Smrt Lernins

I have decided to start my own 101 in 1001 project on January 1st. Are any of you other homeschooling parents out there (or non-homeschooling readers) starting this project and looking for moral support along the way? I believe community keeps you honest and on track.

My list will start on January 1, 2010 and go through September 28, 2012.

A little about 101 in 1001:

The Challenge:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on your part).

Smrt Mama’s 101 in 1001

Blogging [8 Total]
1. Participate in NaBloPoMo in 2010
2. Participate in NaBloPoMo in 2011
3. Tag all past LiveJournal entries
4. Comment on two homeschool blogs weekly for a year (104 comments, total) [weeks: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
5. Find one new homeschool blog a month to add to blogroll [1/10 The Diosa Dotada Endeavor , 2/10 Classless and Lovin' It, 3/10 Doc's Sunrise Rants]
6. Do two “Day in the Life” photo essays and post in blog
7. Create content for three pages on Smrt Lernins [Completed: Adventures in Smrt Lernins 02/05/10, Smrt Curricula 02/04/10, and Secular Thursdays 02/05/10]
8. Update Smrt Lernins look with custom template

Breastfeeding, Pregnancy, and Birth (Education and Advocacy) [14 Total]
9. Earn a professional certification/accreditation relating to pregnancy/birth
10. Earn a professional certification/accreditation relating to breastfeeding
11. Provide labor support at five births
12. Subscribe to Mothering magazine [reconsidering this one, as Peggy O'Mara is batshit crazy]
13. Become a paying La Leche League member
14. Develop written action plan for NMBBC
15. Hold four NMBBC meetings
16. Develop care provider survey and distribute to local maternity providers
17. Compile provider book for NMBBC, with notes
18. Hold two BOLD Red Tent events [1/10]
19. Write “My Mother was a VBAC Pioneer” article for submission to Mothering magazine
20. Write one additional article for submission to Mothering magazine
21. Update amniotic sac, breastpumps, and early days of breastfeeding essays’ links on LJ and make those essays public
22. Update and cite sources in “Birth Safety as a Binary Condition” and “‘Brave’ Has Nothing to Do With It” essays

Crafting [16 Total]
23. Knit something for myself that’s larger than a headband/hat
24. Knit a sweater (at least child-sized)
25. Knit a pair of socks
26. Learn intarsia knitting
27. Learn stranded color knitting
28. Learn cable knitting
29. Learn provisional and cable cast-on [01/02/10 -- am unimpressed]
30. Learn magic loop knitting
31. Perfect sizing for “Daw’s Drawers” pattern and put it on Ravelry
32. Develop dollhouse-sized Waldorf doll pattern and make doll family for the kids
33. Stock my Hyena Cart at least four times in a year, including one themed stocking
34. Knit two pairs of longies for Babypie each winter until potty training
35. Knit two pairs of shorties for Babypie each spring until potty training
36. Make wardrobe for the Tank’s Bibi and Babypie’s baby
37. Hook Pet Society-style strawberry rug for Babypie’s room (in red and pink)
38. Make curtains, pillow shams, and comforter/quilt for Babypie’s room (red and pink, strawberries)

Health, Fitness, and Nutrition [13 Total]
39. Lose 25 pounds to reach next major weight loss goal (165 pounds)
40. Lose 10 pounds to reach final weight loss goal (155 pounds)
41. Maintain final goal weight for a year
42. Start and complete a fitness program (like 30 Day Shred, Couch to 5K, or Body for Life)
43. Find physical activity I like enough to do at least twice weekly and do it twice weekly for a month
44. Replace all HFCS food products in the home with HFCS-free alternatives
45. Switch to locally raised and/or free-range organic chicken
46. Build chicken coop and raise chickens
47. Build small garden box and grow at least two food-producing plants a year
48. Switch to SLS-free products for myself and the children
49. Can my own tomato sauce (from locally grown tomatoes)
50. Go to chiropractor once a month for a year
51. Get a full physical (including bloodwork and gyn)

