bear - ingn.1 the manner in which one comports oneself; 2 the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~]; 4pl. comprehension of one's position, environment, or situation; 5 the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].
Says Sara at Shower of Roses, who homeschools children through eighth grade and then sends 'em on to a private Catholic high school about which she says "while excellent, has not been perfect:"
And if you're worried about being a bad teacher, imagine how it feels to pay for one!
Heh. I admit to occasionally being struck by fits of hyperventilation about what I'm taking on. Can I really do this well? I have always calmed myself down by reminding myself that I don't have to do it perfectly. I only have to do it as good as, or better, than a school!
(And then I remember how things were for me in elementary school, and I realize that it isn't going to be all that hard to meet that minimum.)
(Sara's commenting on Jen's very edifying post-discussion about "12 reasons people say they can't homeschool even though they may want to" in which she invited comments. 59 and counting, and a very good post to visit if you're curious about how -- or why -- homeschoolers do it.)
Yesterday I went for my morning swim and found myself unable to complete it. It started out alright, but then I did 100 yards of my (admittedly very poor-form) breaststroke and -- Owwwwww!
The round ligament pain has begun.
Also I couldn't swim three strokes without gasping for breath. Pregnancy seems to be catching up with me. We'll see if I can give it a run for its money, after I start taking some more Floradix.
***
I had my first appointment with the midwives this morning, at seventeen and a half weeks. Mark came along, of course, and (while I was in the bathroom peeing on the sticks) I could hear him regaling them with stories of my ice cream cravings. You see, I called him at work to ask him to pick up ice cream on the way home. Twice! And once I specifically asked for strawberry, which is not all that unusual, but the other time it was rocky road. I haven't eaten rocky road in about 25 years.
I happen to hate lying still for the fetoscope, and the midwife knows this, and she had the Doptone all ready for me, so I finally got to hear the baby's heartbeat. I hadn't been consciously worried, exactly, but it was so good to hear that familiar whooshing sound. I haven't felt any movement yet -- I tend to be late in "quickening" -- and it was good to finally get a sort of external affirmation, that yes, there's somebody in there, really.
Until that baby starts to move, makes that human contact -- I may intellectually know that there is a new person in there, but it's hard to feel as if it's true. Instead pregnancy feels like something that is happening entirely to me, like a condition I have. Only after I can feel that person exercising his or her limbs, hiccupping, moving, does it begin to feel like what it really is (and has been all along) -- a relationship.
Technology has taught us so much in the last few generations about what's going on in the womb from the earliest days of pregnancy. It's so obvious in the pictures now, what we're seeing. Genetics, the understanding of how the chromosomes come together in the very first moments to create the individual out of what was before only pieces of other individuals, make it so plain, there really is a real person there from the very beginning. Yet it's not hard to understand why, lacking that knowledge, people used to think of "quickening" as the beginning. That is when I make contact, that is when I feel myself capable of the beginnings of love.
To feel oneself capable of love, thank God, isn't a prerequisite for actually being capable. But it's easier after that.
"...the many foreclosed homes in these inner-city neighborhoods have complicated the cleanup. Some homes were in such disrepair that their garages had collapsed into the alley..."
Yeah, that's right, my neighbor's garage was in the alley because the home was in such "disrepair."
Had nothing to do with the 3-foot-diameter TREE THAT FELL ON IT.
The photo accompanying the story is of a collapsed garage. Astonishingly, the owner of the garage is not only not in foreclosure, he is actually pictured in the photo. Yet his garage was in such disrepair that it was unable to withstand a "huge maple tree" that "crashed through the roof."
Maybe it's the tornado that hit our neighborhood during the first week of school, or maybe it's getting used to the new schedule, or maybe I've assigned too much, but my new 4th-grader is frustrated. He didn't get any play time this week, he insisted. He doesn't like starting schoolwork right after breakfast. He has to work practically until Daddy gets home.
