Fun(d) Run

Here's what Patrick did yesterday afternoon:


Patrick and a friend

They ran 10 miles, basically circling the base. He said it was a lot of fun, and they certainly looked like they were having fun about 4 miles into it when I saw them and took the photos. I guess when you race 3 miles every weekend, and run more almost every day, jogging 10 isn't really so bad.


Edgren High School Cross Country Team 2007

We celebrated with fried chicken and biscuits afterwards. Patrick was most appreciative.

He sends his thanks to everyone who contributed to the cause. The team will have some really cool t-shirts now, and will be able to pay for their travel bags rather than asking the parents for the full amount. (John and I thank you, too.)

Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

We awoke this morning to the sound of pouring rain. Having never lived under a metal roof before, we are always amazed at the tremendous sound of rain on the lower roof outside our window.

It also put an end to our plans for a hike in the Hakkoda Mountains. So we have had mellow morning. Katie, Joseph and Matthew found art projects to work on. Patrick used the time for a catch-up in history reading and a nice, long phone visit with a friend back in Washington State. I went back to putting data in the kids' planners.

At lunch, Matthew piped up with a song I had remembered from a class performance and sung for him at bedtime a few times. Mom and Dad, do you remember when this happened? We dressed up in raincoats and carried umbrellas and sang the song on stage. I have no idea what it was really for, just that I must have been in about kindergarten (?). I remembered most of the words of the song all this time.

It gives me pause about the things I choose for my children to memorize. In 35 or more years, these things may still be rattling around in their heads. That's great if what's rattling is Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, or the Song of Songs. Not so great if it's SpongeBob. Thankfully, in our quest to provide the good, the true, and the beautiful, we have made choices in the children's education and media viewing that mean that they will be unlikely to remember much about SpongeBob. B.J. Thomas may be another matter, however.

Post Script:
John didn't remember this 1970 classic, so after lunch I found it on YouTube for him. The kids were highly entertained by the whole presentation. Patrick couldn't believe it was not a joke of some kind. So I thought I'd share a smile (or perhaps a groan) for your Columbus Day (click here).

Oh, we did do something besides study Late 20th Century Entertainment History today. We read the book, Columbus, by Edward and Ingri D'Aulaire.

Homecoming

Patrick is out at the homecoming game tonight. The Edgren Eagles are playing Camp Zama's Trojans in football.

It has been a fun week for the teens. On Wednesday, there was a pep rally, and they called out all the players' names on all the teams that are competing this weekend: football, volleyball, tennis, and cross country. Patrick said it was fun to run out with the team and give their big cheer and be cheered on by the whole school. Last night, there was a huge bonfire (it worked this year, Tommy :-)) and they burned the Zama mascot in effigy.

Tomorrow, Patrick will run in the afternoon. The races are usually in the morning, but tomorrow is also the SAT, so the kids who have traveled up here from Tokyo and the local juniors and seniors have to take the SAT in the morning and then run the race in the afternoon. It's a challenge to create a high school sports program in a foreign land, but DoDDS seems to make it work.

Away from the high school campus, another homecoming is taking place this weekend. The airmen of the 13th Fighter Squadron, the young sons and brothers and fathers (and daughters and mothers), who have been deployed in Iraq for the past five months, are returning home. The first men, the pilots, arrived yesterday, and the others are expected soon. Two of the g irls in Katie's gymnastics class weren't there today. Their daddy is home, and nothing is more important than family right now.

Footlockers and boxes have been arriving for a couple of weeks now, and the post office is completely bogged down. It's a joyful sort of bogging-down. No one seems to mind (much) that their other packages are stuck somewhere else.

In this military homecoming, something came home to me. In the U.S., before we moved here, the war in Iraq was something very remote. Yes, it was on the news and in the papers, especially when the local national guard was sent over, but it didn't really affect my family. In my defense, I had a new baby then, and I wasn't paying much attention to anything outside our four walls, but even so, it was a distant war.

In the past fourteen months, we have watched two groups of men and women deployed and returned. The parents (mostly mothers) who stay behind fight the battle in their own way: keeping the family together, keeping the kids busy, distracting everyone from the missing person at the table. They deal with the everyday stuff of family life and try to bridge the distance with email and webcams and blogging and sheer determination.

And no one complains. No one enjoys it, to be sure, but it is part of the job, and they do what needs to be done.

So that people back home can live normal, everyday lives and feel that the war in Iraq doesn't really affect them.

I have never been so humbled. Or so grateful.

