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| Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 | | 11:30 pm |
Wow!
I just spent an hour re-reading old entries. I'd forgotten so much! I really should write more often, since I don't keep a diary. Anyway, I'm just writing this now to keep things alive here. | | Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 | | 1:17 am |
Parenting Resources--annotated bibliography
Parenting Resources Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka (Harper Perennial, 1991) This is the book that coined the term “Spirited Child.” Psychological research into temperament and seat-of-the-pants parenting experiences combine to make this an incredibly useful book. This book saved our sanity! Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1993) I think this book is a perfect companion to Raising Your Spirited Child. It uses fascinating examples to illustrate why so many of our ideas about reward and punishment are wrong. How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish (Avon Books, 1980) Inspired by the work of Haim Ginott, this book presents clear, simple explanations of better ways to communicate with children. It has cartoon illustrations which will appeal to some readers. Between Parent and Child by Dr. Haim G. Ginott (Macmillan Co., 1965) The subtitle is “New solutions to old problems,” kind of funny on a book published in 1965. But it contains many of the ideas presented in the newer books as “new.” I think this illustrates how long it takes for newer and better ideas to work their way into mainstream awareness. Other authors to look for: Alfred Adler Rudolf Driekurs STEP program -- Don Dinkmeyer Things I like: http://www.awareparenting.com/twenty.htm -- Twenty Alternatives to Punishment http://joyfullyrejoycing.com/ -- a goldmine of useful information! http://www.temperament.com/ -- the latest information on Temperament research The “Tween” Years Our Last Best Shot: guiding our children through early adolescence by Laura Sessions Stepp (Riverhead Books, 2000) The author spent a year observing and interviewing 12 children, ages 10 to 15. Both the children and their parents faced many challenges during the year and the author details the strengths and the weaknesses in each situation. She’s done a lot of background reading; the book contains a long and useful bibliography of books and articles as well as a list of helpful websites. In every child’s story we learn more about the development of children and different parenting skills that work with this age group. I bought a copy for myself after renewing it three times from the library! Get Out of My Life: but first could you drive me and Cheryl to the mall? by Anthony E. Wolf, Ph.D. (The Noonday Press, 1991) The cover art shows two parents with a megaphone yelling at a child who also has a megaphone! It sort of looks like those cartoon books people keep in their bathrooms, which is unfortunate. I was tempted not to bother reading it. But I did--and bought a newer edition with a less tacky cover. This book covers similar ground as Our Last Best Shot, but without the context of long, intimate stories about particular families. The author shares all the adolescent psychology he has studied in a humorous, accessible way. But it’s not at all patronizing to the reader or to the teen behaviors being discussed. The tone of the introduction repelled me a bit, but the rest of the book is respectful of the developmental work going on in the young person’s mind and body. Wolf strives to help the parent understand and respect it, too. Youth: The Years from Ten to Sixteen by Arnold Gesell, M.D., Frances L. Ilg, M.D., Louise B. Ames, Ph.D. (Harper & Row, 1956) There is a much more modern version of this book, but I quite enjoyed reading the details about each year in the context of the 1950s. They talk about comic books the way I talk about GameBoys today! The Gesell Institute publishes books about each year of a child’s life up to age 10--you have probably read them or seen them at the library. This book describes in great detail each year from 10 to 16, explaining how some unpleasant behaviors at age 11 are necessary to the development of positive, mature behaviors at age 12. If you’re wondering why your child is doing something particularly annoying or odd, you’ll probably find it described here. The Gesell Institute’s website is interesting. They seem to put a lot of effort into keeping kids from entering kindergarten too early and suggest that kids should be grouped in school by development stages rather than by age. I wonder what they think of homeschooling. Anticipating Adolescence by H. Paul Gabriel, M.D. and Robert Wool (Henry Holt and Company, 1995) This book deals mostly with older teens, but one chapter is full of useful information for tween parents. Chapter 2 refers to the tween years as Latency: One Last Chance. Much of this was covered in greater depth in the above listed books, but I liked the concise summary of big points. Someone who might resist reading an entire book on the subject could probably manage to get through the 10 pages here. Maybe it would whet the appetite for