I just asked Babypie, “What’s your name, little girl?”

Babypie said, “Duck.”

I said, “But I thought it was [Babypie]?”

She said, “It’s actually Duck.”*

I again said, “But you’re [Babypie]!”

She looked at me like she was thinking, oh poor, simply mother, patted her breastbone in an exaggerated fashion and said, slowly, “ME. DUCK.”

A couple minutes later, I said, “I need a picture of a girl named Duck,” which brought Babypie running in yelling, “Me! Me Duck! Me Duck!”

Here is an incredibly attractive picture of my girl called Duck:

*I ran this through Daddyman. “Did she just say, ‘It’s actually Duck’?” He agreed that she had.

A few months ago, Tank decided that his middle name needed to change. I’m perfectly willing to go along with a temporary name change and even told him he could change it to whatever he felt was the right name for him as soon as he turned 18; I’d support him completely. Given the complete freedom to name himself anything he wanted, he spent a few minutes thinking hard and mulling some ideas over aloud, before his eyes lit on Captain Science’s t-shirt (black with a white guitar with bat wings). “My new middle name is Bat-guitar!”

We discussed the appropriate spelling. He can’t read yet, but he could weigh in on whether it was one word, two words, or hyphenated (he chose the hyphen). I agreed to call him Tank Bat-guitar McLernins as long as that’s what he wanted to be called. I even changed it on his Facebook page, because, yes, my kids have Facebook. They enjoy Pet Society. Shyuddup.

Today, Tank announced that he no longer wanted to be Bat-guitar. Instead, he wanted his middle name to be Charm Bracelet. A few minutes later, he decided it should just be Charm. A few minutes after that, he decided it should be Charmander.

Charmander, I choose you!

A little while after that, he asked if I knew who Mace Windu is, because Mace Windu is a great name. “I think my middle name will be Mace Windu, only without the Mace. So just Windu.” When Captain Science urge him to keep Bat-guitar, tank said, “I’ll go back to Bat-guitar next summer.”

He’s stuck with Windu all day, so there you have it, folks: Tank Windu McLernins.

I still prefer Bat-guitar, myself, but it’s not my name, after all.

*And here’s your history geek moment of the day: The Bayeux tapestry is not actually a tapestry (which is woven), but an embroidery on cloth.
**I think this still counts for my NaBloPoMo, because I had to do a lot of screen printing and photoshopping, as the image gallery seems to no longer be supported.

Ok, Christians — you want to know one area where I think you reasonable, compassionate folks need to speak up and put a stop to something? THIS. Someone is invoking your name here. Worse, they’re invoking your God’s name and what is supposed to be your God’s holy word, and they’re using it to justify repeatedly hitting a child and then expecting the child to be happy about it. You need to stand up for your God and your Christ and put a stop to this. Non-religious people like me aren’t heard by these monsters. They might hear you, though. You need to tell these…these…things to stop hitting their children in the name of God.

“If she does not obey the 1st time, quickly, & w/a happy heart, she will get spanked. So, she has been spanked 10x today.”

Your child is THREE, you monster. Yes, monster. You are a monster. You have arbitrarily decided that a three year old can “obey” perfectly and happily every time and that if she does not, she deserves to be hit. You have hit her ten times in one day…not for doing something like putting herself or others in danger, but because she didn’t immediately obey and then be happy about it. You are a monster. You do not deserve children.

“she gets spanked 3x each time (b/c she is 3)”

You hit your daughter once for each year of life. You are sick. You are a monster. You are hitting your daughter for failing to be happy. You are hitting her three times for each time she isn’t happy and you are claiming to do it in the name of Godliness.

“After a spanking, she always wants to hug me”

Perhaps because your daughter needs reassurance that you don’t hate her. After all, she’s only three and you are hitting her ten times a day. You are hitting her because she isn’t smiling and acting happy when you give her commands. Of course she needs to hug you. How else will she know you love her? It isn’t through your other actions, because your other actions are monstrous. Have you also considered that (since you admit later that you do ask her if she wants to hug you), she might also terrified of being hit three more times if she tells you no?

