Okay. Home schooling is going somewhat better than the last time I updated. Somehow my mother managed to convince Munchkin that if she kept whining her mummy would eventually lose it and decamp for Mexico, or something. I don't know. There's less whining. I'm happy.

Also, I feel that we're over the hump because we're past page 100 of Hay-Wingo. It's 120 pages. She reads words, such as "decide" and "Jupiter" and "papoose." Also "squaw." That one is maybe not ideal. I recognise that it can't be all that easy to think of words to demonstrate a certain vowel sound, but surely "squaw" should not make the cut if "straw" does not. It's still better than Webster's Speller ("smut," "slut," etc.).

I do not like reading home schooling blogs. The mothers are always doing crafts. Really horrible crafts, like paper mache. I don't even like paste. We don't even _own_ paste!

In fact, home schooling blogs seem to fall into three broad groups:
1. People who do lots of projects and crafts and crafts and projects and probably use Pinterest a lot.
2. People who live charmingly picturesque lives, unschool, and post pictures of their children with perfect lighting gathering eggs and learning About Life before they all gather together around the fire to listen to Charlotte's Web.
3. People who are home schooling because of religious (generally) or philosophical (less common) reasons but are completely overwhelmed. Anyone else would have cried uncle, but since their primary purpose is to avoid institutional schooling, these bloggers instead justify that their kids are at least not getting shot, and they're sure they're learning many important things somewhere in-between the thousands of crises affecting the family.

I never do crafts. We don't own chickens, and if we did, my children would be less likely to lovingly gather their eggs than to chase them around until they caught one and then try to kiss it. That only leaves the unenviable #3 category, except I'm not _that_ religious or principled.

Clever Children

Tonight I determined that either Munchkin and I can finish working through the Hay Wingo Primer by the end of this month, or one or the other of us is going to need to relocate to the Arctic Circle. I'm flexible on the options, really. I'll even volunteer to be the one to relocate. It looks quiet up there.

I read an article that said that parents must not tell their children that their children are so terribly smart, as this makes the children insecure and thus depresses the children's performance. It is fortunate that I am rarely spurred to tell my children how clever they are when we are doing school work. In fact, my most-said phrases do not concern cleverness at all:

1. If you don't do this page properly, we'll go back and review and this entire episode will take longer.
2. Yes, of course you have to do it. In your entire life, I have never told you to do something that you do not have to do. Why would this be the first time?
3.  If you hadn't spent so much time whining, you'd be done by now.

Oh, life with me is such fun.

Today, Munchkin practiced page 83 (adding -ing), 87 (r-controlled verbs), and 89 (adding -er). Then, I put everyone to bed. Then, I threw up. 

I also looked up other copies of the Hay Wingo Primer. The 1954 edition has a frightening clown on the cover. I am envious. I have two copies and a teacher's edition, and the cover is just maroon.

When I was in school, we were using the Ginn 720 Basal Readers. I kind of want a copy of a few of these, but I think they might bring back trauma. Later I learned that I am a poor speller because of these readers. My mother would object, and say that any child who in second grade is still spelling "of," "uv" is a congenitally poor speller. I prefer to blame the Ginn 720s. They were awful and deserve disrepute.

The Ginn 720s were published in the late seventies and early eighties (and thus quite out of date by the time I attended school). I have no idea why children reading in 1990 were using a reader published in 1976. Yes, I'm teaching my daughter with a primer published for the first time in 1948 and reprinted in 1967. But in my defence, basal readers and primers produced before 1948 were often pretty good. They were generally collections of actual stories, the type someone might read for their own interest. By 1976, the field was pretty much a wasteland. If anything in Helicopters and Gingerbread was an actual story marketed at actual readers, then both the readers and the writer should be summarily shot. The only excuse for stories so poor is the misplaced notion that they might be in some way educational.

The Ginn 720s were not nearly cool enough to feature a freaky, nightmare-inducing clown on the cover.

Irresponsible People

Yesterday, I had to go to the bank. The reason why is not important. I ended up taking Firefly (2). As I took him out of his car seat, he said, "pee, pee!" and wet himself. He's honest if nothing else.

