5November2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Politics.
A quick collection of my thoughts on these results.
Yes, I’m disappointed Obama won, but it’s not because I wanted McPalin so much as I grieve even the possibility of the FOCA (I’m still praying against it).
A few posts I read after learning the results sort of meshed together in my tired mind.
~
From Penelope Trunk (in a completely unrelated post), referring to her initial instinct to have a good cry after a disappointment:
But then I realized that I never fall apart. I get through lots of stuff and people always say it’s so much but really, what else can you do? People get through what they have to.
I’ve said that before in different ways. “America” (i.e., those in it not currently euphoric) will find that life goes on. Our call has not changed, and believers may even find it easier to stay engaged with their culture with a bit of fire lit under them.
~ ~
Bonnie at Intellectuelle observed in Voting for Our Imaginations,
I just think that what we actually vote for isn’t presidential candidates but for our own hopes and dreams. It’s good that we can hope and dream. It’s even better that we have a lot more choice in this country than those in many other parts of the world can even dream of. We have a responsibility to honor this freedom of choice and…choose. But we must also realize, I think, that we don’t have the power we think we do; that politicians and their policies don’t always have the power we wish they did; and that, often, they do actually have a lot more power than is good for either them or us.
Watching (on television) some of the African Americans in line waiting to vote, I felt the weight of why they were voting. One couple that reporters spoke to was (I guessed) in their 60s or 70s. When asked if they ever thought this day would come, both were nearly speechless with emotion and shook their heads emphatically.
This wasn’t about policy, and maybe not even about handouts. This was about making history and having your racial identity (inseparable, I’d argue, from your personal identity) symbolically validated. Perhaps for the first time.
~ ~ ~
My thoughts and prayers have shifted to the judges: that they will hang on until the next congress is elected (and that a conservative congress will be in place).
This moment makes me think of a similar moment about 8 years ago, when we had a GOP majority w/ a GOP prez. A lot of Christians seemed to think we had it made, and I wonder if they stopped praying.
My workplace at the time played NPR and many Democrat supporters were calling in with their concerns about the new situation and articulating why this new development was the end of the world. Some of them were most poignant, and I could feel the fear in their voices, even if I couldn’t identify with it.
Then a young man called in with an entirely different view. Let it go, he said, it’s just one election. This is the way the American system works: one group gets it for a while, and if they screw up bad enough they lose their chance. Let them have it for two years. When the American public sees the mess they make of things we’ll get it back.
That next election (again, if I remember right) was the point at which the Democrats got enough seats to block so many of Bush’s nominees for the high courts. The chance could return.
~
This is the view I’ve tried to take. I’ve begun praying that truth with be honored, that evil will be revealed and the innocent protected– no matter who’s officially in-charge.
The largest blessing I foresee with Obama and a Democratic Congress is that even the most hopeful supporters will see that humans are not the answer to the problems we face; they won’t be able to say “If only Obama was elected…”
This is how I pray.
26October2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Dog.
-6.2 degrees F on the thermometer when I got back.
And when I got back I realized I’d been wearing my expensive birthday-present earings on a cold walk in the soft snow.
It got my heart beating imagining having to look for one of them out in the dark.
Challenges “Needle in the haystack” with “Earring in the snowdrift.”
Persistence would find either one, but not usually before the cost/benefits ratio started jumping up and down waving at you.
I lost a very special ring one year after the first snow fall. I still question the legitimacy, now, of calling on “found ring” ads on the random chance I’d find it again.
10October2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Cute stories; Melody.
Melody: I was playing with the cat!
Me: Was he enjoying it as much as you?
Melody [slowly]: NnnooooYeah!
8October2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Cute stories; Homeschooling; Melody; Natasha.
I have this game I bought a couple years ago to use for the storytelling class I was developing at the time.
Looking for something new to do with the girls (I’m experimenting with letting Melody skip naps) I pulled it out and tried on the fly to see if I could adapt it to their level.
The gist of it is to tell a story using the elements shown on your dealt cards to reach the ending written on your “happily ever after” card. Complicated to explain, simple enough to do. With a little practice.
Anyway, I only got so far as to say it’s about telling a story from a card and laying out three “place” cards as examples when Natasha said, “A forest! I have a story for that one!” And Melody picked up the Island and said, “I can tell a story from this one!”
So I put away the other cards and came to the computer to write down what they told me.
I couldn’t type nearly fast enough; certainly not enough to catch the inflection and pauses that (seriously!) added so much to the basic stories their words expressed. But it was only our first time, so I hope we’ll both get better at this.
Natasha’s story:
Once upon a time there was a princess and one day her father who had a beard wanted her to go to the forest.
Now, the princess didn’t quite want to go, but her father insisted because he wanted her to go so she had to go. But because it was a dangerous place ….he made a good solution they would both go to the forest.
…
Still the king would protect.
They all loved their educational ride through the forest and one day they soon died from a very bad forest fire from a dragon that burned the whole huge forest.
Melody’s story:
Once upon a time there was a king, an island, who wanted his queen to go to the dangerous land of the deep, deep, deep stream of futures. And there’s trolls in the water.
So the king went himself and killed all the trolls and then he walked silently through the water until he came to his home again.
The end.
“That’s the short story,” she finished, in her normal voice.
5October2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Dog; Elisha.
Chocolate lab, already semi-trained, 3-years-old and loves to cuddle.
The girls adore her and we’re teaching Elisha that “long-suffering” does *not* equal asking for more suffering.
I am so thankful to have found her.
The short story: We’ve been looking at the shelter a couple times a week the last few months. We’ve looked at a number of dogs (even tried two out in our home: one for a few hours one for almost two weeks), but this is the one who is fitting.
