Ahh, relaxation

Spent most of the morning, vegging on the couch and watching the NFL Combine live online. It was the O-line and Tight Ends today, but O didn't wake up early enough to watch it. Too bad, he would have loved to see guys his size running the 40 yard dash.

O has repeatedly told me that he needs, and I'm quoting here, me to kick his butt and make him exercise. So I did just that today and made him come out for, what was for him, an early morning walk. At 3pm, hehe. We went down onto the river skate trail again today, it was just gorgeous out, Winnipeg in February gorgeous, 3 below or so. O was not a happy camper at first, but perked up towards the end, and seems much more energetic today for it. I'd like to sit down with him later today and make up a list of fitness goals and agree on a plan together.

On the way home, we stopped at the library to pick up our holds, and the Dr. Who dvd we've been waiting for is in! O is on the next to last mission in Fire Emblem and we have a Dr. Who marathon before us (not Christopher Eccleston or Tom Baker Dr. Who, but still Dr. Who all the same.) What a fabulous day.

Another shopping trip survived

Well, we couldn't find a coat big enough for O, and he literally hissed when passing the changing rooms (what is it with the damn change room?), and 3 cabs were stolen from me on the way home from Superstore, but we finally managed to come home. O kept me from going completely insane in Stupidstore, and I thanked him for coming with me (and he commented "now I know why you wanted me to come with you, to stop you from killing someone") I don't know what it is about my ass that proves magnetically attractive to other people's shopping cart, but I can never get through a Stupidstore trip without being rammed at least twice. Sheesh.

When we got home O showed me what he and his best friend had been up to while I went to see Juno with B. They built a facebook page for Chewbacca. He then spent most of the evening taking quizes (Chewy is Catwoman!)

I've taken 4 days off from work so far, and will probably only go into to work for a few hours tomorrow. I really don't have much to do besides the scheduling, so I can take as much time off as I want. Everytime I take time off I'm reminded of how much living I'm missing out on when at work. I'm still really torn about quitting my job, I do really love it, and I'd still have to work, at a crappier job, but probably for more money. I miss my kid, though. Today I wound up napping in O's bed while he played Fire Emblem on the Wii, we hung out and talked and he was so happy to tell me about his game. We really need to have time like that more often.

Today's lesson

Today O and I will be learning all about patience. Patience, tolerance, understanding, respect.

Yes, it's that time of year again.

Time for O to shop for clothes.

Wish me luck.

Better yet, pray for me, that I do not strangle my son when he grabs the first thing he sees, yells "this is fine, lets go!" then spends the rest of the shopping trip trying to sneak away to EB games to play the Xbox and avoid coming within 500 yards of that dreaded form of torture known as the "Changing Room" (said in tones of doom.)

Schedule vs. flow

Things have not been progressing easily for us this year. With my work schedule, I've been struggling a lot to find a good rhythm for our days. This week I am working 7 days straight, Monday through Sunday, at least 8 hours each day, probably at least 60 hours this week, while next week I could take the entire week off if I choose (and if I can afford it.) This kind of random schedule makes it really hard to have a satisfying rhythm to my day, or to do anything spontaneously. Everything I do has to be laboriously planned out beforehand and too often I don't finish everything I need to do in a day, and rarely get to start on the things I want to do.

Now to be clear, I have absolutely nothing against having a schedule. We've just never really had one because we're more flow people than schedule people. My sister is very much a schedule and structure person, and we've had more than a few "discussions" over our differences. When I have structure imposed externally on me, I feel overwhelmed and out of control. By the same token, my sister feels the same way when she has no structure or schedule going on. I realized that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with any kind of structure or schedule, it's only what works for each person that really matters. And I've always functioned best with a very loose sense of flow, rather than a strict schedule.

But right now, I have no flow, and no end to this in sight. So now it's off to structure land. I just don't know where to start with this, though. I try to figure out a schedule that will work for us, but my hours, and O's well-developed sense of the spontaneous has thrown a wrench in the works every time. Maybe I should be looking more at listing the things that are really important to me and O to get done during the day, prioritize them, and work on reducing impediments to getting our stuff done.

Unschooling math

This is the biggest stumbling block most new hsing parents have about unschooling is math. The idea of anyone willing doing advanced math, on their own, for their own pleasure, is difficult to accept. That's why I loved this site, both for it's illustration of how math is a tool, not a mystical secret, and for it's sheer geekiness. I'd have tried to do this too, if I could do the math.

Homeschooling for free

Every few weeks this comes up on MDC, hsing for free, or at least very, very cheap. The last time it came up I realized that here, at least, I have, sadly, an enormous amount of experience and resources. I've been a single mom from the start, with no child support (O hasn't seen his father since he was 20 months old), not much family support (my parents were immigrants), and no career (at least when I had O.) So, one thing I've learned to do very well over the years is to live frugally and hs using free or used resources.

Since money is an issue for any family, no matter what their circumstances, and nobody wants to be wasteful, I thought I'd start logging in some of the sites I have found most useful over the years.

Ref Desk - this was our home page for many years, where we started our day, and the springboard for many conversations and hours spent searching new information. O is now past the age of wanting mere information, facts, or pictures, so he doesn't use Ref Desk much anymore, he has his own set of reference sites, but it's a great starting point online.

Budget Homeschool - just what it says, an enormous clearing house of links. Some links are broken, and some are trial and error, but it's still very helpful.

Ambleside Online - a free, e-text based, Charlotte Mason curriculum

An Old-Fashioned Education - another free, complete curriculum, based on public domain e-texts. Christian but still useful.

Free Curriculum on the Internet - this is by no means a comprehensive list of free curriculum and educational sites. Anyone with other clearing house type sites, please comment and let me know! I love to collect links (as you may be able to tell.)

