Author Archives: Amy Jane

“My Desk” meme

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So I caved and did it here rather than there.

I think it’s because I just cleaned it two days ago so I could follow the “don’t mess with it” rule and still not feel ashamed ;o)

desk.jpg

You can click that if you need a bigger pix to analyze me ;)

But since it’s still hard to “read” I’ll give you the tour (of the un-obvious stuff):

  • Recipes (from yesterday’s meal-planning)
  • an Alaskan wedding invite (the red thing)
  • homeschool books (I’m currently trying to decide if NJ should be taught Kindergarten or 1st grade, come fall)
  • my topical notebook (I’ll have to do a post about this sometime)
    • has different sections for my kids, husband, guitar, novel and homeschool stuff– keeps me from being totally scattered
  • Lindorm folder with my research/plotting notes or questions and the current manuscript (that I still need to start rereading)
  • Lamp I was reading by during a power-out last week
  • two tea pots (can you find #2?) because of my growing re-interest in tea
  • two card-files I’m trying to re-integrate in my life: one for recipes and one to codify chore frequency.
  • hard to see behind the cup and plant: the insert for the Broadway Lion King CD.

One thing you can’t see is the legs of the desk— this was a “scavenged” surface my husband brought home and crafted legs to be just the right hight for me. It the only surface I’ve ever sat at properly in an ordinary chair. It’s the perfect hight whether I’m sewing or typing.

So the desk does say a lot about me– what I’m doing, what I want to be important to me. Even relationship, and how well I’m taken care of (though that part had to be explained).

Anybody else want to play (or give me the link to where you’ve played before)?

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything— Movie Review for Preschoolers

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First off, this isn’t a VeggiTales video stretched to movie-length like Jonah (sorry, I wouldn’t see it twice of my own volition).

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything is a fairly well thought out story designed for the medium it is presented in.

This is good news both for the longevity of the movie as a piece of entertainment and for the parents who will (inevitably) share quite a bit of “quantity time” with this and their kids.

The bad news about this is mostly for the parents of preschoolers, like me.

This is a know-your-kid movie, which, unfortunately, didn’t come out in the normal reviews I read.

My 5-year-old cried more than once, and both she and her (differently sensitive) sister hid their faces multiple times. It is intense at the modern feature-length cartoon level.

For my kids, that means I would have waited till the 6-8 range, rather than the 3-5 we are in right now.

Of course everything turns out alright in the end, but the “moments of peril” aren’t all that brief, and occur frequently.

This is fine storytelling, but (like I’ve said before) I think movies of this intensity are harder on little kids than books of equal intensity— due to the extra, visual, element. There’s no time to process and detox from the last moment of peril before being steamrolled by the next one.

This was especially true for our oldest. She was clingy and needy for the hour or so after the show ended. My good husband helped both girls “detox” by talking about his “favorite parts” of the movie.

At first Natasha said that nothing was her favorite, but then we began to recap some events and she began to participate, even though she never agreed to actually liking anything.

She seemed very interested in what my favorite moments were, and as I was juggling tense girls most of the time I wasn’t particularly aware of my feelings past the opening sword fight. Which was fine, so I said I liked that and something else I couldn’t remember.

Natasha asked two or three more times what my other moment was, so I eventually thought of something else. This is one of the first times she’s really wanted to know what others think.

For future reference I think I will be going even to G shows before I take my kids– no matter what the reviews say.

(And, no, they will not be coming with us to Narnia in May. This I know already.)

I always wondered…

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Really, I have guessed I was what the elementary schools would have labeled “gifted” when I was in school. (Being homeschooled most of my elementary experience I didn’t really have many to compare myself to.)

A comment in my latest read made me think of it:

A piano teacher told me gifted children were the very hardest to teach because they expected to be able to sit at a piano and instantly play.

I can *so* relate to this.

So many things have happened easily for me that when something is challenging I find myself wagging my head for a moment like a dizzy puppy before deciding whether to continue.

My rational side says, Of course. This is a skill, it requires investment.

My {whatever you want to call the} other side whines It’s just not *natural* for it to be this hard!

This happens mainly for me with instruments, but also with my current stage of noveling.

This commentary of Bittner’s (author of the book linked above) on the topic of giftedness is so good:

Capable children must learn to struggle through challenging tasks.

