Eileen on Him . . . at least, I try!

Hope Springs "Internal"

Seven year old Taz has struggled with reading.  I haven't been sure if it was a question of readiness on his part, or a poor fit between his style and the programs I'd been using, or some combination of the two; but we've valiantly stuck it out together, coming at it from a variety of angles, and he is finally, really reading. 

Not struggling; not guessing:  Reading. 

He's not ready for chapter books by any stretch of the imagination, and he needs lots and lots of practice; but his confidence is booming, and it's such a delight to see!

Taz and I were chatting last night, and -- I don't remember the context, but it wasn't this -- I threw the word "perseverant" out at him.  "Do you know what that means?" I asked him.

He nodded enthusiastically.  "Sure.  'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'  Like with my reading.  I have to be perseverant.  Right, Mom?"

It really surprised me.  Reading time has often been hard, even almost unpleasant at times.  (Switching to games has helped.  And focusing on sight words, since he's quick to pick them up; and that got him started reading when he couldn't see the patterns and the "rules" weren't making any sense.)  For him to have such a philosophical take on it seems surprisingly ... mature.

A priest once told the Chief, "Don't ask God for patience with your children.  Ask Him to let you know their hearts."  

Last night I learned a little something of the Hope that is in my little boy's heart.  And yes, Taz.  You are so right!

Bring It, Snow Miser. We're Ready.

For some reason, every time there's a storm on the horizon, there seems to be a run on the local supermarkets for milk, eggs and bread.

Why?  Is French Toast the ultimate snow emergency comfort food?

We didn't need to hit the stores today to prepare for a possible snowstorm tonight.  But we did hit the pizzeria! :)

(And the Chief made plans to work from home tomorrow ... just in case.  Which makes us really, really happy!)

There's a fire in the wood stove, pizza in our bellies, and plenty of hot cocoa ingredients in the cupboard.

Heck, maybe we'll even have French Toast for breakfast!

Hopefully, no one will have any trouble tonight, and all will stay healthy, safe and warm -- and maybe even the Chief can relax and get a good night's sleep. 

But don't forget to keep your Guardian Angel handy if you need to be out in this!

Oh, and speaking of the Snow Miser ...

"Just Tell 'Em You're Gert Loplitz."

Once -- over Christmas Dinner, I think it was -- one of my nieces mentioned that she thought I was extroverted.

Now that's funny.  I am a walking mass of anxiety where dealing with other people is concerned.  Shy.  Terrified, even.  I was quick to set her straight:  “No way!  I’m loud, sure, but there’s a difference!”

I’m actually the kind of person who dreads calling to order a pizza or make a haircut appointment.

I hate to make doctor appointments for the kids. 

Making new friends?  Hanging out in a crowd of people I don’t already know?  Fuggetaboutit!

When I was a kid, my mom showed very little sympathy for my dread.  “Just tell ‘em you’re Gert Loplitz,” she’d tell me with a wink.  I hoped it was just a "kid" thing:  The adults around me all seemed pretty comfortable and together.  I guess I expected that somehow, when I became an adult, the day would come when I'd magically be able to take command of the social graces, and sally forth without the least bit of anxiety or discomfort.

I'm still waiting for that day.

My husband rolls his eyes at my hesitation.  “Fine, gimme the phone, Gert,” he’ll say.

I’m so misunderstood!

The truth is, I’m scared to death of being judged unworthy by other people.  Now, you may question why it is I care what the kid at the pizza joint thinks of me one way or the other; but in general, I have to admit this feeling runs pretty deep.  Anytime I say something to another human being – especially one I don’t know well -- I fear that this time, I really blew it.  I said the wrong thing.  I did the wrong thing.  I am the wrong thing.

Did you know that I break out in a cold sweat every time I hit the publish button on my own blog?  It’s waaaaay worse when I leave a comment on someone else's blog, though I try to anyway (I know how much it means to get them, after all!) (Hint, hint) :)

My sister Noreen, at Sufficiently Radical, wrote a post recently called Hidden Talents.  In it, she praised the rest of our family for being smarter, better and more talented than she thinks she could ever be.  We’ll set aside for a moment my amazement that she could hold such a fact-challenged notion of her own comparative worth:  She’s a writer of amazing talent, is exceptionally thoughtful of others, has a natural gift for event planning and fundraising, is both funny and wise, and is a “people person” of the sort I could only dream of being – and that’s just for starters.  I guess she thinks that getting good grades in school and being able to play the guitar at a very elementary level somehow beats those things out.  One thing’s certain, though:  I was always louder.

