Found Some Awesome Table-side

I have a passion for table-side restaurants because it just feels so special and sparkly :)  I am thrilled to have finally found a place here that offers me this kind of delight!

Cute antics catch up:

Picking Lord Nelson for himself as a historical character he'd like to be and then proclaiming me "Joan of Arc"… I commented about my thoughts on that idea and then he chose "Marie Antoinette"… not sounding much better and then his dear father piped up "Helen of Troy"… well, that's not so bad (depending on which ending you pick)!

"Mom, go to the bathroom!" x 10 repetitions.  He was upset because I wouldn't let him climb on me because I needed to pee (but wanted to hear the rest of a story Andrew was telling me).  The irony of hearing that from him after all the hundreds of times he'd done the antsy dance and refused to use the bathroom… Andrew and I got a good laugh!

When the dishwasher detergent cake had part of the center fall out, he laughed "Oh, how humorous!"

Putting a sign on his door reminding himself to wear pajamas (If he wears clothes to bed, they count as pajamas and he needs to change in the morning.  He hates changing from clothes into clothes and clearly prefers having worn pajamas just so he can avoid that trial.  He had one morning of distress because he'd fallen asleep in his clothes and didn't want to change... that was the same morning he tried to wear his pants inside out when he finally did change!  I don't fight over backwards, but inside out is too much!)  

"I like how progressive Dad is in his work." (He clarified that he meant Andrew was making progress.)

considering trying a family canoe again, "Sure, I'm not as grouchy as I was in the past."

Cameron's homework that he typed and picked out the pictures for someone he admires and his family.

I picked .Lord Nelson .because he was very good at defending  England from Napoleon.                

This is me with my mom and dad.I love my dad because he's strong and he works hard.I love my mom's snuggling and niceness.

And... off to school

I now have a third grader who has survived the first two and half days of school without major incident, yay!  I really like what I've heard so far about the efforts to keep him challenged in the classroom, so now we'll see how all the nice words play out in action.  It's been an awesome start :)

Cute antics:

• using the intonation of Animaniacs' "Hello nurse" to greet me, "Hello person!"  

• getting all profound when I told him I was feeling sad over a wilting rose given by my sister because I really wanted it to be a plant that lives a long time… he said contemplatively, "Well, people face sadnesses in life."

• accidentally giving himself a giant hicky on each arm

• when Andrew said he would "possibly" have time to play games, Cameron asked, "Can you move your possibly to something in my favor?"

• flooding the sink and then asking in a curious manner, as he cleaned the water up from the floor and cabinet, "Why did I have to flood the sink?"
(Conversations on learning are getting more and more common around here.)

• setting a new record in his spontaneous need to literally run off energy; he did 111 laps around the house.

• poking at my foot and saying, "I'm feeling the intricate-ness of your foot!"

• telling his psychologist, "If I was really playing [chess], I'd clobber you." 

• "If I saw a tsunami, I'd say 'Yaaaaaa and run like heck."

• singing to the Pirates of Penzance tune, "Take hugs, take any hug, take any hug, take mine." (…and giving me an awesome hug.  Very cool!)

• conversation:
Mom: Tell Dad what you did to make the macaroni with me
Cameron: Things!
Andrew: Things?
Cameron: Things, he said vaguely  (speaking of himself in third person)

History go fish is up to over sixty pairs and he still begs to play!

"Mommy School" Summary

As we draw to a close of the summer, we near the end of this summer's session of "Mommy School" (Cameron's term for his learning with me over the summer).  We've had a particularly positive experience and again learned more about how to work together and how to adapt learning methods so that we're both enjoying ourselves.  I think the biggest challenge was when he would want to be right so much that he'd argue about something like an algebraic fact.  He'd get so upset and insist that, for example, -2+(-3) = 1.  We did all sorts of things to help work around this block and were eventually successful, as usual, once he's learned something, he insists it's a "piece of cake".

