BSG Awe

Erin was the first one to develop a love for the new Battlestar Galactica. She watched as much as she could on-line and bought episodes for her iPod.

Then we began renting Season 1 episodes from Zip.ca and gradually the rest of the family got keen. None got as keen as Fiona, though. For whatever reason, she loves loves loves BSG. She spent much time and energy engaging Erin in conversation during our recent trip to Calgary about who was the favourite / funniest / most pathetic / coolest / bravest / nicest character. When we made the decision to cancel our Zip subscription and put some of the savings into DVDs for purchase, including seasons 2 and 3 of BSG, Fiona got truly giddy.

It's fun to see Fiona and Erin sharing an interest like this. The other two kids (and their mom) like BSG, but with Fiona it's an obsession, and Erin has that history of passionate fan-dom that allows her to support and share some of Fiona's glee.

After we placed our order Fiona continued to go through giggling spells of anticipatory glee. And then ... our boxed sets started arriving. There have been two or three marathon viewing sessions so far. She is completely thrilled. She generally sits in the same chair as Erin, almost on top of her. Erin doesn't normally like people in her personal space bubble, but somehow BSG and Fiona manage to soften her up.

If you haven't seen the new Battlestar Galactica, while I wouldn't recommend it as a rule for 7-year-olds, I do think it's an impressive series. The premise, re-imagined from the original series, is of a rag-tag bunch of human survivors fleeing into space after their planet was destroyed by cylon robots. The robots, originally developed by man, have evolved consciousness and the ability to impersonate humans, and infiltrate and attack their creators. The acting is pretty good, and the character development is impressive, the treatment of political, religious, moral and social issues is thought-provoking.

Summer beach day

Towels are drying on the line. Finally we had a summery day at the beach. It came after yesterday's Corazon double-bill of final concerts in Nelson -- fantastic and euphoric and tear-jerking all at once. One final recording session left and it's all over for the season.

Today I made good progress in the book-keeping and then we all went to the beach. The water was cold, but I made it in for a swim not once but twice. Quite something for me; having grown up in Ontario I prefer my lakes warm. Though I confess I only went in the second time because everyone left me on the floating dock and paddled back in aboard the kayak or the inner tube. "You're a grown-up!" said Chuck. Easy to say from the stern of the kayak.

Metaphor for a sibling

Fiona: "Polyphemus is the guy from 'The Lightning Thief.'"
Noah: (laughing and rolling eyes) "No, Fiona, he's from Greek mythology. He wasn't invented for the Percy Jackson books. They use stories that were invented thousands of years before."
Fiona: "Oh."
Noah: "Hey Fiona, there's this cool food, it's called a tomato and it's from a book called 'My First Vegetables.'"

Uproarious laughter. Fiona is reassured that we are not laughing at her, but at Noah's gift for creating witty and incisive examples of concepts. She is eventually somewhat persuaded.

Got her "L"

This is the magnetic decal that beginning drivers use in BC. The L stands for "learner." It gets placed on the back of the vehicle that, say, a newly-16-year-old girl might drive with her parent to get her first experience driving on public roadways.

Tomorrow I will be tweaking the insurance to cover her and afterwards we will set off on her first driving adventure around town. She's driven on our property and on other private roadways, but this is the real deal.

People ask whether it terrifies me. It doesn't. She'll be a good driver I think. And others ask whether I mourn this rite of passage because it means she's less a child and that much closer to being an adult. I don't. Maybe I'm just so sick of all the driving I've done ferrying this kid around to her lessons and rehearsals. Life will be good next year when she can test for her "N" and start driving herself places without me. But I'm also just darned proud to watch her growing up.

Building character

"I believe school really builds kids character. For example, I felt lonely and "on the fringe" in school and grew to be a very compassionate person for the underdog."

I disagree. I think people become strong like plants become strong -- by starting with deep roots. I think that childhood is a time to grow deep roots. Later you can challenge the seedling with wind, drought, and deluge and it will probably do just fine because it will have the firm grounding necessary to weather the hardship.

