A MORTON’S NEUROMA CURE

My last podiatrist suggested surgery, but I really felt that God didn’t want me to have surgery.  I determined not to do it.  Even when my husband’s supervisor was back to wearing his regular shoes–pain free–in just weeks and my sister-in-law’s best friend was back to running in no time.  I just knew surgery was not the answer for me.  So, for two years, I limped.  I felt frumpy in my odd shaped MBT’s.  I tried to dress ‘em up.  I wore those shoes for two Christmas services and every sunday.  I put them on immediately when I woke up and I wore them until bedtime.  And they helped a ton!  Sometimes I could walk normal and not even limp, but not always.

Finally, I felt at peace about trying to get it fixed, not that I hadn’t before but I was trying natural methods.  Anyway, I called a Dr. in Austin and told him I was from out of town and wanted to have the cryosurgery procedure for my neuroma.  He told me no.  He told me to try alcohol injections first.  And if that didn’t work, then go see him.

So I found a Dr. near me that does alcohol injections, he had an opening the next morning.  I took it and prepared myself mentally for the torturous pain that these injections can cause.  These injections are essentially chemically induced surgery.

Anyway, to sum it up, he said my foot was overly flexing between the toes and that was causing the metatarsal heads to squeeze the nerve that ran through them.  He glued a metatarsal pad under my foot and told me to wear that for one week.  After it falls off, I’m to compare how my foot feels with and without the pad.

The neuroma pain is gone.  I can walk barefoot and with regular shoes.  It’s a miracle.

But I’m in a different kind of pain.  My back hurts and my foot hurts from walking with a limp for so long that my muscles are all weakened.  Now I have to wear my MBT’s just to keep the muscles in my foot from hurting.  But this is nothing compared to the repeated electrical shocks I was experiencing.

I can’t believe that a $10- $20 shoe insert was enough to take away the pain.

Now the neuroma is still there, but the cause of the neuroma is gone.  So I’m going to continue taking my systemic enzymes to try and dissolve the scar tissue that has built up around the nerve.  Hopefully it will completely go away.  But even if it doesn’t, I’m pain free.  And I can walk normally.

If I had had the surgery as my first podiatrist suggested, I would probably have suffered greater pain than the neuroma.  The surgery is notorious for causing more problems than it cures.

God has been so good to me.  I have to say that I feel so blessed right now.

ICE CREAM MADE IN A BLENDER

Well, almost. To my children at least. I received a powerful blender for Mother’s Day (early this year). And I made a smoothie so thick my kids ate it with a spoon. They said it was as good as ice cream. And they were right. It really was as good as ice cream.

Here’s what I used.
These measurements aren’t exact, because I didn’t measure. But to the best of my memory, here is what I did.

Coconut Pineapple juice (about 1 cup)
Apple juice (about 1/2 cup)
Frozen mixed fruit (about 2 cups)
Frozen bananas (1.5 to 2)
2 cups of ice

For the mixed fruit, I usually use strawberries, grapes, mangoes, cantaloupe, peaches, and pineapples. Anything except for papaya and berries.

I’m thinking maybe we should experiment with a chocolate frozen smoothie. That would be awesome!

I’m also going to try to make a banana nut smoothie with more frozen bananas less of the other fruit and then add some walnut or pecans. Mmmmm!

It’s like I can have ice cream every day and it’s still good for me. Yeah!

TEACHING CHILDREN TO READ

It’s so funny, but it’s taken me 3 children to really feel like I know how to teach a child to read. It’s really not that hard, but I didn’t quite do it right the first two times.

Child #1 I overtaught. I read to her for hours a day, since she was my first for a while. And when I taught her to read, I used a boxed program. Well, I overtaught her. I didn’t realize this until it was summertime and her 8 yo cousin showed her some books and her reading took off. At that point, I had only covered long vowel sounds with her. I was planning on doing blends next. We never did get to those blends.

Child #2 I undertaught. I made the assumption that all I had to do was teach him the same way I taught her. It didn’t work. I should have tried Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons with him, because the traditional route did not work well with him. So, eventually, his reading finally took off when he started reading the bible with his father at night.

