Deer Hearts

On a pre-homeschool walk up the road, Finn and I came upon a large splash of red on the pavement. 

We both thought it was paint at first because it was so red.  It trailed off to the opposite side of the road from where we were walking. 

“It’s blood!!” Finn said suddenly. “It’s got to be blood”.

I still wasn’t sure.  The color was so bright and there was no animal nearby.

“There it is!” Finn said pointing.

About 10 yards off the road a deer had collapsed.  We went to it.  It was clearly dead, it’s eyes wide open and neck stretched back. Obviously hit by a car.  A large wound on it’s hind quarters.

We stood just looking, Finn examining every inch of the deer not saying anything.

After a while we turned to continue on our walk and he was silent for a lot of it.

The mail carrier drove by which set him off on a whole line of questions about the mail.

Some distance later we stopped to watch horses in a nearby corral .

Behind us we heard movement in the woods and turned to see two does running through the woods towards the road where we had just been.

“They heard about the other deer,”  Finn said.

A short while later we turned to head back home. When we reached the spot where the deer lay, he wanted to go back over to it.

The body was twitching slightly.

“Why is it moving? Are you sure it’s not alive?”

“I’m sure,”  I said.

We stood for another long while, mostly in silence.

“It’s sad, right?” he said.  “The vultures will be happy. They have to eat. But it’s still sad, right?

We walked home in silence.  When we entered house he said, “I think we should draw something for the deer.”

“Ok,” I said

“Yeah. We need to do something for her,” he said. 

He got a small piece of paper, got his markers out and began drawing row after row of different colored hearts.

He didn’t speak for a while then I heard him say quietly, “That’s the best heart I’ve ever drawn,” then continued on.

“What will you do with them when you’re through?” I asked.

“Hang them on the fridge,” he said, as though “Duh”.

“Oh right,”  I said.

As he was finishing it up I said, “Well, we better get to our school work, It’s almost lunch time and we haven’t even gotten to writing our alphabet today. We may not have time for everything now.”

“Well, that’s the beauty of homeschool, right?” he said.

I don’t know where he heard that.

But I think on that particular day I wasn’t the one teaching.

Here we go

Homeschool is now in session.

The first few days were exhausting, my mind pervaded with doubt. Is it going to be enough for him? Is he getting the knowledge he wants/needs? Can I do this? Am I a good teacher?

Luckily Finn is not one to be silent if something isn’t working for him.

Back in the Summer when we were talking about homeschooling, he was inquiring about what it would be like. He asked what he would be learning.

“What do you want to learn?” I asked.

“Well, definitely POTIONS!” he said, his thoughts firmly swirling in Harry Potter world.
“And of course ABC’s and stuff like that,” he said.

It turns out the ABCs are a good place to begin.

Imagine that.

Though he has been writing for quite some time, he’s never really learned uniformity of letters, etc.
We eased into it by drawing shapes and working with clay.

Thus far we have essentially focussed each day around a letter.

We explore the shape of it, the sounds it makes and all the words we can think of that begin with it.

And at the end of the day we draw an artistic interpretation of the letter. Then the next day, another letter.

It’s amazing now how fast the days are passing.

My friend Ian, having learned from previous conversations what we were doing, heard Finn talking about “M”. “You’re already on M?” he said, surprised.

I was surprised as well.

It got me thinking about how our days will be structured when we run out of letters.

But I have some ideas. And our days are not only about letters.

We do our daily exercise, which Finn leads.

He has some very interesting names for his exercise creations.

I’m very fond of “the folding snake” which looks like a combination of a few yoga positions performed in quick succession. But my absolute favorite is running in place, which he calls “the runs” and the dance moves he includes.

Afterwards we have a little meditation before we formally begin.

Mondays, he has a music lesson with Erin (which we call Music Mondays with Mommy), Wednesdays he has art with me and cooking with Erin.

After a little convincing, he now sees how recipes are very similar to potions. And we’re noticing that he is more willing to eat what he has helped prepare.

