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My grandmother never liked me much. At least that's what she told me.

That was okay. It was the one thing we had in common, the strongest proof of our familial bond:  Mutual Disregard.

Mostly, it had to do with onions. They bring tears to your eyes, ya know. The onions, I mean. Well, and the grandmothers who insist on serving them up in every single dish at every single meal. Sliced, diced, sautéed or raw -- I'm afraid I put up a thoroughly leeky resistance.  Predictably, she resented her granddaughter's rapscallion behavior, threatening to withhold dessert: "And it's your favorite - caramel!" So I fell for it once... fyi, caramelized onions are not the same thing.

Or could've been grammar. She would send back thank you notes or birthday greeting cards with my grammatical mistakes circled in red - yes, really. She was a former Latin teacher and upheld the stereotype with compunc(tua)tion. It was my earliest introduction to the deterrent power & effectiveness of the zero tolerance correctional system. Particularly, the syn tax. 

But, as you might have suspected, her bitter disdain toward me was not limited merely to onions or handing down verdicts of punishing, diagrammed life sentences. In fact, it was bigger than the both of us, harking back to that historic North-South, Mason-Dixon great cultural divide. It began months before Grandmother was to arrive in Houston from her adopted home of Connecticut in order to supervise & cook us kids (oops, meant 'for us kids') while Mom partook in the women's moms' lib movement for two 'away' weeks during summer vacation...

On a sleepover at a friend's house, one of the moms I especially liked was waxing eloquent on the subject of manners. This evening's lecture was about the dignity, nay, the ultimate respectability conveyed by addressing all elders as 'sir' or 'ma'am.' Then she switched feet. As I watched her clippered toenails sail through the air in majestic arches before sinking into an oblivion of burnt orange (Hook 'em Horns!) shag carpeting, followed by a skillful application of maroon (Gig 'em, Ags!) nail polish & the meticulous positioning of delicate, silvery appliqués of stars, hearts + crosses, I contemplated this etiquette lesson. (Briefly, one of the brothers sauntered past in his 'casual attire,' creating a trifle disturbance in the flow of her stream-of-refined-distinction-consciousness: "Good Lord, go git some clothes on, bubs, we got company!" An admirable demonstration of ladylike grace under somewhat trying circumstances, it recalled & fortuitously exemplified last week's 'Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord's Name in Vain' session.) The righteousness of her divine message was undeniable. Right then & there, I converted. From that moment on, I went about freely dropping 'yes, sirs' or 'no, ma'ams' at will. It made me feel clean & good & extremely polite all over - verily, 'twas the Southern Baptists' answer to confession! In heretofore childish ignorance, I'd been operating under New England-bred WASPish constraints. This was a revelation. I was pretty sure it was the next best thing to being born again....

Well, ma'am, on her very next visit, Grandma put an end to that. "Cathleen, I am neither a 'ma'am' nor your "Grandma.' You may call me 'Grandmother.' Now go wash your hands for supper."

I caught myself just as I was about to ask, "Yes, ma'am, but don't you mean 'for dinner,' Grandma?" Instead, I complied with Grandmother's directive. And, whenever I again felt the need to achieve that fresh, clean feeling, I did what all virtuous Episcopalians do. I scrubbed with Dial antibacterial soap.
But, eventually, when I became an adult and Grandmother retired & moved back to reunite with her sisters in Nebraska, we discovered our shared, unabashed love for each other... Ok, to be accurate, make that my love for punning & her love for punditry. Close enough. She explained it to me later, "When you were little, you were just 'a good kid.' You always did everything your mother told you to do."  Absolutely unforgivable!  'Nuff said. Yet she continued, "Then you finally starting speaking up... and your puns were better than mine." A greater admission of adoration she'd never uttered. She retreated to her room to recover, not to be seen again until she suddenly reappeared at 10:01 pm anxiously throwing on her windbreaker and urging us to take cover with her in the shower stall. Visions of Dorothy and being swept off to Oz spun through my head. Just before we realized that deafening tornado siren was the same testing of the advanced warning system that sounded nightly, 365 days of the year, at, yessiree, 10 pm. Methodically, she removed her jacket, hung it in the closet, and wished us a good night.
 
She even tolerated Chris, once he discovered that the best way to interact with his grandmaw-in-law was to rile her by debating etymology. Not that Chris has ever been an authority & he usually lost handily, a fact which made her persnickety, rancor-ravenous intellect appreciate him all the more. Several times a day, they'd dash over to the bookshelf to consult her gilded 1950's unabridged dictionary with its 500 to 5000-year-old word origin notations. (He wasn't permitted to touch it otherwise. Neither was anyone else. But, before Chris, no relative had the audacity courage slightest iota of inclination in that direction.)

Of course, bets were wagered. To everyone's dismay, one time Chris won. His prize: her much admired childhood pocketknife with its authentic, decoratively-carved, inlaid cow horn handle. Grandmother pretended not to care. So Chris would spend those long drives to the big town -- undertaken on the pretense that it boasted the best all-you-can-eat fried chicken buffet in the county (it did) (but, more importantly, it also had the county's biggest liquor store, allowing ample restocking options for the sisters' daily happy hours) -- pulling out his new acquisition to admire its fine workmanship & challenge Grandma to a game of mumblety-peg right there in the backseat. Duly baited, Grandmother would mumble some characteristically captious retort, forcing the frazzled chauffeur, racing over rollercoasters of sandhills in this vast farming country, to intervene, "All right, you two, settle down back there -- I'm trying not to plow into a combine here!" My great aunt riding shotgun in the passenger seat would sadly shake her head; the other unfortunate aunt sandwiched between them would dutifully confiscate the knife.

Quite often, we'd go on Platte river picnics. In a brilliant strategy designed solely to avoid odious odorous onion conflict, Chris and I would provide victuals. Grandmother didn't seem to mind, for she'd given up most cooking by then and genuinely embraced reprieve from such onerous tasks & the freed-up opportunity it afforded to focus on life's finer pastimes - namely, critiquing others' cooking. Such as, while observing Chris' attempt to cut open a watermelon one afternoon, "You city kids certainly are green when it comes to choosing ripe produce." Snapping the knife blade back into its authentic, decoratively-carved, inlaid cow horn casing, and then ceremoniously slipping the treasure back into his pocket, Chris replied, "Aww, no need to thank us, Grandma. Just let me know when I can slice up another piece fer ya!"

No matter where else in the world Chris & I visited, those annual trips to Nebraska were the favorites of our pre-kid travels. But, invariably, after depleting typical old lady talk -- like discussing the weather, or the potential of Tom Osborne's latest recruiting class, or the sweetness of this year's corn crop, or the nuances of Blackshirt defensive formations, or how Chuck Hagel was the right kind of Republican ('cuz he was the only one Left) -- their attention would turn to children. And it's easy to guess the gist of those hints, no? That's right, they couldn't stand babies! Enormously grateful that part of their lives was done & didn't possess the patience to deal with youngins now & what vexation 'n tribulation they wrought, o my!
 
Therefore, expecting cool politeness and an inevitable distancing of our relations -- far exceeding the 1,000 concrete highway miles already separating us -- to coincide with the news that I was expecting, we were completely unprepared for Grandmother's reaction. First, there was her admonition that I should hold & cuddle our newborn constantly. She regretfully reflected that she'd been a poor mother, believing the child-rearing experts' advice of her generation to let babies cry it out & limit affection in order to avoid spoiling them at all costs.

Then the phone calls began. Which, given her telephone-averse tendencies, were already extraordinary. However, on top of that, her nascent great-grand maternal devotion compelled her to withstand the tortures inflicted by our answering machine -- as we preferred to screen calls by initially letting Al Green, Bob Marley or Black Uhuru pick up for us. That really pushed her buttons rotary dial!  But, for a chance to chat with the infant Mikaela, she endured. Stipulating sworn oaths that no tickling occur to produce such sounds, she listened while the newest 'just a good kid' & perpetually buoyant baby razzed, cooed and incessantly giggled through the receiver into her great grandmother's delighted ear. My tech-savvy (had a computer) grand aunt received our regular email updates, which they read aloud at happy hours, laughing over Mikaela's antics while downing highball spritzers and schnapps.

Ever practical, Grandmother & her siblings had long ago disavowed any desire for presents, even on Christmas and Easter. "We have enough. Don't want anything. Don't need anything. Can't abide the thought of having more things to look after," they insisted. Thus launched a new tradition. We sent the only item still in constant demand, requiring minimal dusting & flexible storage options:
Gifted Conundrums. Their intrinsic humor amusing allusions relative demerits were debated among the 3 sisters in intimate speakeasies of contentious contentment. Those that made the final cut were then prominently featured at the Kensington Society Club's cold salads & casseroles holiday luncheon. 


Since we indoctrinate 'em early 'round here, M&K joined in the fun as soon as they were able to meet the high level of punning standards set by our family. Yup, right around 18 months of age or so... Honestly, though, it took them until approximately 2 1/2 to equal their folks' utmost erudite efforts. Not that we were tracking it. Well, alright, just casually. On their What To Expect hourly growth charts lining the halls. Fostering such a pressure-free environment is the key to inspiring creativity. (Plus, imho, witnessing your children's emerging precociousness so seamlessly converge with their father's not-so-latent immaturity is truly one of the greatest joys in parenting... as any mom of a preschooler could confirm.)   





"I'm glad we became friends, Cathy," Grandmother confided on our last visit together, "I like you." Which clearly was her subtle way of saying, "You're like me. I like that about you!" (It's true, definitely there are parts of her in me. But upon doing some further solecism searching, I must admit, they're fragmentary at best.) And then, overcome with such sentimentality, she added, "Oh, and you're OK, too, Chris."

After pausing a respectful minute or two to make certain that hadn't activated the tornado warning system again, I suggested, "Hey, wanna go to Dairy Freeze? I feel like having some onion rings."

"My treat!" ordered Grandmother, splurging for double scoops of soft serve choke(d up)cherry ice creams all around before managing to fully regain a proper sense of decorum.



*Easter Eggs Hint: In accordance with our stringently highbrow punning criteria, plays are only on "egg"- no "ex" - words. For instance, the ex-ample at right would be disallowed. Granted, it might suggest hilarity at 2 in the morning, but who could respect themselves if this cracked up them in the light of day?



 Caution: Further scrolling will reveal all the answers!    
                                          (To the puns.)

It was Easter eve.  

Katrianna, then five years old, announced that it was bedtime. She'd just completed a rapturous hopping-on-the-mattress performance of that Easter classic "So jump in bed and cover up your head 'cause the Easter Bunny comes tonight!" at a decibel level certain to scare off any bunnies within a 500 mile radius. Now she was desperate to turn out the lights & begin pretending to sleep.

Yet, as I tucked her in & kissed her goodnight, she asked,
"So Jesus had to die, right, so we could go to Heaven?"    
 
"Yes," I answered.

But before I could elaborate, Mikaela added with dramatic import,
"Yeah, and because of the people who did that to Jesus..."  
 
"Ohhh," said Katrianna, clutching her stuffed lemur a little tighter
while absorbing the implications. "You mean the doctors?"
 
"What doctors?"
 
"The doctors who were upset because they couldn't make any money with Jesus going around healing and curing everybody," explained Katrianna.



Obviously, Katrianna got a little mixed up on her impassioned play, didn't she? 

Of course, it wasn't the doctors!


Nope, it was the insurance companies.



Note: My dad sold insurance for a living. Which led to his desire to impart to his children all that he'd gleaned from his hard-earned years of experience in the industry. So, what was that single golden nugget of wisdom?  "Remember, kids, the surest way to throw away your money is to buy insurance policies!" Yep, rest insured, those health care reform school dropouts can be heelers.

I've never been a big fan of perfume. Or jewelry. Or cut flowers. Nope, on Valentine's Day no need for those symbols of romance. Unless there's some dirt attached. And roots. And how-to care instructions. After all, should love be allowed to wither & dry up like a bunch of thorny roses in 7-10 days?

Or should love, like a rare & exotic specimen (found at Home Depot's nursery center), be transplanted and nurtured to grow. And flourish. And, given at least the minimum amount of required sunlight exposure, spread. So that eventually it can fulfill its destiny. And become an invasive species....
 
Yep, it was with some relief that we had kids. And could return to celebrating a pressure-free Valentine's Day the way it's meant to be: Sweet. Creative. Poetic. Filled with love stories.  Yet, sometimes heartbreaking.  Even puzzling. Or full of cross words. And, quite often, cutting.

With scissors, that is. For snappily sniping snipping construction paper hearts in homemade valentines. Made out to relatives, playmates & their very bestest buddies, ie Jane (Goodall), Ben (Franklin), Ozma (of Oz) & Zoboomafoo (of Madagascar).       












Originally, it started with a fella who was all heart(s), my grandmother's handiwork, saved & passed down to the girls. I wasn't too fond of him, but Mikaela was smitten. So together we came up with new versions, adapted to fit our particular family's peculiarities: We love each other, true. But we -- work at home/school at home/stay at homers -- also bug each other, no denyin' it. Obviously, we're a family of LoveBugs!




Ahh, the enigma that is love. How confusing. With multiple, elusive variables. And seemingly endless unsolvable problems? Sounds like MATH!  So M&K became matchmakers, pairing up brokenhearted equations. Some were real, to reinforce subtraction or multiplication practice, yet others were more algebraic & abstract, for instance OX/X = O (hugkiss divided by kiss = hug) or Mom = Super Cool (huh, too easy?). In addition, we played the usual weekly arithmetic games, but with sweet tarts as the tokens of our affections, plus the spoils of victorious conquest. When we really wanted to strike at the heart of the matter, our coordinated strategic attack was to rally the troops by playing Valentine Battleship with heart stickers as targets. The girls put their whole hearts into making puzzles of all kinds, out of stray pieces of cardboard as well as pre-jigged varieties, and incised increasingly intricate labyrinths of love (masterfully minute mazes). And, for our math club's Valentine's Day party, we rearranged tangram hearts & then figured out their irregular-shaped areas. (Now if that doesn't combat affirm stereotypes about the exciting world of homeschooling socialization, don't know what will...) Finally, to introduce the idealistic youngsters to that all important lesson that love is a gamble, we dealt them life's their hands & taught them to toss out their Hearts with abandon while making it a point (ten, actually) to protect the diamonds in the rough & ignore the others ('cuz they're all cards).
But equations - even learning them by heart - wasn't enough. One must also be well versed in the language of love. So we started -- as do most of the world's great thinkers, recognized philosophers & gurus d'amour -- with conversation hearts. First, M&K composed unique messages, such as My Sweet Jabberwocky, U R Spooky, Hug a Turkey, Got Heart? Next, they picked 5 random candies to use in a short story. Katrianna's was about two lovers (an orange & a banana) who are trapped in a chilling ivory tower (fridge) & must escape in order to achieve their shared burning desire (hiking the entire Continental Divide trail in one sultry summer).

