WHY AREN'T COMMENTS WORKING?? And other stuff...

If you've been aching to leave us a comment and haven't been able to, then join the club! I typed this comment into James's (as it was posted rather late on a weekend night, may I guess semi-drunken?) rant about mass shootings and gun rights fifteen times before it dawned on me to cut-and-paste it somewhere safe until comments started working again. They still don't work. So, in case you were wondering:

"I would agree that people who commit mass murder/violence of this nature certainly have wrong/dangerous beliefs, but I don't think they're 'insane.' The whole 'mental illness' thing is bandied about in a way that might make people with genuine mental illnesses hesitant to get help, because is this how they're going to be perceived? Anyway, LOTS of people in lots of countries are 'insane,' but the gun violence isn't as high in any other developed nation.

"The guy in Dayton apparently had a history of threatening and frightening behavior that was reported by classmates to his high school, and also referred to the police. Many of them said hearing this wasn't a surprise, and that he never should have had access to a gun. So while the 'red flag' talk seems sort of subjective and 'slippery slope'y, there might be some merit to it.

"Lastly, I do not think the Founding Fathers could fathom what kind of rapid-fire, powerful guns would be available a couple of hundred years later. I'm fine with changing the constitution, if that's what it takes. I know we agree to disagree on this. But so far, no one has used high-capacity magazines to protect their families or property from aggressive government forces; they've ONLY been used to murder as many people as possible."

FIN.

And, yes, I would likely feel different about this if we were talking about limiting access to caffeine or sugar or anything else that is deemed dangerous by some people. I'm also a parent, and I'm susceptible to the fear that comes from knowing people can and do this, and have access to tools to help them... even knowing the statistics. So I can admit that fear is never a great basis for demanding legislation, and yet... here we are.

But that's not really what this post is about, is it?

You're wondering what's going on with us. aren't you? Nope? Well, too bad. Navigate away, then!

Our chickens are now almost 19 weeks old, which means that they might start laying within the next month or so.  When I went out to close the coop tonight, four of the chickens were already roosting for the night. "Fluffy Cheeks" (I tried to name her Monstro, but I think Mal's winning on this front) had her wing over AW's back. I only had my phone, and when the flash pre-shot, they both started to stand up to see what was going on, but I caught it.

I don't know whether the chickens are ready for the heat to break, but I AM READY FOR THE HEAT TO BREAK. Also, the unrelenting lack of rain. It has rained once, for approximately one hour, since July 4. There is no rain in the forecast for the next two weeks. The weather forecast does keep showing the temperatures dropping from the low 100s/high 90s into the mid-to-low 90s, but that keeps getting pushed out two weeks and now I don't believe anything. Our grass is crunchy and dormant, and every time we go outside, we get about 15 stickers in our shoes.

I guess the good news is that we haven't had to pay someone to mow our yard since the beginning of July? And it's weird: we had .12 inches more rain in July than in the average year, at 4.45 inches. And all of it was within the first 3 or so days of the month.

Our solar power is up and running, and our bill for last month was $100 less than it was last year, including a few days when we didn't have the system installed yet. It's been around 100 degrees every day for the past month, so that's not bad at all.

Mal is such a fun kid. Today, he had quite an emotional roller coaster of a day. At one point this evening, we were playing Star Wars with LEGOS, and I noticed one of his ships had a brick missing from under the seating area, so when you picked it up, the pilot fell out. I was trying to put a new brick in place, and Mal pulled the ship away from me. He wanted to keep it the way that it was (he does not like change in the least!). I "yoinked" it out of his hands and was placing the brick when he started bawling. Real tears and everything. And he wailed, "Mommy, no! You are breaking my heart up!"

When I handed him the ship back and showed him that he could just push the brick back out, he smiled and said, "That's better. It's fixing my heart now." Poor sweetie. He has so many feels.

Oh my goodness, though... yesterday he had the worst nosebleed I've ever seen him have. He used to get little bleeds quite frequently, as a result, frankly, of digital probing up in there. They are much fewer and far between now. Used to, we could expect one every couple of days. Now, it's every six months maybe? Well, he got one yesterday. I dammed up the nostril with a tissue and went outside to do something. When I came back in, Mal was still sitting at the table, but sounded weird when he said he'd mistakenly removed the tissue. There was blood all over his face, all around his mouth, dripping onto his shirt, and I even had to wash the chair. Yikes. Fortunately, he was fine. Just... a mess.