Much of what gets labeled "character building" is actually emotional trauma that kids, as thankfully resilient as they are, gradually get over. But I don't think that "getting over" happens without a cost -- often the result is a subtle emotional guardedness, a "hardening", a wariness, a fear of being hurt, a reticence to commit, a tendency to look to others for approval, to try to please peers or avoid attracting attention rather than stand up for what one believes. Growing up tough enough that you can shrug off others' hurts sounds like strength of character, but I think it's hardness of character. True strength of character comes of knowing deep down who you are, and knowing that you are supported and loved for who you are, so that hurts don't damage your sense of your true self.

Many of us view the traumas we went through as kids is something ultimately worthwhile because they made us stronger. I confess I used to believe that myself. But now I think we like to believe that because the alternate interpretation is to awful to contemplate -- that the traumas we went through were entirely useless and unnecessary and wrong, that they should never have happened, that we would have been emotionally healthier people if we'd been protected from those things. That's saying "I went through all that for nothing?!!!" It's not a very welcome conclusion, but I think it's closer to the truth.

Two of my kids are now teens. As youngsters they were very much protected from hurtful comments, abusive friendships, exclusionary social tactics, bullying, anxiety-provoking social situations, aggression, power-plays and such. They've grown into very strong people with strong senses of who they are. They shrug off the hurtful language and behaviour of others with little difficulty. They navigate the minefield of social relationships with confidence and matter-of-fact good sense. Strong roots, I think.

Me 'n my baby

I'm never in the photos in my own blog. We stopped for lunch yesterday, though -- we had been hoping to skate on the community rink at the café but it was too warm -- and one of the teens we had along for the ride was a bit of a shutterbug. Unlike my kids.

She took the camera I had brought and started snapping photos. Amongst them was a goofy one of Fiona and me. So here I am, in my own blog! With my "baby," who will soon be seven. Which is surprising in some ways, because it seems like just yesterday I was pregnant with her. And it means I'm getting close to 50. But in many ways she's seemed older than 6 for a long long time.

Like...

We like our new espresso machine, "bought" with grocery store points. It was our family's Christmas Eve treat for ourselves. The kids have a penchant for steamed milk, London Fogs and decaffuccinos. The adults like their lattés and cappuccinos. So far it has seen a whole lot of use. Everyone in the family now knows how to run through espresso shots and steam or froth milk.

Next, below, Sophie is playing with our new sudoku board. Sophie really likes sudoku but finds the physical/tactile version much easier and more fun to use. Especially fun are the little drawers on each side of the board for storing the number tiles.

At the bottom, a bloom of Two Hills art tea, in this case Jasmine Fairy Flower Green Tea. We recently discovered Two Hills, a local importer of quality organic Chinese teas farmed and processed ethically. The regular Jasmine Tea is like something from another world. The art tea version, which "blooms" in your cup, adds visual appeal too.

Our Christmas was as usual a fairly simple affair. Perhaps a little simpler than usual this year. On the gifting front there were a half dozen inextravagant gifts for each of the kids, a couple for the parents, plus a handful of "family gifts" like the ones pictured. Few gifts cost over $30, none over a hundred. Mostly useful things -- clothing, things for the bedroom, books. We had the usual cinnamon buns for breakfast, and a nice supper which included a small turkey for the meat-eaters. No extended family or friends over this year. Chuck was on call, though he only had to go into the hospital once during the day, which was nice.

Sometimes I wonder if we have simplified too much. For many years we focused on special things to do through the holidays, on making things by hand, on contributing good deeds around the community and beyond. Lately we don't even do that much, besides participating in the flurry of Christmas performances and doing a fair bit of charitable giving. So it's just not that big a deal, Christmas. It's a time to be together as a family, to focus on the value of giving, and participate in a few special rituals.