Traditionally, every February 14th we recite a selection of loveworthy poetry, perhaps Linus' favorite How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning or that more oft quoted (well, only by Chris) My Cheeseburger, originally performed by the gourd-eous Mr. Lunt of VeggieTales fame. Then we write our own. For example, a couple of years ago the result was Mikaela's poem about an oatmeal canister's unrequited love for a shapely bottle of vanilla extract:

In the pantry, on the shelf,
Sat - and sighed - an oatmeal jar;
It loved the vanilla with all its heart
And so it wished upon a star.

Though the door was fastened shut,
The oatmeal wished so much, so loud,
That the mango heard and laughed so much
He attracted quite a crowd.

The vanilla sat on the cupboard shelf
In oblivion to all;
The oatmeal wished and wished in vain
All for his sweetheart tall.

The vanilla was a container large
As was the oatmeal, too,
But the vanilla knew not of the oatmeal jar
Whose heartbreak grew and grew.

The oatmeal languished in the dark
And pined the whole day through;
Yet of her lover, sighing so,
The vanilla never knew.

When the flax moved in, with flaxen curls,
The oatmeal smiled, and shook, and gasped;
Though the vanilla remained on the cupboard shelf,
It was now a thing of the past.
 

Of course, soon it became clear that our daughters needed to gain some historical perspective on love. And its tormenting capabilities. Ya know, the general, pervasive misery it's inspired throughout the ages? (Oh, sure, and the joy, too.) So they read books about Saint Valentine and the Romans' Lupercalia festivals and the quaint courting customs of America's pioneers. Mikaela even created a crossword puzzle to honor the holiday in her newspaper.
 
 
Down
2. It is sometimes used to trim paper hearts
3. A type of candy with messages written on it
5. Venus' son
6. The Greek goddess of love
7. Another word for embrace
8. Roman festival where boys meet girls
9. These can be pink, white or red
11. You pucker your lips to do this
12. Lovebirds

Across
1. A gift that is an expression of love
3.  Feb 14 was named for _____ Valentine
4. Heart-shaped boxes of _____
5. Another word for dating
10. This _____ symbolizes endless love


We also had heart to heart talks about Greek mythology. Taking heart (notes) & learning about love's hospitality through Baucis & Philemon, the dangers of idolatry from Pygmalion & Galatea, and the woes of Romeo and Juliet's precursors, Pyramus & Thisbe. Echo & Narcissus urged reflection on vanity's futility and we admired Daphne's ability to remain chaste while being chased, though her ultimate fate seemed unnecessarily treesonous. But primarily we were intrigued by Cupid & Psyche, eager to see what happens when 'Heart' & 'Soul' unite!     O my, whatever occurs?!  Not much, not after their mother-in-law gets in the way. (Hey, this isn't coming from me. I'm merely repeating what that ol' scholar-woman Edith Hamilton said. About Aphrodite, Cupid's mom. If literature teaches us anything, it's that it would be wrong to apply these universal truths to all situations, right? Grossly eros-neous, imho.)       



But most importantly for our little red-haired girls, the majority of their Valentine's Days are spent with Charlie Brown. As in Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown & You're in Love, Charlie Brown & It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown. Or, for a radical change of pace, Snoopy's Getting Married. These toons cut straight to their hearts sparkying more elaborate papercuts cutting ventures, as well as "Love Is..." sentence completion exercises based on Schulz' Happiness Is... series. A sampling of their efforts: LOVE IS... snuggling your gorilla, cinnamon toasts, sharing a full box of crayons, an evening without baths, a good book, an Indian summer day with caroling birds, a Shipley's chocolate iced doughnut with extra nuts, a hard challenge, and...


Jam-In Valentine Butter Cookies
3/4 c softened butter
1/2 c white sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour

Roll dough into 1" balls. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten & shape into hearts with raised edges. Fill with ¼ tsp fruit preserves. Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes, until golden brown on bottom. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar after cooling. Makes 2 dozen.

Lastly, for parents - or should I simply say "those currently experiencing a post-Romanticism era"? - Valentine's Day offers the perfect excuse to expose your children to love's loftiest heights. In the form of 24 consecutive hours of mushy Motown love song classics by Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Stevie & Smokey. And don't forget those maudlin Temptations, the Supreme sentimentalists or the cheesy Chi-Lites. What about the saccharine Spinners, the gushing Commodores, the 4 tottering Tops, and Earth Wind & Fire's global heartwarming (or has that been dissed proven lately?)... Wait a minute, sorry, there's nothing special here. I already make our kids listen to this stuff monthly. Ok, weekly. Ok, ok, daily. But it doesn't seem to exalt Love irrationally. Instead, M&K perceive Love to be omnipresent, yet somewhat analogous to background noise. Now that's putting love in its proper place...     with the mute button just out of reach.
  
CROSSWORD ANSWERS
DOWN: 2.lace 3.sweetheart  5.Cupid 6.Aphrodite 7.hug  8.Lupercalia 9.roses 11.kiss 12.doves ACROSS: 1.valentine 3.Saint 4.chocolate 5.courtship 10.loveknot
M's poem, drawings & crossword puzzle are used here with her grudging permission & retain her copyright. Or else.

I never liked The Sound of Music. Not exactly sure why. But the opening scene with Maria singing about live hills & twirling around in a dress certainly didn't help any. What sort of dramatic action was that? Now, if Evel Knievel was jumping across some of those hills on a motorcycle, especially if there were some school buses set ablaze to add suspense (in lieu of an errant bonnet that needed retrieving), that might have been worth watching! Also, I couldn't see its connection to Christmas despite the fact that every year TV networks reran this never-ending movie during time-precious school holidays. There was nothing sacred about it. After all, it wasn't the Peanuts' Christmas special. Probably the crux of it was simple resentment. No doubt it was preempting a favorite primetime show which I counted on for continuity and moral guidance. Like, for instance, The Dukes of Hazzard.

Sorry to say, but when Maria sang, froid was what it left me.

But then I gave birth. To two girls. And, apparently, to a previously undisclosed yet infinite capacity for schmaltz, as well. In the early years, I rebuffed Chris' annual suggestion that we enjoy this "Greatest All-Time Family Film" with our little ones (for their sake, ya know, to avoid recurring night mères). Eventually, however, I agreed. For the purpose of exposing the kids to cultural literacy, thereby satisfying that core academic component for the homeschooling year. I figured 15 minutes tops would suffice. We settled down. And 2 hours + 54 minutes later, we got up.

To clear more floor space for M&K. Who were singing. And twirling. And Austrian folk dancing. Well, after first sprinting to the bedroom to change into their most billowy dresses, thereby enhancing those mandatory fru fru effects.

What a ridiculous movie! How contrived! Quite blatantly, unapologetically hokey! Why, it's a veritable medley of mush. My Favorite Things: Corny. Edelweiss: Patriotic propaganda. The Puppet Show: Herd it got your goat. And what about the cute, chubby-cheeked five year old scooting up the stairs while bidding us So Long, Farewell: Say Goodnight, Gretl! You've got to be kidding, who would succumb to that von Trapp?
 

Yep, it became our family's new, all-time favorite movie! As I dabbed my weepy eyes for the twentieth or so time that evening, Chris & I watched our spinning daughters in a revelry of perfectly goofy contentment. And only had the heart to declare it bedtime when Katrianna, imitating a leaping Liesl, came up a little short on her 16^th going on 17^th  jump from the couch to the arm chair to the dining table....

The next morning found her still keyed up, kneeling at a mini electric piano playing the Do-Re-Mi-Me-Me scales by ear. M&K then spent the next several weeks in dual yodeling-guitar lessons with Dad, checking out every How To Waltz video from the library and performing elaborate puppet shows with several stuffed animals & one marionette that they'd previously ignored.

Compared to all that, our actual visit to Salzburg was pretty uneventful. In fact, I began to wonder if skipping the authentic Austrian Sound of Music guided tour, led & narrated by affable Australian expatriates, was a mistake. I'd seen the promotional videos, I knew what we were missing: It wasn't just the opportunity to enjoy an 8 hour bus ride in air-conditioned comfort. Nor the tourism superiority afforded by a tinted-glass advantage point 15 feet above the supposedly Smart cars. Neither was it the chance to chuckle at the Aussie's gentle comedic gibes aimed at tickling Midwestern American sensibilities. Fun! But what we were really missing most was the campy camaraderie of the sing-alongs. Where every single one of the fifty passengers broke into rounds of Climb Ev'ry Mountain, inhibitions be dammed, as they forded ev'ry stream to follow Maria's dream. (Not to be irReverent, but, oh Mother, that one really is irredeemable.)

We did our best to improvise on our own. Experiencing each sequential Sound of Musical setting elicited impromptu performances of How Do You Solve a Problem Like [Insert Choice of Family Member Name Here]? And, perhaps it's divulging too much, but Chris and I got a bit swoony beside Leopoldskroner Weiher, staring deeply into each other's eyes as we crooned, "And somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something wrong." Finally, when we longed to pay tribute to Dad by dedicating The Leder of the Band Hosen to him, accompanied by a suitable souvenir purchase on the Getreidegasse, he considered breaking up The Sarkar Family Singers in pursuit of a solo career.... It took an appeal to his greater sense of Schtoompah (Richard Scarry's "Funny Austrian") to suspender his indignant oompah. Will he never learn Das ist Jacke wie Lederhosen?

Lastly, one destination, though convent-ional, did prove especially memorable. Because we ended up trespassing (yes, again) while earnestly searching for a way to Get thee to a Nonnberg nunnery! Our first stop was the Maria Himmelfahrt Church, where we listened to the nuns chanting vespers. Honestly, they were out of sight, though their voices could be heard floating forth from the balcony on high. The chapel itself was empty, so M&K seized the wedding day, reenacting the marriage ceremony with Mikaela as the whistleblowing Captain and Katrianna playing a post-feminist Maria (sans wimple, yet demure).

Outside, as we wandered around the grounds trying to identify more Sound of Music-significant details, we found the gates open, the cloistered welcome mat seemingly beckoning us onwards. We were merely looking for the refectory, not being refractory. But just try telling that to the Head Nun, who rushed out to chastise us and replace the ORDAINED PERSONNEL ONLY sign to its rightful front & center order (it had been pushed aside... Nope, not by us - couldn't divine its meaning anyhow).

Yet what intrigued us most was that she'd been on the phone when we inadvertently glanced into her office. Surprisingly, it wasn't a cell phone, as one might expect at an abbey. But, a rotary dial, clunky receiver, crimson telephone with those lit up buttons. Similar to the Cold War red one at the White House -- and, rumor has it, at the Batcave? -- with its singular, blinking push-of-a-button omnipotence.



And then it occurred to me, who could she be talking to?



Whoa, did she have a direct connection, or what? But before I could ask for a turn, just to say a quick hello (can you imagine those long distance charges? then again, she must have the unlimited calling plan... think that includes free texting?), she sensibly shooed the barbarians back outside the gate (making short Stift of us). Truly, we hadn't meant to in-nun-date or upset her. And it really wasn't our fault, it's just a bad habit we'd gotten into.

So, anybody up for another showing of The Sound of Music? Albeit, I still contend it's not really a Christmas movie. Now that we have the dvd, we tend to watch it on Thanksgiving & Easter, too.
 

And just in case you're not one of the original 13.5 million world viewers, here's Belgium's take on The Sound of Music. Of course, we Americans aren't expected to have any discriminating taste... But what's their excuse?

Jane Austen is Mikaela's favorite author. Well, unless she happens to be in the Middle of marching through a George Eliot novel... In fact, because of our pre-teen, who continues to find the gaping holes in my graduate school literary education, I'm cutting my wisdom teeth on The Mill and the Floss right now (actually, have been for the last 3 months). Her laughing repeatedly & for crying out loudly at Eliot's "the best sarcasm ever, Mom!" was humiliating. No, not because a young girl is devouring novels thirty years before I ever started them. That is mildly threatening. But not nearly as alarming as the thought that my acerbic wit preeminence might be usurped in my darling daughter's heart. By George, that Eliot is taking it too far.

Yet, every now and then, Mikaela humors me. And we read a novel together. Slowly. One or two chapters at a time, followed by an in-depth discussion where she asks me lots of questions. And then goes on to answer all of them herself.

Last month was my turn to pick, so I'd chosen The Chosen. It was a favorite book in junior high, introduced by an English teacher who tossed out the regular 7th grade textbook in favor of bombarding students with excellent 'young adult' novels, class periods spent debating the morality of characters' decisions, and weekly, intensive essay writing tests. (She could only do such an irresponsible thing because she planned to quit teaching after that year anyway. Between classes, we drilled with the 1,000 handwritten vocabulary flashcards she'd made for the upcoming GRE. That is, when she wasn't busy in an administrator's office receiving poor evaluations for her unacceptably slacker teaching methods.)  

The Chosen is a wonderful and challenging book, with layers of meaning and an intensely nerdy appeal. It's about the joy of learning. It's about friendship. And it's about the arduous, often tedious, phases one must endure for the sake of both. But, it also has kids as its main characters, so, compared to Mikaela's usual fare, is accessible and at the "appropriate reading level" for her age. Moreover, I could actually contribute something to the discussions, further explaining the numerous detailed passages regarding Hasidism, orthodox practices and the subtle distinctions in various sects' beliefs.

But the most significant theme in the novel is the necessity that intellect be complemented by the soul. It is a powerful concept when reading the book and identifying with its teenage protagonists, both Reuven, who seems to have a natural inclination to empathy, and Danny, whose brilliant mind often hinders his emotional insights. But it is equally poignant when rereading it as a parent, with the added responsibility of guiding a child young woman to achieve - and yearn for - that balance.

After wrapping up our study of the novel, we happened onto this article in The New York Times: Yes, Miky, There Are Rabbis in Montana. It was a neat summation to our talks, as well as a reminder of how the history of Judaism comes into play in today's current events.  The reporter prays upon readers' expectations in the post-9/11 era, toying with biases and perceived prejudice, both toward a Hasidic rabbi and the dogged police officer. The premise serves to provide contrast to commonly held preconceptions, by revealing a community in Billings that creatively fought intolerance, for example, as well as to set us up for his surprise ending.  

Yet, it was not so very surprising to Mikaela. In part, this was due to our reading of The Chosen. But, its relevance went further, into homeschooling experiences that we never would have connected to the novel on our own.

