Dominion Family

Last night I took some time to read through my entire blogroll. I wish I could do that more often but I just can’t. There are 2 new blogs on my block that I would like to introduce.

Jeannine:
Jeannine has been a frequent commenter here at this blog and she always has a great book to recommend. She and I also have a few things in common in our homeschool pilgrimage. She already deserves her place in the Living Books category; just check out her library pictures.

Janet:
Janet is Miz Booshay’s sister. I have never met nicer, more encouraging girls. They also both have unusually beautiful children. I am looking forward to getting to know Janet even better now. Janet gets to start out right away in the Classics column because she is one of the nicest commenters in the blog world which makes her a classic in my book.

Today I want to read through some of the blogs nominated for awards over at Two Talent Living.

I am a finalist in the homeschool category which is a great honor. Thank-you very much to anyone who nominated me. I know Ann gets a big hug for at least one nomination and Carmon kindly nominated me. Since I am always late to the party I didn’t nominate anyone but Buried Treasure Books should be at the top of any list.

I began learning about homeschooling 4 years before I had children and I still love it. I guess that is why I am a finalist in that category, but, hey, doesn’t anyone want to meet me for mocha? :doh_tb:

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Our holiday schedule is going well. I am so glad I decided to loosen up and enjoy the season. I have dropped off the memory work during our morning meetings so we can concentrate on singing and reading.

We have been meeting for prayer and discussion, followed by listening to Handel’s Messiah and going over the notes and verses. I have been sharing with the children a few things from my own Bible reading in I Peter and the older boys and I had a lively discussion on DHM’s post on the Ludwig case, which I hope to share in another post.

For reading aloud we are finishing up 2 books, The Wind in the Willows and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Andrew (7) & Alex (4) are the only ones who haven’t already read the Narnia books but I wanted the story, as written, fresh in our minds before we saw the movie. I am way, way distrustful of movies.

So many people love the movie To Kill a Mockingbird and as a stand-alone movie it would be alright but it doesn’t come close to conveying the rich environment or language of the book. I am not sure the story line of Narnia can stand apart from the written words successfully. I suspect it will be a great movie but not a great movie of the book.

Tim is not at home in the evenings now but he asked us to go ahead with evening devotions so we are doing advent verses in the evenings and the boys are taking turns leading.

( Music itunes suggestions: Holy is His Name by John Michael Talbot, one of my personal favorite Christmas songs otherwise known as the Magnificat or Mary’s Song)

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Some of the conversations we have had this week have my mind brewing. I started thinking yesterday about a few warning signs that parents could look for in their children. I guess my mind continued to think of it overnight. I don’t want to continue to bring up the Ludwig case here; I know it can be a depressing topic. So as I move on I want to linger one more minute over a few warning signs and a few positive things to look for in your home. This will probably get rambly with some over-simplification. Sorry.

Many times what you see in these cases whether homeschool or public school or whatever, is a child who is not socially mature. This gets a little tricky to explain. I think it may have something to do with the developing of friendships over the computer. It becomes very easy to manipulate who you are on the internet. Two(one at home) of our boys have blogs. None of our children have IM. Only 2 of the boys at home have email and they do not spend hours a day on it. We had IM for about a week before it drove my dh and I crazy. Everytime we got on the computer the thing popped up. I was constantly telling teenagers I was not Nicholas or James. The conversations on IM were either naturally inflammatory or completely inane using only 1 alphabet letter at a time. Big negative time waster!

A warning sign that all is not right would be a child who distances himself from the family. He spends too much time alone or on the computer. Admittedly we don’t have any geeks around here and our math and science skills are lower than our verbal abilities, almost across the board, but just because a child is geeky doesn’t mean he should be allowed to be on the computer all the time.

Computer games are addicting, even silly games like Tetris, Solitaire or Suduko, not to mention the more violent or involved games. A computer game is for a loner not a social member of the family. It produces loners and it encourages it. I don’t think it is wise to let a child have a internet connected computer in his room even if it has lots of protection software. Keep the computers public.