I'm not about to carry around a stinking toddler, and I didn't have a spare pair of pants. I hauled out my umbrella stroller. You need to visualise this stroller. Do you remember those really cheap fold-down ones we had in the eighties, the kind that, folded up, would make a medium-weight weapon with which to beat an intruder? They are hard to find now, owing to almost certainly being a death trap. I got this particular umbrella stroller for $9, in the Rite Aid, in the United States, six years ago. I'm not sure what its market value now would be. Negative, probably. It is so Un-Parents-Magazine-approved that I'm pretty sure it's made entirely of asbestos held together with arsenic assembled by Chinese slave-babies. It lives in my car, takes up almost no space, and enables me to transport a two-year-old without touching him.

He also didn't have shoes. Also, we don't cut our boys' hair before their third birthday. Because Firefly's hair is very curly and a bit orange, it's at a length that says less "I have long hair" and more "I desperately need a haircut but I smoked a joint instead." Also, he insists on wearing his brother's old clothing. His clothes look like the stuff that the Salvation Army turns down. And he had no shoes on. And his feet were really dirty.

As I pushed him along, he was in fine spirits. It was a hot day, and our movement created a breeze. The wet shorts were pleasantly cooled. He waved jauntily to the passersby, the well-kept babies in their safety-rated strollers, coordinated outfits, and accessories. Hello! How are you! The babies stared.

The mothers stared too, but they looked mostly at me. I have just become Visibly Pregnant. I look young, even when I'm not pushing along a filthy toddler in death-stroller. I knew what they were thinking.

"It's always the irresponsible people who have a pile of kids."

The History of Man, SJ style

I have become convinced that my children, and all children in a way, are replaying the development of man. Or at least, what I've remembered from seventh grade history of it.

Firefly, prehistoric man: Writes on the walls. Forages for food, with mixed success. Rarely wears appropriate clothing. Grunts. Okay, we don't actually know whether cave people grunted, but in movies they do. Finds things and makes ineffective weapons out of them. Quarrelous and grumpy with other members of humanity.Very mixed success at keeping himself alive. Short. Likes dogs.

Genome, bronze age: Writing exists, but he doesn't know for what purpose. Counts things. Eats only substances designated as food. Finds things and makes much better weapons out of them. Willing to form strategic alliances with other members of humanity to suit his particular purpose. Somewhat better at keeping himself alive. Less short. Likes dogs.

Munchkin, early history: Groping towards literacy. Has numeracy and some geometry. Wries on paper. Eats selectively of substances designated as food. Specialises -- lets other people (Genome and Firefly) fight her battles with her. Part of a highly complicated society, all members of which are small girls who cry a lot. Reasonably good at keeping herself alive, although spotty on details of modern medicine and must be reminded to brush teeth. Still pretty short, but what are you going to do. Likes dogs.

Ever Felt That You're Making a Spectacle of Yourself?

At some point between one child and three, I changed over from a moderately odd person to a traveling circus.

Today I took my mother to an appointment. The horde came along. The horde's supplies came along. This includes a backpack of worksheets and one baby doll (Munchkin), two plastic dinosaurs (Genome), and the world's noisiest and most attention-grabbing toy car (Firefly). I also had a ten-dollar umbrella stroller.

After a good hour of the children hanging out aggravating the various blind and vision-addled people, I decided to take them for a walk around the neighbourhood. Firefly eschewed his traditional afternoon nap in favour of pushing his own stroller around, with me desperately redirecting him so he didn't barge into people. That stroller has questionable steering even when used by a qualified adult, and I don't like to think that I spent my day irritating the blind.

Munchkin pushed the stroller. Firefly rode in the stroller. Munchkin's doll rode on Firefly's lap, along with the World's Loudest Toy Car. Genome . . . raised my bloog pressure, I guess?

There must be some sort of conference in town, because the streets were filled with women in yoga gear pushing their single, well-dressed, quiet infants in jogging strollers. No one was jogging. I'm not sure what the exercise gear was for. Maybe they stopped jogging to stare.

I need a sign for the stroller that says, THIS COULD BE YOUR LIFE.