a more detailed discussion. The Seven-Year Stretch: how families work together to grow through adolescence by Laura S. Kastner, Ph.D. and Jennifer F. Wyatt, Ph.D. (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997) Another book about older teens, this reminded me of a lot I’d forgotten from the parenting class my husband and I took years ago. I needed the refresher! The authors use many brief stories from counseling client families to illustrate the essential points of parenting teens. These essential sentences are in italic print and are easy to pick out when scanning a page. I found I skimmed for the points and, if I wanted to read more about them, then went back and read the case story. A Tribe Apart: a journey into the heart of American adolescence by Patricia Hersch (Fawcett Columbine, 1998) This is the book that scared the heck out of me! I heard Hersch interviewed on the radio and was the first person to check this out of the library five years ago. It’s even more scary now that my eldest child is 11. The author spent three years with children age 12 through 18 in her hometown of Reston, Virginia. Her conclusion is chilling: “the turbulence of adolescence today comes not so much from rebellion as from the loss of communication between adults and kids, and from the lack of a realistic, honest understanding of what the kids’ world really looks like. (p. 365)” The Shelter of Each Other: rebuilding our families by Mary Pipher, Ph.D. (Ballantine Books, 1996) I already owned this book and reread the brief section on a homeschooling family. What I noticed in all the books I read was the assumption that all kids go to school and all sorts of problems happen in school. But no one ever suggests that school might be part of the cause of the problems. Pipher doesn’t either, but she does paint a lovely portrait of family life. | | Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 | | 9:26 pm |
I'm no longer a Homeschool Mom
So, it's all done now. Arden is registered for school, has her schedule, and is almost finished with the summer English and History projects that are due on the first day, September 3. That's when she goes to high school, as a Sophomore. Ben will be a Senior. He came to the school with us today, to take his sister on a tour of the building since there isn't any Orientation Day for anyone other than Freshmen. He has given her a list of boys she's not allowed to talk to! I was quite pleasantly surprised by how thoughtful the guidance counselor was in arranging Arden's schedule. Because her Freshman year was at a private school, it had rather different course requirements. An inflexible counselor could have insisted that Arden take some Freshman classes to meet certain requirements. But this counselor said that it wouldn't be appropriate for Arden to be in a class full of Freshmen! So they are going to work something out to cover the missing PE credit. It may require an extra class next year, but by then, Arden will be established in the social system and making up a class because she "transferred in from another school" won't be such a big deal. But to take an odd class now, when she's new to the school, would just be weird and confusing to everyone else. I really appreciated that. Funny--when the counselor first thought Arden would be a Freshman, she was all set to put her in every class I asked for, no questions asked! She'd been so confused what to do when I showed up with Ben 3 years ago! Even now, she was great about doing all we asked. She even suggested and asked the choir teacher to waive her big required class that everyone must take before being in any of the choirs--and she did! I suppose Ben paved the way. They saw that he was prepared for high school despite my wacky educational ideas and complete lack of any documentation or test scores. Arden's private school, Clonlara, doesn't note any classes as "honors" classes. Even so, Arden is in honors for English 10 and History. The counselor was all set to put her in honors Biology, too, but we decided to go with the regular section of that. Anyway, that's all I can talk about right now. If I get started on how I feel about my little girl going into that heaving mass of adolescent anxiety, well, I'll start crying again! So, not now. More later. Will try to keep updating this. I want to record the observations of my anthropologist daughter! | | Friday, February 13th, 2009 | | 9:50 am |
Let's try this again!
I haven't posted here in ages--guess I've been spending my online time on Facebook. I actually don't have anything much to say today (Yes, I know you're shocked!) but I don't want this site to get deleted from lack of use. I am also starting to put out some feelers looking for freelance work and I've realized that all samples of my published writing are on yellowed, brittle bits of newsprint somewhere in my attic! This website holds the only collection of things I've written during the Electronic Age. I want to be able to send people here, if necessary, to read some writing samples. So, I'm just stirring the pot today. What are YOU doing? | | Monday, August 11th, 2008 | | 10:01 am |
The return of Men in Workboots!
