W: Writing Cooperatively

Three times now, our family has tried a fun writing experiment. Each participant needs their own computer. We agree on a starting sentence, like "The sun had finally risen over the rocky ridge." Then we start typing a story that goes along with that sentence.

After 15 minutes, a timer beeps. Everyone stands up and switches to a new computer. Each participant reads what has been written already, and continues the story for another 15 minutes. We cycle through until everyone has had an opportunity to write on every story. Depending on the number of participants and how much time we have, we might go through all or part of a second round. Finally, each person ends the story as well as they are able.

Now, let me tell you a little about my history with getting E14 to write. Last year, I tried to compel him to write a paragraph on some subject or other. "How long is a paragraph?" Well, it should be at least 4 sentences, I guess. "How long is a sentence?" Well, you need a subject, a verb, and probably some kind of direct object or modifier. "Okay, this twelve word paragraph fulfills those minimum requirements." Seriously? You just wrote a "paragraph" with fewer words than your age in years?

In September 2019, though, E14 (and P15) enthusiastically joined NCFCA, a Christian speech and debate league. All of a sudden, he was writing pages of material. There's something about not wanting to look like a moron in front of one's peers, I suppose. I decided that since I had been unsuccessful in teaching him to write, I'd just sit back and let NCFCA do it for me - it certainly seemed to be working much better. It was so satisfying to see him in a debate, hurriedly scrawling pages of notes in order to construct an argument that could rip his sister's points to shreds.

Of course, with COVID-19, the NCFCA season ended early. So much for my convenient writing program. But just last Saturday, E14 asked us, "Can we do the writing game?" Yes, my oldest son. Yes, voluntarily writing multiple paragraphs (with more than 12 words) in 4 different stories. Yes, on a Saturday! He had never shown an interest in the game before (it had always been Ari, P15, and me, with extended family added in over Christmas break). But I guess, given the motivation of NCFCA over the past 7 months, he has learned to enjoy writing, and actually missed writing on a regular basis. I wonder what other interests will come out of the woodwork if I can avoid forcing him.

V: Violin

I love my violin. It has been in the family for many years, and the story of how I got it is interesting.

When my uncles were young, they took violin lessons, using a violin handed down from an older relative. It was a full size violin and they were quite small, at least to begin with, so not surprisingly, it was difficult for them to get a good sound. My youngest uncle kept the violin in his attic in Norway for years. Then, he went to a fair and saw a gypsy fortune teller.

"One of your three daughters will be a musician." My uncle recalled painfully enduring the tortured sounds of beginning violin, and realized that if the gypsy was right, he might be subjected to that ordeal again. How could he avoid it? Fortunately, his niece, who played piano somewhat obsessively (that would be me) was going to be visiting Norway for Christmas. He heaved a sigh of relief.

As far as I know, none of my cousins is particularly musical, so my uncle's ears would likely have been safe if he'd left the violin in the attic. However, I'm delighted he didn't. Having obtained the violin, I started taking lessons when I was 16. At first, my brother and I had an agreement: I would warn him when I was about to practice, and he would go into his room, shut the door, and turn on his music. Loudly. I would go into my room, shut my door, and work hard at making a sound that was pleasant to listen to. It was a delightful day when my brother stopped trying to drown me out!

I fell in love with the violin during those last 2 years of high school. I found the sound more appealing than that of the piano (though I enjoy piano as well), and no matter how good I get there is always room for improvement, even on easy pieces. There are so many variables fitting together that allow a greater range of expression than I am able to get out of the piano. Leaving my violin teacher, an Iraqi who had lived in Jordan for many years and played first chair viola in the orchestra, was one of the hardest parts of graduating from high school.

Fortunately, Caltech had a chamber music program. Delores Bing, our director, took students who were fairly evenly matched in ability, even including me with my mere two years of experience, and combined us into ensembles. Of course the standard Caltech course load didn't leave me much time to practice, but it was enjoyable to put pieces together and perform them, even if we were still partly sightreading by concert day. Practicing was a great break from thinking about complicated science and math.

However, after college graduation, I kind of set the violin aside. Part of it was that my right arm was shattered in a car accident not long after graduation, though I did go back to playing piano as soon as I could. That wasn't weight bearing, though, and it was a full 2 months before I was allowed to pick up anything (certainly including a bow) with my right hand. I got out of the habit of practicing, and my poor violin sat neglected, except a brief phase in 2010-12 when I accompanied hymns in church each Sunday. But it was slightly damaged shortly before we moved to New York. There, we joined a church where it seemed everyone in our small group had perfect pitch or a master's degree in violin performance, so my instrument went back into the closet.

Then, we moved to Hawaii. I still hadn't had the violin repaired, and the case was still gathering dust, when I decided to join the ladies' chorus at our church. The piece we started working on had a violin part, and the director wistfully observed that it was a pity no one in our church played. "I can play," I offered, having seen that the part wasn't utterly beyond my ability. It would be fun to get back into practice. After that first rehearsal, Mrs. D came up to me. "You need to teach my grandson violin."

Wait! Teach? She'd never even heard me play! I hadn't touched the instrument in several years! She sensed my reluctance. "I've been praying for 2 years that God would send a violin teacher to our side of the island. Would $100 a month be okay?"

