Top 10 Flavor Pairs

Really quick, while it's on my mind, are there ANY better flavor pairings than the following ten:

1. Raspberries and Cream
2. Dark Chocolate and Strong Coffee
3. Red Meat and Red Wine
4. Garlic and Butter
5. Eggs and Onion
6. Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese
7. Milk Chocolate and Mint
8. Bacon and Mushrooms
9. Beer and Pizza
10. Salt and Vinegar

Mmmmmmmm...

Prejudice

I suppose I could have entitled the last post "Pride," which would have made this bit kind of high-brow. Heh. Oh well, the opportunities we waste.

There's a deep-rooted sense of "ought to know" in all of us, I think. When a woman is pregnant, she constantly thinks things like "should I be throwing up at this stage? Should I be feeling kicks yet? Is it time to start feeling contractions yet?" Then she has the baby, and all the anxiously-awaited milestones - smiling, rolling over, sitting up, crawling, clapping hands, waving bye-bye, and so on - come and go, according to the child's own inner calendar. If things are a little delayed, worry sets in, because of this rigid sort of in-born sense of what's "supposed to be" happening at this point in time. If you can't learn to let these things go, parenting can be torture.

But it doesn't get any easier. My two older daughters were reading things at the level of Green Eggs and Ham by their fourth birthdays. My third daughter is closing in on five, and she's only half-way through the book we use to teach our children how to read, cleverly entitled Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. Six months ago, I was almost in a panic - she's not reading yet! She hasn't even shown signs of wanting to start, and she's four already! Will she ever learn to read??? It's crazy, I know.

Then there is a whole set of books - What your first grader needs to know, what your second grader needs to know, what your third grader needs to know, and so on. What an enormous responsibility! Your Third Grader NEEDS TO KNOW this much information, or else... or else you're a failure as a parent, I guess.

So my oldest daughter is eight. She should be learning her times tables, right? Sorry, we're still working on subtraction. Why? Because she hates math, and she won't do her math when I tell her she has to do some Math. But she Needs To Know her math, of course. Won't she ever learn her math? What if she never learns her math? Oh my Gosh, what am I going to do if she hasn't learned her math in time for... the time when she's supposed to need her math?

This one, for some reason, is harder to argue against than the reading thing. In the first case, it's easy. Settle down, mamma. Your daughter is four. Most children don't read by their fourth birthday. There's plenty of time for her to learn to love books. However, the Math Thing seems more commonly accepted. Your child Needs To Know her times tables by a set age. Why? because They say so, of course.

So my precious philosophy, Don't Impose What They Aren't Interested In, comes into direct and violent conflict with the school of Needs To Know. I know my philosophical ideas are sound, but the Needs To Know has such a strong moral advantage in this case.

Incidentally, those books, What Your _____ Needs To Know, are in fact terrific books, and my children love them, and read them regularly, under the threat (imagined by them, not me) of not knowing something they Need To Know. Except as it applies to the Mathematical sections, of course.

Philosophy vs Prejudice (vs Practical Application)

Time for that promised post on curriculum, if only to sort out and air my own thoughts.

Homeschooling is becoming a mental tangle for me. I have an educational philosophy, some deep-seated educational prejudices, and a certain housekeeping style, and they're all in conflict at the moment.

Philosophy: perhaps nothing more than a series of related but somewhat disconnected ideas, my philosophy centers around a single point: you can't make a child learn something they don't want to know. If the child somehow manages to remember long enough to pass the quiz, if the subject truly holds no interest, she will forget as soon as is convenient. Forcing "knowledge" on a child, at best, is a waste of time. At worst, it's a great evil, as it can sour the entire subject, or worse, the whole learning experience.

Learning is not a passive experience. Education is about the forming of a disciplined mind that knows how to find the knowledge it seeks. Standardization brings everyone to the lowest level. There's no such thing as "supposed to know by now." And so on.

So my philosophical goal in home schooling is to encourage the asking of questions (something I've certainly succeeded in), to cultivate interest in a wide variety of subjects, to develop reading and comprehension skills, and to enjoy watching my children grow.

