LFLF Editor's Blog

Snack Tray Foods and a Fun Dessert

No, we never got any rain.  Not surprising, really.  Kenzie's spent the day playing outside with friends.  It's been hovering around 90 degrees, so he's come in a time or two for a juice pop refueling and to watch part of Willy Wonka (the 1971 version, of course), and then run back out - bike helmet, Pokemon cards and colored pencils in tow. 

I've been gathering ideas for snack trays for the past few hours.  My blood sugar has always fluctuated throughout the day, often making me dizzy, weak and faint, especially if I leave gaps between meals.  The three meals a day thing doesn't work well for me.  Grazing actually works best, and putting out a snack tray in the morning encourages me (and Kenzie) to grab small portions of healthy foods when hunger strikes.  At first, it was just fruits and the occasional veggie, but today I compiled a much broader list:

Fruits

Grapes
Apples
Bananas rolled in oats
Orange segments
Dried fruit
Banana chips
Raisins
Cantaloupe/Honeydew
Cherries
Papaya chunks
Berries of all sorts

Veggies

Small pickles
Grape tomatoes
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Carrots
Celery
Cucumber slices
Cold peas
Cold corn
Olives
Avocado chunks
Cubed butternut squash
Cubed sweet potato


Grains

Whole wheat crackers
Melba toast
Pieces of homemade bread
Pretzels
Rice cakes
Puffed rice
Cold pasta
Pita bread pieces
Sesame sticks
Cereals
Whole wheat tortilla pieces

Dips

Hummus
Homemade bean dip
Plain yogurt with mayo and spices
Applesauce
Nut butters


And if this wasn't enough to make you hungry, check out this fun dessert!  Planning on trying it soon (without the soymilk, of course, since Kenzie is alergic).

I guess a trip to the grocery store is in order.  I'm curious to see how it works out....  Just typing in the list is making my stomach growl.  Off to raid the pantry!

Dry

Swollen storms are curling past us to the north.  Their long tails tease us, but, as usual, there has been no rain here.  Soon, we will begin to drag our tangled hoses across our lawns, fill our pools, lovingly service our air conditioners.  There will be yet another drought declared, yet another summer of restricted water.  We will not be allowed to wash our cars or spray down our sidewalks.  Each night, news anchors will inform us of new brush fires and of the lingering burn ban as we wash the ash from our throats with iced tea.

All my poems are of liquid, now - thickening clouds, salt tears, kisses, dew. 

Mother's Day Sale

Warning: A bit of blatant advertising ahead....

Just a note to let you know that all Live Free Learn Free subscriptions are on sale!  Don't forget - Mother's Day is just around the corner!  Know a special mom who would enjoy receiving Live Free Learn Free?  Send her a Mother's Day subscription!  Or, treat yourself!  Enjoy a full year's worth of inspiring articles, extraordinary resources, and stories of curious, creative families just like yours!  Happy unschooling!

Two-Minute Journey to Unschooling

A recent post of mine from a MotheringDotCommune forums thread:

When Kenzie was a little over three, I was surfing the Internet and stumbled upon Jan Hunt's Natural Child Project website. I was so amazed to learn that other people mothered like I did. I wasn't alone. Co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, lots of holding and respect....  After reading through article after article, I came across one by John Holt. By the time I finished it, I had exclaimed "Yes!" and "Well, duh!" about fifteen times. That was it for me. All I could think was, "Why hadn't I already figured this out on my own?" It made more sense than anything I had ever read in my life. Of course people learn best when they're interested in something. Of course we retain information much better when we actively seek it out. Of course learning through life is ideal. So, I bought up lots of Holt books, as well as a few others, and pored over them with a permanent smile affixed to my face.

I had been a perfect student all my life. Honors. Awards ceremonies. Plaques on the wall. And I knew it was all a sham; I had always done the least amount of work possible. During high school, for instance, I refused to read any book they assigned simply because I resented the fact that they wanted me to put down what I was reading and pick up a "classic" that didn’t interest me. Really, though, there was no need to read the books; just listen in class and ask a few questions of the suckers who DID read the books, and the tests were a breeze. (I ended up reading most of the books later, on my own – when I wanted to....)

Once I realized I'd be attending the local-yokel university (couldn't leave my all-important boyfriend), I dropped all my honors classes so I could be in easier classes with the kids I liked. I piled on extra courses so I could get out sooner - and it worked. I escaped in three years, rather than the usual four, graduating with 400 people I hardly knew.

All that (and MUCH more) to say that public schooling wasn't for me.  It hadn't killed my love of learning, exactly, but it had certainly put a crimp in my style. And I haven't even touched on any of the numerous "popularity" problems or difficulties with specific teachers.

Embracing unschooling took all of about two minutes for me - long enough to read through that article. And Kenzie was only three, so had never been to school. His life just flowed along naturally as if nothing special had happened. We simply continued living life the way we had been doing since his birth. He’s eight, now, and can’t imagine what school would be like. He spends his days playing, exploring the neighborhood, digging through the back yard, acting out Greek myths, drawing, singing, reading like mad, starting Pokemon RPGs on the Neopets boards, building with Legos and Bionicle and Construx, and snuggling up to me in the big comfy chair to talk.

