S.Q.U.A.T. Team: Written by a Kid

This has got to be the most hilarious thing I've seen in a loooooong time: stories written by a kid and animated by professionals. Hi-freakin-larious!

After watching this, you too will want to be on the S.Q.U.A.T Team!  Enjoy Scary Smash!

Monster Aparagus Growth Spurt

It is hot. hot. hot. out there. So hot that nothing much is growing. My grass is a brown patch in a sea of brown-ness.

Earlier, in spring, things were a lot more green. I planted asparagus late in the season last year, and it's been coming up great as of this year. Next year will be the first harvest. Asparagus takes a long time to establish, but will keep coming up for about 10 years.

The rate of growth on an asparagus fern (yes, they are ferns) is phenomenal. On week 1 I noticed a beautiful purple spear sticking out of the ground (I got a special purple asparagus breed). Isn't she pretty?

At this point this spear was 6-8 inches in length. I came back two weeks later and it was over 3 feet tall and putting out fern branches. It had also lost most of its purple color and was now more the traditional green.

That's an amazing growth rate! In the warm season, asparagus can grow up to 1 cm per hour. That's right, I said per hour.  My asparagus ferns are now around 5 feet tall, but it's so hot that nothing much is growing right now. In the fall, the ferns will die and turn golden in color and I'll mulch them into the soil.

Next spring is harvest time, and I plan on having lots of well-established and yummy asparagus from my own back yard.

Spiritual Direction Questions

Not easy but worth asking yourself:

On p.109, Question 41 re: spiritual direction topics from Dubay's Seeking Spiritual Direction:

• Does my way of going about meditative or contemplative prayer seem to be working? Am I profiting from it? Am I making progress? And how do I determine that? Where am I in prayer development? Am I hitting any snags? Do I have problems I don't know how to handle? Am I faithful to giving adequate time to  prayerful solitude? Is it my top priority, the "one thing" in my life?
• Am I prayerful during the day -- without neglecting others or my work? How can I grow in this recollection?
• Do I waste time? Engage in idle gossip? Indulge in superfluities or in excessive amusements?
• What have I been selecting for spiritual reading? What audio and video? Am I going about this exercise in the best way for me? Am I growing in and through it? Do I read or listen in a prayerful manner? What books should I read now? What books should I avoid altogether or read with caution?
• Am I improving in humility, patience, love for neighbor, obedience, frugality, indeed, in all the Gospel virtues? What are my weak points that need focused attention?
• In my daily round of duties, is my motivation mixed, that is, are unworthy motives mingled with my worthy ones? Am I even aware of this problem? What can I do about it?
• Is my mind in accord with Scripture and the teaching of the Church, which is to say, is it in accord with the mind of Jesus himself?
• How am I using or misusing the mass media? Am I wasting time in my use of them?
• Have I been chaste in thought and reading and speaking and looking (television and actual life) and in my actions? In practical ways am I trying to serve both God and mammon?
• Do I suffer daily crosses like a disciple of the crucified Master, with love and in union with him? Do I welcome these opportunities to unite with the Lord on his cross?
• Have I been warm and cordial toward everyone, even toward unattractive people, including those who are cold and indifferent toward me?
• Is my emotional life balanced? Are my responses of joy or sorrow or fear excessive? Am I oversensitive? Do I live more by feelings than by will? Am I insensitive?
• Am I concerned for the poor, both the materially and the spiritually poor? Do I come to their aid? Do I live frugally and share with the needy?
• Am I handling my time pressure problems properly, so that first things come first?
• Where is my center of gravity: earth or heaven (Col 3:1-2)? Do I seek things for themselves or as a means of leading me and others to God?

Fire On The Mountain!

This week we took our annual vacation to Jellystone Park in Luray, VA. The first night there arose a fierce thunderstorm with strong winds. In the morning we noticed smoke rising from the mountain in front of us (called Neighbor Mountain). Fire on the mountain! Run, boy, run!

