Judd the Red Chicken was studying the map -- not wallowing in lethargy. I'm happy to report that the fever was gone this morning, so we were able to resume our studies.
The highlights of those studies are:
The Sister taught them about the anatomy of a frog complete with a simple discussion on how the digestive system works. They then created a gelatinous, dissectible-friendly frog... and then dissected it... in a friendly way.
They worked on their drafts from their writing assignment inspired by our trip to the Met on Wednesday. I was soundly impressed with the drafts, and I was even more pleased that both were so proud of their drafts that they wanted to read them out loud (even though that's only a requirement for "final" drafts).
We went to the Jewish Museum. Which is housed in one of the 5th Avenue mansions -- the Warburg's. It is in the French chateau style... and it is shockingly beautiful when you cross the street and get a view of it in its entirety.
Highlights of this highlight are:
Our health science lesson. Judd the Red Chicken called me over to look at "the cool butter knife." Not being squeamish I launched into circumcision. I explained it from a religious perspective and a medical one. I shared the information I collected prior to his birth and the reasoning that went into the decision that was made for him. I mentioned that our pediatrician recommended to "circumcise or not circumcise based on what the father is." And it was at that moment that I caught the pained, fully disgusted look on The Sister's face.
"TMI?"
"TMI."
Currently there is an exhibition featuring manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries. They are beautiful. We loved getting super close to the glass and looking at the tiny, tiny details that were done by hand. There was a reference made to how many people see ebooks as the great shift/advancement of the written word, but the argument could be made that the truly monumental transition was from scrolls to codex (the bound book as we know it). I guess if I lived back then I would have been the crazy lady shaking my scrolls at people and kvetching about the nuances that would be lost by converting to those new-fangled codexes...
The exhibit that I think meant the most to the kids was the video of Yom Hashoah -- Remembrance Day -- in Israel where an air-raid siren is sounded for two minutes at 10am. For those two minutes people stop doing whatever they are doing -- walking, driving, talking -- and freeze, thereby each and everyone becoming a monument to the Holocaust. It is a tiny screen tucked in a corner, but it's very striking. The importance of standing as a witness.
Until I shared with somebody this evening that we went to the Jewish Museum I was unaware of the recently escalated turmoil happening. Holy crap. According to NY Daily News:
"The war drums in Israel were being heard Friday in New York City as police stepped up security at synagogues and other Jewish institutions." We did not hear the war drums (no TV, self-absorbed (obviously, I have a blog)), or we certainly wouldn't have haplessly chosen today -- of all days -- to wander around the museum like total knuckleheads. Though having the museum virtually to ourselves was kind of nice...
I can't think about it. Moooooving on. Next highlight: walking home through the park.
Three things of note happened:
1. The Boy almost broke his neck when he inadvertently did this crazy somersault-thing out of his swing. His comment: "I don't know what happened." My comment: "All of a sudden his electric-blue skinny jeans were up in the air, and in slow-motion -- after flipping -- he crumpled head first into the ground. I was worried he broke his neck." Bottom line: we are not an athletic people. (Picture taken moments before the incident.)
We walked past some birders, and as we consider ourselves one of the tribe we stopped and asked what they were observing. A barred owl.
At the lake we saw a pair of Khaki Campbells! We googled to see if they are common in Central Park and discovered that there is just the one pair! Allegedly they were domestics that were released in the park to save their lives! When we were up by the Reservoir we saw American Coots, Shovelers, and Mergansers... but the Khaki Campbells in the lake were the most exciting find -- after the owl. (This is a picture at the lake -- when the Khakis showed up I was too excited to pull out the camera... Yes, because we are THAT level of nerd.)
Last highlight of the day:
On this day eight years ago I had an ultrasound. November 16th is officially It's-A-Girl-Day. We celebrated accordingly.
It was a sick day today. The Boy woke up with an achy back and head and a fever. Damn flu shot (yes, I said it; it's in the Bible). We had to cancel knitting and we pretty much laid low.
The Girl has been wanting to make a duck prop out of felt for the play they are writing in their theatre class, so, leaving The Boy in the very able hands of The Sister, my daughter and I had some one-on-one time. We went to Lee's Art Shop -- a store full of possibilities. After winding up every single wind-up toy and discussing which one was the cutest and which one was the most interesting we meandered down to the crafting section and found what she needed in amongst the very random items.
I enjoyed being with her to hear her cute voice and ideas. She is a very thoughtful, wise, funny little gal. I looked down at her at one point and thought: if I were a seven-year old girl I would definitely choose her to be my friend. Ironically, as I was thinking that she slid her hand out of mine. She is much more independent in that way than her brother.
