An unplanned day

It is so good to have unplanned days. You can pack them full of stuff you wouldn’t normally do.

We woke up late Saturday morning with no plan. No visitors, no commitments, no errands - just time. The kids came up to our bed to talk and wrestle.

What should we do today? Well let’s get out of the house. Get ready! – choose clothes, dress, get a snack breakfast, hands, face & teeth, find shoes and socks. Load into the car. We are off. Let’s turn on some music… perhaps a story – ah yes ‘Classical Kids’ CD ‘Tchaikovsky Goes to America’ to listen on the drive.

Where should we go? Why not drive the beautiful 12 mile stretch of FM149 to Montgomery. There is a small antique mall that has an old fashioned barber. The boys need haircuts!

Lily played with a kitten outside while the boys got manly haircuts together with a few gruff looking good ol’ boys and the stench of a fish tank in the process of being cleaned out. It seemed that the barber had fed his catfish dead minnows. The catfish didn’t eat the minnows and they decayed in the tank increasing the ammonia levels to a deadly level.

What’s next? Shop some more until hungry?

We purchased a few books in the antique store next door. I picked up some old fashioned magazines to cut up for collage, Mark got some Shakespearean & Dante prints for his office. He also picked up some old books – Tales of Arabian Nights ($5), Davy Crocket ($5), History of Ancient Greece ($3), and Julius Caesar's History of the Gallic Wars ($2 - since it was in Latin). All of these will be added to the curriculum at appropriate stage, including the Latin text.

(A forgettable lunch followed)

Where to next? Hmmm… Laura’s sleepy. Strawberries on Lily’s mind. Hey let’s go strawberry picking!!!

Mark dropped Laura and myself off at home. Mark took Matthew and Lily Kate to King’s Orchard. I did some collage work while Laura napped. They arrived home 3 hours later, with boxes of tasty, fresh berries and two huge bouquets of wildflowers. We arrange the flowers and cleaned and snacked on some strawberries.

Mom, can we do another project? Here I have a recipe for play dough. Highlights Magazine. Can we try it? Please Mom?’ Out with the peanut butter, honey and dry milk. Mix, mix, try, mix, spoon lick.

The kids made shapes and faces and snakes and snowmen out of the play dough, decorated with cereal and raisins and then ate as much as the made (isn’t that the point of edible play dough?). We had a dinner with chicken and cheese somewhere in there as we played. All to the music of Bach.

Let’s keep making stuff! Let’s bead!

Laura played on the floor while the big kids made more necklaces with Mom. We listened to Classical Kids ‘Bach comes to call’ on CD while beading.

'Mom I want a bath' , OK girls fill the tub. Dad watch. Splash, splash - Lily don't pour water on Laura....

After bedtime reading Lily went to sleep listening to ‘Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek’ volume I. Matthew is another story. He was just getting started on his day. He is our night owl. He can get a full day’s worth of ‘school’ done on his own in an evening. He and dad read a few chapters of ‘The Three Musketeers’ and then he watched Spanish language video Muzzy... studying the book as he watched. He helped me sort our new beads into the bead storage trays and then helped me clear up the house before he took his truck set to his room to play. He is such a great helper and loves to do things together.

I was upstairs in my craft room for much of the night working on a collage series called ‘Symphony’. I am altering a deck of cards with paint, images, photos, stamps and other stuff. I have made about 30 of them since Thursday. Good stuff and fun to do.

It is amazing what we can pack in to a day with no plan.

First steps

Laura took her first step today. Lily and I witnessed it. She was standing in the kitchen by the fridge and just stepped out before dropping to her bottom. Yeah, Laura! She didn’t even know what Lily and I were cheering so loudly about, but joined in clapping anyhow.

How naturally kids learn the ropes of life.

Spring Break, Part 2 

Lily dancing one morning. Her t-shirt says it all 'I may not be perfect.... but I am cute'.  

Shona and Laura's morning cuddle 

Spring Break, Part 1

The beautiful Texas Spring weather woke all Houston mothers with kids off for Spring Break up with the same idea: ‘let’s go to the zoo today!’

