RED:

On the princessification of our daughters, the denying of our sons.

While there are many things that irk me, about which I am unapologetically vocal, there are very few things that bother me as much as the extreme gender-pigeonholing of the little people. From such an early age, little girls are taught to be princesses and little boys are given very few options of their own.

Now I'd like to start by saying that I am equally as annoyed by both gender stereotypes. As the mother of a little boy who loves baking and flowers, dancing and messing in the garden, as much as he enjoys blasting his Nerf gun and playing with cars, it drives me nuts that certain fun elements of childhood are so marketed toward girls. Why on earth is every kitchen set aimed at girls?! My son loved his kitchen more than almost any other toy he had; we only sold it because we moved.They are getting a little bit better at making the big kitchen toys a bit more gender-neutral, which is more realistic anyway because, let's face it, how many houses do you know with a room the shade of Pepto Bismol?

But still most kitchens are aimed at girls. There are girls all over the box, there are frills everywhere. And take the Easy Bake Oven...just for fun, go Google it. Pink galore. And while pink and frills are perfectly valid options for a little boy to choose, the girls plastered all over the marketing make it clear: this is a girl's toy. Despicable, truly despicable.  I could go through the justification of many top chefs being male, but that is really beside the point.

As I see it, there are two main reasons for marketing kitchens and their paraphernalia to both genders, besides the sheer equality of the thing. For one, the little people love imitating the doings of the big people. Thus the popularity of kiddie brooms (also usually pink) and kiddie vacuums (ditto), the need for watching what you say around children, etc. The second is that cooking is such a vital, enjoyable part of daily life that it should be encouraged in all children. The same goes for gardening, particularly as it relates to growing food. We are so divorced from the vital, simplistic processes of daily living, and our children are suffering for it.

As for girls, from day one they are being bombarded by the princess experience. They are told they are princesses, every item of clothing has princesses or flowers or butterflies, and all products marketed to them have princesses on them. There are no pink-and-white striped onesies with firetrucks on them, no purple toddler tees with space rockets or police cars, no frilly shirts with footballs or baseballs.

I'm sure there are some, but even after researching this on some major retailers' websites, I still return an abundance of "sweet", "lovable", and "good girl" tees; cats and owls abound; and there are a disturbing number of food-related shirts. The cars and robots of the boys section are lacking, and when they do make something of an effort it is an epic fail: in the boys section, there are mini replica jerseys from various popular NFL teams; in the girls section there are a series of pink jerseys sans player's name, sans player's number, and with a team name just scrawled across the top. Same font each time, same design each time, and it looks nothing like an actual jersey.

No, they are taught to be princesses, to be divas. We are perpetuating the sitting pretty stereotype, decade after decade, just regurgitating it in new ways. And the worse part is, by telling little girls constantly that they should aspire to be princesses, we are raising big girls who act like princesses. We end up with tweens and who act entitled. And a princess is not something we can aspire to be; there are very few people in this world who get to be princesses, and most of the real princesses spend their time working with charities (something noble to aspire to), not prancing around their castles with wands and tiaras.

Being cute or precious is just not a good enough goal for an entire generation of women. There are millions of women in the armed forces, the police force, the various divisions of rescue workers; that is something to strive for. There are millions more in the government, the peace corp, in international business; that, too, is something to emulate. Children of both sexes love dressing up as doctors, as astronauts, as pirates, superheroes; so put these on little girls' shirts. Let's market these things to our girls.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Little Mermaid as much as the next little girl but it wasn't because she was a princess, it was because she was half human-half fish; that is awesome. You could have just as easily sold my seven-year-old self on a centaur. Half man, half beast equals awesomeness. Every time. But this whole Disney Princess fever is nauseating. I thought this piece, "Don't Call Me Princess", really sums it up well.

And as for our boys, slap some flowers on those shirts, clothing companies! Seriously, what little kid (regardless of gender) doesn't love dirt? Thus, gardening and flowers are a no-brainer. Not frilly flowers, sure, but stuff growing out of terracota flowerpots, vegetables growing out of the earth, sunflowers......"manly" it up a bit if you want, but allow these boys to enjoy the garden. Allow them to enjoy dancing---boys love grooving their little bodies around as much as girls do. And sparkle, glitter, those kinds of shiny fabulousness are eye-catching to all the little people....because they are fun. Put glitter on those boys' shirts. Give them sparkly pirate tees and robot sweaters.


Preschoolers like a little pizzazz.