Yes, I've done it. I've actually arranged for another Man in Workboots to start knocking on my door at 8:45 every morning! Sigh . . . This should be a short and sweet ordeal, however. He's building my long-awaited window seat. It's just a window seat--how complicated and miserable can things get with that? We. Shall. See. | | Thursday, August 7th, 2008 | | 8:19 am |
| | Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 | | 10:16 pm |
Elections
I've been thinking about the Democratic primaries and elections. Look at how close the votes were for Obama and Clinton. Then think about the last two Presidential elections and how close they were. There's something wrong with our "majority rule" system when the majority is always so slim. The winning candidate ends up with just over half of the votes. That means that the losing candidate had *almost* half of the votes. The result is that almost half of the population ends up being unhappy with the result. This isn't good. I'm reminded of Barbara Kingsolver's book THE POISIONWOOD BIBLE. Democracy is coming to rural Africa and the missionary is trying to explain the concept of "voting" to the tribal people he's been working with. The chief of the tribe thinks this system is silly. Oh, it may be a quick and efficient way of making a decision; it's certainly much faster than the painstaking consensus-building that he goes through for days or even months when his tribe needs to make a decision. But, as the chief points out to the missionary, his way ends up with MOST people approving of the decision. With voting, you end up with nearly half of the people being unhappy. I think Obama needs to be aware of this as he moves forward in his campaign planning--he may have won, but nearly half of his party members are unhappy. Of course, I think George Bush should have been thinking of this, too. He may have won, but a HUGE number of people in this country weren't happy about it. I think our leaders need to recognize that they do NOT have overwhelming approval from the people. Much more effort needs to be made to meet the needs and wants of the rest of the people. It's not good to have so many unhappy people. | | Monday, June 2nd, 2008 | | 7:51 am |
Exhibition
For Ecubed, her weekly homeschool group, Arden is preparing an Exhibition. This idea was introduced to the group by Alison, who has done a lot of reading and thinking about alternative ways of assessing learning--what to use instead of grades. Lots of places are trying lots of different things. An Exhibition asks the student to look at what he or she has learned over the past year and to describe that learning to others. It has been interesting going through the process with Arden. When we first started talking about what she should focus on, Arden got kind of upset. She couldn't really see anything "big" that she'd learned over the past year. She'd done quite a lot of math and read a lot more than she had in the past. But none of her schoolish work seemed big enough to be worthy of talking about at an Exhibition. She was really getting upset about the whole thing--not wanting to do it but not wanting to be the only kid who didn't do it, either. What I have observed this year is her growing maturity and self-confidence. I've been thrilled to see how she has handled challenging situations and worked through some tough decisions. She has become quite matter-of-fact about taking responsibility in several different areas of her life. She couldn't see any of this! So I wrote an outline of what I thought she could talk about at her Exhibition. She read it, and then gave me a big smile and said OK. | | Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | | 8:57 am |
More drama
Arden has been auditioning like crazy this spring, and lots of nice things have happened. She was Jane in PETER PAN and got to fly! She's been cast again in the children's chorus of the professional opera at McCarter this summer, LA BOHEME. Yesterday, she was offered the role of a Bird Girl in SEUSSICAL at Town and Country Players. That was exciting and a real boost to her ego. But she ended up turning it down because the first weekend of performances conflicts with the Westminster Opera. Arden was debating with herself over what would be the better experience for her--where would she learn more; where would she have fun. It was a tough decision because she loves working at T&C and it seems as if they're planning to do a lot with the Bird Girls--dance ability was a factor in the casting, in addition to being able to hold harmony. So, she was quite pleased to be offered the role when there was so much competition for parts in this production. In the end, she chose the opera. She knows it will be a good production and will have challenging music. She's fairly certain to get one of the major roles (another difficulty in the decision--those auditions don't happen for another 2 weeks!). It has always been such a great experience. Plus, she's one of the very few kids who have done ALL of these productions over the past eight years, and she didn't want to miss out on one. It's exciting to