Monday Musing--It's Just a Number, Right?

A few days ago, I hopped on the scale to get the base reading for a puppy weight check. What? What's that?The scale must have been on a grout line or something, but no... there it was. It wasn't horrible, but it was a number I haven't seen since I was on my way up or down from having a baby*. And while that would be a welcome surprise, I'm pretty sure that's not the case, as a decision we made in early 2008 would make that somewhat of a medical miracle. 

I should be clear here--I'm not popping any buttons, we're talking maybe three (five) pounds, but when I reflect back, I realize that putting on my favorite Lucky jeans has been making me feel more breathless than fortunate recently. 

So what's the story? I read author Nichole Bernier's clever interview about what gives when wearing the hats of writer and mother, about how it is difficult to keep more than three balls in the air at once. This year, I added the new ball of having my kids home all the time to my juggling routine, so there was WRITING/BOOK TOUR, HOUSE, KIDS/HOMESCHOOL. Like Nichole, I watched exercise fall out of rotation more and more. (And if you ask my husband, he might point to a few other items that have been more backburnered this year. Yes, I'm talking about the ironing.)

The kicker is, I do exercise; I still run, but it's the same 3-6 mile routes I have since I was eighteen. In the winter season, I play ice hockey, and there's co-ed field hockey once a week March-November. But I don't go to the gym. I haven't since 2007, when I had my kids on a delayed vaccine schedule and we renamed the day care room at LA Fitness "the germ" for everything they brought home from there. The most serious 'workout' I do is the Gilad fitness show on cable--not rigorous and so ridiculous to squat and curl in my living room where swinging a weight too wildly could brain one of the kids bopping and sweating alongside me. 

While I went through the usual teenage weight angst, rib-counting and dieting dramas, as an adult I have been lucky. Pregnancies were kind to me and breastfeeding melted the pounds right off again. I eat pretty much what I want, play the sports I like, and I look pretty much the way I want to. (Though of course who is ever really satisfied?) Part of this is because a lot of the things I like are relatively healthy--roasted kale, quinoa, grilled tilapia and grape tomatoes with a little shredded cheese stick is one of my all time favorite meals. Our family doesn't eat much meat and we've been gluten free since 2005. As a result, we don't eat out often. My biggest vices are bacon and dairy--I could go the rest of my life without ever having another bagel, but removing cheese from my diet is unthinkable. And then there is the sugar in my tea, a must. And white wine... 

So how to handle these unwanted extras on the scale? Do I tell myself it's just a number, and focus on the more important things? Could it be that I'm crossing over into that new phase of life where, post-35, a woman has to work harder, literally run to stand still?  Or maybe I need to do the hospitable thing and invite these three (five) random pounds to stay? After all, they got up in the dark with me on those early writing mornings and kept me company while I drank sugared jasmine tea and wrote about a fictional marriage falling apart. These three (five) pounds traveled all over the country with me on book tour, eating nachos everywhere from the deep South to the Pacific Northwest. (It's a disorder--if there are nachos on the menu, even in a Chinese restaurant, I am literally unable to order anything else. Ask J about the crab shack in Outer Banks.) I'd like to be a gracious host, but I don't think the pounds can stay. Summer is here and trust me when I say with my short legs, 'mom-style' tank suits do me no favors; I've got to be able to sport a two piece. The extras must be cut.

My first line of attack has been to add a little more intensity to my runs--to pick a route with the hill I mention in this essay more frequently and try, despite the summer humidity that makes it feel more like swimming, to go more often. 

Secondarily, I have examined my diet and I've come up with a few likely culprits:

1.) Nutella--I buy this in the jumbo size jar and Pippi and I have 'tella toast 'n' tea almost every morning. People we stayed with on book tour could not believe the amount of Nutella we can go through in a week. This is not negotiable. Do you see this face?

Morning Ritual

Would you leave this face hanging when it came time for our morning ritual?

