the payoff

After years of reading Calvin and Hobbes, spending weekends with his Uncles, and being reprimanded at the dinner table, Punk finally got the payoff he was hoping for.

While getting his hair cut "extra nerdy" for the play, the hairdresser said, "Wow, you are quick on your feet for an 8-year-old."

"What does that mean?" Punk asked.

"It means you are witty," she said. "You know, sarcastic - but in a really funny way."

Punk's entire face lit up and he said, "Thank you! Thank you so much! That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me."

The hairdresser just laughed and said, "I've never met an 8 year-old who knew what 'sarcastic' meant, let alone took it as a compliment."

Punk floated on air the rest of the day.

my new favorite outfit

I woke up to this.

It is actually my authentic Norwegian dress from when I was Little Miss Norway in California. It's been hanging in the back of Kooka's closet since she was born. I'd forgotten it was there - I didn't think she even knew about it. But here she was this morning -in native dress, lips ablaze with bright red lipstick, pretending to be a "real princess from Norway."

Laugh if you will, but about an hour into it, she decided it would be much more fun to be a servant girl. She has spent the better part of the day reminding me to "order her around, and give her extra work to do." First she folded my laundry, then made the beds, swept the floor, set the table, served me a drink and read me a royal story. Each request was met with a curtsy, and a "whatever you desire your highness." This is the BEST GAME EVER!

I know everybody is laughing at this costume - but I am going to let her wear it every day. Later she is coming in to brush my hair and fluff the pillows.

I wish I could find one of these suits for Punk.

too much

What is too much? When is it too hard? What is overwhelming? I don't know. I would think that 5 hours of theater practice would be a bit excessive for an 8 year-old. But even after 1 hour at home, 1/2 hour of vocal music and 3 1/2 hours at the theater, Punk does not want to leave. He runs lines in his head, sings music all the way home. He cannot get enough.

And Kooka with her dance . . . .she practices for 20 minutes every day on her own. And then, on Mondays we are the first at the studio. She practices until the first class starts. Then she takes the second class. After the third class I am wiped out. It is 8:00 and neither of us has eaten dinner. But she is not finished. "Mom," she says, "I really want to get that one jete' down, and that pirouette and I need to fix my splits." I really want to leave, but she really wants to stay. So we do. An hour later she is still going - she actually says, "I don't want to go yet. I am not as good as you." I finally manage to drive home the point that I do have a few years and a tiny bit of experience on her, and then she allows me to drag her out of the place.

She is so driven, so eager to catch up to everybody. Even in this picture I took at play practice. She is the youngest kid in the cast - the little sister, and there she is next to Lillian - looking at everybody else, standing on tiptoe, trying to be more. "Good enough" is never good enough for her.

I don't know what is too much for them - too hard - too overwhelming. They have these incredible personalities - souls that seem energized by the constant demands of honing their crafts. Maybe it will never be too much for them. Maybe it is just too much for me.

a good day

It is always a good day when Auntie M and Uncle Cares-a-Lot come to visit. Kooka got to make cookies - and Auntie M really knows what she's doing in that that department - so they were amazing. Meanwhile, the boys shot cork guns and built robots in Punk's room.

Nothing like a good day of gender discrimination to keep our family happy.

love song

So I'm listening to quite possibly the most heartbreaking love song ever - I Try by Macy Gray.

I believe that fate has brought us here,
and we should be together babe, but we're not.
I play it off, but I'm dreaming of you.
And I'll keep my cool but I'm feigning.
I try to say goodbye and I choke, try to walk away and I stumble.
Though I try to hide it, it's clear,
my world crumbles when you are you are not here. . . .
Boy I need your touch, your love, kisses and such.


Suddenly Punk pipes in "This song is so incredibly sad mom. Just so sad."
"Yes it is," I tell him. "It's about saying goodbye to someone."

And I should have seen this coming . . .
He sniffles and says, "Remember my toad Pickles? And how I had to let him go back to the pond?"
"Yes honey I remember."
His little blue eyes are wet and he says, "Well this girl's voice sounds exactly like a toad's - it's so beautiful. And I can imagine Pickles sitting on the bridge singing it as I walk away from him. And it makes me sad."

And I love that Punk is who he is, and that he has his very own love story.
I'm not sure Macy Gray would take it as a compliment.

the worst word

There was a long discussion today in our house. It began - as usual, with Punk's campaign to watch something completely inappropriate on TV.

