The Biggest Loser

Tell me about it! I wanted to post this blog with before and afta pictures of Bill from last summer and this summer- it's a major difference but he's such a beefcake now that we'd get all sorts of the wrong kind of attention on our blog. Playgirl will have to find their next calendar man elsewhere. He runs races, works out MORE than once a day, bikes to and from work 4 days a week!!!! (and Ankara has hills!) He's even doing Yoga with me...but in a very macho way.

I had a loss of my own; in the hair department. Wouldn't it be cool to have dreadlocks? To have a hairstyle that requires no primping but can still go into braids, pony tails, chopstick buns and other variations. And what about the message it sends. Hair with a message...that's what I'm talkin' 'bout. Something that says "Hello world- I don't buy into your narrow view of beauty." I want dreadlocks. I managed to get three of my disapproving and conventional friends over under false pretenses and then pleaded with them to put my hair into dreadlocks. It's a very complicated process- as you can see from the picture.

Dreadlocks take patience. One must release any concern for what others think as your hair spazes out and looks nothing like dreadlocks for weeks and smells funny from the Apple Cider Vinegar used for shampoo. I hang out with a lot of kids so there were the occaisional whispers of "why is your Mom's hair doing that?" and the more frequent and direct..."why is your hair crazy today?" I was going strong for a few weeks and then there was the Egyptian food poisoning episode (see previous blog). Writing about this is sort of like when you taste something gross, announce "This is gross" and then hand it to someone and say "Try it." We had food poisioning...it wasn't a stomach bug where one person gets it first and then when they just get over the worst of it, you get it, and then the next day the other kid gets it. We all got hit with nausea on the same night. Picture this- we're all in ONE hotel room, with ONE bathroom. At first I'm all 'ick' and dragging pukey bedsheets to the tiny bathroom sink and spot washing with laundry soap. But after getting up 5 times in the middle of the night to clean up after 3 different sickos- and feeling totally rotten myself- I just started putting the smelly blankets on to the balcony and going back to lie down. (Alright, it was really only once that I tried to clean before moving on to the balcony of leave-it-for-the-maid technique).
Anyhow, with the smells and the cleaning and the general smog and dirt of Egypt I got to the point of wanting nothing more but to take 3 showers a day and my new baby dreadies wouldn't hold up to that much washing. I just relented and combed them all out. Which is sad now. I miss my hair and want dreadlocks even more than ever.

Seeing stuff that's really quite old

Egypt was fun. What would a trip be without the inevitable moments of feeling like you were married to Chevy Chase and in the movie Vacation rather than on vacation? Apart from the 48 hours we spent with food poisoning (note: when you go on the dinner cruise on the Nile...avoid the buffet food) we had a great time seeing lots of really old things and playing in the hotel waterpark pool.

take that Bully!

home body

This year is the year I've enjoyed staying home. Not that we actually spend much time IN the house but I do try to schedule at least one day a week where I'm not driving and we just hang around here, maybe go to the park or walk to the market but no major events. A day when we're not going from here to there does a lot for our stamina through the week.
That said, we've been SOOO busy. I feel like we're constantly involved in stuff..even when we don't leave the house Billie, Jackson and Sloane even are going to their friends' and they invite their friends over here so there's more than 8 kids here at least 3 days a week- so being home certainly doesn't equate to down time. Ask me how many times I had to 'turn on the light and say "Something is not right!" in my Ms. Clavel voice yesterday as EACH of the six girls who were here took turns being Madeline in our re-enactment of the story book...and you will get a sense of how un-down-time it really is.
I've noticed I really like it. I haven't been itching to take any trips, I'm not envious of all the places our friends and those around us are traveling to this summer. I think the kids would rather meet their friends at the park in the backyard than see ancient ruins and I'm enjoying our summer of no travels. At the same time I can hardly wait for September. I am eager to get back our quiet mornings of lessons and reading while all the other kids are away at school. For now our lessons seem the only 'down time' in our day as soon as they're done we're off in the van or Jackson is on the phone to his friends- gathering up a gang for outside 'army'. If this has a thing-of-the-past air about it, it's because we'll be taking a trip to Egypt soon...I'm pretty sure.

Sooooo big!

Cort is cute

Look at all Cort's teeth. His look is really messy at a birthday party after eating cake and chips....fourth child gets chips before he turns one. Billie didn't have french fries until she was over two. When he was like 7 months old the kids would just hand him half of their balogna sandwich with mustard. Cort has been witness to more bad behavior now than Billie at age 4. Crazy how you can grow up in the same family and have such drastically different lives. Sloane and Cort (set #2) are like a whole new franchise.

