Snails and Shaving

Yesterday the kids helped me in the garden, which means they raked a patch of dirt frantically to "smoothen it out" while I carried bags of mulch, planted some potted flowers that we bought at Home Depot, and weeded the flower beds.

We live in this weird little microclimate zone here in Idaho where it doesn't get all that cold, during the winter, so stuff warms up in the spring much earlier than I'm used to.  It's excellent for flowers, fruit, potatoes, and mainly onions.  (Onion trucks travel up and down the big road I can see from my house all year long.  They don't cover them, so whenever they go around a curve they dump onions out onto the street.  If I felt like walking along with a sack, I would never need to buy onions again.)

The farm stands are not up and running yet (yep, we have those too--they're awesome!) but I'm getting things planted into my garden pretty successfully.  My chamomile, sage, and thyme came back from last year; this year I put in lavender and I re-planted my rosemary, which the winter killed.  This year I'm going to try either bringing the rosemary inside in a pot, or putting a cloche over it for the winter.

I also got ambitious and planted a rhubarb, an asparagus crown, and a grape vine in the vegetable garden.  We may or may not be here when those things start bearing, but fingers crossed that we will be.  We put in a border of strawberries, too, after the lady at the nursery laughed in our faces when we asked if strawberries are hard to grow here.  "Oh, they grow here," she said.  "If you can't get strawberries to grow around here you really need to have your soil checked."  We got brave enough to try grapes because we realized there's a vineyard down the road, so they seem...plausible.

Sasquatch found three snails, and tenderly put them under a rock so they wouldn't feel scared.  Nobody tell him that all bugs don't like being under rocks, okay?  Otherwise I'll have to build even more insect houses than I already do.

Then, last night, Bud and Sasquatch decided they desperately needed a shave, because, as Bud puts it, "You know, I'm not growing any hair, but I do think I'm getting kind of a beard, Dad."  So the Husband obligingly took the blade out of his razor, lathered up their faces, and let them solemnly scrape the soap off.  I was called to admire their handiwork, and duly felt their cheeks and told them what a nice, close shave they had.

The Very Manly Shaving had to start, I'm pretty sure, because Eldest and I have "Girl Dates" where we give each other manicures and are very much foofy ladies for twenty minutes or so.  The boys were disappointed that, in our culture, men don't usually wear nail polish...and that even when I offered to put clear polish on their nails that it just didn't turn out to be as fun for them as we womenfolk made it look.

Before he went to sleep, Sasquatch thought of these items to tell Jesus "thank you" for:
1. Chips
2. Flowers
3. Snails
4. New booster seat for the car with FIRE on it (he finally hit the weight limit on his car seat, and his booster has hot-rod style flames printed on it)

....so it was a pretty good day.

Cheers,

Breanna

Ketones...and a Resolution

Tonight is another night where I wake up--either to an alarm, or my own spidey senses (diabetic moms get those) or, this time, to Bud, who didn't feel good.  And sure enough!  Ketones!

I've decided recently to try to reframe this, although getting up and then staying up for hours until the ketones get cleared is about as pleasant, physically, as you'd think it would be.  I'm working on telling myself "I love that we keep insulin in the house for ketone nights"--because the typical style of reframing, "I love getting up for ketones" is lying really egregiously--and finding something to do other than scroll through my phone.

After a two year hiatus, guess what that is?  Hi blog!

Those of you who know us in real life know how our life has changed, since the last blog post.  (I feel like the last several blog posts have been like this, but bear with me.)  We moved to Idaho, Bud got an insulin pump, Sasquatch is starting to read.

But I've been feeling, again, like I need to have a way to record the hilarious and amazing things that happen, day-to-day.

For instance, right now the kids play a game called "Spider".  The game goes like this: somebody hides, usually in a fairly obvious fashion, and then jumps out at another person and yells "RAAAAAAAAR!"  The goal is to make the other person shriek.  The one yelling "RAAAAAAAAR" is the spider, see, and the shrieking person is the insect.

The other day I was trying to get everybody in the car to go grocery shopping, and Sasquatch was having a day where putting his own socks on was too trying, so he and I were the last ones into the car.  As soon as we opened the door, Eldest and Bud yelled "RAAAAAAR!"  I shrieked, everyone was happy.  As we drove off, Eldest observed: "The car is better for playing Spider than the house."
Me: "Oh?  Why is that?"
Her: "Because it's smaller.  Everyone wants to be the spider in the house, but nobody wants to be the insect."

That's some actual philosophy, right there.

