Fee(n)ding for themselves

Last day of the winter vacation for the dayschool kids, and they made both lunch and dinner. Yes, that includes even my moody teenager. He was tired of leftovers. So he made mulligatawny soup and garlic bread. I was downstairs organizing with a friend, so I was not available at all. I would have settled for PBJ or chick patties, as long as I did not have to supervise. But the three older kids rallied together and made soup and bread. And then they rebelled against even more leftovers for dinner, so they made mac-n-cheese (from scratch because I don't use boxed stuff, so that's how they think mac-n-cheese is supposed to be).

And before that, on New Year's Day, when I finally got everyone back from the JCC swimming pool, I was exhausted both physically and mentally. Yeah, doctor's wives do not get a winter break. We get pinch hitting calls when the legal holidays are many and the Jewish doctors cover for everyone. And nothing is open. So I took everyone to JCC for an AM swim before they would close. I promised them hot pretzels, but the cafe closed (or was it never open?) before we came out. By the time we got home and I was faced with a full load of chlorinated laundry after wrestling two kids through showers, the last thing I wanted to do was worry about lunch.

Same older kids jumped on it. 7 yo scrambled eggs. 11yo and 13yo worked together to make a vegetarian taco salad, served on top of skillet-toasted tortillas. They even fed something to the younger siblings because they practiced no child left behind.

How do I explain to all the moms who rejoice that the break is over and that the kids are back at school that these moments of motivation do not happen when they are gone? That 13 yo has not been packing his lunch, let alone making food for others?

I know, I know, kids can cook in their spare time. Kids can cook for Shabbos. Kids can cook on Sundays. I know I could have made this post into a feel-good story about how independent my kids are, how good. But I really wonder what stands behind their motivation. Why do they rise to an occasion only when they have been home for a while, and not on a daily basis? Are they too stressed and overwhelmed? Do they need to spend a large chunk of time bonding as a family first, and then they start to see the needs? Do I need to completely drop out of a picture for them to rise to an occasion? Or do they feel cornered, like there is no grown-up who will "take care" of them, so they might as well fend for themselves?

As much as their actions look good, I think it is very important to find out what is driving them. Each one might be driven by a different factor, too.

wanting to blog more regularly

I'm back to blogging.

Sort of.

Not really.

I want to be back. I want to blog. I NEED to blog. I have a visceral need to unload, to process everything that is going on, and I do it best through a creative outlet. I like to write. I like to create.

But all these activities take time. Time and energy. They are reenegizing, yet draining at the same time.

Time is limited. Every morning when I wake up, I want to go for a walk or a jog. (I'm badly out of shape, so it is a walk). I also want to make a nice breakfast: smoothie, pancakes, bagels, fake bacon, or eggs. I also want to have time for that good morning story or a snuggle with whichever kid requests it. And I want to daven. It is important to start your day with a conversation to G-d. How do I expect my children to have a relationship with Hashem if I'm not working on building mine? Oh, and the baby will wake up and need to nurse at some point. I would love to share a peaceful cup of coffee with my husband. And morning showers are invigorating in the way evening showers never are. And doing Chumash with 11 yo early on, when he's fresh is better that squeezing it in later in the day. And if I do grocery shopping early, I can knock off a chore off my list. There is nothing like shutting a door and doing some yoga, gentle stretching, meditation to calm the mind.

But most mornings I open my eyes because one of the kids is already up and needs me. I stumble around, and I don't get to do what I want, I end up doing what I need to do. The kids need to be packed up for camp and dropped off, the dishwasher needs to be loaded/unloaded, the babies need to be changed, crisis over missing socks/toys/money/hair brush needs to be resolved.

I want quiet time to blog, but I end up sacrificing it to the needs of the family.

My boys are having "the best week ever", in their words. They are off from camp, while 5 yo and 2 yo are still going. On Sunday they had a water gun party with a friend followed by a family swim in a local pool. Both boys are very comfortable swimmers and loved diving. 5 yo got a few practice rounds with the help of daddy and a pool noodle. 2 yo splashed in 1 foot deep kiddie pool.

On Monday I drove them to taekwondo only to find out that this week there is camp, so there are no morning classes. In the afternoon we were invited to a friend's pool. Since I only had older boys (and the baby), I got to relax instead of supervise.

On Tuesday we went to Legoland Discovery Center for a long-oversude siyum. 11 yo finished Sefer Breshit and 9 yo finished Vayeira. They had a grand old time. I was assaulted by all the noise.

Today, on Wednesday, my husband is taking the boys to Six Flags to redeem their Read to Succeed tickets. They have been waiting for this for months, and the excitement is palpable. I'm getting an unexpected quiet day at home with the baby.

So I am blogging.
I hope to go jogging.
Oh, did I just hear the baby?

Perhaps it is too ambitious to want all of these. Perhaps it is imcompatible with five kids and a husband with a crazy schedule. Perhaps nobody can do it all. But can't I wish to do some? Shouldn't I be doing the few things that are necessary for my health, both physical and mental?

I hope to blog more regularly. And jog, ahem, walk.

ice cream making, or aspirations

We finished our dinner. 10 yo: "Mom, can I have ice cream for dessert?"

I don't want him eating my husband's Haagen Dazs, so I say that he can have something else. He is not satisfied: "How do you make ice cream anyway?"

"You use heavy cream and you freeze it. You might  want to look it up."

He runs to the computer and starts Googling. I'm envisioning a trip to the grocery store, to buy heavy cream which I clearly do not have in the house. He finds a recipe for ice cream using ziploc bags and milk. It is chocolate-flavored and we have all the ingredients on hand. First he is writing out the ingredients, then he is cutting and pasting into Word, trying to fit the recipe on one page.

Gathering the ingredients.

He got the bags, and the ingredients. 5 yo and 1 yo are on hand, helping and curious. I happened to have rock salt that I got expressly for the purpose of making ice cream with the kids years ago, but, somehow, never got around to it. He mixed the food ingredients, got a hand from 1 yo in scooping the ice, added rock salt, wrapped the whole contraption in a towel, and started tossing.

Little brother lends a hand

They are fighting over who gets to shake the bags.

After requisite 8 minutes, it was clear that the ice cream still did not freeze. I was suspicious of the fat content of milk (we used 2 %), but I suggested more time tossing it around. I also found an old coffee can, so we transferred the inner ziploc into it, packed it with ice and rock salt, and the kids rolled it back and forth on a towel. 1 yo tried getting in on the action. They had a grand old time!

Rolling the can back and forth

After all this vigorous mixing, it finally felt frozen, but gloppy, more like frozen yogurt. 10 yo pulled out the bowls for everyone, even though it was supposed to make only one serving, and topped it off with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. They sat there, in blissful satisfaction. He remarked how good homemade ice cream tasted.

