First, the health stuff. I’ve been on Lexapro for two weeks, and I think I’ve finally found something that works. I need to give it a little more time, but I’m feeling better. I have more energy and I’m in a better mood. I have more enthusiasm. I actually want to go out and do stuff. My social anxiety seems to be lessened. Over the weekend I was with a bunch of relatives I hadn’t seen in a while, as well as some of their friends (who were strangers to me), and I felt a lot more comfortable than I usually do. And yesterday, I drove a little bit on the quiet streets, with the kids in the car, and I felt able to handle it, for the most part. A big change from my driving lesson a couple weeks ago, where I was practically in tears, asking Adrian why we couldn’t just move back to NYC so I wouldn’t have to drive. I’m also upping my vitamin D a bit, and now that I have some more energy and enthusiasm, I’m trying to get out more. I am getting over a cold right now, and I bet I’ll feel even better once I stop sneezing every five minutes and I no longer sound like Fran Drescher on helium.

I have lost about ten pounds on Weight Watchers, although I might have gained back one or two of those over the weekend. We were in Atlanta and I decided to just indulge and enjoy. I’m fitting into some clothes I haven’t worn in a while, I feel good, I like the way I look, and I’ve been getting some compliments. But most importantly, I’m cutting my risk for Type 2 Diabetes. I want to lose a few more pounds and then figure out a plan to maintain my weight. I also need to exercise more. Once I am driving regularly, I’ll start going to the Y. What I really want to do is ride my bike regularly, but it’s such a pain to carry it up and down the stairs to our second-floor condo. I wish our complex had bike racks, or at least allowed us to store bikes outside.

We are about to start our homeschooling year– third grade for Llanina and kindergarten for Ezekiel. I’ll be doing Sonlight Core 2 with both of them, with readers and math adjusted to their ability levels. I have been reading a lot about workboxing and I am going to try it. Just Google “homeschool workboxing” if you don’t know about it. I’m hoping it will help us with time management, organization, motivation, independence, and fitting in more elective and fun activities.

Luz is 16 months and adorable. She’s been very playful lately, into making funny faces, and playing chasing games. She’s still not talking, but she apparently understands just about everything we say to her.

Well, that’s it, peeps. I won’t be blogging for a while. You can follow me on Twitter (I’m Mamasnark) or friend me on Facebook (RachelMGoldberg) if you’d like. I won’t accept friend requests from random strangers, but if I know you (or if I online “know” you– if, say, we’re on a homeschooling website together or if we’ve been reading each other’s blogs and I will know who you are), I will friend you. I am on FB almost every day. Otherwise, goodbye, and thanks for all the fish!

My vitamin D is within the normal range, but a low normal. I’m taking a calcium + D supplement, but my doctor doesn’t think I need a prescription vitamin D. My iron and B12 are normal. Upping my Zoloft didn’t help at all. My doctor thinks that the Zoloft was no longer working for me, so he prescribed citalopram (generic Celexa). This is my sixth day on it and so far the only change has been that I am even more exhausted. Seriously, yawning all the time, falling asleep in the middle of the day exhausted. I am overwhelmed by most housework and normal day-to-day tasks. I have been pushing myself, whenever possible, to go outside and get some sunshine, because that does help. Even sitting out on my balcony and reading a book for a little while makes things more manageable.

Adrian has been my rock throughout all this. He is so helpful, doing more cooking, cleaning, and childcare when I am sleeping or just schlumping around. Thinking up ways to make me feel better. I am so lucky to have him. I’ve also been blessed with support from other channels– my sister did a load of dishes and helped my kids clean up their room while she was over yesterday. On Monday my friend Olga hung out with me for a bit and lent me her stroller so I could get outside.

I’m hoping the citalopram will start to work and prove to be what I need, and the side effect (if that’s what it is) of increased exhaustion and lethargy will go away.

My doctor upped my Zoloft, took some blood, and says I am probably deficient in vitamin D. He is waiting on the lab results to be sure, but I will probably start taking a prescription vitamin D supplement. I am the third person I know to receive this diagnosis; apparently it’s a pretty common condition that is just lately getting a lot of attention. If you’re feeling exhausted, depressed, or achy, you might want to get your vitamin D checked. Meanwhile, I’m taking calcium with D twice a day.

[edited to add this paragraph, which, on my diet tangent, I forgot to mention.] Also, my doctor “prescribed” outside activity every day, 10-15 minutes of sunlight (without sunscreen) three times a week, and setting “driving goals” for myself to learn to drive sooner, which will give me more freedom and make life vastly easier.

