My Life is Changing

This school year is different. I'll go from youngest to oldest.

Rebecca Rose, 7 1/2, has started Abeka Third Grade. I plan on diving into Lively Latin and the History Portfolio next week as this week has enough changes as it is. She, Rachel and Jeremy, who are starting High School(!) acquired their Orchestra instruments, viola, violin, and cello respectively, Sunday after Church at the same instrument store where George bought me a piano for Christmas. Then this week they started the Jaffe Strings Program with video instruction. I had thought that if the viola was too challenging for Rebecca that I might learn to play in our new little orchestra, but the music store only had child sizes of that instrument so she gets to play instead of me. But I am thinking of maybe learning second violin so that we can have a 4-piece ensemble. The kids have had two lessons so far and it is going very well! I was able to tune their instruments with the aid of the tuning pitches provided in an introductory tape. It's not that different from tuning a guitar. And the tapes are really clear on how to hold the instruments and how to move the bow with the elbow and wrist instead of the shoulder. We had already learned how to rosen the bow with Rachel's psaltery she bought after hearing one played at the Renaissance Fair. So far they are learning which note each string plays and how to press down one string to alter the sound. I think it is a very good introduction to see if later they may want to take private lessons. I am also amazed at how well Rachel, our older son Jared, and Rebecca are learning to play their favorite songs on the piano, mostly using free sheet music downloads from the internet. Rachel is working on the lovely "Dawn" from the new Pride and Prejudice movie, which she is teaching to Rebecca along with the hauntingly beautiful Davy Jones music box song from the second(?) Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Jared is playing Zelda, Mario, and Tetris music, which is better on piano than on the video games.

My firstborn, Ben, began college life at UTA on Monday. He is loving it. He is gone all day. He used to hang out at home as he doesn't have his driver's license and did not have a job like Jordan and Jared do/did. He was our technical support dude for all our computer troubles, and he did a lot of odd jobs requiring wiring and carpentry skills. He was also a cheery and engaged presence, albeit engaged in very geeky things like making a robot and reprogramming an old laptop from windows to linux. Stuff like that. Now he's gone all day. He loves calculus, physics, and his aeronautical engineering classes. He even likes his English teacher, but does not like History of Love which all UTArlington freshmen have to read about how college is where you get to start having love affairs (that's my maternal paranoia speaking, I need to investigate). He says that I would definitely get upset at the details of that book (maybe that's his paranoia speaking). I told him to skip them, and that his essay doesn't need to go into those sorts of details so he should fast forward the pages just like we do with movies and tv shows that we watch on dvd instead of tv because of graphic commercials. And then he hangs out doing homework, checking his facebook, experimenting on graphics programs, or sleeping, until George picks him up after work. He feels he is in his element.

Jared is moving into the University of Dallas dorm today. He is going to live there, not here. He will be gone more than Ben. I'm used to them being here most of the time since we've homeschooled almost all of their lives. Now I will only have three kids at home full-time. Jordan will continue at the local Community College and get his AD in Business this spring, but he's mostly gone now too since he also has a job and a car. He'll probably transfer to UTA next year and ride with Ben and his dad. But Jared is moving out! At least he will live with nice Catholic kids as he starts out pursuing Physics and Liberal Arts. Seven of us will squeeze into his dorm today and meet his roommate, Diego, from California. Then hopefully we'll be able to tour where Jared will be spending his time so we can picture him there, not here.

When I woke up at 4am, as I usually do these days, instead of tossing, turning, praying or thinking or stressing, or reading blogs, I got up and put a turkey in the oven so that Jared can have a home-cooked, healthier lunch, instead of a self-made, processed one, as his last meal before he moves out. He plans on coming home for weekends, but not this weekend because they have orientation stuff planned through Monday and classes begin on Tuesday next week. So far my boys seem up to the challenge, and I hope they will also have fun and make good friends.