Out of the blue while I was writing this last night, Mal decided he was tired and wanted to go to sleep, and it sounded like a good idea. So now I'm up and have started my Saturday and will fill you in on other developments later! Have a great weekend!

Malcolm's Almost FIVE!!

Mal's birthday rolls around next month, and this morning, I was thinking about how, this time last year, I was starting to get a little concerned (I'd passed "annoyed" about a year and a half before) about how we were going to wean him. I knew I didn't want to make it a traumatic break, but my son is easily traumatized, so even saying, "When you turn 4, you'll be too big!" would have broken his heart.

Then, lo and behold, right after his 4th birthday, he just... stopped.

Same thing with overnight pull-ups. We did use them when we went to Disney World just before his birthday, but that was because it wasn't our bed, and they don't have waterproof mattress covers, and... he was just suddenly dry all night without much of a transition.

Now there's just one developmental thing we're still working on. For some reason, when he needs to #2, Mal's first instinct is still to come kind of hide out in his room instead of heading straight for the restroom. He does then go, but the "brewing" time in his room beforehand baffles me.

Beyond that, Mal can read a bit, mostly small words that follow very strict rules about letter sounds. And he's picking up SO much math with Numberblocks. He watches several episodes a day, and watches them over and over... basically rote math facts, but sung with colorful animation and fun music. It's his choice. I've asked him if he wants me to find him something else to watch, and he'll say, "No, Mom, I need to learn my maths."

Speaking of that... he asks us math problems all of the time. Usually, it's because he wants us to "learn" (i.e. answer incorrectly so that he can teach us the right way). Occasionally, he actually doesn't know and wants to hear the truth. Anyway, last night, I was super tired of math and had kind of zoned him out when he asked me something. I said, "Sweetie, I don't know." He said, "Yes, you do. What is it?" I said, "No, I'm serious. Ask Dad. I was not good at math in school." Mal looked at me and said dismissively, "Oh, Mom, you don't need school!" Guess we've already indoctrinated him?

Mal doesn't know, but he and I are going on a tiny trip for his birthday. He has been begging to go to a hotel recently, especially after we visited my parents when they were overnighting near the airport for their 50th anniversary trip. On his actual birthday (the party is the weekend before), we're going to drive up to Dallas for a couple of days. I'm really looking forward to that.

Right now, Mal's favorite toys are the Micro Machines Millennium Falcon we got about a month ago, his "Numberblocks" (but not really) magnetic blocks we lucked into, and his Sonic the Hedgehog figures. He still plays with his Cars some, but not as much as he did this time last year. He went through a big Teen Titans Go! phase earlier this year, but that seems to be waning. He also went through a Mario stage, and we even got him a Nintendo Switch with Mario Party. I think James and I are going to get games we want to play (like Scribblenauts for moi!) since Mal doesn't seem super interested in it at the moment. He likes to watch Numberblocks and Gumball on YouTube; he watched and re-watched a ton of Clarence before his Kindle cleared the cache so YouTube can't remember what he tends to enjoy.

Oh, speaking of that, we had a second Kindle charge port crap out, so I found a relatively inexpensive iPad 3 on eBay that he's been using the past couple of days. He loves to play Woody Puzzle and Happy Glass.

Now he's saying he wants some Skittles, and since it's 10:00 PM, that sounds about par for the course. Night, all.

Mass Shootings and Gun Rights

Last weekend, 31 people were slaughtered in 2 separate (and probably unrelated) mass shootings.

The "really" nasty one was pretty cut and dried. Some asshole in Texas decided to do something about all the brown people who are "corrupting" "our" country, drove around 10 hours to El Paso, and then shot up a Wal-Mart because it had a bathroom available.

Laura tells me that there were several people there with concealed carry licenses, along with their handguns.

I'll be honest: If I happened to be carrying a handgun (no comment), and if I heard gunshots happening...I honestly don't know what I'd do.

Before I got married and had a couple of kids, that would have been easy. Of *course* the answer was "Take that fucker down hard, now."

I have an advantage there: my skin is very pale, so the cops probably wouldn't have murdered me for being armed when they showed up.

The "problem" (from a conservative gun-owner stance) here is that liberals want to add more restrictions to firearm ownership.

From an asshole-douchebag stance, so does President Trump.

He wants to do something to keep guns out of the hands of the "crazies."

That's valid.

If you're the sort of person who's willing to walk into a Wal-Mart (or a nightclub) and shoot the fuck out of everybody...you're probably insane.

But tarring everyone else with that same brush simply is not fair.

