Third Day of #TexUns15

This morning, Mal woke up super early. He had been fussy all night, and drinking all night, and I was just exhausted by morning. We'd also managed to kick/roll the fitted sheet off of the mattress, so we were lying on the waterproof mattress cover which is fabric, but also plastic and hot. James hung out with Mal for a few minutes so I could wash my face and get dressed, then Mal came downstairs with me.

It rained heavily during the night, and I had the front door open. Mal loved the sweet morning smell and the sopping floor boards on the porch. We went out there for him to eat some breakfast, and by then James was up, having apparently been awakened by the dealing with the boy first thing in the morning.

After James' breakfast, Mal was already threatening to get fussy, so I decided to take him over to the young 'uns childcare area,where there are tons of toys, so he could play and make all of the noise he wanted without bothering his still-sleeping sister.

At the chilcare center, I met Nadja, who is a recent Austin resident. We have RV living in common, and it was nice to have someone to talk to while Mal burnt off some energy and James tried to catch up on emails (job stuff... but also the connection here in the park is spotty, and it takes about a million hours to do anything).

Mal was sleepy but overstimulated when I got back; he fell asleep, but only for about ten minutes. After the mini-nap, James and I took Mal to the swimming pool to work off some energy. He giggled and had a big time the whole 45 minutes or so we were there (which is double the time he could hack in swimming classes).

We had lunch and I woke Daphne up in time for the Nerf Gun Battle.

Here's a sort of funny thing:

In Peter Gray's book “Free to Learn,” he talks about games his generation of children invented when they were left to play on their own. He says something about how they'll talk and discuss and hammer out rules and plans for two hours before they start playing. This is what we witnessed, arriving at the Nerf battle site. Two kind of leader kids seemed to take over, finalizing details between them (when you get hit, this is what happens; no head shots; etc.). Kids kept arriving, and they kept shuttling them into one team or another. About 15 minutes into the process (which was ridiculous; I kept trying to get Daphne just to open fire on people), an adult showed up with flags so they could do it “capture the flag”-style... and he had the rules for them. He also chose two captains and when their team-selection slowed down, he divided out the rest of the kids. It was probably more expedient than what they were doing, but it was also extremely ironic, given the whole “kids need time to play that isn't directed by adults” world view that is espoused by a lot of us (and one of our keynote speakers).

That said, there were several adults involved in the Nerf Gun Battle. But they were playing as fellow team members, not as authorities, and the kids accepted them as peers. Actually, the grown-ups might have gotten a wee more intense than the kids. Daphne and James ended up being on different teams, and she pretty much killed him a lot.

Click below for full album.

From April 2015!

I wasn't playing because I was wearing Mal, who was on the verge of a nap. He fell asleep for about an hour, waking up right as James and I sat down for the “Unschooling Teens” talk by Sue Peterson. Fortunately, he was happy to crawl around on the floor, playing with stuff out of my purse, pretty much the whole time.

I will say that there are several things I've heard so far that have given me a lot to think about. In this session, during the Q/A, especially, I was convicted to check my motives about sending Daphne to things like coding camps. *sigh* I really hate being convicted.

When James and I got back to the cabin, Daphne was already gone for the cosplay funshop. James had a snack and headed over to the unschooling dads' roundtable, while Mal and I just hung out and watched TV and got snacks ready for tonight. D dropped in when the seminar was over, dropped off a foam sword she'd made, and disappeared to a friend's cabin.

James, Mal, and I went to dinner but didn't see Daphne until hours later. We didn't stay for the “sock hop” because dinner was so raucous, we were already burnt out from the noise. Now the internet appears to be down for the count, so this post and all of the pictures are going to have to wait until tomorrow. Think I'll go downstairs and talk to D about her afternoon.

Friday at #TexUns15

This morning, Mal and I got up before everyone else (natch) and hung out for a while on the front porch. It had rained all last night, so was coolish and extremely muggy... but we got no more rain during the day, so that was nice.

At about 9:30, we walked over to the event center for a pancake and get-to-know-you breakfast.

We have met two families from Austin now. One lady, whose youngest daughter hit it off with Mal yesterday, is Hannah from Belly Love Massage Therapy. Hannah is very generously offering free 10-minute chair massages this weekend, and James and I both got to take advantage of that (while the other made a name tag at the craft table). I'm going to call her and set up an appointment when we get home!