It always makes me smile when someone who is reading quietly in their room brings their book out to the join the family. A family should be a social place. Your children should be drawn to the main family rooms not away to their own hideouts. A quick “are we a healthy family?” check would be to look around this evening and note where everyone is.

Now about youth groups and group socializing. It is good for a child to have a few friends. It is better if those friends are his siblings. Sometimes this area is difficult because we can hurt our children if we never let them experience any outside friendships.

When our oldest was growing up we shunned peer groups. It was hard for him to make or find friends. He always seemed to make friends with the older guys in our church or the married guys. He didn’t have much in common with kids-his-own-age. He really longed for a friend. In the end, he became very good friends with his brother. At one point for about 3 years, we were in a church with a youth group. There was nothing uplifting about what went on there even though it had more spiritual depth than most youth groups. It was full of petty jealousies, infighting and cliques. The adults attached to it took sides with the kids like overgrown teens.

Now we don’t do youth groups but we do let our teens meet and visist friends every once in a while. This week James and Nathaniel went to a homeschool league basketball game then went out to eat after the game. They paid for their own gas and food. One key to letting kids develop these sorts of friendships is to always make sure the activity is something an adult would be welcome to participate in. Sometimes I ask if I can go and the boys always say, “sure.” Sometimes I do go along like when they went to see Walk the Line. It is important to keep a balance and it is important they learn to include those kids who often get left out. I am not sure what I think about girls in this situation. I would be much more inclined to keep Emily at home since she doesn’t have a sister close to her age to team up with unless I was also going.

Our children are very social. We have changed the social structure of more than one church. They are social at home and they are social at church. They are have widespread friendships. When James plans football games for after church on Sundays he doesn’t just call kids-his-own-age but adults and single men. I think the main thing that has produced this sociability is not having a TV. Our family has always had to create our own entertainment, although admittedly we are watching more movies these days because of DVD.

I have not meant to imply that we are some sort of great family. I have just meant to point out some posititive things I have noticed. Many people think all peer relationships are bad. We are not among those people but we do think that there are signs of healthy relationships and signs of negative socialization. We have seen plenty of negative socialization in our family some of it when we shunned outside friendships. As always balance is the key.

(Now I am off to a library sale: a million books, 25 cent each. Thanks for the heads-up, Laura)

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Saturday turned out to be a very nice day. After writing my blog post I got ready for the library sale. My dh and 2 children went along. We bought 2 boxes of books and I will end this post with the LIST. It has been a long time since I have found any really good children’s books at a library sale and this sale was no exception. I am pretty happy with a few of the books I did find but there wasn’t a Landmark to be found, no Obadiah’s or Church Mice, either.

I did get to meet a blog reader and that was fun. I thought Laura would be blond but she is a perky brunette. I could have talked to her all day but my husband and children were ready to leave. On the way out we stopped in the regular library bookstore and spent just as much as we did at the 25 cent sale.

On the way home we decided to try and hit a matinee of Pride and Prejudice. Emily, Tim and I headed to the theater. My first thoughts about the movie were entirely positive. It was a beautiful movie. I did think the ending was embarrassing. What a very low opinion of us the Brits must have. Upon reflection, I think Kiera Knightly was too-too as Lizzie in the second half. On the other hand, I couldn’t think of another young actress for the role either. All my choices were too old. I think they could have played up her relationship with her father better. My dh, I am sorry to admit, has never read nor seen any P&P. He did not catch the significance of Lizzie’s love for her dad.

We got home in time for Tim and the boys to head over to our pastor’s house to watch GA clinch the SEC #1 spot.

Joy, Joy, Joy

I spent the earlier part of the day explaining to Tim the futility of getting upset over something that was out of his control and then GA goes and wins. It was the first game that made him happy all year. He is a tough cookie. If GA loses he gets upset and if they win he complains about how bad they played.

