south end of the park, I notice a large 9/11 Memorial display, and slow my pace as I walk, her little hand in mine. 

Do I tell her the story? She's only four. The horrific images of the planes crashing into the Towers are in bright colors on the long display walls, along with images of the survivors, firefighters, police, and all the chaos that was Tuesday, September 11. 

I take a breath and lean down on one knee, drawing her close and pointing to the images as I tell her the story.

"Eleven years ago, before you were born, a terrible thing happened. Evil men wanted to hurt people."

"Why?" she asks.

"Because evil people will always want to hurt good people and take away what they have. That's why good people need to be strong, so they can fight the bad people." (Credit here goes to Dennis Prager for the pithy brilliance of this statement.) 

"Happened?"

I take a breath, and use the story of The Incredibles to help me tell the story of 9/11. "Remember how Syndrome sent a giant robot to hurt people? Well, these bad men used airplanes instead of robots, and they flew them into buildings to try to hurt people," I tell her. "And a lot of people died."

She looks at the pictures, seeing people with blood and ash on their arms and faces, and asks, "Why them have blood?" 

"They probably got hurt when something fell on them," I tell her. She gazes at the images a few more seconds, then buries her head in my neck. 

I take a deep breath.

"But that's not the whole story," I tell her, quickly realizing I need to give her more information. "Do you remember when Mr Incredible and Frozone went into the burning building to save the people before it collapsed? Well, they had superheroes in New York City, too. See all these people going down the stairway, but the firefighters are going up? They're going in to save people." 

Note: There were 10,000 people or more evacuated from both towers that day, but this information is rarely remembered. We only remember the nearly 3000 that died.

I point to the images of people covered in ash, walking hand-in-hand from the rubble, "See these people? They didn't know each other. But they are helping each other to find safety. See this man? How he's hurt, but he's still helping this lady? They don't know each other, but they are helping each other like brother and sister..." 

"See these people? They're all working together, not like the people in the movies who scream and run away."

"See this one? They didn't know each other, but they're holding hands like brothers and sisters, too. This picture shows how they cared for each other, even when they were all very scared." 

"And this man here that is being carried out. Is he a fireman?" I ask her.
"Yes," she says.
"It looks like he's a fireman, because he's wearing a helmet and a fireman's jacket. But look at his shoes. Those are office shoes. This man was working at his office, and he got hurt. But a fireman came and rescued him, and gave him his helmet, and his jacket, so he wouldn't get hurt by anything else. These men are saving his life..."

And as I point out the triumph in each of the pictures, my own story of 9/11 shifts from one of grief and anger, to the story it was in the days immediately following the attack: the story of courage and unity in the face of absolute chaos and destruction. It becomes the story of the triumph of the human spirit, of endurance, and resilience. It becomes the story of the amazing orderly evacuation of over 10,000 people from two burning buildings, and the people who turned and walked straight into danger in the hopes of doing good for someone else. It's the story of people coming together like brothers and sisters, and choosing to take care of each other. 

I look at the wall of images and names, and suddenly, I don't dread Tuesday, Septerber 11, any more.

Jane Doesn't Want to Go Home from the Fair

Tuesday Jane takes her first trip to the fair. Not knowing what to expect, she at first doesn't want to go, asking instead to go to the playground. I assure her we will have a good time. 


Wow. I have no idea the good time we are in for.

 We arrive at noon and go promptly to see the FFA/4H animals, the pig races, the petting zoo, we get something to eat (sorry, not deep-fried pizza on a stick) then head to the children's area, we ride an elephant (!), ride rollercoasters, and win a stuffed cow... all by 4pm. As I steer her back towards the exit, thinking she's had a full day and will be collapsing at any moment, we stop and get a snow cone in hopes that the sugar will hold her upright till we get to the car. 


Almost to the exit, she wants to see the monster trucks one more time, so we duck into the main pavilion to sit and watch the monster truck races till 5:30, when I tell her it is time to go.

"Noooo!" she begs me. Couldn't we ride just one more ride?? She doesn't want to go home just yet.


Well, if she is up for more walking around, I suppose I am too. I tell her she won't be tall enough for any of the rides, but we can walk back towards the midway and have a look. On the way, we get kettle corn then walk through the shopping pavilions. We look at all kinds of things I had no idea we needed, but realize I can't live without. 


We walk through the midway, looking at all the rides that Jane is too small to ride. I buy Jane a rainbow-swirl lollipop. The sun is setting. It is time to go.

