PARENTING FREEDOM

carol | May 29, 2008

I was tagged by TulipGirl with this meme. Read her answers here:
http://www.tulipgirl.com/index.php/2008/05/if-you-came-to-our-house/

I wasn’t sure whether to do this because I didn’t feel like my answers would be classy enough, but here it goes anyway. There is a big difference in whether I know you are coming or not… and whether you have children or not… so I will assume I know you are coming with your children.

“People who visit us get a taste of who we are, what we’re into, and what we’re like. I notice that my kids tend to show new visitors the same computer things they like, or play music for them that they love that our guests have probably never heard, and offer the same snacks.

Since there are lots of people I know via the internet who may never get the chance to visit us, I thought I’d offer a virtual glimpse of a visit to our house.”

If you came to our house. . .

You would see:
Well, first, you would HEAR our big mouth dog, and you might hesitate about getting out of your vehicle because she is so intimidating, but if you make it in the door, you would see my younger children peeking around corners… then you would see your children disappear upstairs with mine to play with all the toys… You would see my buffet cabinets with my Hummel collection, the fireplace Grandpa made, the huge painting Derek made, my antique pump organ…

We’d probably feed you:
Supper: Lasagna, Caesar salad, and garlic fingers
Dessert: Chocolate fountain with éclairs, strawberries, pineapple, etc.

And offer you this to drink:
Real juice punch

We’d undoubtedly ask if you’d read:
I doubt I’d ask this. I doubt you read the books I read. I might tell you about what I have been studying regarding health and past traumas.

We’d want to play this music for you:
Classical background music
Oldies that are good for dancing (if you were good sports)

We’d want to tell you the latest about:
The expectant mothers in the family
How advanced the children are in homeschool while you roll your eyes LOL

We’d probably suggest a game of:
Actionary

We might show off:
Our school library, my great-grandmother’s cream/sugar/teapot that I received in 1978 and its picture in Victoria magazine

We might get on the computer and show you:
I doubt I’d do this

If it was a long enough visit, we might watch:
All the kids play the Wii

What would a visit to your house be like?

I am only tagging a few people, so if your name isn’t here and you feel like answering in the comments or on your blog, please go ahead!

~ Mica http://thechildspaper.blogspot.com
Posted with PICTURES: http://thechildspaper.blogspot.com/2008/05/if-you-came-to-our-house.html

~ Cara (Matt answered in the comments.)

~ Edith (answer in the comments?)

~ Leann http://academy252.blogspot.com
Posted: http://academy252.blogspot.com/2008/05/if-you-came-to-my-house.html

Edited to add: Folks were so cooperative and made such lovely posts, I wish I had asked more people.

Category: Homemaking, Website | 9 Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 29, 2008

Hopefully this will be the last book order in preparation for homeschooling next year, although there are a couple more things I would like for the second term. See the far right sidebar for general outlines for specific grades and subjects. Next month, I will post complete lists of the books the children read this year in grades one, four, and nine.

Grade Ten (or later – not sure yet)

The new Veritas Press catalog is finally ready. As I mentioned before, they do not have the Grade 10 Omnibus completed for this coming year, but they expect it will be ready the following year. I think N14 will study Omnibus Grade 10 when he is in Grade 11 and Omnibus Grade 11 when he is in Grade 12, so that means he will read many of the books they recommend for Grade 12 next year (in grade 10).

Of Mice And Men ~ John Steinbeck
Leviathan ~ C. Macpherson
Wealth Of Nations Books 1 To 3 ~ Andrew Skinner
Ethics ~ Stuart Hampshire
Critique Of Pure Reason ~ Marcus Weigelt
Democracy In America ~ Isaac Kramnick
The Scarlet Letter ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
Amusing Ourselves To Death ~ Neil Postman
Brave New World ~ Aldous Huxley
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
Citizen Soldiers: The U S Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany ~ Stephen E. Ambrose
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward As Science With Kant’s Letter to Marcus Herz, February 27, 1772: The Paul Carus Translation ~ Immanuel Kant
Apologetics to the Glory of God: An Introduction ~ John M. Frame
Reasons of the Heart: Recovering Christian Persuasion ~ William Edgar
Treatise On Human Nature ~ David Hume

Grade Five
The Dark Is Rising (Boxed Set): The Dark Is Rising, Greenwitch, Over Sea, Under Stone, Silver on the Tree, The Grey King ~ Susan Cooper
Drawing For Older Children And Teens ~ Mona Brookes

Grade Two
Journeys Through Bible Lands ~ Tim Dowley

Category: Books, Movies, Television, Homeschooling Academics | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 28, 2008

Why Traumas Can Haunt and Sabotage Your Health for Years
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/27/why-traumas-can-haunt-and-sabotage-your-health-for-years.aspx?source=nl

Category: Health | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 28, 2008

The Unborn’s Silent Suffering
http://www.zenit.org/article-22688?l=english  

“The uterus is a protected, but not an isolated, environment and touch is the first sense that the fetus develops. By week 10 of pregnancy an unborn child can be observed bringing hands to its head, opening and closing the mouth, and swallowing.”