Other advantages of homeschooling that I’m noticing right away are: Start time is flexible, no rushing out the door. He gets as many ‘turns’ at the chalk board as he wants and he gets all of his questions answered right away. “Lessons” tend to move along at a faster pace than I expected and if we veer off on a tangent, that’s ok.

Lack of energy is a hurdle some days (on both of our parts), but regular exercise, and remembering to have snacks helps that.

The biggest challenge is reminding myself that we’re doing just what we need to be doing.

It’s still just the beginning, but I suppose that’s the best place to start.

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Taking the Helm

Our brief summer vacation is a memory now.

Always too short.

A few days is barely enough to catch one’s breath.

This year we met up with Erin’s family on a little Island in Lake Erie.

The fact that the island was on the Canadian side made the trip a little more exciting.

The house we rented was right on the beach. The water was calm and shallow so the parents could relax on the sand without being on edge about sudden waves. The largest ones were an inch or two high. It was calming for all.

The cousins fell instantly into their rhythm, building sand castles, splashing and playing made-up beach games they never seemed to tire of.

Evenings were full of board games and adults in conversation until the wee hours. Eventually the kids went to bed exhausted.

I noticed Finn mimicking his older cousins, acting more mature. A few times when I tried to help him with things with which he normally required assistance, he stopped me. “I got this”, he would say.

He spent so much time interacting with the cousins that the endless stream of questions we’ve become accustomed to answering from him diminished substantially for those few days.

Having a little time to sit and relax, I found myself thinking about the coming year of homeschooling and the unknown challenges that lie ahead.

Homeschooling is not uncharted territory. Just untravelled for us. We’ll be on the journey together, drawing from the experiences of others and creating a unique experience.

The Ferry ride to and from the island was a first for Finn. To be on a boat in the middle of the water with no land in sight for part of the journey, was something he had never experienced.

He wanted to spend most of the two hour ride standing at the bow of the boat. He couldn’t get enough of the wind in his hair.

Once we were back home, Finn’s steady flow of questions resumed precisely at the moment that I was in the bathroom:

Finn: (knocking on the bathroom door) “Daddoo I need to ask you…”

Me: “I’ll be out in a minute.”

Finn: “I just need to ask you something!”

Me: “Ok what is it?”

Finn: “Is Venus made mostly of carbon dioxide?”

Me: “I don’t know.”

Finn: “Yes, I think it is.”

Me: “Ok”

Finn: “And that’s not good if we want to LAND on it, right?”

Me: “I think you’re probably right.”

Finn: “Do you know the other thing about Venus?”

Me: “What’s that?

Finn: “It will definitely melt cheese. And that’s BAD news.” (He walks away)

Yes, homeschooling may present many challenges. But I’m counting on the insights to balance things out.

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Making Magic

I have watched kids of friends and relatives go through the Harry Potter phase and wondered if Finn would do the same.  I needn’t wonder anymore.

Finn has close friends who have seen the movies and had the books read to them, so he has embraced the Harry Potter world wholeheartedly in their play together and now on his own.

His Obi Wan Kinobi robe that he received as a gift last year has been re-purposed as Harry’s robe.

I suppose Harry and Obi Wan are not dissimilar archetypes.

So we went to the library and checked out the first book in the Harry Potter series.  And it has quickly become a bedtime staple.

“Expecto!” has become a prefix for almost anything he wants to manifest.

A small dowel he found in the tool shed has become his wand most of the time. Sometimes he uses a knitting needle. Sometimes a random stick.

We have decided to homeschool this year, which Finn is very excited about.  He says our school should be called “Homewarts” and I should be professor Dumbledaddoo.  I suppose then Erin would be Mommy McGonagall.

Homeschooling can be a little intimidating.

Random conversations with parents who have done it and some friends who were homeschooled have helped to put my mind at ease.  I’m not reinventing the wheel, and from what I’ve read so far, there are enormous resources available.

After we made the decision, it kind of felt like we were always heading in this direction.

It’s almost impossible not to do a certain amount of homeschooling.

