The doctor is forever on my case about how out of shape homeschooled children are—since they don't have Phys Ed. But we walk and run and bike and swim and swing and jump just as much as anyone else, I think. Many of the studies I've recently looked at posit that there might be a correlation between homeschooling and lack of physical activity...but noted that there doesn't seem to be any notable difference in the actual results of the study. And, honestly, from what I've heard about Phys Ed classes, this makes sense.
In fact, Rachel and Miriam recently have become friends with another homeschooling teenager. They've invited her to some game nights and movie nights and so she's becoming acquainted with all of Rachel and Miriam's public schooled friends. On the first night this girl met this public school kids, one of the public school girls was complaining about needing to complete one (1) pushup to pass her PE midterm.
"How much recess do you get?" the homeschooled girl asked.
"Recess?" the public schooled girl said, confused. "We don't get recess! We haven't gotten recess since elementary school!"
"Oh!" said the homeschooled girl, shocked. "Then when do you go outside?"
"We don't. Not until school is over."
"Oh. I just...assumed...because the doctor is always telling me I need more fresh air, more exercise...that public schooled students got fresh air and exercise."
"We walk laps in the gym."
"Oh."
It is rather surprising to hear what they do at public school when we catch so much grief as homeschoolers (and I was pleased to know that we're not the only ones being lectured by our doctor about this).
Anyway, Benjamin and I haven't gone running outside in a long time, in part because it's been winter and in part because I've been so busy that I've been running on the treadmill late at night after I get all the kids in bed.
The kids run on the treadmill, they use the exercise bike. It's true we need fresh air as well...and we get plenty of that, as well. But recently we've been keeping fit indoors. So it was nice to head out into the sunshine and go for a run with Benjamin.
When we were taking a little walking break I noticed a little anole darting around on the sidewalk.
"Benjamin—look!" I said.
"Oooh! I want to catch it!" he said. And he tried to.
That poor anole panicked and made a dash for the closest tree it could find...which happened to be me. It ran right up my shoe and sock and scrambled around my ankle, finally finding purchase on my shin. When Benjamin went into grab it, it leaped to my other leg and scrambled around for a bit before leaping off into the grass and zipping into camouflaged safety.
"Huh," Benjamin shrugged. "I'm usually better at catching those. How'd it feel to have a lizard climbing all over you like that?"
"A little bit tickly," I admitted.
"Imagine if it was my bearded dragon climbing all over you like that!"
"That would probably be a bit scratchier," I said—that bearded dragon is much bigger than the tiny anole was. "Let's get moving!"
"Do we have to?"
"How else are we going to get home?"
"Good point."
*****
For Benjamin, all good workouts are preparing him for summer swim team (which I just registered the kids for this morning—for the record, I think half the swim team are homeschool families). It's a little wild to think about the next swim season already, though I know Phoebe is more than ready for the pool to open. She asks about it every day.
The other day she brought me a poodle skirt from the dress up bin—this one that I made for Miriam nearly ten years ago—and asked me to put it on her. So I did.
"Now can we go to the pool?" she asked.
"We can't go to the pool," I told her. "The pool doesn't open until May. We're only in February, remember? January, February, March, and April...May..."
"When it's May can we go to the pool?" she asked.
"When it's May we can definitely go to the pool."
"Oh. Yay! And can I wear this skirt to the pool?"
"I think we'll wear swimming suits."
"But everyone says this is a pool skirt."
"I don't think that's what everyone says."
"They do!"
"I think everyone says that is a poodle skirt. See that white dog on it? That's called a poodle. It's a poodle skirt because it has a poodle on it. It's not for swimming. It's for dancing."
"Oooh! Dancing?"
"Yup. Can I see you twirl?"
*****
Phoebe has been obsessed with what "everyone says" lately.
On Friday morning she dashed into our room and ran over to Andrew's side of the bed, exclaiming, "I'm just rushing in here to see you!"
She was excited to see Daddy since she doesn't get to see him at all on Thursdays. She gave him a hug and told him how happy she was to see him since she didn't get to see him at all yesterday (I just told you that so you already knew that).
"Oh. Where was I?" Andrew asked.
"Dad! You were at campus!" she said.
"And what was I doing there?" he asked.
"Teaching," she said confidently.
"Why would I do a thing like that?" he asked.
"Because you're a prefssor!"
"I'm a professor?!"
"Everyone says you're a prefssor, Dad!"
"Well, if everyone says so, it must be true!"
*****
I helped Rachel and Miriam fill out their travel documents for the UK this afternoon. It was a rather strange—yet simple—process that involved scanning passports and taking photos and filling out paperwork. Just in case you ever need to know, the little chip inside US passports is evidently in the back cover, not the front, so if you're scanning and scanning and scanning the front of your passport to no avail...flip your passport over.