Doling out the goodies.

I thought how allowing kids to make ice cream from scratch on a night when my husband was on call and nowhere to be seen was either an act of the best mommy ever, or of a total loony.

Yum!

_____________________________
When I was growing up, my mother had two cookbooks. One of them was imposing The Book of Healthy and Tasty Food. Being a bit like my oldest, only lacking Internet, I read it. I was inspired. The recipe that stood out for me was sea turtle soup. It started like this: cut the head and the flippers off the turtle, rinse the carcass...

The truth was, the turtle was never available in the grocery store. It was not available in my parents' lifetime, either. It was not the sort of recipe that you actually made, it was the recipe to aspire to, one day. Maybe my mother could kid herself in her childhood: in ten years we will live during communism, and then turtle will be available, and I will be able to choose whether to make turtle soup or not. I was harboring no such illusions. In fact, the recipes mentioned cream. I do not recall once eating it. There was ice cream, from a cart outside, with my mother determining whether it was safe to eat or not (she worked as a supervisor for food control, so eating out of the house was a taboo, or a very risky proposition at best). I did not aspire to cream, but I read, in that same book, that a polite meal included a nicely set table, with napkins.

I was probably about ten when I approached my mother with the same proposition. I knew better than to ask her to use our china (for guests only), but we had paper napkins, and I wanted to use them, probably as a substitute for turtle soup and cream. I was met with a lot of reluctance. As I recall, we did use them, but they were just laid out and then collected at the end of the meal, to be used at some other occasion. There was also probably a verbal message of wastefulness which went along, but my dreams of culinary freedom were not to be.

Most likely I am making up for my childhood desires by indulging my kids in their cooking escapades. I want them to be more active in the kitchen, I want them to be adventurous, to make delicious things, to dream of making delicious things. I often stop them, too: I am too tired, I want food to be done with in the most efficient way possible, I don't have a high tolerance for mess, I worry about them messing up the recipe and wasting food. Yet we live in a total abundance. We can afford to waste whatever goes into any particular recipe (maybe not a turtle soup, but turtles are not kosher anyway, so we are safe). And that look of satisfaction, that freedom to eat what you desire, and the ability to make what you want: isn't it worth it?

nachas

Every once in a while, even if the day did not turn out to be perfect, even if it rained, and even if the kids got on my and each other's nerves, it is nice to reflect how much nachas (happiness) they bring.

1 yo walks around the house, singing "Hashem melech, Hashem malach". He loves to get the bentcher and give it out. He loves looking at it. He demands that I say "bracha" when he is eating. No, he is too young to understand, to repeat the words, but he knows that we do not just shovel in food, there is this other element surrounding it. He is thoroughly enjoying Kid K'nex, connecting the pieces on his level.

5 yo has been looking at books more and more on her own. She was reading "ir/ur" blends today, because they happened to be in the book that we were looking at. She is also reading the state magnets that we have on the fridge.

8 yo offers to return shopping carts every time we go to the store. He has been spontaneously spelling words (thank you, Minecraft homeschool). he reads the parsha every week in English, and knows it well. Moreover, he does not hesitate to crack the chumash and do research to answer a difficult question. His temper has mellowed out so much in the past six months, that he almost feels like a different kid. I shudder what would have happened if I did end up putting him into this local dayschool. I would miss all this growth and maturing.

10 yo has been scootering back after his mishna lessons.With the spate of articles about overreacting bystanders to kids being outside alone, I do worry, not for his safety, but for what would happen if someone decided that an almost 11 yo cannot ride his scooter on his own for less than a mile. He has been producing spontaneous creative drawings and projects. Yesterday, as we were walking, 5 yo decided to recite back to me my cell phone number (it took her one day of trying to memorize it). 10 yo went into calculations of how many combinations can one get for different phone numbers. He came up with 10^100 (and may those with better skill correct him).

When I step away and stop worrying about academics, about where the kids are compared to their grade level. when I step back far enough to see the big picture, I see that they are turning out just fine. They are learning, they are motivated to do their things, they do behave like menches (mostly), and, when asked, they much rather be homeschooled. As much as I beat myself up about messing them up, about not doing enough, about not providing the right environment for growth, about missed opportunities, they seem to be just fine.

I do not know how I will be feeling about homeschooling tomorrow. But today, I am enjoying the nachas.

winter break or unschooling?

This week I am not doing formal schoolwork with the kids. 10 yo is on break from mishna, our coop classes are not meeting, and there is no taekwondo. I am sort of calling it a winter break.

However, it is shaping up to be a funny break. 1 yo has been sick, so I have not been getting a whole lot of sleep. I also scrambled all my plans. I arranged this whole outing for today, rallied a whole bunch of people to join me, and then had to cancel and stay home. Now, being shut in with four kids for a whole day, and no set schedule does sound like a recipe for disaster. A smart mom would have a back-up plan, with lessons and TV and other planned activities. A wise mom will play it by ear.

At 7 am, I was greeted with a detailed castle building plan, drawn up by 10 yo. I had to squint to see it, and could not process it without coffee. He was excitedly telling me how he is going to build this castle in Minecraft.

My husband took 10 yo and 4 yo yo shul with him. 8 yo ended up sleeping in till 9 am, which is unusual, but he said that he was up during the night, twice. Maybe the baby kept him up, just like he did to us. Thankfully, since we were not rushing anywhere, it was not a big deal. All the kids had breakfast with daddy, while I got dressed.

Then my husband learned with both boys before work, one at a time. He reviewed Vayigash with 10 yo, and then did three new pesukim with 8 yo. I helped 4 yo with her puzzles, and read to 1 yo his books. His favorite nowadays is "What's in There? All About Before You Were Born" by Robie Harris. He calls it "In there". We took it out of the library, and I do like it, although we do not always get to read each page. 4 yo called he brother a scoundrel, at a very appropriate moment. I guess we do not have to worry about SAT vocabulary prep.

10 yo moved on to designing his castle on graph paper, with detailed designations of which type of Minecraft blocks to use. Then I sent all three older kids out of the house, to play in the back yard. They came in appropriately muddy, with 10 yo carrying his hammer. I was told that there is a whole tool chest back there, mostly made out of sticks and discarded wood.

For lunch, the kids requested frozen Costco blintzes. We ate the whole double package. During lunch, somehow, we ended up discussing parts of speech. 10 yo gave a verb to 8 yo and asked him to add different prefixes and suffixes to it ( no doubt influenced by Lashon HaTorah). Then we switched to taking how some words can function as more than one part of speech, depending on the context. Funny how these things come up.

