little thoughts

lift off!

Posted on 2019-08-192019-08-19 by kristinabean

Our biomes curriculum started off by introducing our planet’s location in the Solar System – it’s kind of important, after all, since the sun plays such a crucial role in shaping climate, determining the seasons, and maintaining life. It’s intended to be just a brief overview, before diving down more deeply into Earth itself, but both Rondel and Limerick have become completely, utterly captivated by outer space.

Limerick in particular has attacked it with his rather academic and obsessive bent, spending hours poring through images of the sun and the planets (always in order, from Mercury outward, including the dwarf planets), asking me to read and reread the books we have in the house, getting out the play dough day after day to model the solar system and using the kitchen scale to make his planets as close to an accurate scale as he can. (Since it’s finicky in its old age and won’t switch from standard to metric units, he’s gotten some practice working with pounds and ounces as well. It is rather irritating when something needs to be 1000 times larger than something else and you have to divide by 16 to get the correct number of pounds.)

(I may be to blame for his obsession with accurate scaling… for our first solar system activity, we made a scaled model of the solar system with play dough, based on NASA’s mass estimations for each planet, and measured out the appropriate distances between the planets so we could set them up down the hallway. Jupiter was so much larger that we ended up making a new double batch of play dough, using it all for Jupiter, and scaling everything else in relation to that.)

From top left, clockwise: all eight planets before placing them relative to the “sun” (the bookshelf); the whiteboard with calculations (and on the bottom a comparison of Jupiter’s mass in kg to various family members in kg); Jupiter looking out toward the other gas giants; Neptune looking in toward the “sun”; Jupiter looking in toward the inner planets.

Over the weekend, both boys decided to make paper models of the solar system as well, not to scale, but showing all the planets and the sun. They even wrote labels for each planet, which is the most handwriting they’ve ever done at one time! (Rondel’s picture is on the left and Limerick’s is on the right – Rondel included Ceres, a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, and Limerick gave his sun quite a few solar flares.)

They’ve also been asking to read from our (admittedly small but at least quality) space book collection at bedtime and throughout the day. We’ve been cycling through Our Solar System by Seymour Simon (published in 1992, and lacking a lot of newer information), The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System (published in 1990, so the same problem), and Astronomica by Fred Watson (published in 2011, absolutely massive, with amazing images and detailed information which I have to skim through to read at a level the boys can understand).

I’m planning on finding some supplementary books from the library about different space missions and picture book biographies of people involved in space exploration, so we can incorporate some history into our space study as well. We’ve already made a timeline with the lives of family members and individuals from books we’ve read, so it would be natural to include important dates in space exploration. Since ASU has a large space exploration exhibit and 3D show open to the public, I’ll probably try to incorporate that as well. And while Limerick has already used math with all the scaling he’s done, I’d like to find a way to show the boys how much math was used in designing spacecraft, planning missions, and charting the orbits of planets – Rondel enjoys math far more when it involves a topic he’s interested in. It might not have been my original plan for the beginning of the school year, but what’s the point in homeschooling, after all, if you can’t be flexible and use your children’s interests to motivate their learning?