“I group obedience, submission, respect, etc. when I mention all of those things. For example, I talked back to my bosses and did not respect them (NOT GOOD) and submission to my dh is a struggle at times – I want to help my children with those things (esp. my girls)…”

Why especially your girls? So that they’re prepared to be beaten by the domineering husband you’re programming them to marry? You are beating the “will” out of your daughter so that her husband won’t have to do it for her? Does your husband hit you because you don’t submit well enough? I wouldn’t be surprised, since that also seems to be pretty normal in these circles. Is that what you want for your daughters? You want them to be mindless slaves?

Another monster on this thread commented: “I always said to mine, “When Mommy spanks the bottom __________” and my kid would finish the rest of the statement with “…it makes the heart sweet.”

You, madam, are another sick individual. You are perverse and what you are doing to your children is despicable. You’re teaching them to equate a beating with love. You are telling them you hit them because you love them. You are telling them that hitting them makes them “sweet” and more lovable. Do you want to make your children into victims of domestic violence? If you do, congratulations! You’ve found the method.

Christians, I implore you. Please, PLEASE. Only you can intervene. I am not a Christian and thusly, my words will be meaningless to people like this. You, however, might be able to make a difference. I am so grateful that so many self-identifying Christians, even those who are from a more Bible-literal tradition, have stood up and said that this woman’s behavior is inappropriate. Christians like Daisy, whom I absolutely cherish as a gem amongst the rubble of the internet, are the ones who can make changes. You are the ones who can make a difference. Christianity is your belief system, not mine. It’s your culture, not mine. I’m a stranger, an outsider, who can only judge and comment from without. You have to make changes within that culture. You, as a group, need to continue to shine light on these darknesses and say “This is NOT God’s love.”

ETA: TulipGirl has some excellent suggestions for resources for Christians who want to put a stop to this particular subset of pseudo-Christian parenting:

http://parentingfreedom.com/discipline/

http://www.freewebs.com/suffer-the-little-children/therodorshebet.htm

http://www.wholeheart.org/

Families Where Grace Is In Place by Jeff Van Vonderen
Heartfelt Discipline by Clay Clarkson
Relational Parenting by Ross Campbell
Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel

Last night, I spent about a half-hour mulling over how unschoolers would respond to their children receiving letters from Hogwarts.

Seriously. These are the kinds of things that go through my sleep-deprived brain.

If we did live in the Harry Potter ‘verse, though, how would an unschooling parent react if his/her child received an invitation to attend Hogwarts?

Would it change based on whether or not the parents themselves had magical ability? Would the wizard unschoolers keep their children home and expect that they would learn through going about a magical life with their parents? Would the muggle unschoolers expect the magical abilities to unfold naturally if their children weren’t forced to channel them through specific incantations? Would they leave it entirely to the child’s choice, try to influence them, or make the decision for them?

And what about those unfortunate incidents that occur when the latent magical powers reveal themselves (like Harry disappearing the glass on the snake cage, Lily flying through the air off the swing, or Neville bouncing when dropped out of the window)? Without guidance, wouldn’t those incidents continue, putting the child at risk of some sort of magical legal trouble? Can magic be learned through modeling and real-world application only, especially with the legal limitations placed on underage wizards?

Would magic be viewed as something completely different from academic education, due to the potential danger of inadvertently blowing up one’s aunt, and unschoolers would have no problem sending their children off to Hogwarts? Would those who opted to home-magicschool their children use a more formal curriculum for it? Would they still allow the child’s interests to be more self-guided (no need to learn potions if they don’t show interest) or expect a basic level of proficiency in all areas?

Inquiring minds want to know. If you are an unschooler, how would you respond if your child received an invitation to Hogwarts (outside of the “OMG, I can’t believe Hogwarts really exists!!!” response)?

Types of Spider-Mans
as dictated to Smrt Mama  by the Tank while riding in the car

• No-Hands Spider-Man. He has no hands and shoots webs from his arms.
• No-Head and No-Hands Spider-Man. His stomach is his head. His belly-button is his one eye.
• No-Tummy Spider-Man. His arms and legs and feet come right out of his head.
• Mind Brain Spider-Man. He’s a scientist of brains. If you need to find out about brains, you call him. He has a car with a map on it to help you find where the brains are.
• Muscles Spider-Man. He shoots webs from his muscles. My costume is Muscles Spider-Man.
• Wheels Spider-Man. Instead of feet, he has wheels. He shoots webs from his wheels.
• Top Spider-Man. He makes lots of statues. The statues shoot webs. “Top” is his nickname.
• Upside Down Spider-Man. His feet are his hands. His hands are his feet. He uses a tornado to walk instead of his legs. He shoots webs from his tornado.
• Robot Spider-Man. This side [left] of his body is Legos and this side [right] is robot. He shoots webs from his fingers. That’s what he is.
• Night Spider-Man. I don’t know about Night Spider-Man. He…He…I don’t know what he’s about.
• Giant Spider-Man. I forgot about one Spider-Man that I love, Giant Spider-Man. He’s a giant Spider-man. He can crush bad guys because he’s giant. It’s kind of hard for him to see, because he accidentally crushes buildings.
• Big Hand Spider-Man. He can crush bad guys with his big hands. He can punch them and stuff and throw them out of the world.
• Super Spider-Man. He can fly and he has a special rope that can swing on trees and go to the other part of the world. It might be the Dark World. The Dark World is so easy, I’ve found. That’s the world I’m on.

There you have it, folks. In case you were wondering about Spider-Mans, you now know all the different kinds.

What I can tell you all to do, however, is to eff off and read.

That’s right, y’all. Get the eff off of my blog and go do some reading. Here are my suggestions:

For you homeschoolers who have never experienced public school life, I offer you the exceptionally amusing ellemennoppee: The Everyday Life of Miss P, Substitute Teacher Extraordinaire, because, really, whose life can’t be made better through reading things like, “Today in 4th grade, a shirtless genie on a math worksheet was given boobs.” I strongly recommend you not be drinking something while reading this blog. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Ok, Daisy, consider this your disclaimer, because if there’s ever a person whose blog you should NOT read, it’s The Bloggess. If you aren’t Daisy, however, you might be interested in learning about this high school student’s chemisty paper on tin.

The leap from two children to three children is quite a leap. One of my favorite mommy-bloggers, DaMomma, knows it well. Also, very little in this world is funnier than the mental image of a toddler with a Boston accent saying “penis” at inappropriate times.

Now, read those blogs, change your big girl panties (’cause you probably wet them with all the laughing), wipe off your screen (because even those I warned you not to drink while you were reading, you probably were), and go stroke my ego by becoming a fan of Smrt Lernins on Facebook.

When I had to get up at 6:15 to get Captain Science off to school in a timely fashion and received a backpack full of reminder notes every day, life was quite different for us than it is now. More predictability. More routine. That’s not to say that we don’t have a routine now, but it’s different each day of the week, as we have co-op on Tuesdays, science at Patchfire’s house on Thursday, piano lessons two days, things here and things there. It’s not 7:45 to 2:15 every Monday through Friday. It’s not on someone else’s time.

This sort of nonreliance on the schedule of others is wonderful in almost every aspect, save one…we’re totally, completely responsible for keeping track of stuff for ourselves! That means that, sometimes, things just don’t get done. We don’t think about them. We don’t remember them. Here are some examples:

1. Picture Day. There is no official homeschool picture day. As a result, Captain Science is almost through with his 4th grade year and has not had formal pictures made. We keep saying we’re going to get them done, but that just hasn’t happened.

2. Hair cuts. Without planned picture days and school field trips, for which I didn’t want my child to look like he was being raised by stewbums, hair cuts tend to fall by the wayside. I wasn’t the best about scheduling them regularly as it was, but at least three times a school year (for first day of school, fall pictures, and spring pictures), Captain Science got a really nice hair cut. Once we got that “picture day is coming” notice, we’d schedule the hair cut. Now, it’s more like Officer Daddyman spends weeks complaining about Captain Science and Tank’s ever-growing hair, I swear I’ll make an appointment to have it done, Daddyman gets frustrated and just takes the boys to his barber, at which point I complain about their hair being too short. OH THE JOYS OF HOMESCHOOLING!

