How do you like home schooling?

This is a question I get all the time and my gut level honest answer surprises me, "I LOVE IT". Why did we choose to home school in the first place you might be wondering. Well I, more than Ben, have a few reasons for that. First, Yared has only been home with us for a year and a half. It just felt too soon to lose the quality time I want/need with him. Secondly, the Kindergarten programs in our town are full day from 8:30-3:30. I know most kids do fine with this but I just didn't want him away from me for that long while he is still adjusting and adapting to us, to America, to family, to love. Thirdly, I was an assistant in a Kindergarten in Virginia Beach and was SHOCKED at what those kids lived through and thus brought into the lives of their fellow students. Yes, it was a totally different neighborhood than ours, but I think the world is changing faster than we all like to think it is. These little five year olds knew about sex, the PO PO, divorce, cheating parents, swearing, abuse, and many awful parenting. They were terrified of the police, loved unconditionally their absentee dad or mom, thought racism was normal and were surprised by my desire for them to be good just for the sake of being good. I think being the assistant let me see them in a different way than if I was the teacher. I was the one they ate lunch with, had recess with, went to the nurse with, walked to the principal with. I was their confident. They shared all sorts of things and often I was hiding my sadness that a 5 year old was telling me this. While our school up the road gets tremendous marks and has a fabulous reputation, I fear the knowledge that the other students will bring into the classroom and thus into Yared's life. I know he will have to face all these things eventually. But come on, if anyone deserves to be shielded and protected and allowed to have a care free moment in child hood it is him. He has already lived a life with enough grief and fear so I want him to get the chance to let me protect him and let him be free of life's worries even if just for a year. That is why we home school. Will we always home school? We have no idea but not likely. As we move every few years we are going to take each year as its own entity. We will see how the boys are doing, where we are living and what schooling options are out there. I know that Yared would love to be in school right now. But he also thinks it would be like pre-school. He can't comprehend 7 hour days, 5 days a week, with homework, worksheets and very limited play time.

One of my biggest fears with home schooling was the social aspect. This kid thrives on social interaction. And to be honest I had some of the home school stereotypes stuck in my head. I imagined the tall, nerdy, dressed like a grandpa, kid who talks like a professor and has no clue how to interact with his peers. But recently I have been meeting more and more totally cool, very independent thinking, completely interesting home schooled grown ups. They have inspired me that I too can home school and turn out a wonderfully unique and social gifted son. I have managed to find quite a few social outlets for him. He is on a soccer team that Ben coaches. We meet up with friends at least two times a week for play dates at a park or library. I joined the YMCA and the boys get to play at the indoor play area while I work out. They come out telling me all about their new friends. I found a story time for 3-5 year olds. I found an art class that happens once a month that teaches them about a famous piece of art and they get to recreate it. Yared is also in a program on Sunday nights at our church that he LOVES . Also Nati is now communicating well enough that they can play pretend for hours.

I love the beauty of watching Yared learn. He picks things up so fast it is phenomenal. Daily I watch him grasp new things with almost no effort. We work on reading in the afternoon and I want to jump with joy hearing him sound out words, comprehend the sentence in his head and laugh at what it says. He loves to be praised and wiggles like a puppy when I tell him how great he is, which I tell him a LOT. We have a pretty standard routine of him trying and succeeding, me praising him while he does the puppy wiggle, ending with a giant hug as he can't control himself and he leaps into my arms. This is not every day. We have had our moments where he stops trying and I lose patience. There are days I lose my creative spark and I make the day a bit more boring than it needs to be, like yesterday. Then today I remembered puppets. I brought out my little finger puppets and started having a Froggy teach them both. They were both hugging Froggy and kissing him and showing him their work. They were quite devastated when Froggy told them he was nocturnal and had to go to bed now:). Ha ha. Yes, Nati does most of the school day with us. He is a typical youngest and won't be left out. He is learning a few letters and basically is our classroom helper. As long as Yared and I are having a good day he is perfectly content to hang out with us.