In other cute news, the kids are addicted to Dire Straits songs, thanks to a CD Baba gave us, and whenever I play them in the car demand to have the windows rolled down so we can be cool at the neighborhood.

Here's hoping I can write a blog entry every few days, for a while, even without the ketones.

Cheers,

Breanna

Another Diagnosis - Or, I Owed The Family A Blog Post

This is rapidly becoming a family tradition--every spring, we get a diagnosis.  (I am okay with stopping that tradition after this year, though.)

First, the man himself:

He is not doing his Ray Charles impression, he just thinks this is funny.  This is the face (and green jammies) of Type 1 Diabetes.  Just to prove we're doing great.

As you all probably remember, Type 1 Diabetes (hereafter T1D so I don't have to type so much) is an autoimmune disorder: the immune system, for unknown reasons, freaks out and starts killing beta cells in the pancreas, which are the cells that make insulin.  Pretty much all autoimmune diseases can be summed up as "the immune system, for unknown reasons, freaks out and starts killing _____".

Some autoimmune diseases "travel" together--they're carried in the same bit of genetic code, they develop in response to the same environmental triggers, whatever, we really don't know.  But we do know that, for instance, people with T1D are much more likely than the general population to get celiac disease.

Which, by the way, is our new diagnosis: celiac disease.

Random picture of Eldest, who 1) wanted her picture taken and 2) probably has celiac, too, because her growth has been off.

Celiac disease occurs when the immune system freaks out (told you) and decides that gluten, which is a protein found in wheat, barley, spelt, rye, and some oats, is the enemy.  This mainly affects the digestive system, most severely in the intestines.

The intestines work to absorb your food by having a lot--I mean a lot--of surface area; they're covered in microscopic things called "villi"--under a microscope it sort of looks like velcro.  The villi make it possible for you to absorb nutrients from your food.  When you have celiac disease, however, the gut is on high alert all the time and so inflamed that the villi flatten out, which makes it really hard to absorb anything.  You eat, but the food just doesn't really get into your body.

Thus the symptom that made us do testing: Bud's not really growing.  (Neither is Eldest, although we haven't tested her yet.)  We had some bloodwork done at his regular endocrinologist appointment (we see our endo every 3 months for his T1D) and it came back positive for celiac.

The nurse practitioner who called to tell me was upset on the phone; I really wasn't surprised.

Random picture of Sasquatch, who has eschewed pants for the day.

Why wasn't I surprised?  Well, because I always expect the worst (and this was not the worst, we were worried about his thyroid, liver, and kidneys too and by the grace of God they are all fine), and because celiac and diabetes just go together.  In fact, celiac goes with a lot of things, which is why I'm writing the blog post.  As I began researching it (approximately 5 minutes after we got the phone call), I discovered that celiac disease can cause/be linked with:

-psoriasis
-arthritis
-weird unexplained anemia
-iron deficiency
-vitamin deficiencies
-thyroid disorders
-unexplained fatigue
-"brain fog" -- memory problems, trouble with math, confusion, etc
-emotional ups and downs (beyond normal ones)
-osteoporosis (because calcium isn't absorbed)
-endometriosis
-a really painful rash called dermatitis herpeteformis (an itchy rash with blisters)
-migraines
-Sjorgren's disease
-eczema
-allergies

Pretty much the common factor in all of the above is that they are either an autoimmune disorder or they are caused by malabsorption/starvation--anemia, for instance, would be caused both because the inside of the gut is raw and in many cases bleeding, and because the body just can't absorb enough iron to make blood cells with.

Some people who have celiac have gastrointestinal symptoms: diarrhea/constipation, a lot of stomach aches, etc.  But many don't have symptoms, or have had them for so long that they don't recognize them as odd.  (My sister, when I mentioned this, told me that before she understood she was allergic to chocolate, she thought *everyone* got a slight sore throat every time they ate chocolate.)

Random chicken picture.  I think we all need a deep breath, and this picture of a chubby offended chicken might help.  We call this hen Booty McWidebutt.

So when I saw the list above, if you share DNA with me, you know that I suddenly started nodding and ticking off on my fingers the family members I have who are affected by those illnesses.  (Hint: not very many of us don't have at least one, most of us have several.)

Turns out that celiac disease has a strong genetic component--if you have a first-degree relative with celiac, you're much more likely to get it than the general population.  (Even in the general population it's not that rare: 1 in 100 people have celiac disease.  By contrast, T1D affects 1 in every 10,000.)  Celiac disease is also like other autoimmune disorders in that it is progressive, lifelong, and it can trigger other immune system issues.