On my son's cake...because it's his day

As of forty-one minutes ago, it is officially Bear's 5th birthday.......HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY! What an incredible adventure the last five years have been, getting to know this very special, funny, incredibly smart little person. He is quirky (seriously, given the choice of four colors, who chooses violet, silver, magenta, and chartreuse?! see previous post if you have no idea what I'm talking about), has an awesome vocabulary, has gorgeous twinkly eyes, and is incredibly cuddly and loving. I am so looking forward to him opening his presents from us tomorrow.....I'm totally psyched about a few of them.

And as it's his birthday, and as one of my huge missions in maintaining this blog is to transfer my recipes to something a little less volatile than my heavily-floured, heavily-oiled composition book "recipe book"....here is the recipe I used for his birthday cake. It produced a subtly-lemony, super moist cake that I was really pleased with. The green slime icing was a lemon buttercream frosting dyed green, which was extremely lemony, so the two were beautifully paired.

Terrible photo, I know.....in the future I'll provide better shots 

MOIST LEMON CAKE

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter, softened 

1 1/3 cups sugar

3 eggs

4 Tbsp lemon juice

2 Tbsp vanilla extract

3/4 cups milk

2 Tbsp lemon zest

1/4 cup mayonnaise (bear with me on this one....)

1. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

2. In another bowl, beat butter for as long as you can stand it, then add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Or until your arm feels like it's going to fall off. Whichever comes first. 

3. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one.

4. Add lemon juice and vanilla extract. 

5. Add mayo. Try not to be too weirded out.

6. Add flour and milk alternately into the above mixture, starting and ending with flour.

7. Stir in zest. 

8. Bake approximately 30 minutes at 350F.

Now, about the issue of mayonnaise in the cake. So I read in various places (none of which I can currently recall but all of which were totally unreputable, user-comments-type places, not official foody advice) that adding some mayo to your cake/cupcake batter will result in a beautifully moist cake. I was very skeptical. 

But it works. Wonderfully. It does keep it extremely moist. I read that sour cream works as well, but have not tried this one as I did not have any available. I would imagine that whole milk yogurt would work, too, as it is the fat that keeps it extra moist----and it is probably a more palatable idea and healthier end product. But again, I did not have any at hand. I do remember my mom sending me a delicious-sounding strawberry cake recipe that incorporated yogurt, which I have yet to try but which she said was amazing. So that would back the yogurt idea....I'll try this one at some point soon. In the mean time, mayo works great, you don't taste it at all, and another day soon I'll post the recipe for green slime icing. 

Oh, and yummy healthy snack idea of the day:

Prunes rolled in unsweetened coconut. YUM! Sounds a little unusual, yes, but let's face it, after you've just stomached the idea of mayo cake this should sound perfectly normal! And it's fantastic, actually. I have a couple of treat bowls out in the living room and dining room, which I keep stocked with nuts, dried fruit, homemade trail mix, etc. Well, I put these out a couple of weeks ago and they went within the day. I put out some more, went within a couple of days. Put out plain prunes yesterday and Bear requested that I cover them in coconut....was very sad to hear that we no longer had any coconut in the cupboard. But I will have to make sure to buy some more coconut soon, because a totally whole-foods, sugar-free, packed-with-nutrients treat that goes as fast as cookies is a MUST-MAKE-AGAIN in my books!

On the study of colors

Our new unit, that we just started yesterday, is on colors. We picked up the Colors Preschool Theme Kit from the library, at Bear's request, and have explored some of the books and materials already. I have a few good ideas for projects....but more on that later.

We are going to begin our unit with an images project on colors, which will be this blog post. Bear is on my lap, and together we will create a post with all sorts of images of different colors. Kind of like a scrapbook page. He is searching for the images and saving them, so as well as a lesson on colors and visual information, he is getting some practice at spelling, typing skills, creating a new folder, saving images, etc.

There will be more of an explanation later, but for now, here are some splashes of color to brighten your day! Here we go........

VIOLET:

SILVER:

MAGENTA:

CHARTREUSE:

That is all for today; more colors tomorrow. In the meantime, we'll be checking out this site, which has some basic color familiarity in four languages, along with a couple of other topics. One of their color games in Spanish was really good; it has the kids spell out the color names in Spanish, in a very easily accessible way.