Home/Yard Improvement and Organization [18 Total]
52. Buy our house from my parents
53. Purchase new living room furniture
54. Replace carpets with laminate flooring
55. Repaint living room
56. Repaint kitchen
57. Repaint school room
58. Find at least one large piece of artwork to hang in the living room
59. Remodel office for Captain Science to use as bedroom
60. Repaint Cpt. Science’s old room and move the Tank into it
61. Apply dinosaur transfer to the Tank’s new walls
62. Strip border from and repaint the Tank’s old room and move Babypie into it
63. Dig up front flower bed (w/ rock wall) and replant
64. Plant placentas
65. Reorganize children’s memory boxes
66. Sort saved baby clothes for longer-term storage
67. Develop and implement a filing/storage system for physical photographs
68. Develop and implement a filing system for digital photos
69. Choose favorite digital photographs and have prints made

Personal Improvement [12 Total]
70. Write thank you notes on behalf of myself and the children (have Cpt. Science write his own) for Christmas and birthday gifts
71. Get hair cut at least every 12 weeks for a year
72. Get highlights and have them touched up at least once
73. Buy five flattering tops for each new size while I lose weight
74. Buy two flattering pairs of pants for each new size while I lost weight
75. Get professionally fitted for bras and purchase two properly-fitting bras
76. Go through clothes and donate anything that doesn’t fit or flatter
77. Have Visian Toric ICL implants (after they get approved for the US)
78. Read four new books a month (at least one of them non-fiction) each month
79. Have date night with Officer Daddyman (sans children) at least once a month (1/10)
80. Have ladies’ night out (even if it’s just a coffee with Patchfire) at least once a month [1/10]
81. Develop personal website on existing domain

Safety and Security (both physical and legal) [10 Total]
82. Purchase a standing gun safe
83. Purchase a fireproof lock box and put important documents in it
84. Go to firing range four times (Yes, I’m a great big Liberal, but w/ a cop husband, guns in the home are a reality, and I need to know how to use them safely)
85. Learn to disassemble, clean, and reassemble any firearms kept in the house
86. Have a will and living will made
87. Set up 529 college savings plans for Babypie and the Tank
88. Change Captain Science’s name on his 529 plan
89. Get Babypie’s birth certificate and Social Security card
90. Eliminate family credit card debt
91. Develop emergency plans for family and do at least two practice drills

Writing/Editing [10 Total]
92. Submit two short stories to literary journals
93. Submit ten poems to literary journals
94. Submit five articles to magazines for publication
95. Create professional website
96. Update writing portfolio (make print and digital copies)
97. Create world “bible” for The Great Journey with Officer Daddyman
98. Complete a novel-length work
99. Compile recipes and write flavor text for Apocalicious
100. Develop creative writing curriculum for homeschoolers
101. Find a literary agent

The stockings have been dumped, the presents unwrapped, the ham and fried turkey eaten, the wine drunk, and the Christmas cds put away for another year. Wii-related gifts came in piles, Captain Science’s iPod Touch was a huge hit, Babypie loves her new Waldorf doll (made by yours truly), and the Tank has more new dinosaurs than any little boy’s heart could ever desire. Tomorrow, we shop the post-Christmas sales, but after that, I begin the process of planning the next semester’s schedule.

I hope all my readers had a delightful Christmas (or any other winter holiday you celebrate) this year.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house…

Tonight, the Tank told Papa (my dad) that he loved him “eighty ninety.” He told Nana he loved her “ten-ny.” I asked how much he loved me. He looked me up and down and said…

“One.”

One? ONE?!?! I made a sad face. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and said, “Ok…five.”

Merry freaking Christmas, y’all.

Babypie doesn’t like her medicine. She really, really doesn’t like her medicine. She hates it so much, that now she hates all medicines, even the ones she used to take without fuss, because the delivery method (oral syringe) is the same. Today, she hated taking medicine so much, that she gagged and gagged, which made her cough, which made her vomit her medicine all over both of us and the kitchen floor. Breastmilk and medicine puke isn’t horrible, thankfully, but it’s not exactly what I’d call festive, either.

Can you believe I’m actually missing homeschooling? Without some semblance of a routine, my days feel alternately too long and boring or too short and harried. I’m really looking forward to revamping our schedule, post-Christmas. Piano twice a week, Latin, maybe some new language arts programs! It’ll be like a second Christmas for me!