In other words, it's not that crazy to think that celiac and non-celiac gluten sensitivity (which is a real thing) might have been rampaging through our genetics for generations.  It would explain a lot, yeah?

That's great.  Here's a random picture of baby bunny butts from my rabbits.  That mama rabbit is Sky.  Her sister Diamond is still alive but the other sister Lucy was mean so we ate her.

So, what do you do about celiac disease?

In a way, that's the good news.  There isn't medication to take--no pills, no needles, no patches, no $700 every three months (which is what we have to pay for diabetic testing strips--which is okay because Bud gets to stay alive, and that's always a bonus).  I was happy not to have another pill to hand him.

Pretty much the only treatment for celiac disease is lifelong, strict adherence to a gluten-free diet.  The gut will heal and be able to absorb nutrition again, and since we caught it early, we can stave off a lot of complications.  Even people who already have some of the other stuff (psoriasis, etc.), though, can get relief from a gluten-free diet.

What do we mean, lifelong?

Pretty simple--he'll never grow out of celiac (any more than he will grow out of T1D), and will pretty much have to avoid gluten for the rest of his life.

What do we mean, strict adherence?

I mean strict.  No "it's his birthday, let him have a regular gluteny birthday cake".  No "just a bite."  No "we don't want to make a fuss, just eat the crackers".  To give you an idea, one instance of eating gluten in a celiac (the amount, say, in one crouton) can make them sick for six months.  People who cheat on their gluten-free diet break bones, get scurvy, and die before their time.

What do we mean, gluten-free?

Well, it's pretty darn gluten-free.  The safe amount of gluten in something for a celiac is 20ppm (parts per million).  This means that not only can a celiac not eat anything that has gluten in it, but they can't use a knife that was used to spread mayo on regular bread to make themselves a sandwich on gluten-free bread--that's right, the gluten-free stuff can't even touch the gluten stuff.  Crazy, huh?

Given all this, we've made the decision to just make our whole house gluten-free.  I contemplated the kind of hospital OR-style procedures (and separate dishes and a separate toaster) that it would require to make gluten-free stuff for Bud and regular stuff for the rest of us, and then decided I just didn't like bread that much.

Where do we go from here?

I've been finding websites.  Basically I have a month to study and prepare.  We can't go gluten-free yet, although Bud's pretty miserable, because he has to have one more confirmation test and ironically he has to be sick for the test to show up as positive.

(This test is an endoscopic biopsy--we will go to Salt Lake to the same awesome hospital we were at before, they will put him under, put a small tube down his throat, and take a few tiny tissue samples from the top of his small intestine.  I am more nervous about this than he is.)

He has to be eating gluten up to the time of the test, so I'm not changing anything in our house yet.  In fact, I'm trying hard to use up all our gluteny food, because I'm going to have to do the mother of all housecleanings once we transition.

I am hopeful that going gluten-free will help Eldest with her growth issues, help my allergies to calm down, and just be all around better for us.  We won't be able to eat out pretty much at all anymore, but we didn't eat out that much to begin with, and it should help us save money and be healthier, anyway.

It is possible to spend a million dollars being gluten-free.  I suspect that's because nobody wants to cook from scratch. I already like cooking from scratch, and indeed, if you can get over the need to have bread and pasta every day, I don't see why our food bill shouldn't go down.  Beans, rice, potatoes, and corn are all gluten-free.

At the moment my plan is to make everything--stock, yogurt, spaghetti sauce, jam, salsa, pickles, everything--myself.  This should taste a lot better, and since I can buy bulk produce from a restaurant supply place here in town, should actually save us money.  Plain meat is gluten free (obviously the frozen chicken strips or whatever are breaded and are *not*).  There are a lot of meals you can eat that are gluten-free without any weird gymnastics.

Weirdest part of all this?

I have been a little frustrated at the beginning because it's one more thing for Bud to have to deal with, but it's a lot more doable and less scary to me than T1D was (anything's better than the threat of coma and death!) and we're really good at doing stuff ourselves.  We have a foofy supermarket here that has a lot of gluten-free stuff while we transition (I'll buy a box of brown rice pasta to get us through if I have to) and even Walmart has a gluten-free section these days.

What's funny to me is how many things have gluten in them.  Bullion cubes, spaghetti sauce, toothpaste, envelope glue, play-dough, some yogurt, some jelly, salad dressing, just about every single processed food, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, most ice cream, cheap peanut butter, shampoo...the list goes on and on.

