The RedMolly Picayune-Democrat

Good heavens! A newsy day

First off:

Guess what Rhys can do?

If you guessed "read the Bob Books," you are correct!

My little allergic-to-phonics (good goin', kid... me too), reading-resistant guy had had just about enough of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." As had I. So as he fidgeted on the couch last week during another interminable round of "say-it-fast," I asked him:

"Rhys, would you like to stop using this book for a while and find another way to learn to read?"

He didn't say "Hell yes," but he would've if he had known the idiom.

So the next day we broke out Bob Books First! And within about 20 minutes, he had read the first and second books. All. By. Himself.

*and there was much rejoicing*

Secondly:

Our friends Trevor and Warren have a band. It is called the Jones/Adams Duo. Their first show is tonight, and Trevor asked me to write a press release for them. I lagged on doing it, and eventually Trevor gave up on me. But then I felt terrible and put one together real quick-like. Trevor sent it to the local media outlets... and got a call from someone at the GJ Free Press who wanted to pick up the story.

Swell!

So this the front page of the entertainment section of today's Free Press:
Do It Yourself... and Do It Loud!

(Yes, I know it should be "loudly." But oh well... we will pick no nits today.)

Thirdly: Remember the Knowledge Bowl I did last year? Well, it's that time again. Teddy's Neighbors is (are?) returning with a 50%-new team and a fierce hunger for victory. To be sated beginning at noon tomorrow. Woo-hoo! Exciting stuff!

365 days ago...

...on a quiet morning, or perhaps a noisy afternoon, the Picayune-Democrat was born.

It was a quick and painless labor--some might say the relative breeziness of its conception and birth prefigured many airy and contentless posts to come.

And though its parent hoped, as all parents will, that it might grow up to do great things--to right wrongs, to wrong rights, to express political wit and personal wisdom with equal... er, equanimity--it soon became apparent to all that this blog was fated for a far lowlier... er, fate.

One hundred and ninety-one posts later, the Picayune-Democrat has grown (heh-heh, I said "grown") and matured (well, not really) into the inglorious vacuum of inanity and self-referentialness it is today. And was yesterday, and will probably be tomorrow.

So without further ado, may I present...

A Look Back into the Pic-Dem's Past, with a Nod to Harper's Index

• Estimated percentage of posts starting with the word "So": 65
• Number of posts I claimed were "pointless rants": 3
• Number of posts that were actually pointless rants: How many posts did I say there were? 191?
• Number of posts I claimed were about "biting social commentary, sorta": 2
• Number of posts I claimed were about "art, sorta": 6
• Number of posts I didn't claim were about anything: 150+, I think
• Number of posts containing the word "beast": 2
• Number of posts containing the word "freakin' ": 25 (Really? I thought there'd be more than that. Note to self: use the word "freakin' " more freakently. Ha ha.)
• Number of posts containing the word "shit": 9, and the last one was January 21. Hallelujah... the long shitless dry spell (eww) is over!
• Number of posts containing the word "Bush": 1, and it's not even a reference to the chief executive. Note to self: we are long overdue for a political rant.
• Number of posts containing the word "Portland": 12. Apparently I love Portland twelve times as much as I despise and deplore Bush. Good to know.

And in case you missed them the first time around, here are a few posts from the vault... enjoy.

• The Obligatory Self-Justification: First. Post. Ever.
• -Isms: God, my kids are fuckin' brilliant.
• Geekiness is Hereditary: see above.
• Happy Birthday, Kerri Joy: And many more.
• Gotta get over the hump: a gloriously bitchy rant on writing, rudeness and distractions. Which NOBODY commented on, BTW. *snarl*
• (Un)School of Rock: an early foray into homeschooling philosophy.

So, um, that's the announcement. I'm a year old. At least my bloggish self is. The rest of me is rather older and squishier.

Like the new banner? Enjoy it while it's up...

Tomorrow is another day

...and 'twill bring much Announcing and Rejoicing to the hallowed halls of the Picayune-Democrat.

(No, I'm not pregnant. Nor do I have a book deal or anything cool like that.)

'Til the morrow, then...