There is no possible way they can get through their entire lives without encountering something they can’t do well, and it’s better for them to learn how to work hard at something when they are still young enough to receive your guidance and encouragement…

When he pleads to quit, or loses his temper because the subject isn’t going well, be gentle and encouraging, but firm. Tell him he must continue to work at this, but show him how to tackle the project.

This is the role I’d been trying to get Jay to take in relation to something— anything— challenging that I’m drawn to. I finally asked him if he could chose something for me. Something he liked that he could own as important to him too.

I wanted to be able to “plead to quit, or lose [my] temper because [X] isn’t going well” and still have that gentle encouragement I need to keep on.

Jay picked the novel, and I felt this lovely rush of relief (almost like the other options were even more work) and thanked him for his choice.

So, while the process isn’t moving much faster than it was, my mental energy is less scattered, and that’s what I attribute this week’s successes to.

I am “almost” done with my first draft, but my structure and time-frame have changed significantly, requiring another read-through with cutting and re-ordering.

I have a printout sitting on my desk that is intimidating in it’s hight.

“And it’s not not even a whole novel!” I moaned, thinking of the amount of work left.

Jay’s calm answer: “It’s a whole lot of a novel.”

See, he’s already doing his job. :)

I don’t think it was obscene…

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On the evening of 17th I called a friend who had told me she was traveling on the 18th.

She said hello, and I opened the conversation by asking cheerfully, “Are you pantically fracking now?”

The split-second pause before I recognized and corrected.

“I mean, frantically packing.”

Homeschooling in Alaska

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Dude. I am going with Option 1. (PDF)

Home School Statute:

Option 1. Alaska Stat. § 14.30.010(b)(12). If “the child is being educated in the child’s home by a parent or legal guardian,” the child is exempt from compulsory attendance. Under this option, there are no requirements to notify, seek approval, test, file forms, or have any teacher qualifications. The burden is on the state to prove that parents are not teaching their children.

Talk about simplifying my life.

Reading and Writing

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I’ve started a book that is actually about homeschooling this time (the last one wasn’t as much about homeschooling as it was about a mom who homeschools).

And I’m back to work on my novel after more than a month. Reworked the opening and the ending last night and today during naptime. So cool when things just *work* like they did.

What I wanted to get in my opener:

  • protagonist/characterization
  • villain/characterization
  • main conflict introduced
  • hint at possible solution or difficulty of win

And I am very excited because I think I got elements of all of them.

*Sigh* I love writing openings. It’s the hammering out details of plot where I get bogged down.

It helps that Jay is bugged by inconsistencies in the novels he reads. I will be thinking out-loud about a change and then I (or he) will point-out a looming inconsistency. Then we’ll talk through how to bring it into alignment with the rules we’ve made up for this story’s world.

Granted, I’m interested in the game longer than he is, but even the minimal feedback I got last night when he was reading his snowmachine magazine was enough to get me past a couple different stucks that let me write today.

My Experience Providing Foster Care
(part 3)

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If any of you got the idea I have this grandiose image of myself as a parent, let me assure you I am kept well aware of my humanity.

I mentioned respite care in part 2, and that was the majority of the work we did the two years we were in the program. On alternating weekends we had (usually) the same child, providing consistency for him and us, and occasionally hosted a new or extra child on the off-weeks.

Short-term parenting like this was a fabulous way to feel competent.

We got to share fun-time with our fosters and learn the great stuff our community has to offer kids. Sure we had to deal with the occasional “issue” over a weekend, but nothing like a full-time home.

Then one of our respites needed a new home, and we were eager to take him, as it would be one less major transition in the midst of his current upheaval.

Knowing that this was temporary, and considering our ages (I was 24 at the time), I encouraged him to call me “Auntie Amy” rather than any variant on “Mom.” He seemed eager for a more familiar title now that he was living with us, but I felt playing at mom unfair and somewhat dishonest.

I looked recently at my journals from those months. They became a muddle of case-notes and my own observations.

The day the “honeymoon” was over is in the notes, but God answered my prayers even in that, and our boy didn’t crash too hard, grudgingly realizing that even the fun people have boundaries and expectations.

Continue reading »

Poems and Their Parodies

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I find these types of things quite funny.

