That tan bunny -- what a pretty boy!

The Boy and I are reading The Trojan War together. And the only way that that The Boy can understand and remember what he's reading is to act it out with WebKinz.

Today, the small tan bunny (Paris, prince of Troy) challenged the fuzzy lamb (Melelaus, king of Greece) to hand-to-hand combat that would hopefully end the Trojan War. The bunny got to make the first spear shot, but it was deflected. The lamb countered with a spear through the bunny's shield, but then broke his sword on the bunny's helmet. The lamb then dragged the bunny across the battlefield by the helmet plume. The bunny's helmet strap broke just before he choked to death, and a tiny dog (Aphrodite) whisked him back to Troy before the lamb could finish him off.

Naturally the lamb (along with the entire Greek army) was sure that the bunny was hiding behind the Trojan lines. After all, the bunny did have a reputation as a pretty boy and a coward. The fragile truce was broken when the monkey (Palemedes, a Trojan) fired an arrow at the lamb from behind the Trojan lines, injuring him. At that point, the entire Greek army swarmed the battlefield in rage and the war continued. Bad scene. ;)

The Boy remembers all the character names, remembers all the action, and -- get this -- remembers most of the lessons that the Greeks were trying to tell us. He can tell you the entire story!

See, as a baby, the tan bunny had been abandoned on Mount Ida because the white cat (Hecuba, his mother, the queen of Troy) had heard a prophecy that he would cause the destruction of Troy. He was rescued and raised by shepherds, so he grew up playing the lute, watching sheep, and lying around looking at his lovely reflection.

Because of his naivete, he was chosen to decide which of the goddesses was "the fairest", and by choosing the tiny dog (Aphrodite), he gained the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. He left the bluebird (Oenone, his goddess wife), travelled to Greece, seduced the white bunny (Helen) from right under the lamb's nose, and whisked her away to Troy under the cover of night.

Unfortunately, the lamb's brother was the llama (Agamemnon), the overlord of all Greece. In his greed, the llama escalated this event into an all-out war, ill-fated from its beginning. In fact, the llama had to sacrifice his own daughter to get a favorable wind, and at last report, his wife was keeping his axe sharp, waiting for his return. (We think she's going to kill him as soon as he lands.)

It turns out that the Greeks were better armed and trained, but the Trojans had unlimited reinforcements and supplies. The war was a stalemate, only exacerbated by the llama feuding with the pink penguin (Achilles, Greek warrior extraordinaire). Talk about spoiled brats -- that pink penguin was a real stinker. Almost as bad as the llama.

See, pestilence was marching through the Greek camp, and the llama refused to ask the seers to find out why. (He was actually afraid it was related to that whole daughter-killing thing.) The pink penguin manned up and called an assembly, promised the seer immunity, and found out that it was a pretty easy problem to solve. Apparently, one of the slave girls that the llama took as booty (!) turned out to be the daughter of a priest of Apollo in Troy. After a temper tantrum, the llama agreed to return the slave girl, but only if he could have the pink penguin's favorite slave girl in exchange. The pink penguin flew into a helpless rage and refused to fight for the Greeks anymore until the llama made good. Then he went crying to the black horse (Thetis, his mother, the sea nymph) to get the grey dog (Zeus) to cause the Greeks to lose unless the pink penguin was fighting.

Don't get me started... Babies, the whole bunch of them.

So far, I'd say the beagle (Hector, prince of Troy) is my favorite so far, even if he is a little insensitive to the bunny's lack of fighting prowess. Still, he's bold, brave, clever, and a great warrior, both physically and mentally. He has some awesome, crazy strategies! Besides, I've always liked beagles.

Honestly, it's better than Jersey Wives...

Boy for sale. Slightly cracked. Cheap.

Okay, I think we're all coming unglued. The Boy is leading the pack, but we're all following. First off, he won't shut the hell up. About anything. Ever.