And now we are six

Jackson spent his birthday being a pest. Apparently the rush of a waterslide is nothing in comparison with tormenting bikini clad women. He was giggling and hiding behind bushes all day, like a watergun ninja, squirting innocent park attendents and gleefully stirring up smokin' hot girls. I didn't feel too bad about his pesky behavior because the Turkish girls are not the kind to react with mere squealling and peevish looks. They were always up for his game and instantly swiping off their boyfriends hats: makeshift buckets to soak Jackson with.

I love it that the Turks are so friendly and playful...the whole country adores kids and their misbehaviors. It's little brother heaven. PLUS Nanna was here with us to celebrate the big day which makes everything more fun...even waking up in the morning is exciting. We got sunburns and then made cake.

family visits

It's addictive

We got the results from the standardized test Billie took a few months back- the official first grade test. I have to say that, apart from moments of sheer panic every once in a while, I get more and more addicted to homeschooling the more we do it. (Now that I can breath a sigh of relief and say that Billie is not, by a long shot, falling behind her peers in any subject.)

When you first consider homeschooling it sounds so out there because it's not what normal people do and you have this idea that homeschoolers are making a strange choice. But then we had homeschooling mecca with our groups and we got to be exposed to so many families and you could see that the older kids were kids who loved books, kids who played well with their friends, kids who weren't intimidated to speak with adults, kids who did what worked for them and not the crowd and it didn't seem at all like homeschooling was ruining their lives. Eventually it felt normal to be homeschoolers. And then we became official- it wasn't just Kiddiegarden anymore...now we were in the big time...SCHOOL age. Now we have come to the dark side
we're so enmeshed in following our interests and learning all the time...that conventional school seems so ODD. Like, who are these kids that actually sit at their desk?! Kids can do that?!
-waking up early in the morning...EVERY morning?
following a schedule?
getting homework done there's other kids outside at the park?
do your kids survive from 9-11:25am without a snack (because mine swear they would perish)?


Put Jackson who is academically ahead, refuses to sit still, CAN NOT contain himself from interrupting other kids, and resists authority with every atom of his being...put Jackson in a room with 20 other 5 and 6 year olds? That just seems like asking for trouble. Send Jackson into a group of his peers to learn manners, respect for others, proper speech patterns, math, spelling, don't do drugs, and State history? Um...Billie, yes...I can see that she might overcome the influence of others to memorize some facts; she LIKES following directions...but Jackson?!!!! I just don't see how it could possibly work.
With Billie I worry more about the opposite happening...she'd follow directions so well- those of the kids as well as the teacher, she picks up on trends instantly, she'd stop raising her hand if it wasn't 'cool'.
When I started homeschooling I thought it was something I could do for a while and just switch over to conventional school if I wanted to in the future. I think we'll still always give our kids the option of attending a school...and I'm not making commitments for high school at the moment. Lately, I've just been noticing that the further we get away from school...the gap grows wider. I didn't mean this to be preachy- just prepare yourselves for having some of those 'homeschooler' friends/cousins/grandkids for now and the future.

Earth Science

Yesterday we met up with friends and went exploring in the pond. We caught tadpoles. Sloane really got into it. Let's hope they don't go the way of the hermit crabs we used to catch at Oura-Wan.

it turns me upside down

The kids finished up their soccer season.

Billie is totally hopeless with skateboarding...as with most things that involve balance or athletic skill- that is just not her strength. Jackson is actually pretty good at skat boarding- which is scary.

Here's a day at the park.

Sloane has turned into this super-great kid and when in a group of her peers (playgroup of 2 year olds) she is actually sharing, polite, gentle, thoughtful and happy. Her responses to me still frequently begin with the words "No! Because..." but it's nice to see she has the capacity for something other than world domination outside of our home.

