We're Homeschooling!

The law of least resistance

 Graphing our snack

The "Classroom" we created in the guest room 

One of our quails was looking very sick earlier this week and we brought him inside to watch.  For a two days he was barely breathing or moving.  But today he few out of his respite box a couple times.

The kids played with him and he was a good sport about it

Today we brought him back out with his buddies

Who is heavier?

I'd planned on taking them skiing today but something came up.  So we took an afternoon visit to Frying Pan Park.  We were the only people there.

Kaio really likes being outside and climbing.

I love this picture, she looks like she knows what's up.

I still have to do some deep soul searching to figure out what kind of homeschoolers we are.  I made this decision very quickly and didn't have a plan or curriculum lined up.  So far we've just been carrying on with work Kaio's teachers gave me along with a loose structure around the day.  But I feel like there is some bigger experience out there to be had.  Some greater purpose in each of us that shines out when nourished.  I'd like to figure this out, I feel it but have no idea what it looks like.

Live a Little, Enjoy the Moment

"It's a perfect day for flying a kite mom!"

knee-jerk, lazy me thought, "dammit Nala, it's 20 degrees plus freggin windy, and I haven't even eaten breakfast yet.  It is NOT a perfect time for flying a kite."

Internal carefree me corrected my thoughts, "Live a little, don't be so lazy, enjoy the moment, listen to your kid and let her energy guide you."

The best thing about having your fingers ice stiff from untangling kite string:

and:

A day earlier, I let Kaio skip school to play in the snow.

"Hey, I want to try that!"

It has been so cold and colorless outside, when Nala suggested a bouquet of flowers from the grocery store, it sounded like a good idea for once.  Of course, they had to be pink.

Then I get to have a fancy lunch date with my girlfriend.

The Condensation of Love

There are moments when Mari and I consider sending the kids to spend the summer with their grandparents.  There are moments when the kids are shoving, stealing toys, laughing at the other's pain and frustration, and/or purposely trying to make the other cry about something (usually something stupid and imaginary). Then, there are moments like this, that I revel in the burst of joy provided through two creatures joined to me by magic: the condensation of love.

"Mama, come here, Nala's a magician!"

"Abracadabra!"

I'm going to turn Kaio into a 

Superhero!

  

There might be something else condensing besides love.  

 Maybe some silliness too.

Trip to the White House

On this Inauguration MLK day, I thought it would be appropriate to do some catch up and write about my trip last month to the White House.  If you are friends with me on FB you may have noticed that in December I had the privileged of being invited to the White House with Nala to advocate for adoption of stronger air pollution standards.  I'm happy to say that Obama signed the new standards into law Dec 14th, and although it's not a big change (97% of counties around the US already meet the standard), it will deter new industry from adding pollution into the air.  The rule centers around soot, which is a blanket term for harmful fine particulate matter that is heavily linked to asthma and other lung conditions.  

Visiting the White House was a really cool experience and I'm so glad I was able to bring Nala along.  In a world where I'm always feeling powerless against the political forces at hand, it was nice to get an ear of someone responsible for the direction of the policies.  I went with Mom's Rising, a political advocacy group that has lots of access with this administration.  We were given a solid 20 minutes of face time with Obama policy advisers for three different sectors.  They sat us down in a fancy room in the West Wing, at a big long table.  They were very friendly and expressed how grateful they were to have us there.  They like to be pressured by real people and to hear stories from moms because it gives them ammo when dealing with larger corp interests.  When I spoke, I focused on the cost of asthma to the greater health care pool and the cost to productivity of society (asthma is the #1 reason why kids miss school), and when a kid misses school a parent also needs to miss work.  Asthmatic attacks also land kids and adults in the emergency room, sometimes for days to a week.  These stays and the medications all accumulate costs in the insurance and medicare pool, making insurance and medicare more expensive for everyone else.  After the White House, most of the moms went on to the Hill to lobby congress on Fiscal Cliff stuff with babies in hand.

I felt really lucky to participate and advocate at the White House for this issue that's important to me.

Approaching 20yrs of FMLA it's amazing to me how far moms and America has come, where now it is perfectly acceptable to nurse a baby in the middle of a meeting at the White House. Go US!

We delivered soot sprites, a cute way to illustrate the point.

That's my girl

In front of the West Wing