Semicolon

Frances is a badger, a little girl badger with a mind of her own and a talent for making up songs. We use lots of Francesisms in our house, and so in honor of the birthday of Lillian Hoban (b. May 18, 1925), author with her husband Russell, of the Frances books, I give you our favorite Francesisms:

“Being careful isn’t nice; being friends is better.”

“A lot of girls never do get tea sets. So maybe you won’t get one.”

“No backsies.”

“When the wasps and the bumblebees have a party.
Nobody comes that can’t buzz.”

“That is how it is, Alice. Your birthday is always the one that is not now.”

“Chompo bars are nice to get,
Chompo Bars taste better yet
When they’re someone else’s.”

“A family is everybody all together.”

“If the wind does not blow the curtains, he will be out of a job.
If I do not go to the office, I will be out of a job.
And if you do not go to sleep now, do you know what will happen to you?”

“Sunny-side up eggs lie on the plate and look up at you in a funny way. And sunny-side down eggs just lie on their stomachs and wait. Scrambled eggs fall off the fork and roll under the table.”

“Jam on biscuits, jam on toast,
Jam is the thing that I like most.
Jam is sticky, jam is sweet,
Jam is tasty, jam’s a treat—
Raspberry, strawberry, gooseberry, I’m very
FOND . . . OF . . . JAM!”

“She liked to practice with a string bean when she could.”

“Jam for snacks and jam for meals,
I know how a jam jar feels—
FULL . . . OF . . . JAM!”

“How do you know what I’ll like if you won’t even try me?”

More about Lillian and Russell Hoban.

More May Celebrations, Links, and Birthdays.

Today, May 22, is the birthday of author and illustrator Arnold Lobel. He wrote the Frog and Toad books and the Mouse books and Owl at Home and many others. Perhaps you don’t use Lobelisms in your home, but we certainly do.

“Let us eat one very last cookie and then we will stop.”

“Will power is trying hard not to do something that you really want to do.”

“We have lots and lots of will power.
You may keep it all, Frog. I am going home now to bake a cake.”

“What will I do without my list? Running after my list is not one of the things that I wrote on my list of things to do!”

“Tonight I will make tear-water tea.”

“The whole world is covered with buttons, and NOT ONE OF THEM IS MINE!” (Substitute any lost item for “button” and you have the problem with the universe in a nutshell.)

“Winter may be beautiful, but bed is much better.”

“I am laughing at you, Toad,” said Frog, “because you do look funny in your bathing suit.”
“Of course I do,” said Toad. Then he picked up his clothes and went home.

Writer 2b celebrates Arnold Lobel.

More May Celebrations, Links, and Birthdays.

May 1 is Mother Goose Day.
My favorite nursery rhyme is one that Organizer Daughter altered when she was little:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and taco shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

The Mary in the rhyme was either Mary, Queen of Scots or Bloody Mary (Elizabeth I’s half-sister) or Mary Magdalene. And the silver bells and cockle shells are either decorations on a dress or instruments of torture. The pretty maids? Mary’s ladies in waiting or the guillotine. Take your pick. Admit it. Don’t you like our version better than the original? Taco shells are so harmless and good to eat, and they have no hidden symbolic meaning as far as I know.

For more information on how to celebrate Mother Goose Day, go to the Mother Goose Society website.
For recipes, crafts and coloring pages, try mother goose.com, or go to this Nursery Rhyme page for more educational links. Also, DLTK has coloring pages and craft ideas.

Mother Goose-based games: Mother Goose Caboose.
The Mother Goose Pages: Nursery Rhymes.

My favorite nursery rhyme/Mother Goose books:

In a Pumpkin Shell illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund.

Lavender’s Blue: A Book of Nursery Rhymes compiled by Kathleen Lines.

Mother Goose: If Wishes Were Horses and Other Rhymes illustrated by Susan Jeffers.

Mother Goose illustrated by Brian Wildsmith.

Old Mother Hubbard by Alice and Martin Provensen.

The Real Mother Goose by Blanche Fisher Wright.

The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose: A Treasury of More Than 300 Classic Nursery Rhymes collected and illustrated by Arnold Lobel.

The fair maid who, the first of May
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree
Will ever after handsome be.
- Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme

What’s your favorite Mother Goose rhyme or book?

Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary defined marriage as:

The act of uniting a man and woman for life; wedlock; the legal union of a man and woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for promoting domestic felicity, and for securing the maintenance and education of children.