Child #3 is doing great. I started with 100 Easy Lessons up to about lesson 70. At that we switched to The Original Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. That was okay, but way too detailed and broken down for me. So I went through my materials and found some beginning readers that I really liked. They were by Christian Liberty Press. We went through all 4 of those books, and his reading was great. We just read through them, one page at a time.

After that, I came across the Webster’s speller, and we began covering the syllables. From there his confidence has just grown leaps and bounds. He is now working on decoding 2 syllable words. And we are just simply reading through the tables. After 2 syllable words, then 3.

He is having so much fun reading. He feels like a big kid. He reads everyday for fun. And he is even reading to his 3 yo little brother.

It was so cute yesterday when I caught the two of them reading. The 5 year old (6 next week) reads the page and the 3 year old narrates it back to him. It was so encouraging to see them practicing, on their own, what I have been trying to do with them for the past few months.

I can’t say I am very consistent. In fact, I can only handle focusing on one subject intensely at a time. So since January, the intense focus for my 5 year old has been reading. Before that it was manuscript writing. This summer the whole family will be focusing on Spanish. But while we have one area of intense focus, we do keep plodding along in math and the other subjects, just not with the same intensity. They’re scheduled and we do it. And not every child has the same intense focus.

For my 10 yo daughter, it’s outlining. For my 9 yo son, it’s reading. And for my 5 yo it’s reading as well. Spanish for everyone during the summer and in the fall, it will all switch again. Probably Latin for the older two. Math for the younger tw

MORTON’S NEUROMA UPDATE

I’m still battling it.

Here’s where I am now.

My foot was very slowly starting to bother me again. I had been completely pain free for about 6 weeks because of the MBT’s and the zymessence. But now I’m back to square one because the pain came back.

When the pain came back, I switched to Vitalzym. But that didn’t make a difference. It worked the same as Zymessence.

As it turns out, I think my problem was my MBT’s. I had been wearing them since around November. The same ugly pair of white unisex shoes. I think my MBT’s had lost their firmness and were becoming too flexible for my injury.

So, I went out and bought a 2nd pair of MBT’s some that were on sale for $150 rather than the original 250. BIG MISTAKE! The 150 dollar shoes had a high pivot point of 1.5 inches. That extra .5 inch was painful to walk on. This is why I think the shoes were on sale. They were also too narrow. And even though I have narrow feet, the narrowness was a problem.

When I walk, without pain, I tend to walk from the outside of my heel and roll forward to the outside of my forefoot and then on to the ball of my foot. With the narrower MBT’s I was walking exactly this way. Well, this caused a slight bend between toes 3 and 4 where the neuroma is. (Big toe is 1.) The extra bending there was aggravating the situation. I was so upset yesterday I was beside my self with frustration. The other thing the 1.5 inch shoe did was cause a humongous blister on the heel of my foot. It was more painful that the neuroma simply because it was constant. I was walking like a 90 year old lady.

Anyway, my husband said forget the money and go and get you another pair of mbt’s. Then he asked can I get a refund on the other pair. The answer was no. So what, he says, go and get another pair of mbt’s. In fact, get two pairs. Get you a pair of sandals too. And that’s what I did. Instant relief.

My heel no longer hurts and the sandals are stiff and won’t let me roll off the side of the shoe. When I walk on the outside of the heel, the shoe rocks me back to the ball of my foot immediately. Now, the second pair I purchased are just like my ugly white pair, but they are black this time. I know they’ll work for at least 4 months.

It’s expensive and I am a Payless kind of person. I hate to spend this kind of money on shoes. But this is a medical necessity. MBT’s are allowing me to walk without pain until I decide whether or not I want surgery.

And now that I know the Vitalzym is the same as the zymessence, I’ll probably switch back and forth between the two. Hopefully that will work.

CHARLOTTE MASON AND PERFECTIONISM

I’m a perfectionist to the point of being paralyzed. It’s only during my middle thirty’s that I began to realize that perfection isn’t necessary in every situation and that it’s okay to do just good enough. It’s okay to fail.

Knowing this about myself makes life a lot easier. I can attack my housework knowing it’s okay to just do rather than having to do it perfectly. In fact, I coined the phrase “people perfect” with my own children.

