Mariposa Academy Homeschool

We went to the library yesterday. I wanted to get Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, but they didn’t have it. I wandered around for a bit, made a few more fruitless searches, found a Dorothy Sayers, and then came across The Big Nap by Ayelet Waldman. As soon as I read the first paragraph, in which the protagonist opens the door to the FedEx man wearing nothing on top but a nursing bra with the flaps undone, and then decides she is too sleep-deprived to be embarrassed, I knew I would love this book. Said protagonist, Juliet, is the stay-at-home-mom of a preschooler and an infant. She is hormonal, chronically exhausted, and feeling frumpy four months after the birth of her son. She is a Jew in a mixed marriage, and lives in a neighborhood with a large Chassidic community. Reading about her interactions with that community, and her forays into the kosher markets, made me nostalgic for Riverdale. If I had asked someone to write a mystery novel that I would love and relate to completely, I couldn’t have gotten a better book than this.

When I looked at the book a bit more closely, the coincidence became almost eerie. I hadn’t known this when I took the book off the shelf, but the author just happens to be married to Michael Chabon, whose book I was originally looking for. Also, the book is dedicated to “Michael, Sophie, and Zeke.” She has two children– I wonder if this Zeke is her son?

Tomorrow we are starting monthly shopping. Is it sad that I’m really excited about this? In an effort to reign in our out-of-control spending and actually live within our means, we decided we’re going to buy household stuff and non-perishable groceries from Big Lots, Family Dollar, or Aldi’s, and we’ll do that shopping once a month. Then we’ll do a weekly perishables shopping trip wherever we can get things cheaply– probably Trader Joe’s.

I created two master shopping lists, and I just printed them out. I wish there was something else I could do right now. I wish we were going shopping right now. I seriously can’t wait. I am pathetic. What can I say, I love bargains, and I love getting started with new systems. Whenever we start something new like this I have a sense of hope, a feeling that we’ll finally get things together and save money/become more organized/get more done/solve every single problem we ever have. I really do think this will save us money, though. Anything that keeps us out of Harris Teeter has to save money.

You might have heard that the Duggars are expecting their eighteenth child. And if you are on a moms’ board or you read the comments after news articles, you’ve probably read lots of criticism about their lifestyle and their choice to have so many kids. I know I have. I’ve seen assumptions made that they cannot possibly be good parents to that many kids. I’ve read comments saying “a vagina is not a clown car.” I’ve heard people say that they are disgusted by this family.

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t know much about the Duggars. I’ve never watched any of their TV shows (although now I want to!). I’ve read a few articles about them and perused their website, and I’ve read posts about them on moms’ boards. What I do know is that they are a large, fundamentalist Christian, homeschooling family. For religious reasons, they do not use birth control. They believe that it is up to God to determine their family size. They also love children. They use a “buddy system” in which their older children are responsible for some of the care of the younger children– helping them get dressed, teaching some homeschooling lessons, and doing household chores together. They live debt-free.

Now, I don’t agree with their religious or political beliefs, with the Quiverfull movement, with the gender roles they put their kids into. And I think it goes without saying that the J-name thing is just plain tacky. But honestly, I don’t understand the extreme vitriol I have seen directed at this family. And the more I think about it, Michelle Duggar is my freakin’ hero! I mean, if she can raise and homeschool 17 kids with no debt and her sanity intact, I want to know her secret so I can be more successful with my three!

In some ways the things that people bash the Duggars for are things that I and many people also do, but to a lesser degree. “Too many” kids? How many are too many, and who’s to say? Are my three too many? After all, it’s one more than replacing me and Adrian. Now, after my difficulties with this last pregnancy I think I am probably done with bearing kids, but really I wanted 4 or 5 kids. Is that too many? Some people, I know, think it is. I certainly don’t. Some people might say I can’t possibly give 5 kids, or even 3 kids, the attention they need. I know I can, though. The other day I met a mom of 6– a calm, well-put-together, not-completely-frazzled mom of 6– and all I felt about that number was envy and admiration. I’m sure others would make clown-car comments about her. On the other hand, I’m sure many moms of one can tell stories about all the criticism they’ve gotten for selfishly depriving their poor, poor only child of a sibling. Bottom line, the number of kids is nobody’s business but the mom’s and her partner’s.

