Testing, one, two...

It's CAT testing week at our house. Living in California, homeschool families have the option of using a charter school, an umbrella school, or filing the R4 and declaring yourself a private school.

We have many friends who use public charter schools, and that works for them. But we've always filed the R4. I like being independant. I like having the freedom to choose all my own curriculum and not have to omit any religious references in sample work submitted for approval. Heck, I like not having to submit any sample work, period!

While we are not required to do any testing, I like to keep a pulse on how the kids are doing, and it's a nice way to break up the routine every spring. My kids take the CAT 5 California Achievement Test that we order through http://www.familylearning.org/ . Once we've filled all those bubbles in, we send it back to be scored and get the results a couple weeks later.

Testing can only tell us so much. It can tell us how the kids are doing in math or spelling fairly accurately. But since we choose our own curriculum, often what they're testing in Social Studies or Science is not what we're learning that year. Interestingly, the kids usually still score well in those areas, simply by virtue of being curious in a learning-rich environment. Books, books, and more books play a role in this, I'm sure.

Hannah's too little for testing, of course. But her picture is here to remind us there's so much testing can't tell us. Just like when we were waiting to travel to China to adopt her, what's reduced to paper is only one tiny facet of who a person is. She's so much more than her referral paperwork.

The scores we get back for the homeschooled kids are just a part of the bigger picture. Scores don't mention things like, "Amazing cuddler" or "Class clown" or "very creative!" They don't test in the areas of my kids' obsessions.

If Eli was tested in Aircraft or Lego, he'd score top marks. If Sam was tested in his areas of interest, he'd do well in Marine Biology, WW2 history, and Survival Skills. Brianna could ace any quiz in bling or glitz. Maybe fashion design is in her future?

So yes, testing is important to me as a school administrator. I want to know where we're doing well and what areas need some improvement. But as we've seen from public schools, "teaching to the test" leaves out so much. And really, who came up with these tests? Who gets to decide what a second grader should know? And what happens if they don't know that until they're (gasp) 10 instead?

I'm going to look at their results and plan for next year based on what I see. But I'm also going to plan for next year based on what works for our family, and the interests and abilities of the individual children I'll be teaching. After all, isn't that the beauty of homeschooling?

A trip to the fabric store.

A couple days ago, Brianna and I got out to JoAnn's for an hour. It was amazing to be out in the world of real people again. I get a little cabin fevered when I'm home too long, and since I haven't wanted to take pox-boy out, the only time I've left the house is to drive the kids to and from school and such. It was good to get away for a little while and finger endless crafty possibilities.



Brianna got a gift card for her birthday, and she's been aching to get in and buy yarn. She's my little knitter/crafter. I don't knit, so this has been a little weird for me to see her soar in an area that I have no experience with. I'm very proud of her. Her knitting teacher says she has natural talent, and until her brothers started teasing her about it (grrr!) she usually had knitting with her wherever she went.

This picture of her knitting at the park was taken a year ago.

It's so neat to see her skills improve. She reads patterns and makes intricate designs in her work now. When we went shopping, she purchased her first wool yarn to make a felted bag for Annaliese. She also got a new kind of "yarn" which is actually not very yarn like, but a wide weavy stuff called Sashay. http://www.redheart.com/yarn/boutique-sashay She's started a project already, and I can't wait to see how it turns out.

And me? What did I get? Well, it's pretty rare that I manage to go into a fabric store and not buy any fabric. But since I haven't sewn in a month, and I have an entire room of fabric already, I worked on building up my ribbon collection. (because, you know, a basket full isn't enough...) I've been making bows for Hannah's hair lately, and I needed some specific colors to match dresses/outfits she has.

Insanely pleased with matching the color for this dress--without having the dress with me.

Hannah's getting a matching doll/dress for her birthday. So of course she needs matching hair clips, right? I think I might even tie ribbons in the dolls hair to match, too.

I found some St. Patrick's Day Hello Kitty ribbon and made Hannah hair clips and Brianna a bottlecap necklace.

I made the Easter egg ones a couple weeks ago. Not sure if they'll match anything she owns or not, but the ribbon was too cute not to use.

