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Wait ’til They Get to the Real World

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
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I was telling a mother of two girls that Ty went to a boy’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. At three years old, he clung to Dad’s arm for an hour before he sat by himself in the booth. The other children ran around and played. He was still, quiet, observant, and no more than four inches away from Dad the entire time.

“Wait until he gets to the real world!” exclaimed she.

A young public schooled boy asked me why I home school our children. He mentioned that his school was a good school. He also talked about a family who lives on his No Outlet street with five children who are home schooled. Without waiting for my response, he said, “The mom does that because she’s afraid of the world.”

“Oh, is she?” I wondered where he got such an idea.

“Yea, and her kids are never allowed to come over.”

I didn’t answer the boys original question because he obviously didn’t want to hear it and because I didn’t want to get into topics such as parental influence, abdication of responsibilities, and low quality government workers with a nine year old boy.

On a Teacher Work Day, Dear Husband was at Target when he overheard a mother’s telling her children, “This is why I shop while you are at school, so I don’t have to put up with your misbehavior.”

Yet… our children give a proper greeting, hold open the door, give the right of way to elders. When prompted, they give up their seat for others. They sit quietly at the bank, and stand in single file when I’m shopping. They are children who forget where they are sometimes, so every once in a while, I have to call attention to them while in public.

Do we not ALL live in the real world? A successful bachelor banker doesn’t live the life that a single mother of two who is on the dole lives, but they both live in the real world. What exactly do people mean when they mention “the real world”? If it means gangs, drug pushers, and people of questionable values, the sexual education of young children, loud music, video games, and high fructose corn syrup, then, by the power invested in us by God Himself, we will strike it down with our flaming swords!

But it is all in how we treat people and to what we are accustomed. Ty’s clinging to his father for an hour is a representation of how we chose to live, where we chose to go on our free times… the library, the park, the wilderness, places that harbor mostly quiet (the real world). When Taylor accompanies me to my trips to the fabric store, she stays close to me, on the right side of the walkway, with her voice down, exhibiting behavior that is lacking from other four year olds. She’ll get a little shriek in her voice when she sees a pink, glittery fabric that would be perfect for a tutu. In our “real world,” Kyle greets the grocery store’s security guard and cashiers with a hearty “Good Morning” and stands aside when a stock clerk has to make his way down an aisle while pushing a filled cart.

We, Sleppys, are not afraid of the real world. School cannot be counted on to do what is clearly a parent’s responsibility, which is to teach a child how to treat others. NOT EVEN CHURCH will teach them that. We, Sleppys, already live in the real world, day after day, guiding, teaching, encouraging, witnessing to, sacrificing for, correcting, and molding our young breed.

Just you wait until *your* children get to the “real world.” Wait to see how shunned they’ll be, classified as rude, crass, grotesque, tasteless, loud.

(Aside, Talon loves wearing her siblings’ boots. They are so big on her, so she stomps around the house, looking like Link in Iron Boots. Totally adorable.)

Posted in Cultural Rants, Mom Wisdom, Talon | 1 Comment »

More on Birds

Thursday, May 20th, 2010
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This morning, as I was stretching after my morning jog, I heard some rustling in the hibiscus on the northwest side of the house. There was the male Northern Cardinal, picking bugs off of the plant. He was chirping and whistling, then fly into the avocado tree. I kept stretching and watching him. (This is the same cardinal who lives in our backyard, in the Suriname cherry hedge, and who likes to fight with the cardinal that’s in the van’s exterior mirrors.)

After hopping about in the avocado tree, he flew into the strangler fig about fifteen feet away. His bright red color stood out in that tree as the trees leaves are pale green. (The avocado has some red-violet leaves that conceal the bird.) A few seconds later, another bird followed the cardinal. It was brown and cardinal shaped with a little bit of red. I thought that it looked like the cardinal’s mate (who doesn’t really leave her nest unless she’s digging for bugs in the backyard.) But this bird seemed smaller, however.

Then I saw something I’ve never seen: Another small, brown cardinal flew out of the avocado tree and joined the two birds in the strangler fig. They chirped at each other and hopped from branch to branch. The daddy cardinal flew across the street, into the oak tree, and his offspring followed suit. They spent some time in the grass in the swale by the STOP sign, with the fledglings’ learning to get their own breakfasts.

