Update …

I’ve been distracted and not up to creating blog posts.  You’ll understand in a minute.

The doctor sent me to have a CT scan because of what *appeared* to be a TIA.

The technician didn’t come out of the booth right away.  Another lady came and helped me up, and asked me to please sit in the waiting room for a few minutes.  She said it was in case I had a reaction to the contrast dye, which didn’t make any sense.  If I had had a reaction, it would have been right away.

A few minutes later, the technician came out with tears in her eyes.

Apparently, she found a 4.5 cm tumor in my brain.

A week later, I had an MRI.  The tumor is about the size and shape of a chicken egg.  It does NOT seem to be cancerous.  However, the surgeon wants it out of my head as soon as possible.  There’s no such thing as a completely safe brain tumor.

I will be in the hospital for about a week and a half, and the first few days of that will be in a special ICU, with no visitors.  My brain surgery will be the first week of June.

TIA, Transient Ischemic Attack, Mini-Stroke

Sound like a serious topic? It is. And not just because heart disease and stroke are the number one killer of women today.

Last week, I had a mini-stroke. I had one about five years ago, so you would think that I’d know enough to get my butt to the ER. Unfortunately, the symptoms made it impossible for me to explain to my father-in-law what was wrong, and so I didn’t get to the hospital. Believe me, I’ve been taken to task by my doctor for that. I’m getting a Medic Alert bracelet so that I can tell people what is wrong when I can’t speak. On the 26th, I’m going to the hospital for a CT scan.

A TIA, or mini-stroke, has all the symptoms of a stroke. In fact, it’s a warning sign that a true stroke may be in the future - a third of people who have a TIA will go on to have a stroke. It happens when part of the brain is temporarily blocked or reduced, usually by a blood clot. The only difference is that the symptoms resolve in under 24 hours, usually within a few minutes. Unfortunately, if you’re have a full-blown stroke, an hour can be too late.

Do you know the signs of a stroke? Can you recognize them in yourself and others?

The symptoms of a stroke or TIA come on very quickly:

- Numbness, tingling, or a heavy feeling on one side of your body, perhaps in only one part (hands, arm, face)

- Inability to move one side of your body, perhaps as little as a hand or arm.

- Vision problems. Thins may look blurry, dim, doubled, or you could be unable to see.

- Difficulty speaking or understanding words.

- Confusion

- Dizziness and clumsiness

- Massive headache

If you have these symptoms, get to an emergency room immediately. Stay healthy. Stay young at heart.

French and English Relations … at home

Did I mention that I’m English? And the Gryphon is French. While he is fluently bilingual (I didn’t realize he was French until after I’d known him for a while), I am totally English.

For those of you who are Americans, that might not mean anything. For other Canadians, it should cause a few smiles and rolled eyes.  French and English in Canada have a centuries-old history of conflict.

We attempted to compromise with our son’s name by giving him one English name and one French name plus both surnames. That simply means that none of the grandparents can pronounce or spell it. My mother’s response to the French name was “And what am I supposed to call him?”

When I first met my brother-in-law, he insisted on speaking French to me.  When he deigned to speak English, it was with a very strong, barely comprehensible accent.  I couldn’t understand why only one sibling could barely understand English when the rest  of the family passed for English.  One day the Gryphon looked at him and said, “So, you been practicing that fake accent every day?” Now he speaks to me in proper English, although he often adds French words to help me learn the language.

Have you ever had Pork Hock Stew? My father-in-law calls it “Pork Hog Soup” when he’s speaking English, and I’ve given up trying to get him to remember that Hog and Pig are the same thing. In French, which I can’t say to save my life, it’s Ragoût de Pattes de Cochon, which seems to translate as Pig Foot Stew. It really smells good. The Gryphon keeps laughing at me because I haven’t found the nerve to try it yet.

My father-in-law swears by Salt Pork … it’s pork belly and it looks something like the fat part of very fatty bacon. He soaks it in milk and then fries it. I’m passing on that one, too.

History is … interesting when I’m with his family. I thought I knew my history. I really did.

