What IS it with family?!

My mother stopped by the other day.

Now, there are two things you should note, dear reader, about the above statement. One: my mother lives in Pennsylvania, and I live in Virginia; it's difficult for her to just "stop by." Secondly, I referred to her not as "my mom," but as "my mother." Never a good sign.

Don't get me wrong -- I love her dearly! She is a fantastic grandmother and a very kind, giving person. In spite of our moral and political differences, she always (OK, usually) defers to me when dealing with my children. She tries very hard not to undermine my "authority." She's never once spanked or smacked the boys, though I'm sure she's occasionally wanted to and probably doesn't know any other way of handling young children's misbehavior. She mentions Jesus sometimes but never pushes the church thing. And until last year, she never questioned our homeschooling decision.

OK, maybe she questioned the decision, but she put on a supportive face for the kids that -- I thought -- became sincere over time. Keep in mind that we've been at this for nine years now. Last year I made the mistake of telling her that we made the leap into unschooling. What the hell was I thinking, you ask? I was thinking that after years of waffling on the subject, I was excited that I'd finally jumped into the lifestyle. I was excited about the whole idea of unschooling, of using the whole world to learn and teach my kids. I was excited at finally having found what really works for our family.

But I'd forgotten that my mother is a former math teacher. In the public schools. {groan} What have I done? Ever since I told her about unschooling, every visit is punctuated by pop quizzes for Noah. Being the real trooper that he is, he handles the questions deftly, translating what he does with his time into educationese like a pro.

But the look on his face the first few times was heartbreaking. It said, Why is Grammy betraying me like this? He couldn't understand why she had suddenly switched into school-principal mode. Before, her questions were all about what cool things he was doing. Suddenly the questions became more schoolish: What are you learning in math? Are you doing grammar? What about science? When can you take time off from school to come visit me?

At this visit, Noah received more of the same. Luckily, Aengus was sleeping over at a friend's house, so he missed the grilling. Apparently, my mother feels it's time he was "doing school," too. She asked if we started with him yet.

"Nope, he's learning just fine on his own."

Will he be starting school next year, then? (Nine years, people!)

"Uh, no."

Won't he be in first grade next year?

"I guess."

Does this mean you're skipping kindergarten?

Shrug. "Sure."

Now, I know that she meant "formal academic studies" when she said "school." Still, I have told her repeatedly how much Aengus has taught himself and that we're allowing him to continue to do so. She just seems hell bent on us using formal curriculum, and I don't know how else to put it so that she'll understand that we aren't using that method.
I guess what it comes down to is that I no longer speak her schoolish language. What is obviously an adventure in writing, spelling, problem solving, critical thinking, history and social studies to me is simply "Runescape" to her. In her mind, if it's not in a textbook or coming from a teacher's mouth, how can it be learning?

I suppose I'll handle this the same way I handled the spanking issue: stick to my guns and wait for the results to speak for themselves. I just hope my mother doesn't destroy her relationship with her grandsons in the process. She's too good a Grammy to lose.

Mental Challenges

You ever feel like an idiot? I mean, not just having-a-blond-moment kind of idiot, but a full-on what-the-hell's-the-matter-with-me kind of numnut.

I love hanging out with my home-educating girls. But every time we get to talking, and each time I read the message boards, that feeling of intellectual inadequacy comes over me. It's not that I'm unintelligent, I remind myself; it's that these women are all above-average. They really are smarter than the average American. Way smarter. And it's very humbling.

Even so, I give myself pep talks and convince myself that while I may not be brilliant like my friends and fellow home educators, I am at least somewhat intelligent.

Then comes a day like yesterday. I spent hours --hours-- on the computer, trying to figure out how to burn CDs and load videos onto Noah's mp3 player. This is something any teenager can do with speed and ease, right? So, how hard can it be? Apparently, very hard. At first, the CDs we burned (burnt?) wouldn't play on a CD player at all, just on the computer. After a while of fiddling, I discovered that Media Player had been set to "Burn Data to Disc," not audio. Big, fat DUH.

Alright, I figured that out. I had to burn a new disc, since these are not rewritable CDs, but luckily they weren't expensive. This time the stereo played the CD, but the quality was terrible. I mean, on the computer, it played just fine. But on the stereo it sounded like the tapes we used to make by holding the recorder up to the radio. Well, I figured, at least you can hear music. That's enough technology-induced stress for one day.

Not so! Then we tried to transfer video onto the mp3 player. Apparently, you can't download videos from You Tube, but we did find this handy little website (http://www.videocodezone.com/) that will convert video web pages into various downloadable formats. It only took me two hours to figure out which format would work both on our computer and on Noah's mp3 player. Noah's like, "Can't you just convert the file on Video Code Zone, then have the mp3 player software convert it into the format it needs?" Well, yeah, smart ass. That's what I'm trying to do, but it won't work.