I'm not sure if it should be bigger. My kids' friends' families mostly make a much bigger deal over Christmas. The gifts, especially. Do mine feel embarrassed when their friends ask what their favourite Christmas gifts were and they have only a small humble few to choose amongst (a pair of mittens? a book? a jar of marmalade?), none of which rate next to the laptops, wii's, iPhones, iTouches, X-boxes, Kindles and such that the others got?

We had a nice Christmas. It wasn't the pinnacle day of the year (that would be the first Friday in August every year, the last day of SVI). No one's complaining. I guess we're doing okay.

And this year we had only a tiny handful of paper and plastic, plus two cardboard boxes, to dispose of.

Not all fun and games

Someone commented to me (about our recent changes in daily structure):

"Life is not all fun and games and shouldn't be treated as such, sometimes there are things that we have to do even when we don't want to..."

I think this is a little simplistic. I agree that life is not all fun and games. However, my approach has been to try to help my kids look beyond immediate wants to more abstract wants. For instance, Noah wants to be able to play Beethoven, Dvorak and Schubert string quartets, to get the thrill of performing those great works, to experience the joy of working with others on that common goal. Those are abstract, long-term goals. In order to have those 'wants' satisfied, that means practicing scales and studies on the viola today, and tomorrow, and every day. And that may not be intrinsically enjoyable. But does he want to become a better viola player? And does he recognize that this is part of that process? Yes! And so it's no hardship to motivate himself to do the daily scales and studies. He has made the connection and he actually wants to do his practicing even if he doesn't always feel like doing it.

So rather than saying "sometimes we have to do stuff we don't want to" I prefer to say "sometimes we have to do stuff we don't feel like doing because it gets us stuff we really want." I think that's a much healthier long-lasting message to get, because ultimately it facilitates self-regulation and doesn't rely on other people setting rules for us.

Helping kids forge those connections between immediate action and big-picture wants is one of the most difficult parenting tasks, I think. My kids definitely want more balanced lives; they want to be healthy, helpful, good people with strong relationships. They're just not yet always naturals at connecting their immediate actions to those bigger-picture goals. I think that they needed a little remedial teaching in this respect -- someone to forcefully point their gaze at those longer-term goals, and give them a little experience with the habits of behaviour that serve those goals, so that they can re-affirm the connection between them -- and strengthen it within themselves.

At least that's what I'm trying to do. Time will tell.

Nine Days Debriefing and Re-Assessment

Our nine day experiment with structure was up yesterday. This morning we got up and did math, handwriting, biology, physics, chores, music theory and the like just like we had for the previous nine days. The experiment was over and awaiting re-assessment, but we kept working away anyway. Hmm.

This evening we had our official meeting to talk about it. Zowee. Who would 'a thunk it? To wit, the kids' input:

• Yes, let's keep the 11 pm bedtime. In fact, some of the kids would like to make bedtime earlier, but that's always an option, so an 11 pm rule is fine.
• Yes, let's keep the Structured Schooling. A couple of hours a day is about right.
• Let's buy more workbooks and DVD lectures so that there are more resources available as the year progresses.
• No-Screen Day. It's cool. But once a week is probably too often to keep it 'special.' Let's have a biweekly No-Screen Day.
• Things are better now. Let's keep working on this. We're getting somewhere.

Nine days

We had a family meeting a little over a week ago. It was a more significant meeting than usual, because Chuck was part of it: he wanted to express some concerns he's had about how people in this house are choosing to spend their time. These are concerns I share, though I tend to see more of the 'good stuff' than he does, and have spent a lot more energy learning to look at the apparently-not-so-good-stuff through different lenses. I look at these same issues through the lens of unschooling, of autonomous learning, peering far outside the box, seeing the occasional breathtaking efficiency of learning driven by authentic engagement. I have quelled most of my concerns through years of studiously nurtured trust and big-picture viewing. But the concerns were still lurking under the surface of my mind. And so when Chuck put them into words I thought "Wow, he's expressing some interest in how things work around here, and he's saying a lot of things I've felt over the years." I figured he ought to say those things out loud to the kids -- partly so that they know he cares about their learning and growing, but mostly so that we can all understand and take into account his frustrations, concerns... and feelings.