When I had kids, one of the things I always swore is that I would never say (or tolerate anyone else saying) "SHUT UP!" That said, lately I've just given up. I can say "shush", "be quiet", "hush", "stop talking", and even "stop making noise with your pie hole!" only so many times a day before I lose my mind.

I think it's the flip side of "That noise coming out of my head? It's words! What. Did. I. Just. Say. To. YOU?! Yeah? Well, I meant it! MOVE!!!"

Yeah, we're topping over that cliff of insanity. The Husband has been sick, so he hasn't been helping at all. Not that he ever really does. Yeah, honey, how about a little, "You will not speak to my wife that way, young man," every now and then? Huh? Would it kill ya?

Sorry. It's just wearing on me.

On top of the not shutting the feck up, he's started freaking out. Forget to bring the "Where's Waldo" book for church? Scream and cry. Have to shower two hours after the tornado alert is passed? Scream and cry like your mother is scalding you in hot oil and then electrocuting you with a cattle prod. What WILL tomorrow bring? I can't wait to see!

See, part of me knows that he's faking. He did offer to take a shower in the other bathroom because his bathroom "smelled like" The Girl, so I know he wasn't initially afraid to use the water. But when I insisted that it was 9:00 and he had to get going, he just came unglued and started insisting that I was trying to electrocute him. He could hear the electricity crackling in the water.

I tried to explain that, while the shower was very dangerous around seven o'clock, it isn't now. In the same way, the stove was dangerous at six o'clock, but isn't now. See? You're FINE!! Then I told him that if he didn't shower RIGHT NOW, I'd bathe him myself. Sure enough, he screamed like I was scalding him the entire time, and as he was drying off, The Husband came in and ever-so-helpfully screamed at us both. Heh? Where the feck was he a half hour ago?

So, here I am, my eye twitching, trying to figure out how to get through the next day without hitting him with anything. Seriously. He's making me THAT crazy.

THIS is the boy that I'm taking on a road trip to visit my sister next month? And taking The Girl and my dad, too? Oh yeah. That'll work. Me, one crazy, freaked out ten-year-old boy, one autistic 10-year-old girl, one crazy, crotchety old man. My eye starts twiching just thinking about it. Maybe I'll just sneak off and visit my sister when no one's looking. Except that The Husband can't cover the kids during the day. And if he can't engage while I'm here, he's dead meat when I'm not.

So.

Maybe it's time to figure out why The Boy is so freaked out. 'Cause he has to understand that if we can't figure out what's going on, I can't take him anywhere. Oy. Stupid mom! There's an equally good chance that it'll just add more pressure, and make him worse.

Mom for sale. Slightly cracked. Cheap.

All we're saying...

I've been thinking about whether homeschool is The Only Way, as some think it may be. In his article on DadCentric, HomeMakerDad has an article on his daughter starting kindergarten, and it has been making me think. Hard.

You know those people in this world who just can't follow the rules? You know the type -- won't wear seat belts, can't keep the beer cans off the lawn, won't just do it because the boss tells them to, won't pay parking tickets. These are people who just never learned to play the game and get in line. And it hasn't done them any favors either. Sad to say, real life involves a certain amount of getting in line and playing nicely with others.

Maybe, just maybe, public school (or if that fails, military school) may be a good choice for some people. I'm just saying.

Of course, those people may just have impulsivity issues, but very few people get through this life without having to bow to someone else's wishes or the wishes of a group. You cannot always be self-led in your choice of activities.

Homeschoolers scoff at "socialization", but really, what is socialization if it's not thinking of the herd, keeping the wheels of civilization greased, and making sure everyone is working together?

Is anyone following this train of thought? Without some institutional setting in a child's life, she never learns about living in an institution. And believe me, real life is chock full of institutions...

New day...

Well, today's a new day! (Of course, they all are, but it just sounds good, doesn't it?)

