Strep, Stress and Unschooling.

The last couple of weeks have been about strep, stress and unschooling. Everyone in our house has been sick - strep, croup, some nameless tummy virus.

We quickly got out of routine with Larry missing work, shuttling the kids to Dr. and ER visits, the house falling into that dirty disarray that happens when Mom is in bed for a couple of days. Right now we have a laundry monster - piles of laundry (clean and dirty) spilling over from baskets. Little dust bunnies roll across the floor. So, forget homeschooling. Lots of learning got done anyway, because Iggyschool seems to roll effortlessly into unschooling when the merde hits the fan.

Iggy is sort of a classic unschooler type anyway. Larry and I are both autodidacts. Iggy takes after us. With no supervision from me for the past couple of weeks, Iggy did a lot of reading Garfield and watching Scooby Doo. But, he also carried around his stack of science books (Basher Physics, Chemistry, Periodic Table, the Usborne See Inside Science) and re-listened to parts of A Brief History of Nearly Everything. He seemed happy to talk with us a little about what he was learning, but more interested in sitting and reading for a little while, then just seemed to sit there and think for a bit, and then move on to watching Adventure Time. And he did most of this with a really high fever. So, kudos to Iggy.

Lucy has really started to ask us to read to her, and it's been nice to revisit books that Iggy really liked as a toddler - Katy the Bulldozer and a very wordy Sesame street book about the "Colors of Spring" have been her two favorites for the past week. We just don't have time to read as many books to her as we read to Iggy, but the gift of so many years between them means that Iggy will read to her as well. He's a sweet brother!

Despite all the sickness, we managed to do a few new things these past couple of weeks. The whole family went to the Sam Noble Natural History Museum in Norman, Oklahoma. What a great museum!!! So many of the exhibits related to topics we'd heard in A Short History of Nearly Everything. It is a wonderful museum if you're interested in paleontology, evolutionary biology, and pre-historic culture. It's huge, gorgeous and as quiet as a church. And it's not very expensive. Adults are $5 and children are $3. There is a great coupon on this page

http://www.travelok.com/listings/view.profile/id.6590

scroll down to "deals", as of 11/21/2010 there is a BOGO admission coupon. It cost us (two adults, a toddler and a kiddo) all of $8 to get into the museum.

In gluten free news, I have been making and eating a ton of the Quinoa fruit bread from the Oct/Nov issue of Living Without. It is divine and full of the fiber that I sometimes find really lacking in my diet. Buy a box of Quinoa flakes and a box of Quinoa flour and you will get four really big loaves of the bread. I added lots of dried fruit - apricots, raisins and dates - and used brown sugar instead of honey. It freezes well. I microwave a slice and then slather it with butter. Yum!

http://www.livingwithout.com/recipes/quinoa_banana_bread-2211-1.html

I got my copy of Living Without as a freebie in an order of Jules Gluten Free flour mix. It is a great magazine and definitely going on my Christmas list this year.

I was really sad to find out that the Betty Crocker mixes are probably not really gluten free. They're delicious and easy to get! I was wondering what was messing with our tummies, and was in a bit of denial while I made pancakes every morning for the kiddos. Until Betty Crocker starts making their mixes in a totally dedicated factory and until they start testing the mixes to make sure they are truly gluten free, I will be switching back to Bob's Red Mill. Bob's FAQ says "All of our products marked with our gluten free symbol are produced in a dedicated facility and batch tested for gluten content." Betty Crocker mixes are made in the same factory as the regular mixes and are not tested. No thanks, GM! That's not really "gluten free"!