EPStegner

Kolbitars and Olnbogabarn

Another week, another trip to the library. We are back in the thicket of Garfield comic books, which means I get almost constant questions and read-alouds—hey Mom, listen to this!

FC asked me in the car, “What’s a baster?”
I had him repeat the question—“A baster, Mom. What’s a baster?” (Rhyming with aster, a pretty flower.)
I told him I was pretty sure it was a bad word and he probably shouldn’t say it.
“Oh,” he said, “I thought it had something to do with turkey.”

Joe’s berries and chicks have arrived. As he says, we basically have everything we need for a YouTube channel. It is cold this weekend so we’ll have to wait to get berries in the ground—the only thing growing for us right now is onions and a few cold greens and cauliflower in pots—but the chicks are warm under a heat lamp in the garage. Twenty easter eggers, Rhode Island Reds, and golden sexlinks. They’re as cute and least stinky as they’ll ever be…

We’ve got a piano competition today and orchestra tomorrow. I’m not unhappy (Jubal and Luke tell me the Greeks—or some ancient folks—always used double negatives and now I can’t stop myself) we are not public schoolers this spring because there’s just so much going on at the end of the school year. And we aren’t even doing any spring sports this season! I know as soon as Jubal starts high school it’ll all change, so I’m trying to really enjoy this last year of calm-before-storm.

Last weekend we attended the Meltdown and listened to a lot of great bands. We ran into our favorite dobro player who now plays bass with East Nash Grass, and our second (third? Jerry Douglas is top of the list but mostly unavailable for photo ops) favorite dobro guy who is also in the band.

Jeff Partin, the nicest guy to run into anywhere.

I honestly do not know how people do the festival thing all the time; it totally wears me out. Jubal and his buddy jammed late at night and it has taken me a few days to recover. I can’t imagine what it takes to travel with a band and perform every weekend.
But the boys have a gig with friends in a week and a half so that’s a good enough taste for all of us…

They need a band name for the Pickn’ in the Park event; Luke says we should bring back the band name Kolbitars, which we used a few years ago at a winter youth festival.

Idle youth, yes… Also a reference to CS Lewis’ group of friends who read Norse mythology and discussed as they cozied up by the fire.

I did a little research on the word olnbogabarn and this is what I’ve learned: it means “elbow child” and is the affectionate Icelandic term for a least-favorite sibling in the family. “The olnbogabarn, then, is a child who is difficult, and often needs to be excluded or shut down for the emotional well-being of the rest of the family.”

Which I cannot think of a more perfect term for this group of yahoo bluegrassers…

Spring antics we’ve done before.

Jube took his ACT test this weekend and the kids had their chorale concert—followed by the courtesy singing visit to the retirement home)—so spring is definitely upon us. This weird school season is basically wrapped up, save for orchestra. Today is mock trial field trip and I sent the dad representative to watch Jubal play defense attorney because I think I’m worn out…Worn out, but not in rest mode. I know I’m irritable when even piano practice makes me crazy (Foy has a piano festival coming up and hearing Happy Farmer repeatedly at lightning speed I might stick a fork in my eyeball. Bless the Suzuki teacher!).

I sit on the fence of putting kids in school again, even if just for May…It’s one of those things I wish I could write about because it helps me figure out some things. But if I write, people tend to read, and the people I love all seem to have very strong feelings that schooling matters are write and wrong, black and white. (They don’t have my kids.) So the trick is to distance myself from the noise, and I’m not in a position to do it. But I really am thirsty for a break and wish there was one on the horizon…

Chorale! Gretty calls it “re-choir.” The irony of returning to the kids’ hometown and re-participating in the same activities with kids of different ages is never a settled feeling. It’s like we did a time leap.

Can’t believe how lucky we are to have a flat road for bike riding!

We have a huge garden project ahead of us. It can be discouraging since it is a little like starting all over, and my back is not the same as it was fifteen years ago. I’m scraping shredded tire mulch off of abandoned garden beds, digging all the old landscape fabric that’s underneath that, figuring out the soil and what weird things are growing in it, layering cardboard, raking up leaves and sticks, hugelkultur in pots, wetting and rewetting.

