Today was fun!

So, it's nearly 'our turn' for study group. And Kaidin is really wanting to discuss Komodo Dragons while Dahlia is really very much into the wild cat thing. She wants to read and talk about Tigers this time around... I feel part of this is stemming from her strong desire to have a pet kitty = ) But that's just mother's intuition speaking. We have opted for origami tiger finger puppets... we'll see how that activity is played out by all as we have really (really) gotten into the study of wild cats in this house and I am running out of ideas here! = )

Kaidin's adventure into Komodo Dragon's has been quite interesting. Learning a ton about a reptile I may have never given time of day to! Today we were surfing the web before leaving the house and came across a youtube video that he thought was so fantastic he wanted to put it on a dvd to watch it over and over again.

I do forewarn... this is about the nastiest thing I've ever seen... Only view if you are not easily queezy!

So after our fun filled morning of scopping out the Komodo's, we headed out of house for an adventure filled afternoon/evening. This weather has just been so miserable... affecting all of our moods. Cold and drizzly... cloudy and foggy. Today's activites were just what we needed to really have some fun. First stop was the Mitchell Museum in Evanston with our homeschool families. As much as my kiddos are really not into the study of native american indians, they really did retain a bunch of cool info and have a blast with their friends! Then it was off to Evanston's lighting of their christmas tree! Can't even believe that tree lighting now takes place before Thanksgiving! But it was quite fun despite the weather. Even caught a glimpse of Santa who came flying in on the big ol' ladder fire truck!

Spoiled Rotten? Spoiled Ripe! by Scott Noelle

Spoiled Rotten? Spoiled Ripe!
by Scott Noellehttp://www.scottnoelle.com/
Text: Sm Med Large
From Issue #4 of Transforming Parenthood
Nothing belies our culture’s negative attitudes towards children like the derogatory language we use to describe them: “terrible twos,” “little tyrant,” and of course, “spoiled.”
The word spoiled — attributed to anyone, especially a child, who gets whatever he or she wants — is a metaphor that evokes images of rotting food. Don’t ask me how this usage came about. I guess the point is that when a person is “spoiled rotten” he is deemed unfit for anything but the garbage can.
But what’s so bad about getting what you want? Isn’t getting it the whole point of wanting it? Here’s where one of our culture’s most destructive beliefs is exposed: the belief in scarcity, or the idea that there is never enough in the world to fulfill our desires, so we should desire less.
This belief is mostly unfounded, but not entirely. For example, if you want to cut down a hundred trees a day, the forest will eventually deny you that indulgence. But there is nothing overindulgent about wanting to experience love, pleasure, fun, comfort and joy. Yet we often call children (and ourselves) “spoiled” when these needs and desires are fully and unconditionally satisfied.
What’s Going On Here?
In a word: story.
The scarcity principle is one of the central stories that informs our culture and frames our perceptions. This story is told to us over and over in a thousand subtle and unsubtle ways, from sayings like “you can’t always get what you want” and “money doesn’t grow on trees” to fairy tales like Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk to the endless drone of TV commercials urging us to buy now, “while supplies last.” The underlying message in so many of our stories is that there’s never enough to go around, but if you’re more virtuous — smarter, stronger, more beautiful, harder working, etc. — you might just get what you want... usually at someone else’s expense.
The belief in scarcity is central to the competition mindset. We are taught to interpret every experience as a win or a loss — to believe that even games played purely for pleasure are more fun when winning is contingent on defeating opponents.
But when a baby comes into the world, she expects to win by default. That is, she expects her needs to be met, and she doesn’t expect to have to compete for them. This — the child’s first nature — runs so counter to our “second nature” enculturated belief in scarcity, that we doubt our instinct to give them all the nurturing they need and the loving attention they desire.
Mother Nature is overridden by the voice of Father Culture, which warns us that we are in danger of “spoiling” our children if we dare to give them what they want. It implores us to give less. We are told it’s our job as parents to help children get used to the idea of going without.
The baseline fear is that if we give our children what they want, they will always want more. However, this theory is rarely tested because we seldom keep giving until they are satisfied. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy because they don’t get enough opportunities to learn what “enough” feels like.
Rotting or Ripening: An Experiment
So if you ever feel like your child wants to be “spoiled,” I recommend you do a little experiment. Consciously drop all ideas of scarcity and spoilability, and fulfill the request joyfully with 100% willingness and no arbitrary limitations. Indulge in the pleasure of giving until your child feels satisfied and stops of his own accord. Be curious about how much he can take. Let the discovery of your child’s capacity to receive teach you about your own capacity to receive. Perhaps you’ll learn to let more goodness into your experience.
If you begin to exceed your own limits, then of course you should stop. Only give what you can give with integrity, from a sense of abundance. Remember that Love — the greatest gift you can ever give — is something you can never really run out of, even when other limits are reached. Love doesn’t come from you, it flows through you. So when you give love you are also receiving it.
Say YES to giving love even when you can’t or shouldn’t say yes to other things, and stay focused on that abundance.
Let me know what you discover!
Scott Noelle lives in the United States, near Seattle, with his wife Beth and their two children. A longtime advocate of conscious, holistic, instinctive, natural parenting, Scott offers telephone-based coaching to support progressive parents worldwide. His free E-zine, Transforming Parenthood, is available online at http://www.scottnoelle.com/
Web address of this article:http://www.scottnoelle.com/parenting/spoiled.htmHOME
Copyright©2005 by Scott Noelle. All Rights Reserved.