I mean, there are a million questions a day no matter how you slice it.  You can either answer them intelligently, find the answers if you don’t have them, or just say, “I don’t know leave me alone.”

But if you choose the last option, the same questions circle back around endlessly.

Erin and I have chosen to answer as many questions as we can intelligently so I am imagining our Homeschool to be a more structured version of that with a little more leading and slight nudging, interspersed with comforting daily routines.

But what do I know?

Well, I do know Homeschool will begin September 1st , the same as Hogwarts.

There is a temptation to go all out and create our own little Hogwarts atmosphere but Finn is such a little actor he might get lost in the play acting.  But there could be ways to use his fascination in creative ways.

When I mentioned we might have to make a proper wand in our woodworking class, he lit up.

“Will it make real magic?” he asked.

“YOU make the magic”  I said.

“I do?” he said, not convinced.

Well maybe we will do it together.

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Art Hike

It was the night before Erin was going to be teaching a number of voice lessons back to back at home and Finn and I needed to make ourselves scarce for most of the day.

“Where are you going tomorrow?” Erin asked, probably knowing I hadn’t thought of anything yet.

Finn looked at me.

“We are going…on a…hike. On an art hike,” I said trying to come up with something original for him.

“What’s an art hike?” Finn asked.

“We’re going to hike and paint.” I said.

“Where?” Finn asked.

“We’ll figure that out tomorrow” I said, having no idea.

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Mud Pie

It was the end of Erin’s teaching semester and she wanted to get away for a few days to mark the close of her school year.

She found a Groupon deal for two nights in a little hotel in Vermont that wasn’t too far away but enough of a change in scenery so it felt like a vacation. We’ve taken trips before where we intended to be spontaneous only to end up wandering around for hours on end and eventually settling on uninspiring restaurants or activities that none of us were really into. So this trip we had a list of planned things to do.

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Carousel Ride

There was a noticeable silence in the backseat of the car while I was running a recent errand with Finn.

At a stop light I glanced in the rearview mirror to see if he was napping.

Instead he was staring out the window lost in thought.

After another long period of silence he sighed.

“I can’t believe I’m a kid,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I just can’t believe I’m alive!” he said.

“Well, where were you before?” I asked.

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Crag Day

"Happy Crag Day!" Finn said, descending from the bedroom upon awakening.

The day before, he’d expressed wanting to hike to the rock formation in a nearby preserve.

The forecast had promised perfect weather.

There were doubts about making it all the way to the top. It was a long hike for Finn and he likes to take his time.

So when he began to document the wildlife on a piece of construction paper he had folded several times to create a section for each entry, I was pretty certain we might be turning back before reaching the peak.

“When you see or hear something, you have to write it down,” he instructed each of us, like a mini forest ranger.

“Oh, look at the bird’s nest,” Erin said, noticing an unusually large one.

“Yep! Have to write it down!” he said bossily.

He eagerly dug for the pencil and paper in his pocket.

He stood there appearing to scribble for several long moments then said, “How do you spell bird’s nest?”

“Yep, it’s gonna be a long hike,” I thought to myself.

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The Future is Now

Sometimes I feel as though Finn may be a little psychic. 

Just as I’m beginning to think about the New Year, he is suddenly talking about building a time machine.

We were making breakfast. It had been declared ‘pancake day.’ (He requests them most days even though we only make them one day a week.) Then out of nowhere he began talking about his plans for building a time machine.

“Where would you want to go?” I asked. “Back to the time when you were a baby?”

“No,” he said.  “Back to the Ice Age!”

“Then you would be going alone,” I said.  “Winters are cold enough for me right now.”

Is there anyone who doesn’t find the idea of time travel fascinating? I end up watching even bad movies that revolve around it. 

New Year’s Eve is a time when we all step briefly into our own little time machines. Looking back, reliving moments of the last year or attempting to peek into the future.

Setting our intentions.

Hoping they will stick this time.

Maybe pondering the things that we should leave behind.

There’s always a slight desire to go back and change something if not a number of things over the last year.

What will we do differently this year?  What will we change?