I saw a sign for a local plant sale (hosted by the soup kitchen) and it assured potential buyers the plants were not sprouted in plastic containers. Who knew there were so many things to avoid…

I am in the same hardiness growing zone as I was last summer, which is odd because the last freeze dates are a month and a half apart and the elevation difference is 7000 feet. Here I begin seeds in little starter trays and they dry out within hours. The soil needs to be amended with pure nitrogen, and the biggest pest are pocket gophers the size of little rats.

Joe says we are actually in zone 5b, but there’s a huge variation within our county. The mountains we used to live on (with a last freeze date of June 1, and that was pushing it) are probably six miles away as the crow flies, and the desert is just south and west of us. We have a farmer friend who lives five minutes from us and he’s already planted potatoes, collards, asparagus, etc.

So I’m just dragging my tomatoes and peppers and various baby plants out of the house to the patio and back in every day. I’m trying not to be overly optimistic about getting them in the ground for another month.

I did get ranunculus straight into the ground and think they will probably make a lovely July appearance.

A Baxendale! Baxendale was our neighbor when we were cul de sac cool and when we fought Jubal to play cello. How the tide has turned!

Last week I took the kids to the library on a Thursday because I’d seen a flyer for a monthly jam session. After we grabbed books, we poked our heads in the community room and met three musicians, all guitar, who were eager to see a violin and mandolin make an appearance. I guess these folks would get together pre-Covid, but then things shut down and they never got it restarted. One guy was from LA, another was a lady from Boulder. They lit up when Luke sang some Gordon Lightfoot. It really tickles me to think the young seniors of today are now the hippies of yesterday. The LA guy had never even heard of Tony Rice, which shocked the kids. That’s a bluegrass jam in SW Colorado for you!

Hay-vun or Hay-ell.

Gretty got an inhaler a couple weeks ago because she’s been having trouble with that sort of thing. Later in the evening, after the doctor’s visit, we were sitting together in the recliner and she offhandedly asked me, “Mama, is heaven or hell bad?”

And she asked me five times before I figured out she wasn’t asking if hay-vun or hay-ell was bad, even though I kept insisting on the answer being hay-ell.
No, she was asking if having an inhaler was bad.
So that’s for the people who wonder if the good folk from Missouri have accents. It is inconsistent, I guess, but has a sneaky way of showing up. (She also picked up the habit of saying crowns for crayons, a mistake I’ve avoided making my whole life by calling them colors instead.)

Tonight our remaining cat, Rascy, caught a huge, old mouse and left it for us to step on on the way out the door into the garage. Proud as a peacock.

I was so pleased with the ranunculus…Here’s hoping for a repeat.

I was scrolling through old pictures on the phone yesterday while a low-grade tornado visited Honey Creek. Baseball-sized hail (hay-ell) and sad tulips.
I was looking for okra garden photos to show our Easter dinner guests, because they didn’t believe we a) ate it raw and b) that it grows on trees. More Missouri things. (They also are dubious it will c) grow here, but I am always out to challenge okra norms.)

But it also made me a little sad to look at the pictures because moving again, starting over on a garden, planting trees and berries and veggies and flowers is hard after you’ve done it in other places. They say the best time to plant a tree is years ago and the next best time is now, but what do you say to the person who has begun and left, begun and left, begun and left? I’d like to see those three year peonies finally blossom for the first time. I’d like to pick a piece of fruit from a three year old tree. Even the kids are a little begrudging and say things like “as soon as we get this chicken coop built I bet we’ll move.”
And I kind of shrug, because it does seem that way, and we have little control over the matter (patriarchy! Just kidding. I’ll complain about patriarchy someday when I’m not living on someone else’s paycheck). But at least we are leaving fun things behind.