I haven’t been blogging much lately.  The main reason is that, honestly … I look at what other people write and do and talk about, and I find that I come up way too short.  I begin to question if I really have anything to offer, after all.  I really don’t do anything terribly unique or special in our homeschool  –  other than tailoring it to the unique needs of my own kids, of course --  and most of the time I feel like I don’t do nearly enough.  I’ve considered writing more about personal struggles – with homeschooling, yes, but also about things like weight and dieting -- but … well, that would entail letting people “in” in a more personal way, and you’d have everything you needed to … judge me.

I once had an elderly friend who liked to say, “What other people think of you is none of your business!”  Of course, I reserve to myself the right to form my own opinions about others.  But I rarely tell anyone about that.  Because I know you’d think less of me if you knew the extent of my own sarcasm, sharp wit, impatience and self-righteousness!  (No, Chief & my sisters, I’m obviously not including the way I talk to you!!  Think what you will:  You’re stuck with me.) :)

(Notwithstanding the likelihood that at any given moment,  no one is thinking of me at all.  You, nor the pizza kid.  I don’t get no respect.)

Anyway, my sister, inspired by the Happiness Project, is challenging herself to do ten things this year that she’s been afraid to do  and/or has never done before.  I can’t even [gasp!] make a list!  But if I did, taking a chance on letting people see more of who I really am might be on it; and this space could be a good place to try it on for size.

I’ll just sign those posts, “Guest-written by Gert Loplitz.”

A Princess, a Frog and a Couple o' Beignets

Last night, our library hosted a free showing of The Princess and the Frog. We hadn't seen it yet, so it seemed like the perfect Saturday "Family Night" activity!

The children were encouraged to dress up like princesses and princes (there were a lot of cute Cinderellas there!) We went minimalist, ourselves: Junie B. wore a headband decorated with gold beads and a couple Mardi Gras necklaces; Taz wore a foil-covered crown (with a little frog sticker as the crown jewel!), and Sunny-boy wore a frog headband (modeled after my favorite amphibian, of Frog and Toad fame).

Frog-shaped cookies were served, and the children camped out on blankets on the library floor. It was a lot of fun! I must say, the movie itself was absolutely wonderful -- everything a Fairy Tale should be. And the music is great, too!

My favorite movie reviewer, Steven Greydanus, cautioned that because the Bayou voodoo lady is portrayed as a good figure, there is confusion between good and evil; but for once I must say I don't agree. The evil guy in this movie is truly and obviously evil -- and totally gets his comeuppance -- and the the Bayou voodoo lady never consorts with evil spirits as far as I could see. Certainly not in any obvious way that would lead children astray, any more than say, Glinda the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Eccentric, yes; evil, no. "Spells" are a part of Fairy Tales, and I'm good with that -- especially since pretty much all she does is stir up a pot of gumbo and then tell the travelers how to break the spell that binds them. That's my take, anyway. (He does say that she practices a form of divination during her big number, but it went right over my head -- I never saw it. Perhaps a second viewing would make me less comfortable?) I almost didn't allow the kids to see this movie because of that review, but I think it would've been our loss.

Tiana, the movie's "Princess," makes a mean New Orleans Beignet ... so, naturally, I thought it would be fun to try to whip some up for breakfast this morning! Beignets are a kind of fried dough, usually made from a yeast dough that is rolled out and cut into square shapes before frying; but I found a quicker, no-yeast recipe online and went with that instead.

I can't vouch for their authenticity, of course, but they were good! The dough is made from water, butter, flour, salt and eggs, and of course,they're liberally doused with sifted confectioner's sugar.

In the movie, Tiana drizzles something that looks like honey over the beignets just before sprinkling on the sugar; I couldn't find a recipe that made them that way, but it looked good to me, so that's what we did! The results were almost like a cream puff: crispy on the outside; light, moist and airy on the inside, and very flavorful, even without the sugar.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c butter
• 1 c water
• 1 c flour
• 1/4 t salt
• 4 eggs
• vegetable oil for frying
• honey for drizzling
• confectioner's sugar for dusting

Place the butter and water in a saucepan over medium heat, until the butter melts. Sift the flour and salt together in a separate bowl, then add to the saucepan all at once, beating well. Continue to cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until a sticky dough forms into a ball in the center of the pan. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated (it takes some doing, so don't give up!)

