Ulterior Motive

In order to understand my biological mother better I just got in a copy of The Girls Who Went Away:  The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children For Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v.Wade.  My 14yo daughter immediately asked to read it. 

I can't imagine a better prophylactic.

The Dark Day Has Arrived

Brighteyes (14) has two papers of more than one page in length due at the same time.  Oh, the End Is Nigh!  The weeping, the wailing, the screaming, and the gnashing of teeth went on for over two hours yesterday.  (Time that could have been spent finishing both those reports.)  You'd think the Apocalypse was on us.

Her father was less than impressed.  "I've got freshman college students just encountering that for the first time who are having the same reaction.  Best to go on and get it over with now."  I agree.  Best get this explosion out of the way before the child is old enough to have a driver's license.

Comfort Food

My emotional heart is undergoing surgery right now as ancient barbs are being moved about none too delicately and certainly not painlessly.  It's led to all sorts of misadventures, such as running out of the room and collapsing on the floor crying during yesterday's episode of My Little Pony (409).  One of the coping mechanism's that's come out is a mild obsession with comfort food.  Not so much eating it (although there's some of that) as making it for my family.

Evolving Into High School

As my older children enter their teenage years our homeschooling is evolving to keep up with them. Their reading requirements have skyrocketed, and for that we got a Nook Glowlight for Christmas.  It's our first modern "handheld" and has quickly become the most fought-over item in the house.

Unfortunately it doesn't make the increasing length of the reports any less intimidating.  I try to tell them it's the mental equivalent of learning a cartwheel, but so far all that's got me are glares.

We're also adding more DVDs into the mix.   They're watching The Standard Deviants series and practicing note-taking with it.  It would have seemed grossly unfair to my teen-self to start learning note-taking with a series you can start and stop yourself and take as long as you want to write things down, but you have to start somewhere.  Besides the SD series manages to pack half a college-level Biology 101 course into a two-hour lecture interspersed with jokes, so they must have intended it to be stopped.