He tells me he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dreaming of Land

My grandmother is slowly getting better, and we're hoping they discover the source of the problem soon.  My mother is there with her.

Driving through east Texas always stirs up those old homesteading feelings in me.  Passing my great-grandmother's house, craning my neck to look at the tops of the trees, seeing all those patched-up pick-ups driving down un-patched roads....  I feel drawn to the place like nowhere else, and I imagine buying a bit of land, building a house and starting a large garden.  I see myself feeding chickens, milking the family cow, canning, sewing....  We came awfully close to delving into this life about three-and-a-half years ago, but finally decided to put it off for at least a while.  In case you're wondering why, I posted about it early last year.

I spent the drive home thinking about land.  Buying it and passing it on.  Family land.  My great-grandmother's land is being parceled out, now, as her children grow older and die and their children sell it off to strangers.  It feels wrong to me, somehow, but that's life, I guess.  I would like to have a bit of land to my name, though.  Perhaps, I'll start looking into locations and prices....

Over the River and Through the Piney Woods

So many things have been happening this past week, I'm left wondering where to begin....

My maternal grandmother took ill Saturday, and on Sunday, we thought we might lose her.  By Sunday night, I was in Tyler, Texas with my mother visiting her in the critical care unit.  They allowed a few family members to visit patients for fifteen minutes several times a day, so we spent a lot of time running back and forth from my grandmother's house where we were staying to the hospital. 

She was brought in, delusional, with extremely low sodium and pneumonia.  After a particularly frightening episode on Sunday, they thought she had experienced a heart attack, but after performing a heart catheterization, decided that wasn't the case.  No one knows what caused the episode, nor what caused the low sodium in the first place.  It's difficult not knowing, but we were happy to find out her heart was in excellent condition. 

Yesterday, she was well enough to be moved to a regular hospital room, and after getting her settled in, my mother and I each came home to piles of both regular and e-mail.  She's returning this afternoon, but I'm staying behind to be with Kenzie and to work. 

This, in fact, was only the second time Kenzie has ever slept through the night without me.  Four years ago, we spent the night apart when my youngest brother entered the hospital with about 1/2 his normal blood volume (he was eventually diagnosed with Crohn's Disease).  This week, he slept alone for three nights and did just fine.  I, on the other hand, slept next to my mother in my grandmother's bed.  It was wonderfully comforting in a time of stress. 

There's so much more to write about, but I should probably catch up on bills and emails and....  Though I was only away for three days, the work has piled up.

Instinctive Parenting

I was searching for something to read and pulled one of my many parenting books off the shelf.  I do that from time to time, often rereading certain passages or chapters as I feel the need.  I've noticed, though, that the parenting-book-trend often seems to be taken to extremes.  Just as many mainstream parents turn to Dr. Spock or the What to Expect series, now that there are so many wonderful alternative parenting books on the market, APers seem to be turning more and more to books for answers, as well.

Maybe it's that I'm so thrilled to see a parenting book I (at least mostly) agree with, that I simply can't bring myself to leave it in the store.  I've amassed quite a collection of parenting books that, for the most part, jive with my sense of right and wrong.  But, more than once, I've had to remind myself that I am very capable of parenting without the advice of authors, experts and organizations.  I know my child like no one else, and when I'm having trouble deciding what to do in any given situation, the best advice usually comes from within, rather than without.

But there are so many books and websites and discussion groups and boards out there!  It feels wrong, somehow, to disregard them.  A few years ago, this information was hard to come by, but now it's everywhere. 

Instinctive parenting is a quality that's been on the decline for decades - ever since doctors replaced mothers as experts on birthing and raising children.  We gained a little ground with the resurgence of natural childbirth, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, etc., but many people still depend on books to tell them even these things are all right. That's certainly better than formula feeding, but still undercuts the trust that we, as parents, should have in ourselves.  These practices are natural and instinctive. We shouldn't have to pore over websites and books to understand this.  Our bodies know it, and our children tell us - often quite clearly - that this is what they need.  We just have to look beyond the books to our children and to ourselves.

Okay, rant over. Now back to skimming through my parenting book....

Newfound Books

Kenzie and I just discovered two new "Ology" books from Candlewick Press scheduled for release: Pirateology and Obscure Spells And Charms of Dragon Origin: A Dragonology Kit. For those whose children are "Ology" addicts, these books can't come soon enough! 

And, for those who love Candlewick Press's beautifully illustrated book Fairy Tales, you'll be happy to discover the picture book From a Distance, also illustrated by Jane Ray.  The book pairs the lyrics of Julie Gold's award-winning song with Ray's gorgeous paintings.  The result is a lovely and haunting picture book about war, humanity and beauty.  Kenzie and I have been poring over the paintings' details all week.  Also included is an appreciation by Nanci Griffith, whose version of the song is sweetly heart-wrenching.

Beautiful Blogs

From time to time, I go blog hunting, and my favorites tend to be very image-based.  Today, I stumbled upon BibliOdyssey, a gorgeous, but very basic, blog showcasing stunning illustrations from around the world and throughout history.  Absolutely awe-inspiring.  Just thought I'd mention it.