Seven years ago today, I found out that the whole castor oil thing does indeed work. And that, since I mixed it with egg nog, I would not drink egg nog again for a long, long time.

Seven years ago, your daddy spent 24 hours flying home from Panama to see you – and just missed your birth by half a day. He had to fly back a week later and you didn’t see him again for 4 1/2 months. The closeness you two have now puts to rest all our infant-bonding fears. You are his Punkin, and he is the only one who can still pick you up.

I am amazed daily at how smart and beautiful and funny you are. How did God get all that in one package?

When you were a toddler, grown-ups thought it odd that you didn’t play with the rest of the kids, but sat quietly in a corner looking at books. You even regarded other babies with suspicion. Now you are gregarious and friendly to all, but are not dependent on others’ opinions. It’s just not on your radar. You get your fuel from inside.

I think your love of words is hard-wired. When you were a little baby, some words would make you roar with laughter. Snip! Stuck! Map book! Pot rack! You broke the code and read fluently at three and a half, and discovered chapter books a year later. Keeping up with your habit is exhilarating; because of you, I have already read a gazillion books that I missed as a kid. It’s also a challenge. Good gravy, kid, we’re gonna run out of room.

Best of all, you truly love the Lord. You willingly tithe, and during the holidays, you just quit saving anything at all. You get excited to think that a creation-based scientist is also a missionary to that field. And you have the gift of faith, always trusting God to do what’s best.

Thank you for seven years of fun and growth. I love you so much. Happy birthday, Princess.

Actually, she probably would rather you didn’t.

Spunky at SpunkyHomeschool has got a homeschool blog awards nomination going, with umpteen catagories, so get on over there. (And read her stuff, too. It’s an amazing blog.)

Friday night was open house for our homeschool co-op, hosted by the Silver Eagles. For fall session, the kids had classes in medieval history and architecture, science, and missions. What a hoot!

I taught the elementary science class, mostly against my will. I mean, I know that being part of a co-op means I am going to have to contribute. I can be a helper, no problem. But teach? No. I am not cool enough to teach. I am not together enough to teach. And I certainly don’t know enough about science to teach it.

Who knew it could be such a blast? We did a unit on light and color, and I think I learned as much as the kids did. Like, did you know that a pinhole camera really works? And that you can make a pretty good kaleidoscope out of mirror paper? That you can demonstrate the Tyndall effect with water, milk, and a laser pointer? We used the subject of light to learn about the human eye, colloids and solutions, and paper chromatography. We did sun painting (or, as we call it in cloudy Washington, UV-light bulbs-and-a-lot-of-prayer painting) and tie dyed t-shirts. It’s amazing what you can do in ten weeks.

And that was just my class! In missions, they learned about medieval-era missionaries, and packed shoe boxes and made cards for Samaritan’s Purse. In medieval history and architecture they built castles, learned a Latin chant, painted up like fierce Celts and made battle axes, and made raven masks to scare away the plague. They studied about the rule of Charlemagne, and the rise of Islam in southern Europe. Vikings! Monks! And Spartans! Oh, my!

So they got to show it all off last Friday night. They dressed up in period costume, ate middle ages style food (with no forks), and were instructed in the etiquette of the day. (Please, no burping in someone’s face if you have bad breath. And try not to spit directly on the table.) And at the end, checkers and chess.

The best part? All the learning was fun.

Y’know….someone needs to lower Robertson’s dosage.

Again, the medical community says, “Oops! Guess it’s not so safe…”

FDA Issues Warning for Birth Control Patch

Either the FDA is giving new drugs a pass way too quickly, or we are seeing a new form of clinical trials: the first patients to sign up for a newly released therapy are the final guinea pigs before we really find out if something works without killing you.

Citing federal death and injury reports, the AP also found that about a dozen women, most in their late teens and early 20s, died in 2004 from blood clots believed to be related to the birth-control patch, and dozens more survived strokes and other clot-related problems.

Yikes.