2.) Summer mojitos-- every summer, the mint patch under our cherry tree goes wild, and J and I are forced to harvest it, to keep it in check with nightly mojitos during our evening walk. These are his amazing concoction of muddled fresh lime and mint, ginger ale, Bacardi and sugar on the rim. Swoon. There are so many reasons I love this man.

Which leaves us with this:

3.) Grilled vegetables-- this is the only other thing I can think of. It's summer, and we're grilling more, which means asparagus and sweet potatoes and peppers and onions drizzled in olive oil outside on the grill. Olive oil is fattening, right?

So the cut that needs to be made is obvious. It seems a shame, with summer's bounty and all, but I sure am going to miss those veggies. 

* *** * 

*This is not entirely true. Other than pregnancy, there was one other time when I weighed more than 125. It was at the end of my freshman year of college. Seventeen years old, at The University of the South, away from home for the first time, I discovered beer. Thursday nights, my roommate and I would buy Falstaff by the $10/case (it's no wonder I still don't like beer with that as my intro!) and there was no amount of D3 field hockey or dining hall salad bar (albeit with liqui-lard ranch dressing) that could combat guzzling those before heading out the ATO house to drink more of it while standing on our heads. A complete cliche, I gained the dreaded freshman fifteen. 

MONDAY MUSING - What to Do with the Boys, Part 3

Over the past few weeks, I have been examining the looming question of how to handle the boys' education next year in a three part series called What to Do with the Boys? Part One and Part Two are linked. 

I certainly hope this is part 3 of 3, and that the wind you might be feeling in your own corner of the world is a collective sigh from me and everyone who has listened to me chew this topic to death exhaling.

Sometime in between me writing part one and two, Hayden started making more noise about returning to school, until the rumblings became a definite roar. I picked up the application and financial form, while visions of khakis and approved collared shirts danced in my head. I imagined trying to come up with four gluten-free lunches a week that could leave with him in the morning, not need to be heated up, and still be tasty at noon. I wondered about things like bedtimes and alarm clocks, which we haven't had to worry about for a year, and about impromptu trips for the paperback book tour or for HN International...

Being tied to the schedule and regimen of a school year; honestly, it isn't what I would choose. But it is what Hayden chose, and became adamant, even insistent on as last week drew to a close.

"You won't even have to do anything! I'll get up on my own and I'll just ride my bike and do all my homework and everything without you even having to ask me!" His reasons: so he can be with friends all day, and because there is a science lab at the school. 

As I put together his portfolio and see 490 photos of Hayden out in nature or in front of museum exhibits and landmarks all over the US,  as I read his blog posts, I confess I am a little disappointed that this adventure is ending. Hayden wants to be with his peers all day, what I imagine is an age-appropriate development. I applaud his ability to make a decision and wonder what new kinds of learning and development will happen for him in 4th grade at his old school. 

Max, in a surprising show of independence, maintained his desire to keep learning at home. I go back and forth on this one, but for now, I will continue to put together learning groups with peers and YBC and finding things that will keep him busy, because you know being separated from Hayden for 7 hours/day will equal one squirrelly little brother. 

Piper will go on to her next year at the preschool which is in the same campus as Hayden's school. A bonus: she will no longer be the only member of the family 'going to school'--something she has started to question. 

It feels peaceful to have decided, so that the Virgo in me can start to envision next year. What it means is our lives will have more of a lot of things. More structure. More writing time for me. More time to exercise. Also, I think with a twinge, more time apart. Less freedom.

What we will be losing: Mondays like today, where I scrambled eggs at 8:30 for breakfast as they slowly rolled out of bed and clambered next to their little sister on the couch. As they clucked over and examined her painfully emerging molar, I set up the boys' math sheets around nine. Hayden claimed growing pains and went off to shower instead of finishing his work while Max industriously tackled his. Then it was time for two hours of gymnastics and pick up lacrosse with the home school crowd. After denying H's playdate request on the grounds of unfinished work, back home to finish Hayden's math and both of their reading time while I worked on printing out their old blogs for the portfolio. Lunch and then an inspired moment between the brothers when Hayden did what J and I haven't been able to for the past two years--taught Max to ride a two wheel bike in the perfect May sunshine.