She was an owner surrender with “not enough time for her” listed as the reason for giving her up. She had a restless first night and barks more willingly than we like just now, but she has been perfect with the kids, strangers and the other dogs we’ve met in class and at the dog park.
26September2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Management; Melody.
But we’re on the way better.
On top of the general yuckiness we all feel, Melody seems to be in that rough transitional stage between keeping naps and leaving them behind.
This morning Melody desolved over something and wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. I found her bubbling in her room and scooped her up, pretending she was my doll and crawled into her bed with her protesting all the way.
I snuggled us both under the blankets and made all the silly comments about my squeeky doll (it’s a game we play reletively frequently) until she was giggly then calm, and we just lay together getting warm before she looked at me, all bright-eyed and cheerful again and we could just talk.
It’s interesting to me how much warmth, touch (and food, to complete the Comfort Trinity) work near-magic with these kiddos. So sweet.
11September2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Homeschooling; Natasha.
I have a passel of pictures to upload once pictures are working again, but for now I wanted to say our approach to Kindergarten has morphed a few times now.
I’m glad I haven’t been saying each thing as we were doing it, but to recap, we began with the intent of hammering out the “3 Rs” during Nap-time so that it would be just me and Natasha, and got over with quickly so we could return to “regular life.”
The difficulty with that was we were neither of us in our best mental state during nap-time, and making school just the school work was too stark for Natasha.
So we’ve shifted to doing school in the morning, and we’re doing games during “school time.”
The kids have to be dressed before 9 a.m., but can play however they like until 9, when “Performance Today” starts on NPR. I don’t usually have the radio going during the day (I like better the control the iPod offers) but so far I like the classical music (with the commentary/introductions) for the backdrop of our working time.
I have the younger two go off and play by themselves (all my children are *very* good at this) and we alternate the reluctant writer with games and other elements of learning that I’ve been given or am collecting from my reading.
20August2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Homeschooling; Natasha.
School started today all across the district, so yesterday I told Natasha she’d be starting too.
This seemed to bother her quite a bit, and she said she wasn’t ready and didn’t really want to start Kindergarten. She was so (quietly) intense about it, I was ready to say, You’re only 5, we can wait, before I got her talking more.
“I’m not ready to be away from you all day,” she said. “I’m not big enough.” Poor baby thought I was going to send her away to school (and with only one-day’s notice)! I reassured her that I agreed she was too young to be gone, and that’s why we were homeschooling.
So we sat on the porch in the sunshine during nap yesterday and talked about what we would be studying today.
Today she excitedly told the mother of a friend that she was starting school today, and the fear seemed gone. She wasn’t really interested in knuckling down to actual work when it was time (Can we play a game together first?) but since we’re doing such a focused (limited) time of work already, I didn’t feel a need (not yet anyway) to break up our school time with games.
So we had some “calendar time” where we practiced dates and the pattern of weeks; then I set a 15-minute timer and she worked on her letter tracers while I hand-wrote with her at the table, on a scene for my novel; then I had her pick which type of reading she wanted to do today and she chose to read aloud two stories from her sister’s “Beginner’s Bible.”
She wanted a nap after that (she ‘d been complaining of a tummy ache much of the morning) and now with all of them asleep after 3, I’m stuck again in my “mother’s quandary” of needing to actually wake a quiet house…so they’ll be ready to sleep at bedtime.
*sigh*
30July2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Homeschooling.
I don’t want anyone to worry about my children’s education.
That said, I’m not very good at expressing myself when I attempt to dispel concerns.
Last Sunday a retired teacher noted the rapidly approaching school year and said, “I bet you’re really busy planning now!”
Did I say, “I began researching in January, stopped buying materials in March and simplified my curriculum in July”?
No.
I told this career K-2 teacher that no, I wasn’t in the midst of planning, that I was only going to focus on reading, writing and arithmetic (feeling that’s plenty for a 5-year-old), and as Natasha can already read and we do other activities together already, “school” wasn’t going to look much different than life right now.
I know this lady trusts me, but I bet you a nickel she’s trying really hard not to worry right now.
I love the books I collected for teaching, but the reality is that at this point they are more for my comfort and enjoyment than to apply on my own child (just yet).
Tomorrow I will be attending a meeting for “independent homeschoolers,” a group defined mostly by it’s members’ choice to homeschool apart from state aid or direction.
I’ve been asked by a number of people (usually more than once!) why I’m not “taking advantage” of all the “great programs” that are designed to “give me money” to “do whatever [I] want.”
The easiest out is the one my mom suggested yesterday: it’s genetic.
Mom taught (and I learned) out of a random-yet-comprehensive collection of books salvaged from the school district’s annual text-dump (that, unfortunately, it doesn’t do any more).
My one experience with a structured curriculum, with daily assignments and a set amount to get through in a year was Calvert. Two years actually: 4th and 6th, if I remember right. I hated it and hope I would never do that to my children. There was just this unmitigated *weight* of never being done. Ever. It just dragged on and it was impossible to get ahead.
And I thought it was horribly wasteful– you couldn’t use the curriculum or any of the books from one kid to the next (I’d never have the pleasure of watching my little brother re-live my misery) but had to re-buy the whole set for the next kid.
Anyway, I’ve been told there are other experiences to be had, but as the mom/teacher, I’m going to stick for now with what I enjoy. And that means playing at school before I need to, in order to prove to myself and anybody who cares that I can do this without someone “official” hanging over me.
24July2008
Posted by Amy Jane under: Natasha.
Natasha this afternoon, very carefully and polite:
“Now, when you’re done with the comics, instead of throwing them away, I would like you to give them to me, because I’m interested in comics now. So many funny pictures.”