EXPLORING THE WORLD OF HOMESCHOOLING

Monday, November 12, 2007

Happiness Is a Pot of Soup

It's getting cold up here in the Catskill foothills. The trees are stripping down to bare essentials, and the deer are wearing thicker coats. The black bear are preparing for their long sleep.

Even though I am from the Northeast, and even though I have Eastern European Jew babushka-wearing genes, I really feel that my soul (if not my body) is of Caribbean descent. This is not my season.

Yet on my way to teach yoga yesterday morning, I couldn't help but notice the delicate shimmer of frost on the grasses. I couldn't help but notice that so many yellow leaves had conspired to fall in one night, blanketing the hillside in gold. There is much beauty this time of year.

Here is my winter survival plan: Make soup. Drink tea. Keep flames dancing in the woodstove.

Yesterday we had one of those rare, lovely Sundays with no plans at all (aside from the morning yoga, which is a joy). I spent the afternoon cooking wholesome things for our little family. For lunch there was quinoa, braised greens from a New Paltz farm, and lemon-pepper tofu. Incredibly, Amelie ate the greens. Heartily. Then Michael made a house-warming fire in the woodstove and Amelie "read" books to Pooh bear (with amazing accuracy, I might add) while I got to work on a pot of soup. The recipe, courtesy of my mother-in-law, is fast becoming a family treasure.

Three Grain Soup

3 medium leeks, white parts only, chopped (I use a big onion when leeks are not available)
2 medium carrots sliced 1/2 inch thick
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon thyme
salt
14-ounce can crushed tomatoes
6 cups water
Head of garlic, peeled but not chopped
1/3 cup brown rice
1/3 cup lentils
1/3 cup wheat berries and/or barley
Big bunch of kale, chopped

Combine the leeks, carrots, oil, bay leaves, thyme, and salt. Cover and cook on low 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes, water, and garlic and bring to a boil. Add grains and lentils. Cover and simmer until tender, about an hour. Add kale for the last 15 minutes. Cook to desired thickness, or add more water if necessary.

I always double the recipe, filling two quarts for the freezer for future meals.

Cornbread is a nice accompaniment. I made some yesterday and forgot the sugar. So we just drizzled each slice liberally with honey. It was a meal fit for Pooh bear, if not a king.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Back to (Semi)Normal

Well, Amelie and I made it through Daddy's Longest Business Trip Ever. And we are just so glad that's behind us.

Eleven days on our own wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Amelie and I were a team, and that felt good. And we had a lot of help from my family. Here's Amelie with her grandpa, dancing on a chair in his greenhouse. She loves it in there, surrounded by colorful finches from South America, painted turtles, giant toads, noisy bullfrogs, well-fed koi fish, and even a water dragon.

We spent Halloween with her cousins in the trick-or-treat paradise known as Montclair, New Jersey. Amelie couldn't believe her luck when she knocked on the doors of complete strangers and they handed her candy. She couldn't understand why she wasn't allowed to tromp through their houses, though. Who would say no to a toddler in a ladybug costume?

The biz trip had its downside, of course. Keeping up with my freelance work was hard. Some mornings Amelie went to her favorite play space, the Sunshine Club, which is like a high-class daycare full of fabulous toys and just 4 or 5 kids on most days. And then there were the times when she just watched A LOT of videos while I tried to bang out a 400-word article or proofread a newsletter. She thought she had won the jackpot, but I wallowed in guilt about her television binge.

It was times like these when I began to doubt our ability to homeschool Amelie. Most homeschooling families have one stay-at-home parent who's completely dedicated to their children's education. Usually Michael and I will both be at home, but we'll be juggling work and homeschooling. Even now we have dedicated work shifts to keep our time structured and make a clear separation between work and childcare. Yet unforeseen trips like this one will inevitably come along and throw us into a tizzy again.

Should one of us quit working? With expenses like ours it doesn't seem possible right now. And since both of us are freelance we have no job security whatsoever. With both of us working, we at least have each other to fall back on if the work dries up.

Michael is back home now, so my confidence level is rising again. We have Amelie recovering from her TV addiction on a 12-step program. We are eating less Halloween candy and more home-cooked meals. Things are looking up.


Wednesday, October 31, 2007

An Award, Just When I Need It Most

My husband has never outgrown his childhood love for superheroes. A classic portrait of Superman hangs over his desk, and he never misses a film adaptation of his favorite comic book characters. He can tell you about Spiderman's childhood with a biographer's accuracy, and he knows all about obscure superheroes like The Sandman and Ghost Rider. Now I get to tell my husband that he is in fact married to a superhero, or more precisely, a superheroine, as Fourmother has honored me with a Wonder Woman award. Hence the nifty bouquet of roses and winged "W" insignia.

It couldn't have come at a better time. I could really use some super powers right now. Michael (the aforementioned hubby) is away on a business trip, a ridiculously LONG business trip, and I am now experiencing life as a Single Mother. Ahem. A Single Working Mother. And it is not easy.

I may not have an invisible jet or gold bracelets that can deflect bullets, but I do have a few other secret weapons. I have the Madeline videos that I rented from the library, which can buy me a little time to send work off to a client. I have a hidden stash of chocolate that can stop a tantrum in mid-screech. I can do a pretty good Cookie Monster imitation. And I have an iPhone now - yes, that exorbitantly priced little gadget - which lets me respond to work emails from the playground so no one has to know that I'm not at my desk. Linda Carter, eat your heart out!

But I could use more, many more super powers to get me through this week and all the way to Monday, when hubby will stumble off his red-eye flight and back into our lives. I could use super powers to fill the fridge with nourishing meals for the next few days. I could use super powers to scrub my daughter's potty, keep raccoons out of the garbage, and fold more goddamn laundry. I could use super powers to stay loving and kind toward my hubby despite his maddening absence.

On a happier note, I would like to pass the Wonder Woman award along to Colleen of The New Unschooler for her intrepid foray into unschooling with her 12-year-old son. She tells us in her blog that she just had a birthday, so I think roses are in order. Besides, her boy will be really impressed to hear that his mom is a superheroine.


Monday, October 29, 2007

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

From the Land of Make-Believe

We have arrived at the age of the Imagination. For the past month or so, we have seen our couch turn into a train, and we've had long conversations on the phone with Charlie Brown. We have strapped Winnie the Pooh into a toy stroller and taken him to the chocolate store. We have carefully wiped our teddy bears' bottoms, patted them dry, and wrapped them in real diapers that we ourselves do not wear anymore. We have eaten slice after slice of pretend pizza.

Come to think of it, I've watched Amelie's imagination slowly begin to bud and flower over the course of several months now. The more skillful my daughter becomes with the English language, the more intricate her world grows. The two forces - language and imagination- are expanding in tandem, as if sprouting from the same seed. And they are moving forward at a furious rate, like fast-growing vines destined to twist themselves around everything in sight.

I've said this many times during the course of Amelie's small life, but I'm saying it with even greater fervency now: I do not want to forget any of this. It's incredible to watch my child begin to make sense of her world by spinning stories around it. What a lush, crazy, wonderful garden the human mind is! We really are all innately creative beings. We begin as artists. Whether or not we are lucky enough to remain so throughout our lives is often another story.

My dream is to protect this fragile, golden kernel of creativity that lives within my daughter. Keeping Amelie out of school - all too often the land of conformity and lowest common denominators - might be one way to go about it. Is it naive to think this way? I wonder. It is certainly not conventional to think this way. And something tells me that's a good thing.



Wednesday, October 17, 2007

She Eats Bananas, Eggs, and Yes, Chocolate

I'm singing the Picky Eater Blues lately. My girl is oh-so meticulous about what she chooses to put in her mouth. When it comes to dinner entrees we are down to three or four things. Pasta with butter, cheese, and broccoli that she picks out. Couscous with butter, cheese, and peas that she picks out. Scrambled eggs will do in a pinch. (And it's always a pinch. Perhaps I should start raising hens.)

Until very recently Amelie even rejected pizza. I was outraged. A child who won't eat pizza? So I went to work on this. (You would think that I'd choose a more valiant crusade, like kale or spinach. But no. I wanted a normal, pizza-eating child.) And wonder of wonders, she eats some pizza now. But only broccoli pizza. And she won't eat the bread. She carefully picks off the broccoli and cheese and eats those. Just to keep me on my toes, it seems. (Though I suppose I did choose the right crusade.)

I get such a high when Amelie eats something green. It's quite a feeling, like I've just won an all-expenses-paid vacation for two to sunny Jamaica. It's a level of euphoria that's entirely out of proportion to the situation.

Oh, and my girl has so many rules - ridiculous rules! Have you ever heard of a child who will only eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while she's riding in the car? I swear, if I put a pb&j on a plate in front of her at the table, she won't touch it. But I'll stick it in a baggie and five minutes later, as we're rolling down the block, she'll munch it happily en route to the store or playground. Same for baby carrots. She only eats them when she's in motion. When I put them on a plate, alas, they lose all their sex appeal.

The New York Times recently ran an article called Picky Eaters? They Get It from You. I read it with a guilty sense of recognition. Yes, I was the child who would eat only spaghetti with red sauce. Apparently this is an evolutionary response - a survival mechanism designed to prevent us from ingesting potentially dangerous things. So I suppose I should be more understanding of Amelie's finicky nature, and proud to have such a Darwinian masterpiece of a daughter.

An accompanying article called The Experts Suggest offers a few strategies for us meal-challenged parents. It seems I'm doing everything wrong: Making Amelie a separate dish instead of serving her what her parents eat, and resorting to bribery (if you eat some spinach I'll let you watch that video!).

Well, it's back to the cutting board tonight. Onward I go, clinging to the slender hope that my girl will eat something green, transporting me to a kind of bliss unknown even to the most deeply meditative and enlightened monks of the Himalayas....

Friday, October 12, 2007

3 a.m. Musings, and a Recipe

I can't sleep, so I have redesigned my blog. I've been meaning to do this for some time. It was just, well, too PINK.

What's with the pink, anyway? I never used to like the color particularly, but after I gave birth to a girl child, I started putting it everywhere. This is embarrassing but true. I fell into the pink trap. I latched onto the girlie-girl hue as a way of announcing to the world that yes, my nearly bald, androgynous infant had two X chromosomes, thank you very much. (Why is it so important to most of us parents that people recognize this? I suppose we want even passers-by in the street to know at least the bare basics about the amazing being that is our child.)

So, away with the pink. Except for that pink ribbon of sisterly support. THAT can stay.

Anyway, in the spirit of mommy bloggers always looking to share the latest domestic coup, I am going to offer one of my family's favorite new recipes now. (Yes, this is a complete non sequitur. I am writing this at 3 a.m., so you must forgive me. Try these muffins, and you will forgive me. They are delicious. And besides, I needed a reason to post the image at top of my domestic-goddess-in-training. You will notice that she is wearing a PINK top. Though I prefer now to think of it as a subdued salmon color.)

Carrot Cake Muffins

2 cups shredded carrots (approx. 6 carrots)*
1/2 cup raisins
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 coarsely mashed bananas
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup orange juice
3 Tbsp honey and/or 2 Tbsp molasses
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper baking cups. Brush or spray with canola oil.

Mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, ginger, and cloves in one big bowl.

In another bowl, mix the banana, oil, orange juice, honey/molasses, and vanilla until well blended.

Gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry, blending well with each addition. Stir in the carrots and raisins.

Spoon into the muffin cups and bake 40-45 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

*Note: Use a food processor (not a hand grater) to shred the carrots or you will begin to despair, and to curse me for sharing this recipe with you. And I wouldn't want that to happen.

By the way, this is a modified version of a recipe from Healthy Cooking for Kids. Enjoy.