41 Below

That's what the current temperature with wind chill is. For those of you who think in imperial, that's...-42 Fahrenheit. Yup, you learn new things when you live in a deep freeze. One of the things I learned when I first started going online and talking to Americans (and therefore having to translate my wacky Canadian ways of thinking) is that the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales meet up at about -40. So anyway you slice it, -40 is freaking cold!

O is skipping his last day of football camp. I'm none too impressed, but he has had a cough, sore throat and fever since he started camp, and was near tears at the idea of doing 6 hours of blocking and running today, so, there you go.

Something I've struggled a lot with on my hsing journey has been how much to push O. I mean, it's not like I'm making him take piano lessons or something. Helikes football, nay, loves football, wants to play at a high level, aims to play in college and dreams of playing professionally, this is something he wants to do. But he gives up so easily, as soon as he's uncomfortable, or bored, then he regrets having dropped out of what he was doing.

My struggle has been, if I push him, am I imposing my will on him, or supporting him in doing something he wants? If I don't push him, am I teaching him to honour his body and interests, or to quit when the going gets rough. I never know if I'm doing the right thing. Left to his own devices, though, he has gladly spent hours every day in front of the computer, gone weeks without going outside, and gained at least 30 lbs back from last football season. It seems he's shown that he is just not able to push himself to get going.

Football camp

O had his first day back at football training tonight, and his only comment so far has been "I've always taken breathing for granted up till now." Hopefully this is a lesson learned not to spend the entire off season in front of the computer next year. He's way out of shape and is going to have to work hard on his conditioning for a few months at least to be able to participate in practices in time soon.

Speaking of football, O is still mulling over attending school next year, at least for a few courses, in order to participate. The difference in the program between high school football and the community club teams is just so big, plus the reality of having to walk around the really, really, really bad neighborhood where his team would be located is having us both reconsidering school. Plus, the one school he's really interested in has had an hsing student before, and they sound like they might be willing to work with us to develop a program we could both live with.

I really don't want to lose any more family time than I already am with my job, and I really don't want to have some outside authority dictating my family life, and what my son should be interested in, not to mention how much I don't want him becoming bogged down in the social aspects of high school (especially the social aspects of being a high school football player!) But, ultimately, it's his life and therefore his choice, and being on a football team is such a huge motivation to him to get out of the house, to get in shape, and to hold himself responsible to someone other than himself. I don't want to deny him something worthwhile, and something he loves, because I'm attached to hsing.

So, here's the dilemma...can you unschool while attending ps? Here will be the experiment next year, perhaps. Not that we are total unschoolers, but I definitely want to keep the self-directed, interest-led part of our hsing going, and I don't want to see it going down the drain because of fear and neglect (O's fear of looking stupid or lazy to his friends and teachers, and my neglect of his interests because I just don't see him enough.)

He has months to make the decision, but I'm pretty sure he will opt for whatever will let him play the most football, and that is public school. We'll just have to find a way to make this work.

Just call me Cleo

Ok, I just gotta accept that we are, like every other year I've lived in Winnipeg, not really going to go outside again till March. Just deal with it. No sledding trips, no late night skates at the Forks, no hikes down by the river bank. It's 31 freaking below today, that's the high, before wind chill. So just deal with it, we are indoor people for the duration.

Winter in Winnipeg is like childbirth, you don't really remember how bad it is until you're in the middle of it again. Now onward and upward until Spring.

Ah, the magical balm that is football

Feeling much better today. O and I have had more than few little "talks" lately about helping around the house, and I've told him that I will try my best to let him figure our on his own what sort of schedule and routine works for him, but I really, really need more help around the house, and he seems to be trying harder to help out now that I'm not nagging him anymore. Which I knew already, but it's a hell of lot easier to nag than negotiate and discuss, right? ;)

O got out of bed on his own this aft, before 3pm even, with absolutely no input from me! I'm hoping this is a sign of the passing of this new phase. Being awake, coherent and aware before 10pm would really add to variety of activities O and I can participate in, like, say, anything outside of our home. O's getting bummed about missing Anime Club and the once a month Go tourney because he can't get himself moving in time. And since both start at 6pm, he's not getting much sympathy from anyone over this.

Since venting yesterday, I've been thinking about what's been going in with O, and really, it's almost like having a toddler around again, in a way. I knew going in that the early teen years bear similarity to toddler hood, but it's still a bit of a shock. It really is though, I was telling O this afternoon that if he could have articulated his thoughts when he was two, it would have sounded much like his usual reaction to any question right now: "NO!...maybe...hold on a minute...yes...what?" O thought that was hilarious. Just the fact that he can recognize that he's been a little belligerent and a little bit thoughtless lately, hopefully this signals the beginning of a new phase. A phase that doesn't involve staying up all night, hopefully, though I don't hold out much hope that it will involve less monkeys. I think I'm stick with the monkey fixation for the duration.

Today being the start of the 2nd round of NFL playoffs, I decided to go with the O flow, and sleep in, get comfy on the couch, and watched one of the best football games I've ever seen, Packers vs. Seattle, 4 touchdowns and 2 major turnovers in the first quarter alone! And so much snow they had to stop the game to clear the end zone markings, because the line judges couldn't see them anymore under the snow.

Not much to report today (and probably tomorrow neither), O and I will be spending the weekend relaxing and watching football. I guess given enough time, I can come up with an educational spin on a weekend spent completely absorbed in football, but I couldn't really be bothered. After 6 years of hsing, I have learned at least one thing, that rest is as important as work for a growing brain, and to trust O to, eventually, know where he wants to go.