Friday, March 26, 2010

8 years ago today...

As of 4:56 a.m., 8 years ago today, I birthed my baby Adobe.  Ah, what a wild ride it's been!  If only I knew then what I know now :)  How life has changed, in so many ways...

Well, for one, I was still under the impression that my father gave me, and had been professing to people while I was pregnant - "Oh, everyone thinks that your whole life has to stop when you have kids, that everything has to change.  That's not true!  You go on with life, you have a child with you now, but you just clothe it, feed it, give it love, & it's all good!"  Hah!

I guess that approach worked for him - he was a single father, and that's how he did it, pretty much.  And I turned out fine.  I think overall he did a really great job of being both papa and mama, and he raised me to be very independent.  But, we often don't do things the way our parents did them, do we?  The idea is to continually improve upon the situation.  All any of us can do as parents is strive to find balance in our lives with our children.  As we reflect upon what was 'done' to us by our parents or whoever raised us - discover what was great & not-so-great, or in some cases, plain terrible - the best thing we can do is to release the wrongs and repeat the rights, and forge ahead with new ways of our own.  As I look around and see how people are raising their children, I am continually struck by how each generation is reacting to the one before.  I'll write a whole 'nother post at some point about this - the days of the house wife, the role of Women's Lib, the nuclear family, the explosion of single parenthood, and so on...

The main thing to say here, is that I wanted that baby so badly - the maternal urge was so strong - and I'm so glad that she was born.  Those of you who were in my life at the time, which was mostly my Corcoran crew, saw what a crazy ride I was on, with school full-time, Adobe born in my thesis semester (art school - Corcoran College of Art + Design), working almost every day of the week (teaching tap & running a performing company), and strappin' that sweet baby on me everywhere I went.  I wish that I'd gotten the partner part right from the get-go, but alas, I'm one of those people who has had to learn some lessons the hard way.  I really wanted to believe it was right, that it was going to work out, but I knew somewhere deep down that it was not meant to be. And I stuck it out as long as I could.  I'm sure I was not the easiest partner at that time either.  Life is real, and we all gotta do what we gotta do.


So, on this 8th anniversary of my sweet girl's birth, I give thanks, and I reflect upon all the changes over the past several years.  Now I can just say that I am so glad to have a real, beautiful, awesome family.  Here they are, acting silly on the Photo Booth.  For awhile I thought it would just be Adobe & I for the rest of the ride, but often, just when you're about to give up, the unexpected happens.  I reconnected with my old friend Atom, aka Adam, aka Slahmed, and together, we will continue to make history...

Thank you Adobe, for being born, for being my grounding, for being such a fireball, such a great big sister, and such a sweetheart.  Thank you Atom, for all you do, for being such a great father and partner, for supporting us in so many ways, and for enabling me to learn what a real family is like, since I didn't exactly learn that as a child.
I love you guys.

My girl got to have ice cream for breakfast - Blueberry Cheesecake Custard - from the Dairy Godmother.  Yum!  Happiness is an important component of health.  Happy Birth Day Darling!

Monday, March 22, 2010

geocaching, a bed of nails, the sun, and land art

Last week was another fun one - the title about sums up the variety...
I'm not going to recap the whole week in detail, just some highlights.

This post will be more pictorial - excuse all the scrolling but ... enjoy. :)

As some of you may or may not know, we've started a small collective where we gather with a few other families every Tuesday & Thursday, and often other days as well.  We mulled over what to call it, and I suppose we'll be calling it the Boundless Kids Tribe.  I also have affectionately referred to it in passing as the Free to Be Me Collective, but I think the vote is for the former.  And I guess it makes sense to go with the whole Boundless thing...

Some highlights from last week:
Last Tuesday, the older kids started the new session of the Homeschool Drama Club.  Melanie, Kazha, Phoenix and I picked up some goodies from the fabulous Lebanese Taverna & had a picnic outside on the grass where the older kids joined us when class was over.  Then we all went over to Hayes Park & the kids played for a couple hours.  My little daredevil Phoenix climbed up a chain link fence til his feet were almost as high as my head.  One of the older boys was spotting him.  Then he climbed back down.  All by himself.  Pretty impressive for a 2-year-old.