Apparently The Boy isn't getting enough sleep. Every time I get out a school book, he suddenly drops into a coma. So I send him out to swing a while. He comes in, does a little, and then goes limp again. He's not sick -- this is just what he's doing. It's maddening because it keeps me from having any spare time at the end of the day to enjoy myself. Y'know, by scrubbing the bathroom or something.

I figured that I would get on Blogger to post, and he's snap to attention. Voila! Here he comes. Ready to read about the nasty Greeks and the scurrilous Trojans. Arrrr!

Mom. Incognito.

For the actual first time in my life, I hid from my kids this morning. They were waking up whiny, and I couldn't take it anymore. The Boy wanted to be The Girl, so he took the comfy comforter and the comfy recliner and wouldn't give it up. Then he decided he could choose the channel, even though she watches the same thing every morning without fail. Then they couldn't find the remote control. Whine, whine, whine! WHINE! I straightened them out and hid until I could wake up decently. In my room? No, there's a cat door to our room and the cats would bug me. In the master bathroom? I don't think so. On through the bathroom to the walk-in closet? Oh yeah. A grown woman slept on the floor in the master bedroom closet to get away from whining children.

Fortunately, the day looked up once I had woken like a civilized human. Y'know, on the floor.

On an entirely unrelated but equally strange note, The Girl has started cutting her own hair. Yeah, it's usually a three-year-old thing, but she's developmentally and haircuttingly delayed. We can't figure out exactly where she's cutting it from, but we think it's probably the nape of her neck. Maybe it was poking her in the neck. Maybe she was inspired the women at the hair cuttery last weekend. Maybe she wants me to lose my mind. Who knows? It's a mystery...

The "W" word...

Yes: WORK.

I know, I know, homeschool is not supposed to be called "work" -- it's supposed to be a Journey of Discovery, propelled by my child's own unbridled enthusiasm for Unravelling the Wonders of our World.

Only it's not. I'm starting to question the unschooling precept that we should never force a child to do something they don't ask to do. I'm starting to reconsider even letting him choose whether or not to breathe. 'Cause he'd forget. Or get stubborn and refuse to.

Here's what I'm trying to communicate now:

1. No one gets out of this world without doing his share of the work.

2. You have to work, then play; otherwise, you're going to find that you run out of time. And it really rubs off the glow pretty quickly.

3. You will enjoy your leisure more if you've earned it first.

Hey, maybe my kid will actually grow up with those politically incorrect "work ethic" thingies.

Or not. We'll see. Gotta read that Bill Bennett book again...

Git 'er done!!

Okay, here's my biggest homeschool problem this year. So far.

The Boy is doing his work, but only when I sit next to him. It's not like he can't type the rough draft of a paragraph into the computer by himself -- it's just more fun when I'm along for the ride. Ditto working on a chapter of Life of Fred. Ditto working a few pages of critical thinking. I can leave him with the work, come back a half-hour later, and he will have spent the half hour waiting for me to come back. Oh sure, I've made it clear to him that it's *his* job, not mine. I refresh his memory every five minutes. "Read me what you've got so far." "Are you finished yet?" Nothing works.

I suppose I could just give him a half-hour to do his math and go on. If he doesn't finish his math by dinner, he, what, has to eat it for breakfast? Geez, he's 10! I shouldn't have to sit with him. He is, in fact, mama's little baby, but you'd think that self-respect would kick in eventually. God knows the world does not supply each of us with our own cheering section.

Don't even think about his reading a chapter of science and answering the questions -- all reading of new material must be done with The Mom.

Speaking of which, I think his reading (The Trojan War) is too hard for him. I spend more time explaining what the material means than I do reading. Past the impossibly hard vocabulary, he just doesn't understand the nuances of the plot. If Agamemnon can't get a favorable wind for his attack on Troy, the assembled armies will melt away, and he'll be the laughingstock of the ancient world. In addition, to gain this favorable wind, the prophet says he has to sacrifice his daughter to Artemis. His pride was more important to him than his daughter, so he commits a terrible atrocity, thereby starting the war on a bad note. And so on. He likes mythology, but I think this one is beyond him.

