underachieving boys

I just finished reading Boys Adrift, The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Dr. Leonard Sax. He outlines the reasons he believes there is an whole generation, and soon to be two generations, of slacker boys and men, who don't bother growing up. 

As I have a 14 year old son who is starting to slip into this category, I read this book with a sense of doom and optimism. Doom that I have done things unknowingly that may have contributed to his slacker status and optimism that I haven't done as badly as I could have and may still have time to change his destiny. Since starting Catholic school, Will has become addicted to the computer, which means a fight every night over the Mac laptop that is issued to every middle school student in the state of Maine. He plays MineCraft and Skypes his friends for hours, switching screens back to school assignments when a grownup enters the room. He has even been known to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night to retrieve it for more game playing.

 I have been tempted on several occasions to call Dr. Ray Guarendi, Catholic clinical psychologist and dad of 10 for advice or just throw the laptop out the window (but then I would have to pay for another one). We have told him that next year's school options are the fancy and expensive private school (no Catholic high school in the area) or back to homeschooling and with his attitude and grades, it is likely that his experiment in going away to school will have only lasted a year and a half. Luckily I am prepared to enroll him in Seton, a highly rigorous program with no opportunity to slack off or mess around on the computer. The local public school is not an option,especially since they give every student their own iPad. 

Dr.Sax points out 5 factors that have contributed to the exact problem I am facing: changes in school, video games, medications for ADHD, endocrine disruptors, and the revenge of the forsaken Gods. School has become more intense sooner, which is not good for little boys. Five year old males are not designed to sit still for hours and hours each day. Luckily we homeschool our little ones and with several subjects already completed for the year,formal  school is lasting less than 2 hours total. Dr. Sax blasts video games for their mind-sucking ability, the creation of males who can't function in the real world because they can't control it the way they can in games, and the fact that they take up time that could be spent doing something real- a sport, a hobby, reading, learning, interacting with others. He goes into the stimulant drugs that can make kids lazy and phthalates in the plastic water/soda bottles we all drink from that leach chemicals into our bodies that can cause boys to become more feminized and girls to develop earlier. The fifth factor he discusses is the fact that our culture no longer teaches boys to become men, responsibility is mocked and we are left with the resulting mess, a nation of 13 year olds in men's bodies. 

I'm not sure I completely buy into all of the factors the author proposes, but it does make me think about why a very clear phenomenon is happening. Girls are developing earlier and earlier, girls are graduating from college in every increasing percents each year, leaving their male counterparts in the dust, and more and more men are refusing to take on adult responsibilities but instead living out their 20's and 30's in their parent's basements drifting from job to job and being lazy. Why and how we can change our sons so they have every opportunity to fulfill their potential are questions that many of us should all think about.   

progress

One of the things that is satisfying about homeschooling is the feedback, the almost instant information that a child is learning. It has been a learning experience for me, this being our first year sending any of the children away to school, of how little I now know about their academic lives. From knowing everything they do each day to only hearing bits and pieces in the car on the way home, from seeing each piece of work to only having a general idea of how their grades are. Luckily I trust the school (up to a point) that they are being educated. 

My little boys, on the other hand, are still fully under my tutelage, and so I knew a few weeks back that Timmy was struggling in reading to the point of tears and head banging (his leaky eyes and my achy head). I made an executive decision to start over again with Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons and now, I can say that it was the right thing to do. He is now back up to lesson 30, sounding out letters and reading short stories with much more ease and confidence. It doesn't really matter in the long run if he finishes first grade by June or even by next winter, the important thing is for him to learn the basics of reading and to learn to love to read. 

Charlie has really made great progress in his reading skills as well, faster and with better pronunciation than he had even a few weeks ago. We finished both boys science and history books for the year, so I started reading aloud a few chapters every day as part of "sofa stuff," biographies of famous Americans. Timmy and I have read about John Paul Jones, Betsy Ross, Abraham Lincoln, and now George Washington. Charlie really has gotten interested in all things mechanical so I started him on The History of Flight. Yes, he could pull them off the shelf and read them on his own, but part of my job is to select the right books for each child's level and interest.

