Sunrise Yoga....you kill me.

I have decided that it's time for me to get into shape. I swear that this has nothing little to do with the advent of shorts weather. This decision has come about because I'm feeling like a slug.

I jog...occasionally. I used to jog a lot more, but I have fallen off. Truthfully, I'm not very good at it. I'm not going to break any land-speed records. I just kind of just chug away. I don't even jog outside much. I'm always afraid that someone is watching me and laughing at me shuffling down the street exactly unlike a runner should. Treadmills are more my style. I have a nearly foolproof method of motivating myself to get on the treadmill. It involves television shows and movies that I really, really want to see. Usually programs and movies with lots of running in them work well. Explosions are good too, but not necessary. I have an arrangement with myself: if I begin a movie on the treadmill, I must finish it on the treadmill. So, if I want to find out what happens to Jason Bourne, or James Bond, or Doctor Who, or Optimus Prime I have to get back on the treadmill and run/jog/stumble slowly. This keeps me distracted enough that I don't pay attention to how bored I truly am.

But it's not working for me right now. I need something new. There are no movies or television shows that are holding my attention. There are only so many times I can watch Iron Man. I know the dialog by heart, and as sweet as RDjr looks in that movie, his smugness has begun to wear on me.

So I needed a change of pace. Luckily we have a membership at the YMCA. We've used it so far to get the kids swimming, and to take a Tai Chi class (which I dropped out of when we began homeschooling. There's only so much I can do.) I tried lap swimming, but it was like jogging without the television. I also kept running into a certain breed of swimmer who thinks that the Olympics unfairly passed him by in 1980, but he's going to keep training to show someone something (usually it was just to show me that he could kick water into my lane.) But I decided that it was time to step up. I thought a step class might be fun, but there were no step classes at convenient times.

See, that's the major problem. We haven't had to put the kids in daycare because George and I work at different times. We've managed with a few hours of babysitting here and there, but one of us is always home. One of us. That means that I have to find someone to watch them if I want to do something for me. The kids are getting old enough that they can be left alone for a few hours at a time, but I'm still worried that I'll come home to find Caleb tied up in the basement, or Hannah locked out of the house. There are times that my children get along like best friends, but there are other times when they get along like brother and sister.

There are a few  hours in the day that I've found, however, where both George and I would be home. No, there still isn't a step class at a time when I can step, but there are other classes that I've discovered that some kind soul has scheduled for the convenient hour of 6:00am. With school just about done, I signed up. I signed up for three classes. The first was Monday morning at 6am. It is appropriately titled Sunrise Yoga.

This is what I'd like to think I looked like. Probably not.

I will not go into details here--you can read all about yoga everywhere these days along with anyone's personal private journey yoga took them on--usually to India or Tibet, or Hawaii, or Pago-Pago--and that they just have to share with the world because their lives were changed, and they no longer smoke (good for them) engage in destructive relationship habits (hooray) or drink coffee (crazy-talk.) Good for them and their wonderful journey. That's not the journey I'm on though, so I'll just say that I had a good time. When it was over, I was as tired as someone who had worked all night and thought that 6am was a good time to engage in moderate physical activity should be. I met some wonderful chipper people. It seems that most people see Sunrise Yoga as a time to prepare for the day. Not being a morning person, I couldn't relate. I was seeing it as time to unwind from the day. I was also probably the youngest person there. Some of those 80 year-olds could probably kick my butt though, so I didn't point that out to anyone.

I just want to know where she gets her hair done.

When it was over I dragged through the rest of the day. When you have to work until 5:30am, 6am is not necessarily a good time to start a workout. It's an even worse time to suddenly remember several errands that you have to run and phone calls you have to make and, heck since you're awake you may as well make them now...I didn't get to bed until after 8am. The "normal" world was already up and working, but I was past due for bed. I believe that Namaste means "go to bed before you fall over." It was the last thing the instructor said to me before I left, so it makes sense. I just trust that this will get easier as time goes on.

We'll see what happens in my spin class tomorrow. I just hope that I'm not the youngest one there.

