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a journey in words and pictures: everyday life with twins and autism

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November 13, 2015 Lisa Marsh

We get a lot of competing for attention and a lot of typical sibling bickering. But we also get moments of quiet affection. Watching the bonds develop between them make it all worth it.

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“It’s so green in here!”

Square foot gardens are planted!

We have baby apples and I’m a bit unreasonably excited about them. My first homegrown apples!

Square foot gardens are nearly done. Planting tomorrow!

I have never before been a person to be actively reading more than one book at a time. But apparently that has changed. These are my current in-progress stack, and it keeps growing. I’m enjoying the process of learning alongside the kids so much, it has opened my own mind to new questions and has made me want to explore the world of knowledge even more. I don’t seem to be capable of keeping a “to be read” stack like some people can do, when I get a new book I have to start it right away. I have bookmarks in all of these. I pick up and read a chapter or two, set it aside to absorb and think about, and read a bit of another. It’s a buffet of reading. Also I should note that one is missing from my stack and it’s kinda stressing me out. I’ve grown quite possessive of and attached to my books, and my copy of Cosmos has gone missing. I’m fearing I might have left it somewhere.

This book. Oh my goodness. I happened upon it. I was looking for books about California history, and this came up in an obscure list. It’s just beautiful and captivating, poetic and rhythmic. A bit like Steinbeck or Willa Cather in the descriptions of the land, but more meditative, more peaceful. It’s set in the hills of San Diego county, before the war (published in 1940). It doesn’t fit an obvious category. Not much happens, there’s no great action or plot, it’s just a young farm woman watching over her cattle as they graze on the dry November grass, waiting for the rains to come, thinking about life and death and nature. And yet I couldn’t put it down because the writing captivated me so.

One thing leads to another. After reading a story in the paper about lithium mining we remembered that we have lithium rocks from our California mine visit last month. So we got those out, which then led to getting our other rocks and gems out, which led to getting the rock tumbler out, and led to looking in a science encyclopedia about how the gems are formed, and led to looking up some info about how to clean some of our raw gems, and before we knew it we’d spent a couple hours absorbed in this activity. Not a bad way to spend a rainy Monday.

I’m realizing as we go along that we are generally not curriculum people, or even people suited to books that are intended as “school books”. We learn best from just reading real books, books that are interesting and compelling on their own, that are not intended as lesson material. These are the kinds of books that my kids actually ask me to keep reading. Today we started with American history - we started a version of Zinn’s book adapted for young people and really are liking it. It’s a great complement to the other US history series we’re already reading, but presents the same story from a different perspective - the perspective of the natives, the conquered, the slaves, women, children. I’m reading his original work on my own, but this version is a bit more simplified and easily digestible for the younger audience. It’s not sugar coated though, there’s some hard stuff in here, but I feel like it’s presented at an appropriate level. From there we moved on to a chapter from a Stephen Hawking book that I’ve been wanting to read, and then part of a chapter in our book about Hamilton. We’re all learning so much. I’ve also started reading the newspaper with them. Today we read a story about how sound pollution in the local waters is affecting our resident orcas. We also read a story about lithium mining and the debates about the need to have more sources of lithium for the batteries that power electric vehicles which are better for our environment, vs the environmental impacts of the mining itself. So much interesting stuff. And then that conversation about lithium led a child to pull out the lithium rocks we found at our visit to a mine in California, which then got us down a rock and gem rabbit hole, which you’ll see in my next post...

Awesome day for the Girls On The Run 5K. This was the third year for my oldest, and first year for my two youngest. Two loved it, the third (and smallest) thinks maybe she’s not a runner. (Can’t say I blame her.) Super proud of all of them for giving it a try. And super thankful for their running buddy @venmo_hoe - ‘cause this mama is not a runner!