Today we had a heat wave and were roasting. This is the absolute best part of home schooling... freedom. Freedom to take a day off and not worry about the school secretary harassing you. Freedom to not worry about standardized testing and let your child do what kids do naturally, learn. Today with our heat-wave we climbed in the van and spent an hour at the beach. We didn't swim but we hunted for treasures for our afternoon craft, wrote letters in the sand, traced our body shapes and then added faces, chased seagulls, saw dolphins swimming by and wore ourselves out just living life. I added pictures of our afternoon adventure in the Kindergarten classroom of Mrs. Leppard and her star students Yared and Nati. Obviously this is a great day and I probably won't photograph the days we are all grumpy, but honestly there are more good days than bad which is why I say, "I LOVE IT" to the question of home-schooling.

Cooling the feet on a humid hot October day.

He wanted so badly to go in the water but I didn't so the teacher won that battle.
Yared discovered that Seagulls have webbed feet today. He told me, "Birds with pointy toes can't swim but birds with flipper feat can." Brilliant description.
Yared digging for treasure.
Our treasure box AKA a Croc.
Nati is our outside boy and would literally be outside all day if I let him.
Little feet on a treasure walk.
Blurry but perfect.
We came home and used our treasures to make turtles as that is our theme for the week. We will paint their shells tomorrow.

Yared's Turtle.
Nati's Turtel.
Shot from last week when we were doing N and nests.. we made Rice Krispy treat nests. Yeah they loved it.

Family Night Three: Space Night

I am rather proud of this last family night as I came up with most of the ideas myself. Unlike the last two where I copied someone's ideas from another blog. The first few weeks of school Yared was learning about the sun, moon and stars so we decided to make this Family Night all about space. I had a blast and it seems the boys did too. Yared woke me up this morning with a sweet kiss and whispered, "Family Night was so much fun, wasn't it?"

We started the night actually in the day. The boys helped me make Half Moon cookies. I had never made them before but we had fun trying them out. They are like little frosted cakes and very yummy if a bit awkward to store. I decided to frost them alone as the boys had already ingested too much cookie dough. Ben and the boys built "Moon Boots" out of old coffee cans and wire while I finished the cookies. This was definitely the high light of the day. We took them out front to try them on.

Here is Ben demonstrating how they work.

Yared mastered them quite quickly and today we was almost running around the garage in them.
Nati did better than expected and thought this was hilarious.
They wanted Mommy to try too. Notice Nati held my hand to "help me".
Next came face painting. Side note here: I went to Target hoping to find a cheap pack of face paints. They didn't have what I was looking for so I stupidly went to a party store next door. Oh my goodness that place was insane. Halloween has never been a big deal to me. As kids we just made costumes from what we had and went out Trick-or-treating to our hearts content. We didn't decorate our home or go to Haunted Houses. We just came home and counted our loot. But it is a BIG deal to others. At this store, there was a huge line for costumes and swarms of people everywhere. I had to literally shove and push myself through the madness to get a pack of face-paints. I then waited in line for 20 minutes to buy them. All the time I was watching the frenzied behavior of kids and parents getting ready for Halloween. Some of the decorations scared me. I just don't understand the need for gore, blood and fear that people have. Life is scary enough without terrifying out kids into numbness. Anyways.. the moral of the story is don't buy face paints in October. Stock up ahead of time.

Yared was the Moon.
Nati was the stars.
Daddy was the earth and of course since everything revolves around Mommy, I was the sun.
After we tired of Moon Boots and face painting we came in and make Spaceship pizzas. While they cooked Ben and the boys watched You-tube videos on astronauts and space and Michael Jackson's Moonwalk. We pretended to eat in space so it was dark with stars AKA candles.
I added carrot shavings for the fire under our space ships and broccoli trees. We had Tang to drink. This was a total childhood treat for me and I think it will be for the boys too. They were thrilled with it. We had sunshine pineapple and our Moon cookies for dessert.
Yared was able to name the four different phases, New, Crescent, Quarter and Full of the cookies. Made his teacher beam with pride:)!

Don't worry he didn't get to eat that whole pizza but he would have liked to.
This guy just wanted more Tang.
Ben posing for me and not wanting to mess up my beautiful artwork with a smile.
It was a fun night and the boys were actually ready for bed at the end of it. We asked them what they wanted to do for their next Family Night and Yared suggested Pig Night but we like Nait's Airplane Night idea better.