Hayden: cheerleading and fist pumping. Max hooting: I finally conquered my fears! Both with grins as wide as their little faces.

Followed by more brother bike riding, Hayden teaching him the fine art of the skid and off-roading. Followed by challenging each other at brain teasers, visiting with my Dad, and then friends who stopped by to jump on the trampoline. Together, they changed the water for their tadpoles and went to check out the progress at the garden, and try to get a closer look at a new Canada goose who has just built her nest nearby. On the agenda for tonight--making pizza and family swim, then out to Rita's for water ice to celebrate Max's accomplishment. 

Perhaps I romanticize this too much. These moments, long days like this won't disappear--and maybe they will be sweeter because of their infrequency? Maybe the following year, Hayden will decide to learn at home and Max will decide he wants to see what school is all about? Or maybe we'll all live on a converted tugboat. Or spend our winter becoming fluent in Spanish while living in the Bay Islands. Who knows?

One of Jon's mom's favorite sayings was "Hard to say..." I see her with her head cocked to the side, her cheek tucked in between her back teeth as she ponders this one alongside me. Hard to say...

For now, I think we can put this issue to bed and enjoy the incredible weather and the coming summer, do something that is one of my biggest challenges: live in the now.

MONDAY MUSING -- What to Do with the Boys Part Two

This week I will continue my series from last week as we look deeper into our microcosm of the traditional vs. homeschool debate. You can find Part One here. In our attempt to find the right answer, what we keep coming to is that there is merit in both options, and my husband often reminds me, 'one year at a time'. But what about this time, this year? Ironically, academics are the least of my concerns at this point. Hayden scored in the 95th percentile on the required standardized tests this year. At six, Max can read, add, subtract, multiply and divide. Two of their learning stretches were to know multiplication tables through ten (Max) and twelve (Hayden) and be able to identify all fifty states. 

Education is about so much more than academics, and in our attempt to look at the boys as whole people, we ponder their paths for next year...

Hayden

Our oldest son is now nine, and his experience as well as our battles over homework, time management and the way school seemed to negatively flavor many of our interactions are a big part of why we started on this journey in the first place. The irony of telling my reader to put down his books so he could go to school was never lost on me. And school, even a school I like, was starting to feel like a bossy nanny, who tells parents how to dress the children, how to feed them, and dictates how our shrinking time together in the late afternoon and evening will be spent--on busywork. 

This year has brought few surprises where Hayden is concerned. What he loves: learning that is 'expeditionary'. Some of his favorite moments have happened out in the wilderness, where we assisted a watershed employee with her fieldwork trapping and identifying turtles and fish, complete with a downriver swim home. 

He also became a huge asset to me on my travels this past fall, using his newly acquired map and navigation skills plus an iPhone to get us from point A to B to C and more. (I can't say enough great things about the Rand McNally geography books!) A bonus: a trip for the two of us to Atlanta where he ate paleo with our hosts, stood awestruck in front of the whale shark tank for more than an hour, confidently dropped in the half-pipe at the skatepark, kept me company on my guest teaching experiences and read quietly during my book club and Borders appearances. You can read more about this here. 

Hayden with whale sharks, Georgia Aquarium 

What does he balk at? No surprise; busy work. Handwriting. Journaling and blogging. But the surprise was this spring--paired with an education major at the local college for a twice weekly writing class, Hayden had the good fortune to be matched with someone who believes in the value of graphic novels as the bridge to writing, and together they created an illustrated story about a snail with social challenges. His enthusiasm for a writing class thrills me, to see him watch the clock and itch to hop his bike and head over early. 

Social Butterfly and the Terrible Gardening Analogy

When I ask what is his favorite part of home schooling, Hayden says 'time with friends'. Hayden has a deep hunger for constant social activity. He often asks, as I am driving him home from a playdate at dinnertime, if he can have another friend over right then. The mini-session we put together this spring, three hours, three subjects, three times a week for nine kids peppered with lots of challenge course and team building activities were some of his favorite weeks of home schooling.