University of Dallas

It really comes as no surprise that UD made the list of "Joyfully Catholic" colleges in a new book published by the Cardinal Newman Society, according to this article I saw on Catholic Exchange.

All the same, this is very reassuring for parents of future students ;-) Go, Class of 2012!

And thanks be to God that there are faithfully Catholic colleges in the United States from which to choose.

Linguistics

Matthew is a lover of words. He likes to say them, hear them, and repeat them. I think he likes the feel of them on his tongue. This is especially true of certain words that produce ripples of laughter when he says them. Every once in awhile, a new one tickles his imagination, and we all end up laughing at the sound of the word as Matthew says it, giggles, and repeats and repeats.

It began last spring. In the early mornings, when only Matthew and I are awake, he brings me books to read. One morning in the spring, he brought me Everybody Needs a Rock. Unsure whether he would really hang in there to listen to the text of this book (he was just over two then), we climbed into the rocking chair and began.

As I read, it became apparent that he was listening. He was sitting very still and observing the pictures. Then suddenly, as I read "...lumpy..." He looked up at me.

"Lumpy?" he asked.

"Lumpy," I confirmed.

He began to giggle. "Lumpy.....(giggle)...lumpy..(more giggles)...LUMPY (gales of laughter)..."

That was how it began. Since then, he has also found words like "silly" and "wishy-washy" and "Dunkin' Donuts" to be highly amusing. There are others, too, that I have forgotten. I always wish that I would write these things down as they happen. Maybe with this blog I will get better at that, I don't know.

Tonight he came back to lumpy and it was newly amusing for him (and for us). I wonder where this love of the sounds and feel of words will lead him?

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Happy name day to John and Matthew Francis!

There were some good plans for celebrating this day, but we are fighting colds, and I just want to sleep. So the most we have managed is a special picture on the altar and a reading of Francis: The Poor Man of Assisi. But we love this simple Saint nonetheless, and we pray that he will guide and protect our Matthew throughout his life.

Thank goodness for the coconut-carrot cake left from our celebration of St. Michael on Tuesday. October is truly Celebration Month around here.

"How St. Francis Tamed the Wild Doves"
from Little Flowers of Saint Francis

Happy Birthday...

...to my dear husband, John!!

Fathers don't get much credit in the media these days for their daily sacrifices or the support they give their families, so I am going to give you some credit here. It's not as much as you deserve, but today I offer you my most sincere appreciation.

You are one of those fathers who offers the daily prayer of getting up and going out to work after feeding several breakfasts, fixing a financial problem for a far-away teenager, and checking the Red Sox scores ;-). You make the daily sacrifice of personal time to help with math and science, toss a baseball, fix a flat bike tire, build a new bookshelf, fix my lesson plan files, and listen thoughtfully to my many thoughts, ideas, dreams, and worries.

You offer the greatest example of a faithful, Catholic life to our children: leading us in prayer, supporting my efforts to celebrate the liturgical year, getting up early to be sure that we, or the scouts, or whoever you are in charge of at the moment, gets to Mass each Sunday. You teach our children by your example of daily prayer. You teach them by your example of a life lived with love.

You pick up your cross every day and carry it for love of us, but mostly for love of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for being my dear husband and my dear friend.

With all my love,

Judy

New math

Joseph loves the math work he has been doing with Cuisenaire rods. Today after he finished working on subtraction, he began building a large staircase with the rods from two different sets.




Even when he seems to be playing, he is learning with these rods because he is able to notice differences in length, create patterns, compare and contrast various sizes. But best of all, he is able to build really big stairs!

Cross Country

Boys Varsity start September 22, 2007, Tama Hills

Since I don't think Patrick has even 10 spare minutes to write and tell you how his season is going, I'm going to give it a shot.

From the outside (Mom) perspective, he seems to be having a good season. He is running much better than he was in August and finished in the top seven on his team last weekend. This is a good sign since they take the top seven to the finals. But he isn't getting his hopes up too much yet. My sense is that he has improved in technique, and I know his times have improved.

Cross country is really tough. Several of Patrick's teammates are injured now because the training is intense and exhausting. Patrick is struggling with shin splints. Ouch! I remember that pain vividly from high school track.

They run in whatever conditions there are: high heat and humidity, soaking wet, cold and windy. Whatever the weather, short of a typhoon, they run. He came home with soaking wet shoes and socks this weekend. Two days later, the shoes are still drying out--even after a day in direct sunlight on our driveway and a night directly under the a/c blower in the family room. They'll be dry in time for practice this afternoon, though, even if I have to put them in the dryer.


