pics

orphan girl

One of our (beloved) family holiday traditions is singing.  Usually my sister plays the piano and leads us in singing favorite old hymns.  Then the guitars and mandolins are pulled out and the folk music begins. 

Yesterday my brother's lovely girlfriend played and sang for us Gillian Welch's  Orphan Girl, lyrics below: 

I am an orphan on God's highway
But I'll share my troubles if you go my way

I have no mother, no father
No sister, no brother
I am an orphan girl

I have had friendships pure and golden
The ties of kinship have not known them

I know no mother, no father
No sister, no brother
I am an orphan girl

But when He calls me I will be able
To meet my family at God's table

I'll meet my mother, my father
My sister, my brother
No more an orphan girl

Blessed Savior make me willing
Walk beside me until I'm with them

Be my mother, my father
My sister, my brother
I am an orphan girl
I am an orphan girl

In the middle of the song, Chickadee blurts out "That was me."

well, we didn't expect that

See all those posts from last week?  Those were prepared in advance and auto-published.  I certainly was not publishing as I was languishing in the hospital.  In the wee hours of Monday morning I had some dramatic symptoms (too yucky to name) and ended up in ER where I was wheeled in from the car and taken to a room in less than 5 minutes -- that makes one nervous indeed -- "Oh! I'm THAT sick?"

Five days later I am discharged with a scary diagnosis.  Scary in that we don't know what triggered it or how to avoid it in the future.

But what really worries me is the impact of the disappearing Mama on the kids.  When they first came, I disappeared altogether for ten days due to my Dad's accident and stay at an out-of-town trauma center, and then I was gone/useless last summer due to the big surgery and now I am useless again.  How can I present the "I'm here for you!" Mama that they need when I am so often ill?

Last week they were well-cared for by my siblings and parents.  This week Chickadee is at Day Camp.  That will be two weeks out of my care.  I feel as if we are constantly losing ground.

Chickadee

All is not bleak, however.  Chickadee asked the Lord into her heart last month and was baptized last Sunday.  She asks to say be the one to say Table Grace again.  For a long time there, she would not pray and would not enter in to our conversations about spiritual topics.

Also, she turned 9 last weekend.  We went to the lake for the day and had dinner at her favorite sushi bar.

I want to see what her breast looks like.

So, I overhear my son say:

"I want to see what her breast looks like."

And of course I dash in there, disguising my dash as a casual saunter of course, and find the two gazing out the window.

"Whatcha doing?" I ask, as I approach the window, scanning the horizon for the object of their curiosity.

"Look at Catherine!" (Catherine is our Polish-Crested chicken) "She's rolling in the dirt and showing us her tummy." Chickadee answers.

"Yeah, I want to see if it looks like what we buy at the store."  Dandy adds.

This puberty thing has me all jumpy I guess.

The Red Wheelbarrow

Chickadee likes poetry.

 

The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

femivore

One of my students called me a femivore in his final essay.  A what?  I only eat females?  I am a female who eats?  I am a feminist (ha!) that eats? What does he mean? 

Being well-trained, he kindly provided a definition along with his specialty jargon. 

Orenstein defines femivores as women who have renounced the consumer culture and have made the home a self-sustaining center of labor and livelihood.  These women typically grew their own vegetables, kept chickens, canned their fruit and stuffed sausages. A majority home-schooled their kids and derived their income by working on-line (Lisiecki).

Ah, yes, that is me.  But who is Orenstein?

Peggy Orenstein is the author of (among other things) a March 14, 2010 article in the New York Times, The Femivore's Dilemma, giving attention-- and a new name -- to those of us that in a previous generation would have been called home-makers. Ree Drummond over at Pioneer Woman is a classic example of a femivore, complete with the Black Heels to Tractor Wheels story line.

It's a great article; you should read it.  It's also a great life-style; you should try it.

My prediction?  All the County Extension courses are going to have record enrollments this year.  If I weren't so busy growing my own vegetables, keeping chickens, canning fruit, home-schooling my kids, and earning my living on-line, I'd apply to the County Extension office for a teaching position.  I actually know where my Master Food Preserver badge is. 

Pop Quiz: What Book Have I Been Reading?

Chickadee has been assigned lines: I will not barge in when Mom is typing. x10

Chickadee: WHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA

Mom: That noise is hassling my ears. Would you like to quiet down? or would you like to take it upstairs?

(She takes it upstairs and has a right good screaming fit. Comes back down and sits and glares at her lines. All 10 of them.)

Chickadee: Mom?

Mom: Do you have a question about your lines?

Chickadee: No, but I . . .

Mom: We'll talk about it when your lines are done. Please don't talk to me unless you have a question about your lines.

Chickadee: WHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA

Mom: That noise is hassling my ears. Would you like to quiet down? or would you like to take it upstairs?

(She takes it upstairs and has a right good screaming fit. Comes back down and sits and glares at her lines. All 10 of them.)