be part of the very first production of a new show--the World Premiere! I reminded Arden of how we watched Ben just about a year ago, moaning and wailing over the tough decision of whether to choose Cat in the Hat or Prince Charming. She was a lot calmer making her decision! Changing topics . . . I've found this useful website that plans menus for the week and includes a shopping list and recipes. And the menus so far are ALL for things EVERYONE in my family will eat!! Hooray! I modify things a bit for myself, to keep to my South Beach guidelines. But mostly, this is what I've been cooking lately: http://www.menus4moms.com/kitchen/Ben is running track and doing the pole vault. He has cleared 9 feet in competition and 9.5 feet in practice. He runs in two sprint races and his times have been coming down. His classes are much less demanding this semester--he doesn't seem to be working hard at all and yet, his grades for this past marking period are all As. It will be fun to read his name in the local paper on the "distinction" honors list. His only Bs last semester were in English. Sigh . . . | | Sunday, February 17th, 2008 | | 10:27 pm |
"School refusers" and runaway slaves
What do those two groups of people have in common? Ah, that's an interesting question. Each of them, apparently, suffers from a psychological condition. Wise doctors in the 1850s and today have observed these groups of people and decided that they must have a mental illness which causes them to behave the way they do. In 1851, Samuel Cartwright coined the word "drapetomania" to classify "the disease causing negroes to run away." Obviously, the person must be crazy if he wants to run away! Here's an excerpt from Dr. Cartwright's fascinating writing on the subject: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.htmlGo read that, and then read this gem from the peer-reviewed journal "American Family Physician." (I bet Dr. Cartwright's peers reviewed his fascinating piece of scientific discovery, too. And they thought he was right on!): School Refusal in Children and Adolescents http://www.aafp.org/afp/20031015/1555.htmlHere's one symptom of School Refusal, noted in the article, just to help you recognize it: "During school hours, child usually stays home because it is considered a safe and secure environment." Yep, he wants to be in a safe and secure environment. Must have a mental illness. Sigh . . . | | Thursday, February 14th, 2008 | | 9:48 am |
Books
I just finished reading BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett. Wonderful book! I was talking to my mother about it and she mentioned that Newsweek magazine has a small feature where writers list their 5 favorite books and this week's author is Ann Patchett! How about that. So, I have just requested two of her favorites from my library. I had read one of them in college and hated it, but perhaps it would be different now that I'm older. That's not one of the two I requested. (Re-reading THE SCARLET LETTER recently with Ben was a bit of a revelation to me--so much of it is just lost on young teenagers.) And then I got to thinking about what I'd put on my list. Hmmm . . . Right now, off the top of my head, without much musing about it, here we go: A SUITABLE BOY by Vikram Seth PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen KRISTIN LAVRANSDATTER by Sigrid Undset ANNE OF GREEN GABLES by L. M. Montgomery A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving This list is subject to revision! What's on your list??? | | Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 | | 8:04 am |
This explains a lot!
Have you heard about the cell phone ring tone that only young people can hear? Supposedly, no one over 40 can hear it. Well, guess what?! I CAN HEAR IT! It's piercing and annoying! So THERE! to all the people who have been annoyed when I've asked them to turn down the volume of various noisy things they were doing. I have sensitive ears! | | Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 | | 8:21 am |
Dear Reader:
I apologize for neglecting you for over a month! How scandalously negligent of me! I guess I should summarize the rest of our holiday in England. Oh, a little language thing . . . Several times, I had confusing conversations with people because I would refer to "the holiday," meaning Christmas or New Year, and they would think I was asking about their months-ago vacations! We Americans use the word "holidays" to refer to Christmas or the 4th of July or Thanksgiving, while they only seem to use it to mean "vacation." So, what word DO they use to refer, in general, to days of celebration? This Writer hopes one of her Dear Readers will post a comment and so enlighten us all! But I digress . . . Here's a summary of the rest of our visit. Christmas Eve at Mary's was fun and yummy. Pat and her husband Jim were there too and they're always lots of fun. They are retired school principals, so we always end up having intersting conversations. The chocolate fondue was delicious! My favorite things to dip were gorgeous little "hand made" marshmallows. They had pale colors and tasted