sqt

{sqt} – july quick takes: getting ready for school

Posted on 2019-07-252019-07-25 by kristinabean

School starts early here in the valley, and while we’re not tied to any specific school schedule, I’m feeling ready to settle into more routine and structure than we’ve had in our (very fun and very busy) summer so far. Actually, for the first time in my life I’m creating tentative weekly and monthly schedules and will be trying to keep track of things in my own custom planner! I have never been able to maintain a planner for more than a week, so we’ll see how this goes.
The most exciting part of preparing for school has been making a list of all the books I want to buy 🙂 My husband will probably arch his eyebrows at me and comment about our lack of shelf space, but I currently have forty-five books on my list and I’m sure I’ll come up with more!
I’m also thinking of purchasing a science curriculum – I found one that is about climate and biomes from a Montessori background, and while I definitely can’t buy all the physical props to go with it, the curriculum itself still looks like a solid introduction to those topics (very beautifully and thoughtfully laid out). Rondel moved up to a full-day scholarship amount through our state’s ESA program, so we have funds to cover more than speech therapy this year and I may be a bit over-excited about it…
Rondel turned six this month! I haven’t uploaded any of the pictures from my camera yet, but he had a great party with both sides of the family present. He has so much energy now, and so much creativity, and such a love of nature. He’s also starting to decode words and is willing to spend more time practicing writing, so I think we have a pretty solid foundation going into the school year.
One of my other major areas of focus this year is going to be on the saints. Probably more than half of my picture book list is about the lives of various saints, working out to about 1-2 every month (I have several from the library as well – I work at the university, so I can get year-long loans on most of the children’ books, for school purposes). Each saint portrays a slightly different way of loving and following God, and inspires us to love and follow Him in our own way. The community of saints is such a powerful and beautiful reality – and the stories of the saints help us see how the truths of the faith that we hear at church and read in the Bible can be lived out in different cultural and personal circumstances.
Music and art is another thing I want to be more intentional about this upcoming year. Rondel especially loves to make crafts, but he needs a lot of help and things can get messy and I know the creativity won’t be able to shine as much as it could unless I schedule it in and make myself deal with the mess 🙂 And since we do have some auditory sensitivities in the family, I may gently ease into music by making some simple instruments during our craft times, and then using them while singing together. Actually, if you have a list of high quality folk/traditional children’s music I would absolutely love it…
Most importantly, our schedule is full of wide open times to play, explore, and go on adventures and trips. Routine provides stability, but flexibility and (some, minor) spontaneity provides a spark of excitement and energy.

How are you preparing for the new school year? Anything especially exciting or new? Also, don’t forget to visit This Ain’t the Lyceum for the quick takes linkup today!

musings

walking by faith: because coping with mental illness is like striving for a virtuous life

Posted on 2019-07-232019-07-20 by kristinabean

When you live with a mental illness, you get a lot of practice at redirecting the pathways of your thoughts. Sometimes it’s as simple as stopping and taking a deep breath when the first hint of an unhelpful emotion or mantra wafts in; other times it takes repeated corrections, minute by minute, guiding your thoughts out of the road they want to travel and into a different pattern.

“He’s angry at me”, my mind says – and I have to force myself to look at the facts of the situation, remember he didn’t sleep well last night, so maybe it makes more sense that he is angry at something else or just tired and not showing positive emotions well.

“I can’t do anything right”, it says again, and I have to list off the things that have gone right in the past hour, no matter how small they are, and put the mistake in perspective: I fed the kids a healthy breakfast, I got a shower, I got everyone to speech therapy on time with activities prepared, and it’s not the end of the world if they only have socks on and their shoes are sitting at home…

“You’ll never be worth anything, they’d all be better off without you”, it repeats, and I have to turn the feelings inside out, repeat what I believe in the core of my being about the innate worth and dignity of the human person, remember the irrational and inexplicable unconditional love of a child, pray for the strength to run my race with endurance as did the saints who suffered and died for their faith, lift up my head like a superhero knocked down but not out once again.

The emotions are harder to deal with, being by nature less specific of a difficulty. Sometimes it seems as if the whole world is covered in a gray mist, blocking out the color and the joy and the reason to try, and all you can do is make your way from one task to the next, drawing on reservoirs of strength you didn’t know you had, waiting for the sun to break through again. Sometimes guilt (or self-loathing, or whatever the word for it is) attacks like a fistful of knives in your brain, and you hold your breath through the mental pain and then, somehow, inhale again and lift your face to the fight once more. Sometimes everything you take in is edged with inexplicable sadness, the inverse of a silver lining, and you embrace the beauty anyway, despite the bittersweet twist in your heart.