Writing
The biggest challenge for him academically and we made tons of progress.  I offered choices at the beginning of the summer, and, we still weren't finding something that he was eager about doing.  My first big break through was suggesting he write me lego instructions for how to build something.  It worked beautifully!  He was interested and he learned about being precise and he had some enjoyment.  We found he was getting to dislike it more and more though as it just seemed too long to him, so we decreased the number of sentences and focused on writing them with particularly good handwriting.  Finally, three weeks ago, he was resisting again and we tried decreasing amount of writing to learn cursive.  Wow, he did his first run through the cursive alphabet the first week and has been writing 40 cursive words each day for the last two weeks and his writing is already better than his print!  He likes the idea of being able to write faster :)  Also, throughout the summer, he's been doing a typing program and getting faster and faster with that!  So, with cursive and typing, we're working on the physical difficulties of writing and by writing each day, he's getting better at expressing more detailed ideas.  It's still the subject he puts last each day, but he's improving!

History
We completed both the Ancient (started well before the summer) and the European History at our House classes this summer.  Considering how much writing is a challenge for him, I took dictation for the tests and review sheets, but he did really well on them (especially considering he moves so much when listening and sings to himself often so that it's hard to imagine he's listening).  We're still keeping the knowledge current through my use of History Go Fish and History Taboo.  To finish off the summer, we're listening to some of the History Through Art classes which he skipped during the first listening because he wanted to hear what happened next in the story.  We also completed a college course in mythology lent by my dad which was lots of fun!

Math
It's gone through many different implementations, but over the summer, Cameron has practiced math each weekday and learned or cemented his knowledge of: all basic arithmetic (including long division and multi-digit multiplication), fractions (including finding a common denominator), decimal word problems, exponents, square / cube roots, negative numbers, and basic algebra.   While he often doesn't remember the correct way of saying what he's doing, he understands these manipulations of numbers and seems to really zoom through these subjects.  He does have an investment in doing well and will sometimes reject something new as a threat to his view of "I'm good at math."  We work on developing that growth mentality i.e. finding something challenging is good, it's the way it should be and part of learning something new, not a threat to his current skills.  For the last three weeks of the summer, I finished up introducing new material and had him practice mixed arithmetic drills so that he could brush up on quickly getting responses to those questions.  (I was noticing that he'd occasionally get stuck for ten seconds on an arithmetic question and need to figure it out instead of having it memorized.)

A little older picture from when we first started algebraic equations… now he doesn't mind if the variable is squared or cubed and, yes, he does have pants on, but he rarely makes it through the homeschool day without taking off his shirt.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with our summer experience.  We were really flexible and listened to each other and he grew a great deal.  Reading isn't on our list because I just do that a bunch naturally as does he.   He's always been at least three or four years ahead in reading (started reading before age three due to hyperlexia) and I've found any measurement or even tracking of reading tends to rapidly turn him off.  (I fill out the occasional request from school for a reading log for him without letting him know because his motivation gets so drastically reduced if he hears about this.)  I'll definitely take advantage of this flexible approach in the future to keep us enjoying learning together!

Creation Concoctions

My kiddo likes to create concoctions of various foods and I'm all for him making his own food, as long as he eats it.  This latest was particularly questionable, but it was devoured so... add quirky tastes to all the other quirks of my delightful kid!
Voila! Bananas and raisins covered in ketchup and pimentos and olives and surrounded by cheese

Cute antics catch up:

• getting this very grand, announcer voice and making official declarations of the obvious, such as "I dub thee reader" when I'm about to read to him or "You are exiled to the shower" when I'm going to take a shower.

• while practicing cursive and catching his own mistake, "I better make my oops be a good oops!"

• giving me a good laugh when my timer went off for us to watch the Mars landing live… Cameron jumped up and opened the door to go out on the deck :)  (Um, a wee bit too far to view with the naked eye)

 • while we were rough housing and I was pretending to eat different meat from Cameron's body he told me, "You can have some bottom meat, too!"

• responding to his history teacher saying, "He [Napoleon] was the greatest land power and Britain was the greatest naval power." with, "Just like Athens and Sparta!"  (I just love this finding parallels!  When I came down in the morning, he'd created a huge, lego ship... starting his navy.)

• surprising me by coming up to me and scratching my back for the first time and then declaring "That should get me out of a few years of purgatory!"  (That's what you get if a kid learns about indulgences as "get out of purgatory free (cards)" which infuriated Martin Luther into writing his 95 theses!)