Okay, being told that you are the answer to someone's prayer is pretty hard to resist. I told her I'd try, though I wasn't sure I'd be worth what she offered. I got my violin repaired* and started getting back in practice. I even started accompanying hymns in church again. Mrs. D's granddaughter came along to her brother's first lesson, and I found myself with two students. I really didn't know what I was doing, but they and I both learned a lot by trial and error. It turns out Mrs. D was right - there is no other violin teacher on our side of the island - and I gained a few more students. I took a course on how to teach violin through Coursera, and started to learn the Suzuki repertoire myself through various online options. I have now discovered teaching techniques that result in my students sounding fairly good (that is to say, not painful) from day one, which might lead to fewer violins in attics in their future.

At this point, practicing violin is one of my favorite parts of the day. I'm no professional; I've been working on the Suzuki Book 4 repertoire for months (though I take occasional breaks for other pieces I like; I'm enjoying the Accolay concerto right now). But on the violin, even scales are interesting. Music theory (which is all math, this geek feels compelled to note) is so important to understanding how to arrange the fingers for perfect intonation, and every time I play a harmonic, the physics of it makes me unreasonably happy. Plus, that sound... Dear friends, I have no intention of letting my violin sit untouched again.

*An extra bonus tidbit on my violin's origin: when I had my violin repaired, the luthier told me that it was built in Germany. I had had no way of knowing that, because unlike with most violins, there is no label on the inside. However, the older relative who handed down the violin to my uncles would have been school aged in the years shortly after World War II. Norway probably didn't have much of a violin making industry in the late 1940s, but no self-respecting Norwegian would buy any object labeled as having been made in Germany. Thus, I imagine a German luthier supporting him or herself in the bombed out aftermath of total devastation by supplying unlabeled violins to the international market. Another fascinating facet of my violin's history!

U: Upside down

When we traveled to South Africa in 2008, Ari thought the moon was upside down. He spent a lot of time aligning his view of the moon with buildings, lamp posts, and other objects whose orientation was not in doubt, and photographing the moon as proof that, even though people don't walk on their heads in the Southern Hemisphere, the moon does.

I thought this was hilarious. To me, the moon wasn't upside down at all. It was just in its normal South African orientation, just like it would be in its different, but equally normal, Northern Hemisphere orientation when we returned to the United States.

Some things truly have an upside down and right side up orientation, independent of what you're used to. Nobody sees walking on your hands as normal, because we're all born subject to gravity with a body shape that makes walking on your feet much more natural. Someone walking on their hands is definitely upside down.

But the moon, and the sky in general, isn't really upside down in the Southern Hemisphere. If you were born and lived your whole life in the Southern Hemisphere, you'd probably perceive the moon as upside down the first time you saw it in the Northern Hemisphere.

There are other terms that depend a lot on the eye of the beholder. The main one that comes to mind for me is "overseas." Of course, where I am now, anyone who isn't in the City and County of Honolulu is over some amount of sea from me - even people elsewhere in my state are "overseas" in that sense. But in another sense, "overseas" is often used to mean "a foreign country." And when people say things like, "Were you born overseas?" I feel a little stab of rebellion. When I was born there, it wasn't foreign to me - I had yet to travel over any seas. I gave up my South African citizenship when I became a US citizen in 2012, but it still feels just as true to say that I live overseas now as to say I was born overseas then. It's an upside down word - it seems to depend at least partly on the eye of the beholder.

Are there any other upside down words, words that people around you use in one way but which make you think about something in a way that you know is quite different from how they are using it?

T: Tea

When I think of the various cultures that have influenced me, England doesn't come to mind very often. We traveled there several times while I was growing up, because my dad had some relatives there, but they were all of the "distant cousin" variety - I was much closer to my relatives in Norway. However, the one aspect of English culture that most English-speaking South Africans, including my family, retained was tea time.

Every afternoon when my dad came home from work, we would all stop what we were doing and gather for a cup of tea (or two) and some small baked goods. Dad would ask, "How was school today?" and I would say, "Fine." Eventually, Dad would greet me with, "How was school today fine?" Tea was a thoroughly civilized tradition, allowing us to discuss topics of interest like how Dad might navigate an interesting diplomatic situation or what I might do a required history report on.

When we were in South Africa and rooibos tea was readily accessible, Mom and I would have it while Dad and my brother stuck with their Earl Grey, looking down their noses at our "medicine". In fact, rooibos is so commonly used in South Africa that in a situation where an American might ask, "Tea or coffee?" a South African would ask, "Rooibos or regular?"

In college, I enjoyed using my teapot and kettle to offer hospitality to my friends when they dropped by my dorm room. Tea has the advantage that it requires almost no space to prepare. Ari and I drank tea together when he came to visit me while we were dating long distance, and we spent many long hours discussing life over a steaming mug. It's an ideal socializing medium for the cash-strapped student.

Our current family culture doesn't allow for a precise copy of my parents' teatime tradition, as Ari gets home from work immediately before dinner. Our large number of children also makes teatime something of a production, as the kettle needs to be boiled twice for everyone to get tea. But we do all enjoy tea together as part of our weekend breakfasts. Everyone has his or her own cup, and there are certain favorite flavors - including rooibos, which everyone likes.

A friend of mine, whose children take music lessons from me, enjoys having a cup of tea with me and socializing after the children's lessons are over. Now that we're doing lessons over Skype, we've still kept up our "tea time" - each making our own cuppa in our own house, but having a face to (on screen) face conversation together. Although it's not the same, it's a whole lot better than nothing. Tea tastes better when chatting with people I like.

S: Singing

Our family always reads the Bible together between dinner and dessert. This has the advantage that we are already gathered around the table, and children who behave inappropriately during Bible reading can be credibly threatened with losing their dessert. But once a week, we have a family hymn sing instead.

