Joining the Literati

I've been chewing on some sort of post for a while about teaching the small fry to read. I've never bought any fancy phonics program, but I guess I'm somewhere along the road to expertise now, having 1) learned to read myself, and 2) taught one and a half children to read. Meaning that Eliza is still learning. Actually, I really can't claim much credit for Ian, since he did a lot of it by holing up in his room with the Bob books until one day he handed me the box and said, "OK, I'm done." Which was the most exciting thing ever, and I rushed to Barnes and Noble to buy him Level 1,2, and 3 books about dinosaurs. This brings me to my first tip:

1. It is sooo much easier to help a child learn to read when (s)he is passionate about something. I really think Ian learned to read the word "mamenchisaurus" before "cat," "hat" and the like. When they're poring over books about trains, stars, insects, whatever, they're bound to pick up many words by sight (especially those repeated over and over), PLUS they're very motivated. And you totally support their motivation because do you really want to read that book about earthmovers aloud for the 40th time in a row? Not so much.

2. Children learn to read on completely different time tables. My experience with my first reader totally spoiled me. Why are people shelling out for learn-to-read programs? I asked myself with wide-eyed wonder. Then I had a second child. She's different, in almost every way possible. I don't mean that she's unintelligent, of course, but her learning style is just ... well ... of a different species than her brother's. She's a child who needs tons of habitual practice and reinforcement on my part, which requires better character than I have. Some days she feels like reading with me, others she doesn't. I don't push it. Like so many other milestones in development (crawling, sleeping through the night, walking, toilet "training," etc.) readiness is everything. One day, this reading thing is really going to click with her and I just know she'll take off. Until then, we keep it light and pleasant, and don't worry about what her brother, friends or anyone else is doing.

3. Play lots of word games. I don't mean Boggle or Quiddler -- yet. I mean the lilypad game, where you write very simple words on the driveway in sidewalk chalk and then call them out and have your little "frog" hop to the right "lilypad." I mean getting out some magnetic letters and their toy animals and having them match each animal to its letter to make a "zoo." I mean making a trail of easy words for them to sound out, with a plate of tasty snacks at the end. I mean writing the names of the colors in pencil and having them trace over the names in the appropriate color crayon. There are oodles of ideas and those are just from my own piddling brain. Check out Peggy Kaye's wonderful books, including Games for Reading: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Read, for some terrific ones.

4. Listen to audiobooks together. This is why I really don't worry about my six year old's reading. The girl listens to long chapter books on CD in her room for hours on end, often the same ones over and over. (Of course, reading aloud to your child just goes without saying, but Mama's voice can only take so much.) Why is this so effective? Because when children hear great writing read aloud, their minds fill in the images (rather than having TV do it for them). Their vocabularies expand by leaps and bounds. So when they're sounding out words on their own, they have a rich treasury of words to recognize. They're familiar with speech patterns and figures of speech. They can make educated guesses about words they don't know. Nothing wrong with that -- and quite often, they're right.

5. Along the same lines, expose them to plenty of real life experiences. A long time ago, when I had the time to read lots of parenting books, I came across something in a book -- which was it? Maybe Magic Trees of the Mind. Anyway, a study was conducted in which one class of children were taught reading intensively at age five or six. Another class was not given formal reading instruction but instead did lots of hands-on science experiments, nature walks, etc. etc. When they were eventually "taught" to read a couple years later, the researchers found that they not only caught up, but also quickly reached a more sophistical reading level than those with the standard reading education. Why? Along the lines I mentioned in #4, their familiarity with the words and its contents not only deepened their desire to explore through reading, but also gave them a richer knowledge base from which a broad range of words had become old friends.

Any other tips you'd care to share? I'm off to read to the kids.

Animal Instincts

Delight: This moment ...

... and others like it during Homeschool Day at SeaWorld San Antonio. A half day of educational experiences for $8 each. No rides, but no lines. No shops or cafés to set off a round of gimme gimmes. No rain until the last few minutes. Yes Shamu. Perfect.

Bemusement: We have a new pet hamster bequeathed to us from next door. Goes by the name of Nufe (long story). Will this turn out to be the beginning of happy family memories or an example of parental indulgence gone horribly wrong? I wonder.

Outrage: During a visit to PetSmart for Ian to buy Nufe a water bottle with his lawnmowing money, I discovered something that made me break out in spontaneous hives. Almost literally. Here it is: In a world where millions of people go to bed hungry every night, where even coffee growers blessed by the Fair Trade program make $2.75 PER DAY to feed their families, there are people buying Halloween costumes for their dogs. Am I being judgmental here? You bet. My jaw hung so far open that my family had to follow me out the door on a tidal wave of slobber. End of story.

What would you do?

Instead of putting you to sleep with a rambling description of my feeeeeelings about the past week and day, which would likely feature helpings of self-pity, frustration, grief and pessimism with a few gobs of sunshine, I'm just going to give you guys a quiz. It only has one question. Here we go.

You go to use the loo, and find that someone has left a, er, present in the bowl. What do you do?

A. Shriek with disgust, then go ferret out the guilty party and deliver a lecture on showing respect to one's family members by REMEMBERING TO FLUSH THE TOILET FOR PETE'S SAKE! (Be sure to use the phrase, "How many times have I told you ..." Kids like that. And it just feels so good to say.)

B. Sigh, mutter, "Kids will be kids!" and flush the dang thing yourself.

C. Find your offspring and announce, with a completely straight face, "Kids! The only person who is allowed to leave brown packages at our house is the UPS man!"

(I think you know where I stand.)

Considering the evidence

See, here's the deal. About 4.2 percent of the time, my house is quite tidy. I can relax, knowing that most things are squirreled away in their proper places, lending precious little clutter to both vision and soul.