At noon, Daphne went to a teen pizza and pool party, then after James and I had some snacks at the cabin, I took Mal swimming. We ended up in the indoor pool, as the outdoor pool was so chilly and noisy, Mal was sort of catatonic. He loved the other pool, which only had a half dozen kids in it and was significantly warmer.

This afternoon, we got to hear Dr. Gray speak. Mal was kind enough to fall asleep while James and I walked around the park a bit (and I waxed nostalgic about living in an RV park, if not necessarily the inadequately-insulated RV itself).

James listens to Dr. Gray.

After the Q/A, there was a group photo (where we met the second family from Austin) and then we were all on our own for dinner. James, Daphne, Mal and I went to Cooper's Old Time Pit Barbecue, and lord o'mercy, was it incredible. We got the family (of 4, so maybe some overkill) pack of brisket and sausage. It came with cole slaw and potato salad, but we also got corn on the cob and mac and cheese individually. They had bread, sauce, beans, and onions available in the dining room. Well, the most amazeballs thing was the brisket. It had a salty, crunchy rub that was delicious, and we got the lean meat but it was still fall-apart soft and packed with flavor.

We ate ourselves into a food coma, then came home and Daphne went to do a teen hangout but saw a cat she liked, and the cat followed her home, and they sat out on the porch for a while. We had a quiet evening and got to sleep through some awesome thunderstorms.

Texas Unschoolers Convention 2015

This afternoon, we took the minuscule road trip to New Braunfels to the Hill Country RV Resort for  Tex'Uns 2015 (see what they did there?). Today was mostly about getting set up, signed in, settled in, and saying "howdy" to people.

We got everything put up in the cabin, took a bunch of art supplies over to the crafting area, walked around to get the lay of the land, and then cooked some Pizza Rolls for the informal pot luck tonight. I know, I know. But I have a baby. It was enough to get everything here; I literally could not think of anything to make for dinner.

We signed up for a few things, including a cosplay "fun"shop (instead of workshop, because unschool, mkay?) for Daphne, 10-minute chair massages for James and me, and a pool/pizza party D will go to tomorrow.

From April 2015!

Malcolm loves our cabin. We let D have the bedroom with the king-sized bed (so she can close the door and use her white sound machine), and we're sleeping in the loft with two full mattresses on the floor. We can't stand up, but it's huge and Mal has been crawling all over the place, looking at the window, and giggling about the whole thing.

When we went over to the main lodge for dinner (fortunately, other people brought things like fruit and veggies and sandwich fixins and Dutch oven cake cobbler), we were kind of off to the side while people arrived. I saw Dr. Peter Gray come in; he's speaking tomorrow evening. He got his food and went outside to sit at a table, so James went out with his dinner and sat with him (I might have asked him to).

We enjoyed an eclectic meal with Dr. Gray, who said he was born in San Antonio but has no memories of Texas, as they moved away early. Also, that it was 50 when he left home today. Ugh, it is so humid here. But the humidity beats the thunderstorms that were predicted.

I hope we have a chance to swim tomorrow. The pool has a 6-inch section, and I think Mal will have a blast. I hope D will meet some kids; I saw a few girls sitting in the main lodge this evening at dinner, and I feel like if they have a chance to say "hi," just maybe. Several people told D they liked her Pine hat.

Very tired; looking forward to the weekend. Click on the "April 2015!" link above (at the cabin) for more pictures.

Mal's first games

Twice this week, Mal has initiated games of sort. He's participated in "peek a boo" (and enjoyed it) as well as rolling a ball or car back and forth, but he's never started the process. Until this week!

The first "game," if you will, just involved Mal forcing himself to laugh to get us to laugh. When we laughed back, he actually cracked up a lot. (And mostly without hiccups, thank God! FINALLY!) I got a video of his fake laughing... I had to keep feeding him, though. :)

When Mal was a newborn, after I'd change his diaper, I'd pick him up and lay on my back, then say, "Baby attack!" and have him come at me like he was tackling me. I'd lay on the floor and pretend to be knocked out, and say things like, "I never saw that coming! I can't believe it!" I've done it more recently as he's been fussing to get out of his "seat" toys like the piano and ExerSaucer... but not in the past month or two because he's way too heavy!