On a couple of less-talked-about homeschooling issues

So an issue that is always in the foreground for us, personally, is the flexibility of our homeschooling with regards to other countries. In other words, what we are doing currently fulfills requirements in the state of Washington, but do we have the requirements covered (and appropriate documentation) should we move overseas? Though there are some homeschoolers who have made their decision in an effort to fight the system in some form or another, this did not factor into our decision to homeschool, and should we move at some point, we would want to be in compliance with the local educational laws. This might include finding appropriate loopholes: if homeschooling were outright forbidden, we might leave the country frequently enough to legally remain visitors instead of residents, because we feel so strongly about the benefits of educating our children at home, but those are extreme specifics that could take up an entire post of their own. But the general idea is to follow the law, even if we move.

As for the likelihood of us moving countries at some point in the foreseeable future, I'd say it is fairly likely. For one thing , both Mr. A and I have a deep desire to see more of the world, and we feel that there is more to life than staying in one place. Also, we both have a major crush on a couple of different countries, and would love the chance to live in one of them. Also, if we moved it would almost definitely be to somewhere in Europe, where the smaller country sizes means a much greater proximity to other cultures and languages, and the resulting ease of travel that is invaluable for the children's education.

However, the greatest factor by far is that my parents and brother live in England, and though I really love Washington and feel very much at home here, I simply cannot imagine a long-term home for my family in which my own, natal family is not close-by. I told my mom on the phone the other day that we're a little too nauseatingly Hallmark, and I think that really sums us up, if I do say so myself! We're really close. And though I imagine we'll always be a drive away, there is a huge difference between a drive and a 30-hour, international air travel ordeal. Huge difference. Particularly as there seems to be an exponential increase in difficulty of travel with each additional child....and there will hopefully be more children at some point, so this long-haul travel thing is likely a picnic now compared with a few years down the line.

But I really, deeply feel we are denying our children by being so far away from their beloved Nana, Grandad, and Uncle Dan. And it seems to be showing already in Bear. He has sworn for a couple of years now that he is going to live on his Nana and Grandad's roof when he grows up. Of course, he also swears he's a superhero (up for debate), and that twirling his arms around at soccer practice helps him run faster (unlikely), and that his sister likes mushrooms (she doesn't, much to my dismay). So maybe I shouldn't put that much emphasis on this particular obsession. But the frequency with which he brings it up leads me to believe he's somewhat serious. He has also started a new one: for the past few months, every couple of days he gets all teary-eyed and tells me he just couldn't live without us being near him. And then he questions why I live so far away from my own parents. And then he tells me he is never moving out. I, of course, explain all the right things very patiently and lovingly to him, but it does chip away at my evergreen-state resolve every single time.  Oy vey.

So these issues, combined with a few others, keep the possibility of moving high. Therefore, we need to keep abreast of the homeschooling situation in other countries; namely, England and Scotland, the two most likely candidates for our future. I have read several articles (can't recall any right now, sorry) about homeschooling being a bit tougher in England than it is here, and being tougher yet in Scotland. There are some helpful-looking resources, though, such as Schoolhouse and this rather comprehensive site, which I will definitely be checking out, should the need arise. Having said that, I read this article on The Guardian that talks of a great migration of English homeschoolers northwards, after the English government increased regulations. So it all sounds a bit touch-and-go on that side of the waters.

I was interested to find this story, about a London father who chose to pull one of his daughters out of public school, in favor of homeschooling her. He begins the article with news about Essex County Council (my peeps!) awarding some homeschooling families several thousand pounds, presumably for education-related costs. That sounds pretty fabulous to me, as being paid constitutes it being a job, and a job where I can hang out with my kids is the best kind of job there is. Essex, I may be headed your way after all...Just kidding. Not happening. But good job, ECC, on the vote to reward homeschoolers.

Judging by what I've read, I would venture to say that the potential move is not a common worry in the minds of most parents, but rather one that comes with little warning. Yet with the propensity for homeschoolers to run their own businesses, and the hardy, can-do spirit that runs rampant among us, I'm honestly surprised there isn't more coverage of such issues in the homeschooling books I've been reading. Not sure why, just an interesting thing I've observed.

On another note, a trend I've noticed in the books I've read is that, to the FAQ of "How do I teach my child [insert subject I fear and/or loathe]?", the experts generally advise one of two things: either that the term homeschooling does not really mean that all learning needs to be done at home, and that private tutors/community college classes can come in handy as supplementary instructors, OR that one of the main goals of homeschooling is to teach your children how to be self-motivated self-instructors who can teach themselves those subjects that are "tricky" for you. While I completely agree, both with the idea of using external teachers to supplement your teaching and with the goal of imparting the gift of self-motivation above all else, I think there is a major third option here: learning WITH your children.