Reading today about the 80% illiteracy rate of New York City graduates at community colleges, helped reinforce my basic philosophy that the most important job I have as a homeschooling mom is to make sure that my children are excellent readers. Without those skills and eagerness to read for fun, they will still be living at home when they are 30, unable to graduate from college, find a job, and provide for themselves. And after 15 years of nursing babies, changing nappies, potty training, cooking large meals, doing multiple loads of laundry, chauffeuring two hours a day, that is something I don't even want to joke about.  

book of the quarter

I read a lot, and I mean that I frequent several local libraries and take out stacks of books to read each evening. But most of what I read is okay, not extraordinary. However, I came across Romancing Miss Bronte, a fictionalized account of the life of Charlotte Bronte, by Juliet Gael that blew my socks off. 

Yeah, I've read Jane Eyre several times and was impressed by the writing and the story, but I didn't know anything about the Bronte sisters themselves (I got kicked out of Honors English in 8th grade for not being able to enjoy/comprehend Silas Marner, a truly boring book that put me off of classics for 20 years). Ms. Gael has done a remarkable job of turning Miss Bronte into a real person, not just a long dead writer. 

I highly recommend this one for a long sit down with a bag of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies beside you and a cup of steaming tea on the side table. It is a long novel, so you will need sustenance, but well worth the effort and all those extra calories from the cookies. 
 

slow but steady wins the reading race

Last year I was starting to get really nervous about Charlie's reading skills. The other boys in his Cub Scout den were reading directions to various projects from their Wolf books aloud while Charlie was barely sounding out the words. I vowed that night to repeat all his 1st grade readers because it was obvious that he was struggling too much. I heard from the Cub Scout dads that they made their boys read for 30 minutes every night, while my 7 year old was still content to listen to me read picture books with his younger siblings. 

But like the tortoise in Aesop's fable, my 4th child is now reading well. I didn't push him beyond his comfort level, but he did practice reading and phonics every day and now he doesn't blanch at 6 page stories in his Faith and Freedom reader. He also walked to the library after his piano lesson on Friday and checked out several Magic Treehouse books, and he is actually reading them for fun. 

The big kids have mentioned several times that they seems to be called on in class to read aloud more often because they are such good readers. My guess is that all the dramatic reading of picture books to Timmy and Julia Ellen has paid off in terms of style. Even Julia Ellen practices reading with inflection as she sits on the floor flipping pages of the practically memorized Green Eggs and Ham while lisping, "I will not eat them in a BOX! I will not eat them with a FOX!"

My technique to encourage life-long readers by teaching the basics of phonics, requiring a small amount of reading aloud starting in 1st grade, and providing a plethora of interesting reading material seems to have worked. Only 2 more children left and I will be able to see my ideal Sunday afternoon come to life, a living room full of children draped all over the furniture, all so quiet you could hear a mouse squeak, because everyone is concentrating deeply on what they are reading. 

keychains, backpack pulls, and fun

A few weeks ago I found a Shrinky Dink Klutz book at the thrift store for $0.99. Yeah, perhaps a couple of times in my childhood I traced and colored pictures and watched someone bake them in the oven (it wouldn't have been my mother though, she recoiled from anything crafty to do with kids). The special plastic was all torn out, but I headed up to AC Moore, our local big-box craft store with my handy-dandy 50% off coupon in hand. Not only did I get a package of clear plastic discounted, I added on my teacher discount (by showing my HSLDA card) and received another 15% off. Every week on my errands I made a point to stop by and pick up another packet for less than $3. At first I was stressing out about baking them and having them ruined by curling up on themselves, but after purchasing an embossing tool (it's a cross between a glue gun and a mini hairdryer) I can bake and shape their little pictures without even turning on the oven. 