We, too, had met a K-9 policeman and his dog. Back in 2004, Mikaela wrote about it in her own news article:

Her interview with Alpo came about by chance, on one of our many, many visits to the Houston Police Department's stables. At the time, our lil' National Velvet was in a typical, horse-crazy girl mode, memorizing everything equine, briefly taking riding lessons, and primarily devoting her energies to corralling her folks into weekly field trips to call on her HPD favorites (neigh, she loved them all). It soon evolved into a regular family outing, including a ritual first stop at a local Latino grocery for bags of carrots & apples for the horses and fritters & churros for us, followed by lazy afternoons spent watching & petting the horses. But, when we arrived early one morning instead, Alpo and his best friend were working out on a dog-sized obstacle course. In addition to learning all about K-9 duties, M&K's attentions turned to trying to coax Alpo into accepting a carrot and, with it, a vegetarian lifestyle.
 
More recently, we traveled to Bozeman and visited several small towns in Montana, including Libby, where we stopped for lunch. To our dismay, it perfectly fulfilled our every notion of the Wild West: As we stepped out of the (station)wagon, air thick with smoke & cinders stung our eyes... due to a wildfire raging on the ridge right above town! However, besides an occasional airplane pilot circling round to drop fire retardant, no one else seemed to notice. People were doing their grocery shopping, cracking jokes at the gas station or lingering over Subway sandwiches, with nary a glance at the looming orange flames. We city slickers got right back into the car & hurried on as fast as the 25 mph speed limit would allow to Glacier National Park, with a quick detour through its three gateway towns, one of which is Whitefish. Little did we realize then that being awed by Montana's scenery would also let us in on a sophisticated NY Times inside joke. (A rabbi, a cop and a German shepherd walk into a capitol building...)
 
None of these events were essential for understanding or appreciating The Chosen. And all happened independently of each other, with no foreseeable connections amongst them. But, one of the most exciting things about learning is seeing the relationships between what at first appear to be disparate things. And one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is that it allows the time & opportunities to delve into topics of interest, engage in thoughtful conversations, build a one-reporter newspaper publishing empire, stroll around some quaint & heretofore obscure small town, or just pass the day horsing around. And, by doing such random things, find the connections between them. And, by doing that, see the connections to ourselves, as well.

My hope is that Mikaela has absorbed The Chosen's lesson that intellect must include compassion. It is a philosophy that applies to us as individuals, yet also necessarily extends to all levels of interaction. The conflicts facing the Middle East are just as complex and divisive now as they were when Chaim Potok described them sixty years ago. The need for an approach to the peace process which balances reason and compassion for both sides concerned, and the ultimate worthiness of engaging in talking rather than silence, would be well chosen.

When the girls were little, I was looking for art project ideas & browsing in a craft store where they had an entire book dedicated to nothing but pompom creations. Supposedly a kid's craft, these things were elaborate, requiring pipe cleaners, feathers, gemstones, conch shells, stamps, buttons, spangles, pre-cut foam pieces, woodsies, batting, felt, embroidery floss, sewing and glue guns (This is a Holdup! Is burning adhesive in close proximity to ponytails really a good idea?).

What I told myself - and even came partially to believe (not always the case with motherly justifying) - was that the end results were not even cute. If you're going to spend $7.99 on a book of silly ideas [which I'm not] and then closer to $27.99 on all of these odds 'n ends supplies, at least the final product should be "Awwwww!"  Instead, they were jumbles of accessorized excess which seemed to lead them further and further away from not only reality, but also attractiveness. At the very least, it all seemed like a lot of unnecessary pompom & circumstance to me...


                                                  As I've always been quite comfortable being simplistic.

Yet, we hadn't found a satisfactory way to express it via pompoms until this past October when I got sick. And then generously shared the experience among my loved ones over the next couple of weeks. Due to a plethora of doctors & nurses & news reporters telling folks to just stay home, secure in the knowledge that "there is a 99% chance you have the swine flu," we never found out if it was truly H1N1. Besides, since a strain of pig-headedness runs on both sides of our families, there really wasn't any sure way of telling... (Nothing's worse than being falsely positive, is there?)


  
    Probably, it was just a regular ol' flu-ke.    



But vertigo has its advantages. All those visions of blinking lights & sugarplums breakdancing in our heads led to a sudden urge to make Christmas ornaments. And once we could crawl over to the dining table, we were all set to give expression to our long-latent pompomposity.  

Of course, the details are necessarily a bit fuzzy. But, rest assured (& remember to drink plenty of liquids), there are no complicated sequins of events to follow here. Materials include one dollar-bin bag of pompoms & another of googly eyes (all I could bring myself to buy that day), some cardstock/construction paper, toothpicks (ladybug antennae), aluminum foil + colored markers (frog tongue), & non-NRA sanctioned glue. Oh, and, if so desired, add a cold or flu to ensure your intellectual capacity is equal to the challenge...


Here are some more easy & inexpensive Christmas tree ornaments we've enjoyed making over the years, most of which require ample amounts of acrylic paint and a minimum of nuts (oh, yeah, you'll need a couple of walnuts, too) ---

 

Last Christmas, Mikaela & Katrianna decided to give "store-bought" gifts. They did lots of planning & plotting to pick out the perfect presents for everybody on their lists. But there was one in particular that was extra special. It was given for the sole purpose of inspiring jealous rage in my husband, their beloved father.

They'd heard about my long-ago ardent admiration of Robert Redford and found a cheap vintage copy of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, which they purchased and wrapped in secret, gleeful anticipation of my joy & Chris' anger when I opened it on Christmas morning. Novices at deceit and intrigue, they are... but, since I strive to encourage those motives in my youngsters, I feigned surprise, followed by wifely apprehension, just as they expected. Chris then did his best to look sullen and cuckolded.

Our masquerade continued for a few days until finally we gathered for the big premiere. {OK, ok, the second big premiere, 39 years after its original release in 1969...back when Roberto was in his prime... & I was a real babe (?) }  M&K giggled and exchanged meaningful elbow nudges, watching Dad's face -- and not the movie -- intently for the first 5 minutes. Golly! was this gonna be good, their expressions asserted as though they were rosy-cheeky subjects in a Norman Rockwell painting.


You see, despite knowing the surprising truth that my infamous affair potential with RR was never realized even when I'd been oh-so-young and single & that The Way We Were was an almost daily -- if primarily one-sided -- romance (his photo was taped to the inside of my junior high school locker), I'm now also old & wise enough to take any form of flattery, real or imagined, that comes my way. So I was fully enjoying the attention, however misplaced.


All went well, except for M&K's repeatedly expressed dismay that Mom had ever thought a mustached outlaw was attractive, until Chris forgot his role in our family drama. And actually started watching the movie. Hadn't figured on the fact that it was a Western - a guy flick - replete with things blowing up & only a smattering of witty dialogue.  Jealousy did rear its ugly head, but only long enough to block everyone else's view as it moved up for a spot closer to the action.


Where was the agonized chagrin?   What happened to the impassioned despair?        
    ...Suspicious fury?    ...Burning ire??   ...Wretched despondency???

Replaced. By Chris' shushing the girls so he could better hear Butch & Sundance's intricate robbery schemes.

Disappointed, M&K decided to move on to a more satisfying activity that would meet or possibly even exceed their expectations for an entertaining evening, like sorting socks. Meanwhile, their dad contentedly downed the rest of the cold popcorn while noting the locations of The Wild Bunch's secret hideouts.  And I was left sitting there, wondering how to revive a sense of rivalry in Chris now that The Kid is 72 years old.  

Dang it. Ya know, before the movie, I used to feel gratified if Chris could actually stay awake for two consecutive hours on one of our road trips, stimulated and amused by my brilliant conversation & the unfettered opportunity to gaze lovingly at my profile as I drove.  Now I discover my husband's attentions can so easily be captivated by another? And all it takes is a cowboy hat, a six shooter & some nifty train jumping maneuvers.
 
Not sure my ego can take any more of our daughters' gifted-ness. I've put in a request that the kids return to homemade presents this Christmas -- they're so much more cherished & meaningfulless.

So, are you ready?

It's that time of year again! Yep, time to prepare for the seasonal celebration of death, honor those who have passed away, face our own immortality and dwell on the wonders of the afterlife. As usual, M&K have been planning a party for weeks & have nearly wrapped up their costume designs. (Which, if you know our family, should be easy to predict - as always, they're going as little Mum-mies.) Certainly, an annual, festive excitement pervades the whole country & has even spread across the world. So, please allow me be just one of many who will greet you this week with that dear, recurring chant from our childhoods: 

          "HAPPY HOWARD CARTER-KING TUT'S TOMB DISCOVERY DAY!" (Trick or treat?)
 
Except for a week or two of high school World History -- which was supposed to be a review, but was all new to me -- I could not recall a thing about Ancient Egypt. I'd always heard that this was one of those subjects, like dinosaurs or singing vegetables, that supposedly turned kids onto learning. But, based on my own experience, where teachers generally devoted 3-5 class periods per civilization before moving on to the next millennium, I was in a bit of a panic: How could I possibly fill 4 weeks of homeschool history on such a dull, uninspiring topic?
(Admittedly, a Nile-istic attitude.)

I went with my strength. There was one lesson about Ancient Egypt that I not only memorized as a kid, but - and I add this in all modesty here - that I still remembered perfectly as an adult. So, just like back in the day, I was willing to demonstrate my mastery of this subject matter if necessary & upon request (my own - for I am nothing, if not obliging). And now, thanks to youtube, I even had an accompanist: 

OK then, that got us through the first two days of the month! Our golden girls were delighted to learn the words & practice all those form-idable, op-pose-able palms moves... why, they continuously roamed the halls in head bobbing, stylized sync! [Well, until I told them they could stop. Sure, 72 hours of this is par for the Egyptian course, but homeschoolers tend to pick things up a little faster, so we were able to declare our proficiency after only 48 hours (not counting the snack and government-mandated napping breaks).]

I hesitate to share the next step in our exploration of Egyptology's merits & nuance, but might as well since perhaps it highlights the full extent of my desperation curriculum-creation powers: Again, I turned to youtube - aka, vestige of all that is educational and worthy of attention - & played The Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian. Thank Ra, the girls much preferred "King Tut." (Can I get an Amen-Ra?)

Of course, this was all just as I planned it. M&K found my approach extremely motivating. And, the following week, completely took over the direction of our Egyptian studies.

Which meant a play. On words. In 8 scenes. Mikaela was the primary playwright, but they worked collaboratively to come up with ideas for action which "must combine tragic & comic elements" to meet the artistic criteria set by the demanding director (older sister). Mikaela also wrote new lyrics for a musical interlude. Although it was in the same tempo as Steve Martin's, she claimed her song was a much improved version since "It's more factually accurate." They then set about memorizing lines, making costumes & props, and rehearsing for hours. Well, there were several minutes of rehearsal, but add those to the hours of arguing, storming off and refusing to continue under such creative duress and you've got real, honest-to-goodness drama!
 
In addition, Katrianna composed a ballad to be sung by Amenhotep (Katrianna) to honor Cleopatra (isn't she a doll?) as the curtain (baby blanket) fell, a subtle signal to the dense audience (it was SRO - all chairs were taken by Thutmose, the scribes, Osiris, miscellaneous embalming equipment...) to begin shouting rounds of "Bravo!" & "Encore!" All of that happened right after Amenhotep weighed King Tut's heart on the scales of justice to find that "Sure nuff, it's light as a feather!" & we watched as the two buddies played a riveting game of Hungry Hippos in the afterlife waiting room. [For those of you keeping score for fantasy Hungry Hippos, Amenhotep won. Tut-tut! But only after first spotting Tutankhamun a 3 marbles lead, the fair way to proceed after one guy just got his brains pulled out through his nose in scene 7 (by a fancy silver plated 'S' shaped bookmark, a gift to Mikaela which kept slipping off the pages & made a lousy bookmark, but it was an excellent brain hook).]

Then there was a field trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Normally seeing their extensive Egyptian collection would have taken roughly 7 minutes, but on one of our visits (actually, this time it was to play with the Simple Machines exhibit), we happened onto a class of third graders being lectured to by a matronly docent. Katrianna kept straying over to their group gathered in the corner, huddled around a small cabinet of Egyptian artifact goodies that were brought out one at a time for prompt display once the woman paused to relock the treasury's door & securely deposit its key back into her pocket. Our daughter was mesmerized. She scooted in closer, sidling up between two girls who were paying great attention to smoothing the seams on their crisply pleated, navy blue skirts. Her hand shot up! And there it stayed as the flustered docent droned on. And on. And on. Wow, I thought, could this mean that she really wanted to be in school? Had she been unable to tell me that she yearned for this sort of social interaction? That she was so eager to seek out others whose expertise could teach her more than she was learning at home?

It was humbling, but I reminded myself that this was always her choice to make. However,  she'd managed to move up another row & the chaperones, if they ever noticed, might get unnerved at such a display of insolence. So, I tapped her on the shoulder. And tapped. And tapped some more until she finally acquiesced and disconsolately followed me over to the other side of the museum's basement. "So, you really liked that class, huh? The teacher was pretty interesting, wasn't she?" Clearly frustrated, Katrianna said nothing, so I answered for her. "Yeah, it might be fun to go to school like those kids. And get explanations to all your questions. What was it you wanted to ask her about just now?"  Katrianna stared at me, confirming my suspicions of teacher-mom inadequacy, and then replied, "I wanted to tell her that she was wrong. Khafre's pyramid looks taller, but Khufu's is really. And they're in Giza, not the Valley of the Kings. And after they did that CAT scan thing, no one thinks Tut was murdered anymore!" She sullenly walked over to pedal the stationary bike until its light bulb flickered on....

After we'd officially finished with our Egypt month of studies, we started Christmas vacation. It gave Mom a much needed break from the rigors of academia. And, amid holiday activities, carol singing, present making and Peanut's specials, it gave M&K a much needed chance to finally break into the rigors of academia they'd so desired. (Until then, they'd felt E-gypped.) "OK, Mom, that settles it," pronounced Katrianna, who was flat on the floor examining an 11x17 xerox copy of the Rosetta Stone. Laying her 3" diameter magnifying glass aside for a moment, she declared, "I'm going to have to learn Greek!" Her progression in deciphering hieroglyphs was unacceptably hampered by this linguistic deficiency and how else could she be certain that Jean-François Champollion had correctly translated all 3 scripts? Sure, she could engrave the hieroglyphs & demotic script with confidence onto her handmade model magic RS replica, but that was hardly satisfactory... And, despite the fact that when we went to Europe a year later & she was limited to one carry-on bag for packing all of her belongings, she insisted on taking along that same magnifying glass for the express purpose of using it in the British Museum to verify the Rosetta Stone's authenticity.