I have also started Weight Watchers, because everyone I know who’s tried it has had success. It’s a healthy eating plan, nothing gimmicky, and (unless you rely mostly on prepackaged Weight Watchers meals) it teaches you how to eat right. I’m not going to meetings or even joining the online program, because I don’t want to spend the money and I don’t really see a need. My sister gave me a points slider and an introductory booklet, and I am doing it myself. Two days so far and it’s going well. I haven’t felt deprived. I’ve been able to figure out my points pretty easily. So hopefully I will stick with it and lose some weight.

I’m really ambivalent about being on a diet. I’ve been anti-diet for so long. I hate fat-phobia, and I hate the way misogyny and fat-phobia collide in American society to create some sort of national eating disorder wherein dieting is seen as the natural, normal state for women to be in. I have always hated when people (especially women) talk about fat or weight loss in front of my kids (especially my daughters). It is vitally important to me that my children grow up with positive body images and healthy relationships to food. But the fact remains that I don’t feel good, I don’t like the way I look, my clothes don’t fit, and (most importantly) my risk of diabetes is higher at my current weight. I need to lose about ten to fifteen pounds.

I’ve also started to exercise. I’m back on the One Hundred Pushups program, and yesterday I finally, finally went out for a bike ride. It was wonderful. Exhilarating. I felt like a kid again. I felt free. And then I got lost, and wondered around two developments for about an hour as my legs turned to jelly, my heart pounded, and I dripped with sweat. Finally I found a friend’s house and stopped in for a visit. I was given some nice cold water and a ride home. It was definitely too much of a workout for a beginner. But I still can’t wait to get back on my bike.

More importantly, he is going to have to get used to a new therapist. It takes him a while to warm up to new people. He’s been with his current therapist for two years. He is comfortable with her and he’s been making progress. She is good at her job, and she and I communicate well. We just plain like her. Zeke’s going to be sad to say goodbye to her, and I will, too. I’m so pissed at CMS. You know what gets me the most? The letter said that the changes were made “to better serve these students.” No, they weren’t. Everyone knows they weren’t. Just be honest, CMS. Say they were made because of budget cuts.

I need to rant and rave for a few days, but then I guess I’ll hope for the best. No sense in assuming the worst or seeing all change as a bad thing. For all I know, his next therapist might be fantastic. I was wary when we started with his current therapist, and she’s actually really great. And I want to set a good example for Zeke, and make sure he knows I have faith in his ability to handle a new situation and thrive in it.

On a happier note… Look what we did with my parents on Sunday:

The Charlotte Knights are our local Minor League team, the AAA team for the Chicago White Sox. While I might complain about the lameness of not having a Major League team here, the truth is we couldn’t afford to go to Major League games anyway. The Knights are, if I recall correctly, $11 for the cheap seats and $13 for the good ones, which makes a baseball game an affordable family outing. Um, unless you get hungry, or you think, as do I, that baseball games are made even more enjoyable by consuming copious amounts of junk food. The food has the same unreal price point, and lousy quality, as airport food. And they check your bags for contraband, so it’s not like you can bring your own. Still, it’s a great thing to do with the family on a nice sunny Sunday, and we had a fantastic time.

We left during the seventh-inning stretch, because we wanted to rest before our next activity, and the Knights were losing badly enough that we were pretty sure they couldn’t come back (we turned out to be right). We went home, chilled out, gathered picnic supplies, and then…

We went to Pops in the Park. We try to go every week it’s on in the summer. So. Much. Fun. We bring a blanket, some yummies, and some wine, but we don’t get super-fancy. Some people, though, go all out with tables, tablecloths, china, crystal, candles, the whole shebang. It’s a Charlotte institution. I love it. We always sit on the lawn outside Coca-Cola’s corporate offices, across the street from Symphony Park. We can still hear the music, but it’s much less crowded, and the kids can run around.

It was an absolutely perfect Sunday.

How do you balance being both parent and teacher to your child?
This is something I never even thought about, until I was asked this question by non-homeschoolers. I guess as a homeschooler, I conceptualize learning and parenting in a different way from a school teacher or a non-homeschooling parent. It is all part of the same parenting package to me. Even though we do have structured lessons, I don’t take off my “mother” hat and put on my “teacher” hat for those times. I am always both my children’s mother and their teacher, just as I have been since birth. I helped them learn to walk and talk and feed themselves; now I am helping them learn about multiplication, ancient Rome, reading, and the digestive system.

How do you incorporate technology into your lessons?
Again, it’s not something I consciously think about. It just happens organically. From an early age, my kids have been playing games on sites like www.noggin.com and www.NickJr.com. We use www.starfall.com for reading lessons, and speech practice for my son, who has verbal apraxia. The kids have inherited my husband’s World of Warcraft addiction, and love to play WoW as well as other video games. They type on the computer, they create artwork with painting programs, they Google for information, they watch YouTube videos… my eight-year-old is easily as computer-literate as I am, and moreso than my parents.

How do you go about teaching a subject you know very little about?
I learn it along with the kids. I am not pouring facts into an empty vessel, I am facilitating learning. Most of the knowledge they gain comes not from me, but from books, videos, and other media. Right now my oldest is finishing second grade. As we move on to more advanced work, if I cannot handle a subject myself I will find another way: a private tutor, a homeschool co-op, an outside class, etc.

How much homework do you give? Is it even called ‘homework’ when it’s assigned at home?
I don’t give homework. Or, on the other hand, all the work I assign is homework. Are you asking whether I give assignments to be done independently, outside of “school time,” as extra practice? Not really. But we don’t really have official school hours. We have assignments that need to be completed, and we get them done during the course of the day. Sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. Sometimes I will read some of the material aloud at bedtime. If my kids need extra practice on something, such as math facts, they will get extra practice. But I don’t really think of it as homework.

Do your students have to take the same standardized tests as mine? If so, how much test prep do you do each week?
Each state has its own laws governing homeschooling. In NC, homeschooled students have to take a nationally-normed test every year between ages 7-16 (IIRC), and we have our choice of several tests. My daughter took the Woodcock-Johnson test this year. We didn’t do any test prep, unless you count telling my shy daughter she had to answer the questions and that shrugging and saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t wanna talk about it” did not count as answers, to be polite and answer “yes, ma’am” and “no, ma’am” to the test administrator (we are Yankee transplants to the South and I’m always worried about making a good impression), and that I knew she’d do great.

I can’t help it, I have to post a rebuttal to this post or it will eat away at me. Here goes:

10. [redacted].

Wait, I should base my choice of education for my children upon whether a-hole frat boys will tease my kids? Damn, I knew I was going about this all wrong. From now on I need to enforce academic mediocrity and a penchant for baseball caps. Not to mention starting weekly beer-pong lessons.

9. [redacted]

Um, why? I really don’t understand why learning has to happen in isolation, separated by time and/or space from other activities. My kids learn at the dinner table, on the couch, on the floor, on the bus, in the playground, in shops…. should I go on? As long as they are learning, why does it matter where or when?

8. [redacted]

Well, yeah, I guess I’m selfish. I want the best for my kids. Guilty as charged. I do care about other children, and the rest of the world, and I hope to instill the values of compassion and service to others in my children. But I will not sacrifice their needs for the rest of the world.

By the way, my husband and I are well-educated (and proud of it), but wealthy? I wish.

7. [redacted]

I don’t even know how to respond to this, except to point out that only 36% of the families in that study cited religion as the most important reason they homeschooled. So 64% of homeschoolers are motivated most strongly by reasons other than religion. I’m one of them.

6. [redacted]

Proper grammar might be a good thing to use when claiming superior English skills. Anyway… if you’d done some research, you’d know that homeschoolers generally outperform public schoolers on standardized test scores, college acceptance rates, and college graduation rates. So yes, I do think that I can provide a better education through homeschooling than my children would receive at a pubic school.

I think you have a misperception that homeschooling consists of me, and only me, standing in front of a blackboard and lecturing my kids as they sit around the dining table. That’s not what homeschooling is. I don’t think there’s a single homeschooling family in which the children were taught all subjects, at all levels, by their parents. I’m certainly not planning on teaching my kids high school chemistry, for instance. Perhaps we’ll hire a tutor, perhaps they’ll take classes at the local community college, perhaps we’ll join a co-op and they’ll take a class with other homeschooled teens… in any case, we’ll handle it, just as countless other homeschooling parents handle subjects outside their areas of competence.

5. [redacted]

5. As a human being, hating on others that make choices that are different from yours kind of pisses me off. I also can’t help but wonder why you’re so threatened by these different choices. To quote Deborah Markus of Secular Homeschooling Magazine, “We didn’t go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision, tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your own educational decisions.”

4. [redacted]

Homeschooling “could” breed intolerance, so we shouldn’t do it? Way to use logic there, buddy. Are you assuming that all homeschoolers are white, straight, and of the same ethnicity? Maybe you should worry about your own intolerance. Homeschoolers come in all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, family structures, and religions. Are you really insinuating that the only place my kids would encounter cultures other than their own is in public school? That’s pretty disturbing and, dare I say it, seems to be based on some unconscious racial assumptions on your own part.

My children are themselves biracial. We are friends with people of various races, ethnicities, religions, backgrounds, income levels, and sexual orientations. Not to mention ages. My children don’t spend six hours a day in a room with 20-30 kids their own age and one adult. They have friends older and younger than themselves.

3. [redacted]

Socialization is a process that takes more than spending six hours a day with 20-30 people one’s own age (and usually of similar income level), being told not to talk to one another. Homeschoolers are out in the real world, not a classroom. They interact with children and adults of all ages, both in organized activities such as scouts, dance class, sports, etc., and in casual settings such as going to the playground or playing with neighborhood kids. Not to mention organized homeschooling groups and activities. To read your post, one might think you’re under the impression that we spend all day, every day, secluded at home!

2. [redacted]

You obviously misread that. He didn’t say that homeschooling parents take risks with their children’s educations. He hypothesized that the same attributes that make them risk-takers in other areas might make them more comfortable with homeschooling. It’s a huge leap from that statement to characterize homeschooling as “gambling.” As far as Cate’s hypothesis, I can understand that line of reasoning. Homeschooling is uncommon, outside of the mainstream. If you’re going to homeschool, you have to be comfortable with doing what’s best for your own family and not caring what everyone else does and what the mainstream says you should do. Homeschoolers generally put a lot of thought into their decision. In fact, I’d argue that homeschoolers, on average, put more thought into their children’s educations than public school parents. Not that there aren’t many very committed, involved parents in the public schools. But most public school parents don’t choose public school out of a wide range of options. Public school is the default, and they go along with it unless there is a striking reason not to do so. Homeschoolers, on the other hand, reject the default and make an active choice to homeschool. Then we go on to make choices about curricula, educational philosophy, and homeschooling style. Believe me, homeschoolers spend a lot of time thinking, researching, debating, talking, praying, trying, revising, and tweaking to give our children the best possible education. Doesn’t sound much like gambling to me!

1. [redacted]

Ok, are we back to the tired socialization argument again? That’s what you mean by “geeky”? If so, go re-read my answers to #3 and #4. But if you’re talking about the common definition of “geeky,” meaning that homeschoolers are a little weird, a little different from the mainstream, a little nerdy, not up on all the latest trends… I’d have to say, so what? I have known plenty of geeky kids in public schools… in fact, I was one. It took years for me to be happy with myself. Maybe if I were homeschooled, I’d have had more self-confidence in my teens and not worried about being “cool” so much. Who knows? Yes, there are a lot of geeky homeschooled kids. But it’s sort of a chicken-and-egg question: maybe they would have been geeky anyway, but they don’t spend so much time worrying about it and pretending to be something they’re not, because they are free from the cliques of public school. Anyway, is being a geek so bad? Most former geeks I know have turned out to be very interesting, cool people as adults. Not to mention that many of them are making great money as computer programmers.

Yesterday was Adrian’s birthday. In what’s become a family tradition, he took off from work and we all went out to the movies. When Llani asked him what he wanted to see, he said, “Whatever you kids want to see.” Because that’s the kind of dad Adrian is. And of course we had to see something kid-safe anyway. So here’s what we saw:

I loved it. I swear. I want to buy the soundtrack. Mock me if you will.

The kids and I got Adrian an ice cream maker for his birthday.

He said now he can’t wait to go to the farmers’ market and get fresh local fruit to make ice cream with… so I guess I know what we’re doing tomorrow morning. Yay!

We celebrated with a party on Saturday, and although Luz slept through half of it I think she had fun.

She is such a delightful little girl, my Goosey is. Smiley and happy almost all the time. She is starting to have little baby tantrums, though. I shouldn’t encourage them, but they are so very cute. If, for instance, I have the audacity to remove a chokable object from her mouth and replace it with a cracker, she will protest this horrid treatment by throwing the cracker down angrily, shouting a little “AAAA!” and sometimes even hitting the cracker with her little dimpled hand. Makes me want to eat her up!

In other news, if you live in Charlotte, you might want to stay off the roads.

He also has to wear a patch over his right eye for two hours a day, to correct an amblyopia (lazy eye) in his left eye. We had to start with five minutes at a time and work up to two hours, because wearing the patch was so hard for him in the beginning. His left eye is 20/400 uncorrected, and 20/200 with his glasses. So putting on the patch basically means that he can barely see. He has gotten used to it though, and I think his eye might be getting better already because he seems to function okay with the patch on.

I have been to the Promised Land

and I can’t wait to go again.

I got the best birthday present ever

I was reminded of what happens when you let an 11-month-old feed herself applesauce

and this happened: