A Little Angst in the Afternoon

As a mother, and especially now as a homeschooling mother, I've had to come to terms with my children's strengths and weaknesses. I've learned so much more about their personalities, and how that affects their reactions to the world. It's a process, of course, and impatience frequently rears its ugly head, but I think I've come quite a distance within the last year.

I suppose this process has made me more aware of how other people treat/view my children. I've always been the kind of mom who took it personally if people thought my children did something they shouldn't, but it was because I felt that I had failed in my task as a good mother. Now I find it hard not to be frustrated with people when they don't understand their behavior because I see it as part of who they are, rather than a huge fault for which they should feel guilty.

For example, Zaya is very imaginative little guy. That doesn't come as a shock to anyone reading this blog, of course, but it's surprising how little other people understand him. They think he's not very bright, sometimes, because he's staring into space, or pretending to be some single-celled creature with frightening accuracy. They get frustrated with him when he doesn't attend with complete concentration to their every word, or intuitively understand simple things like "you must always shut doors behind you."

Of course, he does need to pay attention, and shut doors, and pick up his shoes, and goodness knows I try to teach those things at home, but the fact that he frequently doesn't, does not mean that he is unintelligent, ill-mannered, or badly raised. It just means he's imaginative, bright, and forgetful.

Maybe I take things too personally, and people don't really believe those things at all. Maybe I'm projecting my own frustrations onto other people, but I know there's some kernel of that in most of his interactions with other authority figures.

I wish I could give out a little manual for him whenever we're in a new "class" type situation. It would be a strange read, I guarantee you, but it would probably save me a little heartburn, in the long run.

Burnination Play by Play

Zaya today is "sort of a dragon". He's a "land dwelling creature that breaths hydrochloric acid instead of fire, and drinks sulphuric acid". All I can think is, imagine the heartburn!

Mim (just a plain dragon) is attempting to care for him, and being rewarded with showers of acid. You can only do so much for some people.

She has suddenly decided that she has crystal armor on, and the debate of whether or not HCL could eat through crystal is going strong.

I've also discovered that fire-breathing dragons do not like to have their hair brushed. They retaliate. Who knew?

Something like this happens ten to fifteen times a day in my house. They have the most bizarrely vivid imaginations. I can't even get pictures, because they're generally in perpetual motion.

I just try desperately to keep up, and not get caught in the cross-fire. (Or cross-acid, as the case may be.)

I've just been handed a "big chunk of ruby" so maybe it's got it's perks.

Compilation of Weirdness

Things Overheard in the Thiessen home
Culled primarily from Facebook status updates
You have been warned.

Here are examples from recent months:

My son is imagining that he went to the end of the universe and opened up a new one with his friends. His friends are " a dino-pirahna plant, Yoshi, and a mutant six-legged lion that he just made up." So...shouldn't he have at least one real, flesh and blood, human friend? Do other people's little boys have friends?


Kids were listening to Respighi's Pines of Rome this morning with the iTunes visualizer on too. I kept hearing things like "Double Helix!!" and "A Wormhole!" coming from the other room. They have weird hobbies.


I came home from grocery shopping to find that my children had transformed into Jedi warriors.
And they have a Wookie named Hanukkah.
I'm pretty sure that's not socially acceptable.


Zaya wrote a silly story yesterday. I printed it out this morning. We are running out of ink, so some of the words are very bold. The others are light and faded. He's reading it out loud, but loudly emphasizing all the random parts that are dark. He's such a goober.

Right now in our house:
Zaya is a vampire
Mim is a Werewolf/Vampire/Zombie. She morphs.
I frankly have no idea how they know much of anything about these creatures. I blame ThinkGeek.


Mim in a whiny voice -
"Mom, I just want to play tax-collector, but Zaya keeps going off to other dimensions."


At breakfast, my kids were cafeteria managers. Then they were time-travelling big game hunters. Then they were T-rexes. (This says something about their place in the whole predator/prey dichotomy, I think.) Now I'm supposed to go see "a special" in Mim's room. It's only 9 am. This is going to be one of those days.


Zaya tonight, calling from his bedroom:
So, Dad...a hypothetical question. If the earth, or any planet, were hollow, and there was something at the exact center of that hollow space, would there be pressure on it from all sides because of gravity?
An exact quote. They're still in there discussing it. I keep hearing words like mass, nebula and eon. Not sure what the answer was.


Zaya keeps saying he's eating a Barbarian Filled Long John.
Sounds horrific!

Mimsy

Mim has a great imagination. It runs on a different track than Zaya's, but it's no less unique.

She told me she wanted to draw a face with pipe cleaners and paper. I found some tape for her and then left her to her own devices. She returned with this.