'Kid' Fun

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

http://www.starfall.com/

http://www.yarr.org.uk/talk/

Ted

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66_

Things We've Been Up To...

Cooking Class

Botanic Gardens

Last Possible Beach Day!

Exploring Dinosaurs! ~ Field Museum

Forest Preserve Adventure Walk

Halloween!!!

Beautiful Words To Strive For

Found this on one of my many yahoo group message boards... Resonates with me deeply... something I strive for each day of our lives together.

Danielle Conger wrote:
I think this is a common misconception, especially for those new to RU--even the name "radical" unschoolers seems to point to the idea that we're so radical because we not only let our kids do what ever they want with regard to education but that we've also thrown out all rules and limits and let them do whatever they want to do in all areas of life.I think the problem with that, besides the fact that no one gets to do whatever they want to do, is that it creates real potential for failure in family life, especially if it comes after strict control like a pendulum swing. Then, with the ensuing chaos and lack of consideration, parents throw up their hands and blame the crazy radical unschooling.Personally, the terms I find more closely allied with what we do in our family are autonomy and organic learning. We're really not"radical" people--well, yeah we are in some ways, but we're probably more flaky than anything else. *bwg* Both of those terms--autonomy and organic learning--seem to more accurately reflect the gentleness and free-form nature of how we interact. While we don't do rules, we do have personal limits and boundaries and preferences- -*all* of us,including the kids--and those are constantly being articulated,negotiated and renegotiated during our lives with each other. As one of our limits bumps up against another's desire, we have the opportunity for learning and growing--learning about each other,ourselves, communicating, stretching, thinking, problem-solving. That,to me, is one of the biggest differences between living a life with rules and living a life that respects each individual's autonomy.Sometimes, when one person bumps up against another's personal boundaries really hard, then the reaction can be just as dramatic.Certainly that's no one's goal, but it occasionally happens, just as it occasionally happens with a spouse or roommate or someone else with whom we live in close proximity. Even these moments, however, are opportunities to learn and grow. Maybe the person really crossed a line and the intensity of the reaction gives them opportunity to reflect and consider in a safe space; maybe the person who reacted was reacting to more than the immediate situation--past situations or issues perhaps bubbled to the surface, giving that person opportunity to dig back and process old issues.Communication, learning, growing, problem-solving, consideration,respect, autonomy, flexibility, trust...these are the words that describe our process, not "whatever."

Keep Tabs

http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/evanstonhomeschoolgroup/photos

Words to live by

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood." Fred Rogers 1928 - 2003

Weekend bliss....

Why can't everyday be a weekend day?
All week long, at the grind, wishing to be together and blissfully enjoying the day. Today, for instance, is a day I would gladly repeat... A chance to get an extra two hours of sleep because dear hubby gets up with the kids... A chance to play in the park with just one child, cherrishing the hardly ever experienced one-on-one time... An ice cream purchase from the spanish-only-speaking ice cream man strolling along with his wonderful little push cart with yummy icy treats... A chance to sit and watch the clouds roll over and drizzle here and there... A chance to have a fun evening, out for dinner... together! Knowing, realizing and cherrishing that forces one to recreate the pleasure of every moment in life everyday!