Well, this should be interesting

Fisher... you know, the tough guy, punk-ass, lightsaber-brandishing, foursquare-opponent-"burning" kid who lives at my house... just left for school with his show-n-tell in tow.

The item in question? Franklin. The eighteen-inch-tall, bald-headed, sweet-faced, soft-bodied baby doll his beloved Grammy gave him for his first birthday.

Franklin has been a permanent fixture in Fisher's bedroom ever since, though often neglected in favor of Legos and noisy toys. But for some reason, Fisher has been obsessed with her (yes, Franklin's a girl... why does that surprise you?) for the last few days. He made her a bed out of his toolbox. He fed her part of his dinner last night (spaghetti soup... sounds weird, but it was really quite good). And today, he decided to bring her to school and share the love with his classmates.

I swear, if anyone gives him a hard time about it, I will be wringing some first-grader neck this afternoon...

Dude, the book sucks

Sucketh. Much Suckham. Suckus majorus. Suckosity in Ten Cities. Suck-otash on a sucky-ass stick. Suckleberry shortcake. The Suckaheim Mighty Sucks. Suck not, lest ye be sucked yourself. Ted Sucksynzki, the Suckerbomber. Jerry Suckheimer, Steven Suckelberg and M. Night Suckyamalan. Jesus Christ Suckerstar. How much suck would this sucky book suck if this sucky book could suck suck?

I am hoping it is salvageable (salvagable? selvagiabull?). But I have my doubts.

Hell, hell, hell. Who told me I could write, anyway?

N.B.: The "book" in question is my long-brewing novel, not Digital 5 (a quality piece of workspersonship indeed!) or anything else I've actually been *asked* (or *paid*) to write.

I feel sick

So I followed the link on someone's blog to the No Greater Joy site to see just how wacky these advocates of beating your child with plumbing supply line might actually be (read more about these sickos here). And I made the mistake of clicking on one of their articles about a "father's greatest responsibility to his daughter."

OK, I wasn't too shocked to find it advocating "courtship" and what amounts, essentially, to arranging marriage. If it works for them, and all that.

But then it started in about the "critical questions" to ask your daughter's suitor. Can you guess what they were?

"When was the last time you looked at pornography?"
"Have you ever had sexual contact with a female?"
"Have you ever had sexual contact with a male?"
"Have you ever had sexual contact with an animal?"

WTF?!?! And if that wasn't enough, the author goes on to claim that having sex with animals is not particularly uncommon among the hothouse homeschooled fundamentalist crowd...

So what exactly is going on with this "rigorous moral training" that is apparently producing a generation of goat-rapers? If there's any truth to this assertion, could it possibly stem from filling kids' heads with the idea that sexual thoughts/behavior of any kind are Horrible Sinful Bound-for-Hell Badnesses... thus morally equating masturbation, French kissing and sheep-humping?

(...trying to imagine the look on DH's face if my dad had asked him if he'd ever had sex with an animal... trying to imagine the look on my DAD'S face if someone had told him to ask DH-to-be if he'd ever had sex with an animal...)

Now I need to go take a shower. A long, hot, purificational shower. Yecccchhh....

Books, books. Boxes and boxes of books.

That is, apparently, what homeschooling will involve for us. (Curious, isn't it, that my pre-homeschooling life involved pretty much the same thing?)

So today we will spend an hour or so, and tomorrow we will spend an hour or so, and Friday we will spend an hour or so clearing out the boys' room to make room for the accoutrements of learning. Also so we can see their floor again. Right now it's just gross.

We need to pack up a bunch of toys and books and art stuff, oh my, and put them in a semi-annual rotation. "Look, kids! New toys!" Ha ha ha ha ha.

