Girl vs. Hair

I don't know about you, but when I was little, my mom had the ultimate say-so about my hair.  I had long hair.  It was curled each morning.  I had bangs.  They were cut straight across my forehead, and they were also curled each morning.  When I was 9, I rebelled.  I insisted that I wanted to grow out my bangs.  My mother fought me for months, but I won when I would no longer let her get the scissors near my forehead.  I did this by shaking my head demonically.  She acquiesced, and I grew out the bangs.  As I got older, I kept the hair long for the most part, chopping it off only once in a horrid experiment that caused me to look like a poodle for many months.  I've only had it short once since then, and while it was not quite as horrid the second time around (since I actually knew how to care for my hair at that point), I realized that long hair is something I should stick with.  It simply works for me.

I have never employed any manipulation with Boo's hair.  I kept it in a bob when she was tiny, but when she was big enough to have an opinion, I allowed her to let it grow or trim it as desired.  

She's always liked it long.  When we'd go to get it cut, she'd insist on having only the most minuscule amounts taken off, leaving the majority behind.

This week, however, she suddenly got a bee in her bonnet and decided she wanted her hair gone.  ALL gone.  I'd been gunning for a trim for a while, hoping she'd go back to a bob or something, but nope... the girl wanted something between Michelle Williams and Carey Mulligan.  Not that she knew who they were, but she's kinda like her mother in that things are either all or nothing.

So tonight, we went to get her hair cut.  And I love the results.

She's awfully pleased, too.  My girl got her first major haircut.  It's a milestone!

Peaceful Monday

I don't always love Monday.  In fact, most of the time I am not a fan of Mondays at all.  They are, however, growing on me.  The primary reason for this is simple:  I don't have to go anywhere.  Every other day of the week, I have to get in the car and drive someone or multiple someones somewhere to do something.  Swim team practice, swim meets, yoga class, violin lesson, homeschool group, even going to the library - all of those involve me spending time driving back and forth across town.  I love to drive.  I just get tired of running the same routes every week.

This Monday has been particularly glorious.  Doodlebug and I went to a concert last night and didn't get home till 11.  It would have been later, but we left the show early because the poor boy is not a night owl at all and was nodding off in his seat.  He felt bad, but he usually puts himself to bed around 8, and even with a nap yesterday afternoon, he just couldn't stay awake any more.  Obviously getting up early was not in the cards today.  We managed to be up and around by 8-ish, though, which was a good thing because a photographer friend of mine came over after dropping her own munchkins off at school and proceeded to spend the next hour or so taking a million photos of my kids.  It was cloudy and a little drizzly, but not misty, so the lighting was perfect.  When we got done, she browsed through some of the photos she'd taken and made me tear up because the kids looked soooooo big.  Some of her pictures of Doodlebug reminded me of senior portraits.  Scary thought.  Boo had conned Speed Bump into being in some of the shots, so we have pictures of the girl and her dog.  Those are adorable, too.

We wandered upstairs and did school for the what was left of the morning before breaking for lunch.  Broken bowl, lentils and pottery shards all over the floor - sometimes that would have made the entire day crappy, but I just couldn't manage to be grumpy today.  It was - and is - still gray outside, so I asked the kids if they wanted to do the rest of their school work in front of the fireplace.  They did.  I dug out a fall-scented candle (What does fall smell like?  Apples and cinnamon and pumpkin, in my opinion) and lit that to accompany the heat of the fire.  I walked upstairs a bit ago and realized that our new logs are doing a fantastic job of heating the living room.  I may never leave this space.  It's deliciously warm.

Boo has finished her school work and practiced her violin, so she's almost done for the day; she only needs to fold and put away her laundry.  Doodlebug is on his last subject, math, and then will do his own laundry and give the Tom-lizard his daily bath.

As for me, I'm going to do my own laundry and make meatloaf for dinner.  Days like this make me wonder if it's worth having extracurricular activities.  I've been debating whether or not to make the boy take a break from swim team for a month or two this winter, just because he's been doing it for so long without one.  The idea is rapidly taking root.  It would free up a lot of time.  More things to think about another day.  Today... today is for relaxing.

It's Like 5, Only Bigger

So 11 is moodier than 10.  My male version of that age has mood swings that would happily do battle with any PMS symptoms a similarly-aged girl might have.  Some things, however, do not change no matter how old the child.