On Wednesday we went to the Maryland Science Center at Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  If you're in this area and haven't taken your kids there, go!  Super awesome!  We met our friends Kristen, Lucca, Marcella, & Kozhin there to check out their exhibit on geocaching & had fun checking out other stuff as well.
 As you can see, there are no strings on this harp - it has light beams!  And you could change the sounds that it made.  Fun.
Phoenix & Marcella were having a little face-off.  :)  They love each other, but as they are both used to being the youngest alot of the time, neither of them likes the other to tell them what to do.

If you don't know what geocaching is, go to geocaching.com for info - but in short, you use your handheld GPS device to discover hidden treasures near or far, whatever you wish!  Sounds really fun for family adventure.  The exhibit - eh.  That's how Kristen & I both felt about it.  It was very informative, but a bit dry for kids, too much reading, not enough hands-on.  I guess the idea is that you check out the exhibit about what it is & how you do it, then you could go on a geocaching adventure in the harbor area, but we didn't know that & didn't plan for it, so.... The kids had fun anyway.

 This is when we still had their attention, at the beginning, before they all went running off thru the maze to break the codes and find caches and figure this all out.
Phoenix got mad at me at one point & ran off.  He was laying on the floor pouting, until Marcella found him and broke that hard shell.
I'm looking at them through a fabric mesh, that's why these two images look strange.  Don't expect professional photo work here from me people.  The lighting conditions in this place were difficult to work with.

From there, on to some other parts of the Center:

Okay, this was definitely one of our favorite parts of the whole place!  There was a sheet of plexi that you first laid down on, with all the holes drilled in it for the nails to pass through.  Then, once you've laid down, the woman pressed a button and the plexi receded, leaving you on the bed of nails.  I tried it out too.  Totally comfortable!  Here is Lucca.
And Adobe...
 Kozhin...
Little Phoe...

  The next thing was pretty cool too.  Did you know that to your brain, cold + warm = hot?  There were metal bars, cold from one side, warm from the other.  When you put your hand in the middle, where you could feel both simultaneously, it felt hot!  Ooooh, trippy!
Optical illusion.... hypnotized!  One down...
And another one bites the dust...
Here are our cuties!
And next - ah yes, payphones!  Remember those?  Also known as Dial-a-Germ.
Phoenix's cave man side shows itself a little...
And this thing simulated your digestive tract.  If you could move that ball through the mesh tube, it made the gurgling sounds that your guts make!  Yeah!  (Sorry for the excessive use of exclamation points throughout the post; I'm just a bit excited...)
Next, of course Phoenix had to get on the Dial-a-Germ.  I had daddy in mind here; I knew he would 'love' this as he's pretty grossed out by germs in public places.
Not sure what he was listening to here, but he looks so darn cute!

Oh lordy, okay, I know it's alot of pictures, but wait, there's more!  I just wish blogger would let me format this differently so I could do a gallery with captions or something.  Wordpress can do that, but alas, I didn't like the interface!  So.... in the future, I'll try to whip up quick slideshows instead.

That's it for Wednesday's adventures.  We left, and the kids came with me to Oxon Hill where I teach tap on Wednesday nights.  Long day.

On Thursday, our little tribe met up at Alcova Heights Park.  The kids played, meandered in the creek, snacked; the moms talked, about all manner of things.
Alcova Heights, aka 'the Creek playground' is one of my favorite spots.  I've been taking Adobe there since before she could walk.

I suggested that today might be a good day to discuss Daylight Saving Time and the Spring Equinox, since one just happened, and one was about to happen.  (Yay Spring!)  What is Daylight Saving?  Why does it happen?  Who 'invented' it?  What exactly is the Spring Equinox?  What are some cultures whose New Year corresponds? etc... We discussed all this over a picnic lunch, and then we made some 'land art' together, inspired by the fabulous Andy Goldsworthy, who Melanie & I both love.  We collected sticks, branches, and leaves to make a sun, in honor of the longer daylight hours bestowed upon us by the Equinox, & Daylight Saving (sort of - well at least it's light later in the day...)
Yes, that's Phoenix sitting in the middle of the sun - Adobe put his hair in piggy tails, and everyone was calling him a 'she' all day.
Skyler is approving the work.
 Beautiful momma Melanie...
Sweet Amman at this point then asks if he can sing a song, which turns out to be, "You Are My Sunshine..." Awesome!  And everyone joins in as they continue working. 
Kazha says 'hmmmm, what else does it need?'....
Placing the final touches... momma Stephanie, and the girls.
At this point, I video'd everyone holding hands and singing the song again - so cute!  Don't have a way to share that here, and haven't uploaded it anywhere...
Here is Melanie in fetal position inside our sun.
That was fun!