When I ask about next year, he says the only reason he would go back to school is for more time with friends. In explaining this to my sister, I tried to create an analogy: "That's like saying, wow, I really love corn. I'm going to toil and labor and do all the work of putting in a 4 acre garden and devote much of each day to its cultivation and care so I can have some corn. But corn, equally delicious corn, can be picked up at a roadside stand and enjoyed on your way to many other interesting, fulfilling activities."

"And yet," my sister gently, tactfully, pointed out, "there is some intrinsic value in learning how to garden."

Okay, bad analogy, considering how strongly I do feel about the value of gardening--as part of our curriculum, we do plenty of it in season--and how I am filling my soul with a slow read of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle right now. Max drying our heirloom Harry Martin lima beans for next season

But back to the original topic, and Hayden only considering traditional school for more 'friend time'. I recently read this article written by a rather articulate, unschooled teenager on his return to public school as a freshman in high school in a search for more social life.

I asked Hayden again this morning. He said he's thinking about it, but he wants to do whatever most of his friends are doing. 

Hmmm.

MAX

Max collecting Chinese chestnuts for roastingGiven Hayden's rocky transition from preschool to Kindergarten and Max's innately home-centered nature (he is only good for about six days away when we travel, and then he hungers for his constants and familiars) it seemed natural to home school him this year. At six, Max is still very connected to the rhythms of his family and though he loved preschool, he has said many times he wants to be home schooled forever. His preference to sleep with us and his main motivator (money) are documented in this blog post here.  Should we push this baby bird out of the nest? My heart says no, not yet. This is not to say he is shy or doesn't relish social life and sports--he is active on the soccer field and ice, and because the majority of kids in our home school crowd are older, Hayden's peers, I strive to find things that are just for Max. 

To this end, I formed the YBC (Younger Brothers Coalition). This is a weekly playgroup with five of his friends who all have dynamic older brothers. Max sometimes refers to this group as Younger Brothers Corporation, which makes me anxious to see their business plan and product. They are also sometimes the Younger Brothers Consultants. I picture a group of sage six and seven-year-olds sitting around a boardroom table, wisely offering counsel to those with older brothers who alternately guide, torment and cast long shadows over their lives. 

Is that enough? Is giving them separate sports and peer groups and spelling lists adequate? At six, does Max deserve a learning environment that is completely his own? The chance to become a leader among his own peers? Should he have more time away from the home and the older brother, from reading by the fire or watching an anthill or growing beans or playing typing games on the computer (as he is now?)

And then I worry about the increasing pace of school, should he ever decide to re-enter. Like me, Max prefers to do much of his reading and writing while lying on his stomach, not upright in a chair. Even in winter, he usually prefers to be shirtless. "Homework" to him means I have him dictate a blog entry to me and we work together uploading some of our photos from the day.

Specifically, is there a window for integration to school? Here, he doesn't have to raise his hand to speak, and though we frequently stand in lines at airport security or for amusement park rides at state fairs, Disney and Santa Monica Pier, he has never had to 'line up for gym class'. When he wants to go outside, he opens the door. I worry that if I wait, school will quickly have become too rigorous, too boring for him to adapt. Should a six-year-old have exposure to school so he can make an informed decision? (Can a six-year-old even make an informed decision?!) Do I send him for a year now, to first grade with a teacher I love, where he will admittedly be bored learning addition and phonics, but can also try out the social structure of classroom education and nightly busywork? 

The Bond Between the Boys

There has been an added bonus to all of this family time. The relationship between my boys is rock solid. Of course they are brothers. They bicker. They pick. Big Brother takes advantage of Little, and worse, makes him believe it was Little Brother's idea! Yesterday they cleared weeds for my mom--Max was more of an industrious laborer, Hayden in typical supervisory mode with frequent bathroom breaks, so my mother paid them accordingly. By the time they had walked home, Max crowed to me, "I divided the money evenly so we both got the same amount!" and Hayden was smiling like Eddie Haskell, what J and I privately call his shit-eating-grin. 