NEW COMPUTER

It's been such a long time since I've been in touch. So much has been happening it's been quite exciting and yet too busy to write! Where to start? Well... I was in St. Louis for a conference with CCAP and that was actually pretty fun. I was quite nervous about it because I had never slept away from the kids before, so it was nerve-wrecking at first, but soon came to enjoy my adult time away. = ) And then we had Kaidin's BIG #5 b-day! That was a BLAST! We went to Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament and what a memory that created for us all! Hmmm... OH, immediately after that SBJ was sworn in as a US citizen! That was so exciting! Then... I've been working on getting the craft site up and running and that's slowly but surely getting going. I've filled an order for 3 new slings and that was so much fun! We've been wrapping up our homeschool year with the group and that's sort of relieving to me. I am ready to move on to a new session... maybe mostly looking forward to summer... or the idea of warmth!! And lastly... just got my fun new toy! A new laptop! It's a lot of fun! = ) *Maybe* it will encourage me to keep tabs here more often!?

We've been having fun!

So this last week of FHC was dinosaur week! Man did we have a blast creating our own fossils! But even more fun was just before that, we went to our very first InHome Conference! The first day of our adventure, the kids attending a couple of unschooling workshops that I desperately did not want to miss, and then we did a couple of fun kids workshops. Saw Cowboy Randy who was just fantastic throwing in a little history here and physics there, between his singing and ropping act, the kids literally could not sit still!

The second day I ventured to a few workshops on my own. It was quite nice to get to do some adult stuff and obtain such an amazing wealth of knowledge and experience! It was quite amazing to see the wide ranges of children and arrays of homeschooling families. They had a book fair and a science fair too boote!

I've been busy working on my new website! It's very very exciting to me to venture into these new waters. So far very smooth sailing, but I am not nearly half way complete. I am eager to see this completely unfold and start getting the exposure to add and continue growth!

I'm on a hectic spring cleaning binge. It's not as if the weather is showing any signs of spring, but since we've decided to stick around this place a little while longer, I've decided to reorganize, freshly clean, and do some majorly needed dumping of things piling up here! Of course I have too many projects going on at the same time, so it's hard to put any completion on just one!

Next weekend is my work's annual regional meeting in St. Louis. I am sort of excited but also quite nervous. This will be my very first overnight away from the kids! Yes, I have NEVER once been away from them for a single night. On the one hand I am a bit excited to be doing really adult meeting, dinner and socializing, this has not happened in a number of years. But on the other hand I am freaking out about sleeping away from them for the first time ever! Of course they will be fine and they will have a BLAST with daddy!

This week has finally ended. For some reason it felt really really long. But this weekend should be quite enjoyable. Not a whole lot planned yet, but that's when the real fun comes into play!

An open heart.

THE DAILY GROOVE ~ by Scott Noellewww.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove:: The Power of an Open Heart ::Think of something that always opens your heart.It can be anything: an uplifting story or movie, aninspiring song or poem, a glorious sunset, a majesticforest, a beloved friend's embrace, a purringkitten... You get the idea.Now contemplate it vividly until you actually *feel*your heart opening. Pay close attention to thatexpansive feeling in your chest, and try to "memorize"it. (For some, the feeling may be quite subtle atfirst.)Repeat this process until you can easily recall thefeeling of your heart being wide open.Next, set the intention that -- for one full day --you'll deliberately reach for that open-heart feeling*before* you do or say anything to your child...every time.This is not about being "nice." You can say "no" withyour heart wide open and it'll feel like a yes!Let go of all pre-conceived ideas of what an openheart is. Remember it's the *feeling* you're reaching for. http://dailygroove.net/open-heart

I just love this, and the very first moment that I thought was when my husband I reunited at Tendaba Camp in TG. We were returning from a week in the villages and I had not seen him since the previous week. Our bus pulled up and I saw him standing amoung a bunch of other volunteers. The second he saw me through the bus window his face lit up. For some reason, this one moment in time has been permanently etched in my mind and after reading this (above) I instantly reflected to this moment in life. That *one* look said it all to me...

Love this!

"When we adults think of children there is a simple truth that we ignore: childhood is not preparation for life; childhood is life. A child isn't getting ready to live; a child is living. No child will miss the zest and joy of living unless these are denied by adults who have convinced themselves that childhood is a period of preparation. How much heartache we would save ourselves if we would recognize children as partners with adults in the process of living, rather than always viewing them as apprentices. How much we could teach each other; we have the experience and they have the freshness. How full both our lives could be."
John A. Taylor Notes on an Unhurried Journey

Trains...

The latest... it was our turn to teach the FHC this past week. Felt like all this anticipation of trying to throw together this class... made me realize even more how much I love the idea of RU. The weather has been an atrocious sub-zero nightmare for the last week or more (feels like months at this point). I have been wanting to tackle so many other projects here around the house, and then suddenly it dawns on me, "Yikes... it's my turn to teach!"