Speaking of growing children, I've got four of them downstairs. Ergo, Prejudice and Practical Application will have to wait for tomorrow. Then we can all watch the fight.

Free Things Rock

Something to add to my list (which I haven't made yet) about why the internet is awesome - Free Things websites. Today I found one of the ultimate Free Things sites - free printable classical sheet music. I was able to find the thing I wanted within hours of deciding I wanted it. This is far, far better than getting something you've wanted for a long time. Because after all, if I just decided I want it, then it disappoints, it's not like I've been looking forward to it for ages and ages. It's a disappointed whim, not a shattered dream.

What was it I got? Oh, the music for Bach's Trio Sonata V in G Major, BWV 529, for organ. This was an astonishing triangulation of technology here, this discovery. I got an iPod for Christmas. So I was recording all my CDs, and among those CDs is a box set of the complete organ works of JSB. One of them souonded nice, with a relativelky uncomplicated pedal part except for a couple of murderous passages - the kind of thing I could master in a year, maybe. So I look it up on iTunes, and find it conveniently arranged by BWV number. I enter "Bach bwv 529" into Google, up comes this free sheet music site. 800+ pieces of music. Free. YAY! I love technology. When did wish-fulfillment get so easy?

So, here it is: http://www.mutopiaproject.org . While I'm at it, here's my other favorite Free Stuff website: http://www.cpdl.org . This one is Choral music, and has thousands of scores.

So. Now. Time to tackle the Trio Sonata, which, I hear, is one of the most difficult forms of organ music to play. But I have confidence in myself.

Let me Explain...

No, there is not enough time. Let me sum up. (50 points to you if you recognize the movie reference.)

So, here we are, all moved in, and have been for 2 months now. House is small, still feels a bit like a play house, but it's homey, especiallt since we have our traditional decor of books *everywhere*. Seriously, whole walls of 8 ft bookcases in the living room, dining room and master beedroom. Surprisingly enough, we found room for all our books. But if we want to buy more, we're going to have to find additional niches for bookshelves.

My baby turned one in November. That's kind of cool. I don't really have a baby now, but for the first time since I started having the little critters, I have no longing for another. I'm fairly certain that this will change at some point - some subtle shift in body chemistry will demand some helpless little being to coo over, but for now, I'm all set. (tempting fate, urg.)

Christmas came and went in a frenzy of hurried spirits. Extra choir rehearsals, shopping trips, online sprees, wrapping, cleaning, decorating, baking, entertaining. It came off well, though my favorite day of the season remains New Year's Eve, which we have spent at the same friends' house now nine years in a row. Next year I'll dress more formally.

Now for the List: my new year's resolutions.

1. Stop eating between meals and after dinner. Hungry for a snack? Fill that daily milk requirement.

2. Collect, label, sort and file all those loose pieces of sheet music all over the house and in the garage. Then at least I'll know what I've got.

3. Convince the husband to let me hire a cleaning lady twice a month. There's only so much I can do. If I have to give up some other major expenditure, then so be it. Which one to give up, though? Maybe I can afford it if I take in a couple more piano students.

4. Play more classical music for my kids. They listen to too much icky stuff. I think it's warping their minds.

5. Alcohol goes with meals only. That should cut down on the wine bills.

6. Concentrate harder on schoolwork for the girls. Girl #3 has got to learn to read, Girls #1 and #2 need to learn to love math. How does one induce a child to love math? I thought that I wouldn't have the "but I HATE math" battle if I kept them out of school and the whole Certain Subjects Are To Be Deplored mindset, but maybe it came up in one of the books they read. I know that's where Girl #1 got the idea that girls and boys are supposed to tease each other instead of being friends. Sigh. My educational philosophies are conflicting with actual practice. Life is hard.

7. Implement that long planned laundry strategy. Everything has been set up and ready for it in the garage almost since we moved in, but laundry still manages to exist in every place in the house except for dressers and closets. Havew I ever mentioned that laundry is the biggest source of stress on my marriage? I tell ya, it's the little things that get to you.

8. Blog more often. Obviously.