blame it on six

I've been busy. For a while I felt like I had my life pretty well under control- there were a few years there where I was feeling all giddy about getting to 'be grown up' having our kids and a home was fun and the livin was easy. Along came six. Not the number of people- the age SIX. Which, now that we're on to seven with Billie, I can see was just like a mood swing that lasted a year. But guess who's birthday is coming up soon? My kind, helpful son who has just happened to turn AWFUL in the last few months. Here we go again....
yikes.
Why didn't anyone tell me that six was the year from emotional hell?!!
And then we had to figure out a strategy...because our non-yelling-time-outs didn't seem to be making anything better. If only there were some kind of time out that lasted a year...that might have been useful.
I decide to go with the 'no punishment' option. Bill thinks I'm insane. We really NEEDED time outs when there were 2 and 3 very little kids around and that worked well for us for many years. But, I don't see that working forever. I think now they can start taking on the idea that you do the right thing because you respect others and because it is the right thing to do, not just to avoid punishment. So...that's what we've been working on here. That, and having family visits, attending an absurd number of bbqs and birthday parties before people leave for the summer, Bill getting moved right up to a higher position at work which involves busier days during work hours, taking Turkish lessons, keeping Cort from darting off to the bathroom when no one is looking, weekly field trips to augment homeschooling, Billie and Jackson being 'official' 2nd and 1st graders- continuing our 'lesson's through the summer, reading reading reading, pool time and playing outside. Then there's Bill who wanted to climb Mt. Ercyie with some friends and then he came up with a work-out plan and then he had the gall to actually STICK to his new plan, he's running five miles for 'fun' (??!!) and doing all this other excercise-y stuff with those fit-type people like running races and Saturday morning bike rides all over the hills of Turkey. I remain committed to a nightly snacking pattern and my yoga class is on hiatus for the summer so I am alone in my couch-potato status in the family. phew. i think that's it.
But I'm going to start blogging again, with renewed commitment- so that there's some record of all the life that's happening here at the speed of light.

Beautiful day

Atta boy!

Jackson lost his first tooth this week- not that you can see it in this picture because it's on the bottom and he was just so excited he only had one expression. His mouth wide open with pure joy! Billie was the one who pulled it out.

Today Jackson ran a race. A fun run to earn some cash for the Refugee population here. As soon as the whistle blew and the herd of kids took off- Jackson fell scraping up his elbows and knees. He bawled and we went straight to the first aid booth. Before any pain relief could be administered he bolted off the examination table and headed back into the race. The tough guy would totally ignore me (shocking..I know!) when I said he could sit down and rest...or just walk to the stations. He ran his heart out to earn stamps stopping at each station. Rewarded him with one of the most deserved ice creams ever after that race.
And yes, he did play his full soccer game right after the race. Then made me carry him from room to room around the house the rest of the afternoon. "Take me to the playroom, Mom. I can't walk and I want to set up my army." And he can read chapter books all of a sudden.

You know you're a homeschooler when...

Last night Billie spent the night camping out with her Brownie Girl Scout troop. It's her first night away from us (not with family). She is wholly excited. There's nothing shy about Billie; not with adults, not with kids, not with older kids, she's ALWAYS right in there talking and being IN it.
So, she checks off all the items on her campout list and packs her own bed roll. They sing songs and tell stories around the campfire, cook hot dogs and smores. They tell spooky stories with a flashlight after dark. They all fall asleep (I heard her tent went to bed 'early' around 11:30pm). They make breakfast and do crafts in the morning.
When we pick her up we ask her what her favorite part was.
"Um...my favorite part was when they told us the RULES!!!!"
???!
You know you're a homeschooler when she loves to hear a list of rules. I'm always like "oh, you can do it your own way. It's fine if you make your letters backwards. Art can be anything you want it to be...and so can math." Her favorite bit is the rules. good grief!

stroll down memory mountain

We spent the weekend in Cappadocia. All the folks here working at the Embassy (Turks and Americans) paid for small trees, then a few of us when to plant them (mostly Bill). Sloane and Cort could hardly carry the darn plants up the hillside so we put them to work as being a symbol of goodwill, cuteness and all that is right in the world. The hotel where the group was staying was booked...so we called ahead to reserve a room at some other place. When the bus pulled up it was a hotel Bill and I had been to before...on our honeymoon trip!!! We didn't actually sleep there because upon arrival we found tics in the bed and noticed more on the ceiling where they kept dropping from...so they kindly gave us our money back and we checked out soon after checking in. This time there were no tics anywhere and we were so giddy at finding this old spot that all was forgiven in an instant. We walked around the town- this time with 4 kids; repeatedly reminding everyone to stay on the sidewalk, which is hard to distinguish from the road, and enduring pleas for constant snacks.

We passed the 'old version of us' on the road all the time...backpacking hippie couples who haven't thought of the future beyond 2 months ahead. It was fun to see them and think of us, to visit our old favorite Kose Pension and find it still owned by the same kind-hearted people. We walked through our old campground where the puppies would come to visit every morning. Here we are- breastfeeding and homeschooling and knitting and being all professional-like (that's the Bill part) almost 10 years later.