nothing like any I've ever had before. On Christmas Day, we went to church at St. Mary's Newhouse in Barton, affectionately known to us at BOB or Boring old Barton. Father Marsh seemed a bit stuck on the small number of people there and kept reminding us that the big crowds had come last night, when the children did their Nativity play. Later, we went to dinner at Michael and Su's house. Adam, Anne-Louise and Erin were there, as well as Brian and Doreen, Su's parents. Boxing Day is also Hannah's birthday! So, we trooped back to Kitt's Farm (that's the name of their house) to have a 4th birthday party for Hannah. Next day, we headed off to London. Unfortunately, Margaret got The Bug, which by now was making headlines in the English newspapers as it spread across the country! We had to go without her. We saw Buckingham Palace and The Mall, #10 Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Then we went into the Winston Churchill Museum and the secret underground rooms used during World War II. This was one of the best museums I've ever visited. I would have preferred, though, to have seem the room exhibit on a different day. It was a bit too much to take in all at once. I highly recommend this to anyone who visits London. That night, we went to see "Billy Elliot." What a great show! Richard was able to come with us and use Margaret's ticket. Next day, we went up in the London Eye and visited St. Paul's. Alas, no old ladies were feeding birds! That evening, we met Richard and his fiancee Yana in the West End. We went to the National Portrait Gallery and then walked around a bit and then had ice cream and coffee. Back up to Preston for New Year's Eve and Michael's birthday! Don and Brenda from next door popped in for a while. Gosh, I've known them for a long time now. Spent a nice day with Michael's old buddy Graham and his wife Cathy and their two boys. The plan was to walk to a waterfall but it started to POUR down rain as soon as we got out of the cars. We had tea and biscuits in a little shop instead and then piled back into the cars and back to their house. Just hung out and chatted for the rest of the day and had dinner there, too. We took off for a couple of days to go to Conkers and Oxford, the kids' top picks of things they wanted to do. Ben was a bit disappointed in the outdoor assault course at Conkers--it was so much bigger in his memory! Our day in Oxford met all of Arden's expectations, though. I enjoyed both days, although it was very cold to be outdoors so much. What else? We all went walking on Beacon Fell. We American Walkers went to visit Adam and A-L at their house in St. Helen's. We went to Grasmere with Mary and Margaret and did the Dove Cottage tour. I was surprised that the wording of the tour has barely changed from my days there, 20 years ago. Bought Grasmere gingerbread, of course, and had tea at the Drunken Duck. So, Dear Reader, I think that's a fair summary of our Holiday in England. As always, your comments are welcome and appreciated. | | Monday, December 24th, 2007 | | 12:25 pm |
Chester
Arden and I went to Chester yesterday with Mary. She had to work in the area, so she dropped us off. We walked around the Roman/medieval walls of the city and stepped down to look at the partially-excavated Roman ampitheater and a 5-step lock system in the canal. Visited the Cathedral and listened to the choir practice a while. They sounded lovely but had terrible diction and we couldn't understand any of the words. Hmmpf! Visited a museum with lots of Roman artefacts, including grave stones that had been torn up in medieval times and used to repair the walls! Went to a pretty park and crossed the River Dee on a footbridge. Ate steak-and-ale pasties. Yum! The town was bustling with Christmas shoppers. Chester has lovely old buildings with two levels of shops, called "rows." All the streets are pedestrian-only in this area. As always, I was struck by the oddness of a building built in 1678 housing an electronics shop! Came home to find that Will's rugby game had been cancelled due to hard frost making the ground rock solid and dangerous for the boys. So Terry and his brother went to the pub and Ben stayed here and played with Erin. Had a harrowing night, since Ben was very sick. It's either a bug or something he ate. Not fun. Miraculously, he feels better today! Arden has been a bit sick this morning, but not as bad as Ben was. That sort of kills the food theory, since they ate nothing the same yesterday. Odd little bug. I'm fine, but tired from tending to Ben till 4am! Hope all tummies feel better this evening--chocolate fondue at Mary's for Christmas Eve! | | Thursday, December 20th, 2007 | | 2:47 pm |
In which I find myself in an episode of "Vicar of Dibley"