For those who've asked, here's a little look at how I make hair clips:

I use double prong clips (I got a box on Amazon that will last me until Hannah decides she's not going to let me mess with her hair any more.) and Scotch adhesive. I originally bought the glue to fix a pair of shoes, and this is great stuff. I like it better than hot glue, but hot glue works, too. I use a 4.25" piece of ribbon, and I glue starting with the inside of the upper part of the clip and working my way all the way around to the bottom, but leaving the bottom prongs free. I have some store bought clips with the prongs covered, and I much prefer having them free because they go into her hair easier.

Aqua clips are right side up, ivory clips are upside down. Go have some potstickers, let the glue dry. (The potstickers are optional.) Then come back and glue on your embellishments, or leave plain if you prefer.

I thought about putting some red star buttons on the clips on the left, but I decided I like them just the way they are. Simple.

Another day, I'll have to show my bow method (like the Easter egg and HK ones), but I don't have pictures of that right now.

How it all began

Our family story in a nutshell:

Paul and I met in 1993 and married in 1994. I wanted a large family, and before we married, he agreed we could have 6 kids. We started our marriage with a 2.5 year old, and the kids came quickly after that. At one point we had a newborn, an 18 month old, a 3 year old, a 4.5 year old, a 6 year old and a 10 year old. We thought we were done. (Cute, right? God laughs at us, I'm sure.)


God was good to us in the early years. We went from living paycheck to paycheck in an 800 sq. ft. apartment, even rolling coins from Zach's piggy bank once to make the rent, to better jobs and living on my grandmother's 5 acre farmland.


In 2003, we had a surprise pregnancy. I knew Paul would be less than thrilled, so I didn't tell him until the second trimester. During this pregnancy, we moved from Santa Rosa to Elk Grove, buying our first house. We welcomed Jack (Furby) in 2004, and Paul took steps to ensure there were no more surprises.


When Furby was 4, we were at a totally different place in life. The kids were much bigger, and we felt like we had a better grasp on things. One day I was reading a link about adoption that a friend (http://lifeaccordingtothechristians.wordpress.com/) had posted to her MySpace page and was called away from the computer. I came back to find dh sitting in front of the computer, and he looked up with a funny expression on his face. "Sorry! Sorry! I wasn't trying to say anything, I was just reading something Ashley linked to!" I hastened to reassure him. His startling response was, "I've been thinking about it lately." You could have knocked me over with a feather. Although I'd brought up adoption several times during our marriage, he'd never taken me seriously or expressed any interest.


That was in August of 2008. Over the next couple months, we explored the 3 types of adoption and settled on fost-adopt because it was the cheapest option, and because we felt like we would be helping to meet a need. We signed up with an agency (http://www.families4children.com/) and began our paperwork and classes. And I started to read everything I could get my hands on about foster care and adoption.


We finally finished the homestudy and received our license in April of 2009. Then we started to wait. And wait. And WAIT. In July, we got a call. I said yes! we'd take the little boy who was being treated for burns and needed a family willing to learn to care for them. Unfortunately, another agency secured the placement before ours did, so we didn't get him. Then we had a long dry spell of waiting again. Our eldest son, Zachary, turned 18 during this time, and was fingerprinted in accordance with the rules for foster care. Finally, in December, we received another call. Can you take a 3 month old baby girl with broken bones? I said yes again, heart breaking for this tiny child. They called back an hour later and said she was taken by another agency. 2009 was a dry year for foster placements because the County had laid off so many social workers due to budget cuts.


January 26, 2010, I was once again looking at photolistings online. Many areas have a Heart Gallery of photos of adoptable children waiting for families. http://www.heartgalleryofamerica.org/Galleries/default.asp Here is a listing, if you are interested. I cruised the listings regularly, looking for 2 little girls to add to our family. On this night, however, I clicked a link and found myself here: http://www.rainbowkids.com/ This was a site that listed "hard to place" kids, both domestic and international. I plugged in our search criteria, and up popped several photos. One of them stole my heart, so I showed her picture to Paul. Now I had shown Paul pictures from the photolistings several times before. Some serious, like the twin 1 year olds and the baby brother that we inquired about in Oregon. Some, less serious, like the sibling group of 6 in Texas. Usually, I got a grunt. Sometimes he would go so far as to agree the child/children were cute, but that's it. This time, he asked questions.


