Snow day

When I was a kid, snow days were fairly hard to come by. During the school year, I lived with my parents in Michigan. Folks there don't blanche at the thought of driving in a couple of feet of the white stuff, let alone braving subzero temperatures for months on end. The only way that school was called off was if it was literally impossible for the buses to make it out of the barn. It happened once or twice each winter and oh, how I loved those days. Listening to the radio with my dad in the morning and waiting to hear if my school was one of the ones closed. Eating a leisurely braekfast. Suiting up in more layers than the kid from "A Christmas Story." Playing until I was so cold that I lost feeling in my nose and toes, and then coming inside and waiting for the burning sensation to start as I pressed my fingers to the heating grate.

The very best part of snow days, though, was curling up next to my mom on the couch and listening to her read to me while I drank hot chocolate and she sipped hot tea. My mom wasn't big on reading aloud, and she wasn't overly keen on a lot of cuddling. I have no idea why, but something about snow gave life to all the affection she kept inside every other day of the year. She would absolutely lavish me with love on those cold afternoons, and I basked in it. One winter we read through "The Long Winter." Another, it was "Alive in Wonderland." My mother would hold the book just above my head as I leaned on her lap, fingering the fringe of one of the afghans she had made. The book dipped down to reveal illustrations, then bobbed back up to resume reading. My mother's tea pot--a real, porcelain pot--was snug inside a quilted tea cozy that sat on a huge silver tray that only came out on the most formal occasions. To this day, the smell of orange rind tea takes me back to those afternoons and makes me more homesick than just about anything else.

As an adult, I spend probably more than my fair share of time with my feet tucked under me and children crowded around as I read from the throne that it my couch. I really don't need an excuse to haul out a special book, or the hot chocolate that I buy in huge containers from Costco. But give me a good snow day, boy, and I pull out all the stops. Not only do we hit the sledding hill with a vengence, but we relive that family tradition of reading time, too. We pull out every warm blanket we can find, flip on the gas fireplace, add extra marshmallows to the cocoa and luxuriate in winter. Each of my children has their own special mug, and I drink from one that has each of their names and handprints on it. We don't just stop answering the phone ... we turn it off. Family time is family time, after all!

I'm so grateful that my mother took those opportunities that she did to love me through the coldest patches of winter. And I'm equally glad that I don't have to wait for snow to do it with my own children. But that doesn't mean I appreciate those times any less.

Names

We're involved in a ministry called Alpha. Designed to lead people to Christ, or to answer the questions of those new to faith in Him, the program runs for 10-12 weeks at a time. Last night was the final gathering of this session. Ten people were baptized. Me, I always get emotional when someone takes that leap; the most teary I've ever gotten was actually in the last session, when my best friend J. (who was, I think, 8 months pregnant at the time) was baptized. Now that was emotional!

Last night, though, all my tears were saved for the special presentation that the children perform at the end of each full Alpha session. We have a wonderful, spirited music director that teaches the children songs, handsigns and skits. This go-round, to keep things fresh (for those of us who have been through nine Alphas!) the director added in an essay component. The children were challenged to select a name of God and to write about it, backing their thoughts of with verses that spoke to them about that name.

Jo was absolutely in love with the idea of the project. Being the resourceful homeschooling mom that I am, I realized that the challenge would make a perfect writing assignment while we were out of town and she was staying with friends. Jo wrote her essay at their house, and turned it in on the evening that we picked her up. I never saw it.

So imagine my surprise when the music director called last week and let me know that Jo was the only one who had actually done the challenge. She would be presenting her essay, called "Bread of Life," at the big performance.

Wow.

I could tell you all sorts of wonderful things about that performance. I could tell you how Atticus actually remembered the sign language, which was amazing given his usual stoicism on stage. I could tell you how Jo danced, with her hands spread high, without a shred of self-consciousness. I could tell you how Logan made faces and exaggerated signs the whole time, cracking me up.

But you know what got me? What really, really got me? Right before my daughter climbed down from the risers and took her place at the microphone, the projection screen over the heads of the choir lit up. There, in letters 4-feet high, was my little girl's name.