Our hymn sing, like many of our family interactions, can be quite chaotic. We started having each person choose a hymn, but found that singing 7 hymns plus waiting for some of the less decisive members of the family to scrutinize every page of the hymnal took too long and caused others who had already chosen their hymn to begin racing up and down the hallway. So now we sing the hymns the first 4 people request, and leave it at that.

When we started doing our family hymn sing, I was the only instrumentalist, trying to sing along as I sightread the 4 part harmony in the hymnal. My sightreading skills have blossomed, which is satisfying. However, now I am joined by P15 on flute and E14 on violin. P15 only started flute lessons in September, but by March she was able to play most hymns straight from the hymnal. That ability is what I consider the minimum to claim proficiency in an instrument, and I have to say I like being able to brag that she achieved proficiency in flute in just six months. E14 does not read music, on principle. He can be forced to do it, whereupon he succeeds with great accuracy and the foulest attitude imaginable. But if I tell him the fingering of the first note, he plays his violin by ear on the first attempt as long as it is a melody he is familiar with. It's really fun to have three instruments playing.

There are some hymns the younger boys request repeatedly. E5 really likes Up From the Grave He Arose, and sings it with great celebration (involving climbing up on the futon and launching himself across the living room while announcing, "He arose!" at the top of his lungs). I think it is so right for a little boy to celebrate the greatest event in history with all his little boy style. If he doesn't feel like that one, he'll ask for Joy to the World - it could be April or September, he has no compunctions about keeping Christmas songs exclusively for Christmas.

Right now, as we're unable to gather in person with our church family on Sundays and Wednesdays to sing hymns together, our family hymn sing is even more precious to me. I miss filling the sanctuary with the sound of my violin, but at least we can fill our home with worship to the God who is here as well as in the church building.

R: Reading Aloud

Reading aloud has been central to our family culture since before we were a family. When Ari and I were finally in the same country after we'd spent about 6 months dating long distance (as in, across the Atlantic), we drove together from his parents' home in Houston back to California where I was studying. We took turns with one of us driving while the other read The Lord of the Rings. He was a grad student in Tucson, Arizona, and every other weekend he coaxed his 1984 Honda Accord the 8 hours to Pasadena to see me. We spent hours every Sunday afternoon before he needed to leave for the long drive back sitting in my room drinking tea and reading favorite books aloud to each other. Since then, we've pretty much always had a book going. We read The Jungle Book on our honeymoon. I nursed my first newborn while Ari read an Elizabeth Goudge novel to me. Many of the books on our bookshelf trigger memories of where we were and what we were doing when we read them together.

When our oldest children were small, they didn't naturally fit into our own reading aloud. However, after spending about 2 years researching homeschooling methods in obsessive detail and buying nothing, I came across Sonlight and placed my first order (for my 3 year old) within days. The fact that it was all books all the time instantly resonated with me. We've never looked back. The first Core we bought was enjoyed by both our oldest children. E14 was not yet 2 and insisted on hearing Go, Dog! Go! often enough that I could probably still give a full recitation. I suspect part of his enjoyment stemmed from the fact that it was the first book where he could really understand all the words. It was amazing to watch the children's attention spans grow as I read to them day after day. All three of their younger brothers have been gestated to Sonlight and have been listening in for as long as they have had working ears.

 
At the beginning of the 2019-20 school year, E14 and P15 both started doing the first high school level Core, designed for students to read themselves instead of a parent reading aloud. After about a week of juggling whose turn it was with which book, they started reading aloud to each other. However, E14 loathed and despised the History of US series by Joy Hakim and began refusing to cooperate. I had thought it would take me less time to have them read the books and then ask them questions, but the emotional cost to everyone was so high I gave up. Now, I'm back to doing what I did before: I read aloud to them, and I can tell by their reactions that they're paying attention. We're using all the books except History of US, and learning a lot more than E14 was when he was being force fed books he hated and actively working to disbelieve every word of them. Now, if I'm taking too long to fulfill my other household tasks, he'll nag: "Can you do our reading? How long do we have to wait?"

I've shifted from feeling like I need to check off every item in the Sonlight schedule to seeing it as a box full of good books selected by someone whose taste is usually pretty good, which we can enjoy in our own way and at our own pace. B10 wasn't really tracking with the intro to US history books, so we set them aside. He listens in to older and younger siblings' books when he wants to, and picks up books from the shelves that look interesting. H8 and E5 enjoy the Sonlight Intro to World Cultures books, but also like doing other things, so every few days I'll read them several days' worth of stories. We supplement with other (non-Sonlight) books - E14's science this year has consisted of me reading him What If?, Physics for Future Presidents, and Omnivore's Dilemma in addition to his own wood and metal work experiments. And after dinner, Ari reads us all Lord of the Rings while I clean the kitchen, P15 sits quietly, and the boys gain the social skill of keeping elbows out of each other's ears while begging for another chapter.

Does your family read aloud? What are some of your favorite books?

Q: Questioning

"Where are you?"

"What is that in your hand?"

"What do you see?"

"Do you want to be healed?"

"Who do you say that I am?"

One of the chief ways God engages with people in the Bible is through questions.* A question demands a response and shows a desire by the questioner to move into deeper relationship. But the value of questioning isn't restricted to relationships between God and his people - well placed questions are valuable in any relationship.