1.  The toilet issues.  I know that not flushing the toilet is a common problem among parents; we suffer from it here, too.  The next time I walk upstairs and get hit with eau de pee will not be the first... nor, I suspect, the last.  One day I hope that I can stop checking to make sure the toilet is flushed whenever I tuck the kids into bed.  I fear it will come the day after they move out.

2. The 'I'm tired/hungry/stressed' tantrum.  They weren't cute when he was 3, and they certainly aren't cute now.  I do feel more inclined to laugh at them rather than take them seriously, however.  Today we took a morning trip to the zoo.  By the time we left, both kids were feeling the effects of hunger and were getting snippy with one another.

Like this... in my car

We made it home, and I fed them right as the tears began.  Normally I don't fix lunches because they're old enough and capable enough to fix their own meals, but some days, it's easier to throw food at the ravaging hordes as opposed to letting them maul one another in their efforts to feed themselves.

After eating, Doodlebug disappeared upstairs, which is never a good sign.  He had to finish his schoolwork for the week, so I had to have Boo go retrieve him.  He wasn't quite asleep, but it was close.  There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth before he finally woke up fully and settled down.  I suspect tomorrow will be another Day o' Tantrums because of overtiredness.  It is what it is.  As long as he doesn't have any night terrors (and yes, even at 11, those haven't stopped, either... they're rare, but they're still frightening.  Imagine hearing a blood-curdling scream coming from your child's room in the middle of the night.  Yeah... that.  He goes back to sleep - because he was never awake - and the rest of us sit around and stare wide-eyed at the walls for the remainder of the nocturnal hours.)

3.  The odd noises and sound effects.  Life is still narrated.  Noises come out of the boy that no self-respecting girl would ever emit.  (This isn't meant to be a gender-biased statement, but I seriously have never heard a girl make sound effects to the extent that boys do.  The occasional, "KABLOW!" Yes.  The odd farting noise?  Sure.  Grunts and squeaks and groans and bomb sounds and car engine rumbles and everything else... I'm pretty sure those belong firmly in the male dominion.)

4.  Whining about chores.  It's actually getting worse with age.  To be fair, I'd whine about chores too if I thought it'd do any good.

There are lots of good things, too, but these are the ones that stand out as the most notable/amusing to me.  The more kids change, the more they stay the same.

What Nobody Tells You About Beardies

So we have a bearded dragon now.  He's about six months old - born in April, according to the breeder we got him from - which makes him a juvenile. (There are four stages of bearded dragon development - babies are 0-6 mos. old, juveniles are 6-12 mos. old, subadults are 12-18 mos. old, and adults are anything older than that.)  He's about 8-10" long, so he's about an average-sized lizard.  His name is Tom.

Tom is an adventure.

When researching bearded dragons, there are tons of web sites and books on the topic.  They all say approximately the same things.  They have lots of things in common, but the thing that stands out the most is that they are all written by beardie veterans.  They do not tell you what actually caring for a beardie is like, if you've never owned one before.  This will be that post.  Consider it my PSA for the month.

First, you do your research and you try to figure out what you need, but the sources all conflict on that and so you wind up at the pet store buying The Kit.  The Kit comes with a tank, a heat lamp, a UVB bulb, a mesh cover, a food bowl, food (pellets and mealworms and papaya), water conditioner, calcisand (which is calcium carbonate... more on that later), etc., etc., etc.  You sigh and think, "Oh, good, that's everything."  

Except... no.  Then you go find a Reputable Breeder.  We went to a local reptile show to pick out our baby, and the lady there was really, really helpful.  Very informative.  And also very frustrating because she promptly picked apart the kit we'd bought and told us what would and would not work with Doodlebug's new pet.

The mesh lid?  No good.  Because it blocks the UVB rays from reaching the lizard.  (Plus our giant cat that we've lovingly nicknamed Fatty Boomsticks had already jumped on the mesh lid and squashed it, and even though we put it back together... well, those things are never quite the same afterward.)  Oh, and you have to make sure to change out the bulb every six months because the amount of UVB emitted will diminish over time.  The thermometer/hygrometer?  Probably good initially but won't be entirely accurate.  Get a temperature gun for better accuracy.  The calcisand?  Throw it out.  Paper towels work.  I've read since that outdoor carpet is fine.  Our breeder uses - and now WE use - slate landscaping tiles, because #1: you don't have to replace them like you have to replace sand; #2: you don't have to worry about the lizard eating it and getting it impacted in its intestines; and #3:  it keeps the lizard's nails from growing too long.  