Friday, we handled some business at home and then met the tribe and other folks at the park.  Phoenix was so beat that he fell asleep around 6:30ish and slept straight through til the next morning.  Saturday, first day of spring! - it was nice & warm.  We busted out the kiddie pool, the kids played, we did yard work, picked up mulch, I trimmed the rose bushes, and stuff like that.  Sunday, more work outside, making the front and side of the house look all nice.  I rescued our violet tree (or whatever it is) that was being suffocated by ivy - pulled it all off, which was quite a job, and Atom took out two thorny bushes on the side of the house (huge job), and we did a bunch more stuff.  Hard labor.  Fun.  No, seriously, I like it.  I know it's not as fun for Atom since he does hard labor at work all week.  But it's different when it's your home.  Therapeutic.  More pictures to come.

And if you've stuck around til the end, guess I'm not doing too bad, cuz I know this was a long one.  Thanks! 

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

last week: learning & playing

     Life feels so full right now, not in a rushed, frenetic, stressful way, but in a fulfilling, energizing, refreshing, and inspiring way.... I'm totally loving it.  Last was a good week, and last Monday seems like such a long time ago.  I thought I'd share a recap (which I'll do here from time to time, partly for myself, because sometimes I wonder, where did the time go?)
     Most days we begin with our morning routine of waking (well, waking for the kids - I'm up from the ripe hour of 4:45 AM with Atom!), teeth, face, make bed, get dressed, have breakfast, & do some work (not Phoenix of course).  All this happens in a fairly stress-less leisurely manner unless we have some place to be first thing in the morning (meaning by 9:30, 10, or even 10:30).  Then I usually have to find myself saying to Adobe a whole bunch of times, "Come on, we gotta get into hustle mode!  Move along or we won't make it to x, y or z."  And I try to stay calm, and not yell :)  (That's where the meditation comes in handy remember?  Being present and aware of how I say something.  The same exact thing said with a genuine smile sounds so different.)  Typically, morning routine goes from around 8:15-10:30/11, but there's a flex & flow to it, just the way I like.  And my girl is definitely a night-owl and late riser by nature, just like her momma.
     So then, after all or most parts of the morning routine, last week went like this:

Monday - Morning play outside in backyard clubhouse.  It was totally gorgeous out, so Adobe took a bunch of stuff out into the grape arbor and made a really cute club house, and she and Phoenix played outside for awhile.  Then, I called Jeneen to see what they were up to, and we decided to go join her, Stash, Haiku, Rilke, & Amelie at River Farm Garden Park in Alexandria.  
What an absolutely beautiful spot.  The kids had a real blast, making house, picking flowers, exploring, and frolicking barefoot.  Amelie's mom Danielle joined us, and we had great talks.  We stayed for about four hours.   

Tuesday - We went to the homeschool drama club performance of The Crazy Zoo.  This class is led by the fabulous Joshua Rich who creates a new play each session for the group based on the characters they want to play.   Joshua also happens to be a fabulous pianist (sounds a bit like George Winston) so if you're looking for some new good, soothing music, check him out.  Afterwards we went to Hayes Park where the kids all played for about 3 hours.  Phoenix absolutely loves chasing after all the big kids, trying to keep up, alternating between boys and girls.  The whole time at the park, he was off doing his own thing, alone, or with the other kids, and only asked for me once, to help him get on the swing.  Then, on the way home we had a fabulous curb find of two playskool cars and a trike to add to our collection of kiddie vehicles. 