We drove the hour to Houston only to find we couldn’t get in the zoo parking lot. No problem. This is my old area, I know it by heart. We drove so easily through the 'tunnel of trees' that is the museum district. This prompted us to share many memories of our old house and life.

We went to the Village and found a parking space right next to Jamba Juice. Our old treat. Matthew and I got a temporally off menu item – Strawberry Tsunami, Lily - Strawberry Wild. They even made a little drink for Laura. She LOVED it. Drinking from a straw. She cried when I took it from her in the bead store. She cried even harder when I took mine from her in the 5 & dime store!

We went to our old park, I feel as if I have never been away. Even Matthew was able to recite happenings at the birthday party he attended there last year. Of course I saw someone I knew: a househusband who use to be president of the West U Newcomers Club when I was newsletter editor. We chatted about our kid's education and new houses.

After our breezy picnic we went back to the zoo, this time we got a parking space. We went to feed the ducks and ride the train. I love that train. It is all of 10 minutes, but I love the cool air, the view of the park, the bridge, the rumble, the realness of it. We see people wave and we wave back. We talk about the colors, the shapes, the families picnicking, the water. After the ride we sat on a bench and took turns sketching the stationary trains. This is the kind of parenting I like. Talking, looking, experiencing, living. It reminds me of my childhood vacations and weekends – doing touristy things, going places of interest and beauty and history with my parents.

I want my kids to remember these things.

(We didn't go into the zoo, decided to go on a playdate/visit instead). After a few hour visit with my fellow homeschooler & crafty/creative bud we got on the road to come home. Matthew and Lily were last heard saying they wanted to go somewhere else in Houston before we drove home. By the time we hit the HOV they were conked. I had a quiet drive home accompanied by talk radio…

….That poor Schiavo family . God help Terri’s parents. The pain of watching their baby dehydrate to death, unable to help. It puts things in perspective.

I served dinner with a little more joy tonight.

St. Patrick's Day

Being a true Irish Protestant, I have never celebrated any Irish holidays; including St. Patrick’s Day.

Matthew announced last night that he wants to celebrate that very holiday. All I thought about was shamrocks and something green. Need to know more… so school today became a research on the origin of the St. Patrick ’s Day and methods of celebration.

After our grammar lesson we compiled a list of things we already knew about St. Patrick and things we needed to find out. Then we did an internet and dictionary search to find the answers.

It turns out that St. Patrick was more than just a banisher of snakes. He had a very adventurous life which included being kidnapped and sold as a slave, escaping captivity and after some time studying theology returning to the land of his captors to help free them from the tyranny of eternal death. We learned about the shamrock leaf. It symbolizes the Trinity! We defined the word ‘Saint’ and discovered the reason for the color green in everything Irish.

I downloaded some St. Patrick’s Day learning activity sheet. We completed them before rushing to karate. After karate we went to Kroger to buy some green cupcakes.

Before dinner, Matthew read out loud a fact sheet on St. Patrick we downloaded and he and Lily did watercolor paintings of an Irish landscape and then glued on shamrocks that Matthew & I had cut out earlier.

All the while we played Irish music.

Lily dyed the lemonade green and we drank out of the Irish crystal my Godfather gave us for a wedding present. Dinner was green (peas & broccoli), white (chicken, potato & butter) & orange (carrots & cheese). Mark proposed a toast to the courage and daring of St. Patrick, clinking glasses and all. The green cupcakes turned out to be Easter ones with little candy eggs on top, but the kids didn’t notice once smothered in mint choc ice cream.

Again I was reminded that it is better to do that to not do.

To read more about the early history of Ireland check out http://www.saintpatrickcentre.com/patrick/index.asp

Abortion

I didn’t plan to get political, but what kind of world do we live in where we accept doctors killing unborn babies ‘cause they have a cleft lip and palete? Check out this article http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1439312,00.html/

It is shocking to think that a cleft lip could be considered a handicap worthy of death. The doctors and the ‘mother’ think that it is better the child not live a life with a facial scar. Better for the child to be put to death in the place he should be protected, by the very person who should protect him, than to deal with corrective surgery, difficulty eating and school yard teasing.