But there are a whole lot of things that *don't* have gluten in them:
-plain fresh and frozen fruit
-plain fresh and frozen vegetables
-Fritos (huzzah!)
-plain meats (and even some brands of sausage or hot dogs gluten-free)
-rice
-potatoes
-corn
-milk
-beans

That's a nice amount of stuff to build a diet on, there.  There are even a lot of recipes for homemade gluten-free bread (I hear the storebought stuff isn't that great), which I may try my hand at on special occasions.  I do happen, as well, to own an ice-cream maker (we bought it for $25 in Texas), so I can make ice cream that is cream, sugar, and strawberries (or whatever).  Like I said, this should actually improve everyone's lives quite a bit.

I will probably be posting more when we get done with our other tests, but like the title of the post says, I wanted my family who reads this to be able to start going gluten-free *right now* if they feel like it would be helpful for them. (Although I want to make it very clear that WE DON'T EXPECT ANYONE TO GO GLUTEN FREE TO ACCOMMODATE US, we will just bring our own food when we visit you, okay?  No worries.)  I'll keep posting any tips and tricks I find on how to do it without spending a million dollars.

When Grammy Tells You To Write a Blog Post...

...you go write a blog post.  I'm going to give you a lot of cell phone pictures, so if they're blurry, don't hate me.

What have we been doing?  Lots of things, besides getting injections.  It doesn't seem like diabetes will ever fade into the background of life when you get diagnosed, but it does--really.

I mean, there are doctor appointments, of course. (Documented by his younger brother.  This was Sasquatch taking that picture, with my phone, which he lifted from my purse illegally.)

...but there's also standing-in-front-of-a-stagecoach.  Which is always fun.

Sunshine and sundresses...

MOAR doctor visits (this one at the endocrinologist, they have a waiting room that is Teh Kewelest)...

And getting-to-eat-in-a-restaurant-because-of-getting-home-from-Salt-Lake-late.  That's the most popular part of endocrinologist visits to date.

They saw some big trucks this year--this one is 1/3 of the size of the ACTUAL big trucks that run out at Daddy's mine site--and had a lot of fun doing that.

They got to sit inside one and Bud managed to turn the engine on, although he couldn't reach the pedals, thank goodness.

We got a dog, did I mention that?  A second dog?  He's still no bigger than the play John Deere, but he's discovered he's responsible for telling me whenever chickens get out, or whenever he thinks the middle schoolers might be plotting world domination by walking to the bus stop.  We're working on it.

Popsicle.  Not blood.  Popsicle.

Moar stagecoach.  (We bought a membership to the museum, it was totally worth it.)

I killed my second scorpion after stepping on it and finding out we luckily don't have the poisonous kind here.  Just the tiny, terrifying kind.  It's called an Arizona Hairy Scorpion.  Really.

We got very tired.  A lot.

We sat in a fire truck.

We were devastatingly handsome.

We were cowboys,

tough hombres,

settlers,

and Native Americans in wigwams.

I grew a garden...

we lost teeth...

we brewed beer...

I got an antique sewing machine named Babe...

and we were devastatingly handsome.  (This is his "beetle shirt".)

Winter set in and the stove has kept us toasty.

(And handsome.)

We had more doctor visits, this time with our hA1c and our growth more on track.  There was free books and stickers involved, it was awesome.

We dressed up for Halloween...

...as an orc...

....a dragon...

...another dragon...

(moar dragon)

...and Galadriel.  (The Husband made me take this picture.  Pointy ears and all.  

There was a party.  Go big or go home.)

Then we fell asleep before the party.

I was instructed by the Husband to never, ever make anything from this book, but I think the tuna pimento loaf might be "nourishing".  We'll see how angry he makes me.

(Did I mention he's handsome?)

Miss Boo is reading at about a third grade level and has decided subtraction was invented by the Communists as part of a plot to dishearten the nation's youth.  We're working on it.

Paleontology, on the other hand?  That's cool stuff.  This is her report on proceretops.  She wanted the whole caption to read "a young proceretops would have had little chance against a pack of hungry velociraptors".  She wins the first grade, in my opinion.

We baked.

Snow came on the mountains.

We made "surprises" for mama.

We turned six...

And then it was Christmas.

Just like always.

(Well, so we may have been wearing a shirt as pants for part of Christmas.  But, you know, almost like always.)

Cheers,

Breanna

Update, and Miss Boo's Version of History

First of all, you all must have been praying for us.  Last Sunday went so much better--we went to church, people said hi to us, and in general God was good.  Thank you so much.  (Don't stop!)