Wednesday - In the morning, we went to a class at Hidden Pond Nature Center.  The kids got to drag the borders of the pond with nets and see what living creatures they could find.  
My first find was a dead turtle :(  But, I got to bring him home so I can dry him out (aka let him rot) and do something cool with the shells.)  We also found freshwater shrimp, a backswimmer, and a damselfly larvae.  Here I learned something new. The damselfly is very similar to a dragonfly, but their bodies are much thinner, and usually when they're at rest, their wings are folded back whereas dragonflys' are out to the sides.) 


     Others found a live turtle, a couple small fish, and other cool stuff.  The guide had containers at pond side to hold the critters, and then, we went back inside the main building where he identified each species, put stuff under the microscope and had a cool setup with a camera looking into the microscope that showed the image on a screen we could all see.  It was very high quality & crystal-clear image.  Super cool.  Then, we played at the playground there for a while, snacked on our lunch, came home to defuse for a few, and then Adobe went to her voice lesson with our friend Kisha, wife of Groovy Nate.  Kisha is helping Adobe prepare a song for her upcoming Talent Show party.

Thursday - We met up at Melanie's house with the families we are doing our collaborative vibe with.  The mommas talked, the kids played.  A good time was had by all. We solidified a little more what our collective will be looking like as we get it going to the point of rotation so that 2 or 3 of us are 'off' during that time.  For the next couple more weeks, we will all be together.  It is so awesome to see the kids of differing ages all playing together, not segregating themselves.  Phoenix, who is the youngest, was going between hanging with the 'big boys' (a 4-yo & two 9-yos), and being babied by the girls (who are turning 6 and 8, on the same day, two Fridays from now!)

Friday - We took a workshop on the Chinese Lunar New Year, offered by Stacy Clark.  That was fun.  She read a story about the Chinese Lunar Year, meanings & symbols, the kids got to make a few different crafts and sample traditional Chinese New Year foods - dumplings and tangerines.  Then, we ran a few errands, and went to Chuck E. Cheese for an hour.  We were supposed to meet up with a couple of friends, but that fell through, so we came home and chilled out for the rest of the day.

Saturday - Adobe had the last class of a drama class she's been taking through Encore Stage.  They did a portion of the Wizard of Oz, and Adobe was the wicked witch.  They had a performance for parents at the end of class.  (I'll have to get pics from our friend - I was shooting video & will share when I get it uploaded.) Afterwards, her friend Katy came over and they hung out, Phoenix slept, Atom was running errands, & I had some alone time for a bit... (That's when I began working on this post, but didn't get to finish... Domestic duties were calling me.)  In the evening, we went to our friends' house in Mt. Rainier - Sara & Domingo.  Great conversation, lovely raw food dinner, yerba maté, fun, & laughter.  And some healing energy. 

Sunday - I spent the day doing a Reiki I, II, & III Master/Teacher workshop.  Very exciting to tap into something I have felt instinctively and begin down this path.  More on that in another post sometime... Adobe had a double-birthday party to go to, and Phoenix and Daddy got some bonding time. 
          I look forward to the day when we can figure out a way for Daddy to have more freedom in his life too.  He has a grueling job as a union welder, working 6 am to 2:30, or 4:30 when they're pulling tens.  Sometimes even longer.  Playing with fire and moving and lifting lots of really heavy stuff, while being really cold about half the year.  I know it's hard to go bust his tail all day every day when we're having fun.  Hopefully as I get my business going more over the next couple years, we'll have more stability and find a different way for him to make a living, hopefully being his own boss.  In the meantime, I think a new job will come his way this year that is not going to be as hard on him.  I'm willing it to happen.

         Atom, I love you, and we really appreciate all the hard work you do, even if we're not always good at showing it; we know that as it stands right now, we owe a large part of our freedom to your hard work & self discipline!  Thank you!!!