When I got back to the vision appointment to pick up my mother, she reminded me that I was a bit of a spectacle even when I only had one child. This is true, but I don't want to pass up the chance to frighten organised women who would never, ever be out in public depending on a six-year-old to push a stroller.

I made to attempts to leave behind the toy car, but Firefly caught me both times.

My Underpants are Out in the Yard

All right, I just got them. But they _were_ in the yard.

Foolishly, this morning, I ventured outside.

I know. Jews do not belong outside.

I wanted to water the pants.

A bee went up my skirt and into my underpants. Feeling rustling in my skirt, I sensibly smacked at it. It stung me. This makes perfect sense in retrospect, but I'm not sure how one calmly and maturely deals with the distinct feeling that _something_ is in one's underpants, buzzing around. I, still channeling my most mature self, started jumping around. After all, now my butt really hurt. I also didn't know whether this was a bee or a wasp -- was i going to sting me again? So I drop my underpants. There's still something in there. I dropped my skirt.

I was wearing an apron. But remember: Out in the yard. Man, I'm a classy neighbour.

Do many exhibitionists  strip while jumping up and down and going "WASP! WASP!"?

I'm not sure who I thought I was notifying.

Eventually I figured out I'd better just hobble inside so I could divest myself of all clothes, remove the stinger, and call my mother. What do you mean, call my mother? Well what would you do in this situation? I had to call my mother so she could remind me whether or not I'm allergic to bee stings (I'm not) and what one does with a bee sting (put ice on it and take an anti-histimine).

See? Now you know and you won't need to call your own mother.

She also gave me a helpful lecture on bee sting prevention. Wear pants, carry insect spray, so on, so forth, thanks mom. I think I'll just stick with being inside for the next 18 months.

That said, I did eventually go out to retrieve my underwear. If my neighbours call the police, at least there won't be any evidence.

Please Don't Knit for Charity

Back in the dark days before Ravelry, there were a few lists for knitters, and that was how we informed each other about vital wool-related developments. The problem with this format, as any veteran Internet user knows, is that information that was useful or interesting to even a fraction of the several thousand subscribers was often swamped by the stream-of-consciousness of every over-sharing knitter in the English-speaking world.
One of the more common useless questions came up when someone posted some form of "My [blank] doesn't like handknits. What can I knit for him/her?" You get bonus points for extra-impossible requirements: I want to do it all with half a skein of worsted yarn, her birthday is tomorrow, she's allergic to every known fiber and refuses to hand-wash, I don't know how to purl yet.

There's a crucial mistake the aspiring giver is making. When one gives a gift, the gift should be _for the recipient_. It's not about what I _want_ to give. It's about what my recipient _wants_. Giving him or her a gift that I knit, just because I enjoy knitting, is missing something very crucial. I engaged in my hobby for you! How ridiculous is that? I might as well get a card that says, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM. I went skiing!"

This same error in thinking resurfaces in charitable donations. People give donations based on what makes the giver feel good and not based on what the recipient needs. Since people receiving charity are people with pressing needs, it's a bit more important a mistake than giving your brother a pair of mittens he hates.

Let us review three things that almost no one needs:

1. Hand knits. Especially people in hot climates. Most homemade clothing is of poorer quality than what is available for a lower price, premade. People in Afghanistan have many needs, but knit hats is not in the top ten. This is a very inefficient way of getting hats on the heads of babies.

2. Short term visitors to their country or area performing manual labour. Unless you have some highly valuable skill (i.e. you are a doctor), visiting a foreign country is always something you do for you, not the residents. That's fine -- might as well make yourself useful if you're going to travel -- but if your object is to get orphanages built, use your airfare to hire local labour. This goes double and triple if your purpose in traveling is to blog for charity.



3. Awareness. Yes, yes, I know. White people like it. But with relatively few exceptions, people are already "aware" of whatever it is that is causing them misery.

When I was growing up, my mother was overwhelmed sometimes raising an autistic son. I could think of forty things that would have been useful to her, none of which involved knit hats. Do you want to be of direct service? DON'T KNIT. Mind someone's child. Cook food. Clean their house. Walk kids to school. Walk kids home from school. Change diapers. Give money, and not to anyone whose purpose is "promoting awareness."