Happy Harvest-tide

We're getting ready to make applesauce, having breakfast and talking about the harvest. We decided to write our meal blessing out, and we re-wrote it a little. 

Hail Erda, green and good,

Make us Healthy with this food!

Hail Sunna, shining high,

Help us always Bravely Try!

Hail our Family, everywhere, 

May we enjoy the time we share!

Dog Manners

Little Lilly has grown up around animals. 

When she was born we had 2 big dogs. Gimli, the goblin dog. a pound hound, a crazy chow-chow border collie mix. He's a difficult dog top say the least - wild, headstrong, defiant, bratty, and gassy. That's him on the left. 

Anyone want him? He's a "fun at parties' kind of dog" engaging and funny, but a major pain in the butt on a day to day level. He's very intelligent, and uses all his wits to escape whenever possible, including by deliberately tripping me with the leash if he can, on icy steps, or if I'm sick or tired. Until recently he was a real pill at the dog park too, he'd aggressively and persistently hump the other dogs faces like getting bit on the wiener was a sport. To him, that's fun. He's finally gotten over that. On the plus side, he's insanely protective, and puts himself in between us and anything even vaguely or potentially threatening, and he's unfailingly brave. He's also really pretty. He sheds 2 futons-stuffings worth of undercoat each year, but looks good doing it. 

Sheeba D was a much better dog, a gigantic black, bear-like German Shepherd we meant to foster and ended up adopting from German Shepherd Dog Rescue. She had some biting issues, bad teeth, and reeked like rancid death when we got her, but after a bath, a few chew toys, and some loving attention she shaped up to be a great companion. She never took guff from anyone, and kept Gimli in his place. I'm so glad she got to live out her twilight years with us, guarding the door, frisking around in the grass, and just hanging out being majestic. She passed away in 2007. 

Since the Bun's last birthday we have been working extra-hard of having good dog manners. We have made a pact, that if she can manage to show good dog manners at all times, from her 4th birthday until next summer, that we will get her a dog of her own for her 5th birthday. Of course the serious responsibilities for the dog will remain mine, but we'll get a dog that will have a pet-person bond with her, something neither of the other dogs have had. Both dogs were very tolerant of her, and protective. Gimli will let her lead him if he has no other choice but will not respond to her if he can help it. 

We want a dog that will play with her. She's decided that she loves poodles, and I can't argue with that. We're looking for a white (her favorite color, eye boogers or no) Standard Poodle. All my adult life I've been firmly dedicated to rescue dogs, but we're considering looking at breeders now, because we really want a dog with a good temperament. We're also open to an older rescue poodle, if we can get a healthy one from a Poodle rescue, that isn't a shy dog rescued from a bad breeder, which so many rescue poodles (at least online) seem to be. So keep an eye out for us. We want a pure-bred this time, so no "x-doodles", please. 

Bikes

So, I recently spent all of our money on a pair of bikes. An Electra Townie for me and a trail-a-bike for the bun, which attaches to the seat post of my bike, and makes a sort of tandem. She contributes to the pedaling and has to balance, but I steer for the two of us so we can ride in not-baby-friendly areas, such as the street. We ride all over the place.  (the pic is Grosse Park)

We have always been big walkers. She was a sling baby, and with zero child care assistance she of course went everywhere I went, which basically meant the grocery store, the liquor store, the library, and loads of parks. Albany Park is great for parks. We never did the stroller thing (I'm a paleo-heathen, so I think they're decadent or something.) so as soon as she could walk we started taking long hikes through the parks. 

(If you don't use a stroller all the time, you can assume a kid can walk their age in years, without difficulty. At 3 years old, we were routinely walking 4-5 miles in a go; longer than that I'd pop her back into the sling for a bit. Don't tire the kid out by walking too fast. Hand-holding can be tiring too, so I'd switch hands, let her hold onto a long end of the sling hanging lower than my hand, and walk on her won when she felt like it, in safe areas.)

As soon as she showed an interest in looking at things on the internet we stared looking at maps of where we had been. Google is great for this, we can toggle between the map and the satellite views and street views. Our new project with the maps and bikes is visiting every park on the North Side. That's about a hundred parks. There are 38 in our zip code alone. Chicago is awesome. 