The little boys have gone wild, and while Julia Ellen may have ruined a few of their projects, the results are impressive. The most money I've had to expend in this creative explosion are for a handful of keyrings to attach them to backpacks, lunchboxes, and whatever else they can imagine. 

too smart by half

Last September the kids and I went to the Bangor Humane Society and brought home 2 kittens. The children and cats played, Julia Ellen dragged them around, and I fed them and cleaned their litter. Today the cats are 1 year old and one of them is not welcome in our house anymore. Star, the girl kitty, loves to lounge around all day and is polite. Night, the boy cat, is huge, muscular, and gets into trouble every day. He gets on the kitchen counters, knocks over vases of flowers, and likes to drink out of the faucet. Fresh water in his bowl every morning is not apparently aerated enough so his latest trick is to turn on the faucet by nudging the handle of the kitchen sink, leaving the water to run for hours. He doesn't merely threaten to let the well go dry, but since the hot water faucet is easier to manipulate, I have woken several mornings to steam rising from the furnace room vent, his having used so much hot water that the tank has refilled and was being heated by expensive propane. I've taken to putting mixing bowls over the handles, but it isn't really a long term solution. 

Several times I've gotten so mad to throw him outside, but all that will do is bring fleas into the house. He can't stay out there because he would be food for the nightly howling coyotes in a matter of days. But since his other trick in the past few weeks is sitting in the mudroom and bolting out the door, I think he really wants to live outside. The only option seems to be to turn Night into a barn cat. He can spend time outside, go into the barn to sleep through a kitty door, and keep the mice under control. Just as the Little Golden book, Four Little Kittens, bases its story around the idea that kittens, like children, have different personalities and vocations, some kittens are just meant to be alley cats, ship cats, barn cats, or house cats and no amount of behavior modification is going to change that.     

author read aloud

On Tuesday morning sailing was cancelled due to a forecast of thunderstorms that didn't materialize until 4:30pm. However, I had found an interesting activity for us in Stockton Springs at the library to make up for the disappointment. Chris Van Dusen, children's author and illustrator of the Mr. Magee books came to give a fabulous presentation and read aloud of 3 of his books, including one of our favorites, The Circus Ship. 

This story is based on the real 1836 sinking of a circus ship, The Royal Tar, off the coast of Vinalhaven, but with a much happier ending. The children had a wonderful time helping point out the hidden animals, Charlie and Timmy finding the trickiest ones, and have looked at the book again and again in the days since.

People who live in big cities always cite their cultural opportunities, but even in the wilds of Maine we have plays, art galleries, library concerts, and famous authors willing to share.

curling up with a good mystery

I'd like to think that the folks who work in the Bangor Library's children's department think of our family with fondness. After all, we are likely the family with the most consistent attendance as well as sheer volume of books checked out, but more than that, we return our books within the two week checkout window. Wednesday, when we were standing at the counter I was told that one of my selections was actually on hold by someone else, but it was accidentally put on the shelf. He said that I needed to return it within two weeks, but I assured him that I would do so by Friday at the latest. The murder mystery, Death of a Kingfisher, was one by my favorite authors, M.C. Beaton, and sure enough, I had it finished within several hours of returning home that evening. If you like non-gory mysteries with a share of humor then you will like the Hamish MacBeth series that spans over 20 books and goes back at least that many years. Featuring a local copper in rural Scotland, this series is just the thing to curl up with on a rainy afternoon with a cup of tea and a plate of cookies. 

The other new mystery series I enjoy also has a new title out, Aunt Dimity & the Village Witch, by Nancy Atherton. The heroine is an active mother of twin boys living in a village in England, which has an unusually large number of murders and mysteries considering its diminutive size. The author does make a point of promoting the moral equivalency of paganism and homosexuality, but the overall story is well written and just I ignore those bits.