We went to a Carol Service at St. Robert's Church, where Michael and Su were married. This church is also known as English Martyrs' Church because it houses relics from the 1580s or thereabouts--little bits of bones of people who gave their lives for their faith. And there's also one complete skull! It's all off to the side in a glasses-in display case. Anyway, we sang all the familiar hymns, but they all had different tunes! They were all very high and I couldn't sing my beloved alto parts because they didn't go with these tunes. Sigh . . . Between the carols were Bible readings, the familiar ones that tell the Christmas story. There was one rather long pause before a reading and some heads bobbing together up at the front, and finally an empty-handed man walked up to the podium. The priest shuffled some papers and handed him one, from which he read. Don't know if the scheduled reader forgot to get up or just didn't show up, but this brave man told us later that he figured he'd just make something up if the priest didn't have a copy of the reading! Now, that would have been fun to hear. Afterwards, we all trooped into the Parish house for mince pies and mulled wine. Nephew Will managed to be first in line for pies and so was given the job to walk through the crowd with a plate of them. We drank mulled wine while crushed up against the Christmas tree, and one family seemed to win all the raffle prizes. I guess that means they bought the most tickets. They did eventually give back one bottle of wine so another number could be drawn for it, but I noticed they kept both bottles of whiskey and the big tin of Cadbury chocolates! Other things we've done since we arrived: Went into Preston to do some shopping; went to a Victorian Christmas Evening in Garstang; helped Granny babysit Hannah; visited with Mary, Michael, Su, Will, Tom, Hannah, Brian and Doreen. Anne-Louise and her daughter Erin arrive tomorrow! Can't wait! | | Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 | | 7:53 am |
| | Friday, November 23rd, 2007 | | 11:02 am |
"Follies"
Tonight is the first performance of the final weekend of "Follies." It has certainly been . . . an experience. I was going to go into great detail about all the ups and downs (mostly downs, for a long time) of the whole rehearsal process. But I guess it's like childbirth--you don't ever forget that it hurt, but the memory of the pain mellows really fast! Ultimately, this show pushed me to take a big risk and to totally put myself out front. To be honest, this is where I've always wanted to be! I never had the guts to let go and just DO IT before this. And maybe the adversity at the beginning had something to do with it. I think this is the first time I've ever responded to negativity with the attitude of "I'll show them!" It has been weird. All fall, I have noticed parallels between Ben's football situation and my situation in this show. Both of us have been disappointments to director and coach. It has been hard for both of us to continue working every time we saw the dissatisfaction in the faces of those judging us. And both of us experienced that: a mute look of disappointment, with no offer of critique or constructive direction, just a shrug and a turning away and a "let's move on." I was lucky to have Patricia in the cast, who gave me so much moral support and actually worked with me to help me be able to sing my song. I couldn't have done it without her. The whole cast has been great, encouraging each other and boosting morale for everyone. I will say this one positive thing about the director--she certainly gathered together a wonderful group of people! And I had my fantastic family, who listened with great patience to all my ranting. Ben has, of course, had us here at home to listen to him and to encourage him. We have tried to help him improve, too. One thing we did, which won't bear fruit until next year, is to take him to an eye doctor who specializes in working with athletes. Terry and I both noticed that there were times on the field when Ben seemed to hesitate or move in the wrong direction. He's had eye exams before and been told he's got 20-20 vision. This doctor went beyond that, using prisms and goggles and all sorts of other tests. What he found was that Ben has a weakness in convergence--keeping both eyes working together when tracking a moving object. Now, this is certainly not a day-to-day life problem. But it's a big problem in a sport like football! Doctors have developed therapy programs to improve the deficiency. There is some controversy over this since there have been very few scientific studies with proper controls to verify that it works. I have read enough anecdotal evidence, though, from professional, college, and Olympic athletes, to think that this is worth pursuing. Terry and I tore our bedroom apart on Tuesday, getting rid of a lot of accumulated clutter and old clothes. We ended up with 5 bags of trash and 5 bags for Goodwill. Aaaaaah, the room is so nice now that we want to spend ALL our time in there . . . | | Friday, November 16th, 2007 | | 10:30 am |
Plans
We've booked our tickets to England for Christmas. Also booked a hotel in London for a night and got tickets for "Billy Elliot." Must start planning for the trip and Christmas and Ben's 16th birthday. Yikes! Oh, and tonight is my Opening Night! I think I'm going back to bed now . . . | | Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 | | 11:50 pm |
Oh, the drama!