Spent the better part of the afternoon in the pediatric urgent care, after night two of both the Tank and Babypie shrieking all night long. The final tally was three infected ears between them (two for the Tank, one for Babypie) and a chest x-ray on the Tank to rule out pneumonia (clear, thankfully). Nothing says Christmas cheer like an infected ear. I’m on day two of almost no sleep. Things are getting giddy up in this joint.

Growing up, my mother (Nana) used to always sing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” to us when we’d whine or complain. I’ve continued that tradition with my own children. They, in turn, sing it to each other.

A few days ago, the Tank was whining about wanting something or another (the red cup, maybe) and Captain Science broke out in song with “you can’t always get what you want!” I sang, “but if you try sometimes, you just might find…you get what you need.”

Without missing a beat, the Tank sang, to the same tune, “But you won’t like it…’cause it’ll have a spider on it.”

That’s so true. So very true.

The Tank: “We’re watching Batman.”
Smrt Mama: “I’m sorry. You’re watching what?”
The Tank: “Batman. You know, Batman.”
Smrt Mama: “Batman? What Batman?”
The Tank: “You know, Mama. Batman. The blue Batman.”
Captain Science (hollering up from the playroom): “We’re watching Sleeping Beauty!”
The Tank: “Yeah. Sleeping Beauty Batman.”

I can tell that Christmas is nearly upon us, because this week was almost a total wash. It started on the right foot, but ended on the lame and limping foot. I comfort myself with the knowledge that if Captain Science were still in public school, he’d have spent the week doing holiday-themed worksheet packets and having his class Christmas party, so any academics are still more than he’d have been getting there.

History was one of the subjects that started off so well. Monday’s topic was the lives of the emperors and how Rome went from republic to empire. Captain Science’s essay was the best so far. Wednesday’s topic, however, was on Roman innovations and inventions (technology and the like). Sadly, though this should be a topic Captain Science latched onto right way, he caught a case of the holiday half-asses and wrote the thinnest, most conjecture-filled essay in the history of essays. Ok, not quite that bad, but still pretty bad. I was going to have him rewrite it on Thursday, but instead decided to just call it a wash, as I was deathly ill.

Math also started out strong with chapters 7 and 8 of Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents, but then got a bit spotty with 9 and 10. Captain Science made lots of careless mistakes that required correcting (and a little suspected peeking at the answers). I think it’s good that the next lesson is the bridge to chapter 11, because it will provide a nice post-holiday review to let me know if we need to go back and cover certain chapters again or if we need to buy some supplemental materials.

No science this week at all, because of the above mentioned deathly illness.

Captain Science did some Editor in Chief and Writing Strands work. Nothing to write home about in terms of excitement, but a solid job done by Captain Science. He also did a few Logic Countdown exercises of his own choosing.

This will be our last weekly review until 2010! I can’t believe we’re really done with our first full semester of homeschooling. It’s passing so quickly and much more easily than anticipated.

I finally did it. I told Captain Science, flat out, that there is no such thing as a literal Santa Claus who goes house-to-house on Christmas Eve, delivering toys.

Now, considering Captain Science is nine, some people might say that this talk was long overdue. Others might call me cruel for telling him, rather than letting him figure it out on his own. Of course, still others would go off on a tirade about how terrible it is to “lie” to children about Santa to begin with, and accuse me of scarring him for life, so I guess I’m not too hung up on the opinions of those “others” in this situation.

Last year, Captain Science had indicated to Nana that he no longer believed in Santa, but some time between last Christmas and this Christmas, that believe returned to a strangely fervent degree. When Captain Science asked for several expensive gifts this Christmas, I reminded him that we don’t have an endless amount of money — no degree of hinting or trying to gently imply that we, not Santa, were the ones footing the Christmas bill would sway him from the insistence that “we don’t have to pay for it. Santa will bring it.” His explanations for Santa became more and more elaborate. At one point, he told Nana that he had been praying to Santa for snow.

Praying. To Santa.

In a strange way, that makes sense. Santa is the central figure of a secular Christmas, just like Jesus is the central figure of a religious Christmas. Christians pray to (and about) Jesus. I suppose the logical leap for a nine-year-old would be prayers to Santa, the secular “deity” of the holiday season.