It took her maybe five seconds to walk to that microphone. She was lanky and lean, with her funky pink Converse All-Stars and her bright cherry-red glasses and the smattering of freckles on her nose that I couldn't make out in the stage lights. In that brief moment, I remembered the very first time I said her name and looked at her fat, naked little body in my arms. I remembered the taste of that name, the unfamiliar sound of it in my ears. Nearly a decade between that moment and this, and yet ... that name. Who I had wanted her to be. Who she was. Who God intended her to be. All of it, tied up in that name for me at that moment.

Of course, I was crying before she even picked up the mic. She handled herself beautifully, stumbling here and there over her own handwriting, but maintaining an enviable decorum. The words that she had written were mature beyond her years, and expressed a faith that stuns me even now. And they were hers--all hers. No word suggestions from me, no direction or form pre-decided. All her.

Like her name. And the Lord's. So much meaning tied up in just a few letters.

Curriculum development

Dh comes from a family of professional educators. I make this distinction because they make this distinction. In other words, I am not a professional educator. (If you're reading this, chances are good you're not a professional educator either. So sorry.) Professional educators spend many, many years learning about classroom management, learning styles, child development and learning outcomes. As near as I can tell, I fit that description. What I am missing is the piece of sheepskin that grants me standing in a union that can barter my salary. There's the rub, of course.

As I've mentioned before, my mil is a kindergarten teacher at a fairly elite parochial school. Fil was a teacher for 15 years before moving into the business world to bump the family from the lower middle-class to the upper middle-class rung on the social ladder. All of mil's siblings are teachers, and one of them is also married to a teacher. Dh's younger sister is a speech pathologist ... in a public school. Her husband is also professional educator.

And we ((gasp)) homeschool.

If we lived nearby, no doubt the holiday dinner conversation would be rife with long pauses and raised eyebrows. But we don't live nearby and you know, I can't say that I lose sleep over the lost opportunity for showing them the light on home education. The conversations we do engage in on the topic are enough, thanks. It's enough right now that we are begrudgingly accepted, our children are mostly pitied (for their lack of recess experiences and their inability to play BINGO against anyone but their siblings when learning phonics) and their eyes are keenly on the calendar that will tell them when Jo reaches junior high and they will no doubt put on the pressure to pry our over-protective fingers from her coattails.

Things have taken a turn for the worse recently. The climate of "don't ask, don't tell" is being challenged by my brother-in-law. I don't really know my bil all that well; his wife was only 15 when dh and I got married, and they live a life that is not only geographically removed from our own, but also philosophically foreign to us. What I do know about him is pleasant enough. He teaches high school history in a public school. He coaches wrestling. He is a raving liberal, but tends toward fiscal conservatism.

He is also, coincidentally, getting a master's degree in curriculum development.

I'm going to be honest and admit that I had no idea such a thing existed. I knew that there were specialized degrees for folks with aspirations of "education administration," ie, they want to be principals, etc. But "curriculum development"? Surely something as scattershot as public school curriculum isn't actually developed? And if it is, isn't it the textbook publishers who mostly call the shots?

Apparently, not. Learn something new every day, huh?

Bil is knee-deep in this whole curriculum development thing. He's becomes quite vocal about it. I wouldn't normally mind, but the fact is that 90% of what he is spouting flies directly in the face of what I feel education is actually about. For example, the mere fact that bil is working on curriculum for children he has never even met falls short of educational excellence as far as I'm concerned. How can you plan a course of education for someone who you know nothing about? Sure, you can generalize ... but isn't someone (probably a lot of someones) going to fall through the cracks? Bil says no--in teacher-speak, he outlines the "inter-disciplinary methods" and the "interest-driven activities" and the "outcome-based systems." That's what makes a curriculum successful, he says. That, and a degree that says you're qualified to be putting one together.

The family brushes off my stance on these things with a simple comeback: "You're not a professional educator. You don't know what you're talking about." I guess they don't realize that I have absolutely no interest in being a professional educator. I'd rather worry about child-centered methods over inter-disciplinary ones. I'm more of a "what are you interested in?" kind of gal. And I certainly don't have any outcome systems--or not any that I'd label, anyway.

I'm just a mom. A mom who spends hours looking for the books and tools that excite my children. A mom who loves her kids first, their schooling second. A mom who has a a commandment to teach written on her heart instead of hanging on her wall.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. So pass the turkey, please.

