Groundhog Plays Soccer

I looked out the window and saw my handsome German Shepherd Dog, Sergeant, going crazy over by the fence. It was clear he had discovered one of our nearby forest inhabitants, and it obviously wasn't a squirrel or a rabbit as he would already have scarfed them up. Fearing it may be a snake or a skunk, I ran outside to find....

a soccer-playing groundhog. I'll grant you, it's not what I expected!

Hideous though they are, I nevertheless found mercy for the fat, garden-decimating vermin. So, I called off the dog and gave Beckham a chance to escape. Can't you just picture a spoof Groundhog World Cup? That would be Must-See TV!

Fragile

In the past five years, I've learned something about windows and balls. I've had two incisive lessons. What I've learned is, it doesn't take a hard baseball to break a window. Even a relatively small ball, say a soft-sided juggling ball or a super-bounce rubber ball, are a smashing success. And I do mean smashing.

My first lesson took place five years ago, in the Family Room, with Professors Kyla and Collin. They deftly demonstrated that a super-bounce rubber ball can, in fact, shatter a window. Since my darling husband is many things, including a procrastinator, the window is still broken. Although both children served punishments for that mishap, the lesson apparently did not stick with Collin. Or else he didn't think it applied to juggling balls.

Collin and Mason were in charge of the second demonstration. They were in the Studio, which is essentially our homeschooling room, the long bonus room over the garage. Even way back on the other side of the house, I heard shattering glass. Moments later, a stricken Collin came in with the confession.

At least he was contrite. Grief-stricken, even.

They are both serving time, living out the summer without the dubious benefit of DSis, Wii, computer or TV. Personally, I wish it was like that all the time, because I have been amazed and impressed with the worthwhile uses they find for their time without electronic distractions.

So, here is my Studio window, custom-designed to match my Family Room window.

P.S. I should mention that philosophically, taking away electronics is not what I normally do to correct poor judgement. I see no connection between the two. DH felt the need to exact some sort of punishment and so he chose this. They do also have to work to pay restitution, but it wasn't realistic to have them work to pay for something so expensive and it wouldn't have been fair to Collin, since he can work much harder than Mason. On the whole, though, we almost never use "grounding" in the traditional sense.

The Way Boys Play

When it's not feeling hectic and crazy, it is so fun to watch all three of my kids play soccer. This is Mason's first crack at it and he is a natural. 'Bout time all that energy got used to some productive purpose. Today was his second game and he scored four goals. He also put a mean block on the other team's striker just before the boy pegged a goal. Since he is in clinic, his team is co-ed. It really is a remarkable thing to watch the difference in the play of boys and girls.

Collin had a make-up game on Friday night, so we all went. (We've been splitting up on the weekends and I hadn't seen him play yet this season.) He has quite a nice, competitive soccer team. It was great fun to watch, especially since we won. The difference between boys playing and girls playing is very noticeable. The boys are so aggressive, so serious. They mean to make that goal, they are faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive.

I'm not on point of lumping all boys as warriors and all girls as nurturers. I'm sure I can point out a number of cautious, tender boys and a few blazing, blustering girls. And every team has it's variations in players. Still - on the whole, the boys play harder. There's a part of boys in which it is all about the conquest, the win, the beating of the opponent, the victory. Sure, girls like to win, too, but it doesn't have that desperate edge, that necessary quality.

My daughter played today, and they smoked the competition, too. It was a great game. But, there are the differences, all you have to do is look. A girl kicks another girl and looks stricken with remorse. Boys step on the opponent's head and never look back. Mason plowed an opposing player in his game. When he came off the field, he smiled and said, "I think I almost broke his arm!" Because I'm a girl, I was shocked and said, "And you should have said you were sorry, too!" Dad wasn't there, but I think if he had been, there would have been hi-fives involved.

Only Chicken Should Be Fried

Chicken is good fried. I know, I know, in moderation, of course. Don't want the arteries to protest. But chicken is good fried.

Mothers - not good fried. Yet mothers are so often fried. If you wish to keep from being fried, there is constant pressure, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, to jump into the basin of fat with the other Do-It-All moms and swim around in there until you are so crispy, you go on a bender when you see a lone, wet sock in the middle of the kitchen floor. "WHY can't you people just PUT your THINGS and your deeee-sgusting CLOTHING in the god-forsaken HAMPER!?!" Ahem. Not that I've ever said that.

