!?!?

Last night our wonderful vet called to see how Guinea was doing and to let us know that she'd be out of the office for a week. I told her Guinea's back end still seemed to be bugging her. The vet thought a ruptured cyst should have cleared up by now. Would I consider bringing G in for x-rays with sedation in the morning? I hemmed and hawed.... I didn't want to be a worrier, G might just need time, and oh my the vet bills were already high! I knew the importance of doing sedation while G is healthy, though; piggies don't do well in general with sedation, and a sick piggy going into anesthesia is not likely to come out. Then this morning G looked a bit wide to me... Which was the start of the downhill last time. That was that. I packed her up with veggies and hay and dropped her off at the vet. Super-awesome tech guy was there, which made me feel better.

 

Meanwhile we mowed the lawn, played around in the shade of the carport, read a chapter of Little House on the Prairie, ate lunch, found a wasp in the bathroom (?!) and caught it in a jar to release outside, and prayed that the vet would find the source of Guinea's pain. During quiet time I swept, dusted, folded laundry, decluttered, and washed every last dish that had piled up while our sink/dishwasher was out of commission. My house always looks better when I worried, especially if the someone I'm worried about is not home.

 

I took E to gymnastics and finally got a call from the vet's office. Guinea is awake. Come and get her. Thankfully C was home by then, so I dropped e (who was hungry but I'd forgotten snacks!) and zipped off to get Guinea. I was glad the rush-hour traffic was going the other way.

 

After only a short wait G was brought to me, munching her hay but PUFFED. Even her cheeks and chin were ruffled up, and her eyes had been gooped. I opened her cage and she leaned against me, shivering a little from the sedation.

 

The vet brought in the x-rays. They had first done belly views, which showed a big bubble of air in her tummy (stress) and lots of food in her intestines (good). No ovaries were visible (good). But look at her left leg. Near the knee there is a white line! They then took more angles of her leg to be sure. Yep, fracture. The vet was as amazed as I. What in the world?!? Not that it doesn't happen, but that was not at all what we expected to find!

 

Which then begs the question: HOW did she break her leg?! When? Where? She jumped off the couch a year ago. Too long ago. She caught her leg a few times when hopping out of her kitchen box. Maybe.

 

There was a day a few weeks back when C was the first one up in the morning. As he prepared a smoothie (G's all-time favorite ever food) suddenly Guinea appeared at his feet. He hadn't heard her squeak because of the mighty vitamix, and..... Hadn't even opened her door! But here she sat. She had driven her box house up to the door, climbed on, and leaped towards the super yummy breakfast-making person. She didn't appear hurt, so we laughed and made sure she couldn't do that again.

 

That's most likely when it happened. Crazy pig! Now she's sleeping off the pain medication.

Pemmican and the Pompous Prince

 

 

Today many of my friends posted first-day-of-school pictures. Smiling kids, kids eating breakfast, kids getting onto busses. Mine weren't smiling or getting on busses. They were grumpy and eating as if I hadn't fed them in weeks. One was telling me he didn't want to go to the store, that he WAS SO old enough to stay home alone all morning. Somehow I managed to get them away from the table long enough to get in the car.

See, last night I broke our garbage disposal. Broke. As in a hole in the side. I think it was as old as me...but still. C worked late trying to fit pipes and drains and tubes into place to eliminate the space the disposal once took up, but it was a mess. It is a very good thing we live minutes from Home Depot! But in the end it didn't fit together, so the kids and I had a list of parts to search for at Lowe's, and E was not happy about it.

 

In the end, the children both had a blast, looking at all the plumbing pipes and curves and even a squish-able J bend. They especially loved the vinyl tubing, so we came home with a bit extra. We even made it to the library after and arrived home still in good spirits!

 

We made pemmican for E's main lesson. At first we pounded the jerky and dried fruit with a meat pounder. E was shocked that even with the metal pointy parts, the jerky and fruit remained unchanged. How did the Native Americans do it? Not with a food processor, which is what we eventually did. :)

 

e and I started her main lesson with a story of the pompous prince about to be sent on a journey with the wise woman. The above pictures are hers, not copied from mine, as I had left main lesson books at home by accident (oops) when we rushed off to gym.

 

e moved up to developmental level in gymnastics. She totally rocked it!

 

People of the Woodlands

The botanical gardens here have an area that has been set apart to remain largely as it was prior to colonial times. There are many species of plants here that are now nearly extinct even. I thought it would be fun for E to experience this area prior to learning about the Native Americans who lived in this area. He thought so, too, until we got there. The bugs! Bugs everywhere. He wondered how native peoples dealt with bugs.

The kids spotted this little guy, and another that jumped away! Later we spotted a much larger but unfortunately squished frog on a bench, which led to teaching E 'great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts....' Which of course he immediately memorized and sang over and over.

 

After playing in the sand pile and visiting the butterfly house, e got her wish of a ride on the tram. Those are just a few of her treasures. The rest had already been tucked into my bag. I must remember to bring her treasure bag next time!