Gym verses Grocery Carts

This is random thought that has been percolating in my head that I decided to jot down. I remember listening to NPR one day and they were interviewing some man. Somehow they got onto the topic of parking spots. He was a funny guy and he was making fun of those of us who drive around forever trying to find the perfect spot. As I laughed along to his witty talk, I was awakened to the ridiculousness of my own driving and I was changed forever. I used to be the person driving up and down the aisles wasting time and patience looking and looking for the perfect spot, the one close to the entrance so I had less walking to do. Not now, now I generally take the first spot I find and just go from there. How much time and stress I save myself.

I do try to park somewhat near by to a grocery cart drop off area, which is my topic of today's thought. I am AMAZED at how less and less of us will walk the carts back to the store to even put them in the cart holder. It doesn't take long and it helps traffic and parking so much but I truly feel less and less of us are doing it. Back in my drive-for-20-minutes-to-find-perfect-spot days, I was one of those who sometimes abandoned my cart where I parked. I was considerate enough to push it out of the road but I wouldn't actually put it back. I now make the effort to always return the cart, even when the kids are in melt down, the rain is freezing, the heat is unbearable, my back is aching, I am late as the White Rabbit or the crabby as all get out. No matter what I take the two minutes to return the cart. Maybe it is just growing up, maybe it is just realizing how lazy it is to leave it, maybe it is just something small that became important to me, maybe it is wanting to be a good example. I am not sure what changed but now this is something I do.

This really struck home this summer when I was at a store on the nearby Navy base. An older gentleman parked in a handicapped spot walked across the road to return his cart. This might not sound like much. But it was. I watched him hang his cane on his cart and shuffle and push the cart across the road, heave it over the metal bump that holds the carts in place, steady himself, get his cane down and then shuffle with his cane back to his car. I quickly looked around the rest of the lot searching for what I knew I would find. A young healthy person shoving a cart into an empty parking spot next to their car and climbing in to drive away. I wondered to myself what the older gentleman thought of our generation as he watched this. A man unable to stand without his cane was able to return his cart, yet someone cable of walking, running, and jumping was just too busy to put the cart away.

The ironic thing is once you begin to look you see the selfish lazy attitude everywhere, even in your own habits. In fact an annoying little voice of your conscience will begin to nag you to "pick that up", "do it right" "put that away" and you'll find yourself listening to that voice even when you don't want to. That same person not willing to walk their cart back is probably frantically driving to the gym to work out and stay fit. I know that getting to the gym or going for a run is a big priority in my life right now, but those few minutes to put something in the trash can, return the grocery cart, or carry the laundry upstairs are all small pieces of exercise that will all add up to keeping you fit. In fact I googled "calories burned returning your grocery cart" and found this quote from the Mayo Clinic

"researchers studied how thin people burn calories and found that they have more “spurts” of daily activity, such as fidgeting, than heavier people. Just how much? Up to 350 more calories per day."

Two of these fidgety activities? One was parking at the back of the lot and one was returning your cart. I didn't actually know that when I started writing this blog thought. But I guess it is just another good point to not leaving your cart laying around the middle of the parking lot. Maybe you'll laugh at my random thought. Maybe you'll start to hear that crazy annoying little voice that I hear. Maybe you'll notice grocery carts more. Who knows. But I feel better having shared my opinion which I guess is partly the reason for this blog. Now off to watch Curious George with my boys.

US History

Man we have had a fun fall so far and I have so much to catch you up on that I am going to take chunks at a time. This set of pictures are from when our good friends the Clarks were visiting us. We went to Colonial Williamsburg one day and to Kitty Hawk on another. It is very cool to be within driving distance of so much US History. Unfortunately we (the Leppards) have seen it all more than once so we often go along just for the ride. Luckily the boys are happy just to be outside and playing so it doesn't matter to them if it is at Kitty Hawk or in their back yard. I am happy just to be burning boy energy so outside activities are fine with me, especially with Daddy there to help.

The Governor's Palace at Williamsburg. It costs a lot to go into all the houses but is free to hang around outside. We watched our friend's little man while they played tourists.

