Before I began homeschooling, I was so worried that we would not find anyone who could be accepting of us as liberal, secular people within the homeschool community.  I, like many others in the public school world, believed that pretty much everyone who homeschools is extremely regilious, and we just wouldn’t fit in. 

You can imagine my delight when I found a large active community of inclusive, eclectic homeschoolers right in my back yard.  It is a group that welcomes people of all belief systems.  We have those that are extremely religious, those that are agnostic, athiest, wicken, jewish, muslim.  Differences extend to politics as well, and we  range from ultra liberal to ultra conservative.

What is most gratifying is we ACCEPT the differences.  Members of our community do not feel the need to change anyone else.  You are free to believe whatever you want.

I am searching for bloggers who are tolerant of secular homeschoolers, or secular themselves.  I don’t want to read a blog that is anti-religion, and I don’t want to read a blog that is anti-no religion. (Does that even make sense?)

If you know of some good homeschool bloggers, please post in the comments!  If you write one, please post in the comments!  I would love to have the list in my sidebar.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  I remember playing in these same hanging beads as a little girl.  They were my favorite thing about visiting my grandma and grandpa.  They are a favorite of my girls, too.

Today, Camille turns 5.  Its hard to believe–the time has just flown by.  She has grown from a difficult baby, unhappy with the world, to a gorgeous, caring, intelligent, and best of all, happy little girl.

Even tho she is sick with the flu , she still has a smile and managed to make sure she opened her birthday presents.  Her favorite?  The Native American clothing I made for her.  She’s wearing her new costume right now as she watches PBS.  She insists on cake, even tho she’ll probably only  manage a bite or two.  She keeps sighing and saying “I am so happy I am the birthday girl today”

Unfortunately, the fact that Daddy is now sick with the flu means that it will make its way thru our household and we probably need to cancel her birthday party all set for Saturday.  How disappointing for her.  I am waiting until tomorrow to be sure, but she’s worse today than yesterday, so I figure its a given.

I can’t wait to have her home with  me full time next year.  She is amazingly bright and enthusiastic about learning.  She makes life so much better by just being around her.

We have lost 2 of our dog companions this year to debilitating diseases–the first, Keppler, had lived with Kidney Failure for over a year. Maxwell, who we lost in the past month, was a beagle terrier mix of nearly 16 years. He had an untreatable form of skin cancer. We adopted these dogs while in college, and they were truly a connection to that time in our lives and in our relationship (living together before we got married). We miss them both dreadfully, but realized after Keppler’s death that we are indeed a 2 dog household. A couple of months afterward, we adopted a 3 month old Australian Shepherd Mix from a rescue in western Colorado. He had been slated for euthanasia in a shelter before being brought into the rescue. We call him Loco.

He’s grown into a gorgeous dog and is smarter than a whip. He learns commands quickly and potty trained in 4 days(wow). He loves to chase balls and is fiercely loyal, but very gentle with the kids.
Our most recent addition brings us back to two dogs:

Her name is Daisy. She is a 2.5 month old Basset Hound Pug (?) mix. Her mother was living in a Chicken Coop in Southern New Mexico. She was taken to a shelter where she had her litter of puppies. She and her puppies were slated for euthanasia. A day after the puppies were born, someone rescued them all and drove them to an animal sanctuary in Santa Fe, where her mother (a full blooded basset hound) was able to raise her puppies. This past week the mother and 3 of the puppies were transported to the Boulder Valley Humane Society, where we found them. I called the Sanctuary in Santa Fe to talk to them and was told that they believe the father was a black pug that apparently was either owned by the same family as the Basset Hound or lived in the neighborhood.

She is very sweet and extremely mellow (especially for a puppy!). She was a little unsure of us the first day, but is doing great now. She and Loco are really enjoying each other.

While researching the breed (and trying to determine whether she really does look like a Basset/Pug mix), I found that this is considered a designer breed. Yeah. Go figure. And I thought it was just a mutt. They call the mix either a Bassugg or a PuggleHound.

I never realized how much being a dog guardian gives to the kids. While taking care of our sick elderly dogs, the girls learned a lot about patience and compassion. They learned that what was best for our pet was not necessarily what made US happy, but something we had to do as the animal’s custodian. With the newer 2 dogs, they have learned the importance of pet population control, why its important to give unwanted dogs a good home, and take your time and find an animal whose disposition is a good fit for your family. We looked at one extremely adorable dog who unfortunately was scared to death of us. Right now they are learning how to care for something else and the consequence of not keeping an eye on a puppy and picking our toys up.

I am learning that I covet a full nights sleep.

I have been reading several articles and studies on the affects of gaming/violence on children.  I think I am going to limit her gaming time even further to an hour at a time a few times a week, instead of every day.

Yup.  You are viewing the worst mistake Santa ever made.  The Nintendo DS Lite.  You know all those people who say that playing video games or watching violent media has nothing to do with the rise of teen violence?  Well, after personally experiencing the drastic behavioral changes of my child after she has access to this thing, I think they are all full of shit.

The games are all rated E for everyone, but I swear the interaction between the game and her brain causes behavioral changes when she is done playing.

This is what I have noticed:

1. Surly to everyone
2. Disrespectful
3. Can’t follow simple instruction
4. Needs things repeated several times
5. Cannot interact nicely with her sister
6. Grouchy Grouchy Grouchy
7. Actually pushed her sister(!)  This NEVER happens in my family.  NEVER.
8. Did I mention Grouchy and Disrespectful?

She has even noticed that she gets “grouchy” after she plays the game, and we have come up with a plan–she cannot play the game until late afternoon, when ALL of her schoolwork is done/violin practice is done/she has spent time interacting with her sister.  She can play during the hour in the late afternoon her sister watches TV, when I am getting dinner ready.  When school starts again, she needs to finish her 1st semester math workbook(which has patiently been calling to her for the month of break but she has been ignoring) before she gets ANY nintendo time.

Ugh.  If I had known it would cause so many behavioral issues, I wouldn’t have let Santa in the house with it.

Anyone out there noticed these kind of behavioral differences after their kids are exposed to video games?

Since we are wrapping up our first semester in the next couple weeks, I thought it would be nice to reflect upon my first semester as a homeschooling parent:

5.  Siblings who are together more fight less(its true—we used to fight daily when Emily came off the bus…now we have 3-4 hours of happy imaginative play a day…when we aren’t doing other things!)
4.  We can learn more in 2 hours than a class full of children learns in a week.
3.  Camille can learn thru osmosis(anything multiplied by zero is zero, anything multiplied by one is itself)
2.  Socialization IS a problem–because we spend WAY too much time doing it and still don’t do everything we    want to do!
1.  I ADORE my children and LOVE spending time with them, more so than I ever imagined!  They are unique, engaging individuals and I am so grateful that I was forced into homeschooling!  I don’t want to stop!  I am the luckiest Mommy in the world!

I used to be a good writer.  Every Sunday afternoon I would write the 1500 word essay for my Freshman English Class in a couple hours.  Other women would toille over it, many pulling all nighters.   They would agonize over every word, every sentence and paragraph.

Me?  The words just came.  I remember typing so fast that there seemed to be a disconnect in my brain—the words would just flow thru my fingers to become my essays.

And they were good.  Darn good.  Especially for only spending a couple hours on them.  I was insightful.  I was knowledgable.  My ideas were clear and concise.

I even wrote a paper about the elementary particles of physics once.  It was so well done MY MOTHER understood them.

What happened?

For years, I have known that I lost “it”.  And, with time, it doesn’t get better, it gets worse.  This loss of “it”–of the ability to communicate coherent, well constructed thoughts, is disturbing.  It not only affects written communication(you should read my emails), but oral as well.

I have conversations with people who don’t know me that well and I just want to cry afterwards.  I cannot express my thoughts well–they sound so strange and unorganized to me; how must they sound to the other people??  Yet I keep blathering like an idiot talking in hopes that somehow I can pull it together.

Its almost like an out of body experience.  A really bad one where I am an moron.

My husband, the professor, often has me proof read his proposals and papers.  You know what?  He uses BIG words.  GRE words that I don’t know the meaning of, but trust he must and go on to proof what I do understand and his punctuation(I have never seen anyone abuse the use of a comma the way he does).    Sometimes I am astounded that he hasn’t commented on my addled brain.

Something to work on.