Anyway, I cannot not plant, and it is pleasant to look back at every home and see the things we grew, even if in pictures. My poppies are sprouted out along the patio, the baby tomatoes are all two inches high (I’ve got all my babies in Solo cups by now, under the grow lights unless it’s a warm sunny day). Onions in the ground, ranunculus ordered (I started last year’s around New Year’s Day, but these babies in our clime don’t even need to be soaked until late April). GK helped put seed potatoes in some grow buckets because our soil has some clay and we think it’ll work better this way.

We plan on filling the beds with flowers and berries and lining the long driveway with sunflowers and cover the front fields with bachelor’s buttons and daisies. So in a way it is fun to start all over and do it again.

Things easier than settling Indian Territory.

Whereas I have little bits and pieces of time and barely enough memory and good sense to put my mail keys and car keys in the same place each time I arrive home, and whereas I have a mate who overplans his (and my) discretionary free time and capacity for farming, and whereas I am depended upon for food, clean clothes, and general maternal duties, I have relinquished (with contentment) a few things…

(Admittedly, I haven’t factored in the amount of March Madness I’ve been consuming. But I like to think of it as sabbathing, if that makes sense. A forced rest, with hours of basketball on the television.)

I cannot believe how quickly I’ve fallen into absentmindedness. The keys! The purse! It is embarrassing and time-consuming to find these things. I am my dad all over (no offense to him, but he was no mother. Dads are easily forgiven for absentmindedness and abandoning domestic duties for the comfort of the couch).

Prepping for presentations on Ironclads and ragtime. An eclectic bunch!

Joe has ordered a veritable berry orchard for us to plant in April. He did this at Honey Creek and then we moved. We did the dirty work of planting and tending the primocanes (no fruit) and now the floricanes will fruit and probably go nuts this summer.
But here at mountain Meadow it will be a bigger project, because he’s adding a field of strawberries to the raspberries and blackberries.
My enthusiasm fades when these duties are added to my daily chores… I’m more of the order-ten-tomato-varieties-and-try-them-all-out type. Plant the exact flowers I want to cut and give away, the exact blooms I want around my garden. Grow the exact food I want to eat and preserve. I wouldn’t say he is a visionary, but he is the type that thinks more=better, and after 20 years, I realize I’m only wasting my breath to discourage it.

The kids are all eating a LOT of food. Isn’t feeding them and cleaning the messes enough? Isn’t this what Ma Ingalls did basically her whole life? That, and sighed, “oh, Charles!” Even Ma realized when the girls needed to just go back to school or stay outside all day. She was trying to survive. Now Pa did have a lot of ideas, but mostly they were about eating and providing. (He probably should’ve just stayed in the Big Woods where there was plenty of game instead of moving way the middle of nowhere.)

I’m just thinking—why do we all continue to make things harder on ourselves right when things get to be easy? Is this the nature of man, the pursuit?

I think so.
Especially for the fellow that works hard but wants to not waste his life, his free time, on anything but fun, adventure, self-actualization. This is where the berries come into play. In that case, berries are a mild, accessible sort of fun, way less scary than settling Indian Territory.

American Gothic, tho more Magnolia Gothic, judging by the white clapboard mansion with black shingles.

I’ve been squeezing painting into very narrow slivers throughout the day this weekend, between applying pinkeye drops and planting onions (and March Madness). I had so much fun that I’ve already begun a new one. (I was assigned a photo booth sort of project—not sure this exactly screams “take a picture here!” But the theme is Faces of American History.)

Do not despise.

Jubal finished his short story for school and now I’m moderately jealous of the accomplishment—the writing and finishing part.

This was in the Moab library. Seuss’ first rendition of Sam I Am followed by the book realization. Incredible!

Some of the things that derail my need of Craft (this will be my word till I come up with something better) are the necessities: food and keeping the younguns alive. But I also have this promise I’ve made myself that if anyone ever asks me to do something and it is in my wheelhouse (teaching, I’m talking about teaching mostly), I will say yes.

This is coming from a very-much-a-no-person, but I think it is Biblical, yes? Give, give to the one who asks, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you…
I’m trying to challenge myself to do it every time, and the planning and execution is consuming.
It boils down to subbing for our kids’ tutors (a wild and varied curriculum, from singing the first twelve elements in the periodic table to Intermediate Logic and reductio ad absurdum), teaching Bible at Awanas, filling in to lead worship at church, etc.

But I’m not just a ‘no’ person—I happen to be a begrudging ‘no’ person who has always wanted to be more involved but held off (enviously) because I never felt super adequate.

Surprise! Saying ‘yes’ and doing the thing is a very adult thing to do, and I guess by the time you have a teenager people very much assume that is what you are…an adult. So, with the apparent age comes adequacy, and with adequacy (?) comes folk asking. (Plus I tend to say things like, “if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask me!” And they do, darn it.)

I think I’ve probably always said I love teaching kids, which isn’t untrue, but I’m realizing when I say that, what I mean is that I believe teaching kids is lofty and valuable and fruit-bearing. It doesn’t me I feel warm and cozy or want more time with children and less time to myself. Like, I know Jesus values children, but I’m not sure I do as I should.

I tend to pray the prayer that begins with, Oh Lord, please help me take care to not despise the little ones, for I know their angels in heaven continually see the face of your Father.
And I mean it. I believe it. It’s a high calling to teach, indeed. They just sure can wear a body out.

Cat that didn’t die but wanted to for a day or so. His sister cat had just gone a couple days before. I’ve never seen a depressed cat, but this guy was 😦

But.
So. I’ve been busy doing those things, and those things make me happy too.

That’s what’s been happening, plus some trips here and yonder, hiking in the desert (the title picture is at Pine Tree Arch in Arches National Park…we just drove right in, but in 2 weeks you’ll need a reservation to get in the park, crazy!), birthday celebrations, the death of a kitty (yes—deep inhale—a singular kitty, the other caught the disease but pulled through, a lesson to all involved), losing and finding a purse (found: inside the reusable grocery bags in the closet), geocaching, prepping the garden and amending soil, getting ready for a big upcoming school shin-dig (I’ve been asked to decorate tables, something I look down upon in normal settings, but never when it comes to American history and outrageous elementary school teacher vibes).

the geocachers. This weekend included pretty terrible weather, a little girl with a migraine, and an entitled birthday boy, just in case you think the picture looks rosy.

Today we sang and played music at the senior center with one undiagnosed pink eye and two potential cases of strep throat. To be fair, all assured me they felt great this morning. There was crying, gnashing of teeth, chores, and beef bourginon over mashed potatoes when we got home. A mixed bag, really.
We are killing it at life.

A Valentine’s Meditation

I am sitting in bed as a result of one of those fun little procedures that includes fasting and anesthesia. My greatest fear is saying something incredibly embarrassing while under the influence, but thankfully I did not—in fact, I said it right before going under, something to the effect of “have fun in there!”
Boooo!

Run ‘n Slide, Jubal and his partner did 40 laps in an hour.

Back in the day I kept a pretty great journal that kept our days ordered in hindsight, so that I might remember my children when they were funny and little and they might be reminded they had a mother, albeit one that struggled.
I think my thoughts pretty much boiled down to, “but am I a good mother?” And the answer was, judging by standards of perfection and other well-kept mothers and homes and children around me, a resounding “nope!”

And it feels about the same even now, maybe more resounding, but the standards aren’t people around me but mothers in general—the nurturing, loving kind who revel in the whirling dervish of children who make loud, exuberant noise and want to be touched more than I do.

I don’t mind occasional exuberant noises, if they are well-placed. We had a friend with kids over and I had a moment where I had to really get up in the face of one of my own and it was too intense for the other mother. First she thought I was kidding. But when she realized my wrath was of the serious variety, she became silent and solemn. And then I felt badly because I hate for the whole mood to change when I just want a kid’s behavior to change—mine, in particular. I don’t read the room, but I do read children.

There are those women that lament becoming like their mother, but I worry about becoming like my dad. And if I’ve gone on about anything for more than three paragraphs, it is well to assume it is a pretty constant thought in my mind. Eek!

Art, the kind of project that requires ripping and glue, to ameliorate homeschooler mom rage (an under-diagnosed, preventable disease). I’m thinking on a series of Bible characters in National Parks. You guess the title.

