Brief Update - january 27

This week marks nine years since Rod entered my life. That's amazing to me ... it's pretty much *double* the time I have ever been with anyone and it all still feels so new and fresh -- but also so timeless. I find it hard to remember a time before my beloved Rodney entered my life. It feels as though it belongs to another lifetime. Thank you, Rodney, for so many things I can't name them all.

In other news, we seem to have inadvertently begun to "politicize" our son. Rod and I have both wanted to see Michael Moore's _Sicko_ since it came out, so when I found a copy at the library while looking for something else, I tossed it in my bag. Usually when we watch that sort of thing, Jack plays nearby and seems to be ignoring it all. Not this time. He was glued to the computer screen and got angrier and angrier. I tried to reassure him, but I was missing the point. He wasn't afraid for us, he was angry because it's not fair. He was also able to connect what he was seeing to what he has been hearing on the radio, which just made him grumpier. TJ and Corey were both very political by the time they were six -- much more so than they seem to be now -- so I'm not sure why it surprises me, but it does. Perhaps because Jack's life has been so much more sheltered than TJ and Corey were. Tonight we're watching The Human Face with John Cleese. I hope he will find that less...stimulating. Politics are important, but I think getting too excited too soon is probably not healthy. It seems like it may well breed a sense of helpless inevitability.

It looks good for us to be back on the net from home sometime in the next six to eight weeks. I hope we can pull it off before Rod lovely sister, Karen, arrives to visit. It would be good if she could check her mail and Facebook while she's here! (And I am eager to get back to blogging regularly...)

Work proceeds apace in designing our next school unit and Rod is working with me to adjust our notes on the previous unit so we can get it online. I meant to get it up back in the autumn, when we finished planning it, but since we didn't, and since there were a lot of changes in our approach, we have decided that we may as well have it reflect what we actually did. I am hoping to get the current one up at the same time, since as I understand it, a couple of other families are actually using those notes to help in their own planning. How cool!! (I was also tickled when the librarian said that they would like to add my reading lists for various topics to their own Homeschool Resources binder and use them to improve the library's collection. Woo hoo! It feels good that the work is going to bear fruit for other people, too.

Jack has his second dental appointment (of three) today. I am happy to say that I am not at all in turmoil this time. Last time was such a "non-event" that I'm sure he's going to be fine.