Free at Last

It is our first day out of quarantine, since we are finally recovered from chicken pox. Their scabs have fallen off, and all that remains are some of the healing spots. To play it safe, though, we skipped their science class, where they would be confined in a room with other kids, and we went to the wide open air of the zoo. It was a warm day, with bits of sunshine. An absolutely perfect zoo day.


We haven't been to the Lincoln Park Zoo in a while, and we realized they had a few new animals. They also were short a few we remembered. Several exhibits were closed for remodeling. The penguin/puffin house is going to be torn down, and all the penguins and puffins have been sent off to other zoos/aquariums. This was a disappointment, as we do love to see those puffins. But the house really was in pretty sad shape, so I can understand the decision. New and exciting additions included a whole bunch of red kangaroos, who were feeling particularly playful today and were very fun to watch. There was also a waterbuck where the deer used to be, and we thought those were really beautiful. I didn't remember to take a picture of them, we were so entranced with watching them. 


My favorite moment of the day was when we encountered a spoonbill bird of some sort (I didn't even get what sort of bird it was), sitting right on the ledge, within touching range. The boys got really close to it, and it flapped its wings and brushed Max's hat with its feathers. Max reported that on camera, but the funniest thing he said came right after, when I had stopped filming. I said it was tempting to touch them when they are so close, even though I know we aren't supposed to. And he said, "I didn't touch it. It touched me. But I was involved in the touching." 

Update, 2/2/2012: We just saw in this morning's Tribune that Adelor, the male lion, was euthanized yesterday (Wednesday) morning. We were there on Tuesday. I read the article to the boys, and it made Otto cry (of course—I should know this sort of news would make him cry, but he was also interested to hear the story, so I think it was right to share it with him). We had visited the lion, thought he did seem kind of quiet. We felt kind of sad that we hadn't spent more time looking at him. We looked at the female, who was sitting on the big boulder, where the male usually sits. We wondered where the male was, and then we saw him, kind of curled up (as best a giant cat can curl up) by the viewing window, resting. We didn't walk over to the window for a closer look. Later, we heard him roaring, although it was indeed a mild roar, not the bold one we have heard on previous visits. I didn't think much of it at the time, but now I'm wondering if those were some of the last roars, more like moans, that he ever did. We realize how special it was that we saw him on his very last day on earth. 

A Pox Upon Us

We have been quarantined for the last two weeks. The boys have chicken pox. We didn't vaccinate against it, so we knew it was going to have to happen at some point. When we found out a friend of ours had it, we rushed over with bagels and hung out all afternoon, and two weeks later, the boys had spots of their own. 

We've been really lucky with it, actually. They both got it at relatively the same time, they both got a thorough but not debilitating case, and they felt mostly well through it all. A few slight fevers, some grouchiness and general discomfort, but all in all, a really good "illness." We've had a really nice two weeks, actually, taking advantage of the excuse to stay home. And I am sure it helped that we were prepared for it to happen. 

We spent a lot of time cuddled up on the couch, watching movies. We've had Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean marathons, and we started watching a Robin Hood series on Netflix instant watch (produced by the BBC in 2006-2009). We have really liked it and are waiting until we are better so we can take archery and horseback riding lessons of our own.

And having a back yard definitely helped with the stir-crazy factor. We have spent some of the nicer days outside with the chickens and watching Lilli run (she suffered the most through the confinement, since we couldn't take her on long walks). I took advantage of a particularly nice day to do a thorough cleaning of the coop.

Other things: we sorted a bunch of Legos, so that you can actually walk on the floor of the Lego room. Of course, this just means that the boys are more excited to go in there and build things, and to do so, they take all the boxes out of the cabinet and make further messes. But hey, that's what it's for. I'm just happy it's clean enough to use again. 

They spent this weekend working really hard on an animation, which we will hopefully finish in these last couple of days of quarantine. And we got a new game in honor of the confinement. A Mario version of Yahtzee. We have played that a few times. The boys have also been playing chess, Otto especially likes it. Otto found the box of Zoobs and has been making all sorts of funny sculptures. And they have played lots of video games. 