So, these two novels will go back in the book drop bin this morning after dropping off Charlie on his last day of science day camp.He has been having such a grand time building things, making new friends, and taking things apart that he has said, "Thank you Mommy for signing me up for science camp," every afternoon after I have picked him up. Maggie has also been at camp again this week and was even on the TV news a few days ago (look for the pink hat). I wouldn't have known a thing about it, but the librarian mentioned it and pulled it up on her computer so we could watch her dance and sing, practicing for the big show next weekend.

feminist war on women

 "I have to admit that when I meet a woman who I know is a graduate of, say, Princeton -- one who has read The Second Sex and therefore ought to know better -- but is still a full-time wife, I feel betrayed. I'm not much of a moralist -- I have absolutely no right to be -- but in the interest of doing what's right both for me personally and for women generally, I have been strict with myself about earning my keep. For the longest time I would not date anyone who would now be called a one-percenter because money and power are such a potent combination, and if I am going to be bossed around, I don't want that to be the reason. When it's come up, I have chosen not to get married. Over and over again, I have opted for my integrity and independence over what was easy or obvious. And I am happy. I don't want everyone to live like me, but I do expect educated and able-bodied women to be holding their own in the world of work." Elizabeth Wurtzel

 This screed from The Atlantic magazine has been discussed much in the blogosphere lately, but as I have been on a Jane Austen spin-off kick lately, it struck me how perfectly perceptive the early 19th century English author was in portraying specific personalities. Ms. Wurtzel wants to define feminists as women who work and are financially self sufficient, not allowing them the choice to stay at home. She is the perfect Miss Bingley, jealous of Elizabeth Bennet's beauty and attention from Mr. Darcy, a 1%er if there ever was one. Since she has no chance of attracting the affections of such a man, Ms. Wurtzel and Miss Bingley both do all they can to disparage those they feel have stolen their rightful place of consequence in the world.   

"All young ladies are accomplished. They sing, they draw, they dance, speak French and German, cover screens and I know not what." (Mr.Bingley)
"But not half a dozen would satisfy my notion of an accomplished woman." (Mr. Darcy)
"Oh, certainly. No woman can be really esteemed accomplished who does not also possess a certain something in her air, in her manner of walking, in the tone of her voice, her address and expressions." (Miss Bingley) (I apologize for a non faithful quote, my copy of P&P seems to be at the other house)

 The best commenter after the article, of which I pasted a portion: 

I think what strikes me as the most ridiculous part of this author's position is that a female is telling other females that they are ruining the feminist movement by choosing to be full time mothers despite being educated and able-bodied. It used to be that men condescended to women who weren't in the business world, now this female author is doing the same thing. Once upon a time, women who worked brought shame to their gender. Now women who don't work bring shame to their gender? Who, again, is waging a war on women? Seems like this author is - more than anyone I've heard from in years. lawdawg97

 The other point that struck me was that if Ms. Wurtzel had her way and all educated women worked and were more like her, then there would be so many hate-filled writers out there that she would likely not be able to get her work published and be out of a job. I feel sorry for Ms. Wurtzel. She doesn't sound like a happy person who is needed and loved and it comes out in her air, in the tone of her voice, her address and expressions.  

free time

Now that we are up at the farm with a diminishing schoolwork load and no electronic/media devices, the children must come up with their own entertainment. On Thursday the girls were gone all afternoon, having ridden their bikes 5 miles to the town library (to sit at the computer, but at least they got some exercise before and after) and Julia Ellen was asleep on the couch for several hours.

 Charlie just loves building models and found in our extensive book collection a paper model book of boats. Most of the pieces had already been taken out, but he traced the outline of each piece onto typing paper and constructed rather crude models of a submarine and viking longboats, complete with oars. For upwards of 3 hours Timmy and Charlie quietly constructed their boats out of paper and copious amounts of scotch tape and recreated scenes from Homer's The Odyssey which we watched for movie night a few weeks back.

I was able to spend a long drizzly afternoon sewing quilt blocks in absolute peace. Yes, there was a background noise of shooting and bad guys dying violent deaths, but it was a total respite from bickering, fighting,  tattling, and complaining. I'm thinking that our next movie night selection when we go back to the other house in a few weeks is The Hunt for Red October, Charlie already has his submarines at the ready to play Sean Connery and Alex Baldwin fighting it out.

tutor your own child, who would've thought?

One of the books I recently checked out from the library is titled How to Tutor Your Own Child, by Marina Ruben, a tutor at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how homeschool-friendly the author seems to be, after all, homeschooling is simply tutoring in a classic sense. The authors covers organization of materials and time, effective methods of instruction, what parents can learn from homeschooling methods such as lapbooking and Susan Wise Bauer's cycle of instruction, mnemonics, putting information in front of children via Frank Gilbreth's painting Morse code on the ceiling a la Cheaper By the Dozen, using new technology, and the ethics of helping vs doing the child's work for them. Despite the liberal slant (promoting NPR as "high quality news"), this book gives many ideas to both public school, private school, and homeschooling parents. 

I was tickled to find so many of the things we do as part of our daily lives, such as reading aloud, making time lines, going on field trips, having multiple library cards (we have cards to 5 libraries in Maine) mentioned as ways to boost grades and inspire learning. That said, I was instantly inspired to pick up some new laminated placemats for the kids featuring maps, money, and a diagram of the solar system (actually I have been meaning to get new ones to replace our damaged ones, but serendipitously happened to find some at Goodwill on Saturday). In addition, we have spent this past week of vacation reading aloud several big kid books (the little ones are already read to every night), including Julie and the Wolves, The Incredible Journey, and by Maggie's insistence, The BFG. 

Most homeschoolers are familiar with many of the methods and ideas presented in this book, but if you happen to see it on the library shelves, pick it up for a little boost of inspiration for yourself.    

so, that's why they call it classic literature

On our recent trip up to the farm I made a decision not to check out any books at the Bangor Public Library or to even walk through the door. The director's decision to invite the Occupy protestors to camp out in the park next to the children's entrance makes me furious. I don't want the kids to be exposed to the lies written on their signs or the violence and disease that these unwashed and uncivilized lay-abouts seem to produce (apparently that is isn't all they produce). 

Instead, I had to rely on the 3 bookcases full of books up in Tim's study to choose from. Mostly they are military, which I don't care for, and Catholic books, which I have already read and make me feel guilty for not being holier, but on a lower shelf is a leather-bound collection of classic books. Except for Pride and Prejudice I was turned off of the classics by a brief stint in Honors English in 8th grade because the class was reading one of the most boring books known to man; Silas Marner. But on Wednesday morning in the midst of a snowstorm and desperate for something to read, I pulled out Jane Eyre and found it riveting and then started in on The Complete Sherlock Holmes. 

Well, I think I can boycott the Bangor library far longer than the occupiers will stand a Maine winter living in a tent, so come spring likely I will be more educated and entertained and be able to venture back into the stacks and catch up on a 6 month backlog of new books. 

The Wilder Life

I love all things Laura Ingalls Wilder. My copies of the original series, the faded yellow paperbacks and my hardbound copies of the first 2, inscribed from my grandparents as a Christmas gift in 1976 are precious mementos I have packed and unpacked in over 12 military moves. My favorite book is the most depressing, The Long Winter, because it amazes me how anyone in that small town survived 9 months of blizzards and biting cold with very little to eat. Apparently not one settler went mad, though Charles Ingalls did raise his fist against the wind and yell that it would not defeat them. 

Many thousands of other have been similarly touched by the Little House books and so there are spin-off books, cookbooks (I still have my copy that my mother and I used to make a Little House dinner when I was in 5th grade), crafts and touristy trinkets, and museums at all the homesites where the Ingalls family lived. Wendy McClure is a writer about my age who has recently published a book, The Wilder Life, about her obsession with all things Laura. She churned her own butter, twisted a hay stick in South Dakota, contemplated filling her pocket with pebbles on the shores of Lake Pepin, spent the night in a covered wagon, and marveled at the tiny houses that the Ingalls family of 6 lived in. It was a wonderful opportunity to visit these places in her book since I have little desire and no reason to drag my family across America to see these sites myself. 