And now on to what I am pretty sure will become an ongoing feature--Miss Boo's version of history.  When we study history, at the moment, it consists of me reading her a passage from "The Story of the World" (Ancient History this year), and then her giving me a "narration", i.e. telling me her version of what I just read.  I write the narration down as she's talking as a record, and because eventually she will do her narrations by writing them as essays.  It's supposed to teach the kid to pay attention, develop their memory, develop their English skills, etc. etc.  It does seem to be doing all that.  It's also kind of hilarious.  Here is a sample:

"The First Sumerian Dictator"
Sargon took over.  He killed the king.  Sargon became the king.  He wanted to rule the whole land of Mesopotamia.  He did it.  The people thought he was a bad king.  He put soldiers all over.  They were in every city, so if someone didn't obey the rules, the soldiers would punish them.  Good thing he's not trying to conquer us!

"God Speaks to Abraham"
Abraham and his family had to leave their home because there was an empire there and lots of soldiers in every city.  They went to Haran.  Abraham went for a walk.  God came and told him, "I want you to go to Cannan."  So Abraham took everybody and went to Cannan.  Then God told him he would have a baby.  They named the baby Isaac, because they laughed at God.

"Joseph Goes to Egypt"
Well, Joseph was a boy with a fancy coat.  His brothers wanted one too.  One time they were out in the desert.  They saw Joseph and threw him in a pit.  They saw some traders and gave them Joseph.  They would sell him as a slave.  They took him to Egypt.  The first man who bought him was Potiphar.  Joseph worked hard--Joseph is always gonna be a good worker.  But Potiphar's wife told lies, and Joseph went to the Egyptian's jail.  But, not forever; the boss of Egypt had a dream.  His name is Pharaoh.  He said, "who can tell me what my dream means?"  It was Joseph!  The dream meant seven years of lots of food and seven of no food.  Joseph had a good plan: gather the grain and save it. 

His brothers got hungry.  They went to Egypt.  Joseph was in charge of the food but they didn't know it was him. But Joseph realized them!  Joseph told them: "live in Egypt!"  Then they lived there.  Joseph said, "God had a plan."

"Hammurabi's Code"
Hammurabi was a king.  He was a good king, because he made laws and rules that everybody had to obey.  If a robber broke into a house, he would have to pay.  If he didn't have money, he would be put to death.  Hammurabi made laws so people would be safe and no bad guys would hurt them.  The Babylonians invented looking at stars and planets.  Constellations are groups of stars that make a picture.  They are only found in space.  They invented the calendar, and the clock.

"Shamshi-Adad, King of the Whole World"
Shamshi-adad was a bad king.  He wanted to be king of the whole world by chopping off other leaders' heads and burning their houses.  But when he died, he left two sons.  They wrote each other nasty letters.  And then Hammurabi conquered their cities.  Hammurabi was a good king, remember?  But the Assyrians didn't like to be conquered.  No one likes to be conquered.  Everyone should keep their very own cities.

"The River Road"
Ancient people traveled in boats, because their roads were sandy and rocky.  One country that used rivers was India.  Their river was the Indus.  (Why does it always have to be the Indus?)  They traded with Mesopotamia.

Now that you are a little more historically literate, you can go about your day.

Cheers,

Breanna

Going To Church in a New Town

I am not the parent I pictured myself being.

I have all these ideals--like I want to read to my kids every day and have wonderful uplifting discussions of fine literature and the arts (after school, just because we love it), when instead what we end up doing is playing the Wii and dancing around to The Backyardigans--again.

I want to make all our bread (cheaper and better) and feed my kids wonderful whole foods that I have prepared with my hands, on a prettily-set table while the TV is off, instead of eating boxed mac and cheese while we watch Dora--again.

I want my kids to pray with us, cheerfully give kisses, and then go upstairs to their beds and fall into sweet slumber while their Daddy and I sit on the couch and lovingly discuss the day, instead of running around and wrestling everyone into their pajamas, and then hurriedly making coffee and packing the Husband's lunch for the next day, pausing now and then to yell "Go back to bed! YOUR bed!  Stay out of your brother's bed!"--again.

But most of all I pictured myself being the kind of parent who took their kids to church every week.  Without really examining this idea, a parent who goes to church every single Sunday (and some Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, and who attends Sunday school and at least one Bible study) was, in my mind, the ideal.  The good parent.  The one who probably keeps a clean house and has family devotions, too.

And then I married an engineer and we moved four times in eight years, and we had to Go to Church in a New Town over and over again.