So I spent a very demoralizing couple more hours trying to figure out why this process wasn't following the logic I thought it should (and that the Help screen said it should). It came down to trial and error. I finally got it to work, but I still don't understand why. If I only had a 16-year-old kid in my life to explain it all to me...or my Daddy, who intuitively understands all things electronic.

But the upside of the day was that Noah and I had a little bonding time. Downside is, I feel downright stupid. Time to find some rednecks to talk to; they always make me feel better about myself. You don't happen to know any, do you?

Ah, Noah...

I'm puttin' it right out there: Noah drives me up a fucking wall. Not sometimes...most of the time these days. But even when I'm ready to tell him I've had it, he needs to find his own place, I have to admit he's a really great person. I mean it! He really is. He saves his adolescent venom, as I affectionately call it, exclusively for me. With everyone else, he's really pretty awesome. Case in point:

After fUNschool (our homeschooling co-op) today, one of the moms had a flat tire. Now, Noah didn't jump out of the car and rush over to help. But when I mentioned maybe he could give her a hand, he did saunter over and offer his assistance. The older kids joined him, so we had our own little impromptu auto maintenance class. Unschooling rocks!

Not that any of us knew how to change a tire, mind you. But between the four moms and eight or ten kids who were there, you'd think we could figure it out, right? I mean, how hard can it be? All guys seem to know how to do it, after all.

So, once the jack was alligned under the frame correctly and the van was lifted, the kids took turns unscrewing lugnuts. Noah steps up to the plate: strike one! That thing wouldn't budge. Try another lugnut, buddy. Strike two! Those suckers are on tight, aren't they?

At this point, Noah steps back to let another teen try; this time, a girl. She got it on the first try. I could just see the self-esteem issues wafting about his aura...There goes his manhood now...

Next up, another girl. His crush, at that. Ruh-roh. But she wasn't able to move any lugnuts, either. Then Noah comes up with the idea of using his foot on the crowbar, and the rest was easy. Manhood crisis averted. Whew!

The girls got the spare tire and lugnuts on, then Noah tightened them. The mom of the van in question started lowering the jack. Bear in mind, this woman had the cutest little skirt and heels on. A white skirt, at that. Noah steps up and --are you ready for it?-- asks if she'd like him to do it.

I tried not to let on, but I was bursting with pride. He really pushes my buttons; I think he thinks it's some kind of sport; "mom-needling," and he's the reigning champ. But darned if he isn't, underneath all the puberty, a really nice guy.

Ah, Aengus...

I'm trying very hard to have this not be a blog all about my son's adolescent behavior. But really, with such rich fodder, it's hard sometimes. So instead of bitching about Noah again (which I would dearly love to do right now), I'll pull a Steph and tell you what Aengus has been learning today.

Aengus spent the morning going through his toys in the attic, pulling out items to sell at a Yard Sale. Never mind that it's a Thursday morning. Never mind that he has maybe two dozen toys in his sale, and nothing else. Never mind that he's asking $14 for a box of broken-ass TMNT guys. This boy is convinced he's going to make a lot of money.

So, he made a sign: I told him the letters, he wrote them on a scrap of paper and taped it all to shit onto a stick. We took the dog, the sign, and a hammer down the street to the main intersection and hammered his stick into the ground. People zooming by can almost recognize the red blob on the sign as an arrow, so he might get some traffic.

Fast forward to after lunch. No customers yet. Not easily deterred, Aengus whips out another scrap of paper and bursts into my bedroom. Little shit. I was sleeping.

"Mom," he says. "How do you spell car wash?"

OK, Adesa, time to get up. Coffee. Coffee.

So I got out the bucket for him (after unjamming the large coffee can he had wedged in the bathroom sink, trying to fill it up) and filled it with soapy water. We dragged out all the rags we could find and pulled out the hose. To jump-start business, I declared that washing our own car would be good marketing. Mwah-ha-ha!

After burning bunches of calories, soaking loads of rags and towels, and spraying each other to the saturation point, the task was finally complete. Or, as complete as it's gonna be for now. I still need to Windex the windows, Armor-All the dash, and vacuum the inside. But seriously, if it takes me 4 months to get this far, can't all that wait a few more months? Why kill ourselves doing it all at once?

Aengus totally loved playing with the hose ("Look, Mom! It's a whip!"). But nary a customer in sight. I'm hoping the distraction of his favorite shows will keep him from getting down about not making a cent. Ya gotta admire his self-motivation, though.

I realize that while Noah and I pretended to play store when he was little, Aengus really set up a store. How I wish I had unschool Noah.

Right now, my bright, cheerful, pleasant younger child is dressed in his new black shoes, black socks, too-short black cords, grey shirt hidden under his new black hoodie, black-and-grey beanie hat, and black fabric wrapped around his hands like gloves.

"And just what are you trying to be, my child?" I ask him.

"I'm being Emo."

Rock on, little dude. Rock on.

Peace One Day

After seeing this on The Watcher's website, I feel compelled to share it with everyone I can.