As I interact with my children, I have found that asking good questions is a valuable way to guide them through finding solutions to their problems. One example is the case of a child who makes demands with an air of entitlement.

"I'm thirsty!" says E5, expecting me to drop everything and fill his cup with water.

"Oh. What are you going to do?"

"Ask you. Can I please have some water?"

Much better. I fill his cup.

I hear sounds of frustrated younger brothers and a gloating older brother. I am tempted to lay into the boy I am sure is guilty of aggravating his smaller siblings. But I try a question instead.

"Are you treating your brothers with righteousness and justice?"

"Oops." No more needs to be said.

Sometimes, more does need to be said. If I am dealing with a child who has made a profession of faith in Jesus but is deliberately being unkind, I can ask, "If Jesus were sitting here, knowing what is in your heart, would he be pleased with you?" Or, "Are you treating your brother the way you would like to be treated?" There is usually something instructive to be gained from, "Why do you want to upset your brother?" (It's important to make sure the tone of voice communicates a desire to know, not just to accuse).

Sometimes, my first impression of the situation is faulty. By starting with a question, the child can say, "I am actually acting with justice here because my brother..." and I am reminded to try to get everyone's perspective. Of course, more questions are a good way to achieve this. A conflict is not always one-sided.

While writing this, I notice H8, our "do-it-yourself child", who is frying eggs in the nonstick frying pan. He has a metal knife and is about to cut the eggs apart.

"What are you doing with that knife?" I ask sharply.

He drops the knife and starts making defensive noises. I realize he doesn't know why I used that tone of voice. I go into the kitchen.

"Do you know why I don't want you to use the knife on that frying pan?"

"Because you don't want me to break the yolks?"

"No, it's actually because a metal knife can scratch the nonstick coating on the frying pan. If that happens, food will start sticking to it and it will be less useful."

Had I left the situation where it was when he dropped the knife, he might just have decided to be extra careful to cut deeply into the eggs (and frying pan) far from the yolks. By questioning, I could find out how he was thinking about the situation and instruct him more effectively.

I have found questioning to be one of my most valuable parenting tools as I attempt to grow in gentleness. And it's good to know that by asking questions, I'm imitating the way God interacts with his children, including myself.

*If you want to read an entire book on the subject of questioning and the three major monotheistic religions, check out my dad's work, The Questioning God.

P: Pyrozombie

Every family has its own inside jokes and made-up words. If you spend any time with my boys, you will discover that their favorite way of insulting someone is to describe him as a pyrozombie.

I'm not sure when the general idea of a zombie entered the children's imaginations. As homeschool parents Ari and I usually have a fair bit of control over what movies or books influence them and I don't recall intentionally introducing the idea, but we don't try to cut them off from the outside world or anything. At some point half a year ago, "zombie" had become a concept that they occasionally discussed.

I think it was E5 who first added the prefix. He had a much-loved book about pirate ships throughout history, all 22 pages of which he had committed to memory. So I imagine that when he said "pyrozombie" the first time, he was actually attempting to combine the concepts of "pirate" and "zombie". However, my pyromaniac exploits in college have left me with a tender spot toward fire, and when I heard the word, my imagination immediately sprang up with images of a zombie aflame.

It didn't take long for such a picturesque concept to firmly lodge in each boy's mind. The word has its variations. A female might be a "pyrozombette", and you may be interrogated on how you came up with such a "pyrozombic" idea. At this point, I doubt the mental image is even summoned most times the word is used.

I once heard that your average small child regularly produces English sentences that have never before been produced in the history of the language. If you allow for the coining of new words, this proposition seems even more plausible.

Have your children, or children of your acquaintance, invented any amusing or descriptive words?

O: Oklahoma Lobster

Here's a story from when I was about 8 years old. My family lived in Dallas, Texas at the time. My dad was a seminary student. Legally, he was allowed to work 20 hours a week on campus. My mom was not permitted to earn money at all. Needless to say, money was tight. My mom would walk to the grocery store with my brother and me. He and I would stand in the seafood section, looking at the live lobsters, while she sought out the best deals in the rest of the store. We really knew nothing about lobsters except what we observed in that tank - large waving pincers held shut by rubber bands. The prices made it clear we would never have access to our own lobster.

One weekend, we drove up to Oklahoma to spend time with a friend of my dad's from seminary who was now a pastor. My parents had sleeping bags inside the house, and my brother and I slept in a tent in their yard. When we woke up in the morning, the pastor's preschool aged children came out and joined us in the tent. Then I heard my brother, aged 6 at the time, marveling at some creature he saw inside the tent. "I think it's a lobster!"

I had a look, and sure enough, there was a creature with an exoskeleton, waving a sharp pincer-like appendage (minus rubber bands). It was quite a bit smaller than the lobsters we saw in Kroger's; it was only the size of my hand. My thought was that we should boost it out of the tent so it could crawl back into its lobster hole before it poked us, but my brother was determined to kill it. I felt sorry for the poor lobster, but he was not to be deterred. I took the smaller of the pastor's two children to the far side of the tent and played with her while my brother and his little friend set about a lobster hunt.

You may have already guessed that the sharp-appendaged invertebrate we met in landlocked Oklahoma was not an actual lobster, but something more sinister and potentially dangerous to small children. The hunting method my brother chose posed less risk to him than my plan might have. He took his pillow, dropped it on the "lobster", and proceeded to trample it. The creature, somewhat damaged, emerged from beneath the pillow and crawled on top of it, waving its sharp end ominously. My brother then carried it outside the tent and dumped it onto the dirt outside.