We did lots of baking and cooking. We made muffins, brownies and (at the suggestion of Gillian), monkey bread (Max loved this and did the mixing and kneading of dough all on his own--then Otto joined him for the rolling into butter/brown sugar/cinnamon). It was just what we needed to help us through the last few days.

Max and Martin made a couple of smoothies for us.

We've also been planning our spring vacation. We are going to Germany, Paris and London...will be fun. It was quite a decision actually, since it turns out my cousin is getting married in Hawaii in May, and although we had already loosely planned a European vacation in April, we were considering scrapping it and going to Hawaii with the rest of the family. Pretty funny, Alaska one year, Hawaii the next... The boys were pretty excited about Hawaii, but we haven't been to see Martin's mom in two years, and she is not feeling well enough to travel. It's her 77th birthday in April, and she had been excited that we would come, but was also very understanding that we might postpone our visit until fall.

But then, as if we needed a good kick in the pants to remind us of what is important, we learned that Martin's mom had three new cancerous growths in her breasts. They operated on them right away, and they think they have removed it all, they caught it quickly (she is on frequent checks because of past cancer). She will enter five weeks of chemo/radiation starting Monday. So of course, it was clear we needed to go to Germany. Plus, Martin's half-brother just had his second child, and there are a few other friends of Martin's we want to visit. And Jodie and family have moved to London for the next few years, and we want to visit them there. Eamon and Pierce are Max and Otto's oldest and possibly dearest friends, and we are very eager to see them in their new home, new life.

So. All is well. In sickness and in health, it's all still so good.

Lego Metroid

Metroid is the latest video game to make it into frequent rotation at our house. Which led to the latest animation from Max and Otto.


I love that they found a new use for the abandoned Death Star. And I really love the hand-drawn surprise and question mark and explosion signs.

Lego + Flight

We have passions for both subjects, as do these boys. We are inspired.

The Big Slow Down

It's that time of year again, when it's cold and dark for so much of the day that we are prone to cuddling up on the couch with popcorn and hot chocolate for a steady stream of movies, television shows, video games. We throw into the mix board games or arts and crafts projects, and of course, some baking.


It's the time of year we often catch up on all the science projects from the Happy Scientist that have been filling up our inbox. There's always Lego building and some days, the boys get to work on a Lego animation or claymation. Some days are declared home days, and the boys never even get out of their pajamas. Having a dog has changed this a bit, since we do always have to take her outside. Sometimes the boys just send me off on the walk, while they watch from the window or the porch, so they can stay inside, where it's cozy and warm. And of course, we are always waiting for snow so we can go sledding or build a snowman or go on a winter walk.


I love this time of year, as it gives me time to catch up on general housekeeping (reorganizing our supplies, de-cluttering, catching up on photo storage and back-up) and lots of time to just hang out together. It's also the time of year when I can spend more time catching up on my own research, reading other unschooling blogs, lining up craft projects, thinking about some activities we might want to try out, and finding resources and articles about some of our unschooling decisions, such as this really good article supporting unlimited screen time (just what I needed to read at this particular time of year). Or thinking about some tree house vacations.


After such a full and busy fall and holiday season, it's nice to just relax and have some quiet days.


I love the ebb and flow of our lives, how we can go-go-go and then have a "season" of slow-slow-slow. It's such a good life.

Cady, meet Lilli

We got the first big snow storm of the year over the weekend, and it just happened to coincide with my parents' visit. They were not deterred by the threat of 8-12 inches of snow, nor a drive in the dark to the cabin, where there are neither street lights nor snow plows. They were armed with their all-wheel drive vehicle and the experience of years of driving in the snow.