The main issues ... that the kids are as a group quite sedentary, fairly withdrawn, spending an inordinate amount of time in front of the computer and precious little time contributing to the well-being of the family. The creative chaos which has in the past spawned such amazing things as HTML websites coded from scratch, stop-motion animation, the vast imaginary Euwy World, deep conversations late at night about the ethics of war and how to nurture friendships, well, these days the creative chaos isn't as creative. The activities we used to do together don't happen much any more. Since the older kids have been able to stay home alone they've pretty much mostly done so. Concerts, hikes, shopping trips, errands, social visits -- once they became optional the kids stopped coming.

And overall they don't seem to really feel that good about themselves. They have good intentions and fine ambitions and solid values. But when it comes to actually doing virtuous things there's always tomorrow. There's not a lot of bubbly joy and energy in evidence around here. There's a certain amount of inward-turning and detachment from family that one would expect during adolescence. That accounts for some of it no doubt. But it seemed to go deeper than that. There was a lot of aimlessness and 'flatness' for lack of a better word. And a prevailing sense amongst the kids as well that a lot of worthwhile stuff that took just slightly more energy than playing on the computer wasn't being got around to.

I've put a lot of work into supporting the kids in self-structuring. We've gone over this ground a lot in family meetings, at learning plan meetings, in casual discussions. There's a weird paradox that often arises in such conversations. A kid would say she wanted structure, and would like me to create it for her, and administer it, somewhat forcefully, but I should allow her to decline if she really didn't want to comply with the structure. And I should also take the blame if the refusal is habitual and I eventually gave up trying to administer the structure. I feel like a pushmepullyou -- asked for structure, reviled for giving it, refused over and over, and then blamed for not giving it forcefully enough.

Collaborative problem-solving can be a great thing. But maybe there's such a thing as too much of it. Sometimes kids can listen to their parents say "do you have any ideas on how to fix this problem?" and instead hear "I'm your parent, but I don't know what to do -- can you fix things for our family?" Understandably that can provoke a lot of unease, anxiety and discomfort. Kids shouldn't have to bear the full responsibility of stuff like that. (And of course they didn't -- but I think maybe they perceived it that way on some level.) Sometimes I think the pushmepullyou response I got when trying to support the kids in self-structuring was their way of saying "Sheesh, mom, you're the parent! I don't want to have to tell you how to be a parent -- just do it."

We reached a bit of a stalemate at our family meeting. There were no lines drawn in the sand, but there were six people standing in different places on the sand not sure what to do to find some common ground. The kids didn't have any suggestions on how to remedy / appease / co-operate / change or try something new.

So I basically instituted a unilateral experiment with parent-imposed structure. The experiment would last nine days. Bedtime 11 pm. No computer time until daily responsibilities have been completed. Daily responsibilities include household work of various sorts (i.e. chores) and a selection of parent-administered tasks derived from the kids' self-designed learning plans (a.k.a. homeschooling).

There were some initial moans of protest. There were a few tears on Day 1. By Day 3 the protests were gone. The bedtime rule was lauded by the very same boy who had moaned at first about no more all-night gaming jags. By Day 5 children were saying "I like this system." By Day 7 they had all decided it should stay in place after the nine day trial. Perhaps with some tweaks, but basically as it stands.

Years ago I would read on homeschooling message boards comments like this: "I'd love to unschool, but my son really thrives on structure." Unschooling seemed to be working beautifully for us at the time, but I would chuckle and think to myself "If my kids were the type to thrive on structure, how would I know?" Maybe it was kind of like Fiona's eyesight -- she was profoundly far-sighted and couldn't see properly, and had no way of knowing it because she'd never seen anything clearly.

I'm not chuckling any longer.