The kids are doing fine anyway. I decided this week to back off when it comes to checking off MLA lists (prepositional opener? Check. Who/which clause? Check, and so on) for essays written by a certain nine year old. I have a couple kids who think of creative writing as a kamikaze mission. A death sentence, not because it is 500 words or more, but because they cannot fathom a world that isn’t literal.
The assignment this week was to write “as if you are the American flag”—to which the student’s hand whipped into the air and clarified, “a pretend American flag?”
The tutor paused to think and I rushed in to answer as to avoid a meltdown—“Yes, a pretend American flag.”
Because real American flags don’t really have feelings or the advantages of sensory input, but ain’t nobody got time to explain that.

Carry on, my little Steinbecks.

We’ve had basketball season—I coached—add that to the resume, and we’ve watched lots of football and basketball, too. The snow out here on the mesa, south of the mountains, is a whole level different than when we’d get buried every snowstorm.
Now our north-facing driveway is the only glacial task we face, especially after a melty kind of day where the roof drips and re-freezes the steps into a layered ice rink. Meanwhile we can sit on the back porch in short sleeves and enjoy the sun.

Lu is reading the lesser known books by Verne and Twain and I’m trying to catch up to him without much hope. He’s moved on to Shakespeare. Honestly, where to go from there? The middle boys have picked Gideon Welles and Scott Joplin for their “Faces of History” reports and I’m scrambling to read ahead to mark the chapters where things like venereal diseases occur… Why they couldn’t have picked the Statue of Liberty, I do not know. But it’s probably because it’s not a real person, Mom.

Is homeschool beloved or odious, or is it just a ticket to punch?
These kids—they will fight and be fought with, they will be foolish and reasoned with, they will be incredible and sometimes make terrible choices, then some good ones, too. School doesn’t have a thing to do with it, just their mom feels incredibly in the middle of some of the growing up things that are best left to kids.

A Path of less resistance.

It’s all in the reframing of things—prioritizing good over menial. Ah, January, good to see you. Lord—thank you for teaching me.

We’ve wrapped up some significant changes in 2023. A year ago I’d have never in a million years thought we’d be where we are now. It boils down to having an open hand, I think, both to receive and to let go. Long ago I began testing myself to see if I could give away things precious to me…I didn’t do it graciously in the beginning, but over time it has become easier because I can see the effect of it. And His promises never fail: Give and it will be given you, a good measure, pressed down in your lap and pouring over…

Not stuff, mind you, though stuff should be the first to go, the easiest to give. (I’m not saying it is easy when you have very little; still, this is where you must begin.)
Giving stuff (emptying oneself of it) cuts your teeth—food, money, furniture, cars—starting out with the little and building up to the big, all keeping secrets with God and your right hand, never letting old lefty know what you’re slipping out next—this is the way. Pave a path of less resistance for your soul to get in shape for what God really wants from us.

I’m talking about the desires of the heart, the hope of future endeavors. Time. Energy. These can also be laid at the altar as a gift. It frees up the lap so more can be divinely pressed in.

Here’s what happens when you give up home and family—you make room for a new home and family. I think Abram did this when he took Sarai out yonder into the Wild West…and God gave them new names and a fresh start and a new family.

I don’t say it lightly, to give up family. But I know another promise and have tested it out: …and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property for My name’s sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.

Writing this, I know, can be interpreted many different ways. I’m not trying to be a martyr. God’s ways are good—and surprising. And He doesn’t fail—that’s all. We prove Him right when we test out His promises.

Today I ordered drum sticks for the kid I never thought would play percussion. I took another to piano lessons where he amused and astounded, the one I was beginning to think just didn’t have the music bug in him.

I count my lucky stars I no longer have to teach bucket drumming to sixth graders nor recorder to fourth graders. (I wish it had been a better experience. Alas!)