Did you know that Paul Bunyan is Canadian? French-Canadian, actually. The Gryphon read to me from a comic book rendition of Ti Jean while his father translated. Ti is short for Petit, so Ti Jean is Little John, the French Canadian folk hero. My father-in-law is convinced that Ti Jean is the source behind the American Paul Bunyan. There are also stories that link back to the French Canadian lumberjack Fabian “Saginaw Joe” Fournier, who lived from 1845 to 187.

My father-in-law frequently talks about how they used to rule all of Canada. My history books say that Britain conquered New France in 1759. Apparently, my history books are wrong.

But then again … I asked the Gryphon “Ok, so what annoyances have you found?  No, not annoyances … um … odd little things that make you laugh.”

His answer:  “You mean quirks?  How about the fact that English people can’t speak their own language properly?  And tell them to stop assuming that someone understands their English idioms just because that person speaks English.”

Bitter Homeschooler’s Wish List

Take a minute to read a great list from a great site. Then read about how another homeschooler stole her list and claimed it as his own.  There’s no excuse for that.

But do come back. 

Good Wife’s Guide Rewrite

The original “good wife’s guide” is a hoax. It isn’t really from a 1955 Home Ec textbook. However it keeps making the rounds to show how beaten down poor housewives were. I’ve decided to do my own re-write of it. This is from the perspective of a full-time home keeper and mother, as well as someone who divorced a cheater. A household with a working wife and a stay-at-home dad … well, I think this would all still apply, but in the reverse. Let me know what you think.

• Have dinner ready. Plan ahead. Once-a-month cooking, and planning your menus in advance can really help make this easier. He’ll appreciate it, the kids will appreciate it, and you’ll have one less thing to worry about. Try to have his favorites as often as possible and you’ll have him bragging you up to all of his friends.
• Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. If your husband works in an office and you’re at home, be very aware that women who work with him dress ‘for the office’ with nice shoes, skirts, make-up, and nice hair. Make sure that what he comes home to looks just as good. (I got this advice from a pastor’s wife)
• Try to talk about something more than Johnny’s potty at supper. Engage in intelligent, interesting conversation with him. Make sure he’s happy to be at home with you. Read interesting blogs and sites so that you have things to talk about.
• Clear away clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.
• Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc and then run a dust cloth over the tables. The last thing anyone wants to see when they walk in the door is clutter, mess and dirt.
• Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will give you immense personal satisfaction. (I’m not even touching that. As sexist as that might sound, most people who choose to be at home full-time, as their chosen profession, really do gain personal satisfaction from making loved ones feel cared for.)
• Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair, and if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part. Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet. Again, the last thing anyone wants is chaos when they enter the house. Extend this principle to times when anyone enters the house. (Gryphon says that he’s happy with hugs and kisses and then “Just let me catch my breath before supper.”)
• Be happy to see him.
• Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him. The truth is, a happy, content husband, who knows that you’re committed to his happiness, is more likely to do the things you want.
• Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Trust me, there are women who would gladly let him vent about his day over a nice, quiet glass of wine, and they’ll pat his hand and sympathize about how you just don’t listen. Don’t let that look like an appealing option for him.
• Make the evening a pleasant time for family and then for each other. Reconnect after being apart. If you have certain rituals at meal time, your children will remember them and copy someday. My mother always set the table properly no matter what we were eating. Today I still love cloth napkins and tablecloths.
• Your goal: try to make your home a place of peace, order and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.
• Don’t greet him with complaints and problems. There’s a time for that, but not when he first walks in the door.
• Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner once in a while, but you’re a fool not to question if it happens often.
• Be a partner. Not a nag, not a doormat, not his boss. Remember that men view our friendly reminders as criticism, and they don’t usually deal well with that. Boost him up, compliment him, make sure he knows that he’s your personal hero, your knight in shining armor, and the only man you want.
• A good wife knows her role in the marriage and family and how important she is to her husband and children. She knows her strengths and weaknesses and works hard to always improve herself.