The big spree

Unlike their older sister, Fiona and Sophie kind of like clothes. They think the clothes in the Lands End kids catalogues are cute and really cool. But they recognize that we are more of a thrift store family; we don't spend that kind of money on clothes very often. However, both of them are very good at saving their allowance money, and it suddenly dawned on them that they had a lot of savings that could be spent on whatever swanky new Lands End clothes they wanted. They spent at least a couple of hours going through the catalogue, circling things, adding up prices, putting in question marks, revising their lists, recalculating. They needed to also estimate US dollar conversion, duty and shipping.

We agreed that "need to have" clothes would be purchased out of family resources from the usual thrifty sources, while they could buy the pricier, more frivolous things for themselves.

Eventually they decided on their order and went on-line. That's when we discovered on-line pricing and the fall sale. Most things were on sale. Sometimes it was "Buy 2 or more and save $2.50 on each." In this case she and Sophie negotiated with each other to buy different versions of similar items and get the savings.

"Okay, so if I buy jeans instead of yoga pants, will you get some of the leggings so that I can get the cheaper price on those?"

Some things were 60-80% off if you bought them in particular colours. They were persuaded to purchase the cheaper colours. And some items just had standard sale prices.

Fiona had planned to spend just over $100. Her order came in at just less than $70. So she bought a couple more sale items. Sophie's savings were similar. Then I remembered a coupon that meant if they bought one more regular-priced item, they'd get $25 off. So they basically got one expensive item for free.

We had to discuss how to share that coupon fairly. They both recognized that although it seemed like it was the last item of Sophie's that we got "for free" that really the coupon should be shared more equitably. It turned out that the $25 pretty much equalled the shipping cost. So that was easy. Each girl was billed for the cost of her items and neither paid shipping.

The order shipped yesterday. They're really excited. I'm happy that a big chunk of their allowance savings has been spent on something other than gum, iPods or computer games.

Thirteen

Another teenager in the family. A handsome one, too, if I do say so.

Yes, that's the Portal cake, painstakingly decorated by Sophie.

Un-running update

It was six months ago today that I started running. Unfortunately, I basically stopped running about a month ago due to recalcitrant hip pain. I did a few short easy runs after I got hurt but I ended up in a lot of pain. So I stopped running at the end of August. My pain improved about 50% but my improvement stalled after that. I can walk with little to no limp most of the time, but any jogging or anything that puts more force on my leg than normal standing and walking is totally out of the question -- the pain is immediate. So no half marathon for me.

After a couple of weeks of zero running with no improvement I went to see a chiropractor, a runner himself, with lots of knowledge about gait and sports injuries. He was mystified -- I have complete painless range of motion and good strength, but persistent weight-bearing pain, and it hasn't responded to the manipulations and exercises he's suggested.

So at his request I'm waiting to get a bone scan to rule out a femoral neck stress fracture. In the meantime I am needing a lot of help with day-to-day stuff like carrying bags of pears and groceries, moving the fruit press around, hauling bags of chicken feed, lifting the apple press, emptying out the cat litter, moving the dog food to the basement and such-like. It's really frustrating. I'm so accustomed to being able to lift and carry and haul and move stuff. I don't like asking for help. And to be honest my family isn't so great about actually helping even when asked. I need to keep working on them -- but it's hard when I don't like having to ask. I suppose I should welcome this challenge as an opportunity for personal growth.

The piano room

Ignore the wainscoting. This is always the way with home improvements -- fixing the worst thing makes the next-worst thing look more awful. The kids are at work removing the white press-board panelling as I type. Not sure what we'll be doing with the walls yet. Everything is a work in progress.

The floor has now had the sealer oil topcoat apply and the colour has come up beautifully. The floor is just soooo lovely.

Climbing out of the pit

We had a mammoth family meeting the other day. It had been a long time coming. Months, I think. We used to have them weekly. Then our informal café dates became a place for discussion and things got looser... and progressively less effective. Sophie said, out of the blue the other day, "we need a Family Meeting." I thought about my February pit of despair and realized she was right. Things felt like they were in decay. Perhaps a meeting would help us climb out of the pit were were in.