The truth is I almost always need to tweak the workload in the first couple of weeks. We have new subjects, new and more challenging workbooks, and frankly I expect a lot of him. But my desire is for him to be done with his work by tea-snack time around 3:30 or 4 every day, with a good hourlong break for lunch and play in the middle, and so I will be taking a good hard look at the amount of stuff I'm having him do MWF. Last year I had him do 4 math lessons a week (Saxon) and I have been trying to have him do 5 this week -- too much? Should I shave some more of the problems off the lesson? Have I assigned too much reading? Should I cut back on the morning chores he's supposed to do? Or is the problem on his end, his attention is drifting?
I was too preoccupied with getting my own stuff done this past week to really pay attention and diagnose the specific trouble -- this coming week, I must. But I better not let him get wind of this -- I mean, that IF he keeps not finishing his work, I'm probably going to give him less of it to do.
I seem to have gotten the level about right for the new kindergartener, though. Well, I've been through that one before.
You've heard the expression "to self-medicate with food," right? Generally thought of as a bad thing. Emotional eating and all that. Causes you to envision a lonely woman plowing through a pint of ice cream straight from the carton, or some such thing.
It's not all bad, really. Food does affect your mood, because it does affect your body. And sometimes it's simpler than that.
You have a sore throat? A cup of hot tea with a generous dollop of honey will really do you good.
Low on iron? Have some beef at every meal.
Pregnant lady with a sudden attack of nausea at bedtime five hours after dinner? TRY EATING SOMETHING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.
So as I was downstairs in my pajamas finishing off my bowl of plain yogurt and blueberries, which I wasn't exactly hungry for but I thought might help me feel better and get to sleep, I found myself wandering into the kitchen to refill my bowl.
Now why am I doing this? I wondered, even as I scooped into the yogurt carton. I wasn't hungry to begin with. I ate what I served myself, and I had a good reason for it. Now why am I in here getting more? I considered it carefully as I started in on the second bowl, and hit on the reason:
Because I don't feel better yet.
That's it. That's the reason. I'd decided to eat something because I hoped it might quell the nausea long enough for me to get to sleep. Well, here I am thirty seconds after finishing my bowl of yogurt, and I still don't feel all the way better, so I'm eating more.
Funny! I *might* give it a chance to work, before I give myself a double dose. If I have a headache, do I swallow a couple of painkillers, think, "Nope, headache still there," and use what's left in my glass to swig down a couple more? If I have a cough, do I take one spoonful of cough syrup, then go back for seconds when I'm still hacking a couple minutes later?
No, maybe the problem with self-medication with food isn't so much that we use food as a drug. Maybe we should use it more like a drug -- when we have a problem that food might solve, take the smallest dose necessary, and wait for it to have an effect (or not) before trying something else. Why should it be different from any other?
Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic is blogging a family trip to Virginia, where he visited several Civil War battlefields. We are starting our unit on the Civil War this week, and plan to visit Stones River (TN) in a month or so as a side trip from a family wedding; so the posts are timely for us , and very well written too. Check them out.
For me, it was all history through the veil, yet again. I felt robbed of something--like I couldn't see Petersburg, the way I might see Pearl Harbor, that I was more like a Jew surveying the cemetery at Normandy. The group asked questions, mostly concerned with tactics and strategic errors, which the ranger dutifully answered. It was like listening to a doctor discuss with great interest and curiosity, your grandmother's cancerous tumors. This is why I can never be a Civil War buff. I am not fascinated. I am compelled. I would turn away, if I could.
What you see above is the train of Rebels fleeing the city, as the Union troops enter from the other side. I was thinking about the Richmond yesterday, and The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." For those who are unfamiliar, the song is a mournful ballad about the fall of Richmond and Petersburg. I'm told that it's a great song, and I don't so much doubt this, as I doubt my own magnanimity.