How do people not see this as brutal?

Eugenics?

Nazism?

There is irony in the fact that this article was posted on the day that Scott Peterson was given the death penalty in part for killing his unborn son.

More on teaching Lily to read

Lily and I have completed 8 lessons in the book/course ‘How to Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons’ by Siegfried Engelmann. The lessons are pretty short, lasting all of 10-15 minutes (we are not doing the writing portion).

Lily starts off in the lesson delighted to be doing school with Mom. She is so focused on the snuggling down, announcing which lesson number we are on that she usually claims not to know the first letter or two she is to sound! After some minor prompting she can rattle of the sounds of m, s, t, short e, long a, while touching the 'ball' underneath and running her finger down the arrow. She can do the 'say it fast' section pretty good (I say aaattt slowly then she is to say it fast) but likes to run her finger over random words on the page as if those are the letters she is sounding out. I find the rhyming section a little difficult (rhyme 's' with 'en' to get 'sen' - I just don't see the rhyme in that) so we fly through it without much thought. She is geting to put letters together to make basic words. By the end of the lesson she is ready to move on.

Even though she is not reading she has sounded out her first words 'mat' 'me' without realizing that is what she is doing. And this past week she has become more interested in words asking us to spell her friends names and spell some other random words. So something is stirring.

Laura staring in her first mini film 'The Dragon and the Princesses' 

Matthew in our first mini film as Robinhood, surrounded by boxes and debris from the computer purchases that made filming possible! 

Mini films

In a passing conversation with a fellow homeschool dad 2 weeks back, my husband found out about mini films that kids can make. This particular dad was telling Mark his kids made a short movie about Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. Mark loves old Teddy and his crazy way he lived large, so he had to see this film. Mark pretty much invited us over to their place for dinner and homemade films.

After serving us great enchiladas, they showed us some of their homemade films with scripts, costumes, sound effects and all. We were hooked.

This weekend past we got ourselves all the necessary equipment – up to date camcorder, better computer with a DVD burner, flat screen monitor (OK, that was not totally necessary to make movies, but it looks cool), Pinnacle Studio software and writable DVD’s.

I am the tech in our house, so I spent Saturday night putting it all together. When the rest of them had gone to bed, Matthew and I shot our first film, starring Matthew! I edited it until the wee hours. Sunday evening the whole family made another movie about a dragon (played by our dog) who steals the princesses (Lily & Laura) and a prince (Matthew) who goes to save his sisters.

Was it worth it? OHHHH yesss. What a way to record the kids! I got to edit out all the boring back of heads shots and crying. We made a story line for interest and the music and sound effects tie it all together.

So the Cole home is not only a school, art studio, law office, Bible study center but now it is a film studio!

Spring Break!?!

So much for Spring Break! Matthew announced last week that this week we would take off school. So we planned a week involving going to the zoo, library and art museum. We were going to go at a leisurely pace and learn from life instead of books!

So what were Matthew’s first words today? ‘Mom, could we just do a little phonics and Bible?’ ‘But Matthew this is Spring Break!’

I held out for as long as I could. But when our usual school time came I gave in to his repeated request. We did school. Spring Break is next week instead.

Lily Kate in her room in the tutu her Aunt Sylvia sent her from Ireland for her birthday. 

Me and Laura yesterday. Laura is looking a little rough as she is overdue for her nap in this pic and had just been hauled around by 3 visiting little girls. 

Here is the castle in progress that I am painting in Lily (and soon to be Laura's) bedroom. 

Beading

At Christmas we took the kids to Creation Station at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The craft was beading. Lily, Matthew and I stayed a long time stringing our necklaces (Mark was wandering the museum with Laura on his back). I made a yellow and purple one for Lily with tiny beads that she has worn ever since. Matthew made one for me that I wore for 2 weeks until it broke; he used random bright colored beads. I found I enjoyed wearing it, something that my son had made, something no one else could wear.

I am not a jewelry person. I have never worn much more than my wedding ring and a Celtic ring and my dad gave me when I emigrated. I wear pretty plain clothes, black t-shirts, plain white shirts or stripy tops with black jeans or plain skirts.