Merriam-Webster Online now says marriage is:

1 a (1): the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law
(2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage: same-sex marriage
b: the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock
c: the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage
2: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected ; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
3: an intimate or close union: the marriage of painting and poetry — J. T. Shawcross.

I am thinking a lot about the meaning of marriage these days. I find it disingenuous, at the very least, for gay activists to say that they are not, by their lobbying and legislative and judicial actions, trying to redefine marriage.

However, as the definition of marriage has changed in the last two hundred years, it has not been completely as a result of recent homosexual activism and propaganda. WIth no credentials as a sociologist or a historian, I give my humble opinion that the definition of marriage began to change as more and more people in Western society lost faith in the Bible and the God of the BIble, and that it continued to lose meaning as promiscuity and fornication became, not only common, but also acceptable as a lifestyle.

If marriage is not a contract “both civil and religious”, then what is its basis? If God and Adam did not agree on the definition of marriage in Genesis 2:24 (Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.), then why can’t we as a society, by majority vote or evolving social mores, define marriage any way we see fit? Serial marriage in which the partners know that that the marriage contract is impermanent or polygamy in which either partner can have have more than one lifetime mate or homosexual marriage in which both partners are of the same sex or open marriage/non-marriage in which the couple lives together but there’s no legal commitment . . . . the options are endless.

In this kind of society, with undefined marriage that’s simply “a state of being united to a person”, marriage loses all meaning. I can be united to Engineer Husband today and to Tom, Dick or Mary tomorrow. I can move in with Joe and decide that I want us to stay “married” for the rest of our lives, but he can leave me whenever the first gray hair appears.

We’re entering Wonderland, and it looks as if the state is to be master. Our democratically elected government will decide the meaning of the word marriage and in the process will drain the word, and the institution, of all meaning.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is, ” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty. “which is to be master—that’s all.”

I find this to be a sad state of affairs, and I challenge anyone who advocates for such meaningless marriage to tell me how it can be good for children or for a civil society, much less how it can be right before a holy God who created us to cleave to a mate of the opposite sex and become one flesh. Of course, if marriage means “whatever I choose it to mean, neither more nor less,” I am free to have my partner(s) in marriage choose a different meaning from mine. And that’s not freedom at all; it’s chaos.

Here are a couple of the poems we put in our May baskets yesterday, along with the wildflowers we picked in the vacant lots behind the mall. Who says you can’t get close to nature in Major Suburbia?

A delicate fabric of bird song 

Floats in the air, 

The smell of wet wild earth

 Is everywhere. 

Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.
Oh I must pass nothing by 

Without loving it much, 

The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch; 

For how can I be sure

 I shall see again 

The world on the first of May 

Shining after the rain?
- Sara Teasdale, May Day

Now the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads withher

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire

Mirth, and youth, and warm desire!

Woods and groves are of thy dressing;

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.

Thus we salute thee with our early song,

And welcome thee, and wish thee long.
-
John Milton, Song on a May Morning, 1660

May is Get Caught Reading Month:

Tete d’une Femme Lisant

Art Print

Picasso, Pablo


Buy at AllPosters.com

I asked the urchins what this picture was, and they had multiple answers: two people kissing, weird, colored body parts . . . I had one of the French-speaking urchins translate the title: “Head of a Girl Reading.”

Salvador Dali was born May 11, 1904. The painting is called Alegorie de Soie; I think it means Allegory of Silk.

Who is the woman in right background?

Why are the shadows of the butterflies so prominent? Because it’s an allegory?

What is the yellow egg in the center?

And what are the two rock pillars on either side?

It’s almost like figuring out a LOST episode. What do you think it means?

I found this poem that I liked and which seemed to go with the painting:

To the Dead Favourite of Liu Ch’e

by Djuna Barnes (1892–1982)

THE SOUND of rustling silk is stilled,
With solemn dust the court is filled,
No footfalls echo on the floor;
A thousand leaves stop up her door,
Her little golden drink is spilled.

Her painted fan no more shall rise
Before her black barbaric eyes—
The scattered tea goes with the leaves.
And simply crossed her yellow sleeves;
And every day a sunset dies.

Her birds no longer coo and call,
The cherry blossoms fade and fall,
Nor ever does her shadow stir,
But stares forever back at her,
And through her runs no sound at all.

And bending low, my falling tears
Drop fast against her little ears,
And yet no sound comes back, and I
Who used to play her tenderly
Have touched her not a thousand years.