If you can come up with a way to generally identify white supremacists and keep weapons out of their hands, that seems reasonable.

If you can find a reasonable way to spot check violent assholes and people who are on the verge of suicide...saving lives is obviously a good thing.

How are you going to do that?

How do you identify the real threats?

The Part of the Year That Sucks

It sprinkled a bit on Saturday, and you'd have thought we won the lottery. The child and the chickens were so happy. But here we are again, with 100-degree highs and zero rain in the forecast for the next two weeks. Blehh. I hate this part of summer. I guess I mostly hate summer. It was pretty mild until about the second week in July. I'm ready for a break in this crap already. Ugh.

Hey, here's something fun: I can see decay on ANOTHER tooth in Mal's mouth. Hopefully, I caught it early enough that doubling up on brushing and finally forcing him to use fluoride will help. I guess he just has super porous teeth. We can't go in for another cleaning/fluoride treatment until January. I'm going with another dentist's office, because... I just am. We have friends who are really happy with their dentist's office. Then again, her kid doesn't have cavities (and brushes maybe once a week), so he sounds like D. D LOVED the dentist, because it was always kudos for no cavities.

Something funny I was thinking about the other day: I don't remember brushing D's teeth. Like ever. I know I did, up to a certain point. But I have no memory of it. Or of when we went from baths to showers. All lost to the ages.

I deleted my Instagram account yesterday. I'm still on Twitter, but who knows for how much longer. Social media is the way that many activists I enjoy communicate most, but also, I know I'm in an echo chamber. AND people hate re-tweet (or screen cap and then share) so much, then the same talking points are heaved on both sides, and it's just tiring. I'm still using groups on Facebook under a fake name, so I can follow "Be the Bridge" and a hyper-local inclusion group, and a smaller (than Austin) area homeschool group, as well as Buy Nothing.

The only thing I miss about social media is sharing cool pictures with everyone. As much as I have always enjoyed writing, I think I increasingly process stuff visually. Before Google Photos sucked up Picasa, you could just make your entire photo page public, and I'm sad that I have to share each individual album with people I want to see my pictures. Most likely, nobody cares about this nearly as much as I do.

The chickens are around 16 weeks old. Their combs are getting increasingly red/pink. This is/can be an indicator of sexual maturity, and on average, Easter Eggers can lay as early as 20 weeks. I'm hoping it will cool down a bit before they have to start working on that, though.

I joined an online chicken forum, and asked people more knowledgable than I: apparently, the seller was right and all six birds are pullets! I'm so glad, as we really like them all and wouldn't want to have to break up "the set" if any of them were cockerels. But also, there's a likelihood that we may end up with a couple dozen eggs every week! Some weeks, we go through that many (especially when Mal was loving scrambled eggs -- which he now hates -- and D is on a ramen kick). Otherwise, if we have excess, I think I'm going to offer half a dozen eggs at a time for free to whoever wants them. It'll be a nice way to meet more neighbors. Maybe I'll use them as a welcome wagon gift, with all of the new construction and people moving in.

Mal and I are going to go see the live-action Dora movie tomorrow, and I'm actually super excited. It looks very cute. Yes, I'm a dork. After that, he wants to go to the Lego store (which is so very far away) and see if they have any Minecraft mini-figs. So that'll keep us mostly indoors and air conditioned tomorrow.

One good thing: This heatwave makes me really glad we got solar panels! We're using a bit under 20 kWh of PEC electricity on the hottest days, which is less than a third of what we were using before. So that's pretty exciting.

Tomorrow is my parents' 50th anniversary! They're on a cruise and will be arriving in Quebec City in the morning, then will finish up this trip in Montreal for a couple of days. I want to go back to Montreal soon. And Glacier National Park. And I'd love to go to Yellowstone for the first time. Basically, I'd love to just travel for a year or so. D could take care of the chickens and the cats, so it'd totally work out. I should definitely start a GoFundMe, right? Right??

Acyclovir and me (and Alzheimer's and other stuff)

Last year, I'd read a little blurb in Reader's Digest about a possible connection between the virus that causes cold sores (which I have) and Alzheimer's (which runs in my family and for which I am genetically predisposed, verified by 23andMe). Here's a BBC article about it.

Since I both hate cold sores with a passion and very much want to reduce my chances of developing repeated cold sores, which I tend to get monthly, concurrent with my cycle, and which take 3 weeks to heal, leaving me with one pinkish-tinged skin area for about a week before another cold sore takes over... I asked my physician about trying Acyclovir.

