New Blogger Out There

My son, ~D~, has joined Blogdom and invites you to check him out at Myscape. He's a big Runescape fan and likes to write about the online game and also makes up his own awesome stories!!

Looking for Baby Name Ideas?

I got some for ya...

While I was flipping through my local phone directory, I came across some, um, well, very interesting Croatian names. It's fun to try and trick your tongue into saying these words. Of course, many of these names have little accent marks over certain letters, like the S, C, and Z, which would give you sounds like sh, ch, sz, and so on.

How many times do you think a Croatian has introduced himself/herself to me, and a puzzled look crosses my face as I realize I have never in my life heard their name before? Uh, how do you spell that? Can you say that again please?

For a boy, you could try:
Goran
Igor
Franjo (the j sounds like y, as in yellow)
Domagoj
Darko
Tomislav
Nenad
Sasa (sounds like Sasha, this is a man's name here in Croatia)
Josip (this would be Joseph)
Srdan
Radovan
Mladen
Bozidar (nicknamed Bozo)
Slavo
Hrvoje
Slobodan Kosak
Borko

And for the girls...
Dragica (sounds like Drahgitsa)
Nada
Olga
Ivana
Jadranka
Valentina
Petra
Visnja
Zdenka
Dijana (might be similar to our Diana?)

Huh? I have no clue...
Neven
Ozren
Nela
Dalibor
Spomenka
Goga
Slavica

A Kitten Story

Have you read Laura's kitten story yet? She's got a cutie over there. We have a similar story to tell -- it must be kitten season?!

The boys brought home a tiny orphaned kitten last week. When I opened the front door, ~N~ was holding a little black bundle close to his chest, and began to make a case for his immediate adoption into our family. He said he had talked to a lady about the kitten and its mother, who apparently was not taking care of it and the poor thing sure looked like he'd been abandoned. His left eye was matted shut and I wasn't altogether sure there was even an eye under all the nasty mess. He was lethargic and loaded with fleas.

I called a vet, who actually makes house calls but he couldn't come until the next morning. He told me the kitten was about 3 weeks old and gave us all kinds of medicine and vitamins and told us where to buy kitten milk and a bottle for it. Yes, we're bottle feeding the little guy every few hours.



After being treated for fleas and having a few bottles, we saw a definite change in his behavior. His eyes began to clear up and he has started to be playful. When he found the bathroom rug, he thought he had found his mama. He tries to nurse the rug and is so comforted by it that he lays there and falls asleep.



The boys named him Turbo. I don't think we can keep him though. Moving at the end of this year back to the U.S. will be complicated enough the way it is. I'm hoping we will be able to nurse the little guy back to good health, wean him, litterbox train him, and then find him a good Croatian home where he can stay and live with his people.... Sounds good on paper, but I don't know if it will work in real life.

Ready to Learn

I stayed up late last night reading Charlotte Mason's writings on Ambleside. This site has really helped me to formulate my plan for this year's educational goals. And this passage really stood out to me. I like Miss Mason's way of thinking....

Children need more individualized education than current trends allow for. Childrens' minds and bodies are already ready to learn and don't need methodical preparation (Kindergarten is this philosophy packaged in an institutionalized method: preparing children to learn); they are designed to learn and just need guidance and the right environment to do what they were made for. Education is much, much more than a method of preparing children to learn--it is life itself, and 'bringing up' is a more accurate way to view it. And parents are more than modellers, they are inspirers.

Understanding what education is, and what our goal is, enables us to choose a method to get from point A to point B. Understanding that children have minds ready to learn prompts us to forget rigid methods and instead, impart ideas (concepts) that will spark childrens' minds. One idea can light a fire in someone that propels them to action for the rest of their lives. Our job as educators is to expose our children to vital, living ideas that may stir their imaginations and inspire them to noble lives and heroic deeds. Not all ideas are tangibly perceived; some may be a mere yearning or appetite for something vague and unseen that draws one to something higher (as in Longfellow's poem Excelsior.) Surrounding children with kindness and cooperation may not present an "aha!" moment to a child, but will become part of his environment with every breath and become an unperceived standard inside him drawing him to more of the same. This should make us think twice about losing control in front of our children in a fit of anger or impatience.

-from Charlotte Mason series, Vol. 2, Parents and Children

Preserving Memories

Here's a great quote by Edith Schaeffer, from her book What is a Family?:

What is a family meant to be?

Among other things, I personally have always felt it is meant to be a museum of memories - collections of carefully preserved memories and a realization that day-by-day memories are being chosen for our museum.

Someone in the family needs to be conscious that memories are important, and that time can be made to have double value by recognizing that what is done today will be tomorrow's memory.

And so I am encouraged to catch up on preserving memories this summer during our break from the homeschool schedule. I have been making copies of home videos, both for my own video library and to send out to relatives. I have been writing handwritten letters to friends. I have been backing up pictures from my computer to a CD, just in case something horrible should happen to the computer. And I'm going through these same photos and having the good ones printed and put into photo albums. I wish I were the scrapbook type, but I'm not. I'm happy with having the date on them, having them in an album in which people can actually look through, and sometimes a short description next to a picture in those albums that have such a place.

My other summer project includes making a school portfolio for each of the boys that summarizes their schoolwork for the year. This is a task I will enjoy once I get started, but I'm not very excited about doing it. I'd rather just toss it all into a box and label it with child's name, grade and the year! Done. But that wouldn't be nearly so nice to look through as a handsome portfolio with all of dear son's best work in it.....

I realize the importance of memories and trying to preserve them. Sometimes it can seem so daunting that I don't know where to begin. But someone has wisely said "You start by starting." Sometimes it is simple, like hanging Baby's First Year (Or Second Year) Calendar on the wall in baby's room, and then writing in it when baby says a new word, or tries a new food and spits it out, or gives brother a kiss for the first time.

Whether it be quick and easy, or a bit of a hassle, I'm sure the effort of preserving these memories will be worth it. Priceless, in fact.