After lunch, I got started on trying to make a no-sew quilt from fleece squares. Unfortunately, I did not follow the instructions exactly, and 10 yo kept mumbling how if I would only let him use that borrowed sewing machine, he could sew a sleeping bag. I put my foot down, and said that he can sew by hand; I cannot allow him to use that machine. He sulked and told me all sorts of discouraging things about this quilt, which was not exactly turning out. I cut the fringes too short, so I could not tie them together. Meanwhile, 1 yo woke up, so I left this sulking kid to tie up the rest of the test side. It did look horrible.

So I let him go on Minecraft for an hour, He was able to log into his homeschool class, which officially does not start for another week. Then he proceeded to build his castle. An hour later, 8 yo got on, got into his class, read the first week's assignment, and did the quiz. All of that took place without any input from me. And this is the kid who might not test well. I guess when the material is interesting, and he is highly motivated, he can do it. Oh, and it was up to him whether to take that quiz or not. Maybe he does not understand about the stakes of testing. I do not know, but I am finding this to be a very interesting experience.

4 yo took a long piece of fleece, tied it around herself, and made a "baby carrier". Then she tied it in a different fashion, and demonstrated how her doll can be carried while awake, and while asleep. All she asked me to do was to save this piece for her. Then, later, she casually wrapped it around her neck as a scarf.

By this point in the afternoon, I decided it might be ripe time to load everyone in the car and head for a drive. 1 yo was raring to go outside. He is a funny kid: he is not flat out sick, he is still running around, just leaving a trail of snot. His eyes are teary, and he is a bit more subdued and moody than usual, but he does not sit still. We headed to the Museum of Design where boys had a workshop on Sunday, to pick up their 3-D printed creations from Minecraft. On the way over, I found out that the kids thought I went to "some prenatal dancing party" on my day off. I laughed. Mom got her groove! Watch out for that belly! I did tell them what I did, which sounded a whole lot less mysterious.

When we got to the museum, we found out that only 10 yo's sculpture was printed, but not 8 yo's. We were told that it is unusual, as they do not e-mail for pick-up till everything is ready. But there were 3 3-D printers right there in the lobby, with samples of work being printed on them. The boys pulled up chairs and watched the printers for a bit. 4 yo took up a designer challenge: design a chair for an astronaut on board a spaceship out of pipe cleaners. It had to accommodate a bulky spacesuit and work in zero gravity. She sat there, twisting and building, for good 15 minutes, till I pulled her away.

After we came home and had dinner, 8 yo suddenly remembered that my husband assigned him homework: to review ten pesukim. This is the first time I heard of it, but he opened the chumash and did it on his own. 10 yo used scraps of fleece to make himself a slingshot. He used juggling balls, and kept working on his design.

My husband sat 4 yo down and did some parsha with her.

Looking at the whole day, it is hard for me to say that my kids did not put in required 4 1/2 hours of "educational activities" for it not to count as a school day. It certainly did not require planning from me.

So I am at a crossroads: do I embrace unschooling now (with limits on screen time, especially for 10 yo), or do I continue with more traditional subjects until close to baby's arrival? Letting go of control is both liberating and terrifying.

on fiercely competitive latkes

Every year, my kids look forward to Chanukah. Every year, I feel like a phony going into it.

It is not a major holiday, yet the expectations are through the roof. There are eight days, so there is hypothetically time to get it "right", even if not on the first night. There are candles to light (and husband who might or might not be around when it's time to light). There are menorahs to fill with oil. There is food, lots of labor-intensive food. There are presents, which I normally try to avoid, yet they somehow crop up.

There is a song, which contains a line "every mother prepares delicious latkes". It makes me feel like a fake more than anything. I can make good latkes, but, somehow, I do not always feel inspired around this time of year. I did not grow up celebrating Chanukah, and my mother was certainly not making latkes. I feel that there is this expectation of latke perfection, crisp and hot, emerging just as candles are lit. Usually for us, it is time of intense phone negotiations of whether my husband will be home to light or not, coming back from somewhere, rushing, whiny kids, toddlers trying to knock off the menorahs. These awesome latkes just do not have space to be made in such an atmosphere. Every year, I dread them, and every year I end up making them, with bitterness and resentment.

This year, it seems, the foodies are trying to outdo themselves. I saw a recipe for beet latkes with goat cheese. I did not even investigate: my kids will not eat them, and I hate goat cheese, There are poutine latkes, which made Wall Street Journal. One friend proudly displayed Jerusalem artichokes, harvested from her garden, surely organic, about to become her latkes, So the pressure is being ratcheted up.

I bought 10 lbs of potatoes, in anticipation of all this latke hullabaloo. I also bought my secret ingredient: yucca. It goes nicely with potatoes, and adds crispness to the latkes without adding any taste that my kids find disagreeable.

This morning, I got up, dreading the night. My husband said that he should be home by candle lighting, and taekwondo was not happening due to promotion test. 8 yo told me last night how he had plans to make a Chanukah puppet show, and would I so kindly write it down into his planner as an activity for today?

So I figured that no real school work will take place, not on his end. 10 yo ended up helping him with drawing the backgrounds. I had to remind him a few times not to hijack his brother's story, but, overall, they worked together, drawing and cutting. At some point, 10 yo was writing down his own script. He also wrote down his own plan for today, which included mishna homework, chumash, language review and geography. 8 yo did typing and Rosetta Stone. Not bad for no interference and whip cracking on mommy's part.

Older brothers are the best: they put you in a swing, they push you

The baby took an earlier and shorter nap, and the sun came out from behind the clouds. I hustled the boys to the park for a few hours, to enjoy this gift of great weather, before it was time to get my daughter from her preschool. When we got home, I rigged up the extension cord for the PVC menorah and wound up the last two strands of lights.

Then I came inside. 10 yo followed me on my heels, offering to peel potatoes for latkes. He peeled and chopped, and then suggested adding carrot to one batch, ostensibly to celebrate the birthday of a stuffed bunny. I have been hearing about this birthday bunny for weeks now, but it did not make food demands. I told 10 yo that I expect humans not to complain too much when they find carrot in their latkes, and was reassured that some humans will eat it, as long as I make a separate batch without carrot.

crunchy munchy latkes

Then, as I was mixing batter, he offered to show 1 yo Chanukah movies, to keep him out of the kitchen and away from hot oil. I asked him to organize his brother and sister to set the dining room table for dinner. They got out a cloth tablecloth,wine glasses, candles, and a light-up globe. I was not supervising at all, hoping for the best.

