Drat: The Perils of Literacy

I live in a literate city. By some accounts, possibly one of the most literate cities in America. Fellow Eugeneans check out more books per capita from our library than those in any other city in the U.S. Our library moves over 10,000 items a day, for a population of about 130,000 people. So when a friend recommends a new book, like The Help, I look it up in the library catalog and notice all of the copies are checked out. No problem, I go to put it on reserve. Except that 213 other people are in the queue ahead of me! I guess that's the price you pay for having a terrific library and a literarily inclined populace! I'm sure I'll get to read it someday...

See How They Grow

The milestones of the year show you so clearly the passing of time, and when you have kids that passage is even more exaggerated. Still, some years go by without the kids changing too much visibly. The year from 12 to 13 however is not such a year. I was just struck by looking at the photos of Mackenzie with last year's spring chickens. He looked like a boy.


Fast-forward a year, half a foot of growth, a smallish moustachy kind of thing on his upper lip, and the teenagey haircut and wow!
My great big honking teenage son! Not visible in photo: size 13 feet.























And then there's Asa:




Granted, the red hair looks alarmingly different, but her face is subtly different as well. Less chubby baby cheeks, more grown-up big girl face. More big-girl attitude sometimes as well, LOL. Ah, I so love my big kiddos, I love every bit of their getting older, even as I miss their younger selves as well. I love laughing at the same lines in movies, having philosophical discussions, having them cook breakfast and even clean it up! They are fun to hang out with and are becoming the most amazing people possible.

Weeks of Annie Comes to a Close

The cast party is over, the performances were ALL sold out, and in the supermarket, Asa gets stopped by a little 3 year old girl with awe in her face: "Mama, ANNIE is in the store! Look, there's ANNIE!" Asa still has her red curly hair, and to a child this age, it's as if she's stepped out of the storybooks and into the grocery store. Asa goes over and gives her a hug. What a sweet moment!

Myself, I am just in awe, completely thunderstruck that our little girl transformed on the stage into this character so completely. Asa's a bit of a fidgety kid, and in the past it's never easy for her to hold focus on the stage but now she's just matured into the ability to remain in character, literally for hours. As I helped her erase the underlines she put in her script so that it could be turned back in, I am amazed at the sheer number of lines and songs that she memorized, all the choreography. Wow. Just so proud. Oh yeah, not to mention that's my dog Sophie playing the role of Sandy. At only 7 months old, she did a great job and I'm just amazed she didn't look out at all of those people in the audience and bolt! Wayne did a great job of being the dog wrangler and animal manager, too.

And let me gush on a little bit longer about this cast. No one over 17 in the cast, yet the maturity of these young actors and actresses, their ability to capture emotion with a gesture or expression, to get the comic timing down, to turn a phrase, well let's just say I came away more than impressed with all of them. Not to mention a director willing to take on a cast of 87 kids (!!!!!) Can YOU imagine doing that? Not me. And transforming them into a singing, dancing bunch of professionals on that stage. And an all-youth orchestra with a music director who burned the late-night oil to make sure that they sounded terrific. Wow.

So please, take a minute and VOTE for Upstart Crow Studios application for a Pepsi "Refresh Everything" grant. This will allow them to buy curtains, microphones, and other much-needed items for this non-profit theatre.

It's Showtime!

Opening weekend for Annie was finally upon us, and the week started out with a bang as Asa was featured on the cover of our weekly newspaper!!!! They did a nice two-page spread on the production and on the wonderful theatre organization that we've been blessed to be a part of. Since the theatre group is a non-profit, this was a wonderful opportunity to showcase their organization.

Speaking of which, the theatre group, Upstart Crow Studios, is in the running for a Pepsi Grant, which would bring them $25k, enough money to install a curtain, buy microphones, and create an entrance to the theatre. Please take the time to vote (you can vote once a day) for this amazing youth organization.

From mid-week on there it just got more and more exciting as the dress rehearsals wound to their chaotic close, the original dog playing "Sandy" backed out and I crazily volunteered my own 7-month-old mutt to fill her paws, and the other girl playing Annie in the double-cast show came down with pneumonia, leaving Asa to open on Friday night as well as her originally scheduled weekend shows. Then, mid-week Asa herself started getting sick, and I hit her with an arsenal of herbal remedies and enforced down-time, and she managed to make it to opening night with her vocal chords intact.

I saw the show on Saturday night, and to say I was blown away would be an understatement. Now granted, I'm The Mom and all, but I've seen Asa in plenty of theatre stuff before and let's just say she had a very big plate to step up to in the role of Annie and step up she did. She was so in character, every photo I have of her is full of emoting, and she just belted out the vocals like a pro. Just with the work we've been doing in the last 3 months, her voice has really improved a lot, and even notoriously stoic hubby got all teary-eyed as she sang her way through "Maybe" and "Tomorrow".


She has worked so very hard for this, and I really couldn't be prouder. The rest of the principal characters were also fantastic, it's really a very very talented group of kids and teens in this production (including the all-youth 20-piece orchestra!) Daddy Warbucks was played by a young man of 17 with incredible vocal chords and acting abilities, who we've known since he was a wee boy of 8 or so playing with Legos in the living room. At that point, Asa was an infant, so it's funny to see the two of them in these roles as Annie and Daddy Warbucks, but they really just played off of each other so well that it was a joy to watch.

Even my pup Sophie did a bang-up job, emerging through the audience and running up onto the stage, going off with the dog-catchers and then coming when Annie calls "Sandy, here boy!", which was quite amusing. Sophie's motto is "Will work for hot dogs".

The actors playing Rooster, Lilly, and Hannigan were all fantastic comic actors with great timing and body language. I could gush on all night. I was never a big fan of the Annie movie, but had not seen the stage version. It's very funny, filled with (of course) terrific songs and lots of great characters, as well as some social commentary. I wish everyone reading this could come and see, but for now you'll have to just be happy with my pics!

When Rube Goldberg Dreams...

Proving that there's no such thing as too many wonderful variations on a theme, OKGo tops their treadmill video with this unfrakkinbelievable Rube Goldbergesque video.

Becoming Annie

With a bottle of semi-permanent hair dye and some hot curlers, she becomes Annie!

Some Annie Videos from Eugene Weekly Blog

Eugene Weekly's Entertainment reporter is covering the Annie rehearsals on her blog. She put up these two videos.

First one is Annie singing "Maybe" in rehearsal, and Jaya (the other Annie) singing "Tomorrow":



Then a tour of the whole operation, with Asa trying on the dreaded curly-mop Annie wig at the end. She has since decided just to dye her own hair red and has been given a promise that she will NOT have to wear this wig!

What Does Unschooling Look Like Today?

After breakfast, Asa and I play Scrabble in our pajamas. Mackenzie is at the dining room table making a claymation movie. In a few minutes, Asa and I will head to the Performing Arts Center where she'll be appearing in a teaser of Annie - a selection of songs and scenes - performed for about 200 - 300 people. After that, she'll go to her Mime class.

Mackenzie will head out just before noon to go to an internship he's doing with a man who has his own web design business. This has been a terrific opportunity for him to not only learn skills like HTML programming, but to see what it really takes for someone to run their own business.

After a late lunch, I'll take the kids to the homeschool resource center where they're both taking a 5-week short course. Mackenzie's is in web design from his favorite computer science teacher, Asa's is a craft class where they'll make and embroider a purse. Then Asa will go to her dance class and rehearsal for Annie. She more or less lives at the combination dance studio/theatre these days (lucky for us they are in the same building!).

Mackenzie will go to a gaming night tonight, it's a group of adults who play a wide variety of board and card games, from strategy to storytelling to whatever. He really looks forward to Thursdays because of this! I'll pick up Asa at 8:30 and Mackenzie closer to 10:00.

Not all of our days are this busy, in fact Thursdays are the busiest on our schedule right now. But the theme that runs through our days is interest-driven learning, interaction with a wide variety of people and places, and best of all an amazing array of people who have chosen to share their time, energy, talent, and teaching with these kids. From the director of the play to the computer science teacher to the guy who invited Mackenzie to the gaming night to the man who is mentoring him in web design to Asa's encouraging Mime and Dance teachers, their lives are filled with so many wonderful adults. I feel that we're very blessed. Some people see homeschooling as a mom at a kitchen table with her kids and their workbooks. In our case, it is an interaction with the world at large and all of its exciting possibilities.

Feelin' The Love, The Fun, The Exploding Volcano of Pudding

This has been one of the sweetest Valentine's Days ever. Oh, I know it's a big commercial day to sell lots of candy, flowers, and stuff, and people bemoan its "Hallmark Holiday" status, but I say there's nothing wrong with taking and entire day to celebrate those you love.

My day started with a card and a present from my sweetest little girl. She made me this heart herself, and holding it you can just feel the love sewn inside.

Then after breakfast Mackenzie decided he was going to make some special chocolate pudding for the day. My grandma has a super-easy recipe that she loved to make, so we took a minute to remember her as we got the card out of the box. Unfortunately, Mackenzie got confused about the small fact that cornmeal is not the same as corn starch. Needless to say, the first version of the pudding was a bit... gritty.

Second time around, he neglected to keep a watchful eye on the microwave, so he ended up with the Exploding Volcano of Pudding. As you can see, he didn't mind cleaning off the microwave by hand! What didn't explode all over the place tasted great though, we all enjoyed some topped by whipped cream, agreeing that it wasn't near as disastrous as the Great Smoothie Explosion of 2008.

Asa had a Valentine's Day party to go to, I got to take a run that wasn't in the rain (always a blessing here in February), and then we all went to see the movie Twilight New Moon, which was thankfully at the $1 theatre, since I'm glad I didn't pay more than that to see it! But it was okay, and we had a good time dishing about the bad parts afterwards.

Out of the 25 years I've spent as an adult on this planet, 18 have been together with Wayne and 13 have been with kids in my life. Over half my adult life! That's really amazing to me. All I can say is I'm feelin' the love!

Those Dang Invisible Milestones Again

Milestones are easy to spot, the new things that your kids do, from walking and talking up through their first sleepover or learning to drive. The invisible milestones slip by us: the last time they crawl or babble, the last time they climb in bed in the middle of the night or ask us to drive them somewhere.

Somewhere in the last two weeks, the very last mis-pronounced word passed from my teenager's lips. When they're little, they use those cute mistaken words all the time, from pasghetti to hostible, it's so cute you can't stand it. I've never understood the adults that correct those verbal boo boos, because all too soon you turn around and they're gone. Very few survive the last years of childhood. For my big guy it was "specific", which always came out "pacific", until now. I don't remember the last time he said it wrong, but all I know is that now he says it right. I guess it goes with the fuzzy little mustache. Sigh.

Gummi Bear Cage Fighting

Mackenzie's been on a roll lately with making videos. Largely he has concentrated on how-to videos for some of the more complicated stuff in the game "Blockland", but we were on a hike Sunday with a friend of his and the two of them started dreaming up ideas for funny videos. They came up with Gummi Bear cage fighting as the theme, and on the way home from the hike I stopped off at the store and bought them some supplies in the form of large amounts of molded and shaped high-fructose corn syrup.

They got to work making sets and then on Monday Mackenzie filmed the stop-action sequences. Here it is in all its gummy glory, look for a sequel soon!:

Mackenzie Humor for the Day

Mackenzie tells about a million jokes a day that he just comes up with on the fly, and every now and then I remember to write some down. Here's a couple from today that had me chuckling:

What do you call a buffalo when he's being annoying?
> Jerky

What kind of priests make the best cooks?
> Friars

Learning About The Law

Today we got a wonderful opportunity to both tour the new (and absolutely gorgeous) Federal Building in in our city, but also to spend some time in one of the courtrooms, hearing from and asking questions of a judge there. A mom in our homeschool group had set this up (what an awesome idea!) and so with some reading about the Constitution under our belts, we headed to the courthouse this morning.