I know this isn't anything compared to what, say, military families have to deal with, but I confess myself at a loss.  It was easier after the first move, when we had no kids and the Husband wasn't working 14 hour days, and we could easily attend Bible studies scheduled for 7pm on a weeknight.  (We can't now, by the way.  Events at 7pm only work for people who actually get off work before 7pm, and whose work isn't an hour and a half away from home.)  Then, again, after the second move, it was easier because Miss Boo was an infant and I could attend 10am ladies' Bible study groups and be reasonably sure she would sleep through the whole thing.

The ladies were by and large okay with it as long as she was a tiny infant.  By the time she was eight months old, though, they were starting to be of the opinion that I should loosen up and hand her over to the teenager in the nursery, already.  (I couldn't, by the way.  Miss Boo was incredibly clingy as a baby and would have screamed the whole time. I know, I tried it once and had to spend a month fixing her terror.)

Thus began the theme of my church attendance afterward, especially after Buddy was born.  See, the weird thing about the American protestant church is that, while we're pro-life, we're kind of anti-kid, or at least we're anti-seeing-or-hearing-the-kid.

My baby fusses in church? I get side-eye.
My baby babbles in church? I get a polite reminder that there is a nursery.
My kids drop a crayon/penny/toy car/their Bible? I get a polite reminder that there is a nursery.
My kids remind anyone that they exist during the church service?  I get a pointed reminder about children's church.

We like kids, but keep them silent or get them out of there!

The Husband and I believe that it is most appropriate to keep our kids with us in the "real" church service (both because previous experiences have given us safety concerns about children's church/nursery, and because we want them to learn to enjoy a "real" service).  And the oldest two are pretty much to the point now where they can sit, most of the time--unless Miss Boo is having a fragile day emotionally (she's been bursting into tears about many things in a very feminine but very frustrating way lately), or Buddy is having a low blood sugar day (can never predict them, thanks to the last gasps of his pancreas).  Sasquatch, of course, can't and doesn't sit still, but much of the time I can contain him through the sermon by handing him cars, gum, crackers, and crayons.  And he likes the songs.

My kids aren't bad, in other words.  They're not being naughty--they stop when we tell them to, they just make mistakes.  And the Husband and I aren't ignoring their behavior and letting them shriek during the service, and we're not oblivious to the side-eye we get.  (Folks aren't as subtle as they think they are.)

All of which isn't conducive to making Sunday church easy with our kids.  It's hard.  I dread it every week.  Add to this mix Going to Church in a New Town: we know absolutely nobody.  Even after attending at our current place for six months we still know absolutely nobody, because while folks are friendly enough to shake your hand, we can never hang around afterwards and chat because our children are usually about to explode by the closing prayer (sometimes before).  And we can't go to 10am ladies' Bible study groups, and we can't go to 7pm weeknight events, and our kids are not welcome at either of these things anyway (no, telling me to hand them off to the teenager in the nursery doesn't count as "Welcome").  So I suspect that we are known in this church only as "that one loud family with the kids".

We also can't go every week because of the Husband's job and because of the vagaries of my children--because I really do care that we disrupt other people's worship, and I'd rather stay home with them if I can tell it's going to be a baaaaad day.  I usually hope that no one recognizes us enough to miss us if we're gone, but I'm perfectly aware that there are some folks who remember us ("hey, it's that one loud family with the kids again! I hope they don't sit by us!"), and I worry (probably unjustly, but the thought is there) that they are judging us for not attending more often.

Add to this that our church has recently turned its start time back from 11am to 10:30am, but they still go until 12:00 before they stop.  (Yay!  A longer service for me to sit on my kids during!)

Add to this that the Husband and I never (ever) get to concentrate on the sermon because we're sitting on the kids.  I only took Communion twice last year, because of how many Sundays we missed, and because of having to take noisy kids out of the sanctuary while everyone else was being served with the Elements.  (Tip to churches: if you have a cry room, maybe you should serve Communion to the folks in there, too.  I don't know if that would be disruptive, but I would have killed for that the other day.)

It adds up to a choice for me most Sundays: feel lousy because we failed at being silent during church (again), or feel lousy because I didn't take my children to church and instead we're at home like heathens (again).  (Also: when the pastor preaches a sermon on church attendance, and "priorities", and how if you love God you should be willing to give up this one hour {hour and a half service and hour round trip, but who's counting?} for Him.  Always a pick-me-up.)  Sucks, huh?

I'm telling you about it both in the interest of transparency (there can't be only one of me...please tell me there's someone else with this problem...) and because I have no clue what to do about it.  Gritting our teeth and forcing church every Sunday only amps up the side-eye; staying home makes the Husband and I dreadfully homesick for a church service, and the nursery makes our kids emotionally shattered.  (If you tell me they need to toughen up I will punch you in the face.  And I'm not kidding.)