      Friday, March 5, 2010

      damage of "no child left behind" continues



           Last week, on the heels of numerous protests occurring in conjunction with the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education, leading education scholar and former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch - and former longtime advocate of No Child Left Behind, charter schools, standardized testing, and using the free market to improve schools - appeared on DemocracyNow! to speak out against a broken system & introduce her new book The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education.
           Bush's No Child Left Behind Policy has been wreaking havoc on children's education by creating an environment where teachers are forced to 'teach to the test', dumbing down & narrowing the curriculum rather than giving children a better, well-rounded education that allows for a variety of learning styles and subjects, embracing what learning should look like in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is only furthering the problem. In the recently introduced "Race to the Top", they have forced states, as part of the funding package, to commit to privatizing many public schools, converting them to charter schools. They have also committed states to evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students, and punishing those whose students fail to perform successfully, which is incredibly unfair to the teachers, and spurs many obvious problems. This means more emphasis on test prep and test drills - for tests that are worthless, in my opinion as an educator, in gauging what a child really knows. In fact, the mere idea of measuring or scoring a child's knowledge in such a way is ridiculous and useless. Although I happen to be one of those people who always enjoyed taking tests - it was fun for me, perhaps because it was easy for me. But I also didn't really care what my score was. In a recent move by the Obama administration, it was announced that all of the teachers in a high school in Rhode Island - the only high school, in fact, in a poor urban neighborhood - will be fired at the end of a school year. A crucial question - where do the arts & sciences come into play among all this testing hullaballoo? They don't. Watch the clip & you will hear one of the reasons why.
           Knowledge is Power. I believe that most people who become educators do so out of the desire to empower young minds by arming them with the knowledge they need to be successful in this world. But the system is broken. In fact, I'm confident that the system, modeled after factory operations, was 'broken' in many ways when it began some 150-200 years ago - not designed to create creative, independent thinkers, but efficient cogs of a well-oiled machine. And of course, many of us prevail regardless. But that's a post for another day.

      Thursday, March 4, 2010

      return to freedom

      After a foray into the public school system, we have joyfully returned to freedom.  This is something that is hard for many people to understand... why we do it, and what it really looks like.  There is no need for anyone to take offense, or think that I'm implying you're wrong if you choose to send your child to school like most of the population.  
           Simply consider that one very important word:  choice.  We all do what we must do, and most importantly, what feels right for ourselves and our families.  There are many different approaches to parenting, teaching, and learning.  I don't feel that I have to explain or justify my choice to anyone; however, I'd like to try to help those I love who don't quite 'get it' by painting a clearer picture of this whole scenario.  I'll have much more to say on the subject in the future, but for now, I thought it might be useful to begin with a few good notes and metaphors I found this morning as I was browsing around.  
           There is a movement called 'unschooling' which some people think is totally outrageous and really can't comprehend.  While I wouldn't say that we are complete unschoolers (yet?), it makes alot of sense to me and greatly influences the way we live.  
      So, what does that mean and what does it look like?

      What unschooling is:
      holistic
      comprehensive
      relevant
      child led
      passion driven
      exploratory

      What unschooling isn't:
      standardized
      cookie cutter
      linear (or, maybe it is, depending on the kid!)
      negligent
      unlearning
      lazy

           Meredith, another unschooling mom who moderates the Always Unschooled listserve, says to a newbie mom trying to envision what this is: "You might also find it helpful to do some reading on the theory of Multiple Intelligences, and also personality styles, since personality plays a big part in the specifics of how people learn.  But probably the biggest thing to know about learning is that it looks like life.  People learn as a function of living life - we're designed to learn.  Our own internal drives push us to go on exploring and discovering - it's part of human nature itself.
         A big part of learning is making mistakes!  That's an idea school trains out of us, but discovering is all about running into something new, something that challenges our expectations or doesn't turn out the way we think.  
         One of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is the safety to make mistakes.  We get to be their soft place to fall, the person who helps them regroup and try another idea, the person who can offer other ideas without insisting our ideas are better.  That's challenging!  We soooo want to be able to offer the fruits of our own learning to our kids so that they don't Have to make the same mistakes we did.  It's a little humbling to realize that sometime they actually want to (not all the time, but especially as my kids get older I see them not wanting my ideas and perspectives so much any more - they want to do it their own way, even if it's harder that way)!"