I think homeschoolers are even more vulnerable than "normal" mothers to feel this pressure to join it all, sign up for it all, host it all, volunteer it all, lead-the-group it all and dash all over the county to try and give the kids "opportunities". Homeschoolers in particular have something to prove: "See? We're so social! We don't lack for friends, fun or fantastic extracurriculars!" I mean, it's awesome that homeschooling has come this far. I am thrilled that we have a thriving, fantastic homeschooling community. There are so many offers for clubs, groups, field trips, park days, hang-out days, trips, classes and tutoring that we could be gone every single day of the week, every time-frame of each day: morning, mid-day, afternoon and evening, all year long. Only that sort of begs the question of when we would actually learn to conjugate French verbs and find the circumference of a circle.

This year, I am a member of three different homeschool support groups...oh, no wait, four, actually, if you count my umbrella group. It is hard - sometimes even painful - to see all these cool things come continuously streaming into my e-mail box, begging me to join, host, participate or attend. I must say NO to most of them. At least, to many of them. It may even be somewhat detrimental to be a member of four groups. Ignorance is bliss, in a way. I have already said "Yes!" to soccer, a full day of Specials classes each Friday, a trip to Ellis Island, hosting monthly support group meetings, aiding at co-op on Friday, a women's retreat at church, twice-monthly Fun With Friends night, thrice-monthly middle-schooler Bible study and I think I gave a firm "Maybe" to apple-picking in late September. I was going to do Hiking in Harper's Ferry, (love it there!) but ironically, the trip was cancelled because none of the homeschoolers could pick a date that didn't have conflicting classes, trips or co-ops. I have said No to: Book Club for my kids, homeschool swimming, pumpkin park day, Not-Back-To-School breakfast, Oriole Park tour, Colonial Williamsburg homeschool days, Codorus State Park programs, drawing with nature program and now a writing group that my daughter would surely adore. And those are just the things I really want to do but can't, not nearly a list of all the opportunities available. I'm trying to get my kids back to piano lessons, but there is not a single minute available when I can do it and so can my piano teacher.

I am also planning my upcoming trip to Disney - a whole 'nother post, there!

People, are you with me? We just have to say No to some of this stuff. Especially if we homeschool. The mere mention of anything *else* that is planned for a Thursday evening is enough to trigger an asthma attack. Please put me in the slow-cooker. I really don't want to be fried.

Undone

I'm going public. I'm just going to throw it out there, so you'll all know. At my age, and with all I've been through concerning bringing life into this world, and seeing how I have the requisite 3 children, I know the expectation is that I'm "done". Finished with bringing up babies. Certainly my husband has said that he's done, which does tend to make me done by default. But in my heart I am so not done. I'm actually coming undone.

I know all the arguments as to why I should be done. They are even good ones. I've tried to come to appreciate all the perks I'm supposed to be so happy about. Everyone sleeps through the night around here now. Everyone uses the toilet. My ass is reasonably firm again. Travel has gotten easier, if not any less expensive. I even have a few hours a day to just do whatever I like. There's room in the car for groceries AND kids. Everyone has their own bedroom. I've tried to savor all of these benefits. But none of them is as lovely as raising another child would be. I could postpone all of those fringe benefits another three years for the joy of having another child to raise.

I know I'm a terrible candidate for having another baby. But that's not the only way to bring another child into our lives. I fantasize about adopting; I dream in Chinese and Russian. I literally had a dream last night about a little Eastern European girl named "Dasha". Over and over I kept saying "Dasha" in my head and when I woke up, I could not forget that thought.

I was just reading a book called "Comfort" by Ann Hood. A gripping memoir about the sudden death of her 5-year-old daughter, I sobbed and nodded the whole way through. Towards the end of the book (spoiler, here), she had endeavored to have another baby, but was not successful conceiving. I had this sense of coincidence building and thought, "Watch. I bet she adopts a little girl from China." Which is just what she did.

I asked Kelly if he would consider adopting. Unsurprisingly, he said no. I cried and cried, though, as if I thought he might just say something totally off-the-wall, like, "Wow! I was JUST thinking that! Lets print off the I-600A right now!" But no. He said no. It wasn't a strident no. But I do think he really just wishes I would get on with my life and stop wanting another child.

I would even do that, if I could just do that. I've tried. It doesn't work. Now I'm starting to feel a little desperate about it, because we really are running short on time. I've even felt I should stop ignoring God and plead with Him, since that's the only shot I have. I try to pray about it, but I get all tangled up in that whole "God's will" issue. I've prayed for a baby before and look at how that ended up.