I had not even THOUGHT about trimming lizard nails until that precise moment.  I can assure you it wouldn't have happened.  Ever.

Right.  So we take the baby - Tom, now - and a care sheet and a bunch of tiles home, fix up the cage, add the lizard.  Then comes the question of feeding it.  I picked up some turnip greens while I was at the grocery store on the same day we got Tom, and he ate those.  He ate some of the papaya.  What he wasn't eating was the mealworms or the pellets that came with The Kit.

Turns out if you buy from a Reputable Breeder (and I do recommend doing that, by the way... her babies were gorgeous, and we got to pick a really cute one... if lizards can be cute), they like live food.

Right.

Back to the store.

Buy some live superworms and crickets.  Oh, and you have to make sure that the crickets are the right size, because apparently you're supposed to have used calipers and measured the space between the lizard's eyes so you don't get crickets that are too big for your new lizard to eat.  The helpful girl at the pet store will also happily inform you that superworms can eat your lizard from the inside out if they're swallowed whole.  The internet will thankfully dispel that as myth.  What nobody mentions is that after you dust mealworms with calcium - because you have to do that once a day and dust the food with vitamins a couple times a week - and add them to the food bowl, they don't exactly stay put.

Escaping food

Now, if the lizard is hungry, this isn't a problem because he'll chase them down and nom them before they get away.  If your lizard has tanked up on other bugs, though, or greens, or simply isn't hungry, you're left to chase down the rest of dinner before the buggers slip into the cracks and crevices between the tiles and get stuck.  This is why, starting this evening, Tom will be eating dinner and breakfast in a separate container.  Doodlebug and I are tired of chasing down leftovers.

Something nobody else mentions in the care-of-reptilian-creatures pages is that you have to clean poo.  I mean, duh, right?  But apparently if your lizard doesn't poo every day, it's a sign of impaction.  And you know what happens if your lizard gorges itself on too many crickets and/or superworms and gets impacted?  It can die.  And ain't nobody got time for a dead lizard.  To clear an impaction, you fill the sink or a tub with warm, 100-ish degree water, and you let the lizard soak.  And while it's soaking, you have to massage its stomach.  Because the impaction will make itself felt on the left side of the abdomen.  And then your lizard will take a giant crap and feel better.  Please don't ask how I know.

At that point, you clean up the poo before the lizard tracks it all over the cage, and regardless of how quick you are on the poo-cleaning draw, you still have to wipe the cage down with a diluted bleach solution every week or so.

Speaking of water, lizards are also picky drinkers.  Tom seems to be especially picky.  He will not drink from his water bowl.  He will not drink if water is dripped onto his snout during his daily misting.  He likes his baths.  Specifically, he likes to drink from his baths.  But because lizards need water just like the rest of us, he will apparently need a bath... every day.

I swear he's mocking me and all the care I'm putting into
making sure he doesn't bite the big one.

I'm sure that Doodlebug and the rest of us - Tom included - will settle into a routine soon, and then feeding and bathing and cleaning and all of that will become habit.  Right now, though, we're smack dab in the middle of the learning curve.  I just hope there aren't any casualties.

Optimism - When NOT to Share

The boy has been on the lookout for the tiniest signs of puberty ever since he started reading about adolescent 'symptoms' in various books about the topic.  It's like he can't wait to grow up and get out of here or something.  (The girl, however, will live here as long as someone will subsidize her decor and clothing accessory habits.  I have a surprise for her... all subsidies end at the age of 18 unless the child in question is enrolled full-time at a college/university.)

Occasionally the boy will be peering at himself in the mirror, as he does for long periods when he's supposed to be showering, and he'll think that he sees something.  At this point, even though this is supposedly what he's looking for, he freaks.  And then he gets giddy.  And then he gets embarrassed.  And then he feels the sudden urge to run downstairs in his underwear and share whatever revelation he's just had.