[Newsleader.com] Dozens of firefighters hiked up steep mountain trails in triple-degree heat Friday, as efforts continued to contain a pair of unusual summer wildfires burning over hundreds of acres in the Shenandoah Valley.

Drivers headed into downtown Luray could see a white haze enveloping the top of Neighbor Mountain in Shenandoah National Park.


The fire on Neighbor Mountain was first reported Tuesday morning. The cause is under investigation. As of Friday afternoon, the blaze was not contained and had spread from 200 to 800 acres, said Shenandoah National Park spokeswoman Karen Beck-Herzog.

From what we could see only the underbrush is burning and not the tree canopy itself. If it stays an underbrush fire, it will be much easier to contain and will ultimately be "healthy" for the forest. If it becomes a canopy fire, then the trees themselves will die and it will become dangerous and difficult to contain.

It burned all week and is still burning as of this writing. At night there was an orange glow and you could see the fires burning. We had to reassure the Nodlings that we were in no immediate danger.

 It sure made for some interesting counterpoint to our vacation. What did you do this summer? Oh, the usual: went swimming, made s'mores, watched a forest fire ...

Thou Shalt Not Compare

The first Commandment of raising school-aged children and grades is: Thou shalt not compare one child with another.  

Everybody knows this rule and follows it diligently because otherwise No-Good-(TM)-can-come of-it and children-only-end-up-with-bruised-egos-and-otherwise-avoidable-misunderstandings.

But I'm breaking that rule to illustrate a point. Hey, the Nodlings don't read my blog and you probably don't either. If that makes me a bad parent, so be it.

I don't compare them to each other when their report cards come home, I always take them individually and review them against their prior performance or what we know to be their ability. They are still young enough that they get an "effort" grade along with the academic grade. I value that more highly than the letter grade they earn. As long as they are reaching their potential, I'm satisfied, and they get praise for that.

But what exactly is their potential? How can I help each one if I don't know? Short of an IQ test, we have to rely on experience, report cards, and periodic test scores. There is one set of tests they take annually that gives me a glimpse into their abilities: the ACT (or in our case TerraNova testing).

The results show up in neat little bar charts and percentiles. The percentile scores indicate that they scored better than X percent of everybody else who took the test for that grade level. That gives me an idea of their potential.

By graphing the results, I wanted to see the shape of their abilities. (Hey, I'm a picture guy; that's the way that things make sense to me.)  That hopefully will help me to understand each Nodling, the strengths and weaknesses.

Now -- without exaggeration -- I have at least one genius and one mentally retarded child. Everybody else falls somewhere between that 40 and 140 IQ. That's quite a challenge sometimes. (I'd say the kid with Down Syndrome is easier to deal with than the genius, although the techniques are similar -- but that's another subject.)

Here is a graph of the 3 older Nodlings. The percentile range for "average" is 25-74, and "above average" is 75-100.

Both Blynken and Nod-girl have two scores in the "average" range and everything else is "above average".  Wynken has top-flight test scores almost across the board.

What is striking to me is that Blynken's spelling and language mechanics scores are markedly out of range of the rest of her abilities -- hmm, that might mean a learning disability (or a kid who likes to rush through certain tests). On the other hand, those scores are almost exactly average -- nothing wrong with that. Her report card grades in those subjects are actually very good; her other subjects tracked closely with her abilities.

Nod-girl's test scores and her grades were in perfect sync. That's my girl!

Wynken's grades underperformed his test scores by a consistent margin -- which is what happens when you don't turn in your homework in a timely fashion. (Not like he didn't have a constant reminder from us.)

Parenting a child with a high IQ is interesting. It's not that he thinks he's smarter than us -- he actually is. What he lacks is wisdom and the ability to put that knowledge to its proper use. Sorry, kiddo, you still need parents for moral guidance, experience, love, support, etc., etc. ;-)

The challenge is to know each one's abilities and encourage them to reach their potential. In the final analysis, however, no one is going to ask to see your diploma to get into Heaven. If we can do that for our kids we will have succeeded, graphs or no graphs.