A great miracle happened here: my husband did make it home for candle lighting, the latkes were all done by the time he came in, nobody got burned on the candles, and we were treated to a beautifully set table. The kids ate the carrot latkes. Then they each had a bag of chocolate gelt, with 1 yo managing to eat one coin still in foil. 8 yo treated us to a puppet show. He got 4 yo to hold up the backgrounds, as he narrated and spoke for all the characters. They were not fancy, all drawn in pencil, with an obvious touch from 10 yo, but it was clear that some thought and preparation went into the narrative. Jokes were inserted. Some paper violence might not make it a suitable show for very young children. No presents were mentioned, not even once, even though I sat on Amazon and ordered them something. (I usually get them yom tov gifts, but this year I did not get around to it when chagim were here, so I sort of owed it to them. Nothing like mommy guilt to make the world go round.)

Now I dread tomorrow night, when there will be taekwondo, and there will be crazy dinner crunch coupled with candle lighting. At least I have some latke leftovers.

PVC pipe menorah

Before

Last year, I got ourselves PVC pipes, draped them with LED lights, and called it our outdoor menorah. It felt funny, like channeling some inner Chabad. Also, I wanted my kids to look out the window at our menorah, not just wistfully at our neighbors' lit-up lawns and houses.

Marking off the measurements

This year, I had the whole plan to make a base for the menorah out of PVC connectors. I was hoping that the boys would design the stand, make all the measurements and I would serve as an advisor and chauffeur to Home Depot for the supplies. As it was getting closer to Chanukah, it was becoming clearer that if i wanted the menorah to have a base, I will need to take matters into my own hands.

10 yo using PVC cutters. I was nervous about his fingers,
 but he was quite careful

Very conveniently, a local Chabad was holding a menorah building workshop in Home Depot this past Sunday. I signed the kids up, and, once they were situated under my husband's supervision, I went off to collect the necessary supplies. I must have been quite a sight, marching through the store with a 10 foot pipe protruding from both ends of the cart. I got one long pipe, T connectors to hold up each "candle" and X connectors for stabilizing feet. I also got super cement to glue the whole thing together. Finally, I splurged on PVC cutters, as I was not sure what length we will need for each piece.

This morning, I started off by telling 10 yo that his math involved figuring out how to measure and cut the correct length of each piece. We sketched and diagrammed. I ended up calculating with him together. It was not as trivial as it appeared, and he ended up having to multiply both decimals and fractions (that is the section that he is currently learning in math). Once all the measurements and the calculations were complete, we had to wait for 1 yo take his nap, so I could focus on the older kids.

the base

At the beginning, all three participated, but then the younger two went off to play. 10 yo did most of the work. He marked off the measurements, used cutters to clip sections, and connected the pieces. He commented how the completed base looked like an antenna. I ended up winding up the lights.Two of the strands were used for the Succah, so I'm yet to retrieve them.

attaching the legs to the base

After

I did not ended up using PVC  cement, as we found that the piece fit in snugly without it. I liked the idea that I can take the menorah apart every year instead of being forced to store it as one bulky piece (it is 5 feet long). That being said, I am not sure whether it will be sturdy enough without the glue holding the pipes in place. We will live and we will learn.

getting creative

It is November. As one of my veteran homeschooling moms reminds me (every year) it is a time for burning out, wanting to throw in a towel, or storm out of the house, get on the first bus to nowhere, and disappear off the face of the earth. It is also a prime time of year to see other people boast about what their kids are accomplishing, and to feel like a total failure.

I am suffering from burnout. I am also suffering from unsaid assumptions that I can take on other responsibilities, and put up with grown-ups behaving like kids. If it wasn't for my brutally honest homeschooling friends, and for some other friends who are willing to put up with my insane mood swings, I would be on that first bus.

I have set a new limit this week: I am off after 2 pm. That means that all the schoolwork that requires mommy's checking or assistance has to be completed by that time. It is probably not the best thing for my kids, for me to be unavailable like that. It is probably another cause of anxiety for 8 yo. But it is a much-needed mental boundary for me. Therefore, now it is 2 pm, 1 yo is still napping, and I can sit down and write a blog while I still feel sane rather than at 10 pm at night.

This new boundary is liberating. I might regret it, and I might not stick with it, but, at the moment, this is what I crave the most.

I love drinking tea and coffee. I allow myself one cup of coffee a day (some days it has to be two, if I don't want to fall asleep while driving). But I drink cups and cups of steaming decaf tea. The sad story of moms and hot drinks is that, often, too much time passes between the time the drink is poured, and mom can actually drink it. And I feel cold, always. Even being pregnant does not warm me up. But coming back to these lukewarm cups of beverage seems to add to misery rather than soothe me. This morning, I poured my tea into an insulated mug. Ah, a moment of inspiration! It has a lid, so the drink stayed warm all while I could casually sip it. I am on my third hot cup, and I am feeling peaceful.

Last summer I got into watercolor painting. I enjoyed it tremendously, and got basic supplies while the kids were in camp. The baby, who was a few months old napped, the kids were at camp, I painted. I also dabble in acrylics, and some pottery painting. The problem, all these lovely hobbies take time and creative energy. All of them are incompatible with an active and demanding toddler. And all of them lose all luster at 10 pm, I am a morning person. That's when I get desire to shake things up, create, give to the world. By the evening time, I am wrung out. I do not want to give, and I do not want to produce. I want a warm blanket on a couch, and a good book.

I found that the longer I went without doing those creative things, the sadder I got. I saw how days went by, but there was nothing that I could show for them. Finally, I just used my babysitter time to go and work on a trivet at a pottery painting place. I happened to pick a pattern which is very heavy on details, so it is taking me multiple sessions to finish it. It is probably not the wisest use of my time, but I am finding that no matter how efficient and productive I am, there is always more to do, and none of that "to do" was going towards my sanity or self-care. Somehow, doing those little curlicues is like a balm. I am not kidding myself into thinking that I am producing a great work of art, but I am relaxing.

What little creative things do you do to boost your mood?

P.S. I am finishing this blog post at 9:30 pm. Sigh...

creative mess

Look at this neat Montessori classroom: every object has its place, and every kid is working nicely with only one manipulative at a time, then cleans it up before taking out the next one... Which mother hasn't swooned over the beauty of the set-up, the clean lines, the perfect choreography to make this all work, the obedient kids who would never dare throw an object across the room or mix the materials?

It's such a dream, you know, especially for those of us whose houses are in a constant state of disarray.

I stayed home this Yom Kippur with 1 yo while my husband took the three older ones to shul. Most of the toys that are in my living room/playroom are for 1 yo. We have a wooden kitchen which we use to store bins with the toys. The toys are: a big bag of Mega blocks and a Mega Blocks car; a bin of train tracks and wooden building blocks, a  plastic cube sorter toy, two puzzles, and a bin with tea set. It is not a small amount of toys, but it is not that large, either. Usually I do not watch closely how 1 yo plays with his toys, but I do find a lively mess of everything being dumped out either by nap time or by bedtime. I often despair of cleaning it all, just to know that it will all get dumped again a few short hours later. 