Now, we don't screen a lot of stuff from our kids (scary and violent suff yes - crude stuff no). Punk knows all of the swear words but doesn't use them because, "They make you sound like an idiot. And TRULY funny people don't need to use those words, they rely on their quick wit." (A point which we have been driving home since age 4 - when "stupid" was the word du-jour).

Anyway, he says to me today, "So why can't I watch this?" Then proceeds to present his case, "I know every swear word and I never use them. I have good judgement and don't copy everything I see. Some things are funny to watch even if you know they are horrible to do." The kid has a valid argument.

My counter claim is that certain things require a bit of maturity, and there are some words or phrases that have power or meaning beyond just the immediate spoken word - things too terrible for adults to make sense of - let alone third graders.

"Like what?"
"Like the N-word."

I see the wheels in his head spinning as he flips through his mental files of swear words. "Naughty?" no "Naked?" no "Never?" no.

He is furious that I will not tell him. We talked ad-naseum about what the word meant and the social implications and how people have died - and killed, just because of what this word means. But I can't get the word out of my mouth. He is looking at a dictionary right now - trying to figure it out.

the best kind of teacher

Ms. Toni is a professional artist, a teacher, a parent, a grandma - and the best part of our week. We met her when she was teaching art at Punk's pre-school art class. Punk adored her, and was so sad, when she didn't come back the second year. But just last year, we hunted her down and she agreed to come to our house to work with Punk once a week for an hour. This year Kooka is in on the action too -after Punk's class, Kooka gets a half an hour with Ms. Toni too. Yesterday she took them both to an art gallery. She is really, truly the best kind of teacher - she laughs, and questions, and makes you think about art, and lets you figure the answers out all for yourself. And when she tells you your work is fabulous - you really truly believe it.

punk in 20 years

OK - for some reason YouTube is not letting me post this here - but here you are - Punk in 20 years at his Homeschool Class Reunion.

Click here to watch the class reunion

Punk is such a smart alec - if somebody hadn't already done this he would have.

the 50 worst songs

Who picked this list? - and why do I have all of these CD's? Who made my ninth grade anthem the number one pick? The only reason Ritu sent me this list in the first place is because she was feeling insecure about her own musical choices. So now that makes two of us.

50 worst songs

Nocturnal-itis

So yesterday Punk woke up with a sore throat. He was warm and tired and just didn't feel well. So I made him do his math, let him hop in my bed with a new book, and just rest.

So about lunch time he's feeling groovy again, and wants to go to choir that afternoon. I tell him nooooo way. If he's too sick for school then he is too sick for choir. He pulls his covers up to his nose and says, "I think what I'm suffering from is just nocturnal-itis."

Turns out the kid was awake until 3 o'clock in the morning! I should have known - partly because I am his mother, and partly because I was up at the same time.

The insomnia in this house is unbearable. Kooka and Aaron will be out cold within 3 minues of hitting the pillow. But for Punk and I, it just doesn't happen. He was so miserable the next morning that Kooka made this get well card for him (or maybe it is just a warning sign).

slacker

This week has not been the best teaching week for me. Which means it has not been the best learning week for Punk and Kooka. I am sick (with what I don't even pretend to know - but it makes me sore and sleepy and grumpy - but not sneezey or dopey). Anyway - thank God for Ms. Toni. She comes on Mondays for art lessons - but the truth is that she seems to know something about everything - and when the kids are working with her they are completely and totally enraptured and inspired and just thrilled to be with her.

Between that, our walk through the arb with Treats and Medea, play practice and Schoolhouse Rock - that is about all the school we've had this week.

Some people I know do school like that every day. Which I'm sure Punk would love. Kooka would hate it. And I would completely freak out.

Then again - if we stayed inside all day we never would have seen the two blue egrets, the snake, the silky milkweed pods, Pig Pen's oh-so-funny snide remarks or Mr. Gilbreth's sweet dance moves.

Katie

This morning we got the worst kind of call. One of our very best friends has breast cancer. She is only 34, and the best kind of mom to her four kids. I don't really know what else to say about that. She is pretty tough, so I think she will be OK. But we are thinking of her - and we hope you will too.

setting her heart

"I want to get my heart set on someone." That is what the girl said.