At first, I think she misunderstood. She prescribed me a treatment dose, which worked the month I used it. But then the next month... another one. So I emailed her, and once it was in writing, she understood what I meant. I've been on a preventative dose for about 1.5 months. I guess I'll take it forever, if I can manage it.

What I've noticed, though, is that my body is doing this thing where it REALLY WANTS TO BREAK A COLD SORE OUT. In any given day, I might feel one to three "hot spots" or tingly places on my lips, under them, or around my nostrils (yeah, I got two recent cold sores on the rim of my nasal passage... yet another reason to stop those bastards entirely). I'll put on some Abreva and within a couple of hours, I can tell it's not going to happen. But then that feeling comes back in the same place two or three days later.

I HATE COLD SORES. They freaking hurt. And that is only a couple of days, but the healing takes me the better part of three weeks. Three weeks of scabs I don't know how to cover with make-up; of midday cracks and bleeding; and of walking around the house after having washed my face, letting the wound breathe, but feeling like a disgusting monster avoiding my husband's gaze.

My body, however, LOVES cold sores. They're how it deals with stress, PMS, and sunburns.

Once, when I lived in Las Vegas, I got a severe sunburn at the lake one weekend. In the aftermath of that, I ended up with FIVE cold sores all around my mouth, and I guess I was okay at covering them up because a maintenance guy came up to me at the end of the week and said he was worried about me because I wasn't smiling as much as I usually did.

Also, Alzheimer's sucks and maybe they'll develop a treatment before my brain starts... well, I was going to say "going," but how can you tell where that starts when you've had a kid in your 40s and kind of feel addled and confused a lot?

Let's talk about chicks, baby

For the first couple of weeks that we had the chickens, I kept glancing out and telling James, "I'm sure it'll get to the point that I take it for granted they're just out there and doing okay unless I have reason to think differently." Well, friends, that time is here.

The past few days, when Mal and I have gotten ready to leave the house, I look out back and don't see the chickens and think, "Great! They're hiding in the shade! Smart birds!"

We're still learning a lot and having fun. We think we have at least one and maybe two roosters, possibly three; hopefully none. If they start crowing, we'll have to figure out what to do next. But for now, the one that seems to be trying is still a quiet li'l gender-non-specific cutie pie, though it is definitely larger than the others.

It's been hot, and the birds seem to be doing their best to stay cool by camping out under the green in the yard, or chilling on the back porch (yay! poop!). I put ice in their water fairly early in the day and then try to take them refrigerated or frozen fruit or vegetables at least once a day to give them something to snack on. They REALLY like snack time.

What's kind of cool is that they've adapted to the pigeon loft a lot better than we expected. Chickens are, as James told me, "floor birds." Given that, even though I'd modified the loft with a couple of ramps (one is 45 degrees, which is supposed to be the max they can comfortably handle; the other is about 47.5 degrees), I didn't have high hopes about their utilizing the flight deck.

But they figured it out!

I'm so happy, as it's a bunch cooler out there with a breeze than it would be inside on the floor (which should be perfect for winter).

They don't seem to have ventured into the nesting boxes, which I am afraid will be much to small for them by the time they're old enough to lay eggs... if we have any hens (fingers crossed!). They're about 13-14 weeks old now, so we still have 7-15 weeks before they're mature enough to start laying. Glad they're not having to work too hard in the heat. Also glad that a "cold front" is coming in next week. Hey, I'll take 92 over 98 all summer, if it wants to do that!

We spent a lot of time the first couple of weeks after we got the birds filling in holes at the bottom of our fencing, and around the sides of the gates, where they might slip through the cracks. For a while, it seemed like they found a new egress every day! Including, at one point, getting into the front yard by flying up onto the porch border, and going through the wrought-iron railings onto the front porch, then down the steps, and into the grass in the driveway. Fixed that by moving the porch couch "bed" over a few feet.

Simple, but thus far effective, work-around. They don't seem comfortable jumping up/flying while also trying to get through the rails.

However, all of this is really for naught because of something I witnessed earlier this week.

What's this? you ask. Well...

So, yes, they can get up onto the top of our back fence and, if they want to, into the back 1/3... but so far, they just hop back down on the inside. At least I'll know where to look for them if they go missing!

Thus far, they have been easier to clean up after and care for than the pigeons. This is due largely, I believe, to the fact that during the day, they are basically self-sustaining. They do their business outside, so there isn't as much to clean inside the loft. They entertain themselves enough that I don't feel badly if we don't interact much with them on any given day... Speaking of which, I read that when it's this hot, it's best not to check on them in person very much during the day because they get excited and, therefore, hotter.