I do remember when we did this tour they talked about how the Governor hated this house and complained about how small it was. Of course he was English Nobility so he probably had more than one huge mansion back in England.

Yared has been dying to redeem himself. He wouldn't do the stocks last year and Nati did. The minute he heard we were going to Williamsburg he said he was going to do them and was looking for them. If they are competing about this I can't imagine what they will be doing in two years.

Nap time when you are out and about. Nati was rudely awoken by a man yelling at his child to "Drop that stick $%%^^ and smile #@@@" It is horrible what some people will say to their children.
Ben loves to teach the boys to climb trees. I am just waiting to see who the first one to fall out will be.
Seriously watching Ben with the boys makes me love him even more than I ever thought I could. He is so amazing with them.
Meeting George Washington. Nati has NO fear of any animals now. In fact he has swung in the opposite way. He is almost too brave.
This is hilarious as I can't throw a Frisbee for the life of me yet here I am teaching little Eli. Poor guy will probably grow up throwing them backwards like I do.
On to Kitty Hawk - where the Wright brothers first managed to fly. It was a gorgeous day. As both the dads were Engineers they got a little more into all the movies and museum stuff than the Moms did.



I bought Yared matching Daddy sunglasses with strict warnings to take good care of them. He really does too. He loves matching Dad.
We went on September 11th so the flag was at half mast.

The Perfect Mom

Last week I went to a Mom's meeting at our church. They had free child care where Yared was thrilled to hang out with a few other kids his age and Nati was content enough to play with kids he is getting to know. It was so nice to have two hours with a bunch of moms talking about being a mom. At first, I felt a fraud as the inevitable pregnancy/birth/baby talk came up. I have nothing to say to that part of mother hood and I sat there feeling a bit foolish. Once we sailed through those conversations and drifted to topics of tantrums, eating, sleeping, discipline, and sweet personalities I felt like I could join in at least a little bit.

They had a video on what being a mom is and is not. They talked about how everyone has Mom pressures from society, family, media and themselves to be the perfect Mom. They stressed how it is impossible to be the perfect Mom. This was something I knew in my head but what hit me in a new way; every mom has her own individual strengths and weaknesses. Yes, there are some Moms that are better moms than others and yes, there are some moms out there that just plain suck. But the majority of moms are just Moms tyring their best to raise their kids the way they think is best.

This hit me again as I sat in the library watching the quiet gentle mom of four smile and talk to her kids in the sweetest Mom voice you ever did hear. Her kids sat around her like meek angels. As I watched her Nati threw an almighty 3 year old tantrum. I did NOT speak gently and sweetly, but rather told him in my best teacher voice that he was going to sit with me until he could calm down. Then I proceeded to pretend I did not notice his tears and sobbing. I began to compare myself to this mother and felt a little voice in my head reminding me that I don't talk in the sweet Mom voice. This mom looked like she had an endless supply of patience and a gentle answer for every misbehavior. But I reminded myself that I am not her and I have my own strengths.

This thought of Mom perfection was even more in my mind as my own Mom was here visiting this week. She is one my favorite people in the whole world and definitely one of the best Mom's that I know. Now she never had the sweet Mommy voice either, but I have NEVER questioned her love for me. She is this tiny 5 foot 4 bundle of energy that can take on any challenge, meet it, fight it and conquer it. A sweet gentle woman would have never survived the life my Mom has lived. She can make any place a home: a hut, a house, a room or a tent. She can make a game out doing laundry, polishing floors, or waiting in line. She has a killer sense of style that I wish I had inherited. She is artistic, creative and plays a mean practical joke. She can laugh at herself and make you laugh at yourself. She taught me the power of prayer, the importance of defending the underdog, and the desire to overcome life's challenges.

That is what she is. I will not be my mom, because I am my own person. I have some of her weaknesses and some of her strengths. I will not be sweet gentle Library Mama. I will not be the mom with a craft for every season. I will not be the Mom who uses a gentle voice to discipline. I will not be the Mom who walks out the door looking glamorous. I will not be the Mom who can over look messes. I will not be the Mom reading tons of psychology books. I will not be the Mom who has a new exciting meal served up every day.