Commandments in Rhyme

I found it! This is the Ten Commandments as I learned them in Sunday School. They are from a very old book called Divine Songs, by Isaac Watts, written in 1715. I think (as apparently did Isaac Watts), that children learn and remember things more easily when done in rhyme or by music.

The TEN COMMANDMENTS out of the Old Testament put into short Rhime for Children.

Exod. 20.

1. Thou shalt have no Gods but me.
2. Before no idol bow thy knee.
3. Take not the Name of God in vain:
4. Nor dare the Sabbath Day profane.
5. Give both thy parents honour due.
6. Take heed that thou no murder do.
7. Abstain from words and deeds unclean:
8. Nor steal, though thou art poor and mean.
9. Nor make a wilful lie, nor love it.
10. What is thy neighbour’s, dare not covet.

Television and Children

98% of homes have a television. A third of them have more than one. The average American child spends 1023 hours watching television each year. The average Canadian child watches nearly 14 hours of television each week. By the time they are 36 months old, American children recognize an average of 100 brand logos. The average child views over six hours of media per day.

The AAP has advocated for years that parents limit the amount of television their children watch, including commercials.

“Too much television can negatively affect early brain development.… Until more research is done about the effects of TV on very young children, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend television for children age two or younger.”

What are the effects of so much television on our children?

Materialism

According to Dr. Tim Kassell, a psychologist at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., who specializes in studying materialism, people who are highly focused on materialistic values report less satisfaction with life, seem less happy, have a higher incidence of unsatisfactory interpersonal relationships, are more prone to drug and alcohol abuse and contribute less to their community. (Source: MediaChannel.org)

The problem is that children under eight can’t tell the difference between the Backyardigans and the Coco-Puffs commercial. They usually believe what they are told by adults. Advertisers spend millions of dollars to target children.

Sexualization

Add to that the sexual content of what our children are watching. Television is the primary sex educator for most children today.

12% of sexual comments involved sexual objectification, the vast majority directed toward women. Other research showed that 23% of sexual behaviours observed on prime-time programs involved leering, ogling, or catcalling at female characters. Many comments concerned body parts or nudity, and 85% of the comments came from men. Up to 81% of music videos contain sexual imagery, the majority of which sexually objectifies women by presenting them in revealing clothing, as decorative sexual objects, dancing sexually, or in ways that emphasize body parts or sexual readiness. (Source: AboutKidsHealth)

A great deal of television includes sexual content in word or deed. Very little television, on the other hand, promotes faithfulness to one’s partner or high sexual standards, nor are the risks of promiscuous sex often mentioned.

Social Skills

While television won’t make a child antisocial, sitting alone with a television for hours will stunt social development.

Obesity and Laziness

If children are watching television, they are not playing or engaging in physical activities. Two hours of television a day—just four TV shows—are linked to a 23 percent increase in obesity. The problem isn’t necessarily the television, but the lack of activity. According to the AAP, there is a link between hours spent watching television and an unhealthy diet. The more television watched, the less healthy the diet. This affects children as young as toddlers, not just adults.

Attention Span

Television breaks everything up into seven minute segments, dropping attention spans. The more television watched by a toddler, the greater the risk they will have attention problems later.

Violence

The average child sees 12,000 violent acts on television annually, including many depictions of murder and rape. More than 1000 studies confirm that exposure to heavy doses of television violence increases aggressive behaviour, particularly in boys. (Source: CPS)

Learning

Even 1 h to 2 h of daily unsupervised television viewing by school-aged children has a significant deleterious effect on academic performance, especially reading

Is it all bad?

Some research shows that preschoolers who watch a few hours of educational programming per week like Blue’s Clues perform better on scholastic achievement tests later on. Even the Canadian Pediatric Society recommends Sesame Street. But that’s a few hours a week … not a few hours a day.

The Canadian Pediatrics Society recommends no more than a half hour to an hour of television for children under two, and no more than two hours a day for toddlers. American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) currently recommends that children under the age of 2 not be exposed to TV at all, while youngsters over the age of 2 be limited to no more than two hours of TV per day.

Thoughts?