However, I do have one gripe with Ms. McClure and her recollections. Her liberal political mindset permeates her book to the extent that it is uncomfortable to read portions. She lambastes homeschoolers, libertarians, and all things Christian in every chapter. Her determination extends to rewriting the Ingalls family's story to imply that Ma and Pa were only churchgoers for the social aspects of living in deserted, lonely places on the prairie. She forgets that Ma insisted on the Sabbath being a day of rest throughout the whole series. She forgets the reference in Little Town on the Prairie when Mary won a competition at college for knowing more Bible verses than any other student. She forgets the relief Ma showed when DeSmet finally gained a church of its own. No, it wasn't just a social outlet and deep down Ms. McClure knows this, after all she could tell the guide at the DeSmet museum how many acres were included in a homestead claim and the name of Laura's corncob doll. 

There are many, many Laura books out there and this one gives something new, an overview of how meaningful the Little House series is to so many people around the world, if you can just mentally skip the author's bias against the very values and beliefs the Ingalls family held dear.

busting through the wall

Charlie only has 6 stories left in his last Faith and Freedom reader to finish up the 1st grade. The stories began with very simple tales in very large print, but have progressed in difficulty over the 3 book set. As recent as last week it was taking 20 minutes per 5 page story to slowly sound out each word, including ones that he has read hundreds of times such as "said" and "the." The whole experience was painful to him, leading to his constant wriggling and sliding down the pillows of my bed until he was almost lying flat, unable to see the book. I also dreaded "reading time" because I knew that inevitably the other children would act up and I would be trapped with my finger stuck under each word, waiting for him to put together the sounds.

But in the past few days Charlie has been reading faster, speeding up so my finger is darting forward rather than resting still until I have to almost restrain myself from reading it aloud. I know that his reading skills will only improve even faster now and soon he will be picking up picture books to test his reading independence and before I know it, he will be reading all 13 books in the Lemony Snickett series, much to his mother's dismay over fluff books.       

some days are like that

Yesterday was a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day. Charlie had to be reprimanded and apologize to the mother's helper and Julia Ellen spent much of the school day alternating between screaming and having to sit on her bed for time-out. The house was a mess and I felt pulled in every direction from children needing assistance with their work, needing me to wipe their fanny, needing me to put on their socks, nappy, pants, needing me to brush their teeth... I spent an hour running to have some alone time and prepare for my first 10K this weekend and almost got run down by some jerk in his car. I have taken to carrying a stick to ward off SUV drivers who perceive a 40 year old woman running down the side of the road as a target, but this guy made me jump backwards almost into a ditch, refusing to give me even 20" of clearance. I spent the rest of the day wishing for revenge and had nightmares about my body being found and no justice being served against a hit-and-run murderer. Will dragged his feet all day and was 20 minutes late to Cub Scouts because he was still doing math at 5:50pm.
Some days are pretty awful and yesterday I really would have given serious thought to turning in my vocation and moving to Australia. But of course, like Alexander figured out, the sun comes up again and presents us with an opportunity to have a new start.

where have you been?

I'm sure someone has been asking that question, but after spying The Orchid Affair on the new fiction shelf at the library, I've been holed up re-reading the entire series of spy stories by Lauren Willig. The first is The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, with 8 others following. To get a gist of them, think Jane Austen time frame and setting with lots of British and french spies trying to kill each other with a bit of spice and much romance thrown in. I have come up for air, meals, school, and Mass, but am spending all my free time immersing myself in Napoleonic exploits, hair dressing tips, George III, the myriad of ways one can tie a cravet, a bevy of flowery spies, and proper decorum for young ladies at balls. 

storytime hits

The past few weeks our "big kid" story time has been expanded by 1 child since Charlie was found to be lurking in the hallway during our final days of Anne of Avonlea. We invited him up to join us on the bed and he fully enjoyed, without too much wiggling, The Magician's Nephew. They were so excited to hear the remainder of the story that we took an hour on Friday afternoon to finish up. Now we have to pick our next tale: Winnie the Pooh, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Children of Noisy Village, or Wind in the Willows.