When my kids were little, I stressed that we do things “people perfect” because only God is truly perfect.

When I read curriculum that stresses doing things perfectly the way Charlotte Mason does, my heart races, my jaw clinches, and my stomach knots up. It really stresses me.

I cannot fully embrace Charlotte Mason’s methods because of this.

And while I dont like the “doing what a child can do perfectly” I really love narration because the child doesn’t have to be perfect.

Charlotte Mason’s methods are complicated. I’ve learned to take what I like and leave the rest.

Actually, I wish I could embrace the idea of perfection because it is what I aspire to be, but it is that same idea that prevents me from being my best. I cannot see burdening a child with the burden of having to be perfect.

The dark side of my avoidance of perfection is that I risk teaching my students to not try their best.

That is why co-op has been so good for me. I typically have high expectations but I have to put aside my own fears and still require the attempt at perfection from my students (co-op and home).

It’s such a fine line to balance between doing your best and trying to obtain the unattainable. Because of my tendencies, I have to err on the side of good enough rather than perfect.

For a perfectionist though, good enough is often not good enough.

By the way, I don’t think Ms. Mason was trying to burden everyone with perfectionism. I just think that for those who suffer with this tendency, the wording used by Ms. Mason and by those that interpret her work must be taken with a grain of salt or a handful. I have to know who I am as a teacher and, just as importantly, who my students are as people. No program is perfect for everyone and should be adjusted for each student according to his or her needs. By and large, Charlotte Mason’s methods are beneficial to students everywhere. The student just must be the focus of the teaching and not the method–whether it’s Charlotte Mason’s methods or classical or any other method.

TEACHING AT CO-OP VS. TEACHING AT HOME

Not the same. It is so much harder to teach a classroom of children than it is to teach my own.

But teaching at co-op has been so good for me. I’ve learned to look further down the road to graduation. I’ve learned to be a stricter teacher and disciplinarian. And I’ve learned more about children and education in general.

It’s so easy to think that my kids are like kids everywhere or that kids everywhere are pretty much the same. Not true. Not true at all.

At co-op I have to try and meet children where they are. And they come from homes where the rules are different and the expectations are different.

What I take for granted in my kids, I realize now, is the result of the work that my husband and I have put into raising them. And my children’s weaknesses are also a result of that same training.

Because of co-op, I can see a little more clearly what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong.

What we’re doing right?

My kids know how to think. We don’t spend as much time as I’d like discussing deep concepts, but we do talk a lot–everybody at my house is always talking–and we’re all so loud. My husband and I love debating and arguing and having deep meaningful conversations, and my kids are beginning to get involved in some of those conversations. Our current favorite topic is the economy and the demise of America as we know it.

After spending a couple of years at co-op, I see that many, many homeschooled students are excellent thinkers. Most of the highschool students that I teach are amazing in their ability to research, filter through information, and write up their opinion(s) about the topic. But not all of them are capable of doing this on the same level. There are a few whom I have encountered over the years that have unclear, muddled thinking. They don’t know how to narrow down ideas to the crux of the matter. (This is why I like The Lost Tools of Writing so much. It’s not muddled.)

What we’re doing wrong?

~sigh~ There’s so much I don’t know where to begin. I’m working on discipline, scheduling, habit training, and the list goes on. My kids are good kids, but I didn’t learn about Charlotte Mason’s methods until I was an adult, and I am the one that needs habit training. I am working on all of those above issues for me, and as I get better in these areas, my children improve in these same areas as well. They catch my habits.

So more than anything, co-op is helping me to be more organized and together by requiring me to be more organized and together. The end result is that my kids are becoming more organized and together.

The biggest drawback to attending co-op is the fear it causes in me. I fear that my kids will not get as good an education because the teachers are not teaching my children the way I would. (This is huge!)

In some instances, I know it’s right. But in others, I know that I have seen the co-op teachers doing a better job in some subjects than what I would have done. And my children are benefiting.

Our co-op is worth the risk. The ladies who run it are amazing and are gifted at what they’re doing. I’m really looking forward to what is happening at our co-op.