In January, we started back to school & other topics. But, for her New Year's resolution, Katrianna solemnly vowed, "I have to study every day if I want to be an Egyptologist. So that's what I'll do." With that, her Independent Studies began in earnest. On Easter, the Bunny (not without reservations due to his keen sensitivity to irony) delivered the request topping her wish list: The Book of the Dead, replete with be(plastic)jeweled cover & full page, color photos (just like the original). All that year & into the next, she read from her growing repository of meticulously detailed Egypt books, including the Cairo Museum's Collection Guide. Within a week, Katrianna memorized its floor plans & set the daily agenda for our family's impending(?) visit. She also drafted several letters to her hero Zahi Hawass, though they were never mailed because her uncooperative parents refused to finalize our (her) travel itinerary & "C'mon, can't you find a customer in Cairo, Dad?!" After all, how would it look if she sent a resume to the Secretary-General without specifying her dates of availability for meeting with him in person? Not an advantageous way to negotiate her responsibilities & membership on the Supreme Council of Antiquities, is it? But, alas, her best laid pyramid schemes have yet to result in a trip...  

So, no kidding, here's what the kids had to do to satisfy my original syllabus expectations:

Science
Explain 'What is archaeology?'
Experiment w/moving heavy loads w/'logs' (Lincoln logs) 
Geography
Draw, color & label Egypt map
Math
Use compass to make equiv sides & draw pyramids, cut out, fold & tape
Games: play Totally Tut; learn & play Senet
Mythology & Writing
Read & discuss Egypt's divine kingship chapter in big MYTH book & write summaries, responses or illustrate the following stories: The Wandering Eye; Preparing for Eternity; The Duat; Thoth & Horus' Eye; The Dream of Thutmose (make up Sphinx riddles)
Play Word-within-Egyptian Words game

Art
Make Egyptian mummy mask w/paints & "jewels"
History & Reading
Read pages about Egypt in History of the World (compare DK to B&N); read aloud A Little History of the World Egypt chapter; kids pick out & read a few library books
Identify famous pharaohs: King Tut, Ramses II and... umm, TBD
Hieroglyphs: become familiar with character script, learn to write name
 
And here's what they did to satisfy their own:

Science
Learn intricacies of mummification process, incl all technical aspects of brain removal & organ preservation; Watch NOVA The Mummy Who Would Be King video about Ramses I mummy found in Canada; Wrap a mummy, then take turn as the mummy to be wrapped; Understand & explain process of carbon dating; Practice archaeology digging & brushing techniques on 'You Dig It' Kit's clay-encased miniature pyramid, sarcophagus, skeleton & amulets (K's bday giftcard choice); Watch Ancient Egypt --kids archaeology video; K continues pursuit of archaeologist career in dirt, sand or snow mounds where she uncovers miscellaneous Mom-buried treasures (ancient, delicate ping pong balls); Watch PBS Newshour's Face of a Pharaoh about reconstructing Tut's face; K develops her own theories to explain the "unsolved mysteries" of various pharaohs' deaths; K researches native & endangered animals of Egpyt w/DK Animal, Safari & Geosafari cards; K makes Shrinky Dink pyramid puzzle (for our Chemistry states of matter unit); Build shaduf w/Tinker Toys & test (before we got it to work, we blithely addressed fellow lab mates as 'Hey, Shadoofus!')

Geography
Study 3 different Nat'l Geo Anc Egypt maps + "Great People of the Past"; Watch Touring Egypt video -- explains ancient & modern sites; Memorize regions where pharaohs are buried, ID on map 

Math
K draws pyramid blueprints, incl her detailed 'Secret Room' discovery plans; Play Math Pyramid game; Complete Egyptian numbers worksheet + make own probs; Figure volume of our paper pyramids w/Dad; Build various sized step pyramids w/Lego; K makes "fortune teller" with math probs & Egyptian pharaohs' names (spelling practice) on alternating flaps
 
Writing
M&K make up & perform Egypt play
M writes King Tut essay based on bk suggestion
M makes her own 7 pg version of The Egyptian News (part of it covers Elvis -- he's from Memphis)
K writes & types up in most ornate font "Cleopatra & King Tut: A Relationship of Time!" Her fly page promises "- A Dangerous Story! - And a Great One! - And You Will Love to Read It! - And a Love One!" Includes: moment of destiny when Cleopatra's crown is blown off & it is retrieved by "love at first sight" Tut, a palace in Giza, lots of dancing + praising Ra, followed by a wedding, the birth of Nefertiti (their daughter) w/examples of her 1 yo hieroglyphs & 3yo bday celebration, touring Sparta & purchasing a summer home there (in the nice neighborhood, not the one where "Spartans were still busy punching each other"), more action in "dark & creepy" woods, and the perils of repeatedly battling a "man-munching" cobra.

Art
Make amulets, scarab beetle & other symbols w/modeling clay
Make rings + necklaces patterned after Egyptian designs in Fun with Beads: Ancient Egypt kits (found in our Met MoA store at 80% off) 
 
History
K preps & teaches us Egyptology lessons, followed by true "pop" quizzes (administered during meals, while grocery shopping, in car...)
K memorizes ALL of the pharaohs' kingdoms & orders {though she skipped phyla in her classes? - still, a phar-aoh cry from what I'd planned...} Pride forces M to learn most.
Learn about gods & symbols: Ra sun; Horus falcon; Bastet cat; Scarab beetle; Ankh life; Anubis jackal
Hieroglyphs: Learn to write everyone's name; write secret messages/decode; include hieroglyphs in essays, stories & newspaper headlines

Related History

Watch documentary on Egypt's WWII involvement (M was studying WWII in the spring, but K's Egypt vid covered this. K also listens as M describes WWII facts & the novels she reads, so they both throw around WWII terminology and trivia, usually mixed in with Egyptian references and German culture, unaware that most people cannot talk about Cleopatra, Akhenaten, Napoleon and Hitler all in one sentence.)
K rereads Bible stories related to Egypt, ie Moses, pharaoh, plagues, Exodus; Watch The Prince of Egypt animated vid
Learn about pyramid of Quetzalcoatl, Chichen Itza, Mexico
See Night at the Museum in theater (kids' reviews: "Terribly unrealistic" & "Fun!")
 
Reading
Fiction & NF Books: Encyclopedia of Ancient World; Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt; Nat'l Geographic's Egypt (PBS show bk); Royal Diary series' Cleopatra - read book + watch video; Illustrated comic classic Cleopatra; How the Amazon Queen fought the Prince of Egypt; British Museum's Anc Egypt pop-up bk; Great Bk of Archaeology; Mummies, Pyramids & Pharaohs; Pyramids & Mummies; Ms Frizzle's Adventures in Anc Egypt; Tutankhamun's Gift; Hatshepsut; Cleopatra; DK Revealed: Ancient Egypt; The Egyptian News; Egypt in Cross-section; Letters Home from Egypt; The Curse of the Cheese Pyramid (Geronimo Stilton); Look what came from Egypt; Pharaoh's Egypt; The Egypt Game (Newbery award but M dislikes); Everyday Life in Anc Egypt; Inside the tomb of Tut; Akhenaton & Tut: the Religious Revolution; Tut: Mystery of the Boy King; Your Travel Guide to Anc Egypt; Going to War in Anc Egypt; Egyptian Cinderella; Magic Schoolbus Mummies in the Morning; Curse of the Pharaoh; Secrets of the Sphinx; Mystery of the Egyptian Mummy; Egypt diary: Journal of Nakht; Mystery of the 9 Scarabs - games, activities, bkground; variety of modern travel guides
 
And More Books (from K's Egyptology Ind Studies year #2): Ramses II, Egyptology, Book of the Dead, Ency of Anc Egypt, Atlas of Past Times, Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Scieszka's Tut tut, DK Pyramid, ZH's Tutankhamun: The Mystery of the Boy King, The World in the Time of Tutankhamun, 100 Things You Should Know about Anc Egypt, Mummies, Mummies Made in Egypt, plus follow news developments for discovery of new tombs, ZH's website, etc  

Websites & Computer Games
www.ancientegypt.co.uk - hieroglyphs + underworld game; guardians.net/egypt Brit Museum; www.rom.on.ca Canada museum; Aton Ra @ funschool.com; online Senet

Party
Plan Nov 4th Howard Carter anniversary activities (becomes annual event): serve Ancient Egyptian snacks; play Pin the Head on the Sphinx; make up & exchange new Sphinx riddles in the form of anagrams & word ladders; play all Egypt-related board games; K distributes her word find puzzles w/Egypt vocab as party favors

More blog posts about:
Torino Museo Egizio
Dorchester Museum
Vatican Museum
Cleopatra

"And," he added, turning to Katrianna, "it's nice to meet you, too."  Sidney held his hand out to her...

Oh no! She was suddenly shy-struck.

Here? Now? This, despite all of our exaggerated & exuberant "How do you do, And how do you do, And how do you do again" nursery rhyme handshaking sessions begun almost at birth, Richard Scarry's Polite Elephant reinforcement of the finer points of etiquette, and my own determination that our homeschooling kids would not be socially inept? And yet, at various times throughout their childhoods, Mikaela & Katrianna have alternately been overcome by silence. Or experienced urgent, rapt absorption with any stray object located on the ground. Or have inexplicably lost all sensation & mobility in their arms, hands and the cerebral cortex-common courtesy region (could it be an involuntary response of their fluctuating nervous systems?).  

"Well, okay then," Sidney said, "I'll just take a hug instead." And he did.

Though it happens with predictable regularity, the girls' rude-imentary lapses in social skills still take me by surprise every time. Their extroverted phases lull me right up until the sporadic moments that they re-intro-vert themselves. Now I know this cannot really be attributed to our homeschooling. I remember doing the very same thing when I was a kid, repeatedly bewildering my mom at the most inopportune or embarrassing times. When she tried to talk with me about it later & ask what had happened, I was unable to explain it, even to myself. Then, when I was a teacher, I watched freshmen high schoolers work through those first weeks of insecurity with about as much self-assurance & panache as the 18-month-old toddlers who'd so amused me when I'd taught preschool...

Still, there's nothing that adequately prepares a parent to handle those awkward moments that persistently arise in spite of one's conscientious efforts to prepare a child to conduct herself with civility & charm... and then watch as she completely blows it. Well, there was nothing, until Katrianna met Sidney.

We were introduced in person for the first time this past summer while Steel Pulse was on tour. Sidney Mills plays keyboards & is the band's musical arranger. That afternoon, Chris was meeting with lead singer & songwriter David Hinds, Selwyn Brown - also on keyboards, band manager Rich Nesin & Sidney to discuss marketing ideas & potential internet campaigns, especially those promoting charitable partnerships. The girls and I had come along because we were all going to attend their concert later that night. But, to be honest, it wasn't just Katrianna who felt a little self-conscious, so M&K & I quickly left Chris alone to impress the rest of the guys by himself & went off to do all kinds of important things while we waited (primarily reading Calvin & Hobbes comic books in the restaurant next door).
  
But, we'd known Sidney - even if he hadn't known us - for many years prior to that. Long before we had kids, Chris & I globe-cooled: we would travel anywhere in Texas to see Steel Pulse in concert. (Ok, so Texas isn't truly "global" & we weren't actually cool, but...) Theirs was our first date concert & a valid enough reason to skip work anytime to drive 800 miles for a Reggae SunSplash festival. [The most strange & memorable being a San Antonio concert happening in concert with the 1994 World Cup's opening day & the Houston Rockets' NBA Championship playoff game 5, watched on a tiny, borrowed, handheld tv while driving - amazingly, Hakeem stood .610" tall, yet still managed to dunk on Ewing! Then, part way through Steel Pulse's show, the big stage screens broke away from close-ups of David singing or Grizzly on drums to show a white Bronco in a slow-speed police chase? The music stopped & an announcer explained it was OJ Simpson. Everybody stared at the images & each other. The jamming resumed. The next morning, at our favorite, most popular, jam packed 'secret' bakery in San Antonio's Market Square, every single table had ordered not the usual coffee or tea which complement Mexican pastries, but glasses & whole carafes full of orange juice... It just doesn't take much subliminal messaging, does it?]
 
Over the years, I'd also consistently taken every single opportunity to play Steel Pulse's singles in my classroom (the long-play versions whenever possible). Sometimes, it even fit in with what we were studying! On the first day of school, students walked in to Grab Education. Certainly, that set the right tone in the kids' minds: this woman is so dorky she plays music about education - or - this woman is so cool she plays reggae music & calls it school. If it was a successful year, I kept 'em on the fence (or should I say on the ropes?) & guessing like that, unable to come to a definitive conclusion, until well past spring break (if ever).

When I'd first begun teaching, the headmaster chose to emulate the I'm-not-ratifying-it-hold-out-hero-senator John McCain & refused to honor Martin Luther King, Jr Day (although, acting under the auspices of a private school charter, they seemingly found it appropriate to take every other Monday off as some sort of patriotic holiday). So, I respectfully showed up for work anyway - to moderate debates about the validity of observing MLK's Day as a national holiday and play Steel Pulse's Taxi Driver, Sweet Honey in the Rock's Peace & Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday for my 9th graders. The juniors got to read Alice Walker's 1955 Elvis fable, then listen to Steel Pulse's Roller Skates & tie it all back into our studies of the relationship be'Twain Huck Finn & Jim... Within a couple of years, our school's board voted to take MLK day off after all. Accordingly, I switched my curriculum. Our MLK class celebration was moved to the preceding Friday so the kids (and their parents) could dwell on it all 3-day weekend long.


My American Lit scholars also learned that David Hinds & ee cummings have a lot in common: Wild Goose Chase & pity this busy monster, manunkind seemed a perfect pairing to write about Modern disillusionment. Yet, interestingly, Chant a Psalm hearkened back to Puritan era selections. And Throne of Gold might just have been the sequel to Anne Bradstreet's To My Dear & Loving Husband (I also put Your House with Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10, 1666, so they could prove to me how thematically unalike? they were). For Civil War literature studies & our related, subsequent discussions about apartheid in South Africa, we had an obvious State of Emergency. And, along with contemporary political & environmental poetry, Earth Crisis (matched with Marvin Gaye's Mercy, Mercy Me & What's Going On) inspired some spirited exchanges, as well as good creative writing pieces.

Whoops, sorry about that, went off a little bit here --- we teachers get so bogged down in believing that what we do might actually matter to others. My bad. Now returning to this decade & the 21st century... Once again, let me hear ya put your hands together for the real, live                     STEEEEEEEL PULSSSSSSSSSSE!


From then on, each time we saw Sidney that evening, he'd offer his hand to Katrianna. As she added another scuff mark to the toe of her tennis shoe by way of response, her emerging smile grew increasingly visible. Sidney'd give her another gentle hug, along with an extra backstage pass, & continue with his equipment prep and pre-show routine. 



