Acting Out May 24, 2012 Tags: parenting Maybe intervention isn’t always the answer. Saoirse and Ula are three years apart. Saoirse, 8, is unusually tall, slender, well-spoken, and comes across to grown-ups as particularly well-behaved and extraordinarily poised. Ula isn’t any of those things. At 5, she’s about a foot shorter than her sister, demonstrates […]

Ula captures the world on her i-soap Perfect Moment April 10, 2012 Tags: traveling with kids At its best, travel is a patchwork of glorious moments, too perfect and rich for all the senses to be captured simply in photographs. Ula reminded me of that the other day. We’re presently renting an apartment in a […]

Saoirse started crying during dinner a few nights ago. We’d just returned from an evening stroll around our temporary home, St. Pierre de Maille, where spring has taken a definitive hold. Along the walk we’d passed by fields plowed and freshly seeded, cattle finally out on pasture, neighbors out doing the seasonal work that comes […]

You’re never too old to speak from the heart French Bob March 30, 2012 Tags: homeschooling, traveling with kids I would be lying if I told you I was a linguist. But from the time I was a child, the ability to speak languages ranked high on my life priorities. It distressed me as a […]

Traveling to Experience Community March 24, 2012 Tags: traveling with kids Kids can open doors wherever your adventures may take you. This is the second trip that our family has made to the rural village of St. Pierre de Maille, a small community never mentioned in the guidebooks that lies about an hour south of […]

Swash-buckling pirates along the River Medway I am prone to crazy and impulsive notions. Bob is inclined to indulge them. When Saoirse was 18 months old, we packed her up and moved to Europe for three months. I know a lot of people raised their eyebrows that a young couple, new to the throes of […]

Kids need to love the earth before they can save it March 1, 2012 Tags: parenting, radical homemaking Saoirse and Ula are no strangers to four letter words. They’re growing up with farmers, for crying out loud. And no self-respecting farmer around Schoharie County is going to doll up the natural functions of nature with […]

The text you type here will appear directly below the image When I picture a homeschooling parent, I can’t help but vision the über-caregiver; a person who is so lovingly in-tune with his or her children that they know exactly how to cultivate these young minds and give them a superb education. Through intuition and […]

Curriculum Vs Life January 6, 2012 Tags: homeschooling Apparently third graders are supposed to know all the states and capitals. This week for homeschool, Saoirse and I learned all the capitals of all the states. I must admit that while they were taught in my school, I never actually learned them. I’ve managed to live […]