Daisy to Brownie Bridging Ceremony

Rhythm

Who woulda thunk? We "began the school year" so to speak, yesterday morning at 10:30 (we had a rollicking good time with friends in their pool the night before and no one was ready to begin our day early). We commenced with lighting a candle and a sharing of joys and sorrows. To a child, even the ones who had been protesting the "back to school moment" most loudly, they all listed as a JOY, starting up our routine again. Some called it school, some called it circle time, some called it "our usual day" and baby, I think, said something like; "Gaeouze-moufalb," because his mouth was full of apple or blue marker or both, it was hard to tell. They were all happy to have days where they knew what would happen when and to have time together peacefully.

I believe in rhythm, I believe in setting the pace and keeping it a calm one for children. It is reassuring to them and creates harmony and flow in a busy household. I also believe in spontaneity and following through on last-minute ideas. Finding a balance of the two is an ongoing mama samba for me.

Another, less flattering note on rhythm; the baby (two now, and a bit beyond baby, but he's the last) has definite expectations of his own day's proceedings. We came home from a long trip a few weeks ago. It was late at night and we all just fell into bed and sleep. Or we would have, had we remembered his bed time routine. He resisted and resisted sleep. He would drift off and then wake up again, crying and screaming for "la-la" (his potty chair) or "bas" (en bas, downstairs) or "Memo", the unmentionable video he is allowed to watch five minutes of each evening. Only at that point, I had not yet realized that this had become a habit. (I won't qualify that as a routine or ritual, too awful for that.) After removing his diaper and taking him downstairs to "la-la" three times, I came to the realization that, at 12:30 am, he was not going to sleep until we sat with him by the tv for five minutes with Finding Nemo turned on. I grumbled and dragged my fanny out of bed and down the steps, baby in tow, sat on the darn sofa, turned on the aforementioned movie and he was out like a light. How humbling for an almost media-free mother!

I'll have to watch what I encourage as habits; my own as well as theirs.

How do you keep the flow going in your house? What are your scheduling absolute limits? Please share!

Summertime

The kids don't know it yet, but I am putting off the beginning of the school year by one more week. It is only July, and the thought of starting at the beginning of August as planned leaves me lukewarm, at best, and feeling like a cruel mother at worst. Not that homeschooling is particularly time-consuming in terms of hours in a day that we are all actually studying, writing and doing math. But it is summer, and it has been a cool one. It has also been a busy one. Almost no time that has felt lazy and unfilled with activity and obligation. We need a good couple of weeks of lazy and relaxation, and hopefully boredom to motivate a desire for more. If the hot days are about to begin, I want to be able to enjoy the beach, the garden, (and hide inside in the air-conditioning when I need to.)

This weekend was perfect; we picked up our eldest, who had spent almost a week with her grandparents in Dubuque. While we were there, Thierry and I made the most of the weekend before our anniversary to leave all of the children with grandma and grandpa and spend a lovely afternoon in Galena. We strolled the streets, window-shopped (with the exception of the yarn shop, which I spent as much time in as I could romantically allow myself. To be fair, it really is a fantastic yarn shop). We had a leisurely lunch, fudge from the candy shop I went nuts in as a kid, and coffee from a newer coffee shop across the way by the railroad station. The weather was perfect, the ambiance relaxed and us-focused. That felt like summer.

Yesterday the children and I took a bike ride at the time I should have been preparing lunch, the worst time of the day for sun exposure, and it was lovely. We accomplished nothing else the whole day except lunch and dinner. That felt like summer too.

I wish you many days of summer-like feeling for the rest of the season. Store up some sunshine before winter arrives. My plan for today; visit my tomato plants, plan our math block in detail, knit a bit (socks), finish up the laundry I began, go to the library, make lunch, take a nap with baby, read a story to the kids (Treasure Island right now), make dinner while they build a snowboard with Daddy, go to bed. Lazy enough for a mother of five!

Not crafts: Reposted from 2009

I have always been a rotten craft mom. Can't come up with one single idea for popsicle sticks and that fun foam stuff leaves me uninspired, but give me some beautiful colors of embroidery floss or warm,inviting wool to knit, a sewing machine and fabric, and I become a prolifically productive individual. The past two weeks have found us busy making a doll for my little guy's birthday, with my oldest daughter knitting and sewing him a wardrobe. I also spent two days inexpertly making him a pair of overalls out of a friend's old curtains. (I can knit better than I can sew.) He is the sweetest doll, and I think my two-year old could care less. What he is really into is playing shoot-my-big-brother and watch him fall over "dead", or reading a story with mama. He will pick him up once in awhile and call him "baby" but it does not look to be a deep, endearing sort of love, oh well.

My sweet little seven-year-old girl brought me a gift yesterday; a folded-up wad of paper. When I opened it, there was a thick, pink and yellow gunky sort of design. "I made it with glue stick glue and eraser parts." That's my kind of girl. I told her about the hours I spent as a child trying to perfect the art of painting with eraser shavings (they were all pink back then) mixed with glue; tactile art. I try to encourage them in all of their artistic endeavors, though it is sometimes hard to keep breathing normally when "art" equals really big mess. They use things like ink and pen (the pen is not the problematic part of the equation), sealing wax, play dough, beeswax for modeling, colored pencils (ah, colored pencils, such a nice, clean medium!) yarn, wool potholder loops, fishing line (not cool), paint, they love paint, and real clay...I've hidden that one in the cupboard.

I had a long talk (rather a one-sided talk, since I did all of it) with a friend yesterday about Tasha Tudor. When Tasha was asked to contribute to a book on her crafting, she indignantly retorted; "I don't do crafts!" This from a woman who grew her own plants for dying her wool, split her own branches for weaving baskets and wove her own cloth for the 1830's clothes she loved so. No, she didn't "do crafts" but her life was one long creative endeavor.

What I hope to instill in my children is not a series of recipes for learning, making or doing (except perhaps for mathematical formulas and my recipe for chocolate chip scones), but a love for fine materials, for color, for taste and for living in harmony with the world around them.

Yes, in Waldorf education, this translates to teaching by example; seeing me knit, garden, sew and cook, they learn that this is a normal part of life. Painting and drawing are a mix of seeing my drawing and imitating it, painting with colors as we add them together, and free-style scribbling and finger-painting. There is a moment for each during the day. We have some instruction time and a whole lot of free time. This is not limiting as one would think. For a child to produce something of quality, be it art, writing or music, they need to have experienced quality first-hand. This does not, however, translate into coloring books and foam craft kits with pre-cut pieces (though we have been known to buy Klutz kits for things from beading to origami to snap-together animals; a dark environmental shame I will carry to the grave!) I know a few unschooling friends who will have lots to say on this topic...please feel free to leave comments, and have an artful day!

Motherhood and forgiveness

I have come to peace with an idea; sometimes as mothers, we are absolutely busy from morning until night with the business of raising our children, and that is OK. This is the job we signed up for, after all. Like the rest of you, I had absolutely no idea that it could ever be this all-consuming, passionate, exhilarating and heart-wrenching all at the same time. Nor that it could take up every waking (and sleeping) moment of my life at times.

So, join me, if you will, in forgiving yourself for not meeting every opportunity for career development or volunteer work or "me time" with enthusiasm, time and energy. Revel in the short short period of childhood (even if you are the mother of many and it seems that this may last half your life), and "wear proudly the badge of motherhood" as a dear friend and much-respected mother of four grown children encouraged me to do. Enjoy those extra-long nursing sessions, nights camping out, walks, gardening together, reading stories aloud by the hour. We will soon find ourselves alone again, with time aplenty to indulge "real life" as our children move on to live their own busy lives and have their own babies. Sit, breathe and pay attention to now, it won't happen again.

Smelly Post

It was a treat to see that the "this day in history" site featured my favorite perfume the other day; Channel no.5. It looked like a sign...of summer, of time to dream and loll about. So, though life all around me has been chaotic and sometimes sad lately, I will dwell on the fluff today, on the happy stuff, perfume and being French. The fun parts of French are so much fun. They are the ones that lose their impetus for more worthwhile pursuits when one is raising five children in the stoic Midwest, but they are still there, on the periphery, waving to me once in a while.

A year in France as an exchange student was one thing; soaking up life all around me and the many many different ways of doing things. Returning to France to live for real was quite another. Now that I could fully understand the language, I embarked on the study of different ways of seeing and feeling and thinking. The first mystery for me was fashion. Until then, fashion meant what to wear to school or the prom, make-up tips, etc. I was only vaguely aware of designers and neither knew or cared about this world. In France I was confronted with an entire population who knew everything about Dior, Kenzo, Gaultier, etc. The first manifestation of this was a friend who was an extremely serious college student in grad school in poly sci. She also knew exactly which knock-offs to look for in which stores for this year's designer bag, and all about who made the original. Louis who? I would murmur, trying to pretend I was following the conversation. The billboards everywhere included not only teen store icons; Benneton and Kukai, but also the great names of fashion. As the awareness seeped into my subconscious, I began to notice the style of LaCroix compared to Channel, sort of, or their names at least. I couldn't help it, even my techie/surfer husband could discuss fashion! I believe, as I struggle to name even a few names, that it all comes down to livelihood. In France, design and fashion are an industry, and a government-subsidized one as are art and music. Money gives impetus to both the silly and the vital. The upside is that most everyone in France looks presentable at all times and they smell nice. The downside, for an American, is that going out in sweats and sneakers on a down day is just not done. I had to stay home on down days, or get dressed. For me,then, the study of fashion became a study of who these French people were, what made them tick, what image had they chosen to portray to the world. Never did they deliberately give the impression that life was the worst and that they just didn't care enough to get dressed. A first step to integration was to become more French-like in my dress, and since everyone looked so much more elegant than I did, it was an enjoyable goal to work towards.


When I lived in France, fine red and delicate white wine were a fact of life. The farmers' market was our main source of food and it was always within walking distance. We stocked up on beautiful vegetables of every sort (truly works of art in themselves, see picture below), fish fresh from the ocean, oysters born in the local oyster beds and cheese from the creamery; stinky mountain sheep wheels, chevre wrapped in leaves or coated in pepper, Roquefort with veins as green as grass in the creamy white base. We also indulged in little rolls baked around sausage bits or a sort of pepperoni. I would bring home three or four sorts of dried apricots; orange ones, black ones and everything inbetween, tried licorice root and summer-type sausage, butter with sea salt. My favorite stall by far though, was the olive lady. She had all kinds of olives, all kinds. Green fresh ones from the French Mediterranean, oily, fat black ones from Greece, spicy red ones from Morocco in an herb sauce. They were in great big wooden barrels, scooped out with a soup ladel into a plastic bag. You could sample any new (or old) varieties and no amount was too small to sell.

A typical Saturday morning for us, BC (before children), was a stroll to the pool for a few laps, then to the farmers' market, stopping by a cafe on the way home to have a croissant, hot coco and read the paper. Even after having children, we would take turns going to the pool and out for coffee. Friends frequently stopped by for a chat or came for dinner, time seemed more elastic.

Even literature was a bit debauched, Channel takes me back to Colette, author of fantastic literature, all slightly naughty in nature. After the war, she, like Coco Channel, launched her own line of beauty products, believing in helping women be as beautiful as they wished to be, at any age. If not a deeply moral goal, at least a well-intentioned one.

Goat cheese section of the creamery

 

Farmers' Market at Christmas time in Orleans

 

work and school

Wow. I feel like I've been run over by a truck. So this is what most women in America deal with in a typical week. Hats off to you, working mothers. I am checking in after a week of work with a deadline. Don't get me wrong, staying home with children, cleaning and caring for a home and husband, is all a whole ton of work. I've been doing it for twelve years now. I have felt exhausted, mentally drained, unappreciated both by the world and by my employers. I have also loved every single minute, no matter how awful, knowing how utterly privileged I was to do the work I had chosen to do, and spend every day with my adored children, even if I was not being paid a dime.

This week found us homeschooling at an intense pace. The children announced their intention of being on summer break by the end of May, I countered with the list of what needs to happen before then, and my date of June 15th. We went back and forth on the topic for a few days; "Our friends are all done before then," "Your friends don't get every Wednesday off or only have class in the morning." We came to the compromise that if they satisfactorily meet my requirements, they can call it a year by May 29th. That means more work for them, and more for me; organize, delegate, correct,redirect.

Of course, as most always happens, this has also been the week of the most concentrated professional effort in the last 12 years. I've usually had some writing going on, a French class or two, or some volunteer project, but my husband and I decided that this was the weekend to launch our first website. This coincides with a homeschool conference at which I am presenting two workshops. It has been exhilarating, having a goal and finding the hours in the day to pursue it. Working at the library or a cafe all by my lonesome for a couple of hours here and there has felt liberating. It has been exciting, the new ideas that have been generated, the spark created between my husband and I as we create together, this time something other than a baby. Evenings together, talking, planning and dreaming have been romantic. And it has been bone-weary, worn-out tiring, though in a good way.

The website? French with Kids, an organic, family-friendly approach to foreign languages that helps a parent tailor a language program for your home environment. It's a very simple idea that I've been wanting to present to families for a long time as an alternative to the text book style of learning. How many times a day do you or your children need to say; "I am American, are you German?" or "the student's desk is in front of the teacher's desk,"? But how many times do we need to say; "Can you play nicely please?" or "Set the table." It is not a method that advocates a passive approach in front of a computer screen or the tv. It is a living, breathing, practice-every-day-together type of learning. Request from parent elicits an action or a response from child. Learn one or so a day and make it part of your life and the language will become a part of you as well. Like Suzuki or Waldorf, less is more, learning an expression well and using it often is prized above large quantities of vocabulary you may not use every day. There are many songs involved as well. I will keep you updated on the opening of the site. Right now I need a nap.

P.S. How fun that today's history quote has to do with Van Gogh, who, though not French, lived the influential years of his artistic life in France, painting in the golden Provincial glow.