I have pared down. I have thrown things out or rotated them or banished them to the basement. I live in that perfect Montessori classroom fantasy, thinking that if only I was organized enough, my children would be just as neat as those kids in the picture.

But this Yom Kippur, as I laid on the couch, I got to observe firsthand what 1 yo actually does with all those toys.

First thing, he took the whole bag of Mega blocks and dumped it on the floor. He enjoys the sound of so many things hitting the wooden floor. Then he started stacking them up. Then he figured out that he can attach Mega blocks to the handles of a push toy because the openings are the same diameter as the tops of Mega blocks. He built long drooping towers poking from the handles. Then he took the pieces from one of the wooden puzzles, dumped them all out and loaded them into the car. He pushed that around for a bit, then turned the car upside down to unload the shapes.

Then he dumped out the tea set from a solid plastic bin, and filled it up with Mega blocks. He climbed onto the couch  and tried dragging the bin with him. I helped out. He tried building with blocks on the couch, but the surface was not too sturdy. Then he dumped out the whole bin onto the couch, but there was not that satisfying sound of blocks hitting a hard surface. He started throwing them off the couch onto the floor, one by one. One of them hit a toy xylophone and produced a melodious tone. He started aiming in that direction.

He dumped out all the train tracks and started throwing them into the toy oven. Then he tried climbing inside, but it was not comfortable, sitting on all those wooden pieces. He climbed into the nearby compartment instead and worked hard on closing the door behind him.

He stuffed some blocks into the couch. He built and destroyed multiple times. He made a tremendous mess. He is obviously learning about what fits into what, and he is getting some kind of kick of placing the toys inside and then dumping them out.

I watched and thought: if I did not have all these toys out and available to play, he would surely not stay busy for as long as he did. If I made him clean up after he played with each toy, he would not be combining them in those crazy combinations. And if I spent so much time agonizing over how messy the room would look at the end, I would not be able to observe what he was doing while happily making this mess.

How many times, when the kids get older, we hand them a blank piece of paper and tell them to be creative: write up something, draw up something, fold up something new? How many times we expect them to make something wonderful out of a box, or a roll of toilet paper, or some paper scraps when we always give them only one set of preselected materials and extol them not to make too much of a mess? And then, one day, we expect them to combine random materials and make something totally new and amazing?

So here is to messy playrooms, mixed-up toys and creative kids. Here is to parents who will dare to put their kids' need to explore before their need for a "presentable" house. Here is to keeping that insatiable curiosity of a toddler alive in much older kids (and adults).

In case you are wondering, I do clean up those Mega blocks with 1 yo every time he goes to sleep. We sing "clean up" song, and he dumps them into the bag. He likes to put each block into his mouth first and then let it go right over the bag. He is also very tempted to dump the entire bag once it is full. But we do a basic clean-up.

learning life skills

"You are homeschooling? You must be so organized."
"What do you do to make sure that they hit all the milestones and reach the standards?"

If homeschooling was all about academics and making sure that they are doing just as the school kids are doing, then I would really have to worry. No, I am not so organized. I juggle a lot of logistics, but I am ridiculously flexible, go-with-the-flow-or-become-insane person nowadays. In our state, we have to take standardized tests only once every three years, and I have no desire to test my kids against some outside standards more frequently.

Homeschooling is about so much more.
_________________

"Why is he kicking lawn chairs?"

"He is angry and upset."

"Can I show him how to burn his anger?"

"Yes, but he needs to express it on paper first."

He goes out with a piece of paper, a lighter, and an aluminum pan. I taught the older one about literally burring his anger up, and he did it, twice, with very calming results. The younger one will not write out his anger, will not draw it. That's why I did not suggest it to him, thinking it would not be effective. I watch as the older one explains to his brother his proposition. I see younger one furiously slashing at a paper with a pencil, his hand jerking back and forth. They rip it into shreds, then place them one by one into a pan, where the flames lick them up. Their younger brother brings a dry leaf, they laugh and stick it in.

Then they come into the house for some vinegar. 8 yo is excitedly telling my how they carved an angry 8 yo out of chalk and now they will dissolve him. (I taught them this week in geology how chalk is limestone, and how caves are dissolved cavities in limestone. It was my suggestion to drip some vinegar onto chalk, and that knowledge came in handy.) They run outside, in high spirits.

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10 yo made "Happy Rosh HaShana!" in Minecraft using stone blocks. 4 yo taught herself how to spell simple words like "zoo", "cat" and "dog".

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10 has been coming to me lately, frustrated that his younger brother has a significantly larger amount of allowance than he does. I have not been censoring what the kids spend their money on, but his biggest hit was a dental bill at the beginning of the summer. After having a second tooth pulled due to poor brushing habits, I put my foot down and said that when that bill comes in, 10 yo will be responsible. He gulped, but he did pay it up. Of course, by now he does not remember what else he spent his money on, just that his brother is way ahead.

10 yo kept asking about what kind of jobs he can do to earn money. The problem with being a bit spacey is that every responsibility that I assign him tends to be half-done, or abandoned in the middle, hence, he does not get the payout. I was getting frustrated with all the creativity that was required of me, and lack of effort on his part, so, in the middle of Yom Tov cooking, I suggested that he do some research to see what jobs would be appropriate for a kid his age.

Half an hour later, he came back, saying that he has some leads, and that he found some things that appeal to him: a worm farm, a lizard farm, aising minnows, and taking selfies to sell to companies for advertisement "although, Mom, I don't think I will be doing that". I asked, how does one make money on a worm farm. He said that you sell the worms to fishermen, or to gardeners. I asked him whether he knows anyone in need of worms, and he said that he is not sure.

He also looked up rates for lawn mowing, leaf raking and snow shoveling. Where we live, the snow shoveling is pretty much out of question, but de-icing driveways is a real possibility. He also said that if, in addition to shoveling snow, one brings rock salt, one can charge extra for that.

He also came up with the idea of selling baked goods. That one would be fine, except that I am not so sure how it would work, kashrut-wise. I also said that people are more likely to buy baked goods as a fundraiser than as a money-making venture. He said that he can donate 10% to the new shul. By the way, the kids emptied out their tzedakah boxes, counted the money, and designated its destination.

As Team Yardo left to rake our lawn, I slowly exhaled. There might be a worm farm in our future...