Would we qualify? I was surprised to learn that, while China only allowed small families to adopt their healthy babies, their Special Needs program would allow larger families to adopt. Our income level, net worth, health history, and criminal history were all within China's rules. It would mean changing our homestudy. It would mean travelling to China. It would cost thousands of dollars. She had special needs we had no experience with. But as we prayed about it, the thought of leaving her there... we just couldn't do it. We contacted the agency that had her file, and within a couple of weeks had decided to move forward. 2010 was spent paperchasing, and on Thanksgiving day, we landed in Beijing.


Now, one year after our adoption, I know this is something I want to do again. Not right now--we just bought another house--but eventually, I'd like to adopt 2 more.

Why I *Didn't* buy Hannah navy blue squeaky shoes today.

Quick info for those not familiar with China's adoption process. When the time finally comes, you go to China, you fly to the capitol of the province your child is in, you meet/receive your child there, spend a few days sightseeing and waiting for paperwork, then ALL Americans adopting from China fly to Guangzhou, Guangdong province for the last week of their trip. (Canadians go to Beijing.) In the heyday of Chinese adoptions (2003-2006) there were up to 150 American families at a time staying on "the island" each week. Shamian Island is where the American consulate that processes the childrens' visas to the United States used to be. When it was there, 2 hotels on the island, the White Swan and the Victory, had a booming business with adoptive families, and at least a dozen little shops sprang up on the island to serve their spending needs. One of the most popularly purchased items (remember, China adoption used to be all about baby girls) was and continues to be squeaky shoes for toddlers. I bought Hannah a couple pairs while we were there.


And then I came home and bought her a couple more pairs.


Her feet have not grown in the last year, and she can still wear the ones we got in China. Somewhere along the way, I discovered Zulily. http://www.zulily.com/invite/sbernard372

Zulily is a series of kid/mom related flash sales. Smocked dresses, tutus, squeaky shoes, hairbows... all delivered to your door! Every morning, I wake up to a tempting email full of new flash sales to browse through. Dangerous, no?

Totsy is a site similar to Zulily. http://www.totsy.com/join/Grtlyblesd For some reason, I like Zulily better, so I only check Totsy every once in a while. But last night, I took a peek and saw that they'd have squeaky shoes today.

Now, I have a thing for pictures of the kids. When my firstborn arrived, I hauled him in to JCPenney or Kinderfoto or whoever every.single.month. on the day he was born. When he was 9 months old, I was so broke, I couldn't possibly afford pictures, so I took a roll of pics on my lousy little film camera. I still regret not finding a way to take him in. I was looking at the kids' baby pictures last night for a project I want to do, and came across Zachary's 9 month shots that I took myself, and they were so disappointing.

Anyway. All that to say, for the last 2 decades, we've been frequent fliers at the portrait studio. Babies get every month for the first year, plus a couple sibling shots, plus family pictures annually. After age 1, they have birthday pictures until they hit school age, then they have their annual school photo (plus family pictures, of course). The last couple of years, we've had a homeschool mom take pictures for our homeschool co op of our homeschooled kids so they could have "school" ish pictures, too. I realized last week that we hadn't done that this year. And that Hannah & Furby have birthdays next month.

So this morning, when I saw the perfect picture outfits for Eli & Furby on Zulily, I used the $15 credit I'd been saving and bought them. Then I started thinking about what Hannah has that might go with their red/white/navy new duds. For a minute I thought she might need something new, but then I remembered her beautiful smocked homecoming dress.

It's a beautiful dress with American flag hearts, made by another mama who adopted from China. And Hannah looks totally overwhelmed in this airport photo.