A poem by the Princess, written this morning:

Winter Night

Away in the winter night, a

lonely wind howls. Bears in their

faraway dens growl. Birds

in their nests shiver. Oh,

surely this is winter!

Animals far away shiver with

cold, while we, in out of the

cold, sit by warm fires.

She’s six. Could I get any more proud?

…was getting out of bed.

Woke up with a screaming sinus headache. And that was the best part of the whole morning.

Ingest: Two Advil, one Sudafed.

Coffee, breakfast, (noIamnotashortordercook, thankyouverymuch), more coffee, begin school.

After a stellar beginning in grammar and spelling, the Princess takes a nosedive when she not only forgets how to subtract single digits – something she’s been doing for over a year – but also simply skips every third problem or so, in no particular pattern. Much whining over corrections.

Ingest: One more Advil.

Call the Naval hospital for an appointment. Insist on female doc, since I’m having female problems. The very kind nurse tries very hard to accommodate. No, their one female doc is booked up to her eyeballs for, well, forever. No, they will not let me go to my midwife and accept her results so I can get meds. After half an hour on the phone with this very patient nurse, she tells me that even the male docs don’t have anything open until next Thursday. Nurse suggests going to Planned Parenthood.

Hang up. Cry over the stupid stupid Tricare system. Sinuses swell even more.

Ingest: One more Sudafed.

During the tail end of the conversation with the kind patient unhelpful nurse, the Princess decides to completely lose it over her picture in Microsoft Paint. As I hang up, cry, and dose up, she is wailing like a Nazgul. Tears. Mucus. Any attempt to show her the eraser or “undo” function is met with more mucus and louder wailing. Send Princess to a corner of the room with the box of tissue. Save and close down Paint. (More wailing from the corner. Sobbing. Renting of clothing, gnashing of teeth, sackcloth and ashes. )

Consider drinking Scotch. No, drinking midday is socially unacceptable. Instead,

Ingest: Two Happy Camper.

Turn to see the Bear tormenting his sister, despite a direct order to cease and desist. Ponder a double dose of HC. Decide that my liver has probably had enough.

I look up at the clock. Noon.

I love a good Halloween. And is there any other kind? The crisp air, the leaves, the pumpkins, the little kids with their costumes yanked over parkas. I still love to dress up and take on another identity for a night.

Having kids multiplies how many great costumes you can create. (Bonus points for everyone’s costumes relating!) The Princess has been Esther, she and I have been Ruth and Naomi, She and her baby brother were Dorothy and Toto, And last year all four of us went as Ozma, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Woodman, and the Patchwork Girl of Oz.

Through the years, the Grammy, the Grandma, and I have had a ball putting this stuff together, down to the last miniscule detail. (Tip: Brown fine-point Sharpie works beautifully to put realistic henna tattoos on a three year old Babylonian queen.) So it was kind of strange when the Princess said she wanted to be a medieval princess (we’re studying the middle ages), but that she’d like to wear a hand-me-down costume from her dress up bin.

What?!

No conferences with her grandma, the master seamstress? No verifying historical accuracy with her Grammy? No searching the web for the perfect crown? One might as well stay home and hand out candy.

Which is what we did. Right on schedule, her fever popped up over the weekend, so we spent the night at home. Her costume was this:

We watched a movie and got to hand out candy for the first time since she was a toddler. It was kind of nice, in a shut-in sort of way.

But what to do about the Bear’s costume? The idea for it had come out of the blue, and I had all the supplies ready to roll! It was truly an inspired idea. He was going to be “Mr. Stew,” the singer-guitarist-banjoist-mandolinist-whathaveyou-ist from New Creation, and biker dude extraordinaire. (The Bear had initially wanted to be a bunny rabbit, which I guess fits with the whole strawberry glitter lotion thing.)

So he got to be Mr. Stew at co-op today. Stewart is also the custodian at our church, where the co-op meets, so I got some pictures of them together. The Bear was so excited and proud.

Now to start mulling over next year’s costumes…