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What I do know, homeschooling is directly responsible for all this freedom to think and to act, and to develop skills which are important out there in the real world.

even more unschooling

4 yo started reading Bob books. I had them forever, and I was pretty sure that she knew her letters, or at least enough of them to start reading. I knew that she was interested. When I pulled down the first one, she looked at it and read it as if she knew what is inside. She definitely has a tendency to name letters rather than say the sounds that they make, but I am sure it will go away. I am in no rush to get through the set or to get her reading fluently, but she is ready and interested. No drilling, no pressure, no stress, no reading readiness programs, just good old interest and house full of books.

Yesterday 10 yo chose "What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know" as his car reading on the way to tae kwon do. From what I know about those books, if he learns everything that is inside, he will be ahead of most 4th graders. Since this is not the first time he is reading that book, we should be OK.

8 yo agreed that he should practice some writing. He has been picking poems to copy, of all things. We tried a limerick, but the lines were too long. Tonight he copied some lines from "Why oh Why Are Deserts Dry?" Considering how I feel ready to give up on getting this child to write down anything, this copying is very good news. He plans to copy the entire book, one stanza per day.

4 yo fed the chickens while the boys attended a workshop on poisonous plants. Afterwards I got a long lecture on which plants I should be careful not to eat ( foxglove, oak leaves, pear seeds). 1 yo crawled and crawled through the grass and pointed at those chickens.

The boys had zoo homeschool class. I took the two younger ones to the sprinkler park. 1 yo crawled through the splash pad and scuffed his knees and ankles pretty badly. By the end, he seemed eager to walk, downward facing dog style. If the PT will not cause him to walk, the desire to be on all surfaces will.

At home, 8 yo and 4 yo are organizing a desk in their room to serve as their workshop (some sort of ninja training center, I suppose). They brought over markers, scissors, a chair, and a notebook. I am wondering whether 8 yo is ready to start making projects on his own terms. I cannot even imagine what they will look like, but they are his projects, not mine.

10 yo made a model of a hillside with a secret entrance to an army base underneath, complete with stairs and chambers. The other day he made a pueblo. His material of choice is card stock. I thought I will use it to print out posters and flashcards, but kids have other plans.

In the middle of doing Chumash today, right before we got to new pesukim, 10 yo asked me, totally out of the blue: "What is your biggest fear?" I answered: "Something bad happening to one of the kids." I asked him what is his (I was pretty sure that was the reason for the question). He said: "Losing out financially in a major way." Well, I did not know that was on his mind, although after blowing a whole lot of his allowance and present money, he has not been spending any of it lately. I told him how even if you lose all the money, as long as you are willing to work hard and be smart about it, it is possible to be OK.

Serendipitously, a friend of mine just recently wrote how kids' emotional health comes before academics. I was thinking how his question had nothing to do with what we were learning and could have been misconstrued as stalling or distracting. By now, I seem to sense when they are distracting, and when they have a pressing need which takes precedence over learning.

letting him own his learning

Friday morning. 9 yo is reading on the couch about the Battle of Gettysburg. He is excitedly telling me who was where and what they did, and who won and how and what losses were on each side. I call him to have breakfast. Since it's Friday (and I still have to finish cooking for Shabbos), we are debating whether he should start on long division in math, a new topic. He is wary of it. I ask whether he knows divisibility rules, and he tells me the one for 5. I tell him the one for 3, and he is trying it out. He has seen me do long division, and since I'm feeding the baby, I am more telling him which numbers to put where rather than making him do it. He is very excited by this new rule, and he has to try it out on some numbers from his head. I am watching as he is doing long division on his own, and then he checks it through multiplication. Then, as I am writing down the rest of the list, he starts figuring out gemmatrias of the names of all people in our family. He discovers that 7 yo has the biggest one, and aba (daddy) is the smallest.

After all this, it is kind of silly to say "nu, get started on your learning already".

He is enjoying learning. He is on his own schedule, and he has his own agenda. As the years go by, I know that his agenda will totally overtake my agenda. If I am any good, his agenda will include subjects which are important to me (Torah learning, for instance), and subjects which he is passionate about (history categorization; Pokemon/video games; imaginary world maps). If I am very lucky, his subjects will help him figure out a path in life. And, with G-d's help, he will be happily pursuing that path.

It's so simple that  I am hyperventilating: what about higher math? English grammar and composition? Gemara? What if he ends up living on my couch in the basement? What if he will be ill-prepared for life?

But what if he got his experimentation and bumps on the road early on, instead of waiting till college? What if he has a head start to figure out who he is? What if he gets a chance to listen to himself and figure out what makes him tick instead of marching to someone else's beat? What if he learns that challenges are surmountable? What if he learns to think instead of waiting for someone else to tell him what to do? This sounds like acquisition of life skills.

I am oscillating between structured learning and unschooling. Towards highschool years, unschooling has to take an upper hand.

a great day

Today was such a good day, that it would be a disservice not to share it. There were almost tantrums, and almost meltdowns, and, as I am typing this, my kitchen is a mess and I have not made anything for shabbos, and my husband is dealing with ectopic (translation: reinforcements not arriving any time soon), but the day was lovely.

We did schoolwork in the morning. 9 yo did division with remainders, a story from S'fateinu about Tu BShvat, mishna with his rebbi and chumash. We are reviewing Vayetze, and we are almost done. 7 yo did math (review of addition with regrouping), chumash (Bright Beginnings), spelling ( copy the names of seven types of fruit from Israel both in English and in Hebrew) and S'fateinu.

Then we had friends over for Tu B'Shvat party. The kids made pine cone bird feeders, planted parsley seeds for karpas to use on Pesach, made a few brachot and ate all different fruits. Mostly, they just played, hung out, and had a good time.


After the party was over, 4 yo got out the vacuum cleaner and started cleaning up. She was really trying, and even dragged it from room to room, looking for more things to vacuum. I praised her efforts, even though I knew that I will have to sweep up later. I learned that this sense of doing something useful is more important than critiquing a final result. She will have the rest of her life to learn how to vacuum properly. Now she is learning that vacuuming is fun.











Then the baby went for a nap and I made chocolate chip cookies with 7 yo. He has been asking me for a long time to cook something with him, but every time something came up. Yesterday, when he asked to make a dessert together, I decided to commit firmly. I did not allow other kids join him unless he was interested. Onto the shabbos menu went the cookies. So when it was finally quiet, it was cookie-making time.

This boy really did everything by himself. He read the recipe, collected the necessary ingredients, found measuring cups and spoons and followed the steps. I did not help unless I was asked, and that happened rarely. I helped with the flour, but mostly I kept my mouth shut and just watched. He cracked the eggs. I did not say anything when one of them missed the mixing bowl. He cheerfully cleaned it up and got another. He figured out that three teaspoons make a tablespoon. He molded the first batch, called the beater for licking, and I just marveled at how much he knows about cooking. My 9 yo is still not sure where I keep everything in the kitchen, but this kid knows his way around.