Walking home past the Time Warner Building we stopped to watch some ice sculptures being created.
"I wonder how they learn to do that?" Me
"Yeah. Who taught him?"
"It's pretty cool that everybody has different skills." Me (I'm on this theme lately)
"But how did he know he could do that?"
"I don't know. I wonder what he does during the summer." Me
"He probably sculpts sand castles."
"There are so many things. How do you know what you should do?" Me
After a few steps I said in a the-world-is-my-oyster-voice, "Maybe I'm supposed to be an ice sculptor."
"Yeah, maybe you are." This was said in voice that was half super-cute fun and half smart-alec taunting -- like the teenage boy who looks at his mom and says with his eyes wide: Those leg-warmers look great on you -- you should definitely wear them to your reunion...
On an unrelated note (or very related), a friend passed along this article about homeschooling from The Atlantic Monthly. As I was reading it Judd the Red Chicken crawled on my lap and read some.
"Is this your blog?" He asked.
"No," I answered, "Same ideas, but this is well-written."
"Oh."
This morning, while working on math (math! I shake my fists at you!) with Judd the Red Chicken, I looked over at my daughter, draped across the couch, closed book (Misty of Chincoteague) clasped to her chest, and staring off into space.
(Tomorrow our 1st-quarter reports are due into the Office of Home Schooling. How? The sharp realization of how finite time is has been piercing me. I feel like we are running out of time to do everything awesome, and running out of time to make sure they've mastered what they need to.)
I opened my mouth to ask her why, if she had finished the book, she wasn't either doing a book report, or finding a different book... and then I closed my mouth. The sweet little smile she had on her face checked me just in time.
"Are you daydreaming about having a horse?" I asked, inspired.
Her eyes dreamily shifted and made contact with mine and she smiled wider and nodded.
It's for that that people home school.
This afternoon I was also inspired that we should walk across the park to the Met.
Before The Dad and I had children (so I guess he was The Husband), we were visiting NYC and passed the Alice statue by the Conservatory Water and saw kids climbing and crawling all over it. We felt that New York City kids were surely some of the luckiest kids in the world. That moment has become a part of our family lore, and the kids know that no matter how much they've been hustled because we're in a hurry, and no matter how hot or cold it is, if they ask to climb it we almost always give in. Today was no different. Today we just called it gym class.
Here are some of the things we talked about at the Met:
1. Bashford Dean was awesome. We loved his bookplate (above) and plan on designing our own for an art project. The Latin means: "To know the cause of things." Which he clearly embraced. To simultaneously work for the Natural History Museum and the Met... to be a stellar zoologist, while also building the arms and armor department? I bet he was enthralling to chat with. I asked the kids what their two top subjects would be. The Girl: Art and Animals. The Boy: Chickenology, The Cops/The Fuzz, History (we are still working on math -- i.e. 2 does not equal 3).
2. The gift of the educators, security guards, and volunteers that work there. We asked one volunteer if he had any tidbits for us and he smiled and led us over to the armor made for a five-year old (the great-grandson of Louis the XIV). Perhaps we've noticed it before, but if so, it didn't make an impression on us. Today while the elderly gentleman with his pants pulled up to his nipples pointed out the tiny lions and castles that bedazzled the armor I thought: now we will always remember it. He also showed us a gun that had little squirrels (the shooter pushed on their tails to cock it). Later as we wandered Judd the Red Chicken made a sharp turn and went behind a wall to show The Sister a tiny area where some animal mummies are. He knew their secret whereabouts because of a security guard a long time ago who took the time to point them out to us.
3. Because of a Colbert clip that they saw a while back (Stephen Colbert asks the curator that came on his show a) if he could lick the paintings and b) if the fob on Washington's trousers are his testicles), the kids have been wanting to see Washington Crossing the Delaware. We have forgotten the last couple of times, but today took a ride in the great glass elevator to the very cool second floor of the American Wing and saw the painting. Yes, when we got home we had to watch the Colbert clip. Say what you will about his appropriateness/inappropriateness, I'm pretty sure they will remember that the painting was done by a German-American painter 75 years after the event (50 years after Washington had died), and that that crossing happened on Christmas.
4. In the gallery just outside the Washington Crossing... there is a painting that has this guy. I snapped a picture of it for The Girl, because while she doesn't love going to the Met like the rest of us, she is a good sport and likes to play a game of trying to find all the cool animals lurking in the museum. Today when we walked through the Medieval section I told her that when she was really little that was her favorite section because she loved all the "babies" (as in: the Christ child). She looked at me like I was nuts. Obviously, likenesses of animals have trumped statues of the Madonna and the Son of God.
