holidays « Natural Attachment

September 24, 2009

Catching Up: Elijah’s Birthday Week

Filed under: Family & Friends, Life, Photographs, Radical Unschooling — Tags: birthday week, birthdays, elijah is 6 years old, friends, holidays, Radical Unschooling — michele james-parham @ 9:47 pm

Elijah turned 6 years old on September 18th. Yeah, 6…it’s craaaaazzzy. His “birthday week” stretched from Sunday, September 6th until Sunday, September 13th. Here are some highlights…

Mr. Freaky Pants the 1st

stained glass

homemade Lego kits

E's first set of wheels (not counting my old trike); courtesy of my parents.

pirates! (dead ones at that)

extra snuggles with his favorite person

wine cork blow dart guns

people & somewhere there's pet rocks

new Legos

musical entertainment

cake, candles & wishes...there might have been some ice cream too!

I mentioned cake, right?

The following picture pretty much summed up the entire experience for Elijah.

WTF guys?

It was a LONG week. We cleaned. We ate. We shopped. We made stuff. We cried. We screamed. We made new friends. We learned a lot. We saw people. We broke things. We fought over toys. We bitched about random occurrences. We loved. We laughed. We got tons of phone calls. We opened gifts from many miles away. We sang (but not “Happy Birthday”). We will do it all over again next year…all while simultaneously hating & loving it!

Many “happy” returns, Elijah.

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August 24, 2009

Northeast Unschooling Conference 2009

Filed under: Entertainment, Life, Radical Unschooling — Tags: Boston, community, conference, Educational Freedom, free range children, holidays, Massachusettes, Northeast Unschooling Conference, peaceful parenting, Radical Unschooling, vacation, Wakefield — michele james-parham @ 4:27 pm

We will set out around midnight Tuesday night on our drive to Wakefield (Boston), MA for the Northeast Unschooling Conference.

We’ll be checking in one day early on Wednesday, so if you are checking in early too and want to hang out or nap together (!), look for us…we’ll be following a wild-haired 5 year old boy who will most likely be in striped pyjamas…oh, wait, doesn’t that narrow it down to most unschoolers?! I’ll be checking my email until about 5PM Tuesday, so if you want my cell phone number to track me down in Boston, drop me an email (PghMidwife @ naturalattachment dot com).

I’ll try to blog at least once during the trip, but no guarantees. I will do some tweeting (though only with my phone & I only follow William on my phone…don’t think I don’t love you if you don’t get a reply from me personally). We’ll have tons of photos & film footage to comb over when we get back, but don’t you worry, I’ll post up highlights of our trip and plenty of memorexed moments.

We’re looking forward to this conference. I am going to get to meet a lot of really awesome people in the flesh. I won’t be checking my email, so you’ll just have to wait, because this is one week of my life that is more important than just about every thing else that goes on in the rest of the world. Getting to spend almost an entire week with nothing but famlies living their lives in Freedom, Freedom from school and mainstream parenting…purely heaven. It will be nice to not have to explain myself or my choices every time I turn around…instead of preaching to the choir, I’ll get to sing with them and Shine with them.

Can’t wait! Hope to see you there.

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August 2, 2009

5th Annual Anarchist Picnic

Filed under: Entertainment, Family & Friends, Media, Photographs, Pittsburghian, Politics — Tags: Anarchist, Anarchy, bee stings, bees, community, G20 Summit, holidays, picnic, pittsburgh organizing group, Pittsburghian, POG, Politics, Radical Unschooling — michele james-parham @ 2:52 pm

Yesterday was POG’s 5th Annual Anarchist Picnic in Pittsburgh, PA. We had fun, though I didn’t find it as enjoyable as last year. I guess mainly because the location changed and it seemed like fewer people came out.I’ve got a few pictures for you though…

group photo

the future belongs to the daring

I just got hit with a water balloon thanks to Elijah!

water balloon fun

more water balloon fun

Elijah getting ready to launch a balloon

Tragedy struck shortly after the water balloon fight…Elijah was headed off to go play with the other kids again and he stepped on a bee. Somehow, I just knew that’s what he had done. I ran over grabbed his foot and used to my finger nails to tweeze out the stinger without squishing the venom sac and forcing more into his foot. Then, without even thinking about it, I sucked as hard as I could on the spot and spit to get out as much venom as I could. No big deal you say, but I am allergic to bees…like hand me an epi-pen or I’ll die allergic to bees. It’s been around 18 years since I’ve been stung by a bee and I have no idea how I might react.

Elijah ended up in pain a bit, but no swelling and no other ill effects. I had a numb mouth, lips, slightly tight throat and a really fuzzy head. No one went to the hospital, no one died and we learned that Elijah isn’t allergic to bees. As for me, well, if getting a little venom in my mouth can cause the reaction that it did, then I don’t think I want to get stung any time soon. Unfortunately, we did have to leave before the piñata fun, but we were able to raid the piñata for a couple goodies for the ride home — no one likes to see a sad/hurt child.

Here’s our moments of fame from local media…
KDKA Channel 2
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Channel 11 News came out, took some pictures & filmed a bit, but apparently we weren’t “radical” enough for them to put us on the TV

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July 25, 2009

Keira’s 3rd Birthday Party

Filed under: Family & Friends, Life, Photographs, Pittsburghian, Radical Unschooling — Tags: Anarchy, birthdays, children, community, free range children, friends, holidays, Pittsburghian, Radical Unschooling, typical day — michele james-parham @ 6:57 pm

In spite of yesterday being Learn Nothing Day, we decided to go celebrate one awesome little girl’s 3rd birthday. Unfortunately, not only did we have fun, but we learned stuff…not to mention all the stuff we leanred pre/post party. Oh, well…maybe next year we can try harder

Keira wanted a pink & yellow bicycle cake; her mum Erin worked her ass off and made it happen!

Keira (elephant)

Finnegan (dragon), River (young aleister crowley) & Banyan (as her usual sweet self)

Sarah (soft-serve ice cream)

Keira makes her wish.

Elijah (who was a ghost, but not pictured as such) decides to appropriate some of William's (who was a ghost hunter) ghost hunting gear.

And then there was music…

I ended up going as myself, but slightly more Gypsy than usual.

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July 23, 2009

Learn Nothing Day is Tomorrow

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Educational Freedom, free range children, holidays, Learn Nothing Day, Radical Unschooling — michele james-parham @ 7:31 pm

That’s right, Learn Nothing Day is tomorrow. I wish all fellow Unschoolers good luck with that! I’ll do my best to learn nothing, but I am not sure it’s possible. If I remember, I’ll try to post about the nothing that we learned.

We have plans on going to our friend Keira’s 3rd birthday party tomorrow evening — it’s a costume party at that! Is it possible that no learning will take place there? I also have to run to Kinkos to print out some stuff for getting our passports and for the next unschooling/homeschooling collective/cooperative thingy…I hope I don’t learn anything in the process.

I am sure that Elijah will watch some videos on the Internet, build with Legos, hang out with his dad, probably read some Calvin & Hobbes & who knows what else…unfortunately, I don’t think he’ll remember to not learn anything tomorrow!

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