All of which is a long way of saying, would you pray for us?  We couldn't go again today, because I could tell it was going to be a baaaaaaad day, and I am very discouraged.  The Husband has been trying to encourage me and point out that the number of times we attend church per month is not the measure of our faith, nor does it determine how well we are discipling our children, but I still compare myself to the parent I pictured being and find I am falling short.

Anyway.

Cheers,

Breanna

P.S.
I meant that bit about not suggesting the nursery.  Sasquatch is almost too old for it, anyway.

First Day of School, Doubts, and Fixing Advanced Christian Education

First of all, pictures.  I know you want them.

Here we are doing our workbooks (more about that anon).

Seatwork done for the day, we do a little passive learning of German with Muzzy.

Which degenerates into people stealing my phone and taking pictures of a bottle of syrup.

Or putting on their bathrobes over their clothes and posing.

And posing.

And posing.  (Notice the trucks book and the trucks lined up for classification.)

They've had a great time with school, actually.  So you can at least feel better about that.

I'm writing this post in case there's anybody else out there who has purchased the A.C.E. curriculum for first grade, used it for a week with growing dismay, and who is now frantically Googling "how to adapt the A.C.E. curriculum (since the boogers won't take returns)".

First, my problems with the curriculum--because maybe not everybody objects to the same things.

1. Many, many rote drill exercises.

I am actually in favor of rote drill for a few selected things, especially in the primary grades.  For instance, I think rote memorization of math facts (2+3=5, the various iterations of x+x=10) is quite useful, and the parts of speech pretty well have to be memorized.  But so far A.C.E. appears to want the kids to memorize everything, without explaining the why of anything.

2. Zero critical thinking.

Now, in first grade I'm not expecting the curriculum to ask the kid to explain the claims of Marxism and then to write an essay refuting or supporting those claims. But I would like them to ask questions about a story like "Why do you suppose the wolf was trying to get into the three little pigs' houses?  What else could the pigs have done?  Why do you think the first pig's house blew down?"  Nope.  You get none of that.  In fact, you don't get the story of the Three Little Pigs or any secular story.  Which brings me to

3. Moralism in storytelling.

If any of you know Uncle Art you'll know what I'm talking about.  Every single story we've run across so far has a moral to the story.  Granted, there is less death in these stories than in Uncle Art's interesting tales (and no one is stabbed with a knitting needle), but there's still a definite sense that Bad Life Outcomes can be directly related to Foolish Choices every single time.  Also, Bible Verses Out of Context.

4. Weird phonics.

I am probably bothered by this more than other teachers might be because Miss Boo is reading fluently already, therefore she doesn't need a phonics drill, and Buddy is well on his way to decoding.  (We're up to sentences like "THE RAT IS IN THE SACK.  THAT RAT IS NOT SAD."  Actual example from his reading today.)  So reviewing the letter A for them was superfluous, but I figured it was okay to have them do some easy things during their first few days of school.

So for my kids, this is just silly puzzle work.  But the teacher's manual that comes with "ABCs with ACE and Christi" (the phonics curriculum) is VERY strict, stern, and insistent.  You are NOT to let the kids try to sound out words that contain letters they haven't studied! You are NOT to let them write the words or their names!  You are NOT to write words where they can see them that contain letters other than the ones you've studied already!

They also study all the sounds a letter can make before moving on to another letter, instead of concentrating on the most common sound and getting on to reading words.  (For instance, A has three sounds.  We spent the whole first week on various sounds of A, but without learning any rules like "an e on the end makes a say it's name, as in cake", because we haven't learned E yet.)

To me this is stupid.  The point of phonics is to get a kid reading.  If I don't let them decode words from the beginning, what is the kid supposed to think phonics is but a very boring game that the teacher likes a lot?  It's not very hard to teach the sounds of A, M, T, and S and then let the kids figure out MAT, SAM, TAM, SAT and so on.  Otherwise, you're asking the kid to take your word for it that in six weeks we will start reading words.  Honest.  Now do your phonics worksheet, schnell!  No wonder some kids hate reading.

5. No science or history to speak of.

The science workbooks include a lot of penmanship practice, the six days of creation (good), a bit about the five senses (good), more penmanship, a bit about weather (okay...) more penmanship, and finish off with some more Out of Context Bible Verses and penmanship.

Not science.