5. For the sake of being consistent, and creating more of that family lore, I always mention my disapproval of the remodeling of the courtyard in the American Wing (the day I finally saw it after it had been closed for eons I was so flabbergasted I vented my opinion to approximately half a dozen security guards). In my opinion, they took away a bulk of the charm. That having been said, it is still the Met, so still pretty perfect. We still always talk about where we would stay and what we would do if we were Jamie and Claudia Kincaid (From the Mixed-up Files of Ms. Basil E. Frankweiler -- a favorite kid book).
6. Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. That's a little chant that British schoolchildren learn. So I taught it to mine. This was King Henry XIII's armor. Today I told the kids that he was really upset when one of his wives showed up and was not the great beauty he was told to expect.
"The thing is," I said all scandalous-like, "He was hideous himself!"
"Yeah, well, his tush would have been popping out of the back here," said The Girl from behind the case.
7. We always have to check on the flowers in the main entrance hall. I love them. The kids are sweet and always get especially excited if there are hydrangeas (my favorite). A lady left an endowment to ensure that there would always be the enormous fresh flower arrangements there in the Met. Some might feel like there are more noble causes for which to create endowments. I have mixed-up feelings (if not files). We talked about how much money is tied up in those flowers because it's the interest of a large sum that is used. I could argue that the flowers inspire... but how many school children that truly need to be inspired are coming to the Met? Field trips have become a joke because of cost and scheduling of buses (it's usually just a lot of rushing about). The flowers are no more or less superfluous than the rest of the art; they are doing the job they are supposed to do, but being stationary objects can only inspire if people/children come to them.
I'm glad that we went.
We walked home through the park at that magic time when all the lights pop on. In the almost-darkness the man that creates the enormous bubbles continued doing so... with no crowds and hardly any light he continued creating the wobbling orbs that shimmered and floated phantom-like under the lamppost glow.
Math = workbook time. Regardless of what we do the rest of the day, we always have math/piano time when one kid pounds on the piano while the other plugs away through the Everyday Math materials. Somebody asked me if we were doing "actual math" because I haven't really mentioned that here on the blog. The thing is, the blog is our family journal to help us remember this year. I don't really want to remember the math workbook moments that either seem pointless or painful.
Today they were doing worksheets for piano and unexpectedly the worksheet felt satisfying (at least to me). The moppets had to figure out how much each note or rest was worth and then add up the fractions to whatever amount the time signature called for before drawing where the bar line should go. It was challenging, but felt attainable. It was practice that clearly correlated to achieving the goal (playing the piano). Instead of being the not-math part of the hour it was MORE math, but because it had authentic context it had a spark of life that our limp, perforated, newsprint-colored math worksheets never seem to be able to muster.
On a different note, we are reading a book together and a reference to Mr. T came up. This led to some youtube surfing that led to us watching the opening song/explanation of the A-Team. "That's nice," my daughter said in response to learning that Murdock, Face, BA, and Hannibal were helping others (if you can find them) -- while trying to clear their own names. My son's glazed happy stare came from watching the exploding vehicles. How can there be so much testosterone in such a skinny little body?
My kids got these today after their flu shots. I thought that they were kind of funny, even little faint nods to the Junior Ranger badges/patches. The kids were not amused.
Flu shots. Do they make anybody else sick with a faint, vibrating panic? After once reading about a sad incidence with a kid and a flu shot I questioned our friend who's a doctor about it and he said in that pragmatic bored way that makes all of us non-doctors kind of hate doctors, "Yes, some children will die from a flu shot. We know this. You still should always get flu shots." Well, okay then. That's exactly what going to the doctor is usually like -- not particularly inspiring, but something I do because it seems like it's the best option I've got... This society I live in, and for the most part my own experiences, has/have conditioned me to think that I would be being irresponsible if I did not go to the doctor on time/in time. I have a very close friend who's going down the path less-traveled and doesn't do any shots, and isn't afraid to question conventional/Western medicine. There have been times when her decision has made me squeamish, but this I know: she is an intelligent and thoughtful person, so I trust that she might know something about what's right for her family. I hope that if I haven't been supportive, I have at least been neutral. I'll say that her medical philosophy seems particularly sane as I watch for anaphylaxis, seizures, fevers, etc. post-shot -- the idea of injecting a harmful virus into my kid simply because some dude who went to medical school (and gets paid for giving shots) tells me I should, does in fact seem like the most asinine parental decision ever.