When I saw him reading later on, I gently reminded about Read to Succeed, and how he might want to keep track. He dissolved on the spot: I do not want to go to Six Flags, I cannot read for 6 hours, I cannot write this all down... I calmly suggested keeping track of how long he is reading now, and just write down this little bit. It turned out that he read for 40 minutes (I let him do the calculations), and he had no issues writing this down.

For dinner I had a crockpot stew with quinoa and kale chips. These tend to be touch-and-go, but everyone found some part of dinner that they liked.

After everyone got into pajamas, I sent 7 yo and 4 yo downstairs to clean up the basement. I heard the vacuum cleaner go on, and when they came up, they said it looked good. I reviewed mishna with 9 yo.  Then I put the baby down for the night.

They boys asked to sew. 9 yo saw a design for kimono in one of his history-comes-alive books, so he has been after me to make one. I suggested that he starts with making a doll-sized one, but he was not having it. This time I said that we will start with sewing on a button. It's a skill worth having even if he kimono ambitions do not actualize. I found old shirts of mine and I was planning to cut them into scraps for each kid, when they called the sleeves. I cut the sleeves off and then the boys said that they will sew on the buttons as eyes. Everyone was able to thread their needle. I had to make the knots for them. I showed each one how to sew on a button, and how to make a stem under it. They both sewed on two, and then sewed the ends of the sleeve shut. 7 yo, while sewing said that this is what he wants to learn how to do: to sew and to cook. I have a budding "husband of the year." But the real secret is that my husband sews and cooks, so my boys do not see it as woman's work. 4 yo picked out her buttons, and I sewed them onto her sleeve. It was idyllic, almost out of scene: kids sitting around the table, busily sewing...

When they finished, they showed off their sleeve puppets. All of a sudden they turned into sleeve eels.

Next thing I know, they are night caps.

a few simple things

I have not written about actual learning, so here are a few simple things that we are doing:

Read aloud. About a year ago, the boys politely but firmly declined my offers to keep on reading to them good night stories. 7 yo said that he can read well enough on his own. I fretted about it for a bit, discussed it with other homeschoolers, but decided not to push the issue. We still got tons of library books, and the boys read all the time. 4 yo (as of this week!) looks at tons of books, too, and she has her favorites. She is more than eager to get HER good night story, and has been bringing two or three books at a time. About a month ago, out of the blue, the boys asked me to read to them a story while they were lying in bed. I thought that we need a chapter book and grabbed "Pollyanna" which I was pretty sure nobody read yet. I got it from some library sale. We have been reading a chapter a night. 9 yo very early on said that she has the concept of hakarat hatov (recognizing the good). I have never read it before, so it is fun to follow the story with the boys and to be on the same page.

Label everything. For years, I was thinking about labeling objects around the house in Hebrew, so that we could learn all the new words painlessly. Somehow, I was not getting around to it. Since 7 yo got diagnosed and I was searching for all possible approaches to deal with his writing and spelling difficulties, a teacher friend recommended doing a word wall, so that the words and their spelling was constantly before him. I combined the two ideas and started labeling everything around the house. I do five words per night. It tends to skew towards objects, and I try to pick the words where English spelling is not obvious. Some nights it's fun, other nights I am having hard time coming up with what to label. 

Base ten blocks. For 4 yo, it's perfect material for building a succah. 7 yo uses it for regrouping in adding and subtracting large numbers. 9 yo used it today to model division with remainders. I got a relatively cheap plastic set, and if you are considering getting one good math manipulative, I recommend getting this.

Daily vocabulary calendar. I picked it up in Costco sometime in the fall. We keep it at the breakfast table. The boys like reading the word and especially its etymology on the back. Yesterday 9 yo said: "Today will be bad. The word of the day is berate." Somehow, we managed. I can envision writing sentences, using words in conversation, challenging everyone to come up with a sentence which uses the most new words. Instead, it is unobtrusively sitting there at breakfast, waiting to be looked at.

http://www.amazon.com/Words---Year-2014-Page-A-Day-Calendar/dp/0761172963/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1389843553&sr=8-4&keywords=daily+vocabulary+calendar

Roman breakfast

I woke up this morning to a smell of coffee (and yelling from the baby). 9 yo, who woke me and the baby up the previous morning at 6 am and got severely chastised for it, decided to make it up to me by making me a cup of coffee. I was most appreciative. As I was nursing the baby on the couch, 9 yo wanted to pull up a TV tray table and serve me breakfast on the couch. Very cute and sweet, but I was worried about my crawling baby dropping the whole breakfast on the floor and the table on his head. 9 yo would not let such difficulties get in the way of his plan. He wanted to bring up a baby fence that is in the garage, but it was too heavy to be hauled up the stairs. Then he improvised by rearranging the furniture and making a barrier around the couch and the table. Next, I see him pulling out my heavy Kitchenaid, to make special french bread. I told him that it will not be ready till lunch, but I have some frozen baguettes that he can thaw and bake.

He set the folding tables, then took out cheese and butter. He got an apple slicer and sliced two apples. As a final touch, he got a bottle of juice. 9 yo and his sister had quite a nice breakfast on the couches. Next thing I know, it is a Roman breakfast since they are eating while reclining, and he's a sentry, not a servant, so he won't clean it up. Meanwhile, I joined my husband for a breakfast at the ordinary kitchen table, to the protests from the reclining quarters.

Luckily for me, the sentry turned back into a servant, and did clean up, Then he turned back into a boy who did not mind bentching and davening Hallel for Rosh Chodesh. 7 yo managed to sleep through all of that, till almost 9 am.

The kids had great fun, their needs were met, and even one of my needs was met. Today would have been the day to send 9 yo to school, as everyone came back from winter break. I am grateful that I had a talk with him and decided to keep him home, for now. I am grateful that we replaced the morning rush out the door with a spontaneous leisurely Roman breakfast.

Photos

Here is a small sampling of what we did this past week:

7 yo hanging by his knees and holding on to his ankles.  Over the past year, both boys got pretty strong and fearless. They also both were able to do the monkey bars, something they could not do last year.

3 yo watching an elephant while her brothers were in a homeschool class. She easilty hung out there for 20 minutes, just watching. Then we spnt 20 minutes with the lions. All different groups around us came and left, and she just watched the animals. 

Watching a stone get polished.

Rock Land created by 9 yo. Each stone represented something: red ones were lava, blue was sea with shark teeth as a stand-in for shark fins,  a geode was holding up a lonely tree.

Occupation?