Finn’s desire for time travel obviously springs from curiosity.

I think most of us would want to go back to change something, to make it better, like the movie Back to the Future.

There’s a little Marty McFly in all of us.

All the recent talk of secret government agencies and videos of UFOs in the news makes one think that perhaps time travel is not so farfetched.

Who are they? Are they from the future? Returning at a crucial moment in our history to prevent us from making a devastating choice?

I would say they’re about a year late.

If there are aliens among us, what are they here to do? What would they change?  Are they observing us and trying to decide how to be a part of all this? Are they contemplating getting involved in the world and the implications of that? Maybe they just don’t know what to do next.

It might be easier to just stay on the sidelines and observe, to hover around in their comfortable little space ships. That way they wouldn’t risk failure. Or they could just go back to where they came from.

Maybe they’re stuck, trying to figure out what to do with their lives.

Hmmm. Maybe they would fit right in.

“I know where I would go right now,” Finn said as he was stirring the batter.

“Where?” I asked

“Right here, twenty minutes from now,”  He said,  “when the pancakes are done.”

Making Christmas

During dinner, following an unusually long moment of silence, Finn sighed heavily and, as if suddenly having a huge realization, said:

“Daddoo, I REALLY need to get a new sewing kit. With LOTS of cloth and needles and everything.”

“Really, why is that?”  I asked.

“Because I want to be an elf. And I don’t have a costume. And to make a costume, I’m REALLY going to need a lot of stuff,” he said.

“You mean a Christmas elf?” I inquired.

“Yeah,” he said shortly as if, “What else?”

Over the last several weeks Finn’s questions about Santa Claus and everything relating to Christmas have increased in number and complexity. He has only visited Santa once, when he was two, but he still talks about it.

“So that Santa, the one that I sat on his lap, that was the real Santa right?” he asked one day randomly when we were all in the car.

“What do you think?” we responded.

“I think he was,” he continued, “But if HE was the real Santa who are all the other Santas?”

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Puttin' on the Ritz

There was a Sunday morning routine that took place in my childhood household, before the whole family piled in the car and headed to church. The shining of shoes was central to it. And that was usually followed by all the boys combing our hair with Vitalis. The scent of shoe polish still takes me back. I haven’t smelled Vitalis in a long, long time.

In preparation for our trip to Erin’s sister’s wedding last weekend I was putting a little polish on my shoes before packing them. And of course Finn wanted to be a part of it.

“Oh that’s a good idea! I think I might need to shine my shoes too!” he said, running upstairs to retrieve them from under his bed.

He yelled back down to me, “And I can do it by myself. Ok Daddoo? Ok?”

We had tried shoe shining a couple of times before but he was more interested in putting his fingers in the polish and using the buffing brush as a toy than actually shining his shoes.

“And I can do it ALL BY MYSELF,” he reiterated, returning to my side with his shoes in hand.

“Ok, that’s fine,” I assured him.

I finished my own shoes and stayed close just in case.

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Dance Party

 If there is one characteristic that stands out in Finn’s behavior lately, it’s that he wants to get his groove on.

 Fall appears to have ushered in a time to dance.

And of course, that means we have to follow suit. (Who can refuse a five-year-old saying, “Come on let’s dance!”) 

It certainly pulls you out of the doldrums.

What started it? Lady Gaga came up on shuffle on Erin’s phone one day. Finn wanted to see what she looked like and Erin showed him the Super Bowl halftime show. And the dance craze began.

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Detours

It was a family outing that was not going well.

Everyone was grumgry, the term we use for deteriorating emotional states in absence of sustenance.

We had packed a picnic but 30 minutes into our journey we noticed the gas light was blinking. We probably would not make it unless we back-tracked to a gas station.

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Off Duty

The other day I was trying to get Finn’s attention.  He was sitting in a chair staring off into space. I can’t remember why it was important for me to interrupt him but nevertheless I did.

“Finn,” I said for the third or fourth time.

“I’m off duty,” he replied.

“Really?” I said. “What exactly does that mean?”