TODAY IS JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS WHERE I FEEL SORT OF DIRECTIONLESS,

I don’t feel like cleaning. I don’t feel like working, and the older kids and I have already done school.

So we’re heading out to resell books. My goal is to get rid of 100 books. With the money, we’ll all pick out a new book to read. 100 for 5, not bad.

After that, we’ll go to the library for more books. Then the park, then the grocery store. And by then, we’ll all be exhausted.

And just in case, I have a booklist of possible medieval books for next year. I’ll be looking for good titles, used. It feels like summertime. I can’t wait for this semester to really be over.

SMALL CHANGE IN MATH FOR MY DAUGHTER WITH LIFE OF FRED AND DOLCIANI

The plan now, which I can change at any moment, is for her to do Chalkdust prealgebra. Most of it will be review after Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals. But as a 6th grader next year, I don’t think she’s ready for algebra. And even if she were, I want to make sure she’s ready. But every now and then, I see that she doesn’t really understand something minor, or she forgets. This tells me she doesn’t really care because she’s not asking herself the question, does this make sense.

For instance, she got an answer right in Fred and assumed it was wrong for 15 minutes. She didn’t ask herself does this make sense. She just assumed. She does stuff like this a lot in math, but not in reading. So I know it’s a maturity issue.

She’s doing the video prealgebra so I can spend more one on one time with my 5 and 3 year olds next year. My son will stick with Sinapore 4B and 5A next year. After that, he’ll be going into Fred. Unless he prefers Singapore and wants to continue it through 6B. That’d be fine with me too.

DO YOU NEED A WRITING PROGRAM TO TEACH ELEMENTARY STUDENTS TO WRITE

Absolutely not. I didn’t believe it first, until I actually wrote Write from History.

First of all, Charlotte Mason made the program so easy. Copywork, narration, and dictation is really all that elementary students need. And you don’t need a writing curriculum to make it happen.

For copywork, select a sentence from literature that your student is reading. It can even be Frog and Toad. There are some really well written sentences in Frog and Toad. And they have months and seasons and all kinds of elements that children need to cover.

For narration, your student has to simply retell an experience that he or she has had. It doesn’t even have to be from a story. Practice first by having your child narrate his or her day. Have him narrate the adventure he had with his sister. He can even narrate a TV show. It helps him with recall, with putting his own ideas into his own words. It also helps him to practice speaking in one verb tense.

After your student has copied a sentence, try dictating it to him the next day. Or better yet, mix up the words and make a new sentence using words he already knows.

I made my Write from History books after I realized that I needed to have something organized for me that I didn’t have to think about. Plus I wanted it to be tied into our history lessons to help save us time.

But organized or not, any parent can teach an elementary student to write simply by using copywork, narration, and dictation. And it doesn’t have to follow a specific schedule or layout.

Just meet your student where he is and he’ll be fine. If your son can write two sentences, they have him write two. If he can do a paragraph easily in second grade, then have him do a paragraph. There is no magic schedule. The schedule should be set by where your student is, and with consistency he will learn to write well.

PLAYING THE PIANO

All 4 of my kids are now taking piano lessons, and I’m so thrilled about it.

Children are so different. They have different skills, different talents, and different interests. My daughter, almost 11, dislikes the piano the most. But I am so very, very glad that we persevered and made her continue taking lessons.

In some movies there’s always one kid with glasses that reads a lot but cant make their bodies respond to physical stimuli, like catching a ball or riding a bike. In some cases, it’s a boy that tutors everyone else but has an F in wood shop. Well, that’s kind of my daughter.

Even though she dislikes the piano the most, she needs it the most. When I see her playing, using both hands, and pumping with her foot at the same time, while reading the notes, I know its helping her mind, her concentration, her hand-eye coordination, and her musical awareness.

She needs to play the piano. I’d go so far as to say that she has hated it for the first 3 years of practice. But it has been physical therapy to my daughter and a blessing to her. And, best of all, she actually enjoys playing, now. She doesn’t like to practice, but she does like playing.

My 3 sons, on the other hand are more naturals and they just plow their way through the piano. My oldest son tries to play his music backwards. They asked to start playing. My 3 year old begged me, “Pease, pease, can I pay the piano.”

I couldn’t say no.