I've had a couple questions about our (un-) curriculum. This is what we'll be using so far:

• Five in a Row (literature study with extensions into history, geography, science, art, etc.) for the basis of Rhys' study, and possibly Fisher's too.
• For history, the Oxford First History of the Ancient World as a "spine" for our study, supplemented heavily by library books of all stripes. We're focusing on prehistory through the Roman Empire all year.
• For science... well, this is where Mama gets to make it up as she goes along. (Whee!) First we'll do a unit on evolution and prehistoric animals; then we'll do the human body, with hominid evolution tying the two together.
• For math: Math-U-See, the exciting blocks-based system (Rhys: "Did somebody say 'blocks?' ") for Concept Mastery. Also a bunch of fun stuff out of Family Math, plus real-life experience in trips to the grocery store, budgeting allowance, etc., etc. Hell, maybe we can teach them to do our taxes. Somebody needs to do them.
• For music: I think they'll both start piano lessons; other than that, just lots and lots (and lots and lots) of listening to and talking about all kinds of music. Today, frex, we established that Fisher's favorite bands are The Pixies, The White Stripes and Talking Heads. (Rhys: "Mine too.") Also listened to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem (which, amazingly enough, doesn't suck) and talked about the Catholic Mass and why ALW wrote the songs in Latin; then we marched around the house to the thunderous beat of "Dies Irae... Rex Tremendae."
• For art: somehow I don't think covering that will be a problem (she said, unsticking a gob of Crayola Model Magic from her desk chair).

So that's that... now off to box up stray Rescue Hero paraphernelia.

(And BTW... if I were to teach an online scrapbook journaling class, or write a book about journaling... would you take it/buy it? Just wunnerin'.)

Serendipitous photo discovery

So I was going through my photos, looking for one of myself (it's for an assignment).

Didn't find one I didn't hate; in fact, I edited myself out of this one.

But look how freakin' awesome it is:

My Herm and my Rhysie, last summer at Dillon Beach.

This picture makes me smile...

Some thoughts on schooling and the absence thereof

So it's official. It's final.

The boys will be staying home next year and Jim and I will be their educators-in-chief. (As well as their attorneys general, their courts-martial and their in loco parentis).

Our "school" has a name (you gotta have a name to get stuff like Borders discount cards). Would you like to hear it? It is: JEDI TEMPLE ACADEMY.

Rhys thought of it.

We arrived at this decision with lots of thinking, doubting, wondering, researching, cajoling (on my part) and eventual enthusiasm (on Jim's part). Oddly enough (hee hee), we are not doing this for any religious reason. Rather, it's because I don't want the kids to get caught up in the teaching to the test, the cliques and rivalries, the uncool-to-be-smart, the lowest common denominator thinking that seems to go along with classroom education. Note that I am NOT trash-talking teachers in any way, shape or form (my mom's been a teacher for 20 years; she'd kick my butt, and rightly so!). I just feel that we have been the boys' teachers since birth; we understand and value their personalities; and we are best equipped to give each of them the time, attention and stimulation he needs to do the best he can in the areas that interest him most.

We're leaning away (far away) from workbooks, textbooks, fill-in-the-blanks and scribble-in-the-bubbles. I figure, we've not been able to get them uninterested in learning yet; we can be facilitators, strewing experiences of every kind around for them and sometimes just hanging on for the ride. If we spend six months on "Calculus By and For Young People," that's cool; if we spend a week just watching "The Most Extreme" and "Ancient Almanac," that's cool too.

And there are piano lessons and drum lessons and Latin comic books and cookie baking and grocery budgeting and scrapbooking and hand sewing and eight billion other things for us to spend time doing, too--learning the real way, the way that doesn't divide up "math" and "science" and "spelling" into tidy little boxes and never let them talk to each other. The kind of learning that you do when you want to learn, not the kind that you cram into your head just before the test and forget three days later.

So we're starting out next year with two Big Ideas to sort of build our quasi-curriculum around: ancient history from prehistoric times to the Roman Empire, and evolution and prehistoric animals. Pretty swell, huh? I can't wait to get started.

There's a neato resource center for secular/non-religious homeschoolers in the Portland area; I've linked to it once before. Looks like it could be an awesome point of connection for our family. Lego robotics... Harry Potter book club... yoga and modern dance and train trips and pottery...

As I think I already said once, I can't wait to get started.

I love this guy

Stinson Beach, last summer.

I was going through photos (printing them with my new baby... Epson R1800) and found this one. Just reminded me of what a lucky girl I am...