Posted in Green Living | No Comments »

Empty Chrysalis

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
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After two weeks and a day, we thought that the chrysalis had died. I’ve read that it takes ten to fifteen days for a butterfly to emerge from the chrysalis, but by Friday, the 15th day, no change had become of the chrysalis.

It was Saturday evening when we saw its changing color. The chrysalis started turning darker, and the orange patterns on the wings were becoming apparent. Our hopes were up for our little Monarch friend.

Sunday morning, it was really black with a small amount of orange (and white, where the white dots on the wings are). Thirty minutes past noon, and I saw no change. It’s like waiting for a baby to be born. There’s waiting and waiting.

About an hour later, I stepped outside to see the chrysalis and was surprised to find a fully emerged butterfly holding onto a nearby twig. It didn’t flap its wings. It just clung to its twig, waiting for something to do, probably stunned as anything could be after having been asleep for a half life then waking up with wings!

The childrens maternal grandfather came to visit that afternoon, and we went outside to show him the Monarch. Dad started taking video if it. I suppose that it got excited by the ruckus that was going on around him because he opened and closed his wings a bit and began crawling. Dad stuck out a finger, and the butterfly climbed aboard. Dad tried to get him close to the milkweed so that the butterfly can get something to eat, but it took off, the butterfly did. It fluttered toward the middle of the front yard.

After a few hours, Dad and Taylor went back outside and caught the butterfly practicing to fly. It eventually found a safe place to spend the night on a leaf of the strangler fig in the front yard.

On Monday morning, we went outside and found it on the same leaf. We spend the morning indoors but popping our heads back out, looking for it, making sure that it’s safe. In the afternoon, it had wandered into the backyard, still flapping and fluttering as if practicing – but with more confidence.

A cardinal and blue jay were eyeing it but made no move to go after it.

It has been a little stressing, worrying about that darn butterfly that we’ve raised since hatching from its tiny egg under the milkweed leaf. I hope he comes back to eat sometime.

Posted in Children General, Everyday, Green Living, Routines | No Comments »

Gay Lord Jesus?

Friday, February 19th, 2010
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Elton John is claiming that Jesus Christ was gay. I am interested in his reasoning.

My own thoughts on this subject is that Jesus Christ is not gay and looks down upon homosexuality. Of course, God loves all His children, and homosexuals are not an exception. But it is not logical for Christ to be gay while simultaneously being God.

God created Man in His image (that means we look like God does, with eyes and arms and toenails). To multiply and subdue the Earth, He created the forms of male and female, which cannot procreate alone nor can they procreate with like forms (that means that two males do not make babies). This is a fact in humans and most all species, although some fish and invertebrates can switch their gender or spontaneously procreate. I don’t know if it’s possible with non-animal living organisms.

It is illogical that Christ is a homosexual. It would make more sense if He is asexual because God has no reason to procreate. But I do not believe that to be defending it further.

Aside, when speaking of Jesus Christ, because He is the living Word of God, we use the present tense.

He does want us to be loving and forgiving, but He also wants us to make good choices, which do not include perversion.

Posted in Cultural Rants | No Comments »

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle isn’t just for Greenies.

Friday, June 19th, 2009
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With seven people living on a part-time income, we have to use our resources efficiently to feed, clothe, and entertain ourselves.

We don’t have a mango tree, but our kitchen has processed at least a hundred pounds of mangoes in the last several weeks. Several of the families for whom I teach music have given me a bag or two of mangoes at each visit. I made eight small jars of chutney and froze them. I think we are down to four jars. I had only eight jars, so I made smoothies with leftover mangoes. And with the mangoes that I didn’t use to make smoothies because there were too many, Dad sliced up and put into our beans and rice. He added curry, green peppers, and other spices. It was delicious.  And we are still collecting mangoes because some trees give two (or three) harvests. Some trees aren’t ready for the harvest until weeks after the first. So every week, there are two or three families that are giving me bags and bags of mangoes.

As the babies are growing out of their old clothes and into Taylor’s clothes, I’ve been putting away their baby clothes. I’ve also been noticing stains and rips in both sets of small and medium clothes. So I’m cutting them. Yes, cutting them with scissors (and it’s wearing out my scissors!). I’m making my first freehand quilt. I’m just cutting pieces and sewing them back onto an old bed sheet that I cut into square foot blocks. They are coming along nicely. I was thinking of making a larger patchwork piece and using it as fabric for clothes, being that it used to be clothes. Perhaps it can serve as the skirt of a dress.

Last week was the first week of summer for the public school children. We at the Greenleaf School took that week off for catching up on housekeeping and play. Ty saw that one of his favorite television characters, Curious George, had made musical instruments using things around the house. Ty made a guitar out of a milk carton and rubber bands — It was more like a lyre than a guitar. He used Taylor’s kitchen pot lids as cymbals. And he asked me to help him make a water xylophone out of beer bottles. THAT was difficult. All of Thursday morning, I was tapping glass bottles with a spoon and adjusting the water level in an attempt to play a major scale. And all afternoon, I was suffering a headache from the high-pitched dinging. Albeit, it was worth it. The boy learned a bit about musical instruments.

The question is not, “How do you do it?”
The question is, “How will you use it?”

Posted in Green Living | No Comments »

To Health, Food, and Taste

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
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The babies are eating more and more kinds of food. Now that they are nine months old, they can tolerate new foods better than when they were four months old. When they did turn four months, a lot of moms were telling me that I can start feeding them regular food. Food at four months? That’s crazy to me. With our first child, we followed what the books (Doctor Spock, Babywise, et cetera) were preaching to us. But trying to feed a four month old who can barely sit up and is continuing to make a mess with his sloppy food was frustrating. “Give it time. He’ll get used to it.” More crazy talk. So with our second, I waited until he was six months to feed him. It was easier, but I still did not feel that I was doing the very best for him. One mom told me that she exclusively breastfed her baby until the baby was almost one year old. “Can babies survive on breastmilk for one year?” Well, God made my mammary glands to make the milk that provides nutrition. This nurse-for-a-year concept didn’t seem as ridiculous as giving a baby slop at four months. It was like being taught a strategy and slapping one’s own forehead for not realizing the simplicity! I took our third baby to work with me for ten months, and she nursed exclusively because we were attached to the hip, which is where babies are supposed to be: attached to their mother. I know that it’s nearly impossible for a modern mother to be with her baby 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the first 45 weeks, but we made it happen.

So at nine months, both babies can confidently sit up and tolerate new foods. This morning, I mixed in two table spoons of cow’s milk into their cereal, which is barley and breastmilk. They didn’t seem to notice the change in taste, and two hours later, they are not looking like they’ve reacted with allergy. I think we should try goat’s milk because it is supposed to have a composition similar to breastmilk.

A few nights ago, Dad made a delicious soup with white beans, pork, onions, celery, and carrots. I mixed their cereal not with breastmilk but with the stock. The cereal disappeared from the bowl faster than you can say, “Bob’s yer uncle.” They liked the taste of taste! Not that they think that breastmilk is bland, but it kicked the jarred Garbar junk in the derriere.

I’m aware that some might think that I am being over-protective about the babies’ intestinal flora. If I had the choice of being over-protective or unaware, I’d chose the former. There was a police officer who made the news recently for going out of his way to save a choking two-year-old girl. The girl was feverish, so her mother gave her meat. Meat. With a fever! When my children have fevers, they get breastmilk, even if they are two years old.

Posted in Kendall, Mom Wisdom, Talon | 1 Comment »

But I Love My Dog? Why Can’t I Marry My Dog?

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
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I’m happy to see that the amendment to define marriage [between a man and a woman] in our state had passed. In my peacenick, hunky dory, liberal youth, I thought, What’s the harm in letting two people who love each other get married? But that leads to What’s the harm in letting first cousins get married? Brothers and sisters? Sisters and sisters? A man and his horse? A woman and her television? I know! It gets ridiculous!! Besides, marriage is the foundation of the natural family. You can’t call yourself a Christian or Jew or Muslim and believe that two people of the same sex can be married. God made Adam and Eve. And Adam and Eve made babies. Religion aside, like a male tiger and a female tiger make tiger cubs, Two men can’t make babies. Two women can’t make babies.