This time when I tell Jane we have to go she has a full-on melt-down. She begins to cry and scream, refuses to follow me, and doesn't want me to take her hand to lead her. If it had been me causing this scene when I was 3-1/2-years old, my candy would have been thrown in the trash and I would probably have been taken to the restroom (or not) for a spanking. The beatings would have continued until morale improved. It was simply the way things were done, and it wasn't really questioned. I never questioned it till Jane came along. But I really wanted there to be a better way.


We've chosen not to spank Jane because we think there are better ways of teaching kids to make the right decisions. But not spanking your kids requires you to really think, and forces you to teach self-discipline by modeling self-discipline. The whole, "How can you expect your kid to learn to control himself in the heat of the moment if you are unable/unwilling to control yourself in the heat of the moment?" thing. 


Because we are trying to adopt another child, the State of California has mandated that we take parenting classes as part of our certification. Steve and I found the first 40 hours of classes so helpful (minimum is 36 hours of instruction) that we recently signed up for more. Here was my chance to put some of those lessons to the test.


With Jane screaming and crying, amidst a sea of people I take her wrist in my hand, I take away her lollipop before it gets dropped or stuck on me (which brings on bigger wails from her), and lead her from the middle of the crowd about 50 yards away to a bench, where I put down my bags, place her lollipop on top of one of my boxes, pick her up, put her in my lap and begin to rock her gently, stroking her head and telling her quietly, "You're OK, Jane. I've got you. I'm here. You're OK."


The conversation goes like this:
Me: Honey, come on, you know we have to go home some time...
Jane: (shakes head violently and sobs) Don't wanna go home!
Me: We had a lot of fun today! Don't you want to tell Daddy about it?
Jane: (hesitates, continues to sob) Don't wanna go home!


I think to myself, Aw man, this is not working! Why isn't this working?! She's still crying. What do I say? I can't carry my bags and her all the way to the car. 
Then it hits me.


Me: Jane, are you afraid that if you leave and go home, you won't ever have this much fun again?
Jane: (stops crying, sniffles, nods head, then continues to sob)


Wow. I've been there. I've been in places and moments I wished could last forever, and would've done anything to hold the moment just a bit longer.  I know exactly how she feels. No wonder she's so sad and so afraid.
I hold her and rock her a bit more, letting her calm down.


Me: Jane, do you remember when Kay Kay visited and you played and played, and when she had to go you were angry and didn't want her to go because you didn't want the fun to end?
Jane: (nods head)
Me: And do you remember when Grandmother was here and you played at the playground, and when she told you it was time to go you got very angry and kicked her because you didn't want to go home? 
Jane: (nods head)
Me: I think you were afraid that you wouldn't ever be able to have so much fun as you were having right then, and you didn't want it to stop. But there's always another time to play and have fun. It won't be the same, but it will still be fun...


I stop here, remembering I'm not going to teach her much while she is still in a distressed state. I ask her if I may sing her the Old Lady and the Fly song. She doesn't object, so I sing, "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly..."


I can't tell if it is having any effect until I miss a verse and Jane corrects me. We chuckle together about the old lady eating a horse, and I know Jane is mostly back to normal. I go to give her the lollipop, but it is stuck to the box (thankfully a glossy box, so it comes off easily). We chuckle about the stuck lollipop, and I ask Jane if she is ready to go. Yes, she is.


We walk hand in hand to the exit, get on the tram to the parking lot, chat about the cars in the lot and the passengers on the tram and about the monster trucks we had watched until we return to the car.


Of course within minutes of leaving the fairgrounds, Jane is asleep, exhausted from a long day of fun.


Tomorrow morning or maybe the next when we're both fresh, I'll talk to Jane about saying goodnight to the fun, and about finding ways to minimize the fear that she will never have fun again. I'm not sure how to do this for such a strong-willed and high-energy child as Jane, but I do know that as her parent, it's my job to teach her how to keep from stressing out in stressful situations. I know I won't do that by teaching her to fear me, but by strengthening the bond between us.


If you are interested in the techniques of this parenting method, I recommend Parenting with Love and Logic, and Beyond Consequences. There is a lot of good information in both books. 

Jane Humphrey gets lost at the Commissary

The inevitable happened today: I lost Jane at the Commissary. If you're unfamiliar with a Commissary, think Wal-Mart-sized grocery store, but on the Naval base. Because it was the Commissary, and on the Naval base, and not a Saturday, I was much more relaxed about letting her convince me to let her stay in the produce department and watch a movie on the big screen, instead of keeping her right with me while I shopped.

Jane wants limes.

Most often, Jane wants to get her own cart and shop with me while I hold my breath and brace for impact, hoping she won't run into my ankles with her little cart.

