My "Back To School" Dream

Last night, I dreamt that we had moved to a new town and I had enroll in a new school. [I should note that I am now 38 and absolutely not in school, but in my dream, I was somehow both my present age and about 8 years old.] I was in chemistry class, we were doing a test on coffee, and the teacher kept explaining how much coffee we were supposed to pour into the beaker and then what we were to do with it, but the whole time, I kept thinking that it was so unfortunate that we had to work with coffee, as I had recently given up coffee and loved the smell of it and found it very difficult to work with it but not drink it, and then I explained this to the teacher who did not respond at all.

Then we were divided into groups, and I was in a room with only one other student, and I realized I didn't remember what we were supposed to do (what amount of coffee, what chemicals to put in it, what information to record), and I wanted to ask the other student but was afraid we would be caught cheating and get into trouble.

And then, still dreaming, I thought that it was so lucky that Max was not in school like this, as he would probably have these same problems—he has a hard time listening to instructions, as his mind always seems to be on something else, and this is probably how he feels when someone is talking "at" him. I thought that I need to remember this, as sometimes I am also guilty of talking "at" him. And, still in my dream, I thought that it was really so lucky that we were unschooling, that it was really the best thing for his personality, and then I started to wonder why *I* was in school, why I couldn't be unschooled like my children?

I can't remember the rest, although there was something about the teacher coming in and putting on "Little House on the Prairie." [What kind of school was this, anyway? Chemistry class at age 8 with experiments on coffee, and TV watching during the class? It might be worth looking into, after all.] But the other thing I do remember from the dream is that I was looking at all the students and feeling very alone, that I saw one little boy who was very dynamic, and he was excitedly talking to some of the other kids, and I was watching him, thinking I would like to be friends with him, but knowing that I would be too shy to talk to him and that I would most likely not be friends with any of those "cool" kids.

I feel like I had a back to school dream, something that I haven't had in years. Perhaps I'm doing it on behalf of all the children who are heading back to school. Or maybe I am thinking about what Max would be doing, had we headed down another path. This would be his first year in school, I would be dropping him off in Kindergarten in just a few days. Or maybe I'm having my own little panic about the "not back to school" vacation we're about to go on, heading to the Live and Learn unschooling conference.

It's our second year attending the conference, and we are so excited to go, and much less nervous than we were last year, when we did not know what to expect. But there's still a little bit of anxiety that I cannot deny. It's a new space, very different than last year, which was the most perfect experience. I want to banish these nervous thoughts because I know it will be so amazing, that we will leave there just astonished by how much fun we have had, but it's just my personality to be unsure.

But on the positive side, I can't wait to see all those wonderful families, to watch all the kids reuniting with their friends, to attend the funshops where we can dress up in hundreds of costumes or or build houses out of boxes and scraps, or make tassel belts or balloon hats or nitrogen ice cream. I am ready to watch the most wonderful talent show I've ever seen, with bizarre and fabulous acts that simply would not be featured in a traditional talent show. I'm excited for campfire singalongs and movie nights with other families whose kids are still going at 10 pm. And of course, I'm really excited about the sessions, hoping I will get to attend many of them and hear about other families' unschooling lives and experience.

We leave in less than a week, and there are so many things to do before we go. We'll stop to see my brother and his family on the way, and the kids are definitely excited to see their twin cousins. We're also going to spend a night in Versailles, Kentucky, where there should be lots of horses to see (Otto is excited for that part). It's going to be a great trip, and speaking of that, I'd better get out and do some errands. We need to thoroughly vacuum the car before we embark on a long journey where we will mess it all up again.

Yet Another Poem

I've posted a few poems this summer, and I put this one aside, as I read it a day or two after I had posted "The Handyman" (which actually would have been a better post for last week, given that it was about a maple falling on a car). But anyway, this poem really spoke to me, brought tears to my eyes in fact, because I recognized that moment. Barrie and I were talking about it again today, and when I heard how much it had also moved her, I decided to post it after all. I post it for my own beloved firstborn, my sweet Max, who has "learned me." And with (and on) whom I have learned so much.