And what I’ve been coming to realize, lately, is that this turning away from the easier path into downward mental spirals and unhelpful thought patterns, and this setting of my feet so carefully and unsteadily in new ways of thinking, is really very similar to the process of living a virtuous life. Here is my fear, dissuading me from some act of charity or justice or faithfulness – now I must turn my thoughts aside from that path, from the rationalizing of my cowardice, and take an action I very much do not have the emotional support to make. And in the act, I make it that much easier to choose courageously in the future. There is my anger, snapping out at the people I love, roughening my edges to sharp and jagged lines, giving me hurtful words to hurl – now I must close my mouth, count to ten, pray for peace and gentleness and self-control, try to look through another’s eyes, and eventually even try to speak in kindness and in calm. And in the act – in every time I try, even if I do not entirely succeed – I train my mind and will to not fall so automatically into the pathway of that vice. It’s rather a daunting thought, knowing that I have both sanity and virtue at stake here 😉 – but on the other hand, what practice I will have at it! And with God near at hand with His grace and strength, and the community of saints present to encourage and guide me, I have hope that my practice (in both arenas!) will not be in vain.

hikes

horton springs take 2

Posted on 2019-07-20 by kristinabean

Since we enjoyed Horton Springs last year (even though we didn’t really find the actual trail in time to hike it), I took the kids back up on my own this summer.

The trailhead is across the road from the parking site (which has a bathroom and is free!), up towards the Horton Campground. To get all the way up to the spring itself is a 4 mile hike, so I knew in advance we wouldn’t be doing the whole thing, but the trail follows along roughly beside the creek with multiple opportunities to drop down to the water so it is still good for little kids.

The kids all found walking sticks by the trailhead, and held on to them devotedly for the whole hike (well, the boys did – Aubade traded hers out every ten minutes or so for a new model). IMG_3041 crop

We found a huge old tree reaching across the creek from the trail – Rondel went part of the way across, and Limerick went all the way across the creek until the tree starting sloping more steeply uphill on the other side.

Not too far after the second gate, since the kids were starting to get tired of just walking, we detoured down to the creek and trekked upstream a while. The water seemed to give the kids a new burst of energy, and they watched sticks and leaves float downstream, clambered over rocks, and waded through shallow pools.

Just a short ways upstream, however, we stumbled upon a pool about 3-4 feet deep at the base of a small waterfall, and decided to stay there – swimming in the pool, throwing rocks in to make a splash, and observing the local insects 🙂

After we were done at the pool we hiked back to the trailhead and had a picnic lunch at the parking area – there are a few tables tucked away by a small trail that I believe leads back down to another section of the creek.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make our way up the road to the patch of blackberries we’d found last year – the kids were worn out and I wasn’t completely sure I could recall the way from the road without a bit of scouting. So I can’t update my prediction as to when they are actually ripe! I suppose we can just try again next year, when all the littles have longer legs and more stamina 🙂

To reach Horton Creek Trailhead from the East Valley: Take the 87 north to the center of Payson and turn right onto AZ-260 E at the McDonalds; about 16 miles later turn left on Nf-289. The parking area for the trail is on the left just after a one-lane bridge; it is marked and has a vault toilet and picnic tables. To get to the trail, walk back down the road across the bridge and up towards the Horton Creek Campground. The trailhead is at the base of the campground and is well marked.

family life, information

flamingo chicks!

Posted on 2019-07-152019-07-15 by kristinabean

With both boys in Zoo Camp for the week, Aubade and I spent the morning visiting the zoo at her pace. Despite the heat, we had a really nice time together – and ran into an unexpected adventure along the way!

Apparently, at the beginning of the summer, the Phoenix Zoo received 11 greater flamingo eggs from the San Diego Zoo to supplement their flock – and decided to try to train them to go on walks and mingle with people, since they were going to have to hand rear them anyway. So, as we snacked by the Children’s Trail, a zookeeper came up to us and told us that flamingo chicks would be coming out for a walk in just a few minutes up by the vulture exhibit. Needless to say, we cut our snack short and made our way over.