That spectrum: supportive to neutral to myopic/rabid/know-it-all-about-everybody's-business has been on my mind. On Saturday The Girl was invited to a birthday party with the girlies from public school. It was down in SoHo at a bookstore and I had nothing but good feelings going into it (we love the family throwing the party), and then, as I was squeezing our parade through the hipsters with tight pants, and tourists with tight pants, I realized that I would be seeing some parents that I haven't had any contact with yet this year... and I felt... nervous.
The Boy likes nonfiction a great deal. I know that the new Core Crap is all about nonfiction, and I vehemently disagree with it -- but that's a topic for another time. I would like his reading diet to be balanced, and so after dropping The Girl in the party room, I told him that while at the bookstore he could pick out a paperback fiction book of his choice. He didn't want to, and stood staring blankly at the wall of books for 9-13-year olds, looking every inch like a little thug with his back c'd, his arms folded and his baseball cap on sideways (note: baseball cap to cover up the quarter-tube of hair tonic he had decided to use... it had been an interesting morning). I chatted with a friend. A bookstore employee came up and asked him what he was looking for/what he was interested in, so she could help him. He looked panicked. He couldn't form a word. He stammered and rocked and kept looking over at me like: what do you want me to say???
I knew that the panic was a) because he likes to be dramatic and b) because he was confused by her question. Did she really want to know what HE wanted and what HE was interested in? Because if so, that would be a nonfiction book about history or chickens or inventions or the history of inventions having to do with chickens. If the question was what was he supposed to be looking for, well that was different... In that moment, all of my angst about having to deftly maneuver through the, "How's homeschooling?" questions frothed and churned. He was acting just like the cliche-archtype homeschooler: unable to interact, unable to make a decision without Mama coaching him, wide-eyed and panic-stricken to be out in the world, in a word: weird. In my head I was spluttering about like Yosemite Sam. My face surely looked like Violet's mom in the Tim Burton Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when she plasters on the creepy spread-out smile and her crazy eyes are all: get-it-right-or-I-will-disown-you. My freakiness did not help The Boy. The rocking increased; the stammering increased; the eyes got wider.
The moment passed. But once mental spluttering and Violet's-mom-face have kicked in, I'm not one to let moments pass by, so I grabbed the slipping moment by its freaking collar and yanked it back. Have you ever done something that you're not proud of, and because you're ashamed and pissy you then make it way worse? So, I did that. Standing in line I was like, "When people talk to you, can you please answer them?" And with his baseball cap all sassy he was like, "Yeah, whatever." So then I was like, "Because the 'errrrr,' 'hmmm,' 'ugh,' 'derrrr' business is really lame." Who mocks a panicked nine-year old kid? Apparently I do.
How is it that usually I don't give a rip about what people do -- at the most I'm amused or snarky -- but not really influenced, and then all of a sudden I'm back in middle school and the fear of what the other girls think sets me on this trajectory of meanness? Shoot. Being an adult -- making decisions about live virus injections and being all grown up even when embarrassed -- is hard for me, and apparently I am more sensitive about home schooling than I thought. Or at least I was on Saturday.
Today as we wandered about we didn't stand out -- all the public school kids had today off for Veteran's Day. After piano we went to the park with friends.
How nice it feels to be with people who love us -- even if we stammer or splutter. I don't ever feel inclined to prove that we are or are not anything. Standing there thinking about that as our kiddos teased the concussion gods on the concrete slide made the golden day that much more golden.
To their literature/theatre class and then to the flu shots...
After leaving the pediatrician's office the day was about done -- clouds were covering the sun and the temperature had dropped several degrees. Nonetheless, we decided to walk the mile home through the park because it's the route that we used to take home from school on most days. The Girl cried while talking about the shot experience. Both had wanted to go first, and when the doctor came in she settled it by saying that the oldest would go. Judd the Red Chicken, The Eldest splurted a bit of blood and apparently seeing that right before she was poked traumatized her. She didn't really cry in the office, but as we walked along a leaf-littered path she told me how it made her feel and the tears flowed. The Boy was distressed to see his sister so upset (which quite frankly surprised me, usually that seems to be his hourly goal). He said, "I'm sorry. I guess I should have let you go first. It's just that I really wanted to go, too. Next time..."
Believe me, kid, I know what it feels like to be selfish and let my base/scared self dominate my actions. You're right, we just keep moving forward and hope that next time...