The final straw for me, though, wasn’t the money issue or the disturbing Santa worship, but the Santa-as-retort issue. Captain Science has a problem with little white lies. He fibs about small things that don’t require fibs for everyone to be happy with each other, like “Did you change your underpants?” Because of this, we do have a tendency to question him when we suspect his answers aren’t quite synchronized with reality. Lately, however, any questioning of the truthfulness (vs. truthiness) of his statements has been met by, “Well, why don’t you just write to Santa and ask him?” Santa was fast becoming a cover-up for dishonesty, because as long as we were all playing along about Santa, Captain Science was going to use Santa’s mythical ability to know when he’d been bad or good as a way of deflecting questions of his veracity.

Yesterday, I’d had enough, and I had to drop the S-bomb. “Captain Science,” I said gently, “I think you know that Santa isn’t real.” I immediately felt horrible and his eyes welled up with tears, because even though I think the obsession with Santa’s reality was probably a way of convincing himself to keep believing in something he knew deep down wasn’t true, hearing it out loud was another matter. I explained that a literal Santa wasn’t the one who brought his presents, but that Santa represented the magical spirit of Christmas. I also told him he was about to be inducted into the special Secret Grown Up Club, because it was now his job to help spread that magic to his brother and sister, so that they could keep believing.

That seemed to be the kicker right there. Helping foster the magic of Santa for the Tank and Babypie was a fitting substitute for the literal Santa for whom Captain Science’s logical brain kept having to reach for wilder and wilder explanations. He’s still getting presents “from Santa” under the tree and now he’s greatly enjoying being in cahoots about the whole Christmas thing. He did want to know where we kept all those Santa presents, but I told him that was a secret I wasn’t revealing. He liked that.

I’m sad that this part of his childhood came to an end and a little regretful that I had to be the one to make it happen, but his joy in Christmas doesn’t seem at all diminished. I think it was the right call.

If Captain Science ever finishes his work for the day, we’ll have officially completed homeschool day #90, which puts us halfway through the required number of school days. I’m proud of myself for making it this far!

Rewriting classic stories to suit the audience isn’t new. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Romeo and Juliet was often portrayed with a happy ending (Juliet awakens from her stupor before Romeo drinks the poison, and all is well!). Fairy tales have been rewritten and rewritten until they have lost their original moral lesson and become little more than saccharine, often sexist, entertainment (Disney’s The Little Mermaid springs most readily to mind). And then there’s GoodTimes Family Classics.

We were “gifted” with a little case of these DVDs, about a dozen or so, a few years ago, and my children recently discovered them. While many of these tales are supposedly based on “classic” works of literature (or classic fairy tales), the storylines depicted in these poorly animated, painfully musical films are anything but classic. Through the Looking Glass becomes a story about Alice, dressed like an extra from Blossom, traveling through Wonderland with a magical jester to learn how to become a queen. Red Riding Hood involves a friendly sparrow and Red helping beavers build a dam. No, seriously. My personal (least) favorite, however, is Moby — The Adventures of Young Moby Dick. Yes, you read that right — an animated musical about the adventures of Moby Dick as a young whale, with a smart-alec sea horse friend and a quest to learn the secret to leaping up in the air and become King of the Sea, as best as I can gather. It’s as bad as it sounds. Worse, probably.

It’s like watching a badly made movie based on badly written fanfiction. I’m at a loss as to the motivation behind turning the dark story of Moby-Dick into a whimsical children’s program. Could they not conjure up something original? Could they not at least try to stick to the original story? A gentle young Moby singing and swimming isn’t exactly the primer I want my children to have for classic works of American literature. Gone is the symbolism. Gone is the metaphor. Gone is Ishmael’s personal struggle with good and evil and his place in the universe.

I have half a mind to start reading Moby-Dick (Melville’s, of course) as a bedtime story, in order to minimize the shock when my children read the book later on and discover, not only no singing and swim-dancing, but leg-biting and bitter revenge. Actually, they might enjoy the leg-biting and bitter revenge.

Actually, I could go for a little leg-biting and bitter revenge right about now, aimed at GoodTimes Family Classics.