I'm thinking My Side of the Mountain or Poppy. We really liked the first of the Warrior series, but I'm not sure he's up for another. All the books I liked as a child are "girl" books, and I didn't like any of the "boy" books. So I also picked up Phantom Tollbooth, and I'll be trying to convince him that A Wrinkle in Time has girls in it, but is not a "girl" book. Ditto Caddie Woodlawn, but less so.

Let's hear it for Amazon free shipping!

Why not, indeed...

Doesn't it seem like the homeschool supply web stores ought to carry cattle prods? Or at least bullhorns? And yet they don't. I wonder why...

Short-term memory loss and "The Question"

Oh, I had a brilliant idea for a blog post in the shower this morning. Alas, I have forgotten it, along with the fact that I need to unclog the shower drain.

Why is it that so many things are remembered in context but never again. I can use the last of the TP and chant, "get more paper, get more paper, get more paper" while I finish up, and STILL forget to replace the roll. Poof. The thought is gone, never to be remembered. Until... LATER.

The Boy made me read It's so Amazing to him cover-to-cover this afternoon. It was the longest hour and a half of my life. The poor child really, really wanted to know how the sperm get to the egg. My only question is, "Why can't The Man read it to him?" My specialty is pushing out babies, not sexual hydraulics, if you get my drift. I've encouraged The Boy to ask for this book for his next bedtime-reading-with-dad book. Mwaa-haa-haa!!

Anyway, I'm sure that other blog topic was great, but we'll never know, will we?

Oh bored, oh bored...

Oh. My God. I'm so bored that I can barely stand myself. I know, I know, "bored" means you lack initiative, creativity, and brains enough to entertain yourself. Sorry, but I'm just bored. I have no friends to visit. I've already spent enough time with my parents this weekend.

We took the day off because The Husband has the day off from teaching and because the new show on PBS, "The Cat in the Hat Knows a lot About That" is on seven times today. Lora has been looking forward to it, so I thought I'd humor her. Naturally, The Husband is at work now, and the seven episodes turned out to be the same two episodes over and over. And the new show isn't particularly clever. Martin Short was cast as The Cat, so he sounds like a wedding planner. Not good.

So, here I am. I've already checked my email, called my sister, contemplated the mess that is my house, and concluded that it's the phase of the moon or something.

See, I have about four or five really suck-ola jobs to do around the house, and either a) I'll feel better after I finish them or b) it'll make me even crankier to work on them. Since the horrible mold decontamination incident, we have a few of those "just moved in" piles of junk around the house. I also haven't sand-blasted the bathrooms in a while, but hey, they'll look the same in two days, so why bother?

Oy. I already assembled the vanity for the new bathroom, but it was missing some pieces, so the remodel is on hold until I get more parts. Maybe I could hang the big-ass timeline that I've been trying to start for a few weeks. Yeah, that's it. And figure out what's for dinner. The kids will eat (yawn) cheeseburgers again, but I have some black beans cooked. (yawn) I have a jar of ancho chilies and adobo sauce, so that would make a good chili, but I'm just not motivated.

I think I'll hang the craft paper for the timeline and scan a few pictures for stickers. We're going to use 2" x 4" shipping labels for the timeline with a picture on the left and words on the right. That way, it'll look WAY COOL. If it works, I'll post pictures. The only real problem I have now is wall space.

Let's say I have 15 feet of wall space for CE (Common Era, the time formerly known as Anno Domini, AD). 15*12/2000 gives me about a tenth of an inch for one year. That translates into an inch for every 10 years. Working backwards, that gives us 201 decades * 1 inch / 12 = 16.75 feet for the Common Era. Okay, I'll need about twice that for BCE (Before Common Era), or about 30 feet. Yeah. I have 45 feet of wall space somewhere here... Lemme go measure the family room walls.