           This was written by a mom, Debra Rossing, on one of the listserves to which I subscribe: 
      "Maybe this image will help:  In the traditional schooling model, you are served a pre-decided meal (like a prix fixe dinner at a fancy restaurant - you get what someone else decided to prepare that day).  But before you even take a bite, the waitress comes over and cuts it up into specific sized pieces and then arranges it in the order that you are to eat it.  And, you must eat a certain amount of the pieces at a certain interval.  No alternating between a bite of salad and a bite of potato, no lingering over a particularly tasty bit of tomato, it must be eaten in the proper sequence and timing.  Meanwhile, your dinner companions are each served something else, based on criteria of age and where they grew up.  Even if their food looks interesting, you aren't to share bites from other plates, unless of course, you finish all the requisite bites for this time period that are on your plate and ask the waitress for a bite of something else you've seen.  After each set group of bites, the waitress comes over and asks you question about what you ate and you need to be able to answer the way she expects - if the soup was too salty for you, but it was salted "correctly" you have to say it was salted correctly, even if you didn't like it.  Periodically, they bring medical equipment over to the table to make sure you are properly digesting what you've been eating.
         Alternatively, natural learning (aka unschooling) is more like being at a grand buffet.  You can choose what and when and how much.  If the serving utensils are a bit cumbersome for you, people are there to assist.  If you're unsure about how to carve yourself a piece of the roast chicken, ask someone and they'll show you how and/or guide you in doing so.  If you want more peas but no more potatoes right now, that's fine.  If you want to eat each individual pea separately, to enjoy the taste and texture, great.  If you ONLY eat peas for a while, then switch to ONLY cantaloup, then have a mixed plate of cold veggies, salad style, fine and dandy.  And if one of your dining companions has something on their plate you've never seen before or tried, you might ask to taste it.  If you see something at the buffet and don't know what it is, you can ask and someone will describe/explain it to you, making comparisons/contrasts to other foods on your plate(s).  'That's a lychee.  It's similar in taste/texture to a bit of canned pear but not exactly the same.  Still fairly mild in flavor and a little sweet but not as sweet as something like a strawberry.'  If you decide to simply sit back and observe the environment for a bit, that's fine, there's no time requirement on your eating." 

      To wrap it up for today, here's a copy of the 'Curriculum Description' I submitted today to Arlington County as part of my Notice of Intent to homeschool my child, and below that a highlight from our week.


      "Our curriculum is self-designed to include the major areas of academic study in an age- and level-appropriate manner—language arts and mathematics, physical and social sciences, history, geography, and anything else that surfaces as an interest.  Largely using an inquiry-based approach, we call on a wide and varied list of resources including books, workbooks, the internet, online curriculums, videos, workshops, classes, museums, galleries, field trips, nature, our community, collaboration with other families, travel, and conversation with people of all ages.  Visual and performing arts are often integrated into our learning processes and can spontaneously provide intriguing starting points for further probing into specific aspects of any of the academic study areas.  Part of my approach in educating my child is to take into account the seven intelligences as defined by Howard Gardner—the idea that “all human beings are capable of at least seven different ways of knowing the world…. language; logical-mathematical analysis; spatial representation; musical thinking; the use of the body to solve problems or to make things; an understanding of other individuals; and an understanding of ourselves.”
                  Our in-home learning consists of various activities including but not limited to: reading, workbook pages—both published and self-designed, creative writing, cooking, sewing, gardening, cleaning, computer games, blogging, piano lessons, art projects, science projects, singing, dancing, spanish practice; creative play & role-playing; elaborate character development & set-building; shooting photography & video; and art & music workshops which I teach, with other homeschooling families joining us.  Activities outside of the home include ice skating, dance classes, gymnastics, art, drama, nature center classes, survival skills classes, and whatever else arises of interest.  While we have specific blocks of time in the home each weekday that are specified ‘lesson time’, we live in such a way that learning is a natural, organic, always-happening, ongoing process—an exciting part of everyday life!"





      On Monday, we took a field trip with a few friends to the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Center - an awesome kids' spot in Winchester that is very similar to the Children's Museum in DC (now closed down.)

      Here is Phoenix trying on an oxygen mask at the 'hospital'.

      Then there is Adobe pushing her friend Lucca in the wheelchair.  The place was small, but the kids had such a blast!  There was so much to do... There was a replica of a Native American longhouse, a climbing wall, an ambulance and hospital, a library, all types of cool hands-on science stuff, a cider factory, an 'infinity mirror', a fun house mirror, a place where you could build a house, a large version of a honeycomb that you could climb inside of, and on...

      I'm loving life; it feels so good having my two munchkins together again...



      (photos © artis mooney 2010)