My friend Shannah suggested that I leave a way for people to give a more passive thumbs up to my posts. She said she felt like she had to have something meaningful to say in order to comment. Sometimes, she just wants to say, “Hey. I liked that.” It’s my duty to give the readers what they want, right? It’s not that I want lots and lots of people to tell me they like me. Really. So I added two... Read more
70 degrees. Ten boys. Two hours. One great playground. How could this day have been anything but fabulous? Plus The Knights of Cambridge, a play date, a lot of blueberries, and lots of fun with schoolwork. (For example, gone are the days when our Handwriting Without Tears curriculum produced nothing but tears. The workbook has introduced a self-check box where the boys have to read the evaluation criteria and decide whether to give themselves credit for the word. There is a... Read more
“Ezra? Why are you going into the basement?” “I’ve gotta get some really sharp tools.” Okay, let’s back up a minute. There was no school today. When the boys found out that the public school kids had the day off, they too wanted the day off. What was the occasion, you ask? Saint Patrick’s Day, you wonder? Good guess. It is Boston, after all. But even here it’s hard to get the government to give you a day off to... Read more
Many elementary school classrooms celebrate the 100th day of school. So did we. In addition to our normally scheduled naturalist class, we added a few extras: We did a 100-piece puzzle. We traded ten ones for a ten, and then ten tens for a hundred on our Days in School pocket chart. We invited friends to join us for pizza and an ice cream cake, which had 100 candles on it (sort of – it’s not easy to get 100... Read more
I remembered today why we have had housemates ever since Zach was six months old. I remembered just before dawn, when CutiePie woke up hungry. I remembered at 10:30 am, when I was putting CutiePie down for her nap. And I remembered tonight, when we were giving CutiePie a bath. At o’dark-thirty, she stood up in her pack’n’play, took one look at me, and started wailing. She was ready to get up and she wanted milk. Jeff, who normally takes... Read more
Ezra proudly read the sign outside the gas station. “God Bless America!” A few seconds further down the road, he added, “And God, throw Europe in the trash.” Okay, we’ve got a problem. And it’s not Ezra’s rampant patriotism. It’s that Ezra turns EVERYTHING into a competition, some kind of assessment of how he is faring compared to others. Today, when we were at the barber, he and Zach were contemplating buzz cuts. And Ezra turned to me and asked,... Read more
Several people I met over the last three days asked me how I liked homeschooling. I always started my answer with, “Actually, it sucks a lot of the time.” Which is how I have been answering since we started in September. Like Mikey from the Life cereal commercials, I hated everything, or at least that’s how I talked, and often how I wrote. I knew it was “supposed to be good for you,” but so much of it felt like eating... Read more
My friend Megan asked me tonight if I was taking enough “me time.” We were at a benefit dinner for CitySprouts, an organization in Cambridge that puts amazing vegetable gardens in every public school and then lets kids plant, water, harvest and get dirty. Great organization. Fun dinner with friends. My first reaction to Megan’s question was to get all judgmental Me time? What kind of privileged, self-absorbed worldview allows you to worry about your ratio of me time. But... Read more
Poor, Ez. He’s been the adorable baby of the family for his entire life. A position he likes just fine. One so deeply established that I didn’t think much about how he would react to having a one-year-old in the house. We’ve had two sets of housemates who each had a baby while living with us. Ezra was crazy about the first, a boy who was born while living with us. Not as crazy, but not upset by, the girl... Read more
“Why is life so harsh sometimes?” asks Ezra this morning on the way to the track. “What do you mean, buddy?” “Harsh. You know what harsh means, mom.” “Can you give an example of what you are talking about?” “Like the Bible, and slavery, and punishments. Really big punishments.” Wow. Where did that come from? “And why don’t parents get timeouts? What’s their punishment?” Ahhh, it’s getting clearer. Zach perks up and jumps in. “Yeah. You should get timeouts too.... Read more
The Homeschool Chronicles
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