“I’m just not doing anything,” he said matter-of-factly.

I kind of wondered what being “on duty” meant for him but I didn’t inquire further.

I’m sure he was repeating what one of us might have said when we were in the middle of something and attempted to “pass the baton” so to speak.  

“Talk to Mommy. I’m off duty.”

Would I say that?

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Reaching

 Spring here this year has been outstanding. Even now the dogwoods and rhododendrons are holding on.

In contrast to last year when just after the buds began appearing, a cold snap killed off most of them, blunting the impact of that extra lift you normally get from the season.

This year everything is showing off. Some flowers seem to be blooming three times over.

Finn has been climbing trees more and more lately with his buddies. On a recent morning he was determined to conquer one tree in particular that was in full bloom.

He had his eye on a specific branch. Bracing and balancing precariously he finally reached it. Grabbing a blossom he pulled it to his face.

After examining it for a second, he buried his nose in the petals and took a long deep breath.

“Mmmm Daffodils,” he said.

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Building

On a recent afternoon I was raking, removing the winter quilt of leaves from the flower beds.

A few yards away Finn was busy with a project of his own. He was piling sticks and bricks on the patio where I had just cleaned.

I feel as though his response to any space being clean these days is: “Oh good, now I have more room to create.”

He and his friends have been building little forts lately from a supply of bricks beside the garden shed, leftover from some past construction project.

By the time I had finished my raking, Finn had constructed a couple of walls with bricks and incorporated some lawn chairs for end caps.

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Trainee

Finn and I went to the Model Train and Hobby show in Kingston, NY a few weekends ago.

It was a welcome respite from the news headlines and somewhat of a comfort to be among people of seemingly different backgrounds, peacefully coexisting—over model trains.

It was kind of a slice of Americana. Even the venue looked like it had not changed in 50 years. A faded brick building that looked like an old high school gymnasium. Along the walls inside were old wooden folding bleachers, the floors were creaky and it smelled like my elementary school.

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Early Thaw

A couple of days ago the temperature rose above sixty, which is becoming more common for winter it seems.

We made a trip to the reservoir to take a walk. We weren’t the only ones with that idea. There were more cars than I have ever seen there.

Finn saw a melted section in the ice. “Oh good!” he said. “Part of it is melted. Now Calico Jack can get out!”

He went on to explain that Calico Jack’s pirate ship had sunk to the bottom of the reservoir and now with the melted section it would be able to reemerge. How it got there from the sea is a mystery but you know those pirates are very clever and mysterious.

It was nice to get out and walk for a while without trudging through the snow. I wouldn’t say it has been a treacherous winter but we’ve had our share of the white stuff.

Erin has been reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder series to Finn and as it turns out is now reading The Long Winter.

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Reunion

After Christmas we made an overdue trip down south to visit my parents.

As it turned out, my brothers and sisters, most of whom had been there for Thanksgiving when we were unable to attend, returned for an afternoon—creating a gathering that we hadn’t seen for over 10 years.

My Dad suffered a small stroke in the Summer and he’ll be 90 this year, so having more frequent gatherings is on our minds now.

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A Snowball's Chance

I grew up in the South but moved to New York in my twenties. It occurred to me recently that I have lived in the North for much longer than I did in the South. The one thing I’ve never adapted to is the cold weather.

When the winter moves in, I want to hibernate. I have the feeling that I will never get warm no matter what I do. That is, until spring arrives.

Finn, thankfully, got another gene. On the day of our recent snow, he spent half the day literally rolling in it, eating it, sledding, and throwing snow balls with his friends. Lucky for me, they picked a spot in the yard where I could watch them from the warm comfort of the indoors. Eventually though, I felt like I was missing out so I bundled up and braved the cold.

I saw Finn rolling a ball in the snow attempting to make it bigger. This was something I always wanted to do as a kid. We didn’t get much snow in Alabama. There was only once I remember having enough snow to build a snowman or to sled in. And forget about snow gear. Our “mittens” were athletic socks covered with bread bags. My mom was always very resourceful that way.

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