I have a few beads in my collection of stuff, nothing too fancy, but I was doing an art piece that needed something so I strung some beads on the canvas. It worked. These two experienced drew me to make something for me.

I got out the bead box and some embroidery thread, cut apart an old necklace I owned and never wore to get the big bead in the middle. I mixed some bronze, black and turquoise beads. It was self affirming to wear a splash of color of my own making. It made my plain church outfit interesting for once.

I went to the craft store and bought some more beads. The kids and I have been beading this week (Lily and I outlast matthew). I am drawn to making pattern with the beads, while the kids make these wonderfully colorful random patterns. Lily looks adorable in a turquoise, red and yellow creation. I wore our necklaces this week and found that transformed my plain clothes into something fun and well, me.
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Storytime at the local library

It is nice to have somewhere to go in the morning, a deadline that ensures we get washed and dressed. One of my mommy deadlines has been storytime at that library. Every library has one, we have regularly attended 3 local libraries in our time. They all have been pretty much the same format: an oldish lady reads 4-5 books on a theme, while the little ones squirm and listen. Then there is a related gluing/coloring craft. The kids love it and make friends with the regular attendees.

I have lived in middle, lower middle and high income areas and tried their libraries. The difference: the care givers of the kids. Here is my unscientific observation:

In the high income library the ‘care givers’ are 80% nannies.

In the middle income library it’s 40% nannies.

In the lower income library it’s only about 20% nannies and they are usually the kid’s granny.

Make of that what you will.

Thoughts of Ireland

Things come in cycles. Recently I have been in an Irish cycle!

One night I woke up thinking about my dad in Ireland. I have not seen him since my brothers wedding in 2001. We talk regularly on the phone. He has never met Lily or Laura. I have a plan to go back when my youngest can read, but I don't know if I can wait that long. I want my kids to experience the good things there.

At least my mum just booked a flight over, she’ll be here in June. My kids know her well as she has come for 6 months for the birth of each of my babies. Bless that woman - so willing to walk the night with a crying baby, do laundry, dishes and read books endlessly to sooth my older children shaken up by all the newness of baby and tired & pre-occupied mommy.

Anyhow, on Saturday a homeschool girl from our church gave me a few questions about Ireland for an immigration project she was doing. It was fun to reflect on Ireland a little and give her a picture of my home.

One question she asked was ‘How is Ireland similar to America?’ I wrote (remember these are reflections for a 9 year old):
Ireland has all the modern conveniences – roads, cars, shops, television. The houses are much smaller than in America. The roads are much smaller, the towns smaller. Most people got to the store to buy fresh food everyday. There are supermarkets where you can get all your foods, but also small specialty shops to get individual foods, like a butcher to get meat, vegetable shop to get fresh veggies, bakery to get the bread. We have shops called Newsagents that sell only magazines and candy and of course newspapers (some sell small gifts and cards). Most street corners have a newsagent. The best chocolate is Galaxy!

In the suburbs the houses are semi-detached, that means that two houses have one common wall. More well-to-do folks have free standing houses. In the city the houses are joined together in terraces, many of the doors are brightly painted. Most people live in the suburbs and commute to work on the bus, train or car. The cars are half the size of American cars!

The climate is still a little dreary and damp. The months of April, May and June are the brightest and freshest. It gets dark at 4pm in winter, but stays light until 11pm in the summer.

She wanted to know few Irish traditions:
Kids play ‘Pass the Parcel’ at parties.
The day after Christmas is called Boxing Day and it is considered a holiday.
Workers are given ‘Bank Holidays’ almost every month, when they don’t have to go to work on a Monday.
When the Ireland soccer team is playing in the World Cup the whole country shuts down and everyone watched the game.
At Easter parents give their kids giant Easter eggs with are big chocolate egg shells filled with candy.

The she asked ‘What is better in America?
Freedom! The Irish pay much more in taxes to the government than Americans. In Ireland you can’t homeschool. America is bigger in every way and there is much more opportunity to follow your dream and live the life you want to. Commerce works more smoothly in America and the service you receive in stores is generally better.