Emily and Alex and I had a quiet evening at home eating cheese and crackers and drinking hazelnet coffee.

And now for my list:

Hardcover:

Rabble in Arms, Kenneth Roberts
Journey into Summer, Edwin Way Teale
Shakespeare’s England, A Horizon Caravel book
The South and the Southerner, Ralph McGill
The March of Folly, Barbara W Tuchman
Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
The Southern Tradition At Bay, Richard M Weaver foreward by Donald Davidson
Quick Kick, A Bronc Burnett Story, Wilfred McCormick
The Battle of Britain, Richard Hough
Henry Goes West, Robert Quackenbush
A Pocketful of Crickets, Rebecca Caudill
A Child’s Book of Dogs, Luis M Henderson
Why I Cough, Sneeze, Shiver, Hiccup and Yawn, Melvin Berger
The Literature of England, An Anthology and a History, Vol 1 & 2 Scott Foresman 1936, 1941
Cherry Ames, Boarding School Nurse, Helen Wells
Cherry Ames, Staff Nurse, Helen Wells
St Thomas’s Eve, Jean Plaidy
The Congress, Gerald W Johnson
Vanessa, Hugh Walpole
The Little Fox, Edith Brecht
Elephants Can Remember, Agatha Christie
The Snare of the Hunter, Helen MacInnes
Agent in Place, Helen MacInnes
Beowulf and Sir Gawain, The Ronald Press
All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren ( a play)
The Story of General Custer, Signature Biography, Margaret Leighton
Seigfried, Dog of the Alps, Syd Hoff
Henry-Fisherman, Marcia Brown
The Roman Way, Edith Hamilton
A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman
The Beggar Queen, Lloyd Alexander
The World of Music: Gilbert and Sullivan, Arthur Jacobs
The World of Music: German Song, Elisabeth Schumann
The World of Music: Italian Opera, Francis Toye
Christmas, Penhaligon’s Scented Treasure of Verse and Prose

Paperbacks:
Proud Taste For Scarlett and Miniver, E L Klonigsburg
The Mind of the South, W J Cash
2 Louis L’ Amour
2 Southern Living Magazines

Not too shabby after all. Gotta read.

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On the church calender today is the feast day of St Nicholas. If you haven’t started your Advent season yet, today is a great day to begin.

We have a busy day planned. I am not especially fond of busy days especially when they involve me driving but some days are like that.

At 8:00 am ( I better hurry) I have to drop 2 of the competent boys off to help the Health and Human Resources lady organize Toys For Tots. Apparently tots get lots of toys and the HR lady loves homeschoolers. I wonder why?

Then we head to the ice skating rink for a Christmas party. Friends are fun. Andrew went ice skating last week with his granny which has made him an expert. He has spent the morning telling his siblings how many pairs of socks they should wear.

We will come home in the afternoon to celebrate St Nicholas day with a party and gifts. One of us will be getting gifts today. Can you say chocolate cheesecake?

Then I am off to a Christmas ladies event at a nice restaurant without any children at all. I tried to take Emily but they said it was just for adults. Do you know I used to be a loner? Now I dread going anywhere without at least one child to talk to. I have found letting my older boys drive me around to be the most efficient way to get to know them.

While I have been known to be calm around the house when boys are shooting at mice on the christmas tree with bb guns (Did you know mice love popcorn and cranberries?), I am not at all calm when going off the side of the road into a ditch or being confronted with a Mack truck. I think it gives the boys a better picture of marriage to drive around with me.

Well, I am off to brush my hair and get a coat on. It is cold outside. Our bradford pears are still orange but the ground is frozen solid.

Enjoy your holy-day.

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He picked it out all by himself and it fits.

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Sallie has posted the Blogs of Beauty winners.

Congratulations to all the winners especially the girls I know:
Ann,
Meredith,
& Amy.
Also to Spunky in the homeschool category. Spunky really does blog about homeschooling.