You can figure out the other 95.8 percent.

About 50 percent of THAT time, I walk around either figuratively literally clutching the brow and thinking WHEN ARE THESE KIDS GOING TO LEARN TO PICK UP AFTER THEMSELVES??? (I'm not completely falling down on life skills. My nine year old does his own laundry. But still.)

The other 50 percent only happens because of nine years of chipping away at the marble block of my perfectionism.

Here's what I found when I wandered through last night, detritus from my youngest child alone. (Oh, and the camera had barely any room, cluttered as it was by my eldest's delightful Lego Star Wars stop-motion movies, each involving about 300 photos.) Sorry about the evening-esque photo quality.

This is a drawing of a bat in a cave, which she hopped up from the dinner table to make during her sister's report on caves from her co-op class.

A self-portrait, perhaps?

This is some "cursive writing" she did using a chicken feather as a quill pen and watered-down tempera paint as ink.

A flag. See the pipe cleaner flagpole sticking out the bottom?

Oh, here's a note she wrote to her friend Rev, telling him how much she enjoyed his birthday party. With a matching envelope (hence the staples).

A 3D rosebush.

Her sailboat. Waiting for a pond outing with Daddy.

A pouch, made completely on her own by sewing up the sides with needle and thread, then evidently presented with great fanfare to the grateful carpet.

Dunno. Strip of fabric nicely pinned up the sides.

A family portrait.

Hmm. Found this in a corner of the kitchen. It's heart-shaped, it's spotted ... oh! I know! This is the remote control to the television she made by taping a crayoned picture to an empty cardboard box. Then she and Eliza spent Quiet Time channel surfing. Kids these days. It's all about the screen. No creativity whatsoever.

A length of "ribbon chain" and the chicken feather quill pen, found under the table.

A bundle of chicken feathers, culled from the yard and tied together with a series of knots that might make a sailor quiver with envy.

These bits of this and that serve as evidence -- evidence of young life sprouting and flourishing around here, with all it really needs to thrive. And when these signs of life rub me the wrong way, I consider the alternative.

I'll take the clutter.

Vacation Flashback

So, this has the potential to be a tiny bit awkward, but I've realized that I have a few newish readers to this blog who don't necessarily know all the important background info about my family and me.

Hi Dad! I know you're reading this. Mind if I explain a little? No? You don't mind? Thanks.

So, in April 2002, my dad, age 53 at the time, was diagnosed with ALS. Pick almost any other diagnosis on the planet, and you'd rather have it. For reals. I have this independently confirmed by my friend Greta's husband, a neurologist.

What's really incredible is that it's been seven and a half years now, and he was only given about three years to live. Thanks to some divine and tender mercies, we have been able to borrow him longer than we expected, and due to the generosity of some anonymous friends, we have been able to visit regularly and inject my parents' house with some rambunctiousness. Eliza loves to ride around with him in the electric wheelchair. The other two make plenty of noise.

Things that you and I take for granted -- walking, talking, brushing our teeth, typing, rolling over in bed, breathing -- everything becomes more difficult and eventually impossible to do on one's own with this disease. So when we visit, we always seek out activities that requires as little as possible of any of the above, and that shift the focus away from what can't be done. Things like flying a kite (no photo of kite plunging toward ground on windless day).

Things like finding fresh corn at a farmstand (Dad's ultimate favorite) and bringing it home to shuck for dinner.

Things like visiting the ocean. My dad's spiritual life sustains him mightily. But I think being able to get oneself out between the sea and sky where the rhythm of life can mesmerize you with its simplicity can't be a bad idea. It sure works for me, anyway.

The one thing I didn't really bring him in on was stopping on the way home from the beach to buy a lobster roll to share with the kids. Y'all. Sixteen bucks for a lobster roll that fit into a hotdog bun (which I can't even eat!). What was I thinking? I was raised a New Englander! An offspring of my Dutch father! We don't pay full price for items bought on impulse! "Buy?" "Impulse?" Vhat ees thees? Some bolts of temporary insanity are best kept secret.

Date Night

When The Aspiring Professor confided that he would be working on his thesis all weekend, my in-laws took pity on me and invited the kids out for half the weekend. The result? Last night, we grabbed some supplies from Terra Burgers and a well-loved quilt, and had a date night al fresco at the Arboretum.

Lying on our backs, we saw this:

Window shopping afterward, we saw these at Janie and Jack:

And I was totally jonesing for a pair, imagining how priceless they'd look on Caroline's feet. Maybe Eliza's too. And hey, while I'm dreaming, why not a pair of these for me?

While we're at it, how about some flying pigs?

But this morning I woke up to a fragment of a hymn wandering through my brain:

"Christ is my Sabbath and new moon,

My morning and my day

My age and my eternity

That ne'er shall pass away."

I lay under the covers for a decadent amount of time, listening to the breezes sighing through the leaves of the huge ash tree outside our bedroom window, offering gusts of September air that felt just as an early fall morning should after an unusually brutal summer. Clear, gentle morning sun stole in to light the pages of my book.

Cute cowboy boots pass away, fading eventually into scuffmarked inhabitants of closet corners.

I am satisfied.

For Vanessa ...

... and anyone else who currently is, or is nursing an infant who is, lactose-intolerant, soy-intolerant, gluten-intolerant, and/or sugar-sensitive. (Aren't we a high-maintenance bunch?)

It's called Luna and Larry's Coconut Bliss. On sale now at Natural Grocers. Those of you unfortunate enough not to reside in this city, check your natural foods store. If you can't find it there, email Luna and Larry and negotiate some sort of deal. You are hardworking mamas and papas and you deserve a treat.

Plus, it meets my ultimate dessert criteria: It's NOT TOO SWEET.

I think I'll go check the freezer right now.