I think I can put most of BCE on the east wall, Our Lord's birth in the corner crack, and put CE on the south wall. On the newly-painted walls. But only on a smaller scale.

Maybe a nap would help...

Okay, post-nap idea: The wall in the front hallway is 10' long. If I allow four feet for the CE dates and six feet for BCE, I can make each century about 2.5" long. I think that'll work. Working backwards, I can have just over four feet of CE and about 2,800 years of BCE. I like it... Where's the laser level?

First Week of School -- The Girl edition

Well, it's the end of the first week, and I'm again trying not to drop anyone into a coma, so I'll try to make it short. ;)

The Girl is happy and willing to do school, at least on days that I haven't poisoned her with strange chemicals. Yeah. The pediatrician recommended risperidone (a mood stabilizer) to help calm The Girl down a bit. We tried 0.5 mg, and it didn't really make much difference. We upped it to 1 mg, and well, she slept for two days straight. Yeah, we're poisoning our baby girl. It's 8pm, and she's just waking up. The pediatrician says we can give her 0.5 mg twice a day, so maybe that's a better option.

Yeah, so she got some work done this week, but not much. She has workboxes for:

writing (Excellence in Writing, sort of)
spelling (Zaner-Bloser spelling, 3rd grade)
math (Math-U-See, Gamma)
thinking (Building Thinking Skills, 1)
reading (Read and Understand, 2nd Grade)
grammar (Michael Clay Thomas, Grammar Town)

We're going to set up our big-ass timeline next week and start up again on The Story of the World, Part 1. We got as far as the fall of Crete a few years ago, and we're ready to try Greece again. ;)

On Mondays she has speech and occupational therapy with therapists that actually understand autism. On Tuesdays, she has Brain Gym and ballet. We're going to be doing "homework" for all three classes.

See, as she turns 10, she's also moving a little closer to having completed her "basic education": reading, writing, adding, multiplying, and some fractions and algebra. At that point, I have to decide what's important for her to know. Representative government? Hmm. The time-space continuum? No. Well, then, what?

I honestly don't know yet. I have a few years yet to make sure she can read, write, and multiply. By then, maybe I'll have a clue.

First week of school -- The Boy edition...

Let's see if I can do a first-week-of-homeschool post without dropping anyone into a coma.

We started off slowly on Monday, since we had to drive all the way to The Big City for speech and OT. We've just been picking up a few subjects a day, trying them out to see when they start making the kids cry, trying to see if the kids can work together on the same subject without making me cry. ;)

I have so much stuff for The Boy to work on that I'm not sure how to fit it all in! I just counted -- he has TEN subjects! And we've only managed to start the first six.

Building Thinking Skills 2 (critical thinking)
Writing with Ease 2 (listening)
Caesar's Engligh 1 (vocabulary)
Grammar Town (grammar)
The Trojan War from Memoria Press (literature)

Life of Fred: Fractions (math)

Music of the Hemispheres (poetry)
Excellence in Writing (writing)
Story of the World 1 (ancient history)
It's so Amazing (science: human reproduction)

It's not like I want to work him to death -- far from it. I just have a lot of different stuff for him. I'm thinking we'll have to either alternate some of these or put some off until later in the year.

So far, his absolute favorite has been The Trojan War. Strange chld... He also likes Caesar's English and has already drawn Jim Davis's dog under the word "odious". Odie -- get it?!

Our week is full, too. We drive to The Big City for half of Monday. We have dance (Brain Gym and ballet) on Tuesday afternoon. I should have playgroup on Wednesday, but I just can't work up any excitement for it. We're signed up for a science class at the local museum on Thursday afternoon. Friday is lunch with Grandmother. Most of this doesn't take too much time except Monday, but we'll work around it all.

If I could only figure out how to teach 10 subjects in four hours or less per day. ;)