 

But their connection is undeniable. 

Though we do many things each week with our homeschooling group, the majority of our mornings when their little sister is at preschool are spent with the two boys working together on a science project or spelling words or a math bee at the whiteboard, reading on their stomachs by the fire, drawing, building Legos or making Crazybones out of clay while I read aloud Greek myths. Recess means they go outside together to sled, or bounce on the trampoline or play street hockey or skateboard together.

What would happen to their relationship if seven hours of every day were spent in separate classrooms, reinforced by the school culture that says you don't play with kids outside your grade? 

* *** *

 Stay tuned for next week, as we circle ever closer to that elusive right answer... 

Monday Musing--What To Do With the Boys? Part 1

In this three part series, I will be examining our own microcosm of the traditional vs. home school debate. Part of me can't believe I am poking this hornet's nest again in a public forum, but based on emails I still receive eight months later from my article in NYTimes Motherlode column, I believe that it's one that is humming. When I meet new people, particularly mothers of boys, and they hear what we do, they want to know more, in a let-me-take-notes-and-get-your-email-address way. 

There is another reason I am doing this. Readers should know this is happening in real time--which gives me a deadline of two weeks to make a decision here, since hopefully Part Three will be the conclusion. I am weary of the indecision, and much like the trick of flipping a coin and checking your gut reaction to the outcome, I am hoping putting this out there will bring me to the answer. 

PART ONE 

Spring is trying to poke its way out of the rain-soaked ground here in the Northeast, and the kids and I are enjoying the days that let us get out in it. We are polar-bear plunging in the pond, weeding the tufts of grass and dandelions out of the cherry tree garden, watching the ants relocate their accidentally unearthed larva, or discovering the half of a robin’s eggshell.Piper finds the first shell of a robin's egg

As always, it brings the smells, sounds and discoveries of new beginning, but there is also the sense of completion as we put together the boys’ portfolios to turn in to the state of Pennsylvania and our year of home schooling and expeditionary learning comes to an end.

At every gathering with our group of friends who have been on a similar journey this year, whether we are hanging around outside their Spanish, cooking, yoga or gymnastics class, or having an impromptu picnic, or fetching them from their writing seminar at the college, the conversation among the moms inevitably gravitates to the looming topic of September:

What are we going to do with our boys?

Unless I am standing befuddled in either of the two places that completely flummox me (in front of the meat counter at a grocery store or sent on a mission to purchase wine) I am not a normally indecisive person. And yet when this topic towers with importance and permanence and urgency in front of me, I am paralyzed.

First, I should say that our experience has been overwhelmingly positive, sometimes with the emphasis more on overwhelming, but mostly more on the positive.

(If you are interested, you can read some of the articles from the road here, here, and here.) 

Every time I think of all the adventures we had with our book tour travels in the fall and the rich experiences the boys reminisce about often, or of all the moments of quiet learning by the fireplace in the winter, or of the gift of being a part of so many of their ‘a-ha’ lightbulbs, I think what a wonderful year it has been. I wrote about some of this in an update for Lisa Belkin at the NY TIMES Motherlode column in December.  

And I think of all the unique learning opportunities they have had in part because of the great co-operative group that formed, where we have used resources of the parents and our community to put together a peppering of mini-courses. Some have been free, some have been paid, all have had measurable successes and provided the group (roughly 8-18 kids, mostly boys) with their favorite: time with friends.

But what about next year? Everyone agrees that this took a huge effort for us parents this year, and we have learned so much. Sometimes I feel like I am just really finding my home schooling style and groove. And sometimes I think as I have crushed to writing deadlines in the midst of continuing their education, how easy life could be if I just dropped them all off at 7:59 or let’s be honest, 8:03 or 8:04, every morning and settled down to write in solitude for six and a half hours?