Okay, she can wear that. But what shoes...? And then I remembered Totsy and went to check what was up in the squeaky shoe sale. They had cute little navy ones that would work. But, oh, my. $21.75? Ouch. No, I can't spend that much. I got them in China for $5/pair, and I can get them for $12/pair if I watch for them to come up on Zulily. Surely, I decide, she must have something that will work already. So I pull out her shoe bucket and line up her current shoes to see what's in there.

Wow. I knew she had a few pairs of shoes, but this is getting out of hand! Out of all those shoes, only 4 pairs don't squeak. Good heavens. I think she'll be wearing the red ones for pictures.

I may need a new hobby. Her tutu collection and hair bow collection are similarly ridiculous.

Vaccine Irony

Remember how I talked about taking Samuel and Hannah to the pediatrician Thursday? I mentioned that both kids got 2 shots. Hannah got Hep A and Pentacel, Samuel got Hep A and the chicken pox booster shot. Booster. As in, he'd already had one almost 12 years ago. Guess what he woke up with Friday morning?

Yup. Chicken pox. I knew he'd been exposed 2 weeks earlier, because we had friends who had it, and we were over at their house. But I assumed (yes, I know) he would be okay because 1) he didn't get it last year, when Brianna had chicken pox; and 2) he HAD THE SHOT. Well. That was effective. I kinda think the booster may have been the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak.

Wook at dat face!

We're quarantined until he's better. Which meant no homeschool co op, no Civil Air Patrol, no church, no park day... I can't decide if it's frustrating or relaxing, actually. The silver lining in this is that it's been nice not having to run around quite so much. But we are starting to get a bit of cabin fever.

Poor guy. His feet have them, too. They're in his ears, his hair. He's been a really good sport about the whole thing, though. One of the things I love about Samuel is his good attitude. He's even been limping along in his schoolwork.

My one hope is that no one else breaks out with them. We're less than a week in, so it's still too early to say that no one else will catch them from him. I just dread the thought of getting Samuel all cleared up and ready to go back out in the big world, only to have Furby or Eli, neither of whom had the shot, break out.

When I talked to Zach, he suggested putting Sam in front of a movie. Fortunately, I had a free Redbox code for my birthday, which I used to pick up a movie the kids hadn't seen. I may even spring for another one when we return it, as a treat.

Totally irreverant Bible study thoughts

I like to set the ipad up in the bathroom in the morning, and let this deep voice with just a hint of an accent read to me while I'm getting ready. I'm using the You Version ap, but I'm sure there are other Bible aps out there.

I've hit the part in Exodus where they're talking about the priestly garments. The first designer clothing, so to speak. God tells Moses exactly how He wants these special clothes to look for Aaron and his sons. --Actually, the part about the breastplate with the different stones was rather interesting, and I found myself wondering if there was a unit study available about the 12 stones. Note to self, check CurrClick for that later.

At any rate, it tells that these special garments are to be made out of special fibers by skilled workers. These outfits were a Big Deal. I imagine it would have been an honor to have worked on them. I "read" on past the bells and pomegranates, and get to the part where God instructs Moses on how to consecrate the priests. If you've never read it, I'm in Exodus 28-29 this morning. God basically says okay now wash the priests, put them in these great new duds, and sprinkle BLOOD all over them.

I'm thinking what on Earth would one of Aaron's sons' wives have said?? I mean, these outfits they had made would have been treated with the same reverence that we give, say, a bridesmaid dress before the wedding of a sister or dear friend. Hung up carefully. Protected. The kids could look but not touch. Kept CLEAN, for crying out loud! The Big Day (consecration) comes, dude goes off to the temple for a few hours, comes home, and his wife takes one look at him and says, "What the heck happened to you?! You look like you and your brothers have been flinging ram's BLOOD on each other all day!" Guy looks down, scrapes his toe in the dirt, peeks up at his wife sheepishly, "Well... uh..." I mean, seriously, it's not like they had peroxide back then.



This would be the part of the blog where I tie it in to some modern application and make a poignant point about how the Bible applies to our lives today, and what deep and meaningful lesson I walked out of the bathroom with this morning. :crickets chirping: Yeah, I got nothin'. But I will be just a little bit more grateful for my bottle of Spray & Wash (not to mention the whole washer & dryer thing) as I start my morning load of laundry.

Kinda makes me wonder about all the other stories left out of the Bible. Now, I know, the Bible is sacred and meant to be history/prophesy/instruction/etc, not a story book. I get that. But it sure would be fun to have had some female perspective in there every once in a while.

You might drive a large vehicle if...

Years ago, we were staying in a hotel with actual television. We don't do tv at home, so this was a rare treat, and Paul channel surfed his way across a Jeff Foxworthy comedy routine. There was a lot of "you might be a redneck if..." in it.

We have a larger than average family, and I drive a larger than average car. Recently, I've gotten some comments about my wheels, and it reminded me of the comedy routine.

You might drive a large vehicle if a mom at school hops out of her vehicle, races over to yours and asks, "How much do you charge?" assuming you're running an after school shuttle/drop off service.

You might drive a large vehicle if you get charged BUS PARKING fees at the Lodi zoo. (true story; I'm still cheesed over that one)

You might drive a large vehicle if you're sitting in a softball parents meeting and you realize you have more seatbelts than the team vans do.

And from just last week, you might drive a large vehicle if an absolute stranger comes up to you in a parking lot, peers over your shoulder as you're loading groceries into the back, and says, "You could put a bowling alley in the back of that thing!"

Pediatrician appointment

It's a weird thing, registering one child for high school and one child for kindergarten. In some ways the same (both needed shots) other ways so different (one had to write an essay, the other didn't even have to appear). Even the worries are the same and different. Will they fit in? Will the other kids like/accept them? Have I done enough homeschooling to prepare Samuel for the big world of high school? Will Hannah's classmates make fun of her prosthetic leg and xiao hand?

Today we headed off to the doctors office, just Hannah, Sam and I. Sorry, no pictures, I forgot my camera. Both kids got their "well child" check ups and a couple of shots. It was so cute to see them hold each other's hands for comfort during the shots. (Sam didn't cry, of course. Hannah started crying at the alcohol wipe.) Samuel got the puberty talk and the "just say no" to drugs and alcohol talk, Hannah got praise for wearing big girl panties and learning to walk on her new leg. (The Ped hadn't seen her since she got it.)

This visit was Hannah's first hearing and vision screen. (I don't think we could have effectively done them much earlier, given her comprehension and maturity.) GUESS WHAT? She didn't do so well on the vision test. Once again, I'm venturing into totally new territory here, as the other kids have all had great vision. We'll be taking her in to an optomotrist to see if we can determine how much of her score was based on not knowing the names of the shapes and how much she's really not seeing them. The nurse said she got 20/50 in one eye and 20/70 in the other. I'm anxious to see what an eye doctor gets.

Oh, and Hannah weighed in at 30#, up 4# from when we got her a year ago. She's 38" high, but I wasn't paying attention to which leg she was standing on when they measured her, and her prosthetic is almost an entire inch shorter than her natural leg. So she could be a little taller than that. I need to call about getting an adjustment again. I just took her in December and they "grew" her leg 3/4" then.

Samuel broke triple digits, weighing in at 102# and standing 5' 1.5" tall. Both kids are a little on the small side on the charts.

Happy Birthday, Annaliese!

Annaliese's birthday got spread over two days because Paul was working on the actual day.

Brianna, my knitter extrordinaire, made her sister, not one, not two, but THREE lovely scarves for her birthday.

Furby was so cute. He said, "Are you ready for my present?" and when she said yes, he gave her a great big hug! I said, "I wish it were my birthday, that's a great present!" and he gave me one, too. :) Love that cuddle bug.

Here, you can see the scarves in this shot of Annaliese passing out cupcakes that a friend at school made for her.

Josiah carries her cake while we all sing. She asked for a cake with M&Ms on it. I usually let Brianna bake the birthday cakes, but she was behind on her school work, so we bought it and added PB M&Ms.

Guppyzilla is a nickname Annaliese got as a toddler. When she was a little nursling, I called her my Guppy, or Guppy Girl. When she started walking, Daddy & Zach were making a lego scene, and she tromped through it like Godzilla, hence the combo.

