Thursday, December 21, 2006

Christmas in Opryland


Here we are in front of a gigantic tree in Opry Mills Hotel. They have it decorated beautifully, we saw a water show done to music also.

There were many trees and decorations inside and out and a huge Nativity scene outside made out of ceramic, and so many lights...

There were so many people there that it made it a little too stuffy but it was worth going anyway.

New addition to our family


This is Caramel, she joined our family about 10 days ago. The kids just adore her, the dogs still aren't sure what it is. We introduce them as often as we can and they sniff her and lick her. We will not let them near her unless we are holding her. We are being careful because they get jealous.
She squeaks alot and her favorite food is celery.

Friday, December 01, 2006

Unschooling does not mean unparenting

I have seen this phrase more than I care to *I'm an unschooler not an unparent*

It bothers me on many levels mainly because it implies that unschoolers are unparenting, that couldn't be further from the truth. To truly unschool you have to parent differently than the main stream, many many public school kids are unparented because they drop the ball on the system.

Truthfully it's the parenting part of unschooling that is so challenging, I parent my ass off and don't like it implied otherwise. We are whole life unschoolers, radical if you will, I have no misgivings about how children learn naturally and in a rich, loving environment conducive to learning will learn everything they need when they need it. It's the parenting that I'm consumed with, trying to do it respectfully and mindfully. I don't care about math and science and any other subject because that is all part of everyday life. I care about the inter personal relationships, and learning how to get along in this world.