During the concert, we got to sit in the special "Friends of the Band" roped-off section, a privilege to which the girls were completely oblivious no matter how many times their impressed parents tried to convince them it proved Mom & Dad's ultimate, verifiable hipness. Frankly, Mikaela was too preoccupied with maintaining her tween 'rep,' regardless of the fact that no other tween, besides her sister, was anywhere in sight. Still, she kept busy looking nonchalant, taking some photos & bootleg videos, as well as alerting us with "Timber!" every time some Man No Sober guy was falling in our direction. And, despite the fact that once upon a time she rocked [asleep] to Rally Round the Flag, Reggae Fever & Brown-Eyed Girl as her most preferred lullabies, now she stood-fastly refused to dance. [Again, I tried to be as understanding as I could -- that is, while simultaneously jumping up & down in my signature, syncopated, reggae rhythmic, spastic style. For I'd acted the same way long, long ago when my mom took me to St. Stephen's Coffee House, a 1970s hippie version of an Episcopal church. Everyone sat in a big circle on the floor, a couple of guys played acoustic guitar & people joined hands to sing folksy, Cat Stevens-type tunes by candlelight. I never let on that I liked it, shrugging off encouraging participation nudges from Mom and all those other annoyingly warm, glowing faces. As we (I mean, they) crooned only slightly altered C'mon, baby, light my fire sanitized lyrics, all that was missing was a real bonfire - perhaps that would have brought me in? So hard to tell with a tween... Although, while we waited between Steel Pulse sets, I asked our friendly, frazzled usher if reggae or rock audiences were more difficult (well, after allowing for those notoriously riotous Christian rockers). No, she set me straight, it was the bluegrassers- they'd set fire to the seats & rope lines only weeks before. There, now we know who's really got it going on, don't we?]

However, 'bashful' Katrianna happily danced, bounced & sang alongside me until pure exhaustion made her smooth moves more of a hang-over-mom's-shoulders sway. Yet, once the concert was over & we went backstage again, she instantly revived by running up & down the ramps as the stage crew broke down the equipment. We joined the band in their "headliner" dressing room, standing around at the edges trying to be both unobtrusive & take in our first-ever, behind-the-scenes glimpse of the rockstars' world. Soon, Sidney took control again, sparing us from the overwhelming strain of trying to summon & then project our own auras of coolness (good thing, since I'd forgotten to bring mine... plus I couldn't even remember where I'd seen it last). He directed Katrianna to please take his seat, a primo, overstuffed, fully-featured deluxe chair. Ahhhh, so that's where her comfort zone had been hiding! Immediately, she turned to David, confidentially sharing - amid giggles from her Throne of Recliner - "When I was little, I used to think you were singing 'Sitting on a doughnut hole!'" Somehow, David managed to laugh as though that was funny, but Katrianna was so tickled with her own hilarity that she didn't really notice. Then Chris tried to help the joke along. By singing aloud a few bars from Throne of Gold directly to David. It worked, all right -- it was so embarrassing to everyone involved, the whole room's attention was promptly diverted completely away from us...

Which gave us more time to look around. And notice a fridge well-stocked with varieties of organic, soy & almond milks and tables laid out with abundant choices of fresh fruits, avocados, tomatoes, whole wheat breads, bottled waters & all-natural juices. Though David offered, Mikaela was much too shy to partake in any of it, but fully appreciated observing that his after-concert meal was "All vegetarian!" Her confidence now bolstered, without warning she blurted out, "So, David, have you finished Dreams from My Father yet?!" And, again, one of our daughters had managed to leave him slightly stunned. Not that it was a fair contest exactly, since previous to this moment David did not know he was embroiled in a competition. But, when Mikaela had overheard her father talking with him on the phone about Obama's autobiography, apparently that was the impetus she'd been looking for - she started reading it herself that very day (a unique approach to preparing for an upcoming reggae concert, no?). Valiantly, David rallied to her cause, teasing Mikaela about his additional incentive now that he'd finally learned of their fierce reading rivalry race. Mikaela was smug, content in the political coup she'd just pulled off - which, in her mind, was definitely equal to the bands' being invited to play for Bill Clinton's inauguration or their releasing an election-coinciding single entitled Vote Barack to encourage getting out the vote last year.   

When it was finally time to go, Katrianna forgot to shake hands with the members of the band. She was too distracted with giving high-fives & hugging Sidney to remember her manners. Darn it, we proved once again that homeschoolers lack all social graces, didn't we?

Seems another review of our Missed Manners is in order. OK, I'm putting it on the family 'To Do' list right after "Rehearse our barbershop quartet remix version of Handsworth Revolution." There's just so very much to do to get ready for our next Steel Pulse concert...
 

On July 4, 2007, we were in transit. Much to M&K's disappointment, we had to skip going on our annual patriotic picnic hike, listening to the symphony play John Philip Sousa tunes & watching fireworks from our usual, strategically-placed-blanket spot.
 
Not to worry. I assured the kids that missing the Fourth would soon seem less pitiable on July 14 when we would get to participate in France's Bastille Day activities and merriment. Every French teacher I'd ever had drilled it into our heads (it was perfectly tense) how superior and spectacular Bastille Day was in comparison to America's festivities. So, I suggested we rest up and Basteel ourselves for a rousing celebration de la Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! (ou la Mort?)

It started off well enough with a hike through the mountains to the gnomadic alpine village of Valmorel for Corte D'Or ice creams. Its single strolling lane was lined with plenty of shops selling mementos decorated with Mickey Mouse or Hello Kitty, which was okay - we immediately understood that all trinkets are suitably French because, after all, they are called "souvenirs." Plus, the town square's morning program was full of endemic celebrations that likely could not be replicated anywhere else, such as displays of Balkan folk dancing against the idyllic backdrop of the French Alps.

But that's not all. There was also the nearby, larger town of Moûtiers which drew us with a promised "fête formidable with dancing in the streets, bien sûr." Turned out that its bustling avenues reminded us most of those found in Western ghost towns, as we aimlessly wandered across eerily quaint but abandoned bridges (bedecked with cascading flower baskets on the outside, and graffiti & litter - and, ever so momentarily, us - on the inside).

Eventually, we did find some townsfolk when we wandered into the seemingly empty Cathédrale Saint-Pierre of the Archdiocese of Chambéry. Yet, to our dismay, the devoutly dapper were not seated in attendance on the beautiful, heavy wooden pews fronting the gilded main altar or absorbing the delicate, multi-colored light filtering in through the church's windows. No, they were not in the side chapel either. Instead, Mass was taking place in what appeared to be a lean-to church annex - a low ceiling, windowless, wholly unadorned small room with folding chairs (similar to the set up in some start-up, strip center American churches). It was not due to heating or air conditioning concerns or for any other reason apparent to us, who sat in the airy main chapel in our blue jeans contentedly contemplating our faith... as well as the big, meaning-of-life questions that can only occur in the midst of centuries of organized religion's showy splendor, to which we concluded: 
Hey, if you're going to go to all the trouble of exacting tithes and exploiting medieval serf labor, you might as well get your money's worth - go ahead & live it up, take the plastic off the cathedral seat cushions & enjoy going gothic in the main chapel! Really, even many villages' "small" cathedrals are often awesome in the true (meaning, not George W's) sense of that word: the interior columns and arches are designed to make one automatically turn eyes upward to God, to put one's puniness in proper perspective & thereby inspire Heavenly thoughts, and, perhaps most importantly upon stained glass-reflection, to cause the humbled pilgrim to lay back in wonder just far enough so all the loose change spills from his pockets onto the floor (cha-ching! gotta fill those coffers somehow).
 
Undeterred, we set our sights on a night of feu d'artifice back at Valmorel's ski resort, its influx of party-seekers seeming to confirm it was "the spot" for a national bang-up gala. In reality, theirs was a modest fireworks display (some might term it a blasted bomb, pyrotechnically speaking). But Mikaela caught the spirit of the evening anyway & lit it up all the more by accompanying each explosion with graphic historical accounts of how the bourgeois' good intentions went somewhat astray. (Now isn't that just like homeschoolers? They really know how to completely ruin all the fun in a good, old-fashioned revolution!) 

Our revelry continued well into the enwee hours. In front of the fountain, a rock band played American covers and Katrianna verified its Americana authenticity by clapping her hands (over her ears & adamantly refusing to remove them - something she automatically does for similar music in the States). Finally, just as we were about to declare our Independence and go home, the dancing in the streets indeed began (actually, to be honest, it was square dancing) - of course, we joined in, all the while telling ourselves we think we can-can.

Overall, Bastille Day was an enlightening change of pace from our typical July 4ths in the U.S. We were happy to partake in all of the new cultural experiences France had to offer on this special occasion, despite the fact that there were none of the traditional amusements we'd originally expected - like frolicking games of Pin the Head on the Aristocrat (much anticipated by Mikaela), Storm the Prison & Free our Comrades sack races, or the undeniably thrilling, though life-threatening, Running of the Boules (probably for the best, as everyone knows boules fighting is justifiably frowned upon by PETA). Well, we globeschoolers continue to live & learn. Anyhow, as I recall (with a knitted brow, Madame?),
it was the best of times.

During HO-HOsanna hey! Christmas vacations, my childhood days of yore were filled with carols sung by Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Mathis and Nat King Cole. But every night before going to bed, I'd lie down on the living room couch and tune into the Jackson 5's Christmas Album. In the dark, I listened while I watched the magical patterns created on the ceiling by the Christmas tree's colorful flashing lights. This was my most sacred yuletide ritual. First came Side 1's rollicking, jolly songs, full to the brim with Santa's promised visit, ol' St Nick's chimney antics and Frosty's lively dilemma. Then I'd get up to flip the lp, always scratching it just a little as I tried to set the record player's arm down ever-so ineptly (that really needled my mom & brothers - producing an earful of stereophonic surround sound). Now it was Side 2's time to be mellow. I grew anxious on behalf of a tearful Jermaine who just broke up with his girlfriend,  allowing myself to be swept over by as much germane nostalgia as a six year old single girl can muster. I wondered about "the couple upstairs wanting to know there's someone who cares" and always renewed my vow to give love on Christmas day, per Michael's request. I duteously dreamt of someday at Christmas when we'd all know what Christmas is for (essentially - no wars, universal love, hope & peace on earth, plus any bonus treats that happen to be peeking out of the top of your stocking). Finally, I'd nod off amid visions of Mommy kissing Santa Claus, even years after I was in on the "secret" of Santa's true identity known by all older, jeering brothers. Then, each year on Christmas morning, my very own personal archangel Michael heralded our family to open presents and I had myself a merry little Christmas, just as the Jackson 5 wished I (ok, and everybody else, too) would.

These days, Mikaela might take after me in some obvious ways, but there was nothing akin to the pride I felt when, as a three year old, she demanded that we play the Jackson 5 Christmas cd incessantly from Thanksgiving through Christmas (and beyond). She'd solemnly strap on her toy drum and reverently march around the house with The Little Drummer Boy, repeatedly hitting the replay button just as it was nearly tapped out. Eventually, our percussion section expanded - as soon as Katrianna could, she toddled around after her big sister with her own miniature smiley face drum (really a tambourine, but somehow Mikaela drummed other notions into Katrianna's head) & was kept completely off beat with some buggin' centipede-styled drumsticks. 

Yet, M&K's Jackson 5 playfulness couldn't be contained to merely the adventurous months. Instead of Mama's Gonna Buy You a Mockingbird, their mama sang "Rockin' Robin" to hush her little babies in the middle of the night. And, instead of the traditional alphabet song, it was "ABC" which, with some slight tweaking, schooled our scholars in their letters. Really, try it. Listen for the melody, then here we go now -

Sit yourself down, take a seat, all you gotta do is repeat after me -
I said ABC, as simple as do re mi -
DEF -
GH I'm a gonna teach ya how to sing it out,
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, let me show ya what it's all about -
JKL -
MNO oo oo-
PQRST - t - t- Teacher's gonna show you -
Shake it, shake it, baby -
UV double Ew wee -
XYZ, baby, you & me, girl!

And, in 1, 2, 3 simple lessons, that's how easy reading & rhythm can be!

Next, for math & counting by twos, we cheered "2-4-6-8, who do you appreciate? (Please say that mom is me...)"  Well, you get the idea -- our particular form of homeschooling would have been impossible without the curriculum guidance and educational expertise of little Michael and his big brothers.
 
But, is the "little Michael" qualification really necessary? Yes.

In a twist on the I Was Country When Country was Uncool theme, I was a Michael fan when Michael was uncool and right up until the moment when Michael became too cool - around the time that the Jackson 5 left Motown and became The Jacksons & Michael grew up to ascend Pop's solo throne. In my opinion, that's when his off the wall behavior started. And then, soon enough, the Thriller was gone for me (to manila or bust?). All it took was a few rockous guitar licks and one signature crotch grab, a shot seen round the world, and I beat it. He was Bad, I knew it.

But, that was ok. As the preppy tween-teen crowd clamored to expose blindingly white socks beneath their flooding black pants & worship at the King of Pop's penny loafers, I claimed little Michael all for myself. It seemed I was the only one at the time. While my older brother was romancing his dates with Steely Dan or the Carpenters and the other brother was hard rocking with Van Halen and Pink Floyd, I was perpetually stuck on the likes of Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5. Decades later, I still am.



[Though, I confess, I make one exception for the elder Michael's efforts. Whenever Chris or the kids ask me to do some extra chore or favor, I almost always agree but they have to pay a heavy price - listening to me sing a few bars of "Got Me Working Day & Night." Usually they turn away by the time I get to the squeals, up kicks, spins & moonwalking... but it's purely strategic on my part: not only do I thoroughly enjoy myself, it's a subtle yet very effective way of keeping requests to the essential minimum.]
 
In some respects, I had to come to terms with losing Michael Jackson in the early 1980s just when seemingly everyone else began emulating him. It sounds overly dramatic, but especially in these last years - once I had kids and had to explain my a-synchronous admiration and sadness  - making those distinctions became even more poignant. Young Michael was the most talented singer I have ever heard, the most mesmerizing and dynamic dancer & performer I have ever seen, as close as I imagine we will come to witnessing a modern-day Mozart - our era's most popular musical prodigy. So, after a lot of practice, that's how I choose to remember Michael today, as well. I hope his someday has come and he can now receive a share of the peace, serenity and happiness that he bequeathed to so many of us.

For Father's Day, a deferential retrospective of our family's beloved Dad -

Early on, thanks to Dad's musical tastes, we discovered that the most soothing, soporific lullabies for infants include any with a walking bass line by Steel Pulse. Then, thanks to the kids' toddler years, we discovered that the favorite band for irie men in their late thirties is The Wiggles. (True, Veggie Tales tunes are also great, but they get Chris too revved up and we have to increase his Ritalin.) 