Men and Illness

Well, according to Ananova, it’s true - men suffer more from colds and the flu than women do. They are more likely to stay in bed, stay home from work, and they spend more on medication. They moan more. According to the Massachusetts Medical Society, men get sicker and die earlier than women.

Can you see my one upraised brow and the skeptical twist of my mouth? I’m the very image of “Uh-huh.”

Yet women get sick more. We have more non-life-threatening illnesses than men do. We’re more likely to go see the doctor and take daily vitamins. Doctors say that “Women get sicker, men die quicker.”

Obviously, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to get sick, because of problems with food, health care and housing. Unmarried people also get sick more and die younger. That’s not just true for men - even married women live longer than unmarried women.

A man who is at home sick is as lovable and friendly as a bear with a sore paw. Right now I have a 3 month old baby and a 33 year old baby at home sick. I’m not sure which one is harder to deal with. I went to the pharmacy and explained that I had two males sick at home.

For my infant, the pharmacist offered a camphor block which I’m to dissolve in boiling water - filling the air with nose-unclogging smell, apparently. Tylenol only if he gets a fever. Vicks Baby Rub is safe for babies as young as three months, so I’m using that to try and make him feel better. Saline drops to moisturize his nose. Mostly I’m keeping him at the breast and nursing him whenever he wants it (as usual), which is all the time. $15 spent.

However, when I mentioned to the nice pharmacist that his father was also sick, she gave me a much more sypathetic look and started pulling out stuff. We have Vicks vapor rub for his chest, multivitamins to give him some energy, Eucalyptus cough drops for his sore throat, Benadryl All-in-one to take care of … well, everything else. (It says it helps fevers AND chills). She said that it was the best cold medicine for a sick man. Total bill - $30

For the record, I got the same cold last week. I put on a sweater and used up a box of tissues.

Notes after reading For The Children’s Sake,ch 1-2

Part 1 - Chapters 1-2

These are my notes after reading For the Children’s Sake, by Susan Schaeffer Macauley.

What is education? Does it require a classroom? Could there be a gentle art to it?

Christians can’t develop a Christian view of education by accepting the usual aims and views of our society and then adding a “Christian message” or interpretation. Christians must start from a different basis - children are born persons, in an active state of learning, responding, understanding. Education must be lifelong. Giving a young person a piece of paper and saying “Congratulations, you’re education” cheats him.

The truly educated person knows that life is not long enough to explore everything fully.

Children are greedy to learn and experience. Do we feed them mental junk food? Do we brush off eager questions and later expect them to listen to a lecture?

Parents need to evaluate their priorities. Why do we not have time to read/hike/camp/paint/talk with our children? What is more important? The sacred career? Christianity says that people matter more than careers.

Children are born persons.

Respect them. Do not see them as things to prune, form or mold. They are individuals who think, act and feel. Their strengths lie in who they are, not in who they will become. They are not dependent on us to brainwash them in to thinking or doing whatever we deem useful. We should not plan their lives for them.

Education should prepare our children for life rather than for earning a living. The person who has read and thought on many subjects is, with training, the most capable. The more of a whole person we succeed in making a child, the better will he both fulfill his own life and serve society.

Share the good things of life with children. Don’t ply them with endless questions that we make up, but answer theirs. Give them a chance to wonder at stories, make their own responses, and think.

Don’t devalue their personhood. Give them proper, interesting, strong meat to nourish their minds. Don’t belittle their interests.

Read really good books together aloud. Do it regularly and often. Answer your children’s questions, and dig to answer well. Throw away all the manuals. The child’s mind is in a better state than ours. After reading, go outside to a really nice place and explore. God created us to live - and to live abundantly. Walk alongside the child and share.

It is the strong, real world that interests children, where the unexpected can happen and there is wonderful mystery.

Read long, complete books, chapter by chapter, about all sorts of things - biographies of historical people, literature, stories of faraway places, fables, etc. They should be truly valuable for their own sake, accurate and interesting, books that a child will recall with pleasure.

Train a child to think that one reading is enough, so that he gets into the habit of slow, careful, intelligent reading. Books are not merely “resource material” to look to for little snippets of information. (So if you enjoy the information in my notes, go read the real book!)