Who knew smart phones could even read on the microchips on passports? Not me.
Not sure I love that.
Anyway, the girls are cleared to head to the UK. We spent some time looking at all the documents and things in our big ol' Box of Important Stuff, including our old passports...bulging with visas, decorated with entrance and exit stamps.
"Look at this!" I showed the girls. "This one had to be sent in to the embassy for them to add extra pages! And look at my current passport—crisp, untouched...so sad."
To be fair, it's been on a few trips...but not ones that require anything to be put inside.
It made me long to stretch my legs a bit, see the world. But, I'm just happy my girls are getting to do a bit of that now. We pulled out their very first passports. They laughed over infant Miriam's shell-shocked photo (she did not know what to do when the flash went off), and how she had to get an entrance stamp and traveller's visa for a country she was born in. Rachel's first passport picture was much more serene, but to be fair she was around six months old (not mere days old) and knew what to do for a camera.
"Why do you keep our old passports?" Miriam asked, looking at the stack of passports beside me—nearly half a foot high (when you're keeping documents for eight different people it gets to be...a lot of documents).
It was an excellent question, really. They aren't valid to travel with internationally, but they do count as a form of government ID. Because you have to prove your identity and citizenship to get a passport in the first place, your expired passport can be used as proof of citizenship (and can make the process of acquiring a new passport easier, for example). Plus they're just fun to look at!
I'm kind of reeling that it's nearly time to hand over important documents to my children (who are almost adults) because I have been so...fastidious about keeping our documents together and secure and up to date. I have relatives who have been...less careful...about keeping their documentation...and I've seen what a mess it causes...and what freedom it brings to always have documents ready.
You never know when you might want to cross a border.
*****
Last night we were talking about who would go grocery shopping in the morning. Phoebe loves to be Daddy's shopping buddy. And Alexander does as well. But, I pointed out, Rachel needs some more practice shopping—pushing the cart, comparing prices, checking out, things like that—and Miriam needs more time behind the wheel.
"So why don't I take Miriam and Rachel with me?" Andrew said. "And then if we convince Phoebe and Alexander not to come we can take Rachel's car instead of the van. Miriam doesn't like driving the van."
"But how will we convince Phoebe not to go?" I asked.
"She had no screen time today. Maybe we could convince her to stay home by offering her screen time."
So in the morning when she came in to cuddle, I floated the idea that she might skip out on today's shopping trip. Her face immediately screwed up in agony, her eyes filled with tears, her cheeks flushed red, her little lips quivered. Then she took a deep, deep breath, exhaled and squeaked out, "I was really planning to be Daddy's shopping buddy today."
"Okay, okay," he said, pulling her into a big hug. "You can come. That's fine. You were planning on it when I tucked you in last night. We were just thinking of changing the plan. But we don't have to."
"Okay," she sniffed.
I was impressed with how well she maintained her composure.
"Maybe we can convince Alexander to stay behind..." Andrew floated.
Battling her emotions once again, Phoebe asserted that "Aleksei was planning to come shopping, too, wiff me!"
"Okay. Alexander can come, too."
So Andrew took the two youngest and the two oldest shopping. Miriam drove. She did just fine.
She prefers driving with Andrew to driving with me (honestly, I don't mind).
*****
This evening we watched The LEGO Movie since Phoebe had never seen it and Alexander couldn't remember seeing it. There's this one part where Emmett has to drive some motorcycle thing through a portal, but he hesitates, so Wild Style screams at him, "Don't brake! Go! Don't stop! Go! Now!"
Everyone in our house turned to stare at Miriam.
"Okay, wow," Miriam said, rolling her eyes.
The first time I drove with her, I yelled at her a little bit...but only because I was afraid we were going to die! The thing is that we were coming upon a stale green light and Miriam wasn't quite prepared to stop. And that's fine!
The light was green when we entered the intersection.
But it was a pretty big intersection—like eight lanes of traffic and a median—and she saw that the light turned yellow while we were about in the middle of the intersection...so she slammed on the brakes.
There was a car following us through the intersection and everything—cars yielding before turning right, who decided to then turn in front of us...and meanwhile that yellow light was, you know, getting ready to switch to red.
"DON'T BRAKE!" I yelled. "Go, go, go! You have to press the gas! Now!"
I didn't handle it the best...but we made it through the intersection without being rear-ended or t-boned or anything.
"But the light turned yellow!" Miriam wailed.
"Doesn't matter," I said. "You have to clear the intersection. You can't just stop in the middle!"
"Oh, yeah," she gulped.
So that was our first time driving together on the open road. And now for some reason she prefers to go driving with Andrew (though she's been fine driving with me since then, too—she was just so new and didn't know what to do).
It was pretty funny to have that line pop up in the LEGO movie, though, when it's so fresh in our minds from driving with Miriam.
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