The benefit was it retriggered Kaidin's first (but long lost) love of trains. When born, during that first year, that somewhat inherent trait of the pure passion to 'breathe' trains was something Kaidin fully went through. We fully satiated that topic. Did train exhibtions, museums, rides, resource books, collections... you name it. We followed Thomas nearly around the country! This need to *have* to teach trains reengaged that first love a bit. So that made it a bit more fun. I was truly worried that this would be so redundant that we would have wished we picked a different topic to teach!

Well... the class was not overly exciting, and after having planned for 16 children, only half showed each day. That in itself is quite depressing when you put so much time and effort into it... it's a real lull in your (my) personal excitment.

Oh well. Now recovering from that and trying to tackle the next project of cleaning out the enormous filing cabinet. I figure it's a good time as I had to gather papers, receipts and the like to get the taxes done here in the next few days, so good time to do the purging of documents as well. I put that poor shredder into overdrive (and overheating!) several times today. We headed out to get to playgroup and our poor car was solid frozen. Had to wait several hours to find a jump and then we were off and running, though not with out the panic in my head that the car would die at the grocery store or something.

I tell ya, I'm totally done with this cold weather. I could easily do with out this completely. It's not at all fun to feel the verge of frostbite just walking to your car!

Aside, there is an unschooling conference in Wisconsin on Saturday and I am not feeling the major push to get there. I hate paying for things like that and then backing out. But my drive to get there has diminished quite a bit. It would be a 3 hour trek for me each way, and this past few weeks has been rough. It would be nice to have a quiet weekend... AND, we do have the In-Home conference at the end of the month that I definitly do not want to miss at all. Can you tell I'm just making excuses here? Time to just fess up, I'm not going to make it out there after all am I?

True Inspiration

Found this today as I contemplate our attendance at the LL Conference this year... inspiration of what I hope to achieve sooner vs. later!

True test...

Today was not the greatest... I feel achy all over from the amount of stress resulting from a day of 'rage'. It seemed that not a one of us woke on the right side of the bed, and that not one was happy to see the other. It was one of those days that I sit back and question... "am I really doing what's 'right' for this family by moving towards/into RU, or am I in some dilliusional state of mind thinking this is what we need and will thrive on for life?"

Ugh... frustration... so much so that I can not sum it up today. Too much to digest and will have to come back tomorrow, fresh... a new leaf, right? One can hope.

Last but certainly not least for this evening....

My little body artist...

Fun with friends...

Do you have those set of friends that you see but once a year due to life's complex schedules? We had a blast catching up with ours at The Grove just a week or so ago...

Lions, Jaguarundis and setting traps...

So we were having this amazingly great winter weather and taking advantage of not freezing our butts off, we headed to Reyerson's Conversation Area. Kaidin literally could have been there ALL day long. He is a true nature boy and was just loving all of the uprooted trees. We had received tons of rain last summer and it appears in the heavily wooded areas, many of the larger long-standing trees had just literally fallen over from the lack of support to their roots. Kaidin said he was a lion in the jungle and was instructing Dahlia which animal he was to be, and which direction to head, etc. It was only after sheer exhaustion (on Dahlia's part that we had to pry him away from what he said was a damn breaking. This massive uprooted try had all of this dry mud on it and he was on a mission to get the roots thoroughly clean... or to "break the damn". A real riot... Of course, not so much so when his sister was about to pass out from lack of food and sleep and she wanted to head out. Could you believe that a preservation like this one does not allow picnics? I thought it quite odd myself...
On the way out, however, they were both highly distracted by this rooster who not only crowed at them, but figured he'd just chase both of them the entier perimeter of the fence! These two would run from one end of the coop to the other end of yard and this little white rooster would chase them the whole way. Sheer entertainment for a good thirty more minutes!

After that major run, we had our little *car* picnic and headed over the forest preserves in Glenview. By that point, Dahlia had passed out in the car for her little siesta, and I had the luxury of one eye on a book and one eye on our jaguarundi in the jungle 'setting traps'. To this day, it's on our 'to-do' list to get back over to that forest and 'check our traps'!

Ok... so I stink

I am just not the best blogger in the world! I envy the women who are able to put time and energy into their blogs! I enjoy every minute of their writings, their pictures... their links... I am trying and trying. I find this a beautiful expression of what life has been for us as unschoolers... as we slowly but surely move in the 'radical' unschooling direction! I do see this in the near future. I try hard to revert... it's much like a brainwashing ritual. I find it very difficult to let go of what is so deep-seeded in me.

Anyway... aside from my 'excuses' from not writing or keeping tabs on our journey.... I have some great photos to share! I will post them shortly with a little 'adventure' re. each.