Language Literacy

We are a language-oriented family. That's kind of a no-brainer. In my spare time (insert insane laughter here) I write fiction and short non-fiction pieces. Dh is a reporter for one of the biggest newspapers in the nation. We are always in the act of learning something, reading something or firing off missives outlining our stance on things. We read, read, read, and write, write, write. It's in our blood ... the very same blood that we've passed on to our children. They have books everywhere: in their beds, under their beds, in bags, on tables, stacked in corners. ((sigh)) It's a messy habit, this home education business.

I'm not really surprised that our children have taken up the cause of all learning all the time. Honestly, I think I'd be surprised if they weren't interested in something, KWIM? I really don't care what it is. Obsess over elephants. Research rabbits. Unearth Asia. Whatever floats your boat ... just learn.

What has surprised me is the interest each of the children has in foreign languages. When I say "interest," what I mean is a desire to speak and read in that tongue. Insane, huh? Where did that come from? Must have been all those books we've read from infancy that don't involve talking bunnies reciting the ABC's. ;-) At any rate, my children are each engaged in learning languages. This poses a bit of a problem for dh and I, who mastered French and German, respectively, before closing our college texts and never again chancing to diagram another sentence that started with the masculine or feminine articles.

In other words, I wouldn't say I am fluent in anything but English--although I will admit that my Spanish is better than most Americans. Same for dh, who can tell you a few off-color phrases in French and not much more despite five years of study.

Thankfully, homeschoolers have the time to dedicate to these random interests. And the resources ... oh, the resources. We happen to live in an area where Rosetta Stone language software is accesible online for free. Yes ... for free! This opens the doors my children to indulge their lingophile tendencies without putting dh and I in the position of having them prioritize. Can you imagine the conversations: "Look, son, you can learn Latin or Swahili, but not both. Maybe next year, o.k.?"

So, if you come by my house in the pre-lunch hours, take a moment to stand underneath the open front window and listen. Chances are good you'll hear beginning Japanese (Atticus's current favorite), followed by French (Jo) and Spanish (Logan), then advanced Spanish (Jo), then more Spanish (Atticus), then Greek (Jo) followed by U.K. English (Logan thinks its a hoot). If you're lucky, you'll hear my children call for our dog using the nine different words they know from various languages. And if you're really, really lucky, I'll remember how to greet you in German.

Encouraged?

I don't come from the most encouraging family. Both my mother and father are pretty tight-lipped when it comes to pouring out praise. They come by it honestly; neither of their parents were apparently cheerleaders when it came to the accomplishments of their children.

I tend to swing in the other direction. Granted, my predilection to praise is probably directly rooted in the fact that I hungered for a morsel of "atta-girl" from my own mom and dad. I like to think it is just because I am generally pretty aware of the effort others put forward and like to acknowledge that. Wherever the tendency springs from, I know it's noticed. My kids give me a wonderful mirror to look into every time they echo: "Wow, that was hard work, but you did it!" or "How did you figure that out? You sure are smart!"

But as I said, I don't come from a very encouraging family. The best you were likely to get in my house growing up was a "You're better than that" or "I guess that's alright." I still don't count on a whole lot of "You sure are smart!" comments when I talk to my mother. She may very well tell others that she thinks I'm the bee's knees, but she'd never admit it to me. And the closest thing I hear from my dad (when I talk to him once every quarter) is that I made a wise choice in buying a Dodge.

As a result, it takes a lot to really burst my bubble. And I really don't rely on the feedback of others to make or break my mood or day. Growing up without much "building up" leaves you either oblivious or bitter. I picked oblivious. And for the most part, it's not a terrible way to be as long as you pray to keep your heart from growing hard.

So I was caught completely off-guard on Sunday when I hung up the phone and felt the sting of an obvious cut-down.

The perp was one of my mom's sisters, an aunt with whom I spent many a summer growing up. I'll call her Aunt Bea, though she has nothing in common with Andy's beloved aunty in Mayberry. Aunt Bea has never really liked me--as far as I can tell--but then again, she's never really seemed overly fond of anyone in my generation. She is nice enough, don't get me wrong. She housed me and fed me and entertained me for quite a lot of my childhood memories, so I can't complain too much, KWIM?