Historically, marriage is an institution that begins a family. Marriage is older than any of today’s religions. Marriage is as old as the Law of Man. Marriage, in its own constitution, is about Family. Not about Love.
Two men can love each other. That’s a little crazy, I think. But possible. If they want to live together, that’s possible. If they want to be on each others wills, then they can do that through other avenues and laws. If they want to visit each other in the hospital, they can grant each other power of attorney. If they want to rear children, sorry, they can’t have that right. Children are not property. Every baby deserves a mother and a father. That’s what marriage is all about!!

Now that the amendment passed, we will have to decide what defines a man and a woman. A man who goes through surgery to superficially change his gender (because he will never have ovaries or lactating mammary glands) and goes through the courts to change his name is not a woman. Yea, here we go again.

Posted in Cultural Rants | No Comments »

Election Day 2008

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
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Dad and I watched the Democratic presidential nominee’s informercial on Wednesday night (10/29). We both chuckled hard (actually, we were in hysterics for at least a minute) when we saw the image of Democratic presidential nominee’s standing in an office that looked very much like the Oval Office with darkened walls and furniture. It’s amusing that he likes to believe that he’s the president. Well, after that, we were bombarded with stories of families who can’t afford a gallon of milk and old couples on Medicaid who have to work at Wal*Mart after retirement. It was depressing. The Democratic presidential nominee showed us that we are a country of losers. Really depressing. We can’t put gas in our cars. We can’t pay our mortgages. We can’t put food on the table. But the Democratic presidential nominee also gave us hope. He’s going to be like Robin Hood: Steal from the rich and give to the poor. The Democratic presidential nominee will do it in the form of taxes, so it won’t really be stealing. It’ll be a legal confiscation of funds, making him more like Prince John than Robin Hood. If you don’t pay your taxes, you’re a criminal. If you don’t vote for the Democratic presidential nominee, you’re a racist.
Today, we woke up at 5:30am. At least I did. I started waking up the boys, but they didn’t stir. Dad woke up. I started the coffee. I woke up the boys again. I changed the babies’ diapers but didn’t feed them because they both nursed about an hour earlier. Brushed Kyle’s dreadlocks out of his hair while nudging Taylor with my foot. Changed Taylor’s diaper and changed her clothes. Ty made toast, prepared my coffee, and shined Dad’s boots. I’m only kidding. haha! He did make toast, though. We were locked and loaded in the van at 6:41am.

We drove to our polling place and were surprised to see a fairly empty parking lot. We stood in line, maybe the 70th and 71st ones in line. I had a baby in the sling and a baby in the stroller (switched them around often, depending on which one was hungry). There was a dad with his two girls, a little older than Ty, who looked like he wasn’t used to waiting in long lines with them – not that we often wait in long lines with the children. He had a box of distractions. Literally. He had a box with paper, crayons, and coloring books. Ty and Kyle sat on the ground twice during our wait, drank water from our canteen, and read a Berenstain Bears book. Taylor was the one who was acting up – just a tad. Enough to get her doll taken from her. The dad with the two girls offered us paper, but we said that we didn’t need any. “We are practicing patience,” explained Dad. It helps to be around the children 24/7 instead of this only-on-weeknights-and-weekends kind of parenting that seems to be the trend.

Voting was a breeze. We were out of there by 8:15am. But Dad and I did notice that two of the poll workers were wearing some Black History shirts. Why is that so wrong? Because political displays are not allowed within 200 feet of the polling place. These Black History shirts (with portraits of MLK, Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, to name a few) were proxies for the Democratic presidential nominee shirts that the Democratic presidential nominee has been selling at his rallies. We as tax payers should provide these poll workers with a uniform. A blue, green, or turquoise shirt, something easy to spot. What’s this monkey business with Black History? C’mon. Imagine if we walked in there wearing shirts with images of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Andrew Carnegie. We’d be asked to leave the premises. We would not be allowed to vote. There would definitely not be any allowance for a white poll worker to show up wearing a White History shirt. By the way, there should be a month designated for dead white people and not just Presidents. Oh, am I racist? Voting for the Democratic presidential nominee just because he’s black (or half-black) is racist. Voting for John McCain because he loves America is American.
We stopped by the grocery store to pick up doughnuts and chocolate milk for our Election Day breakfast, which isn’t technically “break fast” because we had toast earlier. So now we’re enjoying the rest of the morning, watching Dad save Princess Zelda, reminding Kyle to pronounce his fricatives, and mainly recuperating from waking up way too early. I have to work later.