Patrick mid-race at Tama Hills 9/22/07

One note about small world experiences: Last weekend at Tama Hills (Tokyo area), John noticed a familiar face in the crowd of varsity boy runners. It was a boy whom we had known in Yakima. He and his family moved to Germany while we were still in the U.S. and now they are living in Tokyo. He was a runner in Yakima, too, so a cross country meet was a logical place to run across him, but funny that it was a cross country meet in Japan.

This coming weekend cross country has their home meet. Hooray! I am looking forward to seeing Patrick run in a race. Hopefully, we'll get more pictures, too.

Feast of the Archangels

Happy Name Day to Patrick Michael!

We miss you and hope you had a good race today. Tommy called and said to tell you he hopes your race went well, too.

See you in the (early) morning. We'll celebrate this day later in the week :-)

Love,

Mom, Dad, Katie, Joseph, and Matthew

What a joy to have a daughter!

Last weekend, when John and Patrick were away at another cross country meet in Tokyo, Katie and I had a wonderful, cozy Saturday evening together.

We put the little boys in bed and watched Miss Potter, which I have been looking forward to since I bought the movie while we were home this summer. Katie and I both thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and it has been such fun to talk about it in the days afterwards. While she has always been a blessing to me, I think that as Katie grows, she will be my salvation in this family of males. I hope I will be hers, as well.

It is so nice to have someone around who understands when I want to set a pretty table or wrap a gift in a special way...or watch a "g irl movie."

Cooking lesson

Yesterday, Kazumi-san, our Japanese tutor, taught us how to make Japanese curry. This is one of our favorite dishes, and I am excited that we know how to make it now. I decided to take a picture of the box of curry because I sometimes have a hard time figuring out what's what in the grocery store.



We can't wait to teach Tommy how to make it when he comes home for Christmas. It's one of his favorites, too. It was what he chose for his last Japanese meal at the airport before he left.

Hmmm...

Matthew did something interesting yesterday. I'm not sure what it means, but I want to write it down so I remember that I observed this at this point.

Katie, Joseph, and I were working at the family room table and Matthew was working on the floor near us, as we all usually do. Matthew had taken out the foam letters and the wooden alphabet puzzle and was lining the foam letters up on the floor.

He was working quietly when he called for my attention saying, "Mommy look this one matches with the grapes one." He was holding up the foam capital G and the wooden capital G, which covers a picture of grapes on our puzzle. I was surprised that he matched those but I just said, "Yes, that one says 'g'," giving an example of the hard g sound.

In a few minutes, he brought me the foam capital E with a sideways lower case wooden m. He put them next to each other on the floor in the line of other foam letters. Then he brought me the foam capital A and the wooden capital A and asked, "What does this one say?" "a," I told him, making the short a sound.

After a few minutes, he said, "Look at my sign, Mommy." On the floor were several lines of foam letters with the three matching wooden ones that he had found next to the corresponding foam ones. "Nice sign," I told him. "It has letters on it," he explained proudly.

He even put the foam letters away.

Today he worked on the letter puzzle again, and I noticed that he was able to get more letters in their slots independently. He moved on to the number puzzle. The numbers are harder for him, because there are a lot of ones but the colors have to match. He worked on the latches for awhile, too.

Then he and Joseph went out to the porch, and Katie and I noticed Joseph instructing him on the proper way to hold a stick to make a rifle out of it. They have been playing pioneers lately when they haven't been enhancing the fairy village in the side yard.

Baseball cake

The long-anticipated baseball cake was presented after dinner and a blessing last night.



When I started to cut him a piece, Matthew said, "I am a big boy, I can eat it big this time." (meaning he thought he should have the whole cake as his piece).



In the end, he was quite happy with his "big boy piece" that was "just like 'Jophus.'"

Wish lists

Since both grandmothers said they would appreciate gift suggestions, and I suppose there are others out there who would, too, I created wish lists for the kids today. I did this on separate blog pages because I couldn't figure out how to combine lists from different companies in any way.

We'll see if this is easy or hard to use. If you use the lists, please let me know if you have any problems. I need to see if this will really work well or not. The lists are down below in the right column. Not all the links are working, but I have to run to the airport to pick up a friend returning from the States, so I'll fix it tonight or tomorrow.

Please do not feel limited by these lists. You probably have even better ideas than I do. And also, PLEASE don't feel you have to give a gift just because I made a list. It just seemed like a good idea to have a central location for this information because there are people who ask about it.

Feast of St. Matthew the Evangelist

Happy name day to Matthew! (and his Uncle Matthew, too!)

