Copasetic Flow

 *Spoilers lie below* Our oldest kid, 5 y.o., No. 1, tried a few weeks of public kindergarten before she decided she missed the outings with her sibs and homeschool buddies.  During her brief stint in kindergarten her teacher mentioned that reading out loud and comprehension were two different things.  I'm still not sure I believe this entirely, but we started trying to be more mindful with respect to comprehension... just in case. For us, reading comprehension amounts to sitting around discussing the books we're reading.  My wife and I read comic books, and if they're not violent we leave them laying around the house where the kids can reach them.  Similarly, we both enjoy reading the kids' comics that they pick out.  This shared reading material pool has led to really fun reading comprehension discussions. A few weeks ago after Doom Patrol #2 came out, the kid and I wound up discussing it at the kitchen table.   The comic book is loosely conne...

"...Oh, that's interesting.  What about socialization?" "Wait, what?" "Do they interact well with others?" "OHHH! Oh.. yeah, yeah they do." As a homeschooler, you hear a lot about socialization.  There are about as many different definitions of the term as there are concerns.  We hear it so much that I've come to think of it as the way that publicschoolers have been taught to break the ice with homeschoolers. It's not that they want to be impolite, or even care about the issue, it's just a common ground with which to begin a discussion.  Prior to starting to home school, and subsequently meeting public school parents, I'd never even heard of 'socialization'.  Here's how my conversations with non-homeschoolers usually go;  stop me if you've heard this one. "Why aren't they in school?" "We homeschool." "...Oh, that's interesting.  What about socialization?"...

The Blood and the Mud and the Crud As a hunter, you’ll be immunized to the blood, gore, and sleeplessness that comes part in parcel with parenting.  Pooh-filled diapers?  No problem, you’ve ground deer scat between thumb and forefinger to glean knowledge of their feeding patterns.  The kid falls on its head and comes up screaming and streaming blood?  Who among us hasn’t endured a pate wound in the field?  It’s among the bloodiest of injuries, but in the end it’s all thunder and fluff signifying nothing.  While other parents run screaming to the hospital, you’ll simply find a clean cloth, (might I suggest cloth diapers?), and apply pressure to the wound while talking to the little cootermaroo in calming tones.  A few minutes later voila, you’ll be back up and running.  And sleep deprivation?  What hunter doesn’t know about sleep deprivation?  Sure you’ll have to get up to feed the little tyke and clean their butt, but is that any wors...

The one-year-olds I’ve known were able to join the hunt so-to-speak, walking half a mile unassisted after a few months of practice. Staying Wild: Your first steps to (parental) independence: patience, stamina, and orienteering As your first kid grows, well-meaning parents may try to convince you of the utility of a stroller.  “They’ll outgrow the wrap,” (wrap: attachment parenting for that strip of cloth you’ve been tying the kid to your chest with.).  “Once they’re out of the wrap, they won’t be able to keep pace with you on foot,” they’ll say.  “You’ll appreciate the mobility,” they’ll insist.  Do Not Cave.  Tap back into your hunting mindset, and tap in hard.  Patience is the key to nirvana here.  Of course a one-year-old won’t be able to keep pace with you, but remember, slow and steady gets the job done.  As you obstinately insist on letting nature take its course, your infant-cum-toddler will get faster and build endurance.  The one...

Little if any mention is made of hunting in modern parenting literature, but it is, to put it simply, the fastest path to parental bliss.  Hunting teaches the patience, confidence, and self-sufficiency so critical to raising young ones in today’s urban wild.   My hunting buddy and I were moving at a classic stalking pace.  She’d take a. step, mirrored by mine; we’d pause for a few seconds surveying our surroundings; then, carefully placing our next step, we’d watch our quarry while again taking time to register changes in our environment.  Our prey, stock-still, never moved.  One would have expected, what with all the noise of passing cars and ambling passers-by, that it might have bolted.  It held steady though.  A few minute later, No. 3, my hunting companion and one-year-old daughter, gleefully giggled as we overtook our target: a young, at least judging by its short stature, set of stairs that led to a door stoop.  3 spent the next several...

Number 3, our 1 year old, looked up at me, her eyebrows arched in shock and sadness, then she curled up into a ball and sobbed. We'd been joking around about the current political farce, excuse me, 'election season', and I'd said something to the effect of "...pssht kissing babies... No More Kissing Babies..."  Number 3 had been playing happily at my feet throughout the conversation, and also, unbeknownst to me: listening. I tried to tell her that I was talking about something else, and that I hadn't meant it with regard to her.  She was inconsolable.  Finally, I picked her up, and gave her a smooch, and said, "See babies still get smooches!"  She immediately calmed down, climbed off my lap, and went back to playing.   For months I've known she understands almost all of what we say on a day to day basis.  A few weeks after she started to walk, I handed her a piece of paper towel, and asked her to put it in the compost bag in the ...

Number 1, who is suspect of most things I say, (she thought the dollar coin the tooth fairy brought looked suspiciously like a dollar coin that had been on the counter earlier in the month), came home from her second day of Kindergarten brimming with excitement at the invisible buckets of happiness she'd learned about.  It turns out that we each have one of these buckets.  The theory goes that when someone is nice to you your bucket gets a little more full, and when you're mean to someone, their bucket gets a little more empty.  Of course if you're mean to someone, your bucket gets a little more empty also, because it doesn't feel good to be mean to people.  I told her that her new theory was awesome, and then told her I'd be right back.  I had come down with a serious case of the giggles, and had to flee the room so she wouldn't think I was laughing at her new theory instead of with it.  As I fled, my mind wandered through all the unintended consequences...