I don't know whether this was a throwback to those memories, or just something he made up, but today's game had more of an actual structure, simple as it was. Mal started off by standing beside me where I lay on the bed and then throwing his head into my torso. He would then giggle, stand back up, yell, and do it again. Of course, I acted very shocked and injured. He did this about a dozen times.

My husband saw it and went to pull out my camera, saying, "What do you bet he won't do it again?" (as per usual, when we get out the camera) However, he did catch it a couple of times as Mal was tiring out. Oh my goodness, it was the cutest thing!




He's feeling a bit better from the ear infection, but we're still fighting it! I think it spread to his other ear, too, so I'm even more determined to wrestle him twice a day to get as much of that medicine down as we can. If we can just get him well, he's being a lot of fun and happily busying himself on his own a bit nowadays. The good times are starting. Yea!

An open letter to Mom from Mal (loosely translated)

Dearest Boob Lady:

You might have noticed as of late both that I have matured physically and that I have a will. The convergence of these two milestones means that, henceforth and into perpetuity, I shall no longer bend in the middle.

Oh, do you wish to posit me in this elevated dining chair? You shan't. Is it your desire that I might slip gracefully both legs into the preordained slots of this shopping cart? Prepare to be disappointed. And this abomination of a rear-facing vehicular torture restraint system? Nay! I must adamantly refuse to be compromised at the waist and shall remain as upright and solid as several 2 x 4s tacked together with wood glue and carpenter's nails. Additionally, my emergency broadcast system will be invoked, lest the good people of this parking lot remain ignorant of your base treachery.

Now, this bath? For this I will condescend to--- HA! I fooled you! Now that I am sufficiently warmed and covered in slippery bubbles, I shall once again rise to the aforementioned heights! Never let it be said that I fell prey to your negativity, to your doubt in my ability to right myself upon these bulging legs, in the confines of this sink. If I trust you, it is only in that I know you would never allow me to injure myself on the side of this basin. This is a thing of which you are incapable.

Perhaps I have understated my trust in you. I will say that I am confident that you would never use your bulk or superior understanding of physics or more practiced gross motor skills to bully me into a 90-degree angle against my... WHAT IS THIS THING! I expressly said I SHAN'T and-- Oh, this? Oh, this isn't too bad. Never mind then. Carry on.

Warmest regards,
Mal

20th anniversary of the OKC Bombing

I probably won't get this posted before midnight, but it seems worth the effort.

My memories of finding out about that awful day are foggy.

I know that I was under water that month (-ish). Part of me thinks that we just found out about it through a regular weekly news update. But I don't ever remember getting one of those. I think that I probably found out in a letter from my Mom, dropped off when we surfaced to deal with a crew member who'd gone crazy or gotten injured.

I think the letter boiled down to "Someone blew up the building where your Uncle Bill works. He's OK--he had to go out in the field because someone else called in sick." Or something along those lines.

But the brain's funny. I think I remember finding out about it while we were out at sea, but that isn't the way things work. Complete and total isolation and boredom is vital if you ever have to do that job. You have to be cut off from your humanity before you can participate in massive carnage.

I know that I learned the details that I've managed to pick up in bits and pieces.

Lots of people died. My uncle was OK. My mostly-deaf grandmother heard the explosion in her home miles away.

I might be able to dredge up more details from that time, but I'm glad that my brain has shuffled those details into the discard pile.

The big thing that I remember from that day is laughing at the idea that killing 168 people (possibly including a relative who was at the top of my parents' will to take custody if they died too young) was a big deal.

We spent our days drilling for the day we needed to make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like sock hops.

Thankfully, that day has not arrived. I pray that it never will. If it ever had, I took solace in the basic fact that a retaliatory strike was almost guaranteed to kill us so we wouldn't have to live with what we'd done.

I don't have an ending here. Just memories that I wish would go away.

1st official "Mal"ady

We stayed home from church Sunday because Mal and I weren't feeling great. Mal's had a few roughish nights since then, but last night was the worst. Today, he pretty much fussed from the time we got up, and I told James that I could not handle another day of just crying. So I called a nearby pediatrician and set an appointment for later in the day.