Chickadee: Mom, can I have lunch?

Mom: When your lines are done, we can talk about other things.

(2 minutes pass)

(I put on some Chopin -- which she usually loves.)

Chickadee: Mom? Can you turn the music off? It's bothering me.

Mom: When your lines are done, we can talk about other things. Please don't talk to me unless you have a question about your lines.

Chickadee: Mom? Can I have a snuggle?

Mom: When your lines are done, we can talk about other things. Please don't talk to me unless you have a question about your lines.

Chickadee: Mom? My toe hurts.

Mom: When your lines are done, we can talk about other things. Please don't talk to me unless you have a question about your lines.

Chickadee: Mom?

Mom: Honey, I keep asking you nicely to please don't talk to me unless you have some questions about your lines. I need to focus on my work, so now I need to ask you to please not talk to me at all.

Chickadee: WHAAAAAAAAAAaa. What if I have a question about my lines?

Mom: That will be a bummer.

Chickadee: WHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA

Mom: That noise is hassling my ears. Would you like to quiet down? or would you like to take it upstairs.

(She takes it upstairs and has a right good screaming fit. Come back down and sits and glares at her lines.)

quotable

Chickadee: I can do it! I'm strong! I'm strong like a bunny!

Go get 'em sweetheart.

day camp

Each child has or is having the treat of day camp this summer. Chickadee finished her week last Friday, coming home so tired that one evening we found her dozing of standing up with her head on the counter. She came home every evening sticky and dirty: pine pitch, dirt, pine needles, what have you. Dirty, tired, and happy -- she loves camp.

Dandy goes off to camp this week. I signed them up separately as I wanted her to have her own experience; she too easily allows her life to become a mere derivative of his. Not a life-habit I want to encourage.

Days Go By

At the recommendation of our lovely and intelligent home-schooling cousin (a published poet no less), we bought Days Go By for Chickadee. At first glance, it looked to be too difficult, so we set it aside.

A few weeks ago, I found it, secreted underneath her pillow, with a bookmark about two-thirds though. At last, we have reached the covert reading stage! I quietly rejoiced and didn't let on, wondering a bit if she was understanding it all, or just barely slogging through it.

Over the weekend, I had separated the quibbling siblings which left Chickadee without external amusements. She went up and got her book and settled herself into the hammock from which she read aloud, fluidly and accurately, to the chickens.

Yippee for reading! And thank you to our lovely and intelligent cousin who told us about the books, saying (as best as I recall) that I will like them as the children in them do chores and have to be respectful to their grown-ups. :)

full report later . . . pics to tide you over

another growth post

Try to contain your excitement, as here is another growth report, with illustrations this time.

planting

On Sunday we planted

spinach
lettuce
peas
radish
beets
cilantro
arugula

calendula
sweetpeas

Here's my sweetpea, carefully planting lettuce.

crazy she makes me

I am so ANGRY. I shouldn't blog while angry, but GRRRRRR

My darling daughter just revealed to me she does not argue and sass and backtalk her science teacher at our co-op, nor her gymnastics teacher, nor her art teacher. Why not? Cause she doesn't like to get in trouble in front of other kids, she reports.

So, she recognizes what is unacceptable and controls it for these other people, but dishes it out at home.

Because the consequences in public (humiliation) matter. And the consequences at home (scoldings) don't. So obviously I have to up the consequences at home. What would be fitting? I'm too ticked off, and too Lexapro-tweaked to judge.

timid and mild

Okay, help me understand our daughter.

On the one hand, she appears to have very little self-confidence in that if she doesn't know how to do something, she will just freeze until someone bigger than she comes and tells her. Her 'try' muscles are virtually non-existent. (This is particularly hard for me as I don't understand and generally dislike a 'quitting' attitude.) She displays -- in most areas -- a desire to be led, to follow someone else and to please them.

Yet, on the other hand, she has no qualms about contradicting someone in authority. If she thinks blah-blah and I think bluh-bluh, she doesn't -- even for a second -- consider that she may be wrong. She just flat-out boldly contradicts me.

Her cheekiness is appalling, and this in spite of fact that it is on our "hit list". With Dandy we are working on integrity issues; with her it is respect issues.

Anyway, it seems odd to me, that she is so meek about things that she really is capable of, and so impertinent about things that she really ought to be silent on.

Any clues?

kitty rain coat

ouchy eye drops

We had to do the ouchy eye drops at yesterday's eye doc visit. I basically have to sit on her and wrap her arms in a straight-jacket style while the nurse drops the nasty stuff in. She opens her mouth to get a lungful for the scream, and Dandy pops into it a chewy caramel chocolate. Dandy and I get chocolate too, for enduring the trauma of seeing her so distressed.

overheard

upstairs:

Chickadee: G'night, I love you.
Dandy: I love you too.

Chickadee ties her shoe

Yipee. She is now in the shoe-tying club.