Hannah and the TorNATO

We had the NATO conference in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. Hannah began drawing a cartoon for me. She had no idea what NATO was, but she watches a lot of storm-chaser shows. After listening to the news, she decided that Chicago was in for a torNATO. Here is her artistic interpretation of our week in Chicago. (And yes, Hannah is a HUGE manga fan.)

We watch a lot of weather shows. The story starts with the meteorologist predicting the weather...

Read from right to left. These two are police officers. You can tell because they are wearing badges...sorry the quality isn't great. I'm doing my best here.

On the left, cut off in the picture is lightning and a note that we are now downtown

Of course, the storm isn't the only thing getting violent downtown!

Our intrepid police officers off to help their comrades!

...and from behind the buildings downtown comes a ???
(the word is VOOM...some people have interpreted it incorrectly)

Luckily the officers stop in time!!

Yes, the torNATO has arrived. If you look closely you can see that all the protesters are inside of the torNATO along with several protest signs. The big one in front reads "We are the 99%" (Of course, she pointed out that we are kind of like the 50%...we aren't super-rich, but we aren't poor either.)

And finally, left alone, the officers are a little bit freaked out. The meteorologist, however, is pretty pleased with himself.

And there you have it! A ten year old's interpretation of NATO! She wrote the script, she developed the characters, she drew and shaded the pictures. My photos really doesn't do her work justice. She did a very good job with black and white shading, characters, concept and execution. She was very organized. Very thorough...and she used correct spelling and punctuation. In the whole thing, only one apostrophe is missing (the apostrophe in "let's", and honestly, that's a difficult one.) She figured out all the spelling and grammar herself. I am pleased with her commas, but I'm just a geek.

No...I'm not just a geek. I'm just a proud (and geeky) Mom. That's my girl. She made me laugh. 

Socks and Robbers

"What are you doing?" the unknown little boy asked me as I sat waiting for the kids to get out of a class.
"Knitting," I explained, showing off my project. "I'm making socks."
He watched me curiously for a few minutes, probably waiting for a sock to appear. Finally, exasperated by my lack of progress he asked me, "Do you know, you can buy those?"

Making things by hand isn't always rewarding. I'm sure that people have given me gifts in the past that I haven't been properly grateful for, and I'm really sorry for it now. Because now I make things to give away (and sell!) and I really appreciate the work that goes into so many things that I took for granted before. I mean, I now know why darning was invented. After you knit a pair of socks and realize how much effort goes in to them, there is no way on God's green earth will you throw them out without fighting for them first. I think that I would wear a pair of socks that's all darn and no knitting if I had to. I enjoy making socks, but I also am very glad someone figured out how to make them by machine. If they hadn't we'd either have heirloom socks in my house, or a lot of barefoot children.

Luckily, I have quite a few fans of my work. Caleb and Hannah argued over who would be the recipient of the first Wallaby* I made (Caleb.) Hannah really likes the over-the-knee socks I made for her (when she can find them.) And my skull skull hats certainly have their fans too.

The other fans of my work are our kittens, although kitten is a bit of a misnomer these days. The kittens are nearly fully grown. They actually are fully grown physically--mentally, however, they remain kittens. Skugge and Loudred have been hand raised by us since they were about two weeks old. They are our Halloween kittens, all black and slinky and full of mischief. They are my biggest fans. I can't pull out a skein of yarn without them running over to see what I'm doing. I can't put down a half finished project without them trying to tear it apart. I'm sure that they only do it to see how it's put together. Unfortunately for me, then I have to put it back together again.

And it's not only socks that I'm making that thrill them. They love socks that have already been made. They like them clean, dirty, colored or white. Caleb and Hannah created a scientific method of determining how much the kittens really wanted the socks, and whose socks were most desirable. The kids put the socks on top of the entertainment center to see if the kittens would jump up that high to get the socks. They put socks from all members of our household up there. The results...well, for one thing, the kittens won't stop jumping up on the top of the entertainment center to look for more socks. They keep investigating just in case some more magically appearing socks showed up since the last time they checked (2.5 minutes ago.)