When she was 3, Mikaela had a lingering cough for a few days following a cold and she milked it for all it was worth - which was, not coincidentally, attention from Mom when her newborn sister was nursing. Chris took charge and strictly forbade any future coughing-for-effect. Of course, it had none other than the predictable, expected result (a parent to anyone but a father): Mikaela's scratchy throat continued for a full year. Satisfied with a parenting job well decreed, Chris complacently left to go to the office every day and I got to take Mikaela to cough at playgroups, parks, nature classes & library storytimes where I received a daily dose of "the look" from complete strangers - what kind of mother would drag around a [not] sick child like that?
 

Their dad has always been a devoted companion for the girls' imaginary play. Each year in December, he would take his place on Santa-Mikaela's sleigh-sofa, squeezing in beside the other elves - MacKenzo, Socko & Katrianna - and fly throughout the land looking for good little girls and boys deserving of presents. Some days, he'd even come home & regale them with news brought directly from Saint Nick himself, who happened to be seen at our neighborhood Target stuffing his "magic Santa pocket" (versatile spandex, Perseus) full of innumerable toys of all descriptions. My, what delightful fun! Until that afternoon when Santa sent a note stating that if a cantankerous Mikaela kept refusing to cooperate with her "very cool dude" father, she'd find only lumps of coal in her stocking on Christmas morn. OH HO, a very original and clever ploy, Chris Kringle! Until Mikaela noticed that Santa's message was written on an Intel post-it note -- exactly the same kind that Mikaela had earlier written "6 AND 3!!!" on & stuck to Chris' computer screen so he would correctly state his daughters' ages when clients asked.
 
 


As a former member of the #1 squad in Houston's premier amateur soccer league, Chris was primed (well, just past his prime) to turn his talents to coaching Mikaela's youth team. He spent practices diligently working with the children to perfect the most important skill in football: how to celebrate a score by stretching out one's arms & running circles around the field yelling ¡Gooooooolllllllllll! like Univision's Andreas Cantor. The kids loved it! Well, loved it at practices anyway, since going 0-8 for two consecutive seasons really did not allow for too many game-time display opportunities. [Check out Chris' soccer blog] 
     
When we started globeschooling, Chris happily moved over to let me take the driver's seat - 15 minutes at a stretch (plus a yawn and then he's usually asleep for the next 15 hours). His main way to prepare for our trips is to plan all the ways he can back out of them at the last minute. Once we're on the road, though, he defies the stereotype about men getting lost & refusing to ask for directions. A 21st century, tech-liberated kind of guy, he not only buys several maps for each trip, but also insists we listen to the GPS voice navigation system (when it comes complimentary on rent cars). That way, he's covered every contingency and when we get lost - as we always do when he's in charge of directions - we can be sure to get lost as quickly and efficiently as possible. Some people go for unlimited mileage; others content themselves with unlimited options for choosing the wrong way to go.

These days, Dad willingly plays Monopoly with the girls. That all-American game that teaches such important values: the value of math fluency in everyday life, the value of money management, the value of planning ahead, and, most importantly, the value of cheating without getting caught. No, that's the old, outdated Monopoly everyone knows. And, frankly, they're tiring of it. So, we're on the waitlist for the new & improved, more realistic edition. Where you still learn the value of cheating, but also the value of getting caught, so you can position your company to receive a government subsidized bailout (in the billions of dollars, not measly Boardwalk thousands) and a golden personal parachute compensation package that'll keep you flying high all the way to your 85th birthday. . .


With respect to Model Parenting, he takes a slightly different approach. Chris leads by counter example. It's a variation on 'Do as I say, not as I do' which he contends builds character by providing the girls a healthy chance to resist negative influences. For downright-bodacious example, although he grew up in India & still has remnants of a British accent, he revels (and rebels) in talkin' like a Texan. To Mikaela's chagrin, he employs every Southern turn of phrase & inflection and drawls out their linguistic delivery. The eye-rolling grammarian can't hardly stand it - "Daaaad, that's a double negative!" (A typical hypo critical tween, Mikaela prefers to be singularly negative instead.) Master of reverse psychology, Chris tells the girls, "Simply find a guy who doesn't do these things - that's the key to a happy marriage, just ask Mom."


For all academic subject(ivitie)s, our homeschooling dad consistently demonstrates that the overwhelming male need to know all the answers supersedes logical thought. He is unable to utter the words "I don't know" in the presence of his children. For the last several years, we've focused on one particular whopper that came to symbolize them all. We were studying the history of flight (getting ready for the girls' first plane ride - can't do anything around here without making it "educational") and Chris explained that the use of Concorde jets had been discontinued due to all of the sonic booms produced when they kept breaking the sound barrier. Now I knew that fuel costs plus ticket prices for the supersonic time-busters had been exorbitant and was also under the impression that safety issues had ultimately grounded them, so I never bothered to check. As any good wife - not to mention educator - would do in this situation, at the speed of sound, I led the children in ridiculing their father (my life's Catcalling). "Oh c'mon, Chris, that's just plane wrong! Exactly how many sonic booms per day were they having with all those Concorde flights to Paris?" From then on, nearly any theory offered by their venerated father on any subject earned the immediate classification of "sound barrier" and was promptly disregarded (after pausing for a traditional moment of derisive laughter). Ahh, how quickly time flies...             
 
In honor of Father's Day this year, the girls begged me to let them guest blog. Their subject? "Sound Barriers" They'd made a list of Dad's best knowledgeable nuggets and were all set to start it off with a Boom! Due to my journalistic integrity, which will allows nothing but strict adherence to the facts, I decided I better google it. Ah ha, I was right, so I called Chris over to look - in the interest of fairness and edification, mind you, not to rub it in. Then, he googled it. Unbelievable, Wikipedia had his back! M&K were undeterred and wanted to proceed with the other 49 irrefutable Dad facts, but the truth is that I was too shook up - dumbstruck, you might even say. What if he was right about the others, too? The girls' list will have to wait until next Father's Day - so we can conscientiously verify its inauthenticities, as well as to allow ample time for researching my Wikipedia conspiracy theory: 1) Chris hacked into their system unbeknownst to the editorial staff, or 2) all of the entries written for Wikipedia are in fact written by fathers similarly afflicted by Sound Barrieritis. I wonder if Oliver Stone is onto this? Honestly, I always thought it was called "mendacity" because men have a much higher capacity to supremely exemplify its many forms. (Hey, anyone seen my hot tin roof? Alas, let she who is without sin cast the first Brick...)

It's the universal truism of fatherhood - there really should be nothing knew under the son (or daughters), should there?

Finally, as Chris likes to remind me several times an hour, this family's blog would not be possible without his generous support, technical know-how and editorial advice. Even Mikaela has noticed his invaluable contributions: "Mom, do you think the people who read your blog miss as many of the jokes as Dad does?"  

We're officially on "summer vacation." That can only mean one thing: Mikaela & Katrianna are now doing more schoolwork in a week than we accomplish in an entire month all together. Over time, I figured out, if I really want the kids to get busy with the academics, I just declare a holiday.

When they were little, M&K loved to "play school." Actually, they've never stopped. Our school curriculum & tempo are already guided, in large part, by their self-motivated learning styles and interests, so there is little difference when school is "on" or "off." Every now & then, however, I feel the inexplicable urge to exclaim, "Give me a break!... Please?" That's okay, the girls happily take charge and institute some discipline around here. And, since it's merely semantics anyway, I write down all the stuff they do "for fun" on our "vacation" and count it as school without their knowledge.
 
So, what are they doing? Well, there's the usual summer stuff: all-day playdates, lots of hiking & outdoor activities, plus baking, crafting & gardening. We're also visiting museums, zoos and state parks before they get too crowded. (FYI, we generally begin 'summer vacation' around mid-April... uh huh, homeschoolers are renegades.) And they're currently publishing the fifth issue in yet another newspaper venture...

But, mostly, they are preparing for the SAT.

No, I did not manipulate them into this (not that I'm knocking that technique, don't get me wrong). All on their own, they proclaimed one day that they weren't going to college because "We're going to HOMECOLLEGE, Mom!" Believe it or not, I wasn't immediately filled with a sense of maternal pride or teacherly accomplishment. When Mikaela was born, I'd come to terms with the idea that I would have to do my best by the kids for the next 20 years or so and, in our case, that includes homeschooling them. But, after that, I want to rest (or learn to fly airplanes, not quite sure). So, with no ulterior motive except perhaps to completely discourage the idea, we eventually came to an understanding. If they got such high SAT scores that they could win academic scholarship offers to competitively ranked universities of their choice, I would then agree to let them skip college. Otherwise, no dice. (Of course, I'm also counting on the inevitable, evolutionary desire to get as far away from one's parents as possible kicking in at around 17. Ok, who am I kidding? - maybe 16? 15? Do I hear a 14? Or, if they really are so smart, certainly they'll divine the genuine lure of further education: no full time job required. So, I'm not too worried. Yet.)
 
It all started last summer. At the bookstore, Mikaela picked out the gigantic, comprehensive Barron's SAT prep book which included several practice tests, the longest & driest vocabulary list she could find (sans cartoons or cute hints to help you remember the definitions - perused but rejected as "too easy") and infinite math problems with obligatorily convoluted explanations (not the entertaining, user-friendly versions Chris was leaning toward because he might be able to understand them). She was fervently commending the (national?) merits of this particular guide when, lo and behold! a guy suddenly pops out from behind a corner display to concur, for - did we all realize? -  he himself had used that very same study guide when he was in high school, and had, in fact, made a  [dramatic pause] ...1600! What the dickens?! He was an indisputable apparition of Christmas future - vividly demonstrating to our impressionable, starry-eyed pupils the fate of those who get a perfect SAT score: You shall forevermore spend your evenings haunting test prep aisles in bookstores to pounce on unsuspecting passersby, the only ones who might still care 15 years after that momentous day when the postmaster delivered verifiable proof of your preeminence to the mailbox. But, that's not all: if you continue to strive & work hard, like this admirable chap, you might turn your laudable efforts into a full time career as a Princeton Review tutor. I guess what the College Board attests is indeed true - SAT scores are obviously the #1, infallible indicator of a person's potential for life-long success.


Despite the genius hustler in our midst, Mikaela stuck with her choice and was quite pleased with the prospect of spending her "free time" riffling through 1,000 vocabulary flashcards and even looked forward to solving for x. (Since higher arithmetic had often been an exercise in patience with poor instructors who didn't understand the problems any better than I did, Chris took over math teaching duties when we hit algebra. Hey, I figure that if the kids do well on the math portion, we'll look back on this as a wonderful father-daughters bonding experience. And, if they don't, I have someone to blame besides myself... I fail to see any negatives in this solution.)




However, Katrianna spent much of the car ride home slowly brooding & fuming until we turned around just in time to see Mt St Katrianna erupt right there in the back seat. POW! She was incensed:
 
Why is Mikaela getting a SAT book and I'm NOT?
I never get any challenges! Why can't I have any challenges?
My math's too easy! Don't we remember when Mikaela was learning her times tables, who yelled out all the answers first?
Same with spelling - admit it! So, tell me, exactly why can't I have a good vocabulary, too?!

It was a full-blown temper tantrum, the likes of which we'd never seen, all over a SAT book. It didn't appease her when, in desperation, we suggested she could use the accompanying cd whenever she liked - appealing to her computer-geek nature, usually a surefire pacifier. The fact that she was technically supposed to be a 2nd grader didn't provide any solace, either. So, since there was nothing else to do, I pulled over, donned my powdered wig & black judiciary robe (stored in the glove box - heck, they thought of everything in those government-issue emergency supply kits, didn't they, Brownie?), and delivered a Supreme Court-level presentation of the evidence, with a full recounting of the history & progression of Mikaela v. Katrianna's scholarly preparation thus far: an exhaustive, logical proof of the necessary steps to SAT readiness. Unable to refute the fact that Mikaela had long been doing long division - the bane of K's existence (she always came up short) - Katrianna acquiesced on the condition that if she practiced her multiplication & division all year, we would allow her to participate in each & every SAT verbal and mathematics lesson. Furthermore, if she could follow the math as well as (or, we had to concede, better than) Mikaela, we'd rush out at once and purchase her very own, personal Barron's. A quick swing by the notary's office to formalize the contract & peace was restored on Katrianna's earth. 
 
After months of long, divisive days (actually, they were colorful worksheets), Katrianna reached her quotient at last. In addition, she'd completed all of Dad's assignments & continued to get as many answers right as her big sister because she went more slowly, but with more accuracy... So, the steadfast tortoise met the rite angles of passage requirements & this summer ended up with a SAT 3-book set that was serendipitously on sale for $8 total (pshew, no cosineR needed). First thing, she devoured the writing book, highlighting significant tips and all the while talking nonstop about how it's improving her imperative skills moment by moment! She then started in on the practice questions and, when she "graded" them, her exclamations of "Hey, I got it right!" were just as gleeful as those of "Oh, I got it wrong!" Plus, we overheard her suggesting to Mikaela, "I wonder if anyone ever missed every single question on the whole SAT?" In other words, if you can't get a perfect score, consider that as the next best option...
 
Now M&K are envious of each other's SAT vocab lists & traipse around trying to outdo each other in erudite panache, dropping sophisticated word choice at will. They are also very possessive of their words and take great umbrage when the other kid tries to usurp their "turf," as in "Hey, you can't use that - that's my word!!" Mikaela enjoys taking the reading comprehension tests and then discussing why she missed a question and what possible mindset the test makers could so erroneously have employed when coming to such poor conclusions. And the essay prompt practice has led them, after two or three frantic paragraphs of timed writing, to that age-old discovery: "My hand hurts."
  
Still, they insist that they're having loads of fun. It adds a completely new dimension to what seems to be the standard(ized) practice of "teaching to the test"  -- only instead of cramming for the two weeks before it's administered, they're blithely serving hard time of 5 to 10 year sentences (including some with No Error). And, finally, no test-taking detail is too small: they've meticulously planned out which snacks they'll take along for the break times between sections.  
 
Irregardless, in a continued effort to promote collegiate aspirations, I make it a point to tour universities everywhere we visit. But, honestly, it's not helping. For instance, an amiable but overzealous Stanford co-ed's thrilling accounts of wild 'n crazy cafeteria tray stair sledding, unfettered splashing in fountains between classes, a finals week tradition of paper airplane combat, and the "totally hilarious" time capsule buried with a four-year-old pizza slice inside it didn't exactly light a fire - intellectual or communal - under M&K. Moreover, the absolutely mortifying idea of a nude beach on the campus of the University of British Columbia likely contributed to rejuvenating their homecolleging resolve. No, this is definitely not working. . .  at least that's what I tell my husband when I look up long enough from How to Fly Airplanes for Dummies. 