There has been much talk about Kooka's wedding for the past year. It is quite a concern for her. The fact that she is only 5, does not seem to matter. She is constantly asking, and worrying and planning. Today the converstaion went like this:

Kooka: "So what if it is time for my wedding and I still don't know WHO I want to marry."
Me: "Well you don't plan the wedding until you know who you want to marry."
Kooka: "But there IS nobody good to marry. How am I ever going to find the perfect person?"
Me: "Um, you are FIVE."
Kooka: "Quit rubbing it in."
Me: "OK, what I mean is that you have a lot of time to find someone. You might meet them at college or at work, or something like that."
Kooka: "I know, but I want to get my heart set on someone now."

I don't know if this is the product of one too many Disney Princess Movies or what.

hide and go eeek!

If you're reading this, chances are you already know where I stand on this issue. You are probably well aware of Punk's feeling on the subject as well. But until now, I wasn't so sure about Kooka. I mean, she talks a good game - all bravado when her big brother's around. And there was that one time when she was two and she just grabbed a wild one in her bare hands . . . of course I'm talking about snakes.

So today, we're at St. Olaf playing a spirited game of hide and seek. Kooka is the master - she is competitive, stubborn as heck and can sit perfectly still for 30 miutes if it means she will win. She had the perfect hiding spot - a shrub barely out of range. Mr. ADD would never bother checking farther than his immediate line of vision. (Go figure - the kid can spot a gray trout at the bottom of a muddy river, but a four foot human wearing neon pink in a green bush is all but invisible to him.) Kooka was completely concealed, yet she could still see him through the foliage.

So - ten minutes later, after Punk has passed right by her twice, and is on his third round - we see two blonde pigtails bouncing behind the bush. The bouncing is followed by an "aaaa . . . .aaaa . . . . .aaaaaaahhhhhh!" - and suddenly Kooka is barreling out from behind the bush - high stepping like Scooby Doo and Shaggy.

"There was a snake in there!" she tells us. "It was just there, in the bush, looking at me." And you'd think that standing in a shrub with a cold-blooded reptile waiting for Mr. Observative to get a clue, would garner just a tiny bit of sympathy, but noooooo. There is no,"Are you OK?" - no "Sorry about that." Instead Punk looks right at her and says, "What?! And you let it go?!"

For about five seconds Kooka has a look on her face that I have never seen before. She is staring at Punk with eyes that seem to say, "Up until this very moment I truly believed that you were more intelligent than me." She walks away without a word.

While Kooka and I camp out on a hill to watch the leaves fall, Punk spends 15 minutes hunting for the elusive reptile with no luck. Here is Kooka's rendering of it. "The snake looked just like this - except longer, and pointier, and scarier, and without purple eyes."

how it's done

I'm still trying to figure it out. I was talking to one of my homeschooling friends today. We both work part-time in addition to the full time job of teaching. It was 8:00 at night, and she still hadn't done math with her kid. I have days like that all of the time. I'm curious to see what everybody else does with their days. Ours usually go like this:

8:00 Wake-up. Wake kids up. Get everybody dressed and chores done.
8:45 Breakfast
9:15 Circle time - calendar time, counting to 100, pledge, music, Spanish
10:00 Math - Singapore. Set up Punk, work manipulatives with Kooka, then trade off
10:30 History (or Science or Geography) Read & do a project together
11:45 Recess/make lunch
12:30 Reading. Punk reads quietly on the couch. Kooka and I snuggle in my bed. She reads to me, then we all read stories together
1:15 Language/Writing - Punk works on Spelling and his Journal. Kooka works on writing sentences and phonics stuff. Both kids get a turn on the computer.
2:00 Gym - it's always something - dance, swimming, baseball
2:30 Homework/project time - whatever didn't get finished or is due on Friday has to be worked on now, because after this is . . .
3:00 Free time - and they better enjoy it because . . .
3:45 Leave the house - dance, choir, play practice, scouts - everyday it's something - and usually both kids are sporting backpacks because . . .
4:00-8:00 Mom is at work. Both kids hang out until Dad comes to get them, or until they are done with practice.
8:30-9:30 baths, bedtime snacks, brush teeth, bedtime stories
9:30-11:00 Mom works on choreography & work type stuff. Punk reads in bed
11:00-12:30 Mom gets stuff ready for school the next day - projects, special worksheets, posting assignments on the board. (This is why I'm always on the computer until 2 am).
12:30 - 1:30 Mom turns out Punk's light, checks on Kooka and hops into bed, where I read until I fall asleep. Then I get up and away we go again.

I really don't get how people do this for years and years and years. Does it get easier - or is it always like this?