A few weeks ago I was asked to inspect his upper lip for signs of facial hair.  Well, of course, there's vellus hair.  Which he had just apparently noticed.  And which he was mistaking for an actual mustache.  No, son, I will not buy you a razor for something that *I* have and don't even shave off.  It's the same color as your face.  When it starts looking like you have a porcupine growing out of your upper lip and I'm freaking out and crying because OMG MY BABY IS GROWING UP, that is the appropriate time to think you are capable of growing a mustache.

Once or twice, his throat has been itchy from either allergies or being rudely awakened from one of his infamous midafternoon naps, and he's asked me if that means his voice is cracking. D'awww... no, son, sorry, it doesn't.

And once, he came downstairs and wanted to know if all that 'other hair' would match the hair on his head.  And I said not necessarily.  And then he said, "Well, what if you have really bright hair?  Like... red hair?"  And I said I had no idea because quite frankly, I'd never asked anyone.  Ever.  Nor did I intend to.  And please walk away now.  Thankfully he dropped the subject.

I don't even want to imagine what symptom of adolescence he's going to invent next.  I just want to take his face in my hands and look him straight in the eye (well, as straight as he'll look at anyone in the eye.  You have about 0.2 seconds to get your message in before he's elsewhere) and say, "Y'know what?  Make ya a deal.  You quit telling me about imaginary pubertal symptoms, and I'll let you know when I notice something."  Because I love that he's excited about getting bigger, and part of me is really, really glad that he comes to me with these sorts of things because it means he trusts me with his body and its issues, but sometimes... sometimes Mama just doesn't wanna know!

Hoodies FTW

Oz designated this week "Hoodie Week" for me in our house.  It's probably a good thing, because while wearing hoodies may make you a target for law enforcement (the Unibomber, Trayvon, take your pick... the two are in no way linked in my mind except for hoodies), they also make me feel cozy, and when I feel cozy I'm less likely to lose my shit at/dismantle the 11-year-old who thinks the hour of school between 8:30 and 9:30 is a warm-up hour in which he's supposed to roll around on the floor and annoy everyone.  The gray weather, a giant mug of coffee, Sinatra playing in the background... these are also things that make me feel sane.  It's the little things, folks.

Anyway, hoodies.

It started innocently enough.  Last year I complained that I didn't have any hoodies, and Oz bought me a San Francisco 49ers hoodie because my love for that team predates my love for my husband, and what kind of husband is a Bears fan, anyway?!?  He didn't even like football when I met him.  Traitor.

He also got me an Eskimo Joe's hoodie because my love of their food also predates my husband.

But it wasn't enough.  And when I was feeling down in a funk a few weeks ago, I felt it.  The Urge to Buy Hoodies.  It spoke to me through the medium of the Interwebz, and it said, "Buy the hoodies..."

And so I did.

I started at SnorgTees, who are not paying me to write any of this but if they wanted to send me free stuff, I certainly wouldn't object.  And I found these:

I found lots more than that, but at the time, I felt like I should stick to some sort of budget.  So I ordered two.  Then I went to Facebook and let the enablers there tell me that there's no such thing as too many hoodies.  Who am I to argue with the masses?  So I went to NoiseBot (who are also not paying me, but since I bought even more from them, should send me a thank-you note or something) and found three more designs that screamed BUY ME.  I'd show you what they were, but NoiseBot doesn't have happy little images that I can paste, sooo... sorry about that. 

Between all those hoodies, I now have enough hoodies to get me through an entire week.  Theoretically this should be enough cozy to keep me from losing my mind.  Bring it, Winter!

Now We Are 11 - A Photo Post

Silly String fight - a new tradition begins 

MUST you take my picture, Mother? 

The cake was a bit dense... 

Gifts from a loving sister 

The baby beardie, Tom

Homemade History, Week 11

Trying this a different way this week... lemme know your thoughts.

Topic:  Bronze Age Europe

Reading Options:  Usborne World History Encyclopedia pp. 120-123, Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World pp. 102-107, Kingfisher History Encyclopedia pp. 12-13

Hands-On Learning Options:  Map of Ancient Europe from Map Trek, Stonehenge mystery pages from, research European mythology (Celtic, Norse, Saxon, Slavic, etc.)