Pour at least 1/2" of oil into a frying pan, over medium to medium-high heat. Drop the dough carefully into the hot oil in small batches, about a tablespoonful each, at least 2" apart. Keep turning them as they cook, for about 6-8 minutes, until deep, golden brown. (Don't let the oil get too hot, or the outsides will burn before the inside is cooked). Drain on paper towels.

Place the beignets on a serving plate while still hot; drizzle over all with honey, then dust liberally with confectioner's sugar tapped over all from a sifter or sieve. Serve immediately. Makes about 16 beignets.

Yum!

... And Occasional Speech Therapist, Too

Sort of, anyway!

Taz has had the cutest little speech impediment -- if you even want to call it that -- substituting /f/ sound for /th/.  I really wasn't worried about it; kids usually outgrow such things.  I even had a preschool speech therapist once tell me that a lot of the milder speech errors kids make in preschool and kindergarten drop out when they learn to read, due to the emphasis on the actual sounds made by each letter. 

Here's where it was really getting in his way:  When he was counting, the "fuh-ties" sounded an awful lot like the "foe-ties" and he would often "short-circuit" somewhere in the middle, skipping from, say "fuh-tee fwee" to "foe-tee foe".  (I'm still not too worried about that r-w substitution!)

So here's what I decided to try:  I pulled out a small mirror, and showed him how the /th/ is a "bite your tongue" sound, whereas /f/ is a "bite your lip" sound.  After just a day or two (just a couple of minutes of silly exaggeration each time), he totally "got it" and now bites his tongue with pride whenever he comes across a number with a 3 in it.  Not only that, he looks for other opportunities to use the sound correctly -- you should hear him belt out his ordinals!  It's also made it easier for him with reading, since we emphasized /th/ as a special case -- he not only correctly sounds out/ pronounces words he sees that include /th/, especially at the beginning, but he's quickly caught on to other digraphs, such as /wh/,  /ch/ and /sh/, too!

Little successes like this just make me feel good. :)

Note:  After a long career as a preschool special ed teacher, I have tremendous respect for the "magic" that speech therapists are able to accomplish with very young children.  Both my little boys, in fact, have benefited directly from professional speech therapy intervention.  Little stuff like this probably wouldn't qualify for direct speech therapy; but if a child has a serious speech and language delay, I'd never recommend going at it without the help of a professional.  You'd be amazed at what they can do!

Just Popping In to Say "Hi!"

I am really starting to miss this oh-so-neglected space!

The reason I haven't been here of late is simply that, somewhere in the middle of everything else that was going on, it lost "priority."  That, and I made up my mind I wasn't going to move on in posting until I got my Advent/Christmas posts done.  But Christmas is so ... three months ago!  Who's thinking about Christmas now, except for those amazing people who get all their shopping for next year done by June (of which I am decidedly not one)?! 

Well!  When I make up my mind to stubbornly follow a certain path, I guess I stick to it, do or die!

(If only I could apply that to areas in my life where I could really use some self-discipline!!)

There's really nothing extraordinary going on around here; just life in all its usual busy glory.  This Lent, I decided what I needed to do most was make a commitment to getting to bed by 11:00 (yes; longtime blogwatchers may recall that I made that one of my 2008  New Year's resolutions.  Then, having failed miserably on that score, I apparently gave up on New Year's resolutions altogether.) :)  My husband and I have also begun praying Compline together every night after putting the children to bed.  Most nights, I sit down next to him to prepare to pray, say a few responses, and promptly fall asleep.  (Since we're new to this, we've been using the podcasts from divineoffice.org to help us along, and they play such pretty music ...)  He wakes me up sometime around 11:00, and helps me stumble off to bed.  (How did I manage to stay awake until 1 am or later every night before now?  Yikes, I've been exhausted.)

Thanks to everyone who's been commenting and sending me emails asking what happened to me.  I'm fine; I'm here ... and if you can indulge me a couple more Christmas posts (!), I may even get back to regularly-scheduled blogging soon.

Merry Christmas! ;)

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate ...