And it's not just lone socks that are hunted. Socks still on feet are also game for the little felines. I've had my feet investigated, nipped and attacked in fits designed to test the adherence of socks still being used by my feet. I've had my slippers removed by kittens wanted to get closer to my sock-clad feet.

In the end, the most popular socks are the socks that I've made. The kittens will leave any other type of sock behind in order to play with the socks that I created. I guess that they don't care if you can buy them in stores. They really like my socks.

Talking in My Sleep

Lying in bed on Sunday morning after a long, NATO night, the bed shakes slightly indicating that someone has crawled in with me. I can't even open my eyes, I'm so tired. I'm having a dream of Mad Men, (which I've never seen) that takes place in a model train layout, acted out by Barbie dolls. I don't want it to end. I know that it's absurd, and I'm enjoying it.

"I really like science, Mom."

"Mmm."

"I want to talk about why I like science. I think I'm going to be a scientist."

This is obviously important. I need to make an effort to be a good Mom and listen. "Hnh," is the best I can do.

"I like thinking about things. Science is a lot of thinking. You know, sometimes when I'm alone, or people think I'm not doing anything, I'm really thinking. I think about a lot of things, and science always gives you new things to think about."

"Srr...argle...mulfta."

"I'm going to be an astronomer. I know it's a lot of school and stuff, but school isn't bad when you study what you want to learn. I know I have to work on math. I'll need a lot of math. I'm not fast at math yet, but I will be, and then I'm going to be an astronomer. I think that's a lot of years of school."

"Ya...gompra...habbuti."

"I know that I might not be famous being a scientist, but I'll be doing important work. I think it's important to do work that's important. That might help people. I don't know what kind of astronomer I want to be yet. Maybe study gamma rays. You know a gamma ray burst can destroy a whole planet? I want to make sure that people are safe. I don't think I want to travel in space though. I'd miss you. I'd miss Earth."

"Me too."

"Okay. I just wanted to let you know." Pause. He's too old to kiss me unprompted most of the time, but this is normally where I would prompt him.

"I miss talking to you," I tell him.

"Okay."

"Love you."

"Love you too." He slips out of bed and I lay there, wondering if I just agreed to pay for twelve years of graduate studies. Then I fall asleep. Two more days of NATO ahead.

Wednesday afternoon we are driving to Hannah's dance class. Caleb picks up a thread of conversation where he left off several days earlier. "Mom, how do scientists get paid?"

I don't know what to answer. I think I tell him that he should affiliate himself with a research institution and apply for lots and lots of grants. Then I remember that I'm a teacher. I plug my specialty: "You could write articles and books."

He sighs. "That's what I was afraid of. Well, I guess I might have fun anyhow. I'll try."

The scientist with his circuit. It makes noise, and is light activated. Hence the darkened room.

Mr. Lincoln, I've been thinkin'....

Where do you go when you need a break, but not too much of a break? When the well of creativity is dry and you just want to get out of town--but you still want to be able to count it as school time? What do we have to study that we have sadly neglected? Local History of course. State History, to be specific. So where did we go on our last field trip? You can guess. We went further afield than we have in awhile...

Springfield Illinois! The Land of Lincoln--literally. The site of the only National Park managed property in Illinois--the Abraham Lincoln Home National Historical Site (and yes, I got a stamp in my National Parks Passport.) It's a nice little town, but as two days wore on we noted a theme amongst the places we visited. Springfield is not only home to the Lincoln Home, but also the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the Lincoln Depot, the Lincoln Law Office, the Old Capitol Building (where Lincoln delivered the "House Divided" speech), the Lincoln Pew (in the Presbyterian church), the Lincoln Ledger in the archives, and of course the Lincoln Tomb. Just outside of town is New Salem where Abraham Lincoln lived as a young man, and if you want to complete the list there's even a town named Lincoln just a few miles past it all.
We had great weather and the kids earned their third Junior Park Ranger badge while visiting the Lincoln Home NHS. They now have badges from Sequoia NP, Acadia NP and the Lincoln Home NHS. At this rate, they will be able to earn enough badges to trade in for a National Park pony or bison or something. At the very least they should be fully fledged rangers by the time they're fifteen or so.