Definitions/Critical Thinking Questions:  Neolithic, brooch, palisade, bronze/Why do you think Stonehenge was built?  Do you think it should be preserved?

Electronic Learning Options:  BBC for Kids Anglo-Saxons page, Celtic Europe video, for instance.  There are also lots of hour-long documentaries including this one about the facts behind the fiction of Lord of the Rings.  This is one of my favorite parts of history, so I could go on for days.  I'll stop here.

Next week:  Egypt - The Middle Kingdom, mythology

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Still no luck in finding a counselor.  I have had ONE person give me a name of one they trust that's on our insurance.  ONE.  And at least a dozen suggestions of folks who aren't on our insurance.  And the problem with that is that I don't trust the judgement of the person who DID me a workable name!  The frustration is nearly unspeakable.  However, the boy has been putting forth some effort, and I'm quite proud of him.  The Respect Jar is helping.  Today he got up and did his morning chores without me having to say a single word.  It was glorious.  I know it won't last - I'm painfully conscious of that - but it's something.  I'll take whatever I can get.  Still considering putting him back in school at semester.  We'll see how the next couple of weeks go.

I've put on 4.4 lbs. this week.  I'm going to spend the next three weeks taking it off, I'm sure.

I still haven't posted the 11th week of Homemade History.  I know.  I'll do it later today.  I've enjoyed slacking off.  Next week, however, the kids have requested (and I have decided) changes must be made in the way we do things.  The current methods are getting stale.  History will contain much the same, but the kids would like things to be more mysterious. So each Monday, rather than posting reading options, I'll be posting a question or mystery on the whiteboard.  We'll watch some videos on the topic, and then we'll spend later days in the week doing reading and geography and other stuff to 'solve' or 'answer' the question.  For science, they want to start with the lab and then spend the week figuring out why it did what it did rather than reading something and then seeing it demonstrated.  I can certainly appreciate where they're coming from.  It's much more fascinating to feel like you've conquered an idea, not been spoon-fed one.

For language arts, Boo has asked to stop doing formal spelling as well as Writing With Ease.  She and Doodlebug are both excellent spellers, so I've agreed.  She'll still do grammar, since she doesn't mind First Language Lessons and it takes her hardly any time at all, but for spelling and narration/dictation, I've agreed to pull vocab and narration/dictation selections from whatever books she's currently reading.  She's in the middle of Anne of Green Gables right now, so I'll go through the first few chapters of that book over the weekend and see what I can find.  She's gunning for 'amiable,' but something - her persistent insistence, perhaps? - tells me she's already memorized that one.  I think I'll find other options.

Finally, we're throwing out some electives.  They're electives, for godssake, not mandatory subjects, and it's time to weed out the ones they don't like.  This means that Doodlebug is giving up music theory.  I'm all right with that.  He likes music enough and hears enough of it between me and Boo that he'll still get a thorough grounding in music history and various genres and will probably still pick up theory by osmosis.  She's giving up music theory as part of school as well, but she and I will still play around with it during her violin practice from time to time.  The other elective we're tossing is geography.  The curriculum I found wound up being quite dry in practice, so I had been using it sporadically for a while, and now it's just gone.  I'm not entirely letting geography go by the wayside, since they'll still be doing some with history (and I found Mapping the World with Art that I think both of them will enjoy), but I'm letting up.  So they'll still have Spanish (finishing up with La Clase Divertida and moving over to Rosetta Stone), logic (various books from The Critical Thinking Company) and art (we attend a once-a-month class and do some projects in between, but I'm giving up a formal curriculum there, too) together.

It seems like a much more doable plan.  They're old enough and smart enough to know what they want.  It's time to let the little things go and realize I can't - and shouldn't try! - to teach it all.

Suddenly, Manual Labor!

Just when you find yourself wondering where on earth you can find manual labor for your child to do, The Awesome Husband will take that opportunity to dig, line, and otherwise build a fire pit, and there's plenty of manual labor for a child to do during that project!  Hauling logs, backfilling holes and hauling away extra sand, fetching tools and putting them away - all are jobs that will get morose, electronics-driven boys moving if there's a promise of fire at the end.

As for me, I got to sit down by the fire after it was built and warm my bare tootsies.

I am one happy mama.