I noticed a few months ago that some of my favorite classic books weren't being read in favor of flashier ones from the library. While I want the children to pick up these novels on their own, me reading aloud does give us a chance to continue our evening reading habit even though the older ones have outgrown picture books. However, I still do see Mary and Maggie listen in during the little boy's story hour on the sofa and sometimes they are good enough to read aloud to them with very fine expression.

It pleases me immensely that all the children (other than Julia Ellen) can sit for 45 minutes straight and listen to someone read to them as well as the oldest who read under their covers with the flashlight. Perhaps one day I will miss storytime, but with thousands of good "big kid" books to choose from, I don't think that will happen for a very, very long time.   

emerging readers

Charlie was given a new windup flashlight yesterday morning in a little ceremony. I told him that he was now a reader after he sounded out the first 4 Bob Books. The flashlight allows him to join his older brothers and sisters as they stay up late in their beds flipping book pages. I observed Timmy this evening telling baby Julia Ellen, "You can't play with that flashlight. It is Mary's. You will get your own flashlight when you get big and read books." 

Since our typical trip to the library is almost an hour in length and concludes with us toting 3-4 huge bags of books out to the van, I'm sure in no time we will have 6 competent readers.

where do vitamins come from?

I have been reading a very interesting book entitled Twinkie, Deconstructed, My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated into What America Eats.

What amazed me was the complexity of processing in every box, bag, and jar of ready to eat food on the grocer's shelf. For every ingredient there is a long chain from farmers/miners to factories to make those substances into something edible. Many of the vitamins and minerals that make their way into pills and enriched flour are made in China, which does not bode well for our future security and health. This danger was emphasized today at this news:

China, which has been blocking shipments of crucial minerals to Japan for the last month, has now quietly halted some shipments of those materials to the United States and Europe, three industry officials said this week.

Our trade imbalance with China is so severe that any attempt to put tariffs on imported goods could result in a scarcity of One-A-Day bottles on the grocery store shelves or a return of such vitamin deficiency diseases such as beriberi (caused by an absence of thiamine, B1). What a mess we have found ourselves in today because of a 30 year transfer of manufacturing from the US to overseas. There are few items we really need to import from hostile countries, but vitamins are vitally important ones we don't think about.   

the library card blues

Despite owning enough children's books to open our own lending library (this isn't even all of them), the kids and I went down to the local library on Monday to get some fresh things to read, complete with our two items showing proof of residency. The city where we moved requires a hefty deposit paid in person just to turn on the water, so if my stepfather hadn't gone downtown for us, we would have shown up at the new house at 1am with no water. Apparently all the city services are so used to being abused and taken advantage of that they don't know how to react to decent folks who don't skip town owing hundreds of dollars.

In the past 3 years we have lived in 4 states: North Carolina, Maryland, Maine, and back to Virginia and have encountered the library policies in several towns in those localities. The Montgomery County, Maryland library system gave me grief for wanting to know the titles my children had out so we could scour the house and return them, because I was violating Will and Mary's "privacy rights". We resolved the situation by getting a household card with a 100 book limit, which is about how many books a family of 8 can carry out the door. The three libraries we frequent in Maine are very generous with their checkouts, I don't think any had a limit as long as you didn't owe any fines. But the library here has a 30 book limit per card, which is not very many when you are counting up picture books or short chapter paperback series, such as The Boxcar Children. So, after only 4 days we were back at the branch library to renew our stash only to find half way through checking out out that we hit the limit. I said, "Well, we will just get Charlie a card," but found out that we need to show all the proof of residency yet again (sorry, I don't store the power and gas bills in my purse). I'm of a mind to get every child their own card the next time we go in so our household limit will be 240 books just to irritate the powers that be at the library.

Homeschoolers as a general rule are more responsible with materials than the average Joe, check out more books, and return them more promptly. I will also write a letter to the library board asking for a large family/homeschool option to check out more than a skimpy 30 book stack limit currently in place.