Shopping is so tiring.

Other days, she's content to fall asleep in the cart. This makes getting paper towels, toilet paper, and frozen chicken something of a trick because you have to really plan, so as not to bury the baby, but it makes everything else a lot easier.

Jane looking at a map at Sea World. Yes, that is my mobile
number on her forearm in Sharpie marker. Why do you ask?

Then there are days like today, when she was awake, but preferred not to shop, but to hang back in the produce department where the big screen TV is showing a kid movie. On these occasions, I'll pull out a fine Sharpie and write some vital info on her forearm, just in case she wan-ts to go on walkabout. Except that today I didn't have my purse, only my ID and a credit card in my back pocket. I left her with strong instructions to stay right there, that I was only going to get apple juice, and that I would be right back.

Of course when I returned, she was nowhere to be seen.

After a pass from one end of the commissary to the other craning my neck, I headed toward Customer Service, just as a woman who works there is approaching me, and watching me crane my neck down the isles.

"Did you lose a kid?" she asked me.

"Yes. A little girl. Yes I did," I confessed.

She looked at me with a well-it-took-you-long-enough look, and I felt appropriately guilty as I followed her back to Customer Service.

I look behind the counter to see Jane sitting at the desk drawing and chatting with the manager. She looks up to see me as the stocker says, "This your girl?"

"Yes," I smile. I look at Jane, who says nothing.

"Hey. You know who I am?" I ask her facetiously. 

She shakes her head no. 

"What?" I ask. 

She laughs. "Hi, Mommy." She walks around the counter as the manager asks me if my name is Humphrey. Humphrey? Where did that come from?

"She told us her name was Jane Humphrey. She was very good. Very helpful..."

"Humphrey? Our name is Drexler... Jane, what did you tell them? What's your name?"

"Jane," she says shyly.

"What's your last name?" I ask her. "You know your last name..."

"I'm three," she says. 

"See," the manager says, "Humphrey."

The light bulb comes on. "'Um free.'" I imitate Jane's pronunciation. "She can't pronounce three. She said: I'm three."

We all have a good laugh, and I take little Jane Humphrey home. We'll have to work on the last name a bit. And maybe I'll have that Sharpie handy more often.

"Him have no more money!" - Jane cleans out Fr Al

Christ blessing the children

In the Orthodox Church, we customarily greet a priest by asking for a blessing. We cross our right hand over our left and cup them in front of us as if receiving water being poured into them, we bow slightly to the priest, and say, for example, "Good morning, Father. May I have a blessing?" 

It's a great custom, one that is being lost to some degree as we become a more casual society, greeting priests with a handshake, or as we would a peer, with, "Oh, Hi, Father." While this may be better than not saying anything at all, it's important that we as parents and teachers instruct our children that a priest is our spiritual guide and should be treated as such. For many westerners, bowing your head and asking for a blessing may seem an especially stilted or overly formal manner of greeting, but when compared to  casually greeting a Karate master at a dojo, or an admiral in the US Navy by his first name and no salute, the taboo becomes clearer. 

Instilling a sense of respect combined with approach-ability is one of the goals of teaching our children to greet the priest properly and ask for a blessing.

Father Alexander issued a challenge at the beginning of Lent, that the first child to ask for a blessing after church on Sundays would get a prize, which was sometimes a shiny dollar coin. It didn't take long for Jane to figure that one out. Now she asks for a blessing almost every time she sees him, and because of the frequency he now gives her nickels or whatever coin he has in his pocket.


Last night after church we were in the church hall and ready to head home just as Father entered. When Jane saw him, she spontaneously ran to him and gave him a hug. Very few children do this, and Father chuckled and reflexively reached into his pocket for a coin. As he did so, Jane knew exactly what he was looking for and stood there expectantly. 


As he fished for a coin, I told him, "Father, you shouldn't pay her just for a hug..." Just then he pulled his pocket out to show us there was nothing there - not even lint! (how does anyone manage that one?) He laughed, "I have nothing, I have nothing..." patted Jane on the head and went past us into the church hall.


Jane glanced behind her at Father as he walked away then turned back with wide eyes, a mischievous smile, and her hands over her mouth like she knew something, and said giggling, "Him no have more money! I got it all last day!" ("Last day", like last week or last month, is any time in the recent past.)


Steve and I looked at each other. "Jane thinks she cleaned him out!"
We weren't sure whether to be laughing at the fact that Jane thinks she took all Father's money, or alarmed at the fact that she thinks it's really funny that she took all his money.


On the flip side, now Father doesn't have to give her coins when she asks for a blessing any more.