Fortunately, it was 22 blocks north of here and about 7 blocks over, so I was able to ride my bike. I think Mal appreciated it. He fell asleep when we were almost there, but immediately woke up and played with the toys in the waiting room. The sick child waiting area is about 5 times the size of the well child area, and it has all of the toys. So them chillens can share errythang.

Mal weighs 21 (officially), which puts him in about the 92%. He is 27ish inches, unofficially, from when I was waiting for the nurse and held a yard stick up to him, without trying to straighten his legs. This is about average for his age, which is 6 months, 3 weeks. He is a big-booty baby!

I loved the doctor he saw. I don't think we'll keep using her; a lot depends on what insurance James ends up with at his next job. But she was quick and to the point and didn't lecture me about a dang thing. She asked the questions about symptoms and whether he'd been pulling on his ears. I told her no, until this morning when the Tylenol was wearing off, and he pulled on the tip top of his left ear, but just once and he wasn't being fussy.

She listened to his chest and back, and said he sounded fine. She looked in both nostrils and said they were clear. She looked in his right ear, and said, "It all looks good, which is good, but I know you want to know why he's been this way..." just as she was looking (or trying to look) into his left ear.

He didn't want her to. He turned his head and started getting nervous. Finally, she said, "Oh, yeah," then he pulled away. She said, "I don't want to call it until I see it," so I repositioned his head against my chest and she got a good look. "Yep. There it is." She described what she saw, which I will spare you, but he has an infection in his left ear.

What was awesome was that her office was able to send Mal's antibiotic prescription to CVS electronically, and by the time I rode my bike over there, it was ready. Because James had put money in a Healthcare Savings Account, even though we had to pay for this stuff (insurance expired the end of last month), we won't "feel" it in our regular budget.

Mal did so well, even stopping at CVS and having to hang out a few while they finished mixing his meds. He fell asleep about 5 blocks from home, so when we got back, I held him for an hour while he napped, then gave him his first dose of meds.

We decided not to go to small group, since Mal's been super fussy and probably wouldn't take to too much stimulation, but I had a doughnut shop I had to do between 6 and 9, so James and I decided to make it a sort of date to take advantage of a couple of Tax Day deals, and give D a break from Mal's crying (she had her white noise machine cranked this morning, since he woke up earlier than she did and he was clearly in pain).

Mal got to use his brand new convertible car seat today! I can't believe I forgot to take a picture; you'll just have to take my word for it. He cried/whined a bit, but fell asleep about the time I got onto the highway. We went to Sonic first, for James to get a 1/2 price cheeseburger and an order of chili cheese tots (I'd had some pizza from a lunch job). Then we went to the doughnut place for my job (a dozen to go, so tomorrow's breakfast is ready!). Last, we headed way down to Orange Leaf Yogurt for their $4.15 16-ounce yogurt. Mine weighed about 13.5 ounces, but James' weighed in the neighborhood of 18 ounces, and the cashier totally let him get away with it!

$4.49 with tax, baby!

Mal loved jumping around on that orange vinyl couch! He ate a pouch of apple raisin quinoa baby food while we had our yogurt, and then I let him have a taste of mine. He didn't seem overly impressed. I tried one more small bite, and he just wasn't interested. Not at all like the time he surreptitiously started gnawing on the frosting can and giggling like a bad movie villain. Well, glad he enjoyed his healthy meal better, anyway!

After that, we walked around the back and found a playground I didn't realize was at Southpark Meadows. On our way to the car, we saw three maybe ducks in a tree talking, seemingly trying to decide where to go. One flew out to a lamp post, then a few minutes later, the second one did. Finally, the last tried, overshot the post, and ended up in another tree. They were really cute, and it seems like Mal is going to be as interested in animals as Daphne was. Is. Was as a baby and is now.

Aww, duck it.

Now I need to get to sleep. Last night was ROUGH, and I'm ready to hopefully get a better night's slumber all around. Hoping the meds kick in fast!

Oh, I told James that my rule of thumb needs to be: If I feel myself thinking, "I cannot be around this kid one more second," I need to take that kid to the doctor. The only time I felt that way about Daphne, when she was about 9 months old, she had double ear infections, double conjunctivitis, and an upper respiratory infection. Glad we only had one ear giving us a problem on this day!