I think there are people for whom it never works out. They never do wind up with the family they had hoped for. So, why should I be any different? But I hope I am. I hope I am right to still want children. I hope I am right to not be done. I might as well hope because in the end, that is all I have anyway.

Protest: Down with snacks!

I know I'm risking unpopularity by saying this. My husband told me, "You are in the minority." I'm sure he is right. All the other soccer moms go along with the program. Yet, perhaps somewhere across this great nation there are 3 or 5 other soccer moms who feel as I do. It is for them that I write. For them, I risk alienation on sidelines from Mt. Airy to Hagerstown.

I really resent the concept of the soccer snack.

It probably started out innocently enough. Perhaps there were a few coaches or generous team mothers who often brought a boatload of Oreos and Gatorade to the games. This made the other parents feel guilty, so they decided to share the task of feeding overpriced junk food to the athletes. So, they started out with a voluntary sign-up, which wasn't really voluntary, given the peer pressure.

What have we now? We have an obligatory list onto which our names automatically are written, which binds us to cram one more task into our overwrought brains. Now, not only do we need to discover where on God's green earth West Mountain Elementary School is (past the 12th dairy farm on the left), we also need to bring goodies for everybody. And a chair. And sippy cups for the preschooler. And water. And wipes. And bug spray. And a potty, just in case.

The thing is, lots of people bring snacks anyway, particularly if there are little siblings. When buying snacks for everybody, there's always that concern of just how healthy will the kids tolerate vs. just how junky you can go before the parents disapprove. And then you have all those food allergies out there, threatening to swell the goalie at the mere suggestion of peanuts. Couldn't we just bring snacks for our own families if we want?

One year, we had a coach who seemed (thankfully) to be fairly against sugary snacks, so he suggested that we all stick to the same snack: oranges. This was better in some ways. However, have you ever bought 12 oranges off season? It equals the cost of throwing a smallish party. And then you have the sticky-hands factor, so bring wipes and a trash bag also.

The idea originally was to spread around the cost and effort. Only now, it increases everybody's cost and effort. It's similar to the idea behind governmental health care. Instead of no one person paying more than others, everybody pays. Besides, do the kids always need a snack?

P.S. to my kids' fine coaches. Ignore this. I'll bring the snack as scheduled, as every good soccer mom does. I stop just short of real activism and merely bitch about things.

Mason's Diagnosis

Well, now that we finally went to our appointment at the prestigious neuro-developmental center in Baltimore and endured the two-hour analysis of our son, we learn that he suffers from.....nothing. Difficult Child Syndrome. Parenting Effectiveness Deficit Disorder. Something along those lines.

They say he's normal. So, why do I still feel that nagging concern at the back of my mind like you get when you're on a flight to Orlando and can't remember if you unplugged the iron before you left? I just don't think I managed to communicate my concerns. At one point, the psychologist (or whatever her title actually is) asked how I would discipline him if he kicked someone. I didn't answer that effectively, mostly because he doesn't go around kicking people. I think when I said, "I'm not really sure
what I would do...", she figured she had arrived at the problem. Just teach these people how to manage a 3-year-old and everything will be fine.

I knew it was going wrong when she was describing a Time-Out method and stated that, "Struggling against a time-out shouldn't continue beyond about three times with this method." HAAAAAA! If Mason's behavior shaped up in ANY respect after the third time of managing the problem, it would be a miracle! That was the whole point of why I think there's a problem!

I was also disquieted when I read the report, which states, "Mason's parents feel that he is a much more difficult child to raise than their other two children." This is true, but is not the point! A more accurate statement would have been, "Mason's parents feel that he is a much more difficult child to raise THAN MOST."

Her phone number is on the bottom of the report, along with an invitation to contact her "anytime". I'm tempted. But I also just want to forget about it for now.

I feel like I wasted time off on rabbit trails about time-outs and how to do them effectively when I should have been telling her every single wacky thing he does that I can think of. Why do I still have to heed the "Choking Hazard: Not for Children Under 3 Years of Age" warning? Can't give Mason small pieces! Why can't he play with toys that have more than, say, six pieces? In 3 minutes or less, he will throw them pointlessly all over the place. Why do I still give him mostly board books? Because he destroys books with paper pages! Why does he shout out for no apparent reason? Sometimes "obscenely"; i.e., 'Poopies!' Why does he relish the dog food? Why does he draw on his face? Why does he eat crayons? Why did I find him with pushpins in his mouth a week ago? Why does he cry about the same things a zillion times, even though he knows it will change nothing? Why does he binge or starve like Ashley Olsen, rather than just eat a little food at each meal?

