I did it! I did it!

I did it! What did I do? I finished The Odyssey! I'm not sure I've been more proud of myself for reading as much as this. I'll get to that in a minute but first I have to take a moment to thank the little guy in this sucess story - narration!

Narration! I love narration. My (school aged) kids have to narrate all their (school) books for every single reading. I'm just that mean of a mom ;-) But that doesn't mean I'm always quick to use it myself. Because it's kinda hard and I'm kinda lazy. True story.

However, I do believe in it's "power" so when I was really overwhelmed at the beginning of this book and  I was starting to just skim it and lose track of what story within a story I was at. So I stopped and got a notebook and started writting down my narrations. I had to stop a lot but suddenly I understood so much more! It was clicking and it was fun. Then my joint pain started up again so I switched a voice memo app I have on my phone for Lucy's narrations. That worked too. Funny thing though. When I stopped using the app and just tried to narrate to myself outloud, it didn't work. My brain knew I could fudge it too easily. So back to the memo app I went. Because it is work but fruitful work and reading something but not really understanding it feels like such a waste of time. I'd rather spend more time but get something out of it!

Lucy even "caught" me once and asked what I was doing. It was neat to share that I was choosing to do narrations because it was helping me understand. She asked who was listening to them and laughed when I said "No one! I delete them when I'm done reading for the day."  She kinda rolled her eyes a bit at her weird mom but secretly I thinks she liked that I'm willing to do the same thing I assign.

And slowly but surely, I made it through, I actually did stop narrating towards the end but not because I was lazy, but because I got into the story and I was excited to read it. Which is huge. Back when I started learning more about Charlotte Mason and Classical education, I stumbled upon this idea of Ordo Amoris or rightly ordered affections, loving what is lovely and true and how loving what should be loved is really what virtue is all about. That was pretty deep and while it stood out to me back then, it's also been a concept I've come back to again and again to think about what it really means for me as a parent/teacher and as a person.

But even that initial introduction to this idea caused me to change how I viewed my opinion of certain subjects. Poetry being one of them. I had all these reasons why Poetry was not for me. I'm analytical, I like things black and white. I want to know I have the right answers and its not always clear what a poem is about or trying to say and I don't like being confused. I don't like flowery writing. Excuses, lots of them. But I stopped looking at poetry as the thing that was wrong but rather that it was a flaw in me that caused me to dislike poetry. A failing even.  Don't worry, I didn't get out the cat o'nine tails and start whipping myself but it WAS a big shift in my view. (Good) Poetry is good. I don't like poetry. Therefore, I am wrong. And I set out, to change myself. To re-order my affections.

I started really small. I knew I didn't actually hate all poetry. I liked A.A. Milne. So I started there and we read lots of that. Luckily this was around the time Lucy started AO Year 1 so I've gotten to go through her poetry schedule for 4 years with her. That certainly helped. And then I just kept picking up more and more, trying to get more challenging as I went. Some I loved (Beowulf!) and some I stumbled through (Dante's Inferno).

 And because I am a type A person, I did have an end goal. And you might be guessing it right about now - The Odyssey! Which is what makes this upcoming point so special to me. I've wanted to reach the end of the Odyssey for 4-5 years now! And it's not that now that I've read it that I have arrived, no, scary books have this tendancy to not feel very scary or intimidating once you've read them. The books I haven't read always seems much more important than the ones I have in terms of literary achievement. So I've got a lot more poems to read. But it does mean that I can no longer call myself someone who doesn't like poetry.

It also means, this thing, it works. Just like I believed in narration but as still so surprised what I use it and get such good results. Similarly, I have believed in the idea of ordering of affections and cultivating tastes enough to have structured our homeschool lives around those concepts for going on 5 years now and have no plans to change that in the future.

And yet, its huge relief to see that it's worked in my own life. I've taught myself to love what is good and true and beautiful about poetry. Actually, poetry has taught me to love what is true and good and beautiful in it. I've just gotten out of the way (and put in some time). Which seems so simple and yet, it's so huge! Life confirming huge! It's confirmation of what I've been doing all this time!  If it has worked for me, how much more so for my little people with their slightly more flexible minds. Homeschooling is not about seeing fruit quickly. But it is really nice to see some blossoms popping.

Colorado Road Trip: Part 1 - And we're off!

We just got back from our Epic Colorado Roadtrip 2019! We had such a good time. And the month before this road trip was really rough which made the break feel very necessary. But I'll skip the rough parts of June and go straight to fun pictures.

Part of our Road Trip philosophy is to stop and see the roses sites. Yes, sometimes we do just drive overnight to make some progress but this trip, while about 16 hours each direction, was not rushed so we made a couple fun stops each day. Some where pre-planned but a few, like our first stop at the Brown vs Board of Education National Historic Site, were impromptu. It was right off the highway when we all needed a bathroom break so we just took the exit but I'm so glad we did because it turned out to be a really great stop. It's not always easy to find information about smaller sites and how kid friendly they are but we did pretty well this trip.

Brown vs Board of Education National Historic Site (MacKenzie - 4.5 Stars, Craig - 5 Stars)

It went totally over Norah's head but Jonah and especially Lucy were at a good age for discussion. I was impressed by the displays and got a bit emotional. Education and children are passions of mine but what struck me the most was how recent it all was. It's one of those concepts that I think just takes time to sink it. A couple decades seems like forever to a ten year old but much less to me now that I'm in my 30s. All in all, a good place to spend 30-60 minutes.

The kids stopped me at this image to say it looked like they were doing Swedish Drill. We've just started adding that Charlotte Mason subject in ourselves so they thought it was neat that they aren't the only ones :-) 

And these aren't the best pictures but I loved seeing a Kindergarten that I could be jealous of - you know, from back in the days when Kindergarten was fun! A piano with folk songs, bins of wooden blocks, a few slates and a play kitchen. 

Eisenhower Presidential Museum (MacKenzie - 3 stars, Craig - 3.5 with the caveat that it probably would be higher for both of us if we could have see the museum)

This is only a couple hours from my parent's old Leavenworth, Kansas house and Craig, being who he is, had wanted to go so badly when we visted them but it wasn't ever a good time. But we finally made it! The actual musem part was closed for renovations but we did the shortened exhibits they had moved into the library and toured his childhood home.

This isn't the best picture as they're just sitting waiting for our tour but it's a great example of a Norah face. She makes these faces all the time. I'll get 3 kids smiling nicely but Norah's just got this weird smirky thing going on. 

My main impression upon leaving was that I may have had some differences of opinion with his mother, but she did apparently know how to raise boys. In general, I just love visiting historic homes, especially ones from not too long ago but before Americans started getting crazy with house sizes and "needs." It makes me feel much more reasonable about our family and house size. This is their living room. None of the (7!) boys were allowed to sit on the furniture, but I guess there must have been enough floor space for them.

If we head this way again, which I'm sure we will sometime, we'll probably want to stop again and see the full museum. 

Also, it was ridiculously hot that day. High 90s or even into the 100s. We couldn't get a picture with all the kids because at different times, we had some who refused to leave the shade. I don't blame them. Another fun family moment I want to remember. Norah was getting fussy so I took Jude out of the Kinderpack on my back and handed him to Craig and put her in there. She's heavy but I can handle it for short periods. A few minutes later, I panicked because I couldn't find her! Luckily Lucy was around to remind me that she was literally attached to me at that very second. Crisis averted!

We ended that day grabbing pizza and catching up with some friends. Time for parents to talk, kids to run, play with bubbles, and pet some horses meant we could pile back into the car around bedtime and get just a but further before having to stop for the night. 

We actually find that to be helpful in stretching a day's progress. We don't do a ton of table/movie time in the car but even if we think we've hit our max distance, a nice long dinner break with a movie afterwards can often get us further so we could get up and going for Day Two where we saw....

Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site (MacKenzie - 4 stars, Craig - 4 stars)

Stopping here made me excited about starting Tree in the Trail again with Jonah next year. It was a privately-owned trading fort on the Santa Fe Trail. 

Craig had the map but it was neat to take a guess in each room as to what purpose it had or who stayed there. I was impressed by how "fancy" several of them were. 

It was mostly a self-guided tour but both interpreters we talked to were quite good. The first showed us some signs that the three different groups (plains Indians, trappers and Mexicans) used to communicate and trade. The second let the kids practice their buffalo skin-compressing skills. 

Norah's fascinated by the ant she saw by the bathrooms. So glad we travel long distances for these rare education experiences :-)

All in all, another fun spot. 

We actually had different plans for the second day but we made really good progress on day one and at that point, we were so close to the cabin, we could just taste it so on we went!

And the last hour's drive took us through the San Juan National Forest so I threw on a few kid podcasts and we enjoyed the scenery. Pagosa Springs (and Part 2 of our adventures) awaits!