Sallie also has a very interesting post today on some of the dangers of the blog world. These are dangers that Carmon and I have discussed privately a few times.

Are we just adding to the cacophony?
How do we deal with theology we don’t agree with?
What is orthodox and what isn’t?
How can we be opinionated without being legalistic?

I have been thinking about the last one lately because I have an opinion I want to post, but I don’t want it to be hurtful to the wrong people.

My opinions are usually aimed at the big ideas that control the choices people make. I don’t like to pack a point at individuals unless they are obnoxious and then I don’t mind so much. :dry_tb:

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A couple of years ago I wrote an article titled Welcome to Vulgaria. It is on the dead computer in the garage so I can’t dig it up but it may be somewhere on the MOMY’s archives. MOMY’s being an email list for Moms of Many Young. I am not on that list anymore, not enough time.

The title of my article was taken from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It is the name of the town without children. All the children are hidden away in caves underneath the city.

Culturally, I believe we are now in Vulgaria.

When we first moved to Alabama one of my older children asked our neighbor across the street if he could fish in his pond. NO. He was afraid he or his siblings would drown.

We have a lovely wood across from our house. I used to walk in it and the children played there too until the new house went up and a lady saw them playing and yelled to them that it was dangerous and there were snakes and she was going to call the owner.

The last straw was when the children were riding their bikes on the deadend street that runs along the side of our property. Only 4 houses of retired people on that street but one day one of the elderly ladies stopped me on my walk to let me know they had been talking among themselves about whether I was a good mother or not ……letting the children play in the street. She kept saying, “You must be a good mother but we just don’t understand.” Of course, there were not toddlers playing in the street just grown children. We put the bikes away.

I am sure all the people involved in the situations mentioned didn’t think about the consequences of their ideas but to me it began to explain why my children were the only children around. Everyone else had been driven inside and out of sight by people who still thought they were in control of the world.

People who watched too much television news and read too many litigation stories.
People who thought a snake bite was worse than MTV.
People with bad theology who thought they might live forever if they took their vitamins.

So this year parents who don’t believe in discipline are buying X-boxes for their children in hiding. Moms are choosing a big raise over a new baby. And slowly but surely the children we don’t want aren’t being born. Who needs Hitler?

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This may sound weird but one of the reasons I started to think about Vulgaria again is that we watched 2 documentaries this week.

The first was The March of the Penguins. Even penguins hold the raising of young in higher esteem than moderns. The whole life cycle of these penguins is built around their hope of offspring. The movie got to be a little much as one disaster after another stymied their efforts to produce children but the penguins perservered and a new generation was born and survived. While penguins appear to be singularly stupid in many ways, they at least know what is important.

We also watched a documentary entitled Secret Lives: Hidden Children and Their Rescuers During WWII. This was the story of families that hid Jewish children in Europe during WWII. The sacrifice of the true parents, the confusion of the children, the love of the family willing to risk all to hide the children, the long and terrible hardships faced in Europe for many years before and after the war, the reunion, or lack thereof, of the children with their original parents, the continued bond of the children and parents in the adoptive homes, all brought tears to my eyes as I thought of what high value these people placed on their offspring and the offspring of others.

One especially touching story was of a little boy who sat in a little chair in a closet for many years hiding from the Germans. To see the grown man, now middle-aged, return and sit in the little chair was heartwrenching.

How rich a childhood my own children have as we sit in front of our beloved Christmas tree and read aloud The Wind in the Willows and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. How silly feminism has become to belittle the raising of children. How silly women are to believe such a damnable lie.

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Redeemer of the Nations, Come The Schola Cantorum of St Peter the Apostle J. Michael Thomson, Director.

A Festival of Lessons & Carols From King’s King’s College Choir, Cambridge Directed by Philip Ledger.

Christmastide, Jessye Norman.

Service of Lessons and Carols
Sunday, December 11, 2006
5:00 p.m.

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