The Clasp

She was four, he was one, it was raining, we had colds,
we had been in the apartment two weeks straight,
I grabbed her to keep her from shoving him over on his
face, again, and when I had her wrist
in my grasp I compressed it, fiercely, for a couple
of seconds, to make an impression on her,
to hurt her, our beloved firstborn, I even almost
savored the stinging sensation of the squeezing, the
expression, into her, of my anger,
"Never, never again," the righteous
chant accompanying the clasp. It happened very
fast—grab, crush, crush,
crush, release—and at the first extra
force, she swung her head, as if checking
who this was, and looked at me,
and saw me—yes, this was her mom,
her mom was doing this. Her dark,
deeply open eyes took me
in, she knew me, in the shock of the moment
she learned me. This was her mother, one of the
two whom she most loved, the two
who loved her most, near the source of love
was this.

—Sharon Olds, from The Unswept Room

The Big Storm

Wow, it is just crazy here. It has been raining for days, but today was pretty intense. Severe storms, massive amounts of rain, wind, thunder, tornado-like conditions. Reports of horizontal rain and funnel clouds and winds up to 80 MPH. Trees were uprooted, crushing cars and houses. Roofs were ripped off a few houses, and walls collapsed on other houses. Bus shelters simply blew over in the intense winds. The scaffolding of a downtown building collapsed. Trains weren't running because of trees on the tracks. Buses were very delayed. More than 500 flights were canceled.

We're used to canceled flights and our share of storms, but we're not very accostomed to this sort of tornado-like weather here in the city. It was quite frightening to be caught out in it, which we sort of were. Luckily, we just missed the worst of it--we were in the grocery store when the lights flickered and then were told that the store had lost power, and we were urged to quickly shop and get out.

I thought it was just a thunderstorm, and we headed for home with our groceries, but as we pulled out into the street, it was quickly apparent that this was no ordinary storm. There was debris all over the street, green metal and plastic pieces (from what? I don't know). I was trying to figure out what it was when I looked ahead and saw that an entire light was down in the street, as well as power lines. I tried to turn onto another street to avoid the mess, but there was traffic everywhere. All the side streets I tried had trees blocking the road. Everywhere we turned, there were big branches down, or entire trees with cars under them and people looking around at the damage. There were bikers out, which was sort of cool and shocking at the same time, as it was still pretty windy and rainy, and the sky looked really ominous. I wondered if we should be driving at all and started to wish I had stayed in the Whole Foods garage.

Max is not a big fan of thunderstorms, and last summer, being caught in a storm like that would have put him completly over the edge. But he did really well this afternoon, he was clearly worried but able to be fairly calm. It didn't help that every block we would turn on, I would say, "Wow," or "Oh my gosh." "What? What is it?" would be the question from the back seat. "Oh, just a big tree in the road." Or, "I just saw a power line down, which is sort of a strange sight." were my replies.

I thought we must be right in the heart of the storm, but when we got home (finally!--it was a really long drive on Belmont, due to some damage to a building slightly west of where we were traveling), I turned on the news to see that it had hit the entire city and all the surrounding ones too. I've never seen so much activity on a weather map of Chicago. Hundreds more basements were flooded, and again, I thought about how lucky we are that we have remained dry.

It came on quickly at around 3:15 pm and then went away for a couple of hours, only to come on again tonight. More than 300,000 people are without power, about 50 blocks of traffic lights are out, there are 100 or more power lines down, and hundreds of trees have fallen.

And just a few states south, my parents are fighting three weeks of 100+ temperatures and absolutely no rain. They have water shortages, and water use restrictions. If only we could direct some of this water to the Nashville area. Guess it doesn't work that way.

The weather report is for more of the same tomorrow. I think we'll move the car, lest we also find a maple on it tomorrow morning.