 

It's Going to be a Great Year!

Crunch time! In past years I have planned things out waaaay ahead of time. This year I did not... I only have September in detail and sketched out through December.

I always plan way more than E ever cares to learn. For instance, in third grade there are at least six regions of Native Americans to cover: People of Ice and Snow, People of the Rice, People of the Plains, People of the Desert, People of the Woodlands, People of the Swamp... You get the idea. Last year we ended up learning about only the People of Ice and Snow. It was relevant to his here and now. It made sense to him. He could feel the bitter cold, stand on the packed tundra snow, taste the fireweed, and see the moose. He wanted to know how people survived there without electricity or modern buildings, and how to weave willow or make birchbark baskets.

 

Likewise with Old Testament Stories. We made it only to the Flood. There is so much more to learn, with lessons I think he can grasp better this year than last. He is now fully the age Steiner intended a third grader to be, even though by common standards he fits well within the age range of a fourth grader, and I believe that he will be more drawn to these stories as a 9-year-old then he was at 8.

 

Thus for E I plan to offer Native American stories and crafts from as many regions as I can this month, building some of the shelters and preparing some of the foods. We will start with People of the Woodlands, because that is our new here and now. I hope to take him to Jamestown soon, where he only vaguely remembers seeing the dwellings and food years ago. We might spend the whole month on this one region, and that would be okay. Whatever I don't get to learn with E, perhaps e will want to do. Her education already looks so different from his, just by nature of where we live and what speaks to her.

 

Building will be next for E. We have a spinning wheel to sand, watercolor, beeswax, and put together! My incredible friend Sara gave him the pieces for his birthday last March. We are all so excited to be spinning our own yarn! I need to get a drop spindle also. I foresee plenty of fiber arts this winter!

 

After building will come Old Testament. I am so excited to read about Abraham and Joseph and Moses with E. His perspective is so different from my own. Plus so many winter festivals! We want to do a spiral this year in the yard for Advent, and e is old enough for St. Lucia. St. Nicholas is always wonderful and then of course Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Before all that, though, there's Michaelmas and Martinmas, perhaps my favorite of them all.

 

For e we have a quick journey through the alphabet, this time with more fairy tales, and by October she gets to meet the math somethings! I have not decided exactly what yet. E had math ravens, as we were surrounded by those amazing birds in Alaska, and their creative trickster nature spoke to him. Erin might have squirrels. She loves squirrels and we have quite a lot of them here for sure.

 

E does do Teaching Textbooks for math. He is partway through Math3. The children will both continue on piano (with dad as teacher for now). e will learn recorder with me, and we will sing and sing like always. In January I anticipate moving onto fourth grade subjects- Norse Myths and Water, Wind, and Fire. Beaufort's Scale will hopefully make its appearance. And of course there will be gymnastics. Always, always gymnastics. e has officially advanced to Developmental, which means 3 hours a week. She is nervous and worried but so happy. E starts his first ever competitive season as a Level 5 gymnast, training 16 hours a week. Whew! I'm tired already and we haven't even begun!

 

Some Pig

We finally got some answers for our sweet piggy. But let me start from the beginning, now that we've figured out where the beginning might be.

A month or more ago, Guinea got very territorial. She puffed up and tiptoed and rumbled. She strutted around in a show of piggy dominance. I worried she had a hormonal imbalance, and we joked about her being a guard pig. After a week-ish, maybe more, she mostly went back to her usual ways. We figured it was stress. We'd just had the house re-roofed, we'd had repairmen and friends over, and we had recently driven over 5,000 miles.

 

Then C started making comments about Guinea getting fat. Last Friday I saw red urine and chalked it up to eating red peppers. On Saturday it was too red to be food pigment, so I took her to the animal ER. Dr x-rayed and said probably bladder stones. Antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs prescribed.

 

Wednesday she quit eating. Her poops got hard and tiny and she got wider and wider. She hunched and got very snippy. By bedtime she was looking pretty bad. She and I headed back to the pet ER. Around midnight we finally saw a vet. She didn't know a whole lot about guinea pigs but her tech did! Turns out she is a tech for a local museum's exotics! She gave Guinea some fluids under the skin and critical care formula, and me the number of the awesome exotics vet at the museum (who also has her own practice). Guinea perked up with the fluids and besides being royally annoyed at us for the force-feedings, overall appeared to be improving.

 

Yesterday e and I took Guinea to see this wonderful exotics vet. Her tech (not the same one) is awesome as well. He joked with e and found the perfect scratch spot between Guinea's eyes to quiet her so the vet could hear her heartbeat. In the end Guinea had a shaved belly and an ultrasound had confirmed that she did not have bladder stones.

 

So... What was it? A ruptured ovarian cyst. Her show of dominance was because she was in pain, because if prey animals act sick they get eaten. Also why she was looking wider. Then it ruptured, allowing the fluid into her abdominal cavity, causing inflammation, and she got wider still, plus the blood. Most Guinea pigs don't survive that.

 

The treatment is to let her get better, then next time she shows signs of pain take her in right away. If indeed she has a cyst, the vet puts her under and spays her. Problem is, most guinea pigs don't survive that, either.

 

So....bottom line is our time with Guinea may be very limited. We feel so bad that she was in pain and we didn't know. We hope she will stay with us for a long time yet. And we pray she will not develop another cyst!! She really is 'some pig'.

 

Science

I love Waldorf. The way subject matter presented at each grade reflects the underlying development of the child, the way it brings balance and beauty and fills a child's cup. And just like many of the unconventional choices C and I make for our children, this one was met with great skepticism.

 

E didn't help our case in the first few years. He did not decide to read until second grade and when quizzed by well-meaning people, almost never seemed to understand what he was being asked. Over time and with required exams, he proved that he is indeed doing very well in reading and math. But science? You see, we have a science teacher in the family. An incredibly wonderful high school science teacher.

 

Which does not fit with the fact that we have spent the past three years in fantasy and nature. We devoured classics like fairy tales, native tales, Paddington, Poppy, and Pippi Longstocking. We memorized poems about nature. We didn't check-out a single non-fiction library book for the entire three years we were in Alaska. Crazy, no? First through third grade. Nothing. We did visit the museum in town to learn about Native Alaskans and local animals. We attended a powwow. We tried out dog mushing and gold panning. We observed. Observed, observed, and observed. We noticed the birch bark and the moose poop, watched fox run through our backyard, examined the dead vole we found near the bike path. Pressed fireweed and primroses, dug in the rocky soil, noted the changing of light with the seasons. Ice fog, northern lights, packed tundra snow. In third grade E kept a weather journal and learned the basic cloud types. He could fairly accurately estimate temperature outside. We blew bubbles and tossed boiling water at -56 degrees F to see what would happen.

 

Beyond those cloud types, there were no scientific terms. No magnifying glass, no microscope, no teacher-directed experiments. Of course there were questions, some of which I answered and others we looked up. Some I even told them they'd learn later, or asked them what they thought the answer might be. Mostly, though, we observed. Just. Observed.

 

I think that made the science teacher of the family nervous. He strove to fill in the gaps, to teach E about atoms and everything else a first/second/ third grader should know. E took in what he could, but atoms are hard to grasp. Kids can memorize the facts and draw the models, but the information will not live in them until they are in high school and capable of such abstract thought. I look forward to when my children are old enough to truly take advantage of what this person has to offer. He has so many tricks, experiments, and demos up his sleeve. It is going to be awesome when our children are old enough to fully partake.

 

For now, though, facts presented purely as facts make them nervous. They realize what it is like for information to truly live inside them, and when it doesn't, they ask question after frantic question, barely waiting for the answer before they utter the next question, not stopping to ponder but hoping that something said will fit into their heads and make sense of it all.

 

Science this semester for E is the Beaufort Scale. Wind, wind, and more wind... Virginia will provide where Alaska did not. We have wind here in abundance! We also have insects and spiders and and flowers and chipmunks and squirrels and rabbits and something that tunnels under our grass. Not to mention all the pretty little birds who visit us. e and I are going to make a knitted sky blanket this year. Observe, observe, observe. Wonder at God's creations. Next semester for E is man and animal. He is going to make some absolutely amazing drawings after all these years of careful observation.

 

Indeed, free observation is a vital skill that is too often stamped out in school programs. Children are taught to notice only what the teacher or text deems important. Yet how much better for children to feel secure in their own ability to observe, be it science, literature, social studies, friendships, families, math, art, music, movement... observation is necessary in every single aspect of life.

 

Here are some of our favorite bits of nature we've observed lately:

Why are the top pollen bits yellow, but lower down white?

A flower inside a flower?!

Extra-thick spider silk, teeny-tiny spider.

A huge spider has taken up residence outside E's room. Her web is larger than the window! She puts on quite a show at meal times.

She measures over one inch in body length.

e's nature shelf inside the screened porch during a downpour!

Rain on the green grass, rain on the tree.

Rain on the rooftops, but not on me!

 

Crafting Kids

 

The kids woke up this morning with a crafting bug. Before I had even made breakfast, they were sewing away! E used part of a baby sock to make a coin pouch with a drawstring closure to store his euros from Nana and Papa. e made a black bag filled with white chocolate (felt). Our house is full of treat bags from e. :)

 

Then we found that not only did we have azalea caterpillars, carrot green caterpillars, and parsley caterpillars, but now also radish green caterpillars. Fun to watch, but they ate e's entire crop! How can we prevent this next summer?

 

Today is a clean-the-house day, and a do-we-risk-it day at the gym. They are cleaning out the foam pit (think 5 yrs of chalk and foam dust!) this morning. I'm not so sure it will be settled by noon, and E is already coughing from who knows what. But I did finally get his fall training schedule. It isn't as bad as I thought- only 3 week nights plus Saturday afternoon. We will still have 4 nights a week of family dinners, yay!