I need to be clear here: I like the school where my kids could go. It’s the private school in my hometown that I attended and has a great group of families, caring teachers, good values and a medium-progressive attitude. I don’t love everything, of course. I hate the über-conservative dress-code—half the kids look like they’re off to play golf at the country club and the other half look like they’re ready to churn butter for homemade caramel corn with Mother. Per the handbook, anything of 'extreme color', including black, anything that attempts to be ‘fashionable’ or ‘stylish’ is not allowed. And yes, I’m still miffed about the way it was railroaded through two years ago. As a mom of GF kids, I’m not wild about the school’s lunch policies, and would like to see them move in an even more progressive direction in the areas of curriculum and homework. All that said, it’s an option we are lucky to have.

And then my mind drifts back to this 2006 article, clipped from an advice columnist in the Buffalo News and mailed to me inside a beautiful card by my late mother-in-law, in support of the fact that I was in the throes of raising two very active toddler boys. Please take a moment to read it. I'm going to give you the link again here:

BUFFALO NEWS ARTICLE ON THUMOS 

I immediately photocopied and sent it to all my comrades in the trenches of raising boys so they could nod along. When my friend India wrote back, “I can’t believe we’re going to chain this to a desk for the next twelve years!”, my stomach sank.

Hayden, our oldest, had a rocky transition from a nature-friendly, Waldorf-inspired preschool with the policy ‘there is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing’ to the elementary school’s Kindergarten. He quickly became ‘the wiggly kid’, was once referred to as ‘that Hayden’ and sometimes the teachers had him sit on a nubby rubber mat to help him control his need for constant movement. I watched as over the next two years, he continued to squirm and set himself on a fast track for the role of class clown, the boy who grinned and pantomimed nonchalance all the way to the principal’s office.

In conferences with teachers, I thought of my middle child Max, a whirling dervish at home, and kept hearing the line to the troll in the Three Billy Goat’s Gruff, “Oh, no, wait for my brother; he’s much wilder and wigglier than I am!”

So for this, and reasons voiced here in a controversial journal entry that was picked up by Lisa Belkin’s Motherlode, I decided to homeschool my boys last year. (Their little sister Piper bakes pies, makes organic vegetable soup and goes on nature walks at the aforementioned preschool where she has one more year.)

But as the spring sunshine filters in, and my kids work at the dining room table, I weigh the odds and list pros and cons to my patiently-listening husband over morning coffee. The question of next September remains:

What are we going to do with the boys? 

* *** *

Stay tuned for Part Two next Monday...

Favorites on Friday--Facebook

It has been snowing on and off for the last three days, coating everything in layers of ice and white. I've been out in it, to shovel, to sled with the kids and play some ice hockey, plus one quick emergency run last night for more marshmallows and crickets for the toads and sallies. But for the most part, I've been home. I've been reading, writing articles and reviews. I've been baking everything from pork roast to GF pizzelles, and I've been teaching the kids--science experiments on crystals, math measuring and more poetry. As a bonus project, inspired by my friend Beth, we organized pounds and pounds of little plastic Legos by color. (Strangely satisfying!)

This is typical January and like the three riled-up feisty cats (not to mention kids!) there's some cabin fever brewing. Yesterday I drank too much steaming coffee and ended up washing all the downstairs walls. And then the baseboards. I only quit because I shredded all the magic erasers.

This is why today I am thankful for Facebook--the ability to be here and gather information, to be passive, cozy by the fire, but connected... To play online word games and catch up. To get news--from the local (why schools were closed today when the snow is under control) to the global (this alarming link on the cyber-reaction to the situation in Egypt.) I can commiserate with others who lost power but have iPhones, drool at photos as a friend's garden in Florida flourishes, and briefly acknowledge or ignore the birthday of a classmate I haven't thought of in years. 

Last weekend my father-in-law was perusing vacation real estate and asked me if I could move to a remote Caribbean island with a population of less than two hundred, where groceries are intermittent and mail unreliable. I thought of all the books I still have to write, of the way our homeschooling makes travel infinitely more possible and I said, "Yes!" But it was on two conditions: that my family comes with me, and we have reliable internet. I need my Facebook.