• recalling his Anne of Green Gables knowledge, he remarked on a fly's death that it was a "romantic way to die for a fly" and then told in detail how he was using the literary reference (in which a mouse drowns in sauce and Anne thinks it's a romantic way to die).

• dictating this email:
Note from Cameron to Dad
I want to fix this and I don't want you to yell and have this be a big disaster, so please tell me how I can fix it.  I didn't realize how hard the brass was on the door.
Bye, your faithful child,
Cameron
(Downstairs bathroom door swung too hard so the lock piece on the handle indented the wall.  It was really an accident waiting to happen because there was no door stop and it is a small dent too.  We'll just place a wall door stop.  We already ordered it together, so Cameron is fixing the problem by paying the few dollars.)

Fencing!

How cool that my kiddo is getting into fencing!  Tonight, he followed his Dad and watched an adult class too!  I'll append Cameron's dictated report on the experience!  Here are a couple pics and the latest cute antics too.

Cute antics:

• doing division with decimals, "Seven into zero? Zero.   Seven into dot?  Dot!"  (The problem was 7 divided by 0.021489)

• requesting extra reading time by leaving me a note on my pillow, "Extra time by Cameron"

• responding to my question about how he figures out negative number equations with, "I usually just look it up in the math dictionary and it gives me the answer."  (When I asked where that was, he pointed to his head.  He definitely thinks differently!)

• when I was explaining the word "distain" I used the example of Poobah in the Mikado and he chuckled, "The patricians had distain for the plebeians in Rome!"  (Ya, he's got the idea... he particularly liked the story of the two plaebian secessions).


Daddy Fencing
by Cameron

Dad and I walked into the Fencing place.  When we arrived, in the waiting room, there was a teacher teaching another class of Saber fencing.  It was the same teacher that I have.   Sabers have a bigger guard with a metal thing around the grip.  Saber fencing is more slashing than poking.  

We were a little early.  Eventually, Dad sat down and said, "I'll let you play a little bit." and handed me his phone.  I did a little bit of Trenches.  That's a video game meant for the phone but can be played on the iPad.  Then I played a kind of technology Cut the Rope, there are a lot more things to make the ball move to different places.  I played that until it was time for Daddy's fencing to start.

First, I'll talk about what I was doing during the lesson and then I'll talk about what Dad was doing.  First, I watched Dad standing on the other end of the wall, just looking and thinking this isn't very interesting.  When I overheard someone saying that you could hop in fencing.  Then I got up and practiced a hop in fencing.  Then I got multiple temptations to climb onto the top of the wall and lie down.  There's a wall between where the fencing action is and where the waiting room is.  It's not a very tall wall.  Eventually, I did climb and faced forward.  It made me feel a tiny bit like a tiger resting in the shade.  Then I was looking and thinking, "Oh, Dad exchanged a play with her and I was like, Woah, her hair is kind of like a man's."  It was yellow, but kind of big, pushed back with a little front and a lot at the back, everything was pushed back.  Dad taught her a few moves like an under slope which I immediately went and practiced.  You dip under and pick up the enemy blade and then immediately lunge, immediately extend and you automatically poke them and bend the sword.  Foils are supposed to bend and they must have been very handy long swords.  It is a kind of long sword.  Soon after that, I learned you should point your blade directly at your enemy instead of diagonally at your enemy's head.  Then one of the teachers told me to get off the wall and I did.  Then it started to get darker and darker and darker outside and I got boreder and boreder and boredor inside.  Dad was probably having a lot of fun.  Until 1,999,999 years passed and then Dad finally came out and said we could go and fencing was still going on.  

That was only my part and I'm not really sure how to kind of put myself in Dad's perspective.  Dad kept trying to teach his opponent a bunch of things until they switched and they started playing with other players until finally I didn't notice him anymore and started looking off and thinking about beeping little things on the opposite of the gym.  There were little cords connected to suits for fencing for a score.  Dad was the one who pulled off the little jump thing, the hop.

Overall, I thought it was pretty boring and a waste of time.  At least I got to play a little bit of video games before.  I learned some things that I might value in the future.  Fencing at home with Daddy is more fun.