The ability to read independently develops between four and ten years. Until then, even after then, read to the child.

Our generation reads bits and pieces and then thinks we know the subject. We are only forming a habit of amusing our interest and then forgetting the fragments. This is NOT education.

Reading through, and then narrating, a full book, makes a book yours. It also acquaints you with its flow and use of language and makes you a student of the author.

Instead of forcing a child to memorize facts, let him form his own opinions and reactions.

Reading lots of poetry accustoms a child to the delicate shades of meaning and teaches him that words are beautiful and should be beautifully said.

A child needs books with literary power.

Giving lists of facts like a parrot is not even the beginning of education. Satisfy the minds of children with substantial, interesting, well-written material that they can think about. Let them enjoy beauty in nature, writing, art, music and the Bible. Give them lots of time to climb trees, explore woods, walk, ride, etc.

Education should be largely self-education. It begins with carefully listening to carefully chosen books every day, and then drawing what he has seen in his imagination. Later the child should read for himself and write a narration of some part of the reading.

Starting around age six, twenty minutes a day should be spent learning the mechanics of reading and writing. Don’t artificially rush or slow him down.

Expect high standards - but keep them appropriate to the child’s progress level.

Follow skills lessons with delicious mind-food. There should be no question of passing or failing.

Excellence is a habit.

Do not leave a child learning at the level of his reading ability. A short lesson in language mechanics, then the child reads aloud, then mother (or father) becomes the medium through which he “reads” real books.

A nice way to visually narrate is on a scroll, with the pictures unfolding to tell the story.

A person will rise to understand, master, and then enjoy whatever he is surrounded with. Surround a child with the very best of language, ideas, literature, and beauty, and he will amaze everyone.

Some Thoughts on Reading

You may have tangible wealth untold:

Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.

Richer than I you can never be -

I had a mother who read to me.

- Strickland Gillilan

More important than teaching a child how to read is teaching him to want to read. Read to children, early and often.

Silent Sustained Reading is a very important daily activity - model it to your children and expect it from them.

What’s a book report? It’s simply explaining, in your own words, why someone should (or should not!) read a book.

Reading to children improves their reading, writing, speaking and listening, as well as their attitudes towards reading.

The goal of education is to raise lifetime readers - adults who read and educate themselves throughout their lives.

We are very unlikely to read or write words that we do not hear or say. The listening vocabulary feeds that of speaking, reading and writing. Therefore reading aloud to your children, until they are able to read everything with ease, is always important. Read aloud at a level just above what your child can read. Listening and reading comprehension converge at about eighth grade. Don’t let a first grade reader think that that’s as good as it gets - show your child the wonderful books that are waiting for him. At grade one, read books rated at a grade four level. Stay about three grades ahead of what your child can read alone.

Children imitate! Be a reading role model.

Intelligence and comprehension are directly linked to vocabulary. Conversation consists of the 5000 words of the Basic Lexicon, the words most often used. 5000 more are used less often, then there are the rare words. The use of these rare words builds vocabulary. Only reading provides these words.

When do you start teaching a child to read? The very first lesson is when you first pick up a book and read it aloud! Read novels aloud to your infant.

More printed materials in a child’s home (books, magazines, newspapers, comics) means higher writing, reading, and math skills.

It is important for children to own their own books - ones that don’t have to be returned to the library or shared with siblings. Every child should have his very own personal library, no matter how small.

Have books in every room of your house. Cookbooks in the kitchen, magazines (or bathroom readers!) in the bathroom, books in bedrooms and livingroom. Model for your children that reading is a natural part of the day.

We do not learn to write well by writing but by reading rich, complex sentences. Nothing can be learned by reading your own writing.

Mother Goose and Dr. Seuss are perfect for babies. Readings should be about five minutes or less, repeated throughout the day. Increase slowly.

Before age two, reading a few books repeatedly is better than having a huge collection.

Help children get to know the authors - search out biographies. Write the children’s marketing department of the publisher, ask for any author bios, posters or photos that they might have.