Jen's Mental Scribblings

Bit the First: How I view some people and I knit for them to show them I love them.

Lets see:

Last weekend I went to a baby shower for the daughter of one of my oldest and dearest. The thing that truly amuses me is that this "child" is the same age as mollygm (i.e. near to 30). Molly I view as a peer. Jenner is my peer's daughter and I tend to think of her when I first met her 18 years ago, rather than the capable young woman she is. Regardless, I'm very happy she's having a wee one, and I knit a sweater for him. It came out so cute. I just learned how to do cables and it knit up very quickly.



Bit the Second: Scenes from Cultural Elitism

(hat tip to oxymoron67 for the subtitle)

The children are finally getting old enough that we can buy memberships to more interesting museums beyond ones specifically for children. Yesterday I took them to the California Academy of Sciences and bought a membership. There were two new exhibits since the last time I went. One was a place to worship the size of Larry Ellison's penis (it was something about speed in water, blah, blah, blah, but focused in the end on Larry's America's Cup team. See? I have a boat!)

Anyway.

The other one was on Earthquakes. It's San Francisco. Of course there's an exhibit on Earthquakes. It was a short video and then an Earthquake room. The room was made up to look Victorian and out the window was a scene of the Painted Sisters. First, we got to feel Loma Prieta (1989 quake for those not keeping score at home), which lasted 15 seconds. Pretty much what I remember. Then the lights went out, the picture of the Painted Sisters changed to 1906...the sample only lasted 30 seconds...which was only one third of the total time of the Earthquake. Damn. No wonder it did so much damage. (That and the lack of proper Earthquake prevention in the buildings/water supplies (fire did MORE damage than the quake itself. Lack of water was the main problem. The pipes broke in the quake.))

While in line there was a green screen and a nice helpful person took your picture. Elli and Gray went with me to this exhibit. So they got their picture taken. I love it. It's just perfect. I can't get over how awesome Elli's expression is.



It was a good day and we will go back. This is one of our favorite museums. We actually got up to the roof this time. Pretty cool looking close up.

Almost a year late, but finally I finished it!!!

One knitted Dalek.





Extermiknit! Extermiknit!!!

I thought I might do some writing/musing

Will Development/Weight Management
I am a sugar addict. Oh hell, I'm a food addict. But sugar is the biggest problem of all. I get on that roller coaster of highs and lows and its just awful. I have managed to stay away from sugar for almost three weeks. This is big for me. I want to be healthier, but most "diets" have you cutting everything out at once. And it doesn't work. So right now I'm focusing on sugar. Baby steps will win the race. I don't know if I've lost any weight or not, but my Mom says I'm not as puffy as the last time she saw me. And my scale in the bathroom doesn't automatically go "TILT" when I step on it. It actually has to think about it before it does it. So I see that as a vast improvement.

Sleep
Oh my god do I need some. For the last four nights Gray has gotten up in the middle of the night for a couple of hours. I finally figured out he's probably teething, so I've been giving him ibuprofen. Problem is that it wears off in the middle of the night. So my night is really broken. I'm crispy. Thank god I'm not eating sugar to make it worse!

Homeschooling
Has actually been going well. We do better on the days we stay home all day, but overall school is going well. The other day Ike said to me "Mommy, I love doing school here. J (boy down the street) has to go to school all day, has homework when he gets home, and we're done by lunch! I get a lot more time to play" Smart boy. We are working on American Tall Tales right now and Melisa is right as usual, when you read a book the lesson goes flat. So I will be telling the next couple instead of reading the cool picture books I found. I'll save those for story time (which is something new I've managed to institute. I read to the kids for about an hour every afternoon). He's also found pencils are much easier for him to write with than using crayons. So we are making headway there.

I did a lot of thinking and meditating this summer on how to approach teaching this year. I gave myself permission to not beat myself up because I can't manage a Waldorf School experience at home. I'm Homeschooling! Not Schooling at Home. So I'm not going to kill myself trying to squeeze in everything. I'm working on stories, some writing, handwork, singing, penny whistle, verse memorization, and some painting. Which is still a lot. And I'm not even going to bother teaching Grammar this year. Ike doesn't read! It makes no sense at all to me to teach a non-reader grammar. I'm also not going gung-ho on teaching him to read. He's not frustrated enough yet. He's starting to get there, but he's not there yet. And when that frustration sets in, then I'll work on turning him into a reader.