These days I’m a chauffeur, fourth grade basketball coach, reader, math grader, chef, crafter. Making zero dollars followed by zero cents. Writing less than ever, barely even responding to text messages. Who knew I’d be okay sitting on an old floral couch, resting my bad back on a heating pad, typing a few paragraphs every three months or so. (I do miss it. But keep expectations low, you know.)

We had our favorite, low-key, never-follow-traditions Christmas. (If traditions are super important we’ve really shot a ton of holes in the boat. Good luck with memories, kids!)
We got a ratty tree off National Forest and ate chili with friends.
The kids got chemistry kits and experiments for presents.

None of us have an eye for beauty/patience to settle for a perfect tree?! Looking now at the pic, how scroungy can we get!

It’s so very satisfying, and once again, a fulfilled promise. Godliness with contentment is great gain.

Working on the godly part, but the contentment part…yes.

Small (finished) projects.

It is funny to me how kids go in and out of phases. You think their dragon book phase will never end and then, bam, they’ve moved on and you’d only know it by sitting down and remembering aloud how much they used to love the dragon series.

So we are into, and have been for awhile, Irish mythology. The Greek and Norse versions never died off, but the big boys are into some weird fantasy/sci-fi series that has them doing their Cuchulain and gae bolga research. I have read the first three books of this series and can report I quit after the part where a big slug-demon “pressed its oozing pustules up against the glass separating himself” from the main characters. I abscond at the sign of oozing pustules.

In this same fashion of overdoing it, I go through my own phases. Instead of leaving library books scattered throughout the house, I begin projects, get overly ambitious and committed, and have to will myself to finish strong and not abandon it to the next phase. My brother’s wife begins beautiful quilts and finishes them, how about that? Finishing is incredibly ambitious in my mind, I guess. Not a good sign.
Jesus’s words come to mind, that it’s a fool who begins to build a tower without first sitting down to count the cost of the project. Because, he says, if they abandon it, people will mock them for not doing what they’d set out to do.

But that’s just a parable, right? He was mentioning big projects like towers because he was referring to becoming a disciple. Surely not talking about embroidery?!

I’ve been making tiny nativity sets with the abandoned miniature scrabble tiles I tried to turn into jewelry a couple years ago (hence the drilled holes. But I get carried away rolling clay into tiny balls for sheep and then I have a flock of 40 that are unpainted and no little shepherds or camels or wiseman to match.

Then I began buying embroidery hoops and thread to let GK have a project (she’s a great at sewing, the bunny rabbit is her first embroidery project) and coincidentally we got two little kitties, so I looked up projects on Etsy to copy and found a Mandolorian project. (There is a printable transfer you can buy; I just freestyled it.)

The kitties we named Enki (Enkidu, Gilgamesh’s friend) and Rascal (we intended to name it Gilgamesh but it seems far more Rascal).

See? I can finish (small) projects before I lose interest.

Planting Honey Creek in CO

Luke got a beautiful new-old violin for an early birthday. He was needing to size up from his 3/4 (I can’t believe how fast that happened) and was having trouble with the geared tuning pegs slipping.

The 3/4 violin was lovely. And I plan on keeping it (our MO luthier had done a beautiful job of restoring it), but the geared tuning pegs! Bah. I don’t recommend. They were the slippiest “non-slip” blasted things. I handed it over to the music shop for them to replace pegs.

GK has not begun violin lessons, but she is enamored with Luke’s new beauty, so I think after things settle down we will begin lessons. FC didn’t start piano lessons till six weeks ago and I’m not sorry he waited until he was nine and a half to begin. I never have to ask him to practice. He just caught the bug and won’t let it go. He’s working on a jazzy Christmas tune. This book is great!

Luke is T minus a week and a half till his first orchestra concert. Barber of Seville and a couple other tunes. I am amazed at the opportunities we have here in our little corner of Colorado. When we lived here several years ago, I was a bit intimidated by the professional musician type, the Suzuki kind that seemed more uptight and, well, professional. But I am friends with some outstanding musicians, and pursuing excellence is never a bad thing.
After teaching music in the public school to kids who’ve never even seen a violin in real life, never heard any music other than rap or modern country (redneck rap), never been exposed to theory or music history, I was ready to be satisfied with much less. I feel like this is a poor kid’s mentality, and there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just an overwhelm to come into a culture of higher expectations. Something I’ve been learning my entire adult life.

GK and FC and I entered a little art contest for the community garden. They took our art and printed it on steel signs and mounted it to the fence! We were so proud. GK used a photo of her in the garden on Honey Creek and photoshopped in some cute little ladybugs she’d made out of McDonald’s fries containers.
Foy snapped a photo of Daddy watching his berries grow on Honey Creek. A bit of HC permanently in Colorado! So funny!

Kids grow here.

When we first moved, I bought poppy seeds to sprinkle around the house before winter. It is so strange to *think* in a different growing zone. I have to reach back in my memory—what grew on the mountain? Mostly cold climate veggies, but now we are more on the mesa at elevation and have plenty of sunshine. What will grow here?

Kids—kids will grow here. We’ve got an outstanding basketball player on the A team. I can’t believe how well it’s worked out sending him over to the middle school. Seamless, really, when you compare it to how hard it would’ve been to get him on a team back in the Midwest (if he’d been a non-enrolled student). It is funny how the culture dictates these kind of lines you can and can’t cross. There we were in Missouri, playing by the rules to go along to get along. And here we are out west, not following rules (because out here following rules is optional) and sliding right into public school extracurriculars with no commitment and no pushback.

How do I feel about classical education? Are the kids learning anything? Well.

I think so?

Folks have assured me over the years I have nothing to worry about when it comes to my own kids’ learning, because they are such terrific, insatiable readers. And I am finally going to start believing them (maybe—there is a downside to noses in books). Luke pounds through Mark Twain and Jules Verne and Wells and the other “classics”. And he does his math and writing.
Our classical education curriculum wants us to not drift too far from what they require, but Luke loves to drift. So, I guess CC is fine, because he is still memorizing the charts and facts that go along with the curriculum.

I have such odd learners. The struggle is to put down the book. (I was reading an article that explains this struggle of GT kids and their parents and strategies to put the book down. It is really an obsession/compulsion more than a cute I’m-a-proud-mama-shoulders-shrugged-in-mock-but-still-prideful-“he’s a reader!”) I know it, because I also love to avoid the real world by burying myself in a book. I love to research till my eyeballs almost fall out. This is called an overexcitability.

It makes life interesting, because who else puts together a headless horseman costume and argues with brother if the character was a Hessian mercenary? Should one cry just because his mother asked him to stop playing arpeggios at 200bpm?

In children, this is problematic because the intensity bleeds into other areas, where kids ought to willingly cooperate (for their own good and the good of others) but simply refuse (hello, young Jubal on cello) because they don’t understand the why behind our best intentions. They come off as stubborn, uncooperative, poorly trained, etc.
God give me these kids, I have to remind myself, because I apparently am super concerned with looking like nothing is going wrong at all times. Ha! My whole life has been spent trying to fly under the radar and attract zero attention and I have the kids that are always garnering attention.

I remember watching something on 60 Minutes about people who can remember every day in their personal history. When the interviewer mentioned a date, they could recall it, the weather, what they ate, where they went. And it turned out it wasn’t a superpower, exactly, but an overactive part in the brain that compulsively filed away every little detail.

I bet they were difficult children, that’s all I’m saying. Talk about overexcitabilities.

So anyhow, school is great. It’s my kids that tend to balk at (resist?) formal education and continue to blow up my expectations. But looking at my ball player (who has voiced he wants nothing to do with knowledge bowl, even thought that was his sweet spot last year), I am beginning to see these difficult, obsessive children grow up and the hard edges get smoothed out. I have hope for the younger two, who have different intensities, but also are dead set on making life difficult for a mom who just wants to feed and clothe them without being challenged by their inner mind games (she hugged me before breakfast—I hate being hugged before breakfast! I haven’t played through the entire piano book yet this morning and she’s trying to stop me!)

Who is normal around here, you ask? I mean, I guess this is our normal. I just need to keep reminding myself it is okay.