The social studies workbooks are all penmanship.  (The student does read and do comprehension exercises, but still they are multiple choice comprehension exercises.  My kid learned how to game the test in two exposures.  It's penmanship practice.)

All in all, the A.C.E. first grade curriculum gives you lots and lots of penmanship and counting practice, no literature exposure, no science, and no history, as well has having a bizarre approach to phonics.  You do learn how to game a test--i.e., guess which answers the test wants without knowing the material very deeply--but I don't think that's a terribly useful life skill.

How I'm Fixing It:

The thing is, I knew I should have stuck with my instincts.  I have loved The Well Trained Mind for years, and it's what I used in Miss Boo's preschool/kindergarten years (and it's why she reads as well as she does).  For some reason, though, I got the Homsechooling Jibblies this year.  This was first grade, after all, shouldn't there be workbooks?  Or something more formal than me reading and saying, "so what was that story about? tell it back to me".  I succumbed, and bought the most rigorous-looking program that wasn't $800 that I could find.

Moral of my story: don't succumb to the Homeschooling Jibblies.  Or you will get the hollow curriculum.

So what am I doing about it?

1. Fewer rote drill exercises.

This is the beauty of homeschooling.  Since I am sure that my child does, indeed, grasp the concept of four ducks = numeral 4, instead of doing a whole page of these I let them get by with half a page.  At five years old, Miss Boo doesn't need to sit for longer than a couple of hours per day (another beauty of homeschooling), so this works out fine.

2. Require critical thinking.

This requires that we do reading outside the PACE (that's Packet of Advanced Christian Education, get it? it means a workbook).  I'm working my way through Aesop's Fables and other classic stories, asking the kids to do narration of the story, and to think about it critically.  They are used to this, because we've been doing it since they were little.  (Upon watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarves for the first time, Miss Boo observed, "Snow White is really silly.  She's afraid of sticks."  Way to not maintain the suspension of disbelief, there, my dear.)

3. I edit the stories and take out the moralism.  Because bad things do not only happen to bad people.  Since I'm the one reading these stories aloud, I can usually make them funny.  (In passing, A.C.E., if you are going to give a character flaw to a mule, make it stubbornness, and not inattentiveness.  There's no reason to thumb our noses at all western tradition.)

4. I teach phonics with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  And treat the phonics instruction in the A.C.E. curriculum as a useful game, but I don't take it seriously and I CERTAINLY don't keep the kids from practicing writing their name, sounding out random words we find in the world ("Mama, what does 'T-R-A-S-H' spell?") and other adventures in literacy.  It's just stupid to hold them back.

5. I treat the science and social studies PACEs as penmanship practice and teach science and history from other sources.  Specifically, from Read and Understand Science and The Story of the World.  Apart from this, we will continue, as we always have, to read lots of picture books that are science and history focused, and to watch documentaries.

We will continue to work through the PACEs because I paid for them, dagnabit, and, well, they do need penmanship drill.  Sigh.


Now, I can think of some instances in which A.C.E. might be useful to you.  It might be useful if:

1. You are a brand-new homeschooling parent with a severe case of Jibblies, who wants to know exactly how you're supposed to structure your day, exactly how to keep records, exactly what order to do things in, etc.  The guidance provided is extremely thorough and extremely complete, and the scheduling and record-keeping is easy to set up.  But I think it could also be very overwhelming.

2. You are homeschooling eighteen kids at once and need something that lets you not have to do much hands-on teaching.

3. You are in a situation where you need to produce A Schedule, A Workbook, A Test, and An Attendance Sheet to please someone--be it a family member, an administrator, etc.  There are people who don't understand that a portfolio of essays is a better indicator of academic achievement than three multiple-choice English tests, sadly.  You may have to play to them.

4. You don't really want to teach, but you want to homeschool your kids.  (You might consider, however, reflecting that all grownups have to do things they don't like, and studying how to teach, and deciding to pull up your big girl/boy pants and get it done.)

Now, the TLDR version:

Although I'm disappointed in the curriculum we purchased this year--and more disappointed that I can't return it--I'm adapting it to make it work for us.  Nevada isn't a high-regulation state, and my kids aren't mandatory reporting age yet anyway, so I can do whatever I want.  Just remember, homeschooling parent, that you are the boss of the curriculum.

The kids are loving school and doing excellently, and charging through their workbooks at high speed.  They like our read-alouds (at the moment we're doing The Wind in the Willows), and are great critical thinkers when they aren't posing in bathrobes.  So we will probably finish early this year, and I'll be moving them along to something more to our tastes.

How's school going for you all?

Cheers,

Breanna