I also got inspired by another Homeschooling Mama of 9(!) kids. So, in addition to focusing on less things, I'm leaning a bit toward child-led education. I'm giving the kids the option of a lesson (but they have to finish a lesson they start). And if someone expresses an interest in a subject, we'll look at it as appropriate

Steiner did say once that not having to go to school to age 12 would be a good thing...so I'm still schooling them (I'm not that brave to not do "anything" until age 12), but I'm backing off on forcing the issue. There's no rush. Everything will be covered in due time.

LifeWays
I had my first class on Saturday. Awesome, but long day topped off by a Stupid Tax courtesy of SFPD. (Not only was I blocking someone's driveway, I forgot to curb my wheels. Whoops! I'm glad they didn't tow it.) We started the day with singing, then Steiners Ages and Stages (going whole to parts, of course), lunch, sewing, and knitting. My kind of day!

The knitting component was starting on our year long knitting project...the knitted farm yard. I've gotten the first two squares done. I had to rip out what I did in class 'cause it was messy and uneven.  And I didn't like the needles we were given at all! Bamboo makes for really slick needles and it just drives me up a wall! I'm completely sold on my Knitpicks wood circular needles. They are perfect in my book.

Autism
So I'm finally doing some major reading on autism. When Ike was diagnosed a year ago, I just wasn't up for any reading. Now that I'm finally feeling like my head is out of the water since I got pregnant with Gray, I've got the energy to read. (yea, I know I read a lot. But this is a different type of reading. I just wasn't ready). Things I've figured out/found out. Kids with Autism have fewer mirroring neurons. Which is why a baby smiles back at you when you smile at them. The fewer the number the more pronounced the autism. Ike has problems with Executive Processing. Which is not only causal relations (i.e. if I hit my sister, she'll get hurt, then I'll get into trouble) but sequential thinking (i.e. first I pick up, then I dust, then I vacuum). It also impairs his ability to take verbal instructions. He just can't do it beyond a certain point.

I also found its quite common and expected for younger siblings to mimic elder siblings behave. In due time, as they mature, they outgrow it. (Thank goodness!)

Handwork
Oy, am I knitting up a storm. I've been focusing on my shawl. I'm finding I have an urge to make something. I've been cleaning out my work basket. (Where things are put to be repaired) so far in the last week or so I've repaired 2 Heavy Babies and I've finally put together a Gingerbread Man I knitted up last year. Turned out really, really cute! Gray will enjoy it for Christmas!

I'm starting to look toward Christmas and decide what needs to be made by then. I want to make the kids their own Hobby Horses from Santa. I have 5/6 of the material I need (I need to find a co-ordinating fabric for Ike's Horse, which is red of course) I need to set up my sewing machine as I want to make the girls their Halloween costumes on top of everything else.


So that pretty much sums up everything going on with me. How's things with you?

I wanted to post a picture of the proud knitting boy.

21. Beyond this Horizon. by Robert A. Heinlein.
Early Heinlein. And one I hadn't read before. It was kind of actually a hard read as the writing wasn't as smooth as his later work became. Interesting read, but not one I'll seek out.

22. The Pleasure Palace by Evangeline Anderson
When I'm feeling really brain dead, I read romance/smut. This qualifies as smut. Bad smut. The sex scenes were BORING. And the plot, although an interesting premise, was kinda dry. Definitely a waste of time

23. Knitting without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmermann
I just got introduced to EZ by another blog I read (soulemama). The Sweater she knit for her baby (slightly older than Gray) was fascinating. She took a before picture and it was a blobbish rectangle. According to Amanda Soule, it took some clever folding and 1 seam across the shoulders and it turned into this adorable sweater. So I requested the one book SJPL owns, and after reading promptly ordered a couple of patterns (including that neat one) off her website (run by her daughter). There's another pattern in this book I must try (The tomten jacket) Amanda Soule just posted pictures of one she just finished on her website and it looks totally cute too. I'll need to buy this one I think.