I'm reminded of one of my father's favorite quotes, "The African's right to be wrong is sacred." Or Aaron McGruder's line, "I reserve the right to be a nigger." I can no more marvel at The Band then a Sioux can marvel at the cinematography of The Died With Their Boots On. I wouldn't fault the man who could, but it's not me My empathy is a resource to be rationed like all others. My right to be wrong is sacred. My right to be a nigger is reserved.
I started to play the song yesterday, and stopped myself. Again, I was angry. Again, another story about the blues of Pharaoh, and the people are invisible. The people are always invisible. "These motherfuckers," I mumbled to myself. Kenyatta came in from work and caught me rambling. This is just what you want to hear after coming off the late-shift--your past-drunk spouse ranting about some group you've never heard of.
Inside we got the grand-tour and at every stop the kids riddled our guide with questions. I had that love-hate thing again--deep admiration for the family who'd preserved the place for 11 generations, and the heir who still lived in the house. And then anger for the slaves, and anger for the Native Americans.
I love the lore of the Wilderness. Early in the fight the Union had pushed the Confederates all the way back to Lee's headquarters. Lee stood up, about to lead the counter-charge himself, until a division of Texans held him down, "Go back General Lee!" they yelled. I think that is so beautiful, the complete disregard for logic, and personal safety. Still I see it through a cracked glass. It's like reading a lush love story about a man and a woman, who do not like you.
A couple of doors down from my house and across the street.
This is at the north end of our alley -- I had never noticed how enormous this tree is. There is a garage under this tree. It used to be in the same back yard with the tree. The tree pushed the entire garage into the center of the alley and crushed it. Along with the power lines running to my house. Word on the street is that when the top of that tree landed on the house at the right, the homeowner was in the crushed room, which he used as a home office; but that he escaped unhurt. Apparently there have been no reported injuries. Remarkable, considering how little warning people had, and how little time to take cover.
Power was back on, it seems, by 11 p.m., with new poles running lines down the alley (although the tree and the crushed garage are still blocking the end of the alley). I must say, the city crews and Xcel Energy did a damn fine job restoring power quickly. In the ten years I have lived here, Minneapolis has impressed me with its response to severe weather in general.
Reader Alishia asks about my post from the first day of school, "I'm just wondering how you make it to the gym in the middle of the day?" I answered in the comments, here's a lengthier answer.
1. It's an established routine for Monday mornings. Monday's the only day I go during the school day. We're all quite used to it by now, which makes it not at all difficult. We go there directly from music class and get home at lunch time.
2. I keep my gym bag packed and ready -- and in the car -- at all times, and always prepared either to run or to swim. Crucial.
3. My children are comfortable with the child care at the Y, where they have all been spending time since they were babies. Until each one was comfortable being supervised by the staff, between 18 months and 2 years old or so, my husband and I took turns playing with them in the child care room while the other one exercised. Obviously during that time I couldn't go during the school day.
4. My 4th grader brings schoolwork which he is supposed to do while I am exercising, so as not to waste the hour. I give him a checklist before I drop them off.
We have been doing it this way for at least a year, so it's very smooth by now. But I still tweak the procedure from time to time to improve it. For example, since we get home right at lunchtime, it occurred to me this week that I ought to have lunch ready before I leave in the morning -- so Monday while I made breakfast, I put some hot soup in a thermos and set out the bowls, spoons, and plates of crackers before we left. That turned out brilliantly -- we walked in the door, dropped our stuff, the kids went to the table and I poured the soup in their bowls. So as you see things can always be made smoother.
I have never tried a schedule where I get to the gym like this several days a week -- I stick to 3 workouts per week, and only one of them has to be during the school day right now -- but I can do it several days a week if I need to. After our baby is born this winter, I'll have to stick to evenings for a while as I do not, as a rule, leave newborns in child care.
Let me share with you something that I always sort of knew but truly learned only yesterday:
If a tornado strikes your neighborhood, there is a good chance there will be no "warning."
No siren, no announcement on TV of a sighting in some nearby county. One minute everything's normal, the next -- tornado.