I mean, I know that the everyday processes of homeschooling lend themselves to learning with your children; I have truly learned so much already, both in terms of random facts and in an overall, learning-about-my-children-and-how-people-work kind of way. But as for those tricky subjects, I literally cannot wait to study them WITH the kids! Like many people, I had a huge dropoff in my mathematical abilities at some point after long division....... addition?!......but I am eager to fix that. No, I could not possibly explain complex mathematics to Bear at this point----hell, I couldn't even come up with a realistic example of an equation that I could not explain. And don't even get me started on my arch nemesis Statistics, that I have now taken about 5 times, passed each time, but fear like the plague. But when we get to the point where I can no longer explain these things to my children with books and Internet alone, we will sign up for help---together. I can't wait for the day that I understand Calculus. Some of it at least! And when Bear or Belle wants to learn a language I do not know (i.e. the vast majority of them), I will most likely trip over my own feet in my haste to sign us up.

Aside from the personal gain and pleasure of learning these things over, what better example is there to set for your children than going to class together: no kids, I don't know everything (as if there will be any doubt by that point!), but I am not scared to admit it, and learning is such an enjoyable experience (as is being with them), that I am eager to take advantage of every possible opportunity. It seems like a win-win situation to me. Plus, if finances present a problem, there is always the possibility of auditing a class. This is a wonderful system, and is particularly well-suited to the homeschooling environment, where the grade received may be largely irrelevant anyway. I am sincerely hoping that my children want to learn about all sorts of bizarro, extremely specific topics about which I know nothing. String Theory 101, here we come!

On the past few weeks of schooling

So in October we spent about two and a half weeks studying planets. 

It. Was. AWESOME!

I learned so much. Bear learned a fair deal, too.

We had originally intended to approach homeschooling from a much more unschooling-type perspective. Actually, I say "we", but I think in reality it was more me: Mr. A was, from the start, interested in having a bit more structure. I resisted because, ideologically, I think unschooling makes a lot of sense. Children are bursting over with eagerness to learn about the world around them; I'm sure our kiddos would acquire the knowledge they need through their own discoveries. But through a combination of my overly-controlling personality, our continued eagerness to justify our abilities as teachers, and just generally being new to the whole process, we have taken a different approach. It's our own, fusion-type thing. And it seems to be working quite well.

We are doing relaxed, child-led unit studies. Basically, when it comes time to choose a new unit of study, Bear decides what he wants to study. If it's just ridiculously broad ("nature" was one such suggestion), then we guide him to something a little bit more specific (say, "plants"). But generally, we let him decide what he wants to study. Then, we go to the library to find a bunch of books (a mixture of picture books and for-kids fact books, like the Dorling Kindersley series), a preschool theme kit (if available), and any other resources we can find. Then, we go on a big "hunt" around our house for any existing resources we may have on the topic, and put them all into a big crate labeled "This week's materials". 

Every couple of days, we try to have some kind of project to do together, and we read relevant materials almost every "school day" (Mon through Fri, except for holidays, and only while Mama and Daddy are in school, too). Technically, we try to do school stuff for at least an hour per school day, and that will be a mixture of a couple of different activities, due to his being so little and prone to huge lapses in attention. But obviously, we take the chances we get throughout the day and run with them. Case in point: I was making iced coffee last night (for myself, obv) and Bear decided he wanted to watch an ice cube melt. So we threw several into a clean pot, turned the stove up to high, and drew a big water cycle chart while watching the changes occur. Bear pointed out that it was reversible change (thank you, Sid the Science Kid!); I sang and goofydanced to "It's Raining, It's Pouring", subbing a couple of words out for their Spanish equivalents. It was  spontaneous, multi-'subject', and pretty badass. We had a grand time. But, alas, I digress.

The point is, we have come up with a unit studies/unschooling hybrid that is working well for us so far. And as for long-term plans, when Belle is old enough she will join in the decision-making process for theme-of-the-month. Moreover, the unit study format enables different ability levels to be doing different projects under the same major theme at the same time, which I love love love. 

Bear builds a rocket (entirely his own idea).

So the first topic chosen was the planets. The library (REPRESENT!) had a theme kit on outer space, so we picked up a copy of that. We also looked through our collection of National Geographic magazines, and while I looked for interesting planet-related photos for Bear to look at, he looked for planet stuff to cut out to make a collage; he ended up making a couple. One day he and Mr. A watched some short YouTube videos on the planets, on topics ranging from comparative sizes of the planets to each other and the stars in our galaxy, to silly planet songs. One song (link at the bottom of this post) was not-so-silly: it was written after the 2006 (didn't know the year before last month) demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet status (this is why), so it does not include Pluto, and it is an incredibly catchy way to remember the order of the planets.....without having to question who/what/when our Very Eager Mother Just Served. They also watched a video on supernovas, and I came home one day to have him explain to me in some detail what a supernova was (I had no clue). 