But I will be THE Mom of my boys. I know there are things I am really good at, like loving them to bits. I can be mid sentence in a lecture and all the sudden burst into laughter at the ridiculousness of my own seriousness. I can be incredibly silly. I can say sorry to my boys. I love planning family events, vacations, family nights, traditions, ect. I am the Mom chasing her kids around the park. I am also the Mom who gets mad too easily some days. I am the mom with ridiculous rules at times. I am the Mom vegging out on the Internet rather than getting stuff done while the kids sleep so I don't have to do it while they are awake. That is me.

The reason I put this on my blog is because of the Perfect Mom Blogs out there. I won't list any but there are some big name Blogs where the Mom has a link to her great recipes, a link to her photography, a link to her poetry, a link to her home-school ideas, a link to her thoughts on God, a link to the clothes she is making... you get the drift. I am sure these Moms have their own weaknesses but honestly they don't let them show and this in itself is a weakness. They aren't being real. But I want my blog to NOT be that Mom. I am me. I like me. There are definitely things in my parenting that I am working on and always will be working on. And instead of being intimidated by the sweet gentle Library mama, I am going to admire her gentleness and know in my head she has her own weaknesses. She might be dull:). I am going to steal the good ideas of other Moms that I can imagine myself doing. I am going to ignore the great ideas that I know don't fit my personality or discipline plan. I am going to cheer on the imperfect moms out there, because that is ALL of them including me.

Goodbye DC

We live about 3 1/2 hours south of Washington DC. This has led to a number of trips up there to see the sights and to take relatives up there to see the sights when they come visit us. I had first seen DC when I took a class of my 8th grade students from San Francisco to DC. It was an amazing experience in all ways. Amazingly difficult trying to help the kids raise funds. Amazingly full of US history which came alive for me. Amazingly fun to share this with a great class of students. Amazingly frustrating to deal with background issues such as travel, upset parents, exhausted students, and crazy East Coast rain storms. I came away from that trip with three clear memories, the beauty, the heat and the WALKING. You must do a lot of walking to see everything.

Ben did a ton of trips up there when he was the Admiral's Aide and he got sick of the traffic so getting him to go is an ordeal. As we are probably moving next summer, we knew we had about one more trip left in us(we were both a little burned out on it) and we saved it for this fall. We had some good friends coming all the way from CA and they really wanted to do DC. It turned out to be the BEST trip ever. It wasn't hot, humid or raining. We scored a great hotel two miles from the Mall. We also picked the week that school had started back up so it was empty. There weren't loads of tourists and hardly any school groups. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to DC. There aren't a lot of pictures of the sites as we had done that already. This was more us the family enjoying the city while our friends saw the sites.

Boys at the White House. Nati's new na na boo boo look to make others laugh.

I must give full credit to Ben..great shot.
My favorite president and oh so appropriate that we have a picture with the boys here.
This picture cracks me up every time I look at it. Don't worry it makes Yared laugh too. We wanted to try having him "hold" the Washington Monument in his hand. Ben had a headache and was barking orders at Yared as to what to do and Yared was not listening so the shot kept getting messed up. By the time we got this shot, Ben and Yared were seriously ticked off at one another. I just love Yared's angry face. Within 3 minutes he was laughing as he looked at it but nothing says "leave me alone" better than this face.


Hot tired feet in cool fountain.. ahhh life is good.


Again something that makes me smile - the t-shirt. There was obviously a big tour of Vets and their families going around the WWII memorial. That is one of the best parts of DC watching the Vets walk around the memorials.
They were giving each other bear hugs and Yared's face expresses his nervous anticipation. He likes to keep asking for tighter and tighter hugs.
He has literally walked ALL day when this shot is taken. He was so tired he couldn't think straight.
On our way home we stopped at Arlington.
Good boy number one who made the best of visiting DC and just hung out, played and even took a little nap in his stroller while we cruised the city.
Good boy number two wearing his collar up on purpose as he thinks it is a cool thing to do. I would love to know the miles he walked. He is such a little trouper and stays so positive and happy through it all. We are so blessed with such fun kids.