George, Abe, Mary, Hannah, Willie and Caleb

There were memorials to Lincoln all over the town. The kids really liked the life-sized Lincoln family statues. I was more impressed that we managed to park all day for less than ten dollars. Sweet!

Trying on Tad's Hat

Hannah found a friend

We even took a ghost tour of Springfield on our second night in town. It was really more of a historic tour with some ghosts thrown in for color...Caleb kept asking the tour guide when he would get to the "spooky stories." I'm afraid Caleb was destined to be disappointed.

Notice that I didn't mention visiting the Capitol? We didn't. I had considered going--contacting our state senator or legislator, but I didn't. This was on purpose. I had considered it, but when I mentioned it, Hannah demanded of me, "The state capitol? Isn't that were all the thieves work?"

I suppose that I have to take a more definite line in distinguishing my editorial commentary from our school lessons. I don't want to think that the only thing I've taught my kids in the past year is how to be cynical. So in the interest of keeping the tour guides at the state capitol free of my daughter's demands ("I'd like a list of everyone who is currently under indictment, and the crimes that they are accused of") we took a pass on the present and concentrated on the past.

On our way out of town we stopped at Oak Ridge Cemetery to visit the Lincoln Tomb. Oak Ridge is a beautiful setting, and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. There were several buses at the tomb when we arrived, so we passed on an immediate tour and looked around some other places in the cemetery first. We saw a lot of really neat memorials--much of them very traditional (weeping angels!) but there are quite a few modern burials in Oak Ridge also. This memorial was puzzling for us. The man buried here was a dentist. What was this? A set of forceps? Elephant tusks? Teeth spreaders? We were stumped.

Then we noticed the shadows. It was obvious what these were; they were angel wings.

Hannah Angel

Caleb Angel

Rock on, Angel.

When we returned to the Lincoln Tomb, the school groups were gone and we had the building to ourselves...mostly. There was the Peru Illinois Ladies Auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Union* on their annual Lincoln pilgrimage, but I didn't think they would be poorly behaved in the tomb. Caleb, however, was not quite so forgiving as I was. "They're as loud as kids," he informed me. (To be fair, it's difficult to be quiet when you are surrounded by as much marble and granite as is inside the tomb.)

To anyone who hasn't been at the tomb, it's an impressive edifice. The outside is stunning, but the inside is really quite something. When you step through the public entrance you are in a small rotunda of marble and palladium with ironwork grilles with a corn motif (symbolizing Illinois, of course) and with columns and stars representing the states that were part of the Union when Lincoln was President. The hallway curves around with niches that have small statutes representing various aspects and stages of Lincoln's life. There are plaques with parts of his Second Inaugural Address ("With malice towards none; charity towards all...") and the Gettysburg Address. 

And then there is the burial chamber. There are niches where Mary Todd Lincoln, Willie, Tad and Eddie are interred--they really were a tragic family--and across from them is Lincoln's resting place. There is a large (very large) monument above his grave. I'm assuming it's his final resting place. The poor man was disinterred at least six times because of problems with the tomb, grave robbers, and doubt that he was actually dead. 

The Peru Illinois Ladies Auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Union* was behind us on our first pass through the burial chamber. Caleb asked if we could return. "I just want a little bit of silence," he informed me. "I can't read when everyone is talking. I can't think." So we waited until the ladies had left and we returned to the burial chamber.

"Do you have more questions?" the very nice docent asked us. 

"No," I explained. "My son just wants a few moments of silence back here."

The lady smiled softly at Caleb. "Sometimes I come here early in the morning so that I can have a few moments of peace with Mr. Lincoln, myself," she confessed.

So Hannah knelt before the tomb respectfully. Caleb bowed his head and closed his eyes. We spent a quiet moment in front of the memorial to the man who was arguably our greatest President--definitely one of this country's greatest men. After a few moments, I nudged Caleb. "Is this enough?"