On the first day, Bear did not know what 'to orbit' means, so we dropped everything and ran outside in the yard to figure it out. We happen to have a spare tire sitting in the front, which will one day be hung from a tree to become a swing; because this is nicely round and very visible, it became our sun. Then Bear and I transformed ourselves into planets, and we orbited the sun. Sometimes we walked, sometimes we ran, but we were outside for about twenty minutes and that boy had a whale of time while quickly absorbing the meaning of the word, 'orbit'. 

A couple of days later, we created a solar system out of balloons. It was a beautiful crisp, sunny day, so I embraced my inner-hippie and took a stack of planet books and a bag of balloons outside. We sat in the grass, cuddled, and read for a bit. Then, Bear ran around ("I'm orbiting you, Mom!") while I continued to read aloud, alternating with blowing up some balloons. Two of the books we read were Postcards From Pluto  and The Sun: Our Nearest Star, both of which I'd highly recommend for this age group. When we had nine balloons (sun plus eight planets), we went back indoors, tied some ribbon to each one, and taped them in a straight line along Bear's bedroom ceiling. It is far from glamorous, but he thought it rocked, and it certainly got the message across. Another project we did was to create a 'living' planets map. We made a little place tag for the sun and for each of the eight planets, and then pulled the tap measure out and ran it along the length of our hallway. We placed the sun at the beginning of the tape measure, and then put each planet along the line, to scale. Bear also had the bright idea to create an asteroid belt to put between Mars and Jupiter, which he did. It looked really nice, but in hindsight I think using rocks for each planet would have been a better idea, as the nametags went flying everywhere once Bear decided he wanted to be a rocket and fly from planet to planet. Repeatedly. 

Other highlights from this unit included playing a Wall-E computer game a few times, Bear creating a rocket out of trash, and this YouTube video about the solar system. We put together his wooden rocket puzzle, and then tried to fit it together in other ways. We used the alphabet blocks to spell out planet names and place them around our living room (half the planets were invented ones), and then zoomed the rocket puzzle around to the different planets. Bear drew a lot of planets, and told us repeatedly how much he loves Jupiter. He told us all about its Great Red Spot. 

 Just look at this gorgeous girly!  It's amazing the excitement that can come from a single balloon. Yes, this picture has absolutely nothing to do with our unit on planets, but it's such an adorable picture; her enthusiasm here is infectious. Plus, the pictures of my 13-month-old's participation in homeschooling activities are sparse. Obviously.

 The completed rocket.

 This is one of our favorite "different" ways to read: construct a fort, then have a readfest. We do it once or twice every few weeks. There are numerous impracticalities, but the allure of something a bit out of the ordinary simply cannot be resisted.

Our solar system! The sun is all the way to the left, appropriately attached to the room's light, as per Bear's request. Then we have Mercury (little by request as well) through Neptune, and I am superproud to say that, yes, my 4-year-old does know them all in order. Mostly due to this song.

At the end of the first week, and then again at the end of the unit, we did a couple of scrapbook pages about our work. The really memorable parts for Bear? The planet map, reading about Curious George going into space (Curious George Gets a Medal, on audiobook from the library as part of the theme kit), a silly YouTube video of the Earth and the Moon hanging out, what a supernova is, how the universe exploded from something really small, that the sun is really hot, and that Pluto hasn't been a planet since 2006: he actually checks the copyright page on planet books now to see whether they were written before or after Pluto was demoted. He told me Pluto must have been very sad in 2005 because it wasn't going to be a planet anymore the next year.  

We created our own planet, and included in the scrapbook a factfile of its vital stats. Its name? "Poop"...hey, he's four. 

On being disciplined about writing

Writing is one of my favorite pastimes in the whole world.....I find it to be at once calming and exciting. Calming, soothing because reflecting upon things past has the powerful ability to put the trivialities of daily life into grand perspective; exciting because in reflecting on things past, my mind can't help but race to think of all the things to come.

So sad it is, then, that I really need to be strict on myself to ensure that I actually write each night. So many blog posts started, only to forever remain drafts, as I inevitably get distracted. This happens...a lot.

A Lot.



However, I think it is important that I make sure I write very often, preferably every night. Now more than ever, as I really do want to keep track of all of our homeschooling adventures, particularly as I have been especially proud of some of our projects.

With that......to the catch-up post!