The chicks are about 7 weeks old and just starting to grow their contoured wing feathers; everywhere else they are still fuzzy with down, and they haven’t begun eating the diet that will provide them with their characteristic pigmentation. They are also still a bit wobbly when they walk, and it was so adorable when they would have to hop on two feet and flap their wings to keep their balance. Having been raised as a group instead of as single chicks (greater flamingos only lay one egg at a time, and the chicks do not socialize with the rest of the flock until closer to maturity), they have become inseparable. They also still retain some of the snuggliness of babyhood, and a few climbed up into the zookeepers’ laps to cuddle after their walk.

While they asked us to stay about 6 feet behind the flamingos during the walk itself (or stay motionless off to the side), as the flamingos can be distracted easily, we got to be very close to them during the huddle at the end. Aubade even got to spray some water on their feet to help them cool down!

If you’re local and want to see the flamingos yourself, they are currently walking around the Children’s Trail every day at 7:30, and most days at 9:30 (depending on how hot it is). Their walk starts near the vulture and owl exhibits, although I’m sure the exact tour varies from day to day. It’s definitely not something that happens all the time, and worth braving the heat for in my opinion. Just walk out for the poop while you’re following them around!

family life

jack-o-lanterns in july

Posted on 2019-07-012019-07-01 by kristinabean

The unique gardening calendar of the low desert means that we’ve been harvesting butternut squash and pumpkins for the past few weeks, and enjoying all the traditional fall flavors and activities as we go.

We had so many pumpkins that I really didn’t know what to do with them all. We have cups and cups of seeds (some roasted, some dried for crafting), two quarts of pumpkin juice (for my inner Harry Potter fan), and quite a few bags of puree in the freezer (although that is mostly from the butternut). I’ve made butternut pasta sauce, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cinnamon rolls, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin waffles, and Thai butternut curry so far – and more pumpkins and squashes keep ripening on the vines. (Everything was good except the pasta sauce, and I knew it was a risk when I tried it. What can I say, I was getting desperate.)

So, I’ve been letting the kids draw faces on the extra pumpkins, carving them out, and using the resulting jack-o-lanterns as nightlights! It may not be October, but we’re certainly enjoying our autumnal friends this summer 🙂

wwlw

{wwlw episode 10} – CVC words

Posted on 2019-06-262019-06-20 by kristinabean

All credit for this game goes to Ruth Beechick! Her books are full of good ideas and perspective on education.

The boys had been walking around talking about different letter sounds and trying to find objects that started with each letter of the alphabet in order, so I thought that it would be a good time to introduce more phonics games. CVC words are the easiest place to start, so we started there.

I cut two pieces of card stock into sixteenths. On each of the sixteen blue rectangles I wrote a consonant; on five of the orange rectangles I wrote a vowel (some consonants don’t show up that often in three-letter words, so it wasn’t hard to find a few to leave out). We spread them out, face down, on the table, and took turns drawing three cards.

The first time we played, we earned a chocolate chip just for sounding out the potential words. The second time, though, we only earned the chocolate chip if our three letters spelled a real word. So our beginning level helped to build confidence in the rules of sounding out words, while the harder level forced the boys to think of the collection of letters as a word instead of just a series of sounds.

Chocolate chips are an exceptional reward in our family 🙂 By the end of our second game, the boys were almost literally rolling on the floor in laughter at some of the words (real and otherwise) that our randomly-drawn letters spelled – and in the meantime, their speed at decoding those words had increased significantly.

I think next time we play I’ll make an extra “e” card with the chance to earn an extra chocolate chip for successfully sounding out a real word made with the three random letters and an “e” at the end – it’ll be a good way to practice the short-to-long vowel change!

family life, sqt

{sqt} – water, water, everywhere!

Posted on 2019-06-202019-06-20 by kristinabean

I’m linking up with This Ain’t the Lyceum today for the weekly seven quick takes blog party 🙂 Head over to catch up with everyone else!