Addendum: Friday morning, after the storm
We went for a walk to survey the damage in the neighborhood. Most of it had already been cleared away or at least moved out of the streets. But we still saw a lot of debris and branches, and we stumbled upon one tree that had not been cleared away at all. It had fallen into a light post and broken that as well. It's amazing how these big old trees are down, but I think it's also because these old trees aren't used to such severe storms. And in many cases, the ground just got so wet that the entire tree just fell over, leaving a large root exposed. There were lots of puddles for walking through, and the kids wore their rain boots and were very prepared. We thought it would storm again on Friday, but after a short period of ominous skies, the clouds parted and the skies were blue, and we went out to play for the rest of the afternoon.

Puzzle Master

Otto has recently gotten very interested in putting together puzzles. We mostly had the wooden variety, with only about 12 pieces or so. I would just find him sitting there with them, putting them together. He would ask me to help him, and we would sit and do all of them. He could do quite a lot and was very interested in them.

I read a bit about the puzzle process on AlwaysUnschooled, and it dawned on me that my "help" in putting together puzzles, i.e. suggesting that he do the outside edges first or that he group certain colors, might not be so helpful. This is the way I learned to do puzzles, or what works for me, but not necessarily ho he would want to tackle them. He just needs to be able to try to put together all the pieces in whatever method seems right to him, even if I can see that those pieces absolutely will not fit together.

I was amazed that the very first time I just sat on my hands, literally, from helping him to finish the puzzle, he did it all in less than five minutes. We went to the toy store and bought 3 new 24-piece puzzles, and he easily put them all together, finding some pieces that matched before we had even gotten the pieces out of the box. I laughed and said we should have videotaped the speed in which he completed the puzzles. And he just kept asking for more. He doesn't want to do the same puzzle twice, which means we need to figure out a swap system for puzzles, I think. I went back to the toystore and bought three new puzzles, even a 100 piece one that he picked out. We haven't tried it yet, and I'm very curious to see how it goes.

24 Photos

It has been a busy week of seizing the days, as those long summer days grow shorter. Not much time for comment, but here are a few, well, 24 photos.

Wednesday: We hit the beach with our friends.


And later that day, we did a little dress up (those are Martin's clothes that Otto is sporting).

Thursday: We toured Navy Pier with our buddies.



Friday: We invited ourselves over for a piece of Rocco's birthday cake. He's 6!

Saturday: We had a blast at Rocco's bowling birthday party, and Max even rolled a strike.

And later that evening, we had little Samuel over for dinner with his mom and dad.

Sunday: We went to Palwaukee Airport and watched some small planes taking off.


We had an extensive brunch at the cute little restaurant there.

We looked at collected memorabilia from World War II.

We drove to Ryerson Woods (Otto gave the directions).

And there, we took a hike.

And read a book by a little cabin (after watching an egret do some fishing).

And fed some goats.


This morning, Max had a 2-hour day camp at the Nature Center, which he in turn liked and never wants to do again. We'll see what happens tomorrow. I didn't document any of that, his first class "away from me." Hmmm...

But plenty of footage of how we spent our afternoon...

Played in the water.

Played in the sand.

Played with bubbles (outside).

And played some more with bubbles (inside).



And now, all my boys are sleeping. I think I'd better join them.

World's Largest Music Lesson

Last night, we joined Martin and his classmates for the World's Largest Music Lesson. The Old Town School of Folk Music put on this special event to celebrate its 50th anniversary. The instructors took the stage at the gazebo in Welles Park and gave a lesson on three levels to 1350 guitarists. We brought our ukuleles, but we weren't able to actually be counted for the Guinness Book Record because the ukulele has only 4 strings, and they could only count the 6 stringed instruments to make it official. But it was still cool to be there and witness a record in the making.

The students learned to play Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" and Hank Williams' "Jambalaya." It was beautiful to hear all those voices singing these songs in the park, watching the gazebo lights shine as the sun set. They concluded with a rendition of "Give Peace a Chance."

This morning, we listened to a small news story on the event, and Otto said, "that was so fun that we were there for that." Of course, when we were actually there, the boys seemed to prefer dragging their Toy Story toys through the empty baseball field. But that's no matter. It was definitely fun to be there.

Tallulah Isabel

My dear friends Michele and Lincoln finally have a baby through adoption (it has been a long and difficult three years of trying to conceive, and then going through the adoption process). I am so very excited for them and was absolutely thrilled to meet Tallulah Isabel, a happy chubby little girl with a serious mane of beautiful black hair and big brown eyes and a sweet smile.

I know they will be wonderful parents, and it was so cool talking to Michele yesterday, hearing how her whole world has already shifted, how becoming a parent has already changed so many of her ideas of what it would be like. I wish them so much love on their parenting journey.

Renaissance Faire

On Sunday, we attended our first Renaissance Faire. It was sort of a last minute decision, as we had intended a different roadtrip for the weekend that we decided to postpone. When I told the kids there was a place we could go where people would be dressed up like knights and pirates and noblemen and women, they were very excited and couldn't wait to go (and pack up their own knight and pirate costumes).

As we pulled into our parking place, dozens of other people pulled up beside us, getting out of their cars and adorning themselves in chain maille, leather armor, kilts, belly dancing outfits, pirate gear. They strapped on swords and daggers. Giant swords.

It had rained all night the night before, and things were very wet, but it was a sunny and humid day, and probably not as crowded as it could have been on a cooler day. The boys rode ponies, butterflies (okay, not real butterflies, but it was still pretty cool), and a crazy spinning thing that looked more like an instrument of torture. We boarded a pirate ship and sprayed (empty) wine bottles with a water cannon. We watched a potter make several different clay creations (and he even let us smash his demos at the end), and we saw the glassmith create a glass goblet. We listened to various musicians, including a hammered dulcimer player, great drummers and some other more traditional bands. We saw people climb a castle wall and bungee bounce (I had never realized they had bungee cords in the Renaissance period). We drank Sassafrass and ate butterflied potatoes (okay, so it was really more like rootbeer and potato chips). We discovered Otto's luck when he easily landed three of four balls on the correct color, as they traveled down a board of nails (next stop, Vegas?). We saw a falconer working with his falcons and hawk. We watched a Joust to the Death, where sparks flew when the swords hit. We tried on real armor that was so heavy we had to hold it over the kids. We ran around in the rain and watched people do mudslides in their beautiful costumes.

It was more fun than we ever imagined, and the kids are already planning their next visit.

Seeing Stars

We spent another day with Ruben, Sita and Barrie on Friday, as we all attended the Adler Planetarium's First Fridays event, where you can visit the planetarium at night and there are special events. The boys dressed up in their astronaut costumes, and we were a walking advertisement for the gift shop, where they sell the gear. We should have negotiated a deal for astronaut ice cream in return for the sales we sent their way.

Martin came to meet us after work, and it's always fun to show him some of the things we do while he is working the day away.


It was a fantastic evening, the skyline and sky were just amazing, full of clouds, so the telescope viewing was not as clear as it could have been, but absolutely gorgeous to see. We strolled around the planetarium and admired the view. We climbed the observatory to see Jupiter through their giant telescope. We watched movies and ran around some of the exhibits. The kids had fun exploring the hot and cold rooms in the weather exhibit, beckoning us to join them for the temperature extremes. The boys climbed on a model of the earth and its axis and were eventually told to remove themselves—but they had a great time exploring it until the authorities arrived.

May I See Your License and Registration?

Our friend Ruben had returned from a trip to California with some handcuffs, which he showed the boys a couple of weeks ago. They all had such a good time playing with them that Max wanted to get his own pair. They had talked then about all the other things they would need to get to outfit themselves as police officers (uniform, belt, pepper spray). We went to the thrift store and bought blue shirts, and our friend Carl, who is a police officer, had kindly taken us to the uniform store to buy patches to sew on the shirts. We also got some pins, a small version of the actual Chicago Police badge. We had a great time looking at all the uniforms and accessories in the store.

We spent one afternoon last week playing with Will and Tilly (Carl's kids) while Max and Otto were in their gear. Max and Otto gave Will and Tilly tickets for parking too close to the garden gate, for speeding down the walkway, for driving the wrong way into the plants. Then we all took a trip in a very small police car (Will's wagon), where they decided lollipops were better than their police accessories, at least for the moment.



On Thursday, we met up with Ruben and Sita and Barrie, so that the boys could compare police outfits and be officers together. Max and Otto had gotten Ruben the patches and pin and wanted to give them to him, so that he could be official too. Ruben had decorated his electric car to be a police car (while our kids only decorated our actual car in polka dots, which would probably not pass for official Chicago police but certainly is lots of fun).


But anyway, Ruben and the boys had a playdate to dress up in their new costumes and drive Ruben's fancy police car. Ruben had made a bunch of violation notices, so they passed those out to each other. Ruben had also gotten some water spray bottles together to be "pepper spray," and they squirted each other (and us) for some relief on a very hot day. They took turns driving the police car around the block, and aside from Otto chasing the car and falling on his sweet little face (and cutting open his lip), they all had a great time.

Unfortunately, I was too hot to run upstairs to get my camera and capture some of their merriment, so you'll just have to trust my description.

We ended our afternoon with Ruben with a trip to his local thrift shop, where we were hoping to find some more stuff for their police theme. Of course, on the way there, the subject somehow turned to other matters, and they started talking about "army guys." Maybe we'll find some army stuff, they said. And when we arrived, Barrie did indeed find a child-sized camouflage jacket in Ruben's size. Max really wanted one too, and luckily for him, there was an adult jacket, very similar to Ruben's, although about a dozen sizes too big. Max was undaunted and wore it home, the arms dangling to the ground.

Barrie and I talked about how our kids seem to be drawn to dress up like police officers, army officers, power rangers and the like, and how reassuring it is to have the unschooling experiences and anecdotes to help us realize that they are exploring these things because they are just curious and learning about the world, and that if we can step back and not place too much emphasis on it, they'll likely get it out of their systems and be done with it. Still, it's often difficult for this pacifist to watch her kids getting so much joy out of playing with an army tank.

It's Hot

Too hot to stay in (this morning, our attempt to install an air conditioning unit resulted in a broken window frame), but it's pretty darn hot outside too. Today, we went to the nearby sprinkler park for some relief. Otto wanted to take his Playmobil pirate ship, and when I said it was so big and with so many parts that we should fill up our big wagon with water and just sail it there, he got so excited and insisted that we fill up the wagon and take it to the park that way.

After some initial reluctance on my part, we finally all embraced the idea. First we had to empty it (it was filled with a load of soil from the garden), and then we had to clean and scrub it, which was fun for all. We all got wet and cooled off a bit in the process.

Then we filled it up with a small amount of water (not enough for the ship to float but enough to please Otto), and Otto climbed in to sit with his pirate ship and play on the way (in his clothes, of course). We arrived at the park, and it was as if we had a major event planned, kids swarmed us immediately and played with the ship and all its parts for about an hour. We put it under the sprinkler for a stormy day at sea, and the wagon filled up with water. Max and Otto played off and on with it but also ran around in the sprinkler and climbed and swung. It felt like a performance art piece or a happening or something, it was such a scene of fun.

We also got quite a lot of attention as we drove home, Otto sitting in the now very full wagon (it was like a bathtub on wheels). And to add even more interest to the sight, both boys were wearing long-sleeved hooded sweaters (their Jedi costumes, which they like to wear when they run through the sprinklers).

Our bathtub on wheels is the perfect mode of transport on a hot day. I'm sure we'll be doing it again.