That's probably all of the chicken news for now. Here are a few pictures of the babies.

They were way more interested in the ice-cold water than the corn on the cob!

This one seems to be trying to crow. Did you know some hens crow?

This one has tail feathers that look rooster-ish.

This one looks almost too beautiful to be a hen, but is also the smallest bird we have.

Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool and all...

A little assumption to think about...

Today, I got my hair trimmed. While I did, Mal stayed in the foyer area playing with their Lego Duplos and chatted up the two people who were waiting their turns in the barber's seat, specifically a very young adult.

While the lady cut my hair, she made small talk and remarked on Mal's imagination and cleverness. And, of course, his hair. She did call him a girl. A lot. Despite the fact that I said "he/him" and called him "buddy" numerous times. She just didn't pick up on it.

At one point, she asked if he was in school. I said, "Well, his birthday is in late September, so he wouldn't be starting kindergarten until next year, anyway, but we homeschool."

Without any further information, she said, "Oh, I know we like to protect our kids, but they need to get out there and be social with each other."

Um.

Many things to unpack here.

The very first is the assumption that we homeschool for protection. That's nowhere on the list. But I'll get back to that.

The other thing was that she was observing in literally the sentence before this that he was so fun and interactive with everyone. And he's never been to school. So wouldn't it make sense that we'd provide alternate opportunities for him to socialize, not only with children his own age, but with a wide variety of human beings and maybe even animals?

Back to why we homeschool.

The reasons are many, but the top two "not on the list" reasons are: protection from the ideas/influence of peers, and the very absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH why we homeschool is that we perceive it to be "better" or to give a leg up academically, or help our kids be "more advanced" than other kids their age, etc.

Today, I got this ad in a break for a game and I thought, "They have no idea with whom they're dealing."

We don't need our kids to have higher test scores than anyone else. They're not in competition with anyone else: not their siblings, not other homeschooled kids, not private or public schooled kids. It's not a race, where whoever reads best at the age of 5 wins.

Also, specifically, regarding the above ad: Show me that what you're doing makes kids LOVE reading, and maybe I'd be interested. I got high test scores in most things when I was in school. I hated math and history. Test scores were not an arbiter of mastery over time or of interest. So mehh to your advertisement. My kid might be the gray rocket, struggling to achieve escape velocity. That's okay. Most people get there eventually.

It has always bothered me when people tout homeschooling as a "superior" choice to traditional schooling because of how freaking awesome the homeschooled kids turn out. Honestly, most kids turn out pretty cool, and unless you're one of those people for whom a particular schooling method just messes you up, most kids find a way to be excited about and still learn what they truly want to learn, anyway.

So why *do* we homeschool?

I just realized that I can't speak for James. But I don't think he's super vicariously competitive with our kids, either. Anyway, one big reason I started homeschooling D, after considering it for a couple of years, was that D had already mastered everything taught in kindergarten when the time finally came. D's birthday is in November, and at almost six, had already been reading for a good year and a half (we won't be able to say that about Mal, and that's just fine; he can do some math that D could not at this age... again, it's not a competition). It seemed like a waste of D's time, and probably a pain in the teacher's butt, honestly.

Then the more I thought about the time: organizing kids, disciplining a group, getting from point A to point B... just ask a teacher how much actual forward momentum their class has per day, and I'm going to guess they'd say a couple of hours. So it made sense to let D work a couple of hours per day, and then be free to pursue whatever.

The same holds true for Mal.

Maybe most people won't say that time management is the main reason they homeschool, but that's really the number one factor for me. I don't have to drive to/from a school. I don't have to wake up and herd kids at the crack of dawn. My kids don't have to wait for other kids to calm down if they're raring to do something. My kids don't hold anyone else back if they're feeling restless or don't understand something. It's just more efficient. We go on vacation when everyone else is in school, so we don't deal with crowds and lines and headaches like that. I get as much time with my kids as they or I can handle (we all needs breaks, variously). We can move through zoos, aquariums, and museums as slowly or quickly as we want. We can go see a movie when no one else is available. We can stay out late because we don't have to get up at a certain time most mornings. It's all about time.

There are other reasons homeschooling works for our family, but sheltering my kids from outside ideas or people or dangers isn't one of them. Neither is giving them "every advantage." Really, I want them to be happy, peaceful, and fulfilled, as I'm sure most parents want for their kids. That's it.