Posted in Cultural Rants | 1 Comment »

Cvn U r33d thi$?

Friday, April 4th, 2008
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One afternoon while I was working, Dad put the boys at the home schooling table, laid out blank paper, and passed out crayons. Taylor was not allowed to use the crayons because she is known to graffiti our walls. Kyle scribbled a lot, drew Mr. Potato Head’s yellow, crazy smile, and generally had a fun few hours. Ty colored rainbows, drew the solar system (in correct order and color), and drew pretty good portraits of Mr. Potato Head and various dinosaurs.

When I came home, I was very much impressed by the artwork. Most of the time, when we do art in Greenleaf School, the two younger ones scribble on the paper (and table) while Ty draws five or six renditions of the solar system. This time, they had a dozen unique drawings. One was a perfect dinosaur which Ty had labeled: Stikcores.

The “kcores” was on top of the “Sti.” So I read aloud, “K. Cores. Sti.” I looked at Ty. He was scowling. I looked down to the paper, which had a wonderful, black Stegosaurus on it. “Oh, yea! Ty, you wrote ‘Stegosaurus!’” He smiled. “Great. That looks exactly like a Stegosaurus. Good Job, Ty.” He was proud of himself.

During the weekend, I read about “inventive spelling” and how it is being accepted by Kindergarten teachers today. The theory is that early English spellers will progress from what looks like gibberish (id est, “O M F G” will be read aloud by the child as, “I watched TV all day.”) to correct spelling by the end of third grade. Ty is right in the middle of this progress with literal phonetic spelling.

I’m so happy that I found a label for my son. To celebrate my new discovery, I wrote down the names of his ten favorite dinosaurs (including Stegosaurus) and told him to copy my writing, disguising it as handwriting work. Perhaps that will reinforce the memorization of the suffix -saurus. While I love and support creativity, I do believe that flaws should be corrected and that everyone should be reaching for the dictionary. Yes, even when IMing and txt’ing.

Posted in Cultural Rants, Ty | No Comments »

Expecting Multiples: The Myths

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008
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I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly “happy” when I learned that we were expecting twins. I was shocked, scared, and confused (Twins don’t run in my family). After getting over the initial reaction, expecting twins is a little more serious that expecting a singleton. It is a blessing and much, much more efficient than having only one at a time.

When people, most often it’s women, learn that we’re having twins, their first response is usually, “Gosh, I’ve always wanted twins.” That makes me feel a little guilty because I’ve never always wanted twins. I’ve always wanted to have children. There was a time that I didn’t want *any* children. Then there was a time that I thought I’d never have children. When I did want children, I never wanted twins. It didn’t occur to me that I’d ever have twins, being that they don’t run in my family.

I’ve always associated twins as a mother-to-daughter trait or an outcome of fertility treatments. And I learned recently that there are twins in my family, but they come from my dad’s side. My paternal grandfather was himself a twin born in 1899 – or 1898, I’m not sure. But in my grandfather’s case, like in Elvis Presley’s, one twin survived while the other didn’t (Elvis’ twin was named Jesse).

I don’t entirely believe that having twins is a genetic trait. Surely, it must have something to do with maternal nutrition. Most other mammals have larger litters if overfed. We’ve been having stair-step children, so perhaps my body thinks that there’s a human population shortage. Or maybe the gods find it amusing that we’ll have five children ages five and under. Ha ha ha. That’s funny.

Then there are comments such as, “Twins always come early,” “You can’t breast feed two babies!” and “Doctors like to schedule a C-section just in case.” I don’t know about you, but my babies are going to be born only a few days before their actual due date after four hours of labor. They’ll be weighing over seven pounds each, and they’ll learn to nurse together, dirty their diapers together, and sleep together because that’s just the way things are going to be in this house. Period.
All I know is, I get really uncomfortable being told that someone else has “always wanted twins.” That’s like being asked, “Are you expecting?” when you’ve had a baby just three months before. Or carrying a bag of groceries in one hand and holding the hand of a toddler who is holding the hand of a young preschooler who is holding the hand of an older preschooler and being told, “Looks like you’ve got your hands full.” Well, it might only look like that, but if I let go of the toddler, her brothers still have a hold of her.

And my favorite: “Better you than me!”
You. Are. Right.

Posted in Cultural Rants, Mom Wisdom | No Comments »

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