Cute Antics Update

It's been awhile since I've updated with cute antics here!  So, here goes and I'll add some pictures too :)

Cute antics:

• playing history taboo, he got a wee bit excited when he figured it out and yelled, "The Decapitation of Prague!"  (That would be "defenestration", but he got it after I started laughing.)

• when promising to do his writing work as soon as we got home, "I swear upon my honor is that good enough!"

• with imaginary pistol and lots of vigor… chasing sea gulls.

• asking, "Can you read some Star Wars or are you trashed for bed?" (After we laughed and explained how trashed is usually used, he continued…) "So that got enough energy into you to do it please?"

• overhearing me say to Andrew something about a playful, teasing compliment being perhaps in a depreciating tone, Cameron called over, "If you're being sarcastic with Mom, JUST TELL HER!"

• responding to his dad's teasing about all the spicy foods we could include in dinners with a dead pan, "You're fired as a dad."  He added after the laughs,  "Not really."

• Sprinting to the stairs yelling "Frisbee for action!" and then explaining how he was going to defend me from a burglar by throwing a foam frisbee at him.

• asking "Could you write me any skip the dinner for free cards?"  (Perhaps a wee bit too much fun in iPad Monopoly?)

• looking at his bowl of soup that didn't seem to be getting smaller and commenting, "This soup is having a reincarnation problem."  (Um, no that would be he was tinkering with legos and not eating, but it was an amusing use of the word I'd just explained that morning during his myth class!)

• expertly  putting together the multiple pieces of a word problem and then declaring, "So now we have our interaction party!" (And then verbally acted out of the various steps with drama.)

• setting serial timers for himself to monitor his iPad playing

• stating "I'll collapse when I'm done." and proceeding to run 80 laps around my parents house before bed time... ya, just a little energy.

• after I'd mentioned hearing the stomping for several minutes told me he hadn't been sitting and focusing while brushing his teeth, he grinned and told me, "No, I was marching around my room and thinking about the French Revolution."  (Is it any wonder he looses focus on doing a thorough job!  He literally marches to the beat of a different drummer... challenging and delightful :) )

• "Of course every concoction needs chocolate chips!" (Responding to an incredulous look when describing his latest meal concoction of tomato soup, cream, dolhma insides, and... chocolate chips.)

• after a teasing guilt trip from my dad, Cameron responded with this elaborate compliment and then proceeded to tell us through his laughter that he wanted to keep up the "drama".

• playing clue, "I suggest Grandpa did it with his compassionate candle stick!"

• responding to the query if his philosophy of life was "eat drink and be merry" with, "No, video games, Calvin and Hobbes, and staying home."

• playful teasing, he grabbed my bra and kept meowing like a cat.  When I responded "Let go of my Bra, Azriel", he replied, "All right gargoyle!"  (Um, he hasn't watched Smurfs in awhile, so his take on "Gargamel" was a bit off.)

• getting hungry while the hippos were snoring in his Dance Mat Typing computer program, he spent all week referring to the feeling of hunger as the "hippos' curse"

• pondering after he'd thrown a pencil in frustration, "I need a better way of expressing my last straw."  (It's awesome that he can contain this kind of thing at school.  We're working on those better expressions at home where he feels more comfortable.  This was the first time I heard him pondering on his own and it was cute that he added part of an idiom :) )

• dictating a fun thank you to my parents :)

Thank you for inviting us to your house.  One of my favorite parts was being on the scooter.  I liked the speed and being able to go around the neighborhood.  Particular hills that were very steep and just places to go were great. I liked playing UNO the most with Grandpa.  I like how dramatic Grandpa is when it comes to UNO Attack, like patting the machine when it doesn't give you cards and when it does just scowling at it.  I also liked the Clue game because you're really good at it and I really had to think about it.  You said your suggestions with such intensity like the person had done a real murder and you were upset about it; that drama was particularly fun.  You might not have seen it, but I was pooped after those a hundred laps and when I got home, no, I did not do 111 laps, I only did 30.  But, I don't think I wanted to do 111 laps after how exhausted I was.  Rooney was a good dog and I like him.  I mean "Is a good dog"; it's not like he's dead already.  I like that he's nice and good to pet.  Thanks again!

Bye!

• these two history smiles:

We've had a double dose of history delights!  First, the Dawes Plan? Where America basically sent money to Germany so Germany could send it to Britain and France so Britain and France could send it back to America... well, my kiddo was listening to me read The Great Brain last night. The Great Brain rigs this plan where the allowance money is going in a circle so that he gets all his money back and doesn't have to do the chores. My kiddo declared that The Great Brain was like Germany and this was the Dawes Plan of Adenville, Utah! How's that for learning from history! Yay for History at Our house! 

Then, we did long division! Oh, what a morning of giggles! He decided to make it more interesting by describing attacks of numbers early on in the division as pyrrhic victories as he continued down the seven digit number!  Enjoy the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkcVpqsHGU4&feature=youtu.be and smiles of a kid who really loves to show off his knowledge :)

This is the video description I posted: We've been integrating all my eight year old's math knowledge by having him do everything from fractions with finding a common denominator to exponents (we just started talking in more depth about decimals throughout arithmetic, so that's a newer skill) and then, the goal was proper ordering of the results from lowest to highest (including negative numbers).  Here he chooses to make long division more exciting by turning it into a battle!

• and dictating this letter to his prior teacher / classmates in Washgington:

Dear Mrs. Kier and her scholars,

Thank you for the letters book!  I like how it was so organized and it was beautiful, even in black and white form!  To answer some of your questions, I don't have a pet yet, but I'm going to get twenty pet ants and then I'll have lots of pets.  I'm getting twenty ants for an ant farm and to watch it on the kitchen counter.  I'm living on Laurel Road in the Santa Cruz mountains in California.  No, I don't like hamsters, but I've never met one so I don't like them, but I don't necessarily hate them.  No, I don't have a lap top, but I do have an iPad that I bought from my dad!  I'm not used to having the iPad yet, I'm not used to it being mine, so I usually try to do good time with it. There are lots of games I like on there.  I'm trying to use it not too much and not too little.  My school is Vine Hill Elementary and I like it.  Now, I'm doing "Mommy School".  Mommy School is just school at home.  For math I do, decimals, parentheses, multiplication, division, exponents, fractions, percentages and negative numbers.  For writing, I'm telling my mom how to make certain things out of legos… writing down all the steps.  You remember Dance Mat at school?  I've gotten up to the Yak level in typing.  The Yak level is the first animal in level three.  I'm also listening to this guy called Rufus Fears who's really an expert at talking about myths and he's a country famous history teacher.  We watch a video for thirty minutes of him doing his thing.  I also listen to a history class on European history.  My favorite part so far is the Hapsburg sandwich.  I think it's not Hamburg because there's a city in Germany called Hamburg.  Sometimes, I run around and play on the deck which is big.  I usually pretend something, make up this game where it's basically one player and I make up the other players.  In a real game with real people it would take four people with four weapons and each person would play separately. I like Calvin and Hobbes a lot.  Sometimes, I spend over an hour reading Calvin and Hobbes on Dad's bed!  

This summer, I finished lego camp a few days ago.  It was basically practicing making a basic lego car, windmill, and golf putter through one whole week of stuff.  There was one whole part about how to program the legos to do what you want.  There were lots and lots of sensors.  There was even a lego brick that's like you're arm.  I liked the motors; that's what moved them.  Soon, I'm going to have a chess camp and fencing, somewhere in the summer at least.

Oh my, there are a lot of banana slugs around here.  A lot of weeks ago, I found a lot of slave ants running everywhere and I found one banana slug and the ants were getting stuck in the banana slug slime.  A banana slug is just basically a slug that is pale yellow and can be really short or really long in banana slug form (but long is more likely).  Putting their slime on your fingers is like putting super glue on your fingers and then trying to get it off.  It sticks really well!  You have to wash it off with a dish rag with water on it and it takes awhile!

Thank you again!

Bye!

Cameron

Climbing on a eucalyptus log at the beach

Reveling in the fact that I was nervous and he wasn't

Romantic "Extras": The Fun Work of Keeping a Romantic Relationship Vibrant

This is a topic near and dear to my heart!  I just love the sparkly moments that make your heart sing with love for your partner.  What could be more cool than focusing on how to make those moments happen?!?!  Most couples know that it's delightful to share loving "extras" with their partner.  The key conclusion of my ATLOSCon talk was, in fact, making those efforts to do something special isn't really "extra", it's part of the essential joy of a vibrant romantic relationship!  

Wanting to share loving actions with a partner isn't the challenge for most people though, it's figuring out how to make that happen effectively over the life of a relationship.  
It's fun!  
It's work!  
It's worth it!  
Happy couples know it's fun to share these moments and they also know that it doesn't just happen, it takes work to make them happen.  Finally, it's worth it.  This person is the one you have chosen to cherish.  If you want the best possible joy in the partnership, it's worth the investment in romantic "extras".  In the talk I shared three tips which I'd like to share here too.  I'm even going to be talking this Wednesday on the Philosophy in Action podcast about this cool topic!

Find Out What Makes Your Partner Feel Loved

Always Be Collecting

Schedule

Find out what makes your partner feel loved.   Of course, if you've been with a partner for awhile, you know some of the things that they like, but that's not what I'm talking about.  It takes a serious conversation to find out what really makes them feel that overwhelming, joyous I-love-you feeling.  This is different for different people.  For example, I love anticipation.  My husband will buy me a gift and give me riddle hints for a week and I just revel in that glorious anticipation of some kind of fun... what could be more grand than knowing there's an especially cool something selected for you by your love and you're getting closer and closer to enjoying it?!?!  My husband finds anticipation to be a horrible, upsetting, anxiety-producing experience.  If I want him to feel loved, I can get him a surprise, but I need to just present it.  In this context, I would not be communicating love if I did the same things that make me feel loved; I'd be torturing him!  Finding out, having the conversation, is so important to gaining that most in-sync level of joy in a loving relationship.  It may require some time and introspection for you or your partner if you haven't really thought about what feels most loving, but it is time well spent.  Also, preferences can change!  You may find flowers the sweetest gift and then attend a surprise funeral and find flowers no longer feel as loving because of the sad association.  My husband feels most loved when I save him time by buying socks or putting together dinner, but if he suddenly found himself with lots of unscheduled time, that could change.  The point is that what makes someone feel most loved must be discovered and given due attention to successfully communicate powerful caring.  

Once you've figured out what kinds of actions are perceived as loving, it's time to keep your eyes and ears open i.e. always be collecting.  The variety of particulars that your are able to share communicates attention and caring.  If you find out that your partner loves roses and then you get them a rose every couple weeks and that's it... you'll miss the vibrance and instead have anything from a pleasant routine to a chore.  Again, the variety of ways you can communicate loving shows that you're investing thought, that making your partner feel loved is of great value to you.  This is where a trusted organizational system like Getting Things Done can come in really handy, but whatever tool you use, you want to have a place where you collect ideas.  Did they express interest in a particular vacation spot, restaurant, activity, or item?  For example, my husband knew that I had loved horseback riding and set up horseback riding lessons for us to try together (over the years we've learned multiple new skills together including playing the flute, voice lessons, and ballroom dancing).  You can put a gift certificate to the clothing store they mentioned in their lunch box or have a flower they love delivered to work.  These passing comments can be golden opportunities for showing you're listening and you care.  Then, when you move on the next step, you have a treasure chest of delightful ideas that you know will make your partner feel especially cherished.  

So, now that you've figured out what makes your partner feel loved and you've gathered this wealth of ideas, it's time to schedule.   Stressors and the business of life happen and it is very easy to let weeks or months go by without doing anything "extra" for your partner.  This is the person you have chosen above all others, the person whom you cherish most.  This person belongs on your calendar.  They deserve more than a birthday and anniversary appointment if they are a top value in your life.  It's not less spontaneous if you make sure to remember and invest in your romantic relationship.  So, set yourself a reminder in your trusted system that you'd like to do something.  When that reminder comes up, delve into that treasure chest of ideas and do something special that says I-love-you.  Those actions aren't really extra; they're essential to fuel your relationship.  As for frequency, I like to do something small weekly and bigger things more rarely depending on how big is big.  The largest things we've done for each other are pre-planned trips where the partner has everything scheduled... location, driving music, activities, dinner reservations, everything!   The spouse just knows they're being sent off for a certain time period and then they follow the clues for their custom-designed vacation.  This is a picture of the ideas that the class I taught came up with:

The left has ways that people felt loved and the right shows particular ideas that they had used for making a partner feel loved.  (Again, it's important to do step one and find out what your partner feels as loving because they may hate some of these things.  I do not enjoy clothes shopping and my husband isn't into public displays; it's important to know if you want to communicate effectively.)  Again, regarding magnitude, you're obviously not going to get a new car surprise on a regular basis, but you can slip a note in the underwear drawer or a flower on the pillow much more often.  All those little moments of loving actions add up to a big message of I-love-you passionately, vibrantly, actively.  It keeps the joyous feeling as feeling sparkly with fresh edges and no complacency.

It’s worth it!   Nourishing your relationship with romantic "extras" is worth the investment.   I get a bit enthusiastic on this topic because I have so much fun with these extras!  A relationship nourished by these extras sparkles and gives you the full delight of a romance that is fueled for your enjoyment of each other.  If that is the kind of relationship you want, romantic "extras" are not really extra.  I'd love to hear more ideas of what you've done in the comments, like I said, I love this topic!

Objectivist Round Up

As we near the end, I want to send my thanks to Jenn and all the contributors to the Objectivist Round Up!  This has been a fun way to get a news digest from blogs of interest and I'm glad to have participated.  I've been saving this quote which I love for it's empowering message.  


"Man may be justly proud of his natural endowments (if they are there objectively, i.e., rationally), such as physical beauty, physical strength, a great mind, good health. But all of these are merely his material or his tools; his self-respect must be based, not on these attributes, but on what he does with them. His self-respect must be based on his actions -- on that which proceeds from him. ...

If a man says: "But I realize that my natural endowments are mediocre -- shall I then suffer, be ashamed, have an inferiority complex?" The answer is: "In the basic, crucial sphere, the sphere of morality and action, it is not your endowments that matter, but what you do with them." It is here that all men are free and equal, regardless of natural gifts. You can be, in your own modest sphere, as good morally as the genius is in his -- if you live by the same rules.

Find your goal within yourself, in whatever work you are honestly capable of performing. Never make others your prime goal. Demand nothing from others as an unearned gift and grant them nothing unearned. Live by your own rational judgments. Be independent in whatever judgments you hold or actions you undertake, and do not venture beyond your own capacity, into spheres where you'll have to become a parasite and a second-hander. You'll be surprised how decent and wonderful a human being you'll become, and how much honest, legitimate human affection and appreciation you'll get from others."


The Journals of Ayn Rand, p. 291.


This week's edition of the Objectivist Round Up:


Paul Hsieh of We Stand FIRM presents "Forbes OpEd: Is President Obama's Prostate Gland More Important Than Yours?" saying, "My latest Forbes piece discusses, "Medical freedom for me, but not for thee."

Rational Jenn presents "The Naming of Houses is a Difficult Matter . . ." saying, "I'm thrilled to announce that I've thought of a name for our new home that suits exactly!"

Darius Cooper of Practice Good Theory presents "Long term Stock-Market Returns, saying " I look at some interesting charts from Crestmont Research."

Nicholas Provenzo of The Rule of Reason presents "The Supreme Court's ‘Declaratory Act’" saying,  "In his Obamacare opinion, Chief Justice Roberts, however, "rewrote" the punitive feature of the individual health insurance mandate and called it a "tax," arguing that such a tax is not outside the bounds of Congressional power. In that single act, Chief Justice Roberts, in an act of evasion and moral cowardice, conferred upon Congress the power and authority to tax every human action and commodity."

John Drake of Try Reason! presents "Central Purpose in Life - Another Look", saying " What is a central purpose in life and do you need one?  In this post, I take another look at how a central purpose can guide and enhance your life."

Earl Parson of Creatures of Prometheus presents "Death of a Crockpot" saying, "I eulogize my trusty old Crock Pot, which has bit the dust, with a silent prayer of "Thank Capitalism" in my heart."

Thank you for your entries in this week's Objectivist Round Up.  To enter the final Objectivist Round Up, please email Jenn with your post.

History Smiles

We've had a double dose of history delights!  First, the Dawes Plan? Where America basically sent money to Germany so Germany could send it to Britain and France so Britain and France could send it back to America... well, my kiddo was listening to me read The Great Brain last night. The Great Brain rigs this plan where the allowance money is going in a circle so that he gets all his money back and doesn't have to do the chores. My kiddo declared that The Great Brain was like Germany and this was the Dawes Plan of Adenville, Utah! How's that for learning from history! Yay for History at Our house! 

Then, we did long division! Oh, what a morning of giggles! He decided to make it more interesting by describing attacks of numbers early on in the division as pyrrhic victories as he continued down the seven digit number!  Enjoy the video and smiles of a kid who really loves to show off his knowledge :)

This is the video description I posted: We've been integrating all my eight year old's math knowledge by having him do everything from fractions with finding a common denominator to exponents (we just started talking in more depth about decimals throughout arithmetic, so that's a newer skill) and then, the goal was proper ordering of the results from lowest to highest (including negative numbers).  Here he chooses to make long division more exciting by turning it into a battle!

Catching Up

I think this start to my last update says it all and... explains why I can finally return to this blog!  I'll also catch up on the cute antics :)

"Hip hip, hooray!!!  We have internet!!!  On Fathers Day, we took our parents on FaceTime tours around the house and had video chats too!  It's so glorious to have all the glories of internet at home!!!  Cameron can do the online typing programs and Kahn academy!  I can do my classes next year!  Andrew has the option to work from home!  We are so thrilled to have that huge challenge addressed :)"

It was very cool to watch the tree climber go over 100 feet up to scale one of the redwoods, but he wound up needing to put the receiver on a neighbor's property.  

Cute antics:

• when Andrew did something loud, Cameron said, "That made me feel meek and week!"  I said, "I don't believe it, there's nothing meek about you." [Pause]  Cameron reply, "I know."

• replying when I handed him his flosser, "You are very thanked for your slave acting deed." (I think that was meant to acknowledge that I'm not a slave and didn't have to help.)

• hearing him call from afar, "Where are you?  I'm in the attic!"  (?!?!?  He apparently took advantage of the ladder when the internet installer was here.)

• announcing as he walked toward us with a watering can, "I'm feeling very mischievous!" (A few comments on likely consequences convinced him to water the forest.)

• coming in after running up and down the driveway for a half hour sporting his colonial hat, foam shield, and lego pistol with the announcement "I'm changing into military clothes!"  [After rummaging upstairs for five minutes, he changed out of shorts and sweatshirt and returned to declare.]  "Matching colors!"  (He clarified that matching colors, in this case navy shirt and pants, equaled military clothing.)

• asking me to heat up his soup and then complaining,  "I can still smell the hotness!"

• suggesting Andrew kill a particular video-game-bad-guy by saying, "Why don't you pluck him from his life?"

• dinner comment, "My dessert stomach says, 'Sure!  Pile it up!"

• declaring 8:30pm "The Golden Age of the Day!" because that's when he's been playing Civilization with Andrew

• when asked if he had a best friend, he answered "No, my parents are my best friends."

• writing on a class handout, when asked how he solved the problem, "I just saw through it."

• walking out of the house for some pretend play, "I'll patrol the main bridge, see ya!"  Informing me during a pause in that play, "The armory is now the barracks, your highness." (I was appointed queen of the castle that particular day.)

... and one that I just learned about from LB in Sacramento:

"Another antic to add from Lindamood-Bell: Cameron had four different animal stickers that he used as a "rating system" for how well he liked each of his clinicians!  He put stickers on their name tags.  He only told one clinician about the system...so cute!  Lions were his favorites."

• looking at me with streaming wet hair after washing it in the sink and saying, "You look a site."

• indignantly correcting my description of a voice as raspy by saying, "That's not raspy; that's gruff!" (Does it help that he was right?)

• "I'm getting close to frustrated. [Mom comment about introspection]  I'm down to annoyed.  [Few more seconds] I'm back to calm."  (Sometimes it's really not cool that he shares his thinking and sometimes it's awesome!)

After a really rough week, succeeding at lego camp!