My little boys love to help me in the kitchen.  So when a task made for little hands, like scrubbing potatoes, comes along, I put them right to work -- they have fun, the potatoes get scrubbed, and I can turn my attention to something else, perhaps the chili on the stove (chili over baked potatoes!  Yum!), for a minute or two. 

Usually.

Mmmm.  Cleanest potatoes in town! 

(Good news:  The soap rinsed well and left no discernable residue.  And the boys enjoyed rinsing them almost as much as scrubbing!)

I Hear Other People Use These for Cooking

Good Medicine

... from my sweet little boy.

P.S.  Thought I'd never post again, didn'tcha? :)  Lots to say, no time to say it.  I'll get to it, though!

Morning Coffee Musings

The past week has been a surprisingly exhausting one around our house, and I am currently enjoying a rare "late morning" (it's about 7:30 am) by myself -- giving me a minute to address my much-neglected space here.

We finished our school year officially last Friday.  The time went by so quickly that I never even updated In My Backyard to reflect a single thing we've done for the entire quarter!  It was a rich and full 9 weeks, however, and I hope to post on what we were doing and how it will affect the direction we'll be taking in the upcoming school year.

One "new thing" we did this last quarter was give Junie B. the experience of taking a standardized test -- through another homeschooling group, she was able to participate with about 10 other families in taking the IOWA.  For the most part, she creamed it.  Even her spelling subtest scored three grades above level (I had no idea 6th graders were such poor spellers; but I digress).  The areas in which she had the most difficulty were those related to formal writing, which we've heretofore (deliberately) addressed very little (and her scores were solidly on grade level for those, even for that).  As my husband says, I worry way too much about all this stuff.

I have a number of posts in the pipline, some of them percolating all month, including thoughts on where we'll go from here in terms of curriculum, and how we'll make it happen for the little individuals that actually live here :) .  I'm almost set on what we'll be doing, actually, and the post I started at the beginning of the month, intended to be part of a series, may already be outdated; but I may post my thoughts anyway, since these decisions are all about process.

I also have posts -- mostly just in need of pictures -- about our doings in the month of May, including a sweet May Crowning and Marian-themed dinner on the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, a hilltop Ascension Day picnic, a trip with Daddy to the zoo, and the exhausting but really fun planting of our much-anticipated vegetable garden.  (And I'll have to update that with a post on how much I hate grackles, who may have already destroyed our butternut squash and tomato plants ...)  We made cute garden markers out of popsicle sticks and clip art, and will soon be adding a scarecrow , too (for fun; somehow I don't think the grackles will be impressed).

And I have plans for the summer, too!  We won't "count it" toward our 180 days, but I'm looking forward to trying out a summer "Writer's Workshop" with Junie B, based on the Writing Strands series.  It will be light and fun, and I hope it will lay the foundation for beginning to focus on writing in earnest next school year.  Beyond that, I hope to get the house in order, reorganize our books and other resources, and spend oodles of time outdoors.  I know our school year just ended, but I also am looking forward to starting to purchase resources, too.  I get pretty excited when our new book orders start rolling in! :)

And our sweet Step 2 will be graduating from high school this month (as the Valedictorian!  Did I mention she's the Valedictorian?) :)  Oh, that's bittersweet.  With both of the big girls gone, our home will seem very different.  Smaller, for starters.  Thursday will be her (and probably our) last concert at the High School.  It feels very strange to be losing that connection to the school and the community that the older girls' public school education represented.  And I must say I am very surprised by my melancholy reaction to it.

June is also a huge birthday month around here -- Wednesday my little toothless Taz turns 6 (gack!  6!!), followed by Step 2's 18th (gack, again!) birthday on the 16th, then Fathers' Day (of course!), and The Chief's (appropriately mature, non-gacky) birthday on the 28th.  My sister's son will be getting married on June 19th (the first wedding of his generation from our entire huge extended family!), and Step 2's graduation will be on the 26th.  What a month!!!  It won't end there, either:  4th of July weekend is my dad's annual family reunion -- a family tradition extending all the way back to the days of WWII.  Then Step 2 begins getting ready in earnest to leave for college.

Bittersweet.  Melancholy.  Fun!  And busy, busy, busy.

On top of all that, we're seriously considering moving.

So if the day ever comes that I get another unexpected break like this, I may just share a little but about all of it.

But now it's 8:00, the kids are waking up, and break-time's over.