I’ve heard it said that having so many kids taxes the environment. They buy most things second-hand, Michelle sews a lot of the kids’ clothes, they ride together in one vehicle, they buy in bulk, and I would guess they hand things down repeatedly. There are probably families with one child that tax the environment more. They have a 7000 sq. ft. house. Yes, that’s huuuge, but with their current 17 kids, that’s less than 400 sq. ft. per person. Most smaller families in the US use more space per person than that.

The buddy system? I babysat for my little sister all the time once I was old enough. As I started writing this post, Llani was calming my crying baby because I just needed a few minutes before I got up for the bazillionth time. She also helps Zeke get dressed quite often, and always begs to help with Luz. She taught Zeke the alphabet, and wants to teach him to read. She fixes sandwiches for him just like she does for herself. She keeps an eye on the baby when I take a shower. As she gets older I’m sure she’ll take on more responsibility with her younger siblings. I’m not sure how the Duggars’ buddy system works, but it’s probably different from our situation by just a matter of degree and formality. Don’t most families expect the older siblings to help out with the younger ones? Where is the magical line at which “helping out” becomes “parenting instead of the parents,” and who determines where that line is?

Michelle Duggar weans her babies at 6 months so her fertility will return. Again, not my choice, but 6 months of nursing is more than most babies in the US get.

There are a lot of different ways to parent, and we all make different choices. We moms are not always going to agree. I’m sure we all have hot-button issues– mine are breastfeeding, attachment, and violence as “discipline”– but I really don’t think family size has to be one of them. I wish people would realize that wanting a lot of kids does not make someone insane, nor does it make them a bad parent. It just makes them different.

I can’t believe I’m a month old already:

I might give you something resembling a smile…

…even though this whole picture business is a bit scary

the ceiling sure is fascinating, though

Guess what I have? A one-month-old! I can’t believe it was a whole month ago that my beautiful baby Luz was born!

Things are going pretty well. My incision is finally almost healed. I have been getting out and about a bit and feeling more and more human each day. Luz is spending more time awake, and is very alert. Adrian and I are learning what Luz likes and dislikes, what calms her, and what we can expect from her. We know we can expect a few hours of fussiness and cluster-feeding in the evening. We know that when she’s been fed, changed, and burped and is still fussy, what she needs is to be put in the sling or Bjorn and walked around. We know that when she is fussing, flailing her limbs, and breathing noisily but not crying, she is probably about to poop. Knowing these things certainly makes life easier.

We’ve gotten a bunch of adorable clothes for her, some as gifts and some that my parents picked up at a yard sale. We also finally bought cloth diapers. I am so happy finally to be using cloth on her! It is better for her skin and better for the environment. They’re cuter than disposables, and cheaper, too. But the number one reason I love cloth diapers? They are sooooo much better at containing those explosive newborn poops! No more having to change her clothes and the sheets at two in the morning! Yippee!! No more poop on my lap when we’re out in public! Now if only she’d calm down with the spit-up….

Having decided that the “Hey kids, let’s read a book!” method of homeschooling is working the best for us, I’ve bought some great books lately. Gombrich’s Little History for world history, and a bunch of books about Colonial America for American History. I also bought Anno’s Math Games III. The only problem is that I am so tired these days that whenever I start reading to the kids, I doze off! I am going to have to adjust our schedule, I guess, and avoid reading in the afternoon. Or maybe I’ll have Llani read to me more.

One of our cats died today.

This morning, Doc suddenly seemed like he was choking. His breathing was labored and rattling, his sides were heaving, and he meowed in pain a few times. Adrian took him to the vet, where he died. They tried to resuscitate him, but to no avail. Apparently Doc had a congenital heart defect that had never been discovered. The vet said she’s seen other cases like his, and they are very sudden. A cat can go from perfectly fine to dead within eight minutes.

We are sad, Adrian especially since he was the primary caregiver for the cats. The kids seem to be handling it fine, though.

White People, Get Over Yourselves from Dantrification on Vimeo.