Pretty soon,  I think we'd better start the new school year - and give the kids a chance for some "down time." Next spring, I vow to seriously look into options for summer camp. You know, the fancy free kind where you get to braid those ultra useful lanyards, build up the nerve to cannonball off the floating pier, spend forty minutes peering into your shoes to check for hidden scorpions, slap mosquitoes in time to Kumbaya and eat s'mores, like 'em or not. Golly, that sounds swell!  Precisely what M&K need: no more moping around, complaining about being bored with nothing to do & asking every 15 minutes for permission to go outside and play - the girls just hate it when I do that. I wonder, should I sign myself up for two sessions or three?

For most of my student years, I was not fond of history. Too many teachers had focused solely on dates & famous leaders and, in even the most challenging classes, tests were mere measures of meticulous memorization. The 'story' in history was lost, taken over by war generals, names of battles and what I suspected were some teachers' overwrought compensations for their own frustrated machismo. Even in college, I was bothered to find that friends, who seemed quite nice otherwise, were in fact history majors - what sort of deep seated psychological issues were they hiding? Who wanted to spend all their time delving into the gory details of madmen, power trips and world destruction? 

Well, I'd eventually discover, my kids did. But, tyranny was only a minor part of their enthusiastic attraction to history, so they ended up - in ways much more persuasive than any teacher I'd ever had - taking me in and showing me the excitement that could be had by studying history. In a way, their tabula rasa innocence allowed them to accept the past 'as is' and skip the moral judgments which made me categorize things as 'good' or dismiss them as 'bad.' More effectively than Shakespeare, they put the play-fulness into historical drama, bringing individuals' personalities, the fascinating interplay of flaws & virtues, back into the stories. Of course, we also end up learning "the lessons" - both academic and ethical - intrinsic to the events, but without our primary concern being the weapons used or detailed listings of physical wounds inflicted (and without the requirement to demonstrate ultimate subject mastery in the form of a unit chapter test).

When Mikaela wanted to learn about WWII in fourth grade, I initially practiced my usual evasive maneuvers & put it off, hoping she'd forget about it until she was "old enough to handle it." I'd taken a college course on Holocaust literature that was thought provoking, mostly depressing, yet sometimes uplifting, and I solemnly looked forward to the time - when she was in high school, maybe - that I would be able to share those books with her - Night, Schindler's List, Survival in Auschwitz, Judgment at Nuremberg, What's to Become of the Boy? But, there was no way I felt she was ready for that now... or seeing war footage...  or watching the compelling but brutal movies that even overwhelm adults... 


I couldn't figure out how to teach WWII to the under-10 year old set besides the pedantic "just the facts, ma'am" approach, so I did what any thoughtful parent or teacher would do in that situation: I stalled. But, it wasn't long before Mikaela started independently building her own reading list and surreptitiously checking out WWII books from the library. She'd easily defeated my curriculum-setting axis, so my next strategic move as a homeschooling mom was clear: I allied myself with her efforts and she immediately began teaching me and her sister.

Freed from my preconceptions or didactic objectives, I was soon able to find excellent, age-appropriate resources & made several suggestions, but mainly I relied on Mikaela's instincts. Some books she started and then stopped after a few pages or a couple of chapters because they were "too scary." And, although I very anxiously put aside my apprehensions about letting her read The Diary of a Young Girl with its abrupt, wrenching conclusion, in an outcome I couldn't have foreseen, she never reached the end. Stopping halfway through, she declared that Anne was "too boy crazy" for her to continue. Since she had read other accounts of Anne's fate (including letters by Anne's father) and I know she will one day reread and finish the diary, I found this temporary assessment rather telling - it was clear that she saw Anne as a full person, not just a symbol of war, and, ironically, that genuine identification made her realize (even inadvertently) that she would better understand Anne's situation when she was more mature herself. She put Anne Frank's diary back on the shelf "for the next time we study World War II, Mom."

In the time we devoted to WWII, Mikaela learned an enormous amount and taught me even more as we followed her student-led syllabus (recorded in my teacher's log):

HISTORY - JANUARY: WWII for Mikaela, brief overview for Katrianna (studying dinosaurs instead)

Create collage of WWII drawings & symbols for portfolio theme divider
NY Times The Complete Front Pages & NY Times Greatest Stories collections: read 'real time' newspaper articles leading up to war, during war & victory celebrations; discuss tone of war-time ads in paper; read current articles about Pearl Harbor 65 yr anniversary & google for more info
Read fiction & non-fiction books: One Eye Laughing, The Other Weeping: Julie Weiss (Dear America); Number the Stars; Lily's Crossing; Sadako & the Thousand Paper Cranes; I Am David (too scary); American Girl: Molly on the Home Front series + A Spy on the Home Front + nonfiction study guide; The Devil's Arithmetic; Introducing Shirley Braverman; My Secret War; Diary of Anne Frank (1/2) + Nonfiction book w/photos, Anne's report cards & various info about her; The Causes of WWII; Witnesses to War: 8 True-Life Stories of Nazi Persecution; WWII Days: Projects ideas + background, facts; The Bombing of Pearl Harbor; A Time to Fight Back-Stories of Resistance; Growing Up in WWII; Memories of Survival; Children & War; Rescued Images: Childhood in Hiding; Hey, Don't You Know there's a War on?; Ten Thousand Children: Kindertransport; Carrie's War; Early Sunday Morning (Pearl Harbor); Journal of SP Collins, WWII soldier; Journal of Ben Uchida (Internment camp)
Watch movies/videos: Sound of Music; Miracle of the White Stallions (Vienna's Spanish Riding School); What Have We Learned, CB? (Omaha beach, France, poppies); 60 minutes show @ just released WWII records w/interviews of camp survivors, original Schindler's list document, Anne Frank's papers, etc; K's Egypt video: section on Egypt's involvement in WWII; PBS documentary @ women pilots program in TX (WASP); PBS show @ 1949 Berlin airlift; Bedknobs & Broomsticks (movie has WWII references, book does not); Molly on the Home Front tv movie 
Fold 100 origami cranes based on Sadako book
Learn terms: anti-Semitism, Axis powers, Allies, D-day, blitzkrieg, dictator, inflation, fascism, Gestapo, Holocaust, kamikaze, isolationism, nationalism, U-boat, Nazi, Aryan, crematorium, concentration camp, deportation, genocide, ghetto, swastika, yellow star, atom bomb - Hiroshima, Nagasaki
Complete workbook pages; look up definitions in encyclopedia for terms; make battles list
Discuss artists, ie Paul Klee, labeled as "degenerate" by Nazis who removed works from museums
Write & type original WWII story: diary format @ US kid & her soldier dad serving overseas 12 pg
Interview grandparents about their experiences as children during war
Write & type 1000 word research paper on kids' contributions to war effort, cite primary & secondary sources + include bibliography (narrowed to 5 topics, started with Women Airforce Service Pilots & then switched to kids' contributions)
Attend talk given by former WWII female resistance fighter at university memorial event
Visit Holocaust museum, view & discuss exhibits



Visit Los Alamos "Manhattan Project" museum,view exhibits, A-bomb, talk with docents @ G-pa (M invokes moral absolutism here and insists bombs were wrong) 
 





The following year in Europe, we got the opportunity to apply what we'd learned. One result of my newfound, daughters-inspired appreciation for history was an insistence that we not only see "fun" & touristy sites, but that we take some time to pay homage to the past, recognizing both the bad & good in history. I'd always struggled with the dichotomy of regarding war as wrong and ignoble, while I believed most soldiers were exceedingly brave and honorable. In WWII, the moral imperative for military engagement made 'right' & 'wrong' and the heroism of those involved uniquely evident. Yet, even when we cannot extol noble causes or justify a particular war, we will continue to glorify the people who sacrifice for our sakes and a victorious human spirit that often emerges most distinctly amid conflict. Having children - and relearning history with them - only deepened my sense of debt, humility and thankfulness to those who are willing to stand up and serve for their own and others' families.

For twenty years, I was an 'A' history student, but never retained - & usually couldn't forget fast enough- what I'd learned for the tests. History was summarily lumped in with my natural aversion to villainy, horror movies and obscure, irrelevant minutiae that, outside of a classroom, only occasionally showed up as Trivial Pursuit questions. But, apparently, what they say is true - even for the most incorrigible student, all it takes is the tutelage of motivating teachers: Katrianna, who began her Egyptology & Ancient Rome dual PhD program in preschool, and Mikaela, who so far has instructed me on medieval times, the British monarchy, the American Revolution and WWI & II. I'm receiving a first rate education this time around. In fact, I think I'm majoring in History...   

For our first visit to Canada, we went to France. It was a tribute of remembrance for soldiers and civilians involved in The Great War. We drove the Circuit de Souvenir, a route that winds through WWI battle sites in the Somme Valley from Albert to Bapaume, France. Our tour concluded with a visit to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, north of Arras.

Mikaela learned about WWI in a fairly traditional way before the trip: names of leaders, important battles, weapons development & new inventions, significant dates. But Katrianna hadn't formally studied WWI yet, so (unconstrained by the rigorous course requirements self-imposed by her 9 year old sister) her flights of fancy soared to WWI aircraft. She made every model in a vintage (cardboard) airplanes kit and knew the characteristics & insignias of Allied and Central combatants. Of course, there was also what she'd gleaned from the battles of the famed WWI flying ace, Snoopy...  which led, to my surprise, to M&K memorizing every trivial detail about the real Red-headed Baron and his legendary dogfights (even those that weren't against a beagle).
 
Both girls recited "In Flanders Fields" and fashioned paper poppies. And our whole family watched "What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?" which is Charles Schultz' award winning cartoon salute with many Memorial Day facts interspersed with the Peanuts gang's car troubles (a classic, crank start automobile that repeatedly thrilled K - "Look, Snoopy's car!" - on our visit).




We began very early on a chilly morning in Albert, fog obscuring the view of Mary & Jesus who stood atop the Notre Dame de Brebières. The compact town centers around its fountain and the quiet town square across from the basilica. Many of the original buildings had been destroyed in the war and were rebuilt in the art deco style, but the church was restored faithfully and turned out to be my favorite in all of France. It is not very big or imposing and has little of the gilding or ornateness of France's famous cathedrals. But, it is airy, serene and beautiful in its simplicity and its soothingly fanciful interior design.
It is also the setting for a salient WWI story. The church and its steeple served as an important landmark and base for soldiers who could see the Virgin from miles away, took up their stations under her gaze or passed by her on their way to the front lines. She loomed above as a symbol of sanctity and refuge until 1916, when Germans shelled the basilica, knocking over the statue but not fully dislodging it. Divisions grew among the troops as to the portentous meaning of God's divine hand holding the "Leaning Virgin" so precariously over their horrific conflicts. Ultimately, however, they seemed unified in their conclusion that the war would surely end when Mary joined them on the ground. So, in a truly ironic act combining both their hope and despair, all sides proceeded to take potshots at her golden likeness for months. The Germans, after being unsuccessful in toppling her but then taking possession of the cathedral themselves, even promoted a new rumor that whoever shot her down would lose the war. Finally, in 1918, British forces came under heavy artillery fire emanating from the basilica's tower. A colonel sent immediate orders to defy a newly instituted army order to spare all buildings and "blow the place to blazes." Fearful of reprisals from his superiors, a young captain - who was left in charge in the temporary absence of a general and his brigade major -  hastily drew up plans of "imaginary trenches" that lay just beyond, but directly in the line of, the basilica and then commanded the battery officer to fire hundreds of rounds at those strategic trenches. Aided by such worthy accomplices, Mary did fall that day and, within months, so did the Central Powers.

After some time talking with Albert's welcoming greeters at the small but interesting visitor center-museum, we set off uncertain of what we'd find along the Circuit road. We're not war buffs and I'd had to do a lot of research beforehand only to find that there is not much to see in terms of intact WWI era sites. Development had occurred, the landscape had changed and we weren't going when the archetypal poppies would be in bloom. But, we drove down tiny villages' narrow streets lined by stucco houses and dilapidated barns, past farmers out plowing their fields and through the bucolic countryside that had once been overrun with soldiers and destruction - really, unable to reconcile the peaceful and colorful present images with the stark black & white war photos we'd studied. Then again, we couldn't help but wonder if that old stone farmhouse across the meadow was the very one Snoopy had crawled through enemy lines to get to so he could order a root beer. . . But, the most poignant symbol throughout the journey was the recurring cemeteries and their low walls concealing white crosses. The highway runs beside them, sometimes takes abrupt 90 degree turns right about them, and constantly  provides glimpses of distant vistas and fields planted in furrows which skirt around scattered, small plots on the horizon.

By mid afternoon, we reached the Vimy Memorial, the most well-preserved site of our WWI expedition. France gave the land to Canada in 1922 in recognition of the Canadians' war efforts and their victory in recapturing the ridge from the Germans in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917. Almost all of its 220 acres are very hilly, but they are very small hills, like successions of dozens of pitchers mounds covered in short clipped, light green grass. These bumps and lumps of earth had been made as the terrain was exploded, exhumed, shored up or piled into heaps during the war. In other areas, there were large craters, created either by bombs that fell from above or in detonations, accidental and intentional, from interred munitions. Trees had been replanted and grown tall since being leveled during combat, but Katrianna couldn't run through them like she wanted because most of the ground had not been cleared of explosives and there were signs everywhere warning visitors to really "Stay off the grass" or else. The woods and fields were very still and empty with the exception of roaming 'grounds crew' sheep who kept the grass neatly shorn and tread lightly enough to avoid tripping any land mines (ewe, I admit I felt a little sheepish just watching them. . . but, by God's graze, there was no need to pull the wool over our eyes). [Sorry, I'd been pretty restrained up to this point, but still no excuse for that - returning to somber tone now.]

Instead, M&K played hide & seek and eagerly timed their runs through the mazes of trenches, recreated for permanence with walls made from concrete-filled sandbags and brick & metal grating flooring where there once had been streams of running, muddy water. Still, the kids' "war games" stopped every time there was a break in the trench walls for gunner lookouts, where you could stand and see the trench line occupied by the Germans just yards away, or at the numerous, small cubbyholes along the walls where soldiers had kept provisions or had to sleep.
 