I grew up in Ohio, a place that is at least as tornado-prone as Minnesota where I live now. The Tornado Drill was a basic fact of my elementary-school education. The sirens went off, we lined up and filed into the windowless, concrete-block hallway where we sat against the wall with our knees up and covered our heads with our arms.
We didn't drill at home, but the TV was always on, and once or twice a year there was Tornado Warning In Our County. We turned the volume up loud on the TV so we could hear it from the basement, where we sat under the stairs until the appointed time to emerge.
None of these, however, prepared me for yesterday's event. You want to know what prepared me for yesterday's tornado touchdown in South Minneapolis? Home videos of tornadoes.
Because it went like this. It was raining, but not thundering -- indeed, the boys had been playing in the rain in the back yard for the hour after lunch. I was teaching Milo math, Mary Jane was watching Signing Time, Oscar was at the kitchen table working. The lights flickered and went out, which was a good thing because it got our attention -- we looked up, and the kids started to exclaim excitedly and wonder if it was a Really Bad Storm. About forty-five seconds later the wind kicked up. I went to close the window and saw --
You know in home videos of tornadoes how there's always, not in the funnel cloud but in front of the silly cameraman whose wife can be heard begging him to turn that damn thing off and get in the basement, a bunch of random swirling debris?
Well, I saw stuff like big branches and shingles and jagged pieces of wood in the air, flying over the roof of the house across the street. I think there may have been an instant of calculation -- Have I ever seen a normal wind blow stuff higher than that house over there? No? Well, okay then -- and I yelled for the kids to run to the basement, and they obeyed immediately (thanks for going off, power!) but by the time we actually all got down there under the stairs, it was over. We really did not "make it down in time." But our house was not damaged, so it turned out that we had all the time there was.
Even as I was herding the children into the basement, part of my mind was going, "Don't be silly! There can't be a tornado because there wasn't a warning! Or a siren!" This is the one problem with drills, with warnings and sirens. They lull you into thinking there will probably be a warning or a siren.
Of course there was a warning after that, and a siren. Where do you think the warnings come from? Somebody has to see a tornado and report it. That "somebody" didn't hear a siren first, he saw the tornado. Yesterday those first reports were from my neighbors.
Will upload some pictures later. Meanwhile, here is the Strib article. And here is a very good article by a local meteorologist underscoring the importance of not waiting for warnings and taking responsibility for your own safety:
The Minneapolis tornado is making a lot of people very, very uncomfortable. It's one thing if a tornado forms over fields with little/no warning, but within 1 mile of the MSP International Airport and 1-2 miles from downtown Minneapolis? That's an entirely different scenario, the definition of an "OH CRAP" moment. No watches or warnings were in effect at the time of the apparent touchdown. To the best of my knowledge no local TV station was on the air warning of dangerous conditions bearing down on the Minneapolis skyline. Worst case? No, the IDS would not have tipped over. But outer glass walls could have been stripped, shattered - raining deadly debris on pedestrians below, severing the Skyway system, turning cars (and buses) on the Nicollet Mall into projectiles. ...
It's sobering to hear, but it's the truth: to some degree all of us are on our own. We are responsible for our own safety. If you see the cloud base rotating and lowering to the ground, in front of your eyes (accompanied by your ears popping and a growing roar, like thunder that won't go away) do yourself, and future generations, a big favor and get your butt to a safe spot, preferably below ground, below grade. Remember, the threat isn't being lofted into the sky like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. It's standing up and being hit on the head by a tiny pebble traveling at 150 mph. Blunt head trauma. Flying debris. That's how most people become tornado victims. In light of yesterday's scare vow to maintain control over situational awareness, rely on your own wits (in addition to the NWS and local media) and realize that, in the end, YOU are responsible for keeping yourself out of trouble.
Oh, and a father-and-daughter pair who happen both to be meteorologists happened to have a video camera and recorded it from a hotel room. Here ya go.
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