“As well, recent experiments show that newborns have functional memory, development of which began in the period before birth. The authors note that, in fact, newborns remember tastes and odors perceived in the uterus and these perceptions might have an influence on future preferences. Sounds, also, are heard by the unborn, including the mother’s voice. Newborns have even been shown to recognize music that the mother listened to during pregnancy.”

“There is evidence, they observe, that acute or chronic pain, or even prolonged stress, can be dangerous for the fetus, especially if it happens during a critical period of brain development. Possible negative effects range from a lower pain threshold to an increase in age-related memory impairments.”

“Based on experiments with primates, the article hypothesizes that fetal pain can even impair the functioning of the body’s immune system, with long-term implications for infections and autoimmune diseases.”

“Regarding stress, the authors cite a study on a group of mothers who suffered stress and compared them to a control group. The babies of the stressed mothers were characterized by a lower birth weight, smaller head circumference and a lower gestational age at birth when compared with the babies of the control group.”

“Maternal stress is very much related to the development of the fetus.”

“A better knowledge about prenatal conditions and the development of the fetus will bring with it a perception of fetal life as something precious, resulting in greater respect for the developing embryo and the woman bearing it, she argues.”

“The article started by citing the experience of Kanwaljeet Anand, who while a medical resident in a British hospital saw the significant harm caused to premature babies when they were operated on without anesthetic. At the time, 25 years ago, doctors thought the nervous systems of the babies were too underdeveloped to sense pain.”

“Through trials, Anand clearly showed this was not at all the case and that once the babies received anesthesia the mortality rate dropped from 25% to 10%. Pain relief for premature babies soon came to be standard, the article said.”

“The New York Times article acknowledged that the question of whether the fetus does feel pain has obvious implications for the abortion debate. In fact, medical evidence is showing they do feel pain, and as time goes by researchers are pushing back more and more their estimation of the age at which the fetus is affected by pain. “

“Admitting that a fetus does feel pain, however, is difficult for abortion advocates, as it is just one more bit of evidence proving how wrong they are about denying the unborn a chance to live.”

Category: Abortion, Parenting Pregnancy | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 28, 2008

Czech President Klaus ready to debate Gore on climate change
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/208338,czech-president-klaus-ready-to-debate-gore-on-climate-change.html

What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?

“My answer is it is our freedom and, I might add, and our prosperity,” Czech President Vaclav Klaus said. “Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality.”

“It could be even true that we are now at a stage where mere facts, reason and truths are powerless in the face of the global warming propaganda,” he said.

“It is in the hands of climatologists and other related scientists who are highly motivated to look in one direction only,” Klaus said.

Category: Global Warming | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 27, 2008

The cat wanted outside last evening, and wasn’t around when I called her in at bedtime, and midnight, and 1 AM, and 2 AM, etc. Finally, when the yard was starting to get light at 5 AM, I went outside thinking she might have been accidentally locked in the shed. Nope. I walked along the road searching for her dead in the ditch, calling her name, and wondering how I would tell C6. Not there. I checked my parents’ garage. Nope. And then, as I started to head home, she called to me from their deck balcony near the bird feeder where I think she was bird watching or squirrel watching. She came running to me, and I carried her home. I won’t worry the next time.

(Oh, yeah, she is a he, but that’s another story.)

Category: Pets | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 26, 2008

I have found several things disturbing and upsetting lately, one of which was the suicide of someone I knew and went to school with – a husband and father of two. There were hundreds of people at his wake. It makes we wonder where everybody was before. I doubt his unbearable stress began all of a sudden. I know what it is like to feel like nobody likes me or nobody cares. I don’t know what was going on, although I heard he had been on an anti-depressant which makes me wish charges could be laid against the MD. The family has to keep going, blaming themselves, suffering the pain, asking “what if”, trying to let the Lord carry it for them. Very, very sad.

Category: Depression, Health, Journal 2008 | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 26, 2008

A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD
Martin Luther

A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

Category: Christianity, Music, Quotes | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 26, 2008

I was just watching the fourth part of the DVD series, How Should We Then Live?, with the boys. It was the part about the reformation. It ended with this:

“When we begin to speak of the results of the reformation, it did bring tremendous freedom. And we must always say both things together. The first thing, and the primary thing is, it sudddenly gave freedom from having to work one’s way to God. No longer was it necessary to merit the merit of Christ. One must understand the terrible psychological slavery. Because if you beat yourself 100 times in order to merit the merit of Christ, how do you know that you don’t have to beat yourself 101 or 102? So the terrible slavery… So suddenly, when we come to the gospel (the Good News), and that Christ has done it all, and we accept this with the empty hands of faith, we have tremendous freedom from this awful, awful bondage that I have spoken of. But it brings many other freedoms. Because it is a terrible bondage really, as a man, as a finite man, to have to act as God and make our own absolutes (or try to, ’cause we really can’t). This is a bondage. And suddenly when we have, in the Bible itself, that which gives us the absolutes, we are free then, to function, whether in the area of science or morals or sociological things or behavior patterns, we are free to operate within the circles that the absolutes of the Scripture gives us.”  Dr. Francis Shaeffer

I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVES
Charles Wesley

I know that my Redeemer lives,
And ever prays for me;
A token of His love He gives,
A pledge of liberty.

