Added bonus: see Sarah using the computer at age 2, and in diapers (cloth, naturally way back in the dark ages when you had to pin and fold them). And yes I did ask her permission before posting that. Sarah has recently done some work for a local small business, designing posters and brochures, all on computer.

Boy, the first time in a long time where I write pages about some homeschooling topic, and it’s for someone else’s site.

Bobby is a result of taking Emma (and the others) out for a wee bit of shopping, where we did not aim for the Dollar Store for a treat, but bumped it up a notch. This is what happens sometimes.

Now Bobby has made friends with Mr Bones and the Visible Woman. Sometimes I find Bobby and his parts in odd places, but mostly I’m just glad the CSI team has not stopped by.

Emma tells me that Visible woman and Mr Bones are an item, and in fact the parents of Bobby, but Bobby himself looks at us haughtily out of his one good eye, and Visible Woman already has a plastic fetus to take care of.

Yeah, I know. We ARE weird.

Well, I wrote a whole article. You should go read it.  There’s even a picture of me not smirking like usual. Then you should poke around the rest of the site and bookmark it and stuff. Elle is my new bestest friend.

We were both amused by the girls who all dressed alike (to express their individuality) and the majority of boys in a sort of uniform: black tshirt, baggy jeans, skateboard sneakers. I was convinced that the same 6 guys were walking back and forth.

Meanwhile, Sarah and I price-checked, compared unit values, budgeted, planned meals for the week and generally had a good time poking fun at others.

Seeing as we’re somewhat near the ocean and all…

Ron is on vacation this week and we had talked about places we wanted to go, so after a quick consult over our morning caffeine, we decided to head on down to St. Andrews and visit the Huntsman Marine Science Center. It’s a family favorite and Emma couldn’t remember the last time we were there. Hmmm, maybe it was three years ago…

It was a little over two hours to get there, but the drive down was not bad because we were excited and it was a different highway than the ones we normally travel on. Still kinda boring with all those trees though.

We had a great time at the aquarium, going over all the exhibits, taking blurry pics, trying all the touchy-feely things and watching the seals. They even had a tank with some shiver-inducing GIANT sturgeons. A couple of them were as big as me, I swear.

I had a long conversation with another mom over Emma’s pink hair and how it got that way. She said it was a beautiful color (which it is).

After that, we headed downtown with no clear idea what to see next, but the spirit of whatever looked interesting. Lo and behold, there was the Block House. We explored quite a bit there and scrambled over some rocks as high tide came in. And rather quickly too. We continued on and explored downtown, which did not seem to be doing as well as it has in past years. We also toured an old historical home once belonging to the local sheriff.

Sarah did a write-up on her blog too. I think she maybe had a not-bad time.

Even though we were cranky when we needed food NOW, the drive home was long, and I had to lie down when we got back, I was so pleased to hear Emma say what a great day we had, and how she learned SO MUCH and not just abut oceans and things. She really got to see how exploring one topic can lead in all sorts of unexpected directions and adventures.

Pictures to follow, we have two computers on the go today with three people clamoring to use them.

I read or skim far too many posts about planning, angsting, second-guessing, decision-making and the like from many homeschoolers. In the end, the kids learn stuff anyway. That’s the biggest thing the last few years have taught me, and now I don’t really do anything but let that knowledge wash over me. Melissa coined the phrase tidal homeschooling and in many ways it seems the tide has been out here for some time. Looking deeper, you;d see that despite that, things are moving along. I just no longer worry about it I guess. It just *is*.

Maybe this nonchalance about the whole thing led to the following conversation Emma and I had at the library.

Me: “Do you want to get more story books and easy readers?”
Emma: “No. I want to learn stuff. I want to learn about.. .OCEANS!”
Me: “Okay.”
Emma: “Mommy? Am I in grade one yet?”
Me: “You wanna be in grade one?”
Emma nods anxiously.
Me, shrugging: “Okay, fine, you’re in grade one.”
Emma BEAMS. Then she heads to the desk and flags down a librarian, “Excuse me, can you show me where the books about oceans are?”

Meaghan asked me recently when kids here start school. It’s earlier than the rest of the province because it all centers around the potato harvest. She’s planning on starting next week, and to that end went around the house gathering books she wants to read and study. No word from me beforehand, this was all on her own. She is almost done reading the entire Harry Potter series all the way through from start to finish. Again. this is how she “does school”, which may not be how you pictured it or how others do it, but it works for us, so we run with it.

There’s all sorts of other things going on in the background, things that the kids are involved with that don’t look anything like school but will eventually help them become independant adults. And to us, that’s what matters.

Her answer?

“Exhilarating!” And then she jumped all over the bed, clearly demonstrating she knew what the word meant. “Isn’t this exhilarating, Mommy?” She stopped, gave me a thoughtful look (probably because I hadn’t moved from my prone position and had one eyebrow raised), and asked me, “Being a mommy isn’t very exhilarating, is it?”

I gave her the best answer I could: being a mommy has tiny exhilarating bits, very far apart.

***

We cleaned up a pile of books off the floor and found a workbook for beginning to read, level K. The year she just would have finished, had our family been “normal”. She thought it was really cool because it had stickers. She read instructions, placed stickers and did whatever she felt like doing, which was pretty much most of the book. All the stickers are in the right spots, half the work is done, and she had fun doing the practise tests at the back. I think she found it highly amusing they were called “practise” tests.

Before that, she updated her blog. I helped with the typing & spelling, though.

Anyway, I picked up some ATCs in trade (ooo! nice ones!), mailed some out (oops), and picked up some rubber stamps I bought off ebay. Winter cards are gonna be NICE this year, lemme tell ya.

Sunday dinner was so beautiful, I had two plates. And dessert.

There’s a handful of Flickr pics up too. Not much else to report, just tiny incidental things. My brain is coming back sometimes, which is nice. We get together just like old times. I even wrote notes for future blog posts / articles.

So I’ve covered food, how I’m doing, and no new news. The only thing left is Emma. She has discovered subtraction and we were discussing it in bed the other night.

Me, thinking up another example: “So we had six people live in our house and one moved out. How many are left?”

Emma, counting on fingers: “Well, we have Mommy, Addison, Kaytlyn…”

Me: “Why are you counting Kaytlyn? She never lived here.”

Emma: “What? She’s a good person…”

Emma sewed a pillow for her dolls. And then she sewed another.

Afterwards, she said she thinks she’d like to learn how to knit – this came soon after I explained knitting and sewing were two different things. “Knitting, sewing, whatever,” she said. But knitting is with yarn and sticks and a little harder to get the hang of.

“What’s so hard?” she asked, “You just knit 1, purl 2, and make stuff.”

Addison made the Dean’s list *again* with an average of 83.

Not saying this to brag, just letting the general public know that homeschoolers – and self-educating ones at that – do just fine out in the “real world”.

Oh, and when he and Kaytlyn were here last, Ron had two *TWO* people to talk intensive programming techniques with.