We planned afternoon tea at a local café, at a big table where we could linger and talk. Alas both our favourite cafés were closed, one taking longer than we expected for renovations, the other just inexplicably closed. So we bought milk and cookies at the grocery store and headed home to our very own kitchen table. The little Danish cookies were a bit of a novelty and did lovely crumbly-crunchy things when dipped in hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and caramel sauce. It was a good place to start a meeting.

It took us ages to discuss all the stuff that had been piling up. The agenda included the standard five items or so, but each had to be explored in depth. Our agenda normally includes:

1. music practicing
2. balance of out-of-home vs. stay-at-home time and activities
3. achieving a healthy balance on the physical front: sleep, nutrition and exercise
4. general learning needs / desires / expectations
5. sharing of household work

And we often have a couple of extra items that we add to these, and this week was no exception, but those five core items are the ones we always touch on, even if (especially if) they're not problematic. It's really nice to get to an agenda item and realize that it's working really well and we're all doing fine. A bit of mutual back-patting occurs and we make a point of noting exactly what we're doing that's working so well -- in case things slip off the rails. But we didn't have much of that this time! Everything needed serious discussion.

So anyway, we sat there with whipped-cream-and-cookie-crumb moustaches and talked our way through a ton of stuff. And everyone seemed to feel about a million times better afterwards. And here's what is changing as we climb out of the pit of our winter doldrums:

• Sophie is keeping the kitchen absolutely totally spotless. Amazing!
• Fiona and I are progressively blitzing our way through various clutter spots in the house, excavating our way through months of accumulated junk and producing tidy shiny surfaces.
• Noah is keeping the living room tidy and clean. This is our relax-together-place, so it's extra appreciated that it now has a comfortable calm aesthetic appeal to it. (Except for the carpet. Don't look down.)
• The practicing is getting spaced out throughout the day a bit more so that I don't have to spend my entire evening under 10 pm engaged with one kid or another on one instrument or another.
• Noah is proceeding optimistically and efficiently through the standardized testing he's kinda supposed to do because he's a DL-enrolled Grade 7 kid.
• The dog is getting a 45 minute walk a day -- and it's not always me doing it!
• Dog-training is back to being a collaborative venture.
• Clear academic priorities have been expressed and plans will be implemented in the upcoming weeks.
  
• Resolutions concerning regular physical activity have been made.
• Noah has decided to push himself a bit into a new thing and do a series of choral-singing workshops with a new local choral guy.
• Even the hens have caught our momentum -- they've begun laying again.
  

Things are looking up around here.

Naughty Stool Memory

I was about eight years old. I had done something deemed wrong or inappropriate. I have absolutely no recollection what it was. That part of the memory faded very fast, and it was really beside the point. There had been some conflict and I had lost and was now subject to my parents' authority. I was sentenced to what was in 1972 a fairly progressive form of punishment. Not a spanking, but a ten-minute time-out on the Naughty Stool. It was bar-stool height, wooden and painted bright orange with many chips out of the paint, and while it had other uses around the house most of the time, when placed in the laundry room beneath a misbehaving child it was the Naughty Stool.

What did my parents think the time-out would accomplish? They no doubt believed it would give me time to cool down, to think through my misbehaviour, to internalize their behavioural expectations and to emerge contrite and apologetic, less likely to misbehave in the future. And if I perceived the time-out as harsh and punitive, well, a little negative reinforcement for poor behaviour isn't a bad thing, is it?

As an adult I now understand all this about my parents' choice to utilize time-outs. As a child, though, I remember having a very strong sense that a time-out was to try to make a child feel rotten and cry, a kind of tit for tat. "You were mean to your brother, so now we're going to be mean to you. You will endure this humiliating acquiescence to our control over you. And it will make you feel powerless, indignantly angry and hurt. Exactly as it should."