In case you can't tell, that's a gigantic open mouth. The red pipe cleaners are lips, then we have a tongue, uvula, tonsils and dark pit of the throat. There are teeth around the outside.

We went to the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield to visit my cousin. The kids each chose a stuffed animal. (Separate post about that to follow.)

Mim's animal is a wolf named Silver. He's become her baby, and she's decided to wear him like a tribeswoman might. I helped her with this particular arrangement.



I think the wolf looks pretty happy too.

She has also absolutely fallen in love with Minecraft. It's a world-building game that looks simple at first glance, particularly because they've purposely chosen an 8-bit art style, but the options are near endless.



Mim has already created seven or eight worlds. (This is not one of them, it's just a picture I found on the net.) She only likes to play in creative mode, because you can't die and you already have access to all the resources. If I could figure out how, I'd get a screen grab of one of her glass and diamond palaces for you, or one of her vast chicken coops made of blue wool. She also has a house on one world that is layered with different materials so that as you go down the interior stairs, you walk past strata.

She always was my child who would play with blocks. Essentially, this is blocks on an infinite scale.

It's so fun to watch my children grow, because they show their personalities in such funny ways. I love that home-school gives me the blessing of being there for so many of these moments because we are all learning to embrace our weirdness, and it's quite a trip!

Baby it's Cold Outside. Finally.

Our first snow day in Missouri. The kids are ecstatic. I got them to finish Math, English and Spelling, and then sent them out on an extended "play until you can't play anymore" recess.

I waited inside to greet and comfort them on their return.

So glad we have a basement with a backdoor. It's perfect for peeling off wet layers of clothing.

Some Christmas photos and thoughts. Not deep thoughts.

We had our usual hustle and bustle this year, with an added element of staying with family until we were ready for the drive back to Missouri. It was great to see everyone again, and I officially apologize for all messes and inconvenience that we left behind.

We had our own little celebration here at home the day before we left.







Then we visited my family for a few days, and traveled to Texas for a day as well.





The next few days we spent with Art's family.



We were almost able to pack everything back into the van for the trip home, but not quite. (That's without the back bench seat. We left it at home.)

While we tried to unpack, a process that took several days, the kids began rediscovering their toys. Mim begged every two or three minutes (from Monday to Friday evening when we arrived home) for me to go get batteries for the remote control cars that they got from my grandparents in Texas. She couldn't understand why I wasn't terribly eager to get back in the car and run to Wal-mart.

In the interest of family peace, however, I did. They have provided hours of great entertainment. Mim's remote came without an antennae, so Aaron soldered one on for her. Of course his looks great and works very well. I had previously come up with my own solution, which involved a metal chopstick and some painter's tape. Granted you had to kind of hold it in with your hand while using the remote, but I'd like to point out that it did work.





That's our Christmas story. Lots of family, lots of gifts, lots of fun, lots of unpacking. All worth the trip.

Noel

We had our church Christmas program two weeks ago. The kids were Mary and Joseph. There was much craziness associated with this program, and it provided hilarity for all involved. The lovely lady who directs the children in their programs spent hours and hours making sure that every single child had something to be, do or say. We had a new change to the script for every practice, I think, trying to keep up with which kids were around and able to participate.

Here are the kids dressed up for their piano playing part.



And here they are as the happy new parents. G-ma and G-pa T and Aunt and Uncle D came to see them and visit. Oh, and bring us a piano. YEA!!

Christmas Break Ambitions

The kids are officially on Christmas break as of this Monday. My ambitions for the week are (I hope) reasonable. My only plans:

Monday - Wrap Presents and Sort
Check

Tuesday - Visit nursing home to deliver gifts and play piano. (kids)
Check

Wednesday - Make chocolate covered stuff
...almost check...
(The kids are playing "poor family", and they're having such a good time I don't want to make them stop. They're begging and bartering for shillings, then using them to buy weapons, fabric etc. to improve their lot in life. Oh, and they keep asking me to buy pets. (Apparently I'm the shopkeeper.) I don't know how to explain that pets are kind of a luxury item.

Anyway...

Thursday - Have our Christmas here, pack for trip

Friday - Drive home for the holidays.

Can't wait to see everyone this next week. We'll miss those of you who aren't able to make it down this year.

Merry Christmas from me and the crazy squealing kiddos. And Art. He's at work, but his Christmas vacation starts right after lunch today. (Yea!!)

Miscellany

Here a few pictures from life around here- random snapshots, if you will.

This is Zaya dressed as a Newsie. He's selling papes, and wearing one of the costumes that Grandma Lilibeth brought when they came to visit.


Here Zaya discovers _The Wizard of Oz_. He started it after breakfast, and finished it before Sunday School. Apparently, he's a fan.


Here is Mim's fancy doll that Mr. Mac gave her when we moved. She took off the fancy dress and had me make the doll a bible costume. (No sewing involved.) Then when I went back into the school room, the doll was standing under Mim's desk reading a pamphlet about birdwatching. Who knew?


Art got some scrap materials from a co-worker and made a gigantic slip n' slide in our backyard. The kids had a blast, and I may just have used it myself. No admissions.

And..Salute

The kids had their first gymnastics meet today in a nearby town. There weren't that many children there, so it was of reasonable length. All they did was tumbling down a line of mats, so there was little to learn, and little pressure.
They both did very well, ie they did their little routines with a minimum of nervousness from Mim and wiggling from Zaya.
I forgot my camera, of course, but I did take pictures with my cell phone. Now I have to figure out how to get them onto my computer. Anyway,here are some pictures of the triumphant athletes after our return home.Zaya got a trophy as the only beginner boy. All of the children got medals, because they separated things by age and etc. They have decided (read Mim has decided) that they will share the trophy since it's not fair that Zaya got one just because he was a boy.

We're Back!

We are officially reconnected to the world! It's a bit too overwhelming to think of all the things that have happened since we last had the internet in our home, so I won't be trying to catch up on the blog.

Suffice it to say we're all still here; we're adjusting to life in Fornow; we're enjoying homeschooling; life is good.

Oh, and we really, really miss everyone back home. That should go without saying, but I would like it said for the record. Not a day goes by when I don't think of some people I would like to talk to and see.

Here's a quick picture of the kids from my Grandparent's 60th anniversary this summer. We had a great time, and I was so glad to have the opportunity to go.



I'll throw other pictures on here as I run across them. For the moment, I'm going to get off of the computer. I haven't readjusted to the screen time, and my eyes are killing me.

Oh, and I'm also trying to participate in NaNoWriMo again. Last night I had to just throw a towel over the screen and type blind. I'm about 1500 words behind, so I'll probably have to do the same tonight.

*crickets*

Here is a letter to the editor that I published in our local newspaper. I have changed the name of the town for the sake of the blog.

Our family has recently moved to Fornow, and the process has had its share of joys and frustrations. We moved from a tiny town in western Oklahoma, so this new town brought wide-eyed wonder from the children.
“They have parks, lots of parks! Our house is only a couple blocks from a real grocery store! There are so many trees and everything is so green!”
Yes, Fornow was quite a contrast to our drought-stricken home in Oklahoma, where “going to get the groceries” meant driving fifteen miles to the nearest grocery store and the park was little more than a backyard swing set and the play equipment from an abandoned schoolyard.
As adults, my husband and I were equally excited to hear that Fornow had been known in the past as “one of the most wired towns in America,” offering internet to the masses. We knew that the streets weren’t actually paved with gold, but we had great hopes that, since it is 2011, at least the internet service would be.
Imagine our shock and consternation as ISP after ISP informed us that they could not service our home.
“I’m sorry, but that’s just outside our service area” – the pain, the frustration!
How is it possible that the Promised Land, where there is even a Wal-mart Supercenter, offers us less access to the world than our tiny farm-town of 400 did?
We have found one or two companies that can serve us, but the price is so high, the service so pitiful, and the contract so long that it feels like indentured servitude and failure rather than simple access to the World Wide Web.
So, at this point, we hold out hope for what has become a mystic legend at our house – someday, Cambridge will come. They offer speeds that are many, many times faster. The prices are almost half as much, and signing a contract would be like a wedding with your true love – or so the legend goes.
We wait out here in “node four”, that mysterious province that doesn’t yet have Cambridge service, but “should be getting it real soon.” They don’t know the day or the hour; actually they don’t even know the week or the month, but they say it is coming.
Do we watch and wait in holy dread? Do we continue to slog through the wilderness of e-mail and research at the library and podcast downloads while eating yet another McDonald’s apple pie? Do we abandon our dream and turn in desperation and shame to the gap-toothed leer of the one service that agrees to give us a miserly access to the world. Only time will tell.
Although the sense of disenchantment is occasionally intense, we remain hopeful, because where would mankind be without hope? We enjoy our new friendships and become increasingly involved in what seems to be a welcoming community.
Our family and friends from our previous existence send us occasional text messages and broken phone calls.
“Where are you? Why haven’t I seen you on Facebook? Why haven’t you written anything new on your blog? Can we see pictures of your new home?”
We reply that although milk and honey are in abundance, the communications system doesn’t seem to stretch back over the Jordan, and the streets of gold were just a fiber-optic pipe dream.