My parents drove up in the worst of it, on Thursday, when the snow was falling, and the night was descending, and the traffic was heavy. They saw many accidents on the way, but they were slow and steady. They stopped on the way to pick up Cady, the little sister of Lilli, from what is probably the last litter from the breeder. (We had thought Lilli was from the last litter, but the breeder got a surprise with Cady). They had planned to get her on Friday morning, but with the onslaught of the storm, the breeder thought it best to get her right away, lest she be snowed in, and my parents unable to get the dog at all.


So, it was on a cold snowy Thursday night that my parents arrived with the sweetest bundle of a puppy. Lilli and Cady were instantly friends.

Cady is so much smaller than Lilli ever was (well, obviously, Lilly was this small at some point, but by the time we met her, she was already 30 pounds). Cady is under 10 pounds, but looks just like a little Lilli, so in this sense, we got our time to bond with a puppy version of Lilli. And Grandma and Grandpa got to bond with their new puppy too.

What a beautiful snowy weekend it turned out to be. The dogs had so much fun exploring the snow and each other.

And the boys had fun in the snow too.

Inside, we read, played games, and ate. And we spent as much time as possible by the fire.

And of course, we spent a lot of time playing with the puppy and with Lilli and trying to help Cady know that she needs to go outside to go potty. Luckily, puppies are so otherwise adorable that somehow their potty accidents are easy to overlook. Doesn't she look like a little stuffed dog? She is impossibly cute.

And so is Grandma.

My parents left on Saturday morning, so they could get a good start on the drive and enjoy some time in Columbus (they planned to stay at our favorite hotel, Hotel Indigo, for the night). Otto was so very sad that they were leaving, feeling like the visit was too short. He was crying when they left, and it was sad for everyone to see his reaction. But it was also good that they could have two shorter days to drive home, and it was also nice for us to have the bulk of the weekend still ahead to spend with the four of us.

We finished up the game of Monopoly that we had started with Grandma and Grandpa. I think it is the first game we officially finished, played through until the bitter end. And the end of Monopoly is always bitter, isn't it? Someone has to dominate and obliterate the rest of you, which is the part that we all realized is not very fun. Otto was clearly winning and instead of enjoying his victory, he found that it was not as fun as the beginning of the game, when the outcome is still unknown, and it's fun to acquire new properties and think of all the possibilities. I don't think we play a very vicious game, though, as there is a lot of bartering and good will and reluctance to see anyone go bankrupt. Except that Max was eager to go bankrupt and leave the game, as he was bored long before the rest of us. And so, in the end, it was an easy defeat for Otto, and he was happy to have all the property and all the money and call it a day. It didn't stop him from happily displaying all his properties, his two gold coins, and all the rest of his money, as well as a pretty impressive corner of built-up property.

The other issue with Monopoly is that it is such a long game. It was such a pretty weekend for talking walks in the snow, so once we finally finished the game, we got outside for a walk. First, though, we saw a whole bunch of deer right in our back yard.

Out on the walk, we saw a few more deer, possibly the same family, as it was about the same number, but there are so many deer out here, it's hard to tell.

Lots of icicles on the house.

Our neighbors stopped by with bacon-topped cornbread and chocolate covered macaroons, both of which were seriously delicious.

And then we sized up our snowshoes for the first time and took a walk.

There are no pictures of the actual walk, perhaps because it was too difficult to operate a camera as well as Lilli and our ski poles and our big pokey snow shoes—especially when Lilli was off leash and barking like crazy at some random passers by. I am sure the chase scene they witnessed, as I tried to catch Lilli while clomping around in my snow shoes, once even falling right over them into the snow, was pretty hilarious. So perhaps it's a good thing there are no photos of that.


And then it was time to pack and get back to Chicago. With one minor set back. Our car battery was dead. We contemplated asking our kind macaroon making neighbors for a jump, until Martin realized we had a battery charger in the house. And within 15 minutes, we were up and running and on our way back to Chicago.

11/11/11: The Movie

This is how we celebrated 11/11/11. It's so nice to have a wonderful video of it to remember the day. I was hoping for some actual footage of the boys in their animal hats, but I didn't see us. We still have our pillowcases, signed by many lovely strangers.