Truly. That's what I thought they were doing. Trying to hurt me back.

So there I was, sitting angrily on that painted orange stool in the laundry room when I had my eight-year-old's epiphany. Since the point of the time-out was to make me feel hurt and angry, I could trump the whole thing by sheer force of will. I would not become angry. I would not feel hurt. I would breathe deeply and remind myself that I was right, that my parents were idiots, that they could not control me. I would matter-of-factly continue to believe that I was justified in my (mis)behaviour and I would jolly well not feel contrite. And then I would feel cheerful and I would have won! They would have failed to hurt me!

I sat. I did not cry. I breathed calmly and deeply and smirked quietly to myself. And I basked in the newfound knowledge that they could not control my feelings, nor could they ever truly control me. I was too smart and determined.

It's one of my clearest childhood memories. As a young adult I pondered it plenty; I was beginning to sense how badly I had misinterpreted my parents' intent with this relatively benign punishment, but I was also beginning to believe that this memory of my 8-year-old thought processes was something important I wanted to hang on to so that I would understand my own children and how punishment would affect them.

It is no wonder I have chosen the path of positive discipline as a parent.

Adolescent responsibility

Somewhere I read that the shift to night-owl-dom in adolescence once had a biological imperative. Young teens in tribal times were the ones who were given spears and left to guard the encampment from enemies and predators by the fire all night long. Now that's meaningful responsibility -- life and death stuff! By contrast today's young teens are given the responsibility of finishing their social studies essay on time.

People often ask me how I am handling having Erin off on the opposite side of the earth, having adventures I know next to nothing of, travelling with a loose itinerary I can't possibly keep track of, out of reach of telephone and internet. Honestly, I don't find it hard. Partly because my parental pride at her courage and adventurousness offsets the worry. But mostly because I think this sort of independence, responsibility, self-sufficiency and risk is an absolutely crucial part of maturing towards adulthood. I did a lot of really stupid things as a teen, trying to test my mettle. I hope that as they grow through adolescence all my kids will find smart ways to test their mettle. Erin is having her turn now.

Family trait

In this family we have a tendency to get locked into one thing to the exclusion of almost everything else. Sometimes it's stuff like practicing, math, touch-typing or reading, the sort of stuff that as a parent makes you say "it's great to have a passion!" And sometimes it's stuff like playing on the chin-up bar, or computer games, or making up rude lyrics to musical theatre songs, the sort of stuff that makes you quietly lay off blogging about your kids for a while and remind yourself that This To Shall Pass.

My kids often get so focused on something that they can't bear to take a break for mundane things like socializing, nutrition, hygeine or sleep. There have been many many nights when midnight has rolled on by and I've had some kid still madly working away at whatever the pursuit of the week is ... playing Mirror's Edge, finishing a piano composition, breaking 40 words per minute on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, doing three more music theory lessons, finishing every last card from the Yoga Deck of poses. "Soon, I'll go to bed soon, I just want to ... " When they do finally go to bed, it's with plans to get up as early as possible and get back at it.

Well, the dog's got the same thing, and she's got it bad. The Kong Seek game is what she's fixated on. She cannot see that toy but she is frantically whining to go outside and have it thrown, over and over again. The obsessiveness begins when the first human shows up in the living room in the morning. It runs for hours through the day. She stays outside in the snow for three, four, five hours at a stretch, shivering, hungry and tired, whining for another toss. Finally we pull the toy inside and hide it. She follows it in. A frantic hour commences. "My toy, my toy... I need my toy!"

Finally she relaxes enough to eat. And drink. And then she falls asleep.When she wakes up it starts all over again.

We hid the Kong for a long time today. She caught up on a lot of missed sleep and turned into a really nice dog. This evening we relented and brought it . And here it is almost midnight and she's on the stoop whining "Kong? Toy? Throw toy? Please throw toy!" She's shivering. She's tired. She's hungry. She can't let go of an obsession, though.