We Made It

We are officially Missourians this morning. We had a long trip with a ridiculous amount of pit stops, for which no one person is to blame. I also got lost for a while, but we did eventually arrive in our new home.
The kids and I are enjoying a donut at the little coffee shop/daylight donuts in our new town. I haven't come up with a good blog name for it yet, so I'm open to suggestions.
There are pictures and details and stories, but this simple post will have to suffice for now. We don't have internet yet, so I will only be able to communicate periodically on the great world wide web.
Wish us luck!

Dust Bowl: The Sequel

Here are some pictures I took one year ago. They're from July of '10. We had a nice long rain, little expecting that it would be the last we'd see for a long time. This is our little creek at flood stage, facing first east, and then west.





Here is the same creek today. This is what a year of drought can do in western Oklahoma. We desperately need rain. It's only a minor inconvenience for some of us, but for the farmers the situation is critical. You can only haul so much water to so many cows before you start selling what you can.

A Noble Effort

We took our first official homeschool field trip yesterday. I had Groupons for the Sam Noble Natural History Museum in Norman. In retrospect, we should have just gone to the Science Museum again, but live and learn. Grandma Lilibeth came along for moral support.

The kids had fun, but not enough fun to make it worth the distance and cost in meals etc. Here they are posing by the giant buffalo in front. We convinced Mim that she should move to the front of the buffalo and hold onto his nose if she felt like she needed to lean on something for the photo shoot. Let's just say it had the potential to be a much more awkward photo.



Zaya had to look in anything with a lens.



There was a small section for children to "dig" for fossils. Zaya was able to get quite a bit of enjoyment from the activity, but Mim was disappointed in the lack of discovery. The fossils were just right on the surface, and there was very little sand at all in the area. (For which Mommy said, "Thank goodness!")




I have a feeling that Zaya's not the first little boy to run immediately to this pose upon seeing the Mammoth statue. In fact, as we were leaving I saw another one doing the exact same thing.




I have a lot more pictures of Mim because she would say, "Mommy! Take a picture of me here!"



They each chose a stuffed animal. Mim's was a puppet. Zaya wanted a gigantic stuffed dinosaur, but I talked him into a cute little wolf instead. As if either of them needed another stuffed animal. Oh well. This is what happens when Daddy doesn't come along on field trips.

Summer Fun

This is what you do for fun when it's 105 degrees outside (with a 25 mph wind) and your mommy has packed most of your toys. And when Art is your daddy. The victim in the middle used to be a DVD player. Electronics around here stop working at their own peril.



The kids have also played with puppies (not ours), eaten a great deal of snacks, done some school work, run around the house like maniacs and helped me hang the laundry out on the line. (The first bits had dried before we were done with the last bits.)

Hopped up on Puppy Love

No, these are not our puppies. They belong to Aunt D and Uncle M. They are for sale, though, so if you'd like a cute, smart dog, let me know. (They're Mini Australian Shepherds.)

Operation Entertain

1. Find Camera - Check



2. Get the kids to stop whining about how hot and bored they are - Check

Need Sleep. And Camera.

I can't find my camera. It has pictures on it that I would like to put on the computer. It has the potential to take pictures that could be put on the computer in the future. It is AWOL. Annoying.

While we are definitely getting closer to our move date, we still aren't exactly sure when that will be. Art starts work on June 20, but we may not try to move the whole family until we have an actual home to move into. We hope to go look for a house next week. Wish us luck.

The kids are enjoying their summertime freedom. I've already packed most of the books, so we've made the first trip to the library. I imagine there will be many more. I plan to pack the video games last. That may make me a bad parent. It also may keep myself and the children alive until this move is over. I call that a worthwhile risk.

Both children are already awake, and it is 6:40. I'm just saying. I suppose I can't complain since I was awake before them, but went to bed at midnight. Why is this the case? I have no idea. I blame my internal alarm clock on my mother. Therefore I blame the fact that my children are also awake on my mother. You're welcome, Mom.

If you know where my camera is, please let me know. Thank you.

Glub, Glub

Zaya fluctuates between interests in various branches of science, and I'm never sure what will crop up next. Lately it's been chemistry. (Or maybe earth science? Sometimes hard to separate the two.)

Last night he wanted to know all sorts of details about uranium, and this morning as well. We had to look it up on my ipod while we were waiting for class to start. Then he told me the following:

"Mom, I have a theory. I think fish can produce hydrogen. When they take oxygen out of each water molecule, there are two hydrogen atoms left, so they must release those through their gills."

I frankly had no idea about the accuracy of this, but Aaron reminded me that fish only breathe the diffused oxygen that is in water. They aren't separating the actual molecules. I knew that. Really.

I'm so glad I will not be homeschooling alone next year! Daddy and Wikipedia will both receive a lot of information requests!