Cantaloupes and goals

Calvin and I have been talking a lot about units lately. It comes from some of the math he's been doing, most notably the word problems.

A measurement of anything requires definition of the unit being measured. If you plan on sending someone to the store to purchase 60 cantaloupes, it's imperative that the grocery list say "60 cantaloupes" because if it merely says "60" there's no telling what they'll come home with.

It follows that if you plan to measure your success it's imperative that you define the unit of such success. In homeschooling, at least in our state, setting the goals and declaring when they are met is entirely up to the discretion of the people at home. It's a wonderful freedom, but I have too often suffered from a lack of unit definition. I am a wishy-washy homeschooling parent, and by that I mean I'll mosey along thinking I'm doing okay, and then I'll happen upon another homeschooler's website where they're plowing through ten science projects a day, or twenty craft projects, or reading through both the Iliad and Odyssey at the ripe old age of five, and suddenly I feel rather like a failure.

The internet can be a lifeline, but it can also be dangerous. When we chose to homeschool we did so based on the belief that we could guide Calvin to a life of learning best at home, but we never had any grand plan in mind. No beloved curriculum to follow, not even a full-blown philosophy, and that has turned out to be a weak spot for me, because not knowing for sure what we are doing has left me vulnerable to a feeling of failure in the face of others' proclaimed successes; if I haven't defined a goal, then I cannot possibly declare a measurement of success.

Don't get me wrong—I'm not second guessing our choice, nor do I actually feel like I am failing on any deep level, it's just that I am chased by the constant, nagging feeling that I could be doing a whole lot better. Then today I found this article, a blog post that probably every homeschooling mom should read, the gist of it being that every homeschooling family has to decide what is right for them, that not every parent is going to love crafting, for example. She's right, of course, and it wasn't those words in particular that I needed to read, but they did remind me that in order to succeed, I have to be clear with myself about my goals, abut my units of success, so that when I see a family reading through all of Shakespeare's plays at the age of six, or the family traveling the world to study history, or the family doing thirty physics experiments a day, I will already know that these weren't my goals, and that I don't need to measure our days against theirs.

It sounds petty, it sounds simple, it sounds obvious, but the reminder is so welcome. So needed.

This afternoon, while Calvin and I sat in the driveway and tossed a football back and forth, he said to me "let's practice math!" (complete with exclamation point), so I started quizzing him on multiplication before I tossed the ball, and he asked me such hard questions as "what is 600 times 80,000?" before he tossed it back. He was cracking up, he was thinking, he was discovering (that the multiplication of numbers with lots of zeros wasn't harder just because of all those zeros). He was empowered in his own discoveries, and I thought, 'you know, this is what my goal really is: for him to be thrilled with learning, no matter the subect', and that definition will empower me until I realize how abstract it is, and then I'll obsess some more, but for now, things are all good.

Teach your grandmother to suck lemons

What season IS this

Fifty and raining one day, single digits and snowing the next. Or maybe even the same day. Maybe the sun hat and sandals go well with the snow pants after all.

Butterflies in the garden

Jon says "there's a beautiful butterfly. What's that plant they like so much?"

I say "It's a butterfly bush."

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

"I know it has butterflies on it, what kind of plant is it?"

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail

"It's a butterfly bush."

Giant swallowtail

"There's no need to get snippy."

Giant swallowtail

It's a butterfly bush.

Rain and sleet and snow, oh my

And oh bummer. It wasn't even so bad when we went out, bright and early, this morning to go to our library's monthly book sale (the one that Calvin and help set up all month long). It was raining, sure, and we wore warm sweaters under our rain coats, and Calvin wore his rain boots of course, but having not checked the weather report I had no idea that by the time we got home from library, book store, and grocery the rain would be ice, and then snow. I think we'll have to shovel tomorrow.

It's Saturday, and we like to surround ourselves with things that give us joy, so we hit up our book sale early (see Calvin reading under one of the sale tables) and followed that up with a stop at our Borders store.

We like Borders. At one time it was a local business, I even went to school with the Borders children, but clearly it is not that store any longer, and maybe it would be better if it was. We like Borders still because they alone carry our favorite coffee (Seattle's Best), because they give me a 25% off educator's discount on any items I use with Calvin, and because they are always joyfully willing to help me find obscure things, even if they have to order them from obscure places (like a full copy of the Parlement of Foules). Maybe they would do those things for us at Barnes and Noble, too (although I highly doubt it on the discount front), and our favorite book shopping is still at used book stores (we always go for used first when we can), but for whatever reason, and maybe it's the nostalgia token, Borders is our book store.

That's why their recent troubles leave us feeling sad. It's also why, when we see such appalling abuse of book shelf space as that pictured below, we feel deeply distressed. Compare the shelf space in the social studies section taken by Justin Bieber to that given to "world history, K-5" and ask yourself how Justin Bieber can really be that important. I know I did. And just to clarify, there were more of those purple books on a display front overhead. This is social studies today? I never did find the book on Egypt that I wanted.

So I guess it's not hard to figure out why Borders is struggling.

Then we came home, just before the sleet and snow started, had lunch, played with Legos, painted things, watched a video on hippos and rhinos, played some guitar, played some piano, had dinner, painted some more things, read some books, and went to bed. Or at least the (not so) little one went to bed.

There are more things I could say here, but I think one long paragraph is enough for a post. My bit on our new guitar, hootenannies, and my dad's longish hair years will have to wait for another day.