Intuition

All the reading I have been able to do lately (research for the unschooling discussion with Dom in late August) is only further proof that respecting children as our equals, instead of second class citizens is natural. John Holt wrote it, A.S. Neill wrote it, John Taylor Gatto wrote it, Alison McKee, Mary Griffith, Valerie Fitzenreiter, Pam Leo, Gordon Neufeld, and the list of authors with tried and tested research, and life experience supporting these beliefs goes on and on. Not to mention the over 100 kids I have met in our local area who live their lives unschooling or educating themselves. These children are amazing. When I ask these kids questions about their interests they are always able to articulate what they know and hope to learn regarding their interests. We do live on a street where almost all the neighbors attend public schools. I find it difficult to find a child attending public school that has a deep interest they feel worth while to pursue. I am not certain what exactly is holding Dom up deciding to say yes to Niki staying home. I don't see any positives about attending public schools any longer.

Anyway, since I figured out what the hell I am doing with this camera of mine I can post pix of everything we have been up to. We have visited several of our friends @ our house and theirs, we have had various music lessons-thanks Malina for being patient while the boys banged away on your piano and thanks Bill for giving the boys their own guitar! Casey-thanks for the keyboarding fun too! We are into trying to meet people locally who are willing to contribute to our family interests. Bill has a band and lets us come to practice every week. The boys love singing and dancing and playing all the instruments. Bill also has an awesome garage. It is fully equiped with every ratchet, wrench, and screwdriver any one grown person, or four young people could ever need. We visited one of friends who tends a huge garden. The family has offered to help us work on beginning a community garden! While I think this is awesome, I don't think the kids have any interest in it besides digging in the dirt! We have played in the pool, watched alligators eat, went fishing, and met everyone we didn't know in our neighborhood in the last week or so. Again, while I am not certain if the kids actually have any interest in the community thing right now, they did get to meet one family of kids we didn't know before and they have all been playing together everyday we have been home. We have built with our new train tracks, (purchase inspired by a trip to our friends house) and Lincoln Logs, and Legos, painted, vacuumed, yes that was something worth mentioning bc everyone fights over who gets to vacuume! Dom and I went to watch "Wanted" yes, a new assassin movie and Angelina Jolie-could it be anything but good? After the assassin movie we had to go to the range and zero the scopes on the new weapons. I am now the proud owner of my very own pistol. While I have been shooting all my life, this is my first, and very own, pistol. Did I already say that?

And to top it all off we are all working on respecting one another more and things seem much more relaxed here.