3. Watching what we say. If the boys were in full time public school, I think I’d watch my mouth a little more carefully. Since they’re home so much, I have developed an unfortunate tendency to just say the things I’d normally have saved for times I wasn’t in their presence. My worst offense is, “So’s your face,” which my brother says is the appropriate response to absolutely everything (and the response to “So’s your face” is “Your mom”). Captain Science will announce, “Mama, I’m done with math,” and I’ll say, “Oh yeah? Well, so’s your face!” Captain Science will say, “So’s your mom,” and Tank, who is the classiest among us, yells, “So’s your BUTT.” I know I should correct it, simply because it’s not socially acceptable for my kids to say that, but it’s not like they’re going off to school and saying it to their teachers, right?

4. All that important non-curriculum stuff that kids still need to learn. Did you know that you were supposed to make sure your kids memorized their address? I know I totally didn’t think about it until Patchfire told me Eclectic Girl was six before they realized that she didn’t know her address. Oops! Public schooled kids get it drilled into them in kindergarten, but our homeschooled children are going to grow up with no clue as to where they live. Someone needs to put together a checklist of non-curriculum stuff that our kids need to learn. That list will also include how to spell their last name, their parents’ names, and their phone number.

5. Cops and firemen. Unless you’re luck enough to have an Officer Daddyman in the house, your kids may be missing out on the awesome public school experience of fire fighters and law enforcement officers coming out to the school to teach your kids about safety and how to dial 911 while mama and daddy are sleeping late (they say that’s not what they’re doing, but you KNOW that’s what they’re doing). There’s always the option of trying to get your co-op in to the fire station, I suppose.

6. Fire drills. You should be having these for your family anyway, but I bet you don’t. I know I don’t. At school, your kids would be having fire drills. They’d learn to “stay low and go” and to “stop, drop, and roll.” Maybe when you plan that visit to the fire station that you aren’t actually going to plan, you can make sure the firemen address those topics.

What things do you think that you’re missing as a homeschooler? What critical gaps in your child’s education (academic or social), appearance, or experience are you completely overlooking?

The search terms may be completely straightforward:

smrt lernins
smrt lernins blog
smrt mama
smrt learnings
patchfire eclectic girl (who was looking for you and got me instead, Patchfire?)

Sometimes the search terms are curricula-centered:

mct grammar
can abeka be secular?
building poems m clay
ellen mchenry “the brain” homeschool
compare just write and writing strands
life of fred math overly christian
jesus in math class/jesus mathematics/jesus math/bible verses on mathematics (four separate searches)

Sometimes, the searcher clearly has…let’s just call them “strong feelings” on certain topics:

unschooling failure (well, yes, I do give some examples of that here)
are there unschoolers that are not hippies (yes, but the other unschoolers killed and ate them)
being unschooled did not prepare me (Am I the only one who is terribly curious for what this searcher was unprepared?)
are home schooled children to sheltered (My answer: No, but they are able to distinguish between “to” and “too”)
homeschooler sheltered (also “sheltered homeschooler”)
pitfalls of unschooling (better than “pit traps of unschooling”)
unschooling idiocy (this works on a few levels, so please feel free to insert your own joke here)

And finally, the downright bizarre:

“a lot of pee” (their quotes!)
captain underpants valuable lessons learned (lesson learned: Don’t read Captain Underpants)
lern sex (No! Learn spelling!)
distilling urine (Ok, fair enough. I do have a post tagged with this)
etymology of sexy (I’m pretty sure it derives from the word “sex”)
in the event of this tough situation (break glass, remove homeschooler)
seculat thrusday (yes, I know this is just a matter of typos, but what a glorious combination of typos!)
why is math hard for pretty girls (because God doesn’t give with both hands)

Then there’s the one search that really tugs at my heart strings, because I could have been the one who searched for it about a year ago:

homeschooling parents who feel panic and anxiety (You aren’t the only one out there! I’m here! You aren’t alone!)

If you found my site through a search engine, how did you get here? If you were searching for my site, what do you think you’d search for?