He looked curiously let down. "Yes. Thank you," he told the docent as we left. I'm sure that she went home that night with fond thoughts of the respectful children who stopped by to pay their respects to her Mr. Lincoln...but I had my doubts.

"Caleb," I asked him as we exited into the sunlight. "Were you listening for a ghost?

"Yes," he admitted. "I'm not sure, but I might have heard footsteps. It's hard because everyone is so loud!"

With or without ghosts, we had a wonderful trip into our nation's past, and our state's history which, per the State of Illinois Board of Education Leaning Standards, is something that they have to study. Funny, but it didn't feel much like studying.

(*Peru Illinois Ladies Auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Union--I made this up. I have no idea who they were, or where they were from. They were very nice.)

What are you writing for?

I spent nearly five years getting a master's degree in education (reading education specifically--but writing and curriculum development played a huge role in the program) and one thing that stuck with me from the courses in how to teach writing is that you must keep your audience in mind when writing. Who is your intended audience? Who do you want to reach? What purpose does this paper/story/report serve? Do you want to entertain? enlighten? persuade?

Sometimes I think that I just need to write. I don't know if there is any purpose served by my writing, or if it's just something that I do automatically, like buying the candy-bar from the vending machine. (I don't even think about it any more. That Twix bar just winds up in my hand. And then I can't waste it for pity's sake...ugh. No wonder I can't lose weight.)

Looking back over my blog entries I realize that all of these stories are things that I would have told Mom if she were still here. These are the things I would have called her to share. These are the things that we would have laughed about together, or she would have been present to witness, or that she would have yelled at me about (sorry for the 'Loads' entry...although it is kind of funny in a gross way.)

Ultimately, I guess I'm writing for myself...but I'm writing for her too. I'm writing all of the things that I can't tell her any more. You guys are the surrogate audience for my stories, and I really want to say thanks. Maybe through your eyes, through your reading it she can know that I'm thinking of her.

Membership Has its Privileges

First, let me say that I am happy to report that my children fear nothing. By nothing I mean dead animals and live bugs (unless said bugs are arthropods that begin with a 'centi'- and end with a 'pede.' They also fear tornadoes, but that's another blog.) 

Cadaver beetles eating a dead bird.

Caleb and a dead bird.

We went to the Field Museum member night this past weekend. The member nights alone are worth the price of membership, and whenever we are members we try to stop in for one of the nights that they open the back rooms to we curious and intrepid explorers who want to know more and see more than there is room to display in the museum. So Friday night we headed downtown.

Hannah and a dead bird.

I learned a lot in our hours exploring the museum. I learned that Hannah's shoes don't fit any more. She complained about it quite a bit. This is important because we just bought her new shoes and I am not pleased. Her feet hurt by the end of the night, and so did mine, but my shoes fit just fine.

I also learned that Caleb's hair is long enough to put into a ponytail. This coupled with his purple shirt had several people address him as "little girl." He got a kick out of it. "Little, eh. Maybe," he told me. "Girl, no way!"
"Get used to it," George griped.

The back of Caleb's head. Note the ponytail.

The kids got to hold a live tarantula and a hissing cockroach. I was busy in the anthropology department learning about X-ray spectrography and Girl's Day in Japan. I'd rather look at dead people than hold a tarantula. However because of this hangup, I didn't get any photos. There are some on George's phone because he likes bugs a lot more than I do.

Because one of the big draws right now is the Genghis Khan exhibit, they had Mongolian dancers. It was very cool, but Hannah and Caleb were not as entranced by the music as wereGeorge and myself. It was a great moment to talk about different tonal scales and how different cultures have more limited musical tonality than western cultures. I think they got it. In any case, George and I liked the music. We all liked the dancers.

Three dancers (not yet performing)and curious onlookers

Mongolian dancer. Skulls on her head and three eyes. Very cool.

I didn't discover this, but I was reminded that this is a pretty cool place to live.