It is fun to reflect on a life I lived so far away.

Matthew and Blue Bear 

Lost bear

Last night we lost Blue Bear. Blue bear was there from the beginning. My brother sent him over from Ireland with my mother for Matthew. When he was put in ICU for 7 days after his birth I couldn’t stay with him all day and night, but Blue Bear was there. Every day since then he has slept in Matthew’s arms and taken car rides and gone to the park and other places.

I went from room to room looking for him. Matthew was being a big boy – he said it’s ‘Ok mom, we’ll find him in the morning. I’ll just hold another bear tonight’. I believed him. But at about 4am I heard a wailing. Mark went down and was promptly padding all over the house looking for the missing bear. He was not found. Eventually Matthew calmed down and was able to sleep.

I got up at 8am and searched the house, car and yard for 30 minutes. No Blue Bear. Finally, when Matthew was up I made him re-trace his steps from the day before. He mentioned last time he saw Blue Bear was on the red sofa in the computer room. I went in there and looked on the window sill behind the sofa. The one place we hadn’t checked. I have never been so happy to see that bear!

I ran with him into Matthew. Matthew and I hugged Blue Bear. I pretended to be Blue Bear speaking and told Matthew how glad he was to have been found. This brought tears to Matthew’s eyes. He got all chocked up, so happy to have Blue Bear in his arms.

Through Blue Bear I see Matthew’s sensitive side. I see his compassion for his own. His loyalty and devotion. One day he will love his wife more, much more than this. She will be one lucky girl.

Princess Lily Kate 

Laura Cole, got some personality! 

Me and my Lily Kate 

intro to my art

I have not written much on my art in this space yet. I don’t own a digital camera to take pictures of my work, and it seems that a description would not really be helpful. I have asked my husband for a digital camera for my birthday, which is April14. I have a regular camera, but I have to remember to develop the photos and then scan them in... too many steps!

I am primarily working with some photos of my grandparents taken during WWII. Collage, mixed media – acrylic, gesso, paper, tissue paper on canvas and wood. I like lots of colo. I include words in my collages, either written with black pen or on contact paper, pasted on.

I just submitted 2 canvases to a gallery in Marfa, Texas on a theme of the relationship of money to art. Next I am mailing 2 canvases to Somerset Studio Magazine (one of those pieces has an image of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the other my sister in law when she was a girl).

I am thinking of ways to work with Christian imagery/words. So watch this space.

learning to read

I started with book/course ‘How to Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons’ by Siegfried Engelmann with Lily on Monday. Lesson 1 & 2 went well, took only about 10 minutes sitting down. She enjoyed spending that time with mom all by herself; she doesn’t even know she is learning!

I will be interested to see if she sticks with it and actually learns to read.

I started this book with Matthew a few months before he was 3. I had to put it away at lesson 10 as it was a struggle to keep him interested. But 6 months later I realized he was reading 3 letter words so we started it again. He flew through the lessons. We abandoned the book at lesson 64 as he was reading fluently by then and didn’t need it anymore. We graduated to flying through first grade Phonics Museum by then (a year later and we are going slightly slower through 1st grade now - we are at lesson 111 out of 164).

This blog will keep me accountable for doing the book with Lily Kate daily. I will record her ups and downs here.

A note from Matthew

Sabrina is my Spanish teacher. I love Spanish. She is the best Spanish teacher in the world. I love doing prints, we did flowers today. Lily loves doing puzzles and kind of messes up on her preschool workbook. I love doing my first grade workbook, I got it for Christmas. I loved all of my Christmas presents. I hope Lily liked her presents too. I think Lily liked her birthday party best of all. She liked her Piñata best of all. Field Day is on April 2nd. This is the best home of all. I love my room, it is filled with balls and stars. I am 4, my birthday is on September 14. I am going to have a Power Ranger birthday. All my friends are going to come, the Frye boys, the Robinsons, the Sears, the Lichnovskys, the Seagos, the Davis', the McBees, the Bauchams, the Bullens and the Coles. Everyone has to wear a Power Ranger costume, except the girls. But no helmets in the party, they'd be scary. love matthew