Our city has a family pool pass option for the summers, and it’s half price if purchased before Memorial Day weekend – so I decided to try it out this year. While we haven’t quite recouped the investment yet, we’re getting close: we’ve already visited our local pool eight times in the three weeks its been open! And if the kids start itching for something different, there are a few other pools around the city with their own unique features we can try with the same pass. Every time we go, the kids tell me they want to go swimming every day. It’s only because there are other things to do in life that we don’t :)Waiting in front of the entrance to the pool!
Waiting in front of the entrance to the pool
We’ve also been taking swim lessons at that same pool. The boys had a two week session early in June, and all three of them will have another starting soon; Aubade is still too young to be in a class without a parent (the minimum age for our city is 3), so I thought I’d save it for the hotter weather. It wasn’t unbearable sitting and watching in early June, but it’s just been getting warmer since then. (Although I am comfortable sitting outdoors typing this, with a warm glow coming up from the ground and a cool breeze rustling through the drying sunflower stalks, so I most definitely can’t claim that this is one of those hellishly hot summers Phoenix is known for). Anyway, it’s a chance for the boys to learn some form and technique, and Aubade has been dancing and twirling every time she remembers that she gets to have lessons this time also, so it’s a good thing all around 🙂
Our other go-to pool is the one at my parents’ house. It’s a very different experience than the city pool: there’s no beach entry, Aubade can wear arm floaties, the kids can run on the deck, they have pool toys to play with, and so on. So it is a good way to mix things up – and of course it is always nice to visit the grandparents and eat all their cookies and popsicles…
At home, we have a little kiddie pool that we can set up in a few ways. Or rather… for a few days the kids were satisfied playing in it under the shade of the patio, but now it’s been instated at the foot of the double slide, with a hose rigged up at the top so they can slide into the pool under the spray. Rondel remembered how we had set it up that way last summer, and when I suggested doing it again this year he started running around in circles because he was so excited 🙂
Playing in the pool the “boring” way…
This week (since we had some extra time without either swim lessons or zoo camp), we also took an afternoon to drive up to Saguaro Lake and swim. I had bought a massive inflatable watermelon raft on clearance a month or so ago, so we got to try it out for the first time and the kids absolutely loved it. Well, the boys loved it. Aubade was so excited she stayed awake on the car ride there, and announced she was tired after fifteen minutes in the water; fortunately, however, inflatable rafts are apparently rather soporific and she took a nap on the raft while the boys bounced on and off of it around her, taking turns swimming back and forth from the raft to me in the deeper water. After her rest Aubade did have a great time, though! She kept bouncing and twirling through the water, telling me how beautiful it all was.
Next time we have a day free and need a place to go, however, I’m hoping to take the kids up to the Verde River just north of Payson. They loved our creek hikes last year, and while I had the chance to go up with just Paul for our anniversary this year, I’d also like to take them. The running water below with the wind through the trees overhead, the clean sharp edge to the air with the rich earthy counterpoint of rough bark and tree sap, the pure blue of the sky and the myriad shades of green – all of these make those little northern Arizona rivers some of my favorite places in the world. In fact, it was one of them that I envisioned when my therapist had me construct/imagine a safe place for some anti-anxiety exercises. So I’ll go up any time I can.
The backyard view from the cabin Paul and I stayed in for our anniversary!
In the meantime, if our other springs run dry, we still have all the Valley splash pads to explore this year! And by the time another month has passed, we’ll have the monsoon rains upon us. The dry season here can sometimes feel like those barren and thirsty wastelands of life: empty, scorched, and fruitless. But when we retreat to our oases, to the pools and lakes and rivers, we find happiness – just like our spirits can find joy in the wellspring of the water of life in Jesus.

musings

on abortion and disability

Posted on 2019-06-112019-06-08 by kristinabean

I’ve noticed lately an uptick in the discussion on abortion among my online friends and on the radio; I’m pretty sure it is due to some recent state laws (or proposed laws) related to the topic, but I have been avoiding political topics like the plague recently for various reasons so I don’t know the details. So I am not planning, here, to go into legal details. I don’t know what is best from a pragmatic perspective, balancing the needs and rights of every person in a far-from-ideal world full of broken and sinful people and circumstances.