At some point we all have to fill out some forms: name, address, phone number, followed by occupation and employer. Ever since I started staying at home, this question bugged me. The easiest answer--homemaker-- rubs me the wrong way. I immediately picture a shapely lady in a button-down dress with a frilly apron, a duster in one hand and a perfect perm being held up with another.

No, that is definitely not me.

Homeschooler? That sounds like I am the one who is being taught.

Homeschool teacher? A bit too pretentious, and this conjures a blackboard, American flag, and a whopping three kids lined up behind desks.

So who am I? And, more importantly, what do I occupy myself with?

When my oldest was just a few weeks old, my mother came to visit. I was in the midst of graduate school in biology, or, more correctly, in the midst of quitting graduate school. I knew even before I had my baby that being gone for twelve hour stretches was not what I was aspiring to do, even if my research was going well, even if I was a very good student, and even if I could find a way to balance motherhood, lab work, stipend for an income and random babysitters. My mother was very disturbed by this. I remember a conversation where she was pushing me to define myself, sort of in the way that those forms want you to describe yourself in one word. She said that she is a doctor, and my grandfather was a veteran. I, fresh from yet another nursing and diaper change, and a whole new mommy brain, which felt like being stuck in honey after high-flying intellectualism of scientific papers, said that I am a mother. My mother laughed, and said that it's something you do on the side, and the kids grow up and they do not need you and you need to be something else.

Almost nine years into motherhood, I beg to differ. It is easy to dismiss motherhood as yet another pursuit, but it is impossible for it not to redefine you in such fundamental ways, that both of your ears are left ringing. On the other hand, those professions and occupations come and go. My mother became a doctor because of a certain degree of family pressure, and while she found what she likes, I often think about how many other things she could have been pursuing, were she not so rigidly defined by being a doctor. My grandfather was an organizer of veterans from WWII, but, I am sure, he would have been much happier if the war never happened, and there were no veterans to organize. Would his life be incomplete without them?

What am I? I was a foreign student, and that defined me for a bit. I was also a very good student. I was type A, always driven, always organized. I still approach any sort of testing or personal learning that way. But life threw enough curve balls already, that I learned to mellow out, let go, and not always strive for an A when B would be just fine, and NOBODY is grading anyway!

I am a life-long learner; just as I audited physical chemistry in college, so I took a graphic design course, and so I read midwifery books, and so I started my Nach Yomi and so I keep on learning alongside my kids. I am also not shy to try something new, push a different button, move out of my comfort zone.

I have been working on my character traits, because there are six eyes constantly learning from me, especially when I am at my worst. When you are home with your kids all the time, you cannot blame others for the way they are turning out. So personal growth is on my agenda.

I can make a dinner in 15 minutes, if need be. I can get the kids out the door in 15 minutes, too. And I can watch your kid if you give me a 15 minute notice. I can also have a friend over, for tea, for a talk, just to drop in. My house will not be spotless, but whatever needs to be picked up (to my standards) will get done in 15 minutes.

I can read a book to one child while nursing another. I can resolve conflicts, chauffeur, grocery-shop with kids in tow, sneak in math, teach aleph-bet, answer questions about foramen ovale and why is Shaul after Dovid (chasing, that is, not chronologically). I can wipe tushies in the middle of the night, chase away bad dreams and soothe a child back to sleep. I can teach how to ride a bike and fly a kite, how to read and multiply, how to apply for a library card and write an apology letter.

Is there a name for all of this? Moreover, as I am filling out yet another form, is there space for all of this?

Most of this falls into the category of conscious motherhood. Yet I strongly doubt that writing "mother" as occupation, and "being my own boss" as employer is what those forms are after.

What defines you? What occupies you? And how flexible are you willing to be with your self-definition when the circumstances change?

bunk beds

We have a bunk bed for the boys. We had it since they were 2 and 4. Since we got it when they were so young, we were very firm about the oldest sleeping on the top and younger one on the bottom. For a few years that was all nice and good, but over the past year and a half things started to change. The younger one wanted to be on the top, the older one, on the bottom. That was easy to arrange. They would switch occasionally and then switch back. Most recently, things were not so smooth any more.

Both boys wanted to be on the bottom. There were many reasons offered, but the most recent one was that the older one liked thinking down there and the younger one wanted to make tents out of blankets. While this was developing, the younger one was on the top bunk, and the older one was not willing to budge.

A few nights ago I sat with the boys and listened to them compromise and negotiate. It was not going smoothly: 6 yo was offering solutions and 8 yo was shooting them down, while offering his own untenable ones. 6 yo wanted to work out a switching system; 8 yo wanted to grab as much lower bunk time as possible. He was trying to tie in playing Monopoly, which his brother does not like. He was willing to switch for one night and then to revert to status quo. After listening to these negotiations going nowhere, I ordered the younger one to take the bottom bunk. 8 yo protested that he does not want to be on top. I suggested floor in a sleeping bag. He took his sweet time setting up, and then demanded to be tucked in. I said that the tucking in time has passed. He called his brother stupid and earned himself a night in the basement. Our basement is finished, and has beds. It is removed from everyone else, and I figured that's what was called for.

It took him a long time to fall asleep down there. The next morning he expressed regret at his behavior last night. I said that he still needs to work out with his brother a solution to the dilemma. That night, right after I tucked the boys in, he popped out to announce that the solution has been found: they will hold elections! I grew quite sceptical at that.

This morning, the details were fleshed out: they will vote on who gets to sleep where every four days. These four days are modeled on every four years of the presidential election, but he said that he could not wait that long. Each kid cannot vote for himself, so they will vote for each other. They are allowed to hang signs, but no campaigning in each other's bed. Whoever gets the most votes gets to sleep on the bottom.

6 sat down this morning to make his campaign signs. One had a drawing of the bunk bed with him on the bottom bunk, another said : "Vote for 8 yo". Then he wondered aloud whether he can form a super PAC. I wondered how he would do that, and realized that he referred to negative campaigning. I said that we will not do that. Then I spent the whole day thinking about how this will play out.

Now, luckily for me, both my husband and my mother-in-law were here at dinnertime when 8 yo held the elections. The boys voted for each other, 3yo voted for one of the brothers, and we grown-ups split the votes evenly. 8 yo seemed perplexed; he clearly did not envision this outcome. Bottom line, they decided to flip some coins and 6 yo lost. He did crawl into a top bunk, but he was quite upset. 8 yo suggested that just like in presidency, one is limited to two terms on the bottom bunk. 6 yo said that he just wants to have schedule worked out.

I will wait and see what happens in three days. In the meanwhile, this spontaneous exercise in democracy showed that the boys internalized election lessons and could apply them to real life. What I think they did not realize was that this situation calls for a different solution than elections. If I see unfairness taking place, I will interfere, but it would be nice if they reach the solutions acceptable to all parties on their own.