The poet seems to have been a person of rather dubious character, but I still like the poem.

Today’s Poetry Friday round-up is posted at HipWriterMama.

Our homeschool year is winding down. We always do this about May/June. I run out of steam. The Great Outdoors invites the children out to explore before it gets too hot in Houston to go outdoors. So, here’s a play-by-play of our school day today:

Starting last night: We watched the video, Building Big: Dams with David Macaulay, that I got from Blockbuster. Last night’s viewing was the second time we watched it because Engineer Husband wanted to watch it, too. This time two of the urchins decided to build a dam, but it was too late last night. So Engineer Dad got out the sand and the rocks and left them for the urchins to build their dam.

9:00 AM: Karate Kid (10) and Betsy-Bee are ready to build their dam. They go outside and begin to play dam-building while Z-Baby (5) watches. After it’s built we take pictures and flood it a few more times.

10:00 AM: Everybody’s finally awake now. Computer Guru Son leaves for college to take his government final. The urchins are grazing on breakfast (bagels, cream cheese, and/or cereal) and doing their morning jobs. Karate Kid is reading the book I gave him yesterday, The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin. The book is an ARC that Mr. Berlin kindly had sent to me to review. I’ve read part of it, but I figured a ten year old boy’s opinion would be useful. Karate Kid says it’s sort of like The Westing Game, and it’s a great book, and he wishes there were more books about the same character. Brown Bear Daughter (12) is doing her writing practice on the computer. She’s taking a writing class at The Potter’s School, an online resource for middle school and high school classes, and she’s supposed to write for thirty minutes a day. By the way, I recommend the classes at The Potter’s School, if you can afford them. Most of them that we’ve used have been quite good and helpful. While everyone is grazing, working and reading, I read two books to Z-baby that she requested: The Magic School Bus: Wet all Over, a Book About the Water Cycle and Richard Scarry’s Great Big Mystery Book.

10:30 AM I finally get all the urchins (except Computer Guru Son) together for Bible reading and devotional time. We read from Matthew 6, then read about a missionary to the Philippines who was held prisoner by the Japanese during WW II and later became a missionary to Japan in The One Year Book of Christian History. We sing a hymn, Tell Me the Story of Jesus. The older urchins say that I led it too slowly. I’ll have to remember to pick up the tempo. I remind the urchins to complete their morning jobs, which should have been done long ago, and to start on their math.

11:00 AM: I’m ready to help Betsy-Bee and Z-Baby with their math, but Betsy-Bee says she wants to help Z-Baby with her math. They go outside to the picnic table to do math look at the dam. Then they come inside to start the math pages in Z-Baby’s workbook. Karate Kid is back to reading Winston Breen and laughing out loud. I don’t have the heart to tear him away for math, so I decide to leave him alone and let the math wait until later. I find Brown Bear Daughter back on the computer browsing a forum, and I remind her that she’s supposed to be doing her Saxon math lesson. She complies sheepishly.

11:30: I thought she complied, but I catch her back on the computer again. She says she’s chatting with someone while she does her math. I tell Brown Bear Daughter to “move away from the computer.” (Does anyone else have this problem, a 12 year old who’s computer-dependent? If so, or if not, what do you do to limit computer use? Or do you?) Brown Bear Daughter goes to the living room couch to do her math lesson. Dancer Daughter is practicing her piano pieces for recital.

12:00 noon: I start lunch, pasta salad with tuna. I should have made it earlier and refrigerated it, but I didn’t think. I also put some pinto beans on to cook for supper. Computer Guru Son gets back from his test and says he thinks it went pretty well. He has one more final to go on Thursday to finish the semester. Betsy-Bee and Z-Baby finished Z-Baby’s math, but Betsy-Bee hasn’t started hers. I tell her to get her book and do math.

12:30 PM: Lunch is just as informal as breakfast was. I put the pasta salad in the freezer to cool and tell the urchins to get some as soon as they’ve finished something significant school-wise. I help Betsy-Bee get started on her math. Using the Cuisenaire rods, she’s doing some simple division problems in her Miquon math workbook.

1:00 PM: Betsy-Bee is still working on her math in between distractions. Brown Bear Daughter is still working on her math, too. I have a long discussion with Computer Guru Son about when he should purchase a car. He wants to buy the car now with a thousand dollar down payment, and I think he should wait until he gets another job before he gets the car. Delayed gratification is major lesson that should be required for graduation.

1:30 PM Dancer Daughter and Organizer Daughter leave to go to the church for their drama class. Their class is working on a musical play called Malcolm, based on a story by George MacDonald, that will be presented in less than three weeks, and they’re hitting the time crunch. I’m still trying to get Betsy-Bee to finish her math. Z-Baby and I do a couple of pages in her phonics workbook, Go for the Code. I tell Karate Kid, who has finished the Winston Breen book to go do his math lesson. He wants to write a report on The Puzzling Adventures of Winston Breen instead.

2:00 PM Brown Bear Daughter finished her math, and now she’s reading another ARC, First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover by Mitali Perkins. BB Daughter says it’s a good book, but she doesn’t think I’ll like it because the mom in the story says, “Crap.” I tell her not to make that word a part of her daily vocabulary and think to myself that I probably will like it.

2:30 PM Computer Guru Son wants me to come see a picture on his computer of the car he wants to buy. Z-Baby wants me to write some words in her alphabet book for her to copy and illustrate. I write: “map, tap, lap, cap, nap.” She tries to read the words as I write them and as she copies them, but she’s really just reading my lips and memorizing for the most part.

3:00 PM I look at the car. After Computer Guru Son threw in all kinds of sweeteners, including a promise to redesign the blog and cleanup the backyard, I’m about convinced, but he still has to get his dad’s approval. Brown Bear Daughter and I take a look at Sameera Righton’s blog, SparrowBlog. We learn that Barak Obama now has secret service protection and that presidential candidates’ kids sometimes get to fly in private jets.

3:30 PM The younger urchins are watching Maya and Miguel. I don’t like this show for some reason that I can’t exactly articulate, but the urchins like it. Karate Kid needs to get ready for swim team practice which starts at 4:00.

4:00 PM I take Karate Kid to swim team. The rest of the day will be mostly filled with me playing taxi driver. Betsy-Bee has dance tonight. Brown Bear Daughter has swim team practice later. And Dancer Daughter has an appointment to get an MRI on her knees—the reason she’s not really Dancer Daughter anymore

See you later.

8:00 PM: I did all the taxi-driving and came home to find supper on the table thanks to my wonderful Engineer Husband. After supper, we made a quick, impromptu trip to the library so that the urchins could get some library books. Karate Kid never did get his math done, but he did write a paragraph about the book he read. Dams and puzzles today, math tomorrow.

“A hill is a house for an ant, an ant.
A hive is a house for a bee.
A hole is a house for a mole or a mouse
And a house is a house for me!”

A House Is a House For Me by Mary Ann Hoberman, illustrated by Betty Fraser, goes on rollicking and rhyming from there to tell about all the possible houses for all the creatures you can imagine. Then, it moves on to expand your creativity and that of your child by telling us that “a stocking’s a house for a knee” and “cartons are houses for crackers.” The illustrations give even more examples of people, animals, and things, each inside its own cozy house or tent or container or home. And the rhyme and the rhythm keep the story going.

Mary Ann Hoberman: “I knew I was going to be a writer even before I knew how to write! I think I was about four years old when I first understood that many of the stories I loved so much had been made up by real people, with real names, rather than having always been here like the moon or the sky. I decided then that when I grew up I would write stories, too, that would be printed in books for other people to read. But meanwhile I didn�t wait to grow up or even to learn how to write. I started right away to make up stories and poems and songs in my head, which I told to myself or to my little brother�”

Question: Do you have a child (or children) who tells stories to herself? I did. Eldest Daughter walked around and around in circles and told stories to herself. Z-baby just makes up her own songs.

We read this book aloud this morning, and now Z-baby and Bethy Bee are busy making houses for their dolls out of shoe boxes.

Mary Ann Hoberman’s website.
Go here for a short interview with poet Mary Ann Hoberman.
Try this webpage for a first grade level lesson plan about homes and neighborhoods.
Here’s another lesson plan in which the teacher guides children to write a story of their own about quilts in the style of A House Is a House for Me.

“And once you get started in thinking this way,
It seems that whatever you see
Is either a house or it lives in a house,
And a house is a house for me!”

Picture Book Preschool is a preschool/kindergarten curriculum which consists of a list of picture books to read aloud for each week of the year and a character trait, a memory verse, and activities, all tied to the theme for the week. Click on the link in the sidebar if you are interested in purchasing a copy of the preschool curriculum, Picture Book Preschool by Sherry Early.

I attended the Homeschool Graduation this morning. It was held in a large church auditorium, and Dr. Marvin Olasky, journalism professor and editor of WORLD magazine gave the commencement address. The graduates walked across the stage one by one, and the parents who invested so much time in their education gave out the diplomas.

Actually, I attended one of many homeschool graduation ceremonies in Houston this morning, and I didn’t exactly just attend. Engineer Husband and I presented one of the diplomas. Congratulations, Computer Guru Son!

Attendees at our particular homeschool graduation ceremony recognized over 100 homeschooled high school graduates from all over the city of Houston. By my count, there were 52 young ladies and 54 young men. I’d estimate that a good third of the graduates say that they plan to attend Texas A&M. Aggies and homeschoolers must have something in common; I’m just not sure what that “something” is.

The graduates have big plans.
Richard and Alyssa want an MBA, and Hannah will study marketing. Courtney is specifically interested in fashion marketing. Luke, too, wants to study business, and so do Jennifer and Elizabeth and Andrew and Dana
Stephanie wants to prepare for law school. Paige is looking at real estate law.
Myron and Darrell and Brandon hope to work with youth Darrell also wants to be a history professor.
Natalie is studying nursing and “preparing to one day become a wife and mother.” Chelsea’s interested in combining nursing and missions.
Christin wants to become a dietitian and personal trainer.
Charles wants to be a CPA and “help individuals and businesses apply sound Biblical principles in the area of finances.”
Molly and Devon and Sarah and Emily and Terra are all studying education, maybe preparing to homeschool the next generation? Or perhaps they’ll revolutionize public or private schools.
John wants to major in Global Security and Intelligence Studies. I hope he’s good at it; we could use some intelligent and principled intelligence agents.
Rachel loves science and plans to become a forensic investigator. Elizabeth has a similar goal. Sam’s going to study criminal justice.
Joshua will be an officer in the Army after college.
Collin’s going to be an officer in the Marine Corps; we could use a few good men there, too.
Michelle and Thomas and Jared and Julie are taking a year to learn a bit more or serve or volunteer or just work before they go to college. Not a bad idea and one I hope catches on more and more as homeschoolers show everyone that we don’t have to be enslaved to the traditional school schedules and timelines.
Lots of the kids are interested in and want to study music: Thomas and Taylor and Silem and Jonathan and Christine and Hannah and Julia and Carlee and Collins and Laura and Andrew. Homeschoolers are big into music; most of the biographies mentioned some kind of musical involvement, usually through the church.
Craig wants to start a Christian radio station for teens.
Joseph wants to combine his passions for film and music. Eric will be pursuing film making. Stuart plans to become a film writer. These guys should get together.
Alana and Sarah want to study literature, a not-so-lucrative field, but one that is full of riches nevertheless. Alison wants to teach high school English. I wish them all the best. The world needs some literary types, too.
Joel is planning to become an aerospace engineer; Hunter a chemical engineer; Aaron is studying engineering, and Ben is looking toward studying electrical and computer engineering. Trey wants to study engineering and eventually go to law school.
Matthew is headed for medical school, and so is Paige. Faith Ann plans to become a trauma surgeon. Natalie wants to be a pediatrician. Amber and Natalie might want to talk since Amber’s ambition is to become a pediatric nurse.
Ben wants a degree in architecture. Nathan might be an architect or an engineer.
Ryan’s getting a Journeyman’s license in Utilities.
Whitney plans to study Graphic Design, and Christina wants to major in Photography and Digital Media.
Susan’s goal is to become a speech pathologist in order to “serve others.”
Amy wants a triple major: mathematics, chemistry and physics. Ruthie plans to become a ballerina. Mary’s interested in interior decorating.
Alisa wants to be a missionary. Darren wants to start a skateboard ministry. Tara wants to focus on ministry and journalism. Of course, all these kids, all of them who are committed to the Lord Jesus, will be missionaries in the places and callings and jobs where God leads them to be a witness. I’m excited to see them going out to be salt in so many areas of life.

Some of these guys will achieve their goals, and others will change direction, find something even better—or worse. Some will fail, pick themselves up, and start again. They don’t mention marriage and family in their career goals, but they’re thinking about it and for most of them family will become the focus of their lives under the Lordship of Christ. It’s an inspiring thing to see young, ambitious adults who are at the same time aware of their dependence upon and need for family, friends, and God.

Pray for the graduates of 2006. They will be our leaders and our workers and our future. Those who are Christians will be His ambassadors in a needy world. I think they’ll do OK.