J's Day

I am thankful for many other things and people today, but Jacob always wins on November 3rd. I'm going to spend the day with him instead of writing about him, but I thought I'd check in with a quick note of thanks to God for my son. I'm pretty sure I've gushed about him previously if you want to search.

Giving Thanks--3

Conveniently it is J's birthday, so it's an easy pick.

I am grateful for my oldest son, J.

J is easily the most handy of all my kids to date. He can fix the computer or a bike or the leaky faucet. He built me a big fence around my yard this summer. (His summer construction job was a bit of a flop, not nearly enough hours, so I hired him. I have yet to pay him, because I have no gates yet and I learned my lesson about paying contractors before the work is completely done. That's a story for a different day though.) He's an easy kid to brag about (just click "J" at the bottom of the post and it will take you to many a brag-fest). He's self-motivated and smart. He inherited his dad's natural musical ability. He left the nest in September and I miss him horribly, but he only went to UCDavis, so I can retrieve him when I begin missing him too badly.

I've got too much to do today to write an essay about his strengths and weaknesses, but trust me, he's a kid to be grateful for.

What We Bring With Us

Yesterday, Jacob's math teacher called home. I was rather surprised that anything Jacob did would warrant a call home. He's kind of perfect at school. In fact, that is what the call was about. A kind teacher called to tell me that my son was acing his AP Calculus assignments, that he was well-behaved, and insightful, an asset to the class. Needless to say, I love hearing that. I should probably write her a thank you note. 

There is nothing in Jacob's genetic make-up that would give him a natural edge in math. Certainly, his elementary teacher was only middling in math and not enamored of it. (In fact, my limitations as a math teacher are why Jacob chose to attend public school as a sophomore. "Math books and CDs only explain it one way, Mom.") Neither nurture nor nature should have produced my math boy, but Jacob has excelled from the very beginning. He has both love and aptitude for the subject. This talent as much as anything else convinces me that children developed as individuals with their Father in Heaven prior to their birth.

It's interesting to see how the attributes that my children showed so early on are developing. Elaine was an observant baby. She watched people, listened to them, absorbed. Now she is one of the most insightful people I know. She notices nuances in people's words and body language. She finds people fascinating. I always ask her to tone-check sensitive emails (things that might easily blow up) before I send them off. Invariably, she catches subtext. Not surprisingly, psychology is the field that fascinates her. Gifts. 

My husband is a talented musician. From the time he was a wee child he knew he wanted to play the trumpet. Nothing in his family would have taken him that direction. It just was part of him. His family thought he was just being a kid and it would pass. When he was five, they gave him a toy trumpet which was greeted with joy, quickly followed by disgust as he realized that it was a fake. Seven years later his parents got him the real thing and a teacher, a great teacher. Music still feeds his soul.

I myself was a born reader. My mom tells the story of finding me teaching the neighborhood kids to read when I was four. No one taught me to read. I had "Sesame Street," "The Electric Company," and a gift from God. My Natalie similarly began to read early with very little instruction. Just a gift and a passion.

I love this stanza from Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.

 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
          The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
              Hath had elsewhere its setting,
                And cometh from afar:
              Not in entire forgetfulness,
              And not in utter nakedness,
          But trailing clouds of glory do we come
              From God, who is our home:

At one point, I believed I would shape my children to be what they ought to be. Now, I know better. Yes, I do influence them, but they are vehemently their very own selves, formed before they gained physical bodies. I'm blessed to be able to watch them blossom into those selves.

First Day of School

I'm homeschooling the whole clan this year. (Not the original plan, but we're working with it.) I've got a senior, a sophomore, an eighth-grader, a sixth-grader, a third-grader, and a preschooler. If I ponder it too deeply, I begin to get jittery.

Really though, the only difference between the day before school starts and the first day of school is that starting today I will begin to sing the Song of Math. Everything else works itself out with a lot of reading and co-op classes, but Math is painful and relentless. The first day of Math involves a lot of whining. The second goes better. If we get cocky and skip the third, the fourth will be as miserable as the first. In fact, every single time we skip a day of Math there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when we start the next lesson. The principle holds true even on weekends. If they get Saturday and Sunday off, they seem to truly believe that they are done. For life.

Math Boy is the exception to this. He collects Calculus books. He likes the stuff. This more than almost anything testifies to me that we lived before this life. Jacob, he studied Math before he got here. And spelling. Because brilliant though I am, Math and spelling are not my strong points. And even if they were, I still couldn't have imparted that brilliance through any normal teaching methods. He's just wired for it. He picks it up by breathing. Not so for the rest of the monkeys. We labor for our Math accomplishments.

Anyhow, gotta run. No time to edit. It's time to start the joy of Math. Happy day to you all.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

The Pioneer Trek Reenactment

June 25 -27 2009

Many thanks to Kathy for the great pictures.

Not Counting Our Chickens Quite Yet

Long, long ago, the La Family had chickens.

Really cute chickens. (The kids aren't too bad either.)

Alpha and Beta are the red ones, the first and second to hatch. (Sadly, Omega the third and last to hatch had an unfortunate incident which prevented him from being photographed.) (Yeah, he died. Let's not discuss it.) My friend gave us Black and Blue. (Guess which set I named and which set the kids named.)

It was a great school project! The kids learned a lot and we had some pretty yummy eggs. We ended up sending our lovely hens to the country to live a happy life, giving eggs to a loving adoptive family. (Go with it, OK?)

ANYHOW...

it's chicken time again.

We've got 42 eggs incubating away. Thirty-four of them came in the mail. We're expecting a pretty low hatch rate for those. They were all brown eggs and Carolina Biological Supply can give us no hint whatsoever as to the breed.

Eight of the chicks have come from a crazy chicken lady across town. Hopefully, those will be Buff Orpingtons. When we candled them last week (peeked at their little shadows with a flashlight) it looked like six of them were developing normally and two were duds. 

(^^ That there purdy bird is a Buff Orpington. ^^)

Hatch day is Thursday. In theory. Assuming we haven't messed up in some fundamental way. (I got really nervous last time too.)

J is designing a movable hen house for the Buffs. In theory. Perhaps if I ask him to create it out Rubik's Cubes he's be more likely to get into it. 

The kids will sell the extras to help fund some of their activities. Assuming there are extras.  I'll keep you posted.

[As an aside, sorry for the disappearing post the other day. I'd said a simple apology and a polite request would remove my grievances from the blog world. The owner of a certain rollerskating rink apologized and said his future coupons would be more specific. And voila, a disgruntled customer is appeased. It's like magic.] 

[If you must know the details, email me and I'll send my copy of the post to you.]