At this point, we were called to get ready for church, and the boys reluctantly tore themselves from watching the writhing of their victim. By the time we returned to our tent, the creature was dead and covered in ants. We forgot all about it, as the remainder of the afternoon involved riding horses and discovering that calves in fields don't willingly stand still for you to pet them and do run faster than 8 year old girls.

A few years later, we were discussing something over dinner and the topic of lobsters came up. "Do you remember that lobster in Oklahoma?" my brother or I asked. We both did, and discussed it at some length as my parents' eyebrows lifted and their eyes grew wide. "Lobsters don't live in Oklahoma," my parents insisted. We knew they had to be wrong - we had seen this one with our own eyes! We were only persuaded when my dad found a book on the shelf and opened it to a photograph of exactly the sort of creature we had encountered. The caption informed us it was a scorpion.

This sort of situation helps me realize how little control I as a parent have over my children's safety. My parents had never warned us about scorpions, probably because they had never considered that there were any in the middle of the United States. The world is full of dangers parents don't or can't anticipate, and there is no way of knowing how our children might reason through how to respond to a new situation. And yet we were not stung. God protected us through my brother's bold action that happened not to bring any of us into close contact with the scorpion's tail.

The few situations where God chooses not to step in tend to be the ones we remember, but I am convinced there are many more times when something bad could have happened and, through some unpredictable combination of circumstances and ideas, the danger is averted. I look forward to one day asking God how many other situations he stepped into to protect me and those I love.

N: Not Moving

Like everyone else, my assumptions for what April would look like are not panning out. At the end of last year, Ari applied for nine different jobs on the USA mainland. We hoped to move somewhere within a day's drive of at least some family members, with a lower cost of living than is available in Hawaii. We wanted to settle somewhere permanent well before P15 finishes high school. However, as 2020 unfolded, the weeks went by and the only places he heard back from let him know they would not be hiring him. By early March, we were starting to wonder if we would be moving this year, after all.

Not moving when you expected to is an interesting mental adjustment. Ever since church family camp last summer, I had been silently saying goodbye to the annual events I have come to expect over the past five years. Every week at church, women's Bible study, and my teens' speech and debate league, friends would ask if we had heard anything yet. I had been trying to motivate myself to de-clutter before we had a destination, knowing it would make the eventual packing easier. I had been making an effort to enjoy as many opportunities like hiking to Kaena point as I could, with the idea that we wouldn't see it at this season again. But a week before COVID-19 related cancellations started affecting us, Ari got a rejection letter from his most hopeful prospect.

Our family discussions changed in tone from wondering where we'd be next year to accepting where we are - and the global discussion started changing its tone at the same time. Further job offers moved from seeming unlikely to impossible. But right at the time when I would have been sharing with all my friends that they probably won't have to say good-bye to me this summer, I've had to say good-bye to the chance to talk to just about anyone in person. It's fun to hear shrieks of delight over the phone or on a Zoom call when I tell a friend we'll be around a bit longer, but it feels less real not to be doing it face to face.

We couldn't have guessed it back when Ari applied for all those jobs at the end of 2019, but we're really blessed to stay here a while longer. Given the global crisis, not having to pack up and sell our house this month or next month is really a good thing! Lord willing, the ladies I study the Bible with over Zoom on Tuesday morning will be ladies I can study the Bible with in person next year, and the neighbor I drove to the car repair place when she couldn't take the bus will be the neighbor I see sitting on her porch in the fall. Our social circles may become more closely knit after the restrictions are lifted and we appreciate more deeply what we already had. It's good to be part of a community that I'm not preparing to leave.

As an adult TCK, it also feels pretty weird to be part of a community that I've been part of for almost 5 years and still have no immediate plans to leave. So much of my outlook on life has involved a willingness to put up with any minor annoyances knowing that in a few years, I'll be somewhere else and my little world will be completely different, with different annoyances. And since I'll just be moving anyway, I have learned to enjoy the good things without getting too deeply attached to them. And I try to warn people not to become too attached to me. I had started detaching over the past few months, and I'm not sure I'm going to be very good at re-attaching.

When I was 13 and my dad had been assigned to open the South African embassy in Jordan, the South African government wanted to check that I was unlikely to embarrass them by teenage antics inconsistent with our global image. At least, that's always been my assumption about the purpose of that barrage of psychological testing, required of me but not my younger brother. In addition to tests of academic aptitude (we don't want diplomats' kids looking stupid), I was required to write short stories inspired by each of several pictures.

One looked like a set up - a mean-looking guy concealing a gun by the bedside of an incapacitated elderly man. How do you tell a story about that picture that won't make you look like a psychopath? I decided our villain was actually giving the gun as a get-well gift, as unlikely as the image made it appear. I wondered how other diplomats' teens handled it.

But the story that the psychologist was most concerned about had to do with the least threatening image of all - an empty rowboat by the edge of a river. I created a narrative involving a runaway about my age, frustrated with school-related indignities, taking the rowboat and escaping down the river. I recall the psychologist explaining that one ought not to run away from one's problems, but ought instead to try to find a resolution. I listened politely. She might very well think that. She was not attending her eighth school in eight years. There might have been times in her life she had lived more than 3 years in one house. My experience told a different story - I just had to put up with wherever I was, and soon enough, I wouldn't need to resolve the problem. Life would be shoving me into my own rowboat in the not too distant future.