But a lot of the arguments I have seen remind me of the atrocities commemorated every March 1st on the Disability Day of Mourning. There are parents who believe that their children’s lives will be not worth living because of their disability, who think it would be better if they didn’t live at all then live with that suffering, and quite logically decide to kill them. There are reporters and juries and judges who believe that the burden of care and support placed upon these parents by their disabled victims somehow makes their crime less heinous and more deserving of leniency and compassion. None of these parents wanted a disabled child, after all. Their entire lives were overturned and their expectations and plans were dashed because of these children’s existence. And since the victims weren’t going to have great quality of life anyway, due to their disability, surely we can all identify with their parents and the hard decision they made stemming from their grief and anger and stress (again, all the fault of the victim). On the Disability Day of Mourning, the disabled community remembers these victims, speaking their names, attributing to their memory the individual worth and human value that they were denied in life.

And when I read what my friends have to say in defense of abortion – focusing on the pain and grief of the mother, on the brokenness of the situations that most commonly lead to abortion, on the emotional and physical caregiving demands placed by the fetus on an unwilling parent, on the potential for child abuse and poor quality of life for the unaborted child – it makes me think that if we (as a society) can say these things about the killing of the unborn, it won’t be long before we can say them about the disabled. Because yes, all those points are true and valid and need to be addressed, but they do not invalidate the humanity of the vulnerable and needy and young – of the child who did not ask to be conceived, or to be born with a disability, but who as a result of the brokenness of the world finds herself in need of care and support with no open and loving arms extended to her.

How do we love and support those who unexpectedly find themselves parenting a special needs child with no clue of how to handle things – or who find out they are pregnant and know they have no resources to raise a child? How do we protect children whose parents sink into abusive or neglectful behaviors because they are overwhelmed by the support and care necessitated by their child’s disability or believe their disabled child to be less valuable or deserving of love – or because they never wanted a child and are suddenly pregnant and have no love to give to the child of a rapist or abuser? Whatever the best answer is, I’m fairly sure it doesn’t involve killing those children, anymore than it would involve killing the adults who find themselves in parental positions they are inadequate to cope with. We need to reach out with hands gentled by our own knowledge of the brokenness of the world and of each human heart, and smooth the troubled path before the feet of these parents and their children: sometimes to guide, sometimes to lend a helping hand over obstacles in the way, sometimes to carry, and sometimes to chart a splitting of ways. And at the same time, we need to make sure that the amount of support a person needs – the extent of their dependence on caregivers – does not impact the value we ascribe to their life.

Otherwise, we end up attempting to erase a problem by erasing a person.

family life

wildlife in the backyard

Posted on 2019-06-082019-06-08 by kristinabean

As I haven’t had the chance yet to pick up some brown paper lunch bags to cover the sunflower heads, the local birds are enjoying quite the feast in our yard. Rondel was absolutely thrilled, a few mornings back, to come across a rosy-faced lovebird breakfasting on the ripening seeds – and I’ve seen more of them every day since then!

The lovebird isn’t a native species – the Arizona Field Ornithologists website has a lot of information here. However, it is still really neat to see them hopping through the yard and on the sunflowers! Growing all these plants has turned our backyard into a living science lesson, with so many different insects and birds coming for food or to make a home. Rondel especially has been taking full advantage of that fact, prowling the yard for hours every day looking for bugs and other animals: he’s caught or observed so many different varieties of butterfly and moth (including one that looked so much like a leaf I almost missed it), countless crickets, soldier beetles, ladybugs, green lacewings, stinkbugs, crab spiders, orb spiders, and more that we weren’t able to identify.

Of course, when the yard looks like this, I would be more surprised if there weren’t butterflies and moths:

My experimental lawn alternative was rather a failure due to my impulsive decision to add some wildflower seeds to the mix… but while the end result is most definitely not a lawn, it is certainly beautiful right now with everything in bloom. We’ll just try again in the fall to get something more walkable 🙂 and for now let our budding naturalist enjoy his private field for exploration.