The only way to enter Vimy's Grange Subway, an extensive tunnel system dug by British engineers, was on a guided tour. (Usually, we avoid guided tours, which are generally crowded, sometimes costly and often circumvent all of the fun for M&K, who - in their travel preparations - always call dibs on places we plan to visit and spend the preceding weeks reading up, memorizing facts & anecdotes and jealously guarding the privilege of playing tour guide when we finally arrive.) But, this time, our experience was excellent. The guides are college grads who won fellowships to spend four months showing visitors around the memorial and take their off days to sightsee. Our docent was extremely knowledgeable and fully lived up to the Canadians' friendly reputation, causing M&K to proclaim unequivocally that Vimy's was our very best guided tour in all of Europe.     
 
After descending into the subway (and adjusting for tunnel vision), we noticed telegraph wires tacked to blackened chalk walls, damp with humidity and filled with musty odors. The tunnels were dimly lit, but were not nearly as dark as they had been during the war (pitch black for several yards at a time). We learned that, even inside the tunnels, no one was secure and the Allied soldiers, intent on expanding their own tunnel network, could often hear the digging of Central tunnelers just a few feet away. In fact, one technique was to purposely dig under the other guys' tunnels to set explosives beneath them and carry on the warfare underground. 

There were many tunnel offshoots and mysterious barred dugouts that held supplies or ammunition caches (Katrianna likened them to the gladiators' storage rooms we'd seen in Rome's Colosseum). In one area, much of the booty found when reopening the tunnels was heaped into a rusty pile of machine guns, old cans of food, pistols, mildewed uniforms, grenades, wheelbarrows, utensils and unidentifiable rubble. Two weapons-savvy Belgian boys, also in our tour group, were ecstatic to try on helmets, wield hatchets and sip from canteens while M&K watched, mouths agape, from a safe distance.

There were few rooms, all very small, sparsely furnished with wooden slat chairs, cots and a couple of rickety desks in the officers' quarters. Besides the officers, the only soldiers regularly permitted to sleep inside the subway were the runners. Those were the men, required at a moment's notice, who would deliver and receive messages between the commanders below and the officers on the front lines. They had to sprint through miles of dark and harrowing tunnels and then emerge out onto battlefields to dodge sniper fire. Often volunteers from the regular ranks, they had a life expectancy, we were told, of 1-5 days.

Although there was no mention of it in our guide's narrative or the visitor center displays (probably in order to avoid any association with or semblance of bringing him positive notoriety), what made the runners' experiences even more intriguing was that Hitler, as an infantryman, had been a runner in WWI. And, during WWII, the then führer took great pains to protect Vimy from vandalism (even showing up there for a photo op to prove it). Though accounts I read differed, one interpretation was that he had been so impressed with Vimy's authenticity, he ensured its preservation - perhaps as a personal tribute to his early war career or, some say, due to his "soft spot" for fallen WWI soldiers. Another explanation was that Hitler respected it because, unlike other WWI memorials, Vimy did not exult in weaponry paraphernalia or vilify Germany, but stood only in remembrance of the dead. For whatever reason, he stationed Waffen-SS troops to guard the memorial for the duration of WWII.
 
As it turned out, our "tour of duty" to honor the veterans of WWI made our own world a little smaller, our alliances to others a little stronger and greatly magnified our gratitude to all those who served and brought us peace. Our debt continues to the men and women who do the same for us today, on Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day and always.

Our Mother's Days used to be spent like every other holiday. With our moms. Before Chris and I had kids, we'd take each of our moms out to eat and give them flowers.

Chris' mom always protested that it was not necessary. Mother's Day was transparently superficial, a blatant contrivance of greeting card companies and florists. She insisted that it was not a significant day, no more or less special to her than any other Sunday.

And that's how it was, for years and years... until the year I became a mother. And Mother's Day became sacred.

That was right after Chris explained that we were exhausted with our new baby and suggested maybe we could skip the usual formalities. "What? Now you're a father and I'm no longer your mother?"

Eventually, we realized the sudden conversion had nothing to do with Chris and me. Or Mother's Day, really. It was an opportunity for the grandparents to see their grandchild. Non-negotiable.

So, after a few more years and another Mother's Day with a second new baby, I decided to assert myself. I was now a mother of two and felt it was time for our family to gain a little independence. Our moms would have to understand and accept Grandparents Day as their special day...

Mother's Day was mine!

I admit I felt a little guilty. Okay, a lot guilty. But I figured if I was really wrong, there would be a sign.

Mother's Days since then:

2002:    Sequestered in bedroom so Chris & kids can make 'surprise' breakfast. Allowed to emerge 6 hours later after
            fourth attempt at pancakes was moderately successful & all fires were extinguished.

2003:    Mikaela sick. Chris watches 3 soccer matches on tv.

2004:    Chris sick. Chris watches 3 soccer matches on tv.

2005:    Visit zoo. Along with the rest of Houston who had same idea. Police barricade zoo entrance just as we find
            parking spot.

2006:    Find favorite restaurant closed so owner can "Enjoy Mother's Day!" Chris goes into action with backup plan B
            and we accomplish everything on the list -- the one he made for his upcoming Father's Day.

2007:    Tire blows out halfway to state park. Scenic hike to service station.

2008:    Storm. Streets flooded, lose electricity. Ice cream floats by candlelight.

2009:    Big business trip to Hawai'i. Will simultaneously prove Mother's Day is not jinxed.
            Plane flight included. Swine flu extra.
            Vice President Joe Biden goes on national tv and says, "I would tell members of my family -- and I have -- I
            wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico. It's that you're in a confined
            aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft."
            In other words, only go on this trip when pigs [don't] fly... Cancel hula-hula and lei low.

I think there is a subtle message here somewhere. Probably that God loves irony as much as I do. Or, maybe it's mere coincidence. Clearly it would be egotistical to assume all that effort was just for me. (Besides, then it would be called karmama...  and it's not. Is it?)




Still, I can't help but feel like I must be missing something. If only I were going out to lunch with Mom today, I could just ask her...  





Anyway, Katrianna already knows the answer. In what's become an annual ritual, she pats me sympathetically and points out, with a mix of wistfulness and incredulity, "But, Mom, isn't every day Mother's Day?" Absolutely, I have to agree with her. And I celebrate that fact daily, 364 days a year.

A few nights ago, Chris finished telling another episode in the months-long adventure saga that comprises "bedtime stories." His tall tales are simply an amalgamation of all the "boy books" that he read growing up, but that our girls have rejected reading on the grounds that they are totally uninteresting and too "dhishoom - bhishoom" (Bollywood for "Zap-Pow! Kabam!"). Of course, that makes them perfect plagiarism candidates in Chris' mind and he happily takes all of the enthusiastic credit and eager anticipation from the none-the-wiser M&K. It's truly riveting stuff... that is, when he can stay awake long enough so that his snoring doesn't drown out the refrains of "C'mon, Dad, wake up -  tell us what happens next?!"

But this time, when he ended with the usual cliff hanger, a drowsy Katrianna asked if she could share a story she'd been thinking of. It went something like this:

Once upon a time, my pet lion named Sandy - who lives in the attic - began practicing customer-driven innovation.

So he started his own consulting company to tell everybody else how to do it. 

But then, he began to challenge his assumptions.

And now he won't listen to anything I say...

All he does is sit around & eat Valentine's Day conversation hearts and drink orange soda. Most lions in Africa weigh 250 to 420 pounds, but Sandy weighs 700 pounds due to good care -- and conversation hearts.

Sandy won't go into the center of the room because he wants to keep his cutting edge perspectives.

He's also getting into cloud computing, so he just bought his own server. . .

And, with that, she fell asleep.

Some children nod off counting proverbial sheep jumping over the clouds. Others are lulled to slumber imagining that they are princesses with their heads in the clouds. But our kid floats out into cyber space Neverland dreaming of cloud storage. . .

I think we are discovering the consequences of homeschooling while Dad is home working. So this April 23 I would like to propose the "Banish Your Daughters From Work Day." Or, better yet, the "Banish Your Husband From The Family Room and Make Him Take His Work Calls In His Office Month."





Or maybe we just need to compromise and set up one of those soundproof phone booths in the kitchen pantry. That way, after a "quick" three hour conference call, Chris can emerge - just like the caped Super Hero protagonist in one of his 'original' stories - to save our day. And Sandy the lion can give the consulting business a rest and finally get a good night's sleep.

Some of our past Easters have been spent at church. Some with relatives. Some on day-long hikes. Some at Eugene O'Neill's house. No, not really, there was only one Easter at Eugene O'Neill's house.

I didn't plan it that way. Last year, I'd called to schedule a reservation at the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site & specifically asked about "off hours" so we could avoid being added to a crowded tour group. "Oh, well then, you'll want to come Sunday, March 23. We're going to be open & no one's scheduled that day. All of the other times and days are pretty much full." Then she added, a little tersely I thought, "You could come that Sunday if you want. We have to be open anyway."

Perfect, we'll take it! I hung up thinking how lucky I'd been to not only get a spot, but to get one all to ourselves on such short notice. We weren't going to be in California for long, so this was our chance. I ran to my calendar to jot down the particulars when I finally understood her tone. That Sunday, just a couple of weeks away, was Easter Sunday - in March this year, not April, I'd forgotten.

I picked up the phone to cancel, but then I reconsidered. When would the girls get this opportunity again & how could I, their loving mother, deny them the joy of modern realism, abject pessimism and unresolved tragedy? I did make sure Aunty Monica would accompany us, and then assured myself that it was indeed a relatively festive way to celebrate Easter, after all.

Katrianna was not so easily persuaded. I tried to convince her that, since we weren't going to be at home in Houston, the Easter Bunny might have difficulty finding us. So, he had told me to meet him at Eugene O'Neill's house on Easter day at exactly 1:25 pm. Wasn't that neat? And, didn't she want to get her presents?

She didn't buy it, not even close. OK, go with a different approach:

"Well no, honey, I know we haven't read anything by Eugene O'Neill yet... But, he did write a play called The Hairy Ape! It is almost exactly like Richard Scarry's cartoon where Bananas Gorilla finds and eats all of the bananas in the hold of that ship, then has to swab the discarded banana peels off the deck as a punishment. You really used to like Bananas Gorilla, remember?...

"Well no, Eugene didn't draw comics. He kinda preferred the format of dreary one act plays or four-hour long modernist sagas that examined the savagery and despair of humanity. But, other than that, it's exactly the same as Bananas Gorilla!"

She told me she had been over Bananas Gorilla for several years now & she didn't have any interest in Richard Scarry, this Eugene O'Neill fellow or any other "baby stuff" anymore. As an alternative to breaking out my anthology of O'Neill's one acts, I suggested, "Well, we could go out for pizza after the tour?"  

Done! Easy parenting coercion 101.

The Easter Bunny did in fact find us in the morning that became electric with egg hunts, baskets of chocolates & brunch before we had to drive over to Danville. We arrived in the parking lot with time to spare and it was blissfully empty. Until another car arrived. And then another. And then another. And then the van, which we all just barely squeezed into so it could shuttle us up to the Tao House. Mostly I was upset our private tour had been usurped. But, I chose to focus instead on the weak moral character of these heathens who would so readily violate the sanctity of a holy day by going on a literary tour. They obviously had no sense of pro-piety.

Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and also clearly felt that there was no better thing to do on Easter Sunday than discuss Eugene O'Neill. He did take a moment to acknowledge that there were 'some younger than usual visitors with us this afternoon,' but he was a purist. That segue way over, he proceeded to display his exhaustive and intimate knowledge of O'Neill's life, including but certainly not limited to: alcoholism, child abuse, abandonment, collegiate suspension, depression, extramarital affairs, divorces, drug addiction, excommunication, banishment and multiple suicides of just about everyone connected to O'Neill in any way. Of course, he didn't realize it and nothing would have constrained our devout guide anyhow, but all of this was "old school" for my 7 and 10 year olds and they barely blinked - well, unless a big yawn sort of forced them to.

However, they did perk up when talk turned to O'Neill's daughter. Because they finally saw some way to relate perhaps? Was it the mention of a child or the father-daughter dynamic? No, it was because Oona had run away with and married Charlie Chaplin, 36 years her senior, and had been disowned by her dad forever after. He never saw his little girl again - very sad. It was hard to gauge M&K's reaction, however, because they were too busy nudging each other repeatedly, giggling and pointing at their own dad who had made them sit through hours of Charlie Chaplin movies saying, "Now, just wait, it does get funny. . .  the good part's coming right after this!" It brought up such nostalgia in them for Modern Times, I mean their quality-filled 'Dad Times.'  Still, at least the Noble Prize laureate's life had finally become relevant in their eyes. Plainly, Oona was wrong for what she did. Not the marrying a much older man part. But, the part about choosing to spend the rest of your life with someone who thought slapstick (not to mention silence) was funny.
 

A few other things caught their attention, too. The fact that inside the Tao House, which O'Neill had specially built based on the principles of Taoism, mirrors were strategically placed to ward off evil spirits and were tinted a disconcerting shade of green (perhaps to reflect the envy of all onlookers?). The fact that his third wife had changed her name from Hazel Neilson Taasinge to Carlotta Monterey to appear more exotic.




The fact that their dog was dotingly referred to as their "baby" and, unlike the husband, got to share its room with Carlotta. The fact that the neckties hanging in O'Neill's bedroom closet matched those of their dad (proving that Chris is at the height of 1940s fashion). The fact that his study was designed and decorated to replicate a ship captain's quarters. The fact that they were the only ones on the tour allowed to sit in his chair and fiddle with his vintage pencils, always kept meticulously sharp on his two desks. The fact that, in his last years, his handwriting was so tiny that the guide supplied us with magnifying glasses so we could make out the words.




And, the fact that the outside of the house had stairs leading straight into walls, going nowhere, prompting Mikaela to observe that the Tao House seemed a lot more like the Winchester Mystery House than a soothing, feng shui environment.
 

But, what about the fact that he was born and also died in hotel rooms to which he reputedly decried from his death bed, "I knew it! Born in a hotel room and, Goddammit, died in one!"  Or, the experience of overlooking the same hills and scenic views that had captured his imagination? Or, what about perusing his personal bookshelves full of literature and philosophical works? Or, how's about seeing his actual Nobel Prize for Literature award?   Ehh, not so much...





Back outside the kids went, much more interested in the fact that all of the garden walkways and paths zigzagged to throw off the 'negative powers' that, we were told, could only travel in straight lines - which, of course, induced M&K to 'positively run amok' and play tag in the estate's backyard until it was time to leave.

Still, they had given their mom a memorable Easter present - the certainty that one day this would mean something to them, too. Or, even if not, that they might at least know enough to avoid life's (and/or ENGL 401's) Strange Interludes as a result.

After our Long Day's Journey into Easter, we were playfully ushered Into Night with the help of large pizzas, sodas & tunes on the ipod shuffles that the Easter Bunny had managed to slip into a couple of eggs found at Eugene O'Neill's very own Tao House.