As Mass began this morning, our pastor said, "Today is the Feast of St. Matthew, the Evangelist," and Matthew called out, "It's my name day!" Thank goodness Father is very understanding of little ones.

Matthew has been excited all day. I hope he won't be let down that his baseball cake, which he requested weeks ago and hasn't forgotten about, is going to wait until Sunday, when Daddy and Patrick are home from Tokyo. The name-day blessing will have to wait until then, too.

But tonight, we will have macaroni and cheese and grapes and steamed carrots, his favorite meal. And Katie is in the kitchen right now baking peanut butter-chocolate chip muffins. She couldn't stand to see her little brother go without a treat on his name day.

What a blessing Katie is! An added bonus is that while she baked, Joseph got to have an art lesson.

A Prayer to St. Matthew
(from the back of Matthew's holy card)

God of Mercy,
You chose a tax collector, Saint Matthew,
to share the dignity of the Apostles,
By his example and prayers,
help us to follow Christ and remain faithful in your service.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.

Stuck in the past??

It was a good year, though: the year Patrick was born.

You Are 27 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature . You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

September Song

In September, red dragonflies (are they maybe juveniles?) are flying about. We see them every day in our own yard, but I haven't been able to photograph one yet.

Yuuko-san (our piano teacher) likes to teach us Japaneses songs that go with the season of the year. So this month, she is teaching us to sing the Red Dragonfly Song. She said, "American songs are happy, but the songs of my country are all sad." The dragonfly lyrics are very wistful--longing for happy childhood days. Still, we enjoy them, and the window into Japanese culture.

To give us the opportunity to learn these songs, Yuuko-san, gave us the Japanese version of this song book. It has words and piano notation for the melodies of the songs, including the Red Dragonfly Song, which I am supposed to be learning. (I am working on it, really I am!)

Yoko Imoto's drawings charmed me from the beginning, and I hunted through the bookstore at the mall for more of her books. I found several I liked, but hesitated to buy. Since we can't read the Japanese, I would really only be buying them for the art. Then in looking for a picture for this entry, I found her books in English on Amazon. Hooray!! More ideas for our wish list.

Rain 2

Last spring, Joseph and Katie lost their raincoats. They left them behind at a soccer game on a day that started out rainy and ended up with gorgeous blue sky. So they have been making do with windbreakers and sweaters. Until I found some waterproof jackets on sale at Lands' End last week.

They arrived this afternoon, just in time for the second outdoor rain adventure of the day.

Matthew is wearing a hand-me-down from his Wisconsin cousins. Thank you, guys!



The best part of the all-day rain for me has been the cooler air and reduced pollen. I am grateful for relief from both humidity and itchy eyes.

Music

One of the things that John and I envisioned when we first began our home learning adventure was sharing beautiful classical music as a family. On the "Why we Homeschool" list, it's a part of "We want to infuse the good, the true, and the beautiful into every aspect of our children's education."

Everyone in our family enjoys music. Over the years, we have been working our way through How to Introduce Your Child to Classical Music in 52 Easy Lessons. But with Tommy away and Joseph and Matthew as new listeners, we decided to begin again at the beginning of the book. And we have a good plan (we hope) for enjoying a lesson a week throughout the school year.

On Sunday at dinner, we will learn about and listen to a new piece of music. Then, each night at dinner during the week, we will listen to the same piece again so it becomes familiar. We are beginning with recognizing instrument sounds, and even Matthew could shout out, "Trumpets!" in the theme of The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by last Saturday. We are also using The Story of the Orchestra to look at pictures of the instruments and read more about each instrument family.

For Joseph and Matthew,the musical instruments puzzle is out on the shelf, and we always have our rhythm and wind instruments on the music shelves.

In the music book basket along with The Story of the Orchestra are Meet the Orchestra, Arturo's Baton, Music, Beethoven Lives Upstairs, and an old one from Jonella, Shining Brass: The Story of the Trumpet and Other Brass Instruments, by Daniel B. Tetzlaff. I am also thinking of adding new picture books to our collection for Joseph and Matthew. I have hesitated because we already have the music on CD, but I love the idea of musical picture books. One nice thing about books like that is that everyone will take a peek at them, even though I supposedly order them for the "little kids." So I'm considering.

This week, we are learning more about woodwinds and listening to Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev. Katie asked if she could add the composers to her timeline. Who am I to say no? So now, she has one entry in the 20th century along with her Ancient Romans. This is exactly the idea of the timeline, which I will post more about some other time.

Our study also prompted me to add another list over to the right. You can see what we're listening to each week as we work through our study under "In the CD Player."