At least I know where she gets it from.

6th Birthday Celebration

She'd been planning it for months. Just before supper time we headed to town with our swimsuits, toothbrushes, pyjamas and a whole heap of food and checked into the Dome Cottage #2. Fiona's two favourite don't-live-with-her grown-ups were invited.

Chuck and her guests showed up in time for supper. Things were mighty crowded around the dining table, but it didn't matter. We ate a lot of food and then retired to the loft for gift-opening. Who'd have thought that a stainless steel travel mug could bring so much joy to a little girl? She is my café buddy on Mondays in Nelson and now she can get her peppermint- or toffee-flavoured steamed milk 'to go' without being "bad for the environment." She's thrilled. There were other gifts too, all simple and thoughtful.

The kids spent quite a while knee-walking up and down the stairs to the loft in lotus position, with their feet tucked upon their opposite thighs. I have no idea how they managed this -- or why! -- but they had a blast and no injuries resulted.

And afterwards we headed to the outdoor hot tub. It was hot! Especially because we had to walk through the snow and ice to get to the spa and remove the top. By then our bare feet were thoroughly icy and the contrast of the water was quite something. Fiona did a lot of dog-paddling. We all got hot enough to enjoy rubbing snow on our bodies -- or our bodies on the snow.

After our guests left we spend a lovely few minutes in the sauna and then headed back to the dome cottage. The domes are quite an experience. They seem bigger inside than outside -- I think that's the effect of most round buildings -- and they have bizarre acoustic nodes, such that everyone on the upper level becomes a ventriloquist once they stand in the right place.

We stayed overnight (the kids fell asleep within about 1 minute of their heads hitting their pillows), then packed up our leftovers and Fiona's new gifts and headed home. Total driving time: 4.8 minutes. Birthday fun: 5 stars.

Expanding to fill the space

When Erin was planning her Asia trip last fall I was actually looking forward to the space that would open up in my life with one less child to taxi around to lessons and activities. Erin's always been labour intensive in that respect. As of this fall she had monthly violin lessons in Calgary, weekly piano lessons in Nelson, combined with weekly Corazón choir rehearsals, also in Nelson. Wow ... the thought of not having to get her to all that stuff sounded really enticing.

It hasn't exactly turned out that my life is less full since her departure. It's true that I no longer have to make daily drop-off and pick-up trips to town to get her to and from school. But those were easy brief trips. The longer ones have continued. Last fall Noah had begun combining his local viola lessons with monthly viola lessons in Calgary "because we were there anyway." And as time went on it became clear that he really wanted to focus on the Calgary lessons and drop the local weekly lessons. Which has meant that of course we need to continue our Calgary trips in Erin's absence. And Fiona, who had begun piggy-backing her own piano lessons onto Erin's last October was on a roll and couldn't begin to think of alternating weeks, so we're going to Nelson every week and she is loving having longer lessons now that she isn't having to squeeze in around Erin's time.

And then there is the Children's Choir. She couldn't do it before, because Erin's choir and the piano lesson schedule had us in Nelson on the wrong day. But now we aren't tied to Tuesdays, so we switched piano to Mondays and Fiona has joined the Children's Choir. Their winter term ends the week after Erin gets back, so the schedule and timing are pretty perfect. When I asked the director, who knows Fiona from way back, about the age-guidelines for the Children's Choir she smiled and said "well, technically 7 to 11, but certain 5-year-olds are way more focused than a lot of 10- and 11-year-olds, so I would love to have her." She is thrilled! Click on the photo and zoom in to take a close look at the front row. Fiona is just in front of the director's hand, the tiniest body in the front pew. And as predicted, in contrast to almost all the other under-8's, Fiona is totally focused and on-task.

So there you have it. I am still driving to Nelson for piano lessons and for choir rehearsals and to Calgary for viola lessons. Where is all this extra time I was going to have, and all this extra gas that was going to be left in my tank?