The kids got to sit in the counsel chairs or the jury box, and asked questions of the judge. While for the younger kids I'm sure it was fun to see the courtroom, many of the judge's answers might have been a bit too involved (Asa turned around at one point and mouthed "I'm bored" to me). But for Mackenzie, it was just perfect. Strangely, because at his age I don't think I really gave a whole lot of thought to my future career, he's already considering "three paths: doctor, lawyer, computer programmer" (according to Mackenzie). So this was a great opportunity for him to hear from someone in the field of law.

Myself, I was really impressed with the questions he asked (and also impressed that he always remembered to preface them with "Your honor,...") He asked about the judge's background, why he became a judge, whether he'd ever looked back on any of his decisions and wished he'd ruled differently, and a couple other thoughtful questions. I was also really really impressed with the time the judge took out of what must be a busy schedule to meet with the kids, and with his very thoughtful answers. For instance, one mom asked what one piece of advice he would give to kids. I was sure he was going to say something cliched about following the law, but he thought for a time and said that he thought more people should say "I'm sorry" when they do something wrong. That our society has become increasingly litigious, and that often people are discouraged from apologizing by lawyers who think it will open them up to a lawsuit, but that we should return to owning up to our mistakes and apologizing.

He also talked about an interesting civil liberties case he ruled upon, which ended up going all the way to the Supreme Court, PGA Tour vs. Martin. This case involved a disabled golfer who asserted that the PGA could not deny him access to a golf cart to ride between holes. It's worth visiting that link to the Wikipedia site just to read through the Supreme Court's dissenting opinion by Justice Scalia (which has been nominated as one of the funniest Supreme Court rulings of all time).

All in all, it was a terrific opportunity, and Mackenzie came away saying "I wish I could just sit with that judge and ask him questions all by myself for an hour!"

Don't Know What's Funnier

I'm not quite sure what's funnier, the fact that Mackenzie Rickrolled Wayne (told him to check out a cool airplane video, that was slick!) or the fact that Wayne didn't know what Rickrolling was, and so he watched the whole video, enjoying the musical flashback (I hate to admit it, but my hubby has a thing for 80's music). Mackenzie also managed to get Asa with a link to a "cute baby bear" (he sure knows who's a sucker for what in this family!).

The Road to Annie

Our weekly newspaper is doing some cool reporting on the production of Annie that Asa is in. One of their reporters is attending all of the rehearsals, auditions, etc. and blogging about it as an ongoing feature called "The Road to Annie". You can find it here! You might have to scroll down to find the latest Annie installments as they're mixed in with other blogged items.

What We're Into Lately

Just an overview of what we're all doing on our unschooling journey these days...

Asa: Just got her script for Annie. Gave up on putting pop-up stickies on the pages with her lines, cuz she's on every other page! Lots to memorize so she's working on it multiple times a day and starting to work on the songs as well. Her Santa gift this year was a skateboard and she's been taking that out to a flat cul-de-sac nearby to practice on. Making lots of earrings with the bead kit that Mackenzie gave her. Favorite TV show is Dirty Jobs, and is currently reading Black Beauty.

Mackenzie: Doing lots of computer programming. Custom-making arcade games and selling them to friends ($5 a pop, he'll make an arcade-style game to your specifications) He's always been an enterpreneur like his dad, sure doesn't get that from me! I'm charging him at cost for materials (CDs that he's burning on) so at least he's getting a sense of that side of business too! He's liking karate a lot right now. He and I are watching Frontline's From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians, a fascinating documentary on Jesus himself and "The Jesus Movement" (Christianity, before it became an organized religion). He just finished reading Fahrenheit 451 (the book he would memorize: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, mine would have to be Lord of the Rings) and is now reading some graphic novel series about famous and gruesome events (kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, Lizzie Borden, etc)

Myself: Working on writing (a non-fiction book at this point), pursuing my black belt in karate (hopefully will test in June), just finished reading Lance Armstrong's It's Not About the Bike and am burning my way through Michael Crichton's Prey. I haven't read good techie fiction in awhile so that's fun.

Wayne: Working his day job, enjoying the fruits of his labors as our home gym takes off, and fighting me over the paperback copy of Prey. Can be heard laughing his head off when he watches re-runs of That 70's Show (honestly, I don't get the appeal, but hey we can have a few such discrepancies and still be married...)

Giving: They Get It

I don't think I can take any credit for this one, since I've always struggled with being, essentially, a pretty selfish person. But our kids were born with a greater generosity than I've ever had and all in all we've tried to emphasize Christmas as a season of meaning and family, not a holiday of getting presents. Luckily, we set things up from the get-go by announcing that Santa brings one present per child, and on Christmas Eve we've given the kids each a book and that's it. So they've never expected a pile of presents under the tree and I think in retrospect that was a good path to take. I especially feel for families who have built up a Christmas tradition of mountains of presents and then this year find themselves in a financial pinch (as so many of us are in this economy). With kids, it's always harder to undo than it is to do.

Although they are essentially good-hearted kids, I was still really moved this year to see how Mackenzie and Asa have embraced this as a season of giving, not getting. First of all, Mackenzie went to pick out Asa's present. He went to a local bead store and picked out by hand a bunch of different beads, all in Asa's favorite colors. He wrapped them up with different kinds of earring wires and a craft-style case to sort and carry it all in, and voila she had her own earring-making kit. She took that kit and made earrings not just for me, but for many different friends, and even the moms of her friends in the neighborhood. When she ran out of beads, we went back down to the bead store and she used all of her money to buy more. In the process, she bought some ceramic beads for Mackenzie in the shape of a dragon's head and teeth and made him a necklace that was really cool in a 13-year-old guy kind of way.

So for me, that was really the Christmas gift that shone out during this season, way more important than anything that could land in my stocking: watching our kids get that giving is the greatest gift of all.

The Dream Role

It's been a crazy and emotional week around here. For almost two years, Asa has known that the theatre where she's been performing would be doing the musical Annie. Of course, as with so many little girls who fall in love with the story and the music, she dreamed of auditioning for the play and most especially for the lead part. So for quite some time she has been working hard on her vocals, stage presence, and other aspects of performance with the idea in mind that when the time came she would have a shot. Well, this week the time finally came. They announced the auditions and with a few days to prepare she started rehearsing the song "Tomorrow".

One thing I'll say about Asa is that when she puts her mind to something she is a very hard worker. In her favor is the fact that she memorizes things extremely easily (often to our dismay as she can recite word-for-word things like commercials you would rather forget). But she spent a lot of time on this song with me giving feedback, working on even minor details like where her eyes were looking, breathing, volume, timing, phrasing, and diction.

When the auditions came along, there were of course a number of girls hoping for the part, many of whom were quite talented. She knew it would be tough. Luckily, she got called back with a smaller group to a second audition (thus prolonging the agony of waiting to know of course). These girls were all so good, and I think it's a tough thing for any kid to go through working so hard for something and knowing that you might not get it. She has a great attitude though, and I've been impressed before when she's gone in for auditions and not gotten the part she wanted, just how mature she can be (much more so than I think I could be under similar circumstances!). She just sticks her chin out and troops on.

Well, the bottom line is that she found out yesterday that she got the part!!!!! So after a few months of memorizing a LOT of lines and singing a LOT of songs, she's going to stand on the stage and perform as Annie, which is really a dream come true for her. I'm so excited and yes very proud of her and all the hard work she has put in so far. She is so much like Annie in real life, so spunky and kind, good-hearted and mischievous, that I know she'll do just great.

Crazy Weekend Part 1: Robotics

Last weekend was the culmination of several months of craziness: robotics team meetings and Nutcracker rehearsals, endless details to manage (where in town can I buy a pink leotard? tri-fold presentation boards? Do I have all of the team permission slips filled out?) Of course, it was all worth it as we headed off to the regional robotics competition with our team Veni Vidi Roboti excited to see their robot on the field and present their research project, and as Asa took the stage in her first dance solo.

Unfortunately, bad weather in the form of horrifying ice and sleet made the roads a skating rink (32 accidents in one stretch of I-5 alone) and this complicated our plans greatly. The night before the robotics tournament, we still weren't sure if it was even going to occur, but finally after 3 hours of delays, the tournament did take place on Saturday for which I was very grateful. These kids have worked way too hard to miss out on competing!

The team had a great time at the tournament. They really impressed me with their morale, their coolness under difficult circumstances, their ability to work as a team, and their overall positive and encouraging attitude. Unfortunately, the robot took on a mind of its own at the tournament, with programs that worked fine on the practice table suddenly going haywire on the actual competition table. It was very frustrating for the kids, but they really were very professional about it all. I was extremely proud, both as a coach and as a parent, of this team. I know that we coaches really did our job well not when the robot scored high (it didn't), but when the kids accepted what had happened, worked to fix what they could, and moved forward with a positive attitude. This is not easy for adult engineers, so to see a team of kids accomplish this was impressive.

Of course, the robot performance is only 25% of the total competition, with the rest coming from the teamwork judging, robot technical judging, and the research project presentation judging. I knew the team would knock the socks off of the judges in those areas and they did. They ended up winning first place in the research project category. I haven't posted anything about their project up until now, because I didn't want to give away their subject publicly. The theme this year was transportation, they were to identify a transportation problem in their community, and propose a solution for that problem. Almost all of the teams at the competition chose things like pedestrian safety, school bus scheduling, walking and biking to school, etc. Well, our team chose the solar system as their community, and the problem of orbital debris (or "space junk") as the problem. Their research involved things like calling up a NASA representative, metal recycling specialists, and arranging a tour for themselves at a local metal recycling facility. They really poured a lot of energy into this project and it showed. I'll have to post the text of it here later this week as it was truly impressive. I could tell the judges were really impressed with what they had accomplished.

Lastly, the icing on the cake for the competition was that they got a Core Values Nomination from the head judge. FLL takes their core values very seriously, and they place a big emphasis on teams exhibiting these values, including the value of "gracious professionalism" which means competing like crazy but respecting and exchanging ideas with your competing teams. Here you can see a moment that occured in a hallway between competition rounds where our team and another got a moment to discuss their robot designs. This is really what FLL is all about, right here, the learning and growth that occurs when these kids share what they've learned with each other.

Before we went to this competition, I had told the team that I didn't care a bit if they won or were the absolute last on the robot table, but if they came away from the competition having done their best and worked well as a team I would be very happy. Well, they accomplished all of that and then some, and as always I'm honored to have been a part of their journey, and very proud of all the work that they put into this competition. Having the head judge acknowledge their teamwork and core values really just confirmed what I knew about these great kids.

On Our Way to Robotics Again

It's that time of year again, when our robotics team heads off to the regional tournament with a robot built and programmed and a research project completed, and I as a coach am pulling out my hair trying to keep track of all the details, equipment, and schedules that need keeping track of to get us all there in one piece. For me, this week is probably the single most stressful of the entire year, mostly because I don't want to be the person who messes everything up in forgetting something crucial!

Watching the team present their research project and robot at the public library last week, I'm reminded that it is all more than worthwhile. I know just in watching Mackenzie over the four years that he's been involved in this program, it has given him many things. Most especially, the confidence to speak in public about complex subjects, and the ability to reach out to experts in various fields to ask for their assistance. This year the team did their research project on Orbital Space Debris, quite a hefty problem to try to solve. One of the things Mackenzie did was to call up the NASA representative for Oregon and Washington and ask if he would assist in answering some questions. He also picked up the phone and arranged for a tour of a local metal recycling facility.

Watching these kids answer questions from the audience at the library about their research and their design and programming of the robot, I was struck by how much each of them has developed in maturity and poise and public presentation skills. I know for Mackenzie too it has sparked an interest in all things engineering and programming related, and his programming skills this year have really taken off. For this year's competition, he wrote a line-following program that navigates the robot around the table following the black lines on the mat. Each year that we've done FLL robotics, his abilities in these areas have grown and grown.

So wish us luck as we travel to the competition this weekend, I'm excited to celebrate all that they've learned and accomplished as a team this year.