The bikes make this project a lot more do-able. We had been going to the farther away parks by bus, but biking is way better. We frequently have to bike right in the street, like "real cyclists" which can be scary, as there are a lot of idiot drivers on the roads. So far so good though. Seeing biking babies is probably good for cyclist visibility (even though we aren't quite "real cyclists") and as long as we don't get hurt I know it's good for the Bun. I've been really delighted to see how many people smile and wave and seem to get a kick out of seeing a little kid biking around. The Bun loves it when people smile at her from cars, and wave as she rides by. 

Somebody needs to tell the kids' music people that YES indeed, you ARE supposed to ride in the street: if you're a big kid, a kid on a bike with a grown up, or there is no sidewalk. It's actually illegal for people over 12 to bike on the sidewalk in the city. Drivers need to get a grip and understand that too, put that in the kids' music: 

"If your Mom talks on the phone while driving your SUV, 

it's OK to call her a stupid bitch. 

If your Dad honks his horn while people are crossing the street, 

flush his keys down the toilet." 

Catchy, eh?

If only Critical Mass didn't always happen on the same Friday as the Heathen Book club. 

Still Flooded

Our neighborhood, Albany Park was flooded last week. The weather since then has been lovely, but we're still drying out. 

Part of what makes the neighborhood so beautiful is that the North Branch of the Chicago River winds through it, and there is green-space all along the river, as well as loads of park lands. When the river crested over it's banks much of this green-space was flooded, which undoubtedly saved us from even more serious damage. Less than 2 blocks from us 40 people were evacuated by boat, and many more had to leave from points along the river, but we never even lost power, or water, which is pretty impressive. Nice job there Chicago. The bike path we normally take to the library is still partially underwater, and geese think they own the waterlogged parks this week, but such is life.  

There are loads of great pictures on Chicago Public Radio's Flickr site, but I can't find the group with all  the flood photos. 

Pam found it - Thanks, Pam!

Anyway, we've been stuck inside for a while, good thing we have some excellent new toys. I'll post about them later, with some links to where you can find more super-fun toys. For now though, we're off to the library. 

first post - Home-school stuff

Hi everyone, I've been meaning to get this site started for such a long time, it's just hard to get computer time while baby-watching.  :)

We have begun to dip our toes into Home-Schooling, with a Waldorf at home curriculum from Oak Meadow. 

http://www.oakmeadow.com/ 

We got the Pre-School package, everything but the block crayons as we l always have those around already. The paints are expensive, but they've been a big hit. I think I should shell out the dough for the Painting with Children book, as it's a wonderful but complex activity, and I'd like to get the most out of it. 

https://www.oakmeadow.com/store/orderitem.cfm?rec_no=1501  

I was pretty enthused about this particular curriculum before receiving the  books, now I'm a little luke-warm, but it's good to be finding this out in the pre-school phase. I think basically, the reading list for the upper grades looked pretty impressive, and I like the idea of a structured program. We don't have to implement all the structure provided, but I figured that taking a looser approach to a tightly structured program would be easier than making up a structure for in information myself. I don't have any difficulty finding material, it's planning how to best present it that stumps me a little. Two things about the Oak Meadow program seem like a less than perfect fit though: the Yoga book is a great idea, but the style of it is a little cloying, and I'm not seeing the traditional Viking material and such for grade 4, which is something we were already looking forward to. Now I'm taking a harder look at the more expensive Enki program, 

http://www.enkieducation.org/html/waldorf-inspired-programs.htm 

and the supposedly more true-to-Waldorf Live Education

http://www.live-education.com /

I might get both Enki and one other program for the Kindergarten year and hope that I can choose just one for First Grade. Oak Meadow is supposedly the easiest top present for standard Homeschoolers, and focuses closely on the standards  and benchmarks the state requires. That's frankly not a large concern to me, because giving as good an education as a public school frankly doesn't sound too difficult. Enki's main appeal to me at this point (having just read the site, and testimonials on a Home-School review site

http://www.homeschoolreviews.com/ 

is that it puts a heavy emphasis on arts and movement, and that's a big part of what I feel we are missing out on by not going to a brick & mortar Waldorf school, the dance, Eurethmy. This might be something we could do with a Home-School co-op or some other group, if we can find one. Or maybe form one.