Pottery Projects

We started up our pottery classes again, which means we also got to pick up a few of the finished projects from last semester.

Another Tennessee Christmas

Lovely, as always. Different, in that this is the first year we've had puppies join in...two of them. Lilli, of course, who is now 9 months old, and David's 4 month old hound/possibly beagle mix Wander. They had played together at Thanksgiving, and they are old friends by now. If Wander could have his way, they would be boyfriend and girlfriend too.


We visited the chickens and the horses across the street. We let the dogs run around in the tennis court, the closest we had to a dog park.


We had a nice solstice celebration where Grandpa made flaming coffee and hot chocolate, even if the hot chocolate was deemed undrinkable by the kids. It was still beautiful to watch.


We made cookies: gingerbread, Russian teacakes, marzipan, oatmeal chocolate chip. We had delicious but simple meals because we all decided we didn't want to spend all our time in the kitchen. Still, it seemed like my mom was almost always cooking or cleaning. I always feel a bit guilty about how much time I spend just hanging around by the fire, when I know at my own house I would be scurrying around to cook and clean and plan the next meal or activity.

We watched a few movies. The first night, we all watched a great production of "The Nutcracker," not the one that I keep hearing about and do want to see (from 1993, directed by George Balanchine, narrated by Kevin Kline and featuring Macaulay Culkin), but a production from 1986 with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, with production and costume design by Maurice Sendak. We all liked it quite a lot. 

On Christmas night, we watched "The Help" (David had gotten it in his stocking, and only my mom had seen it already). Max actually seemed really interested in it, and Otto watched it all, although he got a bit restless and left the room a couple of times. It did spur a lot of discussion about race and civil rights, and the next morning, the boys and Martin spent an hour or so watching YouTube videos about Medgar Evans.

The last night, we all watched "Oliver" together, (the first time I ever remember watching it).  My dad was astonished I hadn't seen it, and it was always one of my mom's favorite movies to show her third grade class. The boys were totally engaged, and I was surprised that I knew every song. Lots of, "Oh! That's where that song is from!" moments.

We played many rounds of Uno and Go Bat and one night, the adults played Hearts while the boys played Legos beside us. My mom is pretty good at card games (and extremely competitive, even though she does not believe she is), and she managed to shoot the moon, as they say, two times, both of them successful. 

On Christmas Eve, we wrote letters to Santa and Max read "The Night Before Christmas" to us all. The boys already know the first half by heart, since we have an advent calendar which reveals a sentence or two from it each day. We've had the calendar since Max was first born, and we use it over each year. But we never get past day 20 on it, since that's usually when we head to Grandma and Grandpa's house. So while they know the first half really well, they get a bit lost for the last bits.


We had full stockings on Christmas morning, a big breakfast with two kinds of sweet rolls (in other news, I gained several pounds), a nice Christmas morning opening presents on the porch (where Grandpa lit a massive fire and warmed up the whole thing with space heaters and by hanging blankets to stop the drafts). It was all very cozy and fun.


Other highlights: the boys wished for and received real German nutcrackers and smokers and a promise of bowler hats from the old fashioned hat shop in Chicago. Everyone got animal hats and matching fleece jackets and down vests. Grandma got a nice big dog crate and plenty of supplies for a puppy of her own. Next year's celebration will be crazy, with three puppies! Hopefully Wander and Lill will be old and wise by then. Another year will make a huge difference for them. They'll be the equivalent of somewhere between 7 and 10, I suppose. So somewhere between the ages of Max and Otto. Dog years really do fly by. But even in people years, I'm amazed how quickly the years seem to go. Looking back on previous years, I see that the boys have grown so much, even though it seems like it was just a couple of months ago that we celebrated Christmas in 2010.


It was really a wonderful year, and it was a very nice way to celebrate the last week of it, playing cards by the fire or watching movies or gathering around a big table, full of delicious food and a delightful family.

Happy Birthday, Little Brother!

Today is my brother David's birthday. His birthday has always gotten a bit lost in the holiday shuffle, but he's always been pretty easy going about these sorts of things. We usually celebrate his day when we are all together at Christmas, and that's what we did this year too. But I thought I'd post the pictures on his actual birthday to extend the celebration a bit for him.

Otto checks out the cake and all the candles. As Otto pointed out, "I think Uncle David really likes carrot cake, because Grandma always makes him that kind of cake on his birthday."

David managed to blow all those candles out. Pretty impressive. 

When my brother was in high school, he spent many afternoons and nights in his room, decorating a pair of jeans with band logos. My mom recently found these jeans in his old room and wore them for David as a birthday surprise. We all admired the jeans and realized how good a job he actually did on them. It was a pretty cool find.

Another bit of nostalgia: a team portrait of David and his baseball team and another one of his basketball team, when David was roughly the age his twin boys are now (7). Something else my mom found when cleaning out David's room. It was serendipitous that she found them, as David is currently coaching the twins' sports teams. We visited last summer and got to see him in action. He was always really good at sports, and he is a great coach. He has such a good temperament for it. We all had fun looking at the little David. Max and Otto were easily able to pick him out, because, as Max said, "he has the same face." He does. Such a sweet face.

Happy birthday, little brother.

Snowy Walk

The boys were hoping for snow all weekend, and we finally got it this morning.

We took a walk to the beach, but it was more like a walk through the arctic than the lovely winter walk we had dreamed of. And not enough snow to use our new snow shoes.

Still, it was an adventure. And Lilli was thrilled to be able to run around. Martin documented our walk down the the beach. Until the camera froze. Luckily, it revived when we brought it inside.

New Year's Weekend at the Cabin

We went to the cabin for the last week in 2011. It was the longest time we spent at the cabin, four nights and five days. We played games and cooked and relaxed. We built lots of fires and watched movies. Martin spent a lot of time caulking windows. I spent a lot of time cooking and cleaning. But the first night, I was so tired, and the fire was so cozy that the only thing I could manage to do was take a nap. The boys joined me. 

Luckily, the next morning found me revived and able to make omelettes.

We went into Michigan City for the afternoon and had lunch at Swingbelly's.

On the morning of the 31st, Otto and I went out to get groceries and look for party supplies while Martin and Max took Lilli on a walk.

We were really hoping for sparklers and party hats and were very disappointed to find almost nothing for celebrating. But Otto had the idea to get supplies to make root beer floats for dessert. He really wanted to find something to surprise Max with, since Max and I had gone on a similar shopping excursion another weekend and returned with goodies for Otto.

We had scheduled a tour of the Journeyman Distillery in Three Oaks for 1:00 p.m. We arrived at 12:30, thinking we were early. But it turned out we had forgotten that Michigan was on Eastern time, and we had missed the start of the tour. All was not lost. We joined a tasting and walked away with a fine bottle of whiskey to take to our friends Warren and Laura, who have a farm house not far from the cabin. And there was a cute swing out front.

We walked through downtown Three Oaks and stopped in a few antique shops, had lunch at Froehlich's, where we found lots of funny housewares on sale. It was the last day they were open for the season. So many of the cute places are closing until March or April. At least we took home some tasty bagels and fresh pickles. 

Also, we realized that we were checking the wrong places for sparklers. After a CVS, a couple of local pharmacies, a few grocery stores and one funny country store, we finally noticed that we were passing big fireworks stands every few miles. Duh.

Although Mike's Country Store didn't have any sparklers or party supplies, they did have a funny pirate game for $5 which we brought home.

We played the pirate game while I made a beef stew, which took a couple of hours in the oven. This worked out fine, since we were trying to stretch out the evening and make it to midnight. After the game, we set the table.

Lilli was not nearly as excited about her party hat as the boys were.

Happy New Year!