St. Francis Academy

Food, Glorious Food!

Well, I'm always happy when I'm successful in the kitchen. 

Last night we had roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots for dinner.  Since I had used up my stash of homemade chicken stock when I made chicken noodle soup during the recent bout of the flu, I decided I needed to boil up another batch.  Normally I don't bother to deglaze the roasting pan, but I had been reading somewhere about how doing this can really lend a depth of flavor to the stock that isn't otherwise there, so I gave it a shot.

Man, oh, man....what incredible stuff I concocted last night!  It's stock that really could be imbibed straight out as a broth...mmm-mmm good.  It will make some lovely soup some day or the most sublime gravy I've ever had.  Yes, I am proud.

I wasn't really expecting to hit homeruns two nights in a row, so I was pleasantly surprised at how incredible this broccoli recipe is.  I'm posting the link and encouraging you all to give it a try. (You too, Pat!)  I got thumbs up from all the kids who tried it.  I think I was perhaps a bit too generous with the kosher salt, but we still wound up with some hearty, meaty flavored veggies.  This would've gone great with portabello mushrooms, but I served it up with penne pasta and grilled chicken breast tenderloins.  Divine...

What a Long Week

OK, so it has been a while.  My last post kept you hanging as to the health status of my family.  Julia and Matt wound up feeling not so good.  Fortunately for Matt he had just one night of a slight fever/malaise.  However, he has a nagging, lingering cough that is more annoying to him than anything.  Julia wound up with the full-fledged whatever as did Lizzy.  They were both miserable enough on Halloween to need to stay mostly immobile in the living room instead of taking part in the night's festivities.  Aidan was miserably sick, too, so we stayed put while John handed out Halloween candy and socialized w/the neighbors out front around the suburban campfire (contained in one of those little portable fireplace thingies) and Matt took Cate, Drew, and Connor trick-or-treating.  The deal was they would conquer the whole neighborhood so there would be plenty of candy to share with their sick siblings.

Aidan really had us concerned.  I'm a big believer in letting the body's natural abilities fight off attacking germs.  Thus, if a child has a fever, I try to let it go, since this is one of the body's ways of fighting off infection.  However, after going on the fourth day of fever and lethargy for Aidan, I decided to take him in to urgent care the Thursday before Halloween to see what was up.  The doctor diagnosed a double ear infection, conjunctivitis, and a upper respiratory infection.  He prescribed antibiotics and eye drops and sent us on our way, with added instructions to treat the fever and snot w/over-the-counter children's meds.  Little did I know that the medical way of doing things wouldn't ease Aidan's misery at all, and, probably made things more difficult for both of us. 

First of all, he does not like the idea of mom sticking a dispensing syringe in his mouth, regardless of how "tasty" the necessary meds may be.  It instantly induces a fierce gag-reflex, the likes of which I've never experienced with any previous children!  Nonetheless, I tried valiently, ignoring current research that indicates that 80% of ear infections heal without the use of antibiotics.  Secondly, well, after a small taste of these cherry-flavored meds, all deals were off trying to "disguise" them in any food or drink.  Yes, he's a smart cookie!  After the third day of failed attempts, I switched over to my crunchy-breastfeeding mama way, and dosed myself with flu-fighting, immune-boosting herbs (which i had already been doing), with the promise made to myself that I would take Aidan back in on Tuesday if he showed no signs of getting better (that would've been eight days of fevers).

I don't know if it was herbs or time or a combination of the two, and I don't really care!  On Tuesday, he had his first truly non-feverish day and has shown improvement since then, though he is still fairly clingy, has his crabby moments, and awakens with that cough that everyone else in the house has (except for me...fingers crossed).  We got through it, but boy was it a trying, intense time.  I'm grateful that I wasn't sick right along with the kids, or it could've been a whole lot worse for everyone.

Illness Rehash

Someone in the house has been sick for over a week.  I should clarify that "different someones" have been ill at some point during the last week/week-an-a-half.  A week ago Friday, Julia came down with a cold/cough and her cough is still lingering.  Then John fell ill following a basketball game a week ago Sunday.  He was out for three days w/fever/coughing.  He's better, but not 100%.  Just as John was recovering, Connor became sick w/fever/coughing last Thursday.  He also had laryngitis.  While his voice has recovered for the most part, he also has a lingering cough.  Sunday morning, Lizzy and Drew were feverish and beginning to cough.  They both seemed better Monday morning, but Drew's fever came back Monday night.  Cate and Aidan started with fever/coughing on Monday and Aidan had a rough night Monday night. 

At the present moment, Matt is sleeping in our bedroom after coming upstairs from his home office complaining of feeling dizzy and slightly feverish.  And me?  Well, I feel slightly dizzy, but not bad enough to want or need to lie down.  I've dosed myself with raw onion and garlic (with tomatoes and oil/vinegar for lunch), echinacea, vitamin C, and elderberry.  I'm just hoping to stay healthy enough to shuttle the one "healthy" kid to the places he needs to be over the next couple of days.  Wish me luck!

Laptop!!!

An extremely brief post before retiring to bed for the night.  My laptop (new to me) arrived today, so we're in the process of switching over a few computers in the attempt to make most people happy in this house.  Four laptops and three PCs on three different levels of this house!  Can you tell we like computers???

Anyway, maybe this will help me chronicle my life a little more regularly. :-)

Please don't tell the kids

Last night I decided to experiment with a much-loved, easy-peasy, super-simple chocolate cake recipe.  I substituted a healthier flour blend for the usual unbleached white flour.  Also, in an effort to reduce the amount of fat from the olive oil, I used canned, pureed pumpkin (note, NOT pumpkin pie filling, which is sweetened and spiced, I believe...just plain ol' punkin like Libby's).  I read that an equal amount of pumpkin can be substituted for the fat in a recipe.  For this recipe, it was 2/3 cup, which wound up being about half of a 15 oz. can.  I'm hoping I will be able to freeze the other half, otherwise I need to think of another recipe I can use it in in the next day or so!

Anyway, I did mention to the kids that the cake had some whole wheat flour in it, because, well, that's a flavor that is distinct and it was detectable as being "different" in this cake, but I didn't tell them about the pumpkin.  They ate it anyway.  Perhaps the wheatiness wouldn't have been as noticeable if I kept the fat in the recipe?  Whatever...don't tell the kids!

Playful Learning

In a search for "learning spaces" I came across the Playful Learning website.  It is just lovely.  Take some time to explore the website and be inspired.  I especially love this offshoot of Playful Learning: Playful Learning Spaces. Ahh...lovely.

Natural Learning Journal

I decided to try to keep track of our learning journey online, so I created a new blog called "Live. Laugh. Learn."  Only one post up there, but I'm hoping to post weekly summaries.

What We've Been Up To

Or what would otherwise be "week 7" if I were really still holding fast to the setup we began with in late August. :-)

More or less we've been "deschooling" from the school-at-home regime I had slipped into.  That started with having the three girls FINALLY paint their dressers in their room.  They did a great job and the finished dressers help the room look more finished itself.  I helped Cate (5) paint the drawers and Lizzy (10) helped paint the dresser top, but Cate did great painting the rest of it (in her favorite color, pink) by herself. 

Julia threw herself into her writing project and her artwork, no surprise there.  We got her a laptop for her birthday, so she's been spending a LOT of time online, which is fine.  She reads a lot, writes a lot, and thinks a lot.   Much of what she does revolves around or relates to, in some way, the Beatles.  Since she has such an interest in the Beatles and the 60s, I figured I'd rent "Woodstock" and we'd watch it together.  We watched last weekend while Matt and John were at baseball.  Funny...I remember it being a LOT cooler when I was about 20!  Still, we're both wanting to watch the movie "Taking Woodstock" but will likely have to wait until it comes out on DVD.

John spends a good deal of his spare time playing poker, either online, with friends, or here at home with the siblings.  Lots of math and mental stuff going on there.  I'm happy he's naturally good at math.  For laughs, one night last week we played "what's the square root of...?" which everyone joined in on. He's also still doing well at school with minimal effort or input on my part.  Then there are the sports.  He plays fall baseball on two teams, depending on when they need him, and he is playing in a fall basketball league with the guys from last year's team so they can prepare for basketball tryouts that come up in November.

Lizzy has been doing more independent baking...she made chocolate sugar cookies and a chocolate bundt cake.  She was really pleased that I asked her if she wanted me to buy a bundt pan when we were in the baking aisle at the grocery store.  She is the one who likes working in workbooks, so she works here and there on math and spelling, usually in the evenings.

Connor has captured all sorts of creatures in the last few weeks.  This week he caught a frog at Miami Meadows after getting a new net at Wal-Mart.  He has kept busy finding crickets around the house to feed to the frog.  He also found a turtle in the woods, but has since released it.  He spends time online watching YouTube videos of wrestling or "the world's biggest" whatever creature he's interested in at the moment.

Drew is Drew.  What else can I say?  He's smart and absorbs a lot around him.  He had a concussion this week as a result of falling out of the top bunk in his sleep...had his first CT scan!  He  is clear to play football, though, so he's happy.  He also pitched for the first time last week for his fall ball team.

Cate is memorizing the alphabet song, though she knows her letters by sight and can write most of them w/a little help.  She enjoys making lists and playing Barbies.

Me?  As usual I'm reading and researching during this deschooling period.  Here are a few quotes from a relaxed homeschooling article by Mary Hood:

"It [relaxed homeschooling] is really just a mindset. It’s the idea that you are a family, not a school. You’re a mom, not a teacher. You don’t have a classroom. You have individual relationships with your children. Your husband isn’t a principal, because there isn’t really a school. He is the head of your household, a dad, and your number one supporter."

And this one:

"Having a "relaxed homeschooling mindset" will free you up from many responsibilities, and make the ones you do have, clearer and easier to fulfill. If you aren’t a "teacher", you don’t necessarily need to make lesson plans, purchase teacher’s manuals, test and grade your children, or teach them every subject known to man all by yourself. You don’t have to select a particular curriculum, and have everything in place every year on September first, the way a classroom teacher does. You don’t need to begin each day with a pledge to the flag, and divide the morning up into fifty-minute segments, each devoted to a particular subject. You don’t have to go from room to room teaching fifth grade social studies, third grade science, and first grade phonics. You don’t need to make a bunch of reluctant children sit at the kitchen table for hours laboring over boring workbooks."

Hooray!  How did I lose sight of theses things???

I think it might be time to reconsider what Mary Hood has presented.  I remember reading something by her in the past and thinking, "well, duh" because we were in the midst of relaxed homeschooling.  I see that our local library has her audio collection available, so I'll be checking that out ASAP.

I Knew This Would Happen

It is five weeks into our district's first quarter.  I spent the summer feverishly making plans for history and science, and, to a lesser degree, English and math.  I've done it this way for two years now, ever since I was expecting our seventh child and considered that some structure in our "schooling" might be a good thing as we adjusted to a new addition to our family.  Built into this "structure" was permission to deviate from the plans should something better come along.  So, I planned, in order to have some "road map" to help us (me?) get back on track after said deviation.  Needless to say, there were relatively few deviations.

So, why did I continue in this mode of schoolishness once we had settled into some semblance of a routine with child number seven?  Perhaps because I was mistaken that now that the older kids were of jr. high/high school age, that a more natural approach to learning was no longer suitable.  That carried into my summer planning, now that it seemed necessary (to me) to have things that were "transcript-worthy" for my oldest.  Oh, yes, I was still in control of the curriculum, so I wasn't like those "school-at-home" folks.  Or was I???

Six weeks ago it started to dawn on me how much our "schooling" had changed when I went for the "portfolio review" with the assessor we've gone to since beginning our home education journey.  It was a good review, with much discussion on how things have gone, how the kids learn best (with rabbit trails on Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences, as well as the book Math Doesn't Suck), and an examination on goals in general and the various ways in which they can be achieved.  In short, it helped me to see that my plans, while "transcript-worthy", were possibly not the most suitable means for my children to learn "for real." 

This was confirmed by the kids when, three weeks into the quarter, I started to hear heavy sighs from the high schooler, "this is stupid" from the jr. high student, and "do I have to do 'x'" by my middle schooler.  Where was the joy, the natural curiosity that my children used to have (they still do)?  I was killing it with my good-intentioned plans, so I've backed off and have let them lead the way. 

The middle schooler who was hating the grammar we were doing, is getting great joy from playing Mad-Libs with anyone who will play (this she discovered on her own).  The high schooler oddly ran with the assigned reading of Don Quixote and watched Man of La Mancha last week, noting how "messed up" the sequence of events were in the movie when compared to the portion of the book she read.  She found out about the movie from a friend on the deviant ART community where she's been a member for years (which is also where she shares her art and fan fiction, so I know she's productive).  The Jr. High kid is putting his energy into the two classes he is taking at the local school and honing his athletic skills.  The elementary kids are continuing on their natural learning journeys.  One has been tending tadpoles he caught at his brother's football practice, another is perfecting his reading skills in various self-directed ways, and the other is just starting on her reading journey.  The toddler is curious and is doing the things that toddlers do.

I'm looking forward to Friday when the district has a day off and we can choose to do something without being tied to the drop-off/pick-up schedule that we're currently tied to.

They Say It's Your Birthday...

na-na-na-na na-na-na-nahhhh [thump-thump-thump]

What? You can't tell that's my impression of an electric guitar [and bass drum] from the Beatles' "Birthday"? Pshaw...

Today is our dear Julia's 15th birthday (yes, she was named for the song).  It's hard to believe that a short 15 years ago I became a mother, completely unaware of the awesomeness of this vocation, completely unaware how immediately I would fall in love with the new little blessing placed in my arms.  And now that little blessing has transformed into a lovely young woman, interesting and fun to spend time with.  I can't tell you how fabulous it is to have such a like mind in my household, someone who totally 'gets' my quirkiness.  The years ahead can only get better!

Last night, the girls and I went to the cheap cinema (with way over-priced food) and watched Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Hank Azaria's character, Kamunrah, was HILARIOUS with his lisping...oh, it just tickled me so!  The boys were a bit jealous that we went without them, but one had a scrimmage football game at the same time.  Oh well...we'll do a boys' night out soon.

Today we're planning to go to Beads and Things (or whatever that bead store in Eastgate is called) to check out their stock.  Not sure what else we'll do since John's transportation schedule kind of messes with my days.  I'm guessing it will involve a birthday cake...either shopping for or baking...and planning some sort of birthday dinner.