My sweet baby girl is 17. Over the course of the next year, she will make choices that will determine the direction her life takes. I miss that little guppy, but I'm captivated by the beautiful, amazing young woman she's become, and I can't wait to see where she goes as she spreads her wings to fly.

Art Appreciation

Today's featured artist at homeschool co op was Henri Matisse. We read a book and watched a movie about him, and saw samples of his work and works inspired by his style. Then one of the moms took the kids through a guided project where they created an ocean picture in Matisse-like fashion.




Brianna took things 3 dimensional, by crinkling her strands of seaweed. I cut the yellow and pink fish at the same time, then cut them into strips and "traded" pieces to make 2 striped fish. The brown at the top of her page is a fishing boat.



The kids don't look thrilled because these pictures were taken after we got home from co op, and the kids just wanted to eat lunch.

Sam's work was rather cubist. I like the motion in his green seaweed.

Eli's work is called Ocean Moonlight. The yellow in the upper right corner is the moon, and there are a mother and baby whale--can you find them?

Today was fun, and I'm looking forward to next month's art day. In fact, I think we may add some sort of art appreciation curriculum for next school year.

That's one way to get the blinds clean

I may have mentioned that yesterday was a rather long day. By the time Annaliese got home from babysitting for one of our church's small groups, I was really ready to crash out.

The following story is true. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 share a room. Shortly after I closed my bedroom door and started to change for bed, they came running down the hall to my room and started banging on said closed door. They had an insurmountable conflict. Thing 1 wanted the blinds closed going up. Thing 2, however, wanted the blinds closed going down. Notice they both wanted the blinds closed. They simply disagreed on which direction to turn the little stick.

Now, Thing 1 redefines "stubborn." He is as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. And I felt bad for asking Thing 2 if he could give in on this oh-so-important issue, but I think I mentioned that yesterday was a really LONG day? No dice. Both of them were sure their way was the ONLY way that they could possibly sleep. Sigh.

I was actually pretty ticked. But I had a Solomon-like burst of inspiration. I excused myself, shut the door, pulled on some PJ pants, opened the door, stomped down the hall, grabbing a chair from the school room. I dragged it into Things 1 & 2's room, pushed it to the window, and RIPPED THE BLINDS OFF THE WALL. Then I hauled the (seriously dusty) blinds back to my room, shut and locked the door, and went to bed.

And these guys?

Said not a word. Not a single word.

I heard some thumping around after that, but was determined to be done for the day. Next morning, I discovered that they'd nailed up a blanket with pushpins. Works for them, works for me.

When one of the things asked about having the blinds back, I told them, "Absolutely, I'll help you hang them back up as soon as you clean them." The blinds got cleaned, we hung them back up, and life moved forward. No lecture, no excuses, no whining, no punishment. I hope they learned a lesson in all this, but I can't be sure, of course. I've decided I rather like clean blinds. Maybe next time someone needs a consequense, we'll pull down some more (in a more rational manner, of course).

Today was a 200 mile day

Our homeschool co op had a long distance field trip today. We went to the town of Petaluma and visited Mrs. Grossman's Sticker Factory and the Petaluma Adobe. I really wish I'd had Paul's nice camera with me.

Squinting into the morning sunlight for the obligatory photo before the sticker factory tour began.

The group of 4 silver sticker strips that Brianna is pointing to was designed by my aunt, Lura Schwarz Smith, artist extrordinaire.

One of the other moms took a family picture for me. :)

At each of the stations we visited in the factory, the tour guide passed out sheets of stickers. Hannah shows off her ABC stickers in front of some giant sticker rolls waiting to be packaged into smaller quantities for retail distribution.

After the tour, we were taken back to the media room where we were given bags containing more stickers and background sheets to design our own scene.

Impressive "samples" from the tour. EACH of us was given all of these stickers (and there was a sheet of car stickers, too, but I'd already traded those to Brianna when I snapped this picture).

I was good and didn't even look in the front store area, but bypassed it for the "scratch & dent" section of discounted stickers in the back. They have a 12 cent rack and a couple of 50 cent racks. I told the kids they could each choose two items. We got out of there for under $4! Way more frugal than what I usually end up spending at the Jelly Belly Factory gift shop.

While the other half of our group was having their tour, we had some time to kill, so we walked along the lake across the parking lot from the sticker factory. Hannah saw the ducks swimming in the pond and asked me, "Mom, do the ducks have wheels?"

The children attempted the fine art of skipping stones. Which looks a lot like throwing rocks at ducks. Just sayin'.

I love this picture. Hannah was tired from the long walk, and her sweet ge ge, Sam, scooped her up and carried her a while.

Next, we drove over to the adobe, where we ate our lunches. Being a lovely historic state park, lunch quickly turned to tree climbing and stick fighting and leaf pile kicking for the kids.

Soon, the tour guide appeared and told us the kids really shouldn't be climbing the trees or kicking the leaves because of TICKS. Lovely. If any of my kids is sick in a week or so, remind me to consider Lyme disease, okay? Which reminds me, I meant to do a tick check on Hannah in the tub tonight, and I forgot. Bad mom.

At any rate, we started the tour of the adobe, which was similar to the California Missions or the historic forts we've been to.

Our guide was a bit flustered at first to have so many different ages together. Kids in school get California history at a certain grade, and that's the age group that usually visits.

Did I mention that it was an absolutely gorgeous spring day with a high of 74*?

Brianna got to go behind the barricade to learn to card and spin wool from the resident sheep.

And Samuel did me a huge favor by picking up owl pellets to take home and dissect. That big white lump in the background on the right is one of two ovens. Hannah is holding a piece of spun wool.

Not only did we learn about the 1830s ways of cooking and spinning and hide trading, we even learned about saddle making. Apparantly, all that information was exhausting.

Furby and Sam were the first ones to crash out, but eventually everyone but Brianna, my co-pilot, fell asleep for a bit. Brianna knit most of the way back, finishing up her project just before we got home.

Larcenous tendencies

Brianna recently came to me with a shiny purple Matchbox-style car. She told me Hannah brought it home from school. This occurred shortly after I decided to thin out her PJ drawer and found: a taco bell sauce packet, one of Eli's Matchbox cars, and a used piece of math scratch paper squirrelled away in there. Something about it didn't sit right with me, so I emailed her teacher.

"Hey, Hannah brought home a shiny purple car, and I wanted to check and see if it was a prize of some sort or if it belongs at the school."

The reply I received confirmed my funny feeling.

"The car belongs here. I am not sure who it belongs to so I had put it in the basket next to the door. She asked about it several times and asked who it belonged to. I told her I didn’t know and it needed to stay in the basket until I found out. She probably took it on her way out the door."

Sigh. I knew I had to deal with this. And I knew I had to walk the fine line between letting her know this was NOT okay, and freaking her out to make her hide stuff.

I talked to her. Which is tough because 1) she's 4, and 2) she's only been speaking English a little over a year. We established that she did take the car after Miss P told her it was not hers. I asked her what needed to happen, and she said in a tiny voice that it needed to go back to school. Okay. I told her, "Here's what we're going to do. You're going to write a note," here she started to tear up "and we're going to give the note and the car back to Miss P." She was crying. After more discussion, it was determined that she was crying because...

...she had no idea what writing a note meant. Sigh. It's funny, because everyone always says what excellent English she speaks. And she DOES, really. But there are *gaps* both in her language and in her experiences, that I don't even think about until I'm confronted with something that pierces me like an arrow to the heart.

So I explained what writing a note meant. Then I fired up the Start Write software and composed a note for her to trace. (Start Write prints in dotted letters. Very cool for primary aged kids.)

And I was a little more conscious than usual about explaining what I was doing, and showing her the printer and identifying what it was doing. Because I forget that (unlike the other kids) she didn't grow up pushing the power button on my CPU and then crawling away giggling.

She traced so carefully. She really did a beautiful job of it.

I stapled the baggie containing the car to the note and stuck it into her backpack. And ached on the inside for a little girl whose concept of ownership was formed not in a family, but in an orphange.