Trees
Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

~

Poet-tree
Earle Birney

i fear that i shall never make
a poem slippier than a snake
or oozing with as fine a juice
as runs in girls or even spruce
no i wont make now nor later
pnomes as luverlee as pertaters
trees is made by fauns or satyrs
but only taters make pertaters
& trees is grown by sun from sod
so are the sods who need a god
but poettrees lack any clue
they just need me & maybe you

~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~

This Is Just to Say
William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

~

This Is Just to Say
Erica-Lynn Gambino

(for William Carlos Williams)

I have just
asked you to
get out of my
apartment

even though
you never thought
I would

Forgive me
you were
driving
me insane

“A Mom Just Like You”– book review

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Well, not many people can say a mother of 10, married to a lawyer, is “just like me,” but I appreciated her transparency in showing her lack of perfection.

~

I’ve started a new page, describing what I’ve read this year. At least the stuff I’d recomend to others. I think this is my first book review on this blog.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The first book I’ve finished this year is A Mom Just Like You. A gift from an older woman in my church who knows I plan to homeschool.

This is a delightfully not-dictating, how-we-did-it book of a home-schooling mother of 10.

It’s not strictly a homeschooling book, but more the requested “testimony” many homeschool-conference attendees had asked for from her, as the wife of a prominent speaker.

It has all the expected chapters from an “older woman” book, including:

  • Finding time for God ( “There are times when we must make the conscious choice to set something else aside in order to get the fellowship with God we need.”)
  • Putting husband second only to God
  • Sticking with homeschooling (even when you’re sick of dealing with the children’s sin-natures all day) because you remember why you’re doing it.
  • An answer to the What-about-time-for-me? question.

But the best thing for me in all of this book was the gentle patient tone of the writing.

There has been a lot of talk among bloggers about the book Created to be His Helpmeet (I’ll reserve most comments about that one). But one of the main complaints I have personally heard is the the author’s tone is somewhat… demanding.

It is written by an “older woman” that you really believe knows what she’s talking about, and she probably has a lot of good advice, but she’s hard for me to “hang out” with.

Vickie Farris, whose voice is projected in this book (it was largely ghost-written by her daughter Jayme), comes across as more gentle in her approach. She is settled in her convictions but equally aware of the journey she had to take to reach those convictions.

Farris seems gracious enough to realize her readers may be on similar journeys, and will reach their destinations as God leads their open hearts.

Maybe I can read it this way because when I read her story about their journey away from birth-control I’m not impelled to follow. ;) Others may perhaps find it unsettling or convicting, and complain about the time she spends describing that journey.

Through the journey Farris describes in this book, I felt she had found contentment in the life God has called her to, and from her story an interested listener might glean a few ideas to apply to her own life.

It covers some of the same ground as Created, but it is one I can recomend without reservation.

Obsolete Parenting Skills (& One Appeal of Pets)

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The poignancy of my “last” baby phase passing has begun to hit me, but it’s nothing like I’d imagined.

I’m not craving a baby to hold, or wishing for more of my own. Mostly, I’m pathetically disappointed that my acquired skills in that area are now obsolete.

Isn’t that sad?

I’m convinced now that this is why those irrepressible ladies are always stopping to offer advice or books (oops, that’s me) to anybody they see pregnant or with a tiny baby.

They want to prove to themselves (and anyone else who might notice) that they and the skills they worked so hard for are still relevant.

I’m beginning to accept this passing (as I have no other choice), but it’s made me see why pets as objects of affection and nurture are so popular.

Yes, they are individuals, and they all have varying needs and quirks, but the reality is once you get out of the “baby” stage (and the “adolescent” stage, for some species) you have years of nurturing time that you can do the exact same thing with your critter and continue to meet all its needs.

This is just. not. true. of people. Ever.

Yes, Thorin adds to my work-load. It’s impossible that he couldn’t. But the sweet simplicity of him is a relief.

~

Thankfully, even as my former competencies become obsolete, I can trust that God will give me new competencies.

I’ve said before, when talking about children growing, that there’s always things we’re glad to leave behind.

And I could start thinking that way about skills too.

Yes, I know how to soothe a crying baby, but isn’t life more peaceful when I don’t have to?

It is sad to leave behind that first phase of language where I watched them make the delighted connection between symbol and sound, and enter the big world of communication.

But I leave that behind to enter a world that is filled with learning the substance of conversation and encouragement.

This is beautiful, too, and I will bless the Lord for his goodness— that he will continue to teach me what I need to learn.