I feel quite lost about the whole thing. I'm glad he's not considered on the autism spectrum. I'm pretty amazed they didn't pin him with ADHD. I'm relieved they didn't have their prescription pad handy. But I'm frustrated to have no explanation for Mason's behavior. I'm left again to gritting through it, waiting for him to grow out of it and a improving my discipline technique, as if I haven't been disciplining him all along.

Two good things that came out of the appointment: 1) I know he is intellectually normal; and 2) I discovered how much he likes to have a useful job. She encouraged me to give him work to do. This is most definitely good for him. If he puts all the napkins in the hamper after dinner and I tell him what a good helper he is, he is radiant. Pity I can't do that ten hours a day.

He is so blessed cute with those blue eyes like early April mornings. But, God is he exhausting! This is my one, rare admission about something with homeschooling being hard. It is hard to occupy him in a meaningful way while we're doing schoolwork, because he has the attention span of a gnat. I could spend 17 minutes getting him set up to paint the next poster paint masterpiece, but it's only buying me three minutes of actual freedom. And then I have to clean up. Except that today, I was doing this "give him a job" strategy, so I let him waste a load of paper towels cleaning up his spilled murky water himself.

It makes me burn with curiosity about the Duggars, or other families even a mere half the size at eight homeschooling kids. Yeah, I know they have the whole "buddy system" and that Maxwell Chart from Hell hanging on the wall that tells everybody what they are supposed to be doing at a given time. But, honestly, out of 17 kids, didn't they get a hard one along the line? I only have two other children to help and they mostly do their main work independently. But still. Kyla needs me sitting right with her for math at the moment. And Collin needs that for English. And Mason needs some sort of intervention every blessed nanosecond. How do the Duggars do it? Maybe when the last kid is up and out, if they can still write, they will explain it all. But by then it will be moot for me, darn it.

Funny Money

I subscribe to Money magazine. Sure, I love the tax tips, advice on how to make a dollar stretch and, most of all, the annual Mutual Fund Scorecard. But one of my favorite sections, which always strikes me as humor, though it isn't intended to be, is the "One Family's Money" section. Every month, I flip right to it.

The idea behind "One Family's Money" is to profile a family who is having some difficulty with their finances and show them ways to fix their troubles. The part I find funny is that the family nearly always has an income of $100K or more.

This month's feature is about a divorced father who has custody of his four teenage children. Now, I am certain this situation has plenty of pain involved, and so I'm not making light of the situation itself. And I do commend the dad on the sacrifices he's making on his children's behalf.

But, since the article is specifically about money issues, I have to interject. First, it mentions how he had to take a $45,000 pay cut in order to live near the children's mother. Ouch! That hurts. However, he's making $156,000. (How will he ever survive?) Then, it mentions how having four children under his roof has inflated his grocery bill to $1,500. HOLY CROW!!! That's more than twice as much as I spend on a "bad" month! If I were his financial advisor, I'd start right there. Here's a tip: make your own waffles.

It goes on to say that in one trip to the sporting-goods store, he dropped more than $1,000. What did he buy? Kayaks for everyone?

As a side-note, the article also rolls out a little pity-party for his "opportunities lost". First of all, he had to turn down a promotion that involved long hours. If he had stayed on that path, he'd be making $500K now. The article says, "Once the kids moved in, he lost a lot of freedom too. His evenings filled up with recitals and emergency trips to the dollar store for school supplies. He had to cook or pick up dinner..." Oh, cry me a river! Gee, what must it be like to have to spend your whole evening taking care of the kids, running them all over God's green earth and even making a meal?! I'm sorry: no pity at this well. It's pumped dry on myself, thank you.

What I'd really like to see is Money printing articles about a family who really squeezes by. Show me the financial plan of a family of five living on $50,000. That is what really makes fascinating, informative reading. That's why we loved The Tightwad Gazette. The woman had a $50 budget for clothing for her family of eight. Per year!!! I always wondered what she did for bras, underwear and socks, since that alone tallies up to probably $300.00 per year around here. Although it's possible I don't really want to know!

We all make choices and prioritize, so I'm not really picking on someone who apparently eats steak and shrimp every night, given the outrageous grocery bill. But I find it a bit kooky that Money always profiles a family with fistsful of money and then says, "Whatever will they do???" It would be so much better the other way. Gosh, I'm not even a numbers kind of gal, but I am positive I could tell the poor dad how to improve his money situation.

One last tip: your daughter could live without Abercrombie & Fitch.