I find him lifting up my head,
He brings salvation near,
His presence makes me free indeed,
And He will soon appear.

He wills that I should holy be,
What can withstand His will?
The counsel of His grace in me
He surely shall fulfill.

JOY UNSPEAKABLE
Barney E. Warren

I have found His grace is all complete,
He supplieth ev’ry need;
While I sit and learn at Jesus’ feet,
I am free, yes, free indeed.

Category: Christianity, Freedom, Music, Parenting Discipline, Quotes | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 25, 2008

Just finished listening to this:
http://www.followersmedia.com/gohope/20080518_Gen2519_rrg.mp3
Randy Greenwald (Hope PCA)

Hat tip: http://www.tulipgirl.com/index.php

Category: Christianity, Parenting Discipline | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 25, 2008

A Kite
author unknown

I often sit and wish that I
Could be a kite up in the sky,
And ride upon the wind and go
Whichever way I chanced to blow.

Kite Days
Mark Sawyer

A kite, a sky, and a good firm breeze,
And acres of ground away from trees,
And one hundred yards of clean, strong string -
O boy, o boy! I call that spring!

Category: Journal 2008, Quotes | 8 Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 25, 2008

At the Seaside
Robert Louis Stevenson

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.

Category: Journal 2008, Quotes | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 22, 2008

I cleaned up my far right sidebar, getting rid of some unnecessary things and adding a few things that I hope will be helpful.  More often than not, people search for things and land here only to click away immediately. I wish I could shout, “The answer is HERE! It is! That just wasn’t the right page!”

Any advice would be appreciated.

I suspect people don’t even notice that the first sidebar changes quotes and verses for each of my parenting essays linked at the very top of my site.

I wonder if anyone ever scrolls down to the Facebook updates on the bottom right.

If you link to me, please let me know so I can add you to my blogroll.

If you are interested in seeing my private posts, please register in the far right sidebar.

Category: Website | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 22, 2008

It was less than two years ago that I blogged about having just pumped gas for the first time in my life. I have done it several times since, including today. I stood there, next to the van, letting the gas pour in. I never did hear the click to say it was full, because I hauled it away when it hit 80 dollars!! (The US/Canadian dollar is almost the same.)

Category: Journal 2008 | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 22, 2008

The following is from the end of the book, Prince Caspian, when Aslan (and Lucy and Susan) moved through the village. “At a well in a yard they met a man who was beating a boy. The stick burst into flower in the man’s hand. He tried to drop it, but it stuck to his hand. His arm became a branch, his body the trunk of a tree, his feet took root. The boy, who had been crying a moment before, burst out laughing and joined them.” (Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis, p. 172)

Category: Books, Movies, Television, Parenting Discipline, Quotes | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 22, 2008

New bookcases.

And the looks and exclamations of joy from three helpers, each with a brush in hand, helping to stain the bookcases.

I will soon have all the bookcases I need, without layering shelves or using boxes. They will all be bought, assembled, stained, varnished, put in place, and loaded with books by the end of the month. When everything is done, I will have to dream bigger.

Category: Homeschooling Activities | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 19, 2008

In the middle of the sermon yesterday, L3 rubbed his eye and got his top eyelashes stuck underneath his eyelid. Hello for a commotion with me trying to get his lashes free. We sit near the front, so dear knows what everyone was thinking I was doing to him. He also had a choke fest on his cup of water. I keep forgetting to teach C6 that you don’t turn around to look at the people behind you. And how many times should a child be allowed to ask, “Is it almost over?”

The sermon text scripture included the tag-line to my site, “That the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.” Romans 8:21 The responsive reading included one of my favorite verses, “He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them.” Psalm 145:19

Grammie made a nice chicken dinner for all of us after church.

Then we went up the river to pick fiddleheads. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of the season, so there weren’t very many around. We did get enough for about four meals or more.

Fiddlehead picking in NB
Kind of dreary, huh.
You just wait, it will soon be the most beautiful place on earth.

Here are my and C6′s rubber boots.
Is that mud on our jeans?

Category: Canadian, Journal 2008 | No Comments »
Tags:

carol | May 19, 2008

Bike ride at the park
Here in NB, it takes a while for spring to become pretty.
The leaves are just starting to come on the trees.

This is what our counter looks like when we make popcorn.
We watched a movie together on Friday night.

Category: Books, Movies, Television, Journal 2008 | No Comments »
Tags: