Monthly Archives: September 2006

Special Needs Kids, Speech Delay, Wonderboy

He’s Talking in My Sleep

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My speech-delayed son is in loooove with his voice. Words! When you use them, people react! Things happen! Words are MAGIC! For example, when it is one in the morning and you are feeling lonely, you can say MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM and your mother will come and get you out of your bed and bring you into hers. She will do this because there is already one baby sleeping in her bed and she doesn’t mind being bookended by another.

But then it is possible she will (foolish optimist that she is) attempt to go back to sleep. This situation calls for more words. HI HI HI HI HI MOM is effective, as is BABY SLEEPING! (Even if you pronounce this as "Gaygee ee-ee," she will know what you mean.) This phrase achieves highly satisfactory results. She will instantly be wide awake and will pay lots of attention to you, rubbing your back and possibly murmuring hush sounds to you which you can’t actually hear because you don’t wear your hearing aids in bed.

Another aspect of Word Magic is the power to make people laugh. This is an extremely intoxicating experience and you will be eager to revisit it as often as possible. CLEAN UP, you will shout at your sisters, and this will make them howl. It will also cause them to leap into action, and rooms will become spotless before your mother’s very eyes. This garners the bonus payout of much beaming and hand-clapping from all the women in your life. You will feel like king of the world and probably won’t realize that you are in actuality the court jester.

Sometimes, however, your magical words will cause laughter where laughter seems contraindicated. You don’t see what is funny about asking for your BRUSHTEETH. A fellow needs to brush his teeth, after all, and what’s he supposed to use, his BRUSHHAIR? And when getting dressed in the morning, you fail to see what is so doggone amusing about requesting your HAM. I mean, you’ve put on your shirt, and the next logical step is to put on your ham, right? Are you supposed to go around barelegged all day?

Women. Sometimes they just don’t make any sense.

Current Affairs

Thirteen Cars

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What I remember is September 12th. Beanie had a doctor’s appointment in Queens, so I was driving west on Long Island, staring at the distant smoke that still rose in heavy plumes where the Towers had been. They were ghost towers now, made of smoke and ash. On the way out of my neighborhood I had to pass our town’s train station. On any other weekday it would have been packed full at that time of day, but on this day it was almost deserted.

Later I learned that there were thirteen cars left in the parking lot of that train station after everyone else finally made it home on that terrible day. Thirteen cars. Thirteen dads. Thirteen holes in the hearts of families like ours.

Beanie is five and a half years old now. If her dad had been one of those thirteen drivers, she would not remember him. There would be no Wonderboy and no Rilla.

I don’t know their names, any of them, but today I am thinking about those thirteen men who parked at the station one morning just like any other, and didn’t get back in their cars at the end of the day. Those men, and their families, and those thirteen empty cars.

Books, Fun Educational Stuff, General Homeschooling, Literature, The Cross-Country Move, Unschooling

I Love When It All Comes Together

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I’d love to take credit for planning the trip down the lovely little path the kids and I are following at the moment, but I can’t. The trail appeared before us and we set forth, that’s all. It started with Our Island Saints, a book I’d ordered from Yesterday’s Classics last year.

No, wait, I guess it really started with my decision to take a cue from the Waldorf folks and keep "saints and heroes" in mind as a kind of over-arching theme for Rose and Beanie this year. An umbrella, if you will, to provide some shelter from the chaos of our move. Our Year of Saints & Heroes. It has a nice high-tide sound to it, though of course you know we’ll be spending much of this year in the lowest of low tides. And that’s fine. We thrive on low tide around here.

(Hey! Just occurred to me! I get to add actual BEACH experience to my whole Tidal Homeschooling thing! You SEE the lengths to which I will go in order to flesh out a metaphor for you?)

Anyway. Our Island Saints, I was saying. We started with St. Brigid of Ireland because she is special to my family, and also she is the patron saint of scholars and babies. Before I began reading (this was one day last week), I printed out some pictures for the kids to color: pictures of the saint for the younger girls, a complicated Celtic knot for Jane.

I read part of the story (it’s long) and a good deal of it was about how kind and generous Brigid was to the poor, how she’d give away her bread to any ragged stranger she passed on the road. That reminded me of a poem I love—Alice chose it for the first post on her blog last year—and I sent Jane to fetch The Harp and Laurel Wreath so we could read it together. It is "An Old Woman of the Roads" by Padraic Colum, and it begins like this:

O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

The poor, bereft, wandering old woman: she could use a Brigid in her life.

After we read it and talked about it, I got a little goose-bumpy, because I remembered that Padraic Colum is the author of the VERY NEXT BOOK I had planned for a read-aloud. It’s called The King of Ireland’s Son, and if you’ve never read it, you’ve got to treat yourself to the rollicking, lilting (hey!) adventure of it. Sure and ’tis as fine a bit o’ storytellin’ as ivver I’ve seen. Weaving together the strands of old Irish tales, Colum creates a rich and riotous tapestry of princes and enchanters, cats and kings, monsters and maidens, songs and swords.

Like this:

"…the youth
I’m telling you about did nothing but ride and hunt all day.
Well, one morning he rode abroad—

"His hound at his heel,

His hawk on his wrist;

A brave steed to carry him whither he list,

And the blue sky over him,

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"and he rode on until he came to a turn in the road.  There he saw a gray old man seated on a heap of stones playing a game of cards with himself. First he had one hand winning and then he had the other. Now he would say ‘That’s my good right,’ and then he would say ‘Play and beat that, my gallant left.’
The King of Ireland’s Son sat on his horse to watch the strange old man…"

Irresistible, I’m telling you.

And so,

with my babe in my lap

and my boy at my knee,

and my big girls before me as rapt as can be,
and the boxes all around us,

we are off on another adventure, and fie to the packing.

Poetry

Poetry Friday: Anne Bradstreet

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The Author to Her Book
by Anne Bradstreet

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find.
In this array ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam.
In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

Carnivals

Button, Button, I’VE Got the Button!

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You may recall my plea a while back for someone out there to design a nice button for the Carnival of Children’s Literature. Well, Alice Cantrell (author of the lovely book Sewing with Saint Anne) graciously obliged, thus making my day.

Do you see it, there in my sidebar? Isn’t it scrumptious? And if you click on it, you’ll go to our archives at BlogCarnival, where you can see all the past editions of the Carnival of Children’s Lit—and (hint hint) can also submit a post to the next edition, which will be hosted at Wands & Worlds on Sept. 23rd.

Alice, thanks so much for your beautiful contribution to the kidlitosphere.

*Meant to say: feel free to grab the button for your own sidebar!

Fun Educational Stuff, Geography, The Cross-Country Move

WikiMapia, or Yet Another Way to Spend Half Your Morning on the Computer

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Ohhhh, this is too much fun. Scott sent us a link to the WikiMap view of the house we’ll soon be renting, and just like that, a new addiction is born. The kids and I just spent the entire morning looking at aerial views of, well, everywhere.

We found our current house in Virginia and Scott’s new California office. Look, girls, there’s Daddy’s roof! Beanie was pretty sure she could see him waving. We scouted the whereabouts of parks and libraries in the neighborhood we’re moving to next month. I may not be packed yet, but doggonit I know how to get to the library in my new hometown. And the Target, and the nearest Catholic church. Yes, we have mapped out our own little baseball diamond of essentials: first base, second base, third base, home plate. Best part: there’s a Schlotzsky’s in the infield.

And the outfield? Great googly-moogly!

Coast2

And because it’s a wiki, you can add your own labels and landmarks to the map, too. People from all over the world are entering the names of churches, schools, hospitals, parks, recreation areas,  and stores. Oh, and also: Ashley’s house. I don’t know which Ashley. But her house is in my outfield.