I often joke that my entire homeschool curriculum is Theater. Well, theater has yet again provided us with learning experiences. Ben was recently offered a fun part in the show "Thoroughly Modern Millie" as one of the two Chinese brothers. Neither he nor I know much about the show, so I couldn't really tell him much about the role that would help him decide if he wanted to do it. But then, I unknowingly delivered the bit of information that sealed the deal: I told him who would be playing the other brother. He immediately jumped up and said he'd take the part because it would be so much fun to work with that guy. What's the learning experience here? Well, maybe it's more like it was a pop quiz, and Ben scored 100%. You see, the guy playing the other brother is quite open about the fact that he's gay. And my jock son, immersed in the macho world of football and the homophobic world of school, didn't even give that fact a moment's thought. I have worried that Ben has done so well in school that he'd be assimilated into the Borg. That hasn't happened--he's stayed true to who he is. Hooray! The other drama-related experience was Arden's first brush with romance! A boy in her cast of "Lion, Witch and Wardrobe" let it be known that he liked Arden and wanted to ask her to go out with him. Oh, poor guy! I wonder if he's heard the saying, "Loose lips sink ships!" The entire cast of the show knew he was planning to make his declaration tonight, and they watched Arden like a hawk all evening. Every time she was offstage, she was quizzed and coached about how she would answer THE question. I think she enjoyed being the center of this whirling buzz all evening! But then came the moment of reckoning and the poor boy was pushed to speak in front of everyone. It sounds like Arden handled it all quite well, letting him down gently and even ending the whole thing with a hug. And the newlywed guy and his wife who gave Arden a ride home tonight spent the drive singing songs about being a heartbreaker! Oh, and I've had a learning experience, too! I can now say that I don't think my show sucks and I'm going to allow friends to come see it! Just, please, don't let me know you're there till afterwards! My song is as good as I'm gonna get it and I don't think it's embarrassing. I've found myself, the last couple of nights, feeling sorry for the director. She's also in the cast and is, I think, finding it awkward to be backstage with everyone. There are many cold shoulders being turned in her direction. She's managed to alienate a lot of people, and I don't think she understands how. Or maybe she just doesn't care. I don't know. I just know that I'm feeling this need to reach out to her, despite how frustrated and annoyed I've been all along. So, what have I learned? I guess I've learned that my ability to feel empathy is stronger than my ability to feel pissed off. Does that mean that I'll forever have the word "sucker" tatooed on my forehead? Or is it a sign of maturity? Or am I losing my mind? (Umm . . . that's a reference to a song in the show "Follies" and you'll have to come see the show to appreciate my writerly technique right here.) | | Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 | | 7:37 am |
Did you miss me?
Life gets like this sometimes, ya' know? I will try to come up with something deep and philosophical . . . soon . . . yeah. Here's a quick update: Ben's football team is doing much better than last year. They've won a couple of games and have improved their overall game play a lot. He's doing well in all of his classes, especially geometry. Honors English just seems pointless to him. Sigh . . . Arden's show is in tech week and looking great! Gorgeous costumes. For tickets, go to www.townandcountryplayers.org. She's been working hard on her Mock Trial team preparations and having fun at E-cubed, her weekly homeschool group. Terry has been traveling a lot. Sigh . . . He and his brother have challenged each other to run and lose weight. They had an official weigh-in back in September when Terry was there. They've both bought the iPod gadget (Of course they had to buy a gadget!) and the running shoes with the place for the gadget so they can run and listen to motivating music and encouraging words from the likes of Lance Armstrong! The gadget even records data on the run and they can upload it to the computer and compare their progress online. I have been driving people to places A LOT! I've also been rehearsing for my show. We go up in two weeks. This weekend, I finally felt like I will be able to perform my song and not embarrass myself. Yay! That's all for now, I'm afraid. |
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