Canada... dude!

I'm happy to know I'm not the sole source of information for my kids.

Last night I came to use my computer and there was a dialog on the desktop, a leftover instant message between my thirteen-year-old son Marty and an older homeschooler. This was the entirety of that dialog:

Marty: You coming down?
Other kid: yeah.
Marty: Did you know Canada has Prime Ministers?
Other kid: yeah
Marty: dude

Now I will never have to explain to Marty that Canada has a prime minister. I don't know why he cared, on a Friday night in New Mexico, but it doesn't matter.

Tales of Late-Night Learning
For the record, "last night" was in late 2002, and the other kid was Brett Henry, also unschooled, who is now a firefighter in the Los Alamos Fire Department. They've both become husbands and fathers, still learning for fun.

photo by Sandra Dodd

P.S. Since writing this, since taking that photo, I went to France and discovered that their stop signs say "Stop." Why, I asked my French host-mom, do they say "Arrêt" in Quebec? She said Quebec wants to be more French than France. One more bit of information that won't be on the test. Trivia.

One little choice at a time

Jen Keefe wrote:

I abandoned the stuff I thought we "had" to do and disrupted our peace, and filled it with stuff that made us happy. This was all one little choice, in the moment, at a time.

The healing and effect this has had on both my husband and me is immeasurable. Being the parent to my kids that I needed when I was younger has wrapped my own self in a comfort I never got to have before.

—Jen Keefe

SandraDodd.com/being/allin
photo by Cátia Maciel