Looking back at that time, I realize I've always approached where I am with a "rowboat mentality." I'll enjoy the riverbank I happen to be on, make friends, put up with problems, and then leave them behind the next time life shoves me into the rowboat. It doesn't matter that I don't fully belong on a given riverbank - it's really the rowboat that's the constant. It's rather an odd feeling now, having expected the rowboat to approach and realizing that I'll be on the riverbank for a while longer.

Ari still plans to apply for mainland jobs to start in the fall of 2021. There's no guarantee that there will be any available, or that he'll get any - we might actually be in Hawaii for quite a while longer. And I'm not sure what I'm going to do with being on a riverbank I rather like, with the mirage of a rowboat on the horizon that may or may not ever materialize.

M: Math is Beautiful

Imagine a row of 50 numbered light bulbs, each of which is operated by a toggle button. If you push the button, the light bulb turns on; if you push the button again, it turns off. At first, all the light bulbs are off. Now send a sequence of students along the row. Student 1 pushes every light bulb’s button: now all the bulbs are on. Student 2 pushes every button next to a multiple of 2, turning off bulbs 2, 4, 6, etc., up to 50. Student 3 pushes every button next to a multiple of 3, and so on, until finally student 50 pushes the button next to 50. When all the students have gone through the sequence, which light bulbs are shining?

Take a break before reading further, and try to solve the problem. What do the shining light bulbs have in common? Do you find this result surprising?

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The shining light bulbs are 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, and 49: all the perfect squares (numbers that are the result of a whole number being multiplied by itself) less than 50. Why should this be? Take another break and see if you can come up with an explanation.

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When I looked at the problem from the students’ perspective, I was amazed, but when I looked at it from the light bulbs’ perspective, it started to make sense. Take bulb number 12, for example. Its switch was pushed by students 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 12. An even number of times. It was turned off as many times as it was turned on. Or a prime number – bulb number 17, for example – which was only pushed by students 1 and 17, also an even number of times. But bulb number 9’s switch was pushed by students 1, 3, and 9 – an odd number of times – meaning the last time its switch was pushed, it was turned on. Only the perfect squares have an odd number of factors (numbers that divide into them without leaving a remainder). 

Why do perfect squares have an odd number of factors, and other numbers don’t? See if you can answer this one yourself.

Factoring numbers is an exercise often given to upper elementary or middle school math students. They complete worksheets and move on with their lives. But this problem approaches the concept from a unique angle – first, notice a fascinating pattern, and then try to figure out what is responsible for the pattern. After spending some time with this problem, which I hope you did, you have a much deeper understanding of the concept of a factor than you did before.

This is what I love about math. There are patterns all around us, which we often ignore or take for granted, but when we look at them more closely, we discover that they point to other patterns (like the pattern of students turning on light bulbs pointing to the pattern of how many factors any number has).

A key is to be playful. When my oldest children were small, I got them (to be honest, I got myself and let them play with) a set of pattern blocks. As my daughter used the blocks to build pictures while her brother napped, I grabbed all the triangles and started some further explorations into the concept of perfect squares – could I arrange any perfect square number of triangles into a larger triangle? It turns out I could.

1 layer: 1 triangle, 2 layers: 4 triangles, 3 layers: 9 triangles, 4 layers: 16 triangles, 5 layers: 25 triangles

I noticed that some of the triangles were pointing down and some were pointing up. I thought it would be aesthetically pleasing to remove the downward pointing triangles. And while I was at it, I might as well just move them to the side the same distance to make another triangle.

That was interesting! Each of my new triangles was a sequence of 1+2+3+…; also known as a triangle number. Was every perfect square the sum of two consecutive triangle numbers? It seemed that it had to be, just from the geometry of the pattern blocks. Why should that be? Could I prove it with numbers instead of pattern blocks? I grabbed a pencil and piece of paper, let my little girl have the green triangles back so she could make leaves for her pattern block tree, and went off to explore the patterns behind the patterns.

What makes math addictive is that it takes something beautiful and orderly and unveils an even deeper and more orderly pattern that explains or gives rise to the first beautiful thing you saw. The deeper you go, the more clearly you see patterns everywhere. Math is beautiful.

L: Lessons

"The baby is the lesson."

I tend to be a task-oriented overachiever. When I started homeschooling, I had so many things I wanted to teach my children. However, one of the first things I learned as a new homeschool mom was that I wasn't good at being gentle or kind while compelling my small children to complete lessons, particularly lessons they didn't want to do. When one of the boys, either B10 or H8, was a baby, I came upon this article, which started to change how I viewed my homeschooling task. I realized that when I was interrupted, the topic of instruction had changed from whatever I wished it were to how a grown-up handles being interrupted. When I modeled irritable frustration, that was what my children learned was appropriate. Later, if I interrupted them to do a lesson or chore that wasn't their idea, they were likely to reflect my irritable frustration right back at me. As the article said, "Homeschool is the growing and nurturing of fine, upright people. So, how we treat and value the baby really is the lesson."

Now, it's been several years since my youngest child could reasonably be called a baby. But interruptions don't stop as the children grow. My homeschooling style has become more relaxed as I realize how much my children learn by pursuing their own interests, but there are still many times a day when I am deeply in the flow of learning together with one or two of my children. We read together for hours every day, and P15 has told me she learns chemistry best when I read the textbook to her and am available to discuss the problems as she does them. I still need to focus on my attitude toward being interrupted at the climax of a storyline or central point of a line of reasoning in order to get out E5's Duplos or enter the password so B10 can access instructions from the Lego website. Children don't just learn what you think you are teaching them - there is so much more that they glean from all the details than what is immediately obvious. 

If you homeschool, what are some lessons you have learned?

K: Kitchen

When I was in college, I struggled with depression. As I was seeking to emerge, I realized something important: just because I felt like wearing black, it didn't mean I had to. I resolved that if I was wearing black pants, my t-shirt couldn't be black, and vice versa. I remember noticing one day as I walked down the street from my apartment toward campus that my thoughts were unusually negative and unhelpful. I looked at my clothing and realized I was all in black again. I turned around, went back to my apartment, and put on a new t-shirt. What a difference!

Fast forward a few years. Ari and I were preparing for our wedding, and one of the tasks was to select a pattern of plates and bowls for the gift registry. To me, all the options looked about the same with one glowing exception. Instead of boring white with various irrelevant embellishments, this one had every colour in the rainbow, with bold geometric patterns. The salespeople tried to discourage me: "It won't go with anything, and you'll get tired of it and be stuck with it." I knew the happy glow I felt when I looked at these plates was not going to fade with time, and besides, most of what the salespeople were suggesting as alternatives were more expensive - their motivation seemed fairly transparent. We registered for the colourful plates, and I've never regretted it.

When we moved to Hawaii, we knew we would be here for at least 3 years and probably more. Faced with that unfathomably long (for us) stretch of time, and tired of giving money to landlords and never seeing it again, we decided to take the plunge into home ownership. The house we bought needed a lot of love, and after we ripped out the grungy carpet and replaced it with imitation wood, we painted. Having a place of my own to decorate, I exercised my freedom in doing what I'd always wanted to do - I painted my kitchen with a profusion of colours. I was inspired by the patterns on my plates.

As a full-time homeschooling mom, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen - preparing food for my husband and 5 children and cleaning up afterward, reading to people, and paying attention to children who are using the largest table in the house to work on their projects. It makes me happy to be in such a cheerfully painted room.

Do you have a room in your house that makes you happy?

J: Jammed

At the end of January or beginning of February, the children and I had an unforgettable experience of God's power. It was a Wednesday evening and we had gone to church for the weekly prayer meeting and children's activities. Once we returned home, the boys were in high spirits, running up and down the hall and into their room, the bathroom, and the living room, turning lights on and off, hiding behind doors and shutting them suddenly. I was just about to tell them it was time to settle down, brush teeth and go to bed when I heard a slam, and then the kind of shrieking that sends shivers down your spine and makes you wonder what kind of medical attention will be needed.

E5 had been behind the bathroom door when someone turned off the light and slammed the door, and his pinky finger was caught between the door and frame on the hinge side of the door. The door refused to open, and little E5 was stuck in the dark, in pain and terrified. When I ran into the hallway, E14 was trying to open the door and failing. I assumed it was locked, and shot into my room to search for a long thin object to unlock the door. After trying for what seemed an impossibly long time, the door just wouldn't unlock, and was still jammed shut. By this time I was becoming frantic - the screaming had not died down. I began praying loudly and desperately that God would help us get the door open. Both E14 and I tried body slamming the door, and it still didn't move. Finally, E14 suggested getting into the bathroom through the window, which was only possible by breaking the glass louvers. He grabbed a ladder and a rock, and E5's shrieks were punctuated by the sound of shattering glass. Meanwhile I kept praying and shoving, and before E14 had to figure out how to navigate through a small opening surrounded by sharp glass, the door sprung open.

I turned on the light and looked at E5's finger. It had been caught lengthwise, and was about half as thick as it should have been. It was a purplish red from lack of blood flow. I grabbed ice in a rag and cradled my little boy as I thought about what to do next, trying not to be anxious about the cost of an ER visit and what would become of E5's enjoyment of piano. The other children were shaken; H8 was in tears. I couldn't leave P15 in charge without spending a little time trying to calm their nerves. So before leaving for the ER, I decided to spend some time praying for E5's finger to recover completely and be just as useful as it was before it had been jammed in the door. After about 5 minutes, E5 pulled his hand out from the icy rag.

His finger was perfect.

I didn't believe it at first. I looked at it, and saw no bruising or discoloration. The size was back to normal. I asked him if he could bend it, and he did, without the slightest flinch of pain. There was no sign that anything had happened at all. I moved it around, and he was completely calm with no sign of discomfort. I decided to send the boys to bed, half expecting E5 to be up and in pain later. He slept solidly all night long. The next day he practiced piano without anyone suggesting he do so. There was never the faintest hint of bruising or swelling.

When I was 5 years old, I also had an experience of God's power in answering prayer. My family was benighted on an unfamiliar trail and clouds were covering the moon, so I prayed that God would move the clouds from the moon. My dad remembers thinking, "Oh, Lord, why did she have to pray that? This is the time of day when the sea breeze always pushes more clouds over the land - there's no way the moon will stay clear!" The remainder of our hike, clouds gathered and covered more and more of the sky, but never covered the moon's face. We had the light we needed to make it back to the parking lot. As we walked up to our car, the moon disappeared behind the clouds.

I am so blessed that my littlest boy was also granted a powerful, memorable experience of God's answer to prayer at such a young age. My children all saw me desperate and helpless, frantically calling on God because I was out of ideas, and they saw God come through for us in a way more tangible than any of us anticipated. My prayer now is that each of them will know and never forget the love God showed us all that night.

I: Incarnation

After enjoying our hot cross buns this morning, the children and I read the Bible together and sang a hymn as we always do. On the same page as "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded" in the Trinity Hymnal was another hymn I don't sing as often, "Ah, Holy Jesus, How Hast Thou Offended". I decided that in honour of Good Friday we would sing it as well, and I was struck by the fourth verse.

For me, kind Jesus, was thine incarnation,
thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation:
thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,
for my salvation.

During Holy Week, I tend to focus mainly on the events immediately leading up to Jesus' crucifixion: the Last Supper, washing the disciples' feet, the betrayal in the garden, Peter's denial - "Thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion for my salvation". But the first line of this verse turned my thoughts back to Christmas, when we celebrate the incarnation - God made flesh.

This past Christmas, we had a delightful family gathering with Ari's parents, his brothers and their families, and his grandparents. My sister-in-law showed me a picture that sent shivers down my spine. It depicts Mary, pregnant with Jesus, consoling Eve in the garden. A snake coils around Eve's ankle as she bows her head in shame, holding the partly eaten fruit in her hand while using the other hand to keep Mary at arm's length. Meanwhile, Mary is crushing the snake with her heel, and directing Eve's gaze and hand to the fruit of her womb.

Have you ever felt like Eve in this picture? I know I have. Overwhelmed by my own inability to live the way God wants me to or by the world's brokenness, I am tempted to push everyone away and hide in a coil of loneliness. Right now our world is more self-evidently broken than usual, and we are all enduring enforced loneliness. But think about what the incarnation means - not just the baby in the manger, but all of it.

Jesus was not satisfied to leave us in the mess we had made. He did not count his divine status as something to hang on to, but he came down to our level. And he didn't live a life of comfort, avoiding suffering - when we say he is God With Us, we recognize that his descent, his incarnation, his putting on human flesh, also involved accepting ridicule, pain, and the burden of all our guilt.

The incarnation didn't end when Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. He puts on flesh by indwelling each of his people. This means that if Jesus has made you his and is Lord of your life, any suffering you experience is suffering he goes through with you. You (and I) may feel isolated, but if Jesus is incarnated in your life, you are not truly alone.

H: Hot Cross Buns

Every year on Good Friday, I bake hot cross buns, like my mother before me, and her mother before her. The anticipation is thick around here, and I know it will be necessary to quadruple the recipe! Like the Easter cookies recipe, this one is worth sharing.

Ingredients:
Buns:
1 package/2 tsp instant yeast
3 oz. sugar
1 lb. flour (3 1/3 cups)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. mixed spice
3 oz. butter
1 egg, beaten in measuring cup, with
milk added to make 9 oz.
4 oz. currants

Paste:
1 Tbs butter
1 oz. flour
3 Tbs water

Glaze:
1 oz. sugar
2 oz. milk or water

Mix yeast in 1 cup flour. Sift remaining flour, sugar, salt, and spices together. Rub in the butter. Add the yeast-flour mixture and mix well. Warm the liquid to body temperature (test on your wrist) and add to a well in the flour mixture. Mix and knead 8-10 minutes and leave to rise.

Meanwhile, make a paste by rubbing the butter into the flour and gradually adding the water. Place into a piping bag. (I use a sandwich size ziploc and snip a small corner off the bottom.)

When the dough has doubled, add the currants and re-knead it. Divide into 16 pieces and shape into buns. Place well apart on a greased baking tray and allow to rise a second time. Preheat oven to 400 F. Brush the buns with milk. Use a table knife to score a cross shape on the top of each bun. Pipe the paste on to cover the score marks.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. While the buns are baking, make glaze by dissolving the sugar in the liquid over gentle heat and boiling 1-2 minutes. When they are done, place the buns on a wire rack and brush with the glaze. Serve warm with butter.

Random tidbit - although my mom grew up in Norway, her mom was raised in South Africa, and at that time English-speaking South Africans had not switched from the imperial system to metric. So unlike most of my recipes from my mom, this one was originally in ounces and required no conversion for Americans.

G: Gifts

One of my favorite books is One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. It was one means God used to give me a toolkit for coping with negative thoughts whenever they become intrusive. There are gifts all around us, no matter what else is going on - and it is so important for us to turn our minds back to the giver of all good gifts.

Here's a partial list just from Tuesday (my birthday).
1. A quiet kitchen early in the morning while I read my Bible
2. The smell of cardamom in baking waffles
3. The blown-glass chicken-shaped egg cups I hardly ever use
4. My favorite purple plumeria patterned dress
5. My glittery purple violin-shaped earrings that remind me of my youngest violin student
6. Modern technology that allows me to see the other members of Community Bible Study Leaders' Council
7. Birthday greetings from other people in Bible study
8. A phone call from my aunt in South Africa
9. Good books to read to my little boys
10. The smell of fresh bread filling the house
11. Kransekake, a Norwegian recipe, behaving well in the tropics
12. The elegant mathematical order of the 18 rings of the kransekake
13. A phone call from my parents
14. Lunch with my whole family
15. The anticipation of staying in my room while my husband and children worked on a secret project
16: Clean, dry laundry for everyone in the family that I could do standing up the whole time
17. Baba ganoush, tahini sauce, falafel, home baked pita bread, and manaeesh that reminded me of Jordan
18. An amazing play written and performed by my whole family, including 3 original songs (their secret project)
19. New clothes and books and money for things I like
20. The fun of 21 candles to represent my age on Mars (and save a trip to the grocery store)

And I could go on, and there are more yesterday, and more today. What gifts have you seen recently that point you back to God?