Aunt Bea has always had the same acidic tongue as my mother. She "nit picks" as we Southerners say; she finds a sore spot and hones in on it. Then, like a child who can't keep their hands off a loose tooth, she wiggles and waggles it until you just want to snap. I'll be fair here and say that I really don't think she is aware that this bothers people. I really don't think she is a terrible, awful person. I think it's just ingrained in her--like it's ingrained in my mother--and she doesn't think twice before she sets to picking.

When the phone rang on Sunday and I saw her name in the caller id, I admit that I braced myself. Aunt Bea honestly only calls me when she and my mother are at war, which happens about once a year. I had low expectations when I answered the phone, and I was rewarded. Aunt Bea never asks how I am. Never wants to hear about my kids, my husband, my life. She usually gets right to unearthing the ugly things every family has in its closet ... which is precisely what she did. I dodged and ducked the comments. Finally, after Aunt Bea had pumped me for information about when I might come east and why my brother isn't working, she gave a long sigh and hit me with this one:

"Well, I have to say, you sure seem like you're doing good out there. It surprises me. I never thought you had it in you to turn out o.k."

((choke))

Did she just say that?!?! She did! She just told me that I was a big old loser in whom she had no faith, and was completely amazed that I'd managed to pull myself up to some level of civility that she deems acceptable!

I answered very sweetly. I'm pretty proud of my reply actually, because it's usually only after a day or two of reliving any given situation that I come up with what I wish I had said. I told her, "Thanks, Aunt Bea. I sure am glad you waited until now to tell me that. You know, if you had said that to me back when I was first married and trying to figure out my direction in life, it would have really hurt me."

She didn't say anything back, of course. She got off the phone pretty quick, asking me to send her a Christmas card. Uh ... o.k. Sure thing.

I write this not to make any big statement. No, maybe I am making a big statement: encourage someone today. Take the time to tell them something wonderful about themselves, or to thank them for the way that they love or live. Even if it feels weird, just do it. Because you just don't know. They may have just hung up with their Aunt Bea. And if she's been spreading her style of compliment, they may really be blessed by yours.

Babies "r"n't Us

I went to Babies 'R' Us today. It was the first time I'd been there in years. I can remember haunting the place when I was expecting Jo; eyeing the adorable little crib sets I couldn't afford, dreaming about the perfect bassinet and wondering if the wee person growing in my belly would prefer the monitor that had sound and lights, or just sound. Somewhere around her first birthday, I found that it just wasn't very fun to take her there anymore. The baby of my dreams and the little soul entrusted to me by God didn't actually line up all that well, and I was beginning to see that that was precisely the point the Lord was trying to impress upon me. As it turns out, she didn't care which monitor we chose anymore that He did.

But I digress.

So, I went to Babies 'R' Us today. It was very much the same as it was a decade ago, when I was venturing into new motherhood. You can still buy wipe warmers and a frightening number of appliances meant to mimic the sensation of being in a mother's arms. There are things you actually need there, too. Like ... well ... diapers. Although, I admit I'm not as keen on disposables as I used to be. But again, I digress.

So ... I went to Babies 'R' Us today.

Oh, come on! Aren't you going to ask what I was doing in Babies 'R' Us?!?!

I was there with my best friend, J. She is the proud momma of three of the cutest boys I've ever seen that don't live under my roof. We were there to look for a shower gift for a friend of hers. And to see if they had any adoption-themed baby books.

For my family, of course.

Yep. After walking away from a disasterous Russian adoption proccess nearly two years ago, we have decided to quit putting our hands over our ears when God talks to us about adding to our family through adoption. We attended a retreat about foster/adopt last weekend and are going ahead with the process. God willing, sometimes in 2007, our family will expand by a little one or two.

So I went to Babies 'R' Us today. And for the first time in a long time, I was an expectant mommy, too. ;-) And while I don't see myself springing for the Guaranteed-To-Soothe-Your-Cranky with Brain-Enhancing Music and Stimulating Colors Deluxe swing ... it was kind of fun to look.

Nine

As of today, Jo is no longer "dd8." She is now "dd9," which somehow seems so ...big!

Nine years ago, I held 10 lbs. and 2 ounces of black-headed baby girl in my arms and wondered who in the world thought I was qualified enough to parent this unbelievable gift. She was--and is-- the most amazing lesson the Lord has ever given me